Cybersecurity and Cyberwarfare

Sens Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) put pressure on IT company Super Micro, asking in a letter that it cooperate with law enforcement and explain more about the potential breach. Super Micro, Apple and Amazon have all refuted the Bloomberg report that detailed how the Chinese government was able to take advantage of vulnerabilities in Super Micro's supply chain, with the companies saying that their own investigations have not found evidence of a hack or of being compromised in the way described in the report.

A major US telecommunications company discovered manipulated hardware from Super Micro Computer Inc. in its network and removed it in Aug, fresh evidence of tampering in China of critical technology components bound for the US, according to Yossi Appleboum, a security expert working for the telecom company.

Microsoft is making moves to target a growing multibillion market: hosting, storing and running the US government’s most sensitive classified secrets and data. The company announced it will join rival Amazon as the only commercial cloud providers with the security capabilities to host secret classified data by the end of the first quarter of 2019. Microsoft’s announcement comes days before the Pentagon will accept bids on its $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, which it will award to a single cloud service provider.

Without nationwide 5G, the Internet of Things won’t come close to reaching its full potential. The biggest challenge to the advancement of IoT is cybersecurity. If we want to realize the innovation and growth promised by IoT, we must ensure that Americans can trust the devices that they’re using. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is working across the federal government, with stakeholders here and around the world, to promote smart IoT policies that incorporate security and protect American consumers. 

Delta Air Lines’ CEO Ed Bastian said that the airline was working hard toward offering free in-flight Wi-Fi to all of its passengers. Though Bastian neglected to attach an exact timeline to his claim, he noted that the plan comes in response to Delta passengers’ vocal desire for fast, free connectivity. “I don’t know of anywhere else, besides in an airplane, that you can’t get free Wi-Fi,” Bastian opined.

It took just three days for Facebook to notify authorities and the public that hackers had compromised as many as 50 million user accounts on the social media platform. A swift response. But the flip side: Facebook leaders did not have enough information to paint a clear picture of the hack and the risk to its users during the announcement. They didn’t offer details about who the attackers were, or what motivated them. Nor could they say where the affected users were located or how many users of Facebook-linked third-party applications were affected.

Uber has agreed to pay $148 million to settle allegations from 50 states and the District of Columbia that the ride-hailing company violated data breach laws when it waited a year to disclose a hack affecting tens of millions of its riders and drivers. The settlement is among the biggest in Uber’s history and comes as policymakers on Sept 26 were debating whether to write a national consumer privacy law in front of witnesses including Google and Twitter. It marks the first time Uber has settled a matter with the top law enforcement officials from all 50 states and the District.

How did our election system get so vulnerable, and why haven’t officials tried harder to fix it? The answer, ultimately, comes down to politics and money: The voting machines are made by well-connected private companies that wield immense control over their proprietary software, often fighting vigorously in court to prevent anyone from examining it when things go awry. The valuable work of testing system security has been taken up voluntarily by security researchers.