US moves to cut Huawei off from silcone chip supply chain | Police use military surveilance tech at California protest | 1,200 EU officials have data leaked
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 Trump administration on Friday moved to block global chip supplies to blacklisted telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies, spurring fears of Chinese retaliation and hammering shares of U.S. producers of chipmaking equipment. Reuters
The California National Guard provided military surveillance equipment to the University of California at Santa Cruz’s Police Department in order to surveil and police the UC Santa Cruz graduate student wildcat strike earlier this year, documents acquired through the California Public Records Act show. Vice News
Information about more than a thousand staff and members of the European Parliament has been exposed in what a key lawmaker called a “major data breach.” The data includes 1,200 accounts of elected officials and staff, along with another 15,000 other accounts of EU affairs professionals. Politico
ASPI ICPC
Cyber attacks on Australian businesses on the rise but experts not blaming state actors
ABC News
@StephieBorys @tomatospy
Tom Uren, a cyber expert at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said attacks using ransomware are happening more often and businesses needed to beef up their security.. Mr Uren said the reason Australians are hearing about more cyber attacks is because they are impacting day to day operations. "In times past, data used to get stolen and companies would not report that because they didn't feel like it was material to their share price and I think what's happening now is that when there is a disruption to manufacturing they have no choice but to report it if they are publicly listed," he said.
World
Don’t rely on contact-tracing apps
The Economist
Governments are pinning their hopes on a technology that could prove ineffective—and dangerous
Coronavirus: False claims viewed by millions on YouTube
BBC News
More than a quarter of the most-viewed coronavirus videos on YouTube contain "misleading or inaccurate information", a study suggests. In total, the misleading videos had been viewed more than 62 million times.
Triad of Disinformation: How Russia, Iran, & China Ally in a Messaging War against America
Alliance for Securing Democracy
@selectedwisdom
When Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian began tweeting about the origins of the coronavirus in March, it marked a significant turning point in China’s social media disinformation operations.
Australia
Amal Clooney fronts parliamentary hearing on sanctions for human rights abusers
Sydney Morning Herald
@Gallo_Ways
A number of large Chinese firms, including surveillance technology companies Hikvision and Dahua, have been banned in the US over concerns they were creating surveillance network in the Xinjiang region.
Read more about Hikvision and Dahua’s involvement in Xinjiang’s surveillance network in ASPI’s Mapping China’s Tech Giants website.
COVIDSafe Follow Up
qte.am
@jessicacglenn
A couple of weeks into COVIDSafe, with the source code now released, and updates for many of the reported bugs patched, the team got together and wrote a follow up to the COVIDSafe initial analysis.
China’s bid to control the internet
The Australian
Acceptance of the proposal by the governing ITU at its November meeting in India would allow countries to choose the existing Western-designed internet or move to China’s version. Many developing states could choose the latter, which would help realise a long-term Chinese digital foreign policy goal: to entrench Chinese standards and technology as the foundation stones of the future internet, since the new global network would be designed and built by Chinese engineers led by controversial telecommunications giant Huawei.
e-Safety Commissioner - Sending nudes and sexting
e-Safety Commissioner
While sharing intimate images or text messages may seem like innocent flirting, it can have serious social and legal consequences.
China
China asks United States to stop 'unreasonable suppression' of Huawei
Reuters
@teamlipei
China’s foreign ministry said on Saturday the United States needed to stop the “unreasonable suppression” of Chinese companies like Huawei, and a Chinese newspaper said the government was ready to retaliate against Washington.
China Told Labs to Destroy Coronavirus Samples to Reduce Biosafety Risks
Wall Street Journal
@joshchin
A senior Chinese official appeared to confirm Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's allegation that Beijing had told labs in the country to destroy coronavirus samples in early January but slammed his characterization as misleading.
US
U.S. moves to cut Huawei off from global chip suppliers as China eyes retaliation
Reuters
@davidshepardson @karen_freifeld @alexalper
The Trump administration on Friday moved to block global chip supplies to blacklisted telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies, spurring fears of Chinese retaliation and hammering shares of U.S. producers of chipmaking equipment.
California Police Used Military Surveillance Tech at Grad Student Strike
Vice News
@LaurenKGurley
The California National Guard provided military surveillance equipment to the University of California at Santa Cruz’s Police Department in order to surveil and police the UC Santa Cruz graduate student wildcat strike earlier this year, documents acquired through the California Public Records Act show.
The Tiny U.S. Agency Fighting Covid Conspiracy Theories Doesn’t Stand a Chance
Bloomberg
@joshuabrustein
The State Department’s anti-disinformation arm, the GEC, faces falsehoods from China and Russia—and the U.S. president.
Google could face antitrust suits by summer as DOJ, states move toward decisions
Politico
@leah_nylen
The Justice Department and a coalition of state attorneys general are taking steps toward bringing antitrust suits against Google as soon as this summer, three people familiar with the cases said Friday, describing the litigation as likely. The suits would make the search and advertising giant the first huge tech company to face concrete action from more than a year of probes, which have also swept up Facebook, Amazon and Apple as possible targets.
Russian Users Flood White House Instagram Upon Rapper’s Urging
Bloomberg
@asebenius
When the Russian rap star Timati took issue last week with the White House’s description of how World War II ended, he called on his fans to set the record straight. Since then, a torrent of Russian language comments have flooded the White House’s official Instagram page, proudly pointing out the Soviet Union’s role in the allied victory.
UK
Thousands of child abuse images being left online due to lockdown, watchdog warns
The Telegraph
@MikeJGWright
Child abuse images are being left online as the coronavirus lockdown has ground the internet industry to a halt, Britain's child protection watchdog has warned. The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said it has seen the number of abuse sites websites being taken down plummet by 89 percent over the last month.
British spies tipped off Belgium over Chinese spying on European Commission, say French reports
The Telegraph
@H_E_Samuel @JamesCrisp6
British intelligence tipped off Belgium that China was spying on the European Commission via the Maltese embassy in Brussels, according to French reports.. According to Le Monde, Belgian state security has long accused the embassy of containing surveillance equipment installed by Chinese secret services to monitor European institutions.
MPs raise new security fears as Chinese tech giant Huawei seals £5m deal with Imperial College to help build new tech campus in London
The Daily Mail
@MrHarryCole
The university at the heart of Britain’s fight against coronavirus will this week announce a multi-million-pound sponsorship agreement from controversial Chinese tech giant Huawei, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Imperial College London has cut a deal worth £5 million with the firm at the centre of a row over China’s influence in Britain to finance a new ‘tech hub’ on their West London campus.
Europe
EU Parliament says sensitive data of 1,200 officials left exposed on web
Politico
@laurenscerulus @JanoschDelcker
Information about more than a thousand staff and members of the European Parliament has been exposed in what a key lawmaker called a “major data breach.” The data includes 1,200 accounts of elected officials and staff, along with another 15,000 other accounts of EU affairs professionals, Marcel Kolaja, the Parliament’s vice president for IT policy, confirmed to POLITICO on Saturday.
Trust and reciprocity: the necessary ingredients for EU-China cooperation
The European Union Press Centre
@JosepBorrellF
In the cyber area, both sides emphasise the need for a multilateral approach, but China’s state-centric stance contrasts with the EU’s multi-stakeholder approach based on respect for fundamental rights and freedoms.
Misc
Doctors Are Tweeting About Coronavirus to Make Facts Go Viral
The Wall Street Journal
@georgia_wells
As dubious Covid-19 claims circulate online, UCSF’s Dr. Bob Wachter and others are taking to Twitter.
Coronavirus: Twitter will label Covid-19 fake news
BBC News
Twitter has started putting warning messages on tweets containing misleading information about Covid-19. And it confirmed US President Donald Trump, who has previously suggested injecting disinfectants could help cure coronavirus, would be subject to the new rules.
Facebook to buy Giphy for $400 million
Axios
@danprimack @imkialikethecar @sarafischer
Giphy is a massive video library, with hundreds of millions of daily users that share billions of GIFs, that generates revenue via branded content. Adding Facebook's ad sales and marketing firepower could be what transforms it from a popular service into a highly profitable one.
Facebook Gets Inside Look at Competition’s Data With Giphy Buy
Bloomberg
@sarahfrier
While looking at Giphy, Facebook executives realized that they shouldn’t just make an investment -- by buying the company outright, they could get something else they value: data.
They Can't Even Fire Us Right
Discourse Blog
@jscros
You'd think after doing something a couple thousand times the bosses would have the process down.