Tag Archives: Europe

Cyber alert: EU ministers test responses in first computer war game

Cyber alert: EU ministers test responses in first computer war game

By Robin Emmott

TALLINN (Reuters) – European Union defense ministers tested their ability to respond to a potential attack by computer hackers in their first cyber war game on Thursday, based on a simulated attack on one of the bloc’s military missions abroad.

In the simulation, hackers sabotaged the EU’s naval mission in the Mediterranean and launched a campaign on social media to discredit the EU operations and provoke protests.

Each of the defense ministers tried to contain the crisis over the course of the 90-minute, closed-door exercise in Tallinn that officials sought to make real by creating mock news videos giving updates on an escalating situation.

German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said the “extremely exciting” war game showed the need for EU governments to be more aware of the impact of cyber attacks on critical infrastructure in the EU.

“The adversary is very, very difficult to identify, the attack is silent, invisible,” Von der Leyen told reporters. “The adversary does not need an army, but only a computer with internet connection”.

After a series of global cyber attacks disrupted multinational firms, ports and public services on an unprecedented scale this year, governments are seeking to stop hackers from shutting down more critical infrastructure or crippling corporate and government networks.

“We needed to raise awareness at the political level,” Jorge Domecq, the chief executive of the European Defence Agency that helped organize the exercise with Estonia, told Reuters.

Especially concerned about Russia since it seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, Estonia has put cyber security at the forefront of its six-month EU presidency and proposed the exercise.

Estonia was hit by cyber attacks on private and government Internet sites in 2007. One of the world’s most Internet-savvy countries, with 95 percent of government services online, Estonia has a separate cyber command in its armed forces. But it is not without its vulnerabilities.

International researchers have found a security risk with the chips embedded in Estonian identity cards that could allow hackers to steal people’s identities, although officials said there was no evidence of a hack.

INCIDENT, THREAT OR ATTACK?

NATO last year recognized cyberspace as a domain of warfare and said it justified activating the alliance’s collective defense clause. The European Union has broadened its information-sharing between governments and is expected to present a new cyber defense plan.

The EU exercise made ministers consider how to work more closely with NATO, whose Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was there as an observer, diplomats present said.

“Over the last year, we saw a 60 percent increase in the number of cyber attacks against NATO networks,” Stoltenberg told reporters. “A timely exchange of information (with the EU) is key to responding to any cyber attacks.”

EU cyber exercises are not new, but officials said the idea of Thursday’s exercise was to put the onus on defense ministers to act by simulating a temporary loss of military operational command, even if they would have more support in a real-life situation.

Using tablet computers, ministers answered multiple-choice questions as they reacted to the situation, including some on whether they would make public statements or keep the situation secret.

“Do you announce to the whole country that you are under a cyber attack. Is it an incident, a threat or an attack? These are the questions that ministers were forced to consider, probably for the first time,” Estonian Defence Minister Juri Luik told Reuters.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Top EU court rules eastern states must take refugees

FILE PHOTO: Migrants face Hungarian police in the main Eastern Railway station in Budapest, Hungary, September 1, 2015. REUTE/Laszlo Balogh/File Photo

By Michele Sinner

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) – The European Union’s highest court ruled on Wednesday that EU states must take in a share of refugees who reach Europe, dismissing complaints by Slovakia and Hungary and reigniting an angry row between east and west.

The government of Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Victor Orban was characteristically blunt about the European Court of Justice, calling its decision to uphold an EU policy drafted in the heat of the 2015 migrant crisis as “appalling” and denouncing a political “rape of European law and values”.

However, Germany, which took in the bulk of over a million people who landed in Greece two years ago, said it expected the formerly communist states, including Poland, which supported the complaint, to now fall in line and accept the ruling that the Union is entitled to impose quotas of asylum-seekers on states.

The Luxembourg-based ECJ rejected the Hungarian and Slovak claims that it was illegal for Brussels to order them to take in hundreds of mainly Muslim refugees from Syria, which they said threatened the security and stability of their societies.

“The mechanism actually contributes to enabling Greece and Italy to deal with the impact of the 2015 migration crisis and is proportionate,” the court said in statement.

Italy, now the main destination for migrants risking the Mediterranean crossing, is prominent among wealthier, Western states in threatening their eastern neighbors with cutting their EU subsidies if they do show solidarity by taking people in. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said he would still not take a quota but was ready to help in other ways.

A sharp decline in numbers arriving, partly a result of the effective closure of routes from Turkey to Greece and from Greece into Macedonia and toward northern Europe, has taken some of the heat out of the arguments and diplomats expect the EU executive, the European Commission, to propose new ideas.

“We can expect all European partners to stick to the ruling and implement the agreements without delay,” German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in a statement.

The eurosceptic AfD party, which expects to win seats in the Berlin parliament at a national election on Sept. 24, criticized the court ruling as proof that unelected “Brussels bureaucrats” were imposing on states — though in fact the Commission’s quota policy was backed by a majority of the member state governments.

EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos tweeted: “Time to work in unity and implement solidarity in full.”

“RAPE OF LAW AND VALUES”

Calling the court ruling “appalling and irresponsible”, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said: “This decision jeopardizes the security and future of all of Europe.

“Politics has raped European law and values.”

EU asylum law states that people arriving in the bloc should claim asylum in the first member state they enter but that rule was exposed as unworkable when hundreds of thousands arrived in economically struggling Greece and Italy. Arguments over what to do struck at the heart of the Union’s cooperation and chaotic movements of people saw member states try to seal borders with each other, dealing a heavy blow to a key EU achievement.

The migration crisis came at a time of deep soul-searching about the Union’s future and some questioned its survival.

However, a drop in migrant numbers, to which cooperation on tightening the common external border has contributed, as well as an economic upturn and election defeats for anti-immigrant parties has steadied nerves in Brussels, despite the difficulty posed by Britain’s vote last year to exit the bloc.

The program provided for the relocation of up to 120,000 people from Greece and Italy, but less than 30,000 have so far been moved, partly through difficulties in identifying suitable candidates. A further program for resettling people directly from outside the EU has also struggled to hit targets.

Hungary and Poland have refused to host a single person under the 2015 sharing scheme, while Slovakia and the Czech Republic have each taken in only a dozen or so.

While the EU has sought in vain to come up with a compromise, the court ruling may just force Brussels’ hand.

It is a delicate balancing act as putting such a thorny issue to a vote, and possibly passing a migration reform despite opposition from several states, would cause even more bad blood.

“If we push it through above their heads, they will use it in their anti-EU propaganda at home,” another EU diplomat said of Poland and Hungary, where the nationalist-minded governments are embroiled in disputes with Brussels over democratic rules.

“But the arrivals are low, we have it more or less under control, so we have to get back to the solidarity mechanism.”

(Additional reporting and writing in Brussels by Gabriela Baczynska and Alastair Macdonald; editing by Philip Blenkinsop and Angus MacSwan)

Hackers gain entry into U.S., European energy sector, Symantec warns

Hackers gain entry into U.S., European energy sector, Symantec warns

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Advanced hackers have targeted United States and European energy companies in a cyber espionage campaign that has in some cases successfully broken into the core systems that control the companies’ operations, according to researchers at the security firm Symantec.

Malicious email campaigns have been used to gain entry into organizations in the United States, Turkey and Switzerland, and likely other countries well, Symantec said in a report published on Wednesday.

The cyber attacks, which began in late 2015 but increased in frequency in April of this year, are probably the work of a foreign government and bear the hallmarks of a hacking group known as Dragonfly, Eric Chien, a cyber security researcher at Symantec, said in an interview.

The research adds to concerns that industrial firms, including power providers and other utilities, are susceptible to cyber attacks that could be leveraged for destructive purposes in the event of a major geopolitical conflict.

In June the U.S. government warned industrial firms about a hacking campaign targeting the nuclear and energy sectors, saying in an alert seen by Reuters that hackers sent phishing emails to harvest credentials in order to gain access to targeted networks.

Chien said he believed that alert likely referenced the same campaign Symantec has been tracking.

He said dozens of companies had been targeted and that a handful of them, including in the United States, had been compromised on the operational level. That level of access meant that motivation was “the only step left” preventing “sabotage of the power grid,” Chien said.

However, other researchers cast some doubt on the findings.

While concerning, the attacks were “far from the level of being able to turn off the lights, so there’s no alarmism needed,” said Robert M. Lee, founder of U.S. critical infrastructure security firm Dragos Inc, who read the report.

Lee called the connection to Dragonfly “loose.”

Dragonfly was previously active from around to 2011 to 2014, when it appeared to go dormant after several cyber firms published research exposing its attacks. The group, also known as Energetic Bear or Koala, was widely believed by security experts to be tied to the Russian government.

Symantec did not name Russia in its report but noted that the attackers used code strings that were in Russian. Other code used French, Symantec said, suggesting the attackers may be attempting to make it more difficult to identify them.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Leslie Adler)

France says North Korea close to long-range missile capability

A new stamp issued in commemoration of the successful second test launch of the "Hwasong-14" intercontinental ballistic missile is seen in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on August 31, 2017.

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s foreign minister said on Friday that North Korea would have capability to send long-range ballistic missiles in a few months and urged China to be more active diplomatically to resolve the crisis.

“The situation is extremely serious… we see North Korea setting itself as an objective to have tomorrow or the day after missiles that can transport nuclear weapons. In a few months that will be a reality,” Jean-Yves Le Drian told RTL radio.

“At the moment, when North Korea has the means to strike the United States, even Europe, but definitely Japan and China, then the situation will be explosive,” he said.

Le Drian, who spoke to his Chinese counterpart on Thursday, said everything had to be done to ensure a latest round of United Nations sanctions was implemented and urged China, Pyongyang’s main trade partner, to do its utmost to enforce them.

“North Korea must find the path to negotiations. It must be diplomatically active.”

 

(Reporting by John Irish, Editing by Leigh Thomas)

 

EU urges swifter Brexit talks as London seeks ‘flexibility’

Britain's Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union David Davis (L) and European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier talk to the media, ahead of Brexit talks in Brussels, Belgium August 28, 2017. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

By Gabriela Baczynska and Alastair Macdonald

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said on Monday he was concerned at the slow progress of Brexit talks, while his British counterpart David Davis called for “imagination and flexibility” to move on.

British officials arrived in Brussels on Monday hoping to push the EU toward talks about their post-Brexit ties, which the bloc refuses to launch until there is agreement on London’s exit bill and other pressing “divorce” matters, including the rights of EU citizens in Britain after March 2019.

“To be honest, I am concerned. Time passes quickly,” Barnier told reporters as he welcomed Davis back for a new round of talks. The third formal session since the process began in June, it is due to wind up on Thursday.

“We must start negotiating seriously,” Barnier said. “The sooner we remove the ambiguity, the sooner we will be in a position to discuss the future relationship.”

He welcomed a series of proposals London made over the summer break, but made clear they fell short of what EU leaders want to see before they will agree to open negotiations on the future free trade agreement the British government wants.

Impatient with the structure of talks agreed among the 27 other states and now binding Barnier’s negotiators, the British position papers made frequent reference to a future relationship with the EU rather than just the immediate task of bringing legal clarity for people and business when Britain leaves.

“The UK government has published a large number of papers covering important issues related to our withdrawal and our vision for a deep and special partnership,” Davis said.

“We want to lock in the points where we agree, unpick the areas where we disagree and make further progress on the whole range of issues,” he added.

To do that would require “flexibility and imagination from both sides”, he said.

But the EU wants to settle the major separation issues of ensuring expatriate rights, agreeing a divorce bill and squaring the circle of the future Irish border before jumping into talks about post-Brexit ties with London.

“The EU 27 and the European Parliament are united. They will not accept that separation issues are not addressed properly,” Barnier said. “I am ready to intensify negotiations over the coming weeks in order to advance.”

British officials took a relaxed view of Barnier’s implied criticisms, noting it was a familiar line from the former French minister, and dismissed a suggestion talks were going badly.

 

NO BREAKTHROUGH EXPECTED

The EU has already signaled that the slow progress so far has made talks about a new accord with Britain less likely to start after an EU summit in October, as had been hoped.

The EU and Britain seem far apart on agreeing how much London should pay the bloc on departure to account for previous commitments.

The Irish issue is extremely delicate because of the history of political violence there, as well as the complex economic consequences of Brexit.

Dublin said on Monday much of the future border arrangements between Northern Ireland and Ireland could be solved before Brexit talks enter the next phase.

Neither side expects major breakthroughs this week in talks aimed at unraveling more than 40 years of union. Neither seems ready for major political concessions at this stage.

An EU official said it was “clearly worrying that we have major differences of core issues … with very little time to land all this, even if Britain moves”.

Britain’s opposition Labour Party on Sunday offered an alternative to the policy pursued by Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May by saying it would stay in the European single market for a transitional period after Brexit.

The British and German chambers of commerce together urged negotiators on Monday to start talks about future trading relations, and particularly customs arrangements, swiftly.

Writing in Le Monde in his native France, Barnier said the EU and Britain must remain allies for their common defense: “The Union of 27 and the United Kingdom will have to join forces to stand up to common threats,” he said.

“The security of our citizens cannot be haggled over.”

 

(Additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop and Jan Strupczewski; editing by Andrew Roche)

 

UK banks behind schedule in post-Brexit preparations: ECB

Sabine Lautenschlaeger attends at a news conference at the ECB in Frankfurt October 26, 2014. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – British-based banks seeking to relocate to the European Union before Britain leaves the bloc are behind schedule in their preparations for the move, a European Central Bank supervisor said on Wednesday.

International banks based in London risk losing access to the EU’s single market once Britain leaves it in 2019, forcing many to consider moving parts of their businesses to the bloc and seek a license from the ECB, the sector’s watchdog.

But Sabine Lautenschlaeger, who represents the ECB’s supervisory arm on the central bank’s board, said progress had been slower than hoped.

“Frankly, the banks are not as far advanced as we would like them to be,” Lautenschlaeger said in a newsletter article.

“Of the banks that have indicated an interest in relocating operations to the euro area, a number of the larger banks have made progress in their planning. But we have not seen many final decisions yet.”

She added the ECB would not grant licenses to “empty shells” and would take a tough stance on “back-to-back transactions”, where a bank would conduct trades out of its EU base but process and risk manage them at its London office.

“While we do not rule out this practice per se, ultimately we expect banks to manage relevant parts of their risks locally and independently,” Lautenschlaeger said.

Lautenschlaeger also said she expected banks moving to the EU to update their recovery plans, which kick in if they fail, “shortly” after moving.

(Reporting By Francesco Canepa; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Hamburg attacker was known to security forces as Islamist: minister

Security forces and ambulances are seen after a knife attack in a supermarket in Hamburg, Germany, July 28, 2017. REUTERS/Morris Mac Matzen

HAMBURG (Reuters) – The migrant who killed one person and injured six others in a knife attack in a Hamburg supermarket on Friday was an Islamist known to German security forces, who say they believed he posed no immediate threat, the city-state’s interior minister said on Saturday.

A possible security lapse in a second deadly militant attack in less than a year, and two months before the general election, would be highly embarrassing for German intelligence, especially since security is a main theme in the Sept. 24 vote.

A Tunisian failed asylum seeker killed 12 people by driving a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin in December, slipping through the net after intelligence officers who had monitored him reached the conclusion he was no threat.

Hamburg Interior Minister Andy Grote told a news conference on Saturday that Friday’s 26-year-old attacker was registered in intelligence systems as an Islamist but not as a jihadist, as there was no evidence to link him to an imminent attack.

He also said the attacker, a Palestinian asylum seeker who could not be deported as he lacked identification documents, was psychologically unstable.

The Palestinian mission in Berlin had agreed to issue him with documents and he had agreed to leave Germany once these were ready, a process that takes a few months.

“What we can say of the motive of the attacker at the moment is that on the one side there are indications that he acted based on religious Islamist motives, and on the other hand there are indications of psychological instability,” Grote said.

“The attacker was known to security forces. There was information that he had been radicalized,” he said.

“As far as we know … there were no grounds to assess him as an immediate danger. He was a suspected Islamist and was recorded as such in the appropriate systems, not as a jihadist but as an Islamist.”

Prosecutors said the attacker pulled a 20-centimetre knife from a shelf at the supermarket and stabbed three people inside and four outside before passers-by threw chairs and other objects at him, allowing police to arrest him.

A 50-year-old man died of his injuries. None of the other six people injured in the attack is in a life-threatening condition.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is seeking a fourth term in office in September. Her decision in 2015 to open Germany’s doors to more than one million migrants has sparked a debate about the need to spend more on policing and security.

Tunisian asylum seeker Anis Amri, who could not be deported because he lacked identification documents, carried out his attack at a Christmas market in Berlin in December after security agencies stopped monitoring him because they could not prove suspicions that he was planning to purchase weapons.

(Reporting by Frank Witte in Hamburg; Writing by Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

One dead in knife attack in Hamburg supermarket, motive unclear

Security forces are seen after a knife attack in a supermarket in Hamburg, Germany, July 28, 2017. REUTERS/Morris Mac Matzen

BERLIN (Reuters) – One person was killed in an attack by a lone knifeman in a supermarket in the northern German city of Hamburg on Friday, and four more were injured when the man fled the scene, police said.

The police said the man had suddenly started attacking customers in the shop, with no immediate indication of any political or religious motive. Officers detained him near the site.

“We have no clear information as to the motive or the number of wounded,” Hamburg police said in a tweet. “It was definitely a lone attacker.” They said initial reports about a possible robbery had not been substantiated.

Police said passersby tackled the man after he fled the scene, injuring him slightly, before plain clothes police officers could take him into custody.

Police have been on high alert in Germany since a spate of attacks on civilians last year, including a December attack on a Berlin Christmas market, when a hijacked truck plougher into the crowds, killing 12 and injuring many more.

Security has been a campaign issue ahead of Sept. 24 parliamentary elections, in which Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to win a fourth term in office.

Newspaper Bild showed a picture of the alleged Hamburg attacker sitting in the back of a police car, his face concealed with a bloodied shroud.

A video on its website showed a helicopter landed outside the supermarket with armed police in body armor patrolling the neighborhood.

(Reporting By Thomas Escritt and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Michelle Martin and Toby Davis)

U.S. general says allies worry Russian war game may be ‘Trojan horse’

U.S Army Europe Commanding General Ben Hodges speaks during the inauguration ceremony of bilateral military training between U.S. and Polish troops in Zagan, Poland, January 30, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

By Andrea Shalal

BERLIN (Reuters) – U.S. allies in eastern Europe and Ukraine are worried that Russia’s planned war games in September could be a “Trojan horse” aimed at leaving behind military equipment brought into Belarus, the U.S. Army’s top general in Europe said on Thursday.

Russia has sought to reassure NATO that the military exercises will respect international limits on size, but NATO and U.S. official remain wary about their scale and scope.

U.S. Army Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, who heads U.S. Army forces in Europe, told Reuters in an interview that allied officials would keep a close eye on military equipment brought in to Belarus for the Zapad 2017 exercise, and whether it was removed later.

“People are worried, this is a Trojan horse. They say, ‘We’re just doing an exercise,’ and then all of a sudden they’ve moved all these people and capabilities somewhere,” he said.

Hodges said he had no indications that Russia had any such plans, but said greater openness by Moscow about the extent of its war games would help reassure countries in eastern Europe.

A senior Russian diplomat strongly rejected allegations that Moscow could leave military equipment in Belarus.

“This artificial buffoonery over the routine Zapad-2017 exercises is aimed at justifying the sharp intensification of the NATO bloc (activities) along the perimeter of Russian territory,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told the Interfax news agency on Friday.

NATO allies are nervous because previous large-scale Russian exercises employed special forces training, longer-range missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.

Such tactics were later used in Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine and in its intervention in Syria, NATO diplomats say.

Hodges said the United States and its allies had been very open about a number of military exercises taking place across eastern Europe this summer involving up to 40,000 troops, but it remained unclear if Moscow would adhere to a Cold War-era treaty known as the Vienna document, which requires observers for large-scale exercises involving more than 13,000 troops.

Some NATO allies believe the Russian exercise could number more than 100,000 troops and involve nuclear weapons training, the biggest such exercise since 2013.

Russia has said it would invite observers if the exercise exceeded 13,000 forces.

Hodges said NATO would maintain normal rotations during the Russian war game, while carrying out previously scheduled exercises in Sweden, Poland and Ukraine.

The only additional action planned during that period was a six-week deployment of three companies of 120 paratroopers each to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for “low-level” exercises, Hodges said.

“We want to avoid anything that looks like a provocation. This is not going to be the ‘Sharks’ and the ‘Jets’ out on the streets,” Hodges said in a reference to the gang fights shown in the 1961 film “West Side Story” set in New York City.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Foreign hackers probe European critical infrastructure networks

Cables and computers are seen inside a data centre at an office in the heart of the financial district in London, Britain

By Mark Hosenball

LONDON (Reuters) – Cyber attackers are regularly trying to attack data networks connected to critical national infrastructure systems around Europe, according to current and former European government sources with knowledge of the issue.

The sources acknowledged that European infrastructure data networks face regular attacks similar to those which the Washington Post newspaper said on Sunday had been launched by Russian government hackers against business systems of U.S. nuclear power and other companies involved in energy production.

One former senior British security official said it was an “article of faith” that Russian government hackers were seeking to penetrate UK critical infrastructure though the official said he could not cite public case studies.

A European security source acknowledged that UK authorities were aware of the latest reports about infrastructure hacking attempts and that British authorities were in regular contact with other governments over the attacks.

UK authorities declined to comment on the extent of any such attempted or successful attacks in Britain or elsewhere in Europe or to discuss what possible security measures governments and infrastructure operators might be taking.

The Washington Post said recent attempted Russian hacking attacks on infrastructure related systems in the United States appeared to be an effort to “assess” such networks.

But there was no evidence that hackers had actually penetrated or disrupted key systems controlling operations at nuclear plants.

The Post cited several U.S. and industry officials saying that this was the first time hackers associated with the Russian government are known to have tried to get into US nuclear power companies.

The newspaper said that in late June the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the U.S. Homeland Security Department warned energy companies that unnamed foreign hackers were trying to steal login and password information so they could hack into networks.

U.S. officials have acknowledged that many key computer systems which run critical infrastructure ranging from power grids to transportation networks originally were not built with strong security protection against outside hackers.

Security experts in the U.S. and Europe acknowledge that the development and evolution of security measures to protect critical infrastructure system against outside intruders has often run behind the ability of hackers to invent tools to get inside such systems.

 

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)