The Critical in Critical Infrastructure | What If the Threat Comes from Within? | Reporting Foreign Cyberattacks, and more

Many QAnon followers believe former President Donald Trump was fighting enemies within the so-called “deep state” to expose a cabal of Satan-worshipping cannibals operating a child sex-trafficking ring. Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden disillusioned some believers in “The Storm,” a supposed reckoning in which Trump’s enemies would be tried and executed. Some adherents have now pivoted to believing Trump is the “shadow president” or Biden’s victory was an illusion.
The report was compiled by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security and released Monday by Senator Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat. It predicts that while some QAnon adherents will pull back, others “likely will begin to believe they can no longer “trust the plan” referenced in QAnon posts and that they have an obligation to change from serving as “digital soldiers” toward engaging in real-world violence.”

New Pentagon Watchdog Facing ‘Significant Challenges’ in Internal Anti-Extremism Effort  (Jeff Seldin, VOA News)
A new effort to track the extent to which extremists have infiltrated the U.S. military may be in trouble even before it has the chance to produce any results.
Lawmakers created the all-new deputy inspector general for Diversity and Inclusion and Extremism in the Military (DIEM) as part of the fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which went into effect this past January.
But a report Monday from Defense Department Acting Inspector General Sean O’Donnell warns the office is already facing what he describes as “significant challenges,” including funding shortfalls and potential conflicts of interest.

Trump, Allies Pressured DOJ to Back Election Claims, Documents Show  (Mychael Schnell, The Hill)
Newly revealed documents obtained by the House Oversight and Reform Committee reveal that former President Trump and his allies pressured the Department of Justice (DOJ) to back his unproven claims of election fraud in the days and weeks before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
The documents, released publicly on Tuesday, show Trump, his then-chief of staff Mark Meadows and outside allies putting pressure on senior DOJ officials to probe claims of voter fraud in December and early January.
Emails provided to the committee revealed that Trump sent allegations of election fraud to top DOJ officials minutes before he announced their promotions, which were sparked by the resignation of then-Attorney General William Barr.

Police Issue Warning over Terrorist Use of 3D-Printed Guns as UK Neo-Nazi Jailed  (Lizzie Dearden, Independent)
Dean Morrice jailed in first terror case involving 3D-printed gun parts in Britain.

French Army Chief Steps Down after Rogue Ex-Generals Raise Extremism Fears  (Brodie Owen, The National)
The French Army chief has resigned amid an ongoing row sparked by retired generals who raised the prospect of a military coup and accused President Emmanuel Macron of failing to get a grip on Islamist extremism. Gen Francois Lecointre, 59, said he would step down as chief of defence staff on July 21 to avoid being dragged into a political debate before next year’s presidential election, likely to be between Mr Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen. The row began after 20 retired generals in April said in an open letter that France risked a “civil war”, saying the country was “disintegrating” under pressure from “Islamism and the hordes of youths”. Gerald Darmanin said the anonymous signatories lacked courage. The letter, published in the far-right magazine Valeurs Actuelles, was signed by thousands of soldiers, almost all of whom withheld their names, although six retired generals revealed their identity. Gen Lecointre quit a day after it was reported Mr Macron’s government forced him to summon the six to a “higher disciplinary council” for their remarks. They risk losing their status as reserve officers. French newspaper Le Monde reported the government pressured Gen Lecointre to speak out against the signatories, even though military officials wanted the matter dealt with privately.

Congress Has Already Authorized the President to Require Reporting of Foreign Cyberattacks  (Devin DeBacker, Lawfare)
Currently, there is nosingle federal requirement and no uniform process for private companies to report cyberattacks and incidents to the federal government. Companies face only a patchwork of vague disclosure requirements imposed by state privacy laws, the Federal Trade Commission, securities laws, and industry-specific regulatory bodies. And even when companies do report attacks to the federal government, the appropriate government agencies do not always have the information needed to protect others in the affected industry, to assess vulnerabilities, or to figure out the national security consequences. For example, Colonial Pipeline notifiedthe FBI of the May 7 ransomware attack but did not notify the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which did not have technical information on the attack even five days afterward. 

A Pandemic Isn’t the Only Kind of “Catastrophic Risk.” It’s Time to Prepare More Seriously for the Next.  (Nikita Lalwani, Alasdair Phillips-Robins and Sam Winter-Levy, Lawfare)
In 2018, the World Health Organization published a study that placed the likelihood of a Spanish flu-style pandemic at somewhere between 0.5 percent and 1 percent each year. Such an outbreak, it said, could kill as many as 28 million people.
Despite the risk of such staggering loss, few countries took the threat seriously. Pandemics are a kind of “global catastrophic risk” — a term popularized by Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom describing an event that is unlikely to occur but that would have massive and deadly consequences if it did. In general, governments are poorly equipped to address such threats, preferring to tackle the immediate and concrete over the improbable and remote. The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the consequences of that failure. Governments around the world were blindsided by the virus, whose death toll has already surpassed 3.7 million, including more than 590,000 Americans.
Yet as terrible as the outbreak has been, it could have been even worse.

Recent Cyberattacks Reveal US Utilities’ Extreme Vulnerability  (Kartikay Mehrotra, Bloomberg / Al Jazeera)
Highly inadequate digital security poses a national threat as hackers shift focus to utilities’ networks.

What If the Threat Comes from Within? Federal Agencies Must Address the Risk  (Michael Hudson, The Hill)
When the Colonial Pipeline was brought down by DarkSide hackers as part of a growing ransomware as a service threat, the experience was eye-opening for our country, which was ill-prepared to address the potential for expanding attacks by hackers seeking only profit. Now, as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) scrambles to regulate cybersecurity in the pipeline industry after the fact, all federal agencies need to turn their attention inward to fortify themselves against similar external threats and insider threats.
The ransomware hack on the pipeline forced our nation to its knees; on the East Coast, gas stations closed, vehicles sat idle, and business suffered. If the hack had come from inside a federal agency, perpetrated by knowledgeable U.S. government employees instead of an external hacker from Eastern Europe, imagine how much worse it could have been. For many government agencies, there is no need to imagine; they already have had to deal with being breached.  
Insider threats long have been a concern for government agencies. The federal government’s main insider threat organization, the National Insider Threat Task Force, was established under the umbrella of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in 2011.