China rolls out ‘voluntary’ cyber ID | US probes import of drones and critical material | Israel and Iran use psychological warfare

Unnatural disasters: The next front in Russia’s hybrid war

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The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest focuses on the topics we work on, including cybersecurity, critical technologies, foreign interference & disinformation.

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• China has officially introduced a controversial national cyber ID system, despite concerns from some experts and netizens over privacy and censorship. Starting in 2017, Beijing started ordering online platforms to adopt real-name registration for applications such as instant messaging, microblogs, online forums and other websites that ask netizens to submit their ID numbers. South China Morning Post

• The US commerce department has launched two national security probes that could lead to tariffs on drones and a raw material used for chips and solar panels. Analytics provider Drone Industry Insights found China made 70-80 per cent of the world’s commercial drones and dominated production of critical elements. Financial Times

• The 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran was marked by a flurry of propaganda, disinformation and covert operations aided by artificial intelligence and spread by social media. Israel and Iran both followed Russia’s playbook, trying to shape public opinion at home and abroad, but with the added ability to integrate widely available AI tools into their campaigns. The New York Times

ASPI

China is still coercing Australia—with implicit threats
The Strategist
Justin Bassi
China’s growing technological dominance, including having near-monopolies in batteries, solar panels and a suite of rare earths, has already been used by Beijing to coerce other nations. ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker shows that China leads high impact research in 57 of 64 advanced technology fields, many with direct military applications, such as radar, drones and navigation satellites. As China gains dominance in more technology fields, it expands its range of opportunities to coerce other countries, including Australia, if they become over-dependent on Chinese supply. Australia should act in collaboration with likeminded partners to avoid further vulnerability.

Australia wins by committing to Horizon Europe
The Strategist
Bart Hogeveen
The race for dominance in certain technologies sits at the core of the ever-intensifying competition for strategic advantage, and Australia is part of this dynamic. It will have to remain competitive and avoid becoming a mere onlooker. The next logical step is for Australia to sign onto Europe’s research and innovation ecosystem—not because it’s an answer in itself, but because it’s part of a multidimensional strategic relationship across security, trade, technology and innovation founded on an ironclad commitment to the rules-based order.

ABC Radio Perth Breakfast
ABC Radio Perth
ASPI's Jocelinn K joined ABC Radio Perth discussed the arrival of the world’s largest submarine cable installation vessel in Western Australia, and the significance of Australia’s first “hypercable” — a 5,000-kilometre undersea cable stretching from Perth to Sydney — including how it will strengthen the nation's digital connectivity.

World

This is how people in 2025 are getting their news
The World Economic Forum
David Elliot
In most countries, TV, print and websites are becoming less popular. Social media and video are accelerating as a news source, with podcasters and AI as emerging trends. Social media use for news is rising across many countries, although this is more pronounced in the United States, Latin America, Africa and some Southeast Asian countries. Audiences are concerned about what new trends mean for misinformation – the top short-term risk, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2025.

Australia

New sovereign LEO satellite to be built in Australia
Space and Defence
An Optus led consortium made up of the iLAuNCH Trailblazer, HEO, Inovor Technologies and the Australian Department of Defence’s Defence Science and Technology Group has announced it will commence the build, launch and operation of a sovereign Australian Low Earth Orbit Satellite. This collaboration marks a significant step forward for Australia’s capabilities in space-based connectivity and critical space domain awareness. The consortium, which is targeting a spacecraft launch date of early 2028, will host two pieces of equipment developed under the Australian Government’s iLAuNCH Trailblazer Universities Program, sponsored by the Federal Department of Education.

Defence lifts off with new space workforce
InnovationAus
Trish Everingham
The Australian Defence Force will formally establish a purpose-built space operations workforce for the first time, recognising the growing strategic importance of space as a contested domain and expanding Defence’s high-tech career opportunities. Unveiled during Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025 in Townsville, the move will see the introduction of targeted recruitment and specialist training programs from next year to grow Australia’s sovereign capability in satellite communications, space domain awareness, and missile warning.

‘Burdensome sticks’: Australia’s data centre rules a regional outlier
InnovationAus
Joseph Brookes
Australia’s strict foreign investment scheme, power supply issues and tight government data rules are among some of the tightest regulations facing data centre investors in the APAC region, according to new market analysis. But regional competitors like Thailand, South Korea and Singapore aren’t demanding as much from investors looking to lay digital infrastructure in a region with 60 per cent of the world’s population and growing economies.

China

China rolls out ‘voluntary’ cyber ID system amid concerns over privacy, censorship
South China Morning Post
Coco Feng
China has officially introduced a controversial national cyber ID system, despite concerns from some experts and netizens over privacy and censorship. The system aims to “protect the security of citizens’ identity information”, according to regulations that went into effect on Tuesday, backed by the Ministry of Public Security, the Cyberspace Administration of China, and four other authorities. The app, whose beta version was launched last year, issues an encrypted virtual ID composed of random letters and digits so the person’s real name and ID number are not given to websites when verifying accounts. So far, it is not-mandatory for internet users to apply for the cyber ID.

China biotech’s stunning advance is changing the world’s drug pipeline
Bloomberg
Amber Tong, Jinshan Hong, and Spe Chen
The biotechnology industry is experiencing a tectonic shift, driven by Chinese drugmakers who have come a long way from their copycat days to challenge Western dominance on innovation. The number of novel drugs in China — for cancer, weight-loss and more — entering into development ballooned to over 1,250 last year, far surpassing the European Union and nearly catching up to the US’s count of about 1,440, an exclusive Bloomberg News analysis showed. The findings, gleaned from an analysis of a database maintained by pharma intelligence solutions provider Norstella, show a fundamental shift in medical innovation’s center of gravity.

China’s ecommerce giants battle for instant delivery crown
Financial Times
Eleanor Olcott
Chinese ecommerce giants JD.com and Alibaba have ignited a battle for the country’s fast-growing instant retail market, luring shoppers with huge discounts in a push to grab market share amid weak consumer spending. The two groups have launched rapid delivery offerings in recent months, supplying food and consumer staples within 30 minutes via their fleet of drivers. That has intensified competition in a sector that has largely been dominated by Beijing-based Meituan for the past few years. Alibaba is ploughing $7bn into promoting its Taobao Shangou service, while JD.com is investing $1.4bn over the next year to expand its food delivery business, as they fight it out to become China’s leading “everyday app” for transactions across goods and services.

Global BCI race heats up as China unveils new policies to accelerate brain-tech in healthcare
The Debrief
Chrissy Newton
China has unveiled new policies to accelerate the development and adoption of brain-computer interface or BCI technology for medical purposes—a significant step forward in the country’s efforts to lead in cutting-edge healthcare innovation. The announcement, made on July 1 by the National Medical Products Administration, outlines a framework to support medical devices that use brain signals to control external systems such as robotic limbs and computers. While policies surrounding BCI are already in place in countries like Canada, the United States, and across the European Union, the global brain-interface community is rapidly expanding.

China’s Tianzhou-9 cargo craft launches for Tiangong space station resupply mission
South China Morning Post
Connie Wong
China said it successfully launched its Tianzhou-9 cargo spacecraft on July 15, 2025. The spacecraft is delivering 6.5 tonnes of supplies for the orbiting Tiangong Space Station. The Long March-7 Y10 rocket carrying the spacecraft lifted off at 5.34am from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in China's southern island province of Hainan, according to the China Manned Space Agency. The Tianzhou-9 separated from the rocket and entered its designated orbit about 10 minutes after blast-off.

USA

US probes imports of drones and critical material in chips and solar panels
Financial Times
Aime Williams and Steff Chávez
The US commerce department has launched two national security probes that could lead to tariffs on drones and a raw material used for chips and solar panels. The commerce department said it would examine imports of unmanned aircraft systems and their parts and components, and would separately carry out a study of polysilicon supply chains. US officials would study the impact of foreign subsidies, “predatory trade practices” and the potential for foreign countries to use export controls to “weaponize their control over supplies” of both polysilicon and drone parts.

Trump administration announces $1bn offensive hacking operation spend
CyberDaily
Daniel Croft
Through the Department of Defence, the Pentagon will receive US$1 billion over four years to develop what are being called “offensive cyber operations”, according to provisions within Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”. While the specifics of the operations have not been laid out, nor which software or tools would benefit from the money, the budget will be used to bolster US Indo-Pacific Command capabilities, suggesting that the Asia-Pacific region, specifically China, could be the target of some of these operations.

A little-known Microsoft program could expose the defense department to Chinese hackers
ProPublica
Renee Dudley and Doris Burke
Microsoft is using engineers in China to help maintain the Defense Department’s computer systems — with minimal supervision by U.S. personnel — leaving some of the nation’s most sensitive data vulnerable to hacking from its leading cyber adversary, a ProPublica investigation has found. The arrangement, which was critical to Microsoft winning the federal government’s cloud computing business a decade ago, relies on U.S. citizens with security clearances to oversee the work and serve as a barrier against espionage and sabotage. But these workers, known as “digital escorts,” often lack the technical expertise to police foreign engineers with far more advanced skills, ProPublica found.

Panasonic opens second US battery plant in state of Kansas
Nikkei Asia
Pak Yiu
Panasonic opened a sprawling $4 billion U.S. battery plant on Monday amid a push by President Donald Trump to onshore manufacturing. The factory will produce lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles and is Panasonic Energy North America's second battery plant following one in Nevada. The facility, located in the small city of De Soto in the state of Kansas, is set to begin production in August after months of delays. The plant is expected to create 4,000 jobs, but plans for full production have been delayed due to declining electric car sales and hostile U.S. government policy toward clean energy vehicles, Nikkei Asia reported earlier.

The IRS is building a vast system to share millions of taxpayers’ data with ICE
ProPublica
William Turton, Christopher Bing and Avi Asher-Schapiro
The Internal Revenue Service is building a computer program that would give deportation officers unprecedented access to confidential tax data. ProPublica has obtained a blueprint of the system, which would create an “on demand” process allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to obtain the home addresses of people it’s seeking to deport. Last month, in a previously undisclosed dispute, the acting general counsel at the IRS, Andrew De Mello, refused to turn over the addresses of 7.3 million taxpayers sought by ICE. In an email obtained by ProPublica, De Mello said he had identified multiple legal “deficiencies” in the agency’s request.

Mike Waltz grilled over Signal chat during confirmation hearing for UN role
The Guardian
Guardian staff and Associated Press
Just over two months after being ousted as national security adviser, Mike Waltz faced lawmakers on Tuesday during a confirmation hearing to be US ambassador to the UN, telling them that he planned to make the world body “great again”. On 1 May, Waltz was pushed out as national security adviser and replaced by Marco Rubio after it was revealed that Waltz mistakenly adding a journalist to a private Signal chat used to discuss planning for strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen.

Americas

TikTok urgently pitches Canada security solution to avoid shutdown
Bloomberg
Thomas Seal
TikTok is trying to talk with Canada about security solutions that would spare the popular video app from a looming order to shut operations in the country. So far, its pleas have fallen on deaf ears, said Steve de Eyre, director of TikTok’s government affairs for Canada, in an interview. “We are still looking to get to the table,” he said. TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance Ltd., started this month to freeze spending on cultural programs and sponsorships, following a November directive to close its Canadian unit, which cited national security concerns. TikTok would still be available on app stores for Canadians to use after the shutdown.

Fed up with ChatGPT, Latin America is building its own
Rest of World
Cristián Vera-Cruz
While large language models, including GPT and Meta’s Llama, are trained on a wide range of data in languages other than English, their capability in those languages remains limited, particularly in dialects and local idioms. To address these shortcomings, Chile has partnered with 30 institutions across Latin America and the Caribbean to create Latam-GPT. Latam-GPT has collected over 8 terabytes of data from the region — almost one-fifth the size of ChatGPT 3.5. There are concerns about the environmental impact of the Chile-based project amid a yearslong drought.

North Asia

LG unveils S. Korea's 1st hybrid AI model EXAONE 4.0
Yonhap News Agency
Choi Kyong-ae
LG AI Research, the artificial intelligence lab under South Korea's LG Group, on Tuesday unveiled EXAONE 4.0, the country's first hybrid AI model. The hybrid AI model delivers world-class performance by combining the strengths of large language models and reasoning AI, the company said in a press release. Globally, only a handful of companies have introduced similar hybrid AI models. U.S.-based Anthropic and China's Alibaba have released their Claude and Qwen models, respectively, while U.S. AI firm OpenAI has said it is developing GPT-5 as a hybrid model.

Southeast Asia

Building resilience in ASEAN’s semiconductor supply chain
Jakarta Post
Han Phoumin and Intan M. Ramli
As the global semiconductor market heads toward a projected US$1 trillion valuation by 2029, ASEAN stands at the crossroads of a historic opportunity. The convergence of rapid technological advances, shifting geopolitical dynamics and structural supply chain vulnerabilities has thrust semiconductors into the spotlight as both economic growth engines and strategic assets. Traditionally a reliable contributor to the lower tiers of the semiconductor value chain, ASEAN is now being called to scale up, and quickly. ASEAN must invest heavily in semiconductor-focused infrastructure, including cleanroom facilities, wafer fabrication facilities and advanced packaging tailored for AI, automotive and next-generation computing.

South & Central Asia

Cybercrime agency raids illegal call centre in Islamabad, arrests five foreign nationals
Asia News Network
Shakeel Qarar
The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency conducted a successful raid last night on an illegal call centre in Islamabad and arrested five foreign nationals. The NCCIA press release stated that more than 60 people were working at the call centre, of which five foreign nationals were arrested during the raid. A First Information Report was registered on Sunday by complainant Aamir Azeem Abbasi regarding a “task-based scam resulting in financial loss”. According to the FIR, a reliable source informed that a criminal gang was operating a call centre located in Sardar Plaza, G-10 Markaz, Islamabad.

Ukraine - Russia

A drone surge could tilt the balance in Ukraine’s war against Russia
EU Today
A large-scale Western-funded expansion of Ukraine’s drone capabilities could decisively alter the course of Russia’s invasion. Since 2022, Ukraine has used drones to offset Russia’s superiority in conventional arms and manpower. According to the Royal United Services Institute, drones account for as much as 70 percent of all confirmed Russian losses. This includes strikes on frontline positions and deep incursions into Russian territory. In June 2025, Ukraine’s “Operation Cobweb” damaged or destroyed approximately twenty Russian military aircraft across several airbases using coordinated drone swarms.

Europe

Romanian police arrest 13 scammers targeting UK’s tax authority
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
The suspects were detained following coordinated raids across Romania last week by more than 100 local police officers, said the agency, HM Revenue and Customs, in a press release. A 38-year-old man was separately arrested in Preston, northern England, in a linked probe. According to HMRC, two other men, aged 27 and 36, were arrested in Bucharest last November as part of a related investigation. Earlier this month, HMRC revealed that fraudsters had siphoned £47 million in tax refunds in 2023 using data stolen from British taxpayers. Officials said the agency successfully blocked an additional £1.9 billion in attempted fraud.

Swedish prime minister pulls AI campaign tool after it was used to ask Hitler for support
404 Media
Matthew Gault
The Moderate Party of Sweden has removed an AI tool from its website after people used it to generate videos of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson asking Adolf Hitler for support. The tool allowed users to generate videos of Kristersson holding an AI-generated message in an attempt to promote the candidate ahead of the general election in Sweden next year. Swedish television station TV4 used the tool to generate a video of Kristersson on a newspaper above the headline “Sweden needs Adolf Hitler” after it noticed that it had no guardrails or filters.

Brussels amps up fight against Russian disinformation in Moldova
EURACTIV
Anupriya Datta
Moldova, which has been eyeing EU membership since 2022, is a prime target for Russian disinformation threats, with part of the country being Russian-speaking. Moscow's info-ops there have also dialled up since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Now, with elections looming, concerns are growing over fresh attempts at Russian interference. The EU certainly does not want to see any repeat of the events that tainted Moldova's presidential elections and a referendum on EU accession last year. Moscow-backed disinformation campaigns were accused of targeting democratic processes, while local police warned of a vast vote-buying scheme involving a Russian-backed fugitive oligarch.

EU Commission launches online age verification app for kids
The Star
The European Commission is testing a prototype of an age verification app which will initially be rolled out in Denmark, France, Spain, Greece and Italy, the Commission said in a statement on Monday. Verification should make it possible to anonymously check the age of users without storing personal data such as their name or date of birth. The long-term plan is to integrate the technology into the digital EU ID card, a type of official online proof of identity that will be available from the end of 2026.

UK

UK launches vulnerability research program for external experts
Bleeping Computer
Bill Toulas
UK's National Cyber Security Centre has announced a new Vulnerability Research Initiative or VRI that aims to strengthen relations with external cybersecurity experts. The agency already conducts internal vulnerability research on a wide range of technologies and will continue to do so. However, the launch of VRI will create a parallel program designed to improve discovery and sharing of critical insights with the community more expeditiously. The NCSC is the UK's cybersecurity authority, tasked to protect from cyber threats targeting the country's critical infrastructure, government, businesses, and citizens.

Africa

How can we protect refugees from growing digital threats?
UNHCR
Kristy Siegfried
In South Africa, where online anti-foreigner sentiment has fed into an offline vigilante movement that has targeted refugee businesses and homes, and even schools attended by refugee children, one of the pilots is testing a proactive “pre-bunking” approach, with support from Innovation Norway. As many South African schools lack digital devices or internet connectivity, UNHCR partnered with the Department of Basic Education and the private sector to develop an analogue board game for school learners called Mzansi or South African Life. Players are encouraged to put themselves in the shoes of refugees and asylum-seekers, and to question common anti-foreigner narratives.

Middle East

Israel and Iran usher in new era of psychological warfare
The New York Times
Steven Lee Myers, Natan Odenheimer and Erika Solomon
Over 12 days of attacks, Israel and Iran turned social media into a digital battlefield, using deception and falsehoods to try to sway the outcome even as they traded kinetic missile strikes that killed hundreds and roiled an already turbulent Middle East. The posts, researchers said, represented a greater intensity of information warfare, by beginning before the strikes, employing artificial intelligence and spreading widely so quickly. Information warfare, often called psychological operations, or psyops, is as old as war itself. But experts say the effort between Israel and Iran was more intense and more targeted than anything that had come before, and seen by millions of people scrolling on their phones for updates even as bombs fell.

Israel’s cybersecurity sector surges, secures 40% of US funding total despite geopolitical tensions
Associated Press
Startup Nation Central, a non-profit promoting the Israeli innovation ecosystem around the world, has released the 2025 Cybersecurity Spotlight based on data from the Finder business platform, highlighting Israel’s position as a global leader in digital security innovation. The report reveals that in 2024, private funding nearly doubled from 2023, reaching a level equal to 40% of the entire U.S. cybersecurity funding market, while European and Asian markets contracted. This outperformance underscores unwavering investor confidence in Israel’s unique innovation model, even amidst geopolitical complexities.

NZ & Pacific Islands

President Whipps proposes digital payment system, but lawmakers raise concerns after Stablecoin audit
Island Times
Leilani Reklai
A new bill introduced by President Surangel S. Whipps Jr. seeks to create a government-backed digital payment system in Palau, aiming to reduce reliance on expensive credit card networks and make everyday payments faster and cheaper. The bill, Senate Bill No. 12-35, would allow people to use a new kind of digital money called “tokenized dollars.” These would work just like U.S. dollars—the country’s official currency—but in digital form. Users would keep their tokenized dollars in a secure app called a “digital wallet” and use them to pay for goods, services, and government fees. President Whipps says the system would lower costs for small businesses and families, reduce the fees Palau pays to foreign banks, and help bring more people into the formal economy.

Big Tech

Meta to spend hundreds of billions on massive AI data centres
The Daily Star
Tech Desk
Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that Meta will invest hundreds of billions to build massive AI data centres, including two named Prometheus, launching 2026, and Hyperion, scaling to 5 gigawatts. The move escalates Meta's competition with OpenAI and Google in developing advanced AI. Zuckerberg said the projects, with some covering areas "the size of Manhattan", will be funded by Meta's $165 billion ad business, according to a recent report by Reuters. The company recently reorganised its AI efforts under a new 'Superintelligence Labs' division led by ex-Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang.

Apple to buy rare earths from Pentagon-backed, US producer MP
Bloomberg
Carlos Caminada
Apple Inc. has struck a $500 million deal to buy rare-earth minerals from MP Materials Corp., the US producer that just last week secured backing from the Pentagon. The two companies will also work together to “establish a cutting-edge rare earth recycling line” in Mountain Pass, California, and develop novel magnet materials and innovative processing technologies to enhance magnet performance,” Apple said. The world’s dependence on China for rare-earth permanent magnets, tiny but powerful products that are used in everything from consumer tech, cars, wind turbines and fighter aircrafts, has become a flashpoint in the Asian nation’s trade war with the US.

Google and Brookfield strike $3bn hydro power deal
Financial Times
Martha Muir
Google has reached a $3bn deal to access hydroelectric power from Brookfield’s renewables arm, part of a race to secure clean energy to meet booming power demand from cloud computing and artificial intelligence. The two 20-year power purchase agreements, the largest of their kind for hydropower, will first deliver up to a total of 670 megawatts of power from Brookfield’s Holtwood and Safe Harbor facilities in Pennsylvania, which the asset manager acquired in 2015 and 2014, respectively. Google will have the option of procuring power from a total of 3 gigawatts worth of hydroelectric assets through future projects, including upgrading hydro installations.

Nvidia to resume H20 GPU chip sales to Beijing, launches China-compliant model
Reuters
Surbhi Misra
Nvidia said that it will resume sales of its H20 graphics processing unit chips to China and has introduced a new model tailored to meet regulatory requirements in the Chinese market. According to a company blog post, Nvidia is filing applications to resume H20 sales with the U.S. government and expects to get the licenses soon. Deliveries are expected to begin shortly thereafter. The company announced a new RTX Pro GPU designed specifically for China. Nvidia described the model as "fully compliant" and suitable for digital twin AI applications in sectors such as smart factories and logistics.

AMD says it will restart MI308 sales to China after US review
Bloomberg
Mackenzie Hawkins
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said that it plans to restart shipments of its MI308 chips to China after the US said it would approve the sales, following a similar decision on an Nvidia Corp. semiconductor. The US Commerce Department told AMD that license applications for the MI308 products would move forward for review.

Uber, Baidu to deploy self-driving taxis in Asia, Middle East
Reuters
Uber and China's Baidu will partner to deploy thousands of Baidu's Apollo Go autonomous vehicles on the Uber platform across several global markets outside the United States and mainland China. The first rollouts are expected in Asia and the Middle East later this year, the companies said. Baidu's Apollo Go operates a fleet of over 1,000 fully driverless vehicles globally, with its presence spanning 15 cities including Dubai and Abu Dhabi. As of May, Apollo Go had completed more than 11 million rides. The partnership is the latest in a series of alliances by Uber in recent months, as the ride-hailing company intensifies efforts to compete with rivals such as Lyft in the robotaxi market.

Artificial Intelligence

AI chatbot ‘MechaHitler’ could be making content considered violent extremism, expert witness tells X v eSafety case
The Guardian
Josh Taylor
The chatbot embedded in Elon Musk’s X that referred to itself as “MechaHitler” and made antisemitic comments last week could be considered terrorism or violent extremism content, an Australian tribunal has heard. But an expert witness for X has argued a large language model cannot be ascribed intent, only the user. xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence firm, last week apologised for the comments made by its Grok chatbot over a 16-hour period, which it attributed to “deprecated code” that made Grok susceptible to existing X user posts, “including when such posts contained extremist views”.

• How do you stop an AI model turning Nazi? What the Grok drama reveals about AI training
  The Conversation
  Aaron J. Snoswell
  The latest Grok controversy is revealing not for the extremist outputs, but for how it exposes a fundamental dishonesty in AI development. Musk claims to be building a “truth-seeking” AI free from bias, yet the technical implementation reveals systemic ideological programming. This amounts to an accidental case study in how AI systems embed their creators’ values, with Musk’s unfiltered public presence making visible what other companies typically obscure.

A robot stole my internship: How Gen Z’s entry into the workplace is being affected by AI
The Conversation
Melise Panetta
For years, the expression “the robot took my job” has brought to mind visions of machines replacing workers on factory floors. But Gen Z is facing a new challenge: the loss of internships and other entry-level positions to AI. Entry-level roles traditionally involve low-complexity, high-frequency tasks such as data entry, scheduling or drafting reports — tasks that generative AI can do significantly cheaper and faster than a human. We are already seeing the impact of this: entry-level jobs are becoming scarcer, with candidates competing against a 14 per cent hike in applications per role, according to LinkedIn.

An AI-generated band got 1m plays on Spotify. Now music insiders say listeners should be warned
The Guardian
Lanre Bakare
They went viral, amassing more than 1m streams on Spotify in a matter of weeks, but it later emerged that hot new band the Velvet Sundown were AI-generated – right down to their music, promotional images and backstory. The episode has triggered a debate about authenticity, with music industry insiders saying streaming sites should be legally obliged to tag music created by AI-generated acts so consumers can make informed decisions about what they are listening to. Initially, the “band”, described as “a synthetic music project guided by human creative direction”, denied they were an AI creation.

Misc

Unnatural disasters: The next front in Russia’s hybrid war
RUSI
Matt Ince
Russia could go beyond acts of sabotage in Europe this decade to secretly deploy solar geoengineering technologies, stoking disorder by destabilising the region's climate. Once confined to science fiction, solar geoengineering is now moving into real-world experimentation, raising the risk of misuse by hostile actors. Also known as solar radiation management, this set of novel technologies – such as stratospheric aerosol injection and marine cloud brightening – aims to artificially slow the rise in global temperatures by reducing the amount of sunlight absorbed by the Earth’s surface. To date, their primary purpose has been to tackle the symptoms of accelerating climate change. However, these technologies also pose dual-use risks: alongside unintended environmental consequences, they could be exploited by powers seeking to tilt the geopolitical balance to cause climate-related disruption.

Lockheed Martin in talks to develop seabed mines
Financial Times
Sylvia Pfeifer and Kenza Bryan
Lockheed Martin is in talks with mining companies to allow exploitation of its Pacific seabed licensing areas as global competition to secure access to critical minerals intensifies. The American defence group was awarded the two eastern Pacific licences in international waters by US regulators in the early 1980s during the first flush of interest in deep sea mining but never started work on them. A de facto ban on mining in international waters has been in place since the 1990s, raising questions about the legality of any unilateral move to kick-start the industry.

Piracy sites for Nintendo Switch, PS4 games taken down by FBI
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Greig
The FBI took down multiple websites used by gamers to illegally download popular titles for platforms like Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. Last week, the FBI’s Atlanta field office announced the seizure of nsw2u.com, nswdl.com, game-2u.com, bigngame.com, ps4pkg.com, ps4pkg.net and mgnetu.com — placing FBI banners on all of the sites. The FBI said in addition to the seizure, it “dismantled the infrastructure of these websites.”The FBI added that the operation was assisted by law enforcement in the Netherlands.

Events & Podcasts

The Sydney Dialogue 2025
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute is pleased to announce the Sydney Dialogue, the world’s premier policy summit for critical, emerging and cyber technologies, will return on 4-5 December. Now in its fourth year, the dialogue attracts the world’s top thinkers, innovators and policymakers, and focusses on the most pressing issues at the intersection of technology and security. TSD has become the place where new partnerships are built among governments, industry and civil society, and where existing partnerships are deepened.

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