Techmeme
December 20, 2020, 3:25 AM

Top News

Jacob Knutson / Axios:
Trump downplayed the massive cyberattack on the US government, claiming that China may be responsible and the “Fake News Media” is exaggerating its extent  —  President Trump downplayed a massive cyberattack on U.S. government departments and agencies and private companies on Twitter Saturday …
Associated Press:
Sources: WH officials were ready to release a statement on Friday accusing Russia of being “the main actor” in the SolarWinds hack, but were told to stand down  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — Contradicting his secretary of state and other top officials, President Donald Trump …
Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:
Mike Pompeo says Russia is “pretty clearly” behind the SolarWinds hacking campaign, the first Trump administration official to publicly blame the country  —  Russia is behind the massive, ongoing cyber spy campaign against the federal government and private sector …
New York Times:
How a years long effort to create Cyberpunk 2077, marred by infighting, incompetence, and poor planning, brought the Polish studio CD Projekt RED to its knees  —  Nearly a decade of hype led to a troubled release riddled with glitches, a livid fan base, refunds for potentially millions of players and a possible class-action lawsuit.
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Experts say the SolarWinds hack shows that the US still has no good answers to combat “supply chain” attacks, which are “ridiculously difficult” to detect  —  Despite years of warning, the US still has no good answer for the sort of “supply chain” attack that let Russia run wild.
Microsoft Security:
Microsoft details the Solorigate DLL file that was used to install a backdoor in SolarWinds Orion and reveals it discovered additional malware affecting Orion  —  - Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team  — Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC)  —  We, along with the security industry …
Wall Street Journal:
US officials say the hacking campaign involving SolarWinds would likely still be undetected if not for a security alert at FireEye that triggered scrutiny  —  Suspected Russian hack involving SolarWinds software that compromised parts of the U.S. government was executed on a scale that has surprised even veteran security experts
Reuters:
Bloomberg:
ProPublica:
Leaked docs show how China stage-managed what appeared on its domestic internet to make coronavirus look less severe in the early days of the outbreak  —  ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.  Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published.
Katie Bo Williams / Defense One:
WH officials propose ending the “dual-hat” leadership arrangement of NSA and Cyber Command, renewing debate over splitting up the agencies amid recent attacks  —  An end to the “dual hat” arrangement has been debated for years — but the timing raises questions.
Patricia Hurtado / Bloomberg:
DOJ charges a China-based executive at Zoom with disrupting video meetings commemorating Tiananmen Square Massacre; Zoom says it terminated the employee  —  - Worker accused of disrupting Tiananmen Square commemorations  — Zoom says it fired Xinjiang Jin after internal investigation

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