Ellen Nakashima

Technology giants increasingly are casting themselves as defenders of online integrity as American democracy, yet again, comes under attack. A recent string of revelations from companies including Facebook, Microsoft and Google about foreign hacking and disinformation amount to a public answer to charges that the technology industry should have done more to thwart Russia’s online attacks in 2016.

The Trump administration has moved to give the military more latitude to conduct offensive cyber operations against American adversaries, continuing an effort begun in 2017 to grant commanders more leeway to make battlefield decisions. President Donald Trump on Aug 15 signed an order delegating authority to the defense secretary to use cyber tools and techniques to disrupt or degrade an adversary’s network or choke off attacks underway, loosening rules established under the Obama administration.

A group of First Amendment advocates has urged Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg to change the social media giant’s platform rules to enable public service journalism and research on its platform. The issue is especially pressing as reporters and researchers investigate Russian interference in the midterm elections through platforms such as Facebook’s.

Two years after Russia interfered in the American presidential campaign, the nation has done little to protect itself against a renewed effort to influence voters in the coming congressional midterm elections, according to lawmakers and independent analysts. They say that voting systems are more secure against hackers, thanks to action at the federal and state levels — and that the Russians have not targeted those systems to the degree they did in 2016. But Russian efforts to manipulate U.S.

The major problem law enforcement faces in obtaining digital evidence is not the encryption of devices but figuring out which company holds the relevant data and how to get it, according to a study released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Though much of the debate around access to digital evidence has focused on the challenges law enforcement agencies face in cracking encrypted devices or decoding encrypted data, CSIS researchers William A.

The Justice Department plans to alert the public to foreign operations targeting US democracy under a new policy designed to counter hacking and disinformation campaigns such as the one Russia undertook in 2016 to disrupt the presidential election. The government will inform American companies, private organizations and individuals that they are being covertly attacked by foreign actors attempting to affect elections or the political process. “Exposing schemes to the public is an important way to neutralize them,” said Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.

National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone -- the head of the nation’s largest electronic spy agency and the military’s cyberwarfare arm -- has quietly directed the two organizations to coordinate actions to counter potential Russian interference in the 2018 midterm elections. The move is an attempt to maximize the efforts of the two groups and comes as President Donald Trump said Russian President Vladi­mir Putin was “extremely strong and powerful” in denying Russian involvement in the presidential election two years ago.

Silicon Valley companies and law enforcement are starting to talk about how to ward off meddling by malicious actors including Russia on social media in the November midterms, an attempt at dialogue and information-sharing that was absent during the 2016 presidential elections.

A federal judge ordered Paul Manafort to jail over charges he tampered with witnesses while out on bail — a major blow for President Trump’s former campaign chairman as he awaits trial on federal conspiracy and money-laundering charges.  “You have abused the trust placed in you six months ago,” US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson told Manafort.

The Democratic National Committee filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Russian government, the Trump campaign and the WikiLeaks organization alleging a far-reaching conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 campaign and tilt the election to Donald Trump.  The complaint, filed in federal district court in Manhattan, alleges that top Trump campaign officials conspired with the Russian government and its military spy agency to hurt Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and help Trump by hacking the computer networks of the Democratic Party and disseminating stolen material found ther