Remarks by President Trump and Veterans Affairs Secretary Shulkin at Veterans Affairs Listening Session | whitehouse.gov

Remarks by President Trump and Veterans Affairs Secretary Shulkin at Veterans Affairs Listening Session

Roosevelt Room

10:31 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  A special group of people.  Very special to me, very important.  And I want to thank you all for being here and for your work on behalf of our nation's veterans, our great, great people, our veterans.

We're all united by a very common mission:  We will protect those who protect us.  I've been saying that a lot over the last two years at rallies and speeches.  We will protect those who protect us, and that's just starting, because I think the veterans have not been treated fairly.  And David and a group of brilliant, brilliant doctors and businessmen are forming a board, and you've got the most talented people that I've ever seen working with you.  This is -- no more games going to be played at the VA.  

And I want to thank David, your Secretary -- your new Secretary, who's going to be so outstanding.  I think he actually passed 100 to nothing.  When I heard that vote I said, where did that come from?  A hundred to nothing, right?  Passed 100 to nothing -- for bringing your vision, experience and determination to the crucial task of reforming the VA and ensuring care for our returning heroes and warriors.  

And tonight I'm having a major meeting with some of the people that we put on a board.  Ike Perlmutter is an amazing man -- Marvel -- is one of the great, great businessmen of our time, and others -- we're having a meeting tonight at what we call affectionately the Southern White House.  Seems to be the most convenient location.  Everybody always wants to go to the Southern White House.  So are you going to be at that meeting?  You heard about it, right?  It's going to be great -- all about the VA.  

The VA's mission statement is engraved in the plaques outside its headquarters.  It reads:  "To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan."  And that was stated by Abraham Lincoln.  That was Lincoln's pledge -- called Lincoln's pledge.  But for too many veterans, this hasn't been their experience at all.  We've been reading horrible stories over the years, and already, David, I'm hearing it's getting much better.  A lot of improvements are being made and it's going to change.  And under my administration, it will change -- very important to me.

During my campaign, I outlined a detailed plan to reforming veterans' care throughout the country, and we're working to put that plan into effect.  And it's moving, I think I can, honestly, ahead of schedule.

As Commander-in-Chief, I will not accept substandard service for our great veterans.  Every member of our government is expected to do their utmost to ensure our veterans have the care that they're so entitled to -- maybe more entitled to than anybody.  And that hasn't been the way they were treated.  But it is the way they're going to be treated.

So again, I want to thank you all for being here.  It's a great honor.  And maybe I'll ask David just to say a few words.

SECRETARY SHULKIN:  Sure.  Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.

SECRETARY SHULKIN:  Mr. Vice President.  I wanted to let you know the people in this room are some of the most dedicated, passionate people advocating for our veterans.  And they are our partners in this quest to transform VA.  And we really are so grateful that they're here with us standing as partners.  

I also want to thank you, Mr. President, for the budget.  I think that you've honored your commitment to showing that this country cares about the veterans, and you've given us the ability to make sure that we are able to care for them.  I also wanted to tell you that yesterday the House passed an accountability bill, and we're very, very grateful for Chairman Roe's leadership and for the House's leadership in doing that.  We're looking forward to the Senate bringing a bill forward.

And so, I think, as you said, we're committed to the plan that you outlined during your campaign to making the VA the type of organization that Americans want it to be, and we're well on our way to do that.  So thank you very much.

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, that's great.  And unrelated, we just had a meeting with probably 12 congressmen, and it was an amazing meeting because they were all "nos," would you say, Mike?  They were all "nos" or pretty much "no," and after 15 minutes -- now, in all fairness, not 15 minutes, it was really actually about four or five days, but after 15 minutes, they went from "no" to all "yeses."  So the healthcare looks like it's going to be in great shape.  It's a great plan.  The press doesn't give it a fair read but I've heard that before.  What are you going to do -- the fake news.

But it's a great plan or I wouldn't be involved with it.  I wouldn't be involved.  So you have 12 "nos," and we have rejiggered it and we've done some great things, but the "nos" in every single case went to a "yes."  So that was a great honor, and healthcare looks like it's really happening, and it's going to great.  

Obamacare is dead.  Some of you folks have yourself -- you have family members that have suffered greatly under Obamacare.  It's dying.  It's just about on its last legs.  If we did nothing, if we did absolutely nothing, Obamacare is dead.  It will fail.  In Tennessee, where I just left, half of the state has no insurance and --no carrier.  It's gone.  And they're going to leave the other half of the state very soon.  You have that in many cases.  Many states are down to one and they'll end up with nothing.

So Obamacare is dead.  We're going to come up with a replacement that's going to be fantastic.  We have no support from the Democrats.  That's why it's a little -- we have to go interesting little routes.  Instead of just approving it, it has to be approved in pieces, and that's working out really well.  But we just got 12 very, very great people that went from "no" or "maybe" -- but "maybe" leaning to "no" -- right, Mike?  And they all have given me a commitment that they're voting for our healthcare plan.  So that was great.

I want to thank you all for being here, and let's talk.  And the press will leave.  Thank you very much.

END 
10:38 P.M. EDT

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Secret Service asked for $60 million extra for Trump-era travel and protection, documents show - The Washington Post

Secret Service asked for $60 million extra for Trump-era travel and protection, documents show

The U.S. Secret Service requested $60 million in additional funding for the next year, offering the most precise estimate yet of the escalating costs for travel and protection resulting from the unusually complicated lifestyle of the Trump family, according to internal agency documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

Nearly half of the additional money, $26.8 million, would pay to protect President Trump's family and private home in New York's Trump Tower, the documents show, while $33 million would be spent on travel costs incurred by "the president, vice president and other visiting heads of state."

The documents, part of the Secret Service's request for the fiscal 2018 budget, reflect the costly surprise facing Secret Service agents tasked with guarding the president's large and far-flung family, accommodating their ambitious travel schedules and fortifying the three-floor Manhattan penthouse where first lady Melania Trump and son Barron live.

Trump has spent most of his weekends since the inauguration at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and his sons have traveled the world to promote Trump properties with Secret Service agents in tow.

The documents reviewed by The Post did not show how the new budget requests compare with the funding needs for past presidents, and such figures are not public information. The Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency, declined to provide cost breakdowns and have said in the past that such fig­ures are confidential, citing security concerns.

Mar-a-Lago isn't just Trump's vacation spot; it's his second White House

Play Video2:57

Mar-a-Lago isn't just Trump's vacation spot; it's his second White House (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

A person familiar with internal Secret Service budget discussions said the requests for additional funding, prepared in late February, were rejected by the Office of Management and Budget, an arm of the White House. That means the agency will probably have to divert other spending to handle the additional burden. While best known for protecting the president, Secret Service agents also investigate cyber­crimes, counterfeit-money operations, and cases­ involving missing and exploited minors.

The Secret Service declined to respond to questions after The Post provided a summary of the documents. The service referred questions to DHS, which also declined to comment. The White House referred questions to the Secret Service and the Office of Management and Budget, which did not initially respond to requests for comment. After the article was posted online Wednesday, an OMB staffer issued a statement to The Post saying that the Secret Service is continuing to refine its budgetary estimates. The staffer also said that the claim that OMB denied the $26.8 million request for Trump Tower and family expenses was "outright untrue" and that OMB "supported its funding."

The budget requests reflect a potentially awkward contrast between Trump's efforts to cut federal spending in many areas and the escalating costs of his travel itinerary. Trump jetted to Mar-a-Lago on Friday for his fifth post-inauguration weekend trip, one day after the White House released a federal budget proposing deep cuts to many government programs.

[He's baaaack!': Trump's visits to Mar-a-Lago are stretching Palm Beach's budget and locals' patience]

Former agents said the requests indicate that the agency had to adapt to offer full protection for a president and first family who appear to have placed few limits on their personal travel and living arrangements.

"The Secret Service cannot dictate the lifestyle of the protectee. They have to work around it," said Jonathan Wackrow, a 14-year Secret Service employee who is now executive director of the risk-mitigation company RANE. "I don't think they expected him to go to Florida so often.

"This was an unanticipated reality," he added, for which the Secret Service "had to quickly re­adjust operations."

Banke International director Niraj Masand, far left, poses for a photo with Eric Trump, Banke International director Porush Jhunjhunwala, Donald Trump Jr. and DAMAC Properties Chairman Hussain Sajwani during festivities marking the formal opening of the Trump International Golf Club in Dubai on Feb. 18. (AP)

Some of the public funding could potentially become revenue for Trump's private company, the Trump Organization, which owns the Trump Tower that agents must now protect. The Defense Department and Secret Service have sought to rent space in Trump Tower but have not said how much space they're interested in, or at what cost. Neither the Secret Service nor the Trump Organization have disclosed how much public money, if any, is being spent toward Trump Tower space or other costs.

The Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment.

The Secret Service would not provide any details on the typical budget for protecting the first family. The agency requested $734 million for its fiscal 2017 "operations and support" protection budget, which would include the ex­penses for all protected individuals and foreign heads of state, DHS budget documents show.

The $26.8 million funding request says the money is needed for "residence security operations at the president's private residence in Trump Tower," with roughly $12.5 million earmarked to cover "personnel related costs in New York."

The money would also go toward protective assignments for the president's children and grandchildren, as well as costs for "protective ad­vances and protective intelligence activi­ties." The request also sought six additional full-time-equivalent positions for the Trump security details.

The $26.8 million budget item is marked as $0 in previous years, which former Secret Service agents said probably meant that the costs were part of a new budget category designed to encapsulate the unusual expense of protecting the first lady and the president's youngest son because they live outside the White House.

There were also additional undisclosed costs, spent in fiscal 2017, to install "equipment and infrastructure to secure Trump Tower," according to the request.

[Trump family's elaborate lifestyle is a 'logistical nightmare' — at taxpayer expense]

W. Ralph Basham, a longtime Secret Service employee who served as director under President George W. Bush, said that the agency clearly had no "crystal ball" to predict Trump's victory and, thus, had not accounted for the price tag of his presidency.

"The expense of taking on a family like the Trumps versus taking on a family like the Clintons," he said. "It's a totally different funding scenario."

New York City boasts some of the highest real estate prices in the nation, and Basham noted that the Secret Service "does not have the liberty of going out in New Jersey" to find cheap rental space. "You have to be there," he said, referring to Trump Tower.

Basham said it is difficult to pinpoint exact ex­penses at this stage in the budget process. But he estimated that the $26.8 million request would probably include costs for command centers, agents' room and board, communications ex­penses and rental space.

Jeffrey Robinson, co-author of the book "Standing Next to History: An Agent's Life Inside the Secret Service" with former Secret Service agent Joseph Petro, said the logistics of protecting Trump Tower are "a nightmare" because of its easily accessible location on Fifth Avenue.

"They have to secure Trump Tower because Melania is there," Robinson said. "They protect the first family. They have to protect the grandchildren. This is going to be an expensive operation."

Robinson said the budget request is not surprising, considering that the agency is mandated by Congress to protect the president. "They need the money that they need," he said.

A separate travel-funding request seeks $33 million on top of the agency's $74 million fiscal 2018 protection-travel budget. The document justifies the request by saying that Secret Service travel, in general, is "extremely variable, difficult to predict and difficult to plan for in advance as many protectees' travel plans are unknown with limited time to prepare."

The request does not specifically name Mar-a-Lago, and the travel budget changes­ year to year based on many factors. The total protective travel budget for fiscal 2015 was about $80 million. That figure climbed to $160 million in the heat of the 2016 presidential campaign, when agents were protecting multiple candidates.

But former agents said that, typically, costs go down in the first year of a new presidency.

Before taking office, Trump repeatedly criticized the cost of President Barack Obama's travel, saying the fact that Obama's trips were "costing taxpayers millions of dollars" was "unbelievable." During the campaign, Trump pledged to save public money by working diligently in Washington and skipping out on expensive travel.

"There's no time for vacation. We're not going to be big on vacations," Trump said at a campaign rally last year. "The White House is this incredible place. It represents so much, and you're there for a limited period of time. If you're at the White House and you have so much work to do, why do you fly? Why do you leave so much?"

The conservative group Judicial Watch, which closely tracked Obama's family travel, estimated the Obamas' vacation ex­penses totaled nearly $97 million over eight years.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Monday countered criticism of Trump's frequent travel to Mar-a-Lago, saying: "The president is very clear that he works seven days a week. This is where he goes to see his family. He brings people down there. This is part of being president."

Experts say that it is common for incoming presidential administrations to have unique logistical chal­lenges, including George W. Bush, who preferred to spend time at his remote ranch in Crawford, Tex.

Mar-a-Lago has quickly become a capital of Trump's presidency and will play host to Chinese President Xi Jinping next month. On Friday night, the president surprised attendees when he popped into a Mar-a-Lago Club charity event to congratulate honoree Patrick Park, a Palm Beach philanthropist who has said he hopes to be named U.S. ambassador to Austria.

The Secret Service's protection costs are a small fraction of the total public spending devoted to safe­guarding Trump properties. New York police spent roughly $24 million toward security costs at Trump Tower between the election and inauguration, according to police figures provided to The Post.

The agency is seeking federal reimbursement for the security costs. When the president is in town, New York police expect to spend about $300,000 a day safe­guarding Trump Tower. On days when only the first lady and their son are in town, police expect security costs will drop to between $127,000 and $145,000 a day. A police spokesman said the estimates could change based on officer deployments, intelligence and other factors.

At Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach County officials say their sheriff's office has spent more than $1.5 million toward overtime for deputies guarding the exclusive resort Trump has taken to calling "the southern White House" and "winter White House."

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County officials have proposed levying a special fee on the resort, saying they would have to otherwise raise local taxes on residents to help cover its high security costs. The Coast Guard has also paid to provide round-the-clock patrols of the resort's two coastlines, including through the use of a gun-mounted response boat that, according to agency budget documents, costs $1,500 an hour.

The Secret Service has struggled through years of budget short­­ages and low morale. Former Secret Service agents said tightening budgets have hit agents hard and that, unlike other agencies, the Secret Service can't travel less or staff fewer people to keep costs down because full protection for the first family is guaranteed.

"Everything will get done," said Wackrow, the former agent who served in Obama's protective detail. "But at what pain point does it get done?"

Carol Leonnig, Devlin Barrett, Julie Tate and Alice Crites contributed to this report.

This article has been updated.

^ed 

No one can take this from me.

We live in a society made up of individuals who are taught how to think, how to feel, how to conform, and how to hide. 

It forces us to place the world into simple categories so that we may understand the complexities around us. 

We are taught that a spirit is our savior and the law is our sanctuary. We learn to recognize both good and evil; black and white; blessed and damned. 

We are forced to identify good or evil; black or white; blessed or 

damned. 

A society that allows us to believe in fate and destiny, and allows us to blame failure and injustice on circumstance and gods. 

It teaches hatred and intolerance, and breeds complexity and anger. 

It is a society I neither respect, nor believe, and a society that needs careful evaluation and gentle handling. 

There is no order, there is no justice, there is no comfort. It is the society of a people in need of a soul. 

There is a theory about Psychologists that claims many people choose to study the field of psychology in an effort to understand their own mind. I have spent so many hours contemplating the source of my insecurities and fears. 

Eventually I came to the field of sociology and education, since I feel it was the combination of the two which facilitated my belief that a degree from Harvard, Princeton or Yale would make my problems disappear. 

The day I was accepted at Columbia was one of the most difficult days of my life because it was something I was told I would never accomplish. 

I chose to go to Vanderbilt after receiving an advanced Masters from the Ivy League for my PhD since it represented freedom. 

Freedom from the contused ideals of my parents, and marked a clear boundary between their world and my own. 

This year, my mother told me I did not deserve to get into Comell. 

My father told me that he was "not willing to gamble $50,000 on my future" (as a guarantor for a student loan.) I thought that if I could just make it through Graduation, everything would be 

O.K. 

I would be able to pick up student insurance, and my pain, stress, and anxiety would all disappear. 

I would no longer be subject to my fathers conventions of checks and balances, and the stress and dependency would all disappear. I would be free from the ghosts and voices that were echoing through my head (in case there is any doubt, that was a figurative, and not a literal statement.) 

I will end this here because I wrote this years ago before I made peace with my family and now have a better understanding of why they felt my accomplishments should be my own. 

I am proud to say that I did accomplish these achievements on my own and received a full academic shcolarship to the top ranked university in the nation amd graduated with a 3.93/4.0. 

No one can take thaf away from me. No one. Ever. 

Just me, 

@ElyssaD

aka Chilly Penguin

/ed70

DailyDDoSe: 47 Million Underinsured and Uninsured in America

I am one of them: here's my DailyDDoSe March 28, 2017

We live in a society where no one accepts responsibility for their mistakes; no one is held accountable
for their actions; and one EVER, EVER says they are sorry.

Let me show you a small glimpse inside the typical day of the 47 million uninsured and underinsured in the wealthiest nation in the world: The United States of America.

As someone who spent years as one of the 47 million (source RWJF.org) I spent day after day after day doing the same thing without any result or consequence.

I can only offer
you a glimpse into day in the life because there is no room to sit in my car with all the files, medical records and appeal documents.

I believe my apartment may actually be a fire hazard...

This was my daily update posted at 7:30am:

As for my most recent insurance dispute (2008) little jas changed and I feel I have done everything humanly possible to
protect health care providers who are NOT providing health...

I cannot clean up the slack for my every underqualified, health care provider (who did NOT provide adequate care to my patients or myself). However I feel I have no other choice than
to share what I have learned...

Having been on both sides if the proverbial couch, I have the perspective
that is both enlightening and scary at the same time.

Sometimes I try to look at this fight, (I meant to say this life) objectively.

I can see my own future, and I can see where it is taking me. I know how it will end it I don't thinks I can
keep up the
pace.

It is amazing at how far we will go to have nothing at all.

I have come this far, and on some level I almost enjoy the dance.

No.

On some level, I actually love the
dance.

No. I won't give up now. Because without this turmoil, this means an end to this demonstration project of futility and determination, amd without that I am nothing at all. I can't lose what I never had.

I won't be another sell-out; mostly because I don't know how.

I am the voice of perseverence. I am one of 47 million Americans with sunstandard medical care.

And today I am I am still fighting the good fight.

This battle; this challenge; this half won war has come to define me. And without that, I am really nothing at all.

As someone once told me, if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. I've already fallen, but I sure as shit stand for something.

So for now, I write. Maybe later, I will listen. And if there is any justice left in this world, maybe someday I will actually live.

Just me,

Elyssa D. Durant

^ed 

Twitter Suspends 376K Accounts Tied to Terrorism | Investopedia

Do I look like a fucking terrorist? 

Twitter Suspends 376K Accounts Tied to Terrorism

Twitter Inc. (TWTR) disclosed Tuesday it had suspended hundreds of thousands of accounts for violations related to the promotion of terrorism.

According to the social media network, it suspended 376,890 accounts between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2016, and a total of 636,248 accounts from Aug. 1, 2015, through Dec. 31, 2016. Twitter said of the suspensions, 74% of the accounts were identified by internal, proprietary spam-fighting tools while less than 2% of the suspensions came from requests by a government. Twitter released the information in its transparency report, which it has issued twice a year since 2012. While Twitter had previously given updates about the suspension of accounts associated with terrorism and extremism in blog posts, this marks the first time it included the numbers in the report. Twitter plans to include suspension numbers in future transparency reports, as well.

Stepping Up Policing

While Twitter has previously engaged in suspending accounts that are associated with terrorism, in recent months it's been stepping up its policing of its social media network to weed out abusive and violent behavior. For Twitter, the stakes are high. With advertisers increasingly spending their ad dollars on competing social networks like Facebook Inc. (FB), Twitter has to give companies reasons to want to advertise on its social network. (See also: Twitter: CEO Dorsey Facing Calls to Step Down.)

In February, the embattled social media company quietly started rolling out a feature that temporarily limits a user's Twitter reach if they break the rules such as cursing out a lawmaker or otherwise engaging in abusive or bad behavior. The new feature, which was first reported by BuzzFeed, basically puts the user in a timeout where only people in his or her network can view their tweets for a limited period of time. The feature was put to use in a prominent way shortly after news reports surfaced about it when David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader's Twitter account was suspended for a temporary period of time without Twitter giving a reason for the penalty. Twitter and Facebook have come under attack for not doing enough to prevent abusive behavior on their social networks and have been increasingly taking steps to counter that.
​

^ed 

Hacked Twitter Accounts Post Swastikas, Pro-Erdogan Content - Bloomberg

Hacked Twitter Accounts Post Swastikas, Pro-Erdogan Content

More stories by Nour Al Ali

As Dutch voters head to the polls on Wednesday, a swath of high-profile Twitter accounts have been hacked, with the attackers posting content supporting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his feud with Germany and the Netherlands.

Turkish-language hashtags reading "NaziGermany" and "NaziHolland" appeared on the verified Twitter accounts of German newspaper Die Welt, Forbes Magazine, BBC North America, and Reuters Japan. Also targeted were the Twitter accounts of the European Parliament, French politicians like Alain Juppé, and Sprint Corp.'s Chief Executive Officer and President Marcelo Claure, among others.

Hi everyone - we temporarily lost control of this account, but normal service has resumed. Thanks.

— BBC North America (@BBCNorthAmerica) 3:39 AM - 15 Mar 2017 · Washington, DC

"We are aware of an issue affecting a number of account holders this morning," said Twitter Inc. company spokeswoman Kaori Saito. "We quickly located the source which was limited to a third party app. We removed its permissions immediately. No additional accounts are impacted." 

An Amsterdam-based startup said it's investigating if it's the source of the postings. Twitter Counter, a marketing tool that allows people and companies to track their popularity on Twitter, said it's now blocking people from postings through its system while it studies the issue. The company says it has more than 2 million users and tracks more than 350 million Twitter accounts.

"Our app has been used. It's pending further investigation," said Twitter Counter CEO Omer Ginor. "We are aware of the situation and have started an investigation into the matter." 

Twitter shares fell 2 percent to $15.01 at 10:11 a.m. in New York. They have declined 6 percent so far this year.

"Individual hacks like this one, in isolation, are unlikely to have much impact on Twitter," said Cyrus Mewawalla, managing director at CM Research. "But the sheer volume of these kind of events will have a damaging impact. Twitter and other social media sites are on the verge of a regulatory backlash that could ultimately impact their business model."

Twitter Counter, founded in 2008, reported an attack in November in which accounts from Sony Corp., Viacom Inc., Microsoft Corp. and others were compromised and posting spam messages. Twitter Counter apologized and said it had fixed the problem. 

Ginor said the company had reached "95 percent certainty" that it had fixed the problem after being hacked in November. The company couldn't be sure a hacker was "still lurking in the shadows, just waiting for the opportunity." 

The incidents show the indirect ways hackers can take over a company's Twitter feed. Twitter Counter is one of many companies that plug into Twitter to provide marketing and analytics tools for people, businesses and other groups. Companies including Time Inc., Netflix Inc., Chevron Corp. and YouTube use Twitter Counter, according to its website.

"With the current political conflict between The Netherlands and Turkey, we have observed an increase in takeovers of high profile social media accounts," said Jens Monrad, senior intelligence analyst at cybersecurity company FireEye Inc.

The attack comes just a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government increased the pressure on social networks, including Facebook Inc. and Twitter, to curb the spread of fake news and malicious posts, weighing fines of up to 50 million euros ($53 million) for companies that fail to delete illegal content in a timely manner. Her government is taking malicious posts on social media increasingly seriously ahead of the Sept. 24 election in Europe's biggest economy.

The tweets Wednesday included a swastika and described the attack as a "little Ottoman slap." "See you on April 16," they read, referring to the date of Turkey's referendum to grant more powers to Erdogan, and finish with: "What did I write? Learn Turkish."

A four-minute video attached to the tweets begins with an Erdogan speech in which he says: "If we're going to die, let's die like men." It then features scenes from various Erdogan speeches, starting with his showdown with then-Israeli President Shimon Peres in Davos in 2009, as a campaign song chanting his name, "Recep Tayyip Erdogan," plays in the background.

BBC North America has since tweeted that it "temporarily lost control" of its account, but normal service has resumed. Some of the tweets have been deleted.

"Attackers always look for the weakest link of the chain," said Matt Suiche, founder of United Arab Emirates-based cyber-security startup Comae Technologies. "Third party platforms are perfect targets. It makes lots of sense."

^ed 

And I'm the one who gets suspended? 

Big Twitter hack – Swastikas and propaganda for Turkish president

Staff Writer

Hackers took control of several prominent Twitter accounts today, posting swastikas and slogans supporting Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The hashtags #Nazialmanya and #Nazihollanda (NaziGermany and NaziHolland) were used in tweets, reported Bloomberg.

According to the report, the tweets said the attack was a "little Ottoman slap." Followed by, "See you on April 16," referring to the date of Turkey's referendum to grant more powers to Erdogan.

Tweets end with, "What did I write? Learn Turkish."

Twitter Counter said hackers used a flaw in its application to gain access to several high-profile accounts.

"Assuming this abuse is indeed done using our system, we've blocked all ability to post tweets and changed our Twitter app key," said Twitter Counter.

An hour later it said: "The Twitter Counter application is blocked on Twitter. If this activity continues, then we strongly believe it's not just through us."

Tweets containing a swastika and pro-Erdogan sentiments appeared on the Twitter accounts of Unicef, Amnesty International, Die Welt, Forbes Magazine, BBC North America, and Reuters Japan.

Bloomberg reported that attackers also targeted the accounts of the European Parliament, French politician Alain Juppé, and CEO of Sprint Marcelo Claure.

Now read: WikiLeaks to share CIA hacking tools with tech firms

^ed 

Survey Reveals Alarming Trend About CyberSecurity Advice | Inc.com

Survey Reveals Alarming Trend About CyberSecurity Advice

Survey shows that people with little knowledge are often advising others about cybersecurity

A survey conducted late last year by cybersecurity firm, Sophos, produced several scary findings - including that many people giving cybersecurity advice may be woefully unqualified to do so.

The survey, which polled 1,250 individuals in the US, UK, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, found that while about half of all of the people surveyed were not familiar with email phishing scams, or perceived such attacks to comprise a minimal threat, 55 percent of those surveyed said that they advise someone else on matters related to data security.

Think about that for a moment. There are people who are not familiar with phishing, or who do not perceive it to be a significant risk, who are providing cybersecurity advice to other people. Contrast these advice givers' perception with reality - nearly all major breaches begin with social engineering attacks, with one recent study finding that over 90% of such attacks commence with some form of phishing (sometimes following social-media oversharing, which helps criminals craft effective spear phishing emails). Making matters worse, of the 55% who are advising other people, 25 percent were not confident that the people whom they were advising use anti-virus software, and 14 percent stated that they were not confident that the people properly back up their data properly either.

If this survey is accurate, there are a lot of vulnerable people out there - many of whom are likely also providing bad cybersecurity advice to other people!

What should you do?

When you need information security advice, ask someone who knows information security.

Sometimes you may have to pay - but the ounce of prevention can be worth many tons of cure.

Think about it like this: If you would not seek medical advice for a serious condition from anyone but a doctor, and would not seek legal advice for a serious legal matter from anyone but a lawyer, and would not seek help with a serious accounting issue from anyone but an accountant, why would you solicit cybersecurity advice from someone who is not properly trained and experienced? The risks are simply too great.

^ed 

Cyber War I has already begun

By Niall Ferguson   March 13, 2017

WikiLeaks via AP

Julian Assange's WikiLeaks last week released an enormous cache of documents stolen from the Central Intelligence Agency.

To each American administration, its war. Which will be Donald Trump's?

There is good reason to fear it could be the Second Korean War, with craziness in North Korea and chaos in the South. Or it could be yet another quagmire in the Middle East. Trump's most excitable critics keep warning that World War III will happen on his watch. But I am more worried about Cyber War I — especially as it has already begun.

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Last week's cyberattack was just the latest directed against the United States by WikiLeaks: the release of an enormous cache of documents stolen from the Central Intelligence Agency. To visit the WikiLeaks website is to enter the trophy room of what might be called Cyberia. Here is the "Hillary Clinton Email Archive," there are "The Podesta Emails." Not all the leaked documents are American, to be sure. But you will look in vain for leaks calculated to embarrass the Russian government. Julian Assange may still skulk in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. But the reality is that he lives in Cyberia, an honored guest of President Vladimir Putin.

In Washington they are worried, and with good reason. "We're at a tipping point," according to Admiral Michael S. Rogers, head of the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command. Cyber activities are now number one on the director of national intelligence's list of threats. This is not just about WikiLeaks. The Pentagon alone reports more than 10 million attempts at intrusion each day.

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In recent years, the United States has found itself under cyberattack from Iran, North Korea, and China. Yet these attacks were directed against companies (notably Sony Pictures), not the US government. Last year, using WikiLeaks and the Romanian blogger "Guccifer 2.0" as proxies, the Kremlin launched a sustained assault on the American political system itself.

Let's leave aside the question of whether or not the Russian interference decided the election in favor of Donald Trump. The critical point is that Moscow was undeterred. For specialists in national security, this is only one of many features of cyberwar that are perplexing. Accustomed to the elegant theories of "mutually assured destruction" that evolved during the Cold War, they are struggling to develop a doctrine for an entirely different form of conflict, in which there are countless potential attackers and multiple gradations of destructiveness.

For Joseph Nye of Harvard's Kennedy School, deterrence may be salvageable, but that can only be true now if the United States is prepared to make an example of an aggressor. The three alternative options Nye proposes are simply to ramp up cyber security, to try to "entangle" potential aggressors in trade and other relationships (so as to raise the cost of cyberattacks to them), or to establish global taboos against cyber like the ones that have (mostly) held against biological and chemical weapons.

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Nye's analysis is not very comforting. Given the sheer number of cyber aggressors, defense seems doomed to lag behind offense. And the Russians have proved themselves to be indifferent to both entanglement and taboos, even if China seems more amenable to Nye's approach.

How scared should we be of Cyberia? For Princeton's Anne-Marie Slaughter, our hyper-networked world is, on balance, a benign place and the "United States . . . will gradually find the golden mean of network power." At the other extreme is Joshua Cooper Ramo, whose book "The Seventh Sense" argues for the erection of real and virtual "gates" to shut out the Russians and other malefactors. But Ramo himself quotes the three rules of computer security devised by the NSA cryptographer Robert Morris Sr.: "RULE ONE: Do not own a computer. RULE TWO: Do not power it on. RULE THREE: Do not use it." If we all ignore those rules, how will any gates keep out the likes of Assange?

An intellectual arms race is on to devise a viable doctrine of cybersecurity. My ten cents' worth is that those steeped in the traditional thinking of national security will not come up with it. A realistic goal is not to deter attacks or retaliate against them but to regulate all the various networks on which our society depends so that they are resilient — or, better still, "anti-fragile," a term coined by Nassim Taleb to describe a system that grows stronger under attack.

Those, like Taleb, who inhabit the world of financial risk management, saw in 2008 just how fragile the international financial network was: The failure of a single investment bank nearly brought the whole system of global credit to its knees. The rest of us have now caught up with the bankers and traders; we are all now as interconnected as they were nine years ago.

Like the financial network, our social and business networks are under constant attack from fools and knaves, and there is nothing we can do to stop them. The most we can do is design and build our networks so that the ravages of Cyberia cannot trigger a complete outage.

Donald Trump's war has already begun: It is Cyber War I. Like all wars, its first casualty was truth. Unlike other wars, it will have no last casualty, as it is a war without end. Get used to it. Or get rid of your computer.

Niall Ferguson is a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

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Hundreds of High-Profile Twitter Accounts Hacked through 3rd-Party App

Wang Wei

In a large-scale Twitter hack, thousands of Twitter accounts from media outlets to celebrities, including the European Parliament, Forbes, BlockChain, Amnesty International, UNICEF, Nike Spain and numerous other individuals and organizations, were compromised early Wednesday.

The compromised Twitter accounts is pushing a disturbing spam message written in Turkish comparing the Dutch to the Nazis, with Swastikas and a "#NaziHollanda" or "#Nazialmanya" (Nazi Germany) hashtag, and changed some of the victims' profile pictures to an image of the Turkish flag and Ottoman Empire coat of arms.

In addition to the message, the hackers are also posting a link to a YouTube video and the Twitter account Sebo.

According to the latest reports, this weird Twitter activity on numerous high-profile accounts is the result of a vulnerability in the third-party app called Twitter Counter.

Twitter Counter is a social media analytics service that helps Twitter users to track their stats and also offers a variety of widgets and buttons.

"We're aware that our service was hacked and have started an investigation into the matter. We've already taken measures to contain such abuse", Twitter Counter said on Twitter.

However, the company has made it very clear that no "Twitter account credentials (passwords)" or "credit card information" has been compromised, as the company does not store this information on users.
Twitter Counter is actively working on fixing the issue over its end.

"Assuming this abuse is indeed done using our system, we've blocked all ability to post tweets and changed our Twitter app key," the company said on Twitter.

Although many of the compromised Twitter accounts have seemed to have taken back control from hackers, the embarrassed tweets are still visible on many compromised accounts.

Forbes appears to have regained access to their Twitter accounts, but are still in the process of getting fully restored. For instance, Forbes Twitter account has an egg avatar, at the time of writing.

How To Protect Your Twitter Account

Since the attack appears to be coming through a vulnerability in the third-party app, users are advised to revoke permission to this app, as well as other unnecessary third party apps.

If you have ever used Twitter Counter, you should:

• Go to "Settings and Privacy."
• Click on the "Apps" section.
• Revoke the third-party access to Twitter Counter.
• Remove old apps that are no longer in use or ones you don't recognise.

Also, if you haven't yet, you are strongly advised to enable two-factor authentication on your account via the account settings section of Twitter. This will help you protect your accounts against password attacks in the future.

Besides enabling 2FA, always choose a strong password for your accounts. If you are unable to create and remember different passwords for each site, you can use a good password manager.

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US Charges Two Russian Spies and Two Hackers for Hacking 500 Million Yahoo Accounts

US Charges Two Russian Spies & Two Hackers For Hacking 500 Million Yahoo Accounts

Mohit Kumar

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

The 2014 Yahoo hack disclosed late last year that compromised over 500 million Yahoo user accounts was believed to be carried out by a state-sponsored hacking group. Now, two Russian intelligence officers and two criminal hackers have been charged by the US government in connection with the 2014 [...]

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Survey Reveals Alarming Trend About CyberSecurity Advice | Inc.com

Survey Reveals Alarming Trend About CyberSecurity Advice

Survey shows that people with little knowledge are often advising others about cybersecurity

A survey conducted late last year by cybersecurity firm, Sophos, produced several scary findings - including that many people giving cybersecurity advice may be woefully unqualified to do so.

The survey, which polled 1,250 individuals in the US, UK, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, found that while about half of all of the people surveyed were not familiar with email phishing scams, or perceived such attacks to comprise a minimal threat, 55 percent of those surveyed said that they advise someone else on matters related to data security.

Think about that for a moment. There are people who are not familiar with phishing, or who do not perceive it to be a significant risk, who are providing cybersecurity advice to other people. Contrast these advice givers' perception with reality - nearly all major breaches begin with social engineering attacks, with one recent study finding that over 90% of such attacks commence with some form of phishing (sometimes following social-media oversharing, which helps criminals craft effective spear phishing emails). Making matters worse, of the 55% who are advising other people, 25 percent were not confident that the people whom they were advising use anti-virus software, and 14 percent stated that they were not confident that the people properly back up their data properly either.

If this survey is accurate, there are a lot of vulnerable people out there - many of whom are likely also providing bad cybersecurity advice to other people!

What should you do?

When you need information security advice, ask someone who knows information security.

Sometimes you may have to pay - but the ounce of prevention can be worth many tons of cure.

Think about it like this: If you would not seek medical advice for a serious condition from anyone but a doctor, and would not seek legal advice for a serious legal matter from anyone but a lawyer, and would not seek help with a serious accounting issue from anyone but an accountant, why would you solicit cybersecurity advice from someone who is not properly trained and experienced? The risks are simply too great.

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Beware This New Gmail Scam That Is Tricking Even Tech-Savvy Users | Inc.com

Beware This New Gmail Scam That Is Tricking Even Tech-Savvy Users

Here is what you need to know in order to stay safe from a new, sophisticated phishing attack.

Hackers have launched a new phishing attack that is tricking even tech-savvy users. Here is what you need to know in order to protect yourself.

The attack works like this: Hackers who have breached someone's email account look through the emails in it for correspondence containing attachments. They then send emails from the compromised account -- impersonating the account's owner -- with each email leveraging similarities to prior correspondence, so as to make the new messages seem legitimate and familiar. For example, the phishing emails may use a subject line that was used in the past.

The hackers embed an image of an attachment used in the past into each phishing email, but configure the image to open not the attachment but, rather, a phishing page that looks like a Google login. Because the user is opening a Gmail attachment, the presentation of a phony Gmail login page does not seem alarming -- especially when the person opening the attachment feels that he or she has been viewing a "safe and familiar" correspondence. Of course, once the new victim enters credentials into the phony Google login page the criminals utilize them to access their victim's account. The attack has likely been going on for about a year with increasing intensity.

How can you stay safe?

1. Always think twice before entering login credentials -- ask yourself why you are being asked for them. If you are already reading Gmail, why all of a sudden are you being asked for your Gmail credentials?
2. Do not log in to sites via log-in pages generated by clicking links. For any site on which you will enter sensitive information, always reach it by entering its URL into the Web browser.
3. To get the attachment to open a phony Google login page, hackers use a data:text URL -- beginning something like "data:text/html,https://accounts.google.com/." While that may appear to be related to Google, any URL that starts data:text is not a link to a website but rather content to be displayed locally. Never enter passwords or other sensitive information into any webpage with a data:text URL.
4. Enable multi-factor authentication. If somehow you fall prey to a Gmail phsihing attack and give criminals your log-in name and password, multi-factor authentication will continue to protect your account. Without access to your phone, for example, criminals would be unlikely to be able to access your email even if they know your password.
5. Businesses worried about similar types of attacks should consider deploying anti-phishing technology. Green Armor's Identity Cues (which I co-invented), for example, helps ensure that a real log-in page looks different for every user and can only be generated by legitimate Web servers. Technology of that sort would make it obvious to users -- consciously or subconsciously -- that the bogus log-in page is illegitimate.
6. Do not rely on warnings by Web browsers: The red warning used on insecure web pages, the certificate warnings used for invalid certificates, and the "unsafe site" message may not appear for data:text URLs. (Web browser companies should change this -- any data URL should display a warning.)

What do others in the information security industry have to say about the Gmail scam?

John Gunn, VP of communications, VASCO Data Security

"As attack methods become more sophisticated -- as this attack demonstrates -- defenses must keep pace or the number of victims will continue to grow. Passwords are 30-year old technology and they merely provide a false sense of security with no real protection. 2017 must be the year that the industry replaces passwords with multi-factor authentication."

Christian Lees, CISO, InfoArmor

"Threat actors have extreme creativity and time in their favor when it comes to the never-ending campaigns available to compromise user accounts. Applying several layers of security -- much like enterprise organizations commonly use today -- is not difficult to achieve. It requires: 1) Utilizing modern identity theft monitoring programs that enable users to monitor for breached credentials that likely offer threat actors passage into the compromised account, allowing them to quickly change credentials; and 2) Enabling two-factor authentication to detour the threat actor's access into the compromised account. This step additionally safeguards unsuspecting victims that may spawn from the compromised account."

Balázs Scheidler, co-founder and CTO, Balabit

"Phishing techniques are improving and can be so elaborate that they can scam even tech-savvy people such as privileged users, who have access to sensitive corporate assets. Should such an account be compromised, attackers can cause a lot of damage. Clearly, holding the credential for an account may not be enough to ensure that the logged-in user is indeed the legitimate user. The actual user's behavior is the one thing that helps security professionals discover misused accounts by automatically spotting behavioral differences between an intruder and a legitimate user's baseline. Behavior analytics can identify exactly those cases where malicious actors use stolen credentials, and can prevent resulting data breaches."

Bert Rankin, CMO, Lastline

"Unfortunately, constantly evolving and improving phishing attacks are now a way of online life for all of us. For those enterprise IT administrators with the mission of protecting the organization, educating employees is not enough. It can sometimes take just one accidental, well-meaning click on a malicious email to inflict irreversible damage to the whole organization. In addition to employee education and awareness about how phishing attacks work and how to identify a suspicious email, it is an imperative that IT put filtering mechanisms in place that use technology -- not people -- to sort, test and eliminate such malicious emails before they even have a chance to test the eyes of the employees."

Jeff Hill, director of product management, Prevalent

"Today's disturbing reality is that there is no effective defense for a well-conceived phishing attack. Reliance on email communication, the sheer volume of it, and the frenetic pace of life combine to create a superbly fertile environment for cyber attackers to exploit. The challenge is to detect the intrusion quickly after the inevitably successful phishing attack, shut it down, and make it very difficult for bad actors to access sensitive information in the interim even if they gain access the network."

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