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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…

Bill requiring federal contractors to have vulnerability disclosure policies gets House redo

Bipartisan legislation to close a loophole in federal cybersecurity standards by requiring vulnerability disclosure policies for government contractors is getting another shot at passage  in this Congress. The Federal Contractor Cybersecurity Vulnerability Reduction Act, a bicameral, bipartisan bill that stalled out last year in the Senate, was reintroduced Friday in the House by Reps. Nancy…

FBI nominee Kash Patel gets questions on cybercrime investigations, Silk Road founder, surveillance powers

A senator on Thursday questioned whether the president’s pick to lead the FBI might harm cybercrime investigations with his plans for the bureau. At a nomination hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., asked Kash Patel about comments he made in September. “I’d shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and…

Tulsi Gabbard tussles with senators over Snowden, surveillance 

Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday that she would leave her own political views “at the door” and deliver “intelligence that is collected, analyzed and reported without bias, prejudice or political influence.” But she also accused the Biden administration and other national security…

House bill aims to better protect financial institutions from ransomware attacks

A bipartisan pair of House lawmakers are seeking to improve private-public coordination for financial institutions amid a surge of ransomware attacks on the sector. The Public and Private Sector Ransomware Response Coordination Act, introduced this week by Reps. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., would direct the Treasury secretary to deliver a report on…

DARPA wants to create ‘self-healing’ firmware that can respond and recover from cyberattacks 

Imagine, for a moment, that your network is hit with ransomware. One of your employees clicked on a malicious link and now your network is compromised, data is encrypted and most of the organization’s systems are locked or offline. Then imagine if instead of assembling an incident response team,  notifying the board and contacting law…

OpenAI will offer its tech to US national labs for nuclear weapons research

OpenAI says it plans to let U.S. National Laboratories, the Department of Energy’s network of R&D labs, use its AI models for nuclear weapons security and other scientific projects. Per CNBC, OpenAI will work with Microsoft, its lead investor, to deploy a model on the supercomputer at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The model will be a…

AI creations edited by humans can likely be copyrighted in US, agency says

In the U.S., AI-generated creations — books, movies, and so forth— that have been edited by a human can likely be copyrighted, but those without any human modifications or additions cannot. That’s according to a report published by the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) on Wednesday, which outlined scenarios in which AI-generated content might be eligible…

Anthropic’s CEO says DeepSeek shows that U.S. export rules are working as intended

In an essay on Wednesday, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, weighed in on the debate over whether Chinese AI company DeepSeek’s success implies that U.S. export controls on AI chips aren’t working. Amodei, who recently made the case for stronger export controls in an op-ed co-written with former U.S. deputy national security advisor Matt…

David Sacks claims there’s ‘substantial evidence’ that DeepSeek used OpenAI’s models to train its own

David Sacks, Trump’s AI and crypto “czar,” said in an interview on Fox on Tuesday that there’s “substantial evidence” that Chinese AI company DeepSeek “distilled” knowledge from OpenAI’s AI models, a process that Sacks compared to theft. Sacks, who didn’t cite the source of this “evidence,” suggested that DeepSeek used responses from OpenAI models to…

Trump pauses on grants, aid leaves federal cyber programs in state of confusion

A series of Trump administration maneuvers to freeze federal aid has thrown cybersecurity grant programs into doubt for recipients ranging from state governments to small businesses to foreign allies. An Office of Management and Budget memo sent Monday and that went into effect Tuesday directs federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations…

OpenAI launches ChatGPT plan for U.S. government agencies

In a week dominated by headlines about China’s growing AI competitiveness, OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Gov. The new version of the AI-powered chatbot platform is designed to provide U.S. government agencies an additional way to access the tech. ChatGPT Gov includes many of the capabilities found in OpenAI’s corporate-focused tier, ChatGPT Enterprise. Using the platform, agencies…

AI companies upped their federal lobbying spend in 2024 amid regulatory uncertainty

Companies spent significantly more lobbying AI issues at the U.S. federal level last year compared to 2023 amid regulatory uncertainty. According to data compiled by OpenSecrets, 648 companies spent on AI lobbying in 2024 versus 458 in 2023, representing a 141% year-over-year increase. Companies like Microsoft supported legislation such as the CREATE AI Act, which…

Smashing Security podcast #401: Hacks on the high seas, and how your home can be stolen under your nose

An Italian hacker makes the grade and ends up in choppy waters, and hear true stories of title deed transfer scams. All this and more is discussed in the latest edition of the award-winning “Smashing Security” podcast by computer security veterans Graham Cluley and Carole Theriault. Plus – don’t miss our featured interview with Avery…

Removal of Cyber Safety Review Board members sparks alarm from cyber pros, key lawmaker

The top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee and a number of cyber professionals on Wednesday lamented the Trump administration’s decision to purge a cyber incident investigation board of its membership. But the move had some supporters, including the chairman of that same committee. Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman issued a…

OpenAI teams up with SoftBank and Oracle on $500B data center project

OpenAI says that it will team up with Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and with Oracle, along with others, to build multiple data centers for AI in the U.S. The joint venture, called The Stargate Project, will begin with a large data center project in Texas and eventually expand to other states. The companies expect to commit $100…

President Trump repeals Biden’s AI executive order

During his first day in office, President Donald Trump revoked a 2023 executive order signed by former President Joe Biden that sought to reduce the potential risks AI poses to consumers, workers, and national security. Biden’s executive order directed the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to author guidance that helps companies…

Noem: No anti-disinformation, misinformation action under her as DHS secretary

Department of Homeland Security secretary nominee Kristi Noem committed to senators Friday that if confirmed she would keep the department out of efforts to combat disinformation and misinformation, and pledged to make the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency “smaller, more nimble.” The South Dakota governor’s remarks signal that the incoming Trump administration will act on…

Treasury sanctions North Korea over remote IT worker schemes

The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions Thursday against two individuals and four entities allegedly involved in generating revenue for North Korea through illicit remote IT workforce operations, the latest salvo in ongoing efforts to disrupt financial streams that support Pyongyang’s weapons programs. The sanctions focus on efforts in which North Korea sent thousands of skilled…

Biden cyber executive order gets mostly plaudits, but its fate is uncertain

A sweeping executive order on cybersecurity released Thursday won largely positive reviews, with the main question being its timing — and what will come of it with the executive branch set to be handed over from president to president. Chris Inglis, the former national cyber director for Joe Biden who has served under both Democrats…

Microsoft catches Russian state-sponsored hackers shifting tactics to WhatsApp

The cat-and-mouse game between state-sponsored Russian hackers and one of the world’s biggest technology companies has continued into 2025.  Microsoft’s threat intelligence team published research Thursday examining how a state-sponsored Russian threat actor group, known as Star Blizzard, has altered its longstanding attack strategies to target WhatsApp accounts. This attack vector is a significant change…

A CISA secure-by-design guru makes the case for the future of the initiative

One of the chief architects of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency campaign to get software developers to design their products with security in mind said he believes it could be one of the best tools the Trump administration has to counter China. Jack Cable, who is departing his role as senior technical adviser Thursday,…

Bipartisan cloud study recommends speeding federal adoption, or remain vulnerable on cyber

Slow adoption of cloud technologies poses a cybersecurity hazard for federal agencies, which will require an overhaul of contracting, regulatory and budgeting procedures to fix, a bipartisan think tank report that will be released Thursday concludes. Led by veterans of both the first Trump administration and Biden administration as well as lawmakers from both parties,…

CIA nominee tells Senate he, too, wants to go on cyber offense

CIA director nominee John Ratcliffe said during testimony on Capitol Hill that if confirmed, he hopes to develop offensive cyber tools and supports the creation of a cyber-specific deterrence strategy. Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence and in the House of Representatives for Texas, drew a comparison to the concerns over physical, territorial…

Law enforcement action deletes PlugX malware from thousands of machines

U.S. and international law enforcement agencies have removed the PlugX malware from thousands of computers worldwide in a coordinated campaign to blunt the effectiveness of one of the most infamous pieces of malware used by malicious cyber actors. According to recently unsealed court documents from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the U.S. Department of Justice…

Second Biden cyber executive order directs agency action on fed security, AI, space

A draft cybersecurity executive order would tackle cyber defenses in locations ranging from outer space to the U.S. federal bureaucracy to its contractors, and address security risks embedded in subjects like cybercrime, artificial intelligence and quantum computers. The draft, a copy of which CyberScoop obtained, constitutes one big last stab at cybersecurity in the Biden…

OpenAI presents its preferred version of AI regulation in a new ‘blueprint’

OpenAI on Monday published what it’s calling an “economic blueprint” for AI: a living document that lays out policies the company thinks it can build on with the U.S. government and its allies. The blueprint, which includes a forward from Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s VP of global affairs, asserts that the U.S. must act to attract…

Trump and others want to ramp up cyber offense, but there’s plenty of doubt about the idea

In recent months, incoming Trump administration national security adviser Mike Waltz and some lawmakers have suggested that in response to Chinese cyber breaches, the United States needs to prioritize taking more aggressive offensive actions in cyberspace rather than emphasizing defense. It’s been said before. And it’s easier said than done. Experts that spoke with reporters…

FCC moves to tighten industry reporting rules for robocalls

The Federal Communications Commission is tightening up reporting requirements that are meant to prove agencies are cracking down on robocalling and phone number spoofing. The commission voted Wednesday to adopt new rules that would put in place stricter filing requirements for the Robocall Mitigation Database, a system used by communications providers to report compliance with…

The U.S. has a new cybersecurity safety label for smart devices

The White House this week announced a new label for internet-connected devices, the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark, intended to help consumers make more-informed decisions about the cybersecurity of products they bring into their homes. To earn the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark, which is being administered by the Federal Communications Commission, companies have to test their…

National Cyber Director Harry Coker looks back (and ahead) on the Cyber Director office

Days after the four-year anniversary of the creation of the Office of the National Cyber Director and days before its current chief is set to depart, that man, Harry Coker Jr., looked both backward and forward at the office in a speech Tuesday and a separate interview with CyberScoop. Coker touched on software liability, regulations,…

Exit interview: FCC’s Jessica Rosenworcel discusses her legacy on cybersecurity, AI and regulation

On Jan. 20, Jessica Rosenworcel will leave the Federal Communications Commission, capping off a 12-year tenure that saw her rise from commissioner to chairwoman in 2021. Under her leadership, the agency has taken an aggressive approach to regulating cybersecurity, data privacy and emergent artificial intelligence use in the communications sector. Over the past four years,…

US sanctions Russian, Iranian groups for election interference

The U.S. State Department has sanctioned two foreign organizations and one individual who it alleges worked on behalf of Russian and Iranian intelligence agencies to interfere in the 2024 U.S. general election. “These actors sought to stoke sociopolitical tensions and undermine our election institutions during the 2024 U.S. general election,” said State Department Press Secretary…

Treasury workstations hacked by China-linked threat actors

The Department of Treasury was notified earlier this month that several of its workstations were hacked by a group believed to be linked to China, the department confirmed to CyberScoop. According to a letter sent Monday to leaders on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs and obtained by CyberScoop, the compromises occurred…

White House: Salt Typhoon hacks possible because telecoms lacked basic security measures

The White House said Friday that as the U.S. government continues to assess the damage caused by the Salt Typhoon hacks, the breach occurred in large part due to telecommunications companies failing to implement rudimentary cybersecurity measures across their IT infrastructure.  Anne Neuberger, the White House’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology,…

State Department’s disinformation office to close after funding nixed in NDAA

The State Department’s center for fighting global disinformation received a lump of coal in its Christmas stocking this week as congressional lawmakers excluded new funding and authorization for the office beyond this year. The Global Engagement Center, which tracks foreign disinformation, will lose  its authority on Dec. 24. Despite a concerted push by State officials…

Feds lay blame while Chinese telecom attack continues

The United States’ telecommunications infrastructure has been infiltrated by actors affiliated with China. Some of our nation’s most powerful leaders have been targeted — including President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance. This is one of the most severe cybersecurity incidents against telecom the United States has ever been subject to, and — worse…

Justice Department unveils charges against alleged LockBit developer

The U.S. Department of Justice revealed charges Friday against Rostislav Panev, a dual Russian and Israeli national, for his alleged role as a developer in the notorious LockBit ransomware group. Panev was arrested in Israel following a U.S. provisional arrest request and is currently awaiting extradition. Authorities allege that Panev has been an instrumental figure…

Study finds ‘significant uptick’ in cybersecurity disclosures to SEC

The introduction of new cybersecurity disclosure rules by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has led to a significant uptick in the number of reported cybersecurity incidents from public companies, according to a leading U.S. law firm that specializes in finance and M&A activity. Analysis by Paul Hastings LLP found that since the disclosure law…

Israeli court to hear U.S. extradition request for alleged LockBit developer

An Israeli Court is set to deliberate a significant extradition case involving Rostislav Panev, an Israeli citizen alleged to be involved with the notorious LockBit ransomware gang. According to Israeli news outlet Ynet, a U.S. extradition request was made public Thursday claiming that between 2019 and 2024, Panev served as a software developer for LockBit.…

Chinese cyber center points finger at U.S. over alleged cyberattacks to steal trade secrets

China’s national cyber incident response center accused the U.S. government of launching cyberattacks against two Chinese tech companies in a bid to steal trade secrets. In a notice Wednesday, the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China (CNCERT) said a suspected U.S. intelligence agency was behind the attacks, and that CNCERT had…

CISA pushes guide for high-value targets to secure mobile devices

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency unveiled a detailed set of guidelines Wednesday to safeguard the mobile communications of high-value government targets in the wake of the ongoing Salt Typhoon telecom breach. The guide aims to help both political and federal leadership harden their communications and avoid any data interception by the Chinese-linked espionage group.…

Playbook advises federal grant managers how to build cybersecurity into their programs

Two U.S. cyber agencies released guidance Tuesday on how federal grant managers should incorporate cybersecurity in their programs for critical infrastructure projects, as well as how potential recipients can take it into account. The Office of the National Cyber Director and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency publication — the “Playbook for Strengthening Cybersecurity in…

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