Countermeasures
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) chaired a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday to address the federal perspective on the state of U.S. biodefense preparedness.
“Today, we look forward to learning the perspective of federal agencies on the state of our... Read More »
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), along with senior U.S. Navy officials, christened the agency’s new anti-submarine warfare continuous trail unmanned vessel (ACTUV) program on Monday.
The ceremony took place in Portland, Oregon, and marked the transition from a DARPA-led... Read More »
President Barack Obama signed the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) Modernization Act of 2015, S.1180, into law on Monday to modernize the nation’s public alert and warning system.
The bipartisan legislation was introduced by U.S. Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Claire McCaskill... Read More »
Raytheon announced on Tuesday that it had successfully passed the first qualification milestone for testing the U.S. Air Force's new Global Positioning System Next Generation Operational Control System (GPS OCX), an enhanced version of the GPS that millions rely on every day.
The Configuration... Read More »
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on Tuesday to add the Zika virus to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Priority Review Voucher Program.
The legislation, the Adding Zika Virus to the FDA Priority Review Voucher Program Act, S. 2512, would add Zika virus to the... Read More »
The United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) El Paso Sector arrested a wanted burglary suspect, two known sex offenders and recovered a stolen vehicle last week.
CBP agents working at the U.S. Border Patrol Checkpoint near Alamogordo, New Mexico, flagged a suspicious looking... Read More »
The United States Army announced a collaboration on Monday between two agencies to combine their efforts to develop new vector surveillance methodologies to detect emerging infections in local mosquito populations and to develop a near real-time recording system to combat such threats.
The two... Read More »
As part of the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) plans to protect the nation against threats to the public health, the organization recently released a Community Planning Framework that addresses major areas that are crucial in any community’s response to abnormally occurring diseases.
The... Read More »
U.S. Reps. Michael Burgess (R-TX) and John Ratcliffe (R-TX) held a joint hearing in Sherman, Texas, on Wednesday entitled “Cyber Preparedness and Response at the Local Level.”
Burgess is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade.... Read More »
Leidos Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Roger Krone joined a group of senior officials from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on Thursday to christen the prototype vehicle from DARPA’s anti-submarine warfare continuous trail unmanned vessel (ACTUV) program.
Leidos was... Read More »
Sam Greif, fire chief of the Plano (Texas) Fire Department, told a Congressional panel on Wednesday that it is vital that fire and EMA departments stay aware of emerging cybersecurity threats and develop close working relationships with local law enforcement and emergency managers.
Greif... Read More »
Founded in 2001 to train professionals in biosecurity and disaster preparedness, the Institute for Biosecurity at Saint Louis University’s College for Public Health and Social Justice recently told Homeland Preparedness News that the United States needs to continuously improve on its... Read More »
Qatar and INTERPOL's Anti-Corruption and Financial Crimes Sub-Directorate recently joined together to host a four-day conference in Doha where more than 500 participants from law enforcement and the private sector drawn from 71 countries gathered to discuss common issues.
“Through the... Read More »
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced this week that its Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) research effort recently conducted its first successful flight tests.
The new system is a shoebox-sized, plug-and-play system designed to enable manned and... Read More »
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on Tuesday regarding various elements of the Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) and their responsibilities during cyber incidents.
According to the Department of Defense’s (DoD) 2013 Strategy for Homeland Defense and... Read More »
The United States Army awarded $56 million to Raytheon Compony and DRS Technologies on Monday to engineer, manufacture and develop a third generation forward-looking infrared B-Kit.
The next-generation technology will be an upgrade to current night vision equipment, allowing ground troops to... Read More »
At an industry day hosted by U.S. Army Cyber Command as part of the Army's Cyber Innovation Challenge last week, officials engaged tech industry vendors and assessed technology solutions and prototypes that could potentially increase the Army’s ability to combat threats to cyber security, as well... Read More »
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of California Los Angeles recently released information on a collaborative project regarding the viral mechanisms of infection by creating screening libraries based on CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)... Read More »
Speaking at the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit (NSS), INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock emphasized that international law enforcement is the most important line of defense in the struggle against nuclear terrorism.
The 2016 NSS took place from last week in Washington, D.C. It served as the... Read More »
The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) held a three-day meeting last week discussing how to better coordinate various agencies in combating worldwide cybercrime.
The meetings included 67 participants from 30 different countries, including 10 private sector companies.
A... Read More »
Speaking at a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services expert consultation on Zika Virus in the Americas in Washington on Thursday, Dr. Sylvain Aldighieri of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) addressed the current state of Zika surveillance in the Americas.
While the ability to... Read More »
The United States is increasingly turning to biodefense as threats against the homeland continue to grow, but the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey's Dr. Raymond Zilinskas recently warned that the larger problem remains that no one knows the true state of American... Read More »
The Centers for Disease Control on Wednesday detailed the valuable work its crisis communicators do during disease outbreaks, natural disasters, biological threats and other disaster-related incidents.
Crisis communicators work primarily through detailed plans and outlined goals, all of which... Read More »
The RAND Corporation released a new report on Thursday that highlights new counterterrorism tactics and technologies to help prevent potential disasters in various cities throughout Europe.
The new report illustrates the essential role of counterterrorism technologies used by diverse... Read More »
The World Health Organization (WHO) released the findings on Tuesday of its ninth meeting of the Emergency Committee convened by the WHO director-general under the International Health Regulations regarding the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa.
The findings from the meeting were mostly... Read More »
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), along with Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy (R-PA), recently sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) criticizing the department’s response to the ongoing spread of the Zika... Read More »
The National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and the Better Business Bureau (BBB) announced a call to consumers this week to make digital devices an additional target of annual spring cleaning activities.
The NCSA and the BBB encouraged businesses to go through an annual spring cleaning by... Read More »
U.S. Reps. Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Darrell Issa (R-CA) released statements on Monday regarding the ongoing privacy battle between Apple and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).
“The government’s decision to drop its case against Apple, however, does not mean that America is ready to... Read More »
The INTERPOL Digital Security Challenge, which took place last week in Singapore, gave participants from 26 countries a scenario that gave them 52 hours to identify a blackmailer demanding a 10,000 bitcoin ransom.
“Cybercrime investigations are becoming more and more complex and this challenge... Read More »
Tenable Network Security, Inc., announced the findings from the Trends in Security Framework Adoption Survey on Monday, noting that overall security confidence is higher for organizations utilizing the Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity.
“Historically, CISOs have... Read More »
The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) held a workshop on Friday in Lyon, France, to enhance the capacity of authorities in Iraq to better prevent, detect and respond to biological threats.
“I am confident this workshop will deepen our levels of awareness – not just on... Read More »
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on Friday introduced by Rep. Donald Payne, Jr., (D-NJ) to improve coordination between state and local partners on funding priorities for homeland security grants.
“Emergency preparedness takes a whole community, but too often there is a... Read More »
The U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) released information on Thursday regarding its new Non-Traditional Agent Defense Test System, a collection of specialized test chambers designed to test chemical protection agents, as well as detection and decontamination equipment.
The... Read More »
The Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense’s “National Blueprint for Biodefense” warned that “the United States is underprepared for biological threats,” adding that “biological events may be inevitable, (but) their level of impact on our country is not.”
To combat a biological... Read More »
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), along with the United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) Center for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction (SCC-WMD) and the Joint Force Headquarters for Elimination (SJFHQ-E), released its 2016-2020 strategic plan on Thursday.
The four-point plan... Read More »
