Cybersecurity and Cyberwarfare

Led by the Federal Communications Commission’s Council on National Security, the FCC launched Operation Clean Carts to rid e-commerce platforms of unauthorized covered equipment. Over the last six months, online marketplaces have collectively removed or blocked over 3 million product listings associated with insecure “covered” equipment. Since each listing can result in many sales, the actual number of devices removed from sale is likely significantly higher.

Anthropic is both a risk and a necessity to AI progress, at least in the White House's telling. That tension is shaping AI policy in real time, as the White House 

The Defense Department has completed agreements with seven technology companies, including many of the industry’s biggest, to use their artificial-intelligence capabilities in classified settings, boosting the Pentagon’s efforts to gain access to cutting-edge AI tools.

The Federal Communications Commission voted to launch a proceeding to block entities on the agency’s Covered List from receiving automatic authorization to provide domestic interstate telecommunications services in America and ask more broadly what other regulatory actions should be considered to further protect our nation’s telecommunications networks from entities that pose an unacceptable national security risk.

The Federal Communications Commission voted to launch a rulemaking which proposes prohibiting the recognition of electronic device test labs and certification bodies in foreign countries that have not signed reciprocity agreements to recognize American test labs and certification bodies. The FCC also adopted new rules streamlining the approval process for devices that are tested in U.S. labs or labs in reciprocal countries.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (PSHSB ) maintains a list of equipment and services that have been determined to “pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons.” PSHSB announced that the Department of War has granted conditional approvals for eero LLC’s eero, eero Pro, eero Max, eero PoE, eero Outdoor, eero Signal, and Amazon Leo routers. Therefore, such routers are exempt from the Covered List.  Conditional Approval will terminate on October 31, 2027.

Reps Brett Guthrie (R-KY) and John Joyce, M.D. (R-PA) joined Reps French Hill (R-AR), Bill Huizenga (R-MI), and Bryan Steil (R-WI) to introduce their respective legislation, the SECURE Data Act and the GUARD Financial Data Act. The SECURE Data Act:

• Establishes a national privacy and data security standard to protect the personal data of all Americans and their families.

• Builds on the proven framework adopted by the overwhelming majority of states that have enacted comprehensive privacy and data security laws.

For decades, two kinds of scarcity kept the internet safe — or safe enough. Writing software was hard, so the people who did it were trained, careful and few. Finding bugs was also hard, so the worst flaws stayed hidden, sometimes for decades. It wasn’t a great system. But the difficulty on both sides created a kind of détente that held. But publicly available A.I.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau maintains a list of equipment and services (Covered List) that have been determined to “pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons.”  Pursuant to section 2 of the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019 (Secure Networks Act)2 and the FCC’s rules, PSHSB announces that the Department of War (DoW) has granted conditional approvals for certain routers and uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS).

AI's rapid advance is raising the risk of both large-scale attacks on financial infrastructure and small, targeted fraud that can drain individual accounts. Banks have long been the gold standard for cybersecurity—but they need to move faster in an AI world. Fraudsters are already ahead of the banks. Everyday AI fraud is a growing concern as models get cheaper and more capable—but the bigger threat is infrastructure-level attacks. The risk isn't just theoretical.