DOJ Targets Ransomware | Climate Threats to U.S. Security | U.K. Questions Nvidia Deal, and more

A Warrior Dynasty in Chad Will Do Little to End Islamist Threat  (Financial Times)
Franklin D Roosevelt is supposed to have said of Anastasio Somoza, the late Nicaraguan dictator: “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” That broadly sums up the west’s attitude towards Idriss Déby, Chad’s “warrior president”, who was killed on the battlefield this week after 31 years in power. In a less troubled part of the world, Déby might have been seen for what he was: a brutal dictator and a warlord. The son of a poor herder from Chad’s northern desert lands, he rose through the military after training in France, and seized power in a 1990 coup. Though he began with seemingly good intentions, he crystallised into a hardened strongman. He bought off his rivals, if they were lucky, and enriched his cronies with oil profits. For three decades, he ran a militarised state in which the armed forces, the best equipped and most professional in the region, sucked up most resources. His country’s 16m people were pretty much left to fend for themselves. Literacy rates are little above 30 per cent and life expectancy is 54 years. The UN’s human development index ranks Chad 187 out of 189. If Déby was a warrior, he was not good at combating human misery. But Chad does lie in a troubled neighbourhood.

Austrian Police Find ‘Enemies List’ in Raids Targeting Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas  (Tim Stickins, The National)
Raids on suspected Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas members in Austria last year led to the discovery of an “enemies list” of opponents of political Islam, according to people targeted by the groups. Austrian police carried out dozens of raids in an anti-terrorism operation last November, which led to 30 arrests. Operation Luxor, took place in the early morning with searches at more than 60 addresses allegedly linked to Islamist extremists in four different regions. The Styria region prosecutors’ office said in a statement it was “carrying out investigations against more than 70 suspects and against several associations which are suspected of belonging to and supporting the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas organisations” It came days after four people were killed when a gunman who had previously been convicted of trying to join ISIS opened fire in Vienna, although the two investigations were not linked. Kawther Salam, a Palestinian journalist living in Vienna, told eXXpress that authorities had shown her a list of names, including hers, which was reportedly found in the files of one of the suspects targeted in the raids. “I have nothing against Islam. But to the Muslim Brotherhood I am apparently an enemy,” she said.

The Threat Posed by Deepfakes to Marginalized Communities  (Riana Pfefferkorn, Brookings)
When we’re faced with a video recording of an event—such as an incident of police brutality—we can generally trust that the event happened as shown in the video. But that may soon change, thanks to the advent of so-called “deepfake” videos that use machine learning technology to show a real person saying and doing things they haven’t.
This technology poses a particular threat to marginalized communities.

Nvidia’s $40 Billion Deal for Arm Faces U.K. National-Security Probe  (Stu Woo and Eric Sylvers, Wall Street Journal)
The U.K. government will launch a national-security review of Nvidia’s $40 billion acquisition of the British chip designer Arm. The merger is already under antitrust scrutiny by regulators in several different countries, and the national-security review is the latest regulatory review to examine the deal. The decision to examine the acquisition on national-security grounds is representative of the growing recognition by governments around the world of the key role played by semiconductors in critical technologies and the strategic benefits of controlling their supply chains.

Exploiting Vulnerabilities in Cellebrite UFED and Physical Analyzer from an App’s Perspective  (Moxie0, Signal)
Moxie Marlinspike, founder of the encrypted chat app Signal, wrote in a blog post that he had successfully hacked into a device made by the company Cellebrite that is used by law enforcement and various authoritarian regimes to extract data from locked or encrypted cell phones. Marlinspike discovered a variety of vulnerabilities in Cellebrite’s code base, and in his blog post may have included a cryptic threat that future versions of Signal will include code to exploit these vulnerabilities and compromise information extracted by Cellebrite.

Ransomware Targeted by New Justice Department Task Force  (Dustin Volz, Wall Street Journal)
After ‘worst year ever’ for the cyberattacks, department seeks to disrupt digital ecosystem that supports them

Survey of Security Experts Warns of Potentially Catastrophic Climate Threats in the Next 20 Years  (Kate Guy, Center for Climate and Security)
Urgent climate risks are impacting our world today in profound ways, as leaders from the United States and 40 other countries will discuss in the virtual Leaders Summit on Climate later this week. Climate change is no longer a “future” risk that will strike decades from now, but one that is already actively shaping the security landscape for all countries. These risks are now on track to increase significantly in response to the Earth’s continued warming trajectory, and will require new investments in resilience to keep communities safe. Forecasting surveys offer one tool for security actors to plan for this changing–and increasingly dangerous–future.