Renee Dudley is a tech reporter at ProPublica. Before joining ProPublica in 2018, she was a member of the enterprise team at Reuters, where she reported extensively on issues with college-entrance exams. She uncovered a U.S. higher education admissions system corrupted by systematic cheating on standardized tests. Following public outcry over the use of leaked SAT exams and other issues Reuters uncovered, the test's maker vowed to fix the problems. The series was named a 2017 Pulitzer Prize finalist in National Reporting.
Before joining Reuters in 2015, she worked as a reporter in New York for Bloomberg News and in South Carolina for The (Charleston) Post and Courier and The (Hilton Head) Island Packet. At Bloomberg, she uncovered questionable accounting and unauthorized sales practices at Walmart Inc. In Charleston, her reporting led to the indictment and resignation of South Carolina’s most powerful politician. She received the Society of Professional Journalists’ Pulliam Award in 2010 for her work upholding First Amendment rights while reporting for The Island Packet. There, her reporting led to a change in state law that opened public records that previously had been closed.
When the White House welcomed Microsoft’s offer of $150 million in tech services, it helped the world’s largest software provider tighten its grip on federal business and freeze out competitors.
The criticism from members of the House Homeland Security Committee came in response to a ProPublica investigation that found Microsoft repeatedly rebuffed an engineer’s warnings that a product flaw had left millions of users vulnerable to attack.
Former employee says software giant dismissed his warnings about a critical flaw because it feared losing government business. Russian hackers later used the weakness to breach the National Nuclear Security Administration, among others.
Recent cyberattacks in the U.S. might have been detected sooner if infected computers had logging software, a feature in premium Microsoft licenses. Former National Cyber Director Chris Inglis says this type of security should already be built in.
In this excerpt from “The Ransomware Hunting Team: A Band of Misfits’ Improbable Crusade to Save the World From Cybercrime,” the authors reveal how unprepared the nation’s top federal law enforcement agency was to combat online crime.
Highly educated autistic people have long found work in tech — but now two Dutch entrepreneurs are training socially isolated autistic dropouts and finding productive jobs for them. The approach could be a model for America.
The Russia-linked ransomware gang Conti avoided the sanctions that hit Russian banks and businesses after the invasion of Ukraine, spotlighting the difficulty of reining in cybercriminals. Meanwhile, confused victims face uncertainty.
Five months before DarkSide attacked the Colonial pipeline, two researchers discovered a way to rescue its ransomware victims. Then an antivirus company’s announcement alerted the hackers.
Brands have long been able to bid for the premier slot at the top left of Amazon’s listings, but during the pandemic the online retailer has begun using this position for its private-label items, raising antitrust concerns.
At a time when much of the retail sector is collapsing, Amazon is strengthening its competitive position in ways that could outlast the pandemic — and raise antitrust concerns.
Wary of alarming investors, companies victimized by ransomware attacks often tell the SEC that “malware” or a “security incident” disrupted their operations.
Thanks to Michael Gillespie, an obscure programmer at a Nerds on Call repair store, hundreds of thousands of ransomware victims have recovered their files for free.
Even when public agencies and companies hit by ransomware could recover their files on their own, insurers prefer to pay the ransom. Why? The attacks are good for business.
We recently wrote about two U.S. firms that promised high-tech ransomware solutions but instead paid the cyber-attacker. A U.K. company appears to do the same.
As ransomware attacks crippled businesses and law enforcement agencies, two U.S. data recovery firms claimed to offer an ethical way out. Instead, they typically paid the ransom and charged victims extra.
Has your organization been hit by ransomware? Did you hire a data recovery firm? Do you know how an attack works from the inside? We’d like to hear from you.
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