Tag Archives: cyber

U.N.’s North Korea sanctions monitors hit by ‘sustained’ cyber attack

A man types on a computer keyboard in front of the displayed cyber code in this illustration picture

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – United Nations experts investigating violations of sanctions on North Korea have suffered a “sustained” cyber attack by unknown hackers with “very detailed insight” into their work, according to an email warning seen by Reuters on Monday.

The hackers eventually breached the computer of one of the experts on May 8, the chair of the panel of experts wrote in an email to U.N. officials and the U.N. Security Council’s North Korea sanctions committee, known as the 1718 committee.

“The zip file was sent with a highly personalized message which shows the hackers have very detailed insight into the panel’s current investigations structure and working methods,” read the email, which was sent on May 8.

“As a number of 1718 committee members were targeted in a similar fashion in 2016, I am writing to you all to alert you to this heightened risk,” the chair of the panel of experts wrote, describing the attack as part of a “sustained cyber campaign.”

A spokesman for the Italian mission to the United Nations, which chairs the 1718 sanctions committee, said on Friday that a member of the panel of experts had been hacked.

No further details who might be responsible were immediately available.

North Korea’s deputy United Nations envoy said on Friday “it is ridiculous” to link Pyongyang with the hacking of the U.N. panel of experts or the WannaCry “ransomware” cyber attack that started to sweep around the globe more than a week ago.

Cyber security researchers have found technical evidence they said could link North Korea with the WannaCry attack.

Reuters reported on Sunday that North Korea’s main spy agency has a special cell called Unit 180 that is likely to have launched some of its most daring and successful cyber attacks, according to defectors, officials and internet security experts.

The U.N. Security Council first imposed sanctions on North Korea in 2006 and has strengthened the measures in response to the country’s five nuclear bomb tests and two long-range rocket launches. Pyongyang is threatening a sixth nuclear test.

A second email by the U.N. sanctions committee secretary to the 15 Security Council members on May 10 said the U.N. Office of Information and Communications Technology was “conducting an analysis of the affected hard drive.”

“Increased vigilance relating to 1718 Committee-related correspondence is therefore advised until data analysis and related investigations are completed,” the email read.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Alistair Bell)

U.S. Court to hear arguments in warrantless NSA spying case

The logo of the U.S. National Security Agency is seen in Fort Meade, Maryland,

y Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court will weigh a constitutional challenge on Wednesday to a warrantless government surveillance program brought by an Oregon man found guilty of attempting to detonate a bomb in 2010 during a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony.

The case before a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the first of its kind to consider whether a criminal defendant’s constitutional privacy rights are violated under a National Security Agency program that allows spying on Americans’ international phone calls and internet communications.

Mohamed Mohamud, a Somali-American, was convicted in 2013 of plotting to use a weapon of mass destruction and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

In 2010, Mohamud, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was then 19, was found to have attempted to remotely detonate a fake car bomb planted near a square crowded with thousands of people attending a ceremony in downtown Portland the day after Thanksgiving.

Mohamud’s lawyers argued he was entrapped by law enforcement officers posing as al Qaeda militants.

Wednesday’s case, U.S. v. Mohamud, challenges the admissibility of evidence brought to trial obtained under a foreign intelligence statute on grounds it does not allow the government to retain and access content of communications belonging to Americans and that it is unconstitutional.

That law, amended in 2008 by Congress and known as Section 702, enables internet surveillance programs known as Prism and Upstream that were first disclosed publicly in a series of leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden three years ago.

Prism gathers messaging data from Alphabet Inc’s Google, Facebook Inc, Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc and other major tech companies that is sent to and from a foreign target under surveillance. Upstream allows the NSA to copy web traffic flowing along the internet backbone located inside the United States and query that data for certain terms associated with a target.

Officials have conceded that data about Americans is sometimes “incidentally” collected under these programs, and later used for domestic criminal investigations. Critics see it as back-door surveillance of Americans without a warrant.

The government has not disclosed which program was used to surveil Mohamud and only alerted him and his lawyers to how evidence against him was collected after his conviction.

Section 702 has been challenged before in court, but cases have generally been dismissed due to an inability to prove someone’s communications were actually caught up in the highly secretive programs.

The case may have political implications, as Congress must reauthorize Section 702 by Dec. 31, 2017, or let it expire.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Leslie Adler)