McAfee describes "Operation Sharpshooter," a critical infrastructure cyber-reconnaissance campaign. They conclude it's a nation-state operation, but without specific attribution (despite code overlap with North Korea's Lazarus Group).
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou's made bail: $7.5 million and a tracking bracelet (Quartz). China has detained a former Canadian diplomat in apparent retaliation for Meng's arrest (Times). Comparisons are drawn to ZTE's troubles: the US might use Meng's case to exact concessions from Huawei and China's government (Reuters).
US investigators suspect China was behind the Marriott hack (New York Times). Sanctions and indictments are expected (Reuters).
Two political crises near denouement. UK Prime Minister May faces a no-confidence vote today, largely over the handling of Brexit (AP). France's President Macron offers concessions to yellow-vest unrest (Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs).
The US House Judiciary Committee's quizzing of Google CEO Sundar Pichai yesterday is lamented as a lost opportunity (Bloomberg). Democrats and Republicans are seen as having swapped partisan shots at the expense of examining Big Tech's manifold issues (WIRED). The Committee did ask directly if Project Dragonfly is a censored search engine built for China's government (Fifth Domain). Pichai's evasive non-answer is taken by many as amounting to "yes," but Google says nothing to see here. Many think Google emerged "unscathed," but Mountain View's appetite for user data was duly noted (Roll Call).
Dashlane offers a list of 2018's worst password offenders: Kanye West, the Pentagon, cryptocurrency speculators, Nutella, British lawyers, Texas, the White House staff, the UN, and, sad-to-say, the University of Cambridge.