China Linked Actors Hiding in Router Firmware | Senate Must Act on Chemical Security Before Terrorists Do | 40 Years Ago Today, One Man Saved Us from World-Ending Nuclear War, and more

The CSA details tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by BlackTech actors to compromise international subsidiaries, as well as recommended detection and mitigation techniques to defend against this threat. The CSA also highlights the need for multinational corporations to review all subsidiary connections, verify access, and consider implementing zero trust models to limit the extent of a potential compromise.

Senate Must Act on Chemical Security Before Terrorists Do  (Eric R. Byer And Chris Jahn, HSToday)
There’s a hefty list of action items as Congress approaches its funding deadline this week. One item that should be at the top of that list is national security, specifically passing legislation to restore the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Security (CFATS) program.
From the medicines that maintain our health to the treatment of our drinking water, to the fuel in our vehicles, and even the microchips that run our smartphones, chemicals are used in nearly every U.S. industry and are critical to a strong supply chain. The vital role of the chemical industry, however, comes with unique security challenges that require government agencies and companies working together to stay ahead of the ever-evolving physical and cyber threats facing our nation.
And those threats are real and show no signs of diminishing. In fact, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) latest threat assessment states that the threat of terrorism from domestic and foreign actors remains high. Unfortunately, in the face of continued threats and in the shadow of the anniversary of 9/11, the nation’s chemical facility security program expired on July 28, leaving our nation without key safeguards and tools to fight terrorism.

40 Years Ago Today, One Man Saved Us from World-Ending Nuclear War  (Dylan Matthews, Vox)
On September 26, 1983, the planet came terrifyingly close to a nuclear holocaust.
The Soviet Union’s missile attack early warning system displayed, in large red letters, the word “LAUNCH”; a computer screen stated to the officer on duty, Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, that it could say with “high reliability” that an American intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) had been launched and was headed toward the Soviet Union. First, it was just one missile, but then another, and another, until the system reported that a total of five Minuteman ICBMs had been launched.
“Petrov had to make a decision: Would he report an incoming American strike?” my then-colleague Max Fisher explained. “If he did, Soviet nuclear doctrine called for a full nuclear retaliation; there would be no time to double-check the warning system, much less seek negotiations with the US.”
Reporting it would have made a certain degree of sense. The Reagan administration had a far more hardline stance against the Soviets than the Carter, Ford, or Nixon administrations before it. Months earlier President Reagan had announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (mockingly dubbed “Star Wars,” a plan to shoot down ballistic missiles before they reached the US), and his administration was in the process of deploying Pershing II nuclear-armed missiles to West Germany and Great Britain, which were capable of striking the Soviet Union. There were reasons for Petrov to think Reagan’s brinkmanship had escalated to an actual nuclear exchange.
But Petrov did not report the incoming strike. He and others on his staff concluded that what they were seeing was a false alarm. And it was; the system mistook the sun’s reflection off clouds for a missile. Petrov prevented a nuclear war between the Soviets, who had 35,804 nuclear warheads in 1983, and the US, which had 23,305.

Merck’s COVID Drug May Be Creating Transmissible Mutated Viruses  (Matt Field, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
A drug used to treat patients at risk of severe COVID-19 infection may have led to the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 viruses bearing a distinct pattern of mutations, researchers reported Monday in Nature. The new paper raises the stakes over concerns about whether molnupiravir use could lead to the emergence of new dangerous variants and extend the pandemic.
Molnupiravir, which is sold as Lagevrio, works by mutating SARS-CoV-2 and causing changes that should knock out the virus’s functionality. The mutated viruses aren’t supposed to replicate further, but researchers who looked at more than 15 million viral genome sequences found that a recognizable pattern of mutations emerged in 2022, when several countries began using the drug. They found this pattern in sequences from countries that used molnupiravir and in the age groups likely to have used the medication.