Update.
https://www.securityweek.com/ransomware-attack-costs-norsk-hydro-tens-millions-dollars
Ransomware Attack Costs Norsk Hydro Tens of Millions of Dollars
A piece of file-encrypting ransomware named LockerGoga started infecting Norsk Hydro systems on March 18. The attack caused disruptions at several of the company’s plants, forcing workers to rely on manual processes.
Hydro has been highly transparent regarding the impact of the incident. It claimed to have good backups in place and it did not intend on paying the ransom. However, the security breach still cost the firm a significant amount of money.
Roughly two weeks after the incident was made public, Hydro estimated that it lost $35-41 million (300-350 million Norwegian crowns) in the first week following the attack. Roughly one month later it made another estimate, putting the cost of the attack at roughly $50 million.
The company on Tuesday published its financial report for the first quarter, which it was forced to delay by over one month due to the cyberattack. The report shows that its Extruded Solutions unit suffered the biggest operational and financial impact.
Hydro says the overall impact of the cyberattack in the first quarter remains $35-41 million. It estimates that losses will total $23-29 million (200-250 million Norwegian crowns) in the second quarter.






I think it’s rather naive to think there was only one objective.
https://hotforsecurity.bitdefender.com/blog/china-allegedly-hacked-australian-national-university-to-recruit-informants-21307.html
China Allegedly Hacked Australian National University to Recruit Informants
Cybercriminals sponsored by the Chinese government allegedly infiltrated the Australian National University’s (ANU’s) systems in 2018 and were probably roaming freely until two weeks ago when the breach was detected, writes The Sydney Morning Herald.






It’s a not uncommon mind set.
https://www.securityweek.com/vietnam-cyber-threat-government-linked-hackers-ramping-attacks
Vietnam Cyber Threat: Government-Linked Hackers Ramping Up Attacks
Threat intelligence firm IntSights has issued a threat brief on the growing offensive cyber capabilities of Vietnam. The reasoning is a combination of state-affiliated -- or at least state-aligned -- advanced groups APT32 (OceanLotus) and APT-C-01 (Poison Ivy), and local cyber legislation that is promoting the development of cyber subterfuge among Vietnamese young.
… "As Vietnamese authorities attempt to strengthen their grip via censorship," she continues, "they drive more and more Vietnamese citizens to the dark web for access to unfiltered content." In these dark web forums, cyber capable youngsters are likely to learn the skills of cyber criminality.
"While Vietnam may not have the resources to combat world superpowers - like China or the U.S. - in traditional warfare or economic stature, cyber is leveling the playing field," comments Wright. "Vietnam has the potential to develop into a cybercriminal outpost, as its government continues to censor the public and push its youthful middle class toward the fringes with its strict internet legislation."






Looking for information to influence EU voters?
The EU’s Embassy In Russia Was Hacked But The EU Kept It A Secret
Alberto Nardelli reports:

The European Union’s embassy in Moscow was hacked and had information stolen from its network, according to a leaked internal document seen by BuzzFeed News.

An ongoing “sophisticated cyber espionage event” was discovered in April, just weeks before the European Parliament elections — but the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU’s foreign and security policy agency, did not disclose the incident publicly.

Read more on BuzzFeed.



(Related) Would anyone have noticed if it was half-vast?
https://www.securityweek.com/russia-effort-2016-us-election-was-vast-professional
Russia Effort in 2016 US Election Was 'Vast,' 'Professional'
A report by the security firm Symantec said some of the accounts linked to Russia's Internet Research Agency dated back as far as 2014 and that the manipulation effort involved a vast effort that included both automated "bots" and manual operations.






If a high school student can point out the privacy issues, why did the school district (and their attorneys?) fail to see them?
Use of Backpack may cross digital privacy lines
Piper Hansen is the Editor-in-Chief of Manual RedEye, the student newspaper of Louisville, Kentucky’s duPont Manual High School. She researched and wrote a really excellent piece on student digital privacy. It begins:

Amid the college application deadlines, school-work and football games in mid-October, duPont Manual’s senior class met in the auditorium, quickly filling the seats at the front of the room as Principal Darryl Farmer and several assistant principals faced them.

The administrators quieted the group of students and began to show them how to log in to a special website where they would upload evidence of their learning as part of Jefferson County Public Schools’ (JCPS) newest graduation requirement, the Backpack of Success Skills.

But what students and some administrators didn’t know was that the district may have been violating federal law by requiring them to use online resources, like the Backpack, without obtaining parental consent for the district-issued account used to access it per the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

Read more on Manual RedEye.






All I see is liability. Are they guaranteeing to detect and stop suicides? What if they miss something “obvious?” What if they detect something and fail to act? How quickly can they respond?
UK: Universities to trawl through students’ social media to look for suicide risk, under new project
Meanwhile…. from back on the road that is paved with good intentions but goes to the wrong place, Camilla Turner reports:

Universities are to trawl through students’ social media to look for signs that they may be suicidal, as part of a new project funded by the higher education watchdog.

The new scheme, backed by the Office for Students (OfS), is aimed at reducing suicide rates and identifying students in crisis by harvesting data on individuals.

Northumbria University, which is leading the three year project, will design and pilot an “Early Alert Tool” which, if successful, could be rolled out at all British institutions.

Read more on The Telegraph.






Clear indication that they have something to hide?
https://www.bespacific.com/france-bans-judge-analytics-5-years-in-prison-for-rule-breakers/
France Bans Judge Analytics, 5 Years In Prison For Rule Breakers
Artificial Lawyer – “In a startling intervention that seeks to limit the emerging litigation analytics and prediction sector, the French Government has banned the publication of statistical information about judges’ decisions – with a five year prison sentence set as the maximum punishment for anyone who breaks the new law. Owners of legal tech companies focused on litigation analytics are the most likely to suffer from this new measure. The new law, encoded in Article 33 of the Justice Reform Act, is aimed at preventing anyone – but especially legal tech companies focused on litigation prediction and analytics – from publicly revealing the pattern of judges’ behaviour in relation to court decisions.
A key passage of the new law states: ‘The identity data of magistrates and members of the judiciary cannot be reused with the purpose or effect of evaluating, analysing, comparing or predicting their actual or alleged professional practices.’ *
As far as Artificial Lawyer understands, this is the very first example of such a ban anywhere in the world. Insiders in France told Artificial Lawyer that the new law is a direct result of an earlier effort to make all case law easily accessible to the general public, which was seen at the time as improving access to justice and a big step forward for transparency in the justice sector. However, judges in France had not reckoned on NLP and machine learning companies taking the public data and using it to model how certain judges behave in relation to particular types of legal matter or argument, or how they compare to other judges…”






Please tell me there’s a cure!
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-06-reveals-internet-brain.html
Research reveals how the Internet may be changing the brain
An international team of researchers from Western Sydney University, Harvard University, Kings College, Oxford University and University of Manchester have found the Internet can produce both acute and sustained alterations in specific areas of cognition, which may reflect changes in the brain, affecting our attentional capacities, memory processes, and social interactions.
[The article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wps.20617






Perspective.
https://www.emarketer.com/content/average-us-time-spent-with-mobile-in-2019-has-increased
Average US Time Spent with Mobile in 2019 Has Increased
For the first time ever, US consumers will spend more time using their mobile devices than watching TV, with smartphone use dominating that time spent.
… The average US adult will spend 3 hours, 43 minutes (referenced as 3:43) on mobile devices in 2019, just above the 3:35 spent on TV. Of time spent on mobile, US consumers will spend 2:55 on smartphones, a 9-minute increase from last year. In 2018, mobile time spent was 3:35, with TV time spent at 3:44.






For the toolkit.
The 5 Best Grammar Checkers