Hello. State cybersecurity officials urged the federal government on Thursday to roll back cuts to cybersecurity programs, arguing that deteriorating federal support weakens defenses just as AI and nation-state belligerence are introducing significant new risks.

At a House hearing Thursday, witnesses cited the pending expiration of the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program, significant budget and workforce cuts to federal agencies and new limits on the information-sharing platforms that state governments rely on to track threats.

Read the full story from my colleague James Rundle.

More news below.

Note to readers: The WSJ Pro Cybersecurity newsletter won't be published Monday in observance of Memorial Day in the U.S. We will be back Tuesday.

Trump's AI order delayed. President Trump postponed the signing of an executive order that would have given the government more oversight over the AI industry, saying he didn’t want to take any action that would slow down the U.S. in the AI race. Administration officials have been trying to bolster cybersecurity following the release of powerful models including Anthropic’s Mythos, but some AI advisers fear the steps could slow down the development of new AI tools, creating two camps within the administration quarreling over the tech agenda. (WSJ)

Meta sued over WhatsApp encryption claims. In a lawsuit filed Thursday in a Texas county court, the state's attorney general, Ken Paxton, sued Meta, accusing the company of deceiving customers to think their WhatsApp communications are entirely encrypted while maintaining access to the content. Meta denied the charges. (Reuters) 

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Employment services and placement firm Cardinal Services is notifying more than 142,000 people that their personal information was accessed in two cyber incidents that began nearly a year ago. Unauthorized access to Cardinal's systems happened in June 2025 and August 2025, the Coos Bay, Ore., company said. 

• Compromised data includes name, date of birth, Social Security number and financial account information, along with medical, health insurance and biometric data and digital signature.

• A virtual private network used by at least 25 ransomware gangs was dismantled this week in an international law enforcement raid. First VPN, which operated across 27 countries, disguised the location of hackers through anonymous internet connections, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said. First VPN's administrator was arrested in Ukraine. The FBI and Europol had worked on the investigation since 2021. (TechCrunch)

• A 23-year-old Canadian man was arrested in Ottawa, charged with operating the KimWolf botnet to launch distributed denial-of-service attacks against smart devices such as digital photo frames and web cameras, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday. 

The WSJ Pro Cybersecurity team is Deputy Bureau Chief Kim S. Nash and reporters Angus Loten and James Rundle. Follow us on X @WSJCyber. Reach the team by replying to any newsletter you receive or by emailing Kim at kim.nash@wsj.com.