Tag Archive for: pacific

Visit by Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Vivian Balakrishnan to the Cook Islands for the 52nd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting, 9 to 11 November 2023

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Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Vivian Balakrishnan visited Cook Islands from 9 to 11 November 2023 to attend the 52nd 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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India 2nd most targeted by ransomware in Asia Pacific, Japan region in 2022

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India is the second most targeted country by ransomware in the Asia-Pacific and Japan region in 2022, up from spot 3 in 2021, a new report said on Tuesday.


In 2022, Maharashtra was the most-targeted state with 36 per cent of ransomware attacks, while New Delhi was at second, according to the Palo Alto Networks 2023 Unit 42 Ransomware and Extortion report.


“Ransomware and extortion groups are forcing their victims into a pressure cooker, with the ultimate goal of increasing their chances of getting paid,” said Wendi Whitmore, senior vice president and head of Unit 42 at Palo Alto Networks.


Moreover, the report mentioned that manufacturing, construction, and professional & legal services were the most targeted industries.


The most active ransomware groups include Lockbit 2.0, BianLian, and Stormous.


Further, the report found that data theft was the most common of the extortion tactics, with 70 per cent of groups using it by late 2022 — a 30 per cent increase from the year prior.


Organisations based in the US were most severely publicly affected, with 42 per cent of the observed leaks in 2022, followed by Germany and the UK, accounting for nearly 5 per cent each.


The report also said that 30 organisations on the Forbes Global 2000 list were publicly impacted by extortion attempts in 2022.


Since 2019, at least 96 of these organisations have had confidential files publicly exposed to some degree as part of attempted extortion.


–IANS


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(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)


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Tech Data Asia Pacific & Japan Strengthens its Security portfolio in partnership with MailGuard

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By Sundaresan Kanappan, Vice President, High Growth Technologies and Country General Manager Tech Data India

Sundaresan Kanappan

Tech Data, a TD SYNNEX company, announced its distribution partnership with MailGuard – a world leader in email security. At launch, its Integrated Cloud Email Security (ICES) solution, MailGuard 365, will be available in 6 markets across the Asia Pacific & Japan region, namely Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam. This distribution partnership allows Tech Data to add MailGuard 365 – a solution built in Azure by MailGuard in collaboration with the Microsoft team to protect the more than 345 million Microsoft 365 subscribers – to its cyber security go-to-market portfolio in APJ. This partnership is part of Tech Data’s overall strategy of empowering ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) and partners, while further building on its cloud security solutions portfolio.

Commenting on the development, Sundaresan Kanappan, Vice President High Growth Technologies and Country General Manager Tech Data India, said “With the increasing adoption of technology use across businesses, and emails have become fundamental to business communications, attackers are finding creative ways of engaging email-based cyberattacks whether it’s phishing, ransomware, CEO Fraud or BEC (Business Email Compromise). The email security market share is expected to increase by USD 2.65 billion from 2021 to 2026, at a CAGR of 9.78% and 37% of the market’s growth will originate from APAC during the forecast period1. At such a juncture, we are confident that with MailGuard 365, we will be able to speed up our customers’ Microsoft 365 protection by preventing criminal intent threats. We have partnered with MailGuard because of its close integration with Microsoft, its specialist email security expertise and intellectual property, and the market innovation MailGuard 365 offers.”

Craig McDonald, CEO & founder of MailGuard, said “We ar

e delighted to partner with Tech Data to deliver MailGuard 365 in the APJ region, protecting businesses using Microsoft 365 against the rising threat of cybercrime. Speed to detect and stop sophisticated email threats is…

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China launches empire building exercise in Pacific theatre

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President Panuelo: ‘Chinese control over our security space, aside from impacts on our sovereignty, increases the chances of China getting into conflict with Australia, Japan, US and New Zealand, on the day when Beijing decides to invade Taiwan.’

Time to head to the map room. We’ll open the long, wide, top drawer, pull out the map of World War II’s Pacific Theatre, and set it aside on the chart table for now. We’ll get back to it. But first we’ll pull out an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) map of the region.

Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, every island can get up to 200 nautical miles off its coast as an EEZ in which it controls resources, say, fisheries. That means, for example, Pacific Island Country (PIC) Kiribati may have a population of around 120,000, but, with its EEZ, it covers as much of the planet as India.

Now let’s colour in the EEZs of the countries being visited at the moment by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his large delegation. What we see is a large, contiguous band—Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa—off the northeast coast of Australia, backed against Kiribati. And off to the northwest of Australia, almost embedded into Indonesia, strategically located Timor-Leste.

What are we looking at? Well, China helpfully tells us.

CHINA’S ‘VISION’ AND ‘FIVE-YEAR ACTION PLAN’ FOR PACIFIC ISLAND COUNTRIES

Wang is hoping the PICs who recognize China will sign on to two prewritten documents. We know what’s in them because they have been leaked by Pacific Islanders worried about the implications.

The first one is “China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision”. The second is “China-Pacific Island Countries Five-Year Action Plan on Common Development (2022-2026)”. The “Action Plan” describes how China plans to achieve its “Vision”.

“Vision” talks about: law enforcement cooperation, including “immediate and high-level police training”; “cooperation on network governance and cyber security”, including a “shared future in cyberspace”; the “possibility of establishing China-Pacific Island Countries Free Trade Area”;…

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