THE DAILY PRAETORIAN: Cybersecurity Trends – 7/23/25

Securing Tomorrow: Your Daily Dose of Cyber Safety, Tech Trends, National Defense News, and Inspiration.

“The best propaganda is not propaganda.”

– Joseph S. Nye Jr.

US military must scale up AI use in psyops to reach par with Russia and China, study finds
A Pentagon-commissioned RAND report warns that Russia and China now outpace the U.S. in influence operations and urges the Defense Department to “rapidly adopt” generative-AI tools—such as the voice-cloning Ghost Machine—to let smaller psychological-operations teams create tailored audio, video, and graphic content at the speed of online narratives, swiftly expose disinformation (e.g., inflated civilian-casualty claims), and counter adversary messaging worldwide; while bulk AI output can “balance the battlefield,” the study cautions against copying Moscow and Beijing’s high-volume, low-credibility flood tactics, urging a precision-targeted “sweet spot” instead to retain trust and effectiveness. Click here to read more.

Trump unveils his plan to put AI in everything
President Donald Trump’s newly released 28-page “AI Action Plan” calls for a “try-first” culture that fast-tracks AI adoption across industry and the Armed Forces, dismantles state and federal regulations that slow data-center and chip-factory construction, and prizes “objective truth” by barring federal contracts with AI developers deemed ideologically biased—while stripping references to misinformation, DEI, and climate change from risk rules. The three-pillar blueprint—accelerating innovation, expanding U.S. AI infrastructure, and advancing global AI diplomacy—also hints at tighter export controls on advanced chips even as it urges wider deployment of American AI tools abroad, framing the race as vital to national security and economic dominance. Click here to read more.

Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer Saves 165 People from Camp Mystic, ‘I Was Just Doing My Job’
On his very first mission, 26-year-old Coast Guard rescue swimmer Petty Officer Scott Ruskan was air-lifted into flood-stricken Camp Mystic, Texas, where—acting as the sole first responder on site—he triaged terrified campers, coordinated two helicopter loading zones with the National Guard, and helped evacuate 165 people to safety; despite his heroic effort, 27 campers and counselors perished, and searches continue, yet the humble swimmer credits his elite training and says he was “just doing my job.” Click here to read more.

Chinese hackers behind SharePoint server attacks, Microsoft says
Microsoft has tied an active SharePoint remote-code-execution campaign to three Chinese state-backed groups—Linen Typhoon (APT27), Violet Typhoon (APT31), and ransomware-linked Storm-2603—that upload malicious *spinstall *.aspx scripts to internet-facing servers, steal MachineKey data, and gain full unauthenticated control; more than 100 systems—including those at the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, Education Department, and state agencies—are already breached, and thousands of unpatched servers stay exposed despite urgent calls to install fixes, rotate keys, and harden defenses as investigations expand. Click here to read more.

Turkey’s Eurofighter jet deal ‘a headache’ for Israel, Israeli official tells ‘Post’
Turkey’s deal to buy 40 Eurofighter Typhoon jets from Germany will modernize Ankara’s air force and, while not matching Israel’s F-35s, still worries Jerusalem: an Israeli official calls the fourth-plus-generation fighters a “headache” that signals Turkey’s rapid military build-up, which already includes bids for new F-16s, hopes of rejoining the F-35 program, and expanded naval and drone power. Click here to read more.