NoneA top U.S. cybersecurity official said Wednesday that as she prepares to leave office, on American infrastructure pose the gravest cyber threat to the country. And she believes they will get worse. Jen Easterly, the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, called recent Chinese cyber intrusions the “tip of the iceberg,” and warned of dire consequences for U.S. critical infrastructure in the event of a U.S.-China conflict. “This is a world where a war in Asia could see very real impacts to the lives of Americans across our nation, with attacks against pipelines, against water facilities, against transportation nodes, against communications, all to induce societal panic,” Easterly said during the Winter Summit of the Wednesday. Cyber attacks have increasingly targeted U.S. critical infrastructure — whether the attackers are seeking ransomware or aiming to do damage at the behest of America’s adversaries. Hackers tied to , and particularly have been accused recently of seeking to breach cyber defenses in the transportation, communications and water sectors — for a variety of reasons and with a range of success. And as experts often tell us, these elements of the nation’s critical infrastructure are only as safe as the in a complicated system that sits primarily in . Easterly spoke Wednesday to CEO Suzanne Kelly in a special session of the , about the breach known as Salt Typhoon and why the U.S. government, some six months after discovering the espionage hack believed to have been launched by China, is to help get hackers out of the systems of U.S. telecommunications companies. I’m sure if there are two words you wish you had never heard, they might be “Salt Typhoon.” Both CISA and the FBI have said that spies linked to China are still inside U.S. telecommunications systems, even though it’s been six months now since the government began investigating. What can you tell us about what you’ve learned in the past six months? I think it’s important to recognize the trajectory of this threat from China. Many who’ve been in this business for a long time will recall that some 10, 15 years ago, even as we were looking to develop the plans for, and then to build the U.S. Cyber Command, the big threat from China was all about data theft, espionage, intellectual property theft. And certainly we continue to see that, with this latest intrusion campaign into telecommunications infrastructure. But to me, the big story from the last couple of years that everyone should be paying attention to – businesses large and small, critical infrastructure owners and operators – is really about the actor that is known as Volt Typhoon, that has been working to embed and burrow into our most sensitive critical infrastructure. Not for espionage, but rather for disruption or destruction, in the event of a major crisis in the Taiwan Strait. So this is a world where a war in Asia could see very real impacts to the lives of Americans across our nation, with attacks against pipelines, against water facilities, against transportation nodes, against communications, all to induce societal panic. And to deter our ability to marshal military might and citizen will. And that is a very real, not a theoretical threat. And we know it because our hunt teams, working with federal partners and industry, have gone into certain entities. We’ve identified these actors, we’ve helped the private sector eradicate them. But we think what we’ve seen to date is really just the tip of the iceberg. And that’s why we’ve been so focused on talking about the importance of resilience. We cannot not architect systems for complete prevention. We need to architect them for an ability to adapt, to be able to deal with disruption – to respond, to recover, and to really prepare for that. A recent alert encouraged people who aren’t already using encrypted messaging apps to start using them. It feels like we’re at a point where the general public really needs to have a better understanding of cyberspace and how it touches their everyday lives. How are you thinking about how to make cyber more accessible to more Americans? I’ve been trying to do that for three and a half years. So hopefully, there’s been some progress. When I think about the key initiatives that we’ve been focused on at CISA, there’s having those discussions with CEOs and C-suite executives and board members about the importance of corporate cyber responsibility, really embracing cyber risk as a core business risk and as a matter of good governance. That’s one piece. A second piece is this idea of the need for technology vendors to design and build, test and deliver technology that prioritizes security. For decades, vendors have been pushing out products that have prioritized speed to market and features over security. We’ve been working really hard with our partners – we had a pledge that we unveiled, and we had 68 companies sign up. We’re now at over 250. This is becoming a movement, and one that’s really, really important. I’m not so naive to think this is change that we’re going to catalyze in days, weeks, months, or even a year. But we’re getting this movement started, and getting the momentum so that companies understand what they need to do to build secure products. We have also really tried to champion the basics of cyber hygiene. And that’s through our Secure Our World Campaign – folks might’ve seen all of our cyber Schoolhouse Rock PSAs. This is really about getting the American people to understand the basic things that they need to do to keep themselves safe, their family, small businesses. It’s those four things: installing updates; complex, unique passwords for your sensitive accounts, ideally a password manager so you really only have to remember one complex password; making sure that your employees are trained to recognize and report phishing; and then, finally, multi-factor authentication. Those four basic things that we’ve been advocating for can prevent 98% of cyber attacks, is what the research shows. It’s the brushing your teeth, the washing your hands, of cyber. And if you want to ensure that your communications are secure – your texts, your voice comms – it’s important for folks to understand that end-to-end encrypted comms are the best way to do it. You can pick your platform. Obviously, from an enterprise perspective, there are some rules in place in terms of data retention, so companies need to understand what the options are. But at the end of the day, the encrypted comms piece is incredibly important, particularly in a world where we know that our adversaries have attempted to, and succeeded in, exploiting our telecommunications. Let me ask you about ransomware. It’s still a massive problem. How are you thinking about protecting businesses from ransomware now? And I’m really interested to know how your views on it have changed since you’ve been in the director role at CISA. It continues to be a big problem, but until we get the cyber incident reporting for critical infrastructure into place, sometime next year, we really won’t have an idea of what the full range of the ransomware ecosystem is, because I’m sure there are a lot of entities that have had a ransomware attack and it hasn’t been reported. It really has been a scourge. We have seen impacts that we know about on businesses large and small. Since I came into this job, we’ve been focused on this through our stopransomware.gov one-stop shop of all the resources, to help entities understand where they may have external-facing vulnerabilities that we know are being exploited by ransomware actors, and our pre-ransomware notification initiative, where we have actually put out over 3,600 warnings to entities in the country, across the world to prevent them from having a ransomware attack. We are doing a lot of work on this. But look, it’s very tied to this issue around secure-by-design. These ransomware actors are not using exotic, previously unknown vulnerabilities to be able to exploit these entities. They’re using well-known public vulnerabilities, generally, and essentially it’s because many of these entities are using technology that has not been built to be secure. Oftentimes, we’ll say these entities didn’t do X, Y and Z. And that’s a piece of it, depending on the entity and who they are and their level of security team and how much investment they’ve done. I’m not absolving entities, necessarily, of their responsibility to keep their customers safe, but at the end of the day, I think we should stop looking at the victims and stop saying, why didn’t you patch that piece of technology? And really ask the question, why did that piece of technology require so many patches? Secure-by-design is not going to solve the problem, but I do think ensuring that the technology that we rely upon every day for our critical infrastructure is built specifically to dramatically drive down the number of flaws and defects, we will see a world that is much more secure. Since you’ve been in this role, have you seen the private sector’s willingness to share information with the government, which has always been a touchy subject, have you seen it increase? Have you seen those bonds of trust really strengthen? This is one of the reasons I came back into government. Looking at government from the private sector, it was very hard to discern how to effectively collaborate with the government, because we saw so many different actors telling us different things. There was a real lack of coherence. And that is something that I have really tried to champion along with my awesome teammates here. I don’t think we can underestimate what a paradigm shift this is. At the end of the day, we are asking companies three things: First, for any business that is a critical infrastructure owner, or operator, to recognize that a threat to one is a threat to many, given the connectivity, the interdependence, the vulnerability, the underpinning of some very complex supply chains. We’re seeing that with respect to telecommunications infrastructure, certainly. And so it can’t just be about self-preservation, it really has to be a focus on collaboration, in particular with the government. The second point is there also needs to be a recognition that even as we’re asking the private sector to work closer with the government and to provide information, the government has to be coherent. The government has to be responsive and transparent, and for God’s sakes to provide value. And then third, it has to be a frictionless experience, as much as possible. And that’s what we have tried to build through the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative. We started out with 10 companies, we’re now at over 350, over 50 different communications channels where we are sharing information, enriching it with what we know from the federal government perspective, and then planning against some of the most serious threats to the nation. I do think it’s been going well, but this is a major paradigm cultural shift. And getting companies that are sometimes competitors to work together from a collective defense perspective is going to continue to be a project. But I’ve been really pleased to see a lot of our great teammates in the private sector come to the table to focus on what they can do to ensure the collective defense of the nation. Transition between administrations is usually a time of target. Have you noticed anything different [since Election Day]? Have you seen an increase in state-actor or ransomware attacks? No, not specifically, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Threat actors are always looking for those points where there may be leadership turnover, churn, uncertainty, anxiety in the workforce. Change is hard for everybody. So it’s not a surprise. I’ve been through several transitions. I was in the transition from the Obama administration to the Trump administration, and I was on the transition team from the Trump administration to the Biden administration. We at CISA have been looking at our succession planning for months, and I am very, very confident in my senior leaders. The vast majority of CISA is civil servants. And so we have fantastic leaders who are very experienced, and I’m very confident that even if threat actors tried to take advantage of this period of time, or to cause some sort of havoc across the larger threat landscape, that we are prepared along with our partners to be able to respond effectively. Does CISA need more funding to help prevent ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure in the coming years? We’re now at about a $3 billion budget. I think eventually there will need to be growth in both capability and capacity. In terms of ransomware specifically, I wouldn’t focus on specific funding. If I were to advocate for additional funding in the near term, it would really be about this counter-China campaign, and all of the things that we’re trying to do to reduce fundamental risks to our most sensitive, critical infrastructure. I think that’s where we need to focus. You have been in this role for nearly four years now. I would love to get your thoughts on how this role has changed you over the last almost four years. What are you taking away from this job and what do you hope to be able to share with whoever may fill this role under the new Trump administration? Well, first, whoever takes the job, please know that I am here as a resource. When I took this job, [former CISA Director] Chris Krebs was a fantastic teammate and partner. At the end of the day, CISA is a non-political, non-partisan agency. I look forward to having conversations with whoever gets named as my successor. And the first thing I’d say is, you are getting the best job in government because this truly is an amazing place to work. This has been such an absolute honor to take something that was pretty new – CISA is only six years old – and work with this incredible team to build our capability, to build our capacity, to see the budget grow and to really develop operational capacity off that. I think the key lesson learned is the vital importance of one five-letter word, and that’s “trust.” CISA is not a regulator. We’re not an intel collection agency. We’re not a law enforcement agency. We’re not a military agency. Everything we do is by, with and through partners and predicated on our ability to catalyze trust, whether that’s with industry, whether that’s across the federal government, with state and local officials, with election officials. It’s a place we really started out with zero trust and were able to work to much higher trust. And the only way to do that is to get out and engage with people. That’s why I spend so much time across the country, across the world, traveling, explaining what we do, the value that we add, our no-cost services, how we can help everybody across the board. It’s really interesting when you think about the levels of trust in the federal government these days, they’re pretty low. And I think a lot of that is because we’re all in our digital world, where it’s very hard to have conversations with people where you can sit across the table and look them in the eye. Even if you really disagree with somebody politically, I think if you sit down and you have those conversations and you explain where you’re coming from, you really can start to build that trust. And that’s the only way CISA is going to be successful. We bring incredible technical capability, but we also have to bring very high levels of emotional intelligence because if we’re not able to explain how our technical capabilities can help our partners reduce risk, we ultimately will not be successful. And so that’s been a big lesson for me. .
How ‘Grande Dame of Blockbusters’ Barbara Taylor Bradford made her £160m fortune – including selling £10m flat to starChase Strangio stood before the Supreme Court on a cold December morning, the weight of history pressing against his shoulders. As the first openly transgender attorney to argue before the nation’s highest court, he carried not just legal briefs but the echoes of protests past – from the Stonewall uprising to the Compton Cafeteria riots, trans people have created a legacy of fighting for justice. Outside, hundreds of protesters pressed against police barricades, their chants rising above the marble columns. The demonstration was organized by Gender Liberation Movement (GLM) , a national collective that builds direct action, media, and policy interventions focused on bodily autonomy and self-determination in response to gender-based threats. “They want trans people to no longer exist,” said Eliel Cruz, co-founder of GLM. “And young people are the way to begin that kind of larger project.” The grassroots group has emerged as a significant force in coordinating nationwide protests against gender-based restrictions, combining street demonstrations with policy advocacy. As the Supreme Court heard arguments inside, GLM activists led chants demanding protection for transgender healthcare rights. The next day, 15 activists were arrested in a Capitol bathroom protest against new restrictions proposed by House Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) – restrictions targeting even Congress’s first openly transgender member, Sarah McBride (D-Del.) . Among those detained were Raquel Willis, a Black transgender activist known for leading the historic Brooklyn Liberation March and her rallying cry “I believe in Black trans power,” and Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who served seven years in prison for leaking classified documents about civilian casualties in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. House Speaker Mike Johnson defended the bathroom restrictions in a statement, saying single-sex facilities in the Capitol are “reserved for individuals of that biological sex.” Supporters of similar state-level restrictions argue they protect women’s privacy rights. “Women deserve women-only spaces,” Johnson said to The Tennessean , echoing sentiments from conservative lawmakers who have introduced similar measures in state legislatures. The parallels to history are not lost on today’s movement leaders. As Republican-led states advance hundreds of bills restricting transgender rights and healthcare, activists move in lockstep with pioneers like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. But this time, the battleground isn’t just the city streets, but also the marble corridors of power, and the weapons are legal briefs instead of bricks. LGBTQ+ activists have emerged as a cornerstone for civil rights movements in the United States. “We are part of every community considered from the point of view of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability, and class,” said Chris Sanders, executive director at the Tennessee Equality Project (TNEP.) “So we are affected by all forms of discrimination.” Sanders highlighted historic figures like Pauli Murray , civil rights activist, lawyer, and co-founder of the National Organization for Women, who they say used both she/her and they/them pronouns ; Audre Lorde, a pioneer in Black feminism; and Bayard Rustin, a core architect of the historic March on Washington, who adapted civil disobedience tactics from organizers in India, which established an iconic strategy of the Civil Rights Era. The list goes on. Larry Kramer, a Jewish American and founder of ACT UP during the HIV/AIDS pandemic , influenced healthcare policymakers including Anthony Fauci , who referenced Kramer during COVID-19. Trans figures fought in several instances to protect the First Amendment right of peaceful assembly and the constitutional rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Such examples include Tamara Ching, a trans Asian American woman at the Compton Cafeteria uprising, and Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera at Stonewall, all three women mobilizing against police brutality. Meanwhile, Harry Weider , a hard of hearing child of Holocaust survivors with dwarfism, joined ACT UP and advocated for public housing. Kiyoshi Kuromiya, an openly gay Japanese American and survivor of World War II internment, marched with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Selma and served as his personal assistant . When King was assassinated, Kuromiya looked after King’s children . In 1970, Kuromiya served as the only openly gay panelist at the Black Panther Convention , representing the Gay Liberation Front Philadelphia chapter; that same year, Black Panther co-founder Huey P. Newton endorsed LGBTQ+ and women’s liberation movements . “The visibility and success of LGBTQ+ rights movements have sparked broader conversations about intersectionality, encouraging other marginalized groups to advocate for their rights,” said Manuel Hernández, who uses pronouns li/naya and he/they. Hernández serves as the executive director of ALMA Chicago , which since the AIDS epidemic has advocated for the fair treatment and equality of the Latinx LGBTQ+ community. “This ripple effect has made the fight for equality more comprehensive and interconnected.” Despite broader LGBTQ+ gains, trans people find themselves excluded while being drastically impacted by modern political debates. While the recent election cycle ushered in the historic election of openly trans Sarah McBride to Congress , less than 1% of U.S. elected officials identify publicly as LGBTQ+. Since 2017, t he Victory Institute tracked a 6% decrease in elections of trans people amid increases in elections of other LGBTQ+ candidates. Representation in office continues to be dominated by cis white gay men. This underrepresentation leaves transgender people vulnerable to discrimination and political exploitation from both parties, advocates say. Blossom C. Brown, an Afro-Native trans activist based in Los Angeles, with appearances on the trans rights podcast Transparency and in viral content at Jubiliee’s Middle Ground debates, said, “We are the easiest community to be used for political points by politicians, including some Democrats.” In 2015, Jennicet Gutierrez, co-founder of trans Latine advocacy group Familia TQLM , confronted then President Barack Obama during a White House Pride Month reception about gender-based violence against trans women in ICE detention centers . Security removed her from the event, and media outlets described her actions as heckling. During her 2024 presidential run, Vice President Kamala Harris received endorsements from several major LGBTQ+ organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign and the National LGBTQ Task Force . However, trans speakers were excluded from the 2024 Democratic National Convention. In 2018, then president Donald Trump referred to migrant caravans arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border as “hardened criminals.” Some of the earliest known caravans consisted primarily of transgender migrates, displaced by internal conflicts including U.S.-backed coups across Latin America and targeted by police due to gender identity, self-expression, and sexual orientation. In August 2017, the Transgender Law Center recorded the first known official migrant Rainbow Caravan , 11 of whom were trans and the rest LGB . The following year, several LGBTQ+ couples married at the border with Mexico before crossing over. Cruz also warned of parallel and potentially deadly consequences similar to the struggle for abortion rights. “We are going to have thousands and thousands of families and trans young people unable to access that care,” he said. “We’ll need to find either ways to get it illegally in their state, or they might have to flee.” Transgender people have begun leaving the United States. They have fled to New Zealand , France , the Netherlands, and other countries where immigration policies welcome trans asylum seekers. According to a 2023 report from Data for Progress , 41% of trans adults and 43% of trans people aged 18-24 have considered moving. Eight percent of trans adults, including those aged 18-24, have already left, alongside 9% of LGBTQ+ adults 65 or older. “The SCOTUS ruling will have a much more impact on the trans community than it will the LGBTQ community as a whole,” said Brown. “We must wake that up in this movement.” As the protests at the Supreme Court over healthcare for trans youth remain at the forefront of the debate, gender-affirming care also applies to cisgenderpeople. A Hastings Center report found that cisgender make up the majority of those seeking gender-affirming care . “These issues have systematically contributed to our detriment,” said Brown. “[S]ystemic oppression...tries to keep us as the ‘outsider.’ But truth is we are far from it!” In November 2024, TNEP and other groups successfully fought off a second conservative proposal in Tennessee’s Knox County campaign to “ protect child innocence ” by cutting funding to programs deemed sexually explicit. Opponents called it “ undefined,” while the four-page document defined prohibited content as “harmful to minors,” “matter,” “nudity,” “obscene,” “prurient interest,” and “sexual conduct.” Several nonprofits argued that such a vague resolution threatened services, such as programs that respond to and protect children from abuse . Critics called it a thinly disguised anti-drag initiative, which could have had drastic repercussions on the entire state. Thirty-five state constitutions still ban marriage equality . While federal courts overruled these bans in the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling in 2015, some legal experts worry the current court could overturn that decision as it did with abortion. Other SCOTUS rulings have undone LGBTQ+ efforts regarding universal human rights, including work and healthcare discrimination. In 2023, the Supreme Court sided with Lorie Smith, a wedding website designer, declaring that she could deny a gay couple services. However, the case centered on a straight man married to a woman who claimed that he never submitted a request . This ruling now means that anyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender, can be denied services. In July this year, the Biden administration was unable to enforce new rules affirming healthcare for trans U.S. citizens. The SCOTUS overturning of the 1984 Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council ruling weakened federal enforcement of regulations and reduced the political authority of the Environmental Protection Agency, creating an unforeseen connection between trans rights and climate justice. In 2017, the same year as the Rainbow Caravan, the Trump administration ordered the end of the DACA program , which SCOTUS reversed in 2020 . Trump’s vows of mass deportation , partially which incorporated his twisting of the trans struggle to fit his agenda, could threaten the livelihood of many people essential to the U.S. economy, like the agriculture sector, which employs a 73% migrant workforce . As a common practice, activists center the needs of the most marginalized to create universal solutions. Cruz said that by addressing the needs of Black trans women, including disabled Black trans undocumented women with English as a second language, the rights and needs of all will be served. “This is true for all Americans,” he said. “It’s not some special thing that only Black trans people or queer trans people need.” Amid 574 anti-LGBTQ bills circulating across state legislatures and the resulting mental health crisis for trans youth, organizers plan to follow the trans legacy of activism and continue to pressure the Supreme Court to side with them through direct action. “We will never give up on our trans youth,” said Brown. “I have hope and faith that the LGBTQ community will respond with even more powerful mechanisms of change.” Sanders encouraged activists to show up for TNEP’s Zoom phone banks and “Day on the Hill” action to campaign for LGBTQ+ rights, which they will announce later. In Chicago, Hernández indicated that ALMA will mobilize through educating the wider community about transgender issues and collaborating with legal organizations like Equality Illinois . ALMA currently offers empowerment and economic mobility through programs like its Latinx LGBTQ+ Advocacy Leadership Institute. “Where possible, we’ll also explore ways to offer financial support to trans youth and families navigating new legal or medical challenges,” said Hernández. In New York City, Cruz called for increased volunteer and financial support of the Transgender Law Center and other trans-led legal efforts nationwide. “We’ve made America a better place by pushing for inclusivity,” said Brown. “Unfortunately there are groups who are threatened by this. Not our problem! We will continue the fight.” Rohan Zhou-Lee (They/Siya/祂(Tā)/Elle) is a queer/nonbinary Black Asian dancer, writer, and organizer. A 2023 Open City Fellow at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, they have written for Newsweek, Prism Reports, NextShark, and more . Siya is also the founder of the award-winning Blasian March , a Black-Asian-Blasian grassroots solidarity organization, and for their work has been featured on CNN , NBC Chicago , USA Today , WNYC , and more . Zhou-Lee has spoken on organizing, human rights , and other subjects at New York University, The University of Tokyo, the 2022 Unite and Enough Festivals in Zürich, Switzerland, Harvard University, and more. www.diaryofafirebird.comReport: Leadership needed to address quantum threat mitigation
NUBURU, Inc. Receives Notice of Non-Compliance with the NYSE
