At a glance.
- Anglo-Indian 5G cooperation.
- Former CIA software engineer to be re-tried in WikiLeaks case.
- Cybersecurity and democratic institutions.
- Huawei argues its case to the Fifth Circuit.
UK and India sign MOU on 5G cooperation.
MediaNama reports that London’s Department of Digital, Culture, Media, and Sports will collaborate with New Delhi’s Ministry of Communications on telecommunications in general and 5G in particular, the latest agreement in the international push to curb Huawei and ZTE. Other areas of focus include IoT, big data, cloud computing, emerging technologies, and outreach to additional countries. New Delhi has yet to publicize a position on 5G, and previously communicated to London that it would not block Chinese tech. Indian telecoms companies Airtel and Reliance seem to be excluding the tech on their own, however.
Former CIA software engineer to be re-tried in WikiLeaks case.
Joshua Schulte’s (second) day in court for espionage has been scheduled for June 7, according to SecurityWeek, after a jury found him guilty of contempt of court and making false statements, but hung on allegations that he leaked CIA cyberweapons to WikiLeaks. The thirty-two-year-old coder has pleaded not guilty to the biggest breach in the history of CIA, with his attorney arguing that “hundreds of people had access” to the database in question.
Cyber threats to democratic institutions.
An essay Strategist contends that Canberra needs to step up its cybersecurity game with respect to APT attacks on democracy, describing foreign assaults on non-government assets as “an accelerating trend” and a “threat to sovereignty.” Over the past ten years, forty-one elections have encountered cyberattacks. Microsoft discovered that NGOs are the target du jour, but media, political, and research organizations are also at risk. The Strategist underscores the vulnerability of politicians’ personal websites, apps, emails, and social accounts, and calls for “capacity-building,” “targeted cyber hygiene training,” “public awareness campaigns,” and “real-time sharing of threat intelligence.”
Huawei tells the Fifth Circuit the FCC overreached.
Huawei’s counsel argued this week that the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lacks the criteria to designate the company a “national security threat,” according to Courthouse News, calling the label “a phrase, not a standard,” and claiming that Chairman Ajit Pai has enforced an unsupported, prejudicial top-down determination. The FCC barred subsidization of Huawei and ZTE in 2019, and maintains that there’s a method behind its designations. Listed among the reasons to sanction Huawei were its magnitude, close relationship to Beijing, and extensive network access.