Reporter

Derek B. Johnson

CyberScoop

Derek B. Johnson is a reporter at CyberScoop, where his beat includes cybersecurity, elections and the federal government. Prior to that, he has provided award-winning coverage of cybersecurity news across the public and private sectors for various publications since 2017. Derek has a bachelor’s degree in print journalism from Hofstra University in New York and a master’s degree in public policy from George Mason University in Virginia.

Articles by Author

WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 5: U.S. President Donald Trump and newly sworn-in U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi pose with a document in the Oval Office at the White House on February 05, 2025 in Washington, DC. The Senate confirmed Bondi as Attorney General with a 54-46 vote on Tuesday. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

DOJ disbands foreign influence task force, limits scope of FARA prosecutions

Government

Pickle files – python-based modules that allow a developer to serialize and deserialize code – are commonly used by legitimate AI developers and threat actors. (Image Source: Getty Images)

Hugging Face platform continues to be plagued by vulnerable ‘pickles’

AI

Tesla Founder Elon Musk walks on stage with his son, X, beside President-elect Donald Trump during a rally at Capital One Arena in Washington, on January 19, 2025. (Photo by Tom Brenner for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Cybersecurity, government experts are aghast at security failures in DOGE takeover

Government

Tulsi Gabbard, U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to be Director of National Intelligence, arrives to testify during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on January 30, 2025 in Washington, DC. Gabbard, a former Congresswoman from Hawaii who previously ran for president as a Democrat before joining the Republican Party and supporting President Trump, is facing criticism from Senators over her lack of intelligence experience and her opinions on domestic surveillance powers. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Tulsi Gabbard tussles with senators over Snowden, surveillance

Policy

DARPA’s work focuses on two specific types of buses: Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) and Compute Express Link (CXL). (Photo by Getty Images)

DARPA wants to create ‘self-healing’ firmware that can respond and recover from cyberattacks

Cybersecurity

A flaw in Lightning.AI’s platform, which has been patched, would have given root access to an attacker and broad control over a victim’s cloud-based studio and connected systems. (Image Source: Getty Images)

Vulnerability in popular AI developer could ‘shut down essentially everything you own’

Technology

This photo illustration shows the DeepSeek app on a mobile phone in Beijing on January 27, 2025. Chinese firm DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence chatbot has soared to the top of the Apple Store’s download charts, stunning industry insiders and analysts with its ability to match its US competitors. (Photo by GREG BAKER / AFP) (Photo by GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images)

DeepSeek AI claims services are facing ‘large-scale malicious attacks’

Technology

A photo taken on March 31, 2023 in Manta, near Turin, shows a computer screen with the home page of the artificial intelligence OpenAI web site, displaying its chatGPT robot. (Photo by Marco BERTORELLO / AFP) (Photo by MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images)

‘Severe’ bug in ChatGPT’s API could be used to DDoS websites

Threats

A screen shows a virtual meeting with Microsoft Teams at ISE 2024 on January 30, 2024 in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo by Cesc Maymo/Getty Images)

Ransomware groups pose as fake tech support over Teams

Ransomware