The Department of Defense, GSA, and NASA have issued implementation guidance for the ban on Kaspersky products mandated in the 2018 NDAA. This Cyber Brief includes that guidance, the relevant section of the 2018 NDAA, a DHS directive to remove Kaspersky products from Federal systems, and court documents from a lawsuit in which Kaspersky alleges that the DHS unfairly blocked its software from Federal systems based on unsubstantiated evidence.
A National Security Archive FOIA request filed in January of 2016 produced, in late 2017, a Department of Defense memorandum encouraging department heads and combatant commanders to beat the deadline set by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the incorporation of cyber into major military exercises. After receiving and publishing this document, National Security Archive researchers filed another request for the Chairman’s initial Execute Order (EXORD) which was provided with redactions.
The National Security Archive’s Cyber Vault Project is announcing the launch of the CyberWar Map. This resource is both a visualization of state-sponsored cyberattacks and an index of Cyber Vault documents related to each topic (represented as nodes on the map). Clicking on each node will reveal hyperlinks and document descriptions. In some cases where key analysis was done under copyright, the link will direct readers to sources external to the National Security Archive. In a few other cases nodes do not yet have documents to display.
The use of the internet by terrorist organizations has proven to be a vexing problem for policymakers.
Israel’s national cyber proficiency goes largely unrecognized to those outside the field of cybersecurity. This week’s Cyber Brief highlights documents from the Vault related to Israel’s cybersecurity organization, policy, cooperation with the United States, and an FBI notice on a coordinated attack on Israeli and Jewish websites known as #OpIsrael.
On May 13, President Trump announced on Twitter that he was working with President Xi Jinping of China to assist the Chinese telecommunications company ZTE. This announcement surprised many in the national security community as the US Government has in the past claimed that devices made by ZTE, as well as other Chinese telecom firms such as Huawei, are used by the Chinese Government to conduct surveillance.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has released its report on the use of FISA orders and national security letters during calendar year 2017. This week’s Cyber Brief includes the most recent report as well as all previous reports back to statistics on calendar year 2013. These statistics are valuable in understanding the scope of and trends in government surveillance under national security authorities.
In light of significant recent developments on the Korean Peninsula, this week’s brief highlights North Korean cyber-operations. While Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program has drawn the most attention recently, North Korea’s cyber capabilities also represent a significant asymmetric capability that has been relied upon both to disrupt enemies of the Kim family as well as produce sources of funding through cyber-enabled crime.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released its newest iteration of critical infrastructure cybersecurity framework. Today’s brief includes this document (Version 1.1), two developmental drafts with comments, a summary of a workshop held on the framework, and the first edition (Version 1.0) accompanied by two presentations on the framework. This collection of documents highlights the work of a key contributor to cybersecurity policy that is not considered to be part of the national security apparatus by most of the public.
In March of 2018 the Inspector General for the Department of Justice issued a report on the FBI’s statements on its ability to break into the iPhone of Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the attackers killed in the San Bernardino terrorist attack. This report was in response to a referral after an Executive Assistant Director (EAD) alleged that the Operational Technology Division in fact had acquired the capability to unlock the iPhone but did not use it in order to support planned Congressional testimony on the encryption debate.