Predicting Terror Attacks | Terrorists as Hackers | Watch the U.K. to Understand Delta, and more

Yet the recent passage of legislation that increases the online powers of police and intelligence agencies to disrupt and prevent these threats has left Australians divided, concerned by potential unintended consequences and privacy ramifications.

Islamist Hate Preacher Anjem Choudary Is Kicked Off Instagram Days after He Was Banned from Twitter and Facebook  (William Cole, Daily Mail)
Hate preacher Anjem Choudary has had his Instagram account suspended - just days after he was also booted off Twitter and Facebook. The 54-year-old joined the social networking site as anjemchoudary1967 and began posting on Monday. But within hours, Instagram’s parent company Facebook moved to take the account down for violating its policies. It comes days after Choudary’s accounts on Facebook and Twitter were ‘permanently suspended for violating the rules’ of its violent organizations policy. The firebrand preacher began setting up online profiles two weeks ago after legal conditions that prevented him from speaking publicly expired on July 18. He had been the subject of legal restrictions since he was released from prison in October 2018 following a five-and-a-half-year stretch for inviting support for Islamic State. But after they became void, Choudary joined a number of social networks. He also began sending essays promoting Shariah Law to a network of Whatsapp contacts, where he promoted his Instagram account. ‘Alhamdulillah (praise be to Allah) I am now on instagram, feel free to follow me for updates on anjemchoudary1967,’ he texted the group. While active, his Instagram account showed a picture of him in glasses and another snap read: ‘I bear witness that there is no Ilah (God/diety) except Allah (God Almighty).”

Prosecutors Probe Terrorism among Reasons Behind Italy Region Hacking – Sources  (Reuters)
Italian prosecutors are considering terrorism among the reasons behind a cyber attack that shut down all services offered by the Lazio region through its website, two investigative sources told Reuters on Tuesday. On Sunday the region, which manages services for 5.9 million people living in a large area surrounding Rome, said that hackers had attacked and closed down the IT systems of the company that manages COVID-19 vaccination appointments. It said all systems had been deactivated, including those of the region’s health portal, and warned the vaccine inoculation programme could suffer a delay. Two sources told Reuters on Tuesday that Rome’s prosecutors had opened an investigation into the attack and cited terrorism as a potential aggravating factor for people behind the hack. “Lazio had been hit by a ransomware attack”, one of the sources said, adding that all the computers normally managing online services for citizens, including appointments for coronavirus vaccinations and swabs, were still paralysed. The hackers had not yet made a request for money or other payments, the source said, but added they had opened a dialogue with the region that could result in a ransom request later on.

A Model to Predict Terror Attacks Ahead of Time  (Bryan Walsh, Axios)
A new study details a theoretical model that can help predict where terrorism attacks will occur up to a week in advance.
Much of the power of a terror attack derives from the quality of surprise. Being able to reliably predict when and where attacks are likely to occur would potentially blunt terror as a tool and reduce the costs of security.
In a study published Friday in Science Advances, researchers outlined a framework that uses publicly available data about terror incidents around the world between 2002 and 2016 to identify which factors might reliably tip off authorities in advance of a likely attack.

What I Heard in the White House Basement  (Alexander Vindman, The Atlantic)
I knew the president had clear and straightforward talking points—I’d written them.

DHS Tech Directorate Sets Goals to Guide Risk-Aware Artificial Intelligence Use  (Brandi Vincent, Nextgov)
It’s meant to complement the department’s broader enterprise strategy and could prove helpful to other agencies.

Federal Agencies Are Failing to Protect Sensitive Data, Senate Report Finds  (Tonya Riley, Cyberscoop)
Of eight federal agencies audited for their cybersecurity programs, only the Department of Homeland Security showed improvements in 2020, according to a report from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Released by the panel on Tuesday, the report expresses concerns about the state of federal agencies’ cyber posture during an overall 8% rise in security incidents across agencies.