• CybersecurityCybercriminals Use Pandemic to Attack Schools and Colleges

    By Nir Kshetri

    From Aug. 14 to Sept. 12, 2021, educational organizations were the target of over 5.8 million malware attacks, or 63% of all such attacks. Ransomware attacks alone impacted 1,681 U.S. schools, colleges and universities in 2020. Globally 44% of educational institutions were targeted by such attacks.

  • DronesDetecting, Identifying Small Drones in Urban Environment

    DHS has awarded $750K to a Texas company to develop a detection and tracking sensor system that can identify nefarious small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in an urban environment.

  • ARGUMENT: Injurious lockdownsThe Closing of Book Revue and America's Misguided Lockdowns

    Book Revue, a 20-yer old cultural and social institution in downtown Huntington on Long Island’s north shore, will be closing its doors in a few days. It is yet another victim of the policy if business lockdowns, which was a misguided and unnecessary response to the Covid. Other countries chose a different, and more effective, path.

  • Resilience9/11 Prepared Firms for COVID-19 Economic Effects

    Companies which experienced the financial impact of 9/11 were more resilient to the economic effects of COVID-19, according to new research.The research is the first of its kind to compare the events of the last eighteen months with 9/11.

  • Cybersecurity educationNew Program: Hardware-Cybersecurity Education

    Many commonly reported cyberattacks focus on computer software vulnerabilities. But what about computer hardware? As complex global supply chains are stressed by the pandemic, risks increase of corporate or state espionage via hardware, such as malicious “trojan” circuits hidden on a motherboard by a shady third-party vendor.

  • Cybersecurity educationCybersecurity education to Help Communities Become More Cyber-Secure

    The NSA helps fund programs aiming to develop a community-wide K-12 cybersecurity program, support local industry and government to be more cyber resilient, and help local academic institutions to develop cybersecurity programs for students.

  • Cybersecurity educationAPL, UTSA: Collaborating on Cybersecurity, Resilience

    Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) has earned a reputation as one of the U.S. leading centers of research on public health, with an emphasis on national security. But one of the APL’s core competencies is cybersecurity and advanced analytics, focused on security concerns of the nation’s military. This dovetails with the UTSA National Security Collaboration Center’s (NSCC) mission. The two institutions are exploring collaboration options.

  • Supply chain securitySecuring Domestic Supply Chain of Critical Materials

    DOE announced $30 million in funding for 13 national lab and university-led research projects to develop new technologies that will help secure the supply of critical materials that build clean energy technologies.

  • China watchCybersecurity Experts Worried by Chinese Firm’s Control of Smart Devices 

    By Adam Xu

    From rooftop to basement and the bedrooms in between, much of the technology making consumer products smart comes from a little-known Chinese firm, Tuya Inc. of Hangzhou.More than 5,000 brands have incorporated Tuya’s technology in their products. Cybersecurity experts are worried, and they urge Washington to limit or ban Tuya from doing business in the United States, in part because a broad new Chinese law requires companies to turn over any and all collected data when the government requests it.

  • Food securityNew Ways to Assess Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture

    Scientists agree climate change has a profound impact on U.S. agricultural production, but estimates vary, making it hard to develop mitigation strategies. Two agricultural economists take a closer look at how choice of statistical methodology influences climate study results. They also propose a more accurate and place-specific approach to data analysis.

  • AfghanistanTaliban to Gain Control over $1 trillion Mineral Wealth

    By Nik Martin

    To date, the Taliban have profited from the opium and heroin trade. Now the Islamist group effectively rules a country with valuable resources that China needs to grow its economy. Afghanistan’s mineral riches will also bolster China’s dominance in rare Earth elements.

  • Health securityMedicine Manufacturing Limits Poses Risk to U.S. Health Security

    By Jill Young Miller

    More than 80 percent of the active ingredients in medicines the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deems essential for public health have no U.S. manufacturing source. Essential medicines include antibiotics, antivirals, blood pressure pills, steroids and many others. This vulnerability of the U.S. public health care system is not only matter of health care security, but of national security as well.

  • Food securityGlobal Warming Increased U.S. Crop Insurance Losses by $27 Billion in 27 Years

    Higher temperatures attributed to climate change caused payouts from the nation’s biggest farm support program to increase by $27 billion between 1991 and 2017, according to new estimates from Stanford researchers. Costs are likely to rise even further with the growing intensity and frequency of heat waves and other severe weather events.

  • Energy securityPlanning for the Future in a Changing Climate

    How can companies, for example, utilities, know how changes in climate will impact their assets and their business strategy? And what can they do to identify and address issues before they affect customers? A partnership between the largest state public power entity in the U.S., the New York Power Authority (NYPA), and Argonne National Laboratory will enable the utility to better assess how its assets and business may be affected by extreme weather and other hazards.

  • IranU.K. Top General: Western Powers Must Retaliate for Iran’s Drone Strike on Oil Tanker

    By Jamie Dettmer

    General Nick Carter, chief of the British Defense Staff, said Western powers need to retaliate for an Iranian drone strike on an oil tanker, which killed a British security guard and the ship’s Romanian captain. “What we need to be doing, fundamentally, is calling out Iran for its very reckless behavior,” he said.