South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
FBI’s email system breached; hackers warn of cyberattacks
Hackers compromised the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s external email system on Saturday.
The hackers sent out tens of thousands of emails from an FBI email account warning about a possible cyberattack, according to the Spamhaus Project, which tracks spam and related cyber threats. The FBI said it, along with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is “aware of the incident this morning involving fake emails from an @ic.fbi.gov email account.”
“This is an ongoing situation, and we are not able to provide any additional information at this time,” the FBI said in a statement.
The FBI has multiple email systems, and the one that appears to have been hacked on Saturday is a public-facing one that agents and employees can use to email with the public, according to Austin Berglas, head of professional services at the cybersecurity company BlueVoyant.
“This is not the classified system that was compromised,” said Berglas, who is also a former assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New York office cyber branch.
The attacks started at midnight Saturday in New York with a subsequent campaign beginning at 2 a.m., according to Spamhaus. The nonprofit said it estimates the spam messages ultimately reached at least 100,000 mailboxes.
The emails came with the subject line: “Urgent: threat actor in systems.”
There was no malware attached to the emails, according to Spamhaus.
Plessy pardon: In the annals of the Supreme Court, the
Plessy v. Ferguson case has little competition for the title of Worst Decision in History.
Now, 125 years after the shameful decision that codified the Jim Crowera “separate but equal” fiction, the namesake of that famous case, Homer Plessy, may be pardoned. The Louisiana Board of Pardons unanimously approved a pardon Friday, according to The Associated Press, sending it to Gov. John Bel Edwards for final approval.
Edwards’ press office said the governor was traveling “but looks forward to receiving and reviewing the recommendation of the Board upon his return.”
On June 7, 1892, a racially mixed shoemaker from New Orleans named Homer Plessy bought a first-class ticket for a train bound for Covington, Louisiana, and took a seat in the whitesonly car.
He was asked to leave and he refused, leading to his being dragged from the train and charged with violating the Louisiana Separate Car Act. He pleaded guilty and was fined $25.
The arrest elevated Plessy into the central figure in a legal battle that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The landmark ruling that resulted in the case, Plessy v. Ferguson, came to be regarded as one of most shameful decisions in the court’s history — and one of the most consequential. It endorsed the “separate but equal” doctrine and gave legal backing to the Jim Crow laws that segregated and disenfranchised African Americans in the South for decades.
Officials said the effort to pardon Plessy, who died in 1925, was a way to acknowledge a vicious history with a stubborn legacy.
Doctor facing charges: A doctor is facing federal charges after falsely reporting in May that a pair of climbers he had joined in a makeshift expedition on Denali, the tallest mountain in North America, had fallen ill and needed a highrisk helicopter rescue, prosecutors said.
They said in a complaint that Dr. Jason Lance, a radiology specialist from Mountain Green, Utah, was actually seeking an evacuation for himself after another climber, Adam Rawski of British Columbia, was evacuated following a 1,000-foot fall down the mountain.
Lance would not comment. “Thanks for reaching out,” he wrote in email. “As much as I’d like to discuss the complaint, I’ve been advised not to.”
The park service did send a helicopter for the group, but it turned around when guides lower on the mountain said the three climbers were making their way down on their own.
New Delhi pollution: Authorities in New Delhi on Saturday shut schools, asked government employees to work from home and banned construction activity as the Indian capital fights a toxic smog which has blanketed the city for over a week.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said schools will completely shift to online classes for a week starting Monday so children are not exposed to polluted air.
Government officials and employees will also work from home for the week while private offices were also issued a similar advisory.
Construction work, which contributes to dust pollution, will be banned from Monday to Wednesday, he added.
The city government’s decisions came after the Supreme Court excoriated the federal and state governments for hazardous pollution and demanded
emergency measures, suggesting a two-day lockdown.
Duterte’s daughter: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter on Saturday registered her candidacy for vice president in next year’s elections and was chosen as the running mate of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the late dictator’s son, in an alliance that has alarmed human rights activists.
Sara Duterte backed out last week from her reelection bid as mayor of southern Davao city then took the place of a largely unknown vice-presidential candidate of her political party, Lakas CMD, in a maneuver that allowed her to seek the second-highest post even after a deadline lapsed for candidates in the May 9 elections.
Philippine presidents and vice presidents are elected separately and could forge an alliance even if they run under different political parties. If they’re elected
from rival camps, they often end up in a hostile relationship.
Ferdinand Marcos, who was toppled in a 1986 “people power” pro-democracy uprising and died in U.S. exile three years later, and the current president both have been criticized for gross human rights abuses.
Germany vaccines: Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday called on all unvaccinated Germans to get their shots as quickly as possible as the country’s coronavirus infection rate hit the latest in a string of new highs and death numbers were growing.
“If we stand together, if we think about protecting ourselves and caring for others, we can save our country a lot this winter,” Merkel said in her weekly podcast.
Germany’s disease control center said that the country’s infection rate climbed to 277.4 new cases per 100,000 residents over seven days.