Tag Archive for: czech

UK, Czech ministers among China’s hacking targets – POLITICO

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Among the targets of the attacks: British Minister for Europe Nusrat Ghani, an IPAC member at the time of the attacks who was appointed in her role as minister on Tuesday, and Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský, also a member of the group.

“This just proves the assessment in our Security Strategy, which states that the rising assertiveness of China is a systemic challenge that needs to be dealt with in coordination with our trans-Atlantic allies,” Lipavský told POLITICO in a comment. The cyberattacks took place about a year before Lipavský became a minister.

Ghani, while a parliament backbencher in 2021, told the U.K. parliament in July 2021 that China hacked IPAC accounts and called on the government to act swiftly. The U.S. indictment says China targeted 43 U.K. parliamentary accounts, most of whom were members of IPAC.

Invited to respond, Ghani did not dismiss she was among the group of politicians that was targeted by the campaign. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office did not provide a comment in time for publication.

U.S. prosecutors said in their indictment that the Chinese hacking group had conducted cyberattacks on American political and state officials since at least 2015, including by posing as prominent American journalists to trick victims into clicking links that extract information on their whereabouts and digital devices.

The hackers used more harmful software tools in other campaigns targeted at the U.S.; the indictment did not say these tools were used against European targets in the 2021 email campaign targeted at IPAC members.

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Czech Republic courts young African leaders with maiden ‘Cool Czechia’ study trip

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Between 1948 and 1989, Czechoslovakia – as it was then known – was under communist rule. For decades, there was an absence of opposition while restrictions were in place to prevent Czechs and Slovaks from travelling to non-communist countries.

But in November 1989, a hunger for change and an end to the status quo spread across the country like wildfire. Although sparked by peaceful demonstrations organised by students, renowned dissidents such as the iconic Vaclav Havel would eventually inspire the movement to grow into a clamour for political restructuring and an end to communist leadership.

By November 28 of that year, the agitation yielded fruit as the federal assembly removed the provision in the constitution which regarded the Communist Party as the controlling authority in the country. The movement would later be coined the Velvet Revolution, acclaimed as a remarkable non-violent transition of power.

Given its experience with oppression and subjugation, it is perhaps no surprise that Czechia opened its doors to the Ukrainians following the Russian invasion of the country in February 2022. Since the outbreak of the war, the country has admitted more than half a million refugees from Ukraine, with over 100,000 fully employed across different parts of Czech.

The 18-month-old war and its ripple effects have seen many Western nations realigning and restrategising their partnerships across the world.

The African allure

As Africa improves its economic and geopolitical outlook, many foreign nations are looking to boost their alliances and gain the continent’s support in multilateral fora. The Czech Republic is not left out.

Through a multi-faceted strategy, Czech is looking to expand its partnership with Africa while creating a long-lasting positive impact on the continent.

And what better demographic to forge a relationship with than young Africans on track to become important voices in their respective countries?

Enters ‘Cool Czechia: Young African Leaders Study Trip’ – an initiative conceptualised by the ministry of foreign affairs of the Czech Republic.

From July 26 to August 3, several young African leaders were invited to history-rich Prague –…

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Czech Republic turns to war-games to build cyber defences

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The Czech Republic is carrying out war-gaming exercises with companies to strengthen its critical industries against cyber attacks, supply chain disruption and ownership bids by hostile states such as China and Russia.

The war-games, thought to be the first such contingency exercises in the world, have drawn the attention of Nato allies seeking to protect themselves from aggression in the so-called “grey zone” between peaceful relations and formal armed conflict. Concern about grey zone activities have intensified since a significant hacking campaign against US government systems — attributed to a Russian group — was discovered in December.

Tomas Kopecny, deputy minister for industrial co-operation in the Czech Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces, has started contingency exercises with the country’s five largest defence companies and hopes to expand the programme to other industries including energy, IT, healthcare and food production later this year.

“We see industrial policy as part of not only economic welfare, but geopolitics and also defence and security”, Kopecny told the Financial Times. “This exercise is basically about creating [a] nexus between the military and civilian, between the government and private side.”

Tomas Kopecny, deputy minister for industrial co-operation in the Czech Ministry of Defence © Michal Krumphanzl/CTK/Alamy

He added that the rise of China as a “systemic rival” to the EU meant industry was increasingly on the front line of attempts by foreign investors to steal intellectual property or exert control over competitor companies.

“The very strategy that is being applied by Chinese state-affiliated investors is something that is targeting [Europe’s] critical and strategic technologies,” Kopecny said. “It’s definitely something that is decreasing our capability to defend ourselves, through us losing our technologies that are essential for defence.”

The UK government had to intervene last year to prevent an investor linked to the Chinese state from seizing control of the board of British chipmaker, Imagination Technologies. The FT has also revealed that China is exploring limiting the…

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Meet The Super Rich Czech Tech Company — And Its Russian CEO —Denying Links To The Huge SolarWinds Hack

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Maxim Shafirov is looking grizzled, grumbling through a stubbled muzzle about having just two hours sleep, hunched over his computer as the snow falls behind him in a window that looks out to a wintry St. Petersburg. The Russian native’s grouchiness is understandable.

Shafirov is the CEO of Czech company JetBrains, which was likely one of the biggest tech companies you’d never heard of, until Wednesday when reports cited government sources saying it was being investigated for links to huge cyberattacks on U.S. government agencies and tech giants, via the hack of another low-profile IT provider, SolarWinds, and scores of its clients, including federal agencies. For millions of coders, the Prague-based business’ tools are invaluable, providing all manner of software to make their app building that much easier. Founded in 2000, it claims over 8 million paying users in over 213 countries. Company revenue for 2019, according to the most recently-available results for the privately-held business, stood at $270 million, with year-on-year growth of 33%. Shafirov, in an upbeat moment in an interview with Forbes, says that despite the Covid-19 pandemic, its revenue growth this last year was 10%, indicating near $300 million for 2020. The business was a so-called “unicorn” worth more than $1 billion, according to a JetBrains spokesperson.

Few outside the tech world would’ve paid the company much attention until reports in the New York Times, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal indicated those investigating what’s become one of the most severe acts of cyber espionage in recent memory were looking at the possibility JetBrains was involved. The reports hint JetBrains, or one of its apps, TeamCity, was hacked, leading to an infiltration at SolarWinds, which, in turn, had one of its own tools compromised and used to hijack customer networks. Amongst the victims are the Department of Justice, which yesterday revealed 3% of its Office 365 emails had been compromised. It joined the Department of Energy, the Treasury, Microsoft,…

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