UK: BBC, BA and Boots among cyber attack victims | Twitter missed dozens of known images of child sexual abuse material, researchers say | China leads tech race, highlighting need for AUKUS sharing
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The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest focuses on the topics we work on, including cybersecurity, critical technologies, foreign interference & disinformation.
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The BBC, British Airways, Boots and Aer Lingus are among a growing number of organisations affected by a mass hack. Staff have been warned personal data including national insurance numbers and in some cases bank details may have been stolen. BBC
Twitter failed to prevent dozens of known images of child sexual abuse from being posted on its platform in recent months, according to Stanford University researchers who said the situation indicated a lapse in basic enforcement. The Wall Street Journal
China leads research in 19 of 23 technologies set as priorities by the AUKUS defence partnership of Australia, Britain and the US, including hypersonics, electronic warfare and undersea drones, highlighting the need for Western allies to pool research results, an Australian security think-tank says. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute said on Tuesday its survey of the world's top science papers showed China led research in most of the technologies likely to come under the defence partnership's so-called Pillar Two. Reuters
ASPI
China leads tech race, highlighting need for AUKUS sharing, says think-tank
Reuters
Kirsty Needham
China leads research in 19 of 23 technologies set as priorities by the AUKUS defence partnership of Australia, Britain and the US, including hypersonics, electronic warfare and undersea drones, highlighting the need for Western allies to pool research results, an Australian security think-tank says. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute said on Tuesday its survey of the world's top science papers showed China led research in most of the technologies likely to come under the defence partnership's so-called Pillar Two.
Push to reverse China influence
The Australian
The report shows the collective strength of the AUKUS countries has reversed some of China’s strategic power in autonomous systems operation, advanced robotics, adversarial AI-reverse engineering, quantum sensors and protective cyber.AUKUS: three partners, two pillars, one problem
The Strategist
Alexandra Caples, Jamie Gaida and Danielle Cave
Much of the AUKUS discussion to date has focused on Pillar 1, the trilateral effort to support Australia acquiring conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines. Yet achieving Pillar 2, the technology programs, is arguably both of greater long-term value and more strategically challenging. Pillar 2 aims to enhance the US, UK and Australia’s technological edge—and, implicitly, to counter China’s technological advancements—by pooling resources in advanced military capability areas such as AI, quantum computing, cyber technology, undersea capabilities, hypersonics and counter-hypersonics, electronic warfare, and information-sharing.
World
NATO: Military cyber defenders need to be present on networks during peacetime
The Record by Recorded Future
Alexander Martin
NATO member states will next month endorse a greater role for military cyber defenders during peacetime, alongside the permanent integration of private sector capabilities within the alliance's efforts to battle malicious state-sponsored hacking, a senior official said.
Australia
Australian neo-Nazis are thriving on Elon Musk’s Twitter
Crikey
Cam Wilson
Australia’s far right has enthusiastically returned to Twitter under the leadership of Elon Musk, using the platform to hijack and insert itself into online mainstream conversation.
Cyber threat actors eye aviation industry, airlines step up security
Australian Cyber Security Magazine
Aviation is a target-rich industry for cybercriminals, with private and state-sponsored crime syndicates increasingly attempting to disrupt it. However, airlines are well aware of the threat and are fighting back with the full backing of regulatory agencies and governments.
CSIRO, Alphinity to set AI standard for ESG
The Australian
Noah Yim
CSIRO and investment manager Alphinity will partner to create a public framework to help inform ESG investment decisions about industry rollout of AI.
China
Elon Musk says he learned China will initiate AI regulations
Reuters
Kanishka Singh
The Chinese government will seek AI regulations in its country, billionaire Elon Musk said on Monday, saying he learned about that from his conversations with officials during his recent trip to China.
USA
US Air Force denies AI drone attacked operator in test
BBC
Zoe Kleinman
A US Air Force colonel "mis-spoke" when describing an experiment in which an AI-enabled drone opted to attack its operator in order to complete its mission, the service has said.
First in space: SpaceX and NASA launch satellite that hackers will attempt to infiltrate during DEF CON
CyberScoop
Christian Vasquez
On Monday at 11:47 a.m. at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, for the first time ever, SpaceX and NASA sent a satellite into low-earth orbit hoping that it’ll get hacked.
The US and China are caught in a technology trap
Foreign Policy
Rishi Iyengar and Robbie Gramer
The Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s main cybersecurity regulator, announced on May 22 that it would bar semiconductors made by Idaho-based industry giant Micron from being used in key infrastructure projects, citing a failure to pass a weeks-long “cybersecurity review.” Micron said the restrictions could result in the loss of a “high single-digit percentage” of its revenue—a potential multibillion-dollar hit.
Deepfakes are adding an insidious edge to some sextortion schemes, FBI says
The Record by Recorded Future
Joe Warminsky
There was a time when sextortion schemes typically involved digital material that was either coerced or stolen from a victim. The FBI is warning now that deepfakes are changing the nature of the crime.
Americas
Caribbean island of Martinique dealing with cyberattack that disrupted government services
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Greig
The Caribbean island of Martinique is dealing with a cyberattack that has disrupted internet access and other infrastructure for weeks. Martinique has a population of about 360,000 and is controlled by France, serving as an outermost region of the European Union.
South & Central Asia
Parliamentary panel on finance debates cyber security, rising white collar crimes
The Economic Times
The issue of "cyber security and rising incidence of cyber/white collar crimes" was at the centre of deliberations at a meeting of a key parliamentary panel as experts from the industry were quizzed by lawmakers about various facets of unlawful activities, including fraud loan apps.
Europe
Is it real or made by AI? Europe wants a label for that as it fights disinformation
Associated Press
Kelvin Chan
The European Union is pushing online platforms like Google and Meta to step up the fight against false information by adding labels to text, photos and other content generated by AI, a top official said Monday.
Finland, US eye 6G to reduce Chinese tech dependence
Euractiv
Pekka Vanttinen
Finland and the US have signed a Joint Statement on Cooperation in Advanced Wireless Communications in Helsinki, which was seen as the ”free world’s” response to Chinese technology.
France rolls out the red carpet for EV battery factories
Reuters
Elizabeth Pineau, Gilles Guillaume and Michel Rose
Macron and Yang stood side-by-side in Dunkirk to announce that ProLogium had picked the northern French port ahead of sites in Germany and the Netherlands for its first EV battery gigafactory outside Taiwan. It is one of four such gigafactories Macron hopes will transform the poor, former coal mining area near Belgium into a hub for the EV battery industry, creating jobs and helping to put France at the forefront of Europe's energy transition.
UK
MOVEit hack: BBC, BA and Boots among cyber attack victims
BBC
Joe Tidy
The BBC, British Airways, Boots and Aer Lingus are among a growing number of organisations affected by a mass hack. Staff have been warned personal data including national insurance numbers and in some cases bank details may have been stolen.
Two years to save the world, says Sunak’s AI adviser
The Times
Mark Sellman and Tom Whipple
AI systems will be powerful enough to “kill many humans” within just two years, Rishi Sunak’s adviser on AI has warned. Matt Clifford, who is helping the prime minister set up the government’s AI taskforce, said policymakers should be prepared for threats ranging from cyberattacks to the creation of bioweapons if mankind fails to find a way to control the technology.
Africa
Senegal government cuts mobile internet access amid deadly rioting
VOA News
Senegal's government has cut access to mobile internet services in certain areas because of deadly rioting in which "hateful and subversive" messages have been posted online, it said in a statement on Sunday.
Experts seek adequate cyber security framework for capital market
Voice of Nigeria
Hauwa Abubakar Anaja
Experts in the capital market sector have called for a strong cybersecurity framework in order to protect the data and assets of investors as well as those engaging in online stock trading in the country. They made the call at the virtual conference organised by the Institute of Capital Market Registrars and the Fintech Association of Nigeria.
Middle East
OpenAI mulling Israel investment opportunities, Microsoft says
Reuters
Dan Williams
OpenAI is considering investment opportunities in Israel, Microsoft Israel R&D center quoted the company's CEO, Sam Altman, as saying during a visit to the country on Monday.
Big Tech
Twitter missed dozens of known images of child sexual abuse material, researchers say
The Wall Street Journal
Alexa Corse
Twitter failed to prevent dozens of known images of child sexual abuse from being posted on its platform in recent months, according to Stanford University researchers who said the situation indicated a lapse in basic enforcement.
Twitter’s US ad sales plunge 59% as woes continue
The New York Times
Ryan Mac and Tiffany Hsu
Elon Musk recently said Twitter’s advertising business was on the upswing. “Almost all advertisers have come back,” he asserted, adding that the social media company could soon become profitable.
Artificial Intelligence
Human extinction threat 'overblown' says AI sage Marcus
France 24
John Plender
Ever since the poem churning ChatGPT burst on the scene six months ago, expert Gary Marcus has voiced caution against AI's ultra-fast development and adoption. But against AI's apocalyptic doomsayers, the New York University emeritus professor told AFP in a recent interview that the technology's existential threats may currently be "overblown."
ChatGPT took their jobs. Now they walk dogs and fix air conditioners
The Washington Post
Pranshu Verma and Gerrit De Vynck
Some economists predict artificial intelligence technology like ChatGPT could replace hundreds of millions of jobs, in a cataclysmic reorganization of the workforce mirroring the industrial revolution. For some workers, this impact is already here.
Why the AI boom is not a dotcom redux
Financial Times
John Plender
The media hype over AI since Microsoft announced its investment in ChatGPT in January inevitably calls to mind the excesses of the dotcom bubble.
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