Category:

Risk Management

Massive cyberattacks that shook the world in 2020

The biggest of them perhaps came to light towards the end of the year when cybersecurity company FireEye earlier this month revealing that it became a target of hackers who accessed tools that the company uses to test its customers’ security.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, suspected Russian hackers installed a malware in the Orion software sold by the IT management company SolarWinds, and accessed sensitive data belonging to several US government agencies, at least one hospital and a university.

read more

Studies find having Covid-19 may protect against reinfection

Researchers found that people with antibodies from natural infections were “at much lower risk … on the order of the same kind of protection you’d get from an effective vaccine,” of getting the virus again, said Dr. Ned Sharpless, director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
“We don’t know how long-lasting this immunity is,”said Joshua Wolf, an infectious disease specialist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis added. Cases of people getting Covid-19 more than once have been confirmed, so “people still need to protect themselves and others by preventing reinfection.” he said.

read more

Insolvencies, cyber threats and ESG scrutiny are top risks for directors and officers in 2021:Allianz 

Forthcoming insolvency warnings are among the top concerns for the D&O insurance sector as insolvency is a key cause of D&O claims – insolvency administrators usually look to recoup losses from directors.

According to Euler Hermes, the bulk of insolvencies is still to come through the first half of 2021, with its global insolvency index likely to hit a record high for bankruptcies, up 35% by end of 2021, and with top increases expected in the US, Brazil, China and core European countries such as UK, Italy, Belgium and France.

read more

Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research: report

Studying Google services for biases is among the “sensitive topics” under the company’s new policy, according to an internal webpage. Among dozens of other “sensitive topics” listed were the oil industry, China, Iran, Israel, COVID-19, home security, insurance, location data, religion, self-driving vehicles, telecoms and systems that recommend or personalize web content.
Advances in technology and the growing complexity of our external environment are increasingly leading to situations where seemingly inoffensive projects raise ethical, reputational, regulatory or legal issues,” one of the pages for research staff stated.

read more

Mauritius shipping disaster caused by lack of attention to safety – owner

There was a lack of awareness of the dangers of navigating close to the coast … and insufficient implementation of regulations that must be observed in order to safely execute voyages,” the company said, based on its interviews with crew members.

The company will ban private use of cell phones during working hours on bridges and install high-speed communications systems on all its ships, as well beef up training, it said.

read more

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.

read more

Gas pipeline blast kills one, destroys houses in Gujarat

It was not immediately clear who ran the pipeline – state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) denied media reports that it was the operator. Local company Sabarmati Gas, partly-owned by Bharat Petroleum Corp, also said it was not involved.

It was not immediately clear who ran the pipeline – state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) denied media reports that it was the operator. Local company Sabarmati Gas, partly-owned by Bharat Petroleum Corp, also said it was not involved.

It was not immediately clear who ran the pipeline – state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) denied media reports that it was the operator. Local company Sabarmati Gas, partly-owned by Bharat Petroleum Corp, also said it was not involved.The massive explosion destroyed two houses in a residential area near ONGC’s Kalol field in Gandhinagar district, trapping people under the debris, officials said.

Senior Gandhinagar official Kuldeep Arya told Reuters a gas leakage could have triggered the blast.

read more