Call for Nominations for ETSI Fellowship Awards

Sophia Antipolis, 1 December 2021

The ETSI Fellowship Programme was established to honour and reward those individuals who have made an outstanding personal contribution to ETSI, to building the work of ETSI, or raising its reputation in specific sectors of standardization.

This year, despite the challenges we all had to face due to the unpredictable sanitary situation, we should not forget about recognizing the outstanding contribution of our members’ peers through our ETSI Fellowship Programme.

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ETSI publishes a white paper introducing Permissioned Distributed Ledger (PDL)

Sophia Antipolis, 24 January 2022

After the release of the first specification on smart contracts on 18 January, members from the ETSI PDL group published a White Paper entitled “An Introduction of Permissioned Distributed Ledger (PDL)”.

Distributed ledgers have consolidated as one of the most disruptive applications of information technology that have appeared in recent years. Their ability to store any kind of data as a consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital records distributed across multiple sites, without depending on any central administrator, together with their properties regarding immutability (and therefore non-repudiation) and multi-party verifiability opens a wide range of applications.

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ETSI C-V2X Plugtests event achieves a 93% interoperability success rate

Sophia Antipolis, 21 April 2022

The 3^rd ETSI C-V2X Plugtests^TM event, held in partnership with 5GAA and hosted by DEKRA from 28 March to 1^st April, achieved a success rate of 93% of the executed tests, showing an extremely positive level of multi-vendor interoperability. 226 test scenarios were executed in a laboratory and outdoor environment for interoperability, with 80 people from 25 companies participating in onsite and remote testing. All results are available in the newly released Report.

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ETSI releases first specification on 5^th Generation Fixed Network (F5G) architecture

Sophia Antipolis, 12 May 2022

ETSI's 5^th Generation Fixed Network group (ISG F5G) has released its first specification for F5G Network Architecture ETSI GS F5G 004. This architecture will deliver a variety of services to residential and business customers over a single physical network with guaranteed SLAs (service level agreements).

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Sophia Antipolis, 13 June 2022

The 2nd FRMCS Plugtests^TM event, organized remotely by ETSI with the support of the European Commission, EFTA, TCCA and UIC from 16 to 20 May 2022, has concluded with a success rate of 95% of the executed tests.

ETSI Plugtests events are essential to ensure seamless access to mission critical services across different vendors’ products and implementations. The MCX ETSI Plugtests series is the first independent testing of public safety and other mission critical LTE services. The MCX services are the basis for the Future Rail Mobile Communications System (FRMCS), and tests are based on the MCX (collectively for MCPTT, MCVideo and MCData services) framework.

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New ETSI White Paper and MEC Hackathon: another step to engage with app developers and verticals

Sophia Antipolis, 16 June 2022

The ETSI MEC (Multi-access Edge Computing) group is pleased to announce a new White Paper which aims to describe the deployment options related to MEC federation, especially from an architectural point of view. With a key focus on ETSI MEC implementations, it also aims to provide an open approach taking into account other standards and technologies, including those from 3GPP SA Working Group 6 and GSMA OPG. For this purpose, the White Paper first analyses the recent publications of GSMA OPG and recent updates in ETSI MEC and 3GPP specifications, then introduces the synergized architecture supported by both standards organizations, which indicates the background information for the deployment of MEC federation harmonized standards for edge computing.

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ETSI Encrypted Traffic Integration group extends term to work on cryptographic and key management models

Sophia Antipolis, 2 August 2022

ETSI has recently extended the term of its Industry Specification Group Encrypted Traffic Integration (ISG ETI) for a two-year period through to mid-2024 to work on specific cryptographic and key management models.

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ETSI publishes a new white paper on Fixed 5^th generation advanced

Sophia Antipolis, 22 September 2022

Members from the ETSI Fixed 5^th generation (F5G) group have just published a new white paper “F5G advanced and beyond”. This white paper describes the drivers, dimensions, and technologies of the F5G advanced and beyond.

Nine key applications or industry trends are identified as key drivers for F5G Advanced. These can be grouped into two categories: those that are oriented towards services and applications, and those that are directed towards network transformation. Ultra-high-definition immersive experience services could put many new requirements on the network. Enterprises will continue their digitization and cloudification, and this is a huge opportunity for fixed networks.

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ETSI publishes a new White Paper on Multi-access Edge Computing security

Sophia Antipolis, 28 September 2022

Members from the ETSI Multi-Access Edge Computing group (ISG MEC) have just published a new white paper, “MEC security; Status of standards support and future evolutions".

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ETSI flagship event Security Conference attracts nearly 200 attendees onsite

Sophia Antipolis, 7 October 2022

The sun was shining this week on one of ETSI’ s flagship events, the Security Conference, where the number of participants onsite reached nearly 200 attendees, from 27 countries.

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ETSI IoT week highlights how ICT standards can help sustainability

Sophia Antipolis, 17 October 2022

Last week ETSI hosted the 2022 ETSI IoT Week event, focused on “Pursuing the Digital and Green Transformation”. 52 speakers from industry, research, universities, cities and other SDOs demonstrated, with concrete examples, how ICT standards can help reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the European Green Deal to an audience from 22 countries around the world.

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ETSI OSM launches Release THIRTEEN with a new scalable architecture for massive closed-loop operations

Sophia Antipolis, 15 December 2022

The ETSI Open Source MANO community is proud to announce OSM Release THIRTEEN, meeting the already established cadence of two releases per year, alternating between Long Term Support (LTS) releases such as Release TWELVE (2 years’ support) and Standard releases (6 months support).

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ETSI’s Activities in Artificial Intelligence: Read our New White Paper

Sophia Antipolis, 21 December 2022

ETSI has a long history of developing standards in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and systems that use and support AI. Today ETSI is pleased to release a new White Paper developed by a variety of members and experts. They include companies from telecom and network communication sectors, from large and small and medium enterprises, based either in Europe, Asia or America.

This White Paper entitled ETSI Activities in the field of Artificial Intelligence supports all stakeholders and summarizes ongoing effort in ETSI and planned future activities. It also includes an analysis on how ETSI deliverables may support current policy initiatives in the field of artificial intelligence.  A section of the document outlines ETSI activities of relevance to address Societal Challenges in AI while another addresses the involvement of the European Research Community.

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Sophia Antipolis, 9 January 2023

The ETSI group on Experiential Networked Intelligence (ISG ENI) has just published a White Paper describing the design of a novel cognitive network. This White Paper explains how the ETSI ENI novel system architecture (based on ETSI GS ENI-005) intelligently manages, predicts, adjusts and optimises network behaviour using cognition management, thereby enhancing the operator experience.

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Sophia Antipolis, 26 January 2023

The ETSI Industry Specification Group for Network Functions Virtualization (ISG NFV) has just published its next drop of specifications around new enhancements of the NFV architecture that will support cloud-native network functions.

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Sophia Antipolis, 23 March 2023

Autonomous Networks (AN) are considered one of the most important evolutions to enable Digital Transformation, offering new service opportunities and significant cost saving in network operation. It is one of the most attractive environments where to leverage Artificial Intelligence in the Network and activities around Autonomous Networks have gained momentum in Standards and ICT Industry.

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Sophia Antipolis, 30 May 2023

ETSI is pleased to publish its new White Paper on “Evolving NFV towards the next decade” written by delegates of the ETSI Industry Specification Group on Network Function Virtualization (ISG NFV).

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Sophia Antipolis, 6 June 2023

In a joint effort to promote spectrum sharing approaches for specific use cases, ETSI and The Wireless Innovation Forum (WinnForum) have developed a joint whitepaper: Spectrum Sharing Frameworks for Temporary, Dynamic, and Flexible Spectrum Access for Local Private Networks.

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Sophia Antipolis, 22 June 2023

ETSI has just released a new White Paper on “MEC Support for Edge Native Design” written by members of the ETSI Multi-access Edge Computing group (ISG MEC). This White Paper provides an overview and vision about the Edge Native approach, as a natural evolution of Cloud Native. 

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Sophia Antipolis, 7 July 2023

The new edition of the ETSI IoT Conference, IoT Technologies for Green and Digital Transformation, ended on 6 July, highlighting through use cases and demonstrations how IoT standards can be real enablers in achieving the green and digital transformation. The programme is available here and the very stimulating presentations from our 54 international speakers are available here.

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Sophia Antipolis, 26 July 2023

The ETSI Open Source MANO community is proud to announce OSM Release FOURTEEN. Release FOURTEEN is a Long-Term-Support (LTS) release of ETSI OSM, providing two years of continuous support with bug fixes and security patches, and including significant improvements in many key areas.

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Sophia Antipolis, 27 September 2023

The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) Open Optical & Packet Transport (OOPT) group is making significant strides in advancing network management and interoperability.

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Sophia Antipolis, 14 November 2023

ETSI is happy to announce that at a meeting in October of its technical committee in charge of the TETRA standard (TCCE), a full consensus was reached to make the primitives of all TETRA Air Interface cryptographic algorithms available to the public domain.

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Sophia Antipolis, 30 November 2023

ETSI is pleased to announce a new White Paper developed by some of the members of its F5G Industry Specification Group, entitled “All-optical network facilitates the Carbon Shift”, highlighting the role of fibre networks as a key ICT enabler to meet the UN sustainability goals.

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Sophia Antipolis, 21 February 2024

ETSI’s first LTA Signature Augmentation and Validation Plugtests™ has seen international participants exchange over 35 000 digital signature validation reports.

Held from 23 October - 22 December 2023, the remote interoperability event was organized by the ETSI Centre for Testing and Interoperability (CTI), on behalf of ETSI’s Technical Committee for Electronic Signatures and Trust Infrastructures (TC ESI). This Plugtests™ event was facilitated with the support and co-funding of the European Commission (EC) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).

Conducted using a dedicated web portal, sessions over the month-long Plugtests™ attracted the involvement of 190 participants from 121 organizations across 38 countries.

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Sophia Antipolis, 15 April 2024

This year’s first ETSI Conference on Non-Terrestrial Networks has stressed the importance of technical standardization in delivering a fully connected planet via NTN, a key element of tomorrow’s global 6G networks.

Held from 3-4 April 2024 at ETSI’s Sophia Antipolis headquarters, the event was co-organized with the European Space Agency (ESA), the 6G Smart Networks and Services Industry Association (6G-IA) and the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU).

Titled ‘Non-Terrestrial Networks, a Native Component of 6G’, the 2-day conference attracted over 200 participants from 25 countries, including experts in standardization and research as well as industrial representation from the mobile, satellite and wider space industries. Delegates shared perspectives on NTN use cases, candidate technology solutions, current research status and standardization roadmaps. Day one sessions focused on the opportunities and challenges of integrating terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks within tomorrow’s global communications landscape. The second day afforded a deep dive into numerous cutting-edge NTN and 6G research & development initiatives in Europe and around the world.

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Sophia Antipolis, 30 September 2024

Direct communications between vehicles, pedestrians and infrastructure based on 3GPP and ETSI TC ITS standards have been tested during the 4th C-V2X Plugtests™ interoperability event in Malaga, Spain, hosted by DEKRA (September 10- 13, 2024).

In partnership with 5GAA, this Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) and ITS technologies event attracted the participation of 24 companies and 82 experts – both onsite and via remote connections – with 94% of the planned tests, based on over 60 test scenarios, successfully completed.

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Starts: Thu, 14 Nov 2024 20:00:00 -0500
11/14/2024 06:00:00PM
Location: montreal, Canada

Starts: Sat, 23 Nov 2024 16:30:00 -0500
11/23/2024 02:30:00PM
Location: Ottawa, Canada

Starts: Thu, 28 Nov 2024 18:30:00 -0500
11/28/2024 05:30:00PM
Location: Montreal, Canada

New essay by Glenda Gilmore just added to Freedom's Story: Teaching African American Literature and History, TeacherServe from the National Humanities Center.

New essay, "The New Negro and the Black Image: From Booker T. Washington to Alain Locke," by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, added to Freedom's Story: Teaching African American Literature and History, TeacherServe from the National Humanities Center.

Job Summary  The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) seeks a highly motivated Graphic Designer II to join our Communications and Public Affairs team. This position is a one-year, renewable appointment, based in its New Delhi office, India and report to the Manager for Creative Solutions, who is based in Washington, DC. The Graphic Designer will produce high-quality and professional visual communication products to promote IFPRI's research to a diverse range of target audiences and through multiple channels. The successful candidate will be an enthusiastic, creative, and team-oriented individual with experience designing and delivering compelling visual communication outputs in a dynamic environment.  Interested candidates should submit a resume, cover letter, and a portfolio demonstrating their graphic design work. The portfolio should include a variety of projects showcasing skills in typography, layout, creativity, and use of design software (Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Canva) and include. links to digital portfolios or PDF attachments. Applications without a portfolio will not be considered. Interested applicants must have work authorization to work in India. Essential Duties:  Specific duties and responsibilities include but are not limited to: Design both print and digital visual communication products: Develop multiple design concepts and carry them through to final delivery, including but not limited to conference banners, brochures, data visualizations, flyers, posters, presentations, research reports, and websites. Layout print publications: Design and layout policy papers and reports while assisting in the creation of flexible InDesign templates. Create engaging digital content: Design visual content for the IFPRI website, interactive applications, social media, and email campaigns. Apply design principles: Utilize knowledge of layout, color theory, typography, and iconography to execute a wide variety of graphic design projects for both print and digital media. Provide branding guidance: Insure IFPRI products adhere to a consistent visual style and uphold professional standards, providing branding guidance to staff as needed. Brand design: Develop and execute creative concepts for branding, including logos, typography, color palettes, and overall visual identity. Innovate in interactive design: Lead initiatives on using innovative methods of interactive design to communicate research findings to both new and established audiences. Web Design: Develop visual design for IFPRI’s main website and microsites, ensure adherence to style guidelines. Coordinate printing: Manage the printing process of IFPRI publications and materials with local and international vendors. Collaborate effectively: Work collaboratively across the institution to ensure the timely delivery of high-quality design deliverables. Monitor and educate on digital trends: Stay updated on current digital trends, technologies, and industry standards, and educate both the team and IFPRI staff on best practices. Required Qualifications:  Bachelor's Degree in Art Design, Fine arts, Communications, Marketing or related field plus five years of relevant professional experience or Master’s plus three years in related field. Experience in graphic design, producing high-quality artwork, illustrations, and other graphics for communication purposes, including websites. Proven graphic design experience with a strong portfolio demonstrating excellent typography, layout, and creativity. Extensive experience with Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop. Basic knowledge/understanding of DTP software like Corel Draw.  Proficiency in using Canva for creating and managing visual content. In-depth knowledge and understanding of social media and web platforms, with demonstrated experience generating engaging content. Familiarity with designing within PowerPoint and MS Word. Ability to work quickly to meet tight deadlines and handle multiple projects simultaneously. Outstanding organizational and planning skills, with exceptional attention to detail. Strong interpersonal and collaboration skills; proven ability to be flexible in a team-oriented environment with diverse groups of people. Physical Demand & Work environment: Employee will sit in an upright position for a long period of time.  Employee will lift between 0-10 pounds.  Employee is required to have close visual acuity to perform activities such as: data preparation, web-scraping, preparing, and analyzing data and figure s; dashboard; viewing computer terminal; extensive coding.  

CISA is warning about a spear-phishing campaign that spreads malicious RDP files. Plus, OWASP is offering guidance about deepfakes and AI security. Meanwhile, cybercriminals have amplified their use of malware for fake software-update attacks. And get the latest on CISA’s international plan, Interpol’s cyber crackdown and ransomware trends.

Dive into six things that are top of mind for the week ending Nov. 8.

1 - CISA: Beware of nasty spear-phishing campaign

Proactively restrict outbound remote-desktop protocol (RDP) connections. Block transmission of RDP files via email. Prevent RDP file execution.

Those are three security measures cyber teams should proactively take in response to an ongoing and “large scale” email spear-phishing campaign targeting victims with malicious RDP files, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

A foreign threat actor is carrying out the campaign. Several vertical sectors, including government and IT, are being targeted.

“Once access has been gained, the threat actor may pursue additional activity, such as deploying malicious code to achieve persistent access to the target’s network,” CISA’s alert reads.
 

Other CISA recommendations include:

• Adopt phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication (MFA), such as FIDO tokens, and try to avoid SMS-based MFA
• Educate users on how to spot suspicious emails
• Hunt for malicious activity in your network looking for indicators of compromise (IoCs) and tactics, techniques and procedures

Although CISA didn’t name the hacker group responsible for this campaign, its alert includes links to related articles from Microsoft and AWS that identify it as Midnight Blizzard. Also known as APT29, this group is affiliated with Russia’s government.

To get more details, check out the CISA alert “Foreign Threat Actor Conducting Large-Scale Spear-Phishing Campaign with RDP Attachments.”

For more information about securing RDP tools:

• “Commonly Exploited Protocols: Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)” (Center for Internet Security)
• “What is remote desktop protocol (RDP)?” (TechTarget)
• “Wondering Whether RDP IS Secure? Here's a Guide to Remote Desktop Protocol” (AllBusiness)
• “Why remote desktop tools are facing an onslaught of cyber threats” (ITPro)
• “'Midnight Blizzard' Targets Networks With Signed RDP Files” (Dark Reading)

2 - OWASP issues AI security resources

How should your organization respond to deepfakes? What’s the right way of establishing a center of excellence for AI security in your organization? Where can you find a comprehensive guide of tools to secure generative AI applications?

These questions are addressed in a new set of resources for AI security from the Open Worldwide Application Security Project’s OWASP Top 10 for LLM Application Security Project. 

The new resources are meant to help organizations securely adopt, develop and deploy LLM and generative AI systems and applications “with a comprehensive strategy encompassing governance, collaboration and practical tools,” OWASP said in a statement.

These are the new resources:

• “The Guide for Preparing and Responding to Deepfake Events,” which unpacks four types of deepfake schemes – financial fraud, job interview fraud, social engineering and misinformation – and offers guidance about each one in these areas:
  • preparation
  • detection and analysis
  • containment eradication and recovery
  • post-incident activity
• “The LLM and GenAI Center of Excellence Guide,” which aims to help CISOs and fellow organization leaders create a center of excellence for generative AI security that facilitates collaboration among various teams, including security, legal, data science and operations, so they can develop:
  • Generative AI security policies
  • Risk assessment and management processes
  • Training and awareness
  • Research and development
• “The AI Security Solution Landscape Guide,” which offers security teams a comprehensive catalog of open source and commercial tools for securing LLMs and generative AI applications.

To get more details, read OWASP’s announcement “OWASP Dramatically Expands GenAI Security Guidance.”

For more information about protecting your organization against deepfakes:

• “How to prevent deepfakes in the era of generative AI” (TechTarget)
• “Deepfake scams escalate, hitting more than half of businesses” (Cybersecurity Dive)
• “The AI Threat: Deepfake or Deep Fake? Unraveling the True Security Risks” (SecurityWeek)
• “How deepfakes threaten biometric security controls” (TechTarget)
• “Deepfakes break through as business threat” (CSO)

3 - Fake update variants dominate list of top malware in Q3

Hackers are doubling down on fake software-update attacks.

That’s the main takeaway from the Center for Internet Security’s list of the 10 most prevalent malware used during the third quarter.

Malware variants used to carry out fake browser-update attacks took the top four spots on the list: SocGholish, LandUpdate808, ClearFake and ZPHP. Collectively, they accounted for 77% of the quarter’s malware infections. It's the first time LandUpdate808 and ClearFake appear on this quarterly list.

^{(Source: “Top 10 Malware Q3 2024”, Center for Internet Security, October 2024)}

In a fake software-update attack, a victim gets duped into installing a legitimate-looking update for, say, their preferred browser, that instead infects their computers with malware.

Here’s the full list, in descending order:

• SocGholish, a downloader distributed through malicious websites that tricks users into downloading it by offering fake software updates 
• LandUpdate808, a JavaScript downloader distributed through malicious websites via fake browser updates
• ClearFake, another JavaScript downloader used for fake browser-update attacks
• ZPHP, another JavaScript downloader used for fake software-update attacks
• Agent Tesla, a remote access trojan (RAT) that captures credentials, keystrokes and screenshots
• CoinMiner, a cryptocurrency miner that spreads using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
• Arechclient2, also known as SectopRAT, is a .NET RAT whose capabilities include multiple stealth functions
• Mirai, a malware botnet that compromises IoT devices to launch DDoS attacks
• NanoCore, a RAT that spreads via malspam as a malicious Excel spreadsheet
• Lumma Stealer, an infostealer used to swipe personally identifiable information (PII), credentials, cookies and banking information

To get more information, the CIS blog “Top 10 Malware Q3 2024” offers details, context and indicators of compromise for each malware strain.

For details on fake update attacks:

• “Fake browser updates spread updated WarmCookie malware” (BleepingComputer)
• “Beware: Fake Browser Updates Deliver BitRAT and Lumma Stealer Malware” (The Hacker News)
• “Hackers Use Fake Browser Updates for AMOS Malware Attacks Targeting Mac Users” (MSSP Alert)
• “Malware crooks find an in with fake browser updates, in case real ones weren't bad enough” (The Register)
• “Fake Google Chrome errors trick you into running malicious PowerShell scripts” (BleepingComputer)

VIDEO

Fake Chrome Update Malware (The PC Security Channel)

4 - CISA’s first international plan unveiled

CISA has released its first-ever international plan, which outlines a strategy for boosting the agency’s collaboration with cybersecurity agencies from other countries.

Aligning cybersecurity efforts and goals with international partners is critical for tackling cyberthreats in the U.S. and abroad, according to the agency.

The three core pillars of CISA’s “2025 - 2026 International Strategic Plan” are:

• Help make more resilient other countries’ assets, systems and networks that impact U.S. critical infrastructure
• Boost the integrated cyber defenses of the U.S. and its international partners against their shared global cyberthreats
• Unify the coordination of international activities to strengthen cyberdefenses collectively

The plan will allow CISA to “reduce risk to the globally interconnected and interdependent cyber and physical infrastructure that Americans rely on every day,” CISA Director Jen Easterly said in a statement.

5 - Interpol hits phishers, ransomware gangs, info stealers

Interpol and its partners took down 22,000 malicious IP addresses and seized thousands of servers, laptops, and mobile phones used by cybercriminals to conduct phishing scams, deploy ransomware and steal information.

The four-month global operation, titled Synergia II and announced this week, involved law enforcement agencies and private-sector partners from 95 countries and netted 41 arrests.

“Together, we’ve not only dismantled malicious infrastructure but also prevented hundreds of thousands of potential victims from falling prey to cybercrime,” Neal Jetton, Director of Interpol’s Cybercrime Directorate, said in a statement.

In Hong Kong, more than 1,000 servers were taken offline, while authorities in Macau, China took another 291 servers offline. Meanwhile, in Estonia, authorities seized 80GB of server data, which is now being analyzed for links to phishing and banking malware.

For more information about global cybercrime trends:

• “AI-Powered Cybercrime Cartels on the Rise in Asia” (Dark Reading)
• “AI Now a Staple in Phishing Kits Sold to Hackers” (MSSP Alert)
• “The Business of Cybercrime Explodes” (BankDirector)
• “Nation state actors increasingly hide behind cybercriminal tactics and malware” (CSO)

6 - IST: Ransomware attacks surged in 2023

Ransomware gangs went into hyperdrive last year, increasing their attacks by 73% compared with 2022, according to the non-profit think tank Institute for Security and Technology (IST).

The IST attributes the sharp increase in attacks to a shift by ransomware groups to “big game hunting” – going after prominent, large organizations with deep pockets. 

“Available evidence suggests that government and industry actions taken in 2023 were not enough to significantly reduce the profitability of the ransomware model,” reads an IST blog.

Global Ransomware Incidents in 2023

Another takeaway: The ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model continued to prove extremely profitable in 2023, and it injected dynamism into the ransomware ecosystem. 

The RaaS model prompted ransomware groups “to shift allegiances, form new groups, or iterate existing variants,” the IST blog reads.

The industry sector that ransomware groups hit the hardest was construction, followed by hospitals and healthcare, and by IT services and consulting. Financial services and law offices rounded out the top five.

To learn more about ransomware trends:

• “Ransomware Is ‘More Brutal’ Than Ever in 2024” (Wired)
• “Ransomware on track for record profits, even as fewer victims pay” (SC Magazine)
• “How Can I Protect Against Ransomware?” (CISA)
• “How to prevent ransomware in 6 steps” (TechTarget)
• “Steps to Help Prevent & Limit the Impact of Ransomware” (Center for Internet Security)

TORONTO – The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has issued an award of nearly $150,000 to an international whistleblower who provided information about significant issues at an early-stage firm.

Here is a Storify collecting the online conversations from the, “The Dark Art of Dark

Kyle Barnes has been plagued by demonic possession all his life and now he needs answers. Unfortunately, what he uncovers along the way could bring about the end of life on Earth as we know it.

"Kyle is faced with the most emotional exorcism he's performed yet … as he begins to learn more about his abilities and what's really happening around him. The pieces are starting to fall into place as secrets are revealed that will change everything." -- Description provided by publisher.

"As the House of Slaughter arrives to clean up the situation by any means necessary, Erica will find that the true threat to those around her isn't who— or what— she ever expected. And the cost of saving the day may be too high for anyone to pay … ." -- Description provided by publisher.

"Founded in Oakland, California, in 1966, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was a radical political organization that stood in defiant contrast to the mainstream civil rights movement. This gripping illustrated history explores the impact and significance of the Panthers, from their social, educational, and healthcare programs that were designed to uplift the Black community to their battle against police brutality through citizen patrols and frequent clashes with the FBI, which targeted the Party from its outset. Using dramatic comic book-style retellings and illustrated profiles of key figures, The Black Panther Party captures the major events, people, and actions of the Party, as well as their cultural and political influence and enduring legacy." -- Page [2] of cover.

"Set in the years leading up the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Dune— 'Dume: House Atreides transports readers to the far future on the desert planet Arrakis where Pardot Kynes seeks its secrets. Meanwhile, a violent coup is planned by the son of Emperor Elrood; an eight-year-old slave Duncan Idaho seeks to escape his cruel masters; and a young man named Leto Atreides begins a fateful journey. These unlikely souls are drawn together first as renegades and then as something more, as they discover their true fate— to change the very shape of history!" -- Description provided by publisher.

With a month to go, we’ve been busy behind the scenes planning for this year’s

In true adherence to the age old phrase 'let them eat cake' and its traditional application to the under-funded and under-fed masses, for SpotOn London cakes were duly provided much to the enjoyment of the delegates. Since this act generated its own hashtag, it also deserves a Story...

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2020年在诸多方面都让我们始料未及。新冠肺炎（COVID-19）疫情为全球带来了一场大规模的公共卫生灾难，各国均陷入了疫情及其相关应对政策带来的不同程度的经济困境，面临服务严重中断和人员流动严重受限的局面。无论是富裕国家还是贫穷国家，均未能幸免。在中低收入国家，许多弱势群体直接面临食物安全、医疗和营养方面的威胁。丧失生计、营养不良、教育中断和资源枯竭造成的长期影响可能性非常巨大，特别是对许多国家来说，距离新冠肺炎疫情的结束还遥遥无期。此外，疫情还凸显并加剧了我们食物系统的薄弱环节和不平等状况。一年过去了，全球因新冠肺炎疫情而进一步偏离了到2030年实现可持续发展目标(SDG)的进程。显然，食物系统可以在推动我们走上正轨方面发挥核心作用。要想实现可持续发展目标，就必须对食物系统进行转型，帮助我们更好地为下一次冲击做好准备，同时造福世界贫困人口和弱势群体以及我们的地球。