TechLetters #79 - Ukraine's government takes responsibility for cyberattacks. Russian cybersecurity decree. Russian-created site leaks UK political data. ClearView GDPR fine Gödel prize for FHE.

Security

Ukrainian government claims responsibility for cyberattacks on more than 400 Russian systems. Official data of the government. Media, banks, real estate agencies/sites, etc. 2000 since start of the invasion.

Russian cybersecurity decree. Decree to "ensure information security of the Russian Federation" issued. Demands to grant always-on remote access to systems: "provide officials of federal security service organs with unimpeded access (including remote access) to the information resources". Russia also prohibited the use of "foreign" ("that conduct unfriendly actions against the Russian Federation") security/cybersecurity products/services from January 1, 2025.

Site leaking political emails of UK politicians appeared. It appears to be linked to Russians. Interference in domestic affairs — we've seen this in the US (Guccifer 2.0 and so on), a few years ago. Currently also in Poland (which in context of Ukraine war is, maybe, stirring...).

Academic accounts in US hijacked and stolen. May be used as hops for further cyberattacks. This always worked this way… Furthermore, such activity obviously happens not only in the US, but such warnings appear only in USA, it seems?

Privacy

UK/ICO GDPR fines ClearviewAI. £7,552,800.

Technology Policy

Other

 2022 Gödel Prize for Fully Homomorphic Encryption. Goes to Zvika Brakerski, Vinod Vaikuntanathan, Zvika Brakerski, Craig Gentry, Vinod Vaikuntanathan. The scheme allows performing computations/etc on encrypted data - without its decryption, the result is also encrypted. Ground-breaking and fundamental result. Also, tech very nice for future of privacy.

---

In case you feel it's worth it to forward this content further:

If you’d like to share: