Authorities search for a motive after deadly ambush of US firefighters
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News.com.au
3 hours ago
- News.com.au
Woman falls while trying to cross opening drawbridge
A woman has been seriously injured after a drawbridge in Florida began lifting while she was still walking across it, sending her plummeting to the ground. The terrifying incident occurred just before 10:45am on Saturday, when police were called to the Brickell Avenue Bridge in Miami. According to authorities, the bridge started to open for passing boats just as the woman had reached the second half of the bridge. In footage captured by horrified onlookers the unidentified woman can be seen clinging to railings of the bridge before losing her grip and falling. A witness named Conor Walsh told CBS News Miami that he had been on a run when he saw the incident unfold. 'She got halfway up, she was holding onto the side, and then she just dropped,' he said. 'She dropped, I don't know, about three-quarters of the bridge, and then she landed. Her shins went through her knee caps and she was on the ground, kind of in shock.' Another witness, Robert Bruno, told the Miami Herald that he caught the incident on his phone and was in disbelief. 'It was something that I have always thought happening like, 'What would I do?'' he said. 'The woman held on for dear life.' Emergency crews rushed to the scene, and the woman was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital with serious leg injuries. One of the officers who attended also suffered a cut to the hand from broken glass and was admitted to hospital for treatment. Miami police spoke with a man who claimed the woman had been on the bridge earlier that morning, according to CBS News. Further footage shows at least eight police cars and one fire truck stationed at the scene as investigators continued to collect evidence. Authorities are yet to release the woman's identity, and the circumstances leading up to the incident remain under investigation. In 2022, a 79-year-old grandmother was killed while crossing a Florida drawbridge as it opened. Carol Wright was within 10 feet of the drawbridge's barrier arms that halt traffic when it started to rise, police told the Palm Beach Post at the time. Despite trying to hold on, she fell 15 metres and tragically died on impact. The 43-year-old bridge operator plead guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to eight years of probation and 200 hours of community service.
ABC News
3 hours ago
- ABC News
What we know about Scattered Spider, the hacker group targeting airlines
Alarm bells were being sounded that Scattered Spider, a notoriously aggressive and prolific hacking group, had a new favourite target — the airline sector. The FBI and tech companies Google and Palo Alto Networks put out alerts over the weekend. They warned of multiple incidents in the airline and travel industry that resembled the group's operations. Now it is believed Australia might have fallen victim to the cybercriminals. Qantas has announced that 6 million customer accounts had been exposed in a "significant" cyber attack. The airline would not confirm if it was the target of Scattered Spider, but experts said the attack appeared to have its signature moves. Scattered Spider, or UNC3944, is a loose-knit but aggressive hacking group. The "scattered" gang of affiliates goes by various names and aliases, such as Octo Tempest, Star Fraud, Scatter Swine and Muddled Libra. The members are believed to be mainly young native English speakers from the US and the UK. Some have reportedly been as young as 16 years old. Since emerging in 2022, together the gangs have been accused of breaking into and stealing data from some of the world's largest companies. They are alleged to be behind more than 100 targeted attacks across industries including telecommunications, finance, retail and gaming. The group goes from sector to sector, often targeting sectors that face significant customer pressure. And they aim for the big fish. In 2023, hackers tied to Scattered Spider broke into gaming companies MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment, partially paralysing casinos and knocking slot machines out of commission. The $US14 billion ($21 billion) gaming giant MGM Resorts operates over 30 hotels and casinos around the world, including in Macau and Las Vegas. The group has also caused mayhem across the UK, hitting some of the largest retail brands, including Harrods, Co-Op and Marks & Spencer (M&S). A recent cyber attack on M&S disrupted the company's online business over weeks. It has resulted in about 300 million pounds ($600 million) in lost operating profit. Scattered Spider is known to use tactics such as social engineering, where hackers trick people into letting them into systems. They essentially target human vulnerabilities. The chief executive of M&S confirmed that "threat actors" had gained access to the retailer's systems via one of its contractors using social engineering techniques. The group typically exploits an organisation's IT helpdesk, using publicly available information to pose as a staff member. David Tuffley, a cybersecurity expert from Griffith University, said the tactics could be "pretty aggressive". The impersonations could take place through phishing attacks, which is often fake emails or text messages, or the hackers may even make phone calls directly to the help desk. Daswin De Silva, a professor of AI and analytics and director of AI strategy at La Trobe University, said the tactics were "really manipulative". "Help desks want to resolve issues as quickly as possible," Professor De Silva told the ABC. "With a large organisation that has outsourced some of their business functions, they tend to be removed from the day-to-day operations of the main business. "When there is a disconnect like this … the security can be compromised." Another tactic the group is known to use is called multi-factor authentication (MFA) bombing or MFA fatigue. It involves attackers repeatedly sending MFA requests, such as notifications to a user's device, in an attempt to overwhelm them and trick them into approving a login. This could enable them to gain access to the data warehousing platform, or manipulate password resets. Qantas has released a statement saying that it detected unusual activity on Monday, on a third-party platform used by a contact centre. The airline said 6 million customers had service records in the platform, and it believed the proportion of stolen data would be "significant". An initial review confirmed the data included some customers' names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and frequent flyer numbers, the airline said. "Importantly, credit card details, personal financial information and passport details are not held in this system," the statement read. "No frequent flyer accounts were compromised nor have passwords, PIN numbers or login details been accessed." The breach comes as the FBI has sent out a notification saying it has recently observed Scattered Spider "expanding its targeting to include the airline sector". "They target large corporations and their third-party IT providers, which means anyone in the airline ecosystem, including trusted vendors and contractors, could be at risk," the FBI said in a statement posted on X. "The FBI is actively working with aviation and industry partners to address this activity and assist victims." Alaska Air Group-owned Hawaiian Airlines and Canada's WestJet have both recently reported being struck by unspecified cyber incidents. Qantas said it had notified the Australian Cyber Security Centre and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. A spokesperson for CyberCX told ABC News the incident had all the hallmarks of an attack from the Scattered Spider hacker group. Professor Tuffley said he "wouldn't be too surprised" if the group was behind the attack. "Qantas are actually pretty good as far as cybersecurity goes, but obviously their call centre in the Philippines or wherever it was wasn't quite so good," he said. Previous breaches on major Australian companies including Medibank and Optus have highlighted how cyber attacks can see people's data used as a bargaining threat to make companies pay a ransom. Another concern for Qantas customers is that their personal data could be onsold and then used to conduct fraud. Professor Tuffley said that often, data from large-scale breaches would be combined to assemble enough information to impersonate someone. Criminals could then carry out scams such as SIM swapping or financial fraud. "They could contact a telco and say 'Hi, this is Dave, I lost my phone and I want to get a new SIM installed,'" he said. "The telco will go through all sorts of security vetting, but if they've got enough information about you, then they can succeed at that." Professor De Silva said often after a major breach, there would be a secondary round of attacks based on the data that was stolen. That could involve using the data to ask for password resets or security check-ups. "The attack was first detected on Monday, but customers and the public were informed on Wednesday. This delay translates to more than 48 hours for subsequent targeted/personalised attacks towards individual customers," Professor De Silva said. "The Australian government and relevant authorities must do better in managing the communications, impact and loss following cyber attacks." Qantas customers are being advised to stay vigilant and check accounts and transactions regularly, including frequent flyer accounts. As a general piece of advice, experts say individuals should never reuse passwords on any system or service.
ABC News
4 hours ago
- ABC News
What does Diddy's racketeering charge mean? What happens next in his trial?
Jurors in the trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs have told the New York court they are unable to agree on the most serious charge he's facing. They agreed on four of the five charges against him but, after two days of deliberations, they're still divided on one charge. A jury can only give a verdict on a charge if all 12 jurors agree. Here's what that means for the trial and what we can expect next. The jury is still deliberating on one charge. Prosecutors, Mr Combs's legal team and Judge Arun Subramanian agreed that it was too soon to give up on reaching a verdict on every charge. Mr Subramanian told the jury to continue deliberating on the remaining charge. The court has not heard their verdict on the other four charges. Jurors have told the court they have agreed on the trafficking and prostitution charges. But the jurors can't agree on the racketeering conspiracy charge. "We have jurors with unpersuadable opinions on both sides," they said in a note. The racketeering charge is the most serious charge against Mr Combs — it carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. It's a charge under the US Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) The US government introduced this law in 1970 to take down crime gangs — the aim was to tie crime bosses to the offences of those working under them. Here's an explanation of "racketeering" and "conspiracy" in the context of US law: The prosecution accused Mr Combs of using his business, the Combs Enterprise, to violently coerce and blackmail women to perform sex acts, among other criminal acts. The law allows prosecutors to combine related offences that otherwise would have had to be prosecuted separately in different states, the US Department of Justice website explains. It also provides a way for prosecutors to ensure their case "adequately reflects the nature and extent of the criminal conduct involved in a way that prosecution only on the underlying charges would not". And, in this case, it allowed the prosecutors to use evidence they would not have been able to use if Mr Combs was charged only with sex trafficking. "RICO allows you to bring in the bigger picture," former US prosecutor Bobby Taghavi said. "[That includes] his lifestyle, his power, his anger issues, the way people had to obey him — the 360-degree view of his conduct." During the trial, the court heard allegations of separate incidents of abuse and other criminal behaviour, but the law focuses on a broader system of criminal acts. In order to secure a guilty verdict on a RICO charge, prosecutors must show that: Members of a so-called enterprise, or group of people engaged in a common purpose, committed or planned to commit two other crimes in connection with the enterprise within a 10-year period We don't know yet. All we know is that the jury agreed on four charges. But we don't know whether they have found Mr Combs guilty or not guilty of those charges. The jury may be allowed to deliver a partial verdict. A partial verdict means a jury giving a verdict on the charges they did agree on — while a mistrial may be declared for the other charges they didn't agree on. The prosecution would have the option of running a retrial on the charge they couldn't agree on, the Legal Information Institute's website says. It's difficult to predict what the prosecution would do without knowing the jury's verdict on the other charges. If the jury finds Mr Combs not guilty on the other charges, the prosecution might be more inclined to push ahead with a retrial on the racketeering charge. But if the jury finds Mr Combs guilty and the prosecution is satisfied with the length of his jail sentence, it might be less inclined to go for a retrial. The prospect of a retrial would likely be highly distressing to prosecution witnesses who went through the ordeal of having to relive alleged traumatic assaults in such a public setting. No. A person is only sentenced after the jury has delivered a guilty verdict. And, at the moment, we still don't know if the jury has found Mr Combs guilty or not guilty. Mr Combs is currently behind bars because he was denied bail ahead of the trial — not because he's serving a prison sentence. Currently, New York time — which is called Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) — 14 hours behind Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST). So when it's 9am in Sydney, it's 7pm in New York. This means that any major updates from the trial will probably come either very late at night or early in the morning here in Australia.
