Ex-Australian embassy staff member charged by Thai police | Cyberattack on News Corp targeted emails of journalists, others | North Korea: Missile programme funded through stolen crypto
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A former staff member at the Australian embassy in Bangkok has been charged by Thai police after spy cameras were discovered in women's bathrooms inside the secure government building. The discovery raises serious questions about how the cameras were able to be installed and remain undiscovered, potentially for years. ABC
News Corp was the target of a hack that accessed emails and documents of some employees, including journalists, an incursion the company’s cybersecurity consultant said was likely meant to gather intelligence to benefit China’s interests. The Wall Street Journal
North Korean cyber-attacks have stolen millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency to fund the country's missile programmes, a UN report briefed to media says. BBC News
ASPI ICPC
British research ‘could help China build superweapons’
The Sunday Times
George Greenwood, Fiona Hamilton and Charlie Parker
Collaborations between scientists in the UK and institutes with deep connections to Beijing’s defence forces have tripled in six years, George Greenwood, Fiona Hamilton and Charlie Parker write.
Australia
Ex-Australian embassy staff member charged by Thai police after cameras found in women's bathrooms in Bangkok mission
ABC
Elise Worthington and Mazoe Ford
A former staff member at the Australian embassy in Bangkok has been charged by Thai police after spy cameras were discovered in women's bathrooms inside the secure government building. The discovery raises serious questions about how the cameras were able to be installed and remain undiscovered, potentially for years.
Nine Entertainment suffers its second cyber attack in less than a year
The Australian
James Madden
The personal information of almost 500 of the media company’s current and former employees was stolen in the latest data breach.
Unis 'get message' on China syndrome
The Australian
Australian universities will work more closely with those in the UK and US after receiving a “clear signal” from the government to diversify and move away from Chinese research partnerships..In a letter addressed to their respective governments, the two groups announced they would form a “strategic alliance” that would include bilateral funding programs in research such as artificial intelligence, quantum technology and health.
China
Hackers breached China’s National Games ahead of last year’s competition
The Record by Recorded Future
Catalin Cimpanu
An unidentified hacking group has gained access to the internal IT network of the 2021 National Games of China. The competition, which took place in September 2021 in the city of Shaanxi, is an internal sporting event for Chinese athletes only, modeled after the rules of the Olympic Games and the event where national champions are crowned across different sporting events.
Xi Jinping and the CCP’s expanding technology agenda
The Strategist
Kai von Carnap
Chinese Communist Party leaders use ‘collective study sessions’ to identify emerging technologies that they can harness politically. Given the merging of civil and military industrial goals in China, the international community needs to recognise the challenges this strategy poses.
JD offers generous warning to China tech investors
Reuters
Richard Liu’s generosity is a warning to investors desperately looking for signs that Chinese tech giants are out of Beijing’s bad books. JD.com’s boss followed in the footsteps read more of his counterparts at food-delivery giant Meituan and TikTok parent Bytedance by gifting some of his shares in the company to charity. The notable $2.3 billion contribution adds to a bounty heeding President Xi Jinping’s “common prosperity” call to promote wealth redistribution.
USA
Cyberattack on News Corp, Believed Linked to China, Targeted Emails of Journalists, Others
The Wall Street Journal
Alexandra Bruell, Sadie Gurman and Dustin Volz
News Corp was the target of a hack that accessed emails and documents of some employees, including journalists, an incursion the company’s cybersecurity consultant said was likely meant to gather intelligence to benefit China’s interests.
Former US security officials urge Congress to act on China legislation
The Strait Times
More than a dozen former senior United States national security officials have pressed congressional leaders to quickly pass legislation to boost technology funding, calling it "critical" to compete against China.
New DHS Cyber Safety Review Board will investigate major incidents
CNN
Geneva Sands and Sean Lyngaas
The Department of Homeland Security has established a Cyber Safety Review Board to examine "significant cybersecurity events," a move aimed at ramping up protection of US networks and infrastructure. The board, which will include government officials and outside cybersecurity executives, will assess past incidents and provide recommendations to the White House and DHS.
A year after Trump purge, ‘alt-tech’ offers far-right refuge
AP News
David Klepper and Barbara Ortutay
A year after Trump was banned by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, a rowdy assortment of newer platforms have lured conservatives with promises of a safe haven free from perceived censorship. While these budding platforms are mounting some ideological competition against their dominant counterparts, they have also become havens for misinformation and hate. Some experts are concerned that they’ll fuel extremism and calls for violence even if they never replicate the success of the mainstream sites.
Tim Cook, Ted Cruz and the strange politics of tech antitrust
Protocol
Ben Brody
Democrats and Republicans have found the tech reform debate scrambles traditional party politics — and the Apple CEO and Texas senator have found themselves chatting.
North Asia
South Korea to track travel by chip engineers as tech leaks grow
Nikkei Asia
Kotaro Hosokawa
South Korea will create a database of chip engineers to monitor their travel in and out of the country in a bid to discourage poaching by Chinese companies and keep key technology from making its way into foreign hands.
North Korea: Missile programme funded through stolen crypto, UN report says
BBC News
North Korean cyber-attacks have stolen millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency to fund the country's missile programmes, a UN report briefed to media says.
UK
Tech giants targeted in harmful content crackdown
BBC
Katie Prescott
Sending "genuinely threatening" or "knowingly false" messages are among new criminal offences being added to proposed online safety laws.
Europe
European oil facilities hit by cyber-attacks
BBC
Joe Tidy
Multiple oil transport and storage companies across Europe are dealing with cyber-attacks. IT systems have been disrupted at Oiltanking in Germany, SEA-Invest in Belgium and Evos in the Netherlands. In total dozens of terminals with oil storage and transport around the world have been affected, with firms reporting that the attacks occurred over the weekend. But experts caution against assuming this is a co-ordinated attack.
EU, tech giants boost cooperation on fighting online hate
Reuters
Ingrid Melander, Foo Yun Chee and Ingrid Melander
European justice ministers and tech giants Google's and Meta agreed on Friday that a clear legal framework was needed to step up cooperation against online hate, France's justice minister said.
Russia tells Germany it is open to ending media row
Reuters
Tom Balmforth
Russia said on Friday it would respond in kind if Germany moved to end a dispute over their respective media outlets, but would escalate the row if Berlin chose to do so.
The rise of tech standards foreign policy
DGAP
Tim Rühlig
Technical standard-setting is becoming geopolitical as a result of US-China technology competition. Yesterday, the European Commission unveiled its response – the European Standardization Strategy. The document looks promising in that it aims to preserve Europe’s successful bottom-up, industry-driven standard-setting approach, and complements it with a strategic top-down element. But its real-world success requires support from EU member states, not least Germany – Europe’s strongest standardization power.
Russia
How Russia Has Turned Ukraine Into a Cyber-Battlefield
Foreign Affairs
Dmitri Alperovitch
The Kremlin’s hackers are already targeting Kyiv.
Middle East
Iran’s national TV stream hacked for the second time in a week
The Record by Recorded Future
Catalin Cimpanu
A hacktivist group known as Adalat Ali (Ali’s Justice) has hijacked the web stream of Iran’s state-owned television station, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), in order to broadcast an anti-regime message earlier this week. The incident took place on Tuesday, February 1, and hit Telewebion, IRIB’s web-based TV and radio streaming platform.
Iran accused of sowing Israel discontent with fake Jewish Facebook group
BBC
Tom Bateman
A suspected Iranian disinformation unit ran an elaborate network on Facebook targeting nationalist and ultra-religious Jews in Israel in an attempt to stoke division and inflame tensions with Palestinians, according to research shared exclusively with the BBC.
Misc
Facebook owner Meta adds tool to guard against harassment in metaverse
Reuters
Elizabeth Culliford
Facebook's parent Meta Platforms said on Friday it is launching a tool for people using its virtual reality social platforms to maintain personal space boundaries, as concerns have mounted about user safety and sexual harassment in the metaverse.
Facebook Feels $10 Billion Sting From Apple’s Privacy Push
The Wall Street Journal
Meghan Bobrowsky
Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg says adjusting to the iPhone maker’s app-tracking changes will take time.
Zuckerberg Tells Staff to Focus on Video Products as Meta’s Stock Plunges
Bloomberg
Naomi Nix and Kurt Wagner
Mark Zuckerberg quipped that if he started to cry, it wasn’t because of the day’s news. His red, teary eyes were the result of a scratched cornea, the Facebook founder said Thursday, attempting to lighten the mood as Meta Platforms Inc.’s stock price lost more than a quarter of its value.
Dystopic TikTok Trend Demands Amazon Workers Dance for Surveillance Cameras
VICE
Gita Jackson
TikTok users leave a note for their delivery drivers asking that they dance for the camera. Then, they put it online for the enjoyment of strangers.
We Found The Real Names Of Bored Ape Yacht Club’s Pseudonymous Founders
Buzzfeed News
Katie Notopoulos
The buzzy NFT collection has raked in millions and the eager support of dozens of celebrities. But its founders’ anonymity raises questions about accountability in the age of crypto.
Mapping the celebrity NFT complex
Read Max
Max Read
If you pay attention to both the Hollywood trades and the crypto press, and smoke enough weed, you can begin to pick out the contours of an expanding, interconnected, celebrity-based web3 financial-cultural complex.
The celebs have gone crypto
The Washington Post
Sonia Rao
Celebrities have taken to pushing cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens at a speed once reserved for viral dance trends. The artists among them insist our real world will soon resemble the fictional sort they’ve spent careers envisioning.
The Internet Is Just Investment Banking Now
The Atlantic
Ian Bogost
The internet has always financialized our lives. Web3 just makes that explicit.
How Phishers Are Slinking Their Links Into LinkedIn
Krebs on Security
If you received a link to LinkedIn.com via email, SMS or instant message, would you click it? Spammers, phishers and other ne’er-do-wells are hoping you will, because they’ve long taken advantage of a marketing feature on the business networking site which lets them create a LinkedIn.com link that bounces your browser to other websites, such as phishing pages that mimic top online brands (but chiefly Linkedin’s parent firm Microsoft).
Parrots for sale: The internet's role in illicit trade
BBC News
Shiroma Silva and Carl Miller
On the surface, the illicit wildlife trade is as it always has been - secret shipment routes, forged customs documents, and covert warehouses. But how we've arrived at Faiz's establishment is a sign of how drastically the illicit trade in endangered plants and animals has transformed. He has been openly advertising the sale of endangered birds and animals across social media.
Events and Podcasts
AI and Tech Summitt 22
POLITICO
Brussels took the first steps in 2021 to regulate the continent’s most innovative artificial intelligence technologies with an ambitious legislative package. And the verdicts are out: for some, it shouldn’t open the door to stifling innovation. For others, it doesn’t go far enough in preventing the use of high-risk or unethical AI. One year on, and with the legislative train well en route, where do global policymakers, tech leaders and civil society representatives stand in the discussion?
Research
Assessing military cyber maturity: strategy, institutions and capability
IISS
Few governments have reached an enduring consensus on just how quickly and how deeply reforms to their military cyber forces must be made. While consensus points have been reached, these are usually tested within a short period of time by international circumstances and technological trends. The main dilemma is whether military cyber strategies and capabilities need more than routine development as just one more element of military power, or whether they warrant radical development pathways and a higher priority than others.
Jobs
ICPC Senior Analyst or Analyst - China
ASPI ICPC
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) has a unique opportunity for exceptional and experienced China-focused senior analysts or analysts to join its centre. This role will focus on original research and analysis centred around the (growing) range of topics which our ICPC China team work on. Our China team produces some of the most impactful and well-read policy-relevant research in the world, with our experts often being called upon by politicians, governments, corporates and civil society actors to provide briefings and advice. Analysts usually have at least 5 years, often 7-10 years’ of work experience. Senior analysts usually have a minimum of 15 years relevant work experience and, in addition to research, they take on a leadership role in the centre and tend to be involved in staff and project management, fundraising and stakeholder engagement.
ICPC Data Analyst
ASPI ICPC
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) has an outstanding opportunity for talented Data Analysts to join its growing centre. ASPI’s ICPC undertakes complex research on some of the most challenging issues at the intersection of technology and public policy. How do we develop international norms to deter information operations and coercive diplomacy, how should we build international cooperation on the development of emerging critical technologies, what is the right balance between regulation and innovation? We deliver empirical research that is policy-relevant and we’re looking for people who can help us analyse data at scale.