Hackers

Hack Back

Plus: Dario Amodei's Epstein-connected wife, immigrant deaths at Delaney Hall, and more...

Liz Wolfe | 8.14.2026 9:30 AM

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President Donald Trump just gave the green light to American companies to carry out their own cyberattacks against hackers. This essentially allows for a new form of trench warfare, but one that possibly helps American companies become more formidable to those who seek to harm them.

"Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) pose a growing threat to American citizens, businesses, and national security," reads the memorandum Trump issued yesterday. "Through Executive Order 14390 of March 6, 2026 (Combating Cybercrime, Fraud, and Predatory Schemes Against American Citizens), I directed the Federal Government to take various actions to combat cyber‑enabled crime harming American citizens. This memorandum expands the fight against TCO-perpetrated cybercrime by incorporating the ingenuity of the private sector."

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Companies will increasingly be able to work with the Homeland Security and Justice Departments to counter criminal cyberattackers and defend their own data. "The move is a sharp pivot from decades of cybersecurity policy across Republican and Democratic administrations that generally prioritized improving corporate defenses and confined offensive cyberoperations to the U.S. military and intelligence agencies," reports The New York Times. In other words: This........

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