Category Archives: The Denise Simon Experience

Cruz: Obama ‘rolled over’ on hacking and Trump gets Advice

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He is right and the proof most recently was in February of 2016, with the posted Executive Orders.

WASHINGTON — Through two executive orders signed Tuesday, President Obama put in place a structure to fortify the government’s defenses against cyber attacks and protect the personal information the government keeps about its citizens.

The orders came the same day as Obama sent to Congress a proposed 2017 budget that includes $19 billion for information technology upgrades and other cyber initiatives.

In September of 2015, Obama held a meeting on cyber with China’s Xi. Perhaps there was no formal sanction or punishment of China due in part to the U.S. debt they hold. Obama also held meetings with key Congressional leaders in 2015 on the issue of cyber. Going back to 2013, Obama held sessions with corporate CEO’s to discuss efforts to improve cybersecurity amid growing concerns within the administration over attacks from China targeting American businesses.

The president will discuss efforts to address the cyber threat facing the country and get the executives’ feedback on how the government and private sector can forge a relationship to improve cybersecurity in the United States, according to The White House. The meeting will be held in the Situation Room and attendees include AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson and Northrup Grumman CEO Wesley Bush.

Not until February of 2016, did Obama launch the Cybersecurity National Action Plan which was headed by Tom Donilon, his National Security Advisor and Sam Palmisano, former CEO of IBM. There was no traction and given the recent cyber intrusions, there is likely a LOT of ‘ooops’ coming from the White House and should. No corporation, bank, government agency or other private entity ever wants to publically announced they have been hacked or their vulnerability, as it only invites more cyber chaos but the United States including top government agencies and the White House along with the State Department have all been victim of both Russian and Chinese cyber attacks of various forms.

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Sen. Ted Cruz says he hopes the incoming Trump administration is tougher on dealing with cyberattacks than the “weakness” he saw from President Obama on hacking by Russia and other foreign adversaries.

“One of the reasons these cyberattacks are so prevalent is that Barack Obama and his administration have rolled over for eight years,” Cruz said Thursday on “The Mike Gallagher Show.”

“They have shown nothing but weakness and appeasement in the face of those attacks. This is something I hope and believe will change with the new administration,” he said.

Cruz insisted neither Russian hacking nor WikiLeaks revelations last year about the Democratic Party significantly influenced Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.

“I think that there’s no evidence whatsoever that Russia’s efforts against us, which have been longstanding, did anything to affect the campaign,” said Cruz, who competed against Trump in last year’s GOP primaries.

“It’s, frankly, patently absurd,” Cruz added of claims Russia or WikiLeaks helped Trump win. “You can’t credibly argue that [WikiLeaks’] disclosures impacted the election because most voters never heard it.” More here from TheHill.

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Task Force Issues Cybersecurity Advice to Donald Trump

‘From Awareness to Action: A Cybersecurity Agenda for the 45th President’

A task force co-chaired by two U.S. lawmakers and a former federal CIO is issuing a 34-page report recommending a cybersecurity agenda for the incoming Trump administration. The report recommends the new administration jettison outdated ways the federal government tackles cybersecurity, noting: “Once-powerful ideas have been transformed into clichés.”

The report from the CSIS Cyber Policy Task Force – From Awareness to Action: A Cybersecurity Agenda for the 45th President – will be formally unveiled on Jan. 5. It comes from the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, which sponsored the Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency that made recommendations to then-President-elect Barack Obama in 2008.

“In the eight years since that report was published, there has been much activity, but despite an exponential increase in attention to cybersecurity, we are still at risk and there is much for the next administration to do,” the new report’s introduction states.

Cybersecurity Goals for Trump Administration

The task force outlined five major issues President-elect Donald Trump and his administration should address, including:

  1. Deciding on a new international strategy to account for a very different and dangerous global security environment.
  2. Making a greater effort to reduce and control cybercrime.
  3. Accelerating efforts to secure critical infrastructures and services and improving cyber hygiene across economic sectors. As part of this, the Trump administration must develop a new approach to securing government agencies and services and improve authentication of identity.
  4. Identifying where federal involvement in resource issues, such as research or workforce development, is necessary, and where such efforts are best left to the private sector.
  5. Considering how to organize the U.S. effort to defend cyberspace. Clarifying the role of the Department of Homeland Security is crucial, and the new administration must either strengthen DHS or create a new cybersecurity agency.

Ditching Outmoded Security Practices

Task force members recommend the new administration should get rid of outdated ways the federal government tackles cybersecurity. The report notes: “Statements about strengthening public-private partnerships, information sharing or innovation lead to policy dead ends. … Once-powerful ideas have been transformed into clichés. Others have become excuses for inaction.”

As an example, the task force cites the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, a government initiative unveiled in 2011, which envisioned a cyber-ecosystem that promotes trust and security while performing sensitive transactions online. The task force contends NSTIC “achieved little,” asserting that such initiatives fail because they aren’t attuned to market forces. “There are few takers for a product or service for which there is no demand or for which there are commercial alternatives.”

The task force makes recommendations on dozens of policies and technologies.

On encryption, for instance, it suggests that the president develop a policy that supports the use of strong encryption for privacy and security while specifying the conditions and processes under which assistance from the private sector for lawful access to data can be required. It also states that the president should direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology to work with encryption experts, technology providers and internet service providers to develop standards and ways to protect applications and data in the cloud and provide secure methods for data resiliency and recovery.

“Ultimately,” the report says, “encryption policy requires a political decision on risk. Untrammeled use of encryption increases the risk from crime and terrorism, but societies may find this risk acceptable given the difficulty of imposing restrictions. No one in our groups believed that risk currently justifies restrictions.”

Battling Cybercrime

In battling cybercrime, the task force sees “active defense,” a term it says has become associated with vigilantism, hack back and cyber privateers, as only a stopgap measure to address the private sector’s frustration over the apparent impunity of trans-border criminals. The Trump administration should seek ways to help companies move beyond their traditional perimeter defenses and focus on identifying federal actions that could disrupt cybercriminals’ business model or expand the work of federal agencies and service providers against botnets, according to the report.

To make cybercrime less profitable, the task force recommends the new administration identify actions that would impede the monetization of stolen data and credentials. Other recommendations include accelerating the move to multifactor authentication and identifying better ways to counter and disrupt botnets, a growing risk as more devices become connected to the internet. The task force says this could be done by expanding the ability to obtain civil injunctions for use against botnets and raising the penalties for using botnets against critical infrastructure.

The role of the military to protect civilian critical infrastructure turned out to be among the most contentious issues the group debated. A few task force members said that the Defense Department should play an expanded and perhaps leading role in critical infrastructure protection, according to the report. Most members, though, believed that this mission must be assigned to a civilian agency, not to DoD or a law enforcement agency such as the FBI.

“While recognizing that the National Security Agency, an element of DoD, has unrivaled skills, we believe that the best approach is to strengthen DHS, not to make it a ‘mini-NSA,’ and to focus its mission on mitigation of threats and attacks, not on retaliation, intelligence collection or law enforcement,” the report states.

Organizing Government Cybersecurity

DHS is the focal point in cybersecurity protection among civilian agencies as well as civilian-led critical infrastructure. The task force recommends that an independent agency be established within DHS focused exclusively on cybersecurity.

The task force says Trump should quickly name a new cybersecurity coordinator and elevate the White House position two notches to assistant to the president from special assistant to the president. Also, the group says Trump should back away from his pledge to conduct a cybersecurity review, as was done at the beginning of the Obama administration.

The task force co-chairs are:

  • Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and co-founder of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus;
  • Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., sponsor of legislation to require federal law enforcement and national security agencies to account for cyberattacks;
  • Karen Evans, a cybersecurity adviser to the Trump transition team who’s national director of the U.S. Cyber Challenge and formerly served as White House administrator for e-government and information technology, a position now known as U.S. CIO; and
  • Sameer Bhalotra, co-founder and CEO of the cybersecurity startup Stackrox and a senior associate at CSIS.

CSIS Senior Vice President James Lewis, the think tank’s cybersecurity expert, served as the task force project director.

How bad is it?

USAToday:

Exhibit A: The Social Security Administration system still runs on a platform written in the 1960s in the COBOL programming language, and takes 400 people just to maintain, Obama said.

“If we’re going to really secure those in a serious way, then we need to upgrade them,” Obama told reporters Tuesday after meeting with advisers on the issue. “And that is something that we should all be able to agree on. This is not an ideological issue. It doesn’t matter whether there’s a Democratic President or a Republican President. If you’ve got broken, old systems — computers, mainframes, software that doesn’t work anymore — then you can keep on putting a bunch of patches on it, but it’s not going to make it safe.”

To implement those upgrades, Obama created two new entities Tuesday: The first, a Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, will be made up of business, technology, national security and law enforcement leaders who will make recommendations to strengthen online security in the public and private sectors. It will deliver a report to the president by Dec. 1.

The second, a Federal Privacy Council, will bring together chief privacy officers from 25 federal agencies to coordinate efforts to protect the vast amounts of data the federal government collects and maintains about taxpayers and citizens.

Obama’s cybersecurity adviser, Michael Daniel, said the structure allows the administration to move forward even without additional authority from Congress by “driving our executive authority to the limit.”

The administration’s plan will look at cybersecurity both inside and outside the government. There will be more training and shared resources among government agencies, 48 dedicated teams to respond to attacks, and student loan forgiveness to help recruit top technical talent.

But the will plan also promote better security practices throughout the economy, by encouraging through multi-factor authentication that uses additional information in addition to a password. The government is also looking to reduce its use of Social Security numbers the unique identifier for all Americans.

Across the government, the Obama administration wants to spend $19 billion on cybersecurity in 2017, a 35% increase over 2016. But the plan does not rely on an increase in funding. “We can do quite a bit of it even without the additional resources,” Daniel said.

The White House said it also plans to create the new position of Chief Information Security Officer to coordinate modernization efforts across the government, including a a $3.1 billion Information Technology Modernization Fund. “That’s a key role that many private-sector companies have long implemented, and it’s a good practice for the federal government,” said Tony Scott, the U.S. Chief Information Officer.

The president is expected to meet with national security advisers Tuesday morning to launch the new effort.

4 Teens in Chicago Charged with Hate Crime

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*Four suspects have been charged in Chicago in connection with the gruesome beating and torture of a white man that was streamed on Facebook Live.

Tesfaye Cooper, Tanishia Covington, Jordan Hill, Brittany Covington Chicago Police Dept.

Jordan Hill, 18; Tesfaye Cooper; 18; Brittany Covington, 18; and Tanishia Covington, 24, have each been charged with hate crime, felony aggravated kidnapping, aggravated unlawful restraint and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, according to CNN.

Hill, Cooper and Brittany Covington also face charges of residential burglary. Hill also faces charges of possession of a stolen motor vehicle.

The suspects are due in court on Friday.

In the video, the young victim – an 18-year-old with special needs – is repeatedly kicked and punched while bound and gagged in the corner of a room. One assailant slashes his sweatshirt with a knife. One of the men shouts: “*F*ck Donald Trump! F*ck white people!” An attacker then carves a patch off the victim’s scalp with a knife.

The video sparked debate on social media as to whether the assault was in fact a hate crime. Was the victim targeted because he was white? Because he had special needs? Or for another reason?

A certain faction of social media immediately blamed the Black Lives Matter movement for the attack. The hashtag #BLMKidnapping even began trending on Twitter.

The perpetrators made a wide array of statements in the video, including repeated references to Trump, white people in general, the victim’s appearance and Black Lives Matter. But on Thursday, police said they have not been able to make any connection to the activist group.

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Tribune: The man was found wandering the streets in shorts Tuesday evening in the 3400 block of West Lexington Street in the Homan Square neighborhood, police said.  Investigators believe he may have been attacked at a home about a block east from where he was found.

He had been reported missing Monday by his parents who said he disappeared after they dropped him off at a McDonald’s in Streamwood on Saturday, according to police. The man apparently met someone he considered a friend, and then got involved with a group of people who stole a van from Streamwood.

Streamwood police said the parents began getting text messages from someone “claiming to be holding him captive.” As Streamwood officers investigated the texts, they “discovered Facebook video depicting (the man) being verbally and physically abused.”

Streamwood investigators were soon contacted by Chicago police saying they had found the man who had been reported missing, police said.  Soon after that, officers were called to a home in the 3300 block of West Lexington about 5:25 p.m. and found signs of a struggle and property damage that they linked to the attack, according to police.

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What constitutes a hate crime

According to the city of Chicago’s website, “Hate crimes are acts of bigotry, and are committed because of the intended victim’s actual or perceived ancestry, color, creed, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability (including HIV status), or national origin. Hate crimes not only harm the victim, but also the group in which the targeted member belongs.”
And according to Illinois law, hate can be considered an aggravating factor in a criminal charge and can result in a more severe sentence. Police in Streamwood said that after the man was reported missing, his parents began getting text messages from someone “claiming to be holding him captive.”  More here from CNN.

Cyber Hacking Tools for Sale on Underground Network

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Executive Editor Fionnuala Sweeney sits down with Steve Grobman, Chief Security Officer with the Intel Security Group. When it comes to America’s security in the cyberspace, the U.S. government and the private sector haven’t always seen eye to eye.

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Stop the denial about Russian intrusion…..how about taking the United States out of the debate and examine other countries… you must also remember that all payments and or salaries are often paid for using Bitcoin….un-traceable. Have you thought about Islamic State migrating to hacking operations using ransomware?

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Brit cyber warriors fight off two hacking attempts against the state every day

The National Cyber Security Centre has foiled 86 attacks in its first month – most of which are suspected to have come from China, North Korea, Russia, Iran and criminal gangs

Cyber warriors are fighting off more than two major hacking attempts against the British state every day.

Top targets include the Bank of England , the Ministry of Defence , nuclear bases, security services and infrastructure such as transport, the NHS and power systems.

Chief suspects are China, North Korea, Russia, Iran and major criminal gangs.

The National Cyber Security Centre foiled 68 major attacks in the first month after it was launched in October.

China is suspected of trying to steal technology or probing our security and finance systems while Russian is feared to be testing security and military networks.

It is believed North Korea may be doing all the above and Iran is suspected of acting for other countries, including Syria .

Retail, technology and security firms have also been hit. Senior security sources say a major theft of aerospace technology cost hundreds of millions of pounds.

It is thought cyber experts have responded to many of the attacks by hacking into systems used by the attackers. A source said: “This is the new front line.”

The NCSC was formed as part of a £1.9billion government crackdown.

At its launch Chancellor Philip Hammond said we had to hit back against “foreign actors” or face having planes grounded or being left in darkness.

Going back to 2012, was this fella part of a Kremlin authorized hack operation? If not, is he a proxy? Note what corporations and operations had cyber intrusions…

A Russian man was arrested in Cyprus last week for allegedly launching two distributed denial-of-service attacks on Amazon.com in June 2008.

Dmitry Olegovick Zubakha, a 25-year-old man from Moscow, was indicted last year by a Seattle grand jury for conspiracy to intentionally cause damage without authorization to a protected computer and possession of more than 15 unauthorized access devices.

In addition to the attack on Amazon, Zubakha was linked to similar attacks on Priceline.com and eBay.

Along with fellow hacker Sergey Logashov, Zubakha is alleged to have launched the attack using a botnet of computers under the control of multiple users. The duo brazenly took credit for the attacks on hacker forums, according to the indictment.

In addition to their denial-of-service attacks, law enforcement also traced 28,000 stolen credit-card numbers back to both men, which helped lead to the arrest.

“Amazon is willing to expend dollars and energy beyond even what can be economically justified in order to bring cybercriminals to justice,” said company spokesperson Mary Osako in a statement.

If found guilty on all charges, Zubakha could face up to 37 years in prison and $750,000 in fines. Intentionally causing damage to a protected computer with a resulting loss of more than $5,000 is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Logashov was also charged with the same count.

The arrest in Cyprus was a complex undertaking, with the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington and the Seattle Police Department all working together with global officials.

“The [three agencies] talking to each other is a direct result of the birth of the Department of Homeland Security,” security consultant Robert Siciliano told the E-Commerce Times.

American authorities are seeking Zubakha’s extradition.

According to the indictment, the first of two attacks lasted four and a half hours on June 6, 2008, before Amazon was able to intervene. Amazon’s servers were working overtime, on a magnitude of between 600 and 1,000 percent of normal traffic. The second attack began on June 9 of the same year and lasted until June 12.

Zubakha was also charged with aggravated identity theft for using the credit card of a Lake Stevens, Wash.,  resident illegally.

“This defendant could not hide in cyberspace,” said U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan, head of the Justice Department’s Cybercrime and IP Enforcement Committee. “I congratulate the international law enforcement agencies who tracked him down and made this arrest.”

Logashov is still at large.

 

Game on: Eric Holder Hired to Fight Trump

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So, as California is officially a sanctuary state, you can bet there will be additional states collaborating and joining the fight like Illinois. The Left has been colluding for several weeks and here is but one decision that is part of the search and destroy mission of the new Trump administration.

Immigrants and illegals are a protected class and they along with a state legislature are mobilizing for a fight that affects Americans, America, the sovereignty and standing law.

Immigrants now have an official lobby operation as they get full representation by Eric Holder and his law firm. This is likely an operation that has passed through the offices of the White House.

One must wonder if DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson or Loretta Lynch from the DoJ will join this battle-plan as well….

California Democrats hire Eric Holder to fight Trump

LOS ANGELES— Democratic lawmakers in the California legislature have retained former US Attorney General Eric Holder to help in any legal battles with President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

The move is an indication that lawmakers in the nation’s most populous state, where Democrats hold two-thirds majorities in both houses of the legislature, are girding for possible court battles after Trump takes office on January 20.

Last month, leaders of both houses introduced bills to protect immigrants living in the country illegally from anticipated efforts by a Trump administration to increase deportations. In addition, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown has made combating climate change a priority for the state.

“Having the former attorney general of the United States brings us a lot of firepower in order to prepare to safeguard the values of the people of California,” Kevin de León, the Democratic leader of the state Senate, told The Times. “This means we are very, very serious.”

A representative from de León’s office could not immediately be reached for comment early Wednesday.

“I am honored that the Legislature chose Covington to serve as its legal adviser as it considers how to respond to potential changes in federal law that could impact California’s residents and policy priorities,” Holder said in a statement, according to The Times.

California voted decisively for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the November 8 presidential election, choosing the former first lady over Trump by 28 percentage points.

**** Covington and Burling has been a legal lobby operation for corrupt entities for a while. Please note this particular example below:

Western SaharaResource Watch (WSRW) has been writing since 2008 about Covington & Burling’s collusion with OCP. In particular, WSRW has investigated a secret “independent opinion,” written by Covington that has “been used by phosphate importing firms to defend their unethical trade.” Despite repeated attempts to get a copy of that opinion, WSRW has reported: “the opinion has never been released to the public. The law firm consistently refuses to reply to requests from civil society or Saharawis.” An April 2012 paper from one of the U.S. importers, PotashCorp, titled “PhosphateRock from Western Sahara,” gives us, however, a pretty good picture of Covington’s point of view.  Acknowledging that they had “recently received, on a confidential basis” two legal analyses by Covington & Burling and DLA Piper, they tell us that those opinions “concluded that OCP’s operations in the region directly benefit the people of the region and are consistent with international legal obligations.” This conclusion is directly contradicted by any number of reports and analyses that the indigenous Sahrawi benefit little from the phosphate trade, hold few of the phosphate industry jobs, and have never been consulted on or acquiesced in the exploitation. While it would certainly be enlightening to see a copy of Covington’s opinion, they are obviously basing their conclusion on the condition of the several hundred thousand illegal settlers who have been lured to the territory with subsidies and jobs. The Fourth Geneva Convention specifically prohibits colonizing occupied territories. This is directly akin to concluding that life on the West Bank is lovely, based on the living conditions of the illegal Israeli settlers. WSRW supplies us with a good list of Recommended Reading on all this.

Covington lobbying on behalf of OCP has been hard to trace, specifically because they have chosen to register their work under the LDA, which does not require the registrant to list contacts or activities (see more on this below). All we really learn from the listings is their intention to lobby several governmental agencies and Congress on “Promoting economic integration in the Maghreb and enhanced economic relations between the Maghreb and the United States.” It does not appear to be a coincidence, however, that two of Covington’s registered OCP lobbyists, Stuart Eizenstat and Marney Cheek, should turn up in 2009 as participants in a thing called the North Africa Policy Paper Project that produced the seriously flawed and thoroughly biased policy paper, Why the Maghreb Matters: Threats, Opportunities, & Options for Effective US Engagement in North Africa. Eizenstat is listed as co-chair (along with I.William Zartman) and Cheek as staff. In a nutshell, the report identifies resolution of the stalemate over the Western Sahara as the key to unlocking the potential of greater Maghrebian integration and controversially endorses “the [Moroccan] formula of autonomy/sovereignty now before the UN” as “a basis for a viable solution.” The Moroccan autonomy plan has been widely condemned by international legal scholars – including our foremost self-determination authority, Hurst Hannum – as illegal under international law because it doesn’t provide for an expression of the will of the original inhabitants of the territory. More details here.

Bill to Freeze $$ to State Dept, Until Embassy in Jerusalem

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Read the proposed legislation here.

 Currently in Tel Aviv

Congress to Freeze State Department Funds Until U.S. Embassy Moves to Jerusalem

Bill seeks to counter Obama admin refusal to call Jerusalem Israel’s capital

FreeBeacon: A delegation of Republican senators is moving forward with an effort to freeze some funding to the State Department until the U.S. embassy in Israel is formally moved to Jerusalem, according to new legislation.

The legislation comes as the Obama administration continues to face criticism over its behind-the-scenes effort to forward a United Nations resolution condemning Israel.

The Obama administration, like previous administrations, does not formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city and has worked to stymie efforts to move the U.S. embassy there.

While Congress first approved legislation to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in 1995, the new bill threatens to cut State Department funding until the relocation is complete.

The effort is being spearheaded by Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), and Dean Heller (R., Nev.), all of whom support efforts by the incoming Trump administration to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem after years of debate.

“Jerusalem is the eternal and undivided capital of Israel,” Cruz said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s vendetta against the Jewish state has been so vicious that to even utter this simple truth—let alone the reality that Jerusalem is the appropriate venue for the American embassy in Israel—is shocking in some circles.”

“But it is finally time to cut through the double-speak and broken promises and do what Congress said we should do in 1995: formally move our embassy to the capital of our great ally Israel,” Cruz said.

The legislation orders the White House to identify Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which the Obama administration has refused to do. The bill will freeze a significant portion of the State Department’s funding until it completes the relocation.

In the past, the Obama White House has been caught scrubbing captions on official photographs that labeled Jerusalem as part of Israel. The administration also was entangled in a Supreme Court case when it refused to permit an American family to list its child’s birthplace as “Jerusalem, Israel.”

Heller said the legislation could help repair America’s relationship with Israel, which has become strained under the Obama administration.

“For years, I’ve advocated for America’s need to reaffirm its support for one of our nation’s strongest allies by recognizing Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel,” Heller said in a statement. “It honors an important promise America made more than two decades ago but has yet to fulfill. While administrations come and go, the lasting strength of our partnership with one of our strongest allies in the Middle East continues to endure.”

Rubio also championed the bill in a statement, saying it will finally close loopholes that have permitted the Obama administration to ignore congressional calls to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s official capital.

“Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish state of Israel, and that’s where America’s embassy belongs,” Rubio said. “It’s time for Congress and the president-elect to eliminate the loophole that has allowed presidents in both parties to ignore U.S. law and delay our embassy’s rightful relocation to Jerusalem for over two decades.”