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...
Dutch teen duo arrested over alleged 'Wi-Fi sniffing' for Russia
The Register
·Iain Thomson
·Published Sep 29, 2025
·Updated
Affected Software
1 affected component
Citrix Citrix system
Frequently Asked Questions
1
What is the main topic of this article?
The article discusses the arrest of a Dutch teenage duo for allegedly conducting 'Wi-Fi sniffing' activities related to Russia.
2
What security implications are discussed?
The implications include concerns around cybersecurity and the potential for espionage related to unauthorized access to Wi-Fi networks.
3
What products or software are affected?
The affected software mentioned in the article is associated with Citrix systems.
4
What actions were taken by FEMA regarding its staff?
FEMA fired its CISO, CIO, and 22 other staff members due to alleged incompetence, despite claims it was not in response to an online attack.
5
Is there evidence that FEMA's claims about the firings are misleading?
Yes, new material suggests that FEMA's assertion that the firings were not related to an online attack may be false.