US Government Says Section 702 Helped Solve Colonial Pipeline, Other Cyber Incidents
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In its efforts to promote the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expires at year-end, the US government disclosed that intelligence gleaned under the law helped US investigators to solve the 2021 ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline and claw back millions of dollars in ransom the pipeline’s operator paid to the perpetrators.
The program allows the National Security Agency to collect communications of foreigners living overseas from US companies, but it also incidentally collects texts, calls, emails and other digital content belonging to Americans, which has attracted the criticism of privacy advocates, who have called for shutting it down.
US officials also disclosed other cases in which Section 702 had been used to fight crime and fend off cyberattacks, including mitigating an Iranian ransomwa…
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