 A White House-backed fund aims to improve the U.S.'s cybersecurity and artificial intelligence capabilities. This fund is also supported by several tech entrepreneurs, such as Eric Schmidt and Peter Thiel. More: - The fund, officially named America's Frontier Fund, will invest in ideas that will advance numerous verticals that are considered deep tech. The verticals include quantum computing, fusion, 6G technology, advanced manufacturing, etc.
- While the White House has not given a lot of details on the initiative, the fund's website states that the U.S. risks losing its position as the primary innovator in several new technologies. Therefore, this initiative is seen as a possible solution to the problem.
- America's Frontier Fund will be led by Gilman Louie, a business executive who has also served as the head of the CIA's investment vehicle.
- The new initiative has been at least partially influenced by a strategy document compiled under the administration of former President Trump. The document is over 700 pages long and contains advice compiled through research by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. This commission was also led by Eric Schmidt, confirming that there is a consistency between the two initiatives.
Zoom Out - U.S. officials have previously addressed the I.T. supremacy issue between the U.S. and China, claiming that the U.S. is winning the quantum computing race.
- The U.S. budget for cybersecurity for the 2023 fiscal year will be $11B, an 11% increase YoY.
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 Russian threat actors managed to hack Congress briefly. The attack was carried out by KillNet, a hacker group that has been actively working against Western countries and organizations. More: - The attack breached public access to the Library of Congress, and the outage caused by this hack lasted for a few hours.
- According to Congress, the threat actor did not manage to steal any delicate data or information.
- Killnet wrote a message on its Telegram channel, mocking the U.S.'s cybersecurity spending and its ability to protect itself from cyber-attacks.
Zoom Out: - The Killnet hacker group has consistently been involved in hacking campaigns. This collective recently cyber-attacked Norway's public service websites.
- Killnet attacked Lithuania's security systems soon after the country decided to block travel routes that passed through Kaliningrad.
- Russian-backed hackers have targeted hundreds of U.S. organizations ever since the war in Ukraine started a few months ago.
- President Joe Biden has signed numerous cybersecurity bills that aim to increase the U.S.'s capability to defend itself in case of a cyber-attack, as well as improve the general cyber capabilities in federal agencies.
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 TikTok suspended an update over privacy concerns from Italy's data protection authority. The app had planned on targeting users with specific ads that would be shown without their permission. More: - Italy's data protection authority stated that users need to give explicit approval in order for their data to be collected and that TikTok would not be allowed to proceed further without adapting to these directives.
- TikTok's recent changes affect users who live in the EEA area, the U.K., and Switzerland. The update will not go into effect yet in the EU, however, as Italy's claims have raised privacy questions over the legitimacy of this move in the country as well as the entire European Union.
- The ByteDance-owned social media app has vowed that it adheres to privacy rules and that it has never abused user data and collected information that the users have not been aware of.
Zoom Out: - TikTok has been at the center of controversy numerous times. President Donald Trump famously wanted Microsoft to acquire the app to ensure that it would respect U.S. privacy laws.
- Six U.S. senators recently asked that the Biden Administration give an update on the ongoing investigations regarding Tik Tok's privacy abuse claims.
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 PyPI software repository administrators have announced that they will make two-factor authentication security mandatory. The announcement comes as there have been numerous instances of successful cyberattacks against similar software companies and organizations. More: - PyPI is managed by the Python foundation, which has over 350,000 projects in general.
- Python is one of the most widely used languages today, being utilized in everything from data science to web development and cyber security. The language has grown by over 500% in recent years and now counts 7 million developers, while the word Python was Googled in 2018 more than Kim Kardashian. Due to this popularity, Python is used as the first language beginners use to learn programming, which makes it an attractive target for threat actors.
- PyPI will distribute 4,000 hardware security keys to make any potential breaches less likely. Out of all these projects, 3,500 are considered critical.
Zoom Out: - PyPI libraries have been abused before by hackers. Last year, 11 libraries were used as malware-spreading threat vectors, stealing Discord tokens and log-in credentials.
- 2FA is a security feature that enables a user to increase their log-in security by using multiple security steps. The most common way this technology is used is through a third-party code generator.
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 Paladin Cloud has announced that it raised $3.3M in a seed funding round. The startup aims to help developers keep their apps safe from threat actors. More: - The funding round was co-led by Okapi Venture Capital and Bowery Capital, while participants include Samsung Next, T-Mobile Ventures, SaaS Ventures, Touchdown Ventures, and UST.
- Paladin aims to differentiate itself by providing developers with a plug-in technology that allows them to combine different stacks and technologies to build their products. Developers can choose from multiple repositories and cyber security systems.
- The technology Paladin has built is compatible with the most popular cloud solutions such as Amazon AWS and Google, but users also have the chance to take advantage of the open-source option and customize certain processes.
Zoom Out: - Cloud technology has become an important target for hackers because many companies now rely on it to store all of their critical data. A former AWS employee was recently convicted of a hack that caused $270M in damages.
- A hacker was also recently sentenced for scamming both Amazon and Google and stealing over $5M in the process.
- AWS was also breached by hackers earlier this year. Airport employees in Peru and Columbia had over 3TB of personal data stolen due to bad security hygiene from the staff that managed the AWS server.
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- Melius Cyber has raised $352,000 in a round led by North East Venture Fund. The company offers pen-testing tools that help companies stay safe.
- The German Federal Ministry of Interior Affairs has presented a new strategy for cybersecurity. The German government has re-evaluated its priorities regarding this field after the war in Ukraine has highlighted the importance cybersecurity plays in a wide range of key industries.
- The University of Florida and the CIA have launched a partnership with the purpose of researching Artificial Intelligence and its effect on cyber attacks.
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 |  | Arbër is an Inside writer who also has experience in entrepreneurship. He has experience covering Consumer Tech, Venture Capital, NFTs, Crypto, etc. Arbër holds a Bachelor's degree in Business from XAMK University in Finland. When he is not reading(and writing) business news, he chooses to watch sports or anime...and then read news about sports or anime. |   | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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