Latest cybersecurity reporting from selected sources.

Vital Service Providers Need a Plan to Work Through Internet Outages, CISA SaysCritical U.S. infrastructure like water, power and even banking systems will be successfully hacked by enemy cyber warriors in the event of a military confrontation with a peer adversary like Russia or China, officials from the nation's civilian cyber defense agency said.

Program Focuses on AI Governance, Safety, Privacy, Bias and TransparencyAccreditation organization Joint Commission is rolling out a voluntary program for certifying the "responsible" deployment and use of artificial intelligence technologies by U.S. healthcare provider organizations, including governance, safeguards, monitoring processes and education.

Directs Agencies to Expand Commercial Access, Recruit Non-Gov ExpertsThe Trump administration's directed the military and intelligence agencies Friday to accelerate advanced artificial intelligence adoption while reducing barriers to deployment. It blames "undue bureaucracy" for a slower-than-desired pace of uptake.

Fragmented Governance and Scarce Resources Make America's Water Sector VulnerableAmerica's water utilities are the nation's most cyber-vulnerable critical service sector, but their cybersecurity is overseen and supported by an ill-fitting patchwork of government agencies and most lack the resources to meet the threat they face.

Appeals Court Weighs Pentagon Authority Over Frontier AI ProvidersA majority of judges on a U.S. federal appeals court appeared disposed to allowing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to bar Anthropic from future military work for posing national security risk. Oral argument held Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was Anthropic's latest salvo.

Reports: Trump Administration Approval of Nvidia H200 Sales Poses Frontier AI RisksTrump administration discussions on AI governance with China are colliding with reports that Washington may permit expanded Nvidia H200 chip sales to Chinese firms, fueling concerns that U.S. technology access could accelerate Beijing's frontier AI and military-linked ambitions.

Pentagon Expands Frontier AI Providers Amid Anthropic Legal FightThe Pentagon said it will no longer depend on a single artificial intelligence provider as the White House pushes agencies to diversify frontier AI systems amid an escalating legal and policy fight with Anthropic over military use of advanced models.

UPGRADE and DigiSeals Programs at ARPA-H Remain Fully FundedA U.S. federal grant effort to develop autonomous medical device patching platforms for hospitals evaded the budget-cutting knife of the Trump administration. Program boosters hope to automate cyber defenses so that hospitals of any size can more quickly patch vulnerabilities.

'We've Yet to Find Any Mission That Can Work Without Power or Water'The Air Force is the first, and so far only, American military service to have an office dedicated to OT cybersecurity, blazing a path other services should follow, according to officials and industry observers. These are systems without which the United States can't go to war.

CISA: Iran-Linked Groups Actively Exploiting OT Exposure Risks, PLC ProgrammersFederal agencies are warning that Iranian-linked actors have begun actively exploiting internet-facing PLCs and misconfigured OT systems across U.S. critical infrastructure, enabling network access, lateral movement and potential disruption amid rising geopolitical tensions.

White House Criticizes Cyber Defense Agency - and Proposes a Steep $700 Million CutThe FY2027 proposal would cut roughly $707 million from CISA, reducing staffing, contractor support and coordination programs while shifting the agency toward a narrower focus on federal networks and critical infrastructure amid rising nation-state cyberthreats.

Experts Cite Prepositioning Risk in Iranian Cyber Operations Amid Escalating WarWarnings from Iranian-linked hacking groups targeting U.S. water systems highlight a growing risk of prepositioned cyber access and rapid attack activation, analysts told ISMG, as federal defenders confront rising geopolitical tensions and operational strain across critical infrastructure sectors.

Experts Cite Prepositioning Risk in Iranian Cyber Operations Amid Escalating WarWarnings from Iranian-linked hacking groups targeting U.S. water systems highlight a growing risk of prepositioned cyber access and rapid attack activation, analysts told ISMG, as federal defenders confront rising geopolitical tensions and operational strain across critical infrastructure sectors.

Officials Aim to Head Off Calls for New Cyber Force Using Existing CyberCom PowersFor the private sector, the cyber talent gap is an HR issue. But for the U.S. military, it's a looming strategic crisis, the Pentagon's top cyber official said this week. "We cannot afford to continue this way," said Assistant Secretary of War for Cyber Policy Katherine Sutton.

Acting Director Says Furloughs And Cuts Limit Proactive Cyber DefenseA prolonged Homeland Security department shutdown has sidelined much of the U.S. cyber defense agency, halting proactive cyber operations, delaying directives and weakening visibility into threats - conditions officials warn are increasing systemic risk across critical infrastructure.

Also: CISA Protocol Concerns, AI Agents Push Past Cybersecurity ControlsIn this week's panel, four ISMG editors unpacked the cyber dimensions of the Stryker attack amid the escalating Iran-Israel-U.S. tensions, the growing controversy around CISA leadership and alleged protocol breaches, and a new set of concerns related to AI agents bypassing security controls.

Vulnerability Affects Certain Centricity Medical Imaging ProductsThe U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a recall notice for certain GE Healthcare Centricity medical imaging products due to a "potential" cybersecurity vulnerability that could allow a hacker to manipulate data or impact availability of the affected products.

White House Cyber Strategy Urges Deeper Industry Partnership Without Defining RolesThe administration's cyber strategy pushes deeper public-private coordination and expanded threat visibility across critical infrastructure, but lacks specifics on operational roles, incentives and legal protections needed for industry to actively disrupt malicious activity.

AWS Researchers Find an Interlock Server Laden With ToolsRansomware hackers exploited a flaw with a maximum vulnerability score in Cisco firewall management software weeks before the networking giant disclosed the vulnerability in early March. The group has focused extensively on critical infrastructure sectors in North America and Europe.

For the U.S. healthcare ecosystem, the 2024 ransomware attack on Change Healthcare proved to be a supply-chain earthquake in showcasing critical third-party risk that entities now must carefully and urgently consider, said Erik Decker, CISO of Intermountain Health and a federal cyber adviser.