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Fancy Bear campaign sought emails of high-level Ukrainians and their military suppliers

Fancy Bear, the hacking group linked to Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), has been targeting the email accounts of high-ranking Ukrainian officials as well as executives at defense contractors located in other countries who sell weapons and equipment to Kyiv, according to new research from ESET. The campaign, ongoing since at least 2023, has taken…

CFPB to withdraw rule targeting data brokers

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is set to withdraw a Biden-era rule aimed at cracking down on data brokers and their selling of Americans’ personal and financial information. In a notice set to publish Thursday in the Federal Register, the CFPB said legislative rulemaking on the data broker industry “is not necessary or appropriate at…

DHS won’t tell Congress how many people it’s cut from CISA

The Department of Homeland Security won’t tell Congress how many employees at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency it has fired or pushed to leave, a top congressional Democrat said Wednesday. “You’ve overseen mass reductions in the workforce at CISA and” the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the…

A new bipartisan bill aims to lift the 52-year ban on supersonic flight

U.S. lawmakers introduced Wednesday the Supersonic Aviation Modernization Act in a bid to revise the FAA’s 52-year ban on supersonic flight over U.S. soil. The bipartisan legislation – introduced by Senator Ted Budd (R-NC), Aviation Subcommittee Chair Troy Nehls (R-TX), and Representative Sharice Davids (D-KS) – would allow supersonic travel, provided no audible sonic boom…

Copyright office criticizes AI ‘fair use’ before director’s dismissal 

President Donald Trump’s firing over the weekend of Shira Perlmutter, director of the U.S. Copyright Office, has drawn strong criticism from Democrats and tech experts who believe her dismissal is related to a report on generative AI and copyright law that the register of copyrights released a day earlier. That report, overseen by Perlmutter, questioned…

State and local election officials plead with Congress for election security funding

As the Trump administration takes a hatchet to the federal government’s election security work and attempts to place conditions on funding to states, state and local election officials are pleading with lawmakers to provide robust support  they say  is crucial to keeping American elections secure. In a letter sent to leaders on the House and…

Senators move to quash the use of Chinese AI system by federal contractors 

A bipartisan Senate bill would formally ban the use of DeepSeek by federal contractors, part of a larger effort to keep the Chinese-made large language model out of government systems and networks, where lawmakers fear it could pose cybersecurity and national security concerns. The bill, introduced by Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Jacky Rosen, D-Nev.,…

Sen. Murphy: Trump administration has ‘illegally gutted funding for cybersecurity’

Another top appropriations Democrat criticized budget cuts affecting the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, saying the Trump administration has “illegally gutted funding for cybersecurity.” Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, made his remarks Thursday to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a hearing on…

Trump calls on Colorado to release election-denying clerk from jail

President Donald Trump is calling on Colorado state officials to release Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk serving a nine-year prison sentence for stealing and sharing sensitive voting system data in a failed attempt to bolster Trump’s claims of mass voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. In a Truth Social post Monday, Trump…

House appropriators have reservations — or worse — about proposed CISA cuts

House appropriators on Tuesday challenged proposed budget cuts for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, with Democrats saying the Trump administration was disturbingly moving money away from the agency and a key Republican saying he needed to see justifications for the reductions. The Trump administration has proposed cutting CISA funding by $491 million, and some…

Federal prosecutors indict alleged head of Black Kingdom ransomware

Federal prosecutors indicted a man believed to be living in Yemen with deploying ransomware against multiple U.S. and global organizations. Rami Khaled Ahmed, 36, allegedly infected businesses, schools and hospitals with “Black Kingdom” ransomware, U.S. prosecutors said Thursday. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California charged Ahmed, also known as “Black Kingdom,”…

Amazon, CrowdStrike, Google and Palo Alto Networks claim no change to threat intel sharing under Trump

SAN FRANCISCO — Threat intelligence sharing is flowing between the private sector and federal government and remains unimpeded thus far by job losses and budget cuts across federal agencies that support the cyber mission, according to executives at major security firms. Top brass at Amazon, CrowdStrike, Google and Palo Alto Networks said there’s been no…

Trump administration proposes cutting $491M from CISA budget

President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal would slash $491 million from the budget of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, according to a summary released Friday. That would amount to a nearly 17% reduction to the agency’s approximately $3 billion budget. The administration did not release a detailed itemization of the cuts, only an…

National Security Council cyber lead wants to ‘normalize’ offensive operations 

SAN FRANCISCO — The senior director for cyber at the White House’s National Security Council told an audience Thursday that he wants to “destigmatize” offensive cyber operations, seeing them as a vital tool in the government’s playbook in its battle with foreign adversaries.  Alexei Bulazel told an audience at the RSAC 2025 conference that he…

Congressional officials wonder how CISA can carry out core mission in face of workforce cuts

SAN FRANCISCO – In her appearance at the RSAC 2025 Conference, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem spoke about getting CISA back to its “core mission” of protecting federal networks and critical infrastructure from cybersecurity threats.  Other cyber policy experts wonder how that is going to unfold with such concentration on cutting CISA’s workforce.  Congressional staffers…

Tariffs could slow replacement of telecom networks, according to industry official

Tariff hikes will drive up prices and make it harder for telecommunications providers to replace networks more vulnerable to Chinese hacker intrusion, an industry official told lawmakers Wednesday. “Tariffs will only raise prices,” David Stehlin, CEO of the Telecommunications Industry Association, told Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla. While it makes sense to find ways to bring…

DARPA believes AI Cyber Challenge could upend patching as the industry knows it 

SAN FRANCISCO — Leaders of various federal research agencies and departments outlined a vision Tuesday for the future of critical infrastructure security, emphasizing the promise of combining formal software development methods with large language models (LLMs).  Acting DARPA Director Rob McHenry told an audience at the RSAC 2025 Conference that such a combination could “virtually…

DHS Secretary Noem: CISA needs to get back to ‘core mission’

SAN FRANCISCO — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem outlined her plans Tuesday to refocus the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on protecting critical infrastructure from increasingly sophisticated threats — particularly from China — while distancing the agency from what she characterized as mission drift under previous leadership. Speaking at the 2025 RSAC Conference, Noem…

Cyber experts, Democrats urge Trump administration not to break up cyber coordination in State reorg

Cyber experts are urging Congress to ensure that a planned reorganization of the State Department continues to integrate cyber diplomacy at the highest levels of decision-making, while providing the resources, staffing and structure necessary to project American digital security policy abroad with both allies and adversaries. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s reorganization plan would split…

Amazon, CrowdStrike leaders say private threat intel can quickly bring cybercriminals to justice

SAN FRANCISCO — Threat intelligence flowing from private companies to cybersecurity authorities and law enforcement agencies is critical to the disruption of malicious activities and the arrests of cybercriminals, security leaders at Amazon and CrowdStrike said Monday during the RSAC 2025 Conference.  When the private sector and governments interact well, actively participating and sharing resources…

House passes legislation to criminalize nonconsensual deepfakes

The House passed a bill Monday evening that would criminalize using a person’s likeness to create nonconsensual deepfake pornography. The Take It Down Act sailed through the chamber on a vote of 402-2, marking one of the first major pieces of legislation passed by Congress to address AI-generated deepfakes. The bill makes it a federal…

AI speeds up analysis work for humans, two federal cyber officials say

Two federal cybersecurity officials said Thursday that they’re using — or contemplating using — artificial intelligence to conduct tasks that speed up the work of human analysts. AI is an important current and future contributor to a variety of security-related administrative jobs like accreditation and compliance, and for the Department of the Air Force as…

10 key numbers from the 2024 FBI IC3 report

It looks like 2024 was a record year in cybercrime for all the wrong reasons, according to the FBI’s annual Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) report released Wednesday.  As cyber-enabled fraud and ransomware continue to harm individuals, businesses, and critical infrastructure, the report, now in its 25th year, provides crucial insight into evolving criminal tactics…

Rebuilding Maritime Cybersecurity Resilience: Charting an America First Course to Secure the U.S. Homeland

U.S. ports are vital to the flow of imports and exports; however, the entire maritime transportation system’s cybersecurity is exceedingly vulnerable. The August 2024 ransomware attack at the Port of Seattle resulted in significant cargo delays and a data breach of 90,000 individuals. Such a wide-scale incursion could have resulted in a longer loss of…

Multiple top CISA officials behind ‘Secure by Design’ resign 

Two top officials at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency who worked with the private sector to manufacture secure products and technology are leaving the agency. Bob Lord, senior technical adviser and Lauren Zabierek, senior advisor at CISA, were both chief architects behind CISA’s Secure by Design initiative, which garnered voluntary commitments from major vendors…

House investigation into DeepSeek teases out funding, security realities around Chinese AI tool

A House panel has concluded that the U.S. government should double down on export controls and other tools to slow down the progress of Chinese AI companies like DeepSeek, while also preparing for a future where those efforts fail. In a report released Wednesday, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party further fleshes…

Chris Krebs resigns from SentinelOne to focus on fighting Trump’s executive order

Chris Krebs has resigned from SentinelOne, saying he needs to devote himself fully to fighting the executive order President Donald Trump signed to target his former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The executive order was a key touchpoint in Trump’s unprecedented campaign to punish those he views as his enemies. While at…

Exclusive: Peters, Rounds tee up bill to renew expiring cyber threat information sharing law

A bipartisan pair of senators are kicking off the race Wednesday to reauthorize a 2015 cyber threat information sharing law, a move that industry groups and cyber experts are eager to see happen before it’s set to expire in September. Advocates say the 10-year-old Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act has been vital to sharing threat information…

Rep. Swalwell demands Hill briefing on planned CISA personnel cuts

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency must brief Congress on proposed deep cuts to agency personnel, a top Democrat said in a letter to its acting director. California Rep. Eric Swalwell, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection, wrote in the letter to acting Director Bridget Bean on Thursday…

Trump signs order stripping Chris Krebs of security clearance

President Donald Trump signed a memorandum Wednesday revoking the security clearance of former CISA leader Chris Krebs, with the White House saying he was a “significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his government authority” during his time leading the agency.  The order also suspends any active security clearance held by employees at SentinelOne, where…

Privacy fights over expiring surveillance law loom after House hearing

Lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee say privacy protections under a bill Congress passed to re-up a major surveillance law aren’t strong enough, and are gearing up for additional changes for when the legislation is set to expire next year. Legislative battles over Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — under which…

International intelligence agencies raise the alarm on fast flux

International intelligence and cybersecurity agencies jointly issued a warning Thursday about “fast flux,” an advanced technique used by cybercriminals and state-sponsored actors to evade detection and maintain resilient command and control infrastructure. Fast flux involves rapidly changing or swapping out IP addresses linked to a particular domain. These quick changes render malicious activity nearly invisible…

Don’t cut CISA personnel, House panel leaders say, as they plan legislation giving the agency more to do

Leaders of a key House subcommittee criticized the Trump administration’s personnel cuts at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Wednesday, with its chairman saying he wants CISA to take on more responsibilities, not less — some of which figure into his legislative priorities. Rep. Andrew Garbarino, the New York Republican who chairs the House…

Cyber Command touts AI-driven gains in cybersecurity, network monitoring

A top Cyber Command official said the agency has been able to use generative AI tools to dramatically cut down the time spent analyzing network traffic for malicious activity. Executive Director Morgan Adamski said Wednesday that as Cybercom has worked to build AI capabilities across different missions, the agency is already seeing a return on…

Dispersed responsibility, lack of asset inventory is causing gaps in medical device cybersecurity

Witnesses at a House hearing on medical device cybersecurity Tuesday called out the need for more proactive tracking of products used across the country, saying the status quo leaves many health system owners and operators in the dark about vulnerabilities, exploitation and patching updates. Testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and…

Renew — but improve — billion-dollar cyber grant program to states and locals, House witnesses say

It’s vital that Congress renew the expiring $1 billion state and local cybersecurity grant program, witnesses testified before a House panel, but they added that it could benefit from some upgrades, too. New York Rep. Andrew Garbarino, chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection that held the hearing Tuesday, said…

Trump’s ‘preparedness’ executive order would shift cyber defense burden where it doesn’t belong, experts say

Many cyber experts are panning a new Trump administration executive order that would shift more responsibilities for responding to cyberattacks to state and local governments, saying it will leave states holding the bag for a job they aren’t best equipped to handle. The executive order, issued last week, is entitled “Achieving Efficiency Through State and…

Democratic FTC Commissioners file lawsuit against Trump over attempted firings

Democratic commissioners on the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump on Thursday, saying his administration’s attempts to fire them violate the FTC Act and Supreme Court precedent. The lawsuit, filed in the District Court for the District of Columbia, asks the court to declare the president’s actions unlawful, affirm the statutory…

Commerce limits 19 Chinese, Taiwanese companies from buying U.S. tech

The Commerce Department plans to finalize economic sanctions this week on nearly 20 Chinese and Taiwanese organizations, citing the need to limit their access to U.S. cloud, artificial intelligence and quantum computing technologies. The sanctions, which will be detailed and published Friday in the Federal Register , would place additional license requirements on, and limit…

Trump issues executive order seeking greater federal control of elections 

President Donald Trump issued an executive order Tuesday that threatens states with the loss of federal election grants unless they comply with a broad list of requirements concerning the administration of elections. The order makes numerous inaccurate and misleading claims about American elections, many of which mirror older allegations that Trump made regularly on the…

Senators criticize Trump officials’ discussion of war plans over Signal, but administration answers don’t come easily 

Democratic senators hammered two top national security officials Tuesday about their participation in a Signal chat discussing war plans that reportedly included a journalist, but struggled to get specific answers to some of their questions about what happened and how. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard wouldn’t even initially acknowledge her involvement in the chat group,…

Privacy-boosting tech could prevent breaches, data misuse with government aid, report says

Governments should prioritize the use of privacy-boosting technologies like encryption, de-identification and hashing to prevent breaches and data misuse, a report that New America’s Open Technology Institute published Tuesday recommends. The study comes as cyber and privacy experts warn about the dangers of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) accessing sensitive information at…

Despite challenges, the CVE program is a public-private partnership that has shown resilience

In 1999, Dave Mann and Steve Christey, two researchers from the nonprofit R&D corporation MITRE,  debuted a concept for security vulnerabilities that laid the groundwork for the common vulnerability and exposures framework (CVE) that organizes information around computer vulnerabilities. Twenty-five years later, the CVE program, which assigns a unique record to each reported vulnerability, is…

FCC’s Carr alleges Chinese companies are making ‘end run’ around Chinese telecom bans, announces investigation 

The first initiative from The Federal Communications Commission’s newly-created Council on National Security will be a “sweeping” investigation of Chinese-made equipment in America’s telecommunications infrastructure, the agency announced Friday. In particular, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said the focus will be on equipment and services from Chinese companies already barred from U.S. networks under the Secure…

Nation-state groups hit hundreds of organizations with Microsoft Windows zero-day

Cybercriminals working on behalf of at least six nation-states are actively exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Windows to commit espionage, steal data and cryptocurrency, according to Trend Micro researchers. The vulnerability, which Trend Micro tracks as ZDI-CAN-25373, allows attackers to execute hidden malicious commands due to the way Windows displays the contents of shortcut…

How DHS is working to continually improve the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program

Department of Homeland Security officials in charge of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) have pushed the program to evolve from a compliance-focused initiative to a real-time threat detection and response platform. First launched in 2013, the program is now tracking approximately 6.5 million devices, which includes operational technology…

Congress should re-up 2015 information-sharing law, top Hill staffer says

Congress needs to reauthorize an expiring law that provides legal protections to companies for sharing cyber threat information with the federal government and each other, the staff director  for Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said Wednesday. The 2015 Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Act is due to lapse at the end…

Trump moves to fire Democratic FTC commissioners

Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter of the Federal Trade Commission confirmed reports that President Donald Trump is attempting to fire them, marking a direct challenge to the agency’s independence and potentially crippling a host of its tech-related investigation and enforcement actions. On X, Bedoya posted a note saying he had just been “illegally fired”…

DOGE staffer violated security policies at Treasury Department, court filing shows

A staffer for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) violated security policies at the Treasury Department by improperly sharing sensitive personal information outside the agency, according to a court filing. The filing last week came in a case state attorneys general brought against President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent challenging DOGE access to…

Apple Fights UK Over Encryption Backdoors as US Officials Warn of Privacy Violations

The British side reportedly said they would have to produce warrants for each individual data access request, so they will always have to be made as part of an investigation into serious crime.

Water utilities would get cybersecurity boost under bipartisan Senate bill

Small water and wastewater utilities would get a boost to their cybersecurity defenses under a bipartisan Senate bill that a pair of lawmakers re-introduced Thursday. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Mike Rounds, R-S.D., are taking another swing at the Cybersecurity for Rural Water Systems Act after the legislation stalled out in the 118th Congress.…

Legislative push for child online safety runs afoul of encryption advocates (again)

Two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are preparing to introduce  a bipartisan bill that would mandate tech companies to more swiftly report and remove child sexual abuse material hosted on their platforms, but critics warn it could result in the weakening or elimination of encrypted messaging services that many Americans rely on. The Stop…

Trade groups worry information sharing will worsen without critical infrastructure panel, CISA law renewal

Business groups told lawmakers Tuesday that they fear cyber threat information sharing could drop off in light of the Trump administration’s move to eliminate a critical infrastructure committee and given the pending expiration of a 2015 law. The Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC) fell among a swath of government advisory committees that Homeland Security…

Amid personnel turmoil at cyber agencies, a government shutdown could increase potential harm

A potential government shutdown looms by the end of this week if Congress doesn’t pass legislation to keep funding the federal government, a development that could worsen problems cyber personnel and agencies are experiencing under the second Trump administration, experts say. Many cyber feds would likely be exempt from furloughs during a government shutdown, common…

New York sues Allstate and subsidiaries for back-to-back data breaches

Allstate and several of the insurance company’s subsidiaries were accused of poor security practices resulting in data breaches in 2020 and 2021 that exposed sensitive data on nearly 200,000 people, the New York State Attorney General office said in a lawsuit filed Monday.  National General, an insurance company Allstate acquired for $4 billion in 2021,…

Sean Plankey picked by Trump to be CISA director 

President Donald Trump nominated Sean Plankey to head the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Committee on Tuesday, the last major piece to fall into place for cybersecurity leadership in his administration. Plankey served in the first Trump administration, holding a few posts with cyber responsibilities. He was the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Energy Department’s…

CISA completed its election security review. It won’t make the results public

When the Trump administration began sidelining and laying off personnel at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, it started by targeting employees who worked on election security and disinformation. At the same time, the Department Homeland Security announced it would conduct a comprehensive review of CISA’s election security mission. This week, the agency confirmed that…

US indicts 12 Chinese nationals for vast espionage attack spree

The Justice Department on Wednesday indicted 12 Chinese nationals for their alleged involvement in an extensive nation-state-backed espionage campaign that included a spree of attacks on U.S. federal and state agencies, including the late 2024 attack targeting the Treasury Department.  Officials accused the Chinese individuals, including two officers of China’s Ministry of Public Security, eight…

Former top NSA cyber official: Probationary firings ‘devastating’ to cyber, national security

The NSA’s former top cybersecurity official told Congress on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s attempts to mass fire probationary federal employees will be “devastating” for U.S. cybersecurity operations. In testimony to the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Rob Joyce, the former NSA cybersecurity director who retired from government service last year, warned…

Congress eyes bigger cyber role for NTIA amid telecom attacks

As Salt Typhoon and other hacking groups continue targeting U.S. telecoms, a bipartisan bill that cleared a key House panel Tuesday aims to formalize a more cyber-focused role for the federal agency focused on those wireless networks. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration Organization Act would establish an Office of Policy Development and Cybersecurity within…

House passes bill requiring federal contractors to have vulnerability disclosure policies

A bill that would close a loophole in federal cybersecurity standards by requiring government contractors to abide by vulnerability disclosure policies moved one step closer to law Monday after sailing through the House. The passage of the Federal Contractor Cybersecurity Vulnerability Reduction Act in the House came a month after Reps. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and…

Cybersecurity Impact of DOGE, Apple’s Stand Against Encryption Backdoors

In this episode, Kevin and Tom discuss current events including the latest developments with DOGE and the significant changes happening at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). They also touch on Apple’s decision to refuse creating backdoors for encryption, setting a new precedent in digital security. Tune in for an insightful discussion on the…

Cybersecurity Impact of DOGE, Apple’s Stand Against Encryption Backdoors

In this episode, Kevin and Tom discuss current events including the latest developments with DOGE and the significant changes happening at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). They also touch on Apple’s decision to refuse creating backdoors for encryption, setting a new precedent in digital security. Tune in for an insightful discussion on the…

SolarWinds CISO says security execs are ‘nervous’ about individual liability for data breaches 

SolarWinds’ top cybersecurity executive said chief information security officers are increasingly grappling with how to do their jobs while avoiding individual legal liability for breaches that happen on their watch. Tim Brown, now CISO at SolarWinds, was a vice president and the highest-ranking security official at the company when hackers working on behalf of the…

CFPB nominee signals openness to continuing data-broker work

President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the consumer-focused federal agency that Elon Musk wants to “delete” and that Republican lawmakers have railed against since its creation indicated to senators Thursday that he could continue some data-focused work started by his Democratic predecessor. In his nomination hearing to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Jonathan McKernan…

Karen Evans steps into a leading federal cyber position: executive assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA

Federal IT and cyber government veteran Karen Evans is the new executive assistant director for cybersecurity at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. It’s one of the most prominent cyber jobs in the federal government, previously held by Jeff Greene and Eric Goldstein. A description of the post on the CISA website says that the…

CISA’s AI cybersecurity playbook calls for greater collaboration, but trust is key to successful execution

As autonomous agents increasingly enter organizations, nation-state actors are turning to these AI-powered technologies to undermine our national security and critical infrastructures. As a result, today’s security teams need to be able to fight AI with AI, and understand the technology’s implications from both a defensive and offensive perspective. Similarly, our national defenses have to…

Purging cyber review board was ‘a great idea,’ DHS deputy secretary nominee says

Expelling all members of an independent federal cybersecurity advisory panel as it was investigating Salt Typhoon was necessary due to previous leadership and the board “going in the wrong direction,” President Donald Trump’s nominee for deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday. Troy Edgar, who is serving as a senior adviser to…

House Dems say DOGE is leaving publicly exposed entry points into government systems

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee say the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is jeopardizing cybersecurity by publicly exposing entry points into U.S. government systems, and told the Trump administration it needs to provide information on department officials’ access. “Decades of efforts by both Republican and Democratic administrations, along with bipartisan collaboration in Congress, have…

Dragos: Surge of new hacking groups enter ICS space as states collaborate with private actors

Cyberattacks against industrial organizations surged in 2024 as a glut of new threat actors increasingly targeted operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS), according to cybersecurity firm Dragos. According to a report released Tuesday, attacks on industrial organizations soared by 87% last year, while the number of ransomware groups impacting the OT/ICS space jumped…

Apple pulls end-to-end encryption feature from UK after demands for law enforcement access 

Apple has pulled Advanced Data Protection, a feature that provides end-to-end encrypted data storage through iCloud, from the United Kingdom following a fight with the British government over law enforcement access. Starting Friday, U.K. users who attempt to access the feature on their phones or computers will be denied. Users who already had Advanced Data…

No, that’s not the acting head of the Social Security Administration. That’s a former CISA employee.

A longtime former employee of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, an agency in the midst of curtailing its anti-misinformation and disinformation work under President Donald Trump, has found himself being misidentified online as a key figure in another Trump administration battle. On social media and in some news outlets, Ross Foard, a former CISA…

SEC rebrands cryptocurrency unit to focus on emerging technologies 

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Thursday that it was changing its Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit to the “Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit.” The regulator said its new unit will “focus on combatting cyber-related misconduct and to protect retail investors from bad actors in the emerging technologies space.” The newly rebranded unit will be…

Energy CISO: Agencies can’t implement zero trust alone

Federal agencies need help from stakeholders outside of government to solve some of the harder technical barriers in setting up zero-trust architecture in their networks, the Department of Energy’s chief information security officer said Wednesday. Speaking at CyberScoop’s Zero Trust Summit in Washington D.C., Paul Selby urged technology manufacturers and experts to work with federal…

VC industry reacts to Trump nominating a16z’s Brian Quintez for regulatory role

Brian Quintenz, who leads policy for Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto team, announced on Wednesday that he’s being tapped to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), according to his X post. And many in the VC industry appear to be thrilled about it. The CFTC regulates the trading of commodity futures, options, and swaps, otherwise known…

Trump picks Sean Cairncross for national cyber director

President Donald Trump has selected Sean Cairncross — a former White House and Republican National Committee official and the former CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a federal foreign aid agency — to be his national cyber director. Cairncross hasn’t held any major cyber-related positions, but during his time in the Trump White House as…

CISA election, disinformation officials placed on administrative leave, sources say

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency placed several members of its election security group on administrative leave last week, multiple sources familiar with the situation told CyberScoop. According to one source, the moves happened Thursday and Friday of last week and were targeted at employees focused on CISA’s mis-, dis- and malinformation teams. The moves…

Shopify pushes for ‘open trade’ as Trump delays import exemption

On the same day that President Donald Trump delayed ending a trade exemption targeting certain Chinese imports, ecommerce company Shopify published a blog post making its stance on U.S. trade policy clear. In the post, Shopify endorsed “open trade,” calling for regulators to give online merchants the “freedom to expand without constraints imposed by geopolitical…

DOJ disbands foreign influence task force, limits scope of FARA prosecutions 

One of the first acts taken by Pam Bondi after being sworn in as attorney general was to disband an FBI task force  that countered the influence of adversarial foreign governments on American politics. In a memo issued Wednesday, Bondi wrote that the Department of Justice would be shifting resources in its National Security Division,…

Lawmakers fear Elon Musk, DOGE not adhering to privacy rules

Congress is getting vocal about the privacy and security implications of Elon Musk and his cohorts at the Department of Government Efficiency accessing federal systems. Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee said Wednesday DOGE must comply with security and privacy laws as they obtain access to federal systems, something the lawmakers say they don’t…

Cybersecurity, government experts are aghast at security failures in DOGE takeover

As the world’s richest man and his team from the Department of Government Efficiency continue their quest to dismantle federal agencies, cybersecurity experts, good government experts and Democrats are increasingly expressing outrage and alarm, in some cases likening the actions to an ongoing data breach. Elon Musk and employees from DOGE — which is, legally,…

DeepSeek: The countries and agencies that have banned the AI company’s tech

DeepSeek, the Chinese AI company, is raising the ire of regulators around the world. DeepSeek’s viral AI models and chatbot apps have been banned by a growing number of countries and government bodies, which have expressed concerns over DeepSeek’s ethics, privacy, and security practices. Corporations have banned DeepSeek, too — by the hundreds. The biggest…

Privacy Concerns with Digital Driver’s Licenses, The Rise of DeepSeek AI

In this episode, we explore the rollout of digital driver’s licenses in states like Illinois and the potential privacy issues that come with them. Can digital IDs truly enhance convenience without compromising your privacy? We also discuss the new Chinese AI model, DeepSeek, which is affecting U.S. tech companies’ stock prices. Join us as we…