Humanity’s Short-Term thinking | Cyberattack the Best form of Defense? | China’s ZTE Is a Security Threat, and more

Biden’s DHS Pick Was a “Quick Study” of Cybersecurity Issues as the Department’s Deputy (Sean Lyngaas, Cyberscoop)
Alejandro Mayorkas, President-elect Joe Biden’s choice to run the Department of Homeland Security, gained an appreciation for how cyberthreats factor into national security challenges when he was deputy of the department from 2013 to 2016, former U.S. officials who know Mayorkas told CyberScoop.
As DHS’s No. 2, the Cuban-American lawyer took a close interest in the department’s work on cyberthreat-sharing with the private sector, and was involved in negotiations with China over a 2015 agreement forbidding intellectual property theft.

Did a University Use Facial Recognition to ID Student Protesters? (Sidney Fussell, Wired)
University of Miami students accuse the campus police of using the software. Administrators deny it, but they had previously touted the capability.

The Next Administration Should Bring the Shadow Wars into the Light (Daniel R. Mahanty and Rachel Stohl, Defense One)
Lethal tactics and entire campaigns launched urgently after 9/11 have corroded oversight and American standing.

How South Korea’s Flu Vaccine Scare Offers Lessons for Other Nations (Choe Sang-Hun and Denise Grady, New York Times)
Officials and scientists fought misinformation with data and clear communication — offering a game plan for the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines, experts say.

Cyber Warfare - Is Attack the Best form of Defense? (Lexology)
Cyber-attacks by nation states are on the rise and are becoming an increasingly common method of “warfare” and diplomatic disruption. Countries such as China and Russia are developing cyber weapons for use in any future conflicts, while the USA, the UK, France and Israel have also invested in developing cyber capabilities. Australia’s recently launched Cyber Security Strategy 2020 recognized the significant threat posed by nation states to our government and critical infrastructure providers and committed to invest $1.67 billion over 10 years in relation to cyber security (see our analysis of the strategy - Australia’s Cyber Security Strategy 2020: What you need to know). A critical question is how countries such as Australia should defend themselves, and should this defense involve offensive attack?

U.S. Telecoms Regulator Affirms China’s ZTE Is a Security Threat (Al Jazeera)
Federal Communications Commission ruled in June that Huawei and ZTE are threats, hindering deals with U.S. firms.

U.K. Telecom Companies Face Big Fines under New Security Law (AP / Star-Tribune)
Telecom companies in Britain face hefty fines if they don’t comply with strict new security rules under a new law proposed in Parliament on Tuesday that is aimed at blocking high-risk equipment suppliers like China’s Huawei.

Far Right a Bigger Threat to West than Islamic State: Terrorism Index (Emma Connors, Financial Review)
Far-right radicals are now much more likely to carry out deadly attacks in Western democracies than Islamic fanatics – and they generally act alone, making them hard to track and stop.
While overall deaths from terrorism continue to decline, an annual global study shows worrying regional developments for national and international forces that hope to further stem the tide.

Humanity Is Stuck in Short-Term thinking. Here’s how we escape. (Richard Fisher, MIT Technology Review)
Our sense of the future has expanded and contracted over time. But survival means learning new lessons from the shocks society is facing right now.

Fox News Settles Years-Long Lawsuit over Seth Rich Murder Conspiracy Theories (Jemima McEvoy, Forbes)
After years of back-and-forth, Fox News on Tuesday settled a lawsuit filed by the family of Seth Rich over the network’s involvement in spreading conspiracy theories about the young Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer’s 2016 death.