{"id":26617,"date":"2026-10-29T19:14:48","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T19:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/10\/29\/cybersecuritys-black-october-progressive-policy-institute\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T19:14:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T19:14:48","slug":"cybersecuritys-black-october-progressive-policy-institute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/10\/29\/cybersecuritys-black-october-progressive-policy-institute\/","title":{"rendered":"Cybersecurity\u2019s \u201cBlack October\u201d – Progressive Policy Institute"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Danielle Steitz
The warnings of experts alarmed by the proliferation of AI-enabled cyber threats reached a new pitch this month, already coined \u201cBlack October<\/a>\u201d by cybersecurity professionals and drawing parallels<\/a> to March of 2020. The discovery of critical vulnerabilities in the programming language PHP, which underpins more than 70% of the Internet\u2019s webpages, was the banner event that drew attention to the slew of vulnerabilities and exploits that have recently been exposed by AI tools. Earlier in the month, the Japanese government declared a \u201cstate of emergency in cyberspace<\/a>\u201d after a surge of cyberattacks targeted government websites, banks, and transit organizations, while South Korea experienced a series of cyberattacks against financial institutions that CrowdStrike assessed<\/a> were launched by a single individual utilizing agentic AI tools. As 404Media\u2019s Jason Koebler<\/a> puts it, \u201cAI is proving something that we have always known: much of the software that runs the internet, our devices, our accounts, and our lives is vulnerable,\u201d and the availability of AI models has \u201cmade it extremely easy to essentially brute force the internet.\u201d
PPI Expert Analysis:<\/strong>
Danielle Steitz, Director of National Security Policy: <\/em>In the past, the biggest barriers to a \u201cbrute force\u201d or “try every doorknob” approach to hacking have been technical prowess (knowing enough to understand what you’re looking at and where the doorknob even is) and time (you can only try one or a few doorknobs at a time). AI models \u2014 both top-of-the-line frontier models as well as open-source models available online \u2014 have drastically reduced the technical know-how needed to find exploits and hack systems, while also eliminating time-based limits by operating 24\/7 without needing to pause for sleep or other tasks. This means that some targets that might have been previously passed over by hackers \u2014 small hospitals, local electric utilities, and other key service providers who might have once been judged to not be worth the time and effort to hack – must now accept that there is no hiding, and invest and prepare accordingly. While nobody knows the full extent to which AI might reshape cybersecurity \u2014 some experts still remain hopeful that AI\u2019s utility in patching vulnerabilities will ultimately result in a more secure cyber architecture \u2014 one thing appears clear: building resilient systems is paramount. Individuals and organizations should assume it\u2019s a matter of when, not if, they will be hacked, and invest in developing their ability to identify intrusions, repel the attack, mitigate damage, and resume normal operations.
By Danielle Steitz
A hotly contested election this week in Brazil has been marred by accusations of fraud and illegitimacy. Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro, the right-wing opponent to incumbent Brazilian President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, has fled to Florida<\/a> after the Brazilian public voted to reelect Lula by a margin of roughly 5 million votes. Fl\u00e1vio appears to be following in the footsteps of his father, disgraced former president Jair Bolsonaro, who fled to Florida after losing to and attempting a coup against Lula in 2022,\u00a0 and who is currently serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest in Brazil for his crimes. Fl\u00e1vio and his family arrived in Miami on Wednesday despite Fl\u00e1vio\u2019s passport having been confiscated by Brazilian authorities as part of a Supreme Court investigation into charges of corruption, tax evasion and money laundering. Despite this cloud of suspicion, Bolsonaro apparently entered the U.S. with President Trump\u2019s approval, as the American president has publicly called the election \u201creally strange\u201d and \u201crigged.\u201d Trump declined, however, to comment on Fl\u00e1vio\u2019s statement, in which he declared himself the rightful leader of Brazil and called for the election results to be annulled.
PPI Expert Analysis:<\/strong>
Danielle Steitz, Director of National Security Policy: <\/em>Trump\u2019s domestic election denialism and degradation of faith in electoral results have gone global, with Bolsonaro as his latest right-wing ally to copy his playbook. Bolsonaro\u2019s insistence that he is the true winner of the election flies in the face of his own party\u2019s acceptance of the results as well as the recognition by international governments of Lula\u2019s victory, but looks very similar to Trump\u2019s 2020 election denials. Trump\u2019s decision to offer refuge to a man fleeing investigation in his own country after his focus on deporting \u201ccriminal immigrants\u201d comes across as hypocritical, but it\u2019s not surprising in light of his administration\u2019s reported support<\/a> for the Bolsonaro family. As my colleague Ed Gresser noted this week<\/a>, all of this takes place against the backdrop of a pessimistic global environment for electoral democracies.
By Danielle Steitz
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has relieved yet another distinguished general officer from a leadership post, this time removing<\/a>\u00a0LTG Brett Sylvia, a 32-year Army veteran, from his position as director of the Joint Staff\u2019s Directorate for Strategy, Plans, and Policy (J5). An unnamed senior Pentagon official provided a statement to a select group of news outlets alleging that LTG Sylvia had been fired for leaking classified information to reporters concerning the war with Iran, Ukraine, and other matters, and that an investigation had been referred to the Justice Department. The Joint Staff initially put out a statement wishing LTG Sylvia and his family well as they transitioned into their next chapter, only to later retract it, claiming that \u201cthe statement did not appropriately reflect the full circumstances\u201d and declining to comment further \u201cout of respect for the servicemember and the ongoing personnel process.\u201d
PPI Expert Analysis:<\/strong>
Danielle Steitz, Director of National Security Policy:<\/em> First and foremost, leaking classified information is a criminal activity, and as a former Joint Staff officer, I do not take the obligation to safeguard classified information lightly in the slightest. With that said, it is impossible to assess this latest firing without acknowledging a clear pattern of behavior from Pete Hegseth whereby allegations of leaking have been made against multiple officials with no substantiating evidence ever presented. In fact, Hegseth\u2019s former special advisor Dan Caldwell, who was fired last year for allegedly leaking information, has since been rehired<\/a> into the administration as a senior advisor to the Director of National Intelligence \u2014 certainly not a position given to an adjudicated leaker. It is also critical to note that, given LTG JP McGee\u2019s accelerated retirement last fall, this is the second J5 that has been pushed out in the past year. Given that the position of the J5 is essentially the Joint Staff counterpart to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, as well as Hegseth\u2019s clear preference<\/a> for surrounding himself with \u201cyes men\u201d, it seems possible that personality clashes or diverging perspectives between Sylvia and Hegseth or Colby are now being twisted into more severe allegations to justify Sylvia\u2019s removal. I anticipate the congressional oversight committees\u2019 continued focus on the personnel moves and rationales offered by the Hegseth Pentagon, with particular scrutiny on what evidence substantiates these allegations of criminal behavior by a decorated senior officer.
\u201cZelensky Stood Up to Trump and Came Out Ahead\u2014For Now<\/a><\/b>\u201d by Tamar Jacoby in Washington Monthly<\/em><\/strong>
Tamar Jacoby, director of PPI\u2019s New Ukraine project, has just published her analysis on who won the latest round of escalating tensions between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Donald Trump-led United States. Her verdict? Zelensky has more shrewdly judged both the political moment and weathered drastic U.S. restrictions on Starshield, U.S. intelligence sharing, and Patriot interceptors to emerge with world opinion firmly on his side.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Danielle SteitzThe warnings of experts alarmed by the proliferation of AI-enabled cyber threats reached a new pitch this month, already coined \u201cBlack October\u201d by cybersecurity professionals and drawing parallels to March of 2020. The discovery of critical vulnerabilities in the programming language PHP, which underpins more than 70% of the Internet\u2019s webpages, was the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}