JTA — The mayor of Los Angeles has denounced as “abhorrent” and antisemitic a protest that disrupted an event held Wednesday on the campus of the historic Wilshire Boulevard Temple, one of the largest synagogues in the city.

Two people were arrested during the incident, which took place after activists who were protesting outside the synagogue entered an event featuring Jewish security professionals and disrupted it.

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Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/anti-israel-activists-disrupt-israeli-consulate-event-at-la-synagogue-two-arrested/?fbclid=IwY2xjawOkGE1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeIL3Q1yhOVxBLo667gVMQ6NQAaQkOpJrSq7JLjVDVOOEKZ2D4Evrx74Cwk8g_aem_yTi94WKDQGnhLdfIU4cv_w

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A big leak of data from a Chinese cybersecurity firm has revealed state security agents paying tens of thousands of pounds to harvest data on targets, including foreign governments, while hackers hoover up huge amounts of information on any person or institution who might be of interest to their prospective clients.

The cache of more than 500 leaked files from the Chinese firm I-Soon was posted on the developer website Github and is thought by cybersecurity experts to be genuine. Some of the targets discussed include Nato and the UK Foreign Office.

The leak provides an unprecedented insight into the world of China’s hackers for hire, which the head of the UK’s security services has called a “massive” challenge for the country.

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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/23/huge-cybersecurity-leak-lifts-lid-on-world-of-chinas-hackers-for-hire

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Germany has traditionally prioritized defense over offense in cyberspace. That’s now beginning to change.

The post Germany Develops Offensive Cyber Capabilities Without A Coherent Strategy of What to Do With Them first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

A computer expert operates at the NATO Computer Incident Response Capability (NCIRC) technical centre, at NATO’s military headquarters in Mons, southwestern Belgium. (Yves Logghe/Associated Press)

A NATO draft report says the problem of Russian meddling in democratic elections continues to evolve and alliance members must be ready to meet the threat.

U.S. Democratic congresswoman Susan Davis told NATO’s science and technology committee meeting in Halifax that Russian interference continued in the early stages of the recent mid-term elections in her country, although not on the scale seen during the 2016 presidential election.

Davis says technology companies shut down hundreds of fake accounts aiming to disrupt the elections.

She says some of the accounts identified and deleted were also Iranian, and the U.S. government now believes other states, including China, are emulating Russia’s tactics.

Russians still ‘a step ahead of us’

Giorgi Kandelaki of the delegation from Georgia, which is seeking closer tied to NATO, told the committee that he was the victim of a Russian-inspired disinformation campaign that popped up on Facebook news feeds.

Kandelaki says his experience taught him that the Russians are still “a step ahead of us” and he added that so far the threat response has been largely through “conferences and seminars.”

The report was presented as part of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Halifax.

Defending against cyberattacks

James Stavridis, a retired U.S. Navy admiral who once served as the top NATO commander, spoke to CBC’s Wendy Mesley on The Weekly about the new NATO Cyber Operations Centre in Belgium, which NATO deference ministers agreed to create last year.

Canada hasn’t signed on so far in the alliance’s bid to get ready for cyber warfare. Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan has said he first wants to make sure Canada has “the right capabilities so we are able to contribute appropriately as well.”

Vulnerabilities in cybersecurity could leave electric grids open to attack, Stavridis said

He said the new centre is to be staffed by military personnel and civilians from each of the 29 nations in NATO and will begin by protecting NATO military cyberactivities. Over time, the idea is to expand it, so it can participate in the defense of the electrical grid in any of the NATO countries.

As for social media meddling in the 2019 Canadian general election, Stavridis said it should be expected.

Retired U.S. Navy admiral James Stavridis, former supreme allied commander of NATO, said the new cyber operations centre in Belgium is a ‘big, bold idea’ that is ‘just starting out’ to protect NATO countries against cyberthreats. (CBC)

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Facebook has identified and banned hundreds of accounts, groups and pages engaged in misleading political behavior, a far larger discovery than a “sophisticated” effort it reported three weeks ago with great fanfare.

The social network said Tuesday that it had removed 652 pages, groups, and accounts linked to Russia and, unexpectedly, Iran, for “coordinated inauthentic behavior” that included the sharing of political material.

Facebook has significantly stepped up policing of its platform since last year, when it acknowledged that Russian agents successfully ran political influence operations on its platform that were aimed at swaying the 2016 presidential election. Other social media networks have done likewise, and continue to turn up fresh evidence of political disinformation campaigns.

Facebook’s action in late July against 32 accounts possibly linked to Russia generally involved U.S. political activity ahead of the midterm elections in November. By contrast, the latest group of apparently fake accounts appeared more intent on influencing U.S. foreign policy and regional politics in the Middle East.

Shortly after Facebook’s announcement, Twitter revealed that it had also suspended 284 accounts for “coordinated manipulation,” many of them apparently originating from Iran. A day earlier, Microsoft also reported a new Russian effort to impersonate conservative U.S. websites , potentially as part of an espionage campaign.

The social network said it had not concluded its review of the material and declined to say how or why the state-backed actors were behaving the way they did. But it said it has informed the U.S. and U.K. governments as well as the U.S. Treasury and State departments because of ongoing sanctions against Iran.

“There’s a lot we don’t know yet,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a hastily called conference call with reporters Tuesday afternoon.

“You’re going to see people try to abuse the services in every way possible … including now nation states,” he said. He described the deception campaigns as “sophisticated and well-funded efforts that aren’t going to stop.”

FireEye, a cybersecurity firm that alerted Facebook to some of this activity, noted that it “does not appear to have been specifically designed to influence the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, as it extends well beyond U.S. audiences and U.S. politics.”

Facebook said its latest action on Tuesday morning resulted from four investigations — three involving Iran, one involving Russia.

The first focused on a group called “Liberty Front Press” that set up multiple accounts on Facebook and Instagram that were followed by 155,000 other accounts. The group was linked to Iranian state media based on website registrations, IP addresses and administrator accounts, Facebook said. The first accounts were created in 2013 and posted political content about the Middle East, the U.K., and the U.S., although the focus on the West increased starting last year, Facebook said.

“The Iranians are now following the Kremlin’s playbook,” said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee. On Sept. 5, leaders of Facebook, Google and Twitter are scheduled to testify before the intelligence committee about their efforts to combat political disinformation on their social media networks.

FireEye called the Liberty Front Press group an influence operation apparently aimed at promoting Iranian political interests “including anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian themes” and support for the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal.

President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from that agreement earlier this year.

While that group did not appear to be attempting to influence the U.S. midterms, FireEye said its analysis “does not preclude such attempts being made.” Several social media personas it found related to the group masqueraded as liberal U.S. activists who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders. One persona also used the Twitter handle “@berniecratss” and listed its location as the United States even though the phone number associated with it began with Iran’s country code, +98.

The group’s activity included “significant anti-Trump messaging,” but FireEye said in a detailed report “the activity extends well beyond U.S. audiences and U.S. politics.”

The second group also had multiple accounts and 15,000 followers. The group was linked to “Liberty Front Press” and attempted to hack people’s accounts to spread malware. Facebook said it disrupted those attempts.

A third group also operated out of Iran had as many as 813,000 followers, and also shared political content about the Middle East, the U.K. and U.S.

In all the Iranian-linked groups spent some $12,000 in advertising and hosted 28 different events.

A fourth group that attempted to influence politics in Syria and the Ukraine was connected to sources that Facebook said the U.S. had linked to Russian military intelligence.

“We’re working closely with U.S. law enforcement on this investigation,” Facebook said in a blog post .

In late July, Facebook also removed 32 apparently fake accounts on Facebook and Instagram that collectively had nearly 300,000 followers, including thousands that expressed interest in events they promoted.

Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/facebook-uncovers-new-global-misinformation-operations

The post Facebook uncovers new global misinformation operations first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The company also said that, unrelated to the Iran activity, it had removed pages, groups, and accounts “linked to sources the US government has previously identified as Russian military intelligence services.”

The Iran-related activity, according to Facebook’s announcement, involved three sets of pages, accounts, and groups dating back as far as 2011.

The company said cybersecurity firm FireEye tipped the social network off in July about a network of Facebook pages and accounts on other services that primarily posted political content focused on the Middle East, as well as the U.K., U.S., and Latin America, starting in 2013 that Facebook was able to link to Iranian state media. Facebook then discovered a set of pages, started in 2016, pretending to be news organizations that tried to hack people’s accounts and spread malware, which in turn led to a third set of pages and accounts starting from 2011 that shared content about Middle East politics in Arabic and Farsi as well as content about politics in the U.K. and U.S. in English.

Nearly 1 million Facebook accounts had engaged with one of the Iran-linked pages or groups, and nearly 60,000 with associated Instagram accounts.

The activity of the Russia-linked groups and pages focused on politics in Syria and Ukraine, according to the announcement. While unrelated to the Iran-related activity, the two campaigns “used similar tactics by creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing,” the announcement states.

“We ban this kind of behavior because we want people to be able to trust the connections they make on Facebook. And while we’re making progress rooting out this abuse, as we’ve said before, it’s an ongoing challenge because the people responsible are determined and well funded,” the announcement reads. The company said it is working with U.S. law enforcement on the ongoing investigation, shared information with U.K. law enforcement and briefed the U.S. Treasury and State Departments.

Twitter also announced it had suspended hundreds of accounts for what the service described as “engaging in coordinated manipulation.”

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued a statement noting that the action is “further evidence that foreign adversaries are actively using social media to divide Americans and undermine our democratic institutions.

“I’ve been saying for months that there’s no way the problem of social media manipulation is limited to a single troll farm in St. Petersburg, and that fact is now beyond a doubt. We also learned today that the Iranians are now following the Kremlin’s playbook from 2016,” he said in the statement. “While I’m encouraged to see Facebook taking steps to rid their platforms of these bad actors, there’s clearly more work to be done.”

Facebook, Twitter, and Google are set to appear before the committee to discuss social media manipulation on Sept. 5.

Source: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/facebook-removes-pages-linked-to-iran-russia-influence-campaigns

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