The top IT official at a scandal-plagued federal agency led what one participant called “the most partisan meeting I have ever attended” as despondent bureaucrats had a collective meltdown the day after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, internal messages obtained by The Daily Wire reveal.
David Shive, chief information officer for the General Services Administration (GSA), addressed a key technology department during a &#8220;town hall&#8221; On Nov. 9 when he made the shocking comments. The department he spoke to, the Technology Transformation Service (TTS), has since been cited for &#8220;gross misconduct&#8221; and security violations.
&#8220;That was the most partisan meeting I have ever attended in government. <a href="https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/organization/leadership-directory/chief-information-officer">David Shive</a> joking that he dressed like a Republican (because he wore a suit and tie?) and concern about the &#8216;white men&#8217; and what steps needed to be taken to protect us from the new President-elect (&#8216;having allies&#8217;),&#8221; one attendee wrote on Slack later. &#8220;I&#8217;m not even a Republican and I&#8217;m offended! The point of the meeting was to reassure the staff that everything will be all right and that certainly could have been done without the copious partisan overtones.&#8221;
The Daily Wire reported last week that GSA’s inspector general found that the TTS <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-jeopardized-security-of-1m-americans-online-accounts-citing-equity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tricked federal agencies into violating security standards</a> by omitting facial recognition from software designed to lock up highly sensitive information, privately reasoning that such software was racist. It obtained $197 million in part by falsely telling customers and funders that it was compliant with NIST standards that required biometrics. The IG separately found <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-tech-arm-had-pattern-of-gross-mismanagement-before-equity-induced-cybersecurity-fiasco" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“gross mismanagement”</a> that occurred while the group was preoccupied with things like pronouns and building a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-agency-focused-on-leftist-politics-and-pronouns-as-gross-mismanagement-put-cybersecurity-at-risk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">social justice robot</a>, and faulted Shive for a lack of oversight.
Now, internal chat records obtained by The Daily Wire through the Freedom of Information Act show the government’s central tech agency having a top-to-bottom psychological meltdown when Trump won the presidency, with the group seemingly believing that their work as government bureaucrats was to advance a Democratic agenda, not provide services at the direction of the government.
<blockquote>
<h1>&#8220;It&#8217;s not easy. Pay attention to what your body is telling you. Pet all the pets. Squeeze all the fam and friends.&#8221;</h1>
</blockquote>
Although at least a few employees were stunned by the partisan tone struck by Shive and another thought the fears were overblown, other employees&#8217; internal messages showed the partisanship was widespread. Messages obtained by The Daily Wire included quotes from and reactions to the Zoom meeting and questions that were submitted to the speakers.
Though they worked comfortable IT jobs and many worked remotely, they said they feared for their &#8220;safety.&#8221;
&#8220;I want to know what we can do to ensure that this remains a safe working environment for everyone,&#8221; said a participant named Shawn Allen.
The Slack screen name for Allen, like several others who expressed fear for their well-being with Trump as the president-elect, listed pronouns.
&#8220;It falls to all of us in the organisation, but most of all to those of us who feel safer than others, to uphold our diversity practices, continually improve them, and spread them throughout government,&#8221; Yoz Grahame (&#8220;SFO, he/him&#8221;) wrote.
“Thank you all for making me feel safe :heart:,” Rebecca Refoy-Sidibe wrote.
Jez Humble (&#8220;SF, he&#8221;) plotted to try to get GSA, which also manages federal real estate, to block the Trump Organization from acquiring a hotel.
&#8220;Quite simply, I believe the GSA should end the contract. They should simply terminate it,&#8221; he wrote.
Noah Kunin, the infrastructure director for 18F, a major component of TTS, told them that Dennis McDonough, Barack Obama&#8217;s chief of staff, had told them not to work, apparently referring to over a three-day weekend. &#8220;Straight from Dennis: *do not work*. Engage in self care,&#8221; Kunin wrote.
Kara DeFrias added: &#8220;The emotional labor will be high all around for awhile, but especially today and this week. Take the time you need. It&#8217;s not easy. Pay attention to what your body is telling you. Pet all the pets. Squeeze all the fam and friends. Listen more than you speak. Embody empathy. Breathe.&#8221;
Some expected to continue to be paid while refusing to work on projects ordered by the Trump administration. Alan Atlas wrote that he “was told on joining that we have always had a policy of not forcing people to do work they were uncomfortable with.”
Eric Schles (&#8220;he or him&#8221;) wrote: &#8220;Question: what is your advice for speaking truth to power? How could / should we engage when we are asked to do things we don&#8217;t necessarily agree with?&#8221;
“We should have space for realignment there that doesn’t mean leaving government,” Kaitlin Devine wrote.
Some managers sought to deflate the pessimism with rhetoric about how their job was to serve America, but the government&#8217;s tech employees were not interested. &#8220;With due respect, we have not always been the beacon of rights. I don&#8217;t want to distract from the larger point, but this nation was built by enslaved people,&#8221; Annalee Flower Horne (&#8220;She/They&#8221;) wrote.
Gail Swanson chimed in: &#8220;I think it’s worth noting that some folks may not be in a place to hear optimism quite yet.&#8221;
Another employee, Patrick Bateman, pointed out that the “real or imagined” idea that they were nonpartisan was being offered as a coping mechanism simultaneously to one that contradicted it. &#8220;On one hand, lots of talk of the non-partisan aspects (real or imagined) and popularity of what we do; on the other hand hearing a lot of &#8216;we have allies&#8217; on the hill, in GSA etc&#8230; can&#8217;t square that,&#8221; he wrote.
Then-TTS Director Dave Zvenyach tried to walk a fine line, apparently first reminding employees that they were civil servants. But the employees painted Trump’s views as being so abhorrent that they went beyond partisanship and into questions of morality.
&#8220;I want to work for a government that respects us and democracy,&#8221; Jesse Taggert wrote.
&#8220;How do we comport the difference between what a president thinks and believes and our own needs (not just values but safety and care)?&#8221; Jessie Posilkin asked.
Zvenyach wrote, &#8220;I kinda want to tell folks: look, if you feel like you want to leave on political grounds, GREAT! that&#8217;s a totally acceptable reason. But don&#8217;t try and make this a moral conundrum to justify your otherwise political decision… I&#8217;m not so fine with a policy that says people can choose not to do work because they don&#8217;t like the politics.”
But Zvenyach appeared to change his tune, perhaps folding to identity politics-fused statements that suggested that a white man like him just couldn’t understand.
&#8220;There are hard questions that many people of color, will have to wrestle with moving forward. It has nothing to do with the oath we swore or our obligation to American citizens,&#8221; Erren Lester wrote.
Zvenyach eventually backtracked: &#8220;My comments on the oath of office are based on personal experiences that &#8212; based on what i&#8217;m hearing from others &#8212; must have sounded totally ridiculous.&#8221;
Though the techies claimed to be motivated by support for government “transparency” through “open data,” their leader seemed to think some facts were better kept secret. &#8220;I&#8217;m wiped out thinking about the morality of the open data APIs we&#8217;ll be asked to build in the next administration [sic],&#8221; Zvenyach wrote.
Billy Griffin wrote: “Sincere thanks to everyone for speaking your minds, and to &lt;@U03V848BQ&gt; for being vulnerable and recognizing your blind spots and being thoughtful about addressing real concerns people have.”
The GSA ignored a request for comment and for video of the meeting from The Daily Wire.
Messages showed that one experienced civil servant tried to tell her colleagues that they were being hysterical.
&#8220;I have 16 years in public service, and I have served under 2 Republican Presidents (soon to be 3), and 2 Democrats…and honestly…neither party has ever had a HUGE effect on my public service. I do not see this one being any different,&#8221; the employee wrote.
History would prove her to be correct: The TTS team continued to carry on as normal and implemented a far-left agenda under the Trump administration, one that would result in the “equity”-inspired cybersecurity vulnerability and false statements identified by the Inspector General this month.
This is the fourth installment in a series.
Part 1: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-jeopardized-security-of-1m-americans-online-accounts-citing-equity">Feds Jeopardized Security Of 1M Americans’ Online Accounts, Citing ‘Equity’</a>
Part 2: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-tech-arm-had-pattern-of-gross-mismanagement-before-equity-induced-cybersecurity-fiasco">Federal Tech Arm Had Pattern Of ‘Gross Mismanagement’ Before ‘Equity’-Induced Cybersecurity Fiasco</a>
Part 3: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-agency-focused-on-leftist-politics-and-pronouns-as-gross-mismanagement-put-cybersecurity-at-risk">Federal Agency Focused On Leftist Politics And Pronouns As ‘Gross Mismanagement’ Put Cybersecurity At Risk</a>

Dave Shive

Chat Records Reveal Epic Meltdown In Federal Agency After Trump Win

Big Tech

Cybersecurity

Inspector general

Joe Biden

A federal tech agency recently caught <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-jeopardized-security-of-1m-americans-online-accounts-citing-equity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">risking the nation’s cybersecurity</a> by violating rules and lying in the name of “equity” is dominated by a cabal of perpetually triggered leftists obsessed with politics and pronouns, a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Daily Wire</a> investigation shows.
The General Services Administration’s (GSA) Technology Transformation Service (TTS) — whose employees have included a self-proclaimed Marxist organizer and a man who identifies as transgender who raised money from colleagues to “void their gender warranty” — spent its time on projects like creating a social justice robot. The efforts came as the unit lost millions of dollars, repeatedly lied, and put the security of sensitive data at risk with wanton noncompliance with basic security rules, according to watchdog reports and other records reviewed by The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire reported last week that GSA’s inspector general found that TTS <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-jeopardized-security-of-1m-americans-online-accounts-citing-equity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tricked federal agencies into violating security standards</a> by omitting facial recognition from software designed to lock up highly sensitive information, privately reasoning that such software was racist. It obtained $197 million in part by falsely telling customers and funders that it was compliant with NIST standards that required biometrics. The scandal affected Login.gov, a service to authenticate Americans’ identity before giving access to sensitive data, and in particular the nearly one million accounts that were sold as conforming to higher-level NIST standards which would have required facial recognition. GSA said it was &#8220;completely unacceptable&#8221; and that it is pursuing discipline.
TTS — which began as a project called 18F that still operates as one of its largest units — matters because of the importance of technology to modern government and because, like other GSA departments, its work fans out into other federal agencies.
President Joe Biden is planning an executive order that would push Login.gov to every American, <a href="https://fcw.com/digital-government/2023/02/white-house-mulls-scaling-login-dot-gov-reach-every-american/383142/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FCW</a> reported last month. The IRS plans to implement Login.gov to allow Americans to file their taxes directly to it this April, despite concerns by one of the software platform’s own former leaders that it could <a href="https://fcw.com/it-modernization/2023/03/plans-approve-use-login-dot-gov-tax-day-nears/383934/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">not handle it</a>. Though the IRS originally planned to use <a href="https://fcw.com/digital-government/2022/02/irs-backs-away-facial-recognition-technology/361674/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">facial recognition</a> technology — which could cut down on billions of dollars of fraud from people filing tax returns in others&#8217; names — it ultimately decided not to.
The Login.gov cyber-vulnerability and deception disclosed this month was just one of a series of serious rule violations, financial losses, and cyber-vulnerabilities that the GSA acknowledged were the result of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-tech-arm-had-pattern-of-gross-mismanagement-before-equity-induced-cybersecurity-fiasco" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“gross mismanagement.”</a> But the breakdown also occurred because the unit, which spent only half of its time working on actual billable projects, was consumed with a shocking level of partisanship.
In 2016, the agency’s inspector general <a href="https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-reports/OIG%20EVALUATION%20REPORT_Evaluation%20of%2018F_%20JE17-001_October%2024%202016.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">slammed</a> 18F for spending more than $4,000 in manpower on “bots” such as one that corrected gendered language in internal messages between employees.
<blockquote>
<h1>Users shouldn&#8217;t say &#8220;no problemo&#8221; because it &#8220;arose as a way of devaluing Spanish in favor of an &#8216;English-only&#8217; United States.&#8221;</h1>
</blockquote>
“The ‘Slackbot’ polices a user&#8217;s text for the pronouns &#8216;guys,&#8217; ‘guyz,’ and ‘dudes.’ When the bot detects these pronouns, it prompts the user to consider replacing the pronoun with an option, like ‘team,’” the IG wrote.
Staff only doubled down after being called out, prompting the creation of a far more expansive social justice robot.
“Pretty soon, we realized that we could introduce a lot more language nudges than just ‘guys,’ and we renamed ‘guys bot’ to ‘<a href="https://18f.gsa.gov/2022/11/14/improving-inclusion-continuously-how-we-iterated-on-our-bot-to-promote-more-inclusive-and-thoughtful-language/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Inclusion Bot</a>,’” 18F officials wrote in November 2022.
The new bot <a href="https://github.com/18F/charlie/blob/main/InclusionBot.md">objects</a> to calling something &#8220;nuts&#8221; and suggests replacing it with &#8220;bananas&#8221; because we &#8220;want to avoid stigmatizing mental illness.&#8221; It discourages saying something is &#8220;like crack&#8221; because &#8220;We want to avoid stigmatizing addiction. Crack cocaine usage has also been racialized, resulting in discriminatory policies that target Black people.&#8221;
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-513306" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/bot-response.png" alt="" width="419" height="619" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/03/bot-response.png 419w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/03/bot-response-203x300.png 203w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/03/bot-response-390x576.png 390w" sizes="(max-width: 419px) 100vw, 419px" /></div>
Users shouldn&#8217;t say &#8220;no problemo&#8221; because it &#8220;arose as a way of devaluing Spanish in favor of an &#8216;English-only&#8217; United States.&#8221; And they shouldn&#8217;t &#8220;circle the wagons&#8221; because &#8220;this term arose from colonization,&#8221; nor &#8220;hold down the fort&#8221; because &#8220;this term arose as a military phrase.&#8221; They shouldn&#8217;t conduct a &#8220;postmortem&#8221; because &#8220;This term can trigger emotions related to death.&#8221;
After the 2016 election, top honchos tried to shield TTS — which has its roots in a program architected by Barack Obama — from layoffs by claiming it was nonpartisan. &#8220;We have people from different political stripes on the team … We don&#8217;t think technology is partisan,&#8221; TTS Commissioner Rob Cook told <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/16/technology/trump-innovation-white-house/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNN</a>, which also noted that Republican Kevin McCarthy supported the unit.
But records reviewed by The Daily Wire depict a team of far-Left partisans that impacted agencies across the federal government through their web and data work. Choose any name on 18F’s roster and there’s a good chance you’ll find openly far-Left sentiment and a fixation on identity politics. For example, <a href="https://meritalk.com/articles/gsa-names-ann-lewis-new-director-of-tts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ann Lewis</a>, who was hired as TTS’ director in December, was previously chief technology officer of MoveOn.org, the leftist political fundraising group.
TTS Design Director Cordelia Yu last year raised money from colleagues (including former 18F director Aaron Snow) for &#8220;gender-affirming surgery&#8221;&#8211;billed in tech-speak as &#8220;Help Cordelia <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-cordelia-void-their-gender-warranty" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Void Their Gender</a> Warranty&#8221;&#8211;in a GoFundMe organized by a friend. Yu&#8217;s blog mimicked <a href="https://cordy.news/agile-broke-my-brain">&#8220;the 18F</a> project reflection template&#8221; and stated: &#8220;Goals for the last three months: Turn a penis into a p****.”
Leah Bannon, a former product lead who worked on <a href="https://ash.harvard.edu/people/leah-bannon">immigration at 18F</a>, is now an organizer for Bread and Roses Democratic Socialists of America, a self-described &#8220;national caucus of <a href="https://twitter.com/leahbannon" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Marxist organizers</a>.&#8221;
<a href="https://twitter.com/apetersen/status/1625343636379512833" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Anne Peterson</a>, a graphic designer for 18F, wrote this month on Twitter: &#8220;Hi: my name is Anne and my pronouns are they/them. My name or appearance should not lead to a presumption of gender. Your assumption may harm me whether or not you intend it to.&#8221; She complained about the lack of bathrooms for nonbinary people.
After Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, 18F infrastructure director Noah Kunin — who the inspector general said repeatedly plotted to circumvent rules and made false statements — wrote a blog post saying he was quitting because of his hatred of Trump.
&#8220;The people with the matches are inside the house &#8230; It’s now on fire because the people in charge want to burn it down,&#8221; he <a href="https://medium.com/@noahkunin/why-im-leaving-18f-48970131d547">wrote</a>.
He also claimed Trump had converted a position overseeing the unit from a civil servant to political appointee role in order to demand “loyalty.” In private correspondence, Kunin’s supervisor fretted that the blog was false, and an IG report showed that it was false in a deeply ironic way: In reality, Obama’s GSA head, Denise Turner Roth, had pushed for the position to be converted to a politically appointed one as she sought a way to fire a civil servant who blew the whistle on the “politicization” of 18F during the Obama years. The IG found that Roth improperly retaliated against that whistleblower.
The day after Trump’s election, TTS held a “town hall” where high-paid tech employees — many of whom worked remotely — expressed fears for their “safety” and plotted to continue getting paid while refusing to do work asked for by the Trump administration, according to records obtained by The Daily Wire under the Freedom of Information Act.
Some employees transcribed quotes from the bosses in Slack for those who could not tune in to the video meeting. Shawn Allen quoted one seemingly suggesting that they stay in government in order to resist Trump: &#8220;you guys don&#8217;t run away from a fight; you run _to_ the fight.&#8221;
The next reply came from the social justice bot the team had created, objecting to the gendered language.
“Did you mean *mates*?” it asked.
This is the third installment in a series.
Part 1: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-jeopardized-security-of-1m-americans-online-accounts-citing-equity">Feds Jeopardized Security Of 1M Americans’ Online Accounts, Citing ‘Equity’</a>
Part 2: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-tech-arm-had-pattern-of-gross-mismanagement-before-equity-induced-cybersecurity-fiasco">Federal Tech Arm Had Pattern Of ‘Gross Mismanagement’ Before ‘Equity’-Induced Cybersecurity Fiasco</a>

Federal Agency Focused On Leftist Politics And Pronouns As ‘Gross Mismanagement’ Put Cybersecurity At Risk

Federal Agency Focused On Leftist Politics And Pronouns As 'Gross Mismanagement' Put Cybersecurity At Risk

Social Justice

Technology

A still-ongoing program devised by President Barack Obama to bring Silicon Valley tech types into the federal government to foster innovation instead descended into repeated rule violations, massive financial losses, and retaliation against a whistleblower who called attention to potential violations of the law, government records show.
The Daily Wire reported last week that the General Services Administration (GSA) Inspector General found that GSA&#8217;s disruptive tech unit, the Technology Transformation Service (TTS), <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-jeopardized-security-of-1m-americans-online-accounts-citing-equity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tricked federal agencies into violating security standards</a> by omitting facial recognition from software designed to lock up highly sensitive information — reasoning internally that such software was racist. It falsely told the agencies that its solution met the security standards, obtaining $197 million in part on the basis of the false representation. GSA said it is pursuing disciplinary measures.
But a series of other government probes show that the team of highly-paid computer programmers at TTS — also known as 18F — has repeatedly put cybersecurity at risk for years. Despite the staff overwhelmingly being far-Left partisans who supported big government, they also seemed to believe that the rules that define big government did not apply to them, all while operating in the risky terrain of government cyberspace.
In May 2016, the IG issued an emergency alert of a <a href="https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-reports/Alert%20Report-GSA%20Data%20Breach%205.12.16.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“data breach,”</a> writing that “Due to authorizations enabled by GSA 18F staff, over 100 GSA Google Drives were reportedly accessible by users both inside and outside of GSA during a five month period, potentially exposing sensitive content such as personally identifiable information and contractor proprietary information.” The breach involved a misconfiguration in the use of Slack and OAuth, neither of which were supposed to be used.
The IG later said that 18F waited five days to inform management of the long-running breach, then falsely told the public and its customers that sensitive information was not exposed.
“In response to our alert report, the 18F Executive Director [Aaron Snow] and Director of Infrastructure [Noah Kunin] co-authored a public blog post on May 13, 2016, stating, ‘We did a full investigation and to our knowledge <a href="https://18f.gsa.gov/2016/05/13/how-18f-handles-information-security-and-third-party-applications/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">no sensitive information</a> was shared inappropriately.’ 18F also subsequently issued emails to external partner agencies stating that ‘this was not a hack or data breach in any way, and this misconfiguration did not cause any sensitive information to be shared inappropriately,’” the IG wrote.
But a <a href="https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-reports/OIG%20EVALUATION%20REPORT_Evaluation%20of%2018F%20IT%20Security%20Compliance_JEF17-002_February%2021%202017.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">February 2017 IG report</a> on &#8220;18F’s Information Technology Security Compliance&#8221; said the claim by 18F wasn’t true. “GSA IT found that the vulnerability exposed content containing PII to unauthorized users. As of February 2, 2017, the 18F blog post had not been updated to reflect the results of GSA IT’s review,” it said.
The report found that &#8220;18F routinely disregarded and circumvented fundamental security requirements related to both the acquisition of information technology and the operation of information systems.&#8221; When 18F wanted to do things that were not permitted, it took it upon itself to do them anyway and call it &#8220;pre-authorization,&#8221; it said. And its employees used personal email accounts for sensitive government business.
When Kunin got tired of oversight from Information Systems Security Officers (ISSO) from the GSA, whose job it was to ensure that federal data was secure, he named himself ISSO for 18F, something he had no power to do, the IG said.
Kunin — who later quit the government because of his hatred of Donald Trump — admitted to the IG that the unit was “definitely not compliant.” He told investigators he “had no training on GSA IT policies,” but the IG “found that he completed the mandatory training, received a copy of the IT Security Policy from GSA IT, and had frequent discussions with the Chief Information Security Officer.”
“We sought to determine the cause of 18F’s widespread violations of fundamental GSA information technology security requirements. We concluded that management failures in GSA IT and 18F caused the breakdown in compliance,” it wrote. “When we asked 18F Executive Director Snow why there was a breakdown in 18F’s information technology security policy compliance, he answered, ‘I honestly don’t know,’” it said.
The failures also extended to finances. 18F had little concern about taxpayer dollars: 18F&#8217;s Director of Operations said privately: &#8220;To be frank, there are some of us that don&#8217;t give rip about the losses,&#8221; the IG uncovered.
In June 2017, the IG found that “18F had a $31.66 million cumulative net loss from its launch in March 2014 through the third quarter of FY 2016” and hired 200 people anyway. This occurred in part due to wildly inaccurate projections by its leaders. “For example, although 18F projected over $84 million in revenue for FY 2016, by the third quarter the actual revenue was less than $28 million,” it said.
Meanwhile, the staff spent much of its time on self-promotional activities, vanity projects, and social justice initiatives. “The OIG found that less than half of the 18F staff’s time was spent on projects that would recover FAS’s ASF investment in 18F,” it said, referring to the Federal Acquisition Service.
18F performed work without a contract in place despite dozens of warnings to stop the practice. It billed clients incorrectly in most cases reviewed by the IG, such as undercharging one by $5.5 million. It did not maintain billing records and spent nearly $25 million without approval, the IG found.
Thomas Sharpe, the GSA’s Commissioner of FAS, believed that the entire way the tech group was financed was illegal. He alerted the Inspector General. The IG found that others, including GSA’s own lawyers, believed that GSA was circumventing Congress’ intent with the tech shop. One lawyer in the GSA’s Office of General Counsel wrote that GSA appeared to attempt “an administrative repeal of prior legislation and a stealth re-creation of a service Congress specifically abolished via the GSA Modernization Act.”
The IG found in June 2017 that Obama’s GSA Administrator, Denise Turner Roth, <a href="https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/foia/Investigation%20of%20GSA%20Whistleblower%20Reprisal%20Complaint%20June%202017.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">retaliated</a> against Sharpe for blowing the whistle. In April 2017, the GSA responded to the Office of Special Counsel, which policies whistleblower retaliation, <a href="https://osc.gov/Documents/Public%20Files/FY17/DI-17-0642/DI-17-0642%20Agency%20Report.pdf">conceding</a>: &#8220;Many violations identified in the IG&#8217;s October 24, 2016 report are the result of gross mismanagement.&#8221;
&#8220;The legal foundation of TTS is legally permissible. However, [our own] report does identify problems with the implementation of the legal foundation that was provided by the Office of General Counsel, which resulted in a violation of 31 USC §1535 and of GSA policy as well as gross mismanagement,&#8221; the GSA continued.
Still, little seemed to change. The far-Left technologists continued on through the Trump administration and into the Biden administration. The IG caught them the latest time this month in what could be its most dangerous misstep yet, the fiasco which caught the unit telling federal agencies that their data was secure with its login product, when in fact it violated required standards by removing biometric requirements in the name of “equity.” The deception imperiled <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-jeopardized-security-of-1m-americans-online-accounts-citing-equity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">nearly one million</a> online accounts.
This is the second installment in a series.
Part 1: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-jeopardized-security-of-1m-americans-online-accounts-citing-equity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Feds Jeopardized Security Of 1M Americans’ Online Accounts, Citing ‘Equity’</a>
Part 3: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-agency-focused-on-leftist-politics-and-pronouns-as-gross-mismanagement-put-cybersecurity-at-risk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Federal Agency Focused On Leftist Politics And Pronouns As ‘Gross Mismanagement’ Put Cybersecurity At Risk</a>
Part 4: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/chat-records-reveal-epic-meltdown-in-federal-agency-after-trump-win" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chat Records Reveal Epic Meltdown In Federal Agency After Trump Win</a>

Virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention

Federal Tech Arm Had Pattern Of ‘Gross Mismanagement’ Before ‘Equity’-Induced Cybersecurity Fiasco

Federal Tech Arm Had Pattern Of ‘Gross Mismanagement’ Before 'Equity'-Induced Cybersecurity Fiasco

Barack Obama

Politics

Scandals

Silicon Valley

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita announced two lawsuits against TikTok on Wednesday over concerns about data sharing and mature content targeting children.
“The TikTok app is a malicious and menacing threat unleashed on unsuspecting Indiana consumers by a Chinese company that knows full well the harms it inflicts on users,” Rokita said in a <a href="https://events.in.gov/event/attorney_general_todd_rokita_launches_litigation_against_tiktok_to_protect_children_and_combat_threats_from_china" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a>.
“With this pair of lawsuits, we hope to force TikTok to stop its false, deceptive and misleading practices, which violate Indiana law,&#8221; he added.
The first <a href="https://protect2.fireeye.com/v1/url?k=31323334-50bba2bf-31367a34-4544474f5631-9fd90e5af7e2a544&amp;q=1&amp;e=dcd71c60-170b-438a-80dc-8646d040b3bf&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fcontent.govdelivery.com%2Fattachments%2FINAG%2F2022%2F12%2F07%2Ffile_attachments%2F2348727%2F2022.12.06%2520PUBLIC%2520REDACTED%2520IN%2520Complaint%2520-%2520Content%2520vf.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawsuit</a> argues that the social media platform misled users to believe that TikTok is appropriate for children ages 13-17 despite frequent references to sexual content, profanity, drugs, and other mature content.
<a class="c-link" tabindex="-1" href="https://get.dailywire.com/readers-pass/read-only-v2?utm_campaign=dwplus&amp;utm_medium=editorial&amp;utm_source=dwsite&amp;cid=dwplus&amp;mid=z&amp;xid=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://get.dailywire.com/readers-pass/read-only-v2?utm_campaign=dwplus&amp;utm_medium=editorial&amp;utm_source=dwsite&amp;cid=dwplus&amp;mid=z&amp;xid=0" data-sk="tooltip_parent" data-remove-tab-index="true" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-4974">TIRED OF THE LEGACY MEDIA’S BIAS CONTROLLING THE NARRATIVE AND OBSCURING THE TRUTH? JOIN US.</a>
The second <a href="https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/INAG/2022/12/07/file_attachments/2348729/2022.12.07%20IN%20Complaint%20Final%20-%20CHINA.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawsuit</a> alleges that TikTok has gathered sensitive personal data from Indiana residents while claiming that user information is protected from the Chinese government and Communist Party.
“In multiple ways, TikTok represents a clear and present danger to Hoosiers that is hiding in plain sight in their own pockets,” Rokita said. “At the very least, the company owes consumers the truth about the age-appropriateness of its content and the insecurity of the data it collects on users. We hope these lawsuits force TikTok to come clean and change its ways.”
The lawsuits seek emergency injunctive relief and civil penalties against TikTok.
The Indiana lawsuits add to a growing list of states that have announced plans to ban the Chinese-based app from state devices.
On Wednesday, Texas became the largest state to do so, with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott denouncing TikTok.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I&#39;ve banned TikTok on state issued devices.
I&#39;m also calling for legislation to make the ban permanent and to broaden the ban.
As I detail in my letter and press release, the threat posed by the CCP through TikTok is serious and must be stopped.<a href="https://t.co/X4kkFfCDq3">https://t.co/X4kkFfCDq3</a>
&mdash; Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) <a href="https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1600592803012415488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 7, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“TikTok harvests vast amounts of data from its users’ devices—including when, where, and how they conduct Internet activity—and offers this trove of potentially sensitive information to the Chinese government,” he <a href="https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-orders-aggressive-action-against-tiktok" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> in a letter.
“While TikTok has claimed that it stores U.S. data within the U.S., the company admitted in a letter to Congress that China-based employees can have access to U.S. data. It has also been reported that ByteDance planned to use TikTok location information to surveil individual American citizens,&#8221; it added.
The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/another-governor-bans-tiktok-from-state-devices" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan announced a ban on TikTok from the state’s government devices on Tuesday.
“There may be no greater threat to our personal safety and our national security than the cyber vulnerabilities that support our daily lives,” Hogan <a class="Link" href="https://governor.maryland.gov/2022/12/06/governor-hogan-announces-emergency-directive-to-prohibit-use-of-tiktok-china-and-russia-based-products-and-platforms-in-state-government/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
On Monday, South Carolina Republican Gov. Henry McMaster <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/a-clear-and-present-danger-to-its-users-south-carolina-gov-bans-state-employees-from-using-tiktok-amid-national-security-concerns">issued</a> an executive order banning TikTok from government devices.
Last month, South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem became the first governor to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/south-dakota-governor-noem-blocks-state-employees-from-downloading-tiktok" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ban</a> TikTok from state devices and made it a criminal offense to download the app on a state device.
“South Dakota will have no part in the intelligence gathering operations of nations who hate us,” Noem said in a <a href="https://news.sd.gov/newsitem.aspx?id=31872" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a>. “The Chinese Communist Party uses information that it gathers on TikTok to manipulate the American people, and they gather data off the devices that access the platform.”
At the federal level, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) introduced legislation last month to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/republican-lawmakers-to-introduce-legislation-banning-tiktok-in-u-s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ban the app</a> in the U.S.
Concerns about the Chinese-based app reach back to 2020 when then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order that sought to ban the use of TikTok in the U.S.
The order was to take effect 45 days later but was not implemented following a series of legal challenges. President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/09/fact-sheet-executive-order-protecting-americans-sensitive-data-from-foreign-adversaries/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revoked</a> the executive order in June 2021.

TikTok

Indiana Sues TikTok Over Data Sharing, Mature Content Concerns

Indiana

U.S.

U.S. Secret Service officials confirmed an exclusive report Monday alleging prolific cybercriminal hackers tied to the Chinese Communist Party have stolen nearly $20 million worth of COVID pandemic relief benefits.
Secret Service officials did not comment further upon corroborating the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/chinese-hackers-covid-fraud-millions-rcna59636">NBC News</a> report. However, U.S. law enforcement officials and cybersecurity experts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the pandemic fraud instance is the first publicly acknowledged example of theft linked to foreign and state-sponsored cybercriminals.
Officials said the hacker group in question is APT41, which they described as a “Chinese state-sponsored, cyber threat group that is highly adept at conducting espionage missions and financial crimes for personal gain” that operates out of the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu.
APT41 — also known as Winnti, Barium, and Wicked Panda — allegedly began stealing COVID relief money in mid-2020 from approximately 2,000 accounts associated with more than 40,000 financial transactions, including Small Business Administration loans and unemployment insurance funds in more than at least a dozen states.
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“It would be crazy to think this group didn’t target all 50 states,” Roy Dotson, the national pandemic fraud recovery coordinator for the Secret Service, told NBC.
Billions of dollars in pandemic relief money have reportedly been stolen through the Paycheck Protection Program or unemployment insurance since 2020.
The Hill <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/3761964-chinese-linked-hackers-stole-millions-in-covid-19-relief-benefits-secret-service/">reports</a> Secret Service said last August that $286 million in stolen pandemic relief money had been recovered.
According to the NBC News report, Justice Department officials familiar with the group said members use hacking methods on software to further weaponize against users, businesses, and governments, which also involves tracking public disclosures about security flaws. The group also collects information and data from American citizens, institutions, and businesses for Chinese espionage purposes.
A senior Justice Department official described APT41 as “dangerous,” adding the group presents “serious national security implications.&#8221;
John Hultquist is the head of intelligence analysis at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant, which is contractually linked to approximately 75 state and local government organizations and agencies. He said he had never seen the group target government money before, which he added would be “an escalation.”
Another federal law enforcement official familiar with investigations involving Chinese-based hackers said the agency would “never” be able to indict and locate such criminals because “with the internet and the dark web, it’s borderless.”
Officials said more than 1,000 other investigations of foreign and domestic criminals stealing public benefits are underway.
Chinese Embassy officials in Washington have not responded to requests for comment.

A computer programmer or hacker prints a code on a laptop keyboard to break into a secret organization system. Internet crime concept.

Chinese Cybercriminal Hacker Group Stole $20 Million In COVID Relief Funds, Secret Service Says

$20 Million In Pandemic Relief Money Stolen By Chinese-Cybercriminal Hacker Group, Officials say

Chinese Communist Party

COVID-19

Crime

Hackers

World

The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/california" target="_blank" rel="noopener">California</a> Department of Justice released a report from an outside investigation concerning the massive data breach of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/guns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gun</a> owner information that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-gun-owners-data-breached-after-state-unveils-firearms-portal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">took place in June</a>.
The independent investigation, carried out by a team of independent legal experts, as well as forensic cyber specialists, found that the leak of data was “unacceptable,” but also “unintentional,” according to a press <a href="https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/california-department-justice-releases-results-independent-investigation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">release</a> from the Office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
It was caused by “a number of deficiencies within DOJ,&#8221; which included &#8220;lack of training, expertise, and professional rigor; insufficient documentation, policies, and procedures; and inadequate oversight.”
The investigation revealed that “some confidential personal data of roughly 192,000 individuals who applied for a concealed carry weapons (CCW) permit from approximately 2012-2021 was unintentionally disclosed due to the incident.”
The breach took place shortly after the Supreme Court <a href="https://ktla.com/news/report-california-gun-data-breach-was-unintentional/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">decided</a> that Americans have the right to publicly carry guns. The report ultimately <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article269423907.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discovered</a> that actions taken by an analyst, a team, and DOJ supervisors led to the breach.
The dataset with private personal information “was downloaded approximately 2,734 times, in full or in part, across 507 unique IP addresses,” according to the <a href="https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/ca-doj-report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a>, but the number of people who saw the information could be even higher. “The investigation could not accurately determine the number of public visitors who may have only viewed, but did not download, the underlying dataset,” it added.
The report also provided details about the information that was released. Attorney General Rob Bonta received a message on Twitter alerting him that the personal data was made public, &#8220;including addresses and dates of birth for CCW permit holders.&#8221;
The report also stated that &#8220;the CCW-related data included data for the years 2012 to 2021 and included the following fields: name, date of birth, street address associated with the permit, gender, race, county, CCW License Number, status of CCW applications, and California’s Criminal Identification and Information/State Identification number.&#8221;
Alan Gottlieb, executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, told The Daily Wire over email that the intentionality of the release doesn’t matter.
&#8220;It does not matter if the breach of personal gun owners data was intentional or not. It still amounts to a [grave] invasion of personal privacy. If a private entity allowed this violation to occur they would be held responsible for heavy monetary damages. The state of California should be held to the same standard,” Gottlieb said.
Sam Paredes, the executive director of Gun Owners of California, said the report was appalling and showed deep negligence on the part of Attorney General Rob Bonta.
“The report is scathing in reporting the lack of accountability and proper management practices and review procedures and documentation,” he said.
&#8220;We are calling on the Attorney General to fire the inept and negligent staff that allowed this to happen, including analysts and supervisors,” Paredes told The Daily Wire.
His group is also letting people know what legal action they can take.
“We are educating people whose identity has been released as to what their legal options are,” he said, adding that damages sought against the Attorney General because of the breach “could include paying for new or updated security systems of people&#8217;s homes and businesses, more robust personal identification security offers to those who have been affected, and emotional damages.”
The implications of the breach also involve cybersecurity and data concerns.
Dr. Aaron Brantly, associate professor at Virginia Tech, and director of Tech4Humanity Lab, has written and co-authored several books regarding cybersecurity.
Brantly told The Daily Wire over email that “[t]he accidental release of information on CCW permit applicants is another in a long line of data disclosures by both private and public entities.”
He said these types of releases are not unique to governmental bodies, but instead “highlight the continuing challenge of staffing and providing trained personnel to manage complex digital systems.”
“Any release of PII poses inherent potential security risks to individuals including but not limited to identify theft. Individuals whose data was disclosed will likely be offered security monitoring services. At present the types of data released have not been disclosed,” he wrote. “The security risks posed by the release are highly dependent on the types of data released. The unwanted disclosure of CCW permit application, approval, or denial might also potentially have adverse effects on individuals across a broad range of use/needs cases.”
“The State of California DOJ should be aware that this unintentional disclosure might have particularly adverse impacts on certain individuals,” he added.
When asked about the specific personal information that was revealed, and whether it impacts his response or cybersecurity concerns, Brantly said it does not, adding, &#8220;[a]ll of the same cybersecurity concerns remain.&#8221;
&#8220;The real question is how long was the data publicly accessible and how many times was it downloaded and by whom,&#8221; he added. &#8220;If it was downloaded is it now publicly available elsewhere, i.e. on the dark web?&#8221;
Andreas Grant, a network engineer and <a href="https://networkshardware.com/about/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">founder</a> of Networks Hardware, told The Daily Wire that the key to solving the problem is training people better. 
“No matter how secure a cloud infrastructure is, one can never achieve hundred percent security. But having untrained people run things means leaving a door of vulnerability wide open. It’s just plain and simple ignorance from the officials running the website. They ‘thought’ they were posting anonymous data publicly which was clearly not the case,” Grant noted over email. “The worst and also the most important part here is the employees who were in charge. None of the employees there actually had the knowledge to implement proper security settings.”
“As a Network Security Engineer, I am always worried about how both government and small businesses are handling cybersecurity issues these days. They want people with very little IT knowledge to handle the security aspect which then leads to incidents like this one,” Grant said.
Jake Denton, a Tech Policy Center research associate at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Wire over email, “[t]he egregious deficiencies highlighted in this report reflect the broader challenges we are facing as a country in the domain of cybersecurity.”
“As of June, it has been reported that there are over 700 thousand unfilled cyber security positions across all sectors of the United States economy. As the threat of cyber-attacks against the United States continues to grow, our country is clearly underequipped and ill-prepared to defend our data,” he added. 
The implications for conservatives are especially concerning, Will Thibeau, a Tech Policy Center policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Wire.
“Mistakes and accidents seem to only happen to conservatives these days,” Thibeau said over email. “California’s gross violation of citizens’ expectation of data privacy must alert conservatives to the reality of information security.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/author/brandon-drey" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Brandon Drey</a> contributed to this report.

80EBCC96-C210-4304-8A17-53B8D6C855C2_1_201_a

Independent Report Reveals Negligence That Led To Massive California Gun Owner Information Breach

California

General

Guns

Second Amendment

Aw, you hate to see it. The Beltway&#8217;s favorite left-wing <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/legacy-media" target="_blank" rel="noopener">propaganda outlet</a> is dabbling in some &#8220;election denying&#8221; by wondering if certain voting machines can be trusted in Tuesday&#8217;s elections.
If you&#8217;re confused by this warning, having previously been admonished by the Democratic Party and their all-too-eager media allies that anybody who dares question the integrity of a U.S. election is a fascist and a threat to democracy, it&#8217;s understandable. But please, try to keep up.
&#8220;The 2020 presidential election was rife with allegations of voting machine hacks that were later debunked,&#8221; Politico tweeted Monday. But &#8220;there are real risks that hackers could tunnel into voting equipment and other election infrastructure to try to undermine Tuesday’s vote.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The 2020 presidential election was rife with allegations of voting machine hacks that were later debunked. 
Yet there are real risks that hackers could tunnel into voting equipment and other election infrastructure to try to undermine Tuesday’s vote.<a href="https://t.co/kDij1J08eU">https://t.co/kDij1J08eU</a>
&mdash; POLITICO (@politico) <a href="https://twitter.com/politico/status/1589568452699820032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
These vulnerabilities only seem to show themselves whenever Democrats lose, or are about to lose, an election. Reporter Eric Geller <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/07/6-election-security-threats-to-watch-for-on-election-day-00065277" target="_blank" rel="noopener">asserts</a> in the story that these problems exist in 2022 and were concerning in previous elections, yet magically were not present in 2020.
Geller noted that attacks on the midterm elections could come from misinformation and hacks of social media accounts, voter registrations, and even campaign websites. He also added that the use of internet modems to transmit voter data could be targeted by nefarious actors who then manipulate vote tallies.
&#8220;At least seven states and Washington, D.C., use wireless modems to transmit unofficial election-night results to their central offices,&#8221; Geller wrote. &#8220;These modems use telecommunications networks that are vulnerable to hackers, and malicious actors could exploit them to tamper with unofficial vote data, corrupt voting machines or compromise the computers used to tally official results.&#8221;
Of course, these concerns have been around for quite some time.
Prior to the 2018 election, HBO even released a documentary titled &#8220;Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections,&#8221; purporting to show multiple ways a third party could access or change voting data.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections | Voting Machine Vulnerabilities (Bonus Clip) | HBO" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V-oc33kpFjI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
So in other words, it seems okay to raise concerns about any election except 2020.
As The Heritage Foundation&#8217;s John Cooper put it, the American political press is basically saying, &#8220;Fraud wasn’t a problem when our side won, but now that we’re about to get hammered, it totally is!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
“Fraud wasn’t a problem when our side won, but now that we’re about to get hammered, it totally is!” — American political press <a href="https://t.co/XBdC5jfCPJ">https://t.co/XBdC5jfCPJ</a>
&mdash; John Cooper (@thejcoop) <a href="https://twitter.com/thejcoop/status/1589635505641381888?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In reaction, Sean Davis of The Federalist also tweeted, &#8220;Weird how election hacking and security are only real issues when Democrats are about to lose.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Weird how election hacking and security are only real issues when Democrats are about to lose. <a href="https://t.co/BZYhEuwLRt">https://t.co/BZYhEuwLRt</a>
&mdash; Sean Davis (@seanmdav) <a href="https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1589630015012233216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The brazenness of legacy media is laughable at this point, but they don&#8217;t seem to be in on the joke.
As evidenced by the quick reactions on Twitter and <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=americansd+consider+media+to+be+threat+to+democracy&amp;rlz=1C5GCEM_enUS998US998&amp;oq=americansd+consider+media+to+be+threat+to+democracy&amp;aqs=chrome..69i57j0i30i546.5034j0j7&amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">polls showing</a> that the majority of Americans believe &#8220;mainstream media&#8221; is a threat to democracy, it is obvious these outlets no longer have the sway they once did on the country.
That is a good thing.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Voting Machine

Uh-Oh: Looks Like Politico Is Dabbling In ‘Election Denying,’ Warning Voting Machines Could Be Hacked

Uh-Oh: Looks Like Politico Is Dabbling In 'Election Denying,' Warning Voting Machines Could Be Hacked

2022 Election

2022 Midterms

Elections

Politico

One of the nation&#8217;s largest school districts has been targeted in a cyberattack.
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) released a statement on Tuesday revealing the recent ransomware attack on its technology systems.
&#8220;Los Angeles Unified detected unusual activity in its Information Technology systems over the weekend, which after initial review, can be confirmed as an external cyber attack on our Information Technology assets,&#8221; the LAUSD&#8217;s <a href="https://achieve.lausd.net/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&amp;DomainID=4&amp;ModuleInstanceID=45662&amp;ViewID=5a34c2e3-8f9c-41db-86d5-75dba1e91cc2&amp;RenderLoc=0&amp;FlexDataID=122767&amp;PageID=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> read.
&#8220;Since the identification of the incident, which is likely criminal in nature, we continue to assess the situation with law enforcement agencies. While the investigation continues, Los Angeles Unified has swiftly implemented a response protocol to mitigate Districtwide disruptions, including access to email, computer systems and applications,&#8221; it added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Los Angeles Unified Targeted by Ransomware Attack
For more information, please visit <a href="https://t.co/Itdix5TlqK">https://t.co/Itdix5TlqK</a>. <a href="https://t.co/HDgktJKT0S">pic.twitter.com/HDgktJKT0S</a>
&mdash; Los Angeles Unified (@LASchools) <a href="https://twitter.com/LASchools/status/1567173899724652545?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 6, 2022</a></blockquote>
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The school district emphasized classes would continue on Tuesday. Backup mechanisms were put into place to ensure a safe school environment if network issues continue.
LAUSD also noted that the White House, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Education Department were investigating the weekend&#8217;s ransomware effort.
In addition to posting an update on its Twitter account and other social media platforms, the school district shared a post notifying all students and employees of the requirement to change passwords on LAUSD accounts.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Update on Resetting Your LAUSD Account Password <a href="https://t.co/MY5MdV1Zr6">pic.twitter.com/MY5MdV1Zr6</a>
&mdash; Los Angeles Unified (@LASchools) <a href="https://twitter.com/LASchools/status/1567169919590203392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 6, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The post noted that delays may occur due to high demand on the system.
The LAUSD first reported <a href="https://twitter.com/LASchools/status/1566920835616481280" target="_blank" rel="noopener">districtwide technical issues</a> on Monday due to &#8220;an external source.&#8221; Users of the website were met with a pop-up message notifying them of an outage.
The nation&#8217;s second-largest school district serves more than 600,000 students at more than 1,000 schools. LAUSD also operates more than 200 independently operated public charter schools, Variety <a href="https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/l-a-unified-school-district-ransomware-attack-hack-1235361483/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. The district&#8217;s boundaries &#8220;stretch across 720 square miles and include the City of Los Angeles as well as all or parts of 31 municipalities and several unincorporated regions of Southern California.&#8221;
The school system is not alone in facing cyberattacks. A January report revealed that California ranked the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/report-california-most-targeted-state-for-ransomware-attacks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">highest</a> among states in the nation for ransomware attacks. Nationwide, ransomware attacks on U.S. schools and colleges cost an <a href="https://www.comparitech.com/blog/information-security/school-ransomware-attacks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">estimated</a> $3.56 billion in 2021.
Nationally, the U.S. continues to address the threat of cyberattacks. Last month, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to urge better protection for the healthcare sector from attacks on threats on technology systems.
“With cyber threats growing exponentially, we must prioritize addressing the [health care and public health] sector’s cybersecurity gaps,” the two lawmakers <a href="https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warning-of-cyberthreats-to-health-care-networks-cyberspace-solarium-co-chairs-urge-biden-administration-to-improve-security" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>.
“Ransomware attacks on the sector have skyrocketed in the past two years as opportunistic criminals recognized that hospitals may pay quickly to resolve issues and protect patient safety,” it added.

Hacker attacking internet

Los Angeles School District Targeted In Cyberattack

Cyberattack

Education

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Software engineer John McAfee faked his death last summer and is living in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/united-states">United States</a>, his ex-girlfriend claims without evidence in a new <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/netflix" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Netflix</a> documentary that is set to air tomorrow.
“I don’t know if I should say, but two weeks ago, after his death, I got a call from Texas: ‘It’s me, John. I paid off people to pretend that I am dead, but I am not dead,’” ex-girlfriend Samantha Herrera <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/08/23/john-mcafee-faked-his-death-ex-girlfriend-claims-in-netflix-doc/">claims</a> in the documentary “Running With the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee.”
McAfee was awaiting extradition to the U.S. on tax evasion charges when he was found dead in a Barcelona prison cell, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/software-legend-murder-suspect-john-mcafees-corpse-still-in-morgue-year-after-alleged-suicide">reported</a>. The 75-year-old developer created the first commercial anti-virus software, which bore his name, but led a bizarre life fueled by drugs and conspiracies, and was widely suspected of killing a neighbor on the tropical island where they lived.
Herrera claims without evidence that McAfee told her that “there are only three persons in this world that know I’m still alive.”
Charlie Russell, who directed the documentary, was stunned by Herrera’s claim and did not know what to make of it.
“I don’t know what I think and I don’t think she does,” Russell <a href="https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a40953177/john-mcafee-documentary-director-interview/">said</a>. “She says it, then she looks at the camera, and I can’t work out whether she thinks it’s real or not. She’s someone who was very angry at John.&#8221;
McAfee had been jailed for eight months after being arrested in Spain following years on the run from U.S. law enforcement. His death was deemed a suicide, but McAfee’s widow, Janice McAfee, said he was not suicidal. She <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/john-mcafees-corpse-still-spanish-morgue-year-after-his-death-2022-06-23/">circulated</a> a petition to prompt Spanish authorities to release his body.
McAfee’s survivors believe the autopsy that determined the mercurial mogul had killed himself was flawed, and sought more study of his body. A judge denied the request, and the family has appealed that ruling. Meanwhile, McAfee’s body remains in the morgue pending the resolution of the case.
McAfee, who ran for president on a third-party ticket in 2016 and 2020, sold his software company in 1994 for a reported $100 million. He reportedly lost nearly all of his fortune in the financial crisis of 2008, but kept enough to live a lavish lifestyle on the Belize island of Ambergris Caye. In 2012, Belize police announced he was a person of interest in the killing of American Gregory Faull, 52, who was shot to death in his home near McAfee’s. Faull had allegedly complained about McAfee’s dogs.
Greg Wilson contributed to this report.

Le milliardaire américain John Mc Afee

Software Engineer John McAfee Faked His Death And Is Living In Texas, Ex-Girlfriend Claims In Documentary

Documentaries

John McAfee

Netflix

Devastating malware that lets criminals hack into banking accounts, steal data, and spy on computer users is suspected of being linked to terrorist group <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/hamas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hamas</a>&#8216; cyberwarfare division.
The so-called &#8220;Remote Administration Tool,&#8221; or RAT, is called Escanor and first surfaced on the Dark Web in January. It can infect computers through Microsoft Office documents, <a href="https://resecurity.com/blog/article/escanor-malware-delivered-in-weaponized-microsoft-office-documents">according</a> to Resecurity, which protects Fortune 500 companies. Computers have reportedly been infected in the U.S., Canada, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Mexico, Singapore, and Israel.
“The tool can be used to collect GPS coordinates of the victim, monitor key strokes, activate hidden cameras, and browse files on the remote mobile devices to steal data,” Resecurity warned.
The domain name behind the dangerous tool, &#8220;escanor[.]live,&#8221; may be linked to <a href="https://www.cybereason.com/hubfs/dam/collateral/reports/Molerats-in-the-Cloud-New-Malware-Arsenal-Abuses-Cloud-Platforms-in-Middle-East-Espionage-Campaign.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Molerats</a> and <a href="https://malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de/actor/aridviper" target="_blank" rel="noopener">APT-C-23</a>, two units of the Hamas cyberwarfare division. Security Affairs <a href="https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/134697/malware/escanor-malware-ms-docs.html">reported</a> that APT-C-23 is “known in particular to target Israeli military assets,” and that Molerats, which has been linked to Hamas, has been active for over a decade.
“It’s also tracked as Gaza Hackers Team, Gaza Cybergang, DustySky, Extreme Jackal, Moonlight and TA402 — some researchers believe there are multiple groups operating under the same umbrella,” <a href="https://www.securityweek.com/hamas-cyberspies-return-new-malware-after-exposure-operations">Security Week</a> reported.
Escanor is a version of an Android- and PC-based remote administration tool that hackers use to infect Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF documents with malware, according to <a href="https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/134697/malware/escanor-malware-ms-docs.html">Security Affairs</a>. But Escanor&#8217;s power has been souped up with elements taken from “cracked” versions of other Dark Web tools, according to the company.
The mobile version of Escanor, dubbed &#8216;Escape-RAT,&#8217; intercepts banking OTPs, or &#8220;one-time passwords&#8221; that are generated for customers who don&#8217;t choose their own. That allows the cybercriminal full access to the user&#8217;s account, and also can spread malware that allows the criminal to activate cameras, track users, and carry out other potentially devastating acts.
“Fraudsters monitor the location of the victim, and leverage Esca RAT to steal credentials to online-banking platforms and perform unauthorized access to compromised account from the same device and IP – in such case fraud prevention teams are not able to detect it and react timely,” malware analyst Ali Saifeldin said.
Escanor is a well-known force on the Dark Web, where criminals buy and sell an array of illegal goods and services. It also has over 28,000 subscribers on its Telegram channel. The actor behind the malware is believed to be the same person or persons behind other hacking tools sold on the Dark Web, including ones known as Venom RAT and Pandora HVNC, which may have been incorporated into Escanor.

Gunmen from the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military

Devastating Malware For Hacking Banking Accounts May Be Linked To Hamas

New Cyberattack Tool For Hacking Banking Accounts May Be Linked To Hamas

Hamas

Israel

A former executive at <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/twitter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter</a> alleged that the social media company had lackluster <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/cybersecurity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cybersecurity</a> safeguards, according to a whistleblower report obtained by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/23/tech/twitter-whistleblower-peiter-zatko-security/index.html">CNN</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2022/twitter-whistleblower-sec-spam/">The Washington Post</a>.
Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, the company’s former head of security who reported directly to the CEO, claimed that leadership misled board members and government officials about potential vulnerabilities that left the platform open to hacking, foreign manipulation, and spying. He also claimed that one or more current employees are working for a foreign intelligence agency.
“All engineers had access. There was no logging of who went into the environment or what they did,” Zatko wrote. “Nobody knew where data lived or whether it was critical, and all engineers had some form of critical access to the production environment.”
Zatko claimed that Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who entered his position upon the exit of Jack Dorsey last year, discouraged Zatko from accurately reporting cybersecurity shortfalls to the board of directors and instead told him to offer misrepresented data.
The whistleblower disclosure totaled roughly 200 pages and was sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Justice, as well as multiple congressional committees. Twitter rejected the claims of the report, which CNN obtained from a senior Democratic staffer, and said that Zatko was fired due to “ineffective leadership and poor performance” earlier this year.
“What we’ve seen so far is a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context,” a Twitter spokesperson told CNN. “Mr. Zatko’s allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders. Security and privacy have long been company-wide priorities at Twitter and will continue to be.”
Zatko alleged that Twitter officials do not have the resources or motivation necessary to determine the number of bots on the platform — a matter central to a legal battle over Elon Musk’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-purge-is-coming-twitter-explodes-after-elon-musk-tanks-44-billion-deal">proposal</a> to purchase Twitter, which the billionaire is trying to nix after claiming that executives repeatedly failed to offer a valid estimate for the number of monetizable daily active users (mDAU).
“We have already issued a subpoena for Mr. Zatko, and we found his exit and that of other key employees curious in light of what we have been finding,” Alex Spiro, an attorney for Musk, told CNN.
Earlier this week, Musk <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-musk-subpoenas-jack-dorsey-for-key-information-related-to-twitter-lawsuit">subpoenaed</a> Dorsey for documents related to “the impact or effect of false or spam accounts on Twitter’s business and operations,” as well as information about “any process or workflow, other than the mDAU Audit and the suspension workflow, that Twitter uses, has used, or has discussed or considered using to detect and label accounts as spam or false.”
Musk has said that the true number of bots could number as high as 33% rather than the company’s reported 5%, as a lower number of legitimate users could justify a lower company valuation. A trial to determine the status of the acquisition deal is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/its-happening-five-day-trial-date-set-for-elon-musk-twitter-dispute">slated</a> to occur in October.
Musk recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-musk-floats-potential-competitor-to-twitter">floated</a> the idea of refurbishing the website X.com as a new social media platform if the Twitter deal does not come to fruition. In 1999, the entrepreneur co-founded X.com as an online bank before it merged with Cofinity to become PayPal. Musk repurchased the domain name in 2017 since it has “sentimental value.”

In this photo illustration, a woman’s silhouette holds a

Former Twitter Executive Blows Whistle, Makes Explosive Claim Central To Musk Acquisition Deal

Twitter Cybersecurity Czar Blows Whistle

Business

Elon Musk

Twitter

On Friday, Apple urged its hundreds of millions of customers, from those owning iPhones to iPads to Mac computers, to update their devices because of a security flaw.
Apple wrote on its support page that the flaw permits a malicious application to “be able to execute arbitrary code with Kernel privileges,” which could mean full access for someone to the Apple user’s device.
“It’s very rare for them to go public like this, which means everyone should take this threat seriously and update as soon as they are able,” Brian Higgins, security specialist at Comparitech, asserted, according to <a href="https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/tech/apple-security-alert-apple-reveals-serious-security-flaw-in-iphones-ipads-and-macs-with-users-urged-to-update-devices-3811747">The Scotsman</a>. “If Apple think it’s so serious that they need to go public, then if you haven’t already installed iOS 15.6.1 you need to go and do it right now.”
The capacity to have full access is “a dream for somebody who is trying to get into your phone for surveillance,” stated Joe Tidy, cyber reporter for BBC News, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11126551/Apple-reveals-security-vulnerabilities-affecting-iPhones-iPads.html">The Daily Mail</a> reported. He added that it was “a very clever vulnerability that hackers have potentially discovered. &#8230; On paper this is a very serious situation for millions, billions of Apple users out there who have got this potential vulnerability.”
Tidy said that a “white hat hacker,” meaning an ethical hacker, had discovered the flaw.
Andy Norton, chief cyber risk officer at Armis, told The Daily Mail: “This clearly has wide-reaching implications. Apple products have become a mainstay of everyday life, facial recognition, banking apps, health data. Pretty much everything we hold dear resides on our Apple products. Historically, many people have not updated their Apple products for fear of shortening the lifespan of their devices. That behaviour now must change.”
Sam Curry, chief security officer at Cybereason, cautioned, “Regardless of Apple&#8217;s recent disclosure of a serious vulnerability affecting millions of iPhones, iPads and Macs, it wouldn&#8217;t be prudent for anyone to panic. &#8230; While the vulnerability could allow threat actors to take full control of a device, stay calm and simply get control of your devices and download the software updates available from Apple. Do that and move on. In a rare case, we will find out how threat actors were able to exploit the current vulnerabilities.”
“Apple has released security updates to address vulnerabilities in macOS Monterey, iOS and iPadOS, and Safari,” the U.S. Government&#8217;s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency <a href="https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/current-activity/2022/08/18/apple-releases-security-updates-multiple-products">wrote</a>. “An attacker could exploit one of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected device. CISA encourages users and administrators to review the <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222">Apple security updates</a> page for the following products and apply the necessary updates as soon as possible.”
Devices affected by the security flaw include, iPhone (6S and later), iPad Pro, iPad Air (2 and later), iPad (5th generation and later), iPad Mini (4 and later), iPod Touch (7th generation) and Mac computers (on MacOS Monterey, 12.5.1)
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Apple security update

Apple Warns Hundreds Of Millions Of Users: Update Security Now, Security Flaw Found

Apple Warns Users: Update Security Now, Security Flaw Found

Apple

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