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The vulnerabilities in Pulse Connect Secure, a VPN that employees use to remotely connect to large networks, include one that hackers had been actively exploiting before it was known to Ivanti, the maker of the product. The flaw, which Ivanti disclosed last week, carries a severity rating of 10 out of a possible 10. The authentication bypass vulnerability allows untrusted users to remotely execute malicious code on Pulse Secure hardware, and from there, to gain control of other parts of the network where it’s installed.

Federal agencies, critical infrastructure, and more

Security firm FireEye said in a report published on the same day as the Ivanti disclosure that hackers linked to China spent months exploiting the critical vulnerability to spy on US defense contractors and financial institutions around the world. Ivanti confirmed in a separate post that the zeroday vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2021-22893, was under active exploit.

Enlarge / The White House, the South Lawn, and part of the Ellipse are seen from the observation deck of the Washington Monument on October 1, 2014, in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty | Chip Somodevilla )

At least two US government officials have experienced mysterious health incidents in the Washington, DC, area that are strikingly similar to the brain-damaging “health attacks” that plagued US diplomats in Cuba beginning in 2016.

Last November, a National Security Council official reported being sickened while near the Ellipse, the White House’s large, oval-shaped southern lawn ,according to a report by CNN. In a separate 2019 incident, a White House staff member said she also experienced something akin to a health attack while walking her dog in Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC. The 2019 incident, which occurred just after Thanksgiving, was first reported by GQ last year. The magazine wrote at the time:

According to a government source familiar with the incident, the staffer passed a parked van. A man got out and walked past her. Her dog started seizing up. Then she felt it too: a high-pitched ringing in her ears, an intense headache, and a tingling on the side of her face.

The staffer also said she had experienced a similar incident just a few months earlier, in August of 2019, while she was traveling in London with then-National Security Adviser John Bolton. According to GQ, the staffer reported again feeling a tingling in the side of her head, which was facing the window of her hotel room, as well as intense pressure and ringing in her ears. All of those symptoms stopped when she left the room.

Enlarge / The NYPD’s Digidog is just a Boston Dynamics robot in blue livery. (credit: Daniel Valls/FNTV freedomnews.tv)

The Guardian reports that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) is retiring “Digidog,” a Boston Dynamics Spot robot the state started testing in December. The department described the robot as a tool that could be used to defuse dangerous situations and said it would help officers stay out of harm’s way. In an environment where critics question the amount of resources police departments are given, having a state-of-the-art robot dog patrolling the streets of NYC drew a lot of negative attention and viral videos. The local ABC News affiliate reports that testing was supposed to continue until August.

With the robot set to be returned to Boston Dynamics, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he is “glad the Digidog was put down,” adding through a spokesperson that the robot is “creepy, alienating, and sends the wrong message to New Yorkers.” The police signed a $94,200 contract for the robot, about enough for one $74,500 spot unit and one 360 degree “Spot Cam” camera for $21,800. US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argued that the money should be invested in communities instead, saying, “When was the last time you saw next-generation, world class technology for education, healthcare, housing, etc consistently prioritized for underserved communities like this?”

The high-tech robot police dog naturally sent imaginations running wild, but Spot is just a human-operated mobile camera, as opposed to an autonomous, weaponized dog version of RoboCop. Boston Dynamics’ terms of sale prohibit weaponizing Spot, with the “prohibited uses” section (5.2) banning “intentional use of the Equipment to harm or intimidate any person or animal, as a weapon, or to enable any weapon.” Rules are only good if they’re enforced, though, and there’s an argument to be made that police use of the robot counts as “intimidation.” Either way, arming the police with a $100,000 surveillance device did not earn the department a lot of praise.