Hackers Attempt to Hold Capitol Hill Data for Ransom

[LiberalArkie]

Source: The Intercept

May 10 2016, 5:04 p.m.

The House is under attack by hackers hoping to infiltrate congressional computers, encrypt their contents, and then force users to pay a ransom to get their access back.

“In the past 48 hours, the House Information Security Office has seen an increase of attacks on the House Network using third party, web-based mail applications such as YahooMail, Gmail,” the House’s Technology Service Desk wrote in an email to House staffers on April 30.

According to the email obtained by The Intercept, the hacked emails impersonate familiar people and invite staffers to download an attachment laced with malware—what’s known as a “phishing” attack.

“When a user clicks on the link in the attack e-mail, the malware encrypts all files on that computer, including shared files, making them unusable until a ‘ransom’ is paid,” the email said.

Snip

Read more: https://theintercept.com/2016/05/10/hackers-attempt-to-hold-capitol-hill-data-for-ransom/

[tomm2thumbs]

1. pretty startling info in the article

"Access to both YahooMail and Google Cloud services hosted by Google’s appspot.com appear to be completely blocked on the House’s network, according to Ted Henderson, a former Hill staffer and founder of two social-network applications designed for Capitol Hill communication: Cloakroom and Capitol Bells.

Henderson says his several thousand users cannot post to the social networks inside the House office buildings. The way Cloakroom works, you’re normally able to log-in either anonymously simply by using Capitol Hill Wi-Fi or with your staff email address.

“This is the first time I’ve seen this happen at a scale like this in five years,” Henderson wrote The Intercept in an email."

[scscholar]

2. So Hillary was right...

to hire an outside expert? This is sad security.

[LiberalArkie]

3. It was the reps that did it to themselves. Usually get something at home and bring it to work with

them. Hillarys thing was that State would not pay for a Blackberry server. Rice and someone else who were SOS bought servers and had them installed at state behind the firewall. Hillary would not buy it and have to keep the server at work.

[tk2kewl]

4. "expert"

[KeepItReal]

5. A real expert would not have taken the job.

The sitting Secretary of State wants you to set up a email server in her house for her personal domain "ClintonEmail.com" and link it to her Blackberry so she can avoid using her secure, State Department-issued email?

The whole idea smacks of off-the-books shadiness.

Have at it, "outside expert".

ps: It would be fine if it was for just personal communications that you don't wanna do on the State Department email network (no security risks if your personal emails get hacked), but she used it for State business, also.

[FailureToCommunicate]

6. Best explanation yet for her actions!

Thank you!

[KeepItReal]

7. You're welcome.

I've done that kind of email provisioning for my own small businesses.

It's just not smart to do this home-based email server and personal Blackberry scheme when you have security clearances and Freedom of Information Act requests to be in compliance with.

I still think someone should have raised a red flag the first time they got a work-related email from [e-mail] (or whatever the actual username was).

Unfortunately, everyone at work went along with that mess.

[scscholar]

8. How would he possibly know...

what she intended to use it for? It's just a mail server. I setup my first one twenty-six years ago for a college. I had no way of knowing that email would later be used to subvert Title IX. Am I to blame for that?

[Skittles]

9. it is Hillary and they hate her

therefore, it had to be VERY BAD INDEED

[KeepItReal]

10. Hillary gave the dude who set up the email server a job in State Dept tech.

Which means he knew EXACTLY how the system was being used.

It wasn't a setup, verify the email works, and move on to another assignment.

That guy got a position in State Department I.T. as a political appointee after he set up her email communications.

More shadiness.

Pagliano was responsible for setting up the now-infamous private server in the basement of the Clinton's home in Chappaqua, New York. He has since become a key witness in the FBI inquiry into the handling of sensitive material on that server and has been granted immunity by the Justice Department in exchange for his cooperation.

“It’s hard to believe that an IT staffer who set up Hillary Clinton’s reckless email server never sent or received a single work-related email in the four years he worked at the State Department," the RNC's Deputy Communications Director, Raj Shah, said in a statement to ABC News. "Such records might shed light on his role in setting up Clinton’s server, and why he was granted immunity by the FBI. But it seems that his emails were either destroyed or never turned over, adding yet another layer to the secrecy surrounding his role.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/emails-found-hillary-clintons-senior-staffer-state-department/story?id=38989504