Our picksBlack Army Rises | The Important Things about the Border Crisis | Double-Extortion Ransomware Attacks, and more

A Black Army Rises to Fight the Racist Right  (Graeme Wood, The Atlantic)
A man calling himself Grandmaster Jay has raised a disciplined, heavily armed militia. It has yet to fire a shot at its enemies, but it’s prepared for war.

Domestic Terrorism Legislation: Durbin Ups the Ante  (Patrick G. Eddington, CATO)
On Monday, I reported that Rep. Brad Schneider’s Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act (HR 350) had reached the 166 cosponsor milestone. Today, it stands at 173…and it has an even more expansive Senate companion: S. 963, the Domestic Terrorism and Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2021. Joining Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) as original cosponsors on the bill are Senators Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL).
Like Schneider’s bill, Durbin’s creates new “Domestic Terrorism” bureaucracies inside the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, with related staffing requirements, semi‐​annual report requirements, etc. However, S. 963 an important wrinkle.

Global Supply Chains Are Still a Source of Strength, Not Weakness  (Economist)
Resilience comes not from autarky but from diverse sources of supply.

Why the EU’s Covid-19 Vaccination Program Went Wrong  (Economist)
The commission should have done much better.

4 Things the Biden Administration Should Pay Attention to with the Border Crisis  (Elaine Denny et al., Brookings)
The Obama and Trump administrations deported hundreds of thousands of Central Americans in the last decade. A team of experts interviewed 1,357 deportees to provide systematic information about the forces driving migration in Central America—factors that the Biden administration should keep in mind as it reformulates policy.

Google’s Project Zero Shuts Down Western Counter-Terrorist Hacker Team  (Lewis Page, Verdict)
The well-known Project Zero security team run by Google exposed intelligence agency hacking operations by a US-allied nation, according to reports, causing counter-terrorist intelligence efforts to be shut down.

Double-Extortion Ransomware Attacks Surged in 2020  (James Coker, Infosecurity)
Double-extortion ransomware attacks exploded in 2020, according to F-Secure’s Attack Landscape Update report.
The tactic involves threat actors stealing data from organizations in addition to encrypting files. This means that, as well as demanding a ransom to decrypt data, attackers can later threaten to leak the stolen information if an additional payment is not made.
The researchers observed that by the end of 2020, 15 different ransomware families had used this double-extortion approach, which compares to just one in 2019. Additionally, it was found that nearly 40% of ransomware families discovered last year utilized this ransomware method.

DHS Chief Lays Out a Cybersecurity Vision with a Focus on Ransomware and Infrastructure  (Adam Janofsky, The Record)

Dominion Voting Systems Accuses Ex-Michigan Senator of “Disinformation Campaign”  (Craig Mauger, Detroit News)
Dominion Voting Systems has sued Fox News, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and MyPillow guy Mike Lindell over their false claims that the company helped steal the 2020 presidential election. Now former Michigan lawmaker Patrick Colbeck may be next. The Detroit News reports that Dominion sent the GOP politician a cease-and-desist letter over a PowerPoint presentation posted online that flogs bogus conspiracy theories. “You are knowingly sowing discord in our democracy, all the while soliciting exorbitant amounts of money—totaling over $1 million so far— from your audiences paid directly to your personal business,” the letter reads.”Make no mistake—Dominion will hold you accountable for these lies.” Colbeck, who once ran for governor and came in third, had no immediate comment on the letter.

Crackdown on Online Hate Speech Pushes Extremists to Other Platforms  (Simon Ostrovsky. NPR)
In a Congressional hearing last week the heads of Facebook and Twitter said they’re taking measures to slow the spread of hate speech and conspiracies on their sites in the wake of the Jan 6 insurrection. But a crackdown on mainstream platforms is pushing extremists onto less monitored forums.