• British Intelligence Shines Light on Chinese Spy 'Hiding in Plain Sight'

    Pressure is mounting on Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5, to explain why it did not alert lawmakers sooner about the activities of a suspected Chinese spy, who the security service now say was “knowingly engaged in political interference in the U.K.”

  • Extradited Kremlin-Linked Russian Businessman Charged with Cybercrimes, along with Four Other Russian Suspects

    Russian businessman Vladislav Klyushin was extradited from Switzerland to the United States last week over his involvement in a global scheme to trade on hacked confidential information. One of Klyushin’s codefendants, Ivan Ermakov, a former officer in Russia’s GRU military intelligence, was charged in court in 2018 for his role in hacking and disinformation operations the GRU conducted in 2016 as part of Russia’s interference in the U.S. presidential elections.

  • Foreign Disinformation Effort Raises Fears of Violence in U.S.

    Foreign intelligence services and global terrorist organizations are engaged in a broad effort to seed the United States with disinformation, and this effort appears to be working, raising new fears of a terrorist attack in the coming weeks, according to a senior DHS official.

  • Information Disorder: A Crisis That Exacerbates All Other Crises

    The Aspen Institute has issued a report analyzing the dangers of truth decay – the report’s authors prefer the term “information disorder” — and making a number of recommendations. In their introductory remarks, the authors write that “Information disorder is a crisis that exacerbates all other crises. When bad information becomes as prevalent, persuasive, and persistent as good information, it creates a chain reaction of harm.”

  • Jabbed in the Back: Russian, Chinese COVID-19 Disinformation Campaigns

    The public health and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have also become a battle about the nature of truth itself. From the emergence of the first reports of a virus in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, opportunistic leaders in China, Russia, and elsewhere have used the virus as a pretext to further erode democracy and wage information warfare. They have inundated an already polluted information environment with disinformation and propaganda about the virus’s origins and cures, and, most recently, vaccines.

  • Even on U.S. Campuses, China Cracks Down on Students Who Speak Out

    Students and scholars from China who criticize the regime in Beijing can face quick retaliation from fellow students and Chinese officials who harass their families back home. U.S. universities rarely intervene.

  • China Expands Military-Political Education Programs In Developing Countries

    China has vastly expanded its military training programs for military officers from developing countries. In these programs, in which military officers from more than 100 countries have participated, Beijing combines military training with ideological education to promote authoritarian governance, especially its “Party-Army model” with the army subordinate to the ruling party. A new report says that these efforts are “an increasingly important component of China’s engagement. These efforts include training programs aimed at future military and political leaders.”

  • Why the FCC Expelled a Chinese Telecom for National Security Risks

    After months of investigating Chinese state-owned telecommunications companies for national security risks, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Oct. 26 issued an order on one, China Telecom: It can no longer provide telecommunications services in the United States. But Justin Sherman writes that “the move also highlighted that there are many security risks at play with respect to certain foreign telecommunications companies, and mitigating one of those risks still leaves other risks in play.”

  • Congress Restarts Push for China Legislation by Year’s End

    Lawmakers are renewing a push to pass legislation that would boost U.S. competition with China, amid rising concerns about the global supply chain. Addressing U.S. competition with China is one of the few areas of broad bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, although lawmakers differ on the approach.

  • Belarusian Government Linked to Hacking, Disinformation Campaign

    U.S. cybersecurity researchers say they have uncovered evidence that the Belarusian government is linked to a hacking and disinformation campaign against Eastern European NATO members.

  • News Manipulation by State Actors

    Did authoritarian regimes engage in news manipulation during the pandemic? How can such manipulation be brought to light? New report shows that both Russia and China appear to have employed information manipulation during the COVID-19 pandemic in service to their respective global agendas.

  • China Has Been Conducting Campaign of Harassment, Threats against Uyghurs in 22 Countries

    China is oppressing the Uyghurs living in China, but a new report reveals the scale of China’s campaign of harassment and threats against Uyghurs living outside of China. China has used a variety of means in its campaign, including threats against family members in China; abusing the Interpol system by referring the the names of Uyghur activists abroad to Interpol for investigation of trumped-up charges; using China’s considerable cyber capabilities to hack the personal information of Uyghurs and flood their electronic devices with threats; and pressuring businesses to fire Uyghur employees.

  • Hackers-for-Hire Drive Evolution of Threat Landscape

    Cybersecurity threats are on the rise. The new edition of the ENISA Threat Landscape (ETL) highlights the surge in cybercriminality motivated by monetization using ransomware or cryptojacking. Supply-chains attacks also rank highly among prime threats because of the significant potential they have in inducing catastrophic cascading effects.

  • FCC Revokes China’s Telecom Rights to Operate in U.S.

    The FCC on Tuesday revoked China’s Telecom rights to operate and provide services in the United States, and gave the company sixty days to terminate its operations. “Promoting national security is an integral part of the Commission’s responsibility to advance the public interest, and [Tuesday’s] action carries out that mission to safeguard the nation’s telecommunications infrastructure from potential security threats,” the FCC said. 

  • U.S. Intelligence Community Pivots to Better Confront Beijing

    CIA director William Burns Thursday announced the creation of a new China Mission Center to make sure the agency’s resources and existing efforts are working together to face the growing threat.