1010.cx

  • Microsoft Teams Outage Causes Global Messaging Delays and Service Interruptions

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    Microsoft Teams users worldwide experienced significant service disruptions on December 20, 2025, as the collaboration platform encountered widespread issues affecting messaging functionality and other critical service operations. The company has acknowledged the incident and is actively investigating the root cause. According to Microsoft 365 Status updates, users reported experiencing delays in message delivery and problems […]

    The post Microsoft Teams Outage Causes Global Messaging Delays and Service Interruptions appeared first on GBHackers Security | #1 Globally Trusted Cyber Security News Platform.

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  • Another 1,000 more defense companies chosen for $151-billion Golden Dome competition

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    More firms have been tapped to compete for the historic 151-billion Golden Dome contract vehicle, with the number of awards to develop related technology more than doubling as of Thursday evening. 

    The Missile Defense Agency made an additional 1,086 awards out of 2,463 offers received for the multiple-award indefinite-delivery/quantity contract dubbed Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense, or SHIELD. The latest round of awards follows the initial announcement that the Pentagon had identified 1,014 companies for MDA’s Golden Dome missile defense efforts. Experts said the first award was one of the largest potential contracts of all time, and between the two announcements, 2,100 awardees have been identified. The list of the latest defense firms in the competition is available here.

    “This contract encompasses a broad range of work areas that allows for the rapid delivery of innovative capabilities to the warfighter with increased speed and agility, leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning enabled applications where pertinent, and maximizing use of digital engineering, open systems architectures, model-based systems engineering, and agile processes in the acquisition, development, and sustainment of these capabilities,” the Pentagon said in its Thursday announcement.

    The latest list of awardees includes prime contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX’s Raytheon.

    Thursday’s announcement came the same day as a new executive order from President Donald Trump, which stated that establishing new technology for a missile defense shield across the country was key to “securing and defending American vital national and economic security interests” in space. 

    Trump’s executive order, titled “Ensuring American Space Superiority,” mostly focused on space exploration but also points to his Jan. 27 presidential action establishing the Golden Dome initiative and sets a goal of developing and demonstrating next-generation missile defense technologies by 2028. 

    The Pentagon has acknowledged that work for the SHIELD contract vehicle will likely take a decade. Companies will not be paid based on this month’s awards, but rather once orders for the Golden Dome-related technology are placed.

    “If all options are exercised, work will continue through December 2035,” the announcement said. “No funds will be obligated on the base IDIQ award; funds will be obligated at the order level.”

    Most of the architecture for the ambitious and sprawling Golden Dome initiative—which has been pitched by the president as a one-stop defense against ICBMs, hypersonic missiles, drones, and other advanced aerial threats—has been kept secret. One key component of the architecture that’s been acknowledged is space-based interceptors, which would destroy an incoming missile during various flight stages. 

    Last month, the Space Force awarded multiple contracts to several companies under a competitive but secret “other transaction agreement,” which kept the winners' identities out of public view. The service is also seeking prototype proposals for a space-based “kinetic midcourse interceptor,” which would destroy a missile mid-flight by direct collision, versus an explosive warhead.

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  • Pentagon preps to enforce ban on companies with ‘indirect’ ties to China

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    The Pentagon wants to eliminate Chinese military companies from the defense industry’s supply chains, so it’s preparing to alert contractors next year of any possible ties before a Congress-mandated ban takes effect, a defense policy official said Wednesday. 

    The Defense Department keeps a public list of banned “Chinese-military companies,” which it updates periodically. But avoiding companies with indirect ties can be more challenging than avoiding companies on that list, particularly since some prime contractors don’t know the affiliations of their subcontractors. 

    “There's a lot of firms that are doing business, either knowingly or unknowingly, with firms that are connected to [banned] firms,” Michael Cadenazzi, the Pentagon’s head of industrial base policy, said during an Atlantic Council event on Wednesday. “We need to illuminate those challenges and those connections. We need to connect with the programs and the firms that are likely affected by this. And we need to [make] a direct effort to go ahead and remove them.”

    Congress prohibited the government from doing business with certain China-based companies directly, as part of section 1260H of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, and indirectly, as part of section 805 of the 2024 NDAA. Enforcement for the latter is expected to take full effect by June 30, 2027, according to the bill text. 

    “People need to get ahead of it, because if you're starting to ask for a waiver starting in [2027], I think that's going to be a painful process for everyone,” Cadenazzi said. 

    That banned list is the basis for enforcement, and starting next year it will be consequential, according to a formal defense official. 

    “Being on the 1260H list is a flag and it may make a contracting officer look twice as to whether this is a relationship in which they want to engage,” the former official said. 

    Starting in June 2026, the Pentagon will be banned from directly entering into any new or renewed contracts with companies on that list. And in June 2027, the Defense Department won’t be able to contract—even indirectly— with end-products or services developed by entities on the 1260H banned list. 

    That indirect ban has a nuance in that it doesn't apply to components, but it’s not clear yet how the Pentagon will address that.

    “In DOD procurement, there's a difference between a component and an end item that's ready to be used immediately,” the official said. “The components of that car—the spark plugs and the gas cap and the engine, perhaps. Those components are not affected by this indirect procurement ban. So, it'll be very interesting to see how DOD interprets that to give this indirect ban teeth in a way that matters, while at the same time not requiring DOD to go under the hood of the car…which is not usually feasible.” 

    The plan dovetails with the Pentagon’s inaugural defense industrial strategy and implementation plan published in 2024, which called for assessing supply chain vulnerabilities and onshoring critical production capacity over the next several years. 

    “Diversifying supply chains through domestic investment will bolster resilience in the most critical supply chains, which currently rely partially on sources outside of the United States,” the implementation plan states. “Securely producing the defense products, services, and technologies needed now and in the future at sufficient speed, scale, and cost requires a host of measures to mitigate or eliminate critical supply chain vulnerabilities, including single or sole sourcing and supply chains linked to adversarial actions. The most urgent of these measures address supply chain visibility, on-shoring and ‘friend-shoring,’ sole sourcing, cyber security, and bulwarks against sourcing materials and capital from adversaries.” 

    Next year, the Pentagon plans to help companies track their subcontractors’ affiliations using “available supply chain illumination data” to identify risks, notify partners, and then find “a mechanism by which we can track it over time,” Cadenazzi said. 

    The move will likely push companies to look for alternative suppliers, which could, in turn, create domestic supply chains and potentially rely on those of allies and partners. 

    “We think it's going to be a great opportunity [for] us to shift investment into domestic firms and increase the amount of demand,” Cadenazzi said. “And that's a key part of the acquisition transformation strategy itself…increasing the demand signal for firms. So, anything we can do to increase demand is a great thing. We think this will be a key enabler of that.”

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  • Criminal IP and Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR integrate to bring AI-driven exposure intelligence to automated incident response

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    Torrance, United States / California, December 19th, 2025, CyberNewsWire Criminal IP (criminalip.io), the AI-powered threat intelligence and attack surface monitoring platform developed by AI SPERA, is now officially integrated into Palo Alto Networks’ Cortex XSOAR. The integration embeds real-time external threat context, exposure intelligence, and automated multi-stage scanning directly into Cortex XSOAR’s orchestration engine, giving security […]

    The post Criminal IP and Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR integrate to bring AI-driven exposure intelligence to automated incident response appeared first on GBHackers Security | #1 Globally Trusted Cyber Security News Platform.

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  • To foster Middle East peace and prosperity, help Kurdistan fend off extremists

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    On Nov. 26, as Americans prepared for Thanksgiving, extremist militias in Iraq launched drones and rockets at the only U.S.-funded gas field in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Khor Mor. This attack was an assault on the democratic values of the Kurdish people, who share the same values as America; and it was a thumb in the eye to President Trump’s bold vision of a Middle East defined by peace, prosperity, and economic cooperation with the United States. If we want this vision to become reality, the U.S. and Kurdistan must ensure these extremist attacks stop and that Kurdistan can defend its people and its American partners.

    The Kurdistan Region of Iraq has stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States for decades. In President Trump’s first term, Kurdish Peshmerga worked hand-in-glove with the brave men and women of the U.S. military to defeat ISIS, and we have continued working with them to root out terrorist cells and stem the tide of violence in the Middle East. We want to expand our partnership with the Trump administration to promote the president’s focus on energy, investment, and long-term stability. 

    Since the start of the year, the Kurdistan Region has taken steps to strengthen the economic partnership with the United States. Energy cooperation has grown, new investments are underway, and both Americans and Kurds stand to see significant economic returns befitting a “golden age.” 

    When asked about the Khor Mor attack after his Dec. 2 cabinet meeting, President Trump said  protecting the Kurdish people was important to him. Kurdistan is exceptionally thankful for his support, and we are eager to demonstrate that gratitude by opening our doors to even greater U.S. investment, cooperation, and mutually beneficial trade. 

    The benefits of a robust U.S.-Kurdistan relationship are clear. Kurdistan is an energy-rich region capable of exporting nearly 450,000 barrels of oil a day. More than 40 international companies — including major U.S. firms — operate there under production-sharing agreements, and the U.S. government has directly supported several of these investments—including some $250 million in Khor Mor. As President Trump seeks to dramatically expand America’s energy presence at home and abroad, Kurdistan is fertile ground for American energy companies to expand their portfolios and reap returns on investments. 

    We’ve made progress already. The Kurdistan Regional Government signed major contracts with two Texas-based companies worth $110 billion this year. With support from the Trump administration, we also succeeded in convincing Baghdad to end its two-year blockade of Kurdish oil exports. And, for the first time, the U.S. government sponsored a U.S. Chamber of Commerce trade delegation that brought major companies — including Google, IBM, Visa, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola — to Kurdistan to explore new opportunities.

    Kurdistan is becoming a promising destination for the kind of U.S. investment that President Trump is seeking the Middle East. But as long as radical militias continue to target our energy infrastructure, we cannot reach the full potential of this partnership. Protecting both U.S. and Kurdish interests requires coordinated action.

    Make no mistake: the Kurdish people, like the American people, do not accept demands from extremists. We will continue working with our American friends for mutual benefit as we have for decades—we just need to take action now to make that possible. 

    There are two urgent steps we can take. First, the U.S. should complete delivery of the air and drone defense systems that were promised in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act but not yet delivered. These systems would allow Kurdistan to defend itself and its partners, protect workers and civilians, and deter future attacks so economic cooperation can continue without disruption. Importantly, this will also ensure that the United States will not need additional boots on the ground in the region.

    Second, the Trump administration should continue urging the Iraqi government to disarm non-state armed actors that have destabilized our region for years. As U.S. Special Envoy to Iraq Mark Savaya recently said, “there is no place for such armed groups in a fully sovereign Iraq.” Congress has reinforced this point in the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which conditions U.S. military assistance on credible steps by the Iraqi government to disarm these groups, while appropriately exempting Kurdish Peshmerga forces. Continued diplomatic pressure like this, in coordination with the Kurdistan Region, is essential to turn these commitments into action and bring an end to militia-driven violence once and for all.

    President Trump has made clear that strengthening America’s energy sector is a priority. Kurdistan is ready to contribute. We have the resources, experience, and commitment to become a major energy and economic partner for the United States. If we work together to curb extremism and build the defenses needed to keep our region safe, we will all be stronger for it.

    Treefa Aziz is the Kurdistan Regional Government Representative to the United States.

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  • The Pentagon wants a common network for its counter-drone systems

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    An Army-led task force is looking for one command-and-control system that can run any of the counter-unmanned aerial systems equipment that government agencies can buy through their online marketplace.

    All of the different military installations running cUAS systems in one region, for example, need to be able to share data, the leader of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 told reporters on Friday, but the licenses for shared software are expensive.

    “That new capability has got to plug in immediately to a common C2 framework, and so I'm excited about that. We plan to do that in the next 90 days,” said Brig. Gen. Matt Ross. “That's a huge lift, if you look at an enterprise-wide license—that usually takes over a year—but it will make a big difference for all of our installation commanders and for our services.”

    Since the task force stood up in August, Ross and his team have been focused and testing and evaluating cUAS system components that can then go onto the marketplace, as well as standardizing training on the systems that will be used across the Defense Department, the Homeland Security Department and the FBI.

    The FBI-run National Counter-UAS Center is now preparing law enforcement for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will see matches played in New York, Los Angeles, Houston and several other major U.S. cities.

    Ross and his task force have been working closely with federal agencies to prepare for any drone threats during the World Cup, he said, “to make sure that they have an informed picture of the threat and understanding of what these systems can and cannot do, make sure that they have access to counter-UAS capability.”

    DHS is well-equipped to deal with larger drone threats, Ross added, but his task force focuses on drones that weigh under 55 lbs. Not only is it inefficient to shoot them down with missiles, but the assumption is they’ll be used over populated areas that would take too much collateral damage with that strategy.

    “I want to make sure that we have just as robust protection against Group 1 and Group 2 systems that are smaller and much more likely to be seen over a widely attended gathering, stadium, or a watch party specifically for the World Cup,” he said.

    Army Secretary Dan Driscoll met with local law enforcement from the cities two weeks ago, Ross added, to talk about threats and ways to mitigate them. 

    “And that includes active patrolling, that includes putting out notices to the population about not bringing your drones to the game,” he said, as well as prosecuting anyone who does fly their drones to the fullest extent of the law.

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  • Russia-Linked Hackers Use Microsoft 365 Device Code Phishing for Account Takeovers

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    A suspected Russia-aligned group has been attributed to a phishing campaign that employs device code authentication workflows to steal victims’ Microsoft 365 credentials and conduct account takeover attacks. The activity, ongoing since September 2025, is being tracked by Proofpoint under the moniker UNK_AcademicFlare. The attacks involve using compromised email addresses belonging to government

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  • Keyboard Lag Leads Amazon to North Korean Impostor in Remote Role

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    Amazon Security Chief explains how a subtle keyboard delay exposed a North Korean impostor. Read about the laptop farm scheme and how 110 milliseconds of lag ended a major corporate infiltration.

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  • Cracked Software and YouTube Videos Spread CountLoader and GachiLoader Malware

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    Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new campaign that has used cracked software distribution sites as a distribution vector for a new version of a modular and stealthy loader known as CountLoader. The campaign “uses CountLoader as the initial tool in a multistage attack for access, evasion, and delivery of additional malware families,” Cyderes Howler Cell Threat Intelligence

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  • Dismantling Defenses: Trump 2.0 Cyber Year in Review

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    The Trump administration has pursued a staggering range of policy pivots this past year that threaten to weaken the nation’s ability and willingness to address a broad spectrum of technology challenges, from cybersecurity and privacy to countering disinformation, fraud and corruption. These shifts, along with the president’s efforts to restrict free speech and freedom of the press, have come at such a rapid clip that many readers probably aren’t even aware of them all.

    FREE SPEECH

    President Trump has repeatedly claimed that a primary reason he lost the 2020 election was that social media and Big Tech companies had conspired to silence conservative voices and stifle free speech. Naturally, the president’s impulse in his second term has been to use the levers of the federal government in an effort to limit the speech of everyday Americans, as well as foreigners wishing to visit the United States.

    In September, Donald Trump signed a national security directive known as NSPM-7, which directs federal law enforcement officers and intelligence analysts to target “anti-American” activity, including any “tax crimes” involving extremist groups who defrauded the IRS. According to extensive reporting by journalist Ken Klippenstein, the focus of the order is on those expressing “opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology,” as well as “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-Christianity.”

    Earlier this month, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo advising the FBI to compile a list of Americans whose activities “may constitute domestic terrorism.” Bondi also ordered the FBI to establish a “cash reward system” to encourage the public to report suspected domestic terrorist activity. The memo states that domestic terrorism could include “opposition to law and immigration enforcement” or support for “radical gender ideology.”

    The Trump administration also is planning to impose social media restrictions on tourists as the president continues to ramp up travel restrictions for foreign visitors. According to a notice from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), tourists — including those from Britain, Australia, France, and Japan — will soon be required to provide five years of their social media history.

    The CBP said it will also collect “several high value data fields,” including applicants’ email addresses from the past 10 years, their telephone numbers used in the past five years, and names and details of family members. Wired reported in October that the US CBP executed more device searches at the border in the first three months of the year than any other previous quarter.

    The new requirements from CBP add meat to the bones of Executive Order 14161, which in the name of combating “foreign terrorist and public safety threats” granted broad new authority that civil rights groups warn could enable a renewed travel ban and expanded visa denials or deportations based on perceived ideology. Critics alleged the order’s vague language around “public safety threats,” creates latitude for targeting individuals based on political views, national origin, or religion. At least 35 nations are now under some form of U.S. travel restrictions.

    CRIME AND CORRUPTION

    In February, Trump ordered executive branch agencies to stop enforcing the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which froze foreign bribery investigations, and even allows for “remedial actions” of past enforcement actions deemed “inappropriate.”

    The White House also disbanded the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative and KleptoCapture Task Force — units which proved their value in corruption cases and in seizing the assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs — and diverted resources away from investigating white-collar crime.

    Also in February, Attorney General Pam Bondi dissolved the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, an entity created during Trump’s first term designed to counter the influence of foreign governments on American politics.

    In March 2025, Reuters reported that several U.S. national security agencies had halted work on a coordinated effort to counter Russian sabotage, disinformation and cyberattacks. Former President Joe Biden had ordered his national security team to establish working groups to monitor the issue amid warnings from U.S. intelligence that Russia was escalating a shadow war against Western nations.

    In a test of prosecutorial independence, Trump’s Justice Department ordered prosecutors to drop the corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams. The fallout was immediate: Multiple senior officials resigned in protest, the case was reassigned, and chaos engulfed the Southern District of New York (SDNY) – historically one of the nation’s most aggressive offices for pursuing public corruption, white-collar crime, and cybercrime cases.

    When it comes to cryptocurrency, the administration has shifted regulators at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) away from enforcement to cheerleading an industry that has consistently been plagued by scams, fraud and rug-pulls. The SEC in 2025 systematically retreated from enforcement against cryptocurrency operators, dropping major cases against Coinbase, Binance, and others.

    Perhaps the most troubling example involves Justin Sun, the Chinese-born founder of crypto currency company Tron. In 2023, the SEC charged Sun with fraud and market manipulation. Sun subsequently invested $75 million in the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial (WLF) tokens, became the top holder of the $TRUMP memecoin, and secured a seat at an exclusive dinner with the president.

    In late February 2025, the SEC dropped its lawsuit. Sun promptly took Tron public through a reverse merger arranged by Dominari Securities, a firm with Trump family ties. Democratic lawmakers have urged the SEC to investigate what they call “concerning ties to President Trump and his family” as potential conflicts of interest and foreign influence.

    In October, President Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance. In 2023, Zhao and his company pled guilty to failing to prevent money laundering on the platform. Binance paid a $4 billion fine, and Zhao served a four-month sentence. As CBS News observed last month, shortly after Zhao’s pardon application, he was at the center of a blockbuster deal that put the Trump’s family’s WLF on the map.

    “Zhao is a citizen of the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf and in May, an Emirati fund put $2 billion in Zhao’s Binance,” 60 Minutes reported. “Of all the currencies in the world, the deal was done in World Liberty crypto.”

    SEC Chairman Paul Atkins has made the agency’s new posture towards crypto explicit, stating “most crypto tokens are not securities.” At the same time, President Trump has directed the Department of Labor and the SEC to expand 401(k) access to private equity and crypto — assets that regulators have historically restricted for retail investors due to high risk, fees, opacity, and illiquidity. The executive order explicitly prioritizes “curbing ERISA litigation,” and reducing accountability for fiduciaries while shifting risk onto ordinary workers’ retirement savings.

    At the White House’s behest, the U.S. Treasury in March suspended the Corporate Transparency Act, a law that required companies to reveal their real owners. Finance experts warned the suspension would bring back shell companies and “open the flood gates of dirty money” through the US, such as funds from drug gangs, human traffickers, and fraud groups.

    Trump’s clemency decisions have created a pattern of freed criminals committing new offenses, including Jonathan Braun, whose sentence for drug trafficking was commuted during Trump’s first term, was found guilty in 2025 of violating supervised release and faces new charges.

    Eliyahu Weinstein, who received a commutation in January 2021 for running a Ponzi scheme, was sentenced in November 2025 to 37 years for running a new Ponzi scheme. The administration has also granted clemency to a growing list of white-collar criminals: David Gentile, a private equity executive sentenced to seven years for securities and wire fraud (functionally a ponzi-like scheme), and Trevor Milton, the Nikola founder sentenced to four years for defrauding investors over electric vehicle technology. The message: Financial crimes against ordinary investors are no big deal.

    At least 10 of the January 6 insurrectionists pardoned by President Trump have already been rearrested, charged or sentenced for other crimes, including plotting the murder of FBI agents, child sexual assault, possession of child sexual abuse material and reckless homicide while driving drunk.

    The administration also imposed sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC). On February 6, 2025, Executive Order 14203 authorized asset freezes and visa restrictions against ICC officials investigating U.S. citizens or allies, primarily in response to the ICC’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

    Earlier this month the president launched the “Gold Card,” a visa scheme established by an executive order in September that offers wealthy individuals and corporations expedited paths to U.S. residency and citizenship in exchange for $1 million for individuals and $2 million for companies, plus ongoing fees. The administration says it is also planning to offer a “platinum” version of the card that offers special tax breaks — for a cool $5 million.

    FEDERAL CYBERSECURITY

    President Trump campaigned for a second term insisting that the previous election was riddled with fraud and had been stolen from him. Shortly after Mr. Trump took the oath of office for a second time, he fired the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) — Chris Krebs (no relation) — for having the audacity to state publicly that the 2020 election was the most secure in U.S. history.

    Mr. Trump revoked Krebs’s security clearances, ordered a Justice Department investigation into his election security work, and suspended the security clearances of employees at SentinelOne, the cybersecurity firm where Krebs worked as chief intelligence and public policy officer. The executive order was the first direct presidential action against any US cybersecurity company. Krebs subsequently resigned from SentinelOne, telling The Wall Street Journal he was leaving to push back on Trump’s efforts “to go after corporate interests and corporate relationships.”

    The president also dismissed all 15 members of the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), a nonpartisan government entity established in 2022 with a mandate to investigate the security failures behind major cybersecurity events — likely because those advisors included Chris Krebs.

    At the time, the CSRB was in the middle of compiling a much-anticipated report on the root causes of Chinese government-backed digital intrusions into at least nine U.S. telecommunications providers. Not to be outdone, the Federal Communication Commission quickly moved to roll back a previous ruling that required U.S. telecom carriers to implement stricter cybersecurity measures.

    Meanwhile, CISA has lost roughly a third of its workforce this year amid mass layoffs and deferred resignations. When the government shutdown began in October, CISA laid off even more employees and furloughed 65 percent of the remaining staff, leaving only 900 employees working without pay.

    Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security has reassigned CISA cyber specialists to jobs supporting the president’s deportation agenda. As Bloomberg reported earlier this year, CISA employees were given a week to accept the new roles or resign, and some of the reassignments included relocations to new geographic areas.

    The White House has signaled that it plans to cut an additional $491 million from CISA’s budget next year, cuts that primarily target CISA programs focused on international affairs and countering misinformation and foreign propaganda. The president’s budget proposal justified the cuts by repeating debunked claims about CISA engaging in censorship.

    The Trump administration has pursued a similar reorganization at the FBI: The Washington Post reported in October that a quarter of all FBI agents have now been reassigned from national security threats to immigration enforcement. Reuters reported last week that the replacement of seasoned leaders at the FBI and Justice Department with Trump loyalists has led to an unprecedented number of prosecutorial missteps, resulting in a 21 percent dismissal rate of the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office criminal complaints over eight weeks, compared to a mere .5% dismissal rate over the prior 10 years.

    “These mistakes are causing department attorneys to lose credibility with federal courts, with some judges quashing subpoenas, threatening criminal contempt and issuing opinions that raise questions about their conduct,” Reuters reported. “Grand juries have also in some cases started rejecting indictments, a highly unusual event since prosecutors control what evidence gets presented.”

    In August, the DHS banned state and local governments from using cyber grants on services provided by the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), a group that for more than 20 years has shared critical cybersecurity intelligence across state lines and provided software and other resources at free or heavily discounted rates. Specifically, DHS barred states from spending funds on services offered by the Elections Infrastructure ISAC, which was effectively shuttered after DHS pulled its funding in February.

    Cybersecurity Dive reports that the Trump administration’s massive workforce cuts, along with widespread mission uncertainty and a persistent leadership void, have interrupted federal agencies’ efforts to collaborate with the businesses and local utilities that run and protect healthcare facilities, water treatment plans, energy companies and telecommunications networks. The publication said the changes came after the US government eliminated CIPAC — a framework that allowed private companies to share cyber and threat intel without legal penalties.

    “Government leaders have canceled meetings with infrastructure operators, forced out their longtime points of contact, stopped attending key industry events and scrapped a coordination program that made companies feel comfortable holding sensitive talks about cyberattacks and other threats with federal agencies,” Cybersecurity Dive’s Eric Geller wrote.

    Both the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command have been without a leader since Trump dismissed Air Force General Timothy Haugh in April, allegedly for disloyalty to the president and at the suggestion of far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. The nomination of Army Lt. Gen. William Hartman for the same position fell through in October. The White House has ordered the NSA to cut 8 percent of its civilian workforce (between 1,500 and 2,000 employees).

    As The Associated Press reported in August, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence plans to dramatically reduce its workforce and cut its budget by more than $700 million annually. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said the cuts were warranted because ODNI had become “bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence.”

    The firing or forced retirements of so many federal employees has been a boon to foreign intelligence agencies. Chinese intelligence agencies, for example, reportedly moved quickly to take advantage of the mass layoffs, using a network of front companies to recruit laid-off U.S. government employees for “consulting work.” Former workers with the Defense Department’s Defense Digital Service who resigned en-masse earlier this year thanks to DOGE encroaching on their mission have been approached by the United Arab Emirates to work on artificial intelligence for the oil kingdom’s armed forces, albeit reportedly with the blessing of the Trump administration.

    PRESS FREEDOM

    President Trump has filed multibillion-dollar lawsuits against a number of major news outlets over news segments or interviews that allegedly portrayed him in a negative light, suing the networks ABC, the BBC, the CBS parent company Paramount, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, among others.

    The president signed an executive order aimed at slashing public subsidies to PBS and NPR, alleging “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting. In July, Congress approved a request from Trump to cut $1.1 billion in federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the nonprofit entity that funds PBS and NPR.

    Brendan Carr, the president’s pick to run the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), initially pledged to “dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights for everyday Americans.” But on January 22, 2025, the FCC reopened complaints against ABC, CBS and NBC over their coverage of the 2024 election. The previous FCC chair had dismissed the complaints as attacks on the First Amendment and an attempt to weaponize the agency for political purposes.

    President Trump in February seized control of the White House Correspondents’ Association, the nonprofit entity that decides which media outlets should have access to the White House and the press pool that follows the president. The president invited an additional 32 media outlets, mostly conservative or right-wing organizations.

    According to the journalism group Poynter.org, there are three religious networks, all of which lean conservative, as well as a mix of outlets that includes a legacy paper, television networks, and a digital outlet powered by artificial intelligence.  Trump also barred The Associated Press from the White House over their refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

    Under Trump appointee Kari Lake, the U.S. Agency for Global Media moved to dismantle Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and other networks that for decades served as credible news sources behind authoritarian lines. Courts blocked shutdown orders, but the damage continues through administrative leave, contract terminations, and funding disputes.

    President Trump this term has fired most of the people involved in processing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for government agencies. FOIA is an indispensable tool used by journalists and the public to request government records, and to hold leaders accountable.

    Petitioning the government, particularly when it ignores your requests, often requires challenging federal agencies in court. But that becomes far more difficult if the most competent law firms start to shy away from cases that may involve crossing the president and his administration. On March 22, the president issued a memorandum that directs heads of the Justice and Homeland Security Departments to “seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable and vexatious litigation against the United States,” or in matters that come before federal agencies.

    The Trump administration announced increased vetting of applicants for H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, with an internal State Department memo saying that anyone involved in “censorship” of free speech should be considered for rejection.

    Executive Order 14161, issued in 2025 on “foreign terrorist and public safety threats,” granted broad new authority that civil rights groups warn could enable a renewed travel ban and expanded visa denials or deportations based on perceived ideology. Critics charged that the order’s vague language around “public safety threats” creates latitude for targeting individuals based on political views, national origin, or religion.

    CONSUMER PROTECTION, PRIVACY

    At the beginning of this year, President Trump ordered staffers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to stop most work. Created by Congress in 2011 to be a clearinghouse of consumer complaints, the CFPB has sued some of the nation’s largest financial institutions for violating consumer protection laws. The CFPB says its actions have put nearly $18 billion back in Americans’ pockets in the form of monetary compensation or canceled debts, and imposed $4 billion in civil money penalties against violators.

    The Trump administration said it planned to fire up to 90 percent of all CFPB staff, but a recent federal appeals court ruling in Washington tossed out an earlier decision that would have allowed the firings to proceed. Reuters reported this week that an employee union and others have battled against it in court for ten months, during which the agency has been almost completely idled.

    The CFPB’s acting director is Russell Vought, a key architect of the GOP policy framework Project 2025. Under Vought’s direction, the CFPB in May quietly withdrew a data broker protection rule intended to limit the ability of U.S. data brokers to sell personal information on Americans.

    Despite the Federal Reserve’s own post-mortem explicitly blaming Trump-era deregulation for the 2023 Silicon Valley Bank collapse, which triggered a fast-moving crisis requiring emergency weekend bailouts of banks, Trump’s banking regulators in 2025 doubled down. They loosened capital requirements, narrowed definitions of “unsafe” banking practices, and stripped specific risk categories from supervisory frameworks. The setup for another banking crisis requiring taxpayer intervention is now in place.

    The Privacy Act of 1974, one of the few meaningful federal privacy laws, was built on the principles of consent and separation in response to the abuses of power that came to light during the Watergate era. The law states that when an individual provides personal information to a federal agency to receive a particular service, that data must be used solely for its original purpose.

    Nevertheless, it emerged in June that the Trump administration has built a central database of all US citizens. According to NPR, the White House plans to use the new platform during upcoming elections to verify the identity and citizenship status of US voters. The database was built by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Governmental Efficiency and is being rolled out in phases to US states.

    DOGE

    Probably the biggest ungotten scoop of 2025 is the inside story of what happened to all of the personal, financial and other sensitive data that was accessed by workers at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). President Trump tapped Elon Musk to lead the newly created department, which was mostly populated by current and former employees of Musk’s various technology companies (including a former denizen of the cybercrime community known as the “Com”). It soon emerged that the DOGE team was using artificial intelligence to surveil at least one federal agency’s communications for hostility to Mr. Trump and his agenda.

    DOGE employees were able to access and synthesize data taken from a large number of previously separate and highly guarded federal databases, including those at the Social Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of Personnel Management, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. DOGE staffers did so largely by circumventing or dismantling security measures designed to detect and prevent misuse of federal databases, including standard incident response protocols, auditing, and change-tracking mechanisms.

    For example, an IT expert with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) alleges that DOGE employees likely downloaded gigabytes of data from agency case files in early March, using short-lived accounts that were configured to leave few traces of network activity. The NLRB whistleblower said the large data outflows coincided with multiple blocked login attempts from addresses in Russia, which attempted to use valid credentials for a newly-created DOGE user account.

    The stated goal of DOGE was to reduce bureaucracy and to massively cut costs — mainly by eliminating funding for a raft of federal initiatives that had already been approved by Congress. The DOGE website claimed those efforts reduced “wasteful” and “fraudulent” federal spending by more than $200 billion. However, multiple independent reviews by news organizations determined the true “savings” DOGE achieved was off by a couple of orders of magnitude, and was likely closer to $2 billion.

    At the same time DOGE was slashing federal programs, President Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general at federal agencies — the very people tasked with actually identifying and stopping waste, fraud and abuse at the federal level. Those included several agencies (such as the NLRB) that had open investigations into one or more of Mr. Musk’s companies for allegedly failing to comply with protocols aimed at protecting state secrets. In September, a federal judge found the president unlawfully fired the agency watchdogs, but none of them have been reinstated.

    Where is DOGE now? Reuters reported last month that as far as the White House is concerned, DOGE no longer exists, even though it technically has more than half a year left to its charter. Meanwhile, who exactly retains access to federal agency data that was fed by DOGE into AI tools is anyone’s guess.

    KrebsOnSecurity would like to thank the anonymous researcher NatInfoSec for assisting with the research on this story.

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