By Justin Katz
Alejandro Mayorkas as deputy DHS secretary in 2016. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Lora Ratliff)
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday said his agency has formed a task force to combat ransomware and that the White House is actively developing its own plan to confront the issue.
The DHS task force includes representatives from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Secret Service, Coast Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement s Homeland Security Investigations unit, according to Mayorkas. The new task force is part of the secretary s planned 60-day sprint on ransomware, which he announced in March would be the first in a series of new efforts.
Martin Co. to give teachers bonuses for working summer school April 27, 2021 at 8:51 AM EDT - Updated April 27 at 6:46 PM
The Martin County School Board unanimously voted in support of giving bonuses for eligible instructional and support employees who work summer programs.
Board members held an emergency meeting Tuesday afternoon to approved the decision.
The one-time, lump-sum bonus will be up to $1,000 for bargaining unit-eligible employees who work a Martin County School District-approved summer program assignment during the month of June.
The incentive will provide a boost to educators who go the extra mile this summer after such a challenging school year.
By Justin Katz
Apr 27, 2021
A Chinese hacking campaign is using known flaws in a virtual private network application to breach entity networks and implant the malware security researchers dubbed SUPERNOVA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said April 22.
While similar to the recent attack attributed to Russian foreign intelligence, CISA assesses this is a separate actor than the APT actor responsible for the SolarWinds supply chain compromise described in previous alerts, according to the report. Organizations that find SUPERNOVA on their SolarWinds installations should treat this incident as a separate attack.
The threat group, according to CISA, probably used an authentication bypass vulnerability in Orion to implant the SUPERNOVA malware, which is a backdoor that allows an attacker access to targeted systems.
Former CIO urges lawmakers to relax TMF paybacks -- FCW fcw.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from fcw.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Justin Katz
Apr 27, 2021
The Department of Homeland Security, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI on Monday issued a new advisory describing ways to counter tactics and techniques used by Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, the attackers behind the intrusion involving SolarWinds.
The advisory describes how the agencies noticed the SVR shift its tactics from using malware to targeting the cloud and email servers as a way to gather information, which was done when exploiting SolarWinds software and flaws in Microsoft Office 365.
“Targeting cloud resources probably reduces the likelihood of detection by using compromised accounts or system misconfigurations to blend in with normal or unmonitored traffic in an environment not well defended, monitored, or understood by victim organizations,” according to the advisory.