October 21 2022

This Week in Washington

Fierce Telecom: In a newly released Workforce Planning Guide, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) laid out requirements and recommendations for states to follow as they create broadband plans and vet grant applicants seeking money from federally funded programs.
CNN Politics: The Biden administration on Tuesday released a directive requiring freight railroad owners and operators to tighten their security in the face of hacking threats from criminals and foreign governments.
CyberScoop: National Cyber Director Chris Inglis is expected to release the Biden administration’s first comprehensive national cybersecurity strategy in the coming days, a document that many expect will meet industry pushback as it could expand the government’s role in protecting the nation’s digital infrastructure.
Washington Post: The nation’s telecommunications regulator (FCC) has been without a Democratic majority for the entirety of President Biden’s 21-month tenure, hamstringing efforts to restore open internet protections and close the digital divide.
Nextgov: Chinese government-sponsored cyberattacks pose a challenge to U.S. national security interests at home and abroad, but threat analysts and chief information security officers can better prepare for these cyber threats by understanding the patterns in Beijing’s cyber operations, according to a report from Booz Allen Hamilton.

Forbes: A China-based team at TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, planned to use the TikTok app to monitor the personal location of some specific American citizens, according to materials reviewed by Forbes.
Nextgov: Demand for cyber workers continues to surge, according to new data released Tuesday that puts the number of cyber job openings listed in the U.S. between October 2021 and last month at 769,736.
Wall Street Journal: Chief information officers say cybersecurity once again will be their top investment priority in 2023, a sign of how companies are racing to manage the business risk posed by escalating threats.
CyberScoop: There’s widespread concern among U.S. public safety personnel that their organizations aren’t equipped to defend against cyberattacks, according to a new survey of first responders across the U.S.
Axios: The attack earlier this month on CommonSpirit Health, which has 142 hospitals in 21 states, left IT locked, delayed surgeries and caused widespread disruptions in patient care.
The Hill: Global internet freedom decreased for the 12th consecutive year, driven largely by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a Freedom House report released Tuesday. Russia had the sharpest decline of any of the 70 countries assessed in the report — reaching an all-time low in the organization’s 12 years of tracking.

The WSJ Tech News Briefing Podcast

Podcast on Data Privacy
The U.S. took a big step toward reaching a data privacy deal with the European Union last week, with President Biden signing an executive order that would give Europeans more power over their data stored in the U.S. WSJ European tech reporter Sam Schechner joins host Zoe Thomas to discuss why the move was crucial to the future of a trans-Atlantic data deal and what it could mean for big tech companies. (Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Deal Comes a Step Closer – October 10, 2022)