Senior EU officials were targeted with Israeli spyware | Europe seeks to block U.S. snooping on cloud data with cyber label | The chip challenge: Keeping Western semiconductors out of Russian weapons
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Senior officials at the European Commission were targeted last year with spy software designed by an Israeli surveillance firm, according to two EU officials and documentation reviewed by Reuters. Reuters
European officials are finalizing a labeling scheme for cloud companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and others to prove they abide by high cybersecurity standards. But the draft requirements could also force these U.S. cloud giants to disavow Washington’s data-access laws, restructure their operations and even cut off foreign investors from decision-making. POLITICO
When Silicon Valley chipmaker Marvell learned that one of its chips was found in a Russian surveillance drone recovered in 2016, it set out to investigate how that came to be. Marvell’s experience is one of a myriad of examples of how chipmakers lack ability to track where many of their lower-end products end up, executives and experts said. That could stymie the enforcement of new U.S. sanctions designed to halt the export of U.S. technology into Russia. Reuters
ASPI ICPC
Understanding global disinformation and information operations
The Strategist
Jake Wallis, Albert Zhang and Ingram Niblock
The Understanding Global Disinformation and Information Operations website provides a visual breakdown of the publicly available data from state-linked information operations on social media. ASPI’s information operations and disinformation team has analysed each of the datasets in Twitter’s information operations archive to provide a longitudinal analysis of how each country’s willingness, capability and intent has evolved over time.
Take a look at the Understanding Global Disinformation and Information Operations website here
The World
Europe seeks to block U.S. snooping on cloud data with cyber label
POLITICO
Laurens Cerulus
European officials are finalizing a labeling scheme for cloud companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and others to prove they abide by high cybersecurity standards. But the draft requirements could also force these U.S. cloud giants to disavow Washington’s data-access laws, restructure their operations and even cut off foreign investors from decision-making.
The chip challenge: Keeping Western semiconductors out of Russian weapons
Reuters
Jane Lanhee Lee
When Silicon Valley chipmaker Marvell learned that one of its chips was found in a Russian surveillance drone recovered in 2016, it set out to investigate how that came to be. Marvell’s experience is one of a myriad of examples of how chipmakers lack ability to track where many of their lower-end products end up, executives and experts said. That could stymie the enforcement of new U.S. sanctions designed to halt the export of U.S. technology into Russia.
Ukraine - Russia
Ericsson halts business in Russia for now, puts staff on leave
Bloomberg
Rafaela Lindeberg
Ericsson AB said it had suspended business with customers in Russia “indefinitely,” extending a halt from February that was originally billed as temporary, following sanctions imposed as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Australia
Why it’s important for Australia to build sovereign capability in AI
The Strategist
Tanya Monro
Artificial intelligence is already ubiquitous in our lives and will be foundational to our future prosperity. In Australia, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has identified AI and machine learning as critical technologies of national interest. AI applications are wide-ranging and encompass many sectors, including agriculture, education, energy, finance, health care, manufacturing, transport and telecommunications.
More women are being harassed, tracked through an 'explosion' in tech-based abuse, lawyers say
ABC
Alicia Bridges
Family lawyer Catherine Leach, of Leach Legal in Perth, said she had seen a "big explosion" in technology such as apps, GPS trackers and cameras being weaponised against her clients by domestic abusers and stalkers.
Social media ads were a key weapon in the last campaign. Now they’re getting expensive
The Sydney Morning Herald
Nick Bonyhady
Political parties’ power to bombard voters with highly targeted ads on Facebook and Instagram will be limited compared with previous elections because of sharp price rises from the social media giants over recent years and privacy changes.
China
Chinese telecoms giant Huawei pushes semiconductor packaging innovation to ease disruptions caused by US chip sanctions
South China Morning Post
Che Pan
Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co has filed a patent application on the mainland for a semiconductor packaging innovation, which industry analysts describe as a potential way to ease the disruptions caused by US chip sanctions on the firm’s operations.
China ends game freeze by approving first titles since July
Bloomberg
China has approved the first batch of new video game licenses since July, people familiar with the matter said, ending a months-long hiatus that put the world’s largest mobile gaming arena on edge.
USA
Crypto industry helps write, and pass, its own agenda in state capitols
The New York Times
Eric Lipton and David Yaffe-Bellany
Florida’s warm embrace of the cryptocurrency agenda is just the tip of an aggressive industry-led push to position states as crypto-friendly beachheads. Across the nation, crypto executives and lobbyists are helping to draft bills to benefit the fast-growing industry, then pushing lawmakers to adopt these made-to-order laws, before moving rapidly to profit from the legislative victories.
The huge endeavor to produce a tiny microchip
The New York Times
Philip Cheung and Don Clark
Intel, a Silicon Valley titan that is seeking to restore its longtime lead in chip manufacturing technology, is making a $20 billion bet that it can help ease the chip shortfall. It is building two factories at its chip-making complex in Chandler, Ariz., that will take three years to complete, and recently announced plans for a potentially bigger expansion, with new sites in New Albany, Ohio, and Magdeburg, Germany.
Inside the Bitcoin bust that took down the web’s biggest child abuse site
WIRED
Andy Greenberg
Within a few years of Bitcoin’s arrival, academic security researchers—and then companies like Chainalysis—began to tear gaping holes in the masks separating Bitcoin users’ addresses and their real-world identities. They could follow bitcoins on the blockchain as they moved from address to address until they reached one that could be tied to a known identity.
Preemptive, public US strikes winning intelligence war with Russia: ANALYSIS
ABC News
Shannon K. Crawford
From the time the Kremlin claimed the troop buildup on its neighbor's border was simply a training exercise, the U.S. has been able to turn one of its powerful assets -- classified intelligence -- into an effective tool by making it public, undercutting Russian forces before they could carry out their next moves.
Southeast Asia
Singapore begins licensing cybersecurity vendors
ZDNet
Eileen Yu
Companies that provide penetration testing as well as managed security operations centre (SOC) monitoring services will need a licence to offer these services in Singapore. These include companies and individuals directly engaged in such services, third-party vendors that support these companies, and resellers of the licensable cybersecurity services, according to Cyber Security Authority (CSA) Singapore.
Europe
Senior EU officials were targeted with Israeli spyware
Reuters
Raphael Satter and Christopher Bing
Senior officials at the European Commission were targeted last year with spy software designed by an Israeli surveillance firm, according to two EU officials and documentation reviewed by Reuters.
Are European healthcare systems ready for the cyber threat?
Healthcare IT News
The war in Ukraine has been accompanied by talk of a growing cybersecurity threat. Electronic health records (EHRs), data sharing, telehealth and ICT have become common in healthcare, making the field more interdependent, and hackers have increasingly targeted healthcare organisations.
Spain plans to invest $12.4 billion in chips, semiconductors
Bloomberg
Alonso Soto
Spain plans to invest 11 billion euros ($12.4 billion) to develop microchips and semiconductors in a bid to modernize its tourism-dependent economy.
Inaugural meeting of the Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAI)
Council of Europe
On 4 April 2022, the Italian Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers and the Council of Europe co-organised the “High-Level Segment – Inaugural Meeting of the Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAI)”. This important event took place at the premises of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome and featured presentations on artificial intelligence and human rights by eminent academics, and representatives of States and international organisations.
Africa
The long shadow of the ‘Nigerian Prince’ scam
WIRED
Sharon Lin
In November 2021, Oluwaseun Medayedupin was arrested by the Nigerian police in Lagos. An investigation found that he had been pursuing “disgruntled employees” from American companies and pushing them to release ransomware on internal enterprise servers, offering a percentage of the cut if they agreed to collaborate in the attack. This was a sophisticated social engineering scheme, far more advanced than the notorious “Nigerian prince” emails that have made the country of Nigeria synonymous with scams.
Big Tech
In major reversal, Elon Musk won’t join Twitter board after all
The Washington Post
Faiz Siddiqui
Elon Musk is not joining Twitter’s board after all, a reversal following last week’s revelation that he had become Twitter’s largest shareholder — and had received a subsequent appointment to the panel.
The tricky aftermath of source code leaks
WIRED
Lily Hay Newman
THE LAPSUS$ DIGITAL extortion group is the latest to mount a high-profile data-stealing rampage against major tech companies. And among other things, the group is known for grabbing and leaking source code at every opportunity, including from Samsung, Qualcomm, and Nvidia.
Process-mining companies are surging. They might need the enterprise software establishment to thrive.
Protocol
Aisha Counts
Enterprise software giants are buying process-mining startups to bolster their capabilities in workflow management and automation. This combination of new thinking and old data could be a new frontier for business software.
Substack rolls out two-factor authentication for users
Zero Day
Kim Zetter
More than four years after it launched in 2017, Substack is implementing two-factor authentication today for writers on its platform. The opt-in security feature will add protection against hacking by asking account holders to provide a single-use sign-in code, in addition to their username and password, to access accounts.
Misc
Deep Science: Combining vision and language could be the key to more capable AI
TechCrunch
Kyle Wiggers
Depending on the theory of intelligence to which you subscribe, achieving “human-level” AI will require a system that can leverage multiple modalities — e.g., sound, vision and text — to reason about the world.
Jobs
ICPC Data Scientist/Data Analyst
ASPI ICPC
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) has an outstanding opportunity for talented Data Scientists or Data Analysts to join its growing centre. The role is suitable for applicants with between 1- and 4-years professional experience. Candidates with less than 1-year professional experience are encouraged to emphasise non-technical skills that they would bring to the role. For example, include evidence of well-developed communication skills, team collaboration abilities, or policy experience.
The Sydney Dialogue - Senior Events Coordinator
ASPI ICPC
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) is currently recruiting for an experienced events professional to coordinate the planning and logistics of the second iteration of ASPI’s Sydney Dialogue - the world’s premier summit on emerging, critical and cyber technologies.
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.
Important disclaimer: This digest is a daily collation of material designed to provide authoritative information and commentary in relation to the subject matters covered. The views expressed in this material are those of the authors only. To provide feedback please contact: icpc@aspi.org.au