Cybersecurity

cross-posted from: https://piefed.ca/post/85495

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/38801109

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The Spanish Ministry of Interior has awarded a €12.3 million ($14.3 million) contract to Huawei to manage information obtained through judicial wiretaps [...] Such cooperation between an EU-member state and a technology company central to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) normalisation of censorship and surveillance technology around the world must be opposed.

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Spain contracts the use of high-performance Huawei OceanStor 6800 V5 servers to store and classify information obtained by Spanish security agencies.

The deal follows from existing cooperation between the Spanish government and Huawei to provide technical support to SITEL, Spain’s system for telecommunications interception. Previously, The Objective reported that Spain’s National Police Corps and Civil Guard have partnered with Huawei technologies despite having never conducted the required security certification process with the National Intelligence Centre.

Right group ARTICLE 19’s Head of Global China Programme Michael Caster, commented: 

‘Spain should know better than to partner, at any stage of its tech stack, with techno-authoritarian China, well-documented for deploying sophisticated rights-abusing surveillance tools and technologies against its own population, including in the commission of crimes against humanity in Xinjiang. No rights-minded democratic state should be facilitating the international normalisation of Chinese surveillance technology.’

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The risk of Huawei sending potentially sensitive information back to China is not unfounded. For example, in 2018 French newspaper Le Monde first reported that confidential network data from the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa had been mysteriously uploaded to servers in Shanghai every night at the same time between 2012 and 2017. Huawei was the primary supplier for the organisation’s computer system, although the company refuted surveillance claims.

Beyond legal requirements to comply with censorship and surveillance demands, China compels its national technology champions, like Huawei, to ‘unswervingly follow the Party’. This directive arises from the 2020 Party Central Committee Opinions on Strengthening the United Front Work of the Private Economy in the New Era, which directs Chinese companies to safeguard national interests and promote a positive image of the country. Such directives are part of the CCP’s capture of the private sector, compelling compliance with Information and Communication Technology laws noted above and support for broader information manipulation efforts.

Such concerns are compounded when taken together with rising transnational repression from China targeting overseas Chinese communities, including through the manipulation of Interpol Red Notice, exploitation of extradition treaties, or other law enforcement cooperation. ARTICLE 19’s recent report on China’s transnational repression of protest documents numerous cases across the EU, while others including Spain-based Safeguard Defenders have highlighted cases in Spain, such as China’s overseas police stations in Madrid.

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Despite obvious human rights risks, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been notably favourable to Huawei, defending the company in public, and permitting Huawei to operate research centres in Madrid. He has been critical of EU efforts to prevent Huawei from Europe’s 5G infrastructure – a stark contrast to the European Union’s cybersecurity of 5G networks toolbox for risk mitigation measures, which explicitly calls for prohibition of ‘high-risk’ suppliers such as Huawei.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3613888

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3613886

Archived version

Executive Summary

Events over the last eighteen months indicate that the risk environment for submarine cables has very likely escalated, and the threat of state-sponsored malicious activity targeting submarine cable infrastructure is likely to rise further amid heightened geopolitical tensions. Insikt Group’s assessment of the current risk environment for submarine cables aligns with the findings of our 2023 assessment, which highlighted the convergence of geopolitical, physical, and cyber threats. Based on an analysis of 44 publicly reported cable damages occurring in 32 distinct groupings in 2024 and 2025 (Appendix A), Insikt Group assesses that three factors in the submarine cable ecosystem –– lack of redundancy in cable networks, lack of diversity of cable routes, and limited global repair capacity –– very likely increase the likelihood of significant outages from damages. Regions with low redundancy, such as parts of West and Central Africa, isolated Pacific islands, and certain secondary European routes, are more likely to suffer disproportionate impact from cable damage, especially when geopolitical tensions coincide with infrastructure constraints.

While accidents will very likely continue to cause the majority of day-to-day interruptions, recent incidents in the Baltic Sea and around Taiwan indicate that submarine cable systems remain vulnerable to threats such as anchor dragging, which states can use as a low-sophistication tactic to target adversaries’ critical infrastructure while maintaining plausible deniability. Insikt Group identified four incidents involving eight distinct cable damages in the Baltic Sea and five incidents involving five distinct cable damages around Taiwan in 2024 and 2025. At least five of these nine incidents were attributed to ships dragging their anchors, including four Russia- or China-linked vessels operating under suspicious circumstances or with opaque ownership structures, although the resulting investigations have highlighted the difficulty of attributing cable cuts to state-sponsored sabotage. Such campaigns attributed to Russia in the North Atlantic–Baltic region and China in the western Pacific are likely to increase in frequency as tensions rise, leveraging deniable tactics in both shallow and deep water to apply political pressure without overt escalation.

Without a significant expansion of dedicated repair vessels, repair capacity is very likely to lag behind demand, pushing median restoration times beyond the current 40‑day benchmark. National permitting delays and conflict zone access restrictions will likely extend repair times further, making streamlined diplomatic clearance processes an increasingly critical element of submarine cable resilience. Satellite and microwave links will almost certainly remain partial stop‑gaps, restoring only a fraction of lost bandwidth during major outages. To mitigate these challenges, joint public-private partnerships investing in repair and maintenance capabilities, improving real-time monitoring and security measures around submarine cable infrastructure, and conducting comprehensive stress tests are critical to improving resilience and guarding against a low-probability but high-impact event in which damages to multiple cables cause prolonged connectivity issues.

Key Findings

• Insikt Group identified a total of 44 publicly reported cable damages in 2024 and 2025 occurring in 32 distinct groupings. Unknown causes accounted for the largest number of damages (31%), followed by anchor dragging (25%) and seismic activity or other natural phenomena (16%).
• Of the identified cable damages, three caused significant and prolonged outages. These cases indicate that three factors –– lack of redundancy, lack of diversity of cable routes, and limited repair capacity –– very likely raise the risk of severe impact from damages to submarine cables.
• Insikt Group identified four incidents in the Baltic Sea involving eight distinct submarine cable damages and five incidents around Taiwan involving five distinct submarine cable damages in 2024 and 2025, four of which involved China- or Russia-linked vessels with opaque ownership or suspicious maneuvers near the damaged cables.
• Geopolitical tensions –– namely, Russia’s war against Ukraine and China’s coercive actions toward Taiwan –– very likely remain the primary drivers of state-linked sabotage activity targeting submarine cables.
• Joint public-private partnerships promoting investment in cable repair and maintenance capabilities, enhancing security and surveillance of critical submarine infrastructure, and improving resilience in current and future cable networks will be critical to addressing rising threats to cable infrastructure.

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The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it plans to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea submarine communication cables to the United States that include Chinese technology or equipment.

"We have seen submarine cable infrastructure threatened in recent years by foreign adversaries, like China," FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement. "We are therefore taking action here to guard our submarine cables against foreign adversary ownership, and access as well as cyber and physical threats."

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The FCC will also seek comment on additional measures to protect submarine cable security against foreign adversary equipment. The cutting of two fiber-optic undersea telecommunication cables in the Baltic Sea prompted investigations of possible sabotage.

In 2023 Taiwan accused two Chinese vessels of cutting the only two cables that support internet access on the Matsu Islands and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea may have been responsible for the cutting of three cables providing internet service to Europe and Asia.

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A DoD report warns that China-nexus hacking group Salt Typhoon breached a U.S. state’s Army National Guard network from March to December 2024. The APT stole network configs, admin credentials, and data exchanged with units across all U.S. states and several territories. This info could help future hacks and weaken state-level defenses against Chinese cyberattacks during crises, posing serious risks to U.S. critical infrastructure.

“A recent compromise of a US state’s Army National Guard network by People’s Republic of China (PRC)-associated cyber actors—publicly tracked as Salt Typhoon—likely provided Beijing with data that could facilitate thehacking of other states’ Army National Guard units, and possibly many of their state-level cybersecurity partners. If thePRC-associated cyber actors that conducted the hack succeeded in the latter, it could hamstring state-level cybersecuritypartners’ ability to defend US critical infrastructure against PRC cyber campaigns in the event of a crisis or conflict.” reads a report first seen by NBC News.

The report includes details on the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPS) used by Salt Typhoon, along with a guidance to help National Guard and state governments detect, prevent, and mitigate this threat.

Op-ed by Dr Ausma Bernot, Lecturer in Criminology at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University.

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Although security cameras make up only 5 percent of Enterprise Internet of Things (IoT) devices, they account for 33 percent of all security issues. Two Chinese suppliers – Hikvision and Dahua – dominate international markets

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The geopolitical misalignment between China and European countries adds urgency to the need to address these national security risks. This is because large Chinese manufacturers are supported by the Chinese government, and emergent evidence shows that 80 percent of sanctions circumventions against Russia are facilitated by China, with 80 percent of dual-use goods routed through China.

These vulnerabilities are a concern for individuals, enterprises, and government entities alike. Evidence of illegal camera hacking that we have available indicates that individuals are often targeted for personal or for-profit streaming of camera footage. Moreover, when surveillance cameras are installed in critical locations, such as federal or state government buildings, the likelihood of that location becoming a surveillance target increases.

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There are three types of risks associated with surveillance cameras: targeted surveillance of individuals, national security risks, and exploitation of network security vulnerabilities. Unwanted individual surveillance most often occurs in the form of covert or overt hacking of individual cameras. Hacked cameras have been used to record and sell child exploitation material, as well as video recordings from gynecologists’ offices and locker rooms. Individual users should connect cameras to their own private networks and monitor the number of connected devices.

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Numerous cases of surveillance camera exploitation have made it clear that these risks are well-documented. A few particularly alarming incidents highlight how these devices can be weaponized for foreign interference and surveillance of vulnerable populations.

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Although cameras are devices that were created to enhance environmental security, they have now introduced new security concerns due to their technical shortcomings and social applications. Establishing robust security standards is essential for IP cameras used in government buildings, business premises, and individual homes. Against this background, the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act that will place greater responsibility on manufacturers and distributors to produce and supply more secure devices, is a step in the right direction.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/38660341

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Microsoft is using engineers in China to help maintain the Defense Department’s computer systems — with minimal supervision by U.S. personnel — leaving some of the nation’s most sensitive data vulnerable to hacking from its leading cyber adversary, a ProPublica investigation has found.

The arrangement, which was critical to Microsoft winning the federal government’s cloud computing business a decade ago, relies on U.S. citizens with security clearances to oversee the work and serve as a barrier against espionage and sabotage.

But these workers, known as “digital escorts,” often lack the technical expertise to police foreign engineers with far more advanced skills, ProPublica found. Some are former military personnel with little coding experience who are paid barely more than minimum wage for the work.

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“If I were an operative, I would look at that as an avenue for extremely valuable access. We need to be very concerned about that,” said Harry Coker, who was a senior executive at the CIA and the National Security Agency. Coker, who also was national cyber director during the Biden administration, added that he and his former intelligence community colleagues “would love to have had access like that.”

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Over the years, various people involved in the work, including a Microsoft cybersecurity leader, warned the company that the arrangement is inherently risky, those people told ProPublica. Despite the presence of an escort, foreign engineers are privy to granular details about the federal cloud — the kind of information hackers could exploit. Moreover, the U.S. escorts overseeing these workers are ill equipped to spot suspicious activity, two of the people said.

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