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Guest:
- Patrick Tucker, Defense One science and technology editor.
Related reading:
- “New Golden Dome details emerge from industry day,” Tucker reported on August 14;
- "Pete Hegseth Doesn’t Want to Talk About Golden Dome," former Naval War College professor Tom Nichols wrote for The Atlantic on August 8;
- “Lockheed Martin aims to test a missile-killing satellite by 2028,” also via Tucker, reporting August 5;
- "Effects of Lower Launch Costs on Previous Estimates for Space-Based, Boost-Phase Missile Defense," May 5, via the Congressional Budget Office with an estimated total price tag for Golden Dome somewhere between $831 billion to $542 billion;
- See also, "Trump wants a Golden Dome over America. Here's what it would take," via NPR's Geoff Brumfiel, reporting April 22.
Watch the futuristic, satirical news clips from 1987's "Robocop," via YouTube, here.
And you can find a trailer for the 1985 film, "Real Genius," also via YouTube, here.
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A new exploit combining two critical, now-patched security flaws in SAP NetWeaver has emerged in the wild, putting organizations at risk of system compromise and data theft.
The exploit in question chains together CVE-2025-31324 and CVE-2025-42999 to bypass authentication and achieve remote code execution, SAP security company Onapsis said.
CVE-2025-31324 (CVSS score: 10.0) – Missing
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The U.K. government has apparently abandoned its plans to force Apple to weaken encryption protections and include a backdoor that would have enabled access to the protected data of U.S. citizens.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard, in a statement posted on X, said the U.S. government had been working with its partners with the U.K. over the past few months to ensure that
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After two decades of developing increasingly mature security architectures, organizations are running up against a hard truth: tools and technologies alone are not enough to mitigate cyber risk. As tech stacks have grown more sophisticated and capable, attackers have shifted their focus. They are no longer focusing on infrastructure vulnerabilities alone. Instead, they are increasingly
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The maintainers of the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository have announced that the package manager now checks for expired domains to prevent supply chain attacks.
“These changes improve PyPI’s overall account security posture, making it harder for attackers to exploit expired domain names to gain unauthorized access to accounts,” Mike Fiedler, PyPI safety and security engineer at the Python
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Gen. David Allvin will retire after serving just two years as Air Force chief of staff, the service said Monday.
Allvin has served as the service’s highest-ranking officer, typically a four-year posting, since 2023. He will retire “on or about” Nov. 1, depending on when a replacement is confirmed, the press release said.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve as the 23rd Air Force Chief of Staff and I’m thankful for Secretary Meink, Secretary Hegseth and President Trump’s faith in me to lead our service,” Allvin said in a statement. “More than anything, I’m proud to have been part of the team of Airmen who live out our core values of integrity, service and excellence every day as we prepare to defend this great nation.”
The chief, who began his career as an airlift pilot, has steered the service through a number of changes, including recent workforce cuts and new priorities from the Trump administration. Allvin also helped construct a sweeping overhaul to change the way service deploys forces—an effort that has been on pause since February.
“The Air Force is fortunate to have leaders like Gen. Dave Allvin. During his tenure, the Air Force has undertaken transformational initiatives that will enable Airmen to answer their nation’s call for decades to come,” Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said. “Gen. Allvin has been instrumental in my onboarding as the department’s 27th Secretary and I’m forever grateful for his partnership as well as his decades of exemplary service to our nation."
It’s not yet known who will fill Allvin’s position.
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As I walked around the National Mall last weekend, the troops of the D.C. National Guard stood out, boredom and physical discomfort in 90-degree temperatures visible on their faces. Called out for a “crime emergency” yet deployed to one of the safest places in Washington, D.C., the soldiers could not help but think their orders a waste of time.
No argument to the contrary has been offered by senior military leaders, who have maintained a deafening silence about the extraordinary mission in the nation’s capital. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, other members of the joint chiefs, and the commander of U.S. Northern Command have declined to publicly comment, much less offer guidance to troops about their conduct in domestic operations. And to judge by Friday’s press conference by Pentagon spokeswoman Kingsley Wilson, many crucial questions about roles and missions remain unanswered, even inside the military, including the National Guard.
The confusion about these assignments and the absence of commanders’ guidance for those in uniform could escalate unnecessarily into major problems, even confrontations, if not addressed. To prevent this, here are some things that troops need to hear.
First, each one of you in a military uniform should know who your boss is. When the military provides assistance to federal, state, and local authorities, it is critical to hammer out “who’s in charge” immediately. The chain of command must be clearly stated from the start of the mission lest chaos arise at the worst possible time. To verify you know who your boss is, restate it to the officers and senior noncommissioned officers in your unit and ask them to confirm or clarify it.
Second, know what missions you are trained for, and which ones you are not. Keep an electronic copy of your training record with you. No military service should send its members to do any mission without training them first. If you do not have the training for law-enforcement missions, for example, ask your chain of command to ensure you receive it, and note when you made the request.
Third, remember that the civilians around you are your equals. They are neither better nor worse than you, and they are certainly not your enemy. They deserve respect; you deserve the same in return. Respect among all is especially important if you are ordered to carry weapons. The mere presence of weapons can be unnerving. By showing due consideration for nearby civilians, you can minimize fear they might feel.
Fourth, have a purpose when you are ordered out among the civilian population. If your unit has a static position, as the troops did down by the Lincoln Memorial, and your mission boils down to presence, then create a purpose. As I walked among the crowds last weekend, it struck me that if the unit leader had set up a small table that encouraged people to ask questions, a conversation could have started between the tourists and the soldiers. Visitors could have asked questions about the equipment, about serving in the Guard, etc. That small gesture alone would have made the scene a little less odd and uncomfortable.
Fifth, if you are in doubt about what’s going on, and your chain of command is uncertain as well, seek legal advice from your unit Judge Advocate. Remember that they are available to help you with matters such as complicated rules of engagement. Ideally, answers to most of your questions will have been worked out before you deploy. Note the time and date of your request.
Sixth, chronicle your mission each step of the way. Keep a journal with all your notes in one place, whether on your phone, in an app, or in a notebook. Your notes should include who is in your chain of command and who confirmed that for you; what training you requested and what training you received; and what issues arose and how they were addressed. At a minimum, these notes will come in handy as you mentor future generations. If any problems arise, these notes could be a valuable source of information for you and your unit when addressing those issues.
Finally, take the time to familiarize yourself with some of the more controversial domestic missions in our nation’s history. For example, you could look at the 1970 Kent State shootings, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and the Hurricane Katrina response in 2005. Looking at some of these historical events could help you think through how you might have responded in these unusual and difficult circumstances. Ideally, the military’s role in domestic responses brings relief to those it deployed to help. At a minimum, a military response should do no harm.
Bottom line: you know your chain of command would hold you accountable if anything went wrong. Make sure you have the wherewithal to hold it accountable as well. You have every right to expect a clear mission, an unambiguous chain of command, appropriate and current training for that mission, and good leaders. Such leaders should welcome you taking all the actions above.
Paula Thornhill is a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general and a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
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The threat actors behind the Noodlophile malware are leveraging spear-phishing emails and updated delivery mechanisms to deploy the information stealer in attacks aimed at enterprises located in the U.S., Europe, Baltic countries, and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.
“The Noodlophile campaign, active for over a year, now leverages advanced spear-phishing emails posing as copyright infringement
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The Navy’s chief of information office is on the clock to deliver a plan that will reduce the service’s civilian public-affairs staff by at least 35 percent, according to a memo signed by Navy Secretary John Phelan earlier this month.
The move would also centralize hiring for all civilian PAOs and all communications-related contracting to Department of the Navy headquarters. While the Marine Corps is not being directed to cut its civilian billets, it will be subject to the same new hiring and contracting practices.
“This initiative is essential to eliminate duplicative roles, concentrate talent on the highest priority functions, focus contracting support where it is most needed and ensure alignment with commitment to mission-driven resource management, cost savings and operational lethality,” Phelan wrote in the memo, which gives the department 45 days from its Aug. 7 signing to submit a plan.
The Navy and Marine Corps public affairs reorganization comes just weeks after the Army announced it would rebrand its central Office of the Chief of Public Affairs to the Army Global Communications Office, though cuts to force structure were not part of that announcement.
Earlier this year, the Army pushed out Brig. Gen. Amanda Azubuike, who had been serving as the chief of public affairs since June 2024. Rather than a uniformed service member, the service will soon have a political appointee helming its communications office: a fundraising consultant for North Carolina Republican campaigns named Rebecca Hodson.
Meanwhile, the Navy is about to turn over its top uniformed PAO role, held for the last three years by Rear Adm. Ryan Perry. In an email to the Navy PAO community on Thursday, Perry wrote that he would retire Oct. 1 and his deputy, Rear Adm. John Robinson, would step in until the service convenes a selection board for a permanent replacement.
The Navy’s reorganization comes from a January review that found that the department “lacks a centralized communications strategy, resulting in individual commands and offices developing messaging without incorporating broader priorities,” Phelan wrote in the memo.
Further, he continues, public affairs strategies haven’t been “validated” and thus result in redundancies and “inefficient use of taxpayer funds.”
There are about 400 civilian PAOs working for the Navy, according to the service’s human resources website. The memo does not give detailed guidance on how cuts should be decided, only that cuts should focus on eliminating redundancies, should consider swapping in a uniformed PAO if possible, and each retained job will require a justification of its “mission-critical requirements.”
Slashing Defense Department civilian jobs has been a key feature of the second Trump administration, going back to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s directive in February to reduce their numbers by 5 to 8 percent, alongside a hiring freeze that rescinded existing job offers.
That would add up to more than 60,000 of the 770,000 civilians who worked for DOD at the beginning of this year. Though some have left voluntarily through buyouts and early retirement offers, the Pentagon has refused to say exactly how many members of its workforce it has shed so far.
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Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a sophisticated campaign where threat actors leverage a Microsoft Help Index File (.mshi) to deploy the PipeMagic backdoor, marking a notable evolution in malware delivery methods. This development ties into the exploitation of CVE-2025-29824, a zero-day elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Windows Common Log File System (CLFS) driver, which Microsoft […]
The post Threat Actors Exploit Microsoft Help Index File to Deploy PipeMagic Malware appeared first on GBHackers Security | #1 Globally Trusted Cyber Security News Platform.
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