US Senate Staff Targeted By State-Backed Hackers, Senator Says (pbs.org) 62
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PBS NewsHour: Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said in a Wednesday letter to Senate leaders that his office discovered that "at least one major technology company" has warned an unspecified number of senators and aides that their personal email accounts were "targeted by foreign government hackers." Similar methods were employed by Russian military agents who leaked the contents of private email inboxes to influence the 2016 elections. Wyden did not specify the timing of the notifications, but a Senate staffer said they occurred "in the last few weeks or months." But the senator said the Office of the Sergeant at Arms, which oversees Senate security, informed legislators and staffers that it has no authority to help secure personal, rather than official, accounts. "This must change," Wyden wrote in the letter. "The November election grows ever closer, Russia continues its attacks on our democracy, and the Senate simply does not have the luxury of further delays."
Lessons not learned? (Score:4)
If anybody who works for a high profile hacking target like a senator still uses their personal e-mail for work related business, they're a complete idiot.
Looking forward to the next round of leaks...
Re: (Score:3)
Well, then, it strikes me that they have two options:
1) Have the integrity necessary to not engage in personal behavior that runs contrary to your public image. Good luck with that.
2) Use some balance of carrots and sticks to encourage services to better protect our data/not keep it in the first place, but also provide more teeth for going after the bad guys.
They can do both if they want, but they don’t get to institutionalize the routine violation of our right to privacy and then complain about the s
Re: (Score:1)
No one said they were using their personal e-mail for work related business. The problem is that these people buy porn and organize hunting trips, and details are in their personal e-mail. Basically they have things to hide.
Even if people have nothing illegal or even unethical to hide, they have privacy, can be embarrassed, can feel threatened, have family and personal relationships that can be targeted for leverage, have financial situations that can be exploited and in the age of GPS devices movements can be targeted which can leave people open to well targeted attacks or attempts to make contacts for espionage.
I mean as a national security professional how would you feel if agents of a foreign power know that your wife pick
Don't worry (Score:1)
All indications are that all but 15 of the Senators use their personal accounts for official business.
The 15 are confirmed to still be at Western Union sending telegrams.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why don't they want those email exchanges to go down on public record?
Guess.
Re: (Score:2)
Well...duh. (Score:2, Insightful)
1) It's unsurprising that this was floated by a Democrat, whose party has been essentially asserting that the Russians stole the election by unspecified "hacking" (leaving furrows in the turf as the goalposts constantly shift on what THAT means). ... the idea that Senate offices/staff may be the targets of nefarious hacking attempts (regardless of party affiliation) is really so obvious that it falls into the "don't run with scissors" category.
2) Nevertheless
I know the men and women of our government are ob
Prepared excuses (Score:1)
They're just preparing their excuses if the midterms don't go their way.
Re: (Score:2)
I know the men and women of our government are oblivious and at least 1.5 decades behind any technological curve, but do they really have to be told this?
While many certainly are, there are a lot of them who regularly use the latest technology and are frustrated by the government's "Yesterday's Technology Deployed Tomorrow" approach to systems. It's quicker and easier to send a text from your own phone than to find a desktop to send an Outlook Webmail email; not to mention the "so an so is a real ass" comments you don't want archived forever.
Part of the reason is also a broader cultural one; we have become so used to instant communication and using technol
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
1) It's unsurprising that this was floated by a Democrat, whose party has been essentially asserting that the Russians stole the election by unspecified "hacking"
The FBI and CIA (you know, the "intelligence community"?) has been saying it, the Democrats have been repeating it.
2) Nevertheless ... the idea that Senate offices/staff may be the targets of nefarious hacking attempts (regardless of party affiliation) is really so obvious that it falls into the "don't run with scissors" category.
Yes, but the idea that it's coming from a specific nation and we're not doing anything about it falls into the "traitorous and incompetent" category.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
The FBI and CIA (you know, the "intelligence community"?) has been saying it, the Democrats have been repeating it.
Because politics NEVER entered the leadership of the FBI and the CIA, amirite?
Re: (Score:1)
The Democrats never provided the DNC server to be inspected by the FBI or CIA. Instead, every agency in the government has been echoing the debunked report from a private firm that said exactly what the DNC wanted it to say: that their servers were hacked by a Russian spy ring. Perhaps they were and perhaps they were not, but it is apparent that the DNC hack itself was committed by an insider b
Re: (Score:2)
yet the Democrats (and you) are so insanely against Trump that you have finally agreed that Russia is once again our enemy.
The Democrats,along with the FBI and the CIA.
A China is big on stealing secrets, but Russians are the masters of social engineering.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Still using private e-mail? (Score:4, Insightful)
Off course the master-at-arms isn't going to secure your private e-mail, you shouldn't be using it.
This is pretty blatant admission of law avoidance by D-Wyden. Where is the FBI on that investigation?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Off course the master-at-arms isn't going to secure your private e-mail, you shouldn't be using it.
This is pretty blatant admission of law avoidance by D-Wyden. Where is the FBI on that investigation?
WTF are you going on about. Of course they have personal email. There are things that are illegal for them to use a government account on, like campaigning.
Re: (Score:2)
Senator Wyden, your entitlement is showing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Senator Wyden,
None of the other 300+ million US Citizens have their personal email "secured" by law enforcement authorities either. Maybe you shouldn't be keeping secure info in your personal email either. That's what your official @senate.gov email is for, which IS secured by law enforcement.
If you would like your personal email to be secure, you should probably self-fund that, just like everyone else. Or, get used to the idea that email isn't secure, at all.
Warm regards,
Everyone else that isn't an entitled jackass Senator.
PS if this is an attempt to set the table for more excuses for electoral losses in November, it's not a good one. Complaining about "email hacking" when bad shit comes out makes you and your compatriots look like idiots because you were using insecure systems to hide shit from your bosses - the people. By far, the best, most effective way to not have disclosures of shady shit stolen from your email, is to not have shady shit in your email.
Re: (Score:2)
None of the other 300+ million US Citizens have their personal email "secured" by law enforcement authorities either. Maybe you shouldn't be keeping secure info in your personal email either.
This is what I was thinking of saying, but don't bother. He isn't listening. I could send him megabytes (at least) of logs of failed ssh login attempts on the servers I run, most of which are originating in China. But Russia "hacking email" (which for Podesta was "please send us your email password") is bad bad bad bad.
This is the senator who proudly said:
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I know, damn that evil Ron Wyden. He should follow the example
He should act on things he knows are wrong instead of just saying the equivalent of "if you knew what I know you'd be mad." What other people do with their problems is irrelevant.
It's really hard to forget his example of leadership in campaigning, where he came out one day saying he was going to run the most ethical and honest campaign for Senate, and then the next day we got to see the ads claiming his opponent had killed a teenager. (The teenager had been killed in a farming accident on a farm run by th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Senator Wyden sits on the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He knows damn well that the NSA is doing the exact same shit to the countries that are doing this to us, and I'm sure he's perfectly fine with that.
What goes around, comes around. Plus, he married a rich New Yorker and spends most of his "not-in-Washington" time in Manhattan. He's only a senator from Oregon by name, and comes back to visit Oregon every 6 years or so to get re-elected; not that Oregon would ever vote for any of the stif
Hacking e-mail? Amateur! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Better yet, Wyden is on the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He probably knows about, if not voted to authorize, CIA / NSA hacking of other countries leaders' email accounts.
The stench of hypocrisy is a bit too much to take on this one.
Re: (Score:2)
Russia boogie man (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The Russians did it the Russians did it. Just more crap by the socialist liberals that want to take away your rights.
Dah, Comrade! You is right!
here's a suggestion (Score:1)
Yes, it must change: stop using personal E-mail for official business. See, that was simple.
Re:using my email for work (Score:1)
You want it to change, put up a list of everyone who uses their personal email for work so that the population can vote against them.
I have NEVER and i mean NEVER worked for any company that allows me to use my personal email for work related things. I would like anyone to show me a company that allows for such things.
Here's one data point - I use my Gmail account for work all the time. Yes, my company knows and allows it. But I'm just a contract archaeologist, I'm not doing anything political, classified, or liable to shake the wall of decorum. If I were involved in something that might turn political, or that involved classified or government monitored operations, or that would scare the horses, I'd take the time to use company email. No, I'm not gonna give you my RL name, who the fuck are you, voices on the interne
What he actually said... (Score:2)