The ongoing saga of successful foreign hack attacks on US government databases continued on Monday with news of another break-in allegedly perpetrated by China.
Just days after the reported spear-phishing attack on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff e-mail system, which exposed about 4,000 civilian and military employees and is believed to have been sponsored by Russia, anonymous government sources told NBC News that a separate set of Chinese hack attacks targeted the personal e-mails of “all top [US] national security and trade officials.”
These attacks — among the more than 600 hacks attributed by US officials to hackers working for the Chinese government — sought personal e-mail info from top US administration officials and began in 2010.
NBC’s source said the hacks were still going on, but would not name any of the officials targeted.
The US government is dealing with several different investigations into breaches of security, the largest of which is the hack of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) — an intrusion that exposed the personal information of about 22 million people.
That investigation has been troubled by intramural squabbling by the agency’s own admission: Patrick McFarland, the office’s inspector general, wrote a strongly worded memo to acting office director Beth Cobert accusing the agency’s Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) of hampering its inquiry into the hack, citing multiple instances of uncooperative behavior.
Notable among them was the accusation that the “OCIO failed to timely notify the OIG of the first data breach at OPM involving personnel records.”
The US government is trying to put together the best way to safeguard its information but in many cases, better encryption “would not have helped,” as US Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity Andy Ozment testified before the US Congress with reference to the OPM hack.
In that case, attackers obtained the credentials of an employee at private firm KeyPoint Government Solutions and used them to gain legitimate access to the network.
These newly revealed hacks of private e-mails took place over the period when then-US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton was receiving work-related correspondence in her own private accounts, though no victims of the hacks have been named.
The timing of the revelations is potentially fortuitous for at least one group of people: proponents of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), the controversial bill that will likely come before the US Senate again next month.
Internet activists are not biting.
“The US government has proven itself incompetent when it comes to protecting its data,” Evan Greer of Fight for the Future said.
“Information sharing bills like CISA would make us even more vulnerable by dramatically expanding the amount of private data the US government keeps in its databases and the number of government and law enforcement agencies who would house that data,” he said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique