Our picksU.S. Unprepared for Epidemics | New Russian Hacking Tool | Android Vulnerabilities, and more

Flawed Coronavirus Test Strategy Contributed to U.S. Spread: Experts(Issam Ahmed, AFP)
Faulty test kits for the novel coronavirus coupled with a diagnostic strategy that initially targeted too few people allowed the disease to spread beyond US authorities’ ability to detect it, health experts have said.
Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Monday, epidemiologists from Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University said the failings had contributed to the virus taking root in communities across the country.

Iranian, Russian, Chinese Media Push COVID-19 ‘Bioweapon’ Conspiracies (Patrick Tucker, Defense One)
Disinformation about the coronavirus is spreading as quickly as the virus, thanks to the usual players.

Trump Is Peddling Dangerous Disinformation on Coronavirus (McKay Coppins, Defense One)
Fact-checkers and scientists have scrambled to correct the president’s false and misleading statements, which are being amplified by partisan media, digital propagandists, and administration officials.
From the moment the coronavirus reached the United States, President Donald Trump has seemed determined to construct an alternate reality around the outbreak. In the information universe he has formed, COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, is no worse than the seasonal flu; criticism of his response to it is a “hoax”; and media coverage of the virus is part of a political conspiracy to destroy his presidency.

Trump’s European Novel Coronavirus Travel Ban Excludes Countries Where He Has Golf Courses (John Haltiwanger, Business Insider)
When President Donald Trump announced his 30-day travel ban to Europe Wednesday night, he excluded the United Kingdom, even though it has 456 cases of the novel coronavirus, far more than many countries under the ban, including Portugal and Poland. What the U.K. does have is Trump properties, including Turberry and Trump International Golf Links in Scotland. He also has another in Doonbeg, Ireland—another country not restricted by the White House.

Covid-19 Is Rapidly Spreading in America. The Country Does Not Look Ready (Economist)
There are structural reasons why America finds a response to the pandemic hard

Russian Intelligence-Backed Hackers Go after Armenian Embassy Website with New Code (Sean Lyngaas, Cyberscoop)
Computer code used by hackers tied to Russia’s FSB intelligence agency has haunted governments around the world for years.
The hackers’ tools have been associated with a damaging breach of U.S. military networks in the mid-to-late 1990s, and used in a cunning hijacking of Iranian infrastructure more than two decades later.
Now, malware analysts have surfaced a new piece of code that they say the Russian hacking group, dubbed Turla, is using to spy on government and think tank websites in the Eurasian country of Armenia.

Analysis: Android has more vulnerabilities than Windows 10(Peter Grad, Tech Xplore)
Although Windows 10 users are used to complaining about bugs and upgrades, they may be surprised to learn that Android and Linux have more vulnerabilities.
These and many more findings about the security of operating systems and software programs were posted last week by the privacy advocacy group thebestvpn.com. They analyzed 20 years of data collected by the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s National Vulnerability Database.