Our picksCOVID-19: Catalyst or Complication for Bioterrorism? | Disappearing Ransomware Gang | Putin Tests Biden's Cyber Vow, and more

The World’s Biggest Ransomware Gang Just Disappeared from the Internet  (by Patrick Howell O’Neill, MIT Technology Review)
The shutdown comes one day before US and Russian officials meet to talk about the ransomware crisis.

Iranian Hackers Target U.S. Military, Defense Companies  (Jeff Seldin, VOA News)
Iran appears to be intensifying its effort to exploit U.S. and Western targets in cyberspace, running a campaign aimed at manipulating American military personnel and defense companies on social media.
Tehran’s latest campaign, orchestrated on Facebook by a group known as Tortoiseshell, used a series of sophisticated, fake online personas to make contact with U.S. servicemembers and employees of major defense companies in order to infect their computers with malware and extract information.

The COVID-19 Pandemic: Catalyst or Complication for Bioterrorism?  (Gregory D. Koblentz, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism)
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates how an infectious disease can cause massive casualties, destabilize governments, and garner intense media attention as countries struggle to respond effectively. Will the pandemic inspire terrorist groups to consider biological weapons, hoping to replicate these effects? This question is the latest iteration of the debate over the risk posed by bioterrorism, which is characterized by three camps: optimists, pessimists, and pragmatists. This article revisits these schools of thought in light of COVID-19 and analyzes recent developments among extremists to assess the new risk of bioterrorism. The article concludes with recommendations for policymakers to mitigate this risk.

Putin Tests Biden’s Cyber Vow  (Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal)

·  “Barack Obama’s misadventures in Syria showed that a President shouldn’t draw red lines he isn’t willing to enforce. President Biden hasn’t been afraid to talk tough and set expectations with Vladimir Putin, but will Biden enforce his own red lines?”

·  “Media reports suggest that the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service, was behind a recent cyberattack on a Republican National Committee contractor. The same outfit hit the Democratic National Committee six years ago and was behind the more recent SolarWinds attack on U.S. government agencies and corporations. The RNC attack took place last week, around the same time as a Russian-linked gang struck hundreds of American businesses with ransomware.”