Google clashes with Australian media over AI training disclosure | China's Nuctech wins EU tenders despite concern | Japan to help ASEAN conduct ransomware response drills
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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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Google has argued against government mandates requiring disclosure of content used to train its generative AI models. Rest of World
Italian customs authorities have awarded over €15 million in EU funds to Chinese state-controlled company Nuctech for cargo scanning equipment. South China Morning Post
Japan to help ASEAN conduct ransomware response drills starting in fiscal year 2025. Nikkei Asia
Australia
Google clashes with Australian media over AI training disclosure
Capital Brief
John Buckley
Google has argued against government mandates forcing it to disclose the material scraped to train its generative artificial intelligence models, setting up a fight with media companies over compensation for the use of their content. In a submission to the government’s consultation on the high-risk adoption of generative AI, Google said it shouldn’t be forced to disclose the sources surfaced by its AI models, as website publishers can opt out of having their sites scraped.
China
Chinese firm Nuctech wins EU tenders despite subsidies inquiry
South China Morning Post
Finbarr Bermingham
Italian customs authorities will award more than €15 million (US$16.3 million) in European Union funds to Nuctech for cargo scanning equipment, even as the Chinese state-controlled company is investigated for possible violations of the bloc’s foreign subsidies regulations. Nuctech won two tenders in September to provide scanning equipment to Italy’s Customs and Monopolies Agency, according to documents obtained by the South China Morning Post.
Xi Jinping pushes hi-tech China message during visit to science city in once-poor Hefei
South China Morning Post
Xinlu Liang
Science and technology should lead the modernisation of China, President Xi Jinping emphasised, as he gave a fresh push to innovation in the southeastern hi-tech hub of Hefei earlier this week. “To advance modernisation in the Chinese style, science and technology must take the lead, with technological innovation being the necessary path to follow,” Xi said during a visit on Thursday to Hefei Binhu Science City, a flagship research and innovation hub in the Anhui provincial capital.
Chinese AI groups get creative to drive down cost of models
Financial Times
Eleanor Olcott
Chinese AI companies are driving down costs to create competitive models, as they contend with US chip restrictions and smaller budgets than their Western counterparts. Start-ups such as 01.ai and DeepSeek have reduced prices by adopting strategies such as focusing on smaller data sets to train AI models and hiring cheap but skilled computer engineers. Bigger technology groups such as Alibaba, Baidu and ByteDance have also engaged in a pricing war to cut “inference” costs, the price of calling upon large language models to generate a response, by more than 90 per cent and to a fraction of that offered by US counterparts.
The power grid's solar and wind problem in China
Nikkei Asia
You Xiaoying
China is expected to lead a global renewable boom through the next six years, driven by its explosive growth in solar installations, according to the Paris-based nongovernmental organization. As of August, China's wind and solar farms had a combined installed capacity of 1,206 gigawatts (GW), smashing a target the country had set for 2030. And its run of vigorous renewable energy expansion isn't over, according to a new International Energy Agency report.
USA
US works to counter Russian interference in Moldovan elections
POLITICO
Maggie Miller
The Biden administration has been pouring resources into countering Russian efforts to influence this weekend’s national elections in Moldova, where Moscow is looking to sway the future of a key nation on the border with Ukraine. Moldova has been besieged with disinformation, cyberattacks and influence campaigns linked to Russia in the months leading up to Sunday’s vote, in which people in the Central European country will choose a president and whether to continue on a path toward EU membership.
Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro: Law enforcement should 'take a look at' Elon Musk voter payments
NBC News
Alexandra Marquez
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Sunday that tech mogul Elon Musk’s plan to give money to registered voters in Pennsylvania is “deeply concerning” and “it’s something that law enforcement could take a look at.” Shapiro’s comments come one day after Musk announced in Pennsylvania that every day until Election Day, he would give $1 million to a random registered voter who signs a petition circulated by his super PAC “in favor of free speech and the right to bear arms.”
CISA confirms Veeam vulnerability is being used in ransomware attacks
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Greig
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency confirmed that vulnerability found last month in products from software company Veeam has been exploited and took the rare step of specifying that it was being used in ransomware attacks. CISA gave federal civilian agencies until November 7 to patch the bug. The vulnerability allows an attacker to gain full control of a system, manipulate data, and potentially move laterally within a network, making it a relatively high-value target for threat actors.
Americas
AI diagnosis tech to help Thailand, Brazil navigate doctor shortages
Nikkei Asia
Shoko Kugai
Japanese startups are launching AI-powered medical analysis services in emerging countries suffering from doctor shortages like Thailand and Brazil, aiming to make use of the knowledge gained at home to cultivate new markets. Tokyo-based Lpixel is collaborating with the Japan External Trade Organization to introduce an artificial intelligence-based tuberculosis diagnosis support system in Thailand.
North Asia
Japan pressed by US lawmakers to strengthen chip curbs on China
Bloomberg
Mackenzie Hawkins
Key US lawmakers urged Japan to strengthen restrictions on sales of chipmaking equipment to China, warning that if Tokyo fails to act, Washington could impose its own curbs on Japanese companies or bar toolmakers that sell to China from receiving US semiconductor subsidies. They dismissed arguments that restrictions have had a material negative impact on chip equipment companies like Tokyo Electron Ltd., and emphasized the importance of cooperation between the US, Japan and the Netherlands — home to the five most important semiconductor toolmakers — in slowing China’s chip ambitions.
Southeast Asia
Japan to help ASEAN conduct ransomware response drills
Nikkei Asia
Kensuke Watanabe
Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications will expand its support for ASEAN cybersecurity training, helping to run ransomware drills in coordination with the bloc's member nations from fiscal 2025. The ASEAN-Japan Cybersecurity Capacity Building Centre, based in Thailand, will conduct the exercises covering government agencies and companies involved in core infrastructure. A ransomware scenario will be added to the cyberdefense exercise developed by Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology.
Ukraine-Russia
Refresh of RomCom malware pops up in Ukrainian, Polish organizations
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
Researchers have identified a new wave of attacks targeting high-profile Ukrainian government entities and unidentified Polish organizations using an updated version of the RomCom malware. The objective of these attacks is to establish long-term access to victims' systems and exfiltrate data “of strategic interest.” RomCom, also tracked as Storm-0978, is known for targeting defense and government entities in Europe and North America. It engages in both ransomware and espionage attacks and is attributed to Russian-speaking threat actors.
Europe
Europe launches ‘gait recognition’ pilot program to monitor border crossings
The Record by Recorded Future
Suzanne Smalley
A European Commission-funded biometric “gait recognition” program to study how to more easily identify people crossing the European Union’s external borders by examining their unique walking styles kicked off Thursday. The initiative, dubbed the PopEye Project, is supported by a €3.2 million ($3.5 million) grant that covers a three-year pilot testing the technology, according to TechTransfer, a program at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels and a partner on the effort.
France and Belgium join forces in Telegram probe
POLITICO
Victor Goury-Laffont
Joint investigation teams exist under the framework of Eurojust, the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, to allow states to "directly exchange information and evidence, cooperate in real time and jointly carry out operations." The French prosector is already looking into charges against the Russian-born tech tycoon which include complicity in managing an online platform “in order to enable an illegal transaction in organized group,” and refusal to cooperate with law enforcement authorities.
UK
UK presses China on weapons to Russia
POLITICO
Noah Keate
Britain’s foreign secretary urged China to investigate claims its companies supplied weapons to Russian forces in Ukraine after the United States slapped sanctions on a host of Chinese companies. Lammy, who is on a diplomatic visit to Beijing as the new Labour government tries to smooth engagement with China, told Foreign Minister Wang Yi that the United Kingdom and China had a “shared interest in European peace and ending the war” in Ukraine.
Middle East
Hackers reportedly impersonate cyber firm ESET to target organizations in Israel
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
Unknown hackers have reportedly attempted to infect Israeli organizations with wiper malware delivered through phishing emails that impersonated the cybersecurity firm ESET. The malicious email, allegedly sent from ESET, claimed a device belonging to the recipient was targeted by a state-backed threat actor and included a link to a ZIP download supposedly hosted on ESET servers that would help recover from the attack.
Africa
You can now see the code that helped end apartheid
WIRED
Steven Levy
John Graham-Cumming doesn’t ping me often, but when he does I pay attention. His day job is the CTO of the security giant Cloudflare, but he is also a lay historian of technology, guided by a righteous compass. He might be best known for successfully leading a campaign to force the UK government to apologize to the legendary computer scientist Alan Turing for prosecuting him for homosexuality and essentially harassing him to death. So when he DM’d me to say that he had “a hell of a story”—promising “one-time pads! 8-bit computers! Flight attendants smuggling floppies full of random numbers into South Africa!”—I responded.
Big Tech
Samsung delays taking deliveries of ASML chip gear for its new US factory
Reuters
Heekyong Yang, Hyunjoo Jin and Toby Sterling
Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), opens new tab has postponed taking deliveries of ASML (ASML.AS), opens new tab chipmaking equipment for its upcoming factory in Texas as it has yet to win any major customers for the project, three people familiar with the matter said. Samsung has been also holding off on placing orders to some other suppliers for the $17 billion factory in Taylor city, prompting them to look for other customers and send staff deployed on site back home, three other people familiar with the matter said.
What we know about the layoffs at Meta
TechCrunch
Cody Corrall
Multiple teams at Meta were hit by layoffs this week. The company confirmed the layoffs in a statement to TechCrunch and noted that the changes were made to reallocate resources. The cuts reportedly impacted teams working on Reality Labs, Instagram, and WhatsApp, though Meta declined to comment on the record about how many employees were affected and what orgs they were part of.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi calls Elon Musk's vision for Tesla robotaxis 'pretty compelling'
Business Insider
Lauren Edmonds and Lloyd Lee
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is intrigued by Tesla's plan to deploy autonomous robotaxis. Khosrowshahi recently appeared on Hard Fork, a tech podcast, to discuss Uber's position in the autonomous vehicle industry.
Artificial Intelligence
AI detectors falsely accuse students of cheating—With big consequences
Bloomberg
Jackie Davalos and Leon Yin
Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT brought generative AI to the mainstream almost two years ago, schools have raced to adapt to a changed landscape. Educators now rely on a growing crop of detection tools to help spot sentences, paragraphs or entire assignments generated by artificial intelligence. About two-thirds of teachers report using an AI checker regularly, according to a survey of more than 450 instructors published in March by the Center for Democracy & Technology. The best AI writing detectors are highly accurate, but they’re not foolproof.
Can AI sandbag safety checks to sabotage users? Yes, but not very well — for now
TechCrunch
Andrii Yalanskyi
AI companies claim to have robust safety checks in place that ensure that models don’t say or do weird, illegal, or unsafe stuff. But what if the models were capable of evading those checks and, for some reason, trying to sabotage or mislead users? Turns out they can do this, according to Anthropic researchers. Just not very well … for now, anyway. The series of experiments they devised are fairly artificial and surface-level, but they do indicate that there’s something worth investigating further.
Research
UN Women research recommends strategies in South-East Asia to advance the Women, Peace and Security agenda in the digital space
UN Women
The systematic nature of online attacks to silence women’s voices and discredit their work poses a significant obstacle to advancing inclusive peace, gender equality and human rights across South-East Asia, according to new UN Women research. Entitled Women, Peace and Digital (In)Security in South-East Asia – Reflections on Diverse Experiences in the Digital Sphere, the report examines technology-facilitated gender-based violence, cyber-facilitated trafficking in women and other aspects of the digital landscape that have implications for gender-responsive and sustainable peace.
Events & Podcasts
TSD Summit Sessions: Quantum, semiconductors and security with Dr Pete Shadbolt
Stop the World
This episode of Stop the World is a deep dive into quantum computing with Dr Pete Shadbolt, Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at PsiQuantum, and Alex Capri, Research Fellow at the Hinrich Foundation. The conversation provides a breakdown of quantum computing and explores the challenges and profound opportunities that the technology could bring. Alex and Pete discuss how quantum computing can be applied in a practical sense, from biotech to the battlefield, and they examine the potential security implications of the technology and how we can ensure it is used for good.
Competition in cyberspace and the future of US security leadership
United States Study Centre
What could cyber and national security policy look like under a first Harris administration or second Trump administration and what could this mean for the region? What implications do the major cyber incidents of the last two years — from the Russia–Ukraine conflict to the Volt Typhoon campaign — have for countries around the world and for Australian businesses? How has US cyber, intelligence and technology policy evolved?
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security team at ASPI.