The National Security Agency announced the creation of a new fifth domain-focused internal organization that will “work to prevent and eradicate threats to national security systems and critical infrastructure, with an initial focus on the defense industrial base and the improvement of our weapons’ security.”
Whether it’s online, on land, underwater or in space, CNN national security correspondent Jim Sciutto’s “The Shadow War: Inside Russia’s and China’s Secret Operations to Defeat America” offers ominous insights into how the United States’ key adversaries are changing the dynamics of national security.
The United Kingdom Government announced it will pilot newly-developed artificial intelligence procurement guidelines it co-designed with the World Economic Forum.
The National Security Agency will host a “cyber-challenge similar to those that regularly threaten national security,” open to students at any U.S. based academic institution. The exercise will run from September 20, 2019 to January 10, 2020.
From NSA:
The annual Codebreaker Challenge offers students a closer look at the type of work done at NSA and provides the opportunity to develop skills needed to achieve the Agency’s national security mission. The problems touch on skills like software reverse engineering, cryptanalysis, exploit development, block chain analysis and more.
This year’s challenge scenario is about tech savvy terrorists who have developed a new suite of communication tools that are being used for attack planning purposes. Intelligence suggests the terrorists are communicating via TerrorTime, a custom Android secure messaging app. Those who attempt the challenge will be required to reverse engineer and develop new exploitation capabilities against TerrorTime to enable message spoofing, user masquerades, and message decryption.
In an interview with the agency, the Food and Drug Administration Deputy Commissioner Frank Yiannas discussed its latest efforts to “leverage new and emerging technologies to prevent contamination and rapidly trace the origin of a tainted food to its source.”
San Francisco Chief Digital Services Officer Carrie Bishop published an excellent commentary piece that touches on several issues we in the digital government industry don’t talk much about, or at all.
The White House announced updates to the federal government Trusted Internet Connections initiative with the intent to empower agencies with security practices that aim to remove barriers to modern technology adoption.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office launched a new Center for Strategic Foresight to help Congress better understand issues related to emerging notorious technologies, such as deep space and deep fakes, that impact a well-functioning democracy.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report assessing the lackluster status of the Defense Department’s open source pilot program, saying that until the agency effectively implements this, “the department will not be positioned to take advantage of significant cost savings and efficiencies.”
The United Nations published its 2019 Digital Economy Report that is a comprehensive must-read for civic leaders who want to understand how emerging technologies will impact the global labor market, security, privacy, economy and more.
