.

October 3, 2016

National Cyber Security Awareness Month

Cyber Security is Everyone's Responsibility

Data breaches resulting in the compromise of personally identifiable information of thousands of Americans. Intrusions into financial, corporate, and government networks. Complex financial schemes committed by sophisticated cyber criminals against businesses and the public in general.

These are just a few examples of crimes perpetrated online over the past year or so, and part of the reason why Director James Comey, testifying before Congress last week, said that “the pervasiveness of the cyber threat is such that the FBI and other intelligence, military, homeland security, and law enforcement agencies across the government view cyber security and cyber attacks as a top priority.” The FBI, according to Comey, targets the most dangerous malicious cyber activity—high-level intrusions by state-sponsored hackers and global cyber syndicates, and the most prolific botnets. And in doing so, we work collaboratively with our domestic and international partners and the private sector.

But it’s important for individuals, businesses, and others to be involved in their own cyber security. And National Cyber Security Awareness Month—a Department of Homeland Security-administered campaign held every October—is perhaps the most appropriate time to reflect on the universe of cyber threats and on doing your part to secure your own devices, networks, and data.

What are some of the more prolific cyber threats we’re currently facing?

Ransomware is type of malware that infects computers and restricts users’ access to their files or threatens the permanent destruction of their information unless a ransom is paid. In addition to individual users, ransomware has infected entities such as schools, hospitals, and police departments. The actors behind these sophisticated schemes advise the users that if they pay the ransom, they will receive the private key needed to decrypt the files. Most recently, these cyber criminals—demonstrating some business savvy—give victims the option of decrypting one file for free to prove that they have the ability to restore the locked files. More on ransomware.

Business e-mail compromise, or BEC, scams continue to impact many businesses across the U.S. and abroad. BEC is a type of payment fraud that involves the compromise of legitimate business e-mail accounts—often belonging to either the chief executive officer or the chief financial officer—for the purpose of conducting unauthorized wire transfers. After compromising a company’s e-mail account—usually through social engineering or malware—the criminals are then able to send wire transfer instructions using the victim’s e-mail or a spoofed e-mail account. BEC scams have been reported in all 50 states and in 100 countries and have caused estimated losses of more than $3 billion worldwide. More on BEC scams.

Intellectual property theft involves robbing individuals or companies of their ideas, inventions, and creative expressions—often stolen when computers and networks are accessed by unscrupulous competitors, hackers, and other criminals. Intellectual property can include everything from trade secrets and proprietary products and parts to movies, music, and software. And the enforcement of laws protecting intellectual property rights (IPR)—which are critical to protecting the U.S. economy, our national security, and the health and safety of the American public—is an FBI criminal priority. The Bureau’s IPR focus is the theft of trade secrets and infringements on products that can impact consumers’ health and safety, including counterfeit aircraft, automotive, and electronic parts. More on intellectual property theft.

“The FBI is doing everything we possibly can, at every level, to make it harder for cyber criminals to operate,” says Associate Executive Assistant Director David Johnson, “and I believe many of them are now starting to think twice before they put fingers to keyboard. But we also ask that the public do its part by taking precautions and implementing safeguards to protect their own data.”

Check back on our website during the month of October for information on protecting your data and devices and on FBI efforts to combat the most egregious cyber criminals.

Resources:

• Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
• More on National Cyber Security Awareness Month
• Department of Justice’s Best Practices for Victim Response and Reporting of Cyber Incidents
• U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team cyber security tips
• Department of Homeland Security cyber security information
• Stay Safe Online website
• FBI Cyber’s Most Wanted
• More on FBI efforts to combat cyber crime 

Pope Francis Continues his assault on Global Capitalism - the Many Sides to the People's Pope

.

The People's Pope has stayed true to his message of social justice and continued to say capitalism as it is practiced today is a manipulation by the rich to control the lives of everyone else.  It is a message that undermines the flamboyant living of a number of Bishops of the Church, a number of whom have already sold off million dollar estates.

More important, it is a direct challenge to the political leaders of America to stop protecting the rich and start caring for the middle class and poor.  It seems odd that all those defenders of the people running for and holding political office are pretty much silent when it comes taking on capitalism.

Capitalism is not protected by our Constitution and did not even exist when our nation was founded in this country.  It evolved over time and as it became more and more of a force in the evolution of America those practitioners of capitalism seemed to create their own creed, their own constitution and their own priorities far disparate from those of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

Where our nation was founded on equal opportunity and individual freedom, capitalism was based on greed, power, accumulation and control.  Once upon a time our nation was the model for the world in terms of social justice and the good of the people was the goal of the nation and it led us into combining charity and government assistance into housing, medical practices, transportation, education and agriculture practices that transformed our country and was a beacon to the world.

But somewhere along the line serving the public good fell victim to the greed driven obsession of wealth, power and control.  It wasn't enough to have more money than everyone else, it became fashionable to protect your own wealth by denying it to others.

Our institutions of commerce became more and more exclusive until financial vehicles like the stock markets were thoroughly corrupted with the blind complicity of our very own government.  Corruption has seeped into nearly every aspect of capitalism from financing to banks, to markets, to manufacturing, distribution, sales, quality control and you name it.

The government, federal, state and local, became the way to legitimize corruption and all it took was the rich setting aside a small percentage of the trillions of dollars in our economy to lobby politicians, set up kickbacks, insider trading deals, political campaign contributions, arms deals and you name it as long as tax dollars were used and there were no restrictions on bonuses whether corporate executives or government employees.

When the dark side takes hold the talons run deep, straight to the heart, and both those people who were participating in corruption and those who were ignoring corruption became the normal, not the exception to the rule.

Total it takes a Pope from South America to point out the obvious to Americans because those here in America responsible for what goes on are caught up in the game and long ago lost their moral compass.

Long ago Jesus Christ went ballistic when he found the merchants peddling their wares in the Temple and he drove them away.  There is no Jesus today and instead of a Temple we have a nation that is full of corrupt and unethical practices.  Maybe instead of trying to fix economic problems caused by greed we should eliminate the instruments of evil used to cheat the people through capitalism and restore individual rights, freedom and equality.

As for the Pope, well he practices what he preaches.  Just check out the next article about how he has cleaned house in the Vatican Bank, a corrupt partner to the American banking system.  If only our elected representatives had the same guts for protecting the people.  Maybe the multi-million dollar bonuses earned by defrauding the American people and triggering a worldwide recession won't happen again.

Pope Francis Fires His Bankers…Again

By Rob Garver

.

Pope Francis Fires His Bankers…Again

When he took over as head of the Roman Catholic Church last year, Pope Francis made it clear that he meant to be the leader of a “poor church” – meaning that the Vatican would focus less on its own splendor and more on finding ways to use its vast financial resources to benefit the world’s poor.

It’s turning out to be more of a struggle than Francis may have expected; last week he found it necessary to fire all five directors of the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority – essentially the primary financial watchdog over the Papal State’s considerable financial operations.

The announcement on Thursday was only the most recent in a series of firings, replacements, and arrests that have rocked the Vatican’s financial hierarchy. It turns out that for Francis, casting the moneychangers out of the Temple has proven to be a time-consuming task.

Last summer, a number of senior officials with the Vatican Bank resigned around the time that one of its senior accountants, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, was arrested and charged with conspiring to smuggle more than $20 million from Italy to Switzerland. Scarano, reportedly known in Rome as “Monsignor 500” for his habit of displaying a wallet full of €500 notes, has since been charged with multiple other offenses, including money laundering.

In January, Francis fired four out of the five cardinals on the commission overseeing the bank, known as the Institute for Works of Religion, or IOR in its Italian acronym. Supposed to serve only priests, nuns, and religious orders, the Vatican Bank has been implicated in money laundering schemes and other illegal activity. Francis made it clear that he was open to closing down the bank completely.

In February, by Papal edict, he laid out multiple new transparency requirements for the Vatican’s financial arm, and created a new Secretariat for the Economy, meant to act as an auditor general for the Vatican. The following month, he indicated that the Vatican Bank would survive, though in a vastly different form, as a large number of accounts not related to its central mission were shut down.

The edict, though, has not cleaned out all of the old guard who have made the Vatican’s financial system a laughingstock among law enforcement professionals and a haven for criminals.

Last week’s announcement came after Swiss money laundering expert René Brülhart, who was named to head the Financial Information Authority, complained that he was being obstructed by the board – made up of five Italians with connections to the Vatican’s old guard.

In years past, it might have been Brülhart, at one point the head of Liechtenstein’s respected Financial Intelligence Unit, who found himself out on the street.

To Francis’s credit, there is a new board on its way in oversee the Vatican’s financial watchdog Its makeup is remarkable only because of its international nature: it’s made up of four international experts, including former financial regulators – one from the U.S., one from Switzerland, one from Singapore and a fourth from Italy. It is also notable that the Italian member is a woman, insurance executive Maria Bianca Farina, making her one of the few women with significant authority in the Vatican.

.