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Twitter will keep fighting to share government data requests
Twitter’s years-long battle over government surveillance and transparency isn’t over yet.
Judge rules FBI, NSA broke the law and court orders with data collection
A judge has determined that the FBI and NSA broke the law and court orders when they collected data from email and other US communications.
Tesla worked with the FBI to block a million dollar ransomware attack
Tesla avoided a ransomware attack with the help of an honest employee and the FBI.
FBI and CISA warn against surge in voice phishing campaigns
Authorities saw an uptick in voice phishing (or “vishing”) campaigns after the pandemic forced companies to implement work-from-home arrangements. While the agencies didn’t confirm the report, they said that cybercriminals started a vishing campaign in mid-July 2020.
US officials seize cryptocurrency accounts tied to al-Qaeda and ISIS
Agents recouped about $2 million worth of virtual currency in total.
FBI reportedly uses a travel company's data for worldwide surveillance
The FBI has reportedly used a massive repository of travel data from Sabre to surveil people worldwide, including at least one in real time.
The FBI is investigating the Twitter Bitcoin hack
The hack has already triggered multiple investigations and Congressional scrutiny.
Facebook paid for a tool to hack its own user, then handed it to the FBI
According to Motherboard, Facebook paid a security firm to develop a hack that the FBI eventually used to bring down a serial child abuser.
House amendment would require warrants for web history searches
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren announced an amendment that would prohibit the collection of Americans’ internet search history and web browsing data without a warrant.
District judge rules FBI needs a warrant to access your lock screen
A Washington state judge ruled that the FBI needs a search warrant to look at a suspect's lock screen.
AG Barr seeks 'legislative solution' to make companies unlock phones
Attorney General William Barr wants to force companies like Apple to unlock phones recovered in criminal investigations.
FBI accuses China of attempting to steal US COVID-19 research
The FBI warns that China-backed hackers are attempting to steal COVID-19 research from organizations in the US.
FBI sees cybercrime reports increase fourfold during COVID-19 outbreak
Cybercrime has increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Judge denies Twitter effort to reveal US surveillance requests
A judge has ruled that Twitter's demand to reveal exact surveillance request numbers would risk national security.
NYT: $100 million US phone surveillance program produced two unique leads
After 2015, the USA Freedom Act replaced NSA mass surveillance of American's call metadata that had been enacted under the Patriot Act and Section 215. While it didn't go so far as to completely reform the system as groups like the EFF and ACLU hoped, it changed things by having phone companies collect the data, under limits of how long it could be stored, with queries performed by agencies with a judge's permission. Even the new rules have had problems, with phone companies storing more data than was legally allowed causing the NSA to wipe all data collected in 2018. Also, even more limited queries could end up touching millions of records. Now the New York Times reports on a just-declassified study by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board from last year that looked into the program and found that it had only ever generated two unique leads during the time it was operating. That's out of 15 reports total, but 13 had information the FBI was able to get through other methods, At a cost of over $100 million to operate the setup, this almost complete lack of production reveals more about why the NSA had stopped using it. Sections of the Patriot Act were set to expire in 2019, but despite reported recommendations by the NSA to shut things down, they were extended as part of a funding bill. Now they're up for review again by March 15th, and despite proposed bipartisan legislation intended to replace the program, AG William Barr is again pushing for an extension.
Huawei accuses US Justice Department of 'political persecution'
One day after the US Justice Department announced 16 new charges against Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer has responded. In a lengthy statement, the company defends its track record, and accuses the US government of "using the strength of an entire nation to come after a private company."
Justice Department charges Huawei with stealing trade secrets, again
The US Justice Department has charged Huawei and two US subsidiaries with racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to steal trade secrets. A 16-count superseding indictment, filed yesterday in Brooklyn, New York, adds to previous US charges filed against Huawei last January. The indictment names several defendants, including Huawei's Chief Financial Officer Wanzhou Meng, who is already facing fraud accusations and could serve years in prison.
Puerto Rico's government lost $2.6 million to a phishing scam
An email phishing scam duped the government of Puerto Rico into transferring more than $2.6 million into a fraudulent account, The Associated Press reports. A government agency transferred the funds on January 17th, but the incident was just discovered this week. Puerto Rico is working with the FBI to investigate and recover the funds.
DOJ letter reveals the FBI recently cracked an iPhone 11
While the Department of Justice, US attorney general and even the president continue to pressure Apple for additional technical support in unlocking iPhones tied to the naval base shooting in December, a letter reveals that the FBI recently cracked a password-protected iPhone 11. That phone belonged to Lev Parnas, an associate of the president's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who has been indicted on charges of violating straw and foreign donor bans to illegally funnel money into US elections. Bloomberg reports that a letter from government lawyers to the judge (PDF) indicated that the FBI spent two months unlocking the defendant's iPhone 11. Last week Motherboard reported on text messages and notes that appeared to have been pulled from the iPhone using forensics software from Cellebrite. It appears, that, similar to the case of the San Bernardino shooting a few years ago, the government has access to tools that will allow them to pull data from an iPhone, but is requesting additional help and some sort of backdoor access directly from Apple.
Apple reportedly dropped iCloud encryption plans amid FBI pressure
Apple encrypts your iOS device's locally stored data, but it doesn't fully encrypt iCloud backups -- and that was apprently a conscious choice. Reuters sources say Apple dropped plans for end-to-end encryption of iCloud backups (codenamed KeyDrop and Plesio) roughly two years ago. The decision came soon after the company revealed those plans to the FBI, which unsurprisingly objected given its previous pressure on Apple to facilitate access to San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook's iPhone. However, it's not clear this was the reason -- law enforcement's desires may have been secondary.