• Journalists, Activists among 50,000 Targets of Israeli Spyware: Reports

    Israeli cyber firm NSO Group claims that its Pegasus surveillance malware is sold to governments so they can better track terrorists and criminals, but many of the 45 governments deploying the surveillance software use it to track journalists, opposition politicians, and civil society activists. Some of these governments are authoritarian (for example, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, UAE, Saudi Arabia). Other are democracies (for example, India, Mexico, South Africa). The only EU member country to deploy the surveillance malware is Hungary, which places it in violation of the EU’s strict privacy and surveillance regulations.

  • China Spy Agency Using Contract Hackers to Extort, Destabilize Western Companies

    The United States and its allies in Europe and Asia have charged that China’s Ministry of State Security is employing criminal contract hackers to conduct cyber operations globally, from which the hackers personally profit. The activities include ransomware operations against private companies which are forced to pay millions in ransom demands to regain access to their data.

  • Chinese Company’s Global Genetic Data Collection Poses Economic, Security Threats: Experts

    A Chinese gene company is collecting genetic data through prenatal tests from women in more than 50 countries— including Germany, Spain and Denmark, as well as in Britain, Canada, Australia, Thailand, India and Pakistan. Collecting the biggest and most diverse set of human genomes could propel China to dominate global pharmaceuticals, and also potentially lead to genetically enhanced soldiers, or engineered pathogens to target the U.S. population or food supply, biosecurity experts told Reuters.

  • Will China Retaliate Against U.S. Chip Sanctions?

    In response to a series of Chinese trade infractions (intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers, cyber espionage, and WTO violations), the U.S. government implemented a sanctions regime which has inflicted increasing pain on China’s semiconductor industry. The Biden administration has doubled down on the Trump’s sanction strategy against China’s high-tech sector. Terry Daly and Jordan Schneider write that China has so far abstained from taking major retaliatory measures against the United States, but this is not likely to last. “The prudent course in a period of uncertainty is risk mitigation. This applies to countries and companies alike,” Daly and Schneider write.

  • MI5 Director: U.K. Faces Growing Threats from Russia, China, Iran—and Far-Right Extremists

    The director-general of MI5, the U.K. domestic intelligence service, said the agency is doubling the resources it devotes to tackling threats from Russia, China and Iran, and shifting more resources to tackle the rapidly growing posed by right-wing extremists, many of whom are teenagers.

  • Sen. Rubio Urges Senate to Pass Genomics Data Security Act

    Senator Marco Rubio urged the Senate to pass his Genomics Data Security Act following a new Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) report, which found that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) did not consider national security risks for any CMS programs. Rubio noted that Chinese and Russian labs may be receiving federal dollars to processing Americans’ genomic data.

  • Mapping How Sea-Level Rise Adaptation Strategies Impact Economies, Floodwaters

    Sea levels are expected to rise by almost seven feet in the Bay Area by 2100. New research shows how traditional approaches to combating sea-level rise can create a domino effect of environmental and economic impacts for nearby communities.

  • Germany Fights Cyberattacks and Fraud Claims to Ensure Fair Election

    Germany is in the middle of an election year that will see unprecedented use of mail-in ballots as well as hacker attacks against politicians. Election authorities reject claims of potential voter fraud.

  • Encrypting Photos on the Cloud to Keep Them Private

    The limited amount of data that smartphones hold, and the way in which they are vulnerable to accidental loss and damage, lead many users to store their images online via cloud photo services. However, these online photo collections are not just valuable to their owners, but to attackers seeking to unearth a gold mine of personal data.

  • EU Agrees on Global Infrastructure Plan to Rival China’s Belt and Road Initiative

    On Monday the EU announced an ambitious global infrastructure plan which aims to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Western governments fear that China’s project encourages countries to take on large Chinese loans which can turn into “debt traps,” allowing China to leverage these debts for political purposes. Monday’s initiative continues a recent phase of greater assertiveness by the EU towards China.

  • Bipartisan Legislation Addresses Dams’ Safety, Hydropower

    There are more than 90,000 dams in the U.S., including 6,000 “high-hazard” dams with poor, unsatisfactory, or unknown safety ratings, posing threats to life and property. Hydropower is responsible for 6 percent of electricity production in the U.S.— and more than 90 percent of the U.S. current electricity storage capacity — but the dams which generate this power are aging and need upgrades.

  • Delivering Aid to Disaster Scenes with Hydrogen Fuel Cell-Powered Vehicles

    DHS S&T, along with other government agencies, is working on the design and creation of the “H2Rescue” emergency vehicle. The H2Rescue is an innovative new truck that can be a lifeline to responders and community members during times of chaos and uncertainty because the H2Rescue is fully powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.

  • Wildfires Threaten California’s Power Grid

    Wildfires blazed through California, Arizona, and Oregon, driven by winds and a lack of humidity.. Death Valley in California’s Mohave Desert hit 128 degrees Fahrenheit. Utility officials in Oregon were keeping a weary eye on the Bootleg Fire which is raging out of control in southern Oregon and threatening Path 66 — a vital electric line corridor linking California with the Oregon power grid. The blaze in Oregon threatens the power lines which carry power to California.

  • An Urgent NATO Priority: Preparing to Protect Civilians

    Russia’s hybrid warfare approach calls for attacking the populations of Russia’s adversaries not through WWII-like carpet bombing, but rather with a combination of disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, supporting proxy forces, and backing terrorist attacks. “Should NATO prepare for this scenario? Absolutely,” Victoria Holt and Marl Keenan write.

  • Can Europe Escape Gazprom's Energy Stranglehold?

    When it comes to gas supplies to the EU, Russia’s state-owned corporation Gazprom steps on the brakes, and natural gas reservoirs are unusually low. Is Russia building up political pressure in order to push through the operation of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline?