Slashdot Mirror
Russian Cyberspies Blamed For US Election Hacks Are Now Targeting Macs (computerworld.com)
You may recall "APT28", the Russian hacking group which was tied to last year's interference in the presidential election. It has long been known for its advanced range of tools for penetrating Windows, iOS, Android, and Linux devices. Now, researchers have uncovered an equally sophisticated malware package the group used to compromise Macs. From a report on ComputerWorld: The group -- known in the security industry under different names including Fancy Bear, Pawn Storm, and APT28 -- has been operating for almost a decade. It is believed to be the sole user and likely developer of a Trojan program called Sofacy or X-Agent. X-Agent variants for Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS have been found in the wild in the past, but researchers from Bitdefender have now come across what appears to be the first macOS version of the Trojan. It's not entirely clear how the malware is being distributed because the Bitdefender researchers obtained only the malware sample, not the full attack chain. However, it's possible a macOS malware downloader dubbed Komplex, found in September, might be involved. Komplex infected Macs by exploiting a known vulnerability in the MacKeeper antivirus software, according to researchers from Palo Alto Networks who investigated the malware at the time. The vulnerability allowed attackers to execute remote commands on a Mac when users visited specially crafted web pages.Further reading on ArsTechnica.
The "election" was never hacked. A political party was, and its dirty laundry was aired.
Yes, let's be clear, because nobody claimed that actual voting machines were hacked. This was merely a strawman/canard thrown out to confuse the issue.
First, why we care that the DNC was being hacked is because that's the exact same thing Watergate was about, except that Watergate was a physical break-in to wiretap the DNC, rather than hacking their emails, but for the same exact purpose - to look for anything that could be released that would make the political opposition look bad. The fact that it was Russian hackers doing it is just another layer on the cake.
Second, I voted for Sanders, but there is ZERO proof the DNC "rigged" anything. The rules for the contest were laid out well in advance, and were pretty much in keeping with the way the rules have always been, and that never changed. That individual DNC staffers favored the long-time party stalwart over a long-time independent who came in just to run? Everyone knew that. That Debbie Wasserman-Schultz tried to set a debate schedule that favored Clinton? We knew that in 2015, and we made a stink about it then, and forced more debates. Not shocking.
In fact, the only accusation I've heard that could even come close is that the DNC vice-chair gave Clinton advance knowledge of a debate question, except that she 1) did so in her CNN contributor capacity (and got fired from it over), 2) it was a blatantly obvious question that anyone should have seen coming (Debate in Flint MI, gee, think they're gonna ask about the water crisis? Duh), and 3) CLINTON FLUBBED THE QUESTION ANYWAY.
Bad reputation? That's an understatement. It's an outright scam. If I see it on a system, that gets removed immediately - no questions asked. Even if it was a paid-for version.
Clinton got debate questions in 2 debates, from CNN.
Clinton did fund raisers with down-ticket people. There is a cap (a couple thousand) that someone can donate to a candidate. The DNC set her up with numerous other Congress runners so the cap was number of people * cap, then Clinton took 98% of what was donated in that event. A rule the DNC recently wrote into the law obviously intending to do this. The DNC refused to help Sanders in the same way.
The DNC would give stories to "favorable journalists" to smear Sanders a week before primaries in states.
They ALSO had the superdelegates if needed.
You should be SHOCKED that the press worked so closely with Clinton to torpedo Sanders (unreported donations and illegal for media to do so). You should ALSO be shocked the DNC rewrote campaign finance laws to abuse them the way they did, I doubt you could find anyone who says that is fair.