21st century cybersecurity: People are the first step

FBI Special Agent Jamil Hassani specializes in fighting cybercrime, and he told a gathering of lawyers and judges at the ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco that because of their profession, stature and potential to poke back, he skipped something he often does just before such an appearance. He typically…

Aug 5, 2016 10:46 PM CDT

Experts advise new tactics to fight data breaches

Evolving past focusing only on keeping malicious software out, attorneys and law firms are now also learning to plan for a breach.

Aug 1, 2016 1:45 AM CDT

Russia should find Hillary Clinton’s missing emails, Trump says; is he inciting crime?

Updated: GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump said at a news conference on Wednesday that he hoped Russia would be able to find missing emails belonging to Hillary Clinton. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said. “I think you will…

Jul 27, 2016 11:52 AM CDT

Email scam targets lawyers with fake disciplinary warnings, bar announcements

Lawyers across the country should be on the lookout for phishing emails, which purport to be about new discipline investigations. More than 50 attorneys have received the emails, which have links to malicious software, says Molly Flood, research and information manager with the ABA’s Division for Bar Services. She suspects…

Jun 23, 2016 2:05 PM CDT

Lawyer is suspended for accessing and deleting some law firm emails after firing

An Ohio lawyer who accessed the email accounts at the law firm that fired him and erased some controversial communications has been suspended from law practice. The Ohio Supreme Court suspended Brandon Louis Azman for a year, with six months stayed, report the Legal Profession Blog and Law.com. According to…

Jun 16, 2016 12:10 PM CDT

En banc 4th Circuit OKs tracking cellphone location without a warrant

Eliminating a circuit split, the en banc 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday reversed its own earlier decision by a three-judge panel and held that a warrant is not required for law enforcement to track location information for a subject’s cellphone. Instead, a court order based simply on…

May 31, 2016 4:45 PM CDT

‘Guccifer’ takes plea in hacking case; feds said he accessed personal accounts of political figures

A Romanian known as “Guccifer” took a plea deal Wednesday in a federal hacking case over his alleged unauthorized intrusions into some 100 accounts, including those of members of the Bush family and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Marcel Lehel Lazar, 44, pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria,…

May 26, 2016 11:30 AM CDT

State Department lawyers weren’t asked to review Clinton’s use of private server, report says

There is no evidence that Hillary Clinton sought legal approval to use a private email server while serving as secretary of state, according to a report released on Wednesday by the State Department’s Inspector General. Nor was there any evidence that Clinton discussed use of the email account with officials…

May 25, 2016 11:54 AM CDT

New Senate bill would block SCOTUS-approved rule change expanding DOJ’s surveillance powers

A small bipartisan group of U.S. senators has introduced a proposed bill to curtail computer intrusions by the U.S. government. Their Stop Mass Hacking Act, introduced Thursday by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), would reverse a change to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal…

May 20, 2016 5:45 AM CDT

‘John Doe’ says he leaked law firm’s Panama Papers to show why income inequality is a big problem

An individual reportedly behind a massive leak of confidential documents from a Panama-based law firm says he was driven by the issue of “income inequality” to made the material public. As the documents show, “massive, pervasive corruption” is why many people find themselves on the wrong side of an ever-widening…

May 6, 2016 5:05 PM CDT

Fingerprint ID on smartphones less protected in court than a password, ruling suggests

It isn’t clear why the feds made an unusual effort to access a smartphone that had been used by Paytsar Bkhchadzhyan, a 29-year-old Los Angeles woman who took a no-contest plea in an identity-theft case. But it required only about 45 minutes after she was sentenced in Van Nuys, California,…

May 2, 2016 8:50 AM CDT

Cybersecurity issues and advice steal the Techshow

May 1, 2016 1:40 AM CDT

Ex-cop is jailed until he reveals computer passwords; appeal claims Fifth Amendment violation

A former Philadelphia police officer is arguing a federal magistrate had no authority to send him to prison for refusing to reveal passwords to two encrypted computer hard drives. The former officer, Francis Rawls, has not been charged with a crime. He has been held in jail for seven months…

Apr 29, 2016 2:12 PM CDT

Hacked info and legitimate trucks help sophisticated bandits drive off with big loads of nuts

It looked like an ordinary job, as a commercial truck drove up to a nut supplier in California’s Central Valley one day last November and loaded up 45,000 pounds of shelled pistachios. But the seemingly legitimate shipment arranged by a broker with standard—albeit a bit sloppy—paperwork was in fact a…

Apr 14, 2016 4:30 PM CDT

Convicted journalist gets 2 years for helping Anonymous alter online LA Times story

A former web producer for KTXL was sentenced Wednesday to two years in federal prison for providing log-in credentials that helped the hacker group Anonymous alter a Los Angeles Times article. Both the Fox-affiliated station and the newspaper were owned by the same company at the time, and prosecutors said…

Apr 14, 2016 11:30 AM CDT