Huawei chip mission shows Taiwan economy gaining from trade war | Home Office app for EU citizens easy to hack | Parliament House thwarts recent cyber attack
Follow us on Twitter. The Daily Cyber Digest focuses on the topics we work on, including cyber, critical technologies & strategic issues like foreign interference.
A small group of high-ranking Huawei executives went to Taiwan last month on a mission to ensure that a crucial supplier could continue delivering cutting-edge chips to the Chinese tech giant amid the protracted trade war between Beijing and Washington. Nikkei
A smartphone app developed by the Home Office to help European citizens apply to live and work in the UK after Brexit has serious vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to steal phone numbers, addresses and passport details, according to researchers. Financial Times
The simple click of a mouse was all it took to punch a digital hole in what should be one of the country's most secure IT systems, Federal Parliament. ABC News
ASPI ICPC
Universities forced to take action over China ties
The Australian Financial Review
@roberttdbolton
Australian Strategic Policy Institute analyst Alex Joske said, “The question is to what extent will the unis take up these guidelines. Will they do more due diligence and think more carefully about engaging with China? I can't think of a single case where an Australian university has decided to terminate an existing agreement or kick out a visiting scientist not doing research with integrity." Mr Joske said ASPI's concerns about misdirected research was so high it was creating its own China Defence Universities tracker website which reveals the ultimate use of defence research developed by Chinese universities.
Australia
Parliament House thwarts recent cyber attack as cause of January hack is revealed
ABC News
The ABC can reveal security thwarted another attempted attack a fortnight ago. An email was sent to users on October 31, advising an Emotet Trojan malware had been detected in the system, similar to that discovered in the Queensland and South Australian healthcare systems. It temporarily banned users from accessing personal email accounts like Gmail from the parliamentary system.
China
China’s messaging against the Hong Kong protests has found a new outlet: PornHub
Quartz
@Jane_Li911
Unwelcome on Twitter and YouTube, resourceful Chinese patriots are putting their videos condemning Hong Kong protesters on another extremely popular platform.
Huawei chip mission shows Taiwan economy gaining from trade war
Nikkei
@dabieannie Lauly Li
A small group of high-ranking Huawei executives went to Taiwan last month on a mission to ensure that a crucial supplier could continue delivering cutting-edge chips to the Chinese tech giant amid the protracted trade war between Beijing and Washington.
Engage China, or Confront It? What’s the Right Approach Now?
The New York Times
@SammSacks
Samm Sacks, a fellow in cybersecurity and China’s digital economy at New America, a centrist think tank, said it was not so much a war as a struggle over new technologies. The Chinese government has been using face-recognition and other artificial intelligence to surveil its own people and is exporting those technologies elsewhere. In the meantime, the United States has been grappling with privacy, data protection and security while remaining mostly hands-off in other aspects of the internet. “The Communist Party is moving aggressively and assertively to use technology in deeply troubling ways,” Ms. Sacks said. “We need to offer a compelling alternative to that.”
Is China gaining an edge in artificial intelligence?
BBC
@shermannatalie
"China is betting on AI and investing in AI and deploying AI on a scale no other country is doing," says Abishur Prakash, a futurist and author of books about the effect of artificial intelligence (AI) on geopolitics.
USA
I'm the Google whistleblower. The medical data of millions of Americans is at risk
The Guardian
Anonymous
I didn’t decide to blow the whistle on Google’s deal, known internally as the Nightingale Project, glibly. The decision came to me slowly, creeping on me through my day-to-day work as one of about 250 people in Google and Ascension working on the project.
States' massive Google antitrust probe will expand into search and Android businesses
CNBC
@laurenshirsch @lauren_feiner
The 50 attorneys general investigating Google are preparing to expand their antitrust probe beyond the company’s advertising business to dive more deeply into its search and Android businesses, people familiar with the matter tell CNBC.
Southeast Asia
Singapore rolls out national strategy on artificial intelligence for ‘impactful’ social, economic benefits
CNA
@SeeKitCNA
By 2022, people living in Singapore will be able to report municipal issues via a chatbot that asks for details in real time and automatically identifies the correct government agency in charge.
South Asia
Lessons from the cyberattack on India’s largest nuclear power plant
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Indian officials acknowledged on October 30th that a cyberattack occurred at the country’s Kudankulam nuclear power plant. An Indian private cybersecurity researcher had tweeted about the breach three days earlier, prompting Indian authorities to initially deny that it had occurred before admitting that the intrusion had been discovered in early September and that efforts were underway to respond to it.
UK
Home Office app for EU citizens easy to hack
Financial Times
A smartphone app developed by the Home Office to help European citizens apply to live and work in the UK after Brexit has serious vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to steal phone numbers, addresses and passport details, according to researchers.
Middle East
Iranian hacking group built its own VPN network
ZDNet
@campuscodi
One of Iran's elite state-sponsored hacking groups has built and has been operating its own private network of VPN nodes, which they've using to connect to hacking infrastructure, perform reconnaissance on future targets, and even casual web browsing, according to research published today by cyber-security firm Trend Micro. The group, tracked in cyber-security circles under the codename of APT33, is, by far, Iran's most sophisticated hacking unit.
WhatsApp as a tool for fear and intimidation in Lebanon’s protests
Coda Story
@EmCLew
Ironically, tensions ignited by a proposed tax on WhatsApp are now being further exacerbated through the app itself. In the weeks since the protests began, fabricated WhatsApp messages have spread like wildfire. Protesters have shared voice notes claiming that the internet would be shut down, that the Army was set to declare a state of emergency and numerous warnings that demonstrations were about to descend into violence. “There has always been disinformation circulated via [social media] channels,” says Azza*, a Lebanon-based media researcher. “But the speed and volume now is different; this is to be expected in times of crisis and uncertainty…The whole idea is to bank on people’s fear.”
Gender and women in cyber
Women In Cybersecurity – The Comic Strip
Govinsider
@nurfilzah_r Joy Lim
International government and industry experts in cyber policy, strategy and research recently gathered to discuss inclusivity in tech.
Misc
FRONTLINE investigates the promise and perils of artificial intelligence, from fears about work and privacy to rivalry between the U.S. and China. The documentary traces a new industrial revolution that will reshape and disrupt our lives, our jobs and our world, and allow the emergence of the surveillance society.
Declaration of the 11th BRICS Summit
President of Russia
We, the Leaders of the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Russian Federation, the Republic of India, the People's Republic of China and the Republic of South Africa met on 14 November 2019 in Brasília, Brazil, at the Eleventh BRICS Summit..We underscore the importance of an open, secure, peaceful, stable, accessible and non-discriminatory environment for information and communications technologies (ICTs). We emphasize the importance of universally agreed norms, rules and principles, under the auspices of the UN, for the responsible behavior of States in the realm of ICTs, and uphold the centrality of the United Nations in their development. In this connection, we welcome the establishment of a UN open-ended working group on this matter, as well as the launch of a new edition of the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE). While supporting both mechanisms, we underline that the dual-track process can provide complementarity and synergies in the international efforts in this matter.
This App Will Tell You if Your iPhone Gets Hacked
Vice
@lorenzofb
A security firm has released a new app that promises to detect when your iPhone has been targeted by hackers, but there are caveats.
Transcription Site Rev Leaves Customer Data Out in the Open
Medium
@SarahNEmerson
Gig workers for Rev, a popular on-demand transcription service, recently reported that the company was slashing their pay. Now, some freelancers are warning of a security issue involving customer data on Rev’s platform.
Events
Launch: China Defence Universities Tracker
ASPI
ASPI's International Cyber Policy Centre invites you to attend the launch of the 'China Defence Universities Tracker’ on November 26. The tracker is a comprehensive resource on the defence and security links of over 160 Chinese universities and research institutions. The tracker will take the form of a publicly available website accompanied by a report that explains the database’s findings and recommends policies in response to them. The project aims to improve the ability of governments, universities and researchers to understand collaboration with the PRC and raise the standard of risk-management and due-diligence work carried out by universities.