David Norquist, deputy Defense Secretary and chief financial officer at the Pentagon, told senators today that threats posed by China and Russia are the Defense Department’s (DoD) central problem – particularly in the race for technological defense capabilities – and largely justify the White House’s proposed $750 billion defense budget for FY2020. […]

Citing “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” Facebook announced today that it has purged accounts from Iran, Russia, Macedonia, and Kosovo. […]

With nation-state cyberattacks increasingly targeting businesses, the Federal government must take action to collaborate and communicate with the private sector in a whole-of-government approach, said current and former officials from the Department of Justice on Tuesday. […]

The ransomware attack that recently hit Tribune Publishing was perpetrated by an independent crime organization, rather than a nation-state, McAfee announced Wednesday. […]

The National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) has announced a new campaign to spread awareness among private sector companies to protect against nation-state cyberattacks. […]

The Senate Intelligence Committee released two reports on Monday finding that Russian social media influence operations–which came to broad attention in the U.S. following the 2016 presidential election–are still ongoing in the U.S. […]

In an Inspector General (IG) report released Nov. 20, the Department of the Interior got taken to task for allowing an employee to visit 9,000 pornographic websites in under seven months. This is the IG second report chastising the department for an employee viewing porn on agency time and technology. […]

The United States, Russia, and China did not sign the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace, a global cyber pact, released Tuesday at Paris Peace Forum by French President Emmanuel Macron. […]

The Department of Defense released the latest chapter of its cyber strategy on Tuesday, which takes a more offensive stance than its 2015 predecessor and directs DoD to “defend forward, shape the day-to-day competition, and prepare for war” in cyberspace. […]

Andrei Tyurin, a Russian citizen, was extradited to the United States on Friday from the country of Georgia in connection with his alleged participation in a computer hacking campaign that targeted U.S. financial institutions, brokerage firms, financial news publishers, and other American companies, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. […]

Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2019 took a big step toward passage with the release of the conference report late yesterday that unifies House and Senate NDAA legislation and places in sharp focus concerns about growing cyber and electronic warfare threats and ways that the United States should address them. […]

Pentagon leaders say they’re serious about getting ahead in the artificial intelligence (AI) game, which increasingly could include the “games” involved in the modeling and simulation programs used for training. […]

Department of Defense (DoD) officials have been framing Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the center of a “new space race,” citing its growing importance in military and geopolitical operations, the investments other countries such as China have been making in AI, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assertion that whoever takes the lead in this field will be “ruler of the world.” […]

Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke released a binding operational directive on Sept. 13 requiring agencies to identify and plan to remove all Kaspersky Lab products within the next 90 days. “The Department is concerned about the ties between certain Kaspersky officials and Russian intelligence and other government agencies, and requirements under Russian law that allow Russian intelligence agencies to request or compel assistance from Kaspersky and to intercept communications transiting Russian networks,” DHS noted. […]

A hacker group named Dragonfly 2.0 has gained access to several companies that supply electricity to the U.S. power grid, according to Symantec. The new wave of cyberattacks could give attackers the means to severely disrupt affected operations centers in Europe and North America. Dragonfly 2.0 has been in operation since at least 2011 and is linked to the Russian government. […]

According to a new declassified report from the leaders of the intelligence community, Russian President Vladimir Putin “ordered” an effort to influence the U.S. election and “denigrate” Hillary Clinton. […]

The DHS-FBI Joint Analysis Report sheds light on the tools Russian intelligence officers used to compromise the networks and infrastructure associated with the recent U.S. presidential election. […]

The Department of Homeland Security is confident that Russia is responsible for recent email hacks of U.S. persons and institutions, according to a statement released on the agency website Oct. 7. […]