Sinaloa drug cartel hired a cybersnoop to identify and kill FBI informants A major Mexican drug cartel insider grassed on his fellow drug-peddlers back in 2018, telling the FBI that a cartel "hacker" was tracking a federal official and using their deep-rooted access to the country's critical infrastructure to kill informants. The revelation was made in a new audit of the work the FBI is doing to …
For someone who claims to want to put 'America First' he who must always be orange seems to be wilfully allowing those who serve their country to suffer and die in vein; or perhaps he does not understand the consequences of his actions.
@Alex 72
Those were alive and kicking in 2022 when concerns were raised. Now in 2025 the DoJ is looking at the FBI's response and find it lacking. Also note that the FBI leaks like a sieve when it comes to the current President while omitting such illegal behaviour for the previous one (actually protecting the previous President from scandal even as candidate).
Yet you want to somehow blame Trump?
The point is it was an issue that everyone agreed was an issue, it was not fixed overnight because that’s not how you change the culture of large organisations like say federal agencies. Given the fact this issue has not gone away and can result in such outcomes as well as being only one of a myriad of cyber threats, leads to teh conclusion that cancelling this effort simply because it was Biden who signed it or to pay for tax cuts will likely cost more lives and cash. This is reckless. Whilst I do not absolve the Biden administration in particular or Democrats in general for the state of cyber security in the US at least Biden was trying to fix it and the EO's, appointments, and bills in this area he signed were agreed as the minimum needed by both sides of the aisle. To cut it is let's call it a bold strategy, when everyone trump is picking fights with is scaling up their offensive cyber capability.
@Alex 72
"The point is it was an issue that everyone agreed was an issue, it was not fixed overnight because that’s not how you change the culture of large organisations like say federal agencies"
3 years approximately, yet that wouldnt be a valid excuse in the private sector.
"Given the fact this issue has not gone away and can result in such outcomes as well as being only one of a myriad of cyber threats"
And yet nothing will be done about it because the agency is too slow and incapable of fixing its problems? We are talking about a system abused to commit murder and spy on the FBI.
"leads to teh conclusion that cancelling this effort simply because it was Biden who signed it or to pay for tax cuts will likely cost more lives and cash"]
3 years and the FBI didnt resolve the issue. The DoJ noticing NOW that it hasnt been resolved and I wonder if that is due to the new administration paying attention to these groups and weeding out the seriously dangerous problems (again the FBI who leaks intentionally because they dont like Trump, AND covered for the previous President).
"To cut it is let's call it a bold strategy, when everyone trump is picking fights with is scaling up their offensive cyber capability."
Getting the intelligence agencies back in order and stop them from abusing their positions seems to be what is needed. Maybe then they can fix the issue everyone agreed was an issue back in 2022.
The private sector is no better, its 2025 and half of those surveyed are still paying ransomware, Viasat a private entity with similar threats breached, Lexis Nexis breached and thats just some of what's known about from this month. This has ben a five alarm fire for so long anyone who's any good at countering it can get a six figure salary to work in cyber and that's still not enough to effectively counter it. As I said The Democrats and Republicans over the decades were complacent enough to get the US here and not everything Biden did was correct but 3 years in public sector or PLC is not that long especially when what you need to modify is individual behaviour in terms of opsec and no there are not nearly enough incidents of leaks to the press to contribute meaningfully to this and both sides are just as bad whether they work for Law enforcement banks or any federal agency (although this might be the first administration to attempt a loyalty test on jobs that are not meant to be political appointments) .
January: Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) shut down.
But CISA’s efforts to counter misinformation during the 2020 election transformed it into a conservative bogeyman, and the second Trump administration quickly began targeting the agency, freezing its election security work, pushing out roughly one-third of its 3,300-person workforce, ending threat-hunting contracts and proposing even deeper cuts.
In addition to the struggles at CISA, infrastructure operators have also reported problems with the specialized Sector Risk Management Agencies (SRMAs) that help various industries deal with cyber and physical threats.
The Trump administration is demoting and restructuring the HHS wing that handles the department’s SRMA work. “It seems like they’ve taken a step back,” a healthcare industry representative said. The sector used to meet regularly — sometimes weekly — with HHS to discuss critical infrastructure cybersecurity, Weiss said, “but since the new administration, all of that’s gone.”
Why yes, yes we do blame Trump.
https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/critical-infrastructure-cybersecurity-partnerships-disruption-trump-government-industry/751589/
@vmy2197
"But CISA’s efforts to counter misinformation during the 2020 election transformed it into a conservative bogeyman"
Yes. An agency put in place to protect federal networks turned into a ministry of truth. Considering security agencies who's purpose was the protection of the US were corrupted into weapons against the population there is a good reason to reign them in.
"The Trump administration is demoting and restructuring the HHS wing that handles the department’s SRMA work."
Yes, the Trump administration is doing a lot of work in trying to restore some trust in the corrupt cesspool that was on full display since 2016. When federal agencies actively act against the government and the people they can not be considered good? When the FBI leaks that ICE will be turning up there is a serious failure in the agencies and it isnt something put there by Trump. When the word lie has been swapped out for 'misinformation', 'disinformation', etc and then people are censored it erodes trust. The conspiracy theorists have had a field day celebrating how many times they were right as the government abused the people! Even now there is entertainment in how many slimy scum pretended Biden was fighting fit and running rings around staffers, to now exposing this guy would get lost in the closet.
"Why yes, yes we do blame Trump."
According to this article the FBI have known about this problem they have since 2022 which leads to the death of informants, that is not going to help when trying to recruit informants. And yet somehow all of that is to be ignored, brushed off and forgiven/forgotten and look over there squirrel (i.e. something must be Trumps fault). Either something goes bad and its Trumps fault or something goes bad but look over there that we will blame Trump for.
(*not directed at just you) we know you blame Trump. We know he is to blame for the rain, you stubbing your toe and whatever else makes you feel bad at whatever moment in your life. We know you blame Trump when the article doesnt even mention him. We know you blame Trump when you put your tshirt on backwards and when you wake up and possibly even dream. But that is an issue of your condition and not actually the problem.
It's the government. They barely understand what a budget is. Even before the current administration CISA advice to government branches was largely ignored by the implementation teams. There's an article from the governments own internal standards department floating about that talks about this (can't find the damn thing now but I remember reading it a few years ago). I would argue this isn't an issue with the administration as much as its an issue with CISA (cutting funding isn't going to help but what can you expect. Gotta build more useless shit with the defense budget instead of actually using it correctly) not being taken seriously by anyone across the government. DoD is on a separate standard and it's taken very seriously(by those in charge at least. Not the administration but the folks actually doing the work) but try getting some admin guy in HUD to understand why he has to do function X Everytime he logs in instead of "how it used to work" and get the IT guy to implement it.
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