OVERNIGHT CYBERSECURITY: One more day for NSA reform

Welcome to OVERNIGHT CYBERSECURITY, your daily rundown of the biggest news in the world of hacking and data privacy. We’re here to connect the dots as leaders in government, policy and industry wrap their arms around cyberthreats. What lies ahead for Congress, the administration and the latest company under siege? Whether you’re a consumer, a techie or a D.C. lifer, we’re here to give you …

THE BIG STORIES:

–ONE MORE DAY: The Senate will have to wait at least until Tuesday afternoon to finally wrap up its surveillance reform bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday attempted to move up a procedural vote on the measure, the USA Freedom Act, hoping to get the bill done Monday night. But Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) held firm, blocking the maneuver and continuing his opposition over voting on the bill before being allowed to vote on his amendments. Paul objects to the bill, believing it does not go far enough to rein in the National Security Agency’s spying powers. Senators will reconvene for the procedural vote at 11 a.m. Tuesday before considering some amendments from McConnell, who originally wanted to renew expiring Patriot Act provisions without any changes to NSA surveillance authorities at all. In the meantime, the NSA’s authority to operate its more controversial surveillance programs remains expired. To read our full piece, click here.

{mosads}–WHAT’S NEXT?: Supporters of cybersecurity reform believe the USA Freedom Act passing will pave the way for the Senate to consider their prized legislation, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA). Getting NSA reform through the Senate might assuage some of the privacy concerns that have held up CISA in the upper chamber, they argue. But outside privacy groups are already gearing up to stop CISA in its tracks. To read our full piece, click here.

–YOU’RE WRONG: The FBI has some strong opponents on the Hill when it comes to encryption. Two of the more tech-savvy lawmakers wrote the FBI Monday to “strongly” disagree with what they say is an attempt to force companies to install flaws in their encryption. “There is a difference between private companies assisting law enforcement and the government compelling companies to weaken their products to make investigations easier,” said the letter from Reps. Will Hurd (R-Texas) and Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), two rare lawmakers with computer science degrees. FBI Director James Comey has been banging the drum for months about the dangers posed by ubiquitous encryption, suggesting the bureau needs some form of access to encrypted data. But a bipartisan group of lawmakers sees this as a request for “backdoors” in encryption — an access point known only to enforcement agencies. The debate came to a head during a recent hearing of the House Subcommittee on Information Technology, which Hurd chairs. In Monday’s letter, Hurd and Lieu called the FBI’s testimony at the hearing “troubling.” To read our full piece, click here.

–YOU’RE SAFE: Two online behemoths rolled out new privacy features Monday, aimed at helping users more easily lock down their data. Facebook said Monday it will encrypt email alerts to users who support PGP, a reliable though not commonly used method of securing communication end-to-end. With nearly 1.5 billion active monthly users, Facebook wants to protect the content of alerts that may be notifying users of private messages, a new message from a secret group, or even simple account changes. Also on Monday, Google rolled out a central hub that allows users to see and change how various Google programs such as Google Maps are collecting using their data. To read about Facebook’s new feature, click here. To read about Google’s, click here.

UPDATE ON CYBER POLICY:

–WHILE YOU WERE RELAXING. Over the weekend, U.S. and Japanese defense officials vowed to strengthen cybersecurity coordination and help each other respond to damaging cyberattacks. The pledge is a follow-up to the wide-ranging cyber alliance the two countries revealed in April during Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s trip to Washington.

LIGHTER CLICK:

–WOMP WOMP. Netflix is experimenting with short teasers to promote its own shows that are running before and after select TV shows. Is it the start of a slippery slope towards ads everywhere? Netflix says no. Read on here at TechCrunch.

WHO’S IN THE SPOTLIGHT:

–HEARTLAND PAYMENT SYSTEMS. Regular, old-fashioned thieves made off with a bunch of computers from the offices of Heartland, a major payroll processing company. So how is this a cyber crime? Some of the computers apparently contained sensitive data such as Social Security numbers and bank account information, considered to be among the most valuable data for digital crooks. Heartland notified about 2,200 individuals on Monday that their data was exposed. The incident has raised questions about how Heartland had encrypted the personal data on its pilfered machines. Check out our full piece here.

A LOOK AHEAD:

TUESDAY

–The Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing on the recent IRS data theft at 10 a.m. The IRS commissioner will testify.

–The Center for Democracy and Technology will hold an event on student data privacy at noon. Reps. Luke Messer (R-Ind.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) will speak.

–The “Health Datapalooza” will run all day in the second of the conference’s three days. Andy Slavitt, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, will speak. A town hall will also specifically deal with health data security.

WEDNESDAY

–The Financial Services Roundtable will hold an event on emerging payment technology starting at 8:30 a.m. Ari Schwartz, senior director for cybersecurity at the White House, will speak at noon.

–The “Health Datapalooza” will wrap up its third day with speeches from D.J. Patel, the White House chief data scientist, and HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.

–Georgetown University Law Center will hold the first day of a two-day Health Privacy Summit.

THURSDAY

–Georgetown University Law Center will hold the second day of the two-day Health Privacy Summit.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Links from our blog, The Hill, and around the Web.

Chinese officials are bringing their Internet police division out into the public eye after years of clandestine work. (The Hill)

The U.K. police are making a request for Web users’ communications data once every two minutes. (TechCrunch)

Dark Web market administrators are reacting to Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht’s life sentence. (Motherboard)

A popular bitcoin app issued a critical update after a rare bug led to a total crypto breakdown. (The Guardian)

A new exploit has left most Macs vulnerable to permanent backdooring. (ArsTechnica)

Chip designer ARM is in talks to buy an Israeli security company that specializes in mobile and computer-chip security. (The Wall Street Journal)

A group of researchers are alleging a popular virtual private network (VPN) is dangerously insecure. (ArsTechnica)

Intel agreed to buy Altera for $16.7 billion to defend its presence in data centers. (Bloomberg)

Meet Gerhard Eschelbeck, Google’s vice president of security engineering. (CSO Online)

INYMI: Either the IRS is too broke to guard your data. Or it’s not spending its $10.9 billion budget the right way. (CNNMoney)

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