35 North Korean cyberattacks in 17 countries

Posted on August 19, 2019October 17, 2019 by Denise Simon

According to a South Korean politician, last fall North Korean hackers gained access to South Korea’s Defense Integrated Data Center and stole 235 gigabytes of classified military plans. More here.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. experts say they are investigating at least 35 instances in 17 countries of North Koreans using cyberattacks to illegally raise money for weapons of mass destruction programs — and they are calling for sanctions against ships providing gasoline and diesel to the country.

Last week, The Associated Press quoted a summary of a report from the experts which said that North Korea illegally acquired as much as $2 billion from its increasingly sophisticated cyber activities against financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges.

The lengthier version of the report, recently seen by the AP, reveals that neighboring South Korea was hardest-hit, the victim of 10 North Korean cyberattacks, followed by India with three attacks, and Bangladesh and Chile with two each.

Thirteen countries suffered one attack — Costa Rica, Gambia, Guatemala, Kuwait, Liberia, Malaysia, Malta, Nigeria, Poland, Slovenia, South Africa, Tunisia and Vietnam, it said.

The experts said they are investigating the reported attacks as attempted violations of U.N. sanctions, which the panel monitors.

The report cites three main ways that North Korean cyber hackers operate:

—Attacks through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication or SWIFT system used to transfer money between banks, “with bank employee computers and infrastructure accessed to send fraudulent messages and destroy evidence.”

—Theft of cryptocurrency “through attacks on both exchanges and users.”

— And “mining of cryptocurrency as a source of funds for a professional branch of the military.”

The experts stressed that implementing these increasingly sophisticated attacks “is low risk and high yield,” often requiring just a laptop computer and access to the internet.

The report to the Security Council gives details on some of the North Korean cyberattacks as well as the country’s successful efforts to evade sanctions on coal exports in addition to imports of refined petroleum products and luxury items including Mercedes Benz S-600 cars.

One Mercedes Maybach S-Class limousine and other S-600s, as well as a Toyota Land Cruiser, were transferred from North Korea to Vietnam for last February’s summit between the country’s leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, the experts said, adding that Vietnam said it asked for but was never provided a list of vehicles being brought into the country.

The panel also said it obtained information that the Taesong Department Store in Pyongyang, which reopened in April and is selling luxury goods, is part of the Taesong Group which includes two entities under U.N. sanctions and was previously linked to procurement for North Korea’s ballistic missile programs.

The panel recommended sanctions against six North Korean vessels for evading sanctions and illegally carrying out ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum products.

Under U.N. sanctions, North Korea is limited to importing 500,000 barrels of such products annually including gasoline and diesel. The U.S. and 25 other countries said North Korea exceeded the limit in the first four months of 2019.

The panel also recommended sanctions against the captain, owner, and parent company of the North Korean-flagged Wise Honest, which was detained by Indonesia in April 2018 with an illegal shipment of coal.

As for North Korea’s military cooperation with other countries, the experts said Iran rejected an unnamed country’s allegation that two North Korean entities under sanctions maintained offices in Iran — the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation known as KOMID, which is the country’s primary arms dealer and main exporter of goods and equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons, and Saeng Pil Company.

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The experts said they have requested information from Rwanda on a report that North Koreans are conducting special forces training at a military camp in Gabiro. And they said they are also waiting for a response from Uganda “to multiple inquires” about reports indicating specialized training is being conducted in the country, and KOMID and North Korean workers maintain a presence.

As examples of North Korean cyberattacks, the panel said hackers in one unnamed country accessed the infrastructure managing its entire ATM system and installed malware modifying the way transactions are processed. As a result, it forced 10,000 cash distributions to individuals working for or on behalf of North Korea “across more than 20 countries in five hours.”

In Chile, the experts said, North Korean hackers demonstrated “increasing sophistication in social engineering,” by using LinkedIn to offer a job to an employee of the Chilean interbank network Redbanc, which connects the ATMs of all the country’s banks.

According to a report from one unnamed country cited by the experts, stolen funds following one cryptocurrency attack in 2018 “were transferred through at least 5,000 separate transactions and further routed to multiple countries before eventual conversion” to currency that a government has declared legal money, “making it highly difficult to track the funds.”

In South Korea, the experts said, North Korean cyber actors shifted focus in 2019 to targeting cryptocurrency exchanges, some repeatedly.

The panel said South Korea’s Bithumb, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, was reportedly attacked at least four times. It said the first two attacks in February 2017 and July 2017 each resulted in losses of approximately $7 million, while a June 2018 attack led to a $31 million loss and a March 2019 attack to a $20 million loss.

The panel said it also investigated instances of “cryptojacking” in which malware is used to infect a computer to illicitly use its resources to generate cryptocurrency. It said one report analyzed a piece of malware designed to mine the cryptocurrency Monero “and send any mined currency to servers located at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang.”

American Cities Hit by Ransomware

Posted on August 19, 2019August 19, 2019 by Denise Simon

AUSTIN – The Department of Information Resources (DIR) is leading the response to a coordinated ransomware attack that has impacted at least twenty local government entities across Texas

AUSTIN – The Department of Information Resources (DIR) is leading the response to a coordinated ransomware attack that has impacted at least twenty local government entities across Texas.

The Texas Division of Emergency Management is assisting by coordinating state agency support through the Texas State Operations Center.

Currently, DIR, the Texas Military Department, and the Texas A&M University System’s Cyberresponse and Security Operations Center teams are deploying resources to the most critically impacted jurisdictions. Further resources will be deployed as they are requested.

Local jurisdictions who have been impacted should contact their local TDEM Disaster District Coordinator. DIR is fully committed to respond swiftly to this event and provide the necessary resources to bring these entities back online.

***

Users are then extorted for cash in order to regain access to their systems, and they are nearly always asked to pay in Bitcoin, a blockchain currency that is virtually untraceable, allowing hackers to pull off these complex operations from a single room halfway around the world.

It is unknown how much the hackers were demanding from Texas officials, which systems are currently offline and whether the impacted cities are expected to pay the ransom.

*** More than 20 Texas cities and towns have been taken ... photo

The attack took place on Friday morning, August 16, US time, when several smaller local Texas governments reported problems with accessing their data to the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR).

DIR officials did not publish a list of impacted local governments. On Friday, the agency couldn’t provide an exact number of impacted entities, but a day later, DIR said the number is 23.

“It appears all entities that were actually or potentially impacted have been identified and notified,” DIR said. “Responders are actively working with these entities to bring their systems back online.”

The organization has been coordinating recovery efforts together with more than ten other Texas and US government agencies, such as the Texas Division of Emergency Management, the FBI, the DHS, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and others.

“At this time, the evidence gathered indicates the attacks came from one single threat actor,” DIR officials said on Saturday.

.JSE ransomware

ZDNet has learned from a local source that the ransomware that infected the networks of the 23 local Texas governments encrypts files and then adds the .JSE extension at the end.

This ransomware strain does not have its own name, being generally called the .jse ransomware –although some antivirus vendors detect it as Nemucod, under the name of the trojan that drops it on infected hosts.

First signs of this .jse ransomware have been spotted as early as August 2018, but activity has continued and has been reported as recently as this month. The ransomware is a strange one as it does not leave a ransom note behind, confusing victims who most of the time don’t know what happened.

In recent months, US cities have been a prime target for ransomware gangs, with infections reported all over the US.

In July, the governor of Louisiana declared a state emergency after a similar coordinated ransomware attack hit several school districts.

Birthright Citizenship is NOT in the Constitution

Posted on August 12, 2019August 12, 2019 by Denise Simon

This topic has long been debated with no resolution including at the Supreme Court level. Much has been written about what ‘birthright’ is including in the New York Times as recently as in 2015.
The simply requirement is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, not subject to a foreign power. A birth must be to parents who were legally domiciled to the United States as citizens themselves. There is no such thing legally as an anchor baby. There must be a provable bind to the United States.
President Trump has ordered a team to investigate the definition of the 14th Amendment leading to his possible signature of an Executive Order which would lead government agencies to act in accordance with the clarification and regulations around the Citizenship Clause.

During the years of Ellis Islands, immigrants had to have money, the proven ability to earn a salary and not be an economic burden to the United States. 12 million people passed through Ellis Island and had for the time, a rigorous process to comply for entry. They included medical exams, have existing family members in the United States for connections and a safety net and prove existing financial means. There was quite a list of questions for the immigrants including those regarding a criminal record, being institutionalized for insanity and having some prior knowledge of the United States including facts of the Constitution, naming the 13 colonies and if they were an anarchist. There were in many cases immediate deportations for failures of passing fundamental stipulations.

High praise should be given to the Trump administration for tackling the issue of birthright citizenship for clarification because the abuse of the system has been out of control, exploiting the anchor baby model.

Take notice that even ABC news as recently as March of this year, 2019 addressed the issue of pregnant Russian women flocking to Miami to given birth just to gain citizenship under the anchor baby policy which is not nor has even been policy or legal. There are brokers around the world that facilitate these American births where the cost can range from $20,000 to $50,000. This includes travel, accommodations and the hospital expenses. This is otherwise known as ‘birth tourists’. But hey, Russia is not the only country. Nigeria, Mexico and China are included. We cant know the full number of those participating in birth tourism but each year it is estimated to range in the 30-50,000 of women that make the trip. Not to be overlooked is the healthcare in itself, clearly better here than in their home country. Consider that a particular area of Miami, known as Sunny Isles Beach is teeming with Russians and has the nickname of little Moscow.

So, next how about California?

So as recently as 2018, the FBI had to perform a set of raids on maternity hotels and apartment complexes in an estimated 20 locations in and around Los Angeles. Ah, it seems these pregnant Chinese women had more expensive brokers as they paid in the range of $40-$80,000 for their travel, accommodations and hospital stay. Operations in Los Angeles obviously had quite the operation stateside as some of these locations witnessed trucks and fork lifts delivering pallets of diapers and other infant needs like formula.

California Apartments Raided in Federal Investigation of ...

This all amounts to abuse of U.S. citizenship.

Further:

The Trump administration on Monday issued a long-awaited rule strengthening the ability of federal officials to deny green cards to immigrants deemed likely to rely on government aid.

Officials described the so-called “public charge” rule as a way to ensure those granted permanent residency are self-sufficient — and protect taxpayers in the process.

“It will also have the long-term benefit of protecting taxpayers by ensuring people who are immigrating to this country don’t become public burdens, that they can stand on their own two feet, as immigrants in years past have done,” he said. “It’s not only a recipe for their success, but for America’s success growing out of our immigration system.”

The updated rule will better define, and expand, the factors that can be considered to deny an applicant on these grounds.

While the “public charge” inadmissibility standard has long been part of U.S. immigration law, the term has not been formally defined in statute. The new rule, which will go into effect on October 15, will define “public charge” as an immigrant who receives one or more designated public benefits for more than 12 months within a 36-month period.

USDA Hires 'Integrity Officer' to Fight Fraud in Food ...

Those benefits include Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), as well as most forms of Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — commonly known as food stamps. The rule expands the number of benefits that can be considered from interim guidance issued in 1999.

Those factors will be considered along with standard considerations such as age, health, financial assets and education. While Cuccinelli’s USCIS is the lead agency, similar filters will be used at the State Department (for those applying for visas from abroad) and Border Patrol.

Maybe true clarity for the sake of law and order is becoming a reality with regard to immigration and the Constitution.

Ilhan Omar is Already Dating Again?

Posted on August 8, 2019August 8, 2019 by Denise Simon

She is becoming her own exclusive section of National Enquirer.
So, we hear she married her brother or something. Then we hear she remarried and had children with yet someone else. Then we hear she has Federal Elections filing problems added to IRS tax filing problems.
Okay, well there is more.

Primer: Back in 2011, then Congressman Keith Ellison held a breakfast in DC, paid for by the DCCC and asked for suggested contributions ranging from $2500 to $500 and you must send the RSVP to Tim Mynett. Seems Mynett has been traveling these circles for years. An opportunist? A successful one?

Hat tip to the Daily Mail:
EXCLUSIVE: Is Ilhan Omar having an affair with this Dem strategist? The man she was holding hands with at a secluded eatery is Tim Mynett, who has constantly been by her side, left his physician wife and was paid $250K by her campaign

The Minnesota congresswoman, 37, has been carrying on with Mynett, 38, a campaign fundraising strategist, for several months, according to a source.

Mynett is married to Dr. Beth Mynett, but DailyMail.com has confirmed that he has recently left their marital home and is now living in a D.C. apartment.

Photos show that Mynett and Omar are constantly by each other’s sides at events, traveling to Los Angeles, New York City, Austin and Seattle together.

Mynett has even spent time with Omar’s daughter Isra, 16, who is a budding activist, as the threesome were photographed together on two separate occasions, most recently in July.

Omar’s camp has paid Mynett’s company – E Street Group – more than $250K in consulting fees and travel expenses, dating from last August until June 11, according to Federal Election Commission records.

The intimate dinner came to light days after DailyMail.com revealed Omar had recently split with her husband Ahmed Hirsi, the father of her three children.

Ilhan Omar has been getting up close and personal with married aide Tim Mynett, DailyMail.com can reveal. The Minnesota congresswoman has been carrying on with Mynett, 38, a campaign fundraising expert, for several months, according to a source. Pictured: Omar and Mynett in Seattle on May 26 at a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) event

Mynett and Omar, through her spokesperson Jeremy Slevin – repeatedly refused to comment when asked by DailyMail.com if they were having an affair.

Mynett is currently a partner at E Street Group, which bills itself as providing national progressive strategies for candidates, nonprofits and advocacy efforts.

Mynett started the firm in July of 2018, according to LinkedIn – only one month before Omar started paying the company for its services.

Previously, Mynett worked as former Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison’s national finance director. Omar took over Ellison’s seat when he ran for Attorney General.

Federal Election Commission records show Omar’s team began paying Mynett’s company in August of 2018, splashing out $62,500 by the end of 2018.

Payments continued into 2019, with $5,000, $10,000 and $12,000 chunks being shelled out every month, totaling just over $253,000 in a single year.

In January, Mynett posted an image on his Instagram of Omar’s name plaque outside of her congressional office, writing: ‘It’s been one hell of a journey. Incredibly proud of this fearless woman.’

Mynett is currently living in a luxury residential complex in DC’s trendy Petworth neighborhood where a two-bedroom apartment costs around $3,000 a month.

DailyMail.com approached him outside but the veteran political operative initially refused to confirm his identity, saying: ‘This is bizarre, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

His rental pad is about a 10-minute drive from where he previously lived with wife Beth Mynett, a high-flying doctor 17 years older than him, their young son and Beth’s daughter from a previous marriage.

Beth, 55, who is medical director for the DC Department of Corrections, was similarly reluctant to answer any questions about her husband’s relationship with Omar.

‘I have no comment at this time,’ she told DailyMail.com, speaking on the front step of the estranged couple’s three-bed marital family home in northern DC, worth $900,000.

‘I’m not in any position to talk whatsoever but I thank you for your concern. I’m sorry I have no comment at this time. But thank you sir.’

Mynett runs E Street Group with fellow veteran strategist William Hailer from a shared WeWork office space in DC.

Their website currently has a single accessible page displaying the message: ‘Accepting new clients by referral only.’ But an archived version accessed by DailyMail.com includes a lengthy ‘about us’ section where Mynett reels off his career accomplishments and boats of close ties with ‘national opinion leaders’.

‘Tim Mynett brings over 15 years of experience conducting high-level national fundraising and providing political and strategic advice to our clients at E Street Group,’ it says.

‘He has continually developed and implemented successful fundraising plans for national nonprofits, progressive advocacy efforts, and Democratic leaders in Congress. Throughout his career he has raised of over $100 million in gifts, grants, and donations.’

The profile goes on to say that Mynett has served as a lead fundraiser for a string of Dems including Ellison, Senator Jeff Merkley, Congresswoman Hilda Solis and Congressman Ron Kind.

He’s also worked for national non-profits and ‘progressive organizations’ including Angelina Jolie’s Global Action for Children and the SEIU’s Change that Works initiative focused on passing Obamacare.

It adds: ‘Having spent the majority of his career based in DC while conducting extensive client travel to every corner of the country Tim has cultivated strong relationships with national opinion leaders and is a sought-after advisor to a diverse group of constituencies.’

Omar’s team have refused to say exactly what work E Street or Mynett does for her, how much either is paid, or what role they played in her election campaign.

A woman who answered the door to Mynett’s business partner William Hailer’s home in Arlington, Virginia on Saturday afternoon said he was asleep and took a contact number and email. Hailer never got in touch.

Mynett has been spotted by Omar’s sides at fundraising events, including at the California for Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) banquet in Woodland Hills in March.

He was front and center for her speech, where the congresswoman made controversial remarks blaming 9/11 on ‘someone doing something.’

The following day, Omar and Mynett were seen leaving the out-of-the-way Caffé Pinguini in Playa Del Rey.

DailyMailTV learned that an eyewitness observed Omar and her companion holding hands while dining inside the bistro.

‘The bigger question is why they were at this particular restaurant,’ said the man who took the video. You don’t just stumble across Playa Del Rey on a chilly Sunday evening in March.

‘It’s so out of the way. It’s the sort of place you go when you don’t want anyone to know where you are.’

Omar’s private life has become the subject of massive speculation amid accusations that her second husband Ahmed Nur Said Elmi is in fact her brother and she only married him to get him entry to the United States.

She later divorced Elmi and remarried Hirsi, but now that marriage is headed for a second divorce.

Omar has refused to address her marriages, leading to criticism from political rivals and her hometown newspaper.

President Donald Trump has often targeted Omar — a freshman congresswoman who won her Minneapolis-based district with 78 percent of the vote — for her views and for her close alliance to firebrand congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

He has alluded to Omar’s complicated marriage history. ‘There’s a lot of talk about the fact that she was married to her brother. I know nothing about it,’ Trump told reporters in June.

Omar was born in Somalia in the Horn of Africa. She left her war-torn home when she was 8. She lived in a Kenyan refugee camp for four years before coming to the United States and settling in Minneapolis, the largest hub for Somali refugees in the country.

She first married Hirsi in an Islamic ceremony in 2002 when she was 19. Six years later, after two children, the couple said they had ‘reached an impasse in our life together,’ and divorced.

The following year Omar married Elmi, a British citizen, just two weeks after he entered the United States. He has been identified as her brother by many media outlets, though due to a lack of records in their war-torn country of birth that has not been fully proven.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune wrote in June that it ‘could neither conclusively confirm nor rebut the allegation that (Elmi) is Omar’s sibling.’ Politifact and another myth-busing website, Snopes, came to similar conclusions.

On their marriage application they gave their address as Columbia Heights, Minnesota, but were married 25 miles away in Eden Prairie at a nondescript single-story brick building that houses a county office and a library.

Despite both being Muslim, the ceremony was conducted by Wilecia Harris, a Christian minister. ‘If they had gone to an imam he would have almost certainly have known if they were related,’ one Somali leader in Minnesota told DailyMail.com.

That marriage lasted just two years but it was enough to allow Elmi to study alongside his new wife at North Dakota State University.

Records suggest that Omar, Elmi and Hirsi all lived together for at least part of that time.

Omar then had a third child with Hirsi in 2012 and in 2015 she filed a joint tax return with him — even though she was still legally married to Elmi.

She finally divorced Elmi in 2017 and married Hirsi in a civil ceremony the following year. For more photos and videos via DailyMail, go here.

Hey Bernie and Kamala, Government Can’t Run Medicare

Posted on August 8, 2019August 8, 2019 by Denise Simon

Legitimately that is. The crimes and fraud within the system are so bad already that the FBI is and has been overwhelmed with cases.

Image result for Medicare Fraud Strike Force (MFSF)
Heck, just last month, the FBI announced the results of Operation Brace Yourself. 24 people were arrested due to Medicare fraud billing amounting to over $1 billion. Get that? One case, over a billion dollars. A medical equipment company out of the Philippines recruited people, there were kickbacks, money-laundering, yachts, luxury real estate deals all inside of at least 100 equipment companies. This FBI investigation involved 20 field offices, agency partners, the IRS, the IRS, Health and Human Services, the Department of Veteran Affairs and even Secret Service.

But wait, that was just one case.

How about a few more?

District of Columbia Physician Indicted for Alleged Role in $12.7 Million Health Care Fraud Scheme
A physician with a practice in the District of Columbia was charged in an indictment unsealed today for his role in an alleged $12.7 million health care fraud scheme to submit fraudulent claims to Medicare for complicated medical procedures he never provided.

Telemarketer And His Companies Agree To Pay $2.5 Million To Settle Allegations That They Operated Telemedicine Schemes Involving Illegal Kickbacks And Unnecessary Prescriptions
United States Attorney Maria Chapa Lopez and U.S. Attorney J. Douglas Overbey for the Eastern District of Tennessee announce that Scott Roix, together with several entities through which he ran his telemarketing business, including HealthRight, LLC; Health Savings Solutions, LLC; Vici Marketing, LLC; and Vici Marketing Group, LLC (hereinafter collectively referred to as “marketing companies”), have agreed to pay $2.5 million to resolve allegations that Roix and these marketing companies violated the False Claims Act by causing the submission of false claims to federal healthcare programs in connection with telemedicine health care fraud schemes.

Patient Recruiter Found Guilty in $1.3 Million Medicare Kickback Scheme
A federal jury in Detroit, Michigan found a patient recruiter guilty today for his role in a scheme involving approximately $1.3 million in fraudulent Medicare claims for home health care that were procured through the payment of kickbacks.

Medical Business Owner Sentenced to More Than 10 Years in Federal Prison for Medicare Fraud
AUGUSTA, GA: The owner of a Thomson, Ga., medical equipment company was sentenced to more than 10 years in federal prison Tuesday, July 30, for a wide-ranging Medicare fraud scheme.

Millcreek Community Hospital Will Pay $2,451,000 to Settle Claims for Medically Unnecessary Inpatient Rehabilitation Services
PITTSBURGH – Millcreek Community Hospital, located in Erie, Pennsylvania, has agreed to pay $2,451,000 to resolve claims that the hospital violated the False Claims Act by billing Medicare and Medicaid for medically unnecessary inpatient rehabilitation services, Scott W. Brady announced today.