Cyber Briefing – June 17, 2026

AI HUDDLE AT G7: Leaders discussed a potential ‌scheme to grant a limited number of “trusted partners” ‌access to U.S. frontier models developed by AI giants like Anthropic and therefore win an exemption from a current ban on non-U.S. nationals, three diplomatic sources said on Tuesday, Reuters reports. One of the sources said a number of delegates discussed the idea with ⁠U.S. representatives, mainly with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, on the sidelines of the opening G7 summit dinner in the French lakeside resort of Evian-les-Bains. These “trusted partners” could be countries or companies, ‌said a second source, who declined to be named because the talks were ongoing. A third source confirmed that no statement was expected on the matter today, when tech issues will be on the G7 agenda.

• Top artificial intelligence executives are gathering today in France against a backdrop of growing calls for tech sovereignty in Europe, fueled by concerns about American dominance in the industry, the Associated Press reports. The wars in Iran and Ukraine have dominated discussions at the Group of Seven summit of major industrialized nations this week but AI will have its moment on the meeting’s final day. In a rare huddle of AI industry figures, leaders of three of the most powerful AI companies — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei — are due to attend a working lunch on the theme of “Ensuring a safe, rapid and effective deployment of artificial intelligence.”

THE WARNING TO ANTHROPIC AND POTENTIAL AI STAKES: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick warned Anthropic in a letter last week that it would need government permission to grant foreign nationals access to its most advanced AI models and threatened criminal and civil penalties if the firm failed to comply, according to a copy seen by Bloomberg News. The letter, dated Friday, ordered Anthropic not to give its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 artificial intelligence models to foreign nationals anywhere in the world without a license from the Commerce Department. Lutnick gave no basis for why the restrictions were necessary, but his letter cited U.S. laws that allow the government to impose export controls on civilian technology that could be used for intelligence purposes by an adversary’s military.

• Senior Trump administration officials had weighed how to structure potential government equity stakes in major AI companies before the government’s export controls on Anthropic further roiled the industry. Two top Cabinet members had discussed different ideas, people familiar with the talks told Semafor: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent favored using equity in AI firms to seed Trump Accounts, while Howard Lutnick’s preference was that any equity be directed to a type of sovereign wealth fund. The talks about possible AI stakes ceded to the government are still in the early stages, with no decision made yet — and a meeting with industry CEOs that President Donald Trump previewed earlier this month yet to emerge.

• Trump administration officials have spent recent days fretting over the power of Anthropic’s next-generation AI software to potentially wreak havoc on global cybersecurity. For a group of 700 cybersecurity researchers, that startling realization came in March, The Wall Street Journal reports. That’s when Anthropic researcher Nicholas Carlini showed how easy it had become to use new models to break into systems. The lanky 35-year-old is a well-respected hacker who’s considered the industry’s “professional skeptic” of AI cybersecurity claims. But lately he had changed his mind. Early that month, just weeks after getting his hands on Mythos, Carlini offered a stark warning to a standing-room-only crowd of cybersecurity experts at the ornate beaux-arts building that had once housed San Francisco’s Hibernia Bank.  

• The Trump administration’s sudden moves to rein in Anthropic are giving fresh momentum to efforts in Congress to impose guardrails on cutting-edge artificial intelligence models. Lawmakers are still seeking clear information about the government’s decision late Friday to impose an export ban on the AI company’s latest models, known as Fable 5 and Mythos 5, over cybersecurity concerns — a move that led Anthropic to suspend access to both for all users, POLITICO reports. In roughly a dozen interviews on Capitol Hill this week, several lawmakers said they were shocked by the development and had yet to receive a formal briefing from administration officials. Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas), whose committee has jurisdiction over AI policy, said Monday that he had seen “what’s been reported in the press,” but had not been briefed on details.

THE CAGE-MATCH PLOT AND DRONE THREAT: Federal prosecutors charged at least five people in connection with an alleged plot in which the group hoped to detonate explosive-laden drones over the White House, causing the crowd at last Sunday’s UFC cage-fighting match to scramble, and then shoot into the crowd as people fled, according to court records. The FBI learned of the plot after the mother of one of those charged called local police concerned about his stockpile of guns and online chatter, The Wall Street Journal reports. She said her son, 19-year-old Tycen Proper of Ohio, had been communicating online with a group that was described in court documents as “ex-military and Christian-based,” with members who expressed “ultra-religious and antigovernment sentiments,” and grievances over government corruption and the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. In addition to weapons purchases, Proper’s mother said she had observed her son researching and mapping locations in the area just northwest of Washington, D.C., and engaging in physical training, which she learned was related to the group.

• Exactly how capable those involved were of actually pulling off this plan to attack the UFC America 250 event remains unclear. However, the alleged plot amplifies concerns that The War Zone has been documenting for years about threats posed by drones to critical facilities in the homeland and how they continue to change the national security picture at home and abroad. At the very least, it would have taken unique skills and some level of discipline, coordination and operational security to pull off this kind of a plot. It would have also required funding and time. 

INSIDE THE ARMY’S EFFORTS TO JAM ITS OWN FORCES: Surrounded by empty desert, a group of Army soldiers was debating a dangerous choice. Their communications equipment wasn’t working as it was supposed to. Network connectivity and bandwidth issues aren’t foreign — it could be weather related, issues with the satellites in orbit, or user error — but can pose challenges in the middle of a fight. So, the unit sought workarounds and tried to troubleshoot their problems, Breaking Defense reports. As they fiddled, the enemy unit across the battlefield silently cheered because a clever ruse had worked. They were actually jamming the soldiers’ communications, but only partially — not so drastically that the soldiers would realize it and actually employ the counter-jamming gear they had. The decision by the soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division that they weren’t being jammed could have had fatal consequences in a real fight. Luckily for them, this was all a training scenario playing out specifically to see what electromagnetic warfare techniques work best against the US Army. And as it turns out, there was a lot to learn.

• When the Pentagon’s science and technology chief looks at Ukraine, he sees a war fought with weapons invented, produced, and fielded since the conflict erupted. “The fact that you can bring relevant capability to the fight, as the Ukrainians and allies have done in the conflict with Russia, that essentially didn’t exist at the beginning of the fight,” Joseph Jewell, assistant defense secretary for science and technology, said Tuesday at the Defense One Tech Summit in Arlington, Virginia. “That’s the new thing here.” It’s a thing the United States must learn to do, Jewell said. Ukraine’s homegrown drone industry “to a large extent, sprung up almost overnight because of urgency. I think with our industrial resources, we certainly could do things at that scale and even in a more sophisticated way. And we need to do it,” he said. 

• In the tactical realm, Ukrainian forces have employed small strike UAVs, commonly known as First Person View (FPV) drones, to execute precise attacks against smaller targets including tanks, armored personnel carriers, armored fighting vehicles, mortars, artillery, and individual soldiers themselves. The tactical realm of the battlefield has been transformed by these drones as they constantly hover along the front lines, making maneuver warfare difficult; armor is often damaged or destroyed before it can engage as FPV drones track them down and take them out. Even artillery and MLRS systems located farther back from the frontline are vulnerable to FPV drone strikes. These systems are easy for drones to spot, making it difficult to execute “shoot and scoot” techniques which the Ukrainians conducted in the first several years of the war with great success while operating High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). Because anything in the open is easily spotted, artillery systems have been forced to adapt, relying on camouflage and bunkers to defend themselves from the drone threat, Cosmo Curtatone and John Nagl write at Small Wars Journal.

OVER TWO-THIRDS IN SECURITY SAY CYBER IS GETTING HARDER: Cybersecurity professionals say their job is harder than ever, with 68% reporting it has become more difficult over the past two years, according to a new report. The study, “The Life and Times of Cybersecurity Professionals, Volume VIII,” from industry body ISSA and analyst Omdia, surveyed 380 practitioners, Infosecurity Magazine reports. It found that over 70% of respondents are facing workplace challenges linked to being locked out of key technology decisions. Among the key challenges cited were that other groups such as IT operations and platform engineering are increasingly involved in cybersecurity (79%). Another was that tech decisions are made without the input of cyber, creating barriers to security adoption (72%).

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NEW: In this episode of Cyber Focus, Frank Cilluffo sits down with FBI Assistant Director for Cyber Brett Leatherman for a wide-ranging conversation about how the bureau is using law enforcement authorities, intelligence, partnerships and court-authorized technical operations to disrupt adversaries, help victims and defend U.S. critical infrastructure. Leatherman explains why the FBI expects to conduct more operations like Operation Masquerade, which evicted Russian GRU actors from compromised routers, and why privately owned routers, edge devices and small networks can become valuable infrastructure for foreign intelligence services and criminal groups. He also discusses the rise of agentic AI in ransomware, China-linked threats to operational technology and critical infrastructure, Operation Winter SHIELD, supply-chain risk and why early victim reporting can help the FBI move upstream against cyber adversaries.

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Agriculture

U.S. screwworm cases rise as outbreak spreads beyond initial contamination zones

Screwworm cases are rising in the U.S. as the outbreak spreads beyond the initial contamination zones. Twelve animal cases have been confirmed so far, a significant increase from the first case detected in a calf in south Texas on June 3. The growing number of infections has alarmed agricultural experts, who warn that a wider outbreak could have serious consequences for the Texas beef industry. Of the 12 reported cases, 11 remain active and one is inactive, according to an update issued last Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s animal and plant health inspection service. (THEGUARDIAN.COM)

Biothreats

Ebola outbreak could become worst on record, Africa CDC chief warns

Health officials on Tuesday warned that the Ebola outbreak in East Africa could significantly worsen, saying it could last as long as a year and infect thousands of people if current transmission rates go on unabated. The outbreak is already one of the largest on record, and has spread most in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where distrust of the authorities and violence in eastern regions have hampered health workers’ ability to help people. “If we don’t stop the outbreak very soon it will be worse than what we had in West Africa and eastern DRC,” said Jean Kaseya, the director general of the Africa CDC, said on Tuesday at an emergency conference on Ebola for African leaders. (NYTIMES.COM)

CDC’s Ebola fight contends with staffing cuts and low employee morale

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is responding to one of the worst Ebola outbreaks on record, calling on its workforce to help contain its spread overseas. But the CDC employees carrying out these response efforts are feeling burnout and low morale amid deep staffing cuts and long-term leadership vacancies, according to internal documents and conversations shared with Federal News Network. CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID), which is responsible for the prevention and control of rare but deadly diseases like anthrax and Ebola, as well as more common illnesses like foodborne diseases, is playing a major role in the outbreak response. (FEDERALNEWSNETWORK.COM)

Breaches

Kodak confirms data breach claimed by ShinyHunters extortion gang

Kodak has confirmed that it’s working with external cybersecurity experts to investigate a security breach after hackers gained access to some of the company’s data. Founded in 1880 as the Eastman Kodak Company and headquartered in Rochester, New York, Kodak has 79,000 worldwide patents and provides commercial print, advanced materials, and chemical products. A company spokesperson told BleepingComputer that attackers only accessed a “limited amount” of data in the incident, but didn’t reply to a subsequent email asking if they breached Kodak’s internal network. (BLEEPINGCOMPUTER.COM)

Defense

B-52 involved in tragic crash was heading out on radar test sortie

There are so many questions to be answered about what led to yesterday’s fatal mishap involving a B-52H bomber at Edwards Air Force Base. The crash was tragic on a level the base, which sits at the center of America’s flight testing ecosystem, has not experienced, at least to our knowledge, for 75 years. The human impact here is just hard to quantify at this time. At the same time, there will be a major developmental impact, too, especially when it comes to work that is being done to modernize the B-52. This is a constellation of programs that are seen as vital to U.S. national security, and are also already running far behind schedule and over budget. At this time, we do know that the aircraft in question was being used to support the Radar Modernization Program (RMP), and its loss will have ramifications for that effort. (TWZ.COM)

Health care

Hackers begin to leak Novo Nordisk’s stolen data

Cybercrime gang FulcrumSec has begun leaking what it claims are samples from 1.3 terabytes of data stolen from Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk. The hackers claim the trove contains a wide range of clinical trial information and intellectual property, including proprietary artificial intelligence models apparently used in drug development. FulcrumSec on its leak site Tuesday posted what it claims are login screenshots for Novo Nordisk IT systems, clinical trial-related information and samples of details related to the company’s AI models. (HEALTHCAREINFOSECURITY.COM)

Supply chain

GitHub dismissed security reports on flaws now exploited by supply-chain worm, researchers say

GitHub rejected two formal vulnerability reports identifying design flaws that researchers say are enabling variants of the Shai-Hulud supply-chain worm to infect and compromise hundreds of software packages and developer accounts worldwide. The reports, submitted by threat intelligence group Deep Specter Research through GitHub’s bug disclosure channel on HackerOne, were both closed as ineligible and not presenting a security risk, despite the ongoing threat posed by the worm. Although the hacking tool originated with the TeamPCP cybercrime group, copycat entities have emerged using slightly different versions since the original code was published in early May. (THERECORD.MEDIA)

144 Mastra npm packages compromised via hijacked contributor account

As many as 144 npm packages associated with the Mastra namespace (“@mastra/*”), a popular open-source JavaScript and TypeScript framework for building artificial intelligence (AI) applications, have been compromised as part of a software supply chain attack codenamed easy-day-js, per findings from JFrog, SafeDep, Socket, and StepSecurity. “A single npm account (ehindero) mass-published more than 140 malicious packages across the Mastra scope within a short window on 2026-06-17,” Socket said. The infected packages themselves do not include malicious code. (THEHACKERNEWS.COM)

WATCH: White House National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross, CISA Acting Director Nick Andersen and more top leaders at the recent McCrary Cyber Summit

Artificial intelligence

Google Vertex AI SDK flaw let attackers hijack model uploads via bucket squatting

A flaw in the Google Cloud Vertex AI SDK for Python let an attacker with no access to a victim’s project hijack the victim’s machine learning model upload and run code inside Google’s serving infrastructure. Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, which found and reported the bug through Google’s bug bounty program, calls the technique “Pickle in the Middle” and said it saw no exploitation in the wild. Google has patched it; if you use the SDK, update to version 1.148.0 or later. The attacker needed only a Google Cloud project of their own and the victim’s project ID, which is often public. No credentials, no phishing, no foothold in the target. (THEHACKERNEWS.COM)

Fifteen JetBrains Marketplace plugins found stealing API keys

Security researchers have uncovered a coordinated campaign designed to steal developers’ AI-related API keys via malicious plugins. Aikido Security found at least 15 integrated development environment (IDE) plugins on the JetBrains Marketplace which had slipped past security checks and have now been installed around 70,000 times. They apparently date back to October 2025, with the most recent plugins released in June 2026. “Every plugin poses as an AI coding assistant built on DeepSeek and other large language models, offering chat, commit messages, code review, bug finding, and unit tests,” said Aikido. (INFOSECURITY-MAGAZINE.COM)

AI’s constant patching treadmill can be a security problem

While Washington D.C. frets over the potential impact of Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5, security researchers continue to track how the integration of frontier AI tools are transforming the digital security landscape for malicious hackers and defenders alike. The breakneck speed of model releases may be creating short, silent security gaps for developers who must choose between performance and security, according to a new report. Researchers at Backslash Security pored through update logs for Claude Code, Anthropic’s flagship coding model, finding the company was patching dozens of newly discovered security vulnerabilities in the program between April and early June 2026. (CYBERSCOOP.COM)

Critical infrastructure

HTTP/2 bomb attacks put telcos, healthcare orgs at risk

A vulnerability at the very heart of how the modern Internet operates is disproportionately affecting organizations that have large, distributed footprints on the Web. Patches are available, but some idiosyncrasies in vendor rollouts have caused some confusion. Earlier this spring, Calif security researcher Quang Luong used OpenAI’s Codex to discover an exploit now referred to as the “HTTP/2 Bomb.” As seems to be customary of severe, AI-discovered vulnerabilities, HTTP/2 Bomb — or, more formally, CVE-2026-49975 — creatively chains together two old, nondescript features of a core Web technology to help attackers amplify junk traffic by orders of magnitude. By causing denial of service (DoS) attacks without any need for authentication, the issue received a high-severity 7.5 CVSS score. (DARKREADING.COM)

Malware

Rokarolla: Android banker with complete device takeover capabilities

The zLabs research team has discovered Rokarolla, a newly identified Android banking trojan named after its Command and Control (C2) infrastructure. Primarily distributed through malicious websites such as hxxps[://]infocontablidades[.]it[.]com/, where it masquerades as popular applications like TikTok or Google Chrome, this highly invasive malware is specifically designed to target and compromise 217 distinct cryptocurrency and banking applications. To facilitate undetected financial fraud, Rokarolla employs a sophisticated suite of 137 commands that grant it extensive administrative control over an infected device. Its malicious capabilities include harvesting lock screen credentials, exfiltrating sensitive contact lists and SMS data, and utilizing keyloggers to continuously record user input. (ZIMPERIUM.COM)

ClickFix campaigns expand malware delivery with new loaders and fake update lures

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged multiple ClickFix campaigns that deliver three malware loaders called BabaDeda Loader, Lorem Ipsum Loader, and Potemkin, per independent reports from Morphisec, BlueVoyant, and Huntress, respectively. Attacks involving BabaDeda Loader, observed in April 2026, have targeted education and financial organizations. “Earlier BabaDeda activity was known for concealing malicious payloads inside legitimate looking installer packages,” Morphisec researcher Shmuel Uzan said. “This new framework keeps that same code genome but expands it into a far more capable loader built for stealth, evasion, and payload flexibility.” (THEHACKERNEWS.COM)

Amos stealer targets macOS keychain files and browser passwords

Amos Stealer, an information-stealing malware, is targeting Apple Mac computers to steal private data, according to new details from cybersecurity research firm CyberProof. Threat actors are, reportedly, actively using this malware family to run financially motivated campaigns by compromising macOS environments. Although Amos Stealer is not new, in the latest campaign, the threat actors are distributing the infostealer through deceptive software downloads, fake websites, and social engineering lures. Once inside a Mac, it searches for valuable files across system directories. It then collects stored passwords, session cookies, and autofill form information from Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers. (HACKREAD.COM)

Fileless Phantom Stealer targets browser credentials

A threat actor is targeting banks and other high-value organizations in a phishing campaign to deliver Phantom Stealer, a credential and session-stealing malware designed to evade conventional endpoint defenses. What makes the campaign concerning, according to researchers at Fortra, is the adversary’s use of heavily obfuscated, fileless techniques to complicate detection and enable the malware to execute largely in memory. “The actor’s primary objective is the silent theft of browser credentials, session cookies, and financial data, with exfiltration through four parallel channels (Telegram, Discord, FTP, SMTP) for redundancy,” Fortra said in a report this week. (DARKREADING.COM)

Steam Workshop abused to spread malware via Wallpaper Engine app

Threat actors are abusing Steam Workshop, Valve’s community hub for downloading game-related content, to push various malware hidden in wallpaper packages. Infected wallpapers can lead to hijacking Steam accounts, compromising the system with a backdoor, or running cryptomining processes. Steam Workshop is a built-in content-sharing platform on Valve’s Steam gaming service where users can upload and download community-created content for games and applications. (BLEEPINGCOMPUTER.COM)

Ransomware

Cybercriminals mask malicious communications through Microsoft Teams relays

The DragonForce ransomware group used a custom malware called Backdoor.Turn to hide command-and-control traffic inside Microsoft Teams relay infrastructure during an intrusion at a U.S. services company, according to Symantec. DragonForce is a ransomware-as-a-service operation that has been active since 2023. The group provides affiliates with ransomware tools and supporting services in exchange for a share of ransom payments. “Backdoor.Turn obtains an anonymous Teams visitor token from Microsoft’s Skype-backed identity services, uses a legitimate Microsoft TURN relay to set up the connection, and then runs a QUIC session to the attacker’s real command-and-control (C2) server,” Symantec explained. (HELPNETSECURITY.COM)

Vulnerabilities

CISA orders feds to patch max severity Joomla plugin flaw by Friday

Tracked as CVE-2026-48907, this vulnerability can be exploited by threat actors without privileges to achieve code execution via low-complexity attacks targeting Joomla deployments that use the JCE WYSIWYG editor plugin. “Widget Factory Joomla Content Editor contains an improper access control vulnerability which could allow for upload and execution of PHP code via the creation of new editor profiles for unauthenticated users,” CISA warned on Tuesday. (BLEEPINGCOMPUTER.COM)

Microsoft working on patch for ‘RoguePlanet’ zero-day

Microsoft published an advisory acknowledging the public disclosure of a vulnerability in Defender that could lead to privilege escalation. The security defect, now tracked as CVE-2026-50656 (CVSS score of 7.8), was dropped last week by security researcher Nightmare Eclipse (also known as Chaotic Eclipse). “Microsoft is aware of an elevation of privilege in the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine in Microsoft Defender publicly referred to as ‘RoguePlanet’,” the tech giant’s advisory reads. “We are working to provide a high-quality security update that addresses this vulnerability. We will provide information in this CVE when the update is available,” Microsoft adds. (SECURITYWEEK.COM)

Chrome and Firefox updated to patch critical, high-severity vulnerabilities

Fresh Chrome and Firefox updates are now rolling out with fixes for over 70 vulnerabilities, including critical and high-severity memory safety bugs that could potentially lead to remote code execution (RCE). Chrome has been updated to versions 149.0.7827.155/.156 for Windows and macOS and version 149.0.7827.155 for Linux to resolve 33 security defects, 32 of which were found by Google. Of the seven critical-severity flaws mentioned in Google’s advisory, six are use-after-free issues, a type of memory safety bug that could be exploited for RCE. (SECURITYWEEK.COM)

7-year-old OpenBSD security flaw exposes systems to full PAP authentication bypass

A significant authentication flaw has been discovered in the PPP stack of OpenBSD, allowing attackers to bypass the Password Authentication Protocol (PAP) validation and gain unauthorized network access. Although this vulnerability was patched in June 2026, it originated from legacy code dating back to 1999, making it one of the longest-standing authentication bypass issues in modern operating systems. The problem resides in the `sppp_pap_input()` function within the `sppp(4)` subsystem, which handles synchronous PPP and PPPoE connections. (GBHACKERS.COM)

China

SprySOCKS Windows variant abuses kernel drivers to evade detection

FishMonger, a notorious nation-state threat group tied to a Chinese technology company, has expanded its tooling with a Windows backdoor that uses kernel drivers to remain undetected. ESET discovered a previously undocumented version of SprySOCKS, a Linux backdoor that initially was observed in 2023 in threat activity from FishMonger (aka Earth Lusca and Aquatic Panda). Last year, the cyber-espionage group was tied to i-Soon, a Chinese technology company that conducted cyber operations on behalf of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). (DARKREADING.COM)

Russia

Estonia to quarantine emails sent from Russian .ru domain before they reach government officials

Estonia will require additional security screening for emails sent from Russia’s .ru top-level domain before they reach government officials, according to the country’s minister of justice and digital affairs. The new measure will take effect on August 31, the anniversary of the withdrawal of Russian troops from Estonia following the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is intended to protect public institutions from cyber threats, Minister Liisa Pakosta said in a public speech quoted by local media. “Email addresses ending in .ru pose an elevated cyber risk. There is a serious danger that they are being used to break into personal databases,” she added. (THERECORD.MEDIA)

Artificial intelligence

A case for how to shape ‘ingredient lists’ for AI models

A policy paper published Tuesday advocates for software bills of materials (SBOMs) for artificial intelligence as a mechanism for reducing cyber risk and improving transparency, and seeks to give lawmakers, federal agencies and others a roadmap on how to proceed. The SBOM, commonly described as an inventory of software ingredients, emerged in the 2010s and has expanded beyond software to include hardware and AI. But the paper from the Institute for Security and Technology, which CyberScoop is the first to report on, argues that AIBOMS require foundational work before they can be widely implemented. This comes as some companies are already offering AIBOM services and other organizations are actively shaping AIBOM policy. (CYBERSCOOP.COM)

AI adoption correlates with incident frequency, underscoring need for governance

More than one-fifth of organizations running macOS networks have lost money or experienced a cyberattack because of their use of AI tools, according to a report that network management vendor Jamf released on Tuesday. Roughly six in 10 macOS-based organizations expect an AI-related incident in the near future, the survey found. The report, based on interviews with 687 IT and security leaders managing MacOS network environments, also describes system administrators’ AI implementation priorities, the largest areas of risk they face and Jamf’s recommendations for mitigating those risks. (CYBERSECURITYDIVE.COM)

Data from ‘half a million hours of Ukraine conflict drone footage’ now available to train AI

Virginia-based, data-labeling and AI startup Enabled Intelligence is expanding its repository of curated datasets that government and commercial partners use for model training and deployments to include a new collection of drone footage recorded in Ukraine amid the ongoing war. Since Russia’s large-scale invasion of its territory in 2022, Ukraine has generated staggering volumes of frontline videos capturing real-world combat operations. The steadily growing visual record is creating vast amounts of training data that’s enabling military observers and defense contractors to innovate weapons capabilities based on modern tactical lessons at rapid rates, including AI models that allow drones to autonomously recognize and strike targets. (DEFENSESCOOP.COM)

How San José trained 1,000 city employees to build their own AI tools

San José’s in-house artificial intelligence training effort has reached a major milestone, with more than 1,000 city employees completing the program since its launch in 2024 and creating AI tools that the city says are already reducing administrative burdens across departments. The city announced this week that its AI Upskilling Program, launched in partnership with San José State University, has trained roughly 15% of the municipal workforce. The voluntary program includes self-paced courses and a 10-week cohort-based training track where employees design AI tools tailored to their roles. (STATESCOOP.COM)

Sixty percent of U.S. consumers say ‘AI’ in brand messaging is a turnoff, survey finds

Getting cited by AI is easier than earning consumers’ trust, according to a new report from WordPress VIP, the Automattic-owned company that offers an enterprise version of the WordPress publishing platform. As brands race to have their links appear in AI search results, consumers have grown more skeptical about whether they can actually trust the answers they’re getting. Per the report, 60% of consumers in the U.S. say that brands that use “AI” in their messaging are a turnoff, and 86% don’t fully trust AI and still want to explore original sources. Notably, 42% of consumers said that AI-generated answers without clear attribution are trusted less than airline fees, confusing privacy policies, and medical bills. (TECHCRUNCH.COM)

Defense

Pentagon aims to sidestep potential ‘collusion’ through Defense Production Act: Senior official 

The U.S. has invoked the Defense Production Act to help munitions suppliers “essentially collude” without breaking antitrust laws and find ways to ramp up production, according to Michael Cadenazzi, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy. “It’s a way for us to communicate and leverage industry,” Cadenazzi told an audience at a Center for a New American Security event. “In this particular case,” he later added, “our interest is using voluntary agreements as a way to bring industry in in an antitrust environment to go ahead and have conversations with them. For us to articulate problems to them around nasty issues in the supply chain and the industrial base that allow them to communicate and work together, essentially collude.” (BREAKINGDEFENSE.COM)

ChatGPT to debut on Pentagon’s GenAI.mil in ‘early July’, OpenAI says

OpenAI will bring ChatGPT to GenAI.mil, the Pentagon’s generative-AI platform, in “early July,” a company official said Tuesday. The AI firm is working with the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, Mohammed Husain — the company’s strategic delivery lead for cyber — said at the Defense One Tech Summit in Arlington, Virginia. “I think we’re going live extremely soon, and excited to make a broader announcement about that in early July,” Husain said. That will make ChatGPT available to more than 3 million defense personnel and certified for controlled unclassified information and Impact Level 5. (DEFENSEONE.COM)

DIU leans into risk to field commercial tech faster

The Defense Innovation Unit is making riskier bets on new military equipment as it tries to further slash the time it takes to send commercial products to the field, a DIU official said Tuesday. Now in its second decade of operations, the priorities of the Defense Department’s Silicon Valley outpost have evolved since its early days as a conduit to the commercial sector. DoD leaders from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on down are encouraging DIU to move more aggressively amid the latest chapter of a decades-long push to reimagine the military’s notoriously slow tech purchasing process. (FEDERALNEWSNETWORK.COM)

Pentagon boasts of using AI to write reports mandated by Congress

The Department of Defense has a lot of congressionally mandated homework to do every year involving hundreds of required reports on various national security topics. But Pentagon officials have been proudly describing a new shortcut — using generative AI tools to write such reports for Congress. Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael highlighted AI-generated reports to Congress as a key example of how the Department of Defense — stylized as the Department of War under the Trump administration — has adopted generative AI during an event hosted by the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington, DC, on June 12. The Pentagon has made AI tools, starting with Google Cloud’s Gemini for Government, widely available to members of all six military branches through the department’s bespoke GenAI.mil platform since December 2025. (ARSTECHNICA.COM)

Leadership

FBI taps Karl Robert Schumann as new CIO

Longtime FBI official Karl Robert Schumann is the agency’s new permanent chief information officer, according to the Justice Department’s list of top departmentwide tech officials. DOJ’s IT leadership directory was updated Monday to list Schumann as the agency’s new CIO. Katie Wood previously served as the FBI’s acting CIO prior to Schumann’s elevation. Schumann did not respond to a LinkedIn message for comment, although he revised his job experiences on the professional networking platform to list the CIO position and a new role as the FBI’s Assistant Director (Senior Executive Service). (NEXTGOV.COM)

Response

EU security experts to support Ukrainian organizations in case of cyberattacks

The Ukrainian government can now activate emergency EU cyber support to respond to large-scale cyber-attacks and cyber incidents affecting one of its organizations and businesses. Despite not being an EU member state yet, Ukraine’s inclusion in the EU Cybersecurity Reserve was approved on June 16 by the Council of the EU, the main decision-making body of the EU, representing the member states’ governments. The Reserve, managed by the EU Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), provides incident response services from 47 trusted private providers to help address significant or large-scale incidents. (INFOSECURITY-MAGAZINE.COM)

Trump delays Jay Clayton’s nomination for intel director to try to push Congress on voting bill

President Donald Trump said that he’s delaying Jay Clayton’s nomination to lead the U.S. intelligence community in a bid to force Congress to act on a voter ID bill that currently lacks enough support for passage. Trump said in a lengthy post on his social media site that he will keep Bill Pulte, a top U.S. housing official, as acting director of national intelligence. Lawmakers in both parties had opposed Trump’s nomination of Pulte, citing his apparent lack of experience in the intelligence field, which essentially forced Trump to turn to Clayton. Clayton had been set to appear on Wednesday for a Senate confirmation hearing that was fast-tracked because of the lapse of a crucial surveillance program due to bipartisan anger over Trump’s pick of Pulte. (APNEWS.COM)

Over 200 state lawmakers urge Congress to oppose AI preemption in House proposal 

Just over 200 state lawmakers from across the country are calling on members of the House and Senate to reject a proposal to preempt some state regulations of artificial intelligence for three years, citing the technology’s impact on kids, artists and creators and workers. The letter, sent by 203 state lawmakers to Congress on Tuesday, said “we take seriously our responsibility to safeguard our constituents from AI harms to children, workers, artists and creators, families, and consumers.” The preemption provision “would freeze a sweeping set of state laws and tie the hands of lawmakers at a moment of rapid technological transformation,” the lawmakers added in the letter. (THEHILL.COM)

Warner presses CISA on whether staff cuts weakened regional cyber support

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) is pressing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for records on staffing levels and vacancies across its regional offices, warning that workforce cuts over the last year may have weakened the agency’s ability to support state and local governments facing cyber threats. In a Tuesday letter to acting CISA Director Nick Andersen that was first shared with Nextgov/FCW, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee asked the agency to provide both headquarters and regional organizational charts from January 2025, October 2025 and the present day, along with details on vacancies and explanations as to why employees left their posts. (NEXTGOV.COM)

COMMITTEE ACTIVITY

ENERGY RESILIENCE: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a June 17 hearing to examine the state of the U.S. territories.

DNI: The Senate Intelligence Committee will hold a June 17 nomination hearing to consider Jay Clayton to be director of national intelligence. 

CHINA: The House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party is scheduled to hold a June 25 hearing.

CISA adds one known exploited vulnerability to catalog

CISA has added one new vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation: CVE-2026-48907 Widget Factory Joomla Content Editor Improper Access Control Vulnerability. This type of vulnerability is a frequent attack vector for malicious cyber actors and poses significant risks to the federal enterprise. (CISA.GOV)

TO BE INCLUDED IN THIS CALENDAR, SUBMIT YOUR SECURITY-FOCUSED EVENT FOR CONSIDERATION

NUCLEAR: Why does the U.S. struggle while nuclear leaders such as China and France succeed? A combination of standardized designs, predictable regulation, and rapid regulatory approval all appear to play a role. And while bipartisan support for nuclear energy has grown due to its role in AI-driven energy demand and climate goals, political anxieties in the United States persist. Join AEI on June 18 to dissect the economic, regulatory, and political tensions that keep the U.S. lagging behind when it comes to nuclear energy.

HYPERSONIC: What are hypersonic delivery systems, and what makes them strategically and technologically distinct from other missiles? What makes hypersonic flight a militarily desirable capability, and how can the United States and its allies defend against these threats? Should the United States policy community debate the merits of nuclear armed hypersonic missiles? To discuss these questions and more, please join the CSIS Defense and Security Department’s HTK Series for a June 18 conversation featuring Heather Williams, director of the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues, Tom Karako, director of the CSIS Missile Defense Project, and Kari Bingen, director of the CSIS Aerospace Security Project. 

MARITIME SECURITY: Please join the CSIS Defense and Security Department (DSD) and the U.S. Naval Institute (USNI) on June 18 for a Maritime Security Dialogue event featuring Lieutenant General Eric Austin, USMC, CG, MCCDC / DC, CD&I / PAE-MC. LtGen Austin will sit down with Dr. Seth G. Jones, president, CSIS Defense and Security Department, to discuss the future growth of the Marine Corps, lessons from the recent wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and implications for the Indo-Pacific. Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spicer, USN (Ret.), chief executive officer and publisher, U.S. Naval Institute, will offer opening remarks. 

NUCLEAR: For the first time, the United States is preparing to deter two nuclear adversaries­­­, Russia and China. In today’s post-New START environment, U.S. adversaries remain committed to weakening American resolve and undermining Washington’s commitment to its allies. Join Hudson Senior Fellow and Keystone Defense Initiative Director Dr. Rebeccah Heinrichs and Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration Brandon Williams for a June 18 discussion on the administration’s priorities in strengthening the U.S. nuclear enterprise.

CHINA AND AI: Join CNAS on June 24 for a live event on China’s AI capabilities and the risks to U.S. national security. The event will mark the release of a new CNAS report, “Red Lines: Understanding the National Security Risks of China’s Advanced AI,” which assesses the capabilities and trajectory of China’s advanced AI models, provides a framework for understanding the risks to national security, and outlines actionable recommendations for a stronger U.S. analytical capacity and response.

AI AND EXPORT CONTROL: Join House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast and Senator Jim Banks for a June 25 fireside chat hosted by the Hudson Institute on Congress’s role in U.S. export control strategy to outcompete China in technology and AI development. The conversation will examine ways to close loopholes, guard America’s most critical technologies, and prevent Beijing from leveraging American innovation against American interests. 

DATA CENTERS: Join the CSIS Strategic Technologies Program for a June 25 discussion on the future of data centers and AI infrastructure in the United States. The event will feature two panels bringing together federal and local government officials alongside industry leaders to examine the policy, economic, and security implications of large-scale data center expansion. The conversation will explore how the United States can scale the infrastructure required for advanced AI systems while ensuring resilience, trusted operations, and long-term strategic advantage.

GLOBAL SECURITY: Join the CSIS Defense and Security Department on June 30 for its annual Global Security Forum. This year’s conference will center on the theme “America at 250: A Defining Moment for American Statecraft and Military Power.: Through keynote addresses and expert panel discussions with government, industry, and finance experts, the Forum will examine how the tools of statecraft are being redefined and how the United States can harness innovation, rebuild industrial capacity, strengthen deterrence, and renew the foundations of leadership in a more dangerous world.

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