The US Trade Representative has taken official notice of higher rates of Chinese hacking as trade tensions intensify (Fifth Domain). Such hacking is widely regarded as placing China in breach of the Obama-Xi agreement to cut back industrial espionage (National Law Review).
The US is urging its allies, on security grounds, to steer clear of Huawei (Wall Street Journal).
Emotet ramped up phishing attacks last week. Black Friday spam delivered malicious XML files with .doc extension (WeLiveSecurity).
Microsoft has fixed the Outlook 10 patches that were causing system crashes (ZDNet).
In the UK, Parliament is increasing pressure on Facebook (Washington Post).
The city of Beijing plans to bring each of its 22-million citizens under a "social credit" system, aggregating and scoring each individual's actions and reputation. If you've been good and are well-thought-of, life will be easier. If not, you'll be "unable to move a step." The capital city's program is the forerunner of one envisioned for the country as a whole, a kind of mark of the Beast as reconceptualized for Big Data (Bloomberg).
General Igor Korobov, director of Russia's GRU since 2016, has died at the age of 62 after what the Defense Ministry called "a long and serious illness." His deputy, Vice-Admiral Igor Kostyukov, who’s commanded Russian forces in Syria and filled in for General Korobov during his illness, will serve as interim director (BBC).
The US Army, drawing lessons from participation in JTF Ares, works to push tailored cyber capabilities down to brigade level (Fifth Domain).
