Security News
European Union privacy regulators are wrangling over the penalty Ireland's data privacy watchdog was set to issue Twitter for a data breach, pushing back the case's long awaited conclusion under the bloc's tough new data privacy rules. The Irish Data Privacy Commission was expected to issue its decision in the Twitter case, which would be its first involving a U.S. technology company since the new privacy law, known as GDPR, took effect in 2018, allowing for hefty fines.
The European Union has, for the first time ever, slapped sanctions on hacking crews. "Sanctions are one of the options available in the EU's cyber diplomacy toolbox to prevent, deter and respond to malicious cyber activities directed against the EU or its member states, and today is the first time the EU has used this tool," the EU said of the decision.
The Council of the European Union has imposed its first-ever sanctions against persons or entities involved in various cyber-attacks targeting European citizens, and its member states. Out of the six individuals sanctioned by the EU include two Chinese citizens and four Russian nationals.
The European Union imposed its first ever sanctions against alleged cyber attackers on Thursday, targeting Russian and Chinese individuals and a specialist unit of Moscow's GRU military intelligence agency. The best known of the targeted entities is the Main Centre for Special Technologies, a unit of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation - better known as the GRU. This unit, based on Kirova Street in Moscow, is said to have carried out attacks known as NotPetya and EternalPetya in June 2017, hitting EU private companies with ransomware and blocking data.
Facebook on Monday said it is asking EU courts to review "Exceptionally broad" requests by antitrust regulators there that would scoop up employees' personal information. The US-based internet colossus maintained it has been cooperating with a European Commission antitrust investigation and will continue to do so, but that the wording of commission requests casts a net so wide it will haul in Facebook employees' private messages and more.
The EU Court of Justice has struck down the so-called Privacy Shield data protection arrangements between the political bloc and the US, triggering a fresh wave of legal confusion over the transfer of EU subjects' data to America. Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems brought the latest edition of the long-running case in 2015, complaining that Ireland's data protection agency wasn't preventing Facebook Ireland Ltd from beaming his data to the US. Once his data was in the US, Schrems argued, no EU-style data privacy controls were legally enforceable by him or anyone else in that situation.
A crucial online data arrangement between Europe and the US was invalidated on Thursday, as a top EU court decision over Facebook threw trans-Atlantic big tech into legal limbo. Schrems' legal assault began after revelations by Edward Snowden of mass digital spying by US agencies, which the EU court at the time said were incompatible with European norms on privacy.
Today, 69% of the population above the age of 16 in the EU have heard about the GDPR and 71% of people heard about their national data protection authority, according to results published last week in a survey from the EU Fundamental Rights Agency. Data protection rules are fit for the digital age: The GDPR has empowered individuals to play a more active role in relation to what is happening with their data in the digital transition.
Microsoft president Brad Smith on Tuesday said Europe was the global leader on setting rules for big tech, two years after the EU implemented the GDPR, its landmark data privacy law. Smith spoke at an online debate with European Commission vice president Vera Jourova, the top EU official who was in charge of the data privacy rules when they became reality in 2018.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Monday urged the European Union to take the lead in setting global standards for tech regulation or risk seeing countries follow China as a model. Breton, one of the EU's top officials on tech policy, said that Facebook and other big tech companies must also live up to certain values.