Tag Archive for: national

TikTok faces national security review in Canada: minister

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TikTok faces national security review in Canada: minister

by AFP Staff Writers

Ottawa (AFP) Mar 15, 2024






Canada is conducting a national security review of Chinese-owned TikTok’s proposed expansion of the popular video app in this country, Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Friday.

In a teleconference from Italy after meeting with his G7 counterparts, Champagne said the review under the Investment Canada Act had been quietly initiated in September 2023.

“We have launched a national security review (of TikTok),” he told reporters.

“Once we have completed that,” he said, “we’ll inform Canadians about any actions that we decide to take with respect to that particular topic.”

“I’ll have more to say when our review is completed,” the minister added without saying when that would be.

Champagne noted a March 2023 announcement that foreign investments in Canada’s interactive digital media sector would face “intense scrutiny.”

Those found to be “propagating disinformation or manipulating information in a manner that is injurious to Canada’s national security” could face mitigation measures or even a ban, according to the policy statement.

The Canadian review is not related to a proposed US bill that would force its Chinese owners to sell or see it banned in the United States.

That bill is partly fuelled by concerns over Chinese national security laws that compel organizations to assist with intelligence gathering.

TikTok is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd.

“We’re watching, of course, the debate going on in the United States,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday after the US House of Representatives passed the bill, which still needs approval from the Senate.

Ottawa banned TikTok from federal government mobile devices in February 2023.

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Ukrainian national pleads guilty over role in two malware campaigns

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Ukrainian national pleads guilty over role in two malware campaigns

Hacker behind Zeus and IcedID malware operations that wracked up tens of millions of dollars over 12 12-year period.

A Ukrainian hacker has pleaded guilty to a pair of charges related to malware campaigns between 2009 and 2021.

37-year-old Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov, from the Donetsk region, pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit a racketeer-influenced and corrupt organisations act offence (also known as the RICO Act), and a count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Penchukov is scheduled to be sentenced on May 9, and each charge carries a maximum jail time of 20 years. He was arrested in 2022 in Switzerland and extradited to the US in 2023.

“Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov was a leader of two prolific malware groups that infected thousands of computers with malicious software. These criminal groups stole millions of dollars from their victims and even attacked a major hospital with ransomware, leaving it unable to provide critical care to patients for over two weeks,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division in a statement.

“Before his arrest and extradition to the United States, the defendant was a fugitive on the FBI’s most wanted list for nearly a decade. Today’s guilty pleas should serve as a clear warning: the Justice Department will never stop in its pursuit of cyber-criminals.”

Penchukov assisted in running the Zeus malware operation from May 2009. The operators used the malware to steal bank information from infected devices, which Penchukov and his cronies then used as part of a banking scam, transferring millions of dollars from victim accounts.

The hacker was initially charged with the RICO offence over this operation and was also added to the FBI’s Cyber Most Wanted List at this time.

Penchukov was also one of the top people behind the IcedID malware operation, also known as Bokbot. IcedID was capable of simple data theft, such as banking credentials, but could also deploy other payloads, such as ransomware. In one such instance, the University of Vermont…

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