• Lawmakers ripped into Army leaders on Friday, asking why the service this week canceled the imminent deployment of a brigade combat team to Poland.

    But Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and acting Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve had few answers about the decision. It wasn’t theirs, LaNeve told lawmakers at the House Armed Services Committee hearing.

    The general said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered U.S. European Command boss Gen. Alexus Grynkewich to reduce forces.

    “I've worked with [Grynkewich] in close consultation of what that force unit would be, and it made the most sense for that brigade to not do its deployment in theater,” he said.

    The cancellation, which was first reported by Military Times, means that the number of U.S. troops in Europe will drop below the legal mandate of 76,000 if the Pentagon completes its recently announced withdrawal of some 5,000 soldiers from Germany.  

    That led HASC Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., to threaten the Defense Department.

    “It is not the fault of the people in front of us today that we've had this apparent deviation, but know: we are going to mandate that the department follow the statutory minimums that are set in statute on force posture,” Rogers said. “And if there are attempted deviations, we will remedy them and impose a pain when—if—they aren't complied with.”

    The number of U.S. troops in Europe reached 100,000 after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but more recently has hovered around 80,000, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

    Multiple lawmakers expressed dismay Friday about the lack of transparency from the Pentagon about the reason for the canceled deployment, as well as the message it sends to European allies and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

    “If our adversaries are paying attention, is the cancellation of a deployment of a brigade combat team sending again the opposite signal in terms of our commitment to our allies in Eastern Europe?” said Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn. He pointed out that Poland is spending just under the 5 percent of its GDP, as suggested by NATO and urged by President Donald Trump since his first term.

    A Pentagon spokesman declined to say why the deployment of 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, was cancelled.

    Joel Valdez also declined to say whether the cancellation was related to the Pentagon’s May 1 announcement that it would withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany. That move came as Trump lashed out against European allies reluctant to help escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz during the the U.S. war on Iran.

    “The decision to withdraw troops follows a comprehensive, multilayered process that incorporates perspectives from key leaders in EUCOM and across the chain of command,” Valdez told Defense One on Friday. “This was not an unexpected, last-minute decision, and it would be false to report it as such.”

    But it surprised members of Congress, who expect to be notified about force-posture changes ahead of time. 

    Poland’s leaders were also blindsided, according to Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who said he’d spoken to Polish officials on Thursday.

    “These are some of our best allies, and they had no idea,” Bacon said.

    Valdez also declined to say why the deployment was cancelled.

    Last fall, the Pentagon canceled an Army deployment to Romania, with similarly thin explanations and backlash from Congress.

    Canceling a rotational deployment is more straightforward than removing troops based in a foreign country, which is the case for most of the troops in Germany, who are accompanied by their families. 

    Over the past decade, the Army has replaced thousands of soldiers who previously spent a handful of years living in Germany with rotational deployments throughout Europe.

    Recent moves to cut U.S. presence in Europe echo an even bigger slashing of troops in Germany that Trump ordered during the final months of his first term.

    In that case, DOD went through the motions of planning for a withdrawal, but the plan was ultimately dropped when Trump lost his bid for reelection.

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  • Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who last year gutted a Congressionally-created panel that oversaw his department’s legal community, is standing up a new one with a broader purview. 

    Hegseth’s latest unusual move comes three months after he ordered a “ruthless” review of military lawyers that some saw as an attempt to evade accountability.

    On Monday, the secretary released a video in which he said the new panel would conduct an "ongoing, long-term, department-wide review of all aspects of the military legal system as it affects our warriors.”

    Hegseth ordered up the panel in a May 8 memo to service secretaries, the Joint Chiefs staff, the military’s criminal investigation divisions, and the uniformed and civilian legal offices.

    The Defense Department declined to provide the memo. Defense One has reviewed the two-page document.

    “The [panel] will operate on a sustained basis rather than producing a single end-of-review report,” Hegseth wrote in the memo. “It will deliver interim reports and recommendations on specific issues as they are completed, with periodic updates to me. These reports will drive immediate reforms to cut unnecessary bureaucracy, strengthen training and organization, refine culture, and professionalize military justice implementation and command advice.” 

    Earl Matthews, the Defense Department’s general counsel, is to convene the panel. 

    In his memo, Hegseth wrote that the review is “not about diminishing the essential role of our uniformed and civilian legal experts” but to provide support for “effective legal advice that upholds the rule of law while enabling maximum mission effectiveness and decisive action.”

    Current and former military lawyers told Defense One that they’re skeptical. 

    Steve Lepper, a retired Air Force lawyer and a member of a group of former JAGs that has spoken out about the administration’s military actions, said creating the panel appears to be part of a power grab for legal oversight of the armed services. 

    “What the Pentagon here is doing is, they're basically wrestling from Congress this oversight of the JAG Corps and substituting his own panel for the panel they dismantled,” Lepper said.

    Hegseth’s memo suggests that earlier reviews of the military justice system fell short.

    “Previous assessments, including statutory reviews, GAO reports, and recent efforts to align legal functions, have provided valuable insights,” he wrote. “However, a more comprehensive and sustained examination is now required to ensure the system fully supports our warfighters, restores trust across the force, and delivers the legal support our commanders and troops deserve in an era of great-power competition.”

    The new panel is Hegseth’s latest unusual move regarding the department’s legal community. In his first weeks on the job, he fired the Army, Navy, and Air Force’s top lawyers, claiming they were “roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief.” The next month, he commissioned his personal lawyer into the Navy’s JAG corps.

    In March, Defense One first reported on the contents of a memo that ordered a split of duties between the Judge Advocate Generals and the general counsel offices, which raised fears among military lawyers and other experts that it would gut the legal oversight of the Trump administration’s actions. 

    A Defense Department spokesperson said Hegseth’s latest memo differsfrom his March directive but declined to say how or to describe findings produced in response to the earlier memo. 

    At least one of the service branches submitted its plan last month to deconflict duties between the uniformed and civilian to the Pentagon, the defense legal insider told Defense One.

    Those lawyers that haven’t been ousted or removed from the services or civilian offices have been stretched thin. In the Trump administration's first year, it greenlit the temporary assignment of more than 600 JAGs to work for the Justice Department as immigration judges. Earlier this year, Defense One reported that the administration had temporarily assigned dozens of military lawyers as federal prosecutors to support law-enforcement surges in Minneapolis and other cities.

    Yet Hegseth, who authorized the assignments, complained in March that “military lawyers are sometimes stuck doing civilian side work” and called it evidence that the legal shops are being mismanaged. 

    This week’s announcement comes amid a war on Iran that some experts have argued is illegal, and during international and domestic missions that have been criticized by former JAGs. 

    Lepper said it appears that the guidance of uniformed lawyers has been pushed aside during those operations.

    “What I'm hearing from other JAGs is that they're simply not being asked to provide input on the legal opinions that are being handed down by the executive branch that apply to things like the Iran conflict and the boat strikes,” he said. 

    Lepper said current military lawyers have told him that most legal opinions are being written by the White House Office of Legal Counsel, then handed to JAGs for implementation.

    “It's one thing not to consult JAGs, or not to give JAGs an opportunity to voice their views on the legal opinions that are being rendered by the executive branch,” he said. “It's another now again to put them under a microscope and suggest that somehow they're not doing their jobs.”

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  • The Russian state-sponsored hacking group known as Turla has transformed its custom backdoor Kazuar into a modular peer-to-peer (P2P) botnet that’s engineered for stealth and persistent access to compromised hosts. Turla, per the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), is assessed to be affiliated with Center 16 of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB)

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  • Hackers are hiding XWorm malware in PyInstaller files to bypass Windows security, steal data and remotely control devices through ads.

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  • Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a set of four security flaws in OpenClaw that could be chained to achieve data theft, privilege escalation, and persistence. The vulnerabilities, collectively dubbed Claw Chain by Cyera, can permit an attacker to establish a foothold, expose sensitive data, and plant backdoors. A brief description of the flaws is below –

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  • Gunra ransomware is rapidly evolving into a more structured and dangerous cybercrime operation after shifting from a Conti-based locker to its own Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model. First discovered in April 2025, the group initially targeted a small number of victims, but its recent operational changes have significantly increased its reach and impact across industries. Gunra first […]

    The post Gunra Ransomware Expands RaaS After Conti Locker Shift appeared first on GBHackers Security | #1 Globally Trusted Cyber Security News Platform.

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  • A newly disclosed vulnerability in VMware Fusion has raised serious security concerns after researchers confirmed it could allow attackers to escalate privileges to root on affected systems. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-41702, has been rated high severity with a CVSS score of 7.8, highlighting its potential impact in real-world environments. VMware Fusion Flaw Broadcom, which […]

    The post VMware Fusion Flaw Could Allow Attackers to Gain Root Privileges appeared first on GBHackers Security | #1 Globally Trusted Cyber Security News Platform.

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  • This week in cybersecurity from the editors at Cybercrime Magazine

    Sausalito, Calif. – May. 15, 2026

    Read the full story in SC Media

    According to the 2026 CISO Report from Cybersecurity Ventures, sponsored by Sophos, there are now about 35,000 full-time CISOs worldwide. Most of them are employed by larger enterprises.

    Small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) typically can’t justify the salary, staffing, and operational support required for a full-time executive-level security leader. But there are alternatives that enable SMBs to rent a CISO.

    virtual CISO typically operates remotely to serve multiple customers, offering broad expertise and scalability. This model gives clients access to seasoned professionals who understand compliance frameworks, governance, and incident.



    However, vCISOs may lack deep familiarity with an organization’s culture, workflows, and business priorities. And because they support multiple clients simultaneously, incident-response times during emergencies may vary.

    Fractional CISOs also serve multiple customers but attempt to solve some of these limitations by embedding more deeply into each client organization on a part-time basis. A fractional CISO may attend leadership meetings, develop closer operational relationships, and align security decisions more directly with business strategy.

    But fractional models also have tradeoffs. Availability can still be limited, especially when a widespread incident hits multiple clients at once. In practice, many SMBs that employ virtual or fractional CISOs find themselves balancing cost, continuity, and strategic depth.

    A recent SC Media article dives into a promising new category for SMBs: AI-assisted security leadership services which aims to combine AI-driven analytics, continuous control validation, threat intelligence, and human oversight delivered through managed security providers (MSPs) and managed security service providers (MSSPs).

    Read the Full Story


    Cybercrime Magazine is Page ONE for Cybersecurity. Go to any of our sections to read the latest:

    • SCAM. The latest schemes, frauds, and social engineering attacks being launched on consumers globally.
    • NEWS. Breaking coverage on cyberattacks and data breaches, and the most recent privacy and security stories.
    • HACK. Another organization gets hacked every day. We tell you who, what, where, when, and why.
    • VC. Cybersecurity venture capital deal flow with the latest investment activity from various sources around the world.
    • M&A. Cybersecurity mergers and acquisitions including big tech, pure cyber, product vendors and professional services.
    • BLOG. What’s happening at Cybercrime Magazine. Plus the stories that don’t make headlines (but maybe they should).
    • PRESS. Cybersecurity industry news and press releases in real time from the editors at Business Wire.
    • PODCAST. New episodes daily on the Cybercrime Magazine Podcast feature victims, law enforcement, vendors, and cybersecurity experts.
    • RADIO. Tune into WCYB Digital Radio at Cybercrime.Radio, the first and only round-the-clock internet radio station devoted to cybersecurity.

    Contact us to send story tips, feedback and suggestions, and for sponsorship opportunities and custom media productions.

    The post AI-Assisted Cybersecurity Leadership Services For Small And Mid-Sized Businesses (SMBs) appeared first on Cybercrime Magazine.

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  • Shai-Hulud is a major cybersecurity threat targeting the open-source software supply chain. Security researchers are raising alarms over “Shai-Hulud,” a self-propagating npm worm designed to steal sensitive developer credentials from GitHub, AWS, Kubernetes, and local environments. The campaign, tracked by SlowMist’s MistEye threat intelligence platform, is already being described as one of the largest npm […]

    The post Shai-Hulud Worm Steals Dev Secrets Across npm, GitHub, AWS & Kubernetes appeared first on GBHackers Security | #1 Globally Trusted Cyber Security News Platform.

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  • A powerful zero-click exploit chain for the Pixel 10 that can take an attacker from a remote Dolby decoding bug to full kernel control through a single vulnerable video processing driver. The work shows both how quickly Google can now patch critical issues and how shallow mistakes in vendor drivers can still undermine Android’s security […]

    The post Google Project Zero Details Pixel 10 Zero-Click Exploit Chain appeared first on GBHackers Security | #1 Globally Trusted Cyber Security News Platform.

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