In the News

The U.S. Justice Department has unveiled an interagency Procurement Collusion Strike Force it says will “deter, detect, investigate, and prosecute antitrust crimes and related criminal schemes.” Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen says that when prospective suppliers rig bids for government contracts, it results in inflated prices and added costs for all taxpayers.

U.S. federal prosecutors say two former Twitter employees used their system access on behalf of Saudi Arabia to collect personal information on dissidents. The Department of Justice says it will not permit U.S. companies or technologies to become “tools of foreign repression."

A flaw in the Mac and Windows versions of Mozilla’s Firefox browser evidently has been used to dupe users into thinking their systems will be disabled if they don’t take action by calling a toll-free number. Mozilla says it is working on a fix for inclusion in an upcoming Firefox release.

Nearly 100 contracts will be up for grabs, including a dozen valued at more than $100 million, when the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency’s 2020 budget is finalized.

Aventura Technologies Inc. of Long Island, N.Y., is alleged to have sold some $20 million in Chinese surveillance and other sensitive security equipment to U.S. customers after claiming they were manufactured in the U.S. Its customers included the Defense and Energy departments. U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue said the situation, which has led to a criminal complaint, raises “a grave concern” about cybersecurity.

A Beijing company’s takeover two years ago of a U.S. social media application which has evolved into the increasingly popular TikTok short-form music video app is facing national security review by the inter-agency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. Two Senators are leading the charge, alleging that such apps could be used for espionage or become subject to foreign influence.

Facebook has agreed to pay a £500,000 fine imposed by the British Information Commissioner’s Office over its role in the Cambridge Analytica data-sharing scandal. However, the social media giant, without pleading guilty to violating the U.K. Data Protection Act, says it has made major changes since the scandal made headlines internationally.

Senior government officials say the U.S. is seriously lagging on how it can deal with threats to next-generation 5G and supply chain networks. Among other things, they told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that there is neither a comprehensive national plan nor a fully coordinated interagency response.

Machine learning technologies could become the U.S. military’s first line of defence against cyberattacks and other suspicious activities. The Defense Information Systems Agency has begun seeking out commercial cybersecurity tools that could detect and respond to incidents across the agency’s numerous networks without direct input from humans. Automation and machine learning are seen as a way to free Department of Defense personnel to concentrate on other threats.

After weeks of political seesawing, British voters head to the polls in a Dec. 12 general election, the results of which will effectively be a referendum on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s determination to take the U.K. out of the European Union. With Parliament deadlocked, he put forward a motion which passed 438-20 in the hope that a majority win will be a mandate for Brexit.

The White House is being asked to explain reports that senior cybersecurity officials are being forced out because their tenure dates to the previous administration. Pressing for answers, California Democrat Representative Ted Lieu says the potential loss of institutional knowledge leaves the government vulnerable.

The Privy Council Office has confirmed that there were some online attempts to disseminate disinformation and misinformation during Canada's latest general election campaign, but nothing of a nature to justify public alert notices. Meanwhile, Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould says there still is a sense that more need to be done to contain this use of social media.

Opposition parties in the British House of Commons are gearing up for a Oct. 29 vote on whether to call a snap election – a day after defeating a motion by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to have an snap election to reinforce his Brexit campaign. Meanwhile, European Union leaders have agreed in principle to what the European Council’s Polish president, Donald Tusk is calling a “flextension”of the European Union’s deadline, until Jan. 31.

Wanting to find out whether it can function without the global Internet, Russia plans to begin testing its internal RuNet, starting Nov. 1 and recurring at least annually. It’s seen as the latest move in a series of technical and policy steps to cut citizens off from the rest of the world. The announcement follows approval last April of a Sovereign Internet Law which require all traffic to pass through official channels.

Paying for President Donald Trump’s border wall with Mexico as well as the use of military personnel to provide additional security has again become a major roadblock to reaching congressional agreement on spending bills. The ongoing impasse could result in another government shutdown in less than four weeks.

British and U.S. national security officials say that hackers believed to be Russian have used Iranian cyber tools and digital infrastructure to launch attacks on government and industry groups in at least 35 countries. The Turla group, widely believed to be Russian in origin, used the Nautilus and Neuron tools to target military, government, academic and scientific organizations, mostly in the Middle East.

A draft Advancing Cybersecurity Diagnostics & Mitigation Act, which would give state and local governments access to a federal cybersecurity suite, has been endorsed by the U.S. House Homeland security committee. The core Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program launched by the Department of Homeland Security six years ago offers a suite of tools and services which feeds data back to a central dashboard offering a bird’s-eye view of the cyber landscape.

The U.S. Senate has approved the accession of North Macedonia to NATO in a 91-2 vote, putting it a step closer to becoming the alliance’s 30th member. The vote is being seen as a message to the European Union, which had opted not to begin membership talks with the tiny Balkan state earlier this week. 

Cameron Ortis, a senior RCMP official charged with violating the Security of Information Act and breach of trust for allegedly disclosing secrets to an unknown recipient and planning to reveal additional classified information to an unspecified foreign entity, has been granted bail. The terms of his release include having to live with his parents, reporting to RCMP weekly, and being prohibited from using any Internet-connected devices.

In a day-after analysis of the Oct. 21 general election, the Angus Reid Institute says that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority win was due mainly to the Liberal Party’s campaign in Ontario.

With 338 seats in the House of Commons at stake in the Oct. 21 general election, the incumbent Liberals under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saw their majority of 177 seats in the last Parliament reduced to a minority 157. The still-unofficial results show the Conservatives under Andrew Scheer increasing their representation to 121 seats from 95. The Bloc Quebecois’ representation increased to 32 seats from 10 with new leader Yves-Francois Blanchet; the New Democratic Party under Jagmeet Singh was reduced to 24 from 39 due to a Bloc resurgence; and the Greens under Elizabeth May increased to three seats from two. The fledgling People’s Party of Canada won no seats, including that of leader Maxime Bernier. One independent candidate was elected: former Liberal cabinet minister Jody Wilson-Raybould. There were nine independent MPs in the last Parliament and five seats were vacant at dissolution.

The Japanese government is preparing to send its own assets to ensure safe transport of oil through Middle East chokepoints, but not as part of a U.S.-led coalition. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga says that while his country, which has maintained relations with Iran, will cooperate with the U.S., has “decided to pursue our own measures separately.”

The U.S. Department of Defense Department is close to finalizing a new Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification framework for assessing suppliers’ protection of sensitive data. After extensive feedback since the first draft was released six weeks ago, Ellen Lord, undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, says the next iteration should be published in the first week of November, setting the stage for a final version in January after further comment.

The House of Representatives’ homeland security committee has been told that the private sector cannot protect its information technology supply chains without clear information about vendors to avoid. A senior USTelecom executive says the problem is that current laws discourage firms from sharing information about problematic suppliers.

Improvements in artificial intelligence technologies means that government procurement agencies need to renew how they approach industry, according to the World Economic Forum. It says in a discussion paper that traditional processes might not be suitable due to new and unique risks to manage and the possibility of unintended consequences.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration says that although law enforcement is an important source of information during investigations of incidents involving small unmanned aerial systems, there is confusion about how police should respond to those incidents or what information they can shared with inspectors. This is according to a Government Accounting Office report which also faults the FAA for not consistently communicating its needs to law enforcement agencies.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker confirms that Britain and the European Union have agreed a new Brexit deal. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “We’ve got a great new deal that takes back control.”

The installation of hundreds of cameras with facial recognition capability in Belgrade, part of a local government surveillance program, apparently is causing potential protesters to reconsider their participation in anti-government demonstrations in the Serbian capital. However, despite criticism about eroded personal freedoms and even snooping by China, officials say the system designed by Huawei is helping to reduced crime.

U.S. Cyber Command is working with the Department of Energy and industry on a more coherent approach to cyberattacks. A philosophy of “persistent engagement” is predicated on the notion of constant contact with potential enemies in cyberspace and officials have stressed this includes enabling other partners. It also includes using its unique authorities to operate outside U.S. networks as a way to provide warning for domestic agencies about potential threats.

A U.S. Department of Defense official says more needs to be done to evaluate and reinforce the security of contractors facing cyberattacks. “We’re losing,” says Katie Arrington, special assistant to the assistant secretary of defense for acquisition for cyber within the office of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. She says the attacks cost the U.S. $600 billion annually and with 5G looming, that will be multiplied by the “umpteenth” in just a few years.

The U.S. needs to refresh and expand its counterintelligence efforts in the face of a growing wave of cyberattacks, says Christopher Costa, a former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.

A Canadian citizen was held for five hours and eventually denied entry without explanation by U.S. authorities at a B.C. border crossing, something immigration lawyers say is becoming more common. A software developer with no criminal record who had frequently crossed without incident, the woman from Vancouver was told she needed a visa in addition to her Canadian passport.

As the debate on gun control rages on in Canada and elsewhere, research as a basis for policy development requires solid data on when and where various laws have been put in place. The Rand Corp. think-tank in Washington has recently updated its searchable database of U.S. state-level laws. Having made its debut in 2018, it covers 17 classes of gun laws and many subcategories dating back to 1979.

Two British militants believed to be part of an ISIS group commonly referred to as “The Beatles” are being detained by U.S. officials after their extraction from a Kurdish detention centre in northeastern Syria. They and others were removed due to concerns that they could escape during the current Turkish invasion of the region. El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Amon Kotey were part of an ISIS group that had held more than 20 western hostages in 2014-15, including seven American, British and Japanese journalists and aid workers as well as Syrian prisoners who were beheaded on camera.