Tag Archive for: facing

Cyber, info wars are new security threats facing the world: Rajnath | Latest News India

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Ahmedabad: It has become increasingly difficult to differentiate between internal and external security threats due to technological advancements, defence minister Rajnath Singh on Monday, as he cautioned against possible misuse of independent social media, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and judiciary by certain forces to destroy the nation’s unity and security.

“New kinds of threats are coming to the fore which have blurred the line between internal and external security in a hybrid warfare. Besides terrorism, cyber war and information war are the new forms of security threats,” Singh said while addressing the second convocation of the Rashtriya Raksha University at Lavad in Gandhinagar district.

“In addition, there are problems like human trafficking and money laundering which are different in appearance, but are related to one other. All the agencies must work in an integrated manner to deal with these challenges,” he added.

An independent social media can be used to carry out systematic propaganda (against the country’s security), the defence minister said. “Freedom of social media is not bad, media should be free, but if media is free, it can be misused… Attempts are made to establish and propagate dangerous and controversial things in the name of freedom of expression,” he said.

“If NGOs have freedom, efforts are made to use NGOs in such a way that the entire system of the country is paralysed. If the judiciary has freedom, efforts are made to use it to stop or slow down the works of development using the legal system. If a country has a dynamic democracy, then an effort is made to infiltrate political parties to attack its unity and security,” he added.

The government has adopted a holistic approach to strengthen all aspects of national security, he said.

Later in the day, Singh said that India registered defence exports worth ₹8,000 crore in six months of the current financial year and aims to achieve the annual export target of ₹35,000 crore by 2025.

Speaking at the curtain raiser event of DefExpo, which is set…

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Live Updates: Xi Warns of ‘Dangerous Storms’ Facing China

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Xi Jinping Thought is ubiquitous in China, detailed in everything from textbooks to collections of Mr. Xi’s writings, from dedicated research centers to apps for studying his works.

In China, having a political philosophy named after a leader carries enormous significance. For Mr. Xi, it is a core expression of his expanding power. At his speech opening the Communist Party’s congress in Beijing on Sunday, he said that “fully implementing” his thought was a key theme.

During the meeting this week, China’s political elite are expected to further elevate the status of the political doctrine — and by extension, Mr. Xi’s authority.

The party is likely to amend its constitution to change the name of the theory, officially known as Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.

“‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’ is a crown that’s too heavy to wear,” said David Bandurski, the director of the China Media Project, a research organization. “So, he wants a crown he can actually wear.”

Many analysts expect the phrase to be shortened to Xi Jinping Thought. That would make it a “pithy, direct, powerful signal” of his authority, Mr. Bandurski said.

Mr. Xi already had the full phrase inserted into the party charter in 2017. That put Mr. Xi above his most recent predecessors, Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, whose own ideological contributions, while mentioned in the same document, don’t carry their names in the titles. It even vaulted him above Deng Xiaoping, whose eponymous input is labeled a “theory.”

The ideology is more than an empty celebration of Mr. Xi. Xi Jinping Thought is a framework for China’s governance and a guide for what it will do under his continuing leadership.

The goal of Mr. Xi’s ideology is to cement the Communist Party’s role as China’s governing body, with a single strong leader — Mr. Xi himself — at the top, dispensing with the more collective leadership style of his recent predecessors.

Mr. Xi has escalated a crackdown on corruption, a widely popular effort that also helps command cadres’ loyalty to him and ensures that the party, not the public at large, decides…

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California health plan facing network disruptions after alleged Hive ransomware attack

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This week’s healthcare data breach roundup is led by the ongoing network disruptions at Partnership HealthPlan of California, allegedly caused by the Hive ransomware group. (Sarah Stierch, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Partnership HealthPlan of California (PHC) is currently experiencing computer system disruptions and working to recover its network with support from third-party forensic specialists. Multiple reports allege the Hive ransomware group is behind the attack.

Its official website notice does not explain the underlying cause, but DataBreaches.net was first to report that Hive ransomware actors have taken responsibility for the attack. The post has since been removed, but screenshots of its dark web leak site previously displayed data proofs  allegedly exfiltrated from the PHC network before ransomware was deployed.

The proofs contained approximately 850,000 unique records, containing 400GB of data. Hive claimed to have deployed the ransomware on March 19. Again, the official website makes no such statement, nor did the ransomware group reveal any alleged patient data on the site before it was taken down.

The notice shows the health plan is currently investigating the incident and working to “safely restore full functionality to affected systems, and determine whether any information may have been potentially accessible as a result of the situation.”

PHC will notify relevant parties if any patient information was potentially accessed during the incident. The health plan has also established a number of helplines for specific medical needs or questions.

It appears the network disruption has disabled PHC’s ability to receive or process Treatment Authorization Requests, the form required to gain pre-approved funding for treatment, including the Medi-Cal approved assistive technology. Providers are being asked to to provide the necessary treatment for the next two weeks, and the TARs will be retroactively completed.

PHC is the second healthcare entity to report ongoing network outages in the last week, bringing the total number of healthcare provider disruptions to four this year, so far.

Portions of the Oklahoma City Indian…

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Facing tomorrow’s quantum hackers today

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Governments and private companies around the world recognize the potential of quantum computing—which could create “value of $450 billion to $850 billion in the next 15 to 30 years,” according to estimates from a 2021 report from Boston Consulting Group—and are working to develop their own quantum strategies and research initiatives.

Bracing for the power of quantum

However, as quantum technology continues to advance, one dark cloud lurks on the horizon. Hackers can one day use this processing power to break public-key cryptography systems, which form the basis for today’s secure interactions over the Internet, as well as other systems such as public-key infrastructure, code-signing systems, secure email, and key-management systems. Experts warn this is a major threat to modern digital security that needs to be tackled now. “It will completely break these crypto systems,” says Dustin Moody, a mathematician at US-based National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Although a full-scale quantum computer has yet to become reality, the danger is imminent. Duncan Jones, head of cybersecurity at a Cambridge- and Colorado-based quantum computing company, Quantinuum, says he’s concerned about a particular problem. “If I send you some encrypted data today and somebody records that, they can break into that later on,” says Duncan. “They don’t need a quantum computer today to break into it. They can just patiently sit on that data and they can then decrypt in the future.”

To defend against such quantum attacks, post-quantum cryptography is emerging as an efficient and effective solution. It refers to a set of new cryptographic algorithms, in particular public-key algorithms, that can be implemented using today’s classical computers.

There is growing urgency for enterprises of all sizes and across all industries, as well as public institutions and other organizations, to make their systems crypto-agile and adopt such quantum-resistant algorithms in their security frameworks. Companies and organizations cannot afford to wait and see how the quantum-computing landscape evolves. “The cost will blow up if it is adopted after quantum computers are…

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