FBI

St. Helena, Calif. —  Highway 29 winds along the floor of the Napa Valley through Yountville and St. Helena and up into Calistoga, passing by vineyards that produce some of the most celebrated and expensive wines in the world.The road, lined with rows of grapevines planted along sun-dappled hills, is justly famous for its stunning beauty — and the stunning number of Michelin-rated restaurants, spas and boutique inns that have popped up among the vineyards.And lately, for locals anyway, it is also the source of a…

Image: Dzelat (Shutterstock)Most people turn on mobile push notifications and then promptly forget about them. However, it turns out that if you’re up to no good, those notifications could get you thrown in prison. The Washington Post reports that the FBI has been using mobile push notification data to unmask people suspected of serious crimes, like pedophilia, terrorism, and murder.Prepping the Sandworm Scenes in Dune: Part TwoThe Post did a little digging into court records and found evidence of at least 130 search…

New Mexico prosecutors attempting to prove that Alec Baldwin was criminally negligent in the fatal shooting of the “Rust” movie cinematographer must grapple with a complicating piece of evidence: a damaged gun.Baldwin has long maintained that he did not pull the trigger of his prop gun — a Colt .45 revolver — on Oct. 21, 2021, while rehearsing a scene on the movie set outside Santa Fe, N.M. Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was standing a few feet away when Baldwin’s gun discharged, firing a lead bullet that fatally struck…

He rubbed elbows with Russian elites, spoke of an exclusive invite aboard an oligarch’s mega-yacht and cozied up to foreign intelligence agencies. As a valued FBI informant for the last 13 years, Alexander Smirnov hopscotched the globe to sweep up information on powerful figures and illicit activities. Federal agents even authorized him to break the law while doing so.For much of this time, Smirnov, 43, also lived a quiet, seemingly unremarkable life in the suburbs of Los Angeles with a long-term girlfriend 15 years his…

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and FBI are investigating widespread outages in AT&T’s wireless network that affected customers across the country Thursday morning. The FCC said it is aware of the reported outages and its Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is actively investigating the incident.  “We are in touch with AT&T and public safety authorities, including FirstNet, as well as other providers,” the agency said in a post on X,…

AT&T said Thursday evening that a nationwide outage earlier in the day was not caused by a cyberattack, based on an initial review. “Based on our initial review, we believe the outage was caused by the application & execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack,” the company said in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “We are continuing our assessment to ensure we keep delivering the service that our customers deserve.” The company…

There has never been a time when safety and security wouldn’t be a priority. These days, however, it seems like it is reaching new heights in how significant it is.Every new technological advancement and innovation introduces new challenges, and it’s getting hard to keep up with all of it.Luckily, there are people who are on the ball and inform others so that they could stay safe out there in this crazy world—it’s people like ex FBI agent Steve Lazarus.Image credits: steve.lazarus.books Live with a creepy stalker…

The takedown of the world’s largest ransomware gang, the Russian-based LockBit, by the FBI, Europol, and the U.K.’s National Crime Agency, today was a major moment in law enforcement’s fight against cybercrime.By some estimates, LockBit, which until its takedown by authorities ran a ransomware-as-a-service offering, is responsible for around 25% of all ransomware out there on the internet. “It is a significant success for the law enforcement agencies,” says Alan Woodward, professor of cybersecurity at the University of…

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday that it successfully disrupted a Russian hacking campaign that infiltrated the routers of homes and small business. The department said it “neutralized a network” of hundreds of small office and home office routers in a court-authorized operation. The operations copied and deleted “stolen and malicious” data and files from routers that were compromised, the DOJ said. The crimes included “spearphishing” and other “credential harvesting” campaigns against…

Alexander Smirnov, an FBI informant, has been charged with fabricating claims related to Hunter Biden's association with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma The Department of Justice has charged a former FBI informant — whose claims Republicans used to bolster allegations of a corrupt bribery scheme involving Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian energy company Burisma — with two counts of making false statements to federal authorities. The indictment, announced Thursday by Special Counsel David…