Counterterrorism
Law enforcement is on high alert ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl and remains concerned about the sustained interest that international and domestic terrorists, as well as lone offenders have in targeting mass gatherings, according to a joint threat assessment obtained by CNN…
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Monday issued a bulletin warning of a heightened terrorism alert in part because of "the proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions…
On February 3, a US raid on a small home in Syria’s border with Turkey deprived ISIS of its little-known leader. Muhammad Al Mawla, nom de guerre Abu Ibrahim Al Hashimi Al Qurayshi, maintained a far lower profile than his predecessor, known as Abu Bakr Al…
Military & Defense
In an effort to avoid a repeat of the harrowing situation seen during the US military's final days in Afghanistan, the White House approved a Pentagon plan to prepare for the arrival of fleeing Americans should Russia invade Ukraine, US officials told The Wall Street Journal…
United States troops relocating to Romania from Germany will reach the country on Wednesday night, Romania's defence ministry said, and will shield NATO's eastern flank from potential spillover from the Ukraine crisis. The United States is sending nearly 3,000…
North Korea boasted on Tuesday that it is one of only a handful of countries in the world to field nuclear weapons and advanced missiles and the only one standing up to the United States by "shaking the world" with missile tests. International tension has been rising over…
Cybersecurity
German enterprise software maker SAP and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have issued security advisories on Tuesday to warn SAP customers to install the company’s February security patches as soon as possible in order to prevent the exploitation…
The living-off-the-land binary (LOLBin) is anchoring a rash of cyberattacks bent on evading security detection to drop Qbot and Lokibot. A Windows living-off-the-land binary (LOLBin) known as Regsvr32 is seeing a big uptick in abuse of late, researchers are warning, mainly…
Microsoft's security update for February did not include any critical vulnerabilities — a rarity. But there are still plenty of serious vulns in the update to merit immediate attention, security experts said this week. Among the biggest concerns are a Windows DNS Server remote…
Counterintelligence & Espionage
Media giant News Corp is investigating a cyberattack that has accessed the email and documents of some of its employees and journalists. On Friday, New York-based News Corp, whose entities include The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, sent an internal email…
An Australian spy agency says it has disrupted a foreign government’s attempt to illegally bankroll the election of candidates who are politically sympathetic or vulnerable to inducements. Mike Burgess, directory-general of the Australian Security Intelligence…
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has appointed a former military intelligence chief, who is blacklisted by the United States over alleged rights violations, to the top command of the country's feared police force. Major General Abel Kandiho was recalled late Tuesday from…
Transnational Organized Crime
The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it has unraveled its biggest-ever cryptocurrency theft, seizing a record-shattering $3.6 billion in bitcoin tied to the 2016 hack of digital currency exchange Bitfinex and arresting a husband-and-wife team on money laundering…
The UAE is embarking on ambitious growth-focused reforms aimed at improving the ease of doing business, attracting foreign investors, creating jobs and diversifying the economy away from oil, said Sheikh Abdullah, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation…
On a recent day in January, six buses, five cars and a convenience store burned in broad daylight. An old booth that served as a police checkpoint was also set ablaze in what investigators suspect was a coordinated attack. Nobody was injured, but the fires reignited…