Huawei sending millions of masks to Canada I Taiwan Bans Government Use of Zoom I NSO Group points finger at state clients

Apr 8, 2020

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Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei is quietly flying millions of masks to Canada, as health authorities and hospitals struggle to acquire adequate safety equipment for medical workers dealing with the deadly coronavirus outbreak. The Globe
Taiwan has barred all official use of Zoom, becoming one of the first governments to impose an outright ban on the popular video-conferencing app over security concerns. Bloomberg
An Israeli spyware company that has been accused by WhatsApp of hacking 1,400 of its users, including journalists, human rights activists, and diplomatic officials, has blamed its government clients for the alleged abuses. The Guardian

ASPI ICPC

AlbertYZhang @AlbertYZhang

Twitter recently released a dataset of accounts associated with information operations targeting the West Papuan independence movement in Indonesia. This followed an investigation by @elisethoma5 and @BenDoBrown last year. Here are some quantitative summaries of the dataset: 1/8

World

The Hate Store: Amazon’s Self-Publishing Arm Is a Haven for White Supremacists
ProPublica
@eyywa @frnsys @moiragweigel
Since its founding more than a decade ago, KDP has democratized the publishing industry and earned praise for giving authors shut out of traditional channels the chance to reach an audience that would have been previously unimaginable. It has also afforded the same opportunity to white supremacists and neo-Nazis, an investigation by ProPublica and The Atlantic has found.

The Far-Right Helped Create The World's Most Powerful Facial Recognition Technology

Who Goes Alt-Right in a Lockdown?

How the 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory tore through the internet
WIRED
@jtemperton
From an interview with an obscure Belgian doctor to apparent arson attacks in the UK, the conspiracy theory that 5G is somehow linked to the coronavirus pandemic has spread unlike any other.

On Twitter, almost 60 percent of false claims about coronavirus remain online - without a warning label
The Washington Post
@craigtimberg
A study by Oxford University researchers examined 225 pieces of content that independent fact checkers had rated false or misleading between January and March. They found that 59 percent remained on Twitter, 27 percent, on YouTube and 24 percent, on Facebook.

David Gilbert @daithaigilbert

As with any major catastrophe, hackers, cybercriminals and dark web scammers are taking full advantage of the #coronavirus pandemic to trick users out of money and personal information. Here’s how: vice.com/en_us/article/… 1/6

Scammers Are Selling ‘Blood and Saliva From a Coronavirus Survivor’ on the Dark WebThe pandemic has provided a huge new opportunity for hackers, scammers, and criminals to target frightened and vulnerable people.vice.com

China

China Surveillance Vulnerabilities Being Used To Attack China, Says China
IPVM
@CharlesRollet1
While China video surveillance vulnerabilities have been much debated in the West in the past few years, China is now saying those vulnerabilities are being used to attack China. This news comes from the PRC's main cyber threat monitoring body, which stated a recent hacking campaign's use of longstanding vulnerabilities is "sounding the alarm" on PRC IoT security, illustrating the risk associated with devices from that country.

China's "New IP" proposal to replace TCP/IP has a built in "shut up command" for censorship
Private Internet Access Blog
@bitxbitxbitcoin
The Chinese government and the Chinese telecommunications companies such as Huawei under its control are proposing a “New IP” addressing system for the internet to replace TCP/IP. The New IP system includes top-down checks and balances and such features as a “shut up command” that would allow a central controller to stop packets from being received or sent by a target “New IP address”.

How Alibaba built China’s health code
Technode
@jordanschnyc
One of the biggest innovations in China’s fight against coronavirus is the “health code”. In early February, Alibaba helped the Hangzhou municipality stand up a trial app. The idea was to use big data to help monitor control the virus’ spread individual-by-individual so that communities could more quickly return to normal. The company and provincial governments across China were able to stand up the app nationwide within a few weeks.

North America

Huawei sending millions of masks to Canada as supplies grow short
The Globe
@nvanderklippe
Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei is quietly flying millions of masks to Canada, as health authorities and hospitals struggle to acquire adequate safety equipment for medical workers dealing with the deadly coronavirus outbreak. The company has already delivered to Canada more than a million masks, 30,000 goggles and 50,000 pairs of gloves, according to a person with knowledge of the donation, the scale of which Huawei has not made public. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the person because they are not authorized to speak with the media. And Huawei, which has provoked controversy with gifts to other countries, continues to send more. It has plans to give six million masks to Canada.

Mayo Clinic uses autonomous shuttles to collect COVID-19 test samples
New Atlas
@NickLavars
The US, like much of the world, is moving to keep contact between its residents to minimum as it grapples with the spread of coronavirus, and a new project taking place at the Mayo Clinic is exploring what this could mean for medical testing. In what is billed as a first for the country, autonomous shuttles are being used to move COVID-19 tests from a drive-through testing checkpoint to a lab for analysis, all without a human on board.

North Asia

Taiwan Bans Government Use of Zoom Over Cybersecurity Concerns
Bloomberg
@debbywuintaipei @samsonellis
Taiwan barred all official use of Zoom, becoming one of the first governments to impose an outright ban on the popular video-conferencing app over security concerns.

South Asia

Scammers try selling world's tallest statue as pandemic boosts India's cyber crime
Reuters
@abhiruproy30 @Nupursays
Police in India lodged a case this week against an unknown online fraudster who tried selling the world’s largest statue for $4 billion, claiming the proceeds would be used to help the Gujarat state government fund its fight against the coronavirus.

UK

UK supermarkets contacting vulnerable patients 'must delete data when crisis abates'
The Guardian
@alexhern
Britain’s supermarkets have been warned against holding on to NHS data about vulnerable patients which they will receive as part of the government’s efforts to combat Covid-19 once the crisis has abated.

The NHS coronavirus app could track how long you spend outside
WIRED
@Gmvolpi
The NHS is drawing up plans that could see it expand the remit of its coronavirus contact-tracing app to enforce social distancing by warning people if they spend too much time outside.

Facebook plans to install Portals in thousands of UK care homes
WIRED
@Gmvolpi
The NHS is in talks with Facebook to arrange for the distribution of thousands of the company’s Portal devices to care homes across the country.

Europe

DW News @dwnews

Germany is developing a smartphone app that warns people if they're close to someone who's tested positive for #COVID19. Similar apps are widespread in Asia, prompting Germans to rethink their data privacy laws.

Email provider got hacked, data of 600,000 users now sold on the dark web
ZDNet
@campuscodi
The data of more than 600,000 Email.it users is currently being sold on the dark web. The Email.it hack came to light on Sunday, when the hackers went on Twitter to promote a website on the dark web where they were selling the company's data.

Poland pushes forward postal election legislation
Reuters
@MarcinGoclowski
Poland’s lower house of parliament controlled by ruling nationalists approved late on Monday draft legislation to allow a May presidential election to be held as a postal ballot due to the coronavirus.

Middle East

NSO Group points finger at state clients in WhatsApp spying case
The Guardian
@skirchy
An Israeli spyware company that has been accused by WhatsApp of hacking 1,400 of its users, including journalists, human rights activists, and diplomatic officials, has blamed its government clients for the alleged abuses, according to court documents. NSO Group also claimed in legal documents that the lawsuit brought against the company by WhatsApp threatened to infringe on its clients’ “national security and foreign policy concerns”.

Misc

Video service Zoom taking security seriously: U.S. government memo
Reuters
@razhael @Bing_Chris
Video conferencing company Zoom has been responsive to concerns over its software, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a memo recently distributed to top government cybersecurity officials and seen by Reuters.

WhatsApp limits message forwarding to slow spread of coronavirus misinformation
Reuters
@katielpaul
Facebook Inc’s (FB.O) WhatsApp tightened message forwarding limits on Tuesday, restricting users to sharing forwarded content one chat at a time after a jump in messages touting bogus medical advice since the start of the coronavirus crisis.

COVID-19: $6.5 million to help fight coronavirus misinformation

Research

Three tales of attribution in cyberspace: Criminal law, international law and policy debates
The Hague Program for Cyber Norms
In this policy brief, Dennis Broeders, Els De Busser and Patryk Pawlak discuss attribution of in cyberspace from three different perspectives: criminal law, international law and policy.