OSINT INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING
Daily Strategic Intelligence Report
Stay Informed. Stay Ahead.
Wednesday, January 21, 2026
Produced by: Harrison Doyle
AI Models Used: Claude (Anthropic) & GPT (OpenAI)
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Executive Summary
24 Top Articles |
41/41 Active Sources |
6 Categories |
Category Breakdown: 🌍Geopolitics: 5 articles 🕵️Espionage: 3 articles 👁️Surveillance Technology & Privacy: 1 article 🔒Cybersecurity: 5 articles 🤖Artificial Intelligence: 5 articles 📰Other: 5 articles Articles ranked by recency, relevance, and source authority |
Newsom at Davos: Western alliance is "dormant, not dead"
DAVOS, Switzerland — California Gov. Gavin Newsom says he's at the World Economic Forum to share a different vision of the U.S. than President Trump, whose speech on Wednesday is the most anticipated showpiece of the week.The big picture.
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EU Plans New Russia Sanctions As Loopholes Persist
The European Union is slowly preparing a new round of sanctions on Russia, its 20th since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the goal of having the measures approved by all EU member states at the end of February to coincide with the fourth anniversary of Moscow's attack on its neighbor.
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China sees an opportunity in Greenland, but not in the way that Trump thinks
For years, Beijing has struggled to gain a foothold in Greenland, in part because of US and Danish unity. Trump’s fraying of that alliance could create the opening it needsAccording to Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, China and Russia must be having a “field day” about Donald Trump’s plans for Greenland, which Kallas says will divide Nato.But according to Trump, his plans are motivated by a desire to counter the very threat that Kallas identified.
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Trump, Uncertainty, and China’s Anti-Alliance Strategy
President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has revived a familiar anxiety across Europe and Taiwan: How reliable is the United States when its partners’ core interests are at stake? Trump’s governing style is marked by transactional diplomacy, hostility toward multilateral institutions, tariff-driven economic statecraft, and a willingness to publicly berate allies.
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Trump’s unhinged Norway letter is a danger to national security
It is for moments like this that the Twenty-Fifth Amendment exists.
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Researchers uncover secretive Russian spy unit by studying its commemorative badges
A GROUP OF RESEARCHERS in Finland have managed to outline the structure and geographic footprint of a highly secretive Russian signals intelligence (SIGINT) unit by studying commemorative badges issued by the Russian government. The research group, known as CheckFirst, specializes in open-source (OSINT) investigative reporting and works to combat online disinformation.
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Senior Mossad veteran discusses recruitment of Iranian assets in rare interview
It is a rare occasion to hear directly from a senior veteran of the Mossad. Oded Eilam (or Ailam), now 71, served in the Mossad for 24 years. In an interview with the German newspaper Bild, Eilam described the strategy that allowed the Israeli intelligence agency to successfully recruit and maintain an “extensive network” of spies inside Iran.
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The Kremlin Files: Russia, the Modern Surveillance State
THE KREMLIN FILES / COLUMN — Ask any Russian intelligence officer about “naruzhka,” and you’ll see them nod knowingly. It’s the term for physical, trailing surveillance: watchers on the street who follow targets, track meetings, and report patterns. The Russians are experts at it, and they have been for centuries, dating back to the Tsarist Secret police, the Okhrana, and even further to Ivan the Terrible’s oprichniki, the brutal enforcers of his regime.
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| 👁️Surveillance Technology & Privacy | 1 |
cside targets hidden website privacy violations with Privacy Watch
cside announced the launch of Privacy Watch. The platform prevents website privacy violations on the client-side, a risk surface that is traditionally unmonitored. To help organizations automate compliance with regulations like GDPR, CPRA, and HIPAA, Privacy Watch deploys AI for continuous website risk monitoring, evidence logs, and regulation-specific reports.
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Contagious Interview turns VS Code into an attack vector
Threat actors behind the long-running Contagious Interview campaign were seen expanding from traditional social-engineering lures to the abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) as an execution and persistence mechanism. According to new findings from Jamf Threat Labs, the actors are embedding malicious logic directly into VS Code project configurations, allowing code to execute as soon as a victim opens a repository and grants it “trust”.
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Vulnerability prioritization beyond the CVSS number
The common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) has long served as the industry’s default for assessing vulnerability severity. It has become one of the few “sources of truth” for cybersecurity professionals. A new CVE drops; it gets a CVSS score; teams rush to patch the items with the biggest numbers.
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Hackers Use LinkedIn Messages to Spread RAT Malware Through DLL Sideloading
Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a new phishing campaign that exploits social media private messages to propagate malicious payloads, likely with the intent to deploy a remote access trojan (RAT). The activity delivers "weaponized files via Dynamic Link Library (DLL) sideloading, combined with a legitimate, open-source Python pen-testing script," ReliaQuest said in a report shared with.
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PDFSIDER Malware – Exploitation of DLL Side-Loading for AV and EDR Evasion
Threat actors use PDFSIDER malware with social engineering and DLL sideloading to bypass AV/EDR, and ransomware gangs already abuse it. Resecurity has learned about PDFSIDER during an investigation of a network intrusion attempt that was successfully prevented by a Fortune 100 energy corporation.
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Pro-Russian hacktivist campaigns continue against UK organizations
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre reports ongoing cyber operations by Russian-aligned hacktivist groups targeting organizations in the UK and abroad. NoName057(16) remains active In December 2025, the NCSC co signed an advisory warning that pro-Russian hacktivist groups were conducting cyber operations worldwide against organizations and critical infrastructure sectors.
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| 🤖Artificial Intelligence | 5 |
Exclusive: DeepMind CEO "surprised" OpenAI moved so fast on ads
DAVOS, Switzerland — As Silicon Valley races to monetize AI chatbots, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis told Axios he was "a little bit surprised" OpenAI moved so fast on introducing ads in ChatGPT.Why it matters.
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Big tech's AI tools crowd the classroom
The next major AI battleground is the classroom, as Google, Microsoft and Anthropic race to make their tools the chatbots of choice for teachers and students. Why it matters.
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Three vulnerabilities in Anthropic Git MCP Server could let attackers tamper with LLMs
Threat actors could use prompt injection attacks to take advantage of three vulnerabilities in Anthropic’s official Git MCP server and cause mayhem with AI systems. This alert comes from researchers at Israel-based Cyata, which urges infosec leaders to make sure corporate developers using the official GIT MCP server update to the latest version as soon as possible.
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OpenAI's ChatGPT Atlas browser is testing actions feature
Chromium-based ChatGPT Atlas browser is testing a new feature likely called "Actions," and it can also understand videos, which is why you might see ChatGPT generating timestamps for videos.
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How Wikipedia Will Survive in the Age of AI (With Wikipedia’s CTO Selena Deckelmann)
The Wikimedia Foundation’s chief technology and product officer explains how she helps manage one of the most visited sites in the world in the age of generative AI.
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The U.S. Military Can’t Fix Iran’s Opposition
Washington can intervene militarily, but any regime change strategy needs to start in Iran itself.
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How Far Do China’s Ambitions Reach?
The answer is global—and has big implications for U.S. policy.
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Former South Korean PM jailed for 23 years for role in martial law insurrection
Han Duck-soo verdict marks first judicial ruling stemming from ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol’s 2024 martial law decreeSouth Korea’s former prime minister Han Duck-soo has been sentenced to 23 years in prison for his role in an insurrection stemming from the former president Yoon Suk Yeol’s failed martial law declaration.The judge, Lee Jin-kwan, ordered Han’s immediate detention.
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Keir Starmer to visit China with British business leaders next week, say reports
Prime minister’s reported trip follows approval by UK government for Beijing to build new embassy in LondonUK politics live - latest updatesDavos live - latest updatesKeir Starmer will reportedly visit China next week after controversial plans for Beijing to build a vast embassy in London were approved by his government.The UK prime minster will lead a delegation of blue-chip British companies, according to Reuters.
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Supreme Court considers Trump's attempt to fire the Fed's Lisa Cook
The Supreme Court on Wednesday considers President Donald Trump's attempt to oust Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook.
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OSINT INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING
Daily Strategic Intelligence Report
Stay Informed. Stay Ahead.
This newsletter aggregates intelligence from 41 vetted sources.
Generated: 2026-01-21 at 12:54:28 UTC
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