Cyber Project

The U.S. government is currently working on creating a so called Space Force. Legislation to establish the branch is expected to be included in the Pentagon's budget proposal next year, but it would still need approval from Congress.

If the Space Force branch is established, tech companies and defense contractors in Massachusetts stand to make millions — if not billions — in new contracts.

In our latest episode, Usha Sahay and Ryan Evans were joined by Thomas Rid, Michael Sulmeyer, and a mystery guest (ok, ok, it’s Corinna Fehst) to talk about cyber-security, election meddling, reports about U.S. intel agencies buying back pilfered hacking tools, going dark, legislatures as the vulnerable soft cyber underbelly of democracies, and the different threats posed by Russia and China.

Also, “Password1” is not a good password according to our guests. So you should probably change that.

In today's podcast, we hear that BadRabbit, still quiet, looks like a TeleBots product. Reaper is still locked and loaded, but is also still quiet. Maritime SATCOM system found to be buggy, and the worse news is that it's beyond its end-of-life. A look back at the annual ICS Cybersecurity Summit that wrapped yesterday in Atlanta. Moscow tells Twitter buying ads is a free speech issue. Justin Harvey from Accenture on monitoring cloud infrastructure. Guest is Michael Sulmeyer, Director of the Cyber Security Project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Anonymous is back and poking at the Spanish government.

Michael Sulmeyer, director of the Belfer Center's Cyber Security Project, discusses the U.S. government's efforts to defend against cyber threats in the context of the legal battle between the FBI and Apple over its encryption methods.

Dr. Ellis raises an interesting question: Does the pursuit of offensive cyber capabilities undermine domestic security? The conversation highlights a growing area of concern and ongoing debate.