Argus Geopolitical Intel

UK Election 2019: Tories threaten Channel 4 as Johnson snubs Climate Change debate By Newsdesk Team European Press Centre Málaga The Conservative Party is embroiled in a battle it doesn't need with broadcaster Channel 4 over it´s decision to "empty chair" Boris Johnson during its election debate on Climate Change and substitute the PM with an ice sculpture An offer from Minister Michael Gove offering to take his place was quickly blanked as C4 took pains to explain that the debate was for "leaders" The Conservative party has written to media legislator Ofcom urging they to take action against Channel 4, the Party has accused the broadcaster of breaking its duty to be impartial and citing other alleged examples of bias. They went on to say that the ice stunt on the PM's empty podium was a "provocative partisan stunt" - while the Labour party has simply accused Mr Johnson of "hiding from scrutiny". The Conservatives have also threatened to...

GEOCRIME: Protecting users from government-backed hacking and disinformation Syndicated by Newsdesk Team European Press Centre Málaga The Hacker News has reoprted that over 12,000 Google Users Hit by Government Hackers in 3rd Quarter of 2019. As part of its active efforts to protect billions of online users, Google identified and warned over 12,000 of its users who were targeted by a government-backed hacking attempt in the third quarter of this year. According to a report published by Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) , more than 90 percent of the targeted users were hit with "credential phishing emails" that tried to trick victims into handing over access to their Google account. Over 12,000 Google Users Hit by Government Hackers in 3rd Quarter of 2019 Google's TAG tracks over 270 government-backed hacking groups from over 50 countries that are involved in intelligence collection, stealing intellectual property, destructive cyber attacks, targeting dissidents, j...

Europe to Get New Executive Next Week Amid Shift to Geopolitics Syndicated by GEO´ Newsdesk Team European Press Centre Málaga BLOOMBERG The incoming president of the European Union’s executive arm vowed to shift the bloc’s focus onto geopolitics over the next five years, pledging sweeping legislative proposals in areas ranging from climate change to artificial intelligence. “This is an unsettled world where too many powers only speak the language of confrontation and unilateralism,” Ursula von der Leyen told EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France, in a thinly veiled reference to Donald Trump’s administration. “But it’s also a world where millions of people are taking to the streets to protest against corruption or to demand democratic change.” The former German defense minister was confirmed by the EU Parliament at the helm of the European Commission on Wednesday. She will be in charge of proposing and enforcing regulation across a vast single market stretching from the Arctic circle to t...

AccorHotels Subsidiary Exposes Hotels and Travelers in Massive Data Leak Synicated by GEO´Newsdesk Team European News Centre Málaga Led by Noam Rotem and Ran Locar, vpnMentor ’s research team discovered a data breach belonging to Gekko Group, a subsidiary of Accor Hotels. Based in France, Gekko Group is a leading European B2B hotel booking platform that also owns several smaller hospitality brands. These include Teldar Travel & Infinite Hotel, the two brands most exposed in the database discovered by our team. However, some data from other Gekko Group-owned brands were also exposed. The database in question was huge, containing over 1 terabyte of data. This included data from Gekko Group brands and their clients, as well as external websites and platforms which their systems communicate with, such as Booking.com. This breach represents a serious lapse in data security by Gekko Group and its subsidiaries, compromising the privacy of their customers, clients, AccorHotels, and the bus...

AFP: Czech Intel Report Highlights Russian, Chinese Spying Syndicated by GEO´ PRChannel Team European News Centre Málaga [ AFP on November 26, 2019] AFP report that Russian and Chinese spies repeatedly targeted the Czech state last year, the country's intelligence service (BIS) said in its 2018 report published yesterday [Tuesday, 26th November, 2019] detailing cyber-attacks and disinformation. The report comes just over a month after the BIS and Czech police announced they had busted a Russian espionage network operating through its Prague embassy, launching cyber-attacks on Czech and foreign targets. Russia was probably behind an attack on the Czech foreign ministry's non- classified computer network, said the BIS report, published on its website. "The attackers tried to ensure permanent access to the affected system," it said. And a Chinese cyber-espionage group was probably behind an attack on the foreign ministry's non-classified network using malware, the B...

'Meat: A Threat To Our Planet' - BBC Documentary Tonight 25 November 2019 @ 2200 CET  There has been a lot of talk in the Newsroom this morning about tonights [Monday, 25 November, 2019] UK BBC screening of 'Meat: A Threat To Our Planet' Presenter Liz Bonnin travels around the globe on what the broadcaster has described as an 'ambitious and sometimes dangerous mission' to discover the truth. Bonnin visits Texan mega-farms, as well as the Amazon rainforest, where she discovers how beef farming is a leading cause of deforestation. The reporter also meets the scientists and entrepreneurs urgently looking for solutions. At a university in California, Liz puts her hand directly into the stomach of a cow – all in the name of reducing methane emissions" "In North Carolina she meets an entrepreneur who’s using his manure to power local homes. And in San Francisco, she becomes one of the first people in the world to try a lab-made chicken nugget – a product th...

CyberThreat 2019 Summit: Nov 25-26 PR Channel Team Málaga Press & Technology Centre CyberThreat 2019 brings together the UK and Europe's cyber security community. Designed for security practitioners and spanning the full spectrum of offensive and defensive disciplines, the summit has a strong technical emphasis, including case studies from the field, new security tools and encouraging collaboration on bleeding edge techniques. The two-day conference is hosted by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and SANS Institute and takes place at Riverbank Park Plaza, London. CyberThreat 2019 evidences the UK Government’s commitment to equip practitioners with the skills and knowledge required to defend against cyber threats and also addresses the cyber skills gap, by developing and growing talent. CyberThreat aims to deliver the best technical conference in Europe for cyber security practitioners. In addition to presentations from world-renowned cyber security experts and risi...

2 020 US Presidential Elections: Trump winces as Bloomberg lays down the guantlet. So Michael Bloomberg has officially announced he is standing to be the Democratic Party presidential nominee. In a statement, the 77-year-old said he was standing "to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America". "The stakes could not be higher. We must win this election," Mr Bloomberg wrote. He joins 17 other candidates vying for the Democratic nomination to take on Mr Trump in 2020. As things stand, former Vice-President Joe Biden, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are the party's front-runners.  But lets concentrate on the two main contenders - Trump and Bloomberg! Both Behemoths on the World stage.  Michael Rubens Bloomberg, born February 14, 1942 is an American politician, businessman, and author. As of November 2019, his net worth was estimated at $58 billion, making him the 9th richest person in the United States and the 14th richest person in the world. He h...

CYBERSECURITY: The Russian Railways information system got hacked in 20 minutes By: Newsdesk Team GEO´ - Málaga Press & Technology Centre Specialists of Russian Railways will conduct an investigation after the statement of the Habr user that he hacked the Wi-Fi network during a trip on the Sapsan high-speed train and gained access to the data of all its users in 20 minutes. According to the company, the hacked network did not contain personal data, but only entertainment content. On Friday, November 15, user keklick1337 on the portal Habr.com was returning from Saint-Peterburg, where he visited the ZeroNights information security conference, to Moscow. The programmer became bored, and he decided to check the reliability of the Wi-Fi and easily gained access to the hidden data of Russian Railways. He noted that " the same passwords and free security certificates are used everywhere, and the data is stored in text documents." "It is not difficult to access the data of...

Labour manifesto: an initial reaction from IFS researchers By Paul Johnson, Director, Institute for Fiscal Studies “The Labour Party manifesto offers a very substantial increase in the role of the state, one that is even larger than the big increase offered in their last manifesto. They estimate that their measures would push up day-to-day spending by £80 billion in 2023–24, which would be an almost 10% increase on what is currently planned. They estimate that their tax raising measures would bring in a similar sum, which if delivered would push the tax burden well above levels sustained in the UK since the Second World War. They also plan to increase investment spending by £55 billion a year, a doubling on current levels and even more than the substantial increases proposed by the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. There are risks with both the proposed spending increases and the proposed tax rises. It will be extremely hard simply to deliver anything like this scale of increase...

TECHNOLOGY: AP - Amnesty International Calls Facebook, Google Rights Abusers By Associated Press on November 21, 2019 via GEO´ Málaga Technology Centre The Associated Press reports that  Amnesty International issued a scathing indictment of the world’s dominant internet corporations, arguing in a new report that Google and Facebook should be forced to abandon what it calls their surveillance-based business model because it is “predicated on human rights abuse.” The London-based global rights group said in the 60-page report published Thursday [21st November 2019] that the business model of what it calls the “Surveillance Giants” is “inherently incompatible with the right to privacy.” Google and Facebook likewise threaten a range of other rights, including freedom expression and the right to equality and non-discrimination, the group said. The report said the company’s practice of vacuuming up personal data in order to feed voracious advertising businesses represents an unpreceden...

Election debate: Conservatives criticised for renaming Twitter profile 'factcheckUK' Syndicated by GEO´ PR Channel Team Málaga Technology Centre Dave Lee North, BBC America technology reporter, has reported that Social networking site Twitter has said the Conservative Party misled the public when it rebranded one of its Twitter accounts. The @CCHQPress account - the Tory press office - was renamed "factcheckUK" for Tuesday's live TV debate involving Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn. After the debate, the account reverted to its original branding. Twitter said it would take "decisive corrective action" if a similar stunt was attempted again. But the firm does not appear to have taken any action over this particular incident. "Twitter is committed to facilitating healthy debate throughout the UK general election," a spokesperson said. "We have global rules in place that prohibit behaviour that can mislead people, including those with verified...

PR CHANNEL: 2019 Global PKI and IoT Trends Study published. PR Channel Team Málaga Technology Centre IoT is one of the fastest growing trends in technology today, yet enterprises are leaving themselves vulnerable to dangerous cyberattacks by failing to prioritize foundational security for their PKIs. The 2019 Global PKI and IoT Trends study, conducted by the Ponemon Institute, reveals areas where organizations need to continue to improve the security maturity of PKIs driven by the growth of IoT, cloud and mobile initiatives. Organizations are expanding the scope of their PKIs, but are continuing to miss the mark on security best practices – and multi-year trends tell us it’s not getting much better. Although a PKI is a strategic part of the core IT backbone, skill and resource shortages particularly around security leave enterprises vulnerable and unprepared for the IoT and other important initiatives. Click Here to Download the Study Now !

ECONOMY: How Crypto and Blockchain are influencing Geopolitics By: Connor Blenkinsop via GEO´ Málaga Technology Centre The world is a constantly changing place — and from an economic standpoint, things are dramatically shifting, too. Two major superpowers, the United Statesand China, are embroiled in a dramatic trade war where tit-for-tat tariffs havebeen placed on goods — breeding uncertainty for consumers and businesses alike and making everyday products more expensive. The United Kingdom is still embroiled in a messy divorce from the European Union, and Russia is ratcheting up tensions with its neighbors in the West. All of this geopolitical drama has two effects. Firstly, it can wreak havoc on the markets, wiping billions of dollars off the value of major companies and affecting employment rates in the world’s economies. Secondly, it is prompting some enthusiasts to passionately advocate for crypto and blockchain taking a bigger role in the economy.They say it could help bring down...

NATIONAL SECURITY: Multifaceted security threats faced by Sri Lanka in the new millennium By: Dr. Sisira Pinnawala via GEO´ Málaga Technology Centre Ceylon Daily News reports that national security was not a priority for Sri Lanka for more than a decade after independence. The first threat to country’s security came in 1962 when a group of security personnel tried to topple the then government in a failed coup attempt. Since then Sri Lanka has gone through two youth rebellions in the south and an ethnonationalist forces driven separatist conflict in the north.  Despite these serious security threats to the state, successive administrations have failed to recognize the need to develop a national security strategy. The Easter Sunday terrorist attack was a wakeup call for country’s security establishment. Considering the above, the Pathfinder Foundation commissioned a study early this year, which has now been completed. The study, ‘National Security Strategy 2020 for Sri Lanka’, whic...

GEO CRIME: Cisco Sues Ex-Employees Over Alleged Trade Secrets Theft By: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg, Joe Schneider via GEO´ Málaga Technology Centre Bloomberg reports that Cisco Systems Inc. sued three former senior employees whom it accused of stealing thousands of files containing confidential information when they defected to a competitor. Shortly after resigning their jobs at Cisco this year, the three men joined an unidentified company that competes “in the IP telephony, headset, video, and collaboration space,” according to the complaint. Cisco claims that Wilson Chung, who was one of its principal engineers, downloaded more than 3,000 internal documents containing trade secrets, including information about the company’s contributions to 5G technology and its design specification for a video-conferencing prototype, before he left in February. Chung is accused of recruiting another Cisco engineer, James He, to join the competitor. At that point, He start...

AFP CYBER SECURITY: Fears Grow on Digital Surveillance - US Survey PRChannel Team Málaga Technology Centre The AFP reports that Americans are increasingly fearful of monitoring of their online and offline activities, both by governments and private companies, a survey showed Friday. The Pew Research Center report said more than 60 percent of US adults believe it is impossible to go about daily life without having personal information collected by companies or the government. Most Americans are uneasy about how their data is collected and used: 79 percent said they are not comfortable about the handling of their information by private firms, and 69 percent said the same of the government. Seven in 10 surveyed said they think their personal data is less secure than five years ago, while only six percent said it is more secure, the report found . "When it comes to privacy in the digital age, many Americans are concerned, confused and not fully convinced that the current systems of ...

Europe on a Geopolitical fault line between China and US Originally Posted: November 17, 2019 18:05 Ana Palacio ArabNews.com ARAB NEWS REPORTS - Two months ago, in his address to the UN General Assembly, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his fear that a “great fracture” could split the international order into two “separate and competing worlds,” one dominated by the US and the other by China. His fear is not only justified, but the fissure he dreads has already formed, and it is getting wider. After Deng Xiaoping launched his “reform and opening up” policy in 1978, the conventional wisdom in the West was that China’s integration into the global economy would naturally bring about domestic social and political change. The end of the Cold War — an apparent victory for the US-led liberal international order — reinforced this belief and the West largely pursued a policy of engagement with China. After China became a member of the World Trade Organization in 2001, this process a...

NATO fury: How Trump is forcing Erdogan into anti-West alliance with Putin By PR Channel Team Málaga Technology Centre NATO allies appear more divided than ever before as Turkey President Tayyip Erdogan's relationship with Russia President Vladimir Putin grows, sparking fury from the White House and severing relations between Donald Trump and hisdefiant ally. Mr Trump's security adviser Robert O'Brien has issued a fiery warning in yet another exchange of hostile rhetoric between Washington and Ankara as the US looks to force Turkey to relinquish its Russian weapons. Mr O'Brien told CBS on Sunday that “Turkey will feel the impact of those sanctions” if it does not "get rid" of Russian S-400 missiles which touched down in Ankara earlier thisyear. While referring to the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, he also said laws designed to cripple Washington's enemies would pass with "overwhelming support". UPDATED: 12:53, Mon, No...

TECHNOLOGY: DJI demonstrates new protocol to track drones & pilots GEO´ PR Channel Team Málaga Technology Centre Drone maker DJI has demonstrated a way to quickly identify a nearby drone, and pinpoint the location of its pilot, via a smartphone app using their protocol "Wi-Fi Aware" which receives and decodes messages broadcast directly by the drone itself. The company said it would help prevent security threats and disruption, and give members of the public peace of mind but experts believe sophisticated criminals would still be able to circumvent detection. “It’s going to be very useful against rogue drones,” said Elrike Franke, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, who studies the impacts of the drone industry. “But it's not going to be enough to fight people with real bad intentions, because these are going to be the first people to hack this system." DJI says that it could add the functionality to drones already on the market via a so...

BOLIVIA: The ghost of Morales conitnues to cast a long shadow GEO´ Newsdesk Team City of London Newsroom The ghost of unseated president, Evo Morales continues to cast a long shadow over Bolivia even with the ex-president himself literally thousands of miles away in Mexico City where he took refuge after his recent unceremonious ousting as president. Hoards of loyal supporters sporting colorful flags and banners marched in the Bolivian capital, La Paz, while his party’s grandee´s moved to unseat Jeanine Anez, the Senate vice-president who assumed the mantle from Morales in what many believe was little more than a political coup. Bolivian security authorities clashed on the capitals streets with Maduro groupies with tear gas and baton rounds after they came under attack from the posse who went on to light fires across the city. Incumbent president, Anez, called for "elections as soon as possible" and denied a coup had taken place against leftist leader and newly-exiled Morales...

COMMERCE: Tesla names Berlin as first site for its European Gigafactory. The colourful ceo of electric vehicle firm Tesla, Elon Musk, has announced that they have chosen Berlin as the site for their first European factory as part of the carmaker's European expansion plans adding that they will also be building an engineering and design centre in the German capital, making the announcement at a business awards ceremony in Germany yesterday [Tuesday, 12 November 2019] "Everyone knows that German engineering is outstanding and that's part of the reason we are locating our Gigafactory Europe in Germany" Mr Musk said the facility would be located near the new Berlin airport and later turning to twitter to give further details on the factory´s planned production. The focus on Europe comes amid rising appetite for electric cars in Europe with the biggest electric car production plants will be in Germany, France, Spain and Italy predicted by industry analysts over the coming ...

UK POLITICS: CyberSecurity - UK Labour Party platform Ddos attack thwarted NewsDesk Team City of London Newsroom The UK Labour Party has said that it successfully defeated a full Ddos attack targeted at its digital platforms due to the party´s "robust" security systems and that "no data breach had occurred" and the National Cyber Security Centre did not need to take any action as it had been resolved "internally" While sources have said that attacks came from computers in Russia and Brazil however our Cyber-editor believes that this was not a State actor, primarily because they would have used sophisticated protocols to hack the entire system rather than have failed at a fairly "amateurish" Ddos attack. When contacted earlier today [Tuesday, 12 November 2019] there was nobody available at Labour Party Headquarters, to comment on the attack. More follows./... What is a Ddos attack. DDoS attacks direct huge amounts of internet traffic at a target i...

Bolivia: Ex-President Evo Morales accepts political asylum in Mexico NewsDesk Team City of London Newsroom Bolivian President Evo Morales has accepted an offer of political asylum in Mexico a day after resigning as president of Bolivia amid election fraud protests. Mr Morales, a former coca farmer, was first elected in 2006. He was lauded for fighting poverty and improving Bolivia's economy but drew controversy by defying constitutional term limits to run for a fourth term in October's election, which is alleged to have been rife with irregularities. In a tweet, he said it hurt to be leaving Bolivia but he would return with more "strength and energy". Mexico's Foreign Minister, Marcelo Ebrard, confirmed Mr Morales had boarded a Mexican government plane. Meanwhile, Bolivia's military commander ordered troops to back up police who have clashed with Morales supporters. Read More /... The Life and Times of Evo Morales

CYBERSECURITY: ACLU Challenges FBI Face Recognition Secrecy By: PR Channel Team Malaga Technology Centre The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Massachusetts today filed a lawsuit challenging the secrecy shrouding federal law enforcement use of face recognition surveillance technology. The lawsuit was filed against the Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the FBI. “There can be no accountability if there is no transparency,” said Kade Crockford, Director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts. “The public has a right to know when, where, and how law enforcement agencies are using face recognition technology, and what safeguards, if any, are in place to protect our rights. This dystopian surveillance technology threatens to fundamentally alter our free society into one where we’re treated as suspects to be tracked and monitored by the government 24/7.” The ACLU in January filed a Freedom of Information Act request with t...