French regulator fines Google €250 million | US weighs sanctioning Huawei’s secretive Chinese chip network | EU to impose election safeguards on Big Tech
Good morning. It's Thursday 21st March.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest focuses on the topics we work on, including cybersecurity, critical technologies, foreign interference & disinformation.
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French regulators said on Wednesday, March 20, that they were fining Google €250 million for breaching an agreement on terms for paying media companies for reproducing their content online. Le Monde
The Biden administration is considering blacklisting a number of Chinese semiconductor firms linked to Huawei Technologies Co. after the telecom giant notched a significant technological breakthrough last year, people familiar with the matter said. Bloomberg
X, TikTok and other big online platforms will be subject to EU fines for lax moderation within weeks, as Brussels rolls out its first binding regime to fight election disinformation. Financial Times
ASPI
China’s dominance over critical minerals poses an unacceptable risk
The Interpreter
John Coyne & Justin Bassi
Critical minerals are the world’s building blocks for emerging and future technologies. They are essential to manufacturing, clean energy production, semiconductor production, and the defence and aerospace industries. Their supply and value chains are small relative to major commodities such as iron ore and coal. They are highly concentrated around China, are easily distorted, and are vulnerable to price fluctuations. This inescapably creates a risk, allowing China to wield its market domination to coerce others.
Could Temu join TikTok on ban list as official framework for ‘vendor-based national security risks’ on way?
The Nightly
Remy Varga & Katina Curtis
Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Fergus Ryan said the main risks of TikTok were the app’s capacity to manipulate political discourse in Australia and that its Chinese-based developers could access the data of Australian users.
World
Rival nations seek to poach top UK and European AI start-ups
Financial Times
Cristina Criddle & Chloe Cornish
Leading European and UK artificial intelligence start-ups have been lobbied to move their headquarters to rival nations, as they become targets in a global competition to develop cutting-edge technology. The concerted push to attract Europe’s most promising AI companies is part of the ambition of states beyond the tech superpowers of the US and China to become serious players in the burgeoning AI industry.
China
Microsoft is Attracting Growing Criticism for Censoring Bing in China
Bloomberg
Ryan Gallagher
A second US Senator has attacked Microsoft Corp.’s operations in China, adding to a wave of criticism from human rights groups following a Bloomberg Businessweek investigation about the way it censors its Bing search engine in the country. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican from Florida, said in an emailed statement that there’s “no defending” such compliance from any US company. Bloomberg’s story found that Bing in China is removing an increasing amount of information about human rights, democracy, climate change and other topics to satisfy Beijing.
USA
US Weighs Sanctioning Huawei’s Secretive Chinese Chip Network
Bloomberg
Mackenzie Hawkins
The Biden administration is considering blacklisting a number of Chinese semiconductor firms linked to Huawei Technologies Co. after the telecom giant notched a significant technological breakthrough last year, people familiar with the matter said. Such a move would mark another escalation in a US campaign to ringfence and curtail Beijing’s AI and semiconductor ambitions. It would ratchet up the pressure on a Chinese national champion that’s made advances despite existing sanctions, including producing a smartphone processor last year that many in Washington thought beyond its capabilities.
Intel to Receive $8.5 Billion in Grants to Build Chip Plants
The New York Times
Madeleine Ngo, Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Don Clark
President Biden plans to announce on Wednesday that his administration will award up to $8.5 billion in grants to Intel, a major investment to bolster the nation’s semiconductor production, during a tour of battleground states meant to sell his economic agenda. The award, which will go to the construction and expansion of Intel facilities around the United States, is the biggest the federal government has made with funding from the CHIPS Act, which lawmakers passed in 2022 to help re-establish the United States as a leader in semiconductor manufacturing.
US warns hackers are carrying out attacks on water systems
Reuters
Raphael Satter
The U.S. government is warning state governors that foreign hackers are carrying out disruptive cyberattacks against water and sewage systems throughout the country. In a letter released Tuesday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan warned that "disabling cyberattacks are striking water and wastewater systems throughout the United States."
EPA looking to create water sector cyber task force to reduce risks from Iran, China
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Greig
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it plans to create a new task force designed to help the water sector deal with the growing number of cyberattacks from nation-states like Iran and China. The EPA is holding a meeting on Thursday with state environmental, health and homeland security secretaries to discuss the “urgent need to safeguard water sector critical infrastructure against cyber threats.”
US Senate considering public hearing on TikTok crackdown bill, committee chair says
Reuters
David Shepardson
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell on Wednesday said she is considering holding a public hearing on a TikTok crackdown bill after lawmakers got a closed-door briefing from U.S. national intelligence and Justice Department officials.
Two Russians sanctioned by US for alleged disinformation campaign
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Greig
The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Wednesday that it is sanctioning two Russian nationals and two companies for a disinformation campaign that allegedly sought to “impersonate legitimate media outlets.” The companies — Social Design Agency and Company Group Structura — allegedly provided the Russian government with a variety of services that include the creation of websites designed to impersonate government organisations and European media organisations.
Anti-drone companies market radio jammer devices online despite FCC rules outlawing them
NBC News
David Ingram
Several online retailers and drone technology companies are marketing the sale of radio frequency jammers as drone deterrence or privacy tools, sidestepping federal laws that prohibit such devices from being offered for sale in the U.S. The Federal Communications Commission has warned that jammers can interfere with emergency communications, disrupt normal phone use and have other unintended consequences such as confusing airport navigation systems. According to the FCC, jammers are illegal to sell and may not be operated, marketed or imported into the United States. In general, even local police aren’t legally allowed to use them.
North Asia
Samsung vows to seize opportunity of AI
The Korea Herald
Jie Ye-eun
While forecasting high uncertainties in the macroeconomic environment this year, Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Han Jong-hee vowed to make efforts to expand technological innovation in burgeoning artificial intelligence and new businesses for sustainable growth. Han told shareholders the tech giant would further strengthen the organization and promotion system to discover various new products and business models at an early stage highlighting AI, customer experience and ESG (environment, society and governance) as the company’s three key future keywords.
South Korea's Yoon, Biden call for defending elections against fake news
Nikkei Asia
Junnosuke Kobara
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday urged world leaders to join in defending democracy against the threat posed by disinformation. "We need solidarity and sharing of technology to defend our democracies. We need to build AI and digital systems that can detect and combat those who use AI and digital technology to create fake news and spread disinformation," he said.
Southeast Asia
Japan's NEC opens cybersecurity center in Malaysia's Johor state
Nikkei Asia
Tsubasa Suruga
Japan's NEC on Wednesday opened a new technological support and cybersecurity center in Malaysia's southern state of Johor, which borders Singapore and is benefiting from a boom in data centers and IT infrastructure. The Intelligent Center Operations of NEC will support clients in 10 Asian markets and monitor their networks and cybersecurity systems around the clock in eight languages, including Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean.
Vietnam’s struggle with cyber security
East Asia Forum
Viet Dung Trinh
Despite having the 12th largest internet user population globally, Vietnam's cybersecurity vulnerability has increased due to regular cyber-attacks, often attributed to Chinese hackers, causing concerns for national sovereignty, security and domestic stability. In response, the Vietnamese government has launched various cybersecurity strategies and campaigns, established agencies for cybercrime prevention, declined Huawei's offer for 5G infrastructure development and laid out objectives to improve the national security index by 2025.
Ukraine - Russia
Russia warns United States: use of SpaceX for spying makes its satellites a target
Reuters
Russia said on Wednesday that it knew about U.S. intelligence efforts to use commercial satellite operators such as SpaceX and cautioned that such moves made their satellites legitimate targets. Reuters reported this month that SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with a U.S. intelligence agency, demonstrating deepening ties between Elon Musk's space company and national security agencies.
Russians will no longer be able to access Microsoft cloud services, business intelligence tools
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
Microsoft will reportedly suspend access to its cloud services for Russian users this month as a result of European sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. The Russian tech firm Softline, one of the largest distributors of Microsoft products in the country, said in a statement last week that local users will lose access to the cloud services provided by Microsoft on March 20.
Europe
French regulator fines Google €250 million
Le Monde
French regulators said on Wednesday, March 20, that they were fining Google €250 million for breaching an agreement on terms for paying media companies for reproducing their content online. France's Competition Authority said in a statement the fine was for "failing to respect commitments made in June 2022" and accused it of not negotiating in "good faith" with news publishers on how much to compensate them for use of their content. The EU created a form of copyright called "neighboring rights" that allows print media to demand compensation for using their content. France has been a test case for the rules and after initial resistance Google and Facebook both agreed to pay some French media for articles shown in web searches.
EU to impose election safeguards on Big Tech
Financial Times
Javier Espinoza
X, TikTok and other big online platforms will be subject to EU fines for lax moderation within weeks, as Brussels rolls out its first binding regime to fight election disinformation. The guidelines, designed to counter online threats to the integrity of elections, are to be adopted by the European Commission as soon as next week, according to people familiar with the plans. Under the requirements, which will end years of self-regulation for the industry, platforms that fail to adequately tackle artificial intelligence-powered disinformation or deepfakes could face fines of up to 6 per cent of global turnover.
European Parliament committee votes new measures for AI factories
EURACTIV
Eliza Gkritsi
The European Parliament’s Industry, Research, and Energy committee voted on Wednesday to improve access for small businesses and startups to artificial intelligence supercomputers, as well as strengthen environmental standards for such infrastructure. Europe is looking to nurture innovation in AI at home. However, this requires large amounts of computational power. The supply of data centers with supercomputers oriented towards training AI models — dubbed AI factories by EU policymakers — is not only lacking relative to the expected growth of demand but concentrated in the hands of a few companies.
Google defends Digital Markets Act changes, cites complex trade-offs
Reuters
Foo Yun Chee
Alphabet's Google on Thursday will seek to fend off criticism about changes to its core services mandated by landmark EU tech rules, according to a copy of a senior Google executive's speech seen by Reuters. Oliver Bethell, a lawyer who leads Google's EMEA competition team, will tell regulators and rivals that balancing the various interests has required the tech company to make complex trade-offs, according to the document.
AceCryptor malware has surged in Europe, researchers say
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Greig
Thousands of new infections involving the AceCryptor tool — which allows hackers to obfuscate malware and slip it into systems without being detected by anti-virus software — have been discovered as part of a campaign targeting organisations across Europe. ESET said that in the first half of 2023, the countries most affected by malware packed by AceCryptor were Peru, Mexico, Egypt and Turkey, with Peru seeing the most attacks at 4,700. In the second half of 2023, the hackers switched their focus to European countries, targeting Poland with more than 26,000 attacks. Ukraine, Spain and Serbia also saw thousands of attacks.
Middle East
Hackers claim to have breached Israeli nuclear facility’s computer network
The Record by Recorded Future
Alexander Martin
An Iran-linked hacking group claims to have breached the computer network of a sensitive Israeli nuclear installation in an incident declared by the ‘Anonymous’ hackers as a protest against the war in Gaza. The hackers claim to have stolen and published thousands of documents — including PDFs, emails, and PowerPoint slides — from the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center. While the documents that have been released potentially suggest the hackers were able to compromise an IT network connected to the facility, there is no evidence they have been able to breach its operational technology network.
Artificial Intelligence
How to think about AI policy
The Strategist
Margrethe Vestager
AI is neither good nor bad, but it will usher in a global era of complexity and ambiguity. In Europe, we have designed a regulation that reflects this. Probably more than any other piece of EU legislation, this one required a careful balancing act—between power and responsibility, between innovation and trust, and between freedom and safety.
Events & Podcasts
On the Frontier of U.S.-Japan Tech Collaborations
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The United States and Japan continue to make technology collaborations a core pillar of their bilateral relationship, but many governmental discussions around trade and investment are framed by traditional and increasingly outdated notions of what is happening on the ground. Join the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for this discussion on the important patterns in cutting-edge, private-sector collaboration between the United States and Japan, illustrated by specific case studies.
The Sydney Dialogue
ASPI
The Sydney Dialogue was created to help bring together governments, businesses and civil society to discuss and progress policy options. We will forecast the technologies of the next decade that will change our societies, economies and national security, prioritising speakers and delegates who are willing to push the envelope. We will promote diverse views that stimulate real conversations about the best ways to seize opportunities and minimise risks.
Jobs
UNIDIR Women in AI Fellowship
UNIDIR
The Women.AI Fellowship comprises a week-long, in-person training programme in Geneva, as well as a series of engagements with relevant experts and stakeholders. The Fellowship is designed as a capacity-building intervention that will endow women diplomats with up-to-the-minute knowledge of the policy, legal and technical aspects of AI, including its gendered implications. Women.AI Fellows will acquire the knowhow, skills, and resources required to engage effectively in multilateral AI discussion in the field of international peace and security. Applications close Sunday 31 March.
ASPI Northern Australia Strategic Policy Centre (NASPC) Administration Officer
ASPI
This role also works across the Head of the NASPC's alternate policy centres, the Strategic Policing and Law Enforcement Program, involving work across illicit drugs, illicit finance, transnational serious organised crime, and modern slavery, and ASPI’s Counter-terrorism Policy Centre. The successful applicant will have the chance to assist with coordinating a project in the first half of 2024 focused on northern Australia's connections with Pacific Island Countries, liaising with senior Government and international representatives. The closing date for applications is 29 March 2024– an early application is advised as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if suitable applications are received.
Director of Cyber, Technology & Security (CTS)
ASPI
ASPI is looking for an exceptional and experienced leader to lead our largest team focused on emerging security challenges, particularly in cyberspace and the information domain. Director CTS leads ASPI’s largest team to develop and deliver a range of applied research projects on existing and emerging security challenges. CTS’ projects range across cyber and critical infrastructure security, critical and emerging technologies, national resilience and social cohesion, and hybrid threats. The closing date for applications is 22 April 2024 – an early application is advised as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if suitable applications are received.
China Analyst or Senior Analyst
ASPI
ASPI has an exciting opportunity for an analyst or senior analyst to explore China's evolving foreign and security policy, political economy and impact on the Indo-Pacific and the world. ASPI’s China analysts conduct rigorous data-driven research, publish impactful reports that shape the public policy discourse and contribute to the wide catalogue of influential China work published by ASPI. The difference between the analyst and senior analyst levels will depend on experience level and demonstration of past work. The closing date for applications is 10 May 2024– an early application is advised as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if suitable applications are received.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security team at ASPI.