Government’s $189.5m quantum computing VC investment revealed | Cisco to establish cybersecurity centre in Taiwan | Hackers demand as much as $5 million from Snowflake clients
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The Albanese government’s giant bet on US-based quantum computing firm PsiQuantum involved an equity investment of $US125 million ($189.5 million) with the rest of the $470 million deal comprising debt, The Australian Financial Review can reveal. The Australian Financial Review
U.S. networking equipment maker Cisco said on Monday it would set up a cybersecurity centre in Taiwan and work with the government to train more people to work in the sector. Reuters
Cybercriminals are demanding payments of between $300,000 and $5 million apiece from as many as 10 companies breached in a campaign that targeted Snowflake Inc. customers, according to a security firm helping with the investigation. Bloomberg
ASPI
Countering coercion: Australia must engage with allies on critical minerals supply
The Strategist
Ian Satchwell
China’s use of coercion to control critical mineral mining and processing projects, their output and even whole supply chains has motivated Australia and its strategic partners to take increasingly strong measures to secure alternative supply chains.
Australia
Government’s $189.5m quantum computing VC investment revealed
The Australian Financial Review
Paul Smith
The Albanese government’s giant bet on US-based quantum computing firm PsiQuantum involved an equity investment of $US125 million ($189.5 million) with the rest of the $470 million deal comprising debt, The Australian Financial Review can reveal.
The absence of multi-factor authentication led to the Medibank hack, regulator alleges
ABC News
Clint Jasper
Court documents filed by The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner allege Medibank's massive 2022 data hack stemmed from not having multi-factor authentication to access the company's IT systems.
Lies, bad ads, no rules - social media under scrutiny
AAPNews
Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson
Researchers from six Australian universities will together investigate misinformation, consumer targeting, political messages and other risks on social media.
Reading, writing and … disinformation: should schoolchildren be taught media literacy like maths?
The Guardian
Joe Hinchliffe
Less than half of Australian children and teens think they can tell real news stories from fake.
‘Grandkids won’t learn to drive’: New driverless car push in Australia
The Australian Financial Review
Nick Bonyhady
Authorities are laying the groundwork for self-driving cars in Australia as autonomous taxi services expand in the United States, creating new transport modes but threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs.
China
Tencent’s WeChat breaks ranks to ban digital influencers in live streaming
South China Morning Post
Kelly Le
Chinese social media giant Tencent Holdings plans to ban digital hosts powered by artificial intelligence on its live-streaming commerce platforms, as Beijing tightens controls over AI-generated content.
As Shein heads towards IPO, its Chinese billionaire founder stays under cloak of secrecy
South China Morning Post
Wency Chen
Xu Yangtian, the founder of Chinese-originated fast-fashion shopping app Shein, has deliberately kept himself from the public eye for fear of attracting unwanted attention, sources say, as the company seeks to raise £50 billion (US$64 billion) from an initial public offering in London.
Chinese smartphone giant Vivo in talks to sell stake in Indian factory to Tata Group: report
South China Morning Post
Iris Deng
Chinese smartphone giant Vivo is said to be in talks to sell its stake in a factory in India to domestic conglomerate Tata Group, according to a report by local media Moneycontrol, as the South Asian nation tightens its scrutiny of foreign businesses operating in the country.
USA
AI-equipped underwater drones helping US Navy scan for threats
Bloomberg
Charles Gorrivan
The US Navy is boosting its deployment of artificial intelligence that automatically detect targets after successfully testing it on underwater drones, according to defense officials. The effort from the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, a California-based office that aims to bring commercial technology into the military, has helped cut in half the time it takes to comb the ocean floor for underwater mines, said Alex Campbell, the unit’s Navy service lead.
Surgeon General calls for warning labels on Social Media platforms
The New York Times
Ellen Barry
The United States Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, announced on Monday that he would push for a warning label on social media platforms advising parents that using the platforms might damage adolescents’ mental health.
Appeals court to hear challenges to potential US TikTok ban on Sept. 16
Reuters
David Shepardson
A U.S. appeals court on Monday said it will hold oral arguments on Sept. 16 on legal challenges to a new law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest TikTok's U.S. assets by Jan. 19 or face a ban.
McDonald’s ends AI drive-thru trial as fast-food industry tests automation
The Guardian
Nick Robins-Early
McDonald’s is ending its test of employing artificial intelligence chatbots at drive-thrus, raising questions over the fast food industry’s rush to roll out the technology. The world’s largest burger chain will remove automated AI-based order systems from over 100 locations around the US.
North Asia
Microsoft’s Japan chief sees country accelerating its use of AI
Bloomberg
Vlad Savov and Shery Ahn
Japan has been one of the fastest countries to embrace the use of new artificial intelligence tools and has the potential to accelerate its economy and tech sector by going further, according to Microsoft Japan President Miki Tsusaka.
Southeast Asia
Cisco to establish cybersecurity centre in Taiwan
Reuters
Ben Blanchard and Bernadette Baum
U.S. networking equipment maker Cisco said on Monday it would set up a cybersecurity centre in Taiwan and work with the government to train more people to work in the sector. Democratically governed Taiwan, which Beijing views as its own territory, has repeatedly complained of cyberattacks coming from China, targeting government officials and departments as well as tech firms as part of a broader pressure campaign.
Vietnam: Digital Sovereignty with New .vn Domain Policies
OpenGov Asia
Samaya Dharmaraj
In a significant move to bolster the digital economy and society, the Ministry of Information and Communications has introduced two groundbreaking policies aimed at popularising the national domain name ‘.vn’.
South & Central Asia
How we investigated welfare algorithms in India (Part I)
Pulitzer Center
Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava
AI Accountability Fellow Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava and journalist grantee Tapasya investigated opaque welfare algorithms in India that wrongfully cut off benefits to thousands of its poorest citizens. In this piece, Shrivastava shares how the story got started, the questions that drove the reporting, and the lessons they learned.
Europe
EU cybersecurity label should not discriminate against Big Tech, European groups say
Reuters
Foo Yun Chee
A proposed cybersecurity certification scheme for cloud services should not discriminate against Amazon, Alphabet's, Google and Microsoft, 26 industry groups across Europe warned on Monday.
German robotics industry faces stiff competition from China, VDMA says
Reuters
Klaus Lauer
Growing competition from China is weighing on the outlook for Germany's robotic industry, which is already struggling with falling orders in a weak domestic economy, a representative of the VDMA engineering association told Reuters.
2 political outliers claim seats in European Parliament by leveraging social media’s viral power
Associated Press
Menelaos Hadjicostis and Joseph Wilson
One is a wildly popular, seemingly happy-go-lucky YouTuber from Cyprus. The other is a brash, fringe figure of Spain’s far right who rails against unauthorised immigrants. They both are new members of the European Parliament thanks to their savvy use of video-based social media.
Stop playing games with online security, Signal president warns EU lawmakers
TechCrunch
Natasha Lomas
A controversial European Union legislative proposal to scan the private messages of citizens in a bid to detect child sexual abuse material is a risk to the future of web security, Meredith Whittaker warned in a public blog post Monday.
UK
British national with possible links to high-profile phishing campaigns arrested in Spain
CyberScoop
Aj Vicens
The 22-year-old British man arrested by police in Spain last week is linked to an underground criminal group known as “the Com” and allegedly participated in harvesting nearly 10,000 login credentials related to more than 130 companies as part of high-profile 2022 phishing campaign, a researcher familiar with the matter told CyberScoop on Monday.
Big Tech
Hackers demand as much as $5 million from Snowflake clients
Bloomberg
Charles Gorrivan, Margi Murphy, and Brody Ford
Cybercriminals are demanding payments of between $300,000 and $5 million apiece from as many as 10 companies breached in a campaign that targeted Snowflake Inc. customers, according to a security firm helping with the investigation.
TikTok ads may soon contain AI-generated avatars of your favourite creators
The Verge
Jess Weatherbed
TikTok is introducing some new generative AI tools that aim to help organisations and content creators grow their global audiences using customisable digital avatars and language dubbing features.
Microsoft’s embarrassment over Recall fiasco gets worse as Windows 11 feature becomes the butt of Apple exec’s joke
TechRadar
Darren Allan
Apple has the proverbial knives out for Microsoft when it comes to AI, landing a blow over the recent backtracking with Windows 11’s Recall feature for Copilot+ PCs.
Artificial Intelligence
Balance effects of AI with profits tax and green levy, says IMF
The Guardian
Dan Milmo
Governments faced with economic upheaval caused by artificial intelligence should consider fiscal policies including taxes on excess profits and a green levy to atone for AI-related carbon emissions, according to the International Monetary Fund.
AI experimentation is high risk, high reward for low-profile political campaigns
Associated Press
Ali Swenson, Dan Merica and Garance Burke
Adrian Perkins was running for reelection as the mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, when he was surprised by a harsh campaign hit piece. The satirical TV commercial, paid for by a rival political action committee, used artificial intelligence to depict Perkins as a high school student who had been called into the principal’s office.
EY looks to Microsoft as consultants seek AI sales edge
The Australian Financial Review
Tess Bennett
Consulting firm EY is giving all client-facing employees access to Microsoft’s AI-powered sales software in a global deal that it hopes will give it an advantage in the race to win tech-related advisory and software installation contracts.
Research
Digital News Report 2024
Reuters Institute
This year's report reveals new findings about the consumption of online news globally. It is based on a YouGov survey of more than 95,000 people in 47 countries representing half of the world's population. The report looks at the growing importance of platforms in news consumption and production, including more visual and video-led social media such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
Events & Podcasts
Social licence for national security: what’s the mandate?
The National Security Podcast
In this episode, James Brown, Dai Le, Christian Fjäder, Lisa Singh, and James Mortensen join Duncan Lewis to discuss the role of social licence, how it is generated, and how much licence is enough. They explore lessons from comparable liberal democracies and Australia's own history in achieving lasting policy support.
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.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security team at ASPI.