Our picksU.S. Infrastructure Vulnerable | U.K. under Water | Tech & Wildfires, and more

Published 23 January 2020

·  U.S. Cyber War against ISIS Faced Bureaucratic Hurdles, Newly Declassified Documents Reveal

·  2020 Cybersecurity Predictions: Evolving Vulnerabilities on the Horizon

·  Why Is U.S. Infrastructure Vulnerable? Its Software Is Vulnerable

·  Tougher Terrorism Legislation in the U.K.: Will It Be Effective?

·  Trump Administration Plans to Expand Travel Restrictions to Seven Countries

·  These Are the Biggest Climate Questions for the New Decade

·  Frightening Climate Change Map Shows Huge Swathes of U.K. under Water by 2050

·  Why Tech Has Been Slow to Fight California Wildfires, Extreme Weather

U.S. Cyber War against ISIS Faced Bureaucratic Hurdles, Newly Declassified Documents Reveal (Jared Szuba, Defense Post)
Operation Glowing Symphony was intended to disrupt ISIS’ planning and battlefield activities, according to documents covering key period in 2016-2017

2020 Cybersecurity Predictions: Evolving Vulnerabilities on the Horizon (Anthony Ferrante, The Hill)
Cybersecurity threats are seemingly omnipresent in today’s hyper-connected, digital world. In fact — no surprise here — they will only continue to increase in sophistication, frequency, diversity, scale, and scope this year and in the near future.

Why Is U.S. Infrastructure Vulnerable? Its Software Is Vulnerable (Taylor Armerding, Security Boulevard)
We know that cyber attacks can have physical consequences. How does U.S. critical infrastructure fare in terms of cyber security and resilience to attack?

Tougher Terrorism Legislation in the U.K.: Will It Be Effective? (Nikita Malik, Forbes)
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s new government is trying to make the most of its first 100 days in office with plans to put a new counter-terrorism bill before Parliament in March. Some aspects of it have been announced Tuesday (21 January, mainly, that automatic release on license of terrorists with extended determinate sentences will end, that there will be a mandatory 14 years in prison for those preparing acts of terrorism or directing a terrorist organization, and that terrorists will be monitored more closely in jails.

Trump Administration Plans to Expand Travel Restrictions to Seven Countries (Michelle Hackman, Wall Street Journal)
Nations being considered for new rules: Belarus, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania

These Are the Biggest Climate Questions for the New Decade (Chelsea Harvey, Scientific American)
The 2010s brought major climate science advances, but researchers still want to pin down estimates of Arctic melt and sea-level rise (

Frightening Climate Change Map Shows Huge Swathes of U.K. Under Water by 2050 (Milo Boyd, Mirror)
London, Cardiff, Hull and Blackpool will all be affected by rising sea levels which will claim huge swathes of the country in thirty years time if drastic action isn’t taken to halt global warming. A new interactive map built by Climate Central shows which parts of the UK will be enveloped by rising tides in 2050.

Why Tech Has Been Slow to Fight California Wildfires, Extreme Weather (Rachel Lerman, AP)
For two years running, California’s wildfires have sent plumes of smoke across Silicon Valley. So far, that hasn’t spurred much tech innovation aimed at addressing extreme-weather disasters associated with climate change.
It’s true that tech companies from enterprise software-maker Salesforce to financial-technology firm Stripe have pushed to dramatically reduce their climate impact. Individual investors and small investment firms have stepped in to fund emerging efforts around cleantech — a term used broadly to describe technology that looks to manage human impact on the environment. And the catastrophic Australian wildfires have spurred additional interest.
But among startups who provide much of tech innovation, things are still moving slowly. That’s partly a lingering hangover from a cleantech investment bust almost a decade ago. But the technology itself can also take years to prove and even longer to convince traditional utilities and government agencies to adopt.