Tag: Affairs | SpinSafe

Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Vivian Balakrishnan visited Cook Islands from 9 to 11 November 2023 to attend the 52^nd Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders Meeting, marking the first time that Singapore participated in the PIF Leaders Meeting as a Dialogue Partner.

Minister Balakrishnan delivered remarks at the 2050 Pacific Prosperity High-Level Thematic Dialogue on 10 November 2023. He highlighted that Singapore viewed relations with the PIF as strategic. As fellow Small Island Developing States, Singapore and the Pacific Islands share a commitment to tackling global challenges, particularly the existential issue of climate change. Over the past 30 years, Singapore has shared our development experience with more than 5,800 Pacific officials under the Singapore Cooperation Programme.

Minister Balakrishnan announced the launch of a three-year customised technical assistance package for the Pacific named the “Singapore-Pacific Resilience and Knowledge Sharing” (SPARKS) package. The SPARKS package comprises courses in climate resilience, cybersecurity and international law. These courses will support the Pacific’s capacity building efforts in priority areas under the PIF’s 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, the blueprint for charting the region’s future. The transcript of Minister Balakrishnan’s remarks and a factsheet on the SPARKS package are at Annexes A and B.

During his visit, Minister Balakrishnan met several leaders from the Pacific, including PIF Chair and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown, Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, French Polynesia President Moetai Brotherson, Kiribati President Taneti Maamau, New Caledonia President Louis Mapou, Tonga Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni, Palau Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Gustav Aitaro, Solomon Islands Minister for Foreign Affairs and External Trade Jeremiah Manele, and PIF Secretary General Henry Puna. Minister Balakrishnan had good discussions with these leaders on the Pacific’s priorities as well as how Singapore can work with them both bilaterally and multilaterally.

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MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

SINGAPORE

11 NOVEMBER…

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Avast released a free decryptor for Windows version of Akira ransomwareSecurity Affairs

July 2, 2023/in Internet Security

Avast released a free decryptor for the Akira ransomware that can allow victims to recover their data without paying the ransom.

Cybersecurity firm Avast released a free decryptor for the Akira ransomware that can allow victims to recover their data without paying the ransom.

The Akira ransomware has been active since March 2023, the threat actors behind the malware claim to have already hacked multiple organizations in multiple industries, including education, finance, and real estate,

Akira is a Windows ransomware with a 64-bit Windows binary, it is written in C++ and uses the Boost library to implement the asynchronous encryption code. The authors used Microsoft Linker version 14.35.

In June 2023, the malware analyst rivitna published a sample of the ransomware that is compiled for Linux. This Linux version is 64-bit and also uses the Boost library, it uses the Crypto++ library instead of Windows CryptoAPI.

“During the run, the ransomware generates a symmetric encryption key using CryptGenRandom(), which is the random number generator implemented by Windows CryptoAPI. Files are encrypted by Chacha 2008 (D. J. Bernstein’s implementation).” reads the report published by Avast.

“The symmetric key is encrypted by the RSA-4096 cipher and appended to the end of the encrypted file. Public key is hardcoded in the ransomware binary and differs per sample.”

The ransomware appends .akira extension to the encrypted files and drops a ransom note named akira_readme.txt in each folder.

The researchers discovered a few similarities between the Akira ransomware and the Conti v2 ransomware, a circumstance that suggests the authors may have used the leaked source code of the Conti ransomware.

The list of similarities includes:

List of file type exclusions.
List of directory exclusions.
The structure of the Akira file tail is equal to the file tail appended by Conti.

The first step is to download the decryptor binary. Avast provides a 64-bit decryptor, as the ransomware is also a 64-bit and can’t run on 32-bit Windows. If you have no choice but to use 32-bit applications, you may download 32-bit decryptor here.

Avast released both a 64-bit decryptor and a 32-bit Windows…

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6 internet habits that can compromise your cybersecurity – The European Sting – Critical News & Insights on European Politics, Economy, Foreign Affairs, Business & Technology

June 7, 2023/in Internet Security

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum.

Author: Check Point

The internet has become an essential part of our lives, but it also comes with risks.
We need to be aware of the bad habits that we continue to maintain and that can affect our digital security.
These include using weak passwords, clicking on links in emails from unknown senders, and not keeping our software up to date.
By being more careful online, we can help to protect ourselves from cybercrime.

Nowadays we cannot live without the Internet, a basic resource among the new generations. Remember looking for information in an encyclopedia or going to a travel agency to buy a plane ticket or make a hotel reservation? It seems like ages ago, but the truth is that the network of networks has changed the way we do many tasks and has opened the doors to new possibilities that allow us, for example, to work from anywhere or make a bank transfer from our phone in just one click.

Unfortunately, this relentless evolution is also present in the multiple threats posed by cybercriminals. We have moved on from viruses distributed on floppy disks and Morris, the first worm to infect the Internet in 1988, to the emergence of Trojans, spyware and ransomware, the main protagonists of today’s cybercrime scene. According to the Security Report 2023 from Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: CHKP), a leading global cyber security specialist provider, cyberattacks have increased by 38% in 2022 compared to the previous year, with an average of 1,168 attacks per week per organization and a situation that looks set to continue to worsen over the coming years.

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What is the World Economic Forum doing on cybersecurity?

The World Economic Forum Centre for Cybersecurity drives global action to address systemic cybersecurity challenges. It is an independent and impartial platform fostering collaboration on cybersecurity in the public and private sectors. Here are some examples of the impact delivered by the centre:

Cybersecurity training: Salesforce, Fortinet, and the Global Cyber Alliance, in collaboration…

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Avast released a free decryptor for the Akira ransomware that can allow victims to recover their data without paying the ransom.