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DOJ report finds foreign meddling had no impact on midterm elections
If attempts at election meddling had any tangible effect on the US midterms, you won't hear about it from some officials. The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have submitted a joint report to President Trump saying there was no evidence a foreign government or agency had a "material impact" on the infrastructures of the 2018 vote, including campaigns and political bodies. The actual conclusions are classified, but they're consistent with what the government said after the elections, the Justice Department said.
Twitter banned 2,600 Iran-linked accounts for election meddling
Since September, Twitter has suspended 2,617 accounts linked to Iran, it said in a report on its US midterm election efforts. Some of the accounts claimed they were American news outlets and discussed US political and social issues. Twitter claims it proactively suspended most of the accounts prior to Election Day.
Facebook removed over 900 pages in Iran and Indonesia for 'inauthentic behavior' (update)
Facebook announced today that it has removed pages, groups and accounts that were apparently engaging in "coordinated inauthentic behavior" tied to Iran and Indonesia. According to Facebook, there were 783 Iranian instances of operating under a false or concealed identity, and were repurposing Iranian state media content as if it was their own. They appeared to be targeting audiences in the Middle East and South Asia, and seem to be part of a network created to spread misleading news. According to Facebook, some of this activity dates back to 2010.
Huawei denies US sanctions and trade secret charges
Huawei isn't taking kindly to the US' charges of sanction violations and trade secret theft. A spokesperson told Engadget the company was "disappointed" to hear of the charges and flatly "denies" it or an associated company (namely Skycom) committed any of the crimes in the indictments. It's also "not aware of any wrongdoing" by CFO Meng Wanzhou, according to the statement (available below). Huawei went so far as to suggest the US was unfair and trying to revive a dead case.
Slack apologizes for 'mistakenly' banning people who had visited Iran
On Wednesday a number of people noticed their Slack access had suddenly been revoked, and the company said it was due to complying with "U.S. trade embargoes and economic sanctions regulations." However, it had cut off people who weren't logging on from countries impacted by sanctions or embargoes, although as TechCrunch noted, some said they had traveled to countries like Iran, North Korea or Cuba. Late Friday Slack apologized for its far-too-wide-reaching bans, claiming that "we made a series of mistakes and inadvertently deactivated a number of accounts that we shouldn't have." Slack: We did not block any user based on their nationality or ethnicity. As is standard in the enterprise software industry, Slack uses location information principally derived from IP addresses to implement these required blocks. We do not collect, use, or possess any information about the nationality or ethnicity of our users. We have restored access to most of the mistakenly blocked accounts, and we are working hard to restore any remaining users whose access was blocked in error. If you think we've made a mistake in blocking your access, please reach out to feedback@slack.com and we'll review as soon as possible. Going forward, the company said it will "soon" block access to IP addresses from certain countries. While users who travel their may not have access while connected to those networks, they won't be banned and can log in when they're in another region that isn't under legal sanctions.
Huawei CFO faces fraud accusations from US in Canadian bail hearing
Chinese tech manufacturer Huawei's chief financial officer is facing fraud charges in the United States and faces up to 30 years in prison if found guilty, according to the New York Times. Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, is accused of "conspiracy to defraud multiple financial institutions" including breaking American sanctions on Iran. She was arrested in Canada earlier this week and faces extradition to the US.
Canada arrests Huawei CFO for violating Iran sanctions (updated)
Huawei's ongoing US troubles just got much worse. Canadian law enforcement has confirmed to the Globe and Mail that it arrested Huawei CFO Wanzhou Meng at the request of the US over claims she violated sanctions against Iran. Most details are under wraps due to a publication ban at Meng's request, but she was arrested on December 1st in Vancouver and will have a bail hearing on December 7th.
US charges Iranian hackers over $30 million ransomware spree
The US is attempting to hold the creators of the infamous SamSam ransomware to account. A federal grand jury has revealed indictments against two Iranian men, Mohammad Mansouri and Faramarz Savandi, for allegedly authoring and wielding SamSam to extort money from a wide range of North American targets, including multiple hospitals, health care companies, state agencies and the city of Atlanta. They've successfully collected $6 million in ransoms so far, according to the Justice Department, and have created over $30 million in losses.
Facebook removed 82 fake accounts and Pages linked to Iran
Facebook has taken down dozens of additional Pages originating from Iran that it says were engaged in inauthentic behavior. Posting about political topics such as race relations, immigration and the US president, these Pages and accounts -- 82 in total -- posed as US, or in some cases UK, citizens. Facebook first discovered the Pages' activity a week ago, and its war room staff then investigated and ultimately removed the Pages in question. The company says it has shared information about these Pages and their activity with US and UK government officials, US law enforcement, Congress, other tech companies and the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab.
Facebook, Twitter reportedly haven’t seen any China election meddling
Though President Trump and Vice President Pence have repeated claims that China is actively trying to meddle in the upcoming US midterm elections, officials at Facebook and Twitter have now said they haven't come across any such attempts. Anonymous press representatives at the two social media companies told Bloomberg that while disinformation campaigns have been uncovered and linked to Russia and Iran, none have been linked to China.
Twitter publishes over 10 million tweets linked to election meddling
Twitter has previously cracked down on accounts linked to election interference campaigns and provided snippets of their tweets, but now it's flinging the gates wide open. The social network has published data sets with over 10 million tweets from 4,611 accounts behind "inauthentic" activity, 3,841 of which are from the Russia-linked Internet Research Agency with the remaining 770 possibly tied to Iran. The library also includes over 2 million GIFs, videos and recorded Periscope livestreams. As for why Twitter is doing this? Simply speaking, it can't study this data all by itself.
Reddit moderators spotted Iranian fake news campaign months ago
Earlier this week, Facebook, Twitter and Google announced they had pulled a number of accounts linked to a misinformation campaign based out of Iran. Facebook took down 652 pages believed to be connected to the campaign while Twitter suspended 284 accounts. Google also removed a number of YouTube channels, Google+ accounts and Blogger blogs. But NBC News reports today that a handful of Reddit moderators spotted this misinformation effort some time ago and that their reports to the website were ignored.
Google removes accounts tied to Iran-led misinformation campaign
Google shared an update today regarding its efforts to combat state-sponsored phishing attacks and to remove accounts associated with an influence operation linked to Iran. The company said that in recent months, it has detected and blocked state-sponsored groups from targeting political campaigns, journalists, activists and academics with phishing attempts. Along with notifying law enforcement when these sorts of attacks are discovered, Google also notifies affected users, and it issued a series of alerts to Gmail users earlier this week over suspicious emails. It said the emails originated from a wide range of countries. You can read more about that specific round of notifications here.
Facebook pulls hundreds of 'inauthentic' pages linked to Iran and Russia
Once again, Facebook is notifying the media that it has mass-removed accounts exhibiting "coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram." This time around, Mark Zuckerberg said the cull caught up 652 pages that it says were linked to a campaign originating in Iran, as well as an unspecified number of accounts linked to Russian military intelligence services. Like Microsoft's announcement last night and Facebook's last notice in July, these changes are part of a push for security around elections happening in 2018, including the just-concluded events in Mexico, and the US midterms in November. While Facebook attributed the moves announced today to four separate investigations, it acknowledged that security company FireEye tipped it off to a network of sites starting with "Liberty Front Press." Facebook connected the page's backers to Iranian state media, saying that some of the accounts were created as early as 2013, while targeting viewers in the Middle East, UK, US and Latin America. One of the pages had 155,000 followers, and one of its Instagram accounts notched 48,000 followers. While some of the pages found pretended to be news and other organizations, a second group of "inauthentic" news pages showed evidence of attempts to hack accounts and spread malware.
In nuclear politics, one size doesn't fit all
No one wants to use nuclear weapons. Even President Harry S. Truman, the only leader in history to actually order and carry out a nuclear strike, was hesitant to use the United States' atomic arsenal after witnessing the power of the bombs first-hand. On July 16th, 1945, the US successfully detonated the world's first atomic warhead, an implosion-type plutonium bomb that transformed the New Mexico desert into radioactive green glass. Six days later, President Truman wrote in his journal: "We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark. ... This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children."
Iran tells ISPs to block Telegram
Iranian officials have called for ISPs to block both the mobile and desktop versions of Telegram in the country. ISPs are also reportedly being instructed to block the messaging service in a way that can't be bypassed by a VPN. Reuters reports that Iran's judiciary website Mizan, quoting a court order, said, "All internet providers in Iran must take steps to block Telegram's website and app as of April 30." The site also said that Telegram had threatened the country's security through "propaganda against the establishment, terrorist activities, spreading lies to incite public opinion, anti-government protests and pornography."
DOJ is reportedly investigating Huawei for violating Iran sanctions
The US government (and its intelligence agencies) have been warning consumers against buying Huawei smartphones, which has led to major cellular carriers in the country backing away from deals with the company. But it appears that Huawei's troubles aren't over yet. The Wall Street Journal reports that the US Department of Justice is looking into whether Huawei may have violated the country's sanctions against Iran.
Iran bans banks from trading cryptocurrencies
Iran is borrowing a page from China when it comes to regulating money: if your real-world currency is in trouble, crack down on the virtual kind. The country's central bank has banned other banks and financial institutions from buying, selling or promoting cryptocurrencies in the wake of reforms meant to quell volatility for the Iranian rial, such as banning money changes outside of banks and unifying exchange rates. The rial's value has been plummeting over fears the US would reinstate sanctions that could hurt Iran's economy.
Iranian officials are no longer allowed to use Telegram
During protests and demonstrations back in December, Iran blocked messaging and social media apps such as Telegram and Instagram. The government claimed it was to "maintain peace," but it became clear that they were trying to prevent the protestors from communicating and documenting what was happening. But now, it looks as though Iran has taken the campaign against Telegram one step further: The country has banned government officials from using the service.
Global cyberattack targets 200,000 network switches (updated)
The past few days haven't been great for the internet's broader security. Iran's Communication and Information Technology Ministry has reported that it was a victim in a global cyberattack that compromised about 200,000 Cisco switches that hadn't yet received patches for exploits in the company's legacy Smart Install protocol. The attackers displayed a US flag on at least some screens, complete with a "don't mess with our elections" warning, but the attack wasn't focused on Iran -- only 3,500 switches fell to the exploit in the country. About 55,000 of the victim devices were in the US, IT Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said, while 14,000 were in China. Other victims were located in Europe and India.