Reuters reports that Department of Government Efficiency Senior Advisor Christopher Stanley who has been assigned to the Justice Department as part of the Trump administration's efforts to reduce federal spending after working for Elon Musk's X and SpaceX companies was discovered to have been involved in hacking and software piracy activities during his teen years.
Numerous hacking and video game cheat forums have been operated by Stanley under the nicknames eNkrypt and Reneg4d3, including fkn-pwnd[.]com, where he claimed compromising servers in 2006, and reneg4d3[.]com, where he alleged breaching a competitor's message board. Despite announcing his departure from malicious cyber activity in 2010, Stanley was noted to have posted footage compromising a database associated with the Lizard Squad hacking operation in December 2014. Stanley's background in illicit cyber activity was regarded by former Justice Department prosecutor Jonathan Rusch to be troublesome. "I would have very serious concerns about hiring him in and giving him access to these kinds of records," Rusch added. Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi expressed continued trust in Stanley in a statement. Such a development comes after fellow DOGE staffer Edward Coristine was found to have previously assisted cybercriminals.
The FBI has sought public information that would help identify Chinese state-backed Salt Typhoon hackers, reiterating an up to $10 million bounty from the U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice Program for any details that would help in the clampdown of the threat operation that has targeted telecommunications providers in the U.S. and other parts of the world, resulting in the compromise of highly sensitive data, reports BleepingComputer.
Reuters reports that the U.S.'s cybersecurity defenses were regarded by former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly to be increasingly vulnerable against threats following President Donald Trump's retaliatory actions against the country's cyber leaders.
