Law enforcement and intelligence agencies find ISIS an increasingly elusive opponent. This is in part due to its use of encrypted chat, but to a great extent, the Wall Street Journal reports, to the Caliphate's reversion to the traditional terrorist cellular tradecraft: "face-to-face meetings, written notes and misdirection."
Australian authorities and observers see a rising threat of foreign cyber attacks aimed at eroding that country's government's legitimacy, and the credibility of its political leaders. Such concerns mirror ongoing worries in the US over Russian involvement with upcoming elections. Director of Central Intelligence Brennan declined over the weekend to say that Russia was hacking the elections, but he did counsel wariness over Russia's cyber capabilities, which he assessed as high. Observers are arriving at a consensus that manipulating US election results globally would be difficult (although local mischief remains a real concern) but that this is unlikely to be Russia's goal. As the Hill notes, the goal is not to change the results, but to call them into question, thereby undermining "confidence in American democracy."
Researcher Dawid Golunski reports multiple problems with MySQL. Zero-days enable remote root code execution and privilege escalation exploits.
Another big credential breach, this time hitting Russian instant messaging service QIP.ru, affects thirty-three million users.
In industry news, GM is recalling four million vehicles to fix a bug in airbag sensing and diagnostic module software, and a VW engineer pleads guilty to manipulating diesel control software to game emissions testing.
The ACLU campaigns for a Snowden pardon.