- The State Department has taken the unprecedented step of shutting down its entire unclassified email system as technicians repair possible damage from a suspected hacker attack, reports The News Tribune. According to the report, a senior department official said Sunday that “activity of concern” was detected in the system around the same time as a previously reported incident that targeted the White House computer network. The report also noted that since then, a number of agencies, including the National Weather Service (for full articles on these Weather Service breaches click here for Washington Post, here for Reuters), have reported attacks. For New York Times coverage of the State Department breach, click here.
- Privacy groups are warning that they will oppose the Cybersecurity Intelligence Sharing Act (CISA) unless lawmakers first reform the NSA’s surveillance programs, according to The Hill. The Hill reports that the new cyber bill would enable critical infrastructure companies to exchange cyber threat information with the NSA, but passage of that bill appears dependent on the upcoming Senate vote on an NSA reform bill, the USA Freedom Act, which would rein in surveillance programs and strengthen the secret intelligence court overseeing the agency.
- Chinese government hackers are thought to be responsible for the breach of the computer networks of the United States Postal Service, compromising the data of more than 800,000 employees exposing everyone from the letter carrier to the postmaster general, according to National Post. National Post reports that while there is no evidence of malicious use of the compromised data, the United States has elevated cybersecurity as a top issue in the bilateral relationship with China. For the full article, click here. For coverage by CNN, click here.
- President Obama believes that ensuring a free and open Internet is the only way we can preserve the Internet’s power to connect our world. As a result, he has laid out a plan for “Net Neutrality” and has asked the FCC to implement the plan. For President Obama’s full statement laying out this plan, click here.
- Chinese hackers breached Australian media organizations prior to the G20 meeting, “. . . looking for questions they [could] expect from Australian reporters, what type of coverage, positive or negative, they can expect to see,” according to an ABC News report. According to ABC News, these Chinese hackers are from two different groups: Deep Panda and Vixen Panda. The report also states that Deep Panda was the same group that was outed as sneaking into the networks of US foreign policy think tanks at the height of the Iraq crisis in the middle of the year.
cyber attack, net neutrality, Privacy, surveillance, White House
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