Top stories.
- Trump administration directs US diplomats to oppose digital sovereignty.
- Russian authorities open a criminal investigation into Telegram founder.
- Google disrupts suspected Chinese espionage campaign.
- Business news: Astelia lands $35 million in funding.
Trump administration directs US diplomats to oppose digital sovereignty.
Reuters reports that the Trump administration has ordered US diplomats to oppose foreign efforts to regulate how American tech companies handle foreigners' data, according to a State Department cable dated February 18 and signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The cable said such digital sovereignty laws "disrupt global data flows, increase costs and cybersecurity risks, limit Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud services, and expand government control in ways that can undermine civil liberties and enable censorship." Rubio cited the European Union's GDPR as an example of a law that imposed "unnecessarily burdensome data processing restrictions and cross-border data flow requirements."
The State Department did not return Reuters's request for comment.
Russian authorities open a criminal investigation into Telegram founder.
Russian authorities have opened a criminal investigation into Telegram founder Pavel Durov on suspicion of "abetting terrorist activities," the Washington Post reports. The Kremlin-friendly tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda said that during the war in Ukraine, "Telegram has become the primary tool of NATO intelligence agencies and the Kyiv regime for inciting protest activity, radical ideology, and the preparation and commission of vastly increased sabotage, terrorist, and extremist crimes, as well as fraud."
Reuters notes that the Russian government is seeking to ban Telegram and steer its Russian users to a state-backed alternative called "MAX," which has been criticized by many—including by Durov—as a government surveillance tool.
Durov left Russia in 2014 and is currently living in Dubai, having obtained French and Emirati citizenships. He was arrested in France in 2024 as part of a French investigation into Telegram’s lack of content moderation. That case is still pending trial.
Google disrupts suspected Chinese espionage campaign.
Google says it disrupted an espionage campaign run by a suspected Chinese threat actor tracked as "UNC2814" that breached at least 53 organizations in 42 countries. The threat actor is known for targeting governments and global telecommunications entities across Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
The attackers used Google Sheets to blend into normal network traffic, so Google terminated "all Google Cloud Projects controlled by the attacker, effectively severing their persistent access to environments compromised by the novel GRIDTIDE backdoor."
Business news: Astelia lands $35 million in funding.
Israeli exposure management platform provider Astelia has secured $35 million in combined seed and Series A funding led by Index Ventures and Team8, with participation from Holly Ventures. The company says it "will use the capital to expand its AI-driven analysis capabilities, scale deployments, deepen technology partnerships, and grow its engineering, research, and global go-to-market teams."
Read more in the Business Briefing at 4pm ET.
