Australia's critical networks increasingly being targeted by cyber criminals | Biden team races to deliver chip grants before Trump takes over | UK warned of cyber threats from Volt Typhoon
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The Australian Signals Directorate has released its fifth annual cyber threat report, revealing its cyber security hotline received nearly 37,000 calls in the 2023-24 financial year — up 12%. The average self-reported cost of cybercrime for impacted individuals also jumped 17% to $30,700. Capital Brief
U.S. officials are racing to deliver billions of dollars of promised manufacturing grants to Intel and others to complete a significant portion of a favored program of President Biden before he leaves office. The Wall Street Journal
The UK is at risk from cyberattacks on its critical infrastructure allegedly orchestrated by the People's Republic of China, according to Certes, a cybersecurity firm. Certes has voiced concerns that the UK is not adequately prepared to handle sophisticated cyber threats, particularly those posed by a group known as Volt Typhoon. Security Brief
Australia
Annual Cyber Threat Report 2023-2024
Australian Signals Directorate
Australia faces the most complex and challenging strategic environment since the Second World War. These strategic challenges extend to the cyber threat landscape. While advancements in critical and emerging technologies offer significant social and economic benefits, they also improve the capabilities of malicious cyber actors who continue to target Australia's networks.
Australia's critical networks increasingly being targeted by cyber criminals: report
Capital Brief
Finn McHugh
The Australian Signals Directorate has released its fifth annual cyber threat report, revealing its cyber security hotline received nearly 37,000 calls in the 2023-24 financial year — up 12%. The average self-reported cost of cybercrime for impacted individuals also jumped 17% to $30,700.Australia critical infrastructure faces cyber threats, report says
Reuters
Kirsty Needham
Australia said it was concerned that one in ten cybersecurity incidents last year involved critical infrastructure, with state-sponsored actors targeting the country's government, infrastructure and businesses using evolving tradecraft.The ASD’s Annual Cyber Threat Report reveals a drop in reported cybercrimes
CyberDaily
David Hollingworth
The Australian Signals Directorate has released its Annual Cyber Threat Report for 2023-24, and while some numbers show an overall improvement in the threat landscape, others show new cyber-crime trends impacting Australian individuals and organisations.
Australia’s Cyber Security Bill should be urgently passed, says parliamentary committee
CyberDaily
Daniel Croft
Last month, Minister for Cyber Security Tony Burke proposed Australia’s first standalone cyber security legislation, which would introduce mandatory reporting for those who paid threat actors ransom, minimum cyber security standards for smart devices, and the establishment of a Cyber Incident Review Board, all as part of seven sections of the 2023–2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy.
Hackers are targeting private schools for blackmail
The Australian Financial Review
Andrew Tillett
Private schools have emerged as prey for hackers to steal personal data in an attempt to blackmail parents, and the average cost of a cybercrime for individual victims has climbed to $30,000. Officials also warned in the Australian Signals Directorate’s annual threat assessment to be released on Wednesday that state-sponsored cyber operations are rising as geopolitical tensions worsen.
China
Panel report on China’s tech developments calls for U.S. action on space and AI
Space News
Sandra Erwin
A congressional advisory body is calling for urgent measures to counter China’s rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, and space technologies. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in its annual report released Nov. 19 highlights the Chinese government’s state-led investments and “techno-nationalist” strategies as key drivers behind its progress in these critical sectors.
Stealth fighters and a massive mothership drone: The high-tech weapons China unveiled at its largest airshow
CNN
Nectar Gan
China showed off its rapidly advancing military technology by unveiling a string of cutting-edge hardware at the country’s largest airshow last week. The biennial event in the southern city of Zhuhai has become a rare public window into the military and industrial might of the rising communist-controlled superpower, while also providing international experts with an opportunity to assess its capabilities.
TSMC’s move to cut off Chinese chip firms weighs on annual Beijing semiconductor forum
South China Morning Post
Che Pan
Chinese chip industry experts and investors have congregated in Beijing for one of the largest annual chip forums to discuss the impact of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company cutting advanced foundry services for some mainland clients and the outlook for the country’s chip sector under a new Donald Trump administration in the US.
USA
Biden team races to deliver chip grants before Trump takes over
The Wall Street Journal
Asa Fitch
U.S. officials are racing to deliver billions of dollars of promised manufacturing grants to Intel and others to complete a significant portion of a favored program of President Biden before he leaves office. The Commerce Department has provisionally awarded most of the $39 billion of grant money allocated under 2022’s Chips Act to re-energize U.S. chip production.
Trump picks Big Tech critic who wrote ‘Project 2025’ chapter to lead FCC
Al Jazeera
United States President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Brendan Carr, a Republican known for his criticism of Big Tech, to lead the Federal Communications Commission. Carr, who has served as an FCC commissioner since 2017, will end the “regulatory onslaught” that has held back job creators and innovators, and ensure that the communications agency delivers for rural areas, Trump said in a statement on Sunday.
US defense agencies, industry expands AI use with tech companies’ backing
Semafor
Marta Biino
Artificial intelligence models made by the biggest US tech companies are increasingly being used for military and defense purposes. Earlier this month, Meta began allowing the use of its artificial intelligence model Llama by US government agencies “working on defense and national security” after it became apparent that Chinese researchers had used its code — which anyone can download and build on — to develop an AI model for military use.
Anyone can buy data tracking US soldiers and spies to nuclear vaults and brothels in Germany
WIRED
Dhruv Mehrotra and Dell Cameron
A joint investigation by WIRED, Bayerischer Rundfunk, and Netzpolitik.org reveals that US companies legally collecting digital advertising data are also providing the world a cheap and reliable way to track the movements of American military and intelligence personnel overseas, from their homes and their children’s schools to hardened aircraft shelters within an airbase where US nuclear weapons are believed to be stored.
North Asia
Video of Taiwanese retired general 'praising Chinese army' manipulated with AI
Yahoo! News
Carina Cheng
After Beijing deployed planes and ships around Taiwan in military drills on October 14, 2024, a video of retired Taiwanese army general Yu Pei-chen appearing to praise the Chinese army circulated online. In fact, the audio of the clip was manipulated using artificial intelligence. The original footage shows Yu on a political television show in May talking about a US think tank's report on the barriers the Chinese military might face if it were to invade the self-ruled island.
Ukraine-Russia
Russian ransomware gangs are going on a recruitment drive
CyberDaily
David Hollingworth
Multiple members of the hacking forum RAMP – Russian Anonymous Marketplace – have been offering positions to pen testers in various ransomware affiliate programs such as Rabbit Hole, Lynx, and Apos. The data comes from the Q3 2024 Cato CTRL SASE Threat Report, which was built from analysis of more than 1.4 million network flows from 2,500 customers, and careful human intelligence tracking darknet marketplaces.
Europe
Protecting aircraft with artificial intelligence: Thales and partners selected for first European project to develop sovereign AI for embedded cyberdefence
Thales
Thales has been selected for the Artificial Intelligence Deployable Agent project funded by the European Commission through the European Defence Fund A total of 28 European industry partners, start-ups and research centres have joined forces on this project to develop a sovereign AI-enabled cybersecurity agent to protect aircraft systems from cyberattacks.
European officials cry sabotage after two internet cables are cut in the Baltic Sea
CNN
Ivana Kottasová
European officials are looking toward Russia after two submarine internet cables in the Baltic Sea were suddenly disrupted in an apparent sabotage operation, just weeks after the United States warned that Moscow was likely to target critical undersea infrastructure. A cable between Lithuania and Sweden was cut on Sunday, according to Telia Lithuania, the telecommunications company that runs the link. Separately, the state-controlled Finnish telecoms company Cinia said one of its cables, which connects Finland and Germany, was disrupted on Monday.
NATO’s best-laid subsea cable security plans
The Interpreter
Cynthia Mehboob
Earlier this week, a disturbing escalation in the suspected sabotage of undersea cables unfolded in the Baltic Sea. Two fibre-optic cables – one linking Lithuania and Sweden, and the other connecting Finland and Germany (C-Lion1) – were severed.
Now hackers are using snail mail in cyber attacks—here’s how
Forbes
Davey Winder
In what I can only describe as a first in my decades of real-world experience covering cyber attacks of all shapes and sizes, cyber criminals have turned to decidedly old technology to distribute malware according to this new warning from the Swiss National Cyber Security Centre: snail mail. Yes, you read that right. It appears that good old-fashioned paper letters posted in envelopes with stamps on them, are being used as the starting point in a bunch of new phishing cyber attacks. Here’s what we know.
Influencer hired to boost Riigikogu's social media following among youth
ERR News
Marko Tooming
The Riigikogu has hired marketing agency Goal Marketing for a price of €6,800 in order to attract more young people to follow its Facebook and Instagram pages. In turn, Goal hired directional moderator and Estonian social media influencer Roosabanaanike to increase engagement with young people. Urmas Seaver, head of the Riigikogu's public relations department, told ERR that the aim of the €6,800 social media campaign is to increase the number of followers the Estonian parliament has on Instagram and Facebook.
UK
UK warned of cyber threats from China-backed Volt Typhoon
Security Brief
Sean Mitchell
The UK is at risk from cyberattacks on its critical infrastructure allegedly orchestrated by the People's Republic of China, according to Certes, a cybersecurity firm. Certes has voiced concerns that the UK is not adequately prepared to handle sophisticated cyber threats, particularly those posed by a group known as Volt Typhoon, which has come under scrutiny by US intelligence agencies, including the FBI.
British MPs want to grill Elon Musk over X’s role in riots
POLITICO
Laurie Clarke
Tech billionaire Elon Musk could soon be hauled before the U.K. parliament to answer for his platform X’s part in stoking the riots that tore through the country this summer. Chi Onwurah, chair of parliament’s Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, told POLITICO she wanted Musk — picked for a top job in Donald Trump’s incoming U.S. government — and other tech executives to explain the role of social media in spreading false and harmful content as part of a new inquiry it launched on Wednesday.
Meta pushes AI bid for UK public sector forward with technology aimed at NHS
The Guardian
Robert Booth
Meta’s push to deploy its artificial intelligence system inside Britain’s public sector has taken a step forward after the tech giant awarded development funding to technology aimed at shortening NHS A&E waiting times. Amid rival efforts by Silicon Valley tech companies to work with national and local government, Meta ran its first “hackathon” in Europe asking more than 200 programmers to devise ways to use its Llama AI system in UK public services and, one senior Meta executive said, “focused on the priorities of the Labour party”.
Google’s $2 billion anthropic investment gets U.K. antitrust clearance
The Wall Street Journal
Mauro Orru
U.K. antitrust officials said they wouldn’t open an in-depth investigation into Google’s investment in artificial-intelligence startup Anthropic, removing pressure from the tech giant to justify the partnership to regulators. The Competition and Markets Authority launched a merger inquiry in October to establish whether Google’s investment in Anthropic and its partnership with the startup posed a threat to competition in the country.
Gender and Women in Cyber
FAQs: Trolling, stalking, doxing and other forms of violence against women in the digital age
UN Women Asia and the Pacific
As digital technology mediates more and more of our daily lives, it is also facilitating new and heightened forms of gender-based violence. Technology-facilitated violence against women and girls, though not a new phenomenon, has escalated rapidly in recent years posing significant threats to women’s safety and well-being both online and off. This underscores the urgent need to protect and uphold women's rights in the digital era.
Big Tech
How Google spent 15 years concealing its internal conversations
The New York Times
David Streitfeld
In late 2008, as Google faced antitrust scrutiny over an advertising deal with its rival Yahoo and confronted lawsuits involving patent, trademark and copyright claims, its executives sent out a confidential memo. “We believe that information is good,” the executives told employees in the memo. But, they added, government regulators or competitors might seize on words that Google workers casually, thoughtlessly wrote to one another.
Artificial Intelligence
Four ways in which history and religion are being transformed by the metaverse and AI
The Conversation
Sreevas Sahasranamam
Imagine getting a live art class from Leonardo da Vinci, or having a fully interactive discussion about the meaning of life with Socrates. You can now do this in your living room with a laptop and headset through startups like Ireland’s Engage XR and Sweden’s Hello History, combining the capabilities of artificial intelligence and the metaverse. Tradition and technology have often been seen as distinct and even counterfactual, but clearly these technologies are now blurring the lines in ways that can alter how humans engage with cultural heritage.
AI feels like an unstoppable force. But it is not a panacea for businesses or society
The Conversation
Akhil Bhardwaj and Anastasia Sergeeva
In dabbling with artificial intelligence. humans seem to have taken on the role of Prometheus – apparently gifting machines the “fire” that sparked civilisation. Predicting the future is best left to shamans and futurologists. But we could be better informed about the dangers that follow from how AI operates and work out how to avoid the pitfalls.
AI and criminal justice: How AI can support — not undermine — justice
The Conversation
Benjamin Perrin
Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stock recently warned that artificial intelligence is facilitating crime on an “industrial scale” using deepfakes, voice simulation and phony documents. Police around the world are also turning to AI tools such as facial recognition, automated licence plate readers, gunshot detection systems, social media analysis and even police robots. AI use by lawyers is similarly “skyrocketing” as judges adopt new guidelines for using AI.
What can the public learn about AI weapons by playing videogames?
AutoNorms
Paolo Franco and Guangyu Qiao-Franco
Military-themed videogames are not only popular among consumers, but they also generate considerable commercial interest. The Call of Duty series, for example, is one of the best-selling videogame franchises of all time, having sold 425 million units and earning $30 billion in revenue since its debut in 2003. These numbers are evidence of the ability of videogames to become constant features in the lives of millions. As military-themed videogames have reached ever-wider audiences, the artificial intelligence-enabled drones, tanks, and robots increasingly presented in these games have also entered the public’s consciousness.
Research
Can the U.S. and China ease tensions with a clean tech détente?
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Joshua Busby, Jonas Goldman, and Fabian E. Villalobos
A techno-economic conflict is raging between China and the United States as well as its allies. It has escalated in the past two years. In July 2023, China imposed export restrictions on critical minerals and equipment for the semiconductor and electric vehicle manufacturing sectors. These export controls on gallium and germanium, which are both important raw materials for manufacturing semiconductor microchips, were likely in retaliation for the United States banning the export to China of key semiconductor manufacturing equipment in August 2022
Events & Podcasts
Navigating digital safety: Exploring security and trust in online spaces for young Australians
ASPI
Join us from 6:00 – 8:30pm on 27 November at ASPI in Canberra for an important discussion on the challenges of privacy, internet security, and online safety. As users of online platforms, young Australians are exposed to varied and increasing risks, including risks to their personal data privacy.
Jobs
Research Scholar, Technology and International Affairs
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a unique global network of policy research centers, seeks a research scholar for its Washington, D.C.-based Technology and International Affairs program. Candidates for this position will be considered at the Fellow or Senior Fellow levels. The subject matter focus of the role will depend on the background of the individual selected. We particularly welcome applicants working in artificial intelligence policy-including the governance of AI, the geopolitics of AI, and AI in the Global South. We will also consider outstanding applicants working in other areas, such as global technology competition and trade, the information environment, cyber issues, or biotechnology.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security team at ASPI.