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December 2020

EDUCATION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Leaked CCP Member List Shows 70-member Strong Unit at NYU Shanghai

By on December 18th, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/leaked-ccp-member-list-shows-70-member-strong-

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) unit at the New York University Shanghai has grown to over 70 members, according to a leaked database of CCP members in the Chinese megapolis.

Located in Lujiazui, Shanghai’s wealthy financial hub, NYU Shanghai is a joint venture between New York University and East China Normal University (ECNU), one of the 76 institutions directly owned and managed by the Chinese Ministry of Education. Founded in 2012, the university boasts on its website as “the first Sino-U.S. joint venture university,” a model that has since been adopted by other American schools such as Duke.

The presence of a CCP unit at NYU Shanghai is no surprise, as the party’s constitution requires any institution or organization with three or more members to form a cell. The ECNU, which oversees party activities at NYU Shanghai, has also been publishing information about the units’ leadership changes over the years. Its size and the identity of its members, however, remained unclear until recently when a database containing the personal information of nearly 2 million Shanghai-based CCP members was shared to the Daily Mail.

According to the database, which was reportedly retrieved from a server housed in the British Consulate in Shanghai, NYU Shanghai has employed some 71 CCP members, among which are at least two faculties. All CCP members swear an oath to “strictly observe party’s discipline, protect party’s secrets, be loyal to the party, work hard, fight for communism for the rest of one’s life, always be prepared to sacrifice everything for the party and the people, and never betray the party.”

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Hack of Federal Government Larger Than Previously Thought, Warns CISA By Jack Phillips

By on December 18th, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/hack-of-federal-government-larger-than-previously-thought-warns-cisa_3623466.html?utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2020-12-17-5

The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said Thursday that the hacking campaign that targeted the federal government is larger than what was previously known.

The alleged foreign actors gained backdoor access in more ways than through the SolarWinds software, which was publicly disclosed by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) earlier this week.

“One of the initial access vectors for this activity is a supply chain compromise of the following SolarWinds Orion products. CISA has evidence of additional initial access vectors, other than the SolarWinds Orion platform; however, these are still being investigated,” CISA said in a statement on Thursday.

But it stressed that the “SolarWinds Orion supply chain compromise is not the only initial infection vector this advanced persistent threat actor leveraged.”

The agency also furthermore warned that the threat “poses a grave risk to the Federal Government and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities” as well as the private sector.

Foreign hackers, whose country of origin is not known, compromised “government agencies, critical infrastructure entities, and private sector organizations” starting in March 2020 or before, according to CISA.

The cybersecurity agency noted that it “expects that removing this threat actor from compromised environments will be highly complex and challenging for organizations,” adding: “It is likely that the adversary has additional initial access vectors and tactics, techniques, and procedures that have not yet been discovered.”

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