Australia regulator and YouTube spar over under-16s social media ban | Japan teams with NATO to counter China, Russia cyber threats | China-backed Salt Typhoon targets Canadian telcos
And Grok struggles with fact-checking amid Israel-Iran war
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Australia's internet watchdog and YouTube exchanged barbs on Tuesday after the regulator urged the government to reverse a planned exemption for the Alphabet-owned video-sharing platform from its world-first teen social media ban. Reuters
Japan has begun sharing intelligence related to cyberattacks with NATO member countries, Nikkei has learned, exchanging information about malware used by China, North Korea, Russia and other countries with the aim of improving cyberdefense. Nikkei Asia
The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (Cyber Centre) and the United States FBI have released a joint advisory warning of a Chinese cyber espionage campaign targeting Canadian telecommunications providers. CyberDaily
ASPI
Working with Ukraine is how Australia can supercharge defence innovation
The Strategist
Henry Campbell
‘High-tech trench warfare’ was an oxymoron—until Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On Ukraine’s battlefields, Cold War artillery meets 21st-century innovation. Shells fall while AI-enabled drones swarm the air, land and sea. In the face of a better-equipped Russian military, Ukraine has fused necessity with ingenuity to leapfrog traditional defence innovation cycles. The result is a military-tech ecosystem, filled with innovators personally connected to those serving on the frontline, that now outpaces the peacetime capabilities of most nations. Australia can and should involve itself with this frenzy of military innovation, reaping the immediate rewards of collaboration and access to systems we can deploy promptly, and learning how to create a similar innovation environment at home.
Australia
Australia regulator and YouTube spar over under-16s social media ban
Reuters
Byron Kaye
Australia's internet watchdog and YouTube exchanged barbs on Tuesday after the regulator urged the government to reverse a planned exemption for the Alphabet-owned video-sharing platform from its world-first teen social media ban. The quarrel adds an element of uncertainty to the December rollout of a law being watched by governments and tech leaders around the world as Australia seeks to become the first country to fine social media firms if they fail to block users aged under 16.
YouTube fires back amid push to include platform in Australia’s under-16s social media ban
The Guardian
Josh Butler
YouTube has criticised calls for it to be included in the under-16s social media ban, accusing the nation’s online safety boss of ignoring parents and teachers. The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has urged the government to rethink its decision to carve out the video sharing platform from the minimum social media age which will apply to apps such as TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram. YouTube has said the government should stick by its draft rules and disregard Inman Grant’s advice.
Teen social media ban tech trial is supposed to provide answers, not political cover
Crikey
Cam Wilson
When I first heard the government would trial how to enforce the teen social media ban, it sounded like a good idea to help solve a tricky problem. Six months later, what I’ve gleaned from speaking to insiders makes me wonder whether the problem being solved is political, not technological. On Friday, the government’s tech tester put out a “preliminary report” — which was really a statement — that said it believes “age assurance” can be done in Australia in a “private, robust and effective” way. What does “effective” mean? How many technologies or methods were tested by staff or school children, as promised?
TIO backs call for a digital platform dispute resolution scheme
InnovationAus
Trish Everingham
The telecommunications complaints watchdog has welcomed calls from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to institute an external dispute resolution scheme aimed at digital platforms to ensure better outcomes for users according to Ombudsman Cynthia Gebert. The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has renewed its own recommendation that its remit be expanded to incorporate digital platforms following the ACCC’s final report on digital platform services, which was released on Monday.
NSW pulls innovation lever in ‘pro-growth’ Budget
InnovationAus
Justin Hendry
NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey’s third Budget has sought to cement the state’s position as a hub for technology investment, as the government stares down flatlining productivity and business investment. After a two-year wait for serious funding, and as competition from other states grows, Tuesday’s Budget delivers a modest boost to the startup sector through a $79.2 million package tied to the Innovation Blueprint. The four-year package includes $38.5 million for the Tech Central innovation precinct that will soon house the Sydney Startup Hub and $20 million for a new Emerging Technology Commercialisation Fund, both of which were revealed on Monday.
Qld tips $1.2bn into digital govt, sovereign development
InnovationAus
Justin Hendry
Queensland will become the latest state to coordinate digital and IT investment through a centralised digital fund, announcing plans for a $1 billion Queensland Government Digital Fund. The new fund, which includes $350 million in capital expenditure, is one of three new investment funds contained in the 2025 state Budget on Tuesday. Other funds include a $180.6 million Sovereign Industry Development Fund and a $30 million agriculture innovation fund, dubbed Sowing the Seeds of Farming Innovation.
China
China on cusp of seeing over 100 DeepSeeks, ex-top official says
Bloomberg
China’s advantages in developing artificial intelligence are about to unleash a wave of innovation that will generate more than 100 DeepSeek-like breakthroughs in the coming 18 months, according to a former top official. The new software products “will fundamentally change the nature and the tech nature of the whole Chinese economy,” Zhu Min, who was previously a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, said during the World Economic Forum in Tianjin on Tuesday. Zhu, who also served as the deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund, sees a transformation made possible by harnessing China’s pool of engineers, massive consumer base and supportive government policies.
China unveils mosquito-sized drone
The Telegraph
Allegra Mendelson
At first glance, the tiny object – barely the size of a human fingernail – looks like a toy. Made to resemble a mosquito, it has two yellow, leaf-like wings, a black vertical body and three hair-thin legs. The apparatus in question, developed by scientists at a university in China’s central Hunan province, is far from a plaything, however: it’s a new drone with a wide range of military and civilian uses. In a video published by China’s state media over the weekend, one of the scientists is seen holding up a model of the “mosquito-like type of robot”, which he says is “suited to information reconnaissance and special missions on the battlefield”.
USA
Trump admin curtails colleges’ defense research
POLITICO
Rebecca Carballo
The Department of Defense is shrinking research funding at various colleges and universities, a move that academics say curtails projects that keep U.S. troops safe. Earlier this month, the administration notified universities it would cut facility and administrative reimbursements to 15 percent for all DOD research grants focused on protecting military service members and strengthening national defense. One of the projects halted was a congressionally authorised assessment of risks in the semiconductor supply chain that the Cornell Brooks Tech Policy Institute began working on in late 2024. Semiconductor chips are used in items from the most sensitive intelligence technology to phones.
Trump’s chip tariff threat sparks pushback from auto industry to tech
Bloomberg
Michael Shepard
Blowback to President Donald Trump’s idea of tariffs on imported semiconductors is proving to be broad and deep, stretching from auto companies and boat makers to the technology industry and crypto enthusiasts, according to a review of more than 150 public comments on the proposal. The possible levy of up to 25% has united rivals like Tesla, General Motors Co. and Ford in voicing reservations. It’s brought together industry lobbies from the Crypto Council for Innovation to the National Marine Manufacturers Association.
Americas
China-backed Salt Typhoon targets Canadian telcos
CyberDaily
David Hollingworth
The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (Cyber Centre) and the United States FBI have released a joint advisory warning of a Chinese cyber espionage campaign targeting Canadian telecommunications providers. Based on separate investigations, the Canadian Cyber Centre believes Salt Typhoon is the threat actor likely behind the malicious activity, and based on intelligence shared by other partners, it’s also highly likely that other Canadian entities outside of the telco sector are also being targeted.
Leak of data belonging to 7.4 million Paraguayans traced back to infostealers
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Greig
Troves of data on effectively every Paraguayan citizen were stolen by hackers who infected a government employee’s device with infostealer malware, according to two security firms who examined the data. Multiple dark web postings over the last month have offered for sale the personal information of 7.4 million Paraguayans following alleged breaches at several government agencies. The data was initially discovered by researchers at the cybersecurity firm Resecurity, who said the hackers — known as Brigada Cyber PMC — were selling the information for $7.4 million. Paraguay refused to pay the ransom and the data was published on June 13.
North Asia
Japan teams with NATO to counter China, Russia cyber threats
Nikkei Asia
Shinnosuge Nagatomi
Japan has begun sharing intelligence related to cyberattacks with NATO member countries, Nikkei has learned, exchanging information about malware used by China, North Korea, Russia and other countries with the aim of improving cyberdefense. Japan's Defense Ministry and Self-Defense Forces have joined NATO's Malware Information Sharing Platform, a framework created in 2013. South Korea also participates as a non-NATO member. Malware refers to malicious software that targets computers, serving as the origin of cyberattacks. Attackers try to insert malware through email or other means, and then attempt to extract information from a computer or disable its functions.
LG's AI chief named science minister nominee
The Korea Herald
Kan Hyeong-woo
Bae Kyung-hoon, a 49-year-old artificial intelligence expert who currently heads LG AI Research, has been nominated to be the next minister for the Ministry of Science and ICT as the Lee Jae Myung administration looks to accelerate AI growth. Bae, who has led LG’s AI unit since December 2020, serves as the co-director of a joint lab between Seoul National University and LG AI Research. He is also a member of the presidential AI council as well as the presidential advisory council on science and technology.
Nvidia and others court niche Japanese supplier to ease AI bottlenecks
Nikkei Asia
Lauly Li, Cheng Ting-Fang and Ryohtaroh Satoh
Top executives from Nvidia, AMD and Microsoft have been visiting Japan over the past year. Their mission: to secure supplies of a little-known ingredient vital for their artificial intelligence ambitions. These executives are all calling on the same company: Nitto Boseki, currently the only supplier in the world of the highest-end glass cloth, a material essential for making high-powered AI servers. Executives from chip substrate and printed circuit board suppliers such as Unimicron, AT&S and Kinsus Interconnect Technology have also been visiting Nittobo -- headquartered in Tokyo with roots in northern Japan's Fukushima Prefecture -- hoping to secure more glass cloth, but with demand surging amid the AI boom, at least some were left wanting.
Southeast Asia
Chipmaker Melexis bets on Malaysia's 'neutrality' to power China growth
Nikkei Asia
Norman Goh
Belgian chipmaker Melexis is leveraging its production capacity in "neutral" Malaysia to navigate the geopolitical headwinds buffeting the global semiconductor industry, with an eye toward sharpening its China strategy. Marc Biron, chief executive of Melexis, told Nikkei Asia that the uncertainties surrounding the global chip supply chain are pushing companies to become "agile enough" to seize emerging opportunities, particularly by building out a "China for China" model.
UK
UK regulator proposes loosening Google's control of its search engine
Financial Times
Susi Ring and Tim Bradshaw
The UK’s competition regulator is proposing to loosen Google’s control of its search engine and hand more power back to publishers, in the first application of Britain’s tough new digital market rules. The Competition and Markets Authority said on Tuesday that Google could be required to implement new “fair ranking” measures in its search results and give publishers more control over how it uses their content, including in output generated by artificial intelligence. The CMA said it was minded to hand Google “strategic market status”.
Africa
African countries must do more to prepare to quickly respond to cyberattacks
Atlantic Council
Yasmine Abdillahi
In April, Morocco’s National Social Security Fund said that hackers had breached its systems, exposing sensitive citizen data online. While officials eventually confirmed the incident and activated contingency protocols, the episode revealed critical gaps in the nation’s cybersecurity, from outdated systems to inadequate training. Much detail about Morocco’s response is not known, although officials claimed that the documents posted online, showing unverified financial data about prominent companies and individuals, were “misleading, inaccurate, or incomplete.”
Middle East
Can the Gulf buy its way to AI supremacy?
Rest of World
Divsha Bhat
The UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar pledged $2 trillion of deals during U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East tour last month, sparking debate over whether massive spending can buy tech superpower status. Saudi Arabia committed $600 billion over four years, while Qatar earmarked $1.2 trillion and the UAE said it would add $200 billion to an existing $1.4 trillion plan to develop artificial intelligence. Nvidia, Google, Oracle, AMD, and Amazon Web Services secured landmark partnership contracts spanning AI research facilities, computer chips, defense systems, aviation, and energy.
Tech in the Iran-Israel conflict: internet blackout, crypto burning and home camera spying
The Guardian
Blake Montgomery
The war between Israel and Iran, though largely a fight of fighter planes, drones and bombs, is erupting in the digital realm as well. Both countries have long histories with digital warfare. The particular focus of the current conflict, Iran’s nuclear program, was the target of one of the first cyberweapons meant to cause physical destruction, the sophisticated worm Stuxnet. Iran, clearly fearful of an online Israeli incursion, imposed a near-total internet blackout early last week.
Grok struggles with fact-checking amid Israel-Iran war
DFRLab
Esteban Ponce de León, Ali Chenrose
In the first days of the Israel-Iran conflict, users on X turned to a new tool, not widely available during previous wars, to make sense of the relentless stream of breaking news—Grok, the platform’s AI chatbot developed by xAI. To assess Grok’s wartime verification efficacy, the DFRLab analyzed approximately 130,000 posts in various languages, illustrating how users on X utilized the chatbot and how Grok responded during the first days of the escalating conflict. This analysis was conducted in the first days of the conflict, before the United States’ strikes against Iran. The investigation found that Grok was inconsistent in its fact-checking, struggling to authenticate AI-generated media or determine whether X accounts belong to an official Iranian government source.
Artificial Intelligence
Researchers say cybercriminals are using jailbroken AI tools from Mistral and xAI
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Greig
Researchers have identified two mainstream large language models (LLMs) that were recently jailbroken by cybercriminals to help create phishing emails, generate malicious code and provide hacking tutorials. One was posted on the dark web site BreachForums in February by an account named keanu and was powered by Grok — the AI tool created by Elon Musk’s xAI. That tool “appears to be a wrapper on top of Grok and uses the system prompt to define its character and instruct it to bypass Grok’s guardrails to produce malicious content,” researchers from security firm Cato Networks said in a new report.
The global A.I divide: where A.I data centers are located
The New York Times
Adam Satariano and Paul Mozur
Last month, Sam Altman, the chief executive of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, donned a helmet, work boots and a luminescent high-visibility vest to visit the construction site of the company’s new data center project in Texas. Bigger than New York’s Central Park, the estimated $60 billion project, which has its own natural gas plant, will be one of the most powerful computing hubs ever created when completed as soon as next year. Around the same time as Mr. Altman’s visit to Texas, Nicolás Wolovick, a computer science professor at the National University of Córdoba in Argentina, was running what counts as one of his country’s most advanced A.I. computing hubs.
One of the best hackers in the country is an AI bot
Bloomberg
Dina Bass
A hacker named Xbow has topped a prestigious security industry US leaderboard that tracks who has found and reported the most vulnerabilities in software from large companies. Xbow isn’t a person — it’s an artificial intelligence tool developed by a company of the same name. This is the first time a company’s AI product has topped HackerOne’s US leaderboard by reputation, which measures how many vulnerabilities have been found and the importance of each one, according to HackerOne co-founder Michiel Prins.
Use of generative AI surged by 890% in 2024
CyberDaily
David Hollingworth
Many organisations find generative AI to be a boon to productivity, and the technology is being deployed at a breakneck pace. However, as the adoption of GenAI grew by a staggering 890 per cent in 2024, the rapid growth of the technology brings with it considerable risks, particularly in the Asia-Pacific and Japan region. Based on traffic analysis from 7,051 global enterprise customers, Palo Alto Networks’ The State of Generative AI 2025 report reveals that, on average, organisations now have 66 GenAI applications within their environments, and 10 per cent are considered high risk.
It's time to build a Democracy AI movement
Nikkei Asia
Nathan Law Kwun Chung
Five years ago, I witnessed Beijing's crackdowns devastate my hometown of Hong Kong. We lost free speech, political rights and freedom from fear. Friends were jailed for years because of peaceful advocacy and I fled to Britain as a political refugee. I learned a valuable lesson: When power is concentrated and unchecked, democracy dies. Power takes different forms -- some exercised by governments within national remits, others by corporations whose influence expands across jurisdictions and scales infinitely.
Misc
Goldman Sachs wants students to stop using ChatGPT in job interviews with the bank
Fortune
Emma Burleigh
Goldman Sachs is cautioning its young job-seekers against using AI during the interview process. Instead, the $176 billion bank is encouraging applicants to study up on the firm in preparation. Other businesses like Anthropic and Amazon have also warned candidates against deploying AI—and if they’re caught, they could be disqualified. While many companies are boasting about all the efficiencies that will come with AI, some are dissuading potential hires from using it to get a leg up in interviews with recruiters and hiring managers.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security Programs team at ASPI and supported by partners.
For more on China's pressure campaign against Taiwan—including military threats, interference and cyberwarfare, check out ASPI’s State of the Strait Weekly Digest.