Ellen Nakashima

Encryption? Law enforcement’s biggest obstacle to digital evidence is more basic, study finds.

The major problem law enforcement faces in obtaining digital evidence is not the encryption of devices but figuring out which company holds the relevant data and how to get it, according to a study released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Though much of the debate around access to digital evidence has focused on the challenges law enforcement agencies face in cracking encrypted devices or decoding encrypted data, CSIS researchers William A.

Justice Department plans to alert public to foreign operations targeting US democracy

The Justice Department plans to alert the public to foreign operations targeting US democracy under a new policy designed to counter hacking and disinformation campaigns such as the one Russia undertook in 2016 to disrupt the presidential election. The government will inform American companies, private organizations and individuals that they are being covertly attacked by foreign actors attempting to affect elections or the political process. “Exposing schemes to the public is an important way to neutralize them,” said Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.

NSA and Cyber Command to coordinate actions to counter Russian election interference in 2018 amid absence of White House guidance

National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone -- the head of the nation’s largest electronic spy agency and the military’s cyberwarfare arm -- has quietly directed the two organizations to coordinate actions to counter potential Russian interference in the 2018 midterm elections. The move is an attempt to maximize the efforts of the two groups and comes as President Donald Trump said Russian President Vladi­mir Putin was “extremely strong and powerful” in denying Russian involvement in the presidential election two years ago.

Tech didn’t spot Russian interference during the last election. Now it’s asking law enforcement for help.

Silicon Valley companies and law enforcement are starting to talk about how to ward off meddling by malicious actors including Russia on social media in the November midterms, an attempt at dialogue and information-sharing that was absent during the 2016 presidential elections.

Paul Manafort ordered to jail after witness-tampering charges

A federal judge ordered Paul Manafort to jail over charges he tampered with witnesses while out on bail — a major blow for President Trump’s former campaign chairman as he awaits trial on federal conspiracy and money-laundering charges.  “You have abused the trust placed in you six months ago,” US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson told Manafort.

Democratic Party files lawsuit alleging Russia, the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks conspired to disrupt the 2016 campaign

The Democratic National Committee filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Russian government, the Trump campaign and the WikiLeaks organization alleging a far-reaching conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 campaign and tilt the election to Donald Trump.  The complaint, filed in federal district court in Manhattan, alleges that top Trump campaign officials conspired with the Russian government and its military spy agency to hurt Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and help Trump by hacking the computer networks of the Democratic Party and disseminating stolen material found ther

US, British governments say Russia has hacked routers used by businesses globally

The US and British governments accused Russia of conducting a massive campaign to compromise computer routers and firewalls around the world — from home offices to Internet providers — for espionage and possibly sabotage purposes.  The unusual public warning from the White House, US agencies and Britain’s National Cyber Security Center results from monitoring the threat dating back more than a year. It was the two countries’ first such joint alert. “We have high confidence that Russia has carried out a coordinated campaign to compromise ...

Justice Department asks Supreme Court to moot Microsoft email case, citing new law

Now that Congress has made clear that a US search warrant covers emails stored overseas, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to moot a case involving a data demand issued to Microsoft for a drug-trafficking suspect’s emails held in Ireland. The case, argued in February 2018, centered on whether a US tech firm must comply with a court order to produce emails even if they are stored abroad — in this instance, in a Dublin server. On March 23, Congress passed, and President Trump signed, the Cloud Act.

Trump administration hits Iranian hacker network with sanctions, indictments in vast global campaign

The Trump administration announced sanctions and criminal indictments against an Iranian hacker network it said was involved in “one of the largest state-sponsored hacking campaigns” ever prosecuted by the United States, targeting hundreds of US and foreign universities, as well as dozens of US companies and government agencies, and the United Nations. None of the alleged hackers were direct employees of the Iranian government, but all worked at the behest of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, officials said.

Trump administration hits Russian spies, trolls with sanctions over US election interference, cyberattacks

The Trump administration imposed fresh financial sanctions on Russian government hackers and spy agencies to punish Moscow for interfering in the 2016 presidential election, and for a cyberattack against Ukraine and other countries that officials have characterized as “the most destructive and costly” in history. Sanctions also were imposed on individuals known as “trolls” and the Russian organizations that supported their efforts to undermine the election. Additionally, the administration alerted the public that Russia is targeting the U.S.

Supreme Court to hear Microsoft case: A question of law and borders

The Supreme Court is set to hear a case that could have far-reaching implications for law enforcement access to digital data and for US companies that store customer emails in servers overseas. What began as a challenge by tech giant Microsoft to a routine search warrant for a suspected drug dealer’s emails has become a marquee case over data access in the Internet age. At issue is whether a US company must comply with a court order to turn over emails, even if they are held abroad — in this case in a Dublin server.

Russian spies hacked the Olympics and tried to make it look like North Korea did it, US officials say

Russian military spies hacked several hundred computers used by authorities at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea, according to US intelligence. They did so while trying to make it appear as though the intrusion was conducted by North Korea, what is known as a “false-flag” operation. Analysts surmise the disruption was retaliation against the International Olympic Committee for banning the Russian team from the Winter Games due to doping violations. As of early February, the Russian military agency GRU had access to as many as 300 Olympic-related computers, according to an intelli

The nation’s top spies said Russia will attempt to undermine the 2018 midterm elections

The nation’s top intelligence chiefs testified Feb 13 that they fully expect Russia to seek to disrupt the 2018 midterm elections. Appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats said that Russia will continue using propaganda, false personas and social media to undermine the upcoming elections.

Nunes memo centers on a 40-year-old law written to prevent surveillance abuses

At the center of the firestorm over a congressional memo that President Trump and his allies say reveals federal authorities’ missteps is a 40-year-old law passed in the wake of explosive domestic spying scandals. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) grew from congressional investigations into spy agencies’ eavesdropping on Americans, including civil rights activists and protesters against the Vietnam War, without warrants. The law created a warrant requirement for federal authorities to intercept the communications of anyone in the United States, including foreigners.

House poised to vote this week on renewal of major surveillance program

After months of wrangling between national security hawks and privacy advocates, the House will vote this week on a long-term extension of a surveillance program that allows the government to gather foreign intelligence on US soil. Should the bill pass unchanged, Senate leaders say they expect their chamber to approve it before it expires on Jan. 19. But privacy advocates in the House are backing an amendment that would impose a set of restraints.

FBI chief calls encryption a ‘major public safety issue’

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray renewed a call for tech companies to help law enforcement officials gain access to encrypted smartphones, describing it as a “major public safety issue.”  Director Wray said the bureau was unable to gain access to the content of 7,775 devices in fiscal 2017 — more than half of all the smartphones it tried to crack in that time period — despite having a warrant from a judge. “Being unable to access nearly 7,800 devices in a single year is a major public safety issue,” he said, taking up a theme that was a signature issue of his predecessor, James B. Comey.

Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options

The events surrounding the FBI’s NorthernNight investigation follow a pattern that repeated for years as the Russian threat was building: US intelligence and law enforcement agencies saw some warning signs of Russian meddling in Europe and later in the United States but never fully grasped the breadth of the Kremlin’s ambitions. Top US policymakers didn’t appreciate the dangers, then scrambled to draw up options to fight back.

Senate bill would impose new privacy limits on accessing NSA’s surveillance data

Sens Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Mike Lee (R-UT) released their bipartisan proposal to renew a powerful surveillance authority for collecting foreign intelligence on US soil, but with a new brake on the government’s ability to access the data. The bill would require government agencies to obtain a warrant before reviewing communications to or from Americans harvested by the National Security Agency under the surveillance authority known informally as Section 702. The measure stands little chance of passage.

President Trump asked intelligence chiefs to push back against FBI collusion probe after Comey revealed its existence

President Donald Trump asked two of the nation’s top intelligence officials in March to help him push back against an FBI investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and the Russian government, according to current and former officials.

President Trump made separate appeals to the director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, and to Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election. Coats and Rogers refused to comply with the requests, which they both deemed to be inappropriate, according to two current and two former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private communications with the President. President Trump sought the assistance of Coats and Rogers after FBI Director James Comey told the House Intelligence Committee on March 20 that the FBI was investigating “the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”

Trump’s conversation with Rogers was documented contemporaneously in an internal memo written by a senior NSA official, according to the officials. It is unclear if a similar memo was prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to document Trump’s conversation with Coats. Officials said such memos could be made available to both the special counsel now overseeing the Russia investigation and congressional investigators, who might explore whether Trump sought to impede the FBI’s work.

DOJ debating charges against WikiLeaks members in revelations of diplomatic, CIA materials

Federal prosecutors are weighing whether to bring criminal charges against members of the WikiLeaks organization, taking a second look at a 2010 leak of diplomatic cables and military documents and investigating whether the group bears criminal responsibility for the more recent revelation of sensitive CIA cyber-tools, apparently.

The Justice Department under President Barack Obama decided not to charge WikiLeaks for revealing some of the government’s most sensitive secrets — concluding that doing so would be akin to prosecuting a news organization for publishing classified information. Justice Department leadership under President Trump, though, has indicated to prosecutors that it is open to taking another look at the case, which the Obama administration did not formally close. It is not clear whether prosecutors are also looking at WikiLeaks’ role in 2016 in publishing e-mails from the Democratic National Committee and the account of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John D. Podesta, which US officials have said were hacked by the Russian government.

FBI obtained FISA warrant to monitor Trump adviser Carter Page

The FBI obtained a secret court order in 2016 to monitor the communications of an adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump, part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the campaign, law enforcement and other US officials said.

The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials. This is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump campaign adviser was in touch with Russian agents. Such contacts are now at the center of an investigation into whether the campaign coordinated with the Russian government to swing the election in Trump’s favor.

FBI Director Comey confirms probe of possible coordination between Kremlin and Trump campaign

FBI Director James B. Comey acknowledged that his agency is conducting an investigation into possible coordination between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign in a counterintelligence probe that could reach all the way to the White House and may last for months. At the same time, Comey repeatedly refused to answer whether specific individuals close to the president had fallen under suspicion of any criminal wrongdoing, “so we don’t wind up smearing people” who may not be charged with a crime.

The extraordinary disclosure came near the beginning of a sprawling, 5.5 hour public hearing by the House Intelligence Committee, the panel’s first into the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. The FBI traditionally does not disclose the existence of an investigation, “but in unusual circumstances, where it is in the public interest,” Comey said, “it may be appropriate to do so.” Comey also said he was authorized by the Justice Department to confirm the existence of the wide-ranging probe into Russian interference in the electoral process.

Justice Department charges Russian spies and criminal hackers in Yahoo intrusion

The Justice Department announced the indictments of two Russian spies and two criminal hackers in connection with the heist of 500 million Yahoo user accounts in 2014, marking the first US criminal cyber charges ever against Russian government officials. The indictments target two members of the Russian intelligence agency FSB, and two hackers hired by the Russians. The charges include hacking, wire fraud, trade secret theft and economic espionage, according to officials. The indictments are part of the largest hacking case brought by the United States.

The charges are unrelated to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. But the move reflects the US government’s increasing desire to hold foreign governments accountable for malicious acts in cyberspace.

How hard is it to get an intelligence wiretap? Pretty hard.

Wiretaps on Americans in foreign intelligence investigations are not easy to get. And if you’re a candidate for president, it’s even harder.

That’s the experience of current and former senior US officials who expressed disbelief at President Trump’s accusation — leveled without any evidence — that President Barack Obama had the candidate wiretapped at Trump Tower before the November election. Senior officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because such matters are classified, said that there had been no wiretap on President Trump.