Energy Sec. Granholm admits making false statement to Congress

Granholm indicated she would specify the company's from which she had divested in her annual financial disclosures.

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm on Friday admitted to making a false statement to Congress asserting that she did not own stock.

Granholm wrote to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee leadership to correct the statement she made denying that the owned stocks on April 20.

"I mistakenly told the Committee that I did not own any individual stocks, whereas I should have said that I did not own any conflicting stocks," she said, according to E&E News.

"As you know, as part of the confirmation process before this Committee, in 2021 I divested from assets that could be in conflict with my official duties," she wrote, per Fox News. "I did, however, retain assets that were determined by Government ethics officials to not conflict with my official duties."

Granholm divested from most of her stocks in 2021 but retained shares in six firms. In the letter, she informed lawmakers that she had divested from even those in order to make reality consistent with what she told them.

"I mistakenly told the Committee that I did not own any individual stocks, whereas I should have said that I did not own any conflicting stocks. In order to make my financial holdings consistent with my testimony, on May 18, 2023, I divested my remaining stock holdings which consisted of stock in six companies, even though these assets were deemed non-conflicting," she wrote.

Granholm indicated she would specify the company's from which she had divested in her annual financial disclosures.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy-sec-granholm-admits-making-false-statement-congress

Ukrainian hackers take down service provider for Russian banks

A group of Ukrainian hackers known as the Cyber.Anarchy.Squad claimed an attack that took down Russian telecom provider Infotel JSC on Thursday evening.

Among other things, Moscow-based Infotel provides connectivity services between the Russian Central Bank and other Russian banks, online stores, and credit institutions.

Following yesterday's attack, multiple major banks across Russia had their access cut off from the country's banking systems so that they can no longer make online payments, as Ukrainian news site Economichna Pravda first reported.

Infotel has confirmed the incident on its website, saying that it's currently working on restoring systems that were damaged following what it described as a "massive" attack.

"We would like to inform you that as a result of a massive hacker attack on the network of Infotel JSC, some of the network equipment was damaged," the Russian company said.

"Restoration work is currently underway. Additional deadlines for completing the work will be announced. We hope for your understanding and further cooperation."

While Infotel or their attackers are yet to share a timeline of the attacks, Georgia Tech's Internet Outage Detection and Analysis (IODA) project shows that the Central Bank of Russia's Internet provider went down on June 8, around 11:00 AM UTC.

​IODA also confirms that the Russian company is working on restoring its systems, and it was still offline 34 hours after it was knocked down.

"All their infrastructure was destroyed, nothing living was left there," said the Ukrainian hacktivists on their Telegram channel when they announced the attack yesterday.

"In total, the company has about four hundred clients, a quarter of them are banks, the rest are credit institutions, car dealerships."

As proof of their attacks, they released screenshots of alleged access to Infotel's network, including a network diagram and what appears to be a compromised email account.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/ukrainian-hackers-take-down-service-provider-for-russian-banks/