EU banking regulator hit by Microsoft email hack
PARIS: The European Banking Authority, a key EU financial regulator, says it has fallen victim to a hack of its Microsoft email system which the US company blames on a Chinese group.
Microsoft said last week that a state-sponsored group operating out of China was exploiting previously unknown security flaws in its Exchange email services to steal data from business and government users, believed to number in the tens of thousands so far.
The “Hafnium” group was a “highly skilled and sophisticated actor’’, it said. Hafnium has previously targeted Us-based companies including infectious disease researchers, law firms, universities, defence contractors, think-tanks and NGOS, it added.
In a statement issued late on Sunday, the EBA confirmed the attack on its email systems which it had decided to take offline “as a precautionary measure.”
“The Agency has swiftly launched a full investigation, in close cooperation with its ICT provider, a team of forensic experts and other relevant entities’’, it said.
The EBA warned that as a result of the attack, personal data could have been accessed and it would provide advice on possible mitigation measures if necessary.
Microsoft executive Tom Burt said last Tuesday that the company provided updates to fix the security flaws and urged customers to apply them. “We know that many nationstate actors and criminal groups will move quickly to take advantage of any unpatched systems’’, he added.
Dima W’attayeen is nearly two hours drive from Muscat and is characterised by green farms and rocky mountains. Hikers and adventurers had been flocking to Wadi Qabat not only because of the friendly hike it offers but also because of its warm waters and beautifull colour pools...
HUMANS HAVE degraded or destroyed roughly two-thirds of the world’s original tropical rainforest cover, new data reveals - raising alarm that a key natural buffer against climate change is quickly vanishing.
The forest loss is also a major contributor to climate-warming emissions, with the dense tropical forest vegetation representing the largest living reservoir of carbon.
Logging and land conversion, mainly for agriculture, have wiped out 34% of the world’s original oldgrowth tropical rainforests, and degraded another 30%, leaving them more vulnerable to fire and future destruction, according to an analysis by the non-profit Rainforest Foundation Norway.
More than half of the destruction since 2002 has been in South America’s Amazon and bordering rainforests.
As more rainforest is destroyed, there is more potential for climate change, which in turn makes it more difficult for remaining forests to survive, said the report’s author Anders Krogh, a tropical forest researcher.
“It’s a terrifying cycle,” Krogh said. The total lost between just 2002 and 2019 was larger than the area of France, he found.
The rate of loss in 2019 roughly matched the annual level of destruction over the last 20 years, with a football-field’s worth of forest vanishing every 6 seconds, according to another recent report by the World Resources Institute.
The Brazilian Amazon has been under intense pressure in recent decades, as an agricultural boom has driven farmers and land speculators to torch plots of land for soybeans, beef and other crops. That trend has worsened since 2019, when right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro took office and began weakening environmental enforcement.
But the Amazon also represents the best hope for preserving what rainforest remains. The Amazon and its neighbours - the Orinoco and the Andean rainforest - account for 73.5% of tropical forests still intact, according to Krogh.
The new report “reinforces that Brazil must take care of the forest,” said Ane Alencar, a geographer with the Amazon Environmental Research Institute who was not involved in the work. “Brazil has the biggest chunk of tropical forest in the world and is also losing the most.”
Southeast Asian islands, mostly belonging to Indonesia, collectively rank second in terms of forest destruction since 2002, with much of those forests cleared for palm oil plantations.
Central Africa ranks third, with most of the destruction centred around the Congo River basin, due to traditional and commercial farming as well as logging.
Forests that were defined in the report as degraded had either been partially destroyed, or destroyed and since replaced by secondary forest growth, Rainforest Foundation Norway said.
That report’s definition for intact forest may be overly strict, cautioned Tasso Azevedo, coordinator of the Brazilian deforestation mapping initiative Mapbiomas. The analysis only counts untouched regions of at least 500 square km (193 square miles) as intact, leaving out smaller areas that may add to the world’s virgin forest cover, he said.
Krogh explained that this definition was chosen because smaller tracts are at risk of the “edge effect,” where trees die faster and biodiversity is harder to maintain near the edge of the forest. A forest spanning 500 square km can fully sustain its ecosystem, he said.
Whether it’s an innocent smile caught through a palm frond basket, an Omani woman in traditional garb crossing over from the light to darkness or focusing in the many astounding structures and scenery in Oman, Sultan Qaboos University is buzzing with different activities not only for artists but specifically, photographers.
The activities of the 24th edition of photography week in SQU kicked off this week. The week carries the title “Astonishment”, which aims at highlighting the artwork of the new members of the Photography Group.
A quick visit to the university’s gallery would showcase some of the best works students and participants can produce competing against each other for artistry and creativity.
The exhibition is divided into five pavilions, namely: The interface, the blogs, personal photos, themes and a pavilion for side activities.
There are 33 photos exhibited with varied subjects that include natural scenes, people’s lifestyle, portrait, Conceptual art and silent nature. The collection also covers six themes.
Alongside the exhibition, several workshops will be held on nature photography, silent nature photography and photography using mobile phones.