• Predicting and Countering Cyberttacks

    The U.K Defense and Security Accelerator (DASA) announce nearly £1m to further develop technology that predicts and counters cyber-attacks. “This work will develop, adapt and merge the novel approaches explored in Phase 1 of the competition, to proactively defend deployed U.K. military systems and networks from the rapidly growing threat of offensive cyber action from aggressive adversaries,” DASA said.

  • Catching Nuclear Smugglers: Fast Algorithm Enable Cost-Effective Detectors at Borders

    Nations need to protect their citizens from the threat of nuclear terrorism. Nuclear security deters and detects the smuggling of special nuclear materials—highly enriched uranium, weapons-grade plutonium or materials that produce a lot of radiation—across national borders. A new algorithm could enable faster, less expensive detection of weapons-grade nuclear materials at borders, quickly differentiating between benign and illicit radiation signatures in the same cargo.

  • COVID-19 and America’s Counter-Terrorism Response

    Since the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. foreign policy, national security, and law enforcement have been dominated by counter-terrorism considerations, even while a number of counter-terrorism experts have cautioned against overemphasizing the terrorist threat. Lydia Khalil writes that, at the same time, for various reasons, U.S. law enforcement has found it more challenging to deal with the more serious threat of terrorism the United States is facing – far-right domestic terrorism – a threat which now eclipses the threat posed by foreign Islamist jihadists, and which is only going to grow. If anything could ever shake the United States out of its counter-terrorism fixation it would be a crisis of even greater magnitude than 9/11. It seemed like that moment finally came with the COVID-19 pandemic, “[y]et what we have seen so far is the opposite. Instead of reorienting toward other paradigms and reexamining its strategic priorities, the United States continues to reflexively overextend its counter-terrorism tools to deal with some of the more problematic aspects of the virus’ spread,” she writes.

  • The Department of Defense Should Not Wage Cyber War Against Criminal Hackers During the Coronavirus Crisis

    Politicians and pundits in the United States have frequently described the challenge of controlling the COVID pandemic with the language of waging war. Erica D. Borghard writes that given this terminology, it can be tempting to look to the Department of Defense (DOD) to solve problems it was not meant to address. While nefarious actors in cyberspace are seeking to capitalize on scared and vulnerable individuals during the pandemic for criminal gain and national strategic objectives, “any efforts to leverage DOD capabilities in combating these efforts must distinguish between nation-state and criminal activity,” she writes.

  • Lawmakers Press Administration on Counterterrorism Efforts Amid COVID-19

    Senators Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire) and James Lankford (R-Oklahoma), both members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, called on the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and Intelligence Community to answer questions about what these agencies are doing to address ongoing and emerging terrorist threats amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The senators note that there is evidence of both foreign and domestic potential terrorists trying to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Coronavirus: Digital Contact Tracing Doesn’t Have to Sacrifice Privacy

    To make it safer to reduce the lockdown measures, proposals are being considered to use data from people’s smartphones to track their movements and contacts with potentially infected patients. Other systems involve monitoring the data trails of all citizens to generate useful information that helps to prevent the spread of the disease. All these approaches involve allowing the government, and in some cases private companies, to build a database of where we go, the people we associate with and when. Such intrusive tracking is more typically associated with totalitarian regimes and easily can be misused. Despite the good intentions, then, these measures raise serious concerns that collecting and sharing such data might pose a threat to citizens’ right to privacy.

  • Extremists and Conspiracy Theorists Urge Resistance to “Medical Martial Law”

    In the past month, anti-government extremists, conspiracy theorists and others chafing under coronavirus restrictions have led a rising chorus of angry opposition to public health measures promulgated by federal and state governments. This growing movement promotes opposition to and noncompliance with these measures, which they believe are driven by ulterior motives.

  • Examining Australia’s COVIDSafe Tracing App

    The Australian government releases an App called COVIDSafe to help in tracing contacts of those infected with the coronavirus. As is the case with similar apps in other countries, COVIDSafe has raised privacy concerns, especially about the potential of abuse by government agencies and hacking by cybercriminals. The University of Sydney academics from the disciplines of cybersecurity, media, law and health comment on COVIDSafe, its pros and cons.

  • Global Military Expenditure Reaching $1917 Billion in 2019

    Total global military expenditure rose to $1917 billion in 2019, according to new data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The total for 2019 represents an increase of 3.6 percent from 2018 and the largest annual growth in spending since 2010. The five largest spenders in 2019, which accounted for 62 percent of expenditure, were the United States, China, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia. This is the first time that two Asian states have featured among the top three military spenders.

  • Evidence About Effects of Gun Policies to Inform Policy Decisions

    Research evaluating the effectiveness of gun policies has surged over the past two years, providing information policymakers and the public need to make sound decisions on policies designed to reduce homicides and injuries while protecting individuals’ rights.

  • How Far-Right Extremists Are Exploiting Pandemic

    Far-right extremists have been linked to bombing plots tied to the coronavirus pandemic, spotted holding anti-Semitic signs at protests outside state capitols, and seen trafficking on fringe platforms in all manner of conspiracy theories about the virus. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage millions of lives and paralyze much of the economy, these extremists in the United States are seizing every opportunity to reach out to thousands of potential followers and expand their ranks.

  • Protecting Oneself from the Latest Internet Sex Crime: Sextortion

    What makes sextortion — the use of intimate images or videos that have been captured to then extort compliance from a victim — different from any other crime is the threat to release. A perpetrator could say, ‘I have these images of you and will publish them unless you…’ to get more images or even in exchange for money.” But in many cases of sextortion, perpetrators don’t actually possess the images or videos they’re using as leverage. Instead, offenders manipulate victim behavior by tapping into the fear of not knowing whether the threat is real.

  • Seeing the Spread of Drug Particles in a Forensic Lab

    The spread of drug particles around crime labs cannot be completely avoided — it is an inevitable result of the forensic analyses that crime labs must perform. Black-light videos from NIST will help crime labs manage this invisible risk.

  • Long-Term Efficacy of Managed Wildfires in Restoration Efforts

    Land managers are increasingly interested in using lightning-ignited wildfires as a tool to restore forests and reduce fuel loads. But little is known about the effectiveness of managing wildfires to meet restoration goals. For several years, ecologists have been working to better understand ecological outcomes of wildfires managed to achieve resource objectives and conditions under which practitioners can expect beneficial results.

  • Coronavirus and Its Social Effects Fueling Extremist Violence, Says Government Report

    The coronavirus pandemic and its social repercussions are fueling violence by both frustrated individuals and domestic terrorists, according to a new intelligence report by the Department of Homeland Security. Social distancing has meant the cancelation of mass gathering events that are historically appealing targets for both international and domestic terrorists, the report adds, but “the pandemic has created a new source of anger and frustration for some individuals. As a result, violent extremist plots will likely involve individuals seeking targets symbolic to their personal grievances.”