• Three Charged with Giving Secrets to China, and Selling DOD Chinese-Origin Rare Earth Magnets

    DOJ charged three residents of Kentucky and Indiana with sending technical military data drawings to China, and then unlawfully supplying the U.S. Department of Defense with Chinese-origin rare earth magnets for aviation systems and military items.

  • How Foreign Intelligence Services Compromise, Exploit U.S. Technology

    Foreign intelligence services have intensified their efforts to compromise or exploit U.S. technology. A new report analyzes foreign collection attempts to obtain unauthorized access to sensitive or classified information and technology.

  • Cybercrime Insurance Is Making the Ransomware Problem Worse

    Cybercrime insurance is making the ransomware problem worse During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was another outbreak in cyberspace: a digital epidemic driven by ransomware. Businesses are turning to cyberinsurance companies in desperation to protect themselves from attack. But the growth of the cyberinsurance market is only encouraging criminals to target companies that have extortion insurance.

  • Man Charged for Participation in LockBit Global Ransomware Campaign

    A criminal complaint filed in the District of New Jersey was earlier this week, charging a dual Russian and Canadian national for his alleged participation in the LockBit global ransomware campaign.

  • German Ministry Seeks to Block Chinese Chip Factory Takeover

    German Economy Minister Robert Habeck wants to stop the sale of a chip production plant to a Chinese investor. The Green Party politician has expressed concern about giving China control over key infrastructure.

  • China’s Chip Talent Problem Worsens After Layoffs at U.S. Firm Marvell

    Marvell Technology has confirmed that it is eliminating research and development staffs in China – the third U.S. chipmaker that has done so this year as the U.S.-China tech rivalry intensifies. This will hobble China’s chip ambitions and worsen its talent shortfall in the field of designing and manufacturing cutting-edge computer chips.

  • Economic Sanctions Have a Poor Success Rate

    Economic sanctions have become the weapon of choice in the United States’ diplomatic and strategic arsenal. Trade tariffs, export controls and other financial penalties offer a quick means to punish ‘bad behavior’. However, sanctions have a poor success rate, have high economic costs, and may also have massive unanticipated consequences for innocent bystanders.

  • Cybersecurity Professionals May Be Burning Out at a Faster Rate Than Frontline Health Care

    More attention should be paid to the fast rate of burn-out among cybersecurity professionals. Hundreds of thousands of cybersecurity jobs are vacant owing to lack of cybersecurity talent – and that number is growing, among other things, by thousands of cybersecurity professionals who leave the field after a few short years.

  • Rare-Earth Processing Must Be a Strategic Priority for Australia

    There are well over 3,000 items of U.S. military equipment requiring rare earth elements (REEs), including crewed and uncrewed aircraft, satellites, nuclear weapons, missiles, surface warships and submarines, advanced radars and combat systems, and army vehicles such as tanks. REEs are also essential to green technology. China’s near global monopoly over the processing of these minerals is becoming increasingly worrisome.

  • Climate Change-Driven Heat Waves Have Cost Global Economy Trillions Since the 1990s

    Massive economic losses due to sweltering temperatures brought on by human-caused climate change are not just a problem for the distant future. A new study has found that more severe heat waves resulting from global warming have already cost the world economy trillions of dollars since the early 1990s. The study says that measures protecting people on hottest days are needed now.

  • Ensuring Our Workforce Is Cyber Ready

    Remaining vigilant and prepared to protect our nation’s cybersecurity is one of DHS S&T’s highest priorities. To meet this goal, S&T is harnessing the intellectual power of America’s universities and leveraging some of the best and brightest subject matter experts and academic minds via S&T Centers of Excellence (COE).

  • Companies Weigh Fallout from U.S. Ban on Sending Chip Tech to China

    The new U.S. ban the transfer of advanced U.S. semiconductor technology to China affects not only U.S. firms that sell to China, but any company whose products contain American semiconductor technology. Semiconductor companies and other tech firms that count China among their largest single markets are facing potentially severe damage to their revenues.

  • Russia Working Hard to Acquire Sensitive Western Military Technology

    Russia has struggled for years, if not decades, to acquire sensitive Western technology and military hardware: everything from night-vision goggles for soldiers to powerful computer chips for advanced fighter jets. How successful the effort has been is an open question, but according to news reports and military analysts, sensitive Western technologies are widely employed in Russian weaponry and military equipment.

  • Seismic Shifts Underway in Global Semiconductor Market as U.S. Accelerates Decoupling from China

    Historically, the U.S. had the lion’s share of the global semiconductor industry (37 percent in 1990), but its dominance has been eroded by North Asian markets over the past three decades. In August, the administration committed to bolstering the U.S. semiconductor manufacturing sector with $50 billion in funding under the CHIPS and Science Act, with the potential to create 40,000 new jobs.

  • Washington Raises Stakes in War on Chinese Technology

    The Biden administration is expanding its list of technology-focused sanctions on China, drawing parallels to U.S. controls targeting the Soviet Union during the Cold War – and the new U.S. sanctions are in some ways more restrictive than Cold-War era controls.