Our picksTighter Spyware Export Controls | Cyberattacking Hospitals | Post-Trump Qanon, and more

QAnon Is Winning (Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic)
Conspiracy thinking in America had a huge night on Tuesday.

“My Faith Is Shaken”: The QAnon Conspiracy Theory Faces a Post-Trump Identity Crisis (Drew Harwell and Craig Timberg, Washington Post)
President Trump’s defeat and the week-long disappearance of its anonymous prophet have forced supporters of the baseless movement to rethink their beliefs: ‘Have we all been conned?’

Militant Islamists “Behead More than 50” in Mozambique (BBC)
More than 50 people have been beheaded in northern Mozambique by militant Islamists, state media report. The militants turned a football pitch in a village into an “execution ground”, where they decapitated and chopped bodies, other reports said.

We’ve Tracked Extremist Content on Facebook for Years: It Doesn’t Get Removed for Long (Josh Lipowski and Gretchen Peters, Morning Consult)
As Facebook bends to mounting pressure to stem the spread of domestic extremist content and conspiracy theories, declaring an expansion of hate-speech policies and shutting down recruiting efforts by militia groups, it’s pertinent to look at Facebook’s track record for responding to foreign extremism on its platforms. The Alliance to Counter Crime Online and the Counter Extremism Project have spent years tracking for how violent groups ranging from Mexican cartels to ISIS utilize Facebook.

Cyberattack on U. of Vermont Hospital IT Network Delays Chemotherapy, Mammogram Appointments (Sean Lyngaas, Cyberscoop)
A cyberattack at the University of Vermont Health Network has forced one of the network’s hospitals to delay chemotherapy and mammogram appointments, making it the latest example of how cybercriminals can impact patient care.
The disruption of computer systems at the health network, which comprises six hospitals and more than 1,000 physicians, began the week of Oct. 25, the organization said. The attack made some of the data used to process appointments for cancer patients temporarily unavailable. And the health network said that as of Monday it was still unable to conduct mammograms, breast ultrasound screenings and biopsies because of a lack of access to patient data.

U.S. Tried a More Aggressive Cyberstrategy, and the Feared Attacks Never Came (David E. Sanger and Julian E. Barnes, New York Times)
The 2020 election was the biggest test yet of a new approach of pre-emptive action against adversaries trying to hack election infrastructure or wage disinformation campaigns.

European Parliament Paves Path for Tighter Spyware Export Controls (Shannon Vavra, Cyberscoop)
The European Parliament announced Monday that it is taking steps to curtail the exportation of surveillance technologies, including spyware, outside of the European Union.
The action clears the path for the European Union to establish new ground rules for the export and sale of so-called dual-use technologies, which can be used in legitimate but also malicious ways that violate human rights. The premise of the new rules is to limit authoritarian regimes’ ability to “secretly get their hands on European cyber-surveillance,” Markéta Gregorovà, a member of European Parliament and a lead negotiator of the new scheme, said in a statement.

Biden Will Get Tougher on Russia and Boost Election Security. Here’s What to Expect. (Joseph Marks, Washington Post)