DOGE as a National Cyberattack

In the span of just weeks, the US government has experienced what may be the most consequential security breach in its history—not through a sophisticated cyberattack or an act of foreign espionage, but through official orders by a billionaire with a poorly defined government role. And the implications for national security are profound.

First, it was reported that people associated with the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had accessed the US Treasury computer system, giving them the ability to collect data on and potentially control the department’s roughly …

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US Treasury Department Sanctions Chinese Company Over Cyberattacks

From the Washington Post:
The sanctions target Beijing Integrity Technology Group, which U.S. officials say employed workers responsible for the Flax Typhoon attacks which compromised devices including routers and internet-enabled cameras to infiltrate… Continue reading US Treasury Department Sanctions Chinese Company Over Cyberattacks

The Scale of Geoblocking by Nation

Interesting analysis:

We introduce and explore a little-known threat to digital equality and freedom­websites geoblocking users in response to political risks from sanctions. U.S. policy prioritizes internet freedom and access to information in repressive regimes. Clarifying distinctions between free and paid websites, allowing trunk cables to repressive states, enforcing transparency in geoblocking, and removing ambiguity about sanctions compliance are concrete steps the U.S. can take to ensure it does not undermine its own aims.

The paper: “…

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NIST Releases First Post-Quantum Encryption Algorithms

From the Federal Register:

After three rounds of evaluation and analysis, NIST selected four algorithms it will standardize as a result of the PQC Standardization Process. The public-key encapsulation mechanism selected was CRYSTALS-KYBER, along with three digital signature schemes: CRYSTALS-Dilithium, FALCON, and SPHINCS+.

These algorithms are part of three NIST standards that have been finalized:

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Problems with Georgia’s Voter Registration Portal

It’s possible to cancel other people’s voter registrations:

On Friday, four days after Georgia Democrats began warning that bad actors could abuse the state’s new online portal for canceling voter registrations, the Secretary of State’s Office acknowledged to ProPublica that it had identified multiple such attempts…

…the portal suffered at least two security glitches that briefly exposed voters’ dates of birth, the last four digits of their Social Security numbers and their full driver’s license numbers—the exact information needed to cancel others’ voter registrations…

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The US Is Banning Kaspersky

This move has been coming for a long time.

The Biden administration on Thursday said it’s banning the company from selling its products to new US-based customers starting on July 20, with the company only allowed to provide software updates to existing customers through September 29. The ban—­the first such action under authorities given to the Commerce Department in 2019­—follows years of warnings from the US intelligence community about Kaspersky being a national security threat because Moscow could allegedly commandeer its all-seeing antivirus software to spy on its customers…

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Microsoft and Security Incentives

Former senior White House cyber policy director A. J. Grotto talks about the economic incentives for companies to improve their security—in particular, Microsoft:

Grotto told us Microsoft had to be “dragged kicking and screaming” to provide logging capabilities to the government by default, and given the fact the mega-corp banked around $20 billion in revenue from security services last year, the concession was minimal at best.

[…]

“The government needs to focus on encouraging and catalyzing competition,” Grotto said. He believes it also needs to publicly scrutinize Microsoft and make sure everyone knows when it messes up…

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