OUR PICKSLog4j Flaw Attack Levels Remain High | Spotting Extremists | Spies & Actors, and more

Winnipeg Professor Developing Tool Kit to Help Teachers Spot Burgeoning Extremism in Students  (Rachel Bergen, CBC)
A Winnipeg professor is developing a tool kit to help teachers in the province identify the early stages of extremism in their students so it can be addressed before thoughts and musings turn to violent actions. Kawser Ahmed, an adjunct professor at the University of Winnipeg who studies extremism, hate and radicalization, received $400,000 from Public Safety Canada and the university to develop the tool kit over the next two years. Youth are more vulnerable than ever to being radicalized because of connectivity and the presence of digitally savvy people who produce hate-filled conspiracy materials, he said. “This connectivity, in one side, is a great advantage to connect with others, but on the other, it is very easy to motivate people in these really problematic causes,” Ahmed told CBC News. “Google will produce 1.8 million results in five seconds, but the top five, 10 or 20 results, how do you know that these are authentic and legitimate? There is no way, and in the world of fake news and conspiracy theories, it is even [more] difficult.” In 2019, police reported 1,946 criminal incidents in Canada that were motivated by hate, according to data from Statistics Canada. From 2010 to 2019, 23 per cent of people accused of hate crimes were between the ages of 12 and 17, and 86 per cent were male.

Hate Crimes Are Soaring. Extremists Have a New Recruitment Tool: Video Games.  (David Gambacorta, Philadelphia Inquirer)
They arrived in yellow rental trucks, unfurled their flags, and readied shields and smoke bombs. The hour was late, and the symbolism was unsettling: As the clock inched close to midnight on July 3, about 200 members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front marched through downtown Philadelphia, past Independence Hall and other historic landmarks, while chanting, “Take America back!” If the demonstration was meant to be a show of strength for the organization, it ended meekly. After scuffling with a handful of counterprotesters, the Patriot Front members retreated into their Penske trucks and then were stopped by Philadelphia police on Delaware Avenue, where some marchers sat dejectedly, their heads bowed. But the episode served a dual purpose. Social media has proven to be fertile ground for white supremacist and conspiracy-theory movements trying to attract new members. Patriot Front turned footage of its parade through the city into a hype video; on its website, its members likened themselves to Revolutionary War heroes, and insisted, “Americans must dictate America.” A month before the Philadelphia demonstration, more than 300 researchers and scholars had volunteered to be part of a new effort to curb the spread of extremism: the Collaboratory Against Hate, a center created by the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.

Hackers Breached Florida Health Care System, Potentially Exposing Data on 1.3 Million People  (Sean Lyngaas, CNN)
Hackers breached the computer networks of a southeast Florida health care system in October and may have accessed sensitive personal and financial information on over 1.3 million people, the health care system announced this week.
Social Security numbers, patient medical history and bank account information are among the data that have been exposed in the breach of Broward Health, a network of over 30 health care facilities serving patients across roughly 2 million-person Broward County, Florida, according to a notice the health care provider filed with the Office of the Maine Attorney General.
About 470 of the data breach victims live in Maine. Like other states, Maine law requires organizations that hold state residents’ personal data to file a disclosure when they’ve been hacked.

Inside the Feds’ Hunt for Hundreds of Capitol Riot Fugitives  (Justin Rohrlich, Daily Beast)
If anyone there on Jan. 6 assumes they’re safe from prosecution because a year has passed, they’re wrong.

5 Terrorism Trends to Watch in 2022  (Bridget Johnson, HSToday)
Even if disparate extremist groups don’t overtly cooperate with each other they can complement each other and aid shared goals.

All Successful Spies Need to Be Good Actors  (Simon Ings, The Spectator)
The ability to adopt a fictional persona, learn a script or improvise are as important in espionage as in the theatre, say Christopher Andrew and Julius Green in their book, Stars and Spies: Intelligence Operations and the Entertainment Business.

How Weather Is Playing a Role in Information Warfare  (Mark Pomerleau, C4ISRNet)
Hacks, leaked documents and information operations orchestrated through social media were the pinnacle of information warfare in the last couple of years. But for the U.S. military, there is another sphere leaders are eyeing: weather.

Log4j Flaw Attack Levels Remain High, Microsoft Warns  (Liam Tung. ZDNet)
Organizations might not realize their environments are already compromised.