Category:

Technology

United States’ biggest gasoline pipeline halted after cyber-attack

Hacking threats to critical infrastructure have been growing, prompting the White House to respond with a plan to try to increase the security of utilities and their suppliers.

The first leg of that effort, announced April 20, will address security holes in the electrical grid, before moving to other sectors, including the country’s gas pipelines and water utilities.

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AXA halts ransomware crime reimbursement in France

“The word to get out today is that, regarding ransomware, we don’t pay and we won’t pay,” cybercrime prosecutor Johanna Brousse said at the hearing.

Only the U.S. surpassed France last year in damage from ransomware to businesses, hospitals, schools and local governments, according to the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft, estimating France’s related overall losses at more than $5.5 billion.

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Aon forms EMEA M&A and Transaction Solutions Advisory Board to support growth and expansion of M&A practice

The new advisory board will support the growth and development of Aon’s M&A practice across the UK and EMEA, as it continues to expand its client offerings to include solutions for intellectual property, cyber security and digital performance, retirement, benefits, talent and compensation, structured credit, tax and litigation risks, ESG and more.

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Covid, Cyber, Compliance and ESG top risk concerns for financial services sector: Allianz

“The financial services sector faces a period of heightened risks. Covid-19 has caused one of the largest ever shocks to the global economy, triggering unprecedented economic and fiscal stimulus and record levels of government debt,” says Paul Schiavone, Global Industry Solutions Director Financial Services at AGCS. “Despite an improved economic outlook, considerable uncertainty remains. The threat of economic and market volatility still lies ahead while the sector is also increasingly needing to focus on so-called ‘non-financial’ risks such as cyber resilience, management of third parties and supply chains, as well as the impact of climate change and other Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) trends.”

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Debris from China space rocket likely to fall in international waters -Global Times

“All debris can be potential threats to spaceflight safety and the space domain,” the Pentagon said, adding that the 18th Space Control Squadron in California would be offering daily updates on the rocket body’s location from May 4. The White House said the United States was committed to addressing the risks of congestion due to space debris and wants to work with the international community “to promote leadership and responsible space behaviors.”

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Google’s earthquake alerts system to be made available in more countries

The tech giant announced that the earthquake alerts will now be available in two more locations. Android users in Greece and New Zealand will now receive automatic notifications about earthquakes in the regions. Google stated that it chose these countries because they lack early warning system alerts. Users can turn these notifications off if they like.

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Global e-commerce jumps to $26.7 trillion, fuelled by COVID-19

The digital retail economy experienced the most growth in the Republic of Korea, where internet sales increased from around one in five transactions in 2019 to more than one in four last year.

The UK also saw a spike in online transactions over the same period, from 15.8 to 23.3 per cent; so too did China (from 20.7 to 24.9 per cent), the US (11 to 14 per cent), Australia (6.3 to 9.4 per cent), Singapore (5.9 to 11.7 per cent) and Canada (3.6 to 6.2 per cent).
“These statistics show the growing importance of online activities”, said Shamika Sirimanne, UNCTAD’s director of technology and logistics. “They also point to the need for countries, especially developing ones, to have such information as they rebuild their economies in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

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Billions of computers at hacking risk: Indian-origin scientist

However, researchers, led by Ashish Venkat at the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, UVA Engineering, discovered that computer processors are open to hackers again.

They found a whole new way for hackers to exploit something called a “micro-op cache,” which speeds up computing by storing simple commands and allowing the processor to fetch them quickly and early in the speculative execution process.

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