Cybersecurity & DataSec news
April, May & June 2021
Startup News Asia’s Q2 cyberscurity news summary gathers links to individual cybersec, datasec and related news articles, reports or downloads, each one online and free to read. Headlines featured cover a wide angle view of the field – cybersecurity, ransomware, privacy, data security – and were reported across April, May and June of 2021.
Taking this wide angle view allows us to provide an overview of cybersecurity news, focusing where possible on the Asia-Pacific, but also looking at ‘outside world’ cybersecurity issues and developments, giving readers points of reference and – importantly – a wider context within which to frame ‘local’ cybersec issues.
Startup News Asia’s Q2 2021 cybersec news round-up pulls headlines from 17 locations across South & SE Asia, Australia and NZ, and provides a quick, at-a-glance overview of developments in data security and its many related technologies.
Note: Headline items featured in this Q2 cybersec news round-up deliberately look at implementations and initiatives rather than looking at developments in a single industry.
The quarterly cybersecurity news headlines below are each linked directly to the online items behind them – no middleman, no interstitials, no wasted time, and free to read.
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June 2021 | May 2021 | April 2021
Cybersecurity in June 2021
- Download: The Future of Cybersecurity in Asia Pacific and Japan, March 2021 edition (pdf)
- Cryptocurrency attack methods to be aware of in 2021, focusing on the 4 most talked-about methods on cybercrime forums
- Available to download: Cyber Security Outlook In South East Asian Region From CyberSecurity Malaysia’s Perspective
- “In short, EVs will increasingly become data collection and storage platforms. And this will bring to the forefront a new operational challenge for auto manufacturers…”
- Cybersecurity: “… the attackers are not only interested in cold data, but also what is happening on target’s personal computer at any moment, resulting in live espionage…”
- Asia Pacific Public Sector Cyber Security Executive Council launches led by Microsoft, aiming to boost public-private cybersec partnerships and share threat intelligence
- ICYMI: The ASEAN Cyber Security Development Project from INTERPOL, and the National Cybercrime Strategy Guidebook developed for participant nations
- ICYMI: European Commission announces plans for Joint Cyber Unit to tackle large scale cyber-attacks, a dedicated team of multi-national experts to be rapidly deployed
- “…lack of global safeguards, low-cost and low-risk with potentially high yield makes cybercrime a natural choice for North Korean regime…a new model of state-sponsored cybercrime”
- ICYMI: On June 8th, Amazon will automatically enrol devices including Alexa in Amazon Sidewalk, wireless mesh service sharing internet bandwidth with neighbors
- Live Facial Recognition: “We should be able to take our children to a leisure complex, visit a shopping centre or tour a city to see the sights without having our biometric data collected and analysed…”
- Deepfake maps: “Researchers applied AI techniques to make portions of Seattle look more like Beijing. Such imagery could mislead governments or spread misinformation…”
- Download: Cryptocurrency Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Report, via CipherTrace
- Singapore: ScamShield launches, AI-powered app to identify, filter and block scam messages with 95% accuracy, aiming to combat 15K scams reported last year alone
- Download: Japan’s Cybersecurity Strategy, From The Olympics To The Indo-Pacific (pdf)
- Australia: Cyber war specialist warns recent Fastly outage that brought down global news sites is timely reminder of country’s dependence on offshore IT infrastructure
- ICYMI: On June 8th, Amazon will automatically enrol devices including Alexa in Amazon Sidewalk, wireless mesh service sharing internet bandwidth with neighbors
- Indonesia: Cyber and Crypto Agency inks MOU with Kaspersky cybersecurity company around shared goal of beefing up the country’s cybersecurity capabilities
- Japan: Police Agency to set up new bureau and team dedicated to cybercrime responses, including to state-sponsored attacks from China, North Korea and Russia
- North Korean hacking group believed to have breached security of South Korea nuclear research institute, potentially South Korea’s most significant security breach
- Malaysian gov’t proposes that ASEAN member countries create regional cyber defence network centre, the ASEAN Cyber Defence Network, to share knowledge and expertise
- “Zero-knowledge proofs will redefine the privacy guarantees that web services offer…blockchains will enable users to control their financial assets and personal data, without requiring third parties…”
- Exporting Chinese surveillance: the security risks of smart cities, from The Financial Times
- TikTok changed the shape of some people’s faces without approval, applying or testing what appeared to be a beauty filter – and which they couldn’t turn off
- China: Taobao, e-commerce giant owned by Alibaba, hit by data leak exposing 1.1BN items of user data including IDs and phone numbers
- European Union planning to develop digital wallet for use across the 27-member bloc, storing user documents, payment details and more for gov’t service access
- Google finally rolls out long-awaited end-to-end encryption for Messages app in Android, tho only for one-to-one conversations
- NATO aiming for Defence Innovation Accelerator of the North Atlantic to be up and running by 2023 to speed trans-Atlantic cooperation on critical technologies
- The ASEAN Cyber Security Development Project from INTERPOL, and the National Cybercrime Strategy Guidebook developed for participant nations
- Another layer in deepfake technology – cloning an individual’s voice
- Japan: Government agencies reportedly suffered data breaches including hacker access to 76K email addresses originating from hack of 3rd-party info sharing tool
- China: Huawei launches ‘Global Cyber Security and Privacy Protection Transparency Centre’ in Dongguan
- Mapping China’s Tech Giants: Mapping overseas expansion of 27 key tech firms, featuring 3800+ entries, spanning up to 15 categories and providing 38000+ data points
- India: An intro to BlockSurvey, a decentralised blockchain-powered data collection platform focusing on anonymity and security of user information
- South Korea: Gov’t revokes authorizations for 224 Hikvision products over faked test reports, forcing Hikvision to withdraw products for at least one year
- ICYMI: Stripe payments giant launches Stripe Identity, artificial intelligence and ML tech ID tool intended to securely verify identities of users from more than 30 countries
- “First came facial recognition. Now, an early form of lip-reading AI is being deployed in hospitals, power plants, public transportation, and more.”
- ICYMI: Senegal hopes to boost digital sovereignty by moving all gov’t data and platforms from o’seas servers to a national data centre supplied by Huawei, financed by China
- ICYI: Swedish court system upholds ban on Huawei equipment in the country’s 5G systems, citing security service concerns
- China: Facetech Holdings gains funding to further develop tech using AI and neural networks to identify faces obscured by protective equipment or other coverings
- “Even now, satellite-borne internet traffic is dwarfed by subsea cables, which carry an estimated 95% of all traffic between continents and islands.”
- China’s TikTok privacy policy update allows future collection of new types of biometric data including ‘faceprints and voiceprints’
- China: Ant Group in talks with state-owned enterprises to create credit-scoring firm, putting 1BN citizens’ data under regulator purview – a move towards ‘social credit’?
- China: Military tech suppliers CETC and Potevio state-owned enterprise to merge, forming country’s 3rd-largest info-tech company after Huawei and Lenovo
- ICYMI: Under new legislation, police in Ireland will have the power to compel people to provide passwords for electronic devices when carrying out a search warrant
Cybersec news in May 2021
- ICYMI: North Carolina bill proposed to ban state agencies from paying cyber-attack ransoms, responding to recent ransomware attack on fuel pipeline
- Cybersecurity: May 2021 saw a 168% year-on-year increase in the number of cyberattacks in Asia Pacific compared to May 2020
- FBI and Australian Cyber Security Centre warn of ongoing cyber-campaign targeting extensive array of sectors, employing affiliate hackers and ransomware-as-a-service
- ICYMI: Google’s Android 12 to feature Privacy Dashboard, allowing fine-tuning of app security and with indicators showing when apps access microphone and camera
- Securing Cyberspace: How we can protect against digital threats to a free and open Indo-Pacific’ webinar set for June 1st, from Canada’s Macdonald-Laurier Institute
- Download: The Weaponized Web – The National Security Implications of Data and Tech Policy Through the Lens of National Security (pdf)
- Available to download now: The Chainalysis 2021 Crypto Crime Report
- Download: Potential Threat Vectors to 5G Infrastructure, from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (pdf)
- Cybersecurity and AI: “The latest generation of neural networks are vulnerable to a new kind of attack that makes them use too much energy.”
- Australia: Gov’t to establish 3 ‘cyber hubs’ to provide cybersecurity services to small agencies, delivered via large agencies such as Defence and Home Affairs
- CSIS Reconnecting Asia Project identified 70 deals in 41 countries between Huawei and governments or state-owned enterprises for cloud infrastructure and e-gov’t services
- ICYMI: North Carolina bill proposed to ban state agencies from paying cyber-attack ransoms, responding to recent ransomware attack on fuel pipeline
- Download: The Weaponized Web – The National Security Implications of Data and Tech Policy Through the Lens of National Security (pdf)
- An overview of Taiwan’s cybersecurity challenges as cyber-attacks on the country’s tech sectors become more frequent and sophisticated
- Cybersecurity: May 2021 saw a 168% year-on-year increase in the number of cyberattacks in Asia Pacific compared to May 2020
- FBI and Australian Cyber Security Centre warn of ongoing cyber-campaign targeting extensive array of sectors, employing affiliate hackers and ransomware-as-a-service
- Securing Cyberspace: How we can protect against digital threats to a free and open Indo-Pacific’ webinar set for June 1st, from Canada’s Macdonald-Laurier Institute
- Japan: Major infrastructure firms to discontinue use of Chinese-made drones in favour of domestic firms, citing data security concerns
- Indian Institute of Tech in Madras researchers now field-testing BlockTrack, app-delivered and blockchain-based secure medical data and info exchange system
Cybersec & Datasec: April 2021
- 2021 Cyber Attack Statistics, Data, and Trends: “…34% of organizations suffered from security incidents involving malware last year.”
- Check Point Software’s 2021 Mobile Security report finds 46% of organisations had at least one employee who downloaded a malicious mobile application
- Cybersecurity: A collection of the cybersec, datasec and privacy-related news headlines and reports from the past month
- Download: Nation States, Cyberconflict and the Web of Profit – “… a 100% rise in ‘significant’ nation state incidents between 2017-2020…”
- ICYMI: US Federal Reserve chairman states “…the risk that we keep our eyes on the most now is cyber risk”
- ICYMI: Hackers scraped data from 500M LinkedIn users – about two-thirds of the platform’s entire user base – and have posted it for sale, online
- Singapore: “We need to consider cybersecurity as a common good which is managed in the interest of the public and is beneficial to all of us…”
- Indo-Pacific 5G Survey: “…a hyper-connected world…is ripe for cyberattacks at a scale never seen before, from simple household IoT devices to electricity grids and healthcare delivery…”
- Australia: Gov’t launches International Cyber and Critical Technology Engagement Strategy
- Download: Cambodia vs Hackers – Balancing Security and Liberty in Cybercrime Law (pdf)
- 2021 Cyber Attack Statistics, Data, and Trends: “…34% of organizations suffered from security incidents involving malware last year.”
- India: National Cyber Security Coordinator finalizes criteria for identifying trusted sources, communicating to key telcos, chipmakers and multinational vendors
- India: Upstox online stockbroking platform warns clients of data breach, exposing connection info and KYC details for an estimated 2.5M users
- South Korea: New Samsung Galaxy Quantum 2 uses quantum cryptography to secure apps with built-in random number generator chip, creating a new level of consumer security
- Big tech: “…it’s not the IT office that needs to deal with technology; it’s mainstream foreign and security policy. Too few countries get that.”
- Romanian gov’t approves bill barring Huawei, and China, from 5G networks, citing national security concerns and ‘protecting Romania’s future generations’ personal data’
- 4 Indian startups selected for NetApp Excellerator, working in digital manufacturing, HR technology, AI and cybersecurity
- Malaysia edition of Cyber Security Asia 2021 event set for July 5-6, with Cambodia edition set for October 25-26
- ICYMI: German lawmakers pass IT Security Law 2.0, providing tougher 5G legislation and requiring security policy to match those of NATO and allies
- Australia launches International Cyber and Critical Technology Engagement Strategy, alongside announcing 3 joint cyber projects with India
- ICYMI: Google’s advertising tech FLoC, an alternative to cookies in user tracking, hits another obstacle, with Brave, Safari, Firefox and other browsers declining to implement it
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