Good morning. Here’s the Daily Situational Awareness for Wednesday, 30 June 2021. You can receive this brief via email by signing up at https://forwardobserver.com/daily-sa
LINKEDIN: The professional networking platform appears to be the victim of a massive data scraping operation with around 700 million accounts compromised. User profile information, work history, and GPS history were listed for sale on a known market for personal information. This marks the second major scraping incident for LinkedIn with a similar event in April. Privacy experts note the data could be used in future phishing attempts, marketing or spam emails, corporate espionage, or real-life harassment as many users keep their information private. – D.M.
SHIPPING: Global ocean carrier on-time reliability slipped to 38%, down from nearly 75% in 2020. In order to meet fall and winter demand, a more stable shipping environment is required but is not on the horizon. Forecasters estimate US import demand increasing year over year through at least September, indicating continued logistics slowdowns. The weeks of delays at Yantian, Vancouver, Los Angeles and other ports will continue to stress shipping capacity through the traditional holiday season. – D.M.
SPACE: During a panel discussion on emerging space threats, the former commander of U.S. Strategic Command and Air Force Space Command, retired General Bob Kehler, said a space partnership between China and Russia is the most dangerous geopolitical situation. Russia’s extensive development of low-earth orbit anti-satellite systems is concerning to U.S. Defense officials, but their deployment remains delayed as U.S. sanctions on Russian procurement slows completion. – D.M.
ARMY: Several members of the House Armed Services Committee expressed concern over defense budget cuts. The Secretary of the Army and Chief of Staff each said despite the cuts they remain prepared to fight while leaning forward on potential Pacific conflict. Their modernization focus remains on long-range precision fires, irregular warfare and survivable communications equipment. Army Christine Secretary Wormuth said, “There is no question we are superior to the People’s Liberation Army”. – D.M.
HAZARDS WARNING
HURRICANE SEASON: The National Hurricane Center is tracking two developing systems in the Atlantic, with potential landfall in early July. Tropical weather events typically turn northward as they approach the Yucatan Peninsula.
In today’s Early Warning, we look at current conditions of the U.S. food supply, and some upcoming political events and unrest that could become violent. Upgrade to situational understanding here: https://forwardobserver.com/subscribe