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If there was once a time when it was reasonable to expect end users (people who are not technical wizards) to manage their own cybersecurity, that time has long since passed.
Recent disclosures that President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, and former Vice President Mike Pence stored classified documents at home have shined a spotlight on what many people believe to be excessive government classification of information.
On Jan. 8, 2023, after Lula had been in office for a week, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters, including right-wing militants, attacked key government buildings, including the building that houses the national Congress.
Should the Government Regulate Social Media?
Government regulation to prevent the spread of misinformation and disinformation is neither desirable nor feasible.
A few possible reasons: the United States has been helping Ukraine strengthen its cyber infrastructure, U.S. cyber offensive forces may have been disrupting Russian attacks against Ukraine, and the Russians may not be capable of conducting such a large-scale attack.
The truth about nuclear deterrence
Putin might well believe that a world without Russia in its rightful position of power is not worth existing. We can’t be sure of what Putin is thinking, or whether his decision making is compromised – all we can do is prepare for the possibility of Russia’s use of nuclear weapons.
In this Q&A, Lin discusses his recently released book Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons. He explains that until this publication, the literature about cyber technology’s impact on the nuclear enterprise has been relatively sparse.
SPICE and Stanford Global Studies will offer a free virtual workshop with Dr. Herbert Lin on January 25th, 4:00pm–6:00pm.
I have struggled to find something with which I disagree in Michael Fischerkeller’s response to my thought experiment adopting the 2018 U.S. Cyber Command (USCC) Command Vision. A couple of such points are addressed below, but for the most part I agree with him. He does make one claim that I find surprising.
Much of the technology now controlling US nuclear weapons was produced before the rise of the Internet. Newer technology will improve aspects of command, control, and communications related to the US nuclear arsenal. But if not carefully planned, the updating of nuclear technology could also increase risk in distinct ways that Herbert Lin explains in the following interview.
The nation spends billions of dollars on cybersecurity measures, and yet we seem unable to get ahead of this problem. Why are our computers so hard to protect? An experience with a house cat provided insights.
In 2018, U.S. Cyber Command released its Command Vision statement, advancing “defend forward” and “persistent engagement” as new elements in the United States’ approach to advancing its security interests in and through cyberspace. Since then, the debate has not included much discussion of the impact of other cyber powers adopting these concepts?
The oldest information system the government operates might also be the most crucial one. No, not the IRS master file system. It’s the technology that controls nuclear weapons. It dates to the 1950s. Yet imagine if the control systems were online in the age of ransomware.
As the United States embarks on an effort to modernize many elements of its nuclear enterprise, it needs to consider how dependencies on modern information technologies could lead to cyber-induced failures of nuclear deterrence or to nuclear war.
How Biden’s Cyber Strategy Echoes Trump’s
The Biden administration released its Interim National Security Strategic Guidance. One would expect a final guidance document to be roughly consistent with the it while also containing more substantial elaboration. To get a sense of relative priorities, I found it interesting to compare the interim guidance to the Trump National Cyber Strategy published in 2018.
On Jan. 6, the U.S. Capitol was assaulted and occupied for the first time since 1814. Five people were killed, including a Capitol Police officer. Two Republican Representatives have introduced a bill to establish a national bipartisan commission to investigate the attack. We agree that a commission is needed.
Longer-Term Cybersecurity Implications of the Occupation of the Capitol—Beware of Fake Leaks
Inside the U.S. Capitol last week, laptops from the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Jeff Merkley, and other devices were taken, presumably by the occupiers. These devices are now in the physical possession of people who can be considered adversarial threat actors, who can take their time in trying to see what data is available on those machines.
In a letter to his students, Senior Research Scholar Herb Lin emphasizes the power of activism, education and helping others during uncertain times—such as now.
Even if effective treatments and vaccines for coronavirus become available soon, we must start thinking about the mental health dimensions of national recovery.
Security costs money. You pay for security because you want something to not happen. It’s not that something good happens with security, it's that something bad doesn’t happen.
Almost since its first emergence, the spreading SARS-CoV-2 outbreak has also been accompanied by a widespread proliferation of misinformation and disinformation, what the World Health Organization (WHO) described as “a massive ‘infodemic’… that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it.”
Herb Lin discusses how close we are to midnight, which is to say, human annihilation.
The Science and Security Board calls on all countries to reject the fantasy that nuclear weapons can provide a permanent basis for global security and to refrain from pursuing new nuclear weapons capabilities that fuel nuclear arms races.
As the November 2020 presidential election approaches, it is worth imagining how a foreign adversary might attempt to intervene in the domestic political process.
Starlink is a space-based internet service provider that seeks to provide high-speed (40 mbps upload, 100 mbps download ), near-global coverage of the populated world by 2021—bringing this service to locations where access previously has been unreliable, expensive or completely unavailable.