Latest news with #stateagencies
Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Yahoo
Microsoft Sharepoint server vulnerability puts an estimated 10,000 organizations at risk
A major zero-day security vulnerability in Microsoft's widely used SharePoint server software has been exploited by hackers, causing chaos within businesses and government agencies, multipleoutlets have reported. Microsoft announced that it had released a new security patch "to mitigate active attacks targeting on-premises [and not online] servers," but the breach has already effected universities, energy companies, federal and state agencies and telecommunications firms. The SharePoint flaw is a serious one, allowing hackers to access file systems and internal configurations or even execute code, to completely take over systems. The flaw could put more than 10,000 companies at risk, Cybersecurity company Censys told The Washington Post. "It's a dream for ransomeware operators, and a lot of attackers are going to be working this weekend as well." Google's Threat Intelligence Group added that the flaw allows "persistent, unauthenticated access that can bypass future patching." The US Cybersecurity and Infrastucture Security agency (CISA) said that any servers affected by the exploit should be disconnected from the internet until a full patch arrives. It added that the impact of the attacks is still being probed. The vulnerability was first spotted by Eye Security, which said the flaw allows hackers to access SharePoint servers and steal keys in order to impersonate users or services. "Because SharePoint often connects to core services like Outlook, Teams, and OneDrive, a breach can quickly lead to data theft, password harvesting, and lateral movement across the network," Eye Security wrote in a blog post. The FBI is aware of the attack and is working closely with government and private sector partners. It's not immediately clear which groups are behind the zero-day hacks. In any case, the attack is liable to put Microsoft under the microscope again. A 2023 breach of Exchange Online mailboxes led the White House's Cyber Safety Review Board to declare that Microsoft's security culture was "inadequate."
Washington Post
17-07-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Louisiana cancels $3B repair coastal restoration funded by Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement
NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana is officially halting a $3 billion coastal restoration funded by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement money, state and federal agencies confirmed Thursday. The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project had been intended to rebuild upward of 20 square miles (32 kilometers) of land in southeast Louisiana to combat sea level rise and erosion on the Gulf Coast.
The Independent
24-06-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Government has ‘plain duty' to assist Omagh inquiry with swift disclosure
The UK Government has a 'plain duty' to ensure that full disclosure of documents is swiftly made to the Omagh Bombing Inquiry, its chair has said. Lord Turnbull said his experience to date over the cooperation of some state agencies with the inquiry had caused him to have 'some concerns'. The inquiry chair was speaking at the end of two days of hearings in which the legal representatives of core participants delivered opening statements. The Real IRA bomb in the Co Tyrone town in August 1998 killed 29 people, including a woman who was pregnant with twins, in the worst single atrocity in the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The public inquiry was set up by the previous secretary of state Chris Heaton-Harris to examine whether the explosion could have been prevented by the UK authorities. Lord Turnbull said he understood the challenges of providing disclosure of relevant documents to the inquiry were 'significant'. But he added: 'The fact remains that two years have already passed since the secretary of state announced that there was to be an enquiry. 'At many times since that point the progress towards setting up the inquiry and then of trying to move towards evidential hearings, has appeared to be frustratingly slow. 'Difficulties over providing disclosure of course impact on the ability to schedule evidential hearings.' The inquiry chair said some of those watching may have observed that if successive governments had 'not so staunchly set their face against a public inquiry the problems now being grappled with would not be so acute'. He added: 'Having opposed the setting up of an inquiry so long, there is a plain duty on the Secretary of State (Hilary Benn) and others in government to remedy that now by making available whatever resources are necessary to ensure that full disclosure can be swiftly made available. 'I say that not just because of the passage of time. 'My experience to date has caused me to have some concerns. 'I have not been convinced that some of those with whom the inquiry has to depend upon to provide it with the material it seeks have always been in a position properly to engage with the inquiry or to dedicate the necessary resources to those tasks. 'I therefore trust after all that has been said over today and yesterday, that my remarks and concerns will be passed on to the relevant ministers and others who manage the responses to the inquiry's requests.' Lord Turnbull also said that the inquiry would not 'simply accept statements' that documents had been lost or destroyed. He said: 'Where claims are made that documents of importance have been destroyed or cannot be located, material providers can expect such assertions to be subjected to the most rigorous scrutiny. 'Accordingly the inquiry will expect to hear detailed evidence as to the nature of the efforts made to locate any such documents and the processes around their storage and retention. 'And having done so, the inquiry will draw such inferences as seem appropriate in light of the nature and importance of the documents concerned, alongside the quality of any evidence given by way of explanation for their absence.'
Yahoo
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Government has ‘plain duty' to assist Omagh inquiry with swift disclosure
The UK Government has a 'plain duty' to ensure that full disclosure of documents is swiftly made to the Omagh Bombing Inquiry, its chair has said. Lord Turnbull said his experience to date over the cooperation of some state agencies with the inquiry had caused him to have 'some concerns'. The inquiry chair was speaking at the end of two days of hearings in which the legal representatives of core participants delivered opening statements. The Real IRA bomb in the Co Tyrone town in August 1998 killed 29 people, including a woman who was pregnant with twins, in the worst single atrocity in the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The public inquiry was set up by the previous secretary of state Chris Heaton-Harris to examine whether the explosion could have been prevented by the UK authorities. Lord Turnbull said he understood the challenges of providing disclosure of relevant documents to the inquiry were 'significant'. But he added: 'The fact remains that two years have already passed since the secretary of state announced that there was to be an enquiry. 'At many times since that point the progress towards setting up the inquiry and then of trying to move towards evidential hearings, has appeared to be frustratingly slow. 'Difficulties over providing disclosure of course impact on the ability to schedule evidential hearings.' The inquiry chair said some of those watching may have observed that if successive governments had 'not so staunchly set their face against a public inquiry the problems now being grappled with would not be so acute'. He added: 'Having opposed the setting up of an inquiry so long, there is a plain duty on the Secretary of State (Hilary Benn) and others in government to remedy that now by making available whatever resources are necessary to ensure that full disclosure can be swiftly made available. 'I say that not just because of the passage of time. 'My experience to date has caused me to have some concerns. 'I have not been convinced that some of those with whom the inquiry has to depend upon to provide it with the material it seeks have always been in a position properly to engage with the inquiry or to dedicate the necessary resources to those tasks. 'I therefore trust after all that has been said over today and yesterday, that my remarks and concerns will be passed on to the relevant ministers and others who manage the responses to the inquiry's requests.' Lord Turnbull also said that the inquiry would not 'simply accept statements' that documents had been lost or destroyed. He said: 'Where claims are made that documents of importance have been destroyed or cannot be located, material providers can expect such assertions to be subjected to the most rigorous scrutiny. 'Accordingly the inquiry will expect to hear detailed evidence as to the nature of the efforts made to locate any such documents and the processes around their storage and retention. 'And having done so, the inquiry will draw such inferences as seem appropriate in light of the nature and importance of the documents concerned, alongside the quality of any evidence given by way of explanation for their absence.'
Telegraph
21-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
The grooming gang scandal isn't just about race, it's also about class
Public outrage over the grooming gang scandal has so far revolved almost entirely around its racial dimension. There can be absolutely no doubt that the suppression of crucial facts because they might have incited prejudice against an ethnic minority was unforgivable, and that the ramifications of what we now know must be ruthlessly examined. There are serious questions about the possibility (or impossibility) of successful multiculturalism that can no longer be avoided. All this is clear and it will be discussed, with its huge implications, exhaustively – because race and the coexistence of different ethnicities within a democratic country are the great topics of the day. What is receiving far less attention – perhaps because it is so much a part of the fabric of British social attitudes as to be nearly invisible – is the question of how the victims of this systematic abuse could have been treated by official authorities with such callous indifference. Let's put it plainly: the fact that huge numbers of white working-class girls could be trafficked, tortured and horrifically abused with the conscious complicity of agencies of the state is not entirely due to sensitivities about the ethnicity of the perpetrators. There is another factor here that is much older and more deeply embedded in British attitudes than the fashionable concern with racial politics. Most of these girls, now being described as 'vulnerable', are of a class and a social type that this country was accustomed to treating with contempt long before Pakistani men were said to have regarded them as whores because they appeared 'uncovered' in public. This supposed explanation, which is presented as a kind of apologia – it was all just a form of cultural misunderstanding – is ridiculous of course. The men knew perfectly well that what they were doing was criminal and relied on local networks of corruption to protect them. But what about the other matter? What about the police and the local authorities and the social care agencies who just preferred to ignore what was happening – or even, in some outrageous instances, to join in the persecution of the victims? Was that entirely due to the fear of raising racial tensions? Or could it be that Britain still has some pretty ugly class prejudices which permit those in charge to dismiss the complaints and protests of the kind of people who are considered beneath contempt? There is something about the hardhearted dismissiveness with which the girls' pleas for help were treated that is almost Dickensian. Many of those who heard them and saw what was happening were presumably quite normal and respectable, perhaps with families (maybe daughters) of their own. What made it possible for them to discount a category of helpless young girls as – what? Not fit for sympathy? Incapable of leading decent lives, anyway? In effect, less than human? Yes, there had to be more to this than the fear of arousing racial tensions or alienating a minority ethnic group. You cannot write off a whole tranche of victims whose safety is your legal (and moral) responsibility unless you believe that they are, somehow, not worth protecting. Did they tell themselves that the girls had 'asked for it', joined in with the drug taking, made themselves available, become the 'whores' that the men assumed them to be? That is the sort of thing that has been said for generations about poor girls who found themselves left to the streets, whom the Victorian reformers and the Evangelical Christian Church once set out to save in the face of traditional smug complacency. This is such a well documented phenomenon in English social history that it is scarcely credible that it could survive intact into the 21st century. But here it is, in a new incarnation. It is not preposterous to suggest that the race issue was just another pretext for the old snobbery that has always condemned girls of this kind to be social outcasts. Ironically, they were being disowned by people who probably regarded themselves as Left-wing. There is something peculiarly resilient about class attitudes in Britain. It remains the undercurrent for most social transactions (and almost all comedy), political behaviour and professional advancement. Of course every sophisticated society has some kind of hierarchical social order and codes of behaviour that are dictated by it. In many of the old European countries – even ones that have dispensed with their aristocracies – it is based on inherited family position. Sometimes (as in Italy) it is connected to regions. In the United States, race took the place of class as the great social barrier but within the white population it was primarily wealth that provided status, not breeding and, until very recently, the wealth that was most admirable was self-made. The Calvinist ideal of success by one's individual effort was the admired model, not the noblesse oblige of an inherited fortune. For the longest time, Americans did not openly acknowledge the existence of what we would call a 'class system'. There were just the 'poor' who needed to work harder so that they could fulfil the American dream, and those who had fulfilled the dream and become richer. It was a ruthless, puritanical assumption that largely ignored the variations in advantages that are (supposedly) taken into account by an older, more established hierarchy. Many would argue that the resilience of class divides in British life should not be blamed entirely on middle-class prejudice: that it is as much a function of working-class solidarity. The reassurance of community ties and common values may make the abandonment of your old roots a frightening and painful thing. There can be little doubt that the existential anxiety that permeates American life with its relentless pressure for social mobility is not enviable. So yes, there is something to be said for loyalty to family, roots and neighbourhood – a refusal to budge from the attitudes in which you were raised. That can seem like a justifiable moral stand and a safe harbour for life. But where does it end? With a road to nowhere and such incurable hopelessness that huge numbers of working-class girls (and boys) can be discarded without a qualm.
