Collaborate Disseminate
More money for the now very buzzy business of reshaping how people work: Worksome is announcing it recently closed a $13 million Series A funding round for its “freelance talent platform” — after racking up 10x growth in revenue since January 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic sparked a remote working boom. The 2017 founded […] Continue reading Worksome pulls $13M into its high skill freelancer talent platform
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has reclassified food coloring E171 (titanium dioxide) after an expert panel concluded it “can no longer be considered safe as a food additive.” The announcement comes after years of research suggesting the add… Continue reading European food safety panel reclassifies common food coloring as unsafe
Cybersecurity experts at the European Union are investigating an “IT security incident” involving multiple institutions, though “no major information breach” has been detected, EU officials said Tuesday. The scope and nature of the incident were not immediately clear, but a spokesperson for the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, said the commission had set up a “24/7 monitoring service” in response to the incident. “The European Commission and other EU institutions, bodies or agencies have experienced an IT security incident in their IT infrastructure,” the commission spokesperson said in an email. A spokesperson for the European Parliament said the parliament and other EU bodies had “received an alert on [a] possible vulnerability in its IT infrastructure.” The parliament “took immediate measures to check and protect its servers against this vulnerability,” the spokesperson said. As a 27-country bloc that affects trade and foreign policy on the continent, EU institutions are natural […]
The post EU investigating ‘IT security incident’ involving multiple agencies appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading EU investigating ‘IT security incident’ involving multiple agencies
With reports of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and disinformation proliferating on tech platforms, Democratic leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday said they want answers from the industry’s titans about what they’re doing to stop it. “As the country enters this next phase in its fight against the virus — the success of which is dependent on hundreds of millions of Americans trusting the science behind these vaccines — the Committee is deeply troubled by news reports of coronavirus vaccine misinformation on your platform,” wrote Democratic leaders of the panel, including Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., to the CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter. It’s the latest application of pressure on tech companies from government officials to halt fake news about COVID-19. Just last week, the European Union said it expects Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter to continue delivering monthly reports on the subject for another six months. There’s […]
The post House Dems pressure tech giants over spread of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading House Dems pressure tech giants over spread of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation
Hackers who stole data related to a coronavirus vaccine have leaked it online, a European regulator investigating the breach said Tuesday. An ongoing investigation into the breach found that “some of the unlawfully accessed documents related to COVID-19 medicines and vaccines belonging to third parties have been leaked on the internet,” the European Medicines Agency said in a statement. It was not immediately clear what the unidentified attackers were trying to accomplish in dumping the data online. Cybercriminals often leak stolen data in an attempt to extort victims. Hackers last month stole documents from an EMA computer server related to a COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by pharmaceutical firms Pfizer and BioNTech. The EMA emphasized that the breach hasn’t affected the efficacy or approval of the vaccine. The incident again spotlights that vaccine data has drawn interest not only from spies, but also also from scammers aiming to exploit a global […]
The post Hackers who breached European medical regulator leak vaccine-related data appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading Hackers who breached European medical regulator leak vaccine-related data
EU tech firms complain the U.S. sanctions against Huawei and SMIC shuts them out of the Chinese tech market while U.S. tech firms can get exceptions.
The post EU Companies Complain that Chinese Sanction Favors U.S. Tech Firms appeared first on Thurrott… Continue reading EU Companies Complain that Chinese Sanction Favors U.S. Tech Firms
Regulators in Ireland have fined Twitter for failing to report a data breach promptly and not adequately documenting the incident, marking the first time the regulator has penalized a “big tech” company for violations of Europe’s data protection law. The fine of 450,000 euros, or about $550,000, stems from a bug that allowed thousands of people’s private tweets to be made public between late 2014 and early 2019, when Twitter reported the problem to European authorities. The social media company said it could only identify specific users affected by the breach from September 2017 onward — about 89,000 total over that stretch. The bug only affected users of Twitter’s Android app. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission issued the decision Tuesday on behalf of the European Union, under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Twitter’s European headquarters are in Ireland, as are those of Google, Facebook and several other multibillion-dollar U.S. […]
The post Twitter fined nearly $550,000 in Europe for response to bug that exposed private tweets appeared first on CyberScoop.
European Union members convened a ministerial discussion Monday in an effort to take stock of the 2020 U.S. presidential election and plan how to best jumpstart cooperation with the incoming Biden administration on a whole host of issues, including cybersecurity matters. The agenda was focused on a proposal from the European Commission and the office of the EU High Representative that suggests that the EU and the U.S. increase cybersecurity-related information-sharing and coordinate repercussions for bad actors in cyberspace. The commission and high representative — essentially the EU’s foreign minister — also proposed an increase in cybersecurity capacity-building efforts, discussions about 5G, and a meeting in early 2021 to discuss security and military operations. Europe and the U.S. have a long history of partnering on cybersecurity issues, and in the last year the U.S. and some members of the EU have taken steps meant to increase their ability to jointly […]
The post The EU is making overtures about cybersecurity collaboration under Biden appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading The EU is making overtures about cybersecurity collaboration under Biden
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned a Russian government research institute on Friday that it said was connected to the strain of destructive malware frequently labeled the most dangerous in the world. Known as Trisis or Triton, the malicious software is designed to target systems used to safely control emergency shutdowns of industrial plants. Last year, security researchers at Dragos determined that the hackers behind the tool had scanned the networks of U.S. electrical utilities, after the malware initially surfaced in 2017 at a Saudi petrochemical plant. The sanctions mark the first time any government has publicly connected Trisis to Russia. “In recent years, the Triton malware has been deployed against U.S. partners in the Middle East, and the hackers behind the malware have been reportedly scanning and probing U.S. facilities,” Treasury said it its sanctions announcement. “The development and deployment of the Triton malware against our partners is particularly troubling given the Russian government’s involvement in malicious […]
The post US sanctions Russian government institution in connection with Trisis malware appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading US sanctions Russian government institution in connection with Trisis malware
The European Union on Thursday sanctioned the head of a Russian military intelligence unit, an alleged hacker wanted by the FBI and a Russian government-linked hacking group over a 2015 cyberattack against Germany’s parliament. It’s only the second time the EU has issued cyber-related sanctions, following July sanctions against Russia, China and North Korea in connection with a string of unrelated cyberattacks. Now, as then, the General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, commonly known as the GRU, is among the targets of the EU’s ire. Igor Kostyukov, head of the GRU, was hit with sanctions in Thursday’s action over the Bundestag hack. So, too, was alleged intelligence officer Dmitry Badin, previously indicted in the U.S. for his role in 2016 election interference. The EU also sanctioned the GRU-connected hacking group known as Fancy Bear, among other names, which the U.S. has likewise connected to 2016 election meddling. “The cyber-attack against the German federal parliament targeted the parliament’s information […]
The post EU slaps sanctions on GRU leader, Fancy Bear, FBI-wanted hacker over Bundestag attack appeared first on CyberScoop.