OUR PICKSChina’s Cognitive Warfare | Open-Source Security | Bioweapons Targeting DNA, Food Supply, and more
· Biological Weapons Could Target DNA, Food Supply, Two U.S. Lawmakers Say
· Open-Source Security: How Digital Infrastructure Is Built on a House of Cards
· Readout of Inaugural Cyber Incident Reporting Council Meeting
· Independent Report Slams U.K. Leadership Over Migrant Crisis
· TSA Issues New Cyber Directive for Pipeline Operators
· Biden Goes Silent After SCOTUS Gives Him Power to Nix Trump Immigration Policy
· Camille Stewart Gloster Latest Appointment to Office of the National Cyber Director
· The Future of China’s Cognitive Warfare: Lessons from the War in Ukraine
Biological Weapons Could Target DNA, Food Supply, Two U.S. Lawmakers Say (Ivana Saric, Axios)
Biological and chemical weapons have the potential to pose a national security threat to the U.S. that the country is not equipped to handle, a panel of lawmakers and a military leader told an audience at the Aspen Security Forum on Friday. Why it matters: The COVID-19 pandemic underscored how globally debilitating and dangerous pathogens could be if deliberately engineered and released. In May, former federal officials warned that the U.S. is not prepared for the possibility of germ warfare. The big picture Army Gen. Richard Clarke, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, said chemical weapons such as chlorine and mustard gas had been used in 2014-16 by actors such as ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Clarke said non-state actors such as ISIS or al-Qaeda continue to look to these weapons “because they instill fear.” As such it is necessary to develop capabilities to protect U.S. troops that are in proximity, which the U.S. is working to do, Clarke said. Clarke added that state actors like Russia could also pose a threat. “Russia is willing to use those against political opponents. They’re willing to use them on their own soil, but then to go in on the soil of a NATO ally in the UK and use those,” Clarke said, alluding to the nerve agent attack against British resident Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in 2018.
Open-Source Security: How Digital Infrastructure Is Built on a House of Cards (Chinmayi Sharma, Lawfare)
Open source is free software built collaboratively by a community of developers, often volunteers, for public use. Google, iPhones, the national power grid, surgical operating rooms, baby monitors, and military databases all run on this unique asset.
However, open source has an urgent security problem. Open source is more ubiquitous and susceptible to persistent threats than ever before. Proprietary software has responded to threats by implementing thorough institutional security measures. The same care is not being given to open-source software—primarily due to misaligned incentives.
Readout of Inaugural Cyber Incident Reporting Council Meeting (DHS)
On July 22, 2022, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas convened the Cyber Incident Reporting Council (CIRC) – a new Council composed of federal agencies with a Congressional mandate to coordinate, deconflict, and harmonize existing and future federal cyber incident reporting requirements – for its inaugural meeting.
