Jeh Johnson, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, has said U.S. officials think the distributed denial of service attack against internet performance management company Dyn has been addressed, Nextgov reported Monday.

Johnson said DHS held a conference call with 18 communication services providers the day the cyber attack affected websites such as Twitter and Netflix, Joseph Marks wrote.

The DHS secretary verified predictions of security experts that attackers used a type of malware called Mirai to carry out the attack, the report stated.

Mirai uses malware from phishing emails to target computer or home networks then spread the virus to multiple devices to create a robot network.

Johnson noted DHS’ National Cybersecurity Communications and Integration Center works with law enforcement and private sector entities to fight the malware, Marks reported.

The Defense Department‘s Joint Staff has warned against the use of equipment such as computers and handheld devices from China-based manufacturer Lenovo due to concerns over cyber spying on Pentagon networks, The Washington Free Beacon reported Monday.

Bill Gertz writes a J-2 intelligence directorate report stated cybersecurity officials have discussed how Lenovo devices could lead to the integration of compromised hardware into the DoD supply chain and bring cyber espionage risks.

The report also tackled alleged attempts from Lenovo to acquire U.S. information technology companies in a push to gain access to classified DoD and military information networks.

DoD’s concerns follows previous warnings from the Air Force Cyber Command, Department of Homeland Security and several lawmakers on the risks of using technologies made by companies associated with the Chinese government, Gertz reports.

The state research institute Chinese Academy of Science has a 27-percent stake in Lenovo Group.

The National Security Agency has previously linked China to cyber spying reports against the Pentagon as well as U.S. and foreign defense contractors, the report noted.

ISC has submitted a set of recommendations to the new federal chief information security officer on how to advance the government’s cybersecurity workforce during the upcoming presidential transition.

The company delivered the recommendations to Federal CISO Gregory Touhill, government officials at the White House and the Office of Personnel Management last week, ISC said Monday.

“Our goal in delivering these recommendations to Brig. Gen. Touhill is to support workforce prioritization and facilitate dialogue among those in the federal CISO community as critical decisions are being made during the upcoming presidential transition period, and beyond,” said Dan Waddell, ISC managing director of North America region and director of U.S. government affairs.

ISC noted that the workforce could be an organization’s cybersecurity asset or liability, according to the organization’s 2016 State of Cybersecurity from the Federal Cyber Executive Perspective report.

The Air Force Research Laboratory has developed a robotic machine to autonomously design, conduct and evaluate experimental data to aid materials research processes.

The U.S. Air Force said Saturday the Autonomous Research System brings together robotics, artificial intelligence and data science in efforts to complete up to 100 experiments per day.

Benji Maruyama, a senior materials research engineer at AFRL’s functional materials division, said ARES will not replace human researchers but aims to foster human-machine partnerships.

Maruyama’s team ran more than 600 experiments through ARES to determine conditions that could help achieve maximum growth rate for carbon nanotubes — materials that conduct heat and electricity, the Air Force said.

Scientists set the objective growth rate that ARES used to perform research.

Maruyama noted ARES is built to take over bench-level experiment processes such as instrument preparation, monitoring and cleaning to give researchers more time for “creative” thinking that can lead to discoveries.

Kevin Decker, a software engineer from science and technology company UES, collaborates with the ARES team in efforts to integrate generic research functions into ARES.

AFRL plans to use ARES for autonomous chemical and physical research in the future, the Air Force noted.

NASA has awarded $30,000 in prize money to each of the five teams that won in the third ground tournament round of a $5 million competition that seeks to promote the development of small satellites for future space exploration missions.

The space agency said Tuesday the winning teams in the Cube Quest Challenge’s ground tournament-3 include Team Miles from Fluid & Reason, Cislunar Explorers from Cornell University, CU-E3 from University of Colorado, KitCube from MIT and EDS Triteia from the University of California, San Diego.

The competition consists of four ground tournaments, a lunar derby and a deep space derby and offers an opportunity for the final three teams to launch their Cubesats onboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft as part of the Exploration Mission-1, which is scheduled to launch in 2018.

NASA will select the three winning teams for the EM-1 flight during the challenge’s final ground tournament to be held in February and will subject the three teams to a safety review prior to the first unmanned lunar flyby mission.

The Cube Quest Challenge is part of NASA’s Centennial Challenges program.