Kevin Collier / is on Nostr

Cyber reporter at NBC. Also privacy, elections, infrastructure, etc. I like to tell stories about the cyber affecting everyday people.

Tip me! @kevincollier.01 on signal, and please first turn on disappearing messages if it's sensitive. [email protected] works too.

Threads: https://www.threads.net/@kevincolliernbc

Last Notes

2024-09-17 15:26:23

Good morning cyber folks. A borderline literally incredible story from Lebanon, where Reuters is reporting that a simultaneous mass attack on Hezbollah members was...Israel hacking their pagers. Possibly Teletrim, per @michaelh992
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/dozens-hezbollah-members-wounded-lebanon-when-pagers-exploded-sources-witnesses-2024-09-17/
https://x.com/michaelh992/status/1836032469537005570

2024-09-13 19:08:22

Confirming DOJ plans to indict hackers over attempted Trump hack-and-leak campaign attributed to Iran.
I had been emailing, pretty fruitlessly, with one of at least 2 seeming IRGC hacker AOL accounts distributing the files. Account deleted as of today.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/us-file-charges-trump-campaign-hacking-case-officials-say-rcna170996

2024-09-13 13:50:16

Cyber folks, I have a funny problem. Multiple sources are trying to fwd me IRGC phishing emails for me to examine, but I can't receive them because email protection keeps blocking them. I've tried several email providers. What's one that won't be such a narc about Iranian military hackers?

2024-09-05 01:22:28

- reply

The officials wouldn't confirm at the time that they had alerted anyone recently, and certainly won't officially name anyone. But I think that's one of the big open questions remaining. Did any of these guys know they were getting RT money? When? Did they then change behavior?

2024-09-05 01:19:22

- reply

That was in a press call July 29 that focused particularly on broad warnings about Russia as the primary 2024 disinfo actor, and in retrospect it seems to have heavily referenced today's accusations. So the reference to potentially alerting Americans looms large to me today.

2024-09-05 01:16:02

ODNI officials said in July* that their countering foreign malign influence process included potentially alerting Americans unwittingly spreading state-sponsored disinfo. The feds wouldn't and haven't named names. But an indication those names today may have gotten a heads up.

2024-09-04 20:43:31

A really niche pleasure you get as a reporter who joins government press calls is that the hosts (third party?) often appear baffled when they call on Reuters and will call them "Rooters."

2024-08-11 00:28:28

Hey fellow media, we all remember the lessons from 2016 about how to ethically cover an adversarial nation-state hack-and-leak operation designed to influence a presidential election while being true to journalism but also not being played in the op, right? Whew. And we all agree on what those lessons were? Great, awesome, just checking.

2024-04-20 20:47:45

If you're curious what the TikTok ban would look like if the bill is signed into law and a Bytedance sale doesn't happen, I covered it last month: App removed from Google and Apple stores. Tiktoks are still viewable but this suddenly becomes a big hassle.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-ban-bill-congress-senate-means-date-rcna143189
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/305/036/528/903/431/original/527e8a31a96b58b5.png