Cyberattacks have largely fallen out of the headlines in the year since the war in Ukraine started, but the dangerous crossover between the two threats is increasingly apparent in the scale of disruption around the world.
The former Dubai-based teacher Mark Steed found himself on the front line of these battles a little more than two years ago, and has since spoken out on the pitfalls facing an institution that finds its data locked away. At his Hong Kong international school, he decided not to devote scarce resources to paying the ransomware demands, even if that complicated the recovery operation facing his team.
“The attack encrypted our local servers, preventing access to all of our admin systems that we hosted on-site, including our finance and HR records,” he wrote in last week’s Times Educational Supplement. “Given that the school was operational and there had been no data loss, we decided not to respond to the hackers’ demands that we pay them for the ability to unencrypt our files, nor did we report the incident to the police.”
As cyberspace becomes more and more confrontational, it is not just headmasters at schools who are trying to work out appropriate responses. The war in Ukraine has seen a speeding up of the aggression against internet users there while also hogging the attention that might otherwise be devoted to these trends.
Last week, there was a major attack on the City of London that originated in Russia. The divisions between Russia and the West are such that there is slim to no co-operation in these matters. The sanctions and other policies imposed as a result of the Ukraine conflict means there is no realistic prospect of this situation improving any time soon. Indeed, the opposition might be the case.
The most recent attack took place against the vital infrastructure underpinning the City of London. Lockbit, a Russia-based hacker, targeted trading software provider Ion Group that provides what’s described as the plumbing systems that connect trading of shares, debt and derivatives. A total of 42 clients in financial markets lost data and one City insider said another escalation could take out “most of the derivatives trading” in London.
The same hacking group caused major disruption with a cyberattack against Royal Mail, a British multinational postal service and courier company, last month. Local government is another target, with Hackney Council telling Wired magazine that it had not fully recovered from an October 2020 attack. In the same year, the unitary authority of Redcar and Cleveland lost £11 million ($13 million), forcing staff to revert to paper to communicate for a time.
Over in the US, disruption targeting hospitals and health care has been a major issue and has been traced to the same sources.
How deep the links are between cyberattacks and current trends in war and diplomacy is under intense scrutiny
How deep the links are between these attacks and the current trends in war and diplomacy is under intense scrutiny. There is no mistaking that link in Ukraine itself, where a hacker group known as Sandworm has been directing incessant attacks. These include of variants of programmes with names such as CaddyWiper, HermeticWiper, NikoWiper and the energy sector-specific SDelete.
Viktor Zhora, the deputy head of Ukraine’s cyber body, told a meeting in London last week that the cyber offensive his country faced was linked to the military action. “The quantity of the cyberattacks on Ukraine tripled last year, and their considerable share was co-ordinated with the other directions of military activities, such as missile strikes,” he said.
The issues raised by the changing nature and rising volume of attacks have called into question how quickly states are evolving the doctrines of what is legitimate and legal cyber defence and offensive operations.
Take the UK’s efforts to cultivate a role as an advocate for responsible state behaviour in cyberspace. Within the western alliance structures, this is crucial to the development of collaborative efforts to improve global cybersecurity.
One question posed in London is if planners can develop a variation of its existing doctrines for offensive cyber operations in which it acknowledges the existence of special capabilities but does not say anything about these. One former official describes this as the Ronan Keating approach of "saying it best when saying nothing at all".
UK legal officials have opened the space for this approach by drawing a line against foreign cyber operations that makes a political definition of sovereignty the determining factor. If the UK is coerced into a situation that causes it systematic problems by another state, it should have the right to act to reverse that situation.
In other words, the scale and effect of a foreign cyber operation that disrupted its freedom to control vital matters, such as infrastructure, health or the economy, would all be factors in determining how the country responded. As a corollary, these factors would also act as restraint on the UK and shape international co-ordinated actions.
Scaling up cyber policies is an urgent challenge. The issue is also obscured from view, just as much as the damage done by ongoing attacks is overshadowed by the war playing out in Ukraine.
The dividing line between these two dangerous problems facing the world is increasingly hard to discern.
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1. Mathieu van der Poel (NED) Alpecin-Fenix - 3:45:47
2. David Dekker (NED) Jumbo-Visma - same time
3. Michael Morkov (DEN) Deceuninck-QuickStep
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8. Chris Harper (AUS) Jumbo-Visma - 0:00:03
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The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
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Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
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The biog
Siblings: five brothers and one sister
Education: Bachelors in Political Science at the University of Minnesota
Interests: Swimming, tennis and the gym
Favourite place: UAE
Favourite packet food on the trip: pasta primavera
What he did to pass the time during the trip: listen to audio books
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Sustainable Development Goals
1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation
10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its effects
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development
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Dirham Stretcher tips for having a baby in the UAE
Selma Abdelhamid, the group's moderator, offers her guide to guide the cost of having a young family:
• Buy second hand stuff
They grow so fast. Don't get a second hand car seat though, unless you 100 per cent know it's not expired and hasn't been in an accident.
• Get a health card and vaccinate your child for free at government health centres
Ms Ma says she discovered this after spending thousands on vaccinations at private clinics.
• Join mum and baby coffee mornings provided by clinics, babysitting companies or nurseries.
Before joining baby classes ask for a free trial session. This way you will know if it's for you or not. You'll be surprised how great some classes are and how bad others are.
• Once baby is ready for solids, cook at home
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German intelligence warnings
- 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
- 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
- 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250
Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
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