Deir al-Zour, an oil-rich province that borders Iraq, is largely under Islamic State control and has been the focus of American-led airstrikes and other military action. Continue reading the main story Since early 2015, the jihadists have besieged the provincial capital, also called Deir al-Zour, where about 200,000 people live. The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, controls roughly half of the city, while the […]
International investigators have said for the first time that they suspect President Bashar al-Assad and his brother are responsible for the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, according to a document seen by Reuters. A joint inquiry for the United Nations and global watchdog the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had previously identified only military units and did not name any commanders […]
Cybercriminals are exploiting charity for their own nefarious means. Image: iStock Cybercriminals are attempting to infect people with bank data stealing Ramnit malware by using phishing emails pretending to come from a charity. Migrant Help is a real British charity which offers support to distressed migrants arriving in the UK, but hackers are using its name in an effort to infect victims with the Ramnit banking Trojan, […]
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Friday reprised his election campaign attacks on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, declaring her “guilty as hell” and deriding her supporters’ criticism of how the FBI handled an investigation into her emails. The U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday it would investigate an FBI decision to announce an inquiry into Clinton’s emails shortly before the Nov. 8 election, a move she has blamed […]
For years, Iran has been under a series of international sanctions prohibiting it from exporting arms. The United States has frequently claimed that Tehran has violated the sanctions in support of proxy forces in many conflicts, including in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and the Palestinian territories. Photo Weapons seized in February from smugglers near Yemen’s coast. Credit Australian Department of Defense, via Small Arms Survey The grenade launchers […]
Security researcher Niall Merrigan estimates that more than 600 Elasticsearch instances have now been hit. Image: Niall Merrigan/Twitter Hundreds of Elasticsearch instances have been wiped in the past few hours, in near-identical ransom attacks to those that have hit more than 34,000 unsecured MongoDB databases over the past week. Developers running Elasticsearch servers are being warned to conceal them from the web to avoid being targeted by […]
A long-term national strategy needs to be formulated by the United States government, along with consulting the private sector, to facilitate the advancement of the Internet of Things (IoT), and minimise chances of privacy and security-related harm, the US Department of Commerce has said in a report on Thursday. The Fostering the Advancement of the Internet of Things report said the government can facilitate the IoT by […]
The seven candidates for France’s centre-left presidential nomination showed their profound differences on the economy and the EU on Thursday night even as they scramble to pull together a fractured Socialist party ahead of a widely expected crushing defeat in the spring. A little more than a week before the first round of primary elections, the presidential hopefuls quarrelled on primetime television over the legacy of the […]
The UAE Ambassador to Afghanistan Juma Al Kaabi arrived in Abu Dhabi aboard a military plane on Thursday to receive further treatment from injuries suffered in a bombing in Kandahar. Mr Al Kaabi was accompanied by another UAE Embassy official and an Afghan translator who were also injured in Tuesday’s attack, which Afghan officials now say was carried out with help from outside the country. The injured […]
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in February. (Image: file photo) Despite pleas from privacy groups to rein in the US government’s surveillance powers before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, the Obama administration has done the opposite. The outgoing government will now allow the National Security Agency (NSA) to share raw globally intercepted personal data with the government’s other intelligence agencies. […]
Posted January 13, 2017 05:49:38 The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States and the rise of populist leaders in Europe poses a “profound threat” to human rights, the US-based Human Rights Watch has warned in its annual global report. The 687-page report reviews human rights practices in more than 90 countries. “Trump and various politicians in Europe seek power through appeals to racism, […]
Vladimir Putin is trying to break the north Atlantic alliance and his policies represent one of the key threats to the global order that has prevailed since the second world war, James Mattis, the retired general nominated to be secretary of defence, has told a Senate committee. In testimony that struck a notably harder line on Russia than that of Donald Trump, Mr Mattis said the US […]
JEDDAH/KANDAHAR: The killing of five diplomats from the UAE in a bombing in southern Afghanistan marks the deadliest attack ever for the young nation’s diplomatic corps, though it’s too soon to tell who was behind it or if the Gulf envoys were even the targets.The UAE said it would fly the nation’s flag at half-staff for three days in honor of the dead from the attack Tuesday […]
ABU DHABI // The relationship between the UAE and Afghanistan goes back for more than a decade, with the Emirates involved in the country’s military stabilisation since the collapse of the Taliban regime. Since 2003, it has had an effective presence in Afghanistan, ensuring stability as the country continues to suffer attacks from Taliban militants, and delivering aid while helping it to rebuild. “Afghans appreciated UAE officers […]
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s attempt to take control of all levers of power and a mounting terrorist threat has begun to alarm investors, sending the Turkish lira down 4 per cent to an all-time low on Wednesday. The lira traded at 3.93 to the dollar, down 12 per cent since the beginning of January, clocking its worst performance since a failed coup in July which prompted […]
Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun said his country’s ties with Saudi Arabia were recovering, after tensions linked to the regional rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran led Riyadh to cancel $3 billion of military aid to Beirut last year. Aoun, an ally of the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah, visited Saudi Arabia this week, trying to mend relations with the Sunni Muslim monarchy which has traditionally backed Hezbollah’s […]
Recent political headaches could have been avoided if people learned to encrypt a file once and a while. In 2003, I advocated for licensing computer users just like you license drivers. This idea remains valid, maybe even more so if you consider last year’s election hacks. At the time, nobody took it seriously. But as we saw in the 2016 election, […]
Donald Trump angrily denied claims that Russia sought to cultivate and compromise him, after unverified allegations about his personal conduct and ties to Moscow spilled out into the open, just 10 days before his inauguration. US media reported that intelligence agency officials shared a written synopsis of a dossier containing lurid but unsubstantiated personal claims about Mr Trump, allegedly compiled by Moscow, when they met the president-elect […]
KABUL Afghan security officials began investigating Tuesday’s attacks in the capital Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar as the death toll climbed to at least 50. The Ministry of Public Health raised the death toll from the Kabul attack to 37, with 98 wounded, while 13 people were confirmed dead in Kandahar. One security official said the death toll from the Kabul incident alone could reach […]
Afghan firefighters and municipal workers try to clean debris from the site of suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. Omar Sobhani / Reuters Afghan security personnel arrive at the site of twin blasts near the Afghan parliament in Kabul on Tuesday. Twin Taliban blasts struck near the Afghan parliament in Kabul, killing at least 30 people and wounding 80 in a rush-hour attack that shattered a relative lull […]
Photo James E. Cartwright, a retired Marine general, arriving at Federal District Court in Washington in October. Credit Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press PWASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors asked a judge on Tuesday to sentence James E. Cartwright, a retired Marine Corps general and former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to two years in prison for lying to F.B.I. agents about his discussions with reporters about […]
Over the past few years, a new tradition has emerged, the Holiday DDoS Attack. While distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks happen throughout the year, some of the highest profile attacks occur during the holidays, when the most users will be impacted. Attackers may target online shopping sites to disrupt pre-holiday gift buying. Or they may attack voice over IP services, like Skype, which are used to […]
By Hamid Shalizi | KABUL KABUL A Taliban suicide attack in the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday killed more than 30 people and wounded some 70 others, as twin blasts hit a crowded area of the city during the afternoon rush hour. Saleem Rasouli, a senior public health official, said 33 people had been killed and more than 70 wounded on the Darul Aman road, near an […]
The Merry Christmas ransom note features Futurama’s evil Robot Santa. Image: SANS Internet Storm Center Unsuspecting internet users could find themselves on the receiving end of an unwanted belated Christmas present, malware that doesn’t only encrypt their Windows PC and hold it to ransom, but also steals personal data and login credentials. Spotted by cybersecurity researchers in the first week of the year, the Merry Christmas ransomware […]
