Renewable energy and industrial technology organizations targeted in cyber-espionage campaign | Eastern Europe testing new forms of censorship | Women’s rights campaigners hacked with NSO spyware
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A large-scale cyber-espionage campaign targeting primarily renewable energy and industrial technology organizations have been discovered to be active since at least 2019, targeting over fifteen entities worldwide. Bleeping Computer
Across the region, from Poland in the north to Serbia in the south, Eastern Europe has become a fertile ground for new forms of censorship that mostly eschew brute force but deploy gentler yet effective tools to constrict access to critical voices and tilt public opinion — and therefore elections — in favor of those in power. The New York Times
The plight of women’s rights campaigners in Bahrain and Jordan is in the spotlight after new revelations that two prominent female activists were hacked multiple times by countries using NSO Group spyware. The Guardian
World
Cyber espionage campaign targets renewable energy companies
Bleeping Computer
Bill Toulas
A large-scale cyber-espionage campaign targeting primarily renewable energy and industrial technology organizations have been discovered to be active since at least 2019, targeting over fifteen entities worldwide.
Australia
Aussie Researchers Make a Breakthrough in Quantum Battery Technology
Gizmodo Australia
Zachariah Kelly
Researchers at the University of Adelaide say they have proven the concept of super absorption, a breakthrough in creating quantum battery technology.
Returning travellers made to hand over phones and passcodes to Australian Border Force
The Guardian
Josh Taylor
A man who was forced to hand over his phone and passcode to Australian Border Force after returning to Sydney from holiday has labelled the tactic “an absolute gross violation of privacy”, as tech advocates call for transparency and stronger privacy protections for people’s devices as they enter the country.
China
China’s ‘People’s Courts’ Resolve Online Disputes at Tech Firms
WIRED
Jennifer Conrad
Across Meituan’s services—which include online shopping, a Yelp-like review site, ride-hailing and bike shares—volunteer jurors resolved 500 to 700 cases a day in 2021, according to the company.
China’s EV Evolution
The Wire China
Eliot Chen
A look at China’s EV transition, including the hottest selling cars, which brands are benefitting the most and how foreign automakers have lost out.
China's robotaxis charged ahead in 2021
TechCrunch
Rita Liao
Autonomous driving startups in China are in an arms race to put passengers in their machine-driven vehicles. Every few weeks, news arrives that another major player has got the greenlight to launch a new pilot program or a small-scale service.
Why China is on its way to be world’s next leader of deep technology
The West Australian
Kimberley Caines
China is moving fast. Its goal is nothing less than fomenting a technological revolution that will see it dominate the world in the science-driven, groundbreaking technologies of the future that make the impossible possible. Otherwise known as deep tech.
Open Source
The Wire China
Katrina Northrop
Despite popular perceptions that China is a black box, creative new research methods are shining a light in.
USA
Big Tech Braces for a Wave of Regulation
The Wall Street Journal
Sam Schechner
Big tech companies are facing the biggest expansion in potential technology regulation in a generation. And while the jury is out on whether all that sound and fury will signify anything, for the first time there are signs that the big-tech backlash could have a substantive impact.
Major U.S. airline CEOs warn 5G could ground some planes, wreak havoc
Reuters
David Shepardson
The chief executives of major U.S. passenger and cargo carriers on Monday warned of an impending "catastrophic" aviation crisis on Wednesday when AT&T and Verizon are set to deploy new 5G service.
North Asia
Why cyber defense in Japan is so unreliable
The Japan Times
Jun Murai
Various reports have questioned Japan's cybersecurity abilities, with the country falling behind its peers in the field.
NZ & Pacific Islands
Tonga could be cut off from the outside world for more than two weeks, after volcano damages undersea cable
ABC News
Tahlea Aualiitia & Edwina Seselja
Tonga's internet could be down for more than two weeks after a violent volcanic eruption cut the kingdom's only undersea communications cable, isolating the country from contact with the outside world.
UK
British Gas pension cash used to buy Israeli spyware group NSO
Financial Times
Kaye Wiggins & Mehul Srivastava
Pension cash for British Gas workers was used to buy Israeli cyberweapon developer NSO Group, whose spyware has been found on the phones of human rights activists and journalists.
Europe
Eastern Europe Tests New Forms of Media Censorship
The New York Times
Andrew Higgins
Across the region, from Poland in the north to Serbia in the south, Eastern Europe has become a fertile ground for new forms of censorship that mostly eschew brute force but deploy gentler yet effective tools to constrict access to critical voices and tilt public opinion — and therefore elections — in favor of those in power.
Inside Estonia’s approach in combating Russian disinformation
PBS
Simon Ostrovsky
Russian disinformation is rife in countries formerly ruled from Moscow. Some ex-Soviet states have tried to suppress it altogether by banning Russian television stations and even limiting the use of the Russian language on their own domestic channels. Special Correspondent Simon Ostrovsky visited Estonia, which is trying a different approach.
Destructive Hacks Against Ukraine Echo Its Last Cyberwar
WIRED
Andy Greenberg
A data wiper posing as ransomware bears a discomfiting resemblance to the earlier wave of Russian cyberattacks that ended with NotPetya.
What We Know and Don’t Know about the Cyberattacks Against Ukraine
Zero Day
Kim Zetter
Dozens of government agencies in Ukraine were targeted in a web site defacement campaign; around the same time some of the same agencies were infected with a destructive wiper. What happened?
EU pledges cyber support to Ukraine, pins hopes on Normandy format
Euractiv
Alexandra Brzozowski & Mathieu Pollet
The EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell announced an urgent meeting of the EU’s Political and Security Committee and said the EU’s rapid response cybersecurity units were being activated to provide assistance to Kyiv.
EU Targets Fictitious Finnish Power Company in Cyberattack Test
Bloomberg
Jorge Valero
The European Union began testing its cyber-defense responsiveness on Friday with a simulated attack on a fictitious Finnish power company as the bloc seeks to strengthen its digital defenses amid concern about a potential attacks. The start of the cyber exercise came the same day Ukraine fell victim to an actual attack that brought down around 70 government websites.
Panic as Kosovo pulls the plug on its energy-guzzling bitcoin miners
The Guardian
Daniel Boffey & Jack Butcher
Speculators rush to sell off their kit as Balkan state announces a crypto clampdown to ease electricity crisis.
Spain leads European crackdown on crypto promotions
Financial Times
Daniel Dombey, Joshua Oliver & Sam Fleming
Spain is imposing restrictions on influencers’ promotion of cryptocurrencies as European authorities struggle to get to grips with the unregulated sector.
Americas
The industrial espionage allegations against China
CBC
CBC News’s Terence McKenna looks at the allegations that the Chinese government uses scientists and researchers in Western countries as spies, as well as concerns that Canada isn’t doing enough to prevent industrial espionage.
Middle East
Two female activists in Bahrain and Jordan hacked with NSO spyware
The Guardian
Stephanie Kirchgaessner
The plight of women’s rights campaigners in Bahrain and Jordan is in the spotlight after new revelations that two prominent female activists were hacked multiple times by countries using NSO Group spyware.
Misc
Your DNA Test Could Send a Relative to Jail
The New York Times
Rafil Kroll-Zaidi
Thanks to “genetic genealogy,” solving crimes with genomic databases is becoming mainstream — with some uncomfortable implications for the future of privacy.
Google's Alleged Scheme to Corner the Online Ad Market
WIRED
Gilad Edelman
A newly unredacted legal filing sheds light on internal programs that antitrust enforcers argue advantaged Google at the expense of advertisers and publishers.
‘Virtual reality is genuine reality’ so embrace it, says US philosopher
The Guardian
Ian Sample
In his book Reality+ David Chalmers says the material world may lose its allure as VR technology advances.
Research
Manipulating Access To Communication Technology: Government Repression or Counterterrorism?
GNET
This report offers a preliminary analysis of the effectiveness of network disruptions in achieving one specific outcome: tackling terrorist violence. It analyses the relationship between network disruptions and deaths and injuries from terrorist attacks to determine whether there is support for the commonly made argument that network disruptions are an important counterterrorism tactic.
Jobs
ICPC Analyst / Project Lead - Cyber Capacity Building
ASPI ICPC
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) has a unique opportunity for a talented Analyst / Project Lead to support a new project that looks at supporting states in the Indo-Pacific in defending against cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property. The successful candidate will work in a small, high-performing team to produce original research and analysis that directly informs broader diplomatic and cyber capacity building activities on the topic of equipping countries globally with tools to defend against the use of cyber tools to steal IP for commercial purposes.Together with a project lead on Learning and Development and the Project Director, the analyst will also participate in international workshops, provide training to foreign governments and present to other external stakeholders.
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.