Counterterrorism
The US State Department on Thursday urged Americans who may be considering travel to the United Arab Emirates to reconsider, citing the threat of missile or drone attacks. The department retained the highest level warning for the UAE in its updated travel advisory…
The French Embassy in Kenya has urged people to exercise “extreme vigilance” during the next few days, saying there’s a threat of an imminent terrorist attack against Westerners. “There’s a real risk of targeting public places frequented by foreign nationals (restaurants, hotels, leisure…
A month-long truce has ended between the government of Pakistan and the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (or TTP). Nehemiah with FMI calls it the most feared terrorist group in the country. “The TTP carried out 95 attacks in 2020, killing 140 people, and 44 attacks in the first six…
Military & Defense
A Ukrainian National Guard soldier opened fire on security guards at a military factory in central Ukraine for reasons unknown, killing five people and wounding five others before fleeing. The incident took place in the early hours of Thursday in Dnipro at the Pivdenmash…
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III ordered the military on Thursday to strengthen its efforts to prevent civilian deaths and to improve the way it investigates and acknowledges claims of civilian harm in U.S. combat operations. In his most sweeping statement on the issue to date…
Soldiers and airmen from nearly a dozen bases across the Army and Air Force have been put on heightened alert in case the U.S. sends troops across the Atlantic to respond to a Russian incursion into Ukraine. The Pentagon announced Monday that up to 8,500 troops have been…
Cybersecurity
The Biden administration on Thursday will kick off an effort to protect the country’s water sector from cyberattacks, the latest attempt by the federal government to strengthen the digital defenses of the nation’s critical infrastructure. The administration will formally extend…
The BotenaGo botnet source code has been leaked to GitHub, putting millions of routers and internet-of-things (IoT) devices at risk, researchers said. In a Wednesday report, AT&T Alien Labs – which first discovered the difficult-to-detect malware in November – said it expects…
After remaining available for more than two weeks, a malicious two-factor authentication (2FA) application has been removed from Google Play — but not before it was downloaded more than 10,000 times. The app, which is fully functional as a 2FA authenticator…
Counterintelligence & Espionage
Germany last year arrested and charged a Russian citizen with spying for Russia, prosecutors said on Thursday, alleging he had passed information on Europe's Ariane space launcher vehicle to handlers from Russian intelligence. Federal prosecutors said the suspect, identified…
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ejected China Unicom from the US market on Thursday, adding to the tally of Chinese telecommunications companies sanctioned by the agency over security concerns. Thursday’s actions on a 4-0 vote follows 2021’s…
Over-classification of government secrets both undermines national security by blocking the intelligence community's ability to share critical information and "erodes the basic trust that our citizens have in their government," the US director of national intelligence…
Transnational Organized Crime
A series of sentencings and the guilty plea of a key defendant brings to 36 the number of defendants admitting guilt in Operation Sandy Bottom, the investigation and prosecution of violent criminal street gang members distributing methamphetamine and other drugs…
The NYPD says it hasn’t seen levels like this since 1995, and elsewhere around the country, organized retail crime is ramping up. Police say video shows a known shoplifter assaulting an NYPD officer at a Midtown Duane Reade. “Seeing a sharp uptick in shoplifts that then turn…
The United States charged six men on Monday in a plot on Monday to smuggle weapons and ammunition to a Mexican drug cartel during the pandemic. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said the group, led by Marco Antonio Santillan Valencia…