Gabriel Kojima

Senior officials at the White House, including ousted communications director Anthony Scaramucci, were duped by an email prankster after being sent a series of messages that appeared to come from other top aides in the Trump administration, CNN first reported Monday night.    The anonymous prankster , who lives in Britain and tweets using the handle @SINON_REBORN, reportedly  posed as White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus  in one of the email chains to Scaramucci shortly after Priebus announced his resignation last week.  “At no stage have you acted in a way that’s even remotely classy, yet you believe that’s the standard by which everyone should behave towards you?” a mock Priebus emailed. “General Kelly will do a fine job.  I’ll even admit he will do a better job than me.  But the way in which that transition has come about has been diabolical.  And hurtful. I don’t expect a reply.  ”Scaramucci replied: “Yo...

   German authorities suspect the Russian cyber espionage group, “Snake” (aka “Turla” or “Uruburos”), to be behind an attack on the government’s computer network. The authorities only became aware of it in December; they believe the attack had been under way for a year .  Snake is believed to have links to Russian intelligence.     The group’s existence was revealed in 2014 as it was believed to be behind the aggressive cyber espionage operations against Ukraine and a host of other European and US government organizations for nearly a decade. Security sources believe Snake gained access to the network via the German Federal Academy of Public Administration. The attackers seem to have implanted malware and then searched the federal government’s extensive server network for a way into the German foreign ministry, with particular interest in information about Germany’s Russia policy.    The German domestic intelligence agency’s report ...

Visa said last week that two years after US retailers started deploying terminals that could read chip-based credit and debit cards, reports of counterfeit card fraud have dropped by 70%. While modern chip-based payment cards - also known as EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) cards after the three organizations that promoted the new technology - are the standard payment card issued in most regions of the globe, the US has always lagged behind.   The reasons are many, but most banks and retailers cited that it would be more costly to issue new EMV cards and replace classic magnetic strip payment terminals with modern devices that could also accept EMV cards.   But  US banks and retailers got a kick in the behind in 2015 after a series of hacks at high-profile retailers such as Home Depot and Target.  Hackers stole a large number of card numbers during those incidents, which fueled a sudden rise in counterfeit magnetic strip cards that criminal groups use...