Security News
Russia has put forward a draft convention to the United Nations ostensibly to fight cyber-crime. The proposal, titled "United Nations Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes," [PDF] calls for member states to develop domestic laws to punish a far broader set of offenses than current international rules recognize.
The United Nations' human rights chief voiced alarm Monday over the reported use of military-grade malware from Israel-based NSO Group to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet's comments came after an investigation by a global media consortium based on leaked targeting data provided further evidence of the malware's use.
The UN Security Council on Tuesday will hold its first formal public meeting on cybersecurity, addressing the growing threat of hacks to countries' key infrastructure, an issue Joe Biden recently raised with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Tuesday's meeting, called by Estonia which heads the Council for the month of June and is a leader in the fight against hacking, is itself being held online, at a ministerial level.
Britain has told the UN that international cyber law should allow zero-notice digital punishment directed at countries that attack others' infrastructure. A statement made by UK diplomats to the UN's Group of Governmental Experts on Advancing Responsible State Behaviour in the Context of International Security called for international law to permit retaliation for cyber attacks with no notice.
Researchers in Germany say they reported what they consider to be an AirDrop privacy hole to Apple in 2019, but never heard back. They went away and worked on what they consider an improved version, dubbed Privacy Drop, and recently announced it to the world.
North Korea has modernized its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles by flaunting United Nations sanctions, using cyberattacks to help finance its programs and continuing to seek material and technology overseas for its arsenal, U.N. experts said. The panel recommended that the Security Council impose sanctions on four North Korean men: Choe Song Chol, Im Song Sun, Pak Hwa Song, and Hwang Kil Su. The Security Council has imposed increasingly tough sanctions on North Korea since its first test explosion of a nuclear device in 2006.
A UN rights expert on Tuesday urged outgoing US President Donald Trump to pardon Julian Assange, saying the WikiLeaks founder is not "An enemy of the American people". "In pardoning Mr Assange, Mr President, you would send a clear message of justice, truth and humanity to the American people and to the world," said Melzer, the UN special rapporteur on torture.
The United Nations' International Maritime Organization last week said some of its systems were disrupted as a result of a cyberattack. IMO's website and other web services were first disrupted on September 30, when the agency announced on Twitter that its team was working on fixing some "Technical issues." Then, on October 2, it admitted that the problems were caused by a cyberattack, and said that it was working on restoring impacted systems.
A 350% increase in phishing websites was reported in the first quarter of the year, many targeting hospitals and health care systems and hindering their work responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.N. counterterrorism chief said Thursday. Vladimir Voronkov told the U.N. Security Council that the upsurge in phishing sites was part of "a significant rise in cybercrime in recent months" reported by speakers at last month's first Virtual Counterterrorism Week at the United Nations.
The U.N. disarmament chief warned Friday that cyber crime is on the rise, with a 600% increase in malicious emails during the COVID-19 pandemic. Russia did not attend the informal council meeting broadcast online, which was the centerpiece of Estonia's council presidency.