Cyber Daily: Best of RSAC 2024 🔥

A special edition of our weekly Cyber Daily - the best stories from #RSAC2024, reported by Jonathan Greig and Martin Matishak .

According to a senior bureau official, the FBI must 'evolve' if it hopes to successfully thwart a group of hackers who have wrought chaos on some of the largest companies in the U.S., who urged the public to be patient as law enforcement fights the criminal network. The hacking collective known as Scattered Spider drew international attention last year over its paralyzing cyberattacks on casino giants MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that his department had conducted its first artificial intelligence advisory board meeting on Monday, spearheading a new initiative to improve the management and defense of the technology. Mayorkas provided a high-level summary of the Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board's initial meeting in a keynote speech and a roundtable discussion with reporters at the RSA Conference.

The window to provide feedback on a proposed cyber incident reporting rule was extended following multiple requests from industry, according to a senior Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency official. Last month, CISA posted a set of regulations under the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA) to the Federal Register, allowing the public to comment on it.

The government of China's objective in deploying Volt Typhoon hackers to break into U.S. critical infrastructure is to 'cause disruption and sow societal panic,' a senior cybersecurity official said Tuesday. As China has increased its aggressiveness toward Taiwan, Volt Typhoon hackers have pre-positioned themselves in U.S. critical infrastructure in Guam and elsewhere with the intent of slowing any potential mobilization of forces.

Congressional lawmakers have yet to reach a solution on which communications companies must comply with a recently renewed surveillance law, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Monday. The reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act nearly failed last month after the House tacked on a provision that altered the definition of 'electronic communications service providers' - the entities that can be compelled to help the U.S. government acquire communications under the statute.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced an international cyber strategy on Monday outlining how the federal government plans to engage the rest of the world on a range of technological security issues. The plan is designed to guide the ways the Biden administration will 'work with allies, partners, and stakeholders across the globe to shape the design, development, governance, and use of cyberspace and digital technologies.'

The White House cyber czar says that his office has a clear plan to move past the leadership turmoil that has plagued it since it was established just three years ago. 'There's a natural anxiety from a team when there was that much leadership turnover.

Former U.S. Cyber Command and National Security Agency chief Paul Nakasone has been named the inaugural head of a new, national security-focused hub at Vanderbilt University.

The nation’s top cybersecurity agency said 68 of the world’s leading software manufacturers have signed on to a voluntary pledge to design products that have security built in from the beginning. 

For more RSA Conference updates, visit: https://therecord.media/rsac2024-live-updates