Former NSA’er Chris Inglis was confirmed by the Senate as the first national cyber director. His job is to make sure that all federal agencies are operating consistent with the national cyber policy. The director will be the Biden administration’s main contact for cyber security problems when things go wrong as the coordinator for the response from the federal agencies with offensive and defenses responsibilities in cyberspace. https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/government-and-defense/inglis-confirmed-as-first-national-cyber-director/

FBI recovers a chunk of the BITCOIN Ransom paid for the Colonial Pipeline ransom attack. The victim contacted the FBI and then agreed to pay the ransom. The FBI was able to track the origin back to a hacking group called Darkside. They followed the bitcoin public ledger to identify the address receiving the two bitcoin payments. The FBI then used a private key to collect a portion of the funds. They also used blockchain explorer software to track down the payment. https://cyware.com/news/how-the-fbi-recovered-bitcoin-ransom-paid-to-darkside-ransomware-gang-02887672

GOOGLE adds new features to Chrome to detect suspicious downloads. The new protections let the users know if a download from the Chrome Webstore can be considered “trusted.” This is part of its Enhanced Safe Browsing feature and has enabled the browsers to improve privacy and security, disabling an additional 80% of malicious extensions. Watch for upcoming Chrome cybersecurity alerts including scans of downloaded files for malware using metadata about the downloaded file. https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/google-chrome-to-help-users-identify.html