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Operation Warp Speed: The Interagency and Public-Private Collaborations that Drove It  (Lillian Parr, Council on Strategic Risks)
On Wednesday, October 27, the Council on Strategic Risks (CSR) hosted a webinar to discuss how the successes and challenges of Operation Warp Speed—the U.S. federal government’s effort to drive the development of COVID-19 vaccines—can be built upon in the future. 

Newly Released FBI Tapes Show White Supremacist Members of ‘The Base’ Plotting Terror Attacks  (Alexander Mallin, ABC News)
For a month, FBI agents listened in as two members of a white supremacist group discussed their sinister plans: a plot to use a pro-gun rights rally in Richmond, Virginia, to engage in mass murder and attacks on critical infrastructure, which they believed would mark the start of a racial civil war. Patrik Mathews, a former Canadian Army reservist illegally in the U.S., and Brian Lemley, a Maryland resident and self-described white nationalist, fantasized about the brutal murders they’d soon carry out against law enforcement and Black people, all with the goal of bringing about the “Boogaloo,” or the collapse of the U.S. government in order to prop up a white ethno-state, according to recordings of the pair’s discussions. “We need to go back to the days of … decimating Blacks and getting rid of them where they stand,” Mathews said in one recording. “If you see a bunch of Blacks sitting on some corner you f***ing shoot them.” “I need to claim my first victim,” Lemley said in another recording. “It’s just that we can’t live with ourselves if we don’t get somebody’s blood on our hands.” The two men were each sentenced in late October to nine years in prison, and ABC News has now obtained newly released audio from the FBI’s secret recording of Mathews and Lemley at their Delaware residence in late 2019.

A Ransomware Gang Shut Down After Cybercom Hijacked Its Site and It Discovered It Had Been Hacked  (Ellen Nakashima and Dalton Bennett, Washington Post)
A major overseas ransomware group shut down last month after a pair of operations by U.S. Cyber Command and a foreign government targeting the criminals’ servers left its leaders too frightened of identification and arrest to stay in business, according to several U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The foreign government hacked the servers of REvil this summer, but the Russian-speaking criminal group did not discover it was compromised until Cybercom last month blocked its website by hijacking its traffic, said the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

Cyber Command Head Says US Has Carried Out a “Surge” to Address Ransomware Attacks  (Katie Bo Lillis and Sean Lyngaas, CNN)
US Cyber Command head and director of the National Security Agency Gen. Paul Nakasone said Wednesday that the US had “conducted a surge” over the past three months to address the problem of ransomware attacks on US interests.
Nakasone said the US government had taken aim at sources of funding for ransomware operatives, many of whom are based in Russia and Eastern Europe and who have made millions extorting US companies.

Biden Administration Orders Federal Agencies to Fix Hundreds of Cyber Flaws  (Dustin Volz, Wall Street Journal)

Agencies come under new pressure to close cybersecurity flaws after sometimes balking at such measures in the past