One of the largest cyber crisis simulations organised by The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) has just been completed. With over 800 cybersecurity experts from 29 European countries and the European Free Trade Area (EFTA), it involved specialists from EU agencies and institutions as well.
This year, the exercises involved a scenario of a simulated attack on European healthcare infrastructure and they tested how participants’ respond to incidents in coordination with EU institutions. They involve the ability of close work with CERT-EU and ENISA in order to reinforce the resilience of the healthcare sector against cyber attacks in the EU with complex business continuity in crisis management situations.
These lessons will be published in ENISA’s ‘after-action report.’
The Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS), i.e. Costa Rica’s public health service was hit by Hive ransomware and forced to shut its systems down. The ransomware was deployed on at least 30 out of 1,500 government servers, CCSS told local media.
Cybersecurity experts suggested that Hive might be working with Conti to help Conti rebrand.
The US announced the Declaration for the Future of the Internet, which was signed by 60 countries, outlines the vision and principles to reclaim the promise of the Internet and establish an open global network. The declaration is a response to the recent malpractices to control the internet. ‘Some states have been acting to repress freedom of expression to censor independent news sources, to interfere with elections, promote disinformation around the world and deny their citizens other human rights,’ said a Biden administration official. In this vein, the declaration’s principles include commitments to:
Protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of all people;
Promote a global Internet that advances the free flow of information;
Advance inclusive and affordable connectivity so that all people can benefit from the digital economy;
Promote trust in the global digital ecosystem, including through protection of privacy; and
Protect and strengthen the multi-stakeholder approach to governance that keeps the Internet running for the benefit of all.
Workers with disability were among the hardest hit during the pandemic, and now millions of these workers face a living standards emergency – with lower pay than their non-disabled peers, but higher energy and transport costs.
With an estimated 1.3 Billion Persons with disability globally, let’s focus on the workplace power and potential being harnessed from this statistic when looked at as an under-tapped talent pool.
According to the Valuable 500 report , 54% of companies have an active disability inclusion accessibility policy.
The research reveals encouraging progress towards disability inclusion across business processes, from recruitment to advertising, with 81% of respondents declaring an improvement on their pre-pandemic disability strategies.
A consideration of disability is now central to many recruitment processes, to improve Persons with disability representation and foster an inclusive work ethos from the offset. 65% of respondents report adjusting their interview process, whilst 74% advertise as an inclusive employer, and 62% explicitly encourage applications from Persons with disabilities.
Within the framework of President Biden’s initiative to strengthen global infrastructure, the United States International Development (USAID) kicked off the Digital Invest program under the Digital Connectivity and Cybersecurity Partnership (DCCP). The program is a new blended finance program that aims at mobilising private capital for digital finance and internet service providers (ISPs) serving traditionally excluded consumer populations worldwide. During the first year of the new program, USAID will leverage US$3.45 million in U.S. government funding to accelerate the mobilisation of an estimated US$335 million. In this vein, Digital Invest will promote diverse competition, advance the use of secure network equipment, and reduce the gender digital divide through investments in safe, affordable, and inclusive digital services for underserved consumers in developing markets. This will be done by providing technical assistance, fund capitalization support, and direct portfolio engagement to help financiers support earlier stage, higher-risk projects, and startups with clear development impact, including the advancement of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment.
OECD Secretary General Mathias Cormann has announced that the implementation of Pillar One of the OECD’s global tax framework will be delayed until 2024 at the earlier, rather than 2023 as originally planned. Cormann was speaking during a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The Secretary General said that although it was intended that a multilateral convention to implement Pillar I would be agreed in time for a G7 summit in June, it was more likely to be agreed upon in time for a G20 meeting in November.
Pillar One targets companies which generate billions in revenues – including Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple – and aims to establishes new rules for the allocation of profits among various countries, regardless of whether the companies have a physical presence in those countries.
The likelihood is that Pillar Two, which sets out a minimum global tax, will be implemented sooner.
The proposed directive, published in December 2021 was adopted by the European Parliament by 503 votes in favour, 46 votes against and 48 abstentions.
MEPs have approved the key elements of the proposed directive, including the implementation deadline of 31 December 2022 to ensure a swift application of the law. They made limited changes to the proposal.
Italian police thwarted hacker attacks by pro-Russian hacker groups Killnet and Legion during the 10 May semi-final and 14 May final of the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) in Turin, Italy. Russia was excluded from the competition due to what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine, while Ukraine went on to win the contest.
Killnet denied the attack on ESC, but then declared cyberwar on 10 countries in the same Telegram post. In a separate video, the group stated that these 10 countries are ‘the US, the UK, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, and Ukraine.’
Speaking during the EU citizens’ assembly, the Conference on the Future of Europe (9 May 2022), von der Leyen said: ‘I have always argued that unanimity voting in some key areas simply no longer makes sense if we want to be able to move faster.’
Member states reacted immediately in a published non-paper, expressing their opposition to any change. ‘While we do not exclude any options at this stage, we do not support unconsidered and premature attempts to launch a process towards Treaty change. This would entail a serious risk of drawing political energy away from the important tasks of finding solutions to the questions to which our citizens expect answers and handling the urgent geopolitical challenges facing Europe.’
The document was endorsed by Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden.
The OEWG reached agreement to apply modalities for the participation of stakeholders as proposed by the Chair on 20 April, through a silent procedure. NGOs both with and without ECOSOC status should inform the OEWG Secretariat of their interest to participate. However, states can object to the participation of NGOs without consultative status with ECOSOC. The approved NGOs will be invited to participate as observers in the formal sessions, make oral statements during a dedicated stakeholder session, and submit written inputs to be posted on the OEWG’s website. The modalities will be read out at the OEWG’s third substantive session for the formal record.
