Our picks this weekVast and Ignored Russian Threat | Everybody Spies in Cyberspace | Untested Software & Hackers, and more

Published 10 January 2021

·  Sen. Warner Accuses White House of Weakening Statement Attributing SolarWinds Hack to Russia

·  Online Extremism “Cannot Be Policed,” Says Head of U.K. Counter-Terror Police

·  How Disinformation Evolved in 2020

·  FBI, DHS Ignored Far-Right Dangers Ahead of Trump Riot

·  What Experts on Extremism Want From the Biden Administration

·  State Department Approves Creation of Cyber Bureau

·  Pentagon Releases Strategy for Countering Small Drones

·  ‘She was deep into it’: Ashli Babbitt, killed in Capitol riot, was devoted conspiracy theorist

·  Chinese Students in the US Caught Up in Geopolitics and Trump’s Immigration Crackdown

·  Capitol Rioters Planned for Weeks in Plain Sight. The Police Weren’t Ready.

·  More Than a Week Later, FBI Avoids Terror Label for Bombing

·  U.S. Capitol Now More Vulnerable as a Result of Wednesday’s Mob Attack, Former DHS Official Says

·  Trump Orders Pompeo to Consider Banning Antifa Members from Entering U.S.

·  What Are Sources of Iran’s Financing of Terrorist Groups?

·  ‘Far-Right’ Extremist Jailed for Threatening to Shoot MP Who Backed Second Brexit Vote

·  Huawei Fallout—Serious New China Threat Strikes at Google, Samsung and Apple

·  A Cyber Opportunity: Priorities for the First National Cyber Director

·  Nation’s Capital Braces for Violence as Extremist Groups Converge to Protest Trump’s Election Loss

·  Suspect in Queens Hoax Bomb Already under NYPD Investigation for Far-Right Stunts

·  Cuba Warns US Against New Terror Designation

·  France’s COVID Vaccine Rollout Is Going So Slowly It’ll Take 3,000 Years

·  Britain Failed. Again.

·  Redefining Victory in America’s War against the Islamic State in Syria

·  The SolarWinds Hack Doesn’t Demand a Violent Response

·  New Terrorism Guide Shows FBI Still Classifying Black “Extremists” as Domestic Terrorism Threat

·  The Telegram App Gives Voice to the Oppressed in Belarus and Russia. but Hate Groups Are Using It Too.

·  As Understanding of Russian Hacking Grows, So Does Alarm

·  Cyberattack on U.S. Government Is Just Part of a Vast and Ignored Russian Threat

·  Microsoft Says Russian Hackers Viewed Some of Its Source Code

·  SolarWinds Hackers Accessed Microsoft Source Code, the Company Says

·  Relax: At Least the SolarWinds Hack Tells America It Has a Problem Worth Solving

·  Everybody Spies in Cyberspace. The U.S. Must Plan Accordingly.

·  Ghost Town in Playas Provides High-Tech Testing for AFRL

·  Trump Ignores Jobs Data to Extend H-1B Visa and Immigration Bans

·  The Dark Reality of Betting Against QAnon

·  DHS, Husker Officials Talk Security of Nation’s Food System

·  With Hacking, the United States Needs to Stop Playing the Victim

·  SolarWinds Hackers ‘Impacting’ State, Local Governments, US Cyber Agency Says

·  Dominion Voting Systems May Sue President Trump Personally for Spreading Election Fraud Disinformation

·  Iran-Linked Hackers Say They Breached Israeli Cyber Security Firm Portnox

·  Firms Warned They “Wouldn’t Survive” Data Breach as a Third Fail to Train Staff

·  Emerging Threats in Healthcare Information Security

·  Misinformation Spread By Anti-Science Groups Endangers COVID-19 Vaccination Efforts

·  The History of Russia’s Cyberwarfare Against NATO Shows It Is Time to Add to NATO’s Article 5

·  Could Floating Cities Be a Haven as Coastlines Submerge?

·  DHS Warns of Data Theft Risk Posed by Chinese Technology

·  Oregon Case Reflects Extremists’ Need of Online Presence

·  FBI Links Iran to Online Hit List Targeting Top Officials Who’ve Refuted Trump’s Election Fraud Claims

·  More Hacking Attacks Found as Officials Warn of ‘Grave Risk’ to U.S. Government

·  SolarWinds Recap: All of the Federal Agencies Caught up in the Orion Breach

·  No, the United States Does Not Spend Too Much on Cyber Offense

·  DHS to Issue China Data Security Warning to U.S. Businesses

·  Former Election Security Official Says It Will Take ‘Years’ to Undo Disinformation

·  Computer Hack Blamed on Russia Tests Limits of U.S. Response

·  Trump Contradicts Pompeo in Bid to Downplay Massive Hack of U.S. Government, Russia’s Role

·  How U.S. Agencies’ Trust in Untested Software Opened the Door to Hackers

·  She Called Police Over a Neo-Nazi Threat. But the Neo-Nazis Were Inside the Police.

·  Lockdown Blamed as More Under-18s Held for Terror Offences in U.K.

Sen. Warner Accuses White House of Weakening Statement Attributing SolarWinds Hack to Russia (Sean Lyngaas, Cyberscoop)
An influential Senate Democrat who will soon chair the intelligence committee on Thursday accused the White House of “water[ing] down” the U.S. government’s public statement linking a hacking campaign to Russia, and suggested more high-profile corporations had been breached.
“We know who it was,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said in reference to the espionage campaign in which attackers leveraged the software built by federal contractor SolarWinds to compromise multiple federal agencies. “And this White House again has watered-down the attribution statements that should have been made in one more outrageous effort to constantly underestimate and underreport on Russian activity.” He spoke at an event held by the Aspen Institute.

Online Extremism “Cannot Be Policed,” Says Head of U.K. Counter-Terror Police(Lizzie Deardan, Independent)
Assistant commissioner Neil Basu says hateful posts must be prevented to stop police being ‘overwhelmed’

How Disinformation Evolved in 2020 (Josh A. Goldstein and Shelby Grossman, Brookings)
In 2019, and again in 2020, Facebook removed covert social media influence operations that targeted Libya and were linked to the Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin. The campaigns—the first exposed in October 2019, the second in December 2020—shared several tactics: Both created Facebook pages masquerading as independent media outlets and posted political cartoons. But by December 2020, the operatives linked to Prigozhin had updated their toolkit: This time, one media outlet involved in the operation had an on-the-ground presence, with branded merchandise and a daily podcast.
Between 2018 and 2020, Facebook and Twitter announced that they had taken down 147 influence operations in total, according to our examination of their public announcements of disinformation takedowns during that time period. Facebook describes such operations as “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” and Twitter dubs them “state-backed information operations.” Our investigation of these takedowns revealed that in 2020 disinformation actors stuck with some tried and true strategies, but also evolved in important ways, often in response to social media platform detection strategies. Political actors are increasingly outsourcing their disinformation work to third-party PR and marketing firms and using AI-generated profile pictures. Platforms have changed too, more frequently attributing takedowns to specific actors.