After the bombs, Iran sharpens its digital daggers



The footage was unmistakable: plumes of smoke rising over Iran’s nuclear sites, a fiery punctuation mark on years of brinkmanship and intelligence coups. With one sweeping air campaign, the United States delivered a message: The Islamic Republic won’t cross the nuclear threshold.

But anyone assuming the threat has been neutralized is mistaken. Iran’s nuclear humiliation may hasten a shift already under way — from building bombs to waging war through digital disruption.

Cyber warfare offers something the mullahs crave: the ability to humiliate, disrupt, and retaliate without risking direct military confrontation.

Even as diplomats celebrate a ceasefire, cybersecurity experts remain on alert. In 2025, a regime doesn’t need enriched uranium to paralyze an enemy. It needs a cadre of skilled hackers, access to stolen exploits, and no scruples about targeting civilian infrastructure.

Iran’s cyber playbook didn’t appear overnight. In 2012, the Shamoon virus devastated Saudi Aramco’s systems, wiping tens of thousands of computers. Since then, Tehran has steadily advanced its cyber operations.

Today, Iran commands a capable and motivated digital force. With its nuclear facilities in ruins, the regime has every reason to flex other muscles. Cyber warfare offers something the mullahs crave: the ability to humiliate, disrupt, and retaliate without risking direct military confrontation.

They’re not the first to embrace this model.

Russia, long dominant in the cyber realm, has hammered Ukraine with digital attacks targeting power grids, satellites, and financial systems. Criminal groups like Conti and Black Basta operate under Moscow’s protection, extorting ransoms and leaking stolen data to sow chaos.

This blending of espionage, sabotage, and state-backed crime has become a blueprint for autocracies under pressure. Iran, hemmed in by sanctions and unrest, doesn’t need to invent the model. It just needs to adopt it.

Most Americans still think of cyberwar as an abstract threat — something IT departments handle behind the scenes. That complacency works to our enemies’ advantage.

Take zero-day vulnerabilities: flaws in software even the developers don’t yet know exist. They’re sold on dark markets for eye-watering sums and let hostile actors bypass traditional defenses undetected.

Then there’s Chaos RAT, a remote access trojan capable of burrowing into a network and sitting dormant for months. Once triggered, it can steal sensitive data, erase backups, or crash entire systems on command.

Iran possesses both the motive and the skill to deploy these weapons — and the timing couldn’t be better for the regime. With its nuclear program crippled, it needs a new front to demonstrate relevance.

RELATED: Google confirms Iranian hacking group targeted Trump, Harris presidential campaigns

  daoleduc via iStock/Getty Images

China’s cyber militias show what’s possible. Groups like APT Silver Fox specialize in patient infiltration, building access over years. Iran lacks Beijing’s global reach, but the methods are accessible. Tehran’s hackers borrow code from Russia, shop the same black markets, and lease infrastructure from the same digital underworld.

The global cyber arena now functions like a black-market bazaar: fluid alliances, shared tradecraft, and few rules. Almost everything’s for sale.

So while headlines tout the ceasefire between Israel and Iran, they miss the next act. No truce binds a nation’s hackers. Cyber operations offer deniability by design. When a hospital network locks up or a power grid fails, Tehran’s response will be predictable: denial, distraction, and a smirk about the West’s poor “cyber hygiene.”

Expect Iran to probe how far it can push in cyberspace without drawing more missiles in return. And unless the West prepares accordingly, those probes may succeed.

America still leads the world in conventional firepower. But cyber defense remains its soft underbelly. Agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have made strides, but critical infrastructure — power plants, water systems, hospitals — still run on aging software and patchwork security.

Iran doesn’t need to destroy a city to spread fear. A flip of a switch in a power station or the theft of sensitive government files can inflict lasting damage — and create leverage.

This imbalance between battlefield dominance and digital vulnerability demands urgent correction.

Cybersecurity must move from an IT line item to a strategic national priority. That means building AI-driven detection systems, developing real deterrence for cyberattacks, and forging public-private partnerships to defend vital infrastructure.

Iran’s nuclear setback matters. But no bomb erases a hacker’s know-how. No missile strike disables an ideology that thrives on asymmetrical warfare.

The coming months will test whether the West has learned anything. Tehran’s leaders need to prove they still have teeth. While their nuclear ambitions smolder, their cyber arsenal remains sharp — and likely emboldened.

The next war may not begin with jets roaring over deserts. It may start silently in the fluorescent-lit halls of a data center, where intruders already hide behind blinking servers, waiting.

In that theater, the rules are different — and the consequences no less severe.

A brutal wake-up call from America’s most powerful banker



Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase — one of the most powerful financial institutions on earth — issued a warning the other day. But it wasn’t about interest rates, crypto, or monetary policy.

Speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California, Dimon pivoted from economic talking points to something far more urgent: the fragile state of America’s physical preparedness.

We are living in a moment of stunning fragility — culturally, economically, and militarily. It means we can no longer afford to confuse digital distractions with real resilience.

“We shouldn’t be stockpiling Bitcoin,” Dimon said. “We should be stockpiling guns, tanks, planes, drones, and rare earths. We know we need to do it. It’s not a mystery.”

He cited internal Pentagon assessments showing that if war were to break out in the South China Sea, the United States has only enough precision-guided missiles for seven days of sustained conflict.

Seven days — that’s the gap between deterrence and desperation.

This wasn’t a forecast about inflation or a hedge against market volatility. It was a blunt assessment from a man whose words typically move markets.

“America is the global hegemon,” Dimon continued, “and the free world wants us to be strong.” But he warned that Americans have been lulled into “a false sense of security,” made complacent by years of peacetime prosperity, outsourcing, and digital convenience:

We need to build a permanent, long-term, realistic strategy for the future of America — economic growth, fiscal policy, industrial policy, foreign policy. We need to educate our citizens. We need to take control of our economic destiny.

This isn’t a partisan appeal — it’s a sobering wake-up call. Because our economy and military readiness are not separate issues. They are deeply intertwined.

Dimon isn’t alone in raising concerns. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has warned that China has already overtaken the U.S. in key defense technologies — hypersonic missiles, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence to mention a few. Retired military leaders continue to highlight our shrinking shipyards and dwindling defense manufacturing base.

Even the dollar, once assumed untouchable, is under pressure as BRICS nations work to undermine its global dominance. Dimon, notably, has said this effort could succeed if the U.S. continues down its current path.

So what does this all mean?

RELATED: Is Fort Knox still secure?

  mphillips007 via iStock/Getty Images

It means we are living in a moment of stunning fragility — culturally, economically, and militarily. It means we can no longer afford to confuse digital distractions with real resilience.

It means the future belongs to nations that understand something we’ve forgotten: Strength isn’t built on slogans or algorithms. It’s built on steel, energy, sovereignty, and trust.

And at the core of that trust is you, the citizen. Not the influencer. Not the bureaucrat. Not the lobbyist. At the core is the ordinary man or woman who understands that freedom, safety, and prosperity require more than passive consumption. They require courage, clarity, and conviction.

We need to stop assuming someone else will fix it. The next crisis — whether military, economic, or cyber — will not politely pause for our political dysfunction to sort itself out. It will demand leadership, unity, and grit.

And that begins with looking reality in the eye. We need to stop talking about things that don’t matter and cut to the chase: The U.S. is in a dangerously fragile position, and it’s time to rebuild and refortify — from the inside out.

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Mark Milley’s legacy: Gridlock, dead zones, and lost time



In just a few months, the Trump administration has secured major wins for Americans by cutting bloated government, tightening border security, and reasserting U.S. strength abroad.

Now, as its economic agenda gains momentum, the administration is turning its focus toward repatriating wealth and boosting consumer confidence. Supporting the working class will also require renewing the president’s tax cuts — an essential step for sustaining growth and addressing the budget deficit and national debt.

Trump and his team are committed to breaking through the bureaucratic inertia and exposing outdated policy that blocks American competitiveness.

One practical way to pay down that debt is to auction off portions of the communications spectrum — America’s wireless airwaves — to competitive American companies. These firms have built out the high-speed networks we rely on every day. Spectrum auctions have already generated more than $258 billion for the U.S. Treasury. Yet, huge swaths of this valuable asset remain tied up in federal hands.

The last major spectrum auction, conducted under Trump’s first term, raised $22.4 billion. Since then, progress has stalled. The Department of Defense has refused to budge — blocking further releases of spectrum needed to expand 5G access and innovation.

That stonewalling was shaped in part by the rigid posture of former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, who was criticized for backchannel communications with China and accused by President Trump of “treason.” Milley’s legacy of obstruction still casts a shadow over spectrum policy.

No one disputes the need for a strong, modern military. But the Pentagon’s refusal to share spectrum is hurting U.S. economic leadership. The benefits of 5G — greater efficiency, higher speed, and lower latency — depend on unlocking new constellations of network equipment that amplify wireless performance and shrink infrastructure costs.

China understands this. It has deployed the world’s largest 5G network and allocated more than 370% more spectrum than the U.S. It recently became the first country to reach 1 billion 5G connections. At the same time, Beijing has backed cybercriminals and hostile actors that target American infrastructure. The stakes are high — and the risks are real.

Instead of expanding spectrum access to keep pace, the U.S. Defense Department — under Milley’s watch and beyond — has distracted network developers with a “dynamic sharing framework.” This alternative relies on the Citizens Broadband Radio Service, marketed as a new frontier and “fertile ground” for wireless innovation.

In theory, it sounds promising. In practice, the system is riddled with inefficiencies. CBRS simply cannot meet the demands of the next wave of commercial and defense innovation. By clinging to bureaucratic workarounds, the government is slowing progress — and putting the U.S. further behind.

Independent experts have warned that the low broadcast power levels mandated in the CBRS spectrum severely limit performance. Users far from a cell tower face degraded service, while lower-priority operators may get no protection from interference and suffer from chronic congestion. Despite official spin, analysts report little to no meaningful investment or innovation from commercial players.

These dead-end designs stem in part from Milley’s resistance during his tenure to serious discussions about spectrum reform. But this stagnation has allies, even now that he’s gone.

Before the full scope of CBRS’ flaws became clear, cable industry operators placed big bets on it. They hoped new use cases would emerge, but soon realized CBRS couldn’t deliver on its promises. Rather than pivot to better broadband solutions, the cable lobby launched a campaign — “Spectrum for the Future” — aimed at locking competitors into these same flawed systems. The result: lobbying to preserve the status quo while freezing the wireless industry’s progress toward faster, more scalable infrastructure.

The United States cannot afford to cling to the illusion that military control of technology alone secures national strength. Commercial innovation is just as critical. President Trump understands this. As he moves his agenda forward, he and his team are committed to breaking through the bureaucratic inertia and exposing outdated policy that blocks American competitiveness.

We need to unleash more of our nation’s spectrum for commercial use. Anything less weakens consumers at home and cedes technological dominance abroad.

'I think he's guilty of treason': Trump orders investigation into former deep-stater, 'Anonymous' official



President Donald Trump signed a pair of executive orders on Wednesday directing his administration to suspend security clearances for a pair of antagonistic officials who served in his first administration.

In addition to severing Miles Taylor and Christopher Krebs from the fount of insider federal knowledge, Trump has directed the relevant authorities in his administration to "take all appropriate action to review" the duo's activities while still government employees.

Trump characterized Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in his order as a "significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his Government" and engaged in "abusive conduct."

"Krebs' misconduct involved the censorship of disfavored speech implicating the 2020 election and COVID-19 pandemic," wrote Trump. "CISA, under Krebs' leadership, suppressed conservative viewpoints under the guise of combatting supposed disinformation, and recruited and coerced major social media platforms to further its partisan mission. CISA covertly worked to blind the American public to the controversy surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop."

The president suggested further that while running the show at CISA, Krebs — a former Microsoft executive who has made no secret of his contempt for Trump and served as a key witness for the Democratic Jan. 6 select committee — promoted the suppression of information about "risks associated with certain voting practices" and "baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen."

Trump announced Krebs' termination via tweet on Nov. 17, 2020, days after CISA distributed a statement asserting both that "the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history" and that "there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."

Krebs was portrayed in heroic terms and as a tragic figure by Democrats and other leftists. California Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D), for instance, lauded Krebs for supposedly "speaking truth to power and rejecting Trump's constant campaign of election falsehoods."

'Identify any instances where Krebs' conduct appears to have been contrary to suitability standards for Federal employees.'

Krebs, who went on to call the president a "wannabe tyrant," responded to his termination on X, writing, "We did it right."

Trump has tasked Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem with determining whether Krebs in fact "did it right," directing them to "identify any instances where Krebs' conduct appears to have been contrary to suitability standards for Federal employees, involved the unauthorized dissemination of classified information, or contrary to the purposes and policies identified in Executive Order 14149 of January 20, 2025 (Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship)."

While Trump painted Krebs as a censorious hack potentially guilty of misonduct, he told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday that Taylor might be "guilty of treason" — a potential death-penalty offense.

Taylor served in the Trump DHS from 2017 to 2019. During that time, the former DHS chief of staff worked to undermine the democratically elected president and to "thwart parts of his agenda." Taylor admitted doing so in an anonymous piece in the New York Times titled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration."

In the article, Taylor suggested that he and others undermining the administration from within were the "steady state" and were committed to "steer[ing] the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it's over."

After leaving the Trump administration, Taylor penned a book — again hiding behind the cloak of anonymity — attacking Trump. At the time, the Trump White House called the book, which is replete with disputed claims, "a work of fiction" written by a "coward."

Prior to the 2020 election, Taylor finally revealed his identity, then endorsed Joe Biden for president.

"I barely remember him. Somebody that went out and wrote a book and said all sorts of terrible things that were all lies," Trump told reporters Wednesday.

'Taylor abandoned his sacred oath.'

"He wrote a book, '[A Warning:] Anonymous,' and I always thought it was terrible," said Trump. "Now we have a chance to find out whether or not it was terrible. But it was a work of fiction."

"I think we have to do something about it," Trump added. "If that happens to other presidents, it wouldn't be sustainable for other presidents. I seem to be able to sustain, but if that happened to other presidents, it's just unfair."

— (@)  
 

In his executive order, Trump noted, "Miles Taylor was entrusted with the solemn responsibility of Federal service, but instead prioritized his own ambition, personal notoriety, and monetary gain over fidelity to his constitutional oath."

"He illegally published classified conversations to sell his book under the pseudonym 'Anonymous,' which is full of falsehoods and fabricated stories," continued Trump. "In so doing, Taylor abandoned his sacred oath and commitment to public service by disclosing sensitive information obtained through unauthorized methods and betrayed the confidence of those with whom he served."

Trump noted further that the improper disclosure of sensitive information for the "purposes of personal enrichment and undermining our foreign policy, national security, and Government effectiveness" could "properly be characterized as treasonous and as possibly violating the Espionage Act."

Taylor tweeted Wednesday, "Dissent isn't unlawful. It certainly isn't treasonous. America is headed down a dark path."

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China’s tech infiltration poses an urgent national security risk



Totalitarian regimes cannot tolerate criticism, and China is no exception. The Chinese Communist Party’s Great Firewall is not just about restricting information within its borders — it is a deliberate effort to suppress dissent worldwide.

Now, China has a new tool for repression: DeepSeek, an AI model built using U.S. chips. Weak export controls under the Biden administration allowed China to achieve an artificial intelligence breakthrough once thought to be years away.

Competition with China isn’t a game. It’s time to stop letting Beijing gain an unfair advantage, whether through illicit means or simply by ceding ground.

Like TikTok, DeepSeek is poised to become a propaganda tool for the CCP. The model is already censoring content deemed a threat to “state power,” including references to Tiananmen Square, Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution, and even Winnie the Pooh. This level of content control — extending beyond information to influence minds — poses a direct and urgent threat to U.S. national security.

The Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly used technology to target U.S. interests. For years, Americans have downloaded TikTok, unaware that the app functions as Chinese spyware. This malware collects and shares user data with the CCP, tracking contacts, photos, search histories, and even keystrokes. As a result, Beijing has access to vast amounts of Americans' metadata. From a national security standpoint, this is alarming. The CCP now holds data on military installations, population centers, and critical infrastructure — essentially a detailed map with targets marked.

Even more troubling are the cybersecurity risks uncovered in DeepSeek. An Epoch Times investigation found that DeepSeek stores user data on China-based servers. One company discovered the AI model transmits information to China Mobile, a state-owned telecom giant. A separate analysis by cybersecurity firm Wiz revealed that DeepSeek suffered a major data breach, exposing chat histories, secret keys, and other sensitive information. These security failures make clear that China cannot be trusted with our advanced technology.

The threat doesn’t stop there. ByteDance, TikTok’s CCP-affiliated parent company, uses the app to promote pro-China propaganda while suppressing anti-CCP content. A Rutgers University study confirmed that TikTok amplifies content favorable to the CCP while down-ranking videos that contradict its agenda. Another CCP-linked app, RedNote, is gaining traction in the U.S. and will likely follow the same pattern. This psychological warfare must end. The U.S. cannot allow Beijing to continue exploiting American users through predatory technology.

That’s why I’ve introduced the China Technology Transfer Control Act, which would prevent China’s military from acquiring sensitive U.S. technology and intellectual property through export controls. My bill would also sanction foreign entities that sell prohibited U.S. technology to the PRC.

We can’t continue to let our foremost foreign adversary perform psychological manipulation on Americans or allow it to collect troves of our sensitive, personal information. My bill puts up guardrails to keep the CCP from acquiring increasingly advanced U.S. technologies and developing more software like DeepSeek R1.

The Biden-Harris administration did not do enough to protect America’s most sensitive technology. The CCP knows that, which is why any U.S. technology that ends up in the hands of the CCP can be weaponized against us. We must protect our advancements and ensure Americans — not the CCP — reap their benefits.

Competition with China isn’t a game. It’s time to stop letting Beijing gain an unfair advantage, whether through illicit means or simply by ceding ground. We need decisive action now to safeguard our leadership in technological innovation — not just for today but for generations to come.

Democrats More Panicked About DOGE Accessing Feds’ Computers Than Chinese Hackers

Democrats seem to be more worried over DOGE potentially having more oversight capability than they are about China's cyberattacks.

Encrypted apps urged by lawmakers amid major Chinese telecom breach



U.S. officials are imploring individuals and companies alike to use encrypted messaging apps in order to minimize the chances of the communist Chinese regime intercepting their communications.

The recommendations coincide with the confirmation by a top U.S. security official this week of a historic state-sponsored hacking campaign that compromised at least eight American telecommunications companies, including AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.

Microsoft dubbed the Chinese group responsible Salt Typhoon. Salt Typhoon, which has been active since at least 3020, is also occasionally referred to as GhostEmperor, Earth Estries, UNC2286 or FamousSparrow.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the Salt Typhoon attack in September, noting that the hackers penetrated numerous broadband providers earlier this year, affording them a foothold within the broadband infrastructure with which to access private data and possible launch a ruinous cyberattack.

While exponents of the Chinese regime have repeatedly denied its role in the attack, American officials aren't buying what they are selling.

'Encryption is your friend.'

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI issued a joint statement last month indicating that the U.S. government's "continued investigation into the People's Republic of China (PRC) targeting of commercial telecommunications infrastructure has revealed a broad and significant cyber espionage campaign."

"Specifically, we have identified that PRC-affiliated actors have compromised networks at multiple telecommunications companies to enable the theft of customer call records data, the compromise of private communications of a limited number of individuals who are primarily involved in government or political activity, and the copying of certain information that was subject to U.S. law enforcement requests pursuant to court orders," said the agencies.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) stated on Nov. 29, "Salt Typhoon is the worst telecom hack in American history, and demands both a proportionate response to the Chinese Communist Party and increased accountability for U.S. corporations to prevent these intrusions."

Auchincloss suggested to CNN that the hackers were especially brazen, re-asserting themselves in the networks after being discovered.

An unnamed senior FBI official and Jeff Greene, executive assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA, told NBC News Tuesday that Americans should use encrypted messaging apps.

"Our suggestion, what we have told folks internally, is not new here: Encryption is your friend, whether it's on text messaging or if you have the capacity to use encrypted voice communication. Even if the adversary is able to intercept the data, if it is encrypted, it will make it impossible," said Greene.

"People looking to further protect their mobile device communications would benefit from considering using a cellphone that automatically receives timely operating system updates, responsibly managed encryption and phishing resistant" multi-factor authentication for email, social media and collaboration tool accounts, said the FBI official.

Greene indicated the networks remained compromised and that intelligence agencies cannot presently "predict a time frame on when we'll have full eviction."

The FBI, CISA, and the National Security Agency published a joint guide Wednesday, titled "Enhanced Visibility and Hardening Guidance for Communications Infrastructure," detailing ways that network engineers and "defenders of communications infrastructure" can harden their network devices against further exploitation by Chinese hackers.

"The PRC-affiliated cyber activity poses a serious threat to critical infrastructure, government agencies, and businesses. This guide will help telecommunications and other organizations detect and prevent compromises by the PRC and other cyber actors," Greene said in a statement.

'It should never have happened.'

The Biden White House's deputy national security adviser, Anne Neuberger, told reporters this week that none of the impacted companies have "fully removed the Chinese actors from these networks," reported the Associated Press.

"So there is a risk of ongoing compromises to communications until U.S. companies address the cybersecurity gaps the Chinese are likely to maintain their access," added Neuberger.

Neuberger added, "We don't believe any classified communications has been compromised."

After intelligence officials briefed members of the U.S. Senate Wednesday, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) reportedly expressed frustration, noting, "They have not told us why they didn't catch it; what they could have done to prevent it."

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said, "The extent and depth and breadth of Chinese hacking is absolutely mind-boggling — that we would permit as much as has happened in just the last year is terrifying," reported Reuters.

The Federal Communications Commission announced Thursday that it is "taking decisive steps to address vulnerabilities in U.S. telecommunications networks following the Salt Typhoon cyberattack, a sophisticated intrusion linked to foreign state-sponsored actors. These measures aim to safeguard critical communications infrastructure and ensure national security, public safety, and economic resilience in the future."

FCC commissioner Brendan Carr tweeted, "The Salt Typhoon intrusion is a serious and unacceptable risk to our national security. It should never have happened. I will be working with national security agencies through the transition and next year in an effort to root out the threat and secure our networks."

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Hackers find vulnerabilities in voting machines — but officials say there's no time to fix them by Election Day



Participants at the Voting Village event at the 2024 DEF CON Hacking Conference in Las Vegas were able to uncover vulnerabilities in various voting machines, e-poll books, and other equipment used in elections across America — but officials say they do not have enough time to address these issues before Election Day in November.

As it has for nearly a decade, the DEF CON conference featured a Voting Village event that permitted some of the world's most skilled hackers to take their best shot at finding vulnerabilities in election-related equipment, including different sorts of voting machines, most of which are used in at least one jurisdiction in America, Politico reported.

'Even if you find a vulnerability next week in a piece of modern equipment that’s deployed in the field, there’s a challenge in getting the patch and getting the fix out to the state and local elections officials and onto the equipment before the November election.'

The event drew significant interest, and hackers stood in long lines to attempt to circumvent firewalls and other security tools meant to deter cybercriminals.

They also had to go out of their way to participate since Village Vote was held in an isolated area away from the main floor this year after some online users leveled threats and accused the event of undermining democracy.

According to Voting Village co-founder Harri Hursti, the list of security vulnerabilities discovered this year spanned "multiple pages," though he added that the total number of vulnerabilities was about average for Village Vote events.

The good news is that security vulnerabilities can often be fixed. The bad news is that the repair process takes time, and the 2024 election is only about 12 weeks away.

"Even if you find a vulnerability next week in a piece of modern equipment that’s deployed in the field, there’s a challenge in getting the patch and getting the fix out to the state and local elections officials and onto the equipment before the November election," explained Scott Algeier, executive director of the Information Technology-Information Sharing and Analysis Center.

"It’s not a 90-day fix," he continued.

Catherine Terranova, executive director of Voting Village, likewise doubted that anything could be done before November.

"As far as time goes, it is hard to make any real, major, systemic changes, but especially 90 days out from the election," she said. "It's particularly troubling during an election year like this."

The truncated timeframe is not the only problem. Hursti also expressed concerns about foreign adversaries.

"We are here only for two and a half days, and we find stuff," he said. "It would be stupid to assume that the adversaries don’t have absolute access to everything."

"If you don’t think this kind of place is running 24/7 in China, Russia, you’re kidding yourselves."

Politico reported that secretaries of state and other election officials attended the event, a sign that they are aware of potential problems with voting machines. However, these officials spent much of their time at the conference giving "talks on misinformation and disinformation threats facing the upcoming election," the outlet claimed.

"There’s so much basic stuff that should be happening and is not happening," Hursti claimed. "So yes, I’m worried about things not being fixed, but they haven’t been fixed for a long time, and I’m also angry about it."

Village Vote may be doing important work, drawing attention to vulnerabilities in American voting machines, but there are indications it may have a left-leaning political ideology.

For one thing, the main page of its website features the tagline "It takes a village to preserve democracy," seemingly adopting a phrase from Hillary Clinton, who penned a book entitled "It Takes a Village."

The social media accounts of some of its leaders likewise indicate that they harbor liberal opinions.

Chair of the board Matt Blaze proudly lists his preferred pronouns in his X bio.

An account believed to be run by secretary of the board David Jefferson retweeted a number of liberal messages and memes. One particularly disturbing meme retweeted by the account regurgitates the most extreme talking points of abortion supporters, including that pro-life advocates are "monitoring ... period apps."

Blaze News reached out to Village Vote to inquire about its apparent political biases but did not receive a response.

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Blaze News original: Introduction to cybersecurity by a layperson for laypeople



Between a CrowdStrike software glitch that recently brought many global industries to a temporary standstill and security breaches at major enterprises such as UnitedHealth and Ticketmaster, the digitized systems of our world and the mechanisms designed to protect them have been brought unavoidably to the fore.

But if you are a small business owner or an ordinary individual without a sophisticated IT background, the topic itself — cybersecurity — not only causes your eyes to glaze over, but it even incites a bit of an internal panic every time it comes up in conversation.

With these recent breaches affecting companies and industries that we use every day, those of us who are cybersecurity-hesitant can no longer simply ignore it or hope that others will handle the problem for us.

For this reason, Blaze News spoke with two experts who have both spent decades in the cybersecurity field and who have dedicated their lives to making cybersecurity as easy as possible for laypeople.

The first, Rob Coté, owns a small cybersecurity company in southeastern Michigan called Security Vitals. The second, Mike Lipinski, is in charge of cybersecurity at the major accounting firm Plante Moran. In the past, he has also worked as a vendor and in consulting for IT- and cybersecurity-related companies.

What IS cybersecurity?

Since the 1990s, Hollywood has done a masterful job making cybercriminal behavior such as hacking seem mysterious and esoteric while making efforts to outdo and outsmart cybercriminals look heroic and sexy. Blockbuster hits such as "The Net" and "Hackers," both released in 1995, wove together a narrative filled with romance and digital arcana, making cybersecurity seem accessible even as the cyberworld in the movies still feels hopelessly foreign.

43% of all cybersecurity attacks happen to businesses with 500 or fewer employees. Of those affected businesses, fully 60% will go belly-up within six months of the attack.

The reality is much more mundane, and also more serious, particularly for small business owners.

43% of all cybersecurity attacks happen to businesses with 500 or fewer employees. Of those affected businesses, fully 60% will go belly-up within six months of the attack.

And while incidents involving big-name companies like Ticketmaster and UnitedHealth remind us of the importance of cybersecurity, they can also sometimes deceive us into thinking that cybersecurity is a problem only for industry giants and not for the little guy.

Both Coté and Lipinski vehemently pushed back against that assumption.

"Size doesn't necessarily dictate sophistication and security," Lipinski added.

Small businesses as 'easy opportunities'

One of the most common responses Coté says he receives when pitching cybersecurity services to owners of small and medium-sized businesses is that their businesses have too little information and too small a digital footprint to be attractive to cybercriminals. "Nobody cares about our data," they say, according to Coté.

Unfortunately, such modesty can lead to all kinds of trouble. Coté told Blaze News that bad actors are looking for "easy opportunities" and "the path of least resistance." Since large enterprises already have heavily fortified cyber environments, many cybercriminals don't even bother with them.

'You may be humming along thinking, "We're fine. We're just a small business." The reality is this ... they have direct connections with the larger company.'

Instead, cybercriminals will often target vulnerable environments that are easy to infiltrate, and they do so for two main reasons.

First: Almost every business, regardless of size, harbors sensitive data. Everything from credit card transactions to digitized personnel files carries critical information, all of which must be stored somewhere, often in the nebulous cyber zone known as "the cloud."

Such stored data makes small companies especially vulnerable to ransomware, which Coté defined as "a technology that will lock up your data, and without the key, you can't access it."

Once ransomware villains get hold of a company's data, they then demand money, often via cryptocurrency, before they will return it. However, even paying the ransom does not even ensure that the data will be restored. After all, "you're dealing with criminals here," Coté noted.

And with new privacy laws, businesses render themselves vulnerable to lawsuits for failing to protect this data against ransomware and other cyberattacks. "There's a lot of things now that are being expected of all of us to protect the information that I may have on you or you may have on me," Lipinski explained.

The other key reason that cybercriminals pester seemingly small businesses is because of their associations with larger companies. Coté cited Ford Motor Company and Target as two recognizable names that contract with much smaller firms to outsource some of their business practices.

"You may be humming along thinking, 'We're fine. We're just a small business,'" Coté said. "The reality is this ... they have direct connections with the larger company."

OK, so what can be done?

While Ford and Target have plenty of revenue with which to invest in cybersecurity, most small businesses do not.

But according to Coté and Lipinski, that should not mean small businesses do nothing. Both said there are plenty of affordable options that can help owners protect themselves.

'How do you quantify the value of reputational damage?' Coté asked rhetorically. 'You just can't.'

Such options include network scanning and monitoring, both of which are services that cybersecurity firms provide to their clients. In other words, businesses do not necessarily have to spend sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars onboarding cybersecurity staff. They can outsource these responsibilities to experts at much lower cost.

Coté told Blaze News that some cybersecurity platforms covering 10 total devices can cost as little as a few hundred dollars a month.

Lipinski hesitated to estimate what cybersecurity might cost since different companies have so many different needs. "I've got small businesses that spend well over six figures a year just on cybersecurity protection," he told Blaze News, "and I've got other very large businesses that have thousands of employees that may spend less than that."

But regardless how much one spends, the real cost of cybersecurity, to borrow an apt phrase from Hamlet, lies "in the breach rather than the observance," both Coté and Lipinski indicated. While business owners must balance security with functionality, a breach in security brings almost all business operations to a grinding halt — and forces owners to give a public account for the error.

"How do you quantify the value of reputational damage?" Coté asked rhetorically. "You just can't."

Lipinski agreed, advising owners to conduct a "business impact analysis" when assessing their companies' risk. Those who can't afford to have operations suspended for two or three weeks should strongly consider more involved cyberattack prevention, he said.

Secondary consequences to breaches

Business owners quickly understand the hit that their bottom line and their professional reputation can take with just one security breach. What they may not consider are some of the indirect consequences that are likely to occur as well.

Lipinski noted two such indirect consequences. One is that other financial institutions may impose safeguards on business clients in order to protect themselves.

'Do you have a backup solution in place? Do you have funding in your bank? Can you cut manual checks? Do you know what people should get paid?'

"If you have a breach, and those credit cards are stolen, your payment processor, your bank, is probably not going to allow you to take credit cards any more," Lipinski said.

Another potential consequence he gave actually relates not to the business itself but one of its contractors. Using payroll as an example, Lipinski claimed that businesses must have protections in place to guard against breaches from one of their service providers.

"It's not unforeseen that they go down and have an outage for two or three weeks. So what does that do to your business?" he asked.

"Do you have a backup solution in place? Do you have funding in your bank? Can you cut manual checks? Do you know what people should get paid?" are all questions managers and bosses must consider when outsourcing vital company operations, Lipinski said.

'Probably one of the weakest vectors': The value of employee training

Another vital aspect of cybersecurity is staff training. "People are probably one of the weakest vectors," Coté said without judgment.

In an ideal world, all employees would immediately recognize when they've been approached by bad actors. Such criminals often attempt to convince employees to reveal critical information, a scam referred to as phishing, or to respond to fake emails, known as spoofing.

However, cybercriminals have come a long way from posing as Nigerian princes who just need a small up-front payment in exchange for a much larger reward down the road. Now, they often employ sophisticated disguises to conceal their antics.

For instance, criminals will sometimes send along an email using the name of a company boss and changing just one character of his or her email address to avoid detection. Coté gave the hypothetical email address robcote@companyabc.com as an example.

"Let's say I change the O in company to a zero," he said, turning that email address to robcote@c0mpanyabc.com.

"You may not even notice that when the email comes in."

Even the savviest employees can fall victim to such schemes.

Though hardly savvy, I — a former contract employee of a cybersecurity firm who has a strong connection to a cybersecurity professional — fell for a phishing scheme several months ago when a cyberattacker sent an alert to my phone, posing as Amazon, just as I was expecting an Amazon package with expedited shipping. Thankfully, I realized my error before I divulged sensitive information.

Coté said he has heard similar stories. He referenced a case in which an intelligent, hardworking employee who was used to making company purchases on behalf of her higher-ups bought several gift cards after receiving a spoofed email from a person pretending to be her boss.

Gift cards are a particularly clever idea for cybercriminals, Coté said. Once the seal protecting the card's information has been shared, the buyer has "no recourse."

Another burgeoning threat related to such scams is AI voice-modeling. Such AI models have advanced so much that they now practically have become "voice verification," Lipinski claimed.

And capturing enough of someone's pitch and cadence to generate a model is easy, Coté said. All it takes is a quick phone call for a criminal to establish a voice profile that can then be used to fool employees into sharing data or unwittingly handing over money or other valuables.

Other staff-related vulnerabilities

In addition to employees falling prey to bad actors, employees can also occasionally be bad actors themselves. Those who have been disciplined or who have received a lucrative job offer from a rival company may have a motive for sabotaging business operations at their current company.

One way to track potentially malicious behavior is to scan for unusual logins, Coté said.

"If [so-and-so] is always online between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m., and suddenly she logs in at 3 a.m. to your corporate environment and downloads two terabytes of data," he said, she may be up to no good.

In some cases, unusual behaviors are not actually malicious, Coté noted. It's easy to imagine benign circumstances under which an employee might conduct some business tasks at strange hours.

"It may have been that [so-and-so] was getting ready to leave town and needed two terabytes of data for a presentation for your company," he suggested, "but you don't know if you're not looking."

As with anything, cybersecurity tools and services come with drawbacks, many of which are borne by employees. Lengthy passwords are difficult to remember, and multiple sign-in requirements become annoying.

Lipinski advised owners to balance security concerns with the weight of cumbersome protection measures. "As a security professional, what pains me to say is there is a such thing as too much security, because if you put too many things in place and I prevent you from doing your job, then it's not effective at that point," he explained.

"You've got to find that medium."

IT vs. cybersecurity

Another point both Coté and Lipinski made was that IT and cybersecurity personnel perform two entirely separate functions, and small business owners would be wise not to entrust one person with handling both responsibilities.

"IT's job is to make things work, give you the tools that you need to do your job, to keep the applications and the network and the internet up and running," Lipinski argued, "where cybersecurity is an overlay above that that's looking at how we're doing certain things and trying to determine if there's a better or more secure way to be able to protect those assets or that data or those people."

"IT people don't understand cybersecurity," he continued. "They think differently. They act differently. Their roles are different in the organization."

Coté compared the two divisions to two company financial officers who perform completely different tasks, even though they both work with money. "Why do you have a CPA and why do you have a CFO?" he asked.

"The CFO manages your financials internally. The CPA checks up on the CFO to make sure that he or she is doing it right and they're not funneling money out."

Silence does not mean security

Both Coté and Lipinski cautioned that just because a business has never suffered a major cybersecurity breach does not mean that it is secure. Coté went so far as to say that a breach is almost "inevitable."

Perhaps even more worrisome is the fact that most cybersecurity attacks are not detected in real time. "A data breach, on average, takes nine months to discover," Coté asserted. "So ... you could have been breached six months ago. You just haven't figured it out yet."

Coté went on to liken preventive cybersecurity measures to insurance. "It is really a form of insurance because there's no way to say if I invest $10 on cybersecurity, I'll save $100," he said.

"Until you get attacked, you don't have a good baseline for knowing what it's really going to cost you."

Lipinski also reiterated something that all business owners, whether they understand cybersecurity or not, already know: The buck stops with them.

"I can't give you all of my risks," he said, speaking of business owners. "I have to understand what I still own and what I'm going to do about it."

"I gave you a part of my problem. I still own the other part."

Disclosure: The author of this piece has done contract work for Coté in the past, and a member of her family currently works for him.

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Will THIS Weakness Cause America to Lose World War III? | Zero Hour | Ep 54
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Will THIS Weakness Cause America to Lose World War III? | Zero Hour | Ep 54