Tag Archive for: Fast

5G isn’t just about fast internet. It can help keep America safe.

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Most Americans associate 5G technology with self-driving cars, virtual reality headsets, or super-fast internet. While all of these applications are exciting, they aren’t as critical to America as the national security implications of 5G. Winning the race to 5G will help ensure that our military communications are secure and that bad actors can’t hack or manipulate these communications.

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The Chinese Communist Party understands very well the importance of 5G and is working hard to develop 5G technology before us to gain control of the market. A recent report by the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy bluntly summarizes the threat the CCP poses.

“Given the size of China’s economy, the demonstrable extent of its market-distorting policies, and China’s stated intent to dominate the industries of the future, China’s acts, policies, and practices of economic aggression now targeting the technologies and IP of the world threaten not only the U.S. economy but also the global innovation system as a whole.”

America must swiftly act to ensure we win the race to 5G. One of the biggest barriers to American development of 5G is antitrust law and enforcement, both domestically and internationally. A combination of domestic rulings and efforts by foreign governments have left many of our most innovative companies dangerously exposed. We need to respond to these anti-competitive measures to ensure American companies are competing on a level playing field.

Aggressive antitrust enforcement by both foreign and domestic forces threatens innovation by forcing American companies to engage in expensive litigation.  The lawsuits often result in these companies being unable to exercise their legally granted intellectual property rights. Qualcomm — one of the most active companies in the 5G space — is embroiled in a years-long legal battle that jeopardizes its business model and could force it to sell its groundbreaking wireless chips at a steep discount. The problems American technology companies face overseas are even more extensive, as foreign governments like China prioritize technological…

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Everyone Will Want to Charge Their Vehicles Fast, These Entrepreneurs Bet | by Steve LeVine | Jun, 2021

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The trick will be keeping all the innards cool

Steve LeVine
A new fast-charging station at JFK Airport in New York. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty

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Israel’s Version of Moving Fast and Breaking Things: The New Cybersecurity Bill

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The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) of Israel published a new bill in February entitled “Cybersecurity and the National Cyber Directorate.” If passed by government committee and the Knesset, this law will redefine cybersecurity governance in Israel. The PMO officially tabled an earlier version of the bill in June 2018, but that bill did not advance through the legislative process given the strong objections it raised both in the professional cybersecurity community and among other government authorities. In particular, stakeholders raised concerns about the broad scope of authority sought by the Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) under the 2018 bill. Other concerns included the lack of proper safeguards over the nature and scope of invasive “computer protection actions” taken by the INCD in response to cyberattacks, the potential for privacy infringements in the name of national security, and the interface between the activities of the INCD and other law enforcement agencies. The process of affording the INCD—which is currently a policy-setting body—with operative powers has been controversial even within Israel’s security establishment. One publicized example of this controversy was a 2017 leaked memo to the prime minister from the Mossad, the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), Israel Defense Forces and the Defense Ministry declaring their opposition to the expanding authorities of the INCD.

The new bill is an abbreviated formulation of the 2018 version and is framed as temporary legislation with a two-year sunset clause—perhaps to avoid some of the opposition that emerged in response to its earlier iteration. The PMO wants to move fast—somewhat insincerely in our view—because of increased cybersecurity risk while teleworking during the coronavirus pandemic and the associated digitization of workplaces in both the public and private sectors. A string of recent attacks on Israeli companies, which two of the authors discussed in a previous Lawfare post, also generated a sense of urgency for providing the INCD with unprecedented and controversial legal tools to respond to the new risk environment. These steps, however, come at the risk of compromising…

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Android malware that steals passwords is spreading fast

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Google recently boasted about the success of its efforts to protect Google Play Store and Android devices last year mostly using advanced machine learning technology. That, however, doesn’t cover apps acquired outside of the Play Store and the phones that install those. Sometimes, Android’s own open nature sometimes works against it because of that, like the case of this FluBot malware that’s spreading rapidly like a real virus, spreading to people in your phone’s address book to steal their passwords.

The way the malware works isn’t exactly that sophisticated and relies on good old-fashioned social engineering. Victims receive a text message claiming to be from a popular courier service, like DHL or Amazon. The message includes a link that it recommends people tap on to track their package.

As most would have probably guessed, that link opens up a web page that instead downloads an Android APK and asks users to install it. By default, Android doesn’t allow installing from unverified, third-party sources but the site is kind enough to provide instructions on how to change that. Once a phone has been infected, it reportedly steals passwords, online bank details, and other sensitive information stored on the phone.

Like the flu, this FluBot malware also looks into your phone’s address book to send the same phishing message to people there, which is how it is spreading quickly to Android phones. Given how locked down iPhones are, owners of Apple’s iOS devices are immune to this trick but the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) still recommends that iPhone users should play it safe and don’t open those links anyway.

The report does raise the question of how passwords and login credentials, which are often encrypted or protected on Android and most browsers, can get so easily stolen, though that isn’t exactly unheard of. Unfortunately, there is no fix for those already infected other than to factory reset their phone. It might not be so bad for those with backups but users should be careful when restoring backups made after getting infected by the FluBot.

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