Overnight Cybersecurity: Lawmaker questions FBI’s ‘troubling’ ties to Hacking Team

Welcome to OVERNIGHT CYBERSECURITY, your daily rundown of the biggest news in the world of hacking and data privacy. We’re here to connect the dots as leaders in government, policy and industry wrap their arms around cyberthreats. What lies ahead for Congress, the administration and the latest company under siege? Whether you’re a consumer, a techie or a D.C. lifer, we’re here to give you …

THE BIG STORIES:

–CROSSING THE LINE?: The government’s relationship with the controversial Italian surveillance firm Hacking Team may have violated the law, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a letter sent Wednesday to the FBI. Hackers recently broke into Hacking Team’s networks, dumping troves of internal documents, contracts and emails with clients. The leaked documents revealed long-standing ties with the U.S. government, along with deals between the company and oppressive governments across the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. “It is troubling that the leaked documents also revealed Hacking Team’s business relationships with a number of repressive regimes around the world, including Sudan,” Grassley said in his letter. Grassley singled out Sudan because of a 2007 law that forbids the U.S. government from doing business with companies conducting restricted business with Sudan, such as selling “military equipment.” To read our full piece, click here.

{mosads}–BATTLE BILLS: The Senate now has competing bills aimed at restricting education companies from selling or using student data for targeted ads. Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Thursday introduced the Safe Kids Act. The measure would also require private companies to meet certain data security standards when handling student information. Federal regulators would be empowered to punish any companies violating the bill’s provisions. “The perils of privacy invasion and data abuse must be stopped at the classroom door with laws that match advancing technology,” Blumenthal said. The Daines-Blumenthal bill is nearly identical to a measure that Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced in the upper chamber in May. Lawmakers have said they hope to combine the two. To read our full piece, click here.

–REPORT BACK: The Senate rewrite of No Child Left Behind would require the secretary of Education to submit a report to Congress on the state of cybersecurity higher education. The provision is an attempt to address the chronic shortage of cyber workers nationwide, frequently cited as a reason the country’s digital defenses are struggling to catch up to hackers. The upper chamber on Thursday easily passed an overhaul of the 13-year-old education law, which had become widely derided on both sides of the aisle. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) got her cybersecurity provision tacked on as an amendment during discussion of the bill. The Education Department must file the report by next June. It will look at the shortcomings and successes of secondary and postsecondary cyber education and assess “whether secondary and postsecondary education programs are meeting the need of public and private sectors for cyber defense.” To read our full piece, click here.

LIGHTER CLICK:

–BUT I WANT TO VISIT THAT SITE. In the coming months, Google’s Chrome browser is going to increasingly stymie you from surfing the Internet willy nilly. The goal is to stop you from visiting malware-laden sites, which is great. So keep that in mind the next time you’re blocked trying to click over to “10 best celebrity nip slips.” Read on at TechCrunch.

WHO’S IN THE SPOTLIGHT:

–THE INTERN. From CNN Money: “The guy accused of being one of the world’s top Android phone hackers is a bright young student who’s been honing his skills as an intern at the cybersecurity firm FireEye.” Read on, here.

A REPORT IN FOCUS:

–NOT SURPRISING. Even worse than cybersecurity within a country? Cybersecurity across the borders of countries, according to a report from NATO. Read the study, here.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Links from our blog, The Hill, and around the Web.

United Airlines has given millions of miles to hackers. (The Hill)

In the first half of 2015, venture firms invested $1.2 billion in cybersecurity startups. (The Wall Street Journal)

A once-theoretical crypto attack on HTTPS is on the verge of practicality. (ArsTechnica)

People are freaking out over whether their credit cards were stolen in the OPM hack. (BuzzFeed)

“How OPM betrayed me.” An essay on what it’s like to have your darkest secrets exposed. (Slate)

A Vietnamese man who ran an online identity theft service has been sentenced to 13 years in a U.S. prison. (KrebsonSecurity)

How Hacking Team created the spyware that allowed the FBI to monitor Tor browser. (The Intercept)

Spies worldwide are in the hot seat after the Hacking Team breach. (The Associated Press)

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