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Recently, a bipartisan group of Congressmen put forth a bill that would formally authorize cyber cooperation between the United States, and those governments committed to the Abraham Accords. Dubbed the Abraham Accords Cybersecurity Cooperation Act of 2023, the parameters of the bill would facilitate information sharing, provide technical assistance to Abraham Accords stakeholders, and participate in the…
Amidst all the headlines and uncertainty, a story you do not want to miss is that of a major American municipality struggling to get back on its feet for an entire month after a ransomware attack in early May. Following is the chronology of the cyber incident in Dallas – attributed to the Royal Ransomware…
Like our recent coverage of the People’s Republic of China’s advanced persistent threat (APT) Volt Typhoon, OODA Loop Contributor Emilio Iasiello led the way with his recent coverage of the international cooperation that led to the multi-lateral disruption of a unit within Center 16 of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) known…
Following is a survey of recently announced GPT platforms of note – culled from the exponential generative AI headlines of the last few months. It is a curated selection of *GPT and *AI platforms for the OODA Loop readership – across a wide swath of industry sectors. From JPMorgan’s IndexGPT patent application to Crowdstrike’s Charlotte…
As we begin to ramp up for OODAcon 2023 (October 25th in Reston, VA), we return to Matt’s opening comments from OODAcon 2022. Find the full transcript below, as well as a link to the audio file. Matt’s slides are also integrated into the transcript. Matt’s opening comments feel like they could have been put…
This conversation took place during the May 2023 OODA Network Member Meeting. A handful of OODA Network members recently attended the Digital Director’s Network (DDN) DOMINO ’23 Conference in Chicago. This is the discussion of the takeaways from the conference. The conversation then expands into a general discussion of the role of the board in…
Sci-Fi fans and futurists have long envisioned a mechanism that would capture solar power from space, focus it and transmit it to earth as a way of providing more efficient energy for humanity. There are many theoretical potential benefits of this if it can be made to work, including less pollution and no fear that…
In his post earlier this week, OODA Loop Contributor Emilio Iasiello provided the initial coverage of a “cluster of activity” linked to China, targeting networks across U.S. critical infrastructures and Guam: Chinese Cyber Activities Against Critical Infrastructure Raises the Stakes in U.S.-China Relations. As is always the case with Emilio’s weekly contribution here at OODA…
While these deadlines to remediate identified vulnerabilities and patch zero-days are a mandate for federal agencies based on Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 22-01, a review of these recent announcements is an excuse for private sector organizations to revisit their current compliance and risk mitigation measures, as “although BOD 22-01 only applies to FCEB agencies, CISA…
Research courtesy of the Blockchain Research Institute explores how the blockchain will be the foundational technology of the multi-sided technology platforms of the future. In this case study, a platform that consists of everything from drones to proprietary connected devices for food production can contribute to a strategic pivot to large-scale sustainability practices in the…
OODA CEO Matt Devost featured the advent of adversarial machine learning in his keynote at OODAcon 2022. In recent conversations with OODA Senior Advisor and Network Member Chris Ward, we discussed the challenges inherent in protecting Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) in nonfederal systems and organizations. NIST has working drafts available for public comment that address…
A shout-out and a thank you to the Ontario, Canada-based Blockchain Research Institute (BRI) and the authors of this research. BRI allows for the distribution of a high percentage of its blockchain research of really interesting case studies with real-world applications via a Creative Commons license. The first BRI report we feature as part of…
On May 24, 2023, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), as well as the Five Eyes, issued advisories on a “cluster of activity” linked to China that has been targeting networks across U.S. critical infrastructures and Guam. Dubbed VOLT TYPHOON, the activity has been occurring since at least 2021 according to Microsoft,…
Bellingcat, aided by satellite imagery service Planet, and CNN, with imagery from Maxar Technologies, both provide evidence that Russia continues to steal grain shipments from Ukraine – rerouting the food shipments through Crimean ports. Since the beginning of the war, Russia has blocked most Ukrainian ports and “maritime opportunities to export food…grain, barley, sunflower and…
Over the last 18 months, we have been tracking a growing community of venture capital firms committed to National Security Investment for American Competitiveness (including Schmidt Futures, America’s Frontier Fund, and Thomas Tull). Marc Andreesen’s VC firm – a16z – describes the same movement as “American Dynamism”. According to the a16z partners – Katherine Boyle and David…
Few industries are more ripe for creative disruption than healthcare, which consumes huge sums of public and private funding while still battling to meet demand from growing and ageing populations around the world. As a result, artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming a force to be reckoned with in the medical field. But, as in many…
Enterprises looking to deploy multiple AI agents often need to implement a framework to manage them. To this end, Microsoft researchers recently unveiled a new multi-agent infrastructure called Magnetic-One that allows a single AI model to power various helper agents that work together to complete complex, multi-step tasks in different scenarios. Microsoft calls Magnetic-One a…
The rise of quantum computing is more than a technological advancement; it marks a profound shift in the world of cybersecurity, especially when considering the actions of state-sponsored cyber actors. Quantum technology has the power to upend the very foundations of digital security, promising to dismantle current encryption standards, enhance offensive capabilities, and recalibrate the…
Anthropic on Thursday said it is teaming up with data analytics firm Palantir and Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide U.S. intelligence and defense agencies access to Anthropic’s Claude family of AI models. The news comes as a growing number of AI vendors look to ink deals with U.S. defense customers for strategic and fiscal…
Saudi Arabia is planning a new artificial intelligence project with backing of as much as $100 billion as it seeks to develop a technological hub to rival the neighboring United Arab Emirates, people familiar with the matter said. The state-backed entity will invest in data centers, startups and other infrastructure to develop artificial intelligence, the…
On Thursday, deadly Israeli strikes killed dozens of people in Lebanon. At least three were killed in an attack on a southern coastal city. Airstrikes killed dozens more in the area of Baalbek in the east. Israel has widened its campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah. Initially, the country focused on border villages in southern Lebanon. Now,…
Germany’s coalition has collapsed, leaving the government destabilized as Europe faces new challenges with Donald Trump’s recent election. Following months of disputes among the coalition, Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired his finance minister on Wednesday. This has destabilized the center-left government. Scholz will continue to govern for the rest of the year and then plans to…
Russia is rejecting claims that it is linked to fake bomb threats at polling locations in four key swing states in the U.S. election. Bomb threats at polling locations in Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, and Wisconsin were found to originate from Russian email domains. In Georgia, several of the polling stations under threat had to be…
North Korean troops have officially entered Russia’s war against Ukraine. They fought against Ukrainian forces currently occupying Russia’s Kursk region in a small-scale engagement. The fight was likely an attempt to look for weaknesses in the Ukrainian lines. While it is unclear when exactly the fighting occurred, North Korean troops were killed in the confrontation.…
Memorial Hospital and Manor in Bainbridge, Georgia has fallen victim to a ransomware attack and can no longer access its Electronic Health Record system. The attack was discovered over the weekend through a malware protection software. While the hospital’s operations were not impacted by the attack, it is unable to access patient health records. The…
A malicious actor with ties to North Korea is targeting cryptocurrency businesses with malware. The multi-stage malware is capable of infecting Apple macOS devices. SentinelOne, a cybersecurity company, is calling the new campaign Hidden Risk and has connected it to BlueNoroff with high confidence. In the attacks, the actor uses emails with fake news about…
This week, South Korea’s privacy watchdog fined Meta $15 million for illegally collecting information on Facebook users. Authorities stated that the social media company has illegally collected sensitive personal information such as data about political views and sexual orientation. Meta has been sharing this data with thousands of advertisers. South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission…
The hacking group Hellcat is claiming to have breached Schneider Electric’s systems and stolen sensitive information. In response, the French industrial company has launched an investigation. The hackers claim that they breached Schneider Electric’s Jira issue tracking system. Hellcat published online that they were able to access critical data such as projects, issues, and plugins.…
The rapid rise of artificial intelligence gives the world’s largest oil companies a major incentive to increase their investments in renewable energy, according to Sultan al-Jaber, the chief executive of Abu Dhabi’s national oil company. “The size of this opportunity only became very apparent about 18 months ago when ChatGPT took off,” said Jaber in…
One of the most significant shifts in the field of security is expected to be the migration to post-quantum cryptography (PQC), especially for embedded systems. This transition is crucial due to the evolving capabilities of quantum computers, which pose an unprecedented threat to current cryptographic methods. At the recent embedded world North America conference, Joost…
Despite their relatively impressive capabilities, most conventional deep learning AI models suffer from a number of limitations — such as not being able to recall previously learned knowledge after learning a new task (catastrophic forgetting) and the inability to adapt to new information (loss of plasticity). Liquid neural networks (LNNs) are a relatively recent development…
A new partnership between Swift, UBS Asset Management, and Chainlink aims to reshape the future of fund operations. By leveraging blockchain technology, the trio successfully piloted a solution streamlining tokenized fund subscriptions and redemptions. This innovation, built on the backbone of the Swift network, promises to revolutionize the $63 trillion global mutual fund market. Swift,…
It seems Lyft is hoping to catch up to Uber’s string of autonomous vehicle partnerships. Lyft announced Wednesday three separate partnerships — with startup May Mobility, automated driving company Mobileye and smart dashcam firm Nexar — all aimed at establishing a foothold in the emerging autonomous vehicle market. In the announcement, the ride-hailing company said…
Skydio was one of three American companies sanctioned by China earlier this month, along with military shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries and military drone maker Edge Autonomy Operations. While announcing the sanctions, the Chinese foreign ministry mentioned the U.S. government’s announcement of “substantial military assistance” for Taiwan—which China claims is a part of its territory. The…
Google has accidentally leaked its upcoming AI agent, Jarvis AI, which will browse the web for you in Chrome. According to The Information, Google posted an internal preview of the product, codenamed Jarvis, on the Chrome extension store but was quick to remove the prototype before too many users noticed. The listing read “a helpful…
The U.S. presidential election has culminated in the election of Donald Trump as the 47th U.S. president. The vote was called early on Wednesday morning, with the race being far less tight than was predicted. Currently, Trump holds 277 electoral votes while Kamala Harris holds 224 out of the required 270. Analysts believe Trump’s victory…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant. He made the announcement on Tuesday, citing gaps between the two officials in their approach to the ongoing war. Gallant had differing views from Netanyahu on how the war in Gaza should be conducted, as well as on domestic political issues. The announcement…
On Tuesday, a Russian rocket carrying Iranian satellites successfully launched into orbit. The Russian rocket, a Soyuz-2.1 spacecraft, carried multiple satellites with it into orbit, including two from Iran. This collaboration is a sign of growing cooperation between the two countries. The Iranian satellites were identified to be Kowsar, an imaging satellite, and Hodhod, a…
Western officials are currently investigating a Russian plot to plant incendiary devices on cargo planes. There is evidence that Russia is plotting to place such devices on cargo planes in Europe. The country performed a test run over the summer which set off fires at British and German shipping hubs. Intelligence officials do not yet…
Over 22,000 IP addresses have been taken down in a recent law enforcement operation. The law enforcement effort, called Operation Synergia II, took down thousands of IP addresses. The IPs were linked to phishing, infostealer, and ransomware attacks. Additionally, 41 individuals were arrested and 65 additional suspects are being investigated. Interpol announced the results of…
Emennet Pasargad, an Iranian cyber-operations group, is broadening its attacks beyond Israel and the U.S. to include new IT assets. The group is also known as Cotton Sandstorm. The U.S. departments of Justice and Treasury released an advisory last week noting the group’s new tactics. Emennet Pasargad is providing resources and services to Middle Eastern…
The Docusign API is being abused in a large-scale phishing campaign involving fake invoices. Cybercriminals are creating legitimate Docusign accounts and then sending out automated emails to users directly from the platform. The phishing emails appear to be documents needing signatures from well-known brands. If a victim completes the e-signatures, the malicious actors can then…
Canadian authorities have arrested the suspected Snowflake hacker. Alexander ‘Connor’ Moucka is accused of having hacked multiple Snowflake accounts earlier this year. It is believed that Moucka orchestrated the large-scale campaign which compromised 165 organizations’ Snowflake accounts. The attacks occurred in late May on accounts that were not protected by multi-factor authentication. Mandiant then discovered…
Last week, OpenAI released its highly anticipated search product, ChatGPT Search, to take on Google. The industry has been bracing for this moment for months, prompting Google to inject AI-generated answers into its core product earlier this year and producing some embarrassing hallucinations in the process. That mishap led many people to believe that OpenAI’s…
There are some who say blockchain is dead, a failed experiment. We often hear that blockchain hasn’t fulfilled its promise and that we’re not seeing the traction to make it worthwhile. I believe the truth is that blockchain has had a deep impact on our world in ways that are not obvious. Since the early…
China is aiming to take the global lead in a promising biotech area by setting its first national standards for “organ-on-a-chip technology”. The chips are an emerging research tool that could replace animal testing and speed up the time a drug takes to get from concept to market. “This milestone marks an important step forward…
The former head of Meta’s Orion augmented reality glasses initiative has joined OpenAI to lead the startup’s robotics and consumer hardware efforts. Caitlin “CK” Kalinowski announced her new role Monday in a post on LinkedIn and X, writing, “In my new role, I will initially focus on OpenAI’s robotics work and partnerships to help bring…
Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft have placed big bets on nuclear power to secure electricity for their data centers as AI and cloud computing have sent power use surging. But as Amazon and Meta discovered last week, those bets are far from a sure thing. A series of recent rulings from regulators dashed their hopes of…
QuTech and Fujitsu have recently announced a partnership to develop a blueprint for a scalable quantum computer. This collaboration is centered around delivering a comprehensive framework for building quantum computers that addresses all major components required for scalability and reliability. According to the announcement, the partnership takes a “full-stack approach,” which encompasses everything from physical…
Generative AI is as trendy as it has ever been. This year, research into AI was awarded Nobel Prizes, and the largest tech companies in the world pumped AI into as many products as possible. The U.S. government promoted AI as a driver in creating a clean-energy economy and a strategic pillar for federal spending.…
OPEC has announced that production cuts will continue until December. OPEC has announced that production cuts will continue until December. Production cuts announced over the summer had previously been extended through September with the expectation they would be gradually phased out. Oil prices have been decreasing as global demand has decreased. Read more: https://apnews.com/article/oil-opec-mideast-3f6d65f80f7077e16be1a247bc4c9598
Moldova’s President has been reelected in an election marred by claims of interference. Moldova’s incumbent President, Maia Sandu, has been reelected with 55% of the vote. President Sandu has been vocally pro-Western and has pushed for Moldova to align more closely with the EU. Moldovan authorities have claimed that foreign actors such as Russia attempted…
Evo Morales has said he will hunger strike until the government agrees to talks. Former President Evo Morales has said he will continue to hunger strike until the government agrees to talks. Morales and his supporters have been attempting to force current President Arce’s government to end the prosecution of Morales for statutory rape. Morales…
Israel has confirmed that it has carried out incursion inside of Syria. Israel announced that it had conducted an operation to seize an individual with links to Iran inside of Syria. This is the first time since the beginning of the war against Hamas that Israel has acknowledged a ground operation taking placing inside of…
The City of Columbus has reported that a cyber attack has exposed thousands of individual’s data. The City of Columbus has reported that its systems were compromised in a recent cyber attack. Over 500,000 individuals personal data was stolen in the attack. The city reported that a threat actor attempted to deploy ransomware but has…
RansomHub has becoming the leading ransomware cartel. RansomHub has become the new top ransomware cartel. LockBit’s operations have been severely disrupted following several law enforcement actions. RansomHub has developed new innovations such as allowing for remote encryption. Ransomware operations have also in general shifted towards a new business model where larger groups licensee their software…
Saint Xavier University has begun notifying individuals of a data breach. Saint Xavier University has begun notifying individuals of a data breach that occurred over the summer. Saint Xavier University is a catholic school located near Chicago. The University estimates that 210,000 individuals were impacted by the breach. Read more: https://www.securityweek.com/210000-impacted-by-year-old-saint-xavier-university-data-breach/
Videos impersonating the FBI are being circulated ahead of election day. The FBI is warning the public that fake videos are being circulated online claiming that the agency is investigating Democratic ballot fraud. Researchers believe the videos to be created by the Russian linked group Doppleganger. They also say that this is part of a…
Dominion Energy is talking with other tech companies about developing small modular nuclear reactors, after the Virginia utility entered into an agreement with Amazon last month to look at advancing the next-generation technology. “It’s very encouraging to see large power users, including technology companies, express a willingness to invest, partner and collaborate to bring this…
Novo Nordisk has signed off on a $285 million biobucks deal with fellow Denmark-based company Ascendis Pharma to help the Wegovy manufacturer develop a once-monthly GLP-1 receptor agonist. The multi-pronged partnership centers around Novo securing the license to use Ascendis’ TransCon platform to develop candidates in metabolic diseases, including Novo’s home turf of obesity and…
Hugging Face today has released SmolLM2, a new family of compact language models that achieve impressive performance while requiring far fewer computational resources than their larger counterparts. The new models, released under the Apache 2.0 license, come in three sizes — 135M, 360M and 1.7B parameters — making them suitable for deployment on smartphones and…
About a year and a half ago, quantum control startup Quantum Machines and Nvidia announced a deep partnership that would bring together Nvidia’s DGX Quantum computing platform and Quantum Machine’s advanced quantum control hardware. We didn’t hear much about the results of this partnership for a while, but it’s now starting to bear fruit and…
When John Jumper got the call earlier this month from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences that he was winning the Nobel Prize, he almost didn’t answer. The director of Google DeepMind, the tech giant’s formidable AI lab, recognized the Swedish area code on his phone and froze, unable to believe what was on the…
Warning of increased orbital warfare risks, the US Space Force head has alarmed about the ‘mind-boggling’ speed of China’s military space deployments. “The number of different categories of space weapons that [China has] created and… the speed with which they’re doing it is very threatening,” said US Space Force chief General Chance Saltzman, as per the…
Physical Intelligence, an artificial intelligence start-up seeking to create brains for a wide variety of robots, plans to announce on Monday that it had raised $400 million in financing from major investors. The round was led by Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s executive chairman, and the venture capital firms Thrive Capital and Lux Capital. Other investors include…
There are concerns about the tensions between North and South Korea due to North Korea’s involvement in the war in Ukraine. The cooperation has raised fears for South Korea that North Korea could receive nuclear technology from Russia in return. In response, South Korea has pledged to respond to North Korea’s involvement, including by potentially…
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged its allies to act before North Korean troops reach the battlefield. He suggests a preemptive strike on camps where North Korean troops are being trained, however, Ukraine cannot do it without permission from allies to use Western-made long-range weapons to hit targets deep inside Russia. Ukrainian leaders have repeatedly…
At least three people have been killed in an Israeli air attack in southern Lebanon, and other strikes were reported in the country’s east as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the border region. During this visit, he vowed to push the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah back beyond the Litani River, approximately 30km (18 miles)…
Chinese threat actors are operating at a higher level today than ever before. Their APTs have been improving on their edge attack capabilities focused on identifying and breaching edge devices en masse. This has been possible due to the large quantity of devices in the wild that have Internet-facing portals. Around the middle of 2022,…
Tel Aviv, Israel based Noma Security has emerged from stealth mode with $32 million in Series A funding led by Ballistic Ventures. Noma provides a platform to protect the data and lifecycle of emerging gen-AI applications, which introduces new threats not covered by existing security controls. This is just the part of the new risk…
Top Chinese research institutions linked to the People’s Liberation Army have used Meta’s publicly available Llama model to develop an AI tool for potential military applications, according to three academic papers and analysts. In a June paper reviewed by Reuters, six Chinese researchers from three institutions, including two under the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) leading…
Waymo, Alphabet’s robotic taxi unit, is now providing over 150,000 paid rides per week, up by more than 50% since August as the tech giant seeks to stay ahead of potential rivals in autonomous driving including Elon Musk’s Tesla. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai disclosed the weekly ride figure Tuesday during the company’s third-quarter results call.…
The week after seeing its partner Roche cut and run, UCB has reported the failure of its anti-tau antibody bepranemab to improve cognition and function in people with early Alzheimer’s disease. But UCB looked past the primary endpoint miss and focused on other results that left it “deeply encouraged” by the trial. Roche licensed bepranemab for…
The restart of the nuclear power plant closest to the epicenter of Japan’s devastating 2011 earthquake this week was hailed by the government as a major step toward reviving atomic energy. It’s also been a reminder of the crippling shortage of skilled workers that could slow that comeback. Onagawa didn’t suffer the meltdown seen at…
Satellite services provider GlobalStar today disclosed an expansion of its deal with Apple. Apple will commit an additional $1.1 billion for upfront infrastructure prepayments, to increase the capacity of satellite services. Additionally, Apple will take 20% ownership of GlobalStar, in an equity deal worth about $400 million. The news has sent GlobalStar stock soaring, and it…
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