Microsoft warns of new Russian cyber intelligence operations | US State Department forms new cyber office | Australian government helps Telstra buy Pacific telco operator Digicel
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Russia’s premier intelligence agency has launched another campaign to pierce thousands of U.S. government, corporate and think-tank computer networks, Microsoft officials and cybersecurity experts warned on Sunday, only months after President Biden imposed sanctions on Moscow in response to a series of sophisticated spy operations it had conducted around the world. The New York Times
The US State Department plans organizational changes to confront international-cybersecurity challenges such as ransomware and waning global digital freedom, U.S. officials said, the latest overhaul by the Biden administration aimed at treating cyber threats as a top-tier national-security issue. The Wall Street Journal
Telstra and the Australian government have finalised a deal to buy and operate the largest telecommunications company in the Pacific, in a move largely seen as an effort to counter China's influence in the region. ABC News
ASPI ICPC
Moment of reckoning is here for Australia’s cyber security
Australian Financial Review
@FergusHanson
As geopolitical tensions escalate, all indicators are that Australia will soon face a cyber security reckoning. There is now no doubt that cutting-edge technology is going to sit at the very centre of great power competition. And if these breakthrough technologies are going to be key to winning the competition, you can bet your house on the fact protecting that technology is going to become the next most important priority after actually developing it.
Taxpayers fork out $1.8bn to keep South Pacific telco out of Chinese hands
The Australian
@bennpackham
The federal government has dramatically intervened to prevent China gaining control of the South Pacific’s biggest mobile phone carrier, providing nearly $1.8bn towards Telstra’s purchase of Digicel in one of the nation’s biggest investments in the region... “The law in China compels private companies to assist the state in national intelligence work, so there is an obvious pathway to misuse there,” said Mr Hanson, who heads ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre. “But the opportunity to shape the information ecosystem is probably even more important, given phones are such an important means of receiving news. If you own that gateway you own the message.”
Building Pacific island telco ties
The Australian
Australian Strategic Policy Institute International Cyber Policy Centre head Fergus Hanson told The Australian that allowing a Chinese company to take control of Digicel would have given Beijing an intelligence and propaganda “pathway into the lives of elite and everyday Pacific islanders”... Phones, he said, were “an important means of receiving news and if you own that gateway, you own the message”.
Taxpayers bankroll Telstra’s $2.1b Digicel buy
Australian Financial Review
@LucasBairdAus @Johnkehoe23
Australian Strategic Policy Institute head of international cyber policy, Fergus Hanson, said the takeover deal had financial risks for the government and operational risks for Telstra dealing with an ageing 3G network and local landholders in hard-to-reach terrain. But the takeover was necessary to stop a potential buyout by China, he said, adding: “Digicel is the largest telco in the region. “Chinese national security law obligates its private entities to assist the Chinese state’s espionage activities. “But the bigger risk was maliciously changing the information environment through default settings of news providers on mobile phones, which we know through ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy is a real thing.”
China passes border law to formalise its actions at LAC. And Jack Ma is back
The Print
@aadilbrar
Continuing along the issue of border areas, there is a new visual investigation into the India-China border dispute in the Doklam area by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The project primarily utilises satellite imagery from 2017 to 2021 for areas of human influence and likely military positions and infrastructure, which were marked and annotated.
Check out our new project A 3D deep dive into the India-China border
Hop onboard the AI train
Defence Connect
Liam Garman
Huon Curtis, writing in ASPI’s The Strategist this week, argued that Australia will benefit from the new AI technology sharing arrangements under recently inked AUKUS agreement. In his submission, Curtis rightly observes that “technology is increasingly seen as geopolitical”. This is a key detail that many in the West continue to forget, whether it’s the repressive ITAR that led to a boom in the commercial space and cyber sectors – enabling cross border companies to develop unimaginable asymmetric weapons – or the unwillingness for Australia and other middle allied nations to invest in a public-private DARPA.
Australia
Telstra to buy Pacific arm of telecommunications giant Digicel with Canberra's support amid China's rising influence
ABC News
@marianfaa @stephendziedzic @Annika_Burgess
Telstra and the Australian government have finalised a deal to buy and operate the largest telecommunications company in the Pacific, in a move largely seen as an effort to counter China's influence in the region.
Telstra seals $US1.6b deal to buy Digicel with a helping hand from Canberra
The Sydney Morning Herald
@zoesam93 @Gallo_Ways
Taxpayers will provide $1.9 billion to help Telstra buy South Pacific telco operator Digicel from Irish billionaire Denis O’Brien, under an agreement that will ensure it is kept out of Chinese hands and boost Australia’s footprint in the region.Australia and Digicel: Hands-off no more?
The Interpreter
@ShaharHameiri
Financing the takeover of a Pacific telco firm amounts to a marked shift in the government’s industrial philosophy.
Under the radar: the Australian intelligence chief in the shadows of the Aukus deal
The Guardian
@danielhurstbne
In Shearer’s earlier travels, in addition to the 30 April meeting with Campbell, White House visitor logs show the ONI director general met on 23 April with Biden’s deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology, Anne Neuberger. Australia later joined the US, the UK and other countries in publicly attributing malicious cyber activity to China. The Aukus partnership goes beyond submarines: cyber is one of the other areas in which Australia, the US and the UK have promised to deepen their cooperation.
Social media giants face $10m fines for privacy breaches under proposed government reform
The Guardian
@Paul_Karp
Social media giants will face fines of up to $10m for serious privacy breaches, under reforms proposed by the Australian government. The reforms would also require platforms to verify users’ ages, get parental consent for children and cease disclosing personal information, if requested.
Social Media (Basic Expectations and Defamation) Bill 2021
Parliament of Australia
The intent of the Bill is to enable the Minister to set basic expectations of a social media service provider regarding the hosting of defamatory material on social media platforms, and secondly to ensure that service providers are liable for defamatory material hosted on their platforms that is not removed in a reasonable timeframe. The bill intends to address the lack of accountability on service providers when defamatory material is published on their sites.
Austrac limited when regulating overseas terrorism financing via online platforms
ZDNet
@campbell_kwan
Representatives from the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac) on Monday said far-right extremists were increasingly using online platforms, such as Telegram and cryptocurrency exchange platforms, to fund their operations.
Read our report Buying and selling extremism
China
China’s Head of National Development and Reform tries to reassure Big Tech
The Record by Recorded Future
@NPRDina
The head of China’s National Development and Reform body held a press conference on Thursday aimed at reassuring Big Tech that Beijing will only crack down on ‘disorderly’ behavior and the government has no intention of quashing the private economy.
China warns ‘complex and grim’ external environment poses risk to stabilising foreign direct investment
SCMP
@orangewang_
In the new plan, the ministry predicted that the weight of FDI in hi-tech industries would grow to only 30 per cent of the total by the end of 2025 – just 0.4 percentage points above the level last year – even though the new plan has placed a greater emphasis on investments in the sector.
China Is Now Sending Twitter Users to Prison for Posts Most Chinese Can’t See
The Wall Street Journal
@ByChunHan
More than 50 people have been jailed in past three years in an escalation of Communist Party assault on use of foreign social media
Apple's talks with Chinese battery makers CATL and BYD mostly stalled
Reuters
Zhang Yan @julie_zhuli
Apple Inc's talks with China's CATL and BYD over battery supplies for its planned electric vehicle have been mostly stalled after they refused to set up teams and build U.S. plants that would solely cater to the tech giant, three people with knowledge of the discussions said.
Hikvision CSO Denies Backdoor, Denies Government Control
IPVM
John Honovich
Hikvision's DPO/CSO Fred Streefland has fired back, issuing Hikvision's most blunt and public statement alleging that Hikvision's 2017 backdoor was not a backdoor and that Hikvision is not controlled by the PRC.
USA
State Department to Form New Cyber Office to Face Proliferating Global Challenges
The Wall Street Journal
@dnvolz
The State Department plans organizational changes to confront international-cybersecurity challenges such as ransomware and waning global digital freedom, U.S. officials said, the latest overhaul by the Biden administration aimed at treating cyber threats as a top-tier national-security issue.
The Facebook Papers: Documents reveal internal fury and dissent over site’s policies
NBC News
@David_Ingram @oliviasolon @BrandyZadrozny @cfarivar
Thousands of leaked documents highlight employees’ disillusionment with spread of misinformation and calls to violence.
In the ocean’s worth of new Facebook revelations out today, here are some of the most important drops
NiemanLab
@jbenton
A Nieman Lab analysis I just did in my head has found there are as many as 5.37 gazillion new stories out today about Facebook’s various misdeeds, almost all of them based in one way or another on the internal documents leaked by company whistleblower Frances Haugen.
Here are all the Facebook Papers stories
Protocol
@pierce @anna_c_kramer
The stories started to publish on Friday night, but mostly landed Monday morning. Since they're spread across lots of publications, we've rounded them all up in one place (in no particular order), to make them easier to find and read.
‘HISTORY WILL NOT JUDGE US KINDLY’ The Atlantic @AdrienneLaF
Facebook has known it has a human trafficking problem for years. It still hasn't fully fixed it CNN Business @claresduffy
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen warns company's encryption will aid espionage by hostile nations The Telegraph @MikeJGWright
The case against Mark Zuckerberg: Insiders say Facebook’s CEO chose growth over safety The Washington Post @lizzadwoskin @torynewmyer @shibanimahtani
House Republicans Call for Tougher Controls to Keep U.S. Tech From China
The Wall Street Journal
@Kate_OKeeffe
Republican China hawks in Congress are pressuring the Commerce Department to fortify export controls to keep critical American technology from falling into Beijing’s hands.
US retail giants pull Chinese surveillance tech from shelves
TechCrunch
@zackwhittaker
U.S. retail giants Home Depot and Best Buy have pulled the Chinese video surveillance technology makers Lorex and Ezviz from their stores over links to human rights abuses.
America’s Crypto Conundrum
Foreign Affairs
Justin Muzinich
What for years many in Washington had dismissed as a pet project of techies and West Coast libertarians suddenly became one of the most important, if least understood, policy issues on the agenda of the Biden administration. Digital currencies are driving tremendous innovation that has the potential to make whole economic sectors more efficient. But they also pose various national security and financial threats and could even diminish U.S. influence abroad.
Ransomware hackers nervous, allege harassment from U.S.
NBC News
@kevincollier
Some of the most destructive ransomware hackers in the world appear to be on edge after the U.S. reportedly took down one of their colleagues.
A Rare Win in the Cat-and-Mouse Game of Ransomware
The New York Times
@nicoleperlroth
A team of private security sleuths, in their first public detailing of their efforts, discuss how they used cybercriminals’ mistakes to quietly help victims recover their data.
Where Facts Were No Match for Fear
The New York Times
@reidepstein
Civic boosters in central Montana hoped for some federal money to promote tourism. A disinformation campaign got in the way.
Public input on a national AI research resource implementation plan
National Artificial Intelligence Initiative
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science Foundation requested input from the public to inform the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) Task Force‘s work and development of an implementation roadmap for the NAIRR through a Request for Information (RFI) published to the Federal Register.
Southeast Asia
Digital Trade Agreements Present New Opportunities in Southeast Asia
CSIS
@a_natalegawa
A digital trade agreement with Southeast Asian countries would assuage lingering concerns regarding Washington’s commitment to the region and contribute a much-needed economic pillar to the Biden administration’s approach to the Indo-Pacific. These efforts would signal Washington’s willingness to exercise leadership and cooperation in a field that is of clear strategic interest and commercial value for all parties involved.
New Zealand
New Zealand could join AUKUS security pact to boost cyber technologies
The Sydney Morning Herald
@Gallo_Ways
New Zealand has opened the door to joining the AUKUS defence pact with Australia, Britain and the United States while maintaining its ban on nuclear-powered submarines.
UK
GCHQ to use new cyber force to hunt ransomware gangs
Financial Times
@helenwarrell
British signals intelligence agency GCHQ is looking at deploying hackers from the UK’s new National Cyber Force to “go after” ransomware gangs, the agency’s director has revealed.
Ransomware attacks in UK have doubled in a year, says GCHQ boss
The Guardian
@syalrajeev
The head of the UK spy agency GCHQ has disclosed that the number of ransomware attacks on British institutions has doubled in the past year.
BP hires ex-MI6 agents to spy on peaceful climate activist
The Times
@Gabriel_Pogrund
BP is paying a private intelligence company set up by former MI6 agents to spy on a peaceful climate activist... A joint investigation by this newspaper and the online news site OpenDemocracy has shown that the company is using an intelligence firm to monitor a man who has highlighted its investment in fossil fuels.
Europe
Europe’s microchips plan doesn’t add up
POLITICO
@laurenscerulus
Amid a global supply crunch in microchips, the EU has set the goal of catching up with U.S. and Asian powers on semiconductor technology, with a goal of acquiring 20 percent of the global market by 2030.
Latvian populists change rhetoric amid country’s worst COVID outbreak
DFRLab
@nikaaleksejeva
With the government facing dissatisfaction on all sides, populist opposition politicians who previously benefitted from amplifying anti-vaccination narratives have changed their rhetoric, pushing more generic messages about the current government’s failure to act and prevent the epidemic. This change in rhetoric demonstrates how certain populist politicians, as previously reported by the DFRLab, utilize ever-shifting messaging to advance their political aspirations.
Russia
Ignoring Sanctions, Russia Renews Broad Cybersurveillance Operation
The New York Times
@SangerNYT
Russia’s premier intelligence agency has launched another campaign to pierce thousands of U.S. government, corporate and think-tank computer networks, Microsoft officials and cybersecurity experts warned on Sunday, only months after President Biden imposed sanctions on Moscow in response to a series of sophisticated spy operations it had conducted around the world.
Microsoft says Russia hacked at least 14 IT service providers this year
The Record by Recorded Future
@campuscodi
Microsoft said on Monday that a Russian state-sponsored hacking group known as Nobelium had attacked more than 140 IT and cloud services providers, successfully breaching 14 companies.
Africa
Internet disrupted in Sudan amid reports of coup attempt
NetBlocks
Network data from NetBlocks confirm a significant disruption to internet service in Sudan from the morning of Monday 25 October 2021 affecting cellular and some fixed-line connectivity on multiple providers.
Sudan has a history of cutting internet access to silence opposition voices.
The New York Times
The internet outage in Sudan on Monday amid an apparent coup came as no surprise to the Sudanese, who have endured many such blackouts in the past, including one that lasted more than two months under the country’s former dictator, Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
Hackers skim $4m off banks in Uganda
The East African
@Faustination
Ugandan banks lost over $4 million to hackers in the past one year, according to a data released by Interpol Uganda on October 17. Interpol director Charles Birungi said the theft was carried out via technology and involved bank fraud, fake visa issuance and online business.
Nigeria Starts Digital Currency After Banning Crypto Exchange
BNN Bloomberg
@Emeleonu
The Central Bank of Nigeria joined a growing list of emerging markets betting on digital money to cut transaction costs and boost participation in the formal financial system.
A Big Tech talent war threatens Kenya’s start-ups
Financial Times
@AntoanetaRoussi
US titans pay high salaries, leaving local businesses struggling to recruit and retain key staff
Events
2021 Digital Publics Symposium – Information Disorders
QUT Digital Media Research Centre
The 2021 symposium of the Digital Publics programme presents the latest work by researchers in the QUT Digital Media Research Centre that tackles these information disorders: applying innovative mixed-methods research approaches to trace the dynamics of mis- and disinformation in online and social media; exploring the role of initiatives that seek to combat the spread of problematic information; examining the public discourse around ‘fake news’; and assessing regulatory approaches to mitigating the threat from mis- and disinformation.
Jobs
Expression of Interest for 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.