New Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Protections and Data Leaks of Drug Trafficking operations are some of the highlights during the last week
New Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Protections
President Biden signed on October 7 an executive order providing increased privacy protections for data transferred from Europe to the United States. The order followed months of negotiations between the two sides to address long-standing concerns about U.S. surveillance. Catherine Stupp, writing in Wall Street Journal, says the new order creates safeguards defining when intelligence agencies can access data and a data protection court where Europeans can challenge US surveillance.
The new safeguards became necessary as the EU’s top court struck down a previous trans-Atlantic data deal, known as Privacy Shield, in 2020 as illegal, prompting European regulators to stop their companies moving data to the U.S. or using certain American tech providers altogether. For example, Austria and France asked their companies not use Google Analytics; and Portugal ordered to shun Cloudflare. Meta was also facing a pending order to stop Facebook and Instagram from sending data of Europeans to the U.S.
The European Commission will review the executive order to examine if the new guidelines meet an inevitable judicial review and the process is expected to be completed by March 2023.
Data leaks exposed Australia’s secret operations against drug traffickers
A massive leak of classified documents from the Colombian government has exposed identities and methods of secret agents working to stop international drug cartels from operating in Australia. Nigel Gladstone, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on October 14, says more than five terabytes of data, including five million emails and tens of thousands of documents, were hacked and released. They contain details of 35 Australian Federal Police operations and surveillance reports of Colombian security officials. Many other overseas police agencies were also affected. The documents chart a steady flow of cocaine and other drugs from Colombian cartels and organized crime groups in Europe, Asia and the Pacific targeting Australian ports and airports, via intermediaries in places such as Africa, Hong Kong and Fiji.
The group claiming responsibility for the data hacking, Guacamaya, the Mayan name for macaw, said it has environmental and anti-imperialist motives. In a statement, it said that their motive was to target mining and oil companies, military and police systems in Mexico, Peru, El Salvador, Chile, Colombia and elsewhere to sabotage corporations and systems that they said exploit natural resources and support US interests.
Several US airport websites affected as Russian hackers continue to attack American targets
Websites of more than a dozen US airports were temporarily brought offline by cyberattacks on October 10 and Russian-speaking hackers are believed to be responsible for the disruption. The affected systems include that of LaGuardia airport in New York City, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, Denver International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport. The Washington Post, quoting senior officials, said the cyberattack, however, did not affect air traffic control, internal airport communication or other key operations, although it has caused inconvenience for air travelers to access information.
The attacks were said to have carried out by the Russian hacker group, Killnet, according to John Hultquist of the Mandiant cybersecurity firm. Killnet called for coordinated DoS attacks on cyber targets from a list it posted on its Telegram channel, which included several major U.S. airports.
Meanwhile, reports say of a power outage on October 10 in Danish Island of Bornholm and train traffic interruptions in northern Germany a couple of days earlier, exposing vulnerabilities in Europe’s critical infrastructure.
