UK govt wins vote after Huawei rebellion / Russia trying to stoke US racial tensions / Trump intel chief declines to meet with Congress for election threats briefing
Follow us on Twitter. The Daily Cyber Digest focuses on the topics we work on, including cyber, critical technologies & strategic issues like foreign interference.
The UK government has defeated the first rebellion from its own MPs over plans to allow Huawei to be used in the UK's 5G mobile network. BBC News
Russian intelligence services are trying to incite violence by white supremacist groups to sow chaos in the United States, American intelligence officials said. The New York Times
Trump acting intelligence chief Richard Grenell declines to brief Congress on foreign election threats, concerned about upsetting the president. The Washington Post
The World
Fever-Detecting Goggles and Disinfectant Drones: Countries Turn to Tech to Fight Coronavirus
The Wall Street Journal
@timothywmartin @liz_in_shanghai
Fever-Detecting Goggles and Disinfectant Drones: Countries Turn to Tech to Fight Coronavirus.
Australia
‘Major’ firm with WA office in $30m hacker attack
The West Australian
Daniel Newell
A global company with offices in Perth has been forced to halt trading after cyber hackers demanded a $30 million ransom to unlock its computer system.
ASD teamed up with GCHQ for stolen credit card crackdown
ZDNet
@dobes
The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) and the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) were involved in an operation to crack down on stolen credit card numbers. Contained in an opening statement that was accepted into Hansard rather than read out by newly installed director-general of ASD, Rachel Noble, on Wednesday evening last week, ASD said the operation was undertaken with powers it gained in July 2018 to prevent overseas cybercrime.
Huawei calls for security probe of European rivals Nokia, Ericsson
ABC Radio National
The embattled Chinese telco equipment maker Huawei is opening up a new front in its battle to convince the Morrison Government to let it participate in Australia's 5G mobile networks. Huawei has hit pause on its efforts to directly lobby the Government to reverse its ban on the company. Instead, it's now holding a series of public forums around the country and calling for investigations into its European rivals Nokia and Ericsson.
China
Hikvision AI Training In Xinjiang Paramilitary Base, Now Denies
IPVM
Hikvision has been listing AI training in a Xinjiang paramilitary base that bans Uyghurs from participating. However, Hikvision is now denying it and deleted evidence. This revelation comes despite Hikvision's repeated claims amid US sanctions that it "respects human rights" and is "taking a hard look" at its operations.
ByteDance to Launch Google-Like Work Tools During Outbreak
Bloomberg
@pingroma
The maker of TikTok is preparing to roll out a Google-like suite of office collaboration tools as soon as this month, according to people familiar with the plans, as it works to expand beyond short video sharing.
USA
Russia Trying to Stoke U.S. Racial Tensions Before Election, Officials Say
The New York Times
@julianbarnes @adamgoldmanNYT
Russian intelligence services are trying to incite violence by white supremacist groups to sow chaos in the United States, American intelligence officials said.
Trump's acting intelligence chief declines to meet with Congress for election threats briefing
The Washington Post
@seungminkim @nakashimae
Trump acting intelligence chief Richard Grenell declines to brief Congress on foreign election threats, concerned about upsetting the president.
Former West Virginia University Professor Pleads Guilty to Fraud That Enabled Him to Participate in the People’s Republic of China’s “Thousand Talents Plan”
US Department of Justice
Lewis, age 54, pleaded guilty to a one-count information charging him with “Federal Program Fraud.” From 2006 to August 2019, Lewis was a tenured professor at West Virginia University in the physics department, specializing in molecular reactions used in coal conversion technologies. In July 2017, Lewis entered into a contract of employment with the People’s Republic of China through its “Global Experts 1000 Talents Plan.”
Tech Firms Seek to Head Off Bans on Facial Recognition
The Wall Street Journal
@ryanjtracy
Amid rising calls for regulation, technology companies are pushing for laws that would restrict use of facial-recognition systems—and head off the more severe prohibitions some cities and states are weighing.
Engineer Who Attended Cybersecurity Event Contracts Coronavirus
Bloomberg
@jwittenstein @KartikayM
An engineer who attended the annual RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco last month has tested positive for the coronavirus and is seriously ill with respiratory issues.
Surveillance Firm Banjo Used a Secret Company and Fake Apps to Scrape Social Media
VICE Motherboard
@josephfcox @jason_koebler
One former employee said the secret company called Pink Unicorn Labs was doing the same thing as Cambridge Analytica, "but more nefariously, arguably."
Southeast Asia
Years-long campaign targets hackers through trojanized hacking tools
ZDNet
@campuscodi
A group believed to reside in Vietnam has been hacking other hackers for years.
South and Central Asia
Inside Reliance Jio's Make in India strategy for 5G, IoT to cut dependence on foreign gear
ETTelecom
@danishkh4n
In a global first among mobile phone operators, Reliance Jio has developed its own 5G technology as it looks to reduce dependence on foreign vendors and bring cost-related advantages.
UK
Government wins vote after Huawei rebellion
BBC News
The government has defeated the first rebellion from its own MPs over plans to allow Huawei to be used in the UK's 5G mobile network. Thirty-eight Conservative rebels backed an amendment to end the Chinese firm's participation in the project by the start of 2023.. Today's revolt on Huawei leaves Boris Johnson with one king-sized political headache. It will likely prompt a bout of teeth gnashing in Downing Street that so many Tories should be ready to defy the PM so soon after he delivered them a whopping election victory. But it will also sting that their ranks were made up of some of the most senior Tory MPs, including a solid block of former cabinet ministers.
Huawei partnership is a threat to British sovereignty
The Times
@TomTugendhat
It’s hard to be against Chinese technology. From paper and porcelain to silk and gunpowder, our lives are shaped by it. When Chinese inventors create new products, we should share them; when they shape new thinking, we should understand it. Co-operation is vital to our futures and distance shouldn’t cut us off. But today’s Commons debate on Huawei isn’t about co-operation, it’s about control.
NHS announces plan to combat coronavirus fake news
The Guardian
@alexhern @dansabbagh
Move comes a day after government launches its counter-disinformation unit.
Europe
A Small Town Was Torn Apart By Coronavirus Rumors
BuzzFeed News
@ChristopherJM
Two days of chaos and riots show what can happen when people don’t trust their government but instead believe rumors and misinformation spread on social media.
Polish Presidential Election 2020: Two Months Out
Stanford Cyber Policy Center
In advance of Poland's presidential election (first round May 10), we've been tracking political activity on Facebook.
Middle East
NSO Group works to explain no-show in court for WhatsApp suit, plots defense
CyberScoop
@shanvav
The Israeli surveillance software firm accused of exploiting WhatsApp to run surveillance operations against users has asked the court for a 120-day extension to reply to WhatsApp’s lawsuit. NSO Group alleges that Facebook, WhatsApp’s parent company, lied in a recent procedural filing about whether it had properly served NSO Group under The Hague Convention, according to court documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California obtained by CyberScoop.
Spying concerns raised over Iran's official COVID-19 detection app
ZDNet
@campuscodi
Google has removed today an Android app from the official Play Store that was developed by the Iranian government to test and keep track of COVID-19 (coronavirus) infections. Before being removed from the Play Store, controversy surrounded the app, and several users accused the Iranian government of using the COVID-19 scare to trick citizens into installing the app and then collecting phone numbers and real-time geo-location data.
Misc
Secret-sharing app Whisper left users’ locations, fetishes exposed on the Web
The Washington Post
@drewharwell
Whisper, the secret-sharing app that called itself the “safest place on the Internet,” left years of users’ most intimate confessions exposed on the Web tied to their age, location and other details, raising alarm among cybersecurity researchers that users could have been unmasked or blackmailed. The data exposure, discovered by independent researchers and shown to The Washington Post, allowed anyone to access all of the location data and other information tied to anonymous “whispers” posted to the popular social app, which has claimed hundreds of millions of users.