Cyber security awareness alliance

Energy provider Npower has removed its app after stolen login data was used to access customer accounts. The firm, owned by E.ON - one of the UK's big six energy suppliers - has not revealed how many people may have been affected by the cyber attack. It is believed that personal contact details and partial financial information may have been obtained, according to MoneySavingExpert.com , although full account numbers appear not to have been taken. Npower said it has alerted those who may have been affected and "immediately locked" their accounts. "We identified suspicious cyber activity affecting the npower mobile app, where someone has accessed customer accounts using login data stolen from another website. This is known as credential stuffing," the company said in a statement. "We've contacted all affected customers to make them aware of the issue, encouraging them to change their passwords and advice on how to prevent unauthorised access to their online account. "We … [Read more...] about NPower cyber attack – customers warned personal details may have been breached

"America is back." Joe Biden couldn't resist repeating his foreign policy mantra during his debut on the (virtual) international stage of the Munich Security Conference, but he went significantly beyond his inaugural promise to repair alliances and restore leadership. Declaring that the US is looking not backward but forward, he outlined a vision of international engagement that puts democratic resilience at the core of Western security. In so doing, he laid the groundwork for new forms of trans-Atlantic cooperation. Biden is well aware that on neither side of the Atlantic are citizens longing for restoration of an — arguably illusory — Western order in which the US led, materially as well as morally, and Europe followed. DW's Melinda Crane America's domestic political divisions, its citizens' resistance to the role of global policeman, set clear limits to that role. With his campaign promise of a "foreign policy for the middle class," Biden made it known early on that … [Read more...] about Opinion: Message from Munich: Resilience is the foundation of trans-Atlantic security

Last Friday at 8am, a computer operator at a water treatment plant in Florida noticed the cursor moving across his screen as if being controlled by an invisible hand. The operator assumed that, as often happened at the plant, which provides drinking water to the small city of Oldsmar (population 14,600), it was just his supervisor remotely checking into the system. But when the mystery user logged in again a few hours later and began clicking through the plant’s controls, it rapidly became clear that this wasn’t the boss. For within minutes, the intruder had increased by 100 times the level of sodium hydroxide going into the water supply. In low concentrations, sodium hydroxide — also known as lye or caustic soda — is harmless and controls water’s acidity level. But in high concentrations it can be lethal, causing severe harm to human tissue. After boosting the amount of it in the water from 100 parts per million to 11,100 parts, the visitor signed out of the system. … [Read more...] about Have the floodgates opened on the age of cyber sabotage? A hidden hand seizes control of computers managing a city’s water supply – in a bid to poison thousands. Terrifyingly, writes TOM LEONARD, it’s far from a one-off

For the first time ever, the acting US president spoke at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) to re-affirm the trans-Atlantic alliance, which many world leaders feared had been left in diplomatic disarray by his predecessor, Donald Trump. "I speak today as president of the United States and I'm sending a clear message to the world: America is back," President Joe Biden told the conference on Friday. "The trans-Atlantic alliance is back." The sense of relief was palpable on the stage of the Bayerischer Hof hotel in the Bavarian capital, where MSC head Wolfgang Ischinger, a seasoned German diplomat and former ambassador to the US, was visibly excited to be hosting a three-way video-link with Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron. But there were also hints that the alliance was not simply going to be a return to an old world order. Macron spoke of a re-balancing of trans-Atlantic ties, especially when it comes to defense spending with a … [Read more...] about Munich Security Conference: Joe Biden tells Europe ‘America is back’

German biotech firm BioNTech said on Wednesday that documents relating to the Covid-19 vaccine it has developed with Pfizer were “unlawfully accessed” after a cyber-attack on Europe’s medicines regulator. Earlier, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) – which is responsible for assessing and approving vaccines for the European Union – said it had been targeted in a cyber-attack. It gave no further details. It was not immediately clear when or how the attack took place, who was responsible or what other information may have been compromised. Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre said it was studying the situation and its impact on the UK, the first country where the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has been deployed. An NCSC spokesperson added: “We are working with international partners to understand the impact of this incident affecting the EU’s medicine regulator, but there is currently no evidence to suggest that the UK’s medicine … [Read more...] about Hackers accessed vaccine documents in cyber-attack on EMA