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Hacked networks will need to be burned ‘down to the ground’

It’s not clear exactly what the hackers were seeking, but experts say it could include nuclear secrets, blueprints for advanced weaponry, COVID-19 vaccine-related research and information for dossiers on key government and industry leaders.

“We have a serious problem. We don’t know what networks they are in, how deep they are, what access they have, what tools they left,” said Bruce Schneier, a prominent security expert and Harvard fellow.

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WHO calls meeting on new virus variant, European head says

“Limiting travel to contain spread is prudent until we have better info. Supply chains for essential goods & essential travel should remain possible,” WHO Regional Director Hans Kluge said on Twitter, urging increased preventive measures.
South Africa has announced that a new variant of the COVID-19 virus is driving the country’s current resurgence of the disease, which is seeing higher numbers of confirmed cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

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Asia monitoring new UK strain, no flights cancelled yet

The new strain in Britain comes as cases have surged recently in several Asian countries that successfully contained the pandemic earlier this year. The spikes in cases have prompted localised lockdowns in some countries and more aggressive testing.
Much is unknown about the strain, but experts said current vaccines should still be effective against it. No Asian country has reported the new strain.

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Australia detects new UK strain, Hong Kong cancels Britain flights

The new strain has prompted Britain’s European neighbours and several others including Canada and Iran to close their doors to travellers from the country.

Much is unknown about the strain, but experts said current vaccines should still be effective against it.

Asian nations including Japan and South Korea said they were monitoring the new strain even as they battle a spike in infections at home.

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Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Dell join legal battle against hacking company NSO

The brief, filed before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, opens up a new front in Facebook’s lawsuit against NSO, which it filed last year after it was revealed that the cyber surveillance firm had exploited a bug in Facebook-owned instant messaging program WhatsApp to help surveil more than 1,400 people worldwide.

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Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine set to get clearance by year-end: Report

In India, the vaccine is being produced as part of a tie-up with the Serum Institute of India.Health officials in the UK hope that the authorisation of the Oxford jab will prove a game-changer, allowing vaccines to be transported and administered far more easily compared to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine which must be stored at very cold temperatures.

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Global cos, govt agencies among 200 victims of suspected Russian hacking

Recorded Future Inc., a cybersecurity firm based in Massachusetts, has identified 198 victims that were hacked using the SolarWinds backdoor, said threat analyst Allan Liska. Three other people said the inquiry so far has determined that the hackers further compromised at least 200 victims, moving within the computer networks or attempting to gain user credentials — what cybersecurity experts call “hands on keyboard” activity. The final number could rise from there.

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Global Covid-19 cases surpass 76 mn, death toll up by 1.68 mn: Johns Hopkins

The US is the worst-hit country with the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 17,631,293 and 316,006, respectively, according to the CSSE.

India comes in second place in terms of cases at 10,004,599, while the country’s death toll soared to 145,136.

The other countries with more than a million confirmed cases are Brazil (7,213,155), Russia (2,792,615), France (2,516,957), the UK (2,010,077), Turkey (2,004,285), Italy (1,938,083 ), Spain (1,797,236), Argentina (1,537,169), Colombia (1,496,062), Germany (1,494,063), Mexico (1,301,546), Poland (1,194,110) and Iran (1,152,072), the CSSE figures showed.

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‘Powerful tradecraft’: how foreign cyber-spies compromised America

Revelations of the attack come at a vulnerable time as the U.S. government grapples with a contentious presidential transition and a spiraling public health crisis. And it reflects a new level of sophistication and scale, hitting numerous federal agencies and threatening to inflict far more damage to public trust in America’s cybersecurity infrastructure than previous acts of digital espionage.

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