March 2023 5V0-62.19 Exam Dumps

The following questions are representative of the types of questions you will find on the CRCM (Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager) exam.

1.  A borrower has a right to rescind a loan agreement in all of the following situations except:

a. A line of credit used for the borrower's business, secured by the borrower's primary  dwelling
b. A revolving line of credit secured by the borrower's primary dwelling used to Excellerate the borrower's home
c. An increase of a line of credit from $5,000 to $10,000 secured by the borrower's primary dwelling
d. A loan to pay off a contract for a deed secured by the borrower's primary dwelling

2.  When opening a deposit account online, Regulation E disclosures MUST be provided at the time of account opening or: 

a. Before the first EFT occurs 
b. Along with the first periodic statement 
c. Within three business days of account opening 
d. Within three business days of a customer's request for the EFT service

3.  The primary responsibility for overseeing a bank’s inherent compliance risk should lie with which of the following?

a. Internal audit
b. Consumers
c. Board of Directors
d. Compliance officer

4.   A branch manager finds an unexplained $7,000 cash shortage in Teller #1's cash drawer. Which of the following actions must the bank take?

a. File a Currency Transaction Report (CTR) with the IRS
b. Discharge Teller #1 immediately
c. Send a notice of adverse action to the bank's federal regulator
d. File a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR)

5.  A compliance professional recently discovered the bank did not file and disclose an accurate covered agreement, as required by the CRA Sunshine Act. In order to ensure correct reporting in the future, what must be provided? 

a. All individual mortgage loans 
b. Grants or loans to fulfill CRA activity 
c. Non-public or confidential information that will be provided in the public file 
d. A copy of the agreement to the regulatory agency 24 months after the end of the term

Answer Key

1. a
2. a
3. c
4. d
5. b

Multiple choice questions are perhaps the easiest to complete - you simply put a cross in a box. However, the questions often have two answers that could, at first glance, be correct. Don't make the mistake of practicing the first answer and thinking this is correct without checking all the others.

If it says 'Tick one box', you must tick one box. If you leave it blank or tick two or more boxes you will get zero marks. These multiple choice questions will not start with command words like 'Describe...' or 'Explain...'. They will be written in the form of a question like 'What...?' or 'Why...?'.

There will be more multiple choice questions on the foundation paper.

These questions have been written by Bitesize consultants as suggestions to the types of questions that may appear in an test paper.

Tanzim Hazarika

The world’s leading telecommunications companies are often branded as monopolies that lack innovation. Telcos have been great at operational efficiency, connectivity and living off of transmission costs.

But in a world beyond telephone poles and basic wireless services, how will telcos modernize, become more agile and monetize new opportunities brought about by 5G, private wireless and a spate of new innovations in infrastructure, cloud, data, artificial intelligence and apps? It has become table stakes for carriers to evolve their hardened, proprietary infrastructure stacks to more open, flexible, cloudlike models. But doing so brings risks that telcos must carefully balance as they strive to deliver consistent quality of service while at the same time moving faster and avoiding disruption.

In this Breaking Analysis and ahead of MWC 2023, we explore the evolution of the telco business and how the industry is in many ways, mimicking a transformation that took place decades ago in enterprise information technology. We’ll model some of the traditional enterprise vendors using Enterprise Technology Research data and investigate how they’re faring in the telecom vertical. And we’ll pose some of the key issues facing the industry this decade.

MWC 2023: not pre-COVID attendance but impressive

First, let’s take a look at what the GSMA has in store for MWC 2023.

GSMA, the host of what used to be called Mobile World Congress, has set the theme for this year’s event as velocity. It has rebranded MWC to reflect the fact that mobile technology is only one part of the story. MWC has become one of the world’s premier tech events highlighting innovations not only in telco, mobile and 5G but the colliding forces of cloud, infrastructure, apps, private network, smart industries, machine intelligence and AI, and more. MWC comprises an enormous ecosystem of service providers, technology companies, and firms from all industries, including sports and entertainment.

As well, the GSMA, along with its venue partner at the Fira Barcelona, have placed a major emphasis on sustainability and public/private partnerships. Virtually every industry will be represented at the event because every industry is affected by the trends and opportunities in the communications space.

GSMA has said it expects 80,000 attendees at this year’s event – not back to 2019 levels but trending in that direction. Attendance by participants from China has historically been very high at the show and obviously the continued travel issues from that region are affecting the overall attendance. But still very strong. Despite these concerns, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., the giant Chinese technology company, has the largest presence of any exhibitor at the show.

And finally, GSMA estimates that more than 300 million Euro in economic benefit will result from the event, which takes place at the end of February and early March in Barcelona.

The evolution of the stack: Building the telco cloud

The team from SiliconANGLE theCUBE will be back at MWC this year with a major presence thanks to our anchor sponsor, Dell Technologies Inc., and other supporters of our content program, including EnterpriseWeb LLC, Arrcus Inc., VMware Inc., Snowflake Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Amazon Web Services Inc. and others.

At the heart of our ongoing research and reporting is the importance of leading carriers evolving their technology stacks. It’s a course that’s often talked about and one that we observed took place in the 1990s when the vertically integrated IBM Corp. mainframe monopoly gave way to a disintegrated and horizontal industry structure.

In many ways the same thing is happening today in telecommunications, shown on the lefthand side of the above diagram. Historically, telcos have relied on a hardened, integrated and incredibly reliable and secure set of hardware and software services that have been fully vetted, tested, certified and confidently deployed for decades.

And at the top of that stack on the left are the crown jewels, the operational support systems or OSS and the business support systems or BSS. The OSS deals with network management, network operations, service delivery, quality of service, fulfillment assurance and the like. The BSS systems look after the customer-facing elements of the stack such as revenue, order management, product offerings, billing and customer service.

Historically telcos have been strong at operational efficiency and making money off transport and connectivity. But they’ve lacked the innovation in services. They own the pipes and that works well. But others – such as over-the-top or OTT content companies (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu…) or private network providers and increasingly cloud providers – have been able to bypass the telcos to drive innovation and secure customer relationships (and data) directly.

As with enterprise IT, we’re seeing multiple models emerge including an embrace of the public cloud, but more often hybrid models that might selectively tap certain public cloud services but maintaining control of core systems in house.

The horizontal stack is emerging

In the early part of last decade, network function virtualization or NFV was touted by a number of vendors to solve the problem of inflexible telco infrastructure. NFV failed. It turned out to be complicated and too expensive and it got blindsided by the cloud operating model. Carriers were left with the choice of moving their stacks into the public cloud or doing their own time-consuming integration and testing to achieve a more flexible operating model.

The rightmost part of the diagram above conceptualizes where we think the industry is headed. It addresses the trend toward disaggregating key pieces of the stack. And though the similarities to the 1990s in enterprise IT are greater than the differences, there are things that are new. For example, the granularity of hardware infrastructure may not be as high where competition occurred at every layer of the value chain with very little infrastructure integration. That of course changed in the 2010s with converged infrastructure and hyperconverged and software-defined… so that’s different today.

As well, the advent of cloud, containers, microservices and AI… none of these was a major factor in the disintegration of legacy IT. And that probably means that todays disruptors can move even faster than did Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp., Cisco and Seagate Technology in the 1990s.

In addition, though many of the products and services will come from traditional enterprise IT names such as Dell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., Cisco, Red Hat, VMware, AWS, Microsoft and Google LLC, the names will also include different suppliers and come from traditional network equipment providers such as Ericsson AB, Huawei and Nokia Corp.. And the partner ecosystem will be more diverse as well with other names such as Wind River Systems Inc., Rakuten Inc. and Dish Network Corp.

Enormous opportunities exist in data too. Telecom companies and their competitors must go beyond telemetry data into more advanced analytics and data monetization. There will also be an entirely new set of apps based on the workloads and use cases ranging from hospitals and sports arenas to race tracks, shipping ports and more. You name it, virtually every vertical will participate in this transformation as the industry evolves its focus toward innovation, agility and open ecosystems.

Tug-of-war: speed versus quality

Remember also that this is not a binary state. There will be greenfield companies disrupting the apple cart, but incumbent telcos will  continue to ensure newer systems work with legacy infrastructure and, as we know, that’s not an overnight task. Which makes this all so interesting because of the friction between the need for speed juxtaposed with quality.

As such, telco equipment buyers will benefit from those providers that can help simplify integration with engineered systems, pre-packaged layers of the stack and lab certifications that go beyond reference models and actually guarantee the efficacy of SKUs that include ecosystem components.

How enterprise players fare in telecom sectors

As stated, several traditional enterprise companies are or will be playing in this space. ETR doesn’t have a ton of data on specific telecom equipment and software providers, but it does have some interesting data that we cut for this Breaking Analysis.

Above we show a graphic with some of the names that we’ve followed over the years in Breaking Analysis and how they’re faring specifically within the telco sector.

The Y axis shows Net Score or spending velocity and the horizontal axis shows the presence or pervasiveness in the data set. The table insert in the upper left informs how the dots are plotted. And that red dotted line at 40% indicates a highly elevated level.  Below we comment on some of the cohorts and share with you how they’re doing in telecommunications sector relative to their position overall.

Public clouds show greater momentum in telco

Let’s start with the public cloud players. They’re prominent in every industry and an interesting group in telco. On the one hand, they can help telecommunication firms modernize and become more agile by eliminating heavy lifting, data center costs and all the cloud benefits. At the same time, public cloud players are bringing their services to the edge, building out their own global networks and are a disruptive force to traditional telcos. The following summarizes the position of hyperscalers relative to their average Net Score in the ETR data set:

• Azure’s Net Score is basically identical in telco relative to its average;
• AWS’ Net Score is higher in telco by around three percentage points;
• Google Cloud Platform is eight percentage points higher in telco with a 53% Net Score.

So all three hyperscalers have an equal or stronger presence in telco than their average.

Next let’s look at the traditional enterprise hardware and software infrastructure cohort: Dell, Cisco, HPE, Red Hat, VMware, Oracle.

• Dell’s Net Score is 10 percentage points higher in telco than its overall average.;
• Cisco’s Net Score is only slightly higher in telco;
• HPE’s Net Score is actually lower by about nine percentage points; and
• VMware’s Net Score is lower by four percentage points in telco.

Red Hat is interesting. OpenStack, as we’ve previously reported, is popular with telcos wanting to build out their own private cloud and the data shows:

• Red Hat OpenStack’s Net Score is 15 percentage points higher in telco than its overall average;
• Red Hat’s OpenShift, on the other hand, has a Net Score that’s four percentage points lower in telco than its overall average.

Oracle’s spending momentum is somewhat lower in the sector than its average despite the firm having a decent telco business. IBM and Accenture plc are both meaningfully lower in the sector than their average overall.

We’ve also highlighted two data platform players, Snowflake and Databricks Inc.:

• Snowflake’s Net Score is much lower in telco, by about 12 percentage points relative to its very high average Net Score of 62.3% overall. We believe, however, that Snowflake will be player in this space as telcos need to modernize their analytics stack and share data in a governed manner;
• Databricks’ Net Score is also much lower than its average by about 13 points.

Both companies are superglued to the cloud and so their fortunes in telco should follow a similar adoption curve, but based on what we shared above regarding public cloud, there seems to be some catching up to do for these firms. It’s likely because they both play further up the stack and that will take more time.

Key issues to explore at MWC 2023

Let’s close out on what we’re going to be talking about at MWC 2023 on theCUBE and some of the key issues we’ll be unpacking.

Stack disaggregation

We’ve talked about stack disaggregation today, but the key here will be the pace at which it will reach the operational efficiency and reliability of closed stacks. Telcos are engineering-heavy firms and much of their work takes place in the “basements” of their firms. They tend to move slowly and cautiously. Although they understand the importance of agility, telcos will be careful because that’s in their DNA. At the same time, if they don’t move fast enough, they will get hurt.

So that will be a course of conversation and we’ll be looking for proof points. The other comment we’ll add is around integration. Telcos, because of their conservatism, will benefit from better testing and those firms that can innovate on the testing front with labs and certifications for their ecosystems will be in a better position. Open sometimes means Wild West, so the more players such as Dell, HPE, Cisco, Red Hat and the like that offer integration capabilities out of the box, the faster adoption will go.

OpenRAN and the ecosystem

O-RAN, or open radio access networks, allow operators more easily to mix and match RAN subcomponents from different vendors and innovate faster. O-RAN is an emerging network architecture that enables the use of open technologies from an ecosystem. Over time, almost all RAN will likely be open, but questions remain as to when the industry will be able to deliver the operational efficiency of traditional RAN. Rakuten, for example, is a company with an emphasis on improving the operational efficiency of OpenRAN. Dish Network is also embracing O-RAN but coming at if from more of a service innovation angle. So we’ll test this assertion and investigate where the various models on the spectrum fit.

Cloud as a telco enabler and disruptor

On the one hand, cloud can help drive agility, optionality and innovation for incumbent telcos… but the flip side is it can do the same for startups trying to disrupt. And while some telcos are embracing the cloud, many are being cautious. So that’s going to be an interesting course of discussion.

Hyperlocal private networks

Private wireless networks, 5G, Wi-Fi 6 and local private networks are being deployed and this trend will accelerate. The importance here is that the use cases will be widely varied. The needs of a hospital will be different than those of a sports venue or a remote drilling site or a concert venue. Private networks will utilize spectrum across a range of frequencies and are beholden to a variety of local laws and licensing restrictions. New technologies and spectrum utilization choices are emerging to facilitate faster adoption. We’ll be probing for the rate this will occur.

Data, AI, ethics, privacy and compliance

As always, we’ll be looking at the data angles. It’s in theCUBE’s DNA to follow the data to understand the opportunities, risks, challenges and technologies that drive data value. Real-time AI inference at the edge and changing data flows will bring new services and monetization opportunities. With the advent of private networks, many firms will be bypassing traditional telecommunications carriers to build these out to gain proprietary access to customer relationships and data.

How will this disrupt industries and incumbents? What risks are involved in terms of ethics, privacy, governance and the like and which players will emerge as winners?

Visit theCUBE at Stand CS 60

The news organization at SiliconANGLE and theCUBE broadcast team will be on location at MWC 2023 at the end of this month with a great set. We’re in the walkway between Halls 4 and 5 right in Congress Square. We have a full schedule with a great lineup, so if you have editorial ideas, news stories, customers that want to share their stories, don’t hesitate to reach out.

See you in person or online.

Dateline Moscow and Kyiv: Rectification of names.

Ukraine at D+348: Preparing for the first anniversary of the invasion. (CyberWire) Russia moves conscripts to assembly areas, and a dark web souk appears on Moscow's electronic billboards.

Russia-Ukraine war live: Moscow repeats warning that Nato countries supplying Kyiv with arms risks ‘unpredictable escalation’ (the Guardian) Russian defence minister accuses Nato of trying to ‘prolong the conflict’

Ukraine Warns Russia Is Planning Major Offensive (Wall Street Journal) Kyiv says Russia is amassing troops and Studying for a new push along the eastern front. This comes amid a signal that Ukraine may reshuffle in its military leadership following a corruption scandal.

Russia-Ukraine war: Wagner founder challenges Zelensky to a dogfight for control of Bakhmut (The Telegraph) The founder of Russia’s notorious Wagner mercenary group challenged Volodymyr Zelensky to a dogfight on Monday for the control of Bakhmut, as Ukraine braced for a renewed Russian offensive.

Ukraine releases video appearing to show Russian troops beating own wounded officer (the Guardian) Footage thought to show Wagner group fighters beating commander with what appear to be shovelsWarning: video contains footage that some viewers may find distressing

Austria’s About to give Russia a Soapbox at the OSCE (Foreign Policy) Vienna will allow sanctioned Russian parliamentarians to attend the next big security meeting on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Perspectives on Ukraine and the Russian Invasion (Global ECCO) Dr. Douglas Borer, Department of Defense Analysis at the US Naval Postgraduate School, asked Dr. Myerson some questions about the causes of the Russian war against Ukraine, the role of allies in Ukraine’s defense, and his perspective on how the war might end.

How Russia Decides to Go Nuclear (Foreign Affairs) Deciphering the way Moscow handles its ultimate weapon.

U.S. Leadership on Ukraine Is Increasing European Dependence (World Politics Review) Unwillingly and unintentionally, US leadership on Ukraine war policy is increasing Europe’s dependence. That could be a problem.

American conservatives are right behind Ukraine – but they want a better strategy than Biden’s (The Telegraph) The White House has been reactive, often only moving after significant Congressional and international pressure

Japan’s Long-Awaited Return to Geopolitics (Foreign Policy) Tokyo’s abandonment of its post-1945 security stance is another fallout from Russia’s war.

Analysis: Swiss neutrality on the line as arms-for-Ukraine debate heats up (Reuters) Switzerland is close to breaking with centuries of tradition as a neutral state, as a pro-Ukraine shift in the public and political mood puts pressure on the government to end a ban on exports of Swiss weapons to war zones.

The Deeper Reason Netanyahu Won’t Arm Ukraine Against Russia (Foreign Policy) Jerusalem’s ties to Moscow are partly about security. They’re also about illiberalism.

The Ukraine war is fuelling and obscuring cyberattacks (The National) The fighting is dominating the attention that might otherwise be given over to understanding the links between online threats and modern warfare

Darknet drug market BlackSprut openly advertises on billboards in Moscow (The Record from Recorded Future News) It's unclear why BlackSprut was able to buy the Moscow billboard space, but Russia is known for some permissiveness toward darknet groups.

Inside Safe City, Moscow’s AI Surveillance Dystopia (WIRED) Moscow promised residents lower crime rates through an expansive smart city project. Then Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.

Russia ends disclosure rules for officials, citing wartime secrecy needs (Washington Post) In the latest indication of expanded state secrecy in wartime Russia, President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed legislation that will exempt Russian lawmakers from a previous requirement that they disclose details of their income, expenses and property.

Russian Deficit Soars to $25 Billion on War Spending, Oil Embargo (Wall Street Journal) The government’s budget recorded its deepest deficit to start the year in more than a decade.

Attacks, Threats, and Vulnerabilities

Foreign states already using ChatGPT maliciously, UK IT leaders believe (CSO Online) Most UK IT leaders are concerned about malicious use of ChatGPT as research shows how its capabilities can significantly enhance phishing and BEC scams.

Ransomware Hits Unpatched VMware Systems: 'Send Money Within 3 Days' (Virtualization Review) Users who neglected to install security patches issued by VMware two years ago are now being hit by a big ransomware attack wave.

Massive ransomware attack targets VMware ESXi servers worldwide (CSO Online) Cybersecurity agencies globally — including in Italy, France, the US and Singapore — have issued alerts about a ransomware attack targeting the VMware ESXi hypervisor.

CISA steps up to help VMware ESXi ransomware victims (SC Media) CISA says any organization experiencing a cybersecurity incident tied to VMware ransomware campaigns should immediately report it to CISA or the FBI.

‘Massive’ new ESXiArgs ransomware campaign has compromised thousands of victims (The Record from Recorded Future News) Thousands of servers running an unpatched version of VMware's ESXi product are vulnerable to ESXiArgs ransomware, researchers say.

GuLoader Malware Using Malicious NSIS Executables to Target E-Commerce Industry (The Hacker News) South Korean and American e-commerce industries have been targeted by a GuLoader malware campaign.

Polygraph: Click Fraud Scammers Are Targeting Pay-Per-Click Affiliate Schemes (GlobeNewswire News Room) Pay-per-click affiliate schemes are vulnerable to sophisticated click fraud techniques....

Hackers hit Vesuvius, UK engineering company shuts down affected systems (Graham Cluley) Vesuvius, the London Stock Exchange-listed molten metal flow engineering company, says it has shut down some of its IT systems after being hit by a cyber attack.

British steel industry supplier Vesuvius ‘currently managing cyber incident’ (The Record from Recorded Future News) Vesuvius Plc confirmed that the incident “involved unauthorized access to our systems,” but it did not provide further details.

Multiple DMS XSS (CVE-2022-47412 through CVE-20222-47419) (Rapid7) Through the course of routine security testing and analysis, Rapid7 has discovered several issues in on-premises installations of open source and freemium Document Management System (DMS) offerings from four vendors. While all of the discovered issues are instances of CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation, in this disclosure, we have ordered them from most severe to least.

CyRC special report: Secure apps? Don’t bet on it (Application Security Blog) The Cybersecurity Research Center conducted a security analysis of the 10 most popular Android sports and betting apps.

Highmark Health Suffers Phishing Attack, 300K Individuals Impacted (Health IT Security) Highmark Health notified 300,000 individuals of a phishing attack that potentially compromised protected health information.

Cybersecurity Incident Under Investigation in Berkeley County Schools - 19,000 Students Have Day Off (WV MetroNews) More than 19,000 students got the day out of school in Berkeley County on Monday (February 06), but it was a workday for staff.  This after a cybersecurity incident in the district Friday. Berkeley County Schools sent out a message saying they are  investigating the “cause and scope.”

West Virginia students returning to class after days-long outage following cyberattack (The Record from Recorded Future News) Nearly 20,000 students in West Virginia were forced to miss classes on Monday due to a cyberattack that crippled their school.

MTU close Cork campuses after a 'significant' IT breach (Cork Beo) All full-time and part-time classes have been cancelled

Trends

Cybercrime Shows No Signs of Slowing Down (Dark Reading) Look for latest trends in attacks, strategies, and vulnerabilities to continue gaining steam throughout 2023.

Cyber Apocalypse 2023: Is The World Heading For A ‘Catastrophic’ Event? (Forbes) According to the 2023 Global Cybersecurity Outlook from the World Economic Forum, the world is facing more and potentially catastrophic cyber-attacks. Here, we explore what that means.

Blog | Permiso 2023 - End of Year Observations () The Permiso p0 labs team provides an overview of what they have observed from the front lines of cloud attacks over 2023, and where they expect cloud attacks to head next!

DataDome’s Inaugural E-Commerce Holiday Bot & Online Fraud Report Reveals the US as the Top Source of Bot Attacks (DataDome) Study finds US generated 10 times the number of bot attacks compared to China, the second highest source during the 2023 holiday season.

State of the Cloud 2023 (Wiz) The Wiz Threat Research team looks back on the past year to highlight trends and the state of cloud usage based on visibility across our customer base.

Marketplace

IronNet Signs Contract to Enhance Cybersecurity of U.S. Navy’s Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) Following Successful Pilot Program (Business Wire) Agreement addresses cyber threats against the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) by using the IronNet Collective Defense℠ Platform to Excellerate threat visibility and anonymized intelligence sharing

Bitwarden Boosts FIDO Alliance Membership (Business Wire) Bitwarden, the leading open source password manager trusted by millions, today announced that it has expanded its partnership in the FIDO Alliance, an

Netsurion CRO John Addeo Honored on 2023 CRN Channel Chiefs List (GlobeNewswire News Room) Netsurion, a leading provider of managed XDR, today announced that CRN®, a brand of The Channel...

Sumo Logic SVP of Global Partners and Alliances Named as a 2023 CRN Channel Chief (GlobeNewswire News Room) Sumo Logic (NASDAQ: SUMO), the SaaS analytics platform to enable reliable and secure cloud-native...

Aqua Security’s Jeannette Lee Heung Named a 2023 CRN Channel Chief (GlobeNewswire News Room) Lee Heung was behind the Aqua Advantage partner program launch driving a surge in channel revenue...

Axis Channel Leader Nicholas Mirizzi Receives 2023 CRN Channel Chief Honor (PR Newswire) Axis, the leading innovator in Security Service Edge, today announced that CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, has recognized Nicholas...

Jamie Hawkins of DH2i Honored as a 2023 CRN Channel Chief (DH2I) Recognized for Dedication, Innovative Strategies, and Programs That Have Driven Partner Success

Brillio Appoints Navneet Narula to Lead Global Banking and Financial Services Unit (CXOToday.com) Industry veteran tapped to turbocharge company’s burgeoning BFSI vertical    Brillio, a leading digital transformation services and solutions provider

Moti Gindi, Former CVP of Security Products at Microsoft, Joins Apiiro as Chief Product Officer (GlobeNewswire News Room) Moti, who built Microsoft Defender into a multi-billion dollar business, joins Apiiro to scale the growing business...

Folio Photonics Expands Engineering Leadership Team with the Appointment of Greg Kittilson as Vice President of Engineering (Business Wire) Announces Great Leap Forward with Newly Patented Systems and Methods for Increasing Data Rate and Storage Density in Multi-Layer Optical Discs

Products, Services, and Solutions

Cognni Launches AI-Powered Automated Infosec Risk Assessment Product (GlobeNewswire News Room) The new risk-assessment tool can scan all the data held by an organization in minutes and provide a detailed report on risks and the mitigation measures...

Cequence Security Enhances API Security Testing Capabilities (Business Wire) Cequence Security, the leading provider of Unified API Protection, today announced it has enhanced the testing capabilities within its Unified API Pro

Keyfactor Global Channel Program Hits New Milestones as Businesses Prioritize Machine Identity Management (Business Wire) Keyfactor appoints Michael de Paris as VP of EMEA Channels; SVP of Global Channel Joe Tong named to 2023 CRN Channel Chief List.

Cadien Cyber Response Launches to Deliver Incident Response & Complex Digital Forensics Services (Dark Reading) Cadien Cyber Response, a US-based incident response and complex digital forensics firm, formally launched operations today and unveiled its team of leading industry and government cyber experts focused on reactive services.

Baffle Makes Multi-Tenant Data Security for SaaS Providers Even Easier (GlobeNewswire News Room) Record-level Encryption Isolates Customer Data; BYOK Gives Customers Complete Control

How Parallel Loop Empowers Torq Users to Rapidly Automate Bulk Data Processing Up to 10x (Torq) Torq is proud to introduce Parallel Loop, a new capability that enables users to process bulk data from myriad security tools with unprecedented ease. It also provides the power of orchestration like no other automation tool in the security automation industry with true parallelism. That means multiple tasks can be run simultaneously, and optionally, on […]

Snyk Achieves FedRAMP “In Process” Milestone (GlobeNewswire News Room) With Expected FedRAMP Authorization, Snyk to Address Crucial Need for Developer Security in Public Sector

Coalfire Compliance Essentials Optimized for Automated Evidence Collection (PR Newswire) Global cybersecurity pioneer Coalfire announced today major innovations to its Compliance Essentials solution, including advanced automated...

Deepwatch Advances SecOps Platform to Detect and Contain Identity Threats (Business Wire) Introduces Managed Extended Detection and Response (MXDR) for Rapid Containment of Identity Compromise

Technologies, Techniques, and Standards

Agencies Seek Public Input on Updates to Guiding Plan for Cyber R&D (Nextgov.com) The document is updated once every four years.

How Artificial Intelligence is Changing the Spy Game (SpyCast) Mike Susong (Website, LinkedIn) joins Andrew (Twitter; LinkedIn) to discuss the impact and potential of AI on the intelligence field. Mike is a former CIA case officer who now oversees global intelligence for a risk management company.

Why Crowdsourced Security is Devastating to Threat Actors (Security Intelligence) See how crowdsourcing security is an effective tool against phishing and other cyber threats.

How to deal with sneaky spear phishing- and more - on Safer Internet Day (WatchGuard Technologies) In support of a safer Internet for all here are some insights on today’s most prevalent threats and what you can do to stay cyber secure. Follow our tips and protect yourself and your business.

Design and Innovation

Microsoft announces surprise event for tomorrow with Bing ChatGPT expected (The Verge) Microsoft won’t be streaming this event, though.

The Race to Build a ChatGPT-Powered Search Engine (WIRED) A search bot you converse with could make finding answers easier—if it doesn’t tell fibs. Microsoft, Google, Baidu, and others are working on it.

Google has unveiled its ChatGPT rival and is promising its will offer AI-powered search 'soon' (Silicon Valley Business Journal) Google is following through on CEO Sundar Pichai's promise last week to open up it AI tools to the public.

Google launches ChatGPT rival called Bard (BBC) Google is launching an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered chatbot called Bard to rival ChatGPT.

Google Releases ChatGPT Rival AI ‘Bard’ to Early Testers (Bloomberg) Microsoft expected to announce ChatGPT integration into Bing search engine

Academia

The SANS Institute Reopens HBCU Cyber Academy Application Window to Address Growing Need for Cybersecurity Professionals (PR Newswire) The SANS Institute is proud to announce the reopening of the HBCU Cyber Academy application window from February 1, 2023 to March 1, 2023. The...

Legislation, Policy, and Regulation

Chinese hacking probably outweighs balloon, experts say (Washington Post) Don’t forget about Chinese hackers

Quad Joint Statement on Cooperation to Promote Responsible Cyber Habits (The White House) We the Quad partners of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States are launching a public campaign to Excellerate cyber security across our nations: the

Wikipedia unblocked in Pakistan after Prime Minister's intervention (TechCrunch) Pakistan has unblocked Wikipedia in the South Asian market, three days after the online encyclopedia was censored in the nation.

What CISOs need to know about the renewal of FISA Section 702 (CSO Online) Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act sets out the rules for the US intelligence community around gathering information abroad—but is it inadvertently being used at home too?

Let Section 230 Stay (The Information) Gonzalez v. Google, which the Supreme Court will hear this month, is the culmination of years of litigation. The action—a consolidation of lawsuits filed against Google, Twitter and Facebook—attempts to hold these platforms liable for their automated recommendation of content to users. Social ...

Biden taps experts in threat intel, networking and satellite cybersecurity for telecom advisory board (SC Media) The Biden administration appointed new leaders for the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Council, while adding a number of other notable tech and cybersecurity executives.

Litigation, Investigation, and Law Enforcement

China’s tech weapons roll in to quell demonstrations, identify protesters (The Record from Recorded Future News) At a time when an errant spy balloon has raised new questions about President Xi Jinping’s absolute control over all things Chinese, we take a look at how his regime quelled last year’s Covid protests and how an arsenal of digital weapons helped tighten his grip on power.

U.S. senators question Meta over Chinese, Russian access to Facebook data -statement (Reuters) A bipartisan pair of U.S. senators said on Monday they had sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg questioning the company about documents that they say reveal that Facebook developers in China and Russia had access to user data.

Police hacked Exclu 'secure' message platform to snoop on criminals (BleepingComputer) The Dutch police announced on Friday that they dismantled the Exclu encrypted communications platform after hacking into the service to monitor the activities of criminal organizations.

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A Regents test administered to thousands of New York students last week was blasted by critics as “unconscionable and shameful” for including “loaded” questions about Israel.

A group of Jewish leaders and civic organizations ripped a section of the test that showed maps of the changes to Israel’s borders over the decades and asked two questions that gave a “dishonest” impression about the Jewish state’s expansion.

“The maps lack all context,” former state Assemblyman Dov Hikind said. “Specifically that border changes were the result of successive wars started by Arab states to annihilate Israel. Second, the questions, at best, lend themselves to debate, not to singular answers from among false choices.”

Hikind also said that the Global History and Geography Regents II, given last Thursday, included the trope that the Holocaust was the prevailing reason for the state of Israel and that “Zionists and Jewish immigrants” benefited most from the “changing borders.”

“When you show these maps, and ask why the state of Israel was created, it just attributes it to the Holocaust,” said Hikind who added that the Zionist movement toward the Jewish state actually began in the 19th century under Theodor Herzl.

He also complained that the test referred to the Golan Heights region, which was recognized by the US in 2019, as being “annexed” by Israel.

The questions shocked proctors charged with administering the test, he said.

“One proctor was so angry, she was beside herself,” Hikind told The Post. 

Hikind, along with Brooklyn Councilwoman Inna Vernikov and the group Americans Against Antisemitism, are calling on New York State Commissioner of Education Betty Rosa “to swiftly remove the disingenuous questions and conduct a thorough audit to ensure such egregious distortions of history that invariably lead to animosity for the sole Jewish state aren’t being inadvertently fed to our children.”

One of the controversial questions asked, “Which historical event most directly influenced the development of the 1947 plan shown on map A (and showed a map of Israel from 1947).” The possible answers were 1) Russian pogroms, 2) the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire 3) Paris Peace Conference 4) the Holocaust, with 4 being the right answer.

The other asked, “Which group benefited most from the changes shown on the maps?” The right answer, according to the test, was “Zionists and Jewish Immigrants.”

“Test transparency can raise legitimate issues of questions’ appropriateness and wording,” said David Bloomfield, education professor at  Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. “It’s not a matter of ‘wokeness’ to civilly debate these matters.”

Hikind said that by reducing the creation of the Jewish state to the Holocaust ignores all historical, ancestral and biblical connections of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. “That connection goes back thousands of years.”

This isn’t the first time the Regents has had an Israel problem. 

In 2017, an “anti-Israel” cartoon blasted as “anti-Israel propaganda” was discovered on the Global Studies Regents.

The New York State Education Department said the two questions on Israel were “designed to test students’ knowledge of geography as it relates to historical events.”

“New York State social studies teachers prepared, selected, and reviewed the excerpt and questions on the Global History Regents test prior to their inclusion,” they added. “All test questions are reviewed multiple times by NYS-certified teachers and State Education Department subject matter and testing specialists to ensure they are not biased, accurately measure the learning standards, and contain no errors.”

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Jewish groups and leaders are up in arms after a New York State Regents test included two questions about Israel that they believe oversimplifies and distorts history.

According to the New York Post, the questions on the Global History and Geography Regents II test were preceded by images of maps of the land showing the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for dividing the land into separate states for Jews and Arabs, how the land was divided in 1949 in the aftermath of the war between Israel and Arab nations, and how areas of the land were controlled as of 2017.

One question, referencing the 1947 map, asked which event most influenced the development of the UN Partition Plan, offering the choices of Russian pogroms, the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Paris Peace Plan, and the Holocaust. According to the Post, the intended answer was the Holocaust.

The next question asks who benefited the most from the maps' changes over time, with the correct answer reportedly being intended as "Zionists and Jewish Immigrants." among choices that also included the government of Jordan, Palestinian nationalists, and citizens of Lebanon.

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"The maps lack all context," Democratic former state Assemblyman Dov Hikind told the Post. "Specifically that border changes were the result of successive wars started by Arab states to annihilate Israel. Second, the questions, at best, lend themselves to debate, not to singular answers from among false choices."

Hikind also pointed out the problem with attributing the creation of the state of Israel to the Holocaust, noting that the modern Zionist movement had been pushing for a Jewish home in that land since the 19th century.

Even those administering the test were upset by the questions, Hikind told the Post.

"One proctor was so angry, she was beside herself," he said.

The Department of Education told the Post in a statement that the test questions had been "designed to test students’ knowledge of geography as it relates to historical events."

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The department's statement, rather than address the distress the questions caused, appeared to defend the reasoning behind them, making clear that there were no unintentional acts on their part.

"New York State social studies teachers prepared, selected, and reviewed the excerpt and questions on the Global History Regents test prior to their inclusion," the statement said. "All test questions are reviewed multiple times by NYS-certified teachers and State Education Department subject matter and testing specialists to ensure they are not biased, accurately measure the learning standards, and contain no errors.

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According to the Post, Hikind, City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, and the group Americans Against Antisemitism are urging Commissioner of Education Betty Rosa "to swiftly remove the disingenuous questions and conduct a thorough audit to ensure such egregious distortions of history that invariably lead to animosity for the sole Jewish state aren’t being inadvertently fed to our children."

Fox News Digital reached out to Vernikov's office for comment they did not immediately respond.

FIRST ON FOX – All but two members of the House GOP delegation from New York are demanding an investigation into a statewide standardized test question Jewish leaders consider antisemitic. The Republican congresspersons say the question reflects a "far-left anti-Israel ideology" permeating the public school system pushing "ideological revisions" of history. 

In a letter to Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York State Education Department Commissioner Betty Rosa, Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., leads eight fellow Republican House members from New York state in expressing "grave concern with the abhorrent, antisemitic question included in this winter’s NYS Regents test in Global History and Geography." 

The question asks who benefited the most from changes shown on maps of Israel and surrounding areas from 1947 to 2017. The options were: Zionists and Jewish immigrants; the government of Jordan; Palestinian nationalists; or the citizens of Lebanon.

"It is simply beyond comprehension that anyone at the New York State Education Department would approve a question on a statewide test that blatantly promotes hateful anti-Jewish and anti-Israel rhetoric which only fan the flames of antisemitism in our schools," the letter says. "For centuries, the State of Israel, one of our Nation’s greatest allies, and Jews have fought for their right to exist. This question attempts to cast doubt on that very notion and rewrite history by erasing the struggle for independence that the State of Israel faced." 

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The letter cites an "unprecedented surge" of antisemitism across the nation. 

In November 2023, New York City alone saw a 125% increase in antisemitic hate crimes compared to the same period the year before. 

"This question is just the latest instance of the anti-Israel and antisemitic ideologies that are infiltrating our schools and communities," the nine Republican members of Congress assert. "Moreover, it indicates a complete lack of oversight in the approvals process at the New York State Education Department."

In addition to Lawler, the letter was signed by Reps. Nick Langworthy, Anthony D’Esposito, Claudia Tenney, Nick LaLota, Marcus J. Molinaro, Elise Stefanik, Brandon Williams and Andrew R. Garbarino. The only Republican House members from New York not to sign on were Reps. Nicole Malliotakis and George Santos. 

Santos, the subject of a House Ethics probe into alleged campaign finance law violations, has rebuffed calls to resign even from members of his own party after lying about descending from survivors of the Holocaust, having a college degree and having had a successful career at two Wall Street firms while running for office. 

The letter also cites the latest passage of Bill A.472, which required the New York State Education Department to examine whether schools across the state were adequately teaching about the horrors of the Holocaust. 

"This question indicates that even the state’s own education department isn’t following this new law," the letter asserts. 

"We are calling on you to launch an immediate investigation into this attack on New York’s Jewish community. There must be a thorough examination into this abject failure and the
individuals responsible must be held accountable. This type of anti-Jewish sentiment needs to be singularly and unequivocally condemned," the letter says. "We respectfully request an investigation into this matter to hold those responsible accountable for this heinous, antisemitic question that appeared on a statewide exam." 

"How someone could have signed off on this, a question that seemingly calls into question the very right for Israel to exist, is beyond absurd," Lawler said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "It is imperative that we take on antisemitism wherever it attempts to take root and a thorough investigation into this matter should help prevent a question of this nature from ever appearing on a state Regents test again."

"Antisemitism in any form is vile, unacceptable, and I condemn it in the strongest way possible. New York students should be learning and tested on real history, not ideological revisions. I urge Governor Hochul and Commissioner Rosa to act in the best interest of our students," LaLota said. 

"It defies comprehension how such a blatant antisemitic question passed through the layers of approval process in our state’s education system, but unfortunately, it’s a reflection of the far-left anti-Israel ideology that is permeating our government," Langworthy said. 

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for the New York State Department of Education said: "A diverse group of New York State social studies teachers prepared, selected, and reviewed the excerpt and questions on the Global History Regents test prior to their inclusion. All test questions are reviewed multiple times by NYS-certified teachers and State Education Department subject matter and testing specialists to ensure they are not biased and accurately measure the learning standards. The questions were designed to test students’ knowledge of geography as it relates to historical events surrounding the creation of the State of Israel, including the impact of the Holocaust on migration to Israel." 

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"As per standard practice, these questions will not be used on future exams," the statement added. "The Department will continue to work with educators and stakeholders across New York to advance equitable access to opportunity while keeping the lessons and atrocities of the past, such as the Holocaust, as testament to the work we must do together to build a better future for all students."

Fox News Digital also reached out to Hochul's office for comment Thursday.