New from @timstarks.bsky.social this AM: Pessimism is mounting about the chances that Congress will reauthorize a cyber threat information-sharing law before it’s set to expire at the end of this month — with no clear path for either a temporary or long-term extension. cyberscoop.com/cyber-threat...

SCOOP: The Trump administration is planning an expansion of the country's quantum computing strategy, with multiple sources telling @derekbjohnson.bsky.social that options under consideration include executive orders or a national action plan. cyberscoop.com/trump-admini...

NEW: SonicWall told @mattkapko.com it confirmed an attack on its MySonicWall platform, which exposed customers’ firewall configuration files — the latest in a steady stream of security weaknesses impacting the besieged vendor and its customers. cyberscoop.com/sonicwall-cy...

Connor Fitzpatrick, aka pompompurin, was resentenced today to 3 yrs in prison for starting and operating BreachForums cyberscoop.com/conor-fitzpa...

I know the Kash Patel hearing today had a lot to do with the events of the past week, but there were some cyber moments during the hearing that @timstarks.bsky.social chronicled cyberscoop.com/senators-fbi...

Top AI companies have spent months working with US, UK governments on model safety cyberscoop.com/openai-anthr...

DHS failed to effectively implement a critical retention incentive program for cyber talent, according to a report from the agency’s inspector general, which found that federal funds meant for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were used incorrectly. fedscoop.com/cisa-cyber-i...

Catch up with @mattkapko.com on the npm incident that frightened everyone, but ended up being nothing to fret about cyberscoop.com/open-source-...

Talked to some experts about the Apple security announcement yesterday - Apple’s new Memory Integrity Enforcement system deals a huge blow to spyware developers cyberscoop.com/apple-memory...

This is a big deal -- Apple has unveiled a comprehensive security system called Memory Integrity Enforcement in an effort to combat memory corruption vulnerabilities, a huge part what makes spyware successful security.apple.com/blog/memory-...

CISA pushes final cyber incident reporting rule to May 2026 (by me) cyberscoop.com/cisa-pushes-...

Kawhi and the Clippers are mafia-level schemers and streameast is dead, what a morning for NBA sickos

Oh this Pablo torre episode may be the best one yet

We have confirmed a list of cybersecurity companies impacted by the Salesloft Drift security issue: Cloudflare, PagerDuty, Palo Alto Networks, SpyCloud and Zscaler. I am sure there will be more. @mattkapko.com is on it - cyberscoop.com/salesloft-dr...

RIP to a legend www.cbsnews.com/news/mark-kn...

The DOJ recently put out a release stating it had taken ~$2m back from a Zepplin ransomware affiliate. @mattkapko.com dug in more and found out that Ianis Antropenko has had a pretty long leash from the feds, despite a long rap sheet over the past few years. cyberscoop.com/ianis-antrop...

I know this is an off-off-year for elections, but i stress that you need to read @derekbjohnson.bsky.social's story about researchers sounding the alarm about election integrity over the next 2 years. This isn't hypothetical. The die is being cast. cyberscoop.com/trump-admini...

More than two dozen advocacy groups want Grok banned from government, pointing to the Trump administration’s fight against “ideological bias” in AI models as a reason to block the xAI chatbot. fedscoop.com/grok-federal...

NEW: Google's Threat Intelligence Group has found the Salesloft issue impacting Salesforce actually impacts *all* Salesloft integrations, including those with Google Workspace. @mattkapko.com has it all (and will have more as this is developing) cyberscoop.com/salesloft-dr...

NEW: Google says it is starting a cyber “disruption unit,” a development that arrives in a potentially shifting U.S. landscape toward more offensive-oriented approaches in cyberspace. @timstarks.bsky.social has everything we know early on -- cyberscoop.com/google-cyber...

Hell yeah

Rapper Bot impacted the Department of Defense Information Network (DODIN) in at least three attacks between April and August, sources told @brandivincent.bsky.social defensescoop.com/2025/08/20/r...

Gotta give it to this PR flack who was so excited to talk trash to me that he forgot to address the email to me by first name 😂

A Russian state-sponsored espionage group has been compromising network devices worldwide for over a decade, exploiting a seven-year-old vulnerability (!!!!!) to steal sensitive data and establish persistent access to organizations across multiple sectors, cyberscoop.com/russian-stat...

The UK has withdrawn its demand that Apple create a backdoor to its encrypted cloud systems following months of diplomatic pressure from the United States, according to a statement from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. cyberscoop.com/uk-abandons-...

This is also what junior Mandiant analysts say when they're being briefed on graduated threat groups.

Expiration of a 2015 law at the end of September could dramatically reduce cyber threat information sharing within industry, as well as between companies and the federal government, almost to the point of eliminating it, some experts and industry officials warn. cyberscoop.com/cisa-2015-ex...

IRS' Direct File, the free electronic tax filing tool, died under Trump. Meet the creators planning for its second life fedscoop.com/direct-file-...

Grok for Government appears stalled for now, but GSA says current AI listings aren’t final fedscoop.com/grok-for-gov...

DHIS is streamlining control over the federal government’s largest database of biometric data, placing its chief information officer in control of the Office of Biometric Identity Management, overseeing one of the largest biometrics systems in the world fedscoop.com/homeland-sec...

GSA to unveil USAi, a new tool for federal agencies to experiment with AI models. Models from four major AI firms will be available for immediate testing upon launch. Notably, Grok isn't one of them fedscoop.com/usai-general...

Russia restricts WhatsApp, Telegram calls, alleging criminal, terrorist activity cyberscoop.com/russia-restr...

The March and June executive orders on cybersecurity could have bigger ripples than realized when the president signed them. @timstarks.bsky.social on the overlooked changes that two Trump executive orders could bring to cybersecurity cyberscoop.com/trump-admini...

Yes. Related: cyberscoop.com/voter-citize...

Two sources told @fedscoop.bsky.social that FDA workers have received others’ personal data, including Social Security numbers, in a recent reduction-in-force order fedscoop.com/rif-packets-...

OpenAI and Microsoft have said that GPT-5 is one of their safest and secure models out of the box yet. An AI red-teamer called its performance “terrible.” @derekbjohnson.bsky.social on GPT-5 also being bad at security cyberscoop.com/gpt5-openai-...

NEW: some interesting research on how apple intelligence is doing some questionable privacy things with data cyberscoop.com/apple-intell...

My four-year-old self is losing my mind

NEW: The Russian cybercrime group behind BlackSuit and Royal ransomware was more prolific and successful at extorting payments from its victims than previously known, attacking over 450 victims alone in the US cyberscoop.com/blacksuit-ro...

Ahead of CISA's talk at Black Hat, i spoke with two members of their leadership -- Chris Butera & Bob Costello -- about what they see as the future of the agency moving forward cyberscoop.com/radio/cisa-d...

Mega l33t OSINT challenge (wrong answers only)

NEW from @timstarks.bsky.social -- Sean Cairncross took his post this week at what many agree is a “pivotal” time for the ONCD, giving him a chance to shape its future role, tackle difficult policy issues, shore up industry relations and take on key threats. cyberscoop.com/national-cyb...

The apparently disjointed response from Iranian hackers to the 12-day conflict with Israel in June actually demonstrated a significant degree of alignment and coordination, according to research published Tuesday cyberscoop.com/iranian-hack...

Also fwiw, looks like this has passed. Clear skies today. This concludes my amateur weather forecasting for the week

For anyone that is on their way to Vegas for Black Hat — if you have respiratory problems, prepare. Wildfires in Santa Barbara have smoke moving through the city. Here is a picture from a hotel room, I could see the mountains clearly yesterday. You see any 🏔️ in this pic?

Chinese intel accuses US of exploiting microsoft zero-days cyberscoop.com/china-accuse...

These revisions are insane

how much of the money from the ICE/tax cuts bill is just going to go to scammers, do you think? www.richmonder.org/this-tuckaho...

NEW: Russia-affiliated Secret Blizzard conducting ongoing espionage against embassies in Moscow cyberscoop.com/russia-secre...

Jen Easterly writes a post on LinkedIn addressing her position at West Point being rescinded: "A casualty of casually manufactured outrage that drowned out the quiet labor of truth and the steady pulse of integrity." www.linkedin.com/pulse/harder...