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  • https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/13/infosec_in_brief/

Encrypted mail service Proton hands suspect's personal info to local cops

The Register
·
Brandon Vigliarolo
·
Published May 13, 2024
·
Updated

Infosec in brief On August 29, the US Federal Emergency Management Agency fired its CISO, CIO, and 22 other staff for incompetence but insisted it wasn't in response to an online attack. New material suggests FEMA's claim may be false. According to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, an audit found serious security problems at FEMA and revealed that "entrenched bureaucrats" had lied about the agency's security preparedness. "These deep-state individuals were more interested in covering up their failures than in protecting the Homeland and American citizens' personal data, so I terminated them immediately," she said. Crucially, Noem said no data had been lost but it appears that's not the case. According to a presentation passed to Nextgov, attackers broke into FEMA in June using stolen credentials to access a Citrix system. The attackers then uploaded data from FEMA's Region 6 servers, covering Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. According to the documents, FEMA didn't discover the attack until July. By July, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency was telling agencies to patch against so-called CitrixBleed 2 attacks that exploited a CVSS 9.3 bug in Netscaler's ADC and Gateway platforms that would allow miscreants to steal sensitive data such as session tokens and bypass multi-factor authentication. There were warnings that the bug was being exploited back in June, but it seems they weren't heeded. Now, it appears, FEMA's IT department is getting a compl...

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Affected Software

1 affected component
Citrix Citrix system

Frequently Asked Questions

1

What is the main topic of this article?

The article discusses recent security incidents involving encrypted mail service Proton and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's staff firings.

2

What security implications are discussed?

The article highlights concerns about data privacy and transparency in the context of Proton's decision to hand over user information to law enforcement.

3

What products or software are affected?

The affected product mentioned in the article is the Citrix system.

4

What actions were taken by FEMA regarding its staff?

FEMA fired its CISO, CIO, and 22 other staff members due to incompetence, which raises questions about the agency's security management.

5

Was the firing of FEMA staff linked to a cybersecurity incident?

FEMA asserted that the staff firings were not a direct response to an online attack, despite emerging speculation.

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