TOP OF THE DAY – Hundreds of Pagers Exploded in Lebanon and Syria in a Deadly Attack. Here’s What We Know.
n what appears to be a sophisticated, remote attack, pagers used by hundreds of members of Hezbollah exploded almost simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria Tuesday, killing at least nine people — including an 8-year-old girl — and wounding thousands more. A U.S. official said Israel briefed the U.S. on the operation — in which small amounts of explosive secreted in the pagers were detonated — on Tuesday after it was concluded. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly. The Iran-backed militant group blamed Israel for the deadly explosions, which targeted an extraordinary breadth of people and showed signs of being a long-planned operation. Details on how the attack was executed are largely uncertain and investigators have not immediately said how the pagers were detonated. The Israeli military has declined to comment
(Associated Press/SecurityWeek – 17 September 2024)
Governance & Geostrategies
The United States, with much of the world’s AI-enabling infrastructure, has positioned itself as the global leader in AI innovation. That might not be the case for much longer. China continues to develop state-of-the-art AI systems, despite an extensive network of U.S. and allied export controls aimed at curtailing China’s technical progress. Beijing is expanding and accelerating new investments in AI and investing significant government resources into supporting its emerging domestic technology base. The result: global AI competition has now become synonymous with U.S.-China competition. As the United States fights to maintain technological primacy, policymakers are enacting and considering new export controls to limit China’s access to the necessary components for building advanced AI systems, such as American-developed state-of-the-art models, semiconductors, and computational power.
(Matthew Mittelsteadt, Keegan McBride – Just Security – 17 September 2024)
The United States and China are competing intensely in the development of artificial intelligence (AI), with China steadily progressing despite regulatory and external challenges. The US approach hinges on the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, with stances differing significantly between the Democratic and Republican candidates. The potential repealing of the Biden administration’s AI executive order in a second Trump presidency could have implications for civil rights, visa processes attracting foreign talent and decoupling with China, potentially damaging US innovation capabilities and inciting escalated conflict that would be damaging beyond just AI development.
(Emmie Hine – East Asia Forum – 14 September 2024)
Late last week, United Airlines announced that it signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to bring its Starlink internet service to its entire fleet and — for the first time — offer free Wi-Fi to all passengers. To dig a bit deeper into why United went with Starlink, what that rollout will look like, and what it means for passengers and crew, we talked to United’s Chief Customer Officer Linda Jojo.
(Frederic Lardinois – TechCrunch – 17 September 2024)
NASA wants to establish a permanent human presence on the moon, but right now, astronauts have to be in direct line of sight with Earth to phone home. The space agency is looking to change that with its developing Near Space Network, and it’s willing to pay potentially huge sums to private companies to help make continuous lunar communications a reality. Those plans got a boost today when NASA announced it had awarded Intuitive Machines a contract to build and deploy a satellite constellation capable of providing navigation and communications for future missions on or around the moon.
(Aria Alamalhodaei – TechCrunch – 17 September 2024)
Amazon has named long-time executive Samir Kumar as the new head of its India consumer business, a month after its domestic business’ head resigned amid intensifying competition in the key market. Kumar, who has been with the e-commerce giant for 25 years, will become Country Manager for India, the company said. This role would be in addition to Kumar’s existing responsibilities overseeing Amazon’s consumer operations in the Middle East, South Africa and Turkey, the company said.
(Manish Singh – TechCrunch – 17 September 2024)
Russian disinformation groups are taking aim at Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s White House ticket, posting fabricated videos and other sham content to discredit the campaign, new Microsoft findings say. Moscow is pivoting to undermine the Democratic candidates who replaced President Joe Biden after he withdrew from the race in July, according to Clint Watts, head of Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center that authored the Tuesday report.
(David DiMolfetta – Defense One – 17 September 2024)
Singapore has selected 10 cybersecurity startups across four countries to join its inaugural CyberBoost: Catalyse program. The startup accelerator program was announced on September 17 while a Singaporean delegation was in the UK for an international cyber skills forum. The program, funded by the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) and the National University of Singapore (NUS), in collaboration with UK innovator hub Plexal, aims to support cybersecurity startups to grow outside their domestic market.
(Kevin Poireault – Infosecurity Magazine – 17 September 2024)
Ransomware attacks are surging in the UK, with threat actors possibly encouraged by the propensity of victim organizations to pay up, according to a new study from Cohesity. The security vendor polled over 3100 IT and security decision-makers in eight countries and multiple sectors to compile its Global cyber resilience report 2024. It revealed that, in the UK, 53% of respondents had succumbed to ransomware over the past year, up from 38% in the 2023 report.
(Phil Muncaster – Infosecurity Magazine – 17 September 2024)
The US government has slapped a prolific commercial manufacturer of spyware with new sanctions, as it continues to crack down on the grey market in covert eavesdropping tools. A note from the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) yesterday revealed that five individuals and an entity associated with the Intellexa Consortium had been sanctioned for their role in developing, operating and distributing the Predator malware. The US now considers it to be a threat to the country’s national security.
(Phil Muncaster – Infosecurity Magazine – 17 September 2024)
US federal government agencies will coordinate their cyber defense strategies, under a new plan announced by the US government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Under the scheme, over 100 Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies – US central Government agencies outside defense – will align their “collective operational defense capabilities” to reduce their cyber-risk. The plan, known as FOCAL, for Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) Operational Cybersecurity Alignment (FOCAL), covers five areas of cybersecurity.
(Stephen Pritchard – Infosecurity Magazine – 17 September 2024)
Taiwanese networking hardware maker D-Link on Monday announced patches for multiple critical-severity vulnerabilities that could lead to remote code execution.
(Ionut Arghire – SecurityWeek – 17 September 2024)
Developers in almost all (83%) organizations use AI to generate code, causing security leaders to fear it could fuel a major security incident, according to a new Venafi survey. In a report published on September 17, the machine identity management provider shared findings highlighting that the divide between programming and security teams is being widened by AI-generated code.
(Kevin Poireault – Infosecurity Magazine – 17 September 2024)
The big unknown in the security landscape is the adversarial use of AI. It has the potential to upend the current status quo, giving the attackers a new advantage. What we still don’t know is if, when or how this will happen. The real question is whether the AI threat is a deep fake, or whether the deepfake is the AI threat.
(Kevin Townsend – SecurityWeek – 17 September 2024)
Defense, Intelligence, and War
Digital technologies are daily features in today’s armed conflicts. Civilians living through wars rely on digital networks and devices for access to essential services and information; and militaries need data centers, digital communications, satellites, and more to conduct operations. It is often the private sector that manages and secures these digital technologies, with companies providing services and infrastructure directly to both civilians and belligerents.
(Jonathan Horowitz – Lawfare – 17 September 2024)
While details on the findings of the Air Force’s yearlong deep dive into electronic warfare capabilities are largely classified, Secretary Frank Kendall said Monday the findings will shape near-term budget and architecture decisions
(Courtney Albon – Defense News – 17 September 2024)
Legislation
California Governor Gavin Newsom said there are 38 bills on his desk that would create laws around artificial intelligence on Tuesday, but one looms larger than all of them: SB 1047, California’s bill that tries to prevent AI systems from causing catastrophes. For the first time, California’s Governor shared how he’s thinking about the controversial bill.
(Maxwell Zeff – TechCrunch – 17 September 2024)