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Cybersecurity
House lawmaker demands answers from AT&T on recent data breach
Rep. Abigail Spanberger wants AT&T’s CEO to open up about the company’s incident response plans and a reported payment to hackers in exchange for deleting the stolen data.
People
CISA executive director set to depart the agency
Brandon Wales, who temporarily led the agency after a Trump-era management shakeup, has overseen many of the recent CISA-led cyber reporting regulations, as well as coordination during major cyber incidents.
Policy
Biden looks to preserve tech, cyber legacy with veto threat
Experts see continuity in tech policy from the Biden administration to a possible Kamala Harris presidency, with possible divergence on some national security and antitrust issues.
Cybersecurity
How the CrowdStrike outage carved out new opportunities for hackers
Former U.S. officials and security practitioners are wondering how a defective CrowdStrike patch for Windows systems fell through the cracks and created more cascading security risks.
Cybersecurity
In reversal, AT&T says most FirstNet customers impacted in data breach disclosed last week
“We now believe the proportion of FirstNet numbers included in the data is similar to that of our broader customer base,” the company said in a statement.
Updated
Cybersecurity
Biden briefed on CrowdStrike IT outage as multiple federal systems impacted
Social Security offices are closed for the day due to the incident. It will be “time-consuming” for all affected systems to undo the damage because the process is manual, one expert says.
Cybersecurity
New US cyber official wants ‘brutal honesty’ on industry collaboration efforts
CISA’s new cybersecurity official Jeff Greene wants to know where the agency can improve on collaboration efforts that have been previously criticized for their misdirection.
Cybersecurity
Judge dismisses key claims in SEC lawsuit on 2020 SolarWinds hack
The original lawsuit faced pushback from dozens of cybersecurity executives.
Exclusive
Cybersecurity
US taps IBM for 5-year deal to boost European, Eurasian allies’ cyber posture
Officials are concerned that a lack of institution building in such nations will allow digital adversaries to gain a larger foothold in allied countries’ networks.
Artificial Intelligence
FCC to consider new protections against AI-generated robocalls next month
The proposal comes four months before the U.S. presidential election, where experts have long feared how AI may be used to misinform voters.
Cybersecurity
Dozens of federal agencies’ call data potentially exposed in AT&T breach
AT&T is a prime contractor on the government's $50 billion telecom contract vehicle and supplies infrastructure and bandwidth for the FirstNet public safety communications program.
Cybersecurity
Several DOD IT programs still don’t have a cyber strategy, watchdog finds
Cyber strategy requirements in the Defense Department’s IT business unit date back to at least 2014. A government watchdog thinks it's time for an update.
Policy
Russian influence operations ‘preeminent threat’ to November election, officials warn
Moscow appears to continue favoring Donald Trump, while other nations will aim to sow divisional chaos online or sway broader geopolitical discussions.
Cybersecurity
US, allies take down Kremlin-backed AI bot farm
The bot farm allegedly originated from a deputy manager at RT — a Russian state-backed news agency — and spread disinformation on the X social media platform.
Exclusive
Cybersecurity
Patchwork cyber laws cost the government money, Amazon security chief says
An exclusive conversation with Amazon CSO Steve Schmidt unpacks his views on cyber policy themes this year.
Cybersecurity
Half of critical open source projects contain memory-unsafe code, U.S. cyber agency says
The findings come after recent hijacking attempts into major open-source tools.
Cybersecurity
NYPD officer database had security flaws that could have let hackers covertly modify officer data
The NYPD said no officer data was ever compromised, but it’s unknown how long the vulnerability existed.
Cybersecurity
US accuses Russian national of helping deploy malware on Ukrainian government computers
The alleged hacker used U.S. computer infrastructure to distribute the infamous “WhisperGate” malware into Ukrainian systems.
Digital Government
Supreme Court sides with Biden admin over contact with social media firms
The decision now lifts potential legal burdens on federal agencies’ communications with social media companies about disinformation on their platforms.
People