A NASA committee determined that the Chandra X-ray Observatory would have to cease operations under the proposed budget cuts in NASA's 2025 budget. The committee reviewed various options but found that only shutting down Chandra fit within the proposed budget, although alternatives could keep the observatory running with limited capabilities. SpaceNews reports: NASA established the Operations Paradigm Change Review (OPCR) committee this spring to look at ways of reducing the costs of operating Chandra and the Hubble Space Telescope as part of broader efforts to deal with a billion-dollar shortfall in agency science funding. The fiscal year 2025 budget proposal included a 40% cut in Chandra's budget, with further reductions through 2029, while cutting Hubble's budget by 10% in 2025. Astronomers strongly opposed the proposed cuts, particularly for Chandra. They argued that the reductions would effectively shut down the telescope, a conclusion backed by Patrick Slane, director of the Chandra X-Ray Center, in an open letter shortly after the release of the budget proposal. The OPCR concurred. "The committee agreed that the continuation of a scientifically viable Chandra mission is not possible within the funding guidance," said Rob Kennicutt, an astronomer from the University of Arizona and Texas A&M University who served on the review committee, in a July 23 presentation at a meeting of the Astrophysics Advisory Committee, or APAC. "This is a serious threat to the observatory." Shutting down Chandra was one of four options presented to the OPCR by the Chandra team and the only one, he said, that fit within NASA's proposed budget profile. Three others would keep Chandra going with reduced capabilities and with budgets higher than what NASA proposed but below current levels. "We think it's possible to run Chandra for less money" than today, he said, "but more than what they were given."

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"Despite its domestic space program faltering even before sanctions due to its invasion of Ukraine, and at least one very public failure on a less ambitious project, Russia has announced it will begin construction of a Russian-only replacement for the ISS and place it in a more difficult-to-access polar orbit," writes longtime Slashdot reader Baron_Yam. "Russia is motivated by military and political demands to achieve this, but whether it has the means or not seems uncertain at best." Reuters reports: Russia is aiming to create the four-module core of its planned new orbital space station by 2030, its Roscosmos space agency said on Tuesday. The head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, signed off on the timetable with the directors of 19 enterprises involved in creating the new station. The agency confirmed plans to launch an initial scientific and energy module in 2027. It said three more modules would be added by 2030 and a further two between 2031 and 2033. [...] Apart from the design and manufacture of the modules, Roscomos said the schedule approved by Borisov includes flight-testing a new-generation crewed spacecraft and building rockets and ground-based infrastructure. The new station will enable Russia to "solve problems of scientific and technological development, national economy and national security that are not available on the Russian segment of the ISS due to technological limitations and the terms of international agreements," it said.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A team of Australian scientists is genetically engineering a common fly species so that it can eat more of humanity's organic waste while producing ingredients for making everything from lubricants and biofuels to high-grade animal feeds. Black soldier flies are already being used commercially to consume organic waste, including food waste, but tweaking their genetics could widen the range of waste their larvae consume while, in the process, producing fatty compounds and enzymes. In a scientific paper, the team based at Sydney's Macquarie University outlined their hopes for the flies and how they could also cut the amount of planet-warming methane produced when organic waste breaks down. "We are heading towards a climate disaster, and landfill waste releases methane. We need to get that to zero," Dr Kate Tepper, a lead author of the paper, said. Dr Maciej Maselko runs an animal synthetic biology lab at Macquarie University where Tepper has already started engineering the flies. Maselko said insects would be the "next frontier" in dealing with the planet's waste management problem, which weighs in at about 1 billion tons a year in food waste alone. Black soldier flies are found in all continents except Antarctica. "If you've got a compost bin, then you've probably got some," Maselko said. The fly larvae can eat double their body weight a day and, like other insects, their larvae are used for animal feed. Maselko said the flies could already do the job of consuming waste faster than microbes. The university team has created a spin-off company, EntoZyme, to commercialize their work and hopes to have the first genetically engineered flies for use in waste facilities by the end of the year. [...] Creating a suite of genetically engineered flies would see them also produce enzymes used in animal feeds, textiles and pharmaceuticals, and fatty compounds that can be used to make biofuels and lubricants. Another proposed use is for some flies to be able to consume contaminated waste, which would then leave behind their poo that could be used as fertilizer. Tepper said flies can be engineered to deal with pollutants in several ways, including by breaking pollutants down into less toxic or inorganic compounds, evaporating them into the air or accumulating some pollutants into their bodies that can then be separated, leaving clean organic waste behind. The research has been published in the journal Communications Biology.

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New Zealand has lodged a formal complaint with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) after a Canadian soccer "support staff member" allegedly flew a drone over their training session. The Canadian Olympic Committee has apologized, expressed shock and disappointment, and launched an investigation into the incident. ESPN reports: The COC said the individual has been detained by French authorities. "Team support members immediately reported the incident to police, leading to the drone operator, who has been identified as a support staff member of the wider Canadian Women's football team, to be detained," the NZOC said in a statement. "The NZOC has formally lodged the incident with the IOC integrity unit and has asked Canada for a full review. [...] For their part, Canada has said it was also stunned. The COC said it was made aware that a "non-accredited" member of its support team had used a drone to record the Silver Ferns' practice. "The Canadian Olympic Committee stands for fair-play and we are shocked and disappointed. We offer our heartfelt apologies to New Zealand Football, to all the players affected, and to the New Zealand Olympic Committee." It added it was "reviewing next steps" with the IOC, the Paris organizing committee and FIFA. The person responsible was Joseph Lombardi, an unaccredited analyst with Canada Soccer. As a result of these findings, Lombardi is being removed from the Canadian Olympic Team and sent home immediately. The same punishment will be applied to Jasmine Mander, the assistant coach to whom Mr. Lombardi sent information to. Furthermore, Head Coach Bev Priestman has removed herself from coaching the match against New Zealand on July 25th and the entire Canada Soccer staff will undergo mandatory ethics training.

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In a blog post on Tuesday, security firm KnowBe4 revealed that a remote software engineer hire was a North Korean threat actor using a stolen identity and AI-augmented images. "Detailing a seemingly thorough interview process that included background checks, verified references and four video conference-based interviews, KnowBe4 founder and CEO Stu Sjouwerman said the worker avoided being caught by using a valid identity that was stolen from a U.S.-based individual," reports CyberScoop. "The scheme was further enhanced by the actor using a stock image augmented by artificial intelligence." From the report: An internal investigation started when KnowBe4's InfoSec Security Operations Center team detected "a series of suspicious activities" from the new hire. The remote worker was sent an Apple laptop, which was flagged by the company on July 15 when malware was loaded onto the machine. The AI-filtered photo, meanwhile, was flagged by the company's Endpoint Detection and Response software. Later that evening, the SOC team had "contained" the fake worker's systems after he stopped responding to outreach. During a roughly 25-minute period, "the attacker performed various actions to manipulate session history files, transfer potentially harmful files, and execute unauthorized software," Sjouwerman wrote in the post. "He used a [single-board computer] raspberry pi to download the malware." From there, the company shared its data and findings with the FBI and with Mandiant, the Google-owned cyber firm, and came to the conclusion that the worker was a fictional persona operating from North Korea. KnowBe4 said the fake employee likely had his workstation connected "to an address that is basically an 'IT mule laptop farm.'" They'd then use a VPN to work the night shift from where they actually reside -- in this case, North Korea "or over the border in China." That work would take place overnight, making it appear that they're logged on during normal U.S. business hours. "The scam is that they are actually doing the work, getting paid well, and give a large amount to North Korea to fund their illegal programs," Sjouwerman wrote. "I don't have to tell you about the severe risk of this." Despite the intrusion, Sjouwerman said "no illegal access was gained, and no data was lost, compromised, or exfiltrated on any KnowBe4 systems." He chalked up the incident to a threat actor that "demonstrated a high level of sophistication in creating a believable cover identity" and identified "weaknesses in the hiring and background check processes."

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Ash Parrish reports via The Verge: More than 500 developers at Blizzard Entertainment who work on World of Warcraft have voted to form a union. The World of Warcraft GameMakers Guild, formed with the assistance of the Communication Workers of America (CWA), is composed of employees across every department, including designers, engineers, artists, producers, and more. Together, they have formed the largest wall-to-wall union -- or a union inclusive of multiple departments and disciplines -- at Microsoft. This news comes less than a week after the formation of the Bethesda Game Studios union, which, at the time of the announcement, was itself the largest wall-to-wall Microsoft union. [...] The World of Warcraft GameMakers Guild is made up of over 500 members across Blizzard offices in California and Massachusetts. Despite its size -- it is the second largest union at Microsoft overall behind Activision's 600-member QA union -- [Paul Cox, senior quest designer and Blizzard veteran] said that Microsoft's labor neutrality agreement helped get the organization ball rolling. In a statement to The Verge, Microsoft spokesperson Delaney Simmons said, "We continue to support our employees' right to choose how they are represented in the workplace, and we will engage in good faith negotiations with the CWA as we work towards a collective bargaining agreement."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The prestigious Hugo awards for science fiction and fantasy writing has revealed that almost 400 votes -- about 10% of all votes cast in this year's awards -- were fraudulently paid for to help one finalist win. The Hugo administration subcommittee, which tallies the votes for the annual awards, issued a statement on Monday saying that they had determined that 377 votes had been cast by individuals with "obvious fake names and/or other disqualifying characteristics." These included voters with almost identical surnames, with just one letter changed and placed in alphabetical order, and some whose names were "translations of consecutive numbers." The voting pattern was "startlingly and obviously different" to anything the members of the current Hugo administration subcommittee had ever seen, and most of the votes favored one finalist, who the subcommittee called "Finalist A." "We have no evidence that Finalist A was at all aware of the fraudulent votes being cast for them, let alone in any way responsible for the operation. We are therefore not identifying them," the subcommittee said. Only members of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) can nominate works for the Hugos and vote on finalists, which costs a minimum of 45 pounds each year. Based on the Hugo administration subcommittee's tally, paying for 377 memberships would have cost at least $22,000. The Hugo administration subcommittee said they received "a confidential report that at least one person had sponsored the purchase of WSFS memberships by large numbers of individuals, who were refunded the cost of membership after confirming that they had voted as the sponsor wished." The subcommittee said the finalist has not been disqualified but didn't win their category without the invalid votes. "We want to reassure 2024 Hugo voters that the ballots cast were counted fairly," their statement said. "Most of all, we want to assure the winners of this year's Hugos that they have won fair and square, without any arbitrary or unexplained exclusion of votes or nominees and without any possibility that their award had been gained through fraudulent means." In February, the Hugo awards came under fire over censorship accusations that it was excluding several authors at its event in China.

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Yesterday, GM announced it was delaying production of the Cruise Origin indefinitely, opting to use the Chevy Bolt as the main vehicle for its self-driving efforts. Introduced four years ago, the Cruise Origin embodied a futuristic vision with no steering wheels or pedals and 'campfire' seating for six passengers, all while providing wireless internet. However, as Fortune's Jessica Mathews writes, the company appears to have lost interest in that vision (source paywalled; alternative source) -- at least for now. From the report: To hear GM CEO and Cruise Chair Mary Barra, the demise of the Origin comes down to costs and regulation. GM's "per unit-costs will be much lower" by focusing on Bolts instead of Origin vehicles, Barra wrote in a quarterly letter to shareholders Tuesday. Barra discussed the regulatory challenges during the quarterly earnings call, explaining the company's view that deploying the Origin was going to require "legislative change." "As we looked at this, we thought it was better to get rid of that risk," Barra said. All robo-taxi companies have been waiting on the green light from regulators for the approvals needed to add these futuristic pedal-less cars into their commercial fleets. While the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration adjusted its rules so that carmakers could manufacture and deploy cars without pedals or steering, state DMVs still have many restrictions set in place when it comes to people riding in them. GM isn't completely swearing off the concept of steering-wheel free cars -- Barra noted that there could be an opportunity for a "vehicle like the Origin in the future."

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Investigative journalist and cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs writes: The Chinese company in charge of handing out domain names ending in ".top" has been given until mid-August 2024 to show that it has put in place systems for managing phishing reports and suspending abusive domains, or else forfeit its license to sell domains. The warning comes amid the release of new findings that .top was the most common suffix in phishing websites over the past year, second only to domains ending in ".com." On July 16, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) sent a letter to the owners of the .top domain registry. ICANN has filed hundreds of enforcement actions against domain registrars over the years, but in this case ICANN singled out a domain registry responsible for maintaining an entire top-level domain (TLD). Among other reasons, the missive chided the registry for failing to respond to reports about phishing attacks involving .top domains. "Based on the information and records gathered through several weeks, it was determined that .TOP Registry does not have a process in place to promptly, comprehensively, and reasonably investigate and act on reports of DNS Abuse," the ICANN letter reads (PDF). ICANN's warning redacted the name of the recipient, but records show the .top registry is operated by a Chinese entity called Jiangsu Bangning Science & Technology Co. Ltd. Representatives for the company have not responded to requests for comment. Domains ending in .top were represented prominently in a new phishing report released today by the Interisle Consulting Group, which sources phishing data from several places, including the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), OpenPhish, PhishTank, and Spamhaus. Interisle's newest study examined nearly two million phishing attacks in the last year, and found that phishing sites accounted for more than four percent of all new .top domains between May 2023 and April 2024. Interisle said .top has roughly 2.76 million domains in its stable, and that more than 117,000 of those were phishing sites in the past year.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Angry T-Mobile customers have filed a class action lawsuit over the carrier's decision to raise prices on plans that were advertised as having a lifetime price guarantee. "Based upon T-Mobile's representations that the rates offered with respect to certain plans were guaranteed to last for life or as long as the customer wanted to remain with that plan, each Plaintiff and the Class Members agreed to these plans for wireless cellphone service from T-Mobile," said the complaint (PDF) filed in US District Court for the District of New Jersey. "However, in May 2024, T-Mobile unilaterally did away with these legacy phone plans and switched Plaintiffs and the Class to more expensive plans without their consent." The complaint, filed on July 12, has four named plaintiffs who live in New Jersey, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. They are seeking to represent a class of all US residents "who entered into a T-Mobile One Plan, Simple Choice plan, Magenta, Magenta Max, Magenta 55+, Magenta Amplified or Magenta Military Plan with T-Mobile which included a promised lifetime price guarantee but had their price increased without their consent and in violation of the promises made by T-Mobile and relied upon by Plaintiffs and the proposed class." The complaint seeks "restitution of all amounts obtained by Defendant as a result of its violation," plus interest. It also seeks statutory and punitive damages, and an injunction to prevent further "wrongful, unlawful, fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair conduct." The report notes that the lawsuit centers around T-Mobile's broken "Un-contract" promise made in January 2017, which assured customers that their T-Mobile One plan prices would never increase unless they decided to change their plans. Despite the guarantee, T-Mobile included a significant caveat in a FAQ on its website, stating they would only cover the final month's bill if the price was raised and the customer decided to cancel. Many customers missed this caveat, leading to confusion and frustration when prices were later hiked. The lawsuit also addresses the transition from the "Un-contract" to a new "Price Lock" guarantee, which initially offered more protection but was later weakened, causing further dissatisfaction. The FCC said it has received around 1,600 complaints regarding these price hikes by late June.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Content creators are busy people. Most spend more than 20 hours a week creating new content for their respective corners of the web. That doesn't leave much time for audience engagement. But Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, thinks that AI could solve this problem. In an interview with internet personality Rowan Cheung, Zuckerberg laid out his vision for a future in which creators have their own bots, of sorts, that capture their personalities and "business objectives." Creators will offload some community outreach to these bots to free up time for other, presumably more important tasks, Zuckerberg says. "I think there's going to be a huge unlock where basically every creator can pull in all their information from social media and train these systems to reflect their values and their objectives and what they're trying to do, and then people can can interact with that," Zuckerberg said. "It'll be almost like this artistic artifact that creators create that people can kind of interact with in different ways." [...] It's tough to imagine creators putting trust in the hands of flawed AI bots to interact with their fans. In the interview, Zuckerberg acknowledges that Meta has to "mitigate some of the concerns" around its use of generative AI and win users' trust over the long term. This is especially true as some of Meta's AI training practices are actively driving creators away from its platforms.

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Negotiations on a global tax deal have extended beyond the June 30 deadline, with countries now looking to the G20 finance leaders meeting for progress. "The stakes in the negotiations are high," reports Reuters. "A failure to reach agreement on final terms could prompt several countries to reinstate their taxes on U.S. tech giants and risk punitive duties on billions of dollars in exports to the U.S." Some countries, like Canada, have already implemented their own digital services tax. Reuters reports: The so-called "Pillar 1" arrangement, part of a 2021 global two-part tax deal, aims to replace unilateral digital services taxes (DSTs) on U.S. tech giants including Alphabet's Google, Amazon.com and Apple through a new mechanism to share taxing rights on a broader, global group of companies. Standstill agreements under which Washington has suspended threatened trade retaliation against seven countries -- Austria, Britain, France, India, Italy, Spain and Turkey -- expired on June 30, but the U.S. has not taken steps to impose tariffs. Discussions on the matter are continuing. An Italian government source said that European countries were seeking assurances that the U.S. tariffs on some $2 billion worth of annual imports from French Champagne to Italian handbags and optical lenses remained frozen while the talks continue, including at the G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro. A European Union document prepared for the G20 meeting lists finalizing the international tax deal as a "top priority." It said the G20 should urge countries and jurisdictions participating in the tax deal "to finalize discussions on all aspects of Pillar 1, with a view to signing the Multilateral Convention (MLC) by summer end and ratifying it as soon as possible." "Treasury continues to oppose all tax measures that discriminate against U.S. businesses," a U.S. Treasury spokesperson said in response to Canada's move. "We encourage all countries to finalize the work on the Pillar 1 agreement. We are in active discussions on next steps related to the existing DST joint statements."

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On Sunday, global temperatures reached their highest levels in recorded history (source may be paywalled; alternative source), with a daily average of 17.09 degrees Celsius (62.76 degrees Fahrenheit). "The historic day comes on the heels of 13 straight months of unprecedented temperatures and the hottest year scientists have ever seen," adds the Washington Post, citing preliminary data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service. From the report: Though Sunday was only slightly warmer than the world's previous hottest day, Copernicus researchers noted, it was extraordinarily hotter than anything that came before. Before July 2023, Earth's daily average temperature record -- set in August 2016 -- was 16.8 degrees Celsius (62.24 degrees Fahrenheit). But in the past year, the global has exceeded that old record on 57 days. Scientists have been tracking global temperatures only for the past few centuries. Yet there is good reason to believe that Sunday was the hottest day on Earth since the start of the last Ice Age more than 100,000 years ago. Research from paleoclimate scientists -- who use tree rings, ice cores, lake sediments and other ancient material to understand past environments -- suggests that recent heat would have been all but impossible over the last stretch of geologic time. "We are in truly uncharted territory," Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said in a statement. "And as the climate keeps warming, we are bound to see records being broken in future months and years. What is truly staggering is how large the difference is between the temperature of the last 13 months and the previous temperature records."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media's Jason Koebler: The Department of Homeland Security bought a dog-like robot that it has modified with an "antenna array" that gives law enforcement the ability to overload people's home networks in an attempt to disable any internet of things devices they have, according to the transcript of a speech given by a DHS official at a border security conference for cops obtained by 404 Media. The DHS has also built an "Internet of Things" house to train officers on how to raid homes that suspects may have "booby trapped" using smart home devices, the official said. The robot, called "NEO," is a modified version of the "Quadruped Unmanned Ground Vehicle (Q-UGV) sold to law enforcement by a company called Ghost Robotics. Benjamine Huffman, the director of DHS's Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC), told police at the 2024 Border Security Expo in Texas that DHS is increasingly worried about criminals setting "booby traps" with internet of things and smart home devices, and that NEO allows DHS to remotely disable the home networks of a home or building law enforcement is raiding. The Border Security Expo is open only to law enforcement and defense contractors. A transcript of Huffman's speech was obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Dave Maass using a Freedom of Information Act request and was shared with 404 Media. [...] The robot is a modified version of Ghost Robotics' Vision 60 Q-UGV, which the company says it has sold to "25+ National Security Customers" and which is marketed to both law enforcement and the military. "Our goal is to make our Q-UGVs an indispensable tool and continuously push the limits to improve its ability to walk, run, crawl, climb, and eventually swim in complex environments," the company notes on its website. "Ultimately, our robot is made to keep our warfighters, workers, and K9s out of harm's way." "NEO can enter a potentially dangerous environment to provide video and audio feedback to the officers before entry and allow them to communicate with those in that environment," Huffman said, according to the transcript. "NEO carries an onboard computer and antenna array that will allow officers the ability to create a 'denial-of-service' (DoS) event to disable 'Internet of Things' devices that could potentially cause harm while entry is made."

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According to Bloomberg, hackers have leaked internal documents stolen from Leidos Holdings, one of the largest IT services providers of the U.S. government. Reuters reports: The company recently became aware of the issue and believes the documents were taken during a previously reported breach of a Diligent Corp. system it used, the report said, adding that Leidos is investigating it. The Virginia-based company, which counts the U.S. Department of Defense as its primary customer, used the Diligent system to host information gathered in internal investigations, the report added, citing a filing from June 2023. A spokesperson for Diligent said the issue seems to be related to an incident from 2022, affecting its subsidiary Steele Compliance Solutions. The company notified impacted customers and had taken corrective action to contain the incident in November 2022.

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During Alphabet's second-quarter earnings call today, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat announced the organization will spend an additional $5 billion on its self-driving subsidiary, Waymo. "This new round of funding, which is consistent with recent annual investment levels, will enable Waymo to continue to build the world's leading autonomous driving technology company," said Porat. TechCrunch reports: Porat noted that Google will focus on improving overall efficiencies in its "other bets" segment, which includes innovative projects that are distinct from the tech giant's core search and advertising business. Other companies in this segment are Verily, Calico, Google Ventures and drone company Wing. "Waymo is an important example of this, with its technical leadership coupled with progress on operational performance," Porat continued. The executive noted that parent company Alphabet's 10-Q form, which has yet to be filed, will have more details.

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Humble Games, the indie game publisher behind the popular pay-what-you-want "Humble Game Bundle," has laid off its entire staff of 36 people. However, the company says it is not shutting down and Humble Bundle will not be impacted. Instead, the job cuts are part of a restructuring of operations. GameSpot reports: In a statement shared with GameSpot, Humble Games confirmed that Humble Bundle will have "no impact on its operations. Additionally, ongoing and upcoming games from Humble Games will still move ahead and be published by the company. Humble Games is the publisher of many notable indie games, including Stray Gods, Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus, Chinatown Detective Agency, Ikenfell, Unpacking, Slay the Spire, and Midnight Fight Express, just to name a few. Humble Games is the separate publishing arm of digital storefront Humble Bundle. Both companies are owned by IGN Entertainment, but operate as a separate entities. Earlier this year, IGN Entertainment also bought video game websites Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247, GamesIndustry.biz, and Dicebreaker from Gamer Network.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA): Alexey Soldatov, a Russian Internet pioneer and a founder of the first Internet provider in the country, has been sentenced by a court to two years in a labor colony on charges of "abuse of power." Soldatov, 72, had been detained by a court in Moscow. He is terminally ill. Very few in Russia believe in the government charges against a man widely known as a Father of the Russian Internet -- and who is less well known as the father of Andrei Soldatov, one of this article's authors. Soldatov was accused of abuse of power when managing a pool of IP-addresses by an organization he had no position at. This legal absurdity was enough to see him imprisoned even though the court knew of Soldatov's illness, which meant the court had no legal right to pass a custodial sentence. His family believes that the decision is essentially a death sentence. The article details Soldatov's history and his pivotal role in creating the Relcom network, which connected Soviet research centers and established the Soviet Union's first link to the global internet in 1990. During the 1991 KGB coup attempt, Relcom remained operational, highlighting its role in bypassing traditional media control and connecting people both within the Soviet Union and globally.

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According to the Washington Post (paywalled), the House Homeland Security Committee has called on the CrowdStrike CEO to testify over the major outage that brought flights, hospital procedures, and broadcasters to a halt on Friday. The outage was caused by a defective software update from the company that primarily affected computers runnings Windows, resulting in system crashes and "blue screen of death" errors. From the report: Republican leaders of the House Homeland Security Committee demanded that CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz commit by Wednesday to appearing on Capitol Hill to explain how the outages occurred and what "mitigation steps" the company is taking to prevent future episodes. [...] Reps. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) and Andrew R. Garbarino (R-N.Y.), chairs of the Homeland Security Committee and its cybersecurity subcommittee, respectively, wrote in their letter that the outages "must serve as a broader warning about the national security risks associated with network dependency. Protecting our critical infrastructure requires us to learn from this incident and ensure that it does not happen again," the lawmakers wrote. CrowdStrike spokesperson Kirsten Speas said in an emailed statement Monday that the company is "actively in contact" with the relevant congressional committees and that "engagement timelines may be disclosed at Members' discretion," but declined to say whether Kurtz will testify. The committee is one of several looking into the incident, with members of the House Oversight Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee separately requesting briefings from CrowdStrike. But the effort by Homeland Security Committee leaders marks the first time the company is being publicly summoned to testify about its role in the disruptions. CrowdStrike has risen to prominence as a major security provider partly by identifying malicious online campaigns by foreign actors, but the outages have heightened concern in Washington that international adversaries could look to exploit future incidents. "Malicious cyber actors backed by nation-states, such as China and Russia, are watching our response to this incident closely," Green and Garbarino wrote. The outages, which disrupted agencies at the federal and state level, are also raising questions about how much businesses and government officials alike have come to rely on Microsoft products for their daily operations.

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