Thread by @Monaheart1229

Trump has made us so vulnerable on the World stage that the hackers just aren't stopping, but neither is the FBI. Hope Trump doesn't undermine the DOJ to the point where they can no longer sustain these actions..
#MondayMotivation
nytimes.com/2019/02/18/tec…

2-"SAN FRANCISCO — Businesses and government agencies in the United States have been targeted in aggressive attacks by Iranian and Chinese hackers who security experts believe have been energized by President Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal last year and his trade

3-"conflicts with China. Recent Iranian attacks on American banks, businesses and government agencies have been more extensive than previously reported. Dozens of corporations and multiple United States agencies have been hit, according to seven people briefed on the episodes

4-"who were not authorized to discuss them publicly. The attacks, attributed to Iran by analysts at the National Security Agency and the private security firm FireEye, prompted an emergency order by the Department of Homeland Security during the government shutdown last month.

5-"The Iranian attacks coincide with a renewed Chinese offensive geared toward stealing trade and military secrets from American military contractors and technology companies, according to nine intelligence officials, private security researchers and lawyers familiar with the

6-"attacks who discussed them on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. A summary of an intelligence briefing read to The New York Times said that Boeing, General Electric Aviation and T-Mobile were among the recent targets of Chinese industrial-

7-"espionage efforts. The companies all declined to discuss the threats, and it is not clear if any of the hacks were successful. Chinese cyberespionage cooled four years ago after President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping of China reached a landmark deal to stop hacks

8-"meant to steal trade secrets. But the 2015 agreement appears to have been unofficially canceled amid the continuing trade tension between the United States and China, the intelligence officials and private security researchers said. Chinese hacks have returned to earlier

9-"levels, although they are now stealthier and more sophisticated. “Cyber is one of the ways adversaries can attack us and retaliate in effective and nasty ways that are well below the threshold of an armed attack or laws of war,” said Joel Brenner, a former leader of

10-"United States counterintelligence under the director of national intelligence. Federal agencies and private companies are back to where they were five years ago: battling increasingly sophisticated, government-affiliated hackers from China and Iran — in addition to fighting

11-"constant efforts out of Russia — who hope to steal trade and military secrets and sow mayhem. And it appears the hackers substantially improved their skills during the lull. Russia is still considered America’s foremost hacking adversary. In addition to meddling widely and

12-"spreading disinformation during United States elections, Russian hackers are believed to have launched attacks on nuclear plants, the electrical grid and other targets. Threats from China and Iran never stopped entirely, but Iranian hackers became much less active after the

13-"nuclear deal was signed in 2015. And for about 18 months, intelligence officials concluded, Beijing backed off its 10-year online effort to steal trade secrets. But Chinese hackers have resumed carrying out commercially motivated attacks, security researchers and

14-"data-protection lawyers said. A priority for the hackers, researchers said, is supporting Beijing’s five-year economic plan, which is meant to make China a leader in artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies. “Some of the recent intelligence collection has

15-" been for military purposes or preparing for some future cyber conflict, but a lot of the recent theft is driven by the demands of the five-year plan and other technology strategies,” said Adam Segal, the director of the cyberspace program at the Council on Foreign Relations.

16-"“They always intended on coming back.” ..Mr. Segal and other Chinese security experts said attacks that once would have been conducted by hackers in China’s People’s Liberation Army are now being run by China’s Ministry of State Security. These hackers are better at covering

17-" their tracks. Rather than going at targets directly, they have used a side door of sorts by breaking into the networks of the targets’ suppliers. They have also avoided using malware commonly attributed to China, relying instead on encrypting traffic, erasing server logs

18-"and other obfuscation tactics...Many of the attacks by the Chinese Ministry of State Security have been against strategic targets like internet service providers with access to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of corporate and government networks..

19-"Federal agencies are also trying to fend off new Iranian espionage campaigns...The Iranian attacks, which hit more than a half-dozen federal agencies last month, still caught the department off guard. Security researchers said the hacks, which exploited underlying weaknesses

20-"in the internet’s backbone, were continuing and were more damaging and widespread than agency officials had acknowledged. Iranian hackers began their latest wave of attacks in Persian Gulf states last year. Since then, they have expanded to 80 targets — including internet

21-"service providers, telecommunications companies and government agencies — in 12 European countries and the United States, according to researchers at FireEye, which first reported the attacks last month...There is a long history of Iranian attacks against the United States,

22-" and episodes from five years back or longer are just now being made public..On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced an indictment against a former Air Force intelligence specialist, Monica Witt, on charges of helping Iran with an online espionage campaign.

23-"Four members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were also charged with “computer intrusions and aggravated identity theft” directed at members of the United States intelligence community..“If you tell the Iranians you’re going to walk out on the agreement and do

24-" everything you can to undermine their government,” said Mr. Brenner, the former counterintelligence official, “you can’t be surprised if they attack our government networks.” ~Excerpts NYT, 2/17/19