At a glance.
- Europe considers sanctioning Russian actors for the Bundestag hack.
- CISA's new online resource.
- Contact-tracing updates.
- More pushback against Huawei.
Europe considers sanctioning Russian actors for the Bundestag hack.
POLITICO sees the German intention to prosecute a Russian GRU operator, Dmitry Badin, for hacking the Bundestag as indicating hardening European attitudes toward Russian cyber operations. (Even TASS is authorized to take notice of the indictment.) EU diplomats met yesterday in Brussels to begin consideration of whether or not to impose sanctions against those involved in the cyber incident. This would be the EU’s first use of its sanction authority against cyber operators.
CISA's new online resource.
The US Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) yesterday announced the launch of a new public resource for information about cybersecurity and the other areas in the agency's portfolio.
Some of that information will be shaped by an appreciation of the threat of foreign espionage. CISA Director Krebs yesterday said in an interview on Intelligence Matters that as a matter of course nations would collect COVID-19 information. “We do expect every intelligence service to be in the mix here,” he said. China has been the most brazen in its pursuit of information about the pandemic and research into treatments, but COVID-19 is an obvious intelligence target. NATO yesterday issued a statement of solidarity with all healthcare and research organizations that have been affected by cyber attacks.
Contact-tracing updates.
The BBC says France's StopCovid contact-tracing app is "off to a good start." Some six-hundred-thousand users are thought to have installed the app within hours of its initial availability. The app uses contact logs to warn people if they’ve come near someone infected with the COVID-19 virus.
In contrast, Britain’s contact-tracing system is facing further delays, and is now not expected to be ready before the 15th of June, and maybe not until July.
More pushback against Huawei.
Two of Canada's three major telecommunications companies, Bell Canada and Telus, have decided not to use Huawei equipment in their 5G buildout, the AP reports. Bell Canada will use Ericsson; Telus will buy its gear from both Ericsson and Nokia.
The UK has moved further away from its earlier decision to allow Huawei into non-core portions of its 5G infrastructure. Bloomberg reports that HM Government is looking to Japanese and South Korean suppliers, specifically NEC and Samsung, as alternatives to the Chinese manufacturer.