ASPI Report on Australia and South Korea cooperation in critical technologies | US sanctions Chinese firm for hacking firewalls | China launches antitrust probe into Nvidia

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• Cooperation between Australia and South Korea in critical technology has grown rapidly in recent years. Underpinned by the Australia – South Korea MoU on Cyber and Critical Technology Cooperation signed in 2021, collaboration is currently centred around emerging technologies, including next-generation telecommunications, AI and quantum computing. Such technologies are deemed to be critical due to their potential to enhance or threaten societies, economies and national security. Most are dual- or multi-use and have applications in a wide range of sectors. ASPI

• The US Treasury Department has sanctioned Chinese cybersecurity company Sichuan Silence and one of its employees for their involvement in a series of Ragnarok ransomware attacks targeting US critical infrastructure companies and many other victims worldwide in April 2020. On Tuesday, the US Department of Justice unsealed an indictment on Guan, and the US State Department announced a reward offer of up to $10 million for information about Sichuan Silence or Guan through its Rewards for Justice program. Bleeping Computer

• Chinese state media reported that the State Administration of Market Regulation had in recent days opened an investigation into Nvidia for suspected violations of the country’s anti-monopoly law. The state media report said that China’s market regulator was also reviewing possible violations of commitments the US chipmaker made during its $6.9bn acquisition of Mellanox, an Israeli-American supplier of networking products. China’s market regulator conditionally approved the deal in 2020. Financial Times

ASPI

Australia and South Korea: leveraging the strategic potential of cooperation in critical technologies
ASPI
Afeeya Akhand and Atitaya (Angela) Suriyasenee
South Korea technological relationship already benefits from strong foundations, but it’s increasingly important that both partners turn promise into reality. It would be beneficial for Australia and South Korea to leverage their respective strengths and ensure that collaboration evolves in a strategic manner. This report examines four stages common to technological life cycles. For each, we examine a specific critical technology of interest. Those four life-cycle areas and respective technologies—spanning biotechnologies-related R&D, manufacturing electric-battery materials, satellite launches and AI standards-setting—were chosen as each is a technology of focus for both countries. Informed by that examination, this report identifies a set of recommendations for strengthening cooperation that is relevant for different stakeholders, including government and industry.

• Tech cooperation between Australia and South Korea will bolster regional stability
  The Strategist
  Afeeya Akhand
  Greater alignment between Australia and South Korea in critical technologies would produce significant strategic benefit to both countries and the Indo-Pacific. Overlapping and complex regional challenges, such as climate change, economic shocks and pandemics, underscore the need for international cooperation in critical technologies. Although these technologies have a range of beneficial social, economic and security outcomes, they are increasingly being deployed by regional adversaries for malign purposes, including espionage, cyberattacks and spreading disinformation. This is particularly alarming for many countries in the region amid intensified geostrategic competition.

Australia

New research centre supporting safe and responsible AI
Minister for Industry and Science
The Hon Ed Husic MP
Australia officially launched the Adelaide-based Responsible AI Research Centre, working with the South Australian Government. The Centre will embark on world-leading research that will ensure AI implementation addresses misinformation risks, considers diverse perspectives and can explain its actions. Backed with an initial $20 million combined investment from CSIRO, the South Australian Government and University of Adelaide, the Centre will see experts from Australia’s national science agency and The University of Adelaide join forces to lead the cutting-edge research. It is expected to be fully operational in early 2025

China

China launches antitrust probe into Nvidia
Financial Times
Ryan McMorrow, Eleanor Olcott and Tim Bradshaw
China has launched an antitrust probe into chip giant Nvidia as competition with the US deepens over the development of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence. Chinese state media on Monday night reported that the State Administration of Market Regulation had in recent days opened an investigation into Nvidia for suspected violations of the country’s anti-monopoly law. The state media report said that China’s market regulator was also reviewing possible violations of commitments the US chipmaker made during its $6.9bn acquisition of Mellanox, an Israeli-American supplier of networking products. China’s market regulator conditionally approved the deal in 2020.

China’s ‘hidden infrastructure’, tech upgrades to empower investment potential
South China Morning Post
Luna Sun
Necessary upgrades to China’s ageing urban infrastructure could see China spend upwards of 4 trillion yuan or US$551 billion over the next five years, while technology-focused projects such as data centres and AI-related advancements are among the future-facing industries that also hold immense potential for increased investment funds, according to the country’s top economic planner. As a critical part of a city’s “hidden infrastructure”, renovations and upgrades of urban underground pipelines – covering gas; water supply and drainage; and heating systems – are substantial undertakings with immense investment needs, said Zhao Chengfeng, deputy director of the investment department at the National Development and Reform Commission.

Huawei suppliers face new limits under US defence bill considered a ‘must-pass’ this year
Bloomberg
Debby Wu and Steven T. Dennis
US lawmakers are moving to prohibit the Pentagon from doing business with companies that sell computer chips and services to Huawei Technologies Co. under defense legislation that could put further pressure on suppliers to the Chinese tech champion. The bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act unveiled on Saturday contains language that would effectively bar Defense Department contractors from selling semiconductors, chip-making equipment or tools for designing semiconductors to Huawei or its affiliates. The provision is likely to become law given its inclusion in the bill, which is considered “must-pass” before Congress adjourns for the year.

China’s semiconductor imports expand ahead of tightened US restrictions
South China Morning Post
Xinmei Shen
China’s semiconductor imports continued to expand this year, as mainland enterprises rushed to stockpile integrated circuits from US suppliers ahead of the roll-out of fresh trade sanctions by Washington. From January to November, China imported a total of 501.47 billion ICs, a 14.8 per cent jump in volume from the same period last year, according to data published on Tuesday by the General Administration of Customs. The total value of IC imports recorded by the mainland in the past 11 months reached US$349 billion, up 10.5 per cent from a year earlier, customs data showed.

USA

US sanctions Chinese firm for hacking firewalls in ransomware attacks
Bleeping Computer
Sergiu Gatlan
The US Treasury Department has sanctioned Chinese cybersecurity company Sichuan Silence and one of its employees for their involvement in a series of Ragnarok ransomware attacks targeting US critical infrastructure companies and many other victims worldwide in April 2020. According to the Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, Sichuan Silence is a Chengdu-based cybersecurity government contractor that provides products and services to core clients like China's intelligence services. The company's services include computer network exploitation, brute-force password cracking, email monitoring, and public sentiment suppression.

• US sanctions Chinese cyber firm for compromising ‘thousands’ of firewalls in 2020
  The Record by Recorded Future
  Jonathan Greig
  US officials unveiled sanctions on Tuesday against a Chinese cybersecurity company that played a role in compromising thousands of firewalls around the world. Sichuan Silence Information Technology Company and one of its employees, Guan Tianfeng, were the targets of the sanctions, and the Justice Department indicted Guan for his role in the attacks. US officials said Guan discovered a zero-day vulnerability in an unnamed popular firewall product and used the bug to install malware on about 81,000 firewalls owned by thousands of businesses worldwide — including several US critical infrastructure companies — in April 2020.

US finalises $6.1 bln Micron chip-making subsidy
Reuters
David Shepardson
The US Commerce Department said on Tuesday it had finalized a $6.165 billion government subsidy for Micron Technology to produce semiconductors in New York and Idaho. The funding will support Micron's long-term plan to invest around $100 billion in manufacturing in New York and $25 billion in Idaho and is one of the largest government awards to chip companies under the $52.7 billion 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. The new funding, $4.6 billion for New York and $1.5 billion for Idaho, is identical to the amount announced in April.

Trump is on collision course with EU over big tech crackdown
Japan Times
Samuel Stolton
The European Union’s multiyear clampdown on some of the largest American companies is set to force US President-elect Donald Trump to decide which bothers him more: Europe or Big Tech. In the coming months, Apple, Alphabet’s Google, Meta Platforms and the X platform owned by Trump confidant Elon Musk could face billions in fines or even mandatory divestment orders from dozens of separate ongoing EU investigations. If Trump heeds the warnings of Big Tech over the EU’s regulatory charge, the bloc could soon face his ire.

US agencies to brief House on Chinese Salt Typhoon telecom hacking
Reuters
David Shepardson
The FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Communications Commission, the National Security Council and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are set to take part in the briefing for all House lawmakers after holding a similar closed-door briefing last week for senators. The White House last week said at least eight telecommunications and telecom infrastructure firms in the US had been impacted and a large number of Americans' metadata has been stolen in the sweeping cyber espionage campaign. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden shared that he was working to draft legislation on this issue, while Senator Bob Casey said he had "great concern" about the breach and added it may not be until next year before Congress can address the issue.

US aim to lead on AI threatened by land shortage
Financial Times
Amanda Chu
The US bid to lead the world in artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing is facing a critical hurdle: a shortage of development-ready industrial sites. Nearly two-thirds of the people involved in securing US industrial sites cited their scarcity as the top factor impeding new projects, in a 2024 survey by the Site Selector’s Guild. And 87 per cent of respondents said resource shortages — including a lack of land, labour and utilities — had affected or compromised project timelines.

North Asia

Japan's digital trade deficit heads for record high of over $39bn
Nikkei Asia
Hatsuki Sato
Japan's imports of digital-related services are on track to exceed exports by more than 6 trillion yen or $39 billion in 2024, an annual record, underscoring the need for companies to create more value from their costly digital transition. The deficit, which tallies cloud service fees, streaming licensing fees, online advertising and similar items from government balance-of-trade data, swelled from roughly 2 trillion yen in 2014 to 5.3 trillion yen in 2023. It had reached 5.4 trillion yen by October so far this year, with each month adding half a trillion yen to the total.

Southeast Asia

In Indonesia, smartphone makers want sales, Jakarta wants investment
Nikkei Asia
Cheng Ting-Fang and Lauly Li
At 50 specialized stations, technicians in cleanroom suits meticulously assemble smartphone circuit boards, speakers, cameras, displays and batteries into casings in a seamless process capable of completing a phone finished in just 500 seconds, or around eight minutes. The cleanroom in Tangerang, an hour's drive from Jakarta, started out a decade ago as a small plant owned by Chinese smartphone maker Oppo.

Hanoi unveils core data centre to propel digital transformation
OpenGov Asia
Samaya Dharmaraj
Hanoi marked a significant milestone in its push for digital transformation with the official inauguration of its Core Data Centre Infrastructure at the Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park. This state-of-the-art facility is expected to play a crucial role in the development of the city’s digital government and the broader transition towards a smart city. The Core Data Centre, designed with cutting-edge private cloud technology, is equipped with multi-layer security systems that ensure top-tier safety, flexibility, and performance. This highly secure infrastructure will serve as the backbone for Hanoi’s e-government initiatives, providing a reliable foundation for delivering digital public services to citizens.

Ukraine-Russia

Suspected Russian hackers target Ukrainian defense enterprises in new espionage campaign
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
Suspected Russian hackers have been targeting Ukrainian military and defense enterprises in a new espionage campaign. The threat actor behind the campaign, tracked as UAC-0185 by Ukraine’s military computer emergency response team MIL.CERT-UA, sent phishing emails disguised as invitations to a legitimate defense conference that took place in Kyiv last week. The group, also known as UNC4221, has been active since at least 2022, primarily targeting Ukrainian military personnel by stealing credentials through messaging apps such as Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp, as well as through local military systems like Delta, Teneta and Kropyva.

Kremlin doubled its blocking of independent media sites this year
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
The Russian government has stepped up its efforts to restrict access to independent media over the past year, employing increasingly sophisticated methods and advanced technology, researchers say. Data from the Open Observatory of Network Interference, a nonprofit internet censorship monitor, confirmed the blocking of at least 279 foreign and local independent news media domains in Russia this year, doubling the number of organizations identified in the previous report. Among them are media outlets from Russia, Ukraine, Finland, Latvia, Poland, Estonia and Israel.

Europe

CATL to build $4.3bn battery factory with Stellantis in European expansion
Financial Times
Edward White and Kana Inagaki
CATL and Stellantis will build a €4.1bn lithium battery factory in Spain, expanding China’s manufacturing footprint on European soil and boosting the European carmaker’s pivot to electric vehicles. The factory in Zaragoza, northeastern Spain, is scheduled to start production by late 2026 under a 50-50 joint venture between the world’s biggest battery maker and the fourth-largest carmaker, owner of the Peugeot, Jeep and Fiat brands. Europe has tried to reduce its reliance on Chinese batteries by investing in developing the technology. But those efforts have stumbled, with its biggest battery hope Northvolt filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US.

Brussels probes Google and Meta secret ads deal to target teens
Financial Times
Stephen Morris and Javier Espinoza
European regulators have asked Google to provide more information about a secret advertising partnership with Meta which skirted the search company’s own rules on how minors should be treated online, raising the prospect of a formal investigation into the tech giant. Officials from the European Commission have been looking into a series of ad campaigns promoting Instagram to teenagers on YouTube. In October, commission regulators ordered lawyers for Alphabet, Google’s parent company, to review and collate data, presentations, internal chats and emails related to the ad campaigns, according to people familiar with the matter.

Key electricity distributor in Romania warns of ‘cyber attack in progress’
The Record by Recorded Future
Alexander Martin
One of Romania's most important energy services companies has announced it is currently tackling an ongoing cyberattack. Electrica Group, which is listed on the Bucharest and London stock exchanges and provides energy to more than 3.8 million customers in Romania, published a note to investors on Monday warning of a “cyber attack in progress.” The nature of the attack has not been disclosed, however it is likely to prompt speculation that pro-Russian hackers may be responsible given that last week Romania annulled its presidential election over alleged Russian interference.

French internet operator fined $53 million for unsolicited ads and tracking users without consent
The Record by Recorded Future
Suzanne Smalley
France’s data privacy regulator CNIL has fined the country’s biggest internet provider €50 million for sending customers ads they didn’t ask for and for continuing to use tracking code to monitor users’ activities even after they withdrew consent for the practice. The telecom giant Orange S.A. offers an electronic messaging service that CNIL said displayed advertising “in the form of emails among genuine emails in its users’ inboxes.” Those ads should not have been shown without user consent under the French Post and Electronic Communications Code, CNIL said Tuesday.

Africa

Meta contractor dismissed threats to moderators by Ethiopia rebels - court documents
Reuters
Ammu Kannampilly
A contractor hired by Facebook's parent company Meta dismissed threats to content moderators by Ethiopian rebels angered by their work, according to new evidence filed in a case challenging the dismissal of dozens of moderators in Kenya. Last year 185 content moderators sued Meta and two contractors, saying they had lost their jobs with Sama, a Kenya-based firm contracted to moderate Facebook content, for trying to organise a union.

Big Tech

Quantum computing inches closer to reality after another Google breakthrough
The New York Times
Cade Metz
Google unveiled a new quantum computer that may end this back-and-forth race with traditional machines and that points to a future in which quantum computers could drive advances in areas like drug discovery and AI. Google said its quantum computer, based on a computer chip called Willow, needed less than five minutes to perform a mathematical calculation that one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers could not complete in 10 septillion years, a length of time that exceeds the age of the known universe.

• Google parent Alphabet jumps on quantum chip breakthrough
  Reuters
  Tech companies are chasing quantum computing in hopes of developing systems that perform at speeds far faster than traditional silicon-based computers. The building blocks of quantum computers, called "qubits", while being fast, are error-prone, making it hard to ensure quantum computers are reliable and commercially viable. The more qubits used in quantum computing, the more errors typically occur. But Google said it found a way to string together qubits in the Willow chip so that error rates decline as the number of qubits rise, adding that it can also correct errors in real time.

How WhatsApp ate the world
Rest of World
Issie Lapowsky
WhatsApp is the world’s most widely used messaging app; the company says it has 2 billion daily users. These users send more than 100 billion messages every day in 60 languages across 180 countries. Some 400 million of those users are in India, WhatsApp’s biggest market, followed by another 120 million in Brazil. WhatsApp initially achieved that global dominance in large part by doing just one thing very well: enabling cheap, private, and reliable messaging on almost any phone, almost anywhere in the world. But in the decade since Meta acquired WhatsApp for an eye-watering $22 billion in 2014, the app has been transformed from a narrowly focused utilitarian tool into a sort of “everything app.” In countries like India, Brazil, Mexico, and Indonesia, WhatsApp is now also a place for scheduling doctor’s appointments and conducting real estate deals.

You can buy a car on Amazon Now
WIRED
Boone Ashworth
Amazon’s partnership with Hyundai means you can use the e-retailer to purchase a brand-new car online. More manufacturers will be joining the new service, called Amazon Autos, next year. Unlike with everything else Amazon sells on its website, it will not offer shipping service for the vehicles, so you’ll still have to go pick them up from a dealership. There are also some stipulations that make the service not quite as simple as shopping on Amazon usually is. The service is available in 48 US states.

Artificial Intelligence

Secret to AI profitability is hiring a lot more doctorates
Bloomberg
Saritha Rai
In the tiny kingdom of Bhutan, dozens of data experts perfect artificial intelligence models from offices framed by majestic Himalayan peaks. They’re teaching algorithms the anatomy of the human eye or how to detect changes in geospatial maps. Backed by three Silicon Valley billionaires, iMerit is part of a growing cohort of companies building a more sophisticated, monetizable and reliable version of AI, an industry on track to add nearly $20 trillion to the global economy by 2030. As models become smarter, big business is increasingly looking to harness their power for highly specialized tasks, spawning dozens of data services startups devoted to customizing applications across sectors like finance, health care and defense.

A chatbot hinted a kid should kill his parents over screen time limits
NPR
Bobby Allyn
A child in Texas was 9 years old when she first used the chatbot service Character.AI. It exposed her to "hypersexualized content," causing her to develop "sexualized behaviors prematurely." A chatbot on the app gleefully described self-harm to another young user, telling a 17-year-old "it felt good." The same teenager was told by a Character.AI chatbot that it sympathized with children who murder their parents after the teen complained to the bot about his limited screen time.

Jobs

ASPI Director – Defence Strategy Program
ASPI
ASPI is recruiting for one of its key leadership positions - the Director of its Defence Strategy Program. This is an exceptional opportunity for a talented senior leader to contribute to the work of one of the Indo-Pacific’s top think-tanks with a focus on military strategy and capability, emerging security issues and our region. The incoming Director of Defence Strategy is expected to have strong knowledge in at least some of the issues covered by the team, in addition to superior management (including project and stakeholder management) skills, a proven ability to build senior and global relationships and the capacity to fundraise to support the team’s work.

Researcher/Analyst/Senior Analyst - Defence Strategy
ASPI
There are a number of potential roles available in ASPI’s Defence Strategy Program, across multiple levels including researcher, analyst and senior analyst. This is an exceptional opportunity for talented individuals to contribute to the work of Australia's leading think tank on defence and strategic policy issues. ASPI are looking for individuals who have expertise on one or more of the following topics: defence policy and military strategy in the Australian context; defence capability – Australia and the region; regional security issues; Australian and regional defence capability development, force structure, acquisition and industry; defence economics and budgeting; and defence technology.

The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security team at ASPI.