In a world where governments are demanding exceptional (and unprecedented) access to systems under the guise of national security and the looming specter of terrorism, recent events have resurfaced the conflict between privacy and security. While some believe this to be a new battle of the Internet age, it’s just a continuation of the unending crypto war between technologists and law enforcement.
The FBI has used hacking methods never seen before in the history of law enforcement to bring down the owners and clients of the largest child pornography website found on the dark web to date.
A bulletin board website named Playpen that enabled users to sign up and then upload any images they liked was launched in August 2014 on the dark web, and according to court documents, the website's primary purpose was to advertise and distribute child pornography.
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey told attendees of the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado that terrorists are discussing strategies for launching cyberattacks against the U.S.
Comey didn't specify the types of cyber assaults but said the planning appeared to be in its infancy. The director also noted that attacks of this nature are common among extremist groups that have trouble establishing themselves in the U.S.
“We are picking up signs of increasing interest,” Comey said. “It's a small but potentially growing problem.”
The FBI's updated Cyber Most Wanted List now includes 15 men (no women). The Bureau is still not offering monetary rewards for information leading to the arrests of five members of the People's Republic of China's People's Liberation Army who remain on the list. However, they are offering bounties for most others, which add up to over $4.3 million.
Six months ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation refused to release its plans to tackle privacy risks posed by drone surveillance. Now the agency claims it can’t track them down at all. So does the one Justice Department office responsible for making sure such reports get filed in the first place.
FBI Director James Comey, today, said that the hackers who compromised Sony Pictures Entertainment usually used proxy servers to obfuscate their identity, but "several times they got sloppy."
Speaking today at an event at Fordham University in New York, Comey said, "Several times, either because they forgot or because of a technical problem, they connected directly and we could see that the IPs they were using ... were exclusively used by the North Koreans.
The FBI has joined the investigation of the cyber attack that crippled computers at Sony Pictures and led to the theft of some new movies.
“The FBI is working with our interagency partners to investigate the recently reported cyber intrusion at Sony Pictures Entertainment,” the bureau said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.
When he was arrested at his Chicago home in 2012 for hacking the website of security think tank Stratfor, the dreadlocked Jeremy Hammond was the FBI's most wanted cybercriminal.
Authorities tracked him down with the help of top LulzSec member Hector Xavier Monsegur. But it has never been known how they managed to shut the lid of him computer, effectively encrypting the contents of Hammond's hard drive, which the hacker was able to encrypt as agents armed with assault rifles were raiding his home.
Jonathan Hall was trying to help the internet. Earlier this week, the 29-year-old hacker and security consultant revealed that someone had broken into machines running inside several widely used internet services, including Yahoo, WinZip, and Lycos. But he may have gone too far.
A security expert claims the FBI is lying about how it located the Icelandic server hosting the Silk Road underground drugs bazaar.
When Ross Ulbricht was arrested by the FBI and charged with being the operator of the billion dollar drugs empire known as Silk Road, one of the most intriguing questions for many was just how the law enforcement agency was able to locate the server hosting the website considering it was running on the anonymous Tor network.
