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RondoDox botnet exploits 56 known flaws in over 30 device types, including DVRs, CCTV systems, and servers, active globally since June. Trend Micro researchers reported that the RondoDox botnet exploits 56 known flaws in over 30 device types, including DVRs, NVRs, CCTV systems, and web servers, active globally since June. Experts noted that the latest […]
The new QJZ171 heavy machine gun is being quietly fielded in large numbers by the PLA Ground Force, with especially in mountainous regions where its lighter weight and improved portability offer clear advantages. Reports also suggest that the QJZ171 is…
AUSA annual meeting to feature a rare public discussion of Pentagon’s new homeland focus.
In legal briefs, 17 current Republican attorneys general support the president, while a bipartisan group of former governors objects.
A French Navy frigate has been conducting surveillance of a Russian submarine operating on the surface off the coast of Brittany, according to NATO Maritime Command.
The post NATO tracks surfaced Russian submarine off France first appeared on UK Defence Journal.
Gen. Wilsbach declined to endorse the service’s ongoing reorganization to counter China.
ClayRat Android spyware targets Russian users via fake Telegram channels and phishing sites posing as popular apps like WhatsApp and YouTube. The ClayRat Android spyware campaign targets Russian users via fake Telegram channels and phishing sites posing as popular apps like Google Photos, WhatsApp, TikTok, YouTube. Zimperium named the spyware ClayRat after its C2 server, […]
The midship double bottoms for HMS Formidable have been transferred into the purpose built Venturer Building at Rosyth.
The post Assembly advances on new Royal Navy warship first appeared on UK Defence Journal.
‘Stop trying to control every step’ of shipbuilding, senator tells Navy. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., a freshman senator and former SEAL, thinks the sea service needs to abandon its decades-old practice of being extremely hands-on during the construction of its ever-more-complicated warships.
An average naval officer is not a shipbuilding expert. They’re just not,” Sheehy said Wednesday at a CSIS maritime-security event. “It takes decades to build that institutional knowledge of not just naval architecture, but also knowledge of the industrial base, to effectively build the ship and build it fast and build it right. And the Navy lost that institutional knowledge decades ago.” And, he said, if the Navy can shift its focus from requirements—and change orders—to outcomes, the rest of the Pentagon may follow.
Spread the repair workload. For his part, Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Tim Kaine, D-Va., said the Navy should look to share maintenance and repair work with allies and partners. “We have to be 100 percent better. And that is not incremental, that is, again, expanding your capacity through creative work with allies and bringing the private sector—and the innovative part of the private sector, not just the incumbent part of the private sector—bringing them in a much more robust way,” Kaine said at the same event. Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams has more, here.
Lawmakers call for more defense biotech research as China pursues breakthroughs. As the Trump administration slashes scientific research funding, Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., and his colleagues are hoping to impress upon the executive branch the necessity of biotech as a national-security priority. “One general category in which the Chinese, in particular, are out-classing us, is in bio-manufacturing, industrial applications of biotech – new materials, for example – and new life-saving compounds that could be a great utility to warfighters,” Young said at a Wednesday event hosted by the With Honor Institute.
See 49 recommendations for how the U.S. can invest in and use biotech in defense from an April report by Young’s National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology. Defense One’s Meghann Myers reports, here.
Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1969, Illinois Gov. Richard Ogilvie ordered more than 2,500 Chicago-area National Guard troops to assist police after protests spread during the trial of the “Chicago Eight,” who were charged with fomenting unrest during the previous year’s Democratic convention.
Sinking speedboats in the Caribbean won’t stop drugs from getting to the United States, writes the New York Times in an illustrated (and animated) explainer. The Trump administration has said that it is attacking boats—four in the past month—and killing all on board because they are smuggling drugs from Venezuela. “But Mr. Trump’s focus on Venezuela is at odds with reality: The vast majority of cocaine is produced and smuggled elsewhere in Latin America, according to data from the United States, Colombia and the United Nations. And Venezuela does not supply fentanyl at all, experts say.” The Times has maps, charts, and stats, here.
Related reading:
Update: Trump’s Pentagon has opened nearly 300 investigations into critics of the slain far-right activist Charlie Kirk, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. The probes span service members, civilian workers and contractors, but they’ve resulted in just “a smattering of disciplinary action” so far.
Additional reading:
National Guard members from Texas were seen Thursday morning at an ICE facility in Chicago, the local Sun-Times newspaper reports. At least three vans with about 45 Texan National Guard troops arrived at the Broadview ICE facility late Wednesday. The troops can be seen in a video posted to social media Thursday morning. An estimated 200 Texas soldiers are in the Chicago area.
Later today, U.S. District Judge April Perry is set to hear arguments over Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s request for a temporary restraining order to block the deployment of both Illinois and Texas Guard members to Chicago. “The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, had arrived Tuesday at a U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles (89 kilometers) southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days,” the Associated Press reports.
Update: Clergy and faith leaders have joined protests at the ICE facility in Broadview. “Three say they’ve been shot with pepper balls, sometimes while praying,” the Religion News Service reported Tuesday.
More dissent from Democratic lawmakers: “This is the fourth time that Trump has taken the extreme and dangerous move to send the military into an American city without the consent of state and local authorities,” Rep. John Garamendi of California said in a statement Wednesday. “The Founders made clear the distinction between presidents and kings. Presidents do not get personal militaries, dictators do,” he said. “Fearful of kings and occupying military forces, our Founders thought hard about how to ensure military forces were responsive to lawful, civilian control and not inappropriately used against their fellow citizens…These actions are unacceptable and contrary to the democratic values our nation was founded upon.”
Mapped: See how militarism is spreading across U.S. cities targeted by Trump in this map from the Associated Press, published Wednesday.
Trump held a roundtable discussion with mostly far-right influencers Wednesday to signal aggressive new measures targeting anti-fascism protesters. Attorney General Pam Bondi attended, and told the president in front of cameras Wednesday, “Just like we did with cartels, we are going to take the same approach, President Trump, with antifa—destroy the entire organization from top to bottom. We are going to take them apart.”
Critical reax: “Cartels have actual leadership structures, central funding, command and control, and more,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council pointed out on social media. “‘Antifa’ is mostly a philosophy. That the Attorney General doesn’t know the difference is quite the thing to admit!”
Trump called protesters “paid anarchists,” and claimed, “They’re like insurrectionists. They’re terrible people, but you really wonder why. Why are they doing it? What are they gaining? Other than they’re obviously paid. They’re paid a lot of money.” He also told his audience at the roundtable, “You’ll be finding it out very soon, you should see what we have on these people. These are bad people. These are people that want to destroy our country. We’re not going to let it happen.”
The White House on Wednesday also released a screed targeting the city of Portland, Oregon, which it claimed has been turned “into a wasteland of firebombs, beatings, and brazen attacks on federal officers and property” because of “an Antifa-led hellfire.”
“Premeditated anarchy” is what Trump called protests in Portland. “That’s why, as President Donald J. Trump mobilizes federal resources to safeguard lives and property,” the White House said in its Portland flier.
See for yourself: Here’s on-the-ground video from protests in Portland on Tuesday.
Deportation-nation update: The U.S. conducted at least 1,464 immigration enforcement flights last month, including removals to 48 countries, according to open-source observers at ICE Flight Monitor from Human Rights First. That represents “the highest monthly total to date, averaging 49 flights per day.”
During such flights, “individuals are nearly always restrained by handcuffs, waist chains and leg irons, including during any layovers and fuel stops,” HRF writes, noting, “The harsh conditions during enforcement flights raise serious human rights concerns.”
Additional reading:
Developing: Israel and Hamas appear to be close to forging some kind of ceasefire in Gaza. “Israel said a truce would take effect on Friday and start a 72-hour window to exchange hostages and prisoners,” the New York Times reports almost exactly two years after the conflict erupted with a brutal surprise attack by Hamas militants. Trump said he’s considering traveling to the region sometime this weekend, too.
Caveats: This “initial agreement addresses only a few of the 20 points in a plan Mr. Trump proposed last month, and some of the most difficult issues between Israel and Hamas appeared to have been left to a future phase of negotiations. Those include who would rule postwar Gaza and whether, to what degree and how Hamas would lay down its weapons.”
And lastly: A Scottish maritime museum somehow ended up in Israel’s video models of alleged Hamas infrastructure, Israel’s progressive +972 Mag reported Wednesday.
The gist: As Israel’s military responded to the Hamas attack two years ago, its three-dimensional illustrations posted to social media “coalesced into a distinct and consistent visual style. They usually begin with satellite imagery, followed by transitions into 3D visualizations that then often present an X-ray wireframe view of an interior or underground scene, intercut with real drone footage of airstrikes or bombings.”
However, after reviewing 43 animations produced by the Israeli army since October 7, 2023, “many contain serious spatial inaccuracies or prefabricated assets—sourced not from classified intelligence but rather from commercial libraries, content creators, and cultural institutions.” And one of those inaccuracies included “scans from a boat-building workshop in Scotland” that had been “uploaded to the internet by the Scottish Maritime Museum under an unrestricted Creative Commons license.” Those files were used by Israel to illustrate alleged “Hamas bunkers or Iranian weapons facilities.”
So far, more than 50 third-party assets lifted from unrelated artists and institutions have been identified, and those “were replicated hundreds of times across animations of sites ranging from Gaza to Iran,” reporter Oren Ziv writes. Story, here.
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The affected workers including some at CISA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard. Some have been given a week to respond.
