Who has been elected to Guernsey's committees?
You can listen live to the meeting of the States of Guernsey.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
23 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Chinese hackers have seized control. How did we let this happen?
A civilisation that cannot defend itself really should not expect to survive, and after the latest cybersecurity news, I wonder how it can. An official advisory was recently sent out to the US military, warning that all forces must now assume their networks have been breached. The enemy is inside the house. What it means is that no system connected to the internet can be defended. Our own national cybersecurity agency asked UK businesses to make this presumption in 2020. The reason this hasn't been bigger news is that we've become fatalistic and weary, as one cybersecurity attack follows another. So when we discovered in early July that Chinese hackers had gained control of Microsoft servers at hundreds of US government agencies – including the US nuclear weapons agency – it was just another hacking story. What made this one noteworthy was that there wasn't immediately a fix or a patch, Microsoft admitted last Tuesday. Incredibly, confirmation of the US military's 'assume breach' alert had to be dragged out of the Department of Defense via Freedom of Information Act requests by a campaigning non-profit called Property of the People. These developments are the latest stage in an ongoing state-sponsored Chinese campaign, in which hacking has evolved from widespread commercial espionage a decade ago into something far more threatening. The latest phases, Salt Typhoon and now Volt Typhoon, are meticulous and sophisticated. They target not just government agencies like the National Guard, and China-critical MPs like Sir Iain Duncan Smith, but also private sector companies in the energy, telecoms, transport and water sectors. Ciaran Martin, former head of NCSC, the cybersecurity centre based at GCHQ, says that China's capabilities have been transformed. 'Now think of dozens or even hundreds of [individual] hacks at the same time – 'everything, everywhere, all at once' in the words of Jen Easterly, recently departed head of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.' Software attacks on our computer systems can create unique damage in ways that conventional warfare cannot. Let's consider two. While aerial bombing can produce spectacular instant results, targets can be disassembled prior to attack, and can be quickly rebuilt after the attack. Both happened with the recent attack on Iraq's nuclear facilities. But recovering from cyber attacks is much harder. Ask the British Library, which has still not restored all of its services. 'Printed catalogues and handlists are available in our Reading Rooms', it still advises visitors to its website. The attack took place in October 2023. A second way in which cyber attacks now present a unique challenge is the ability of Chinese hackers to 'live off the land' after they break through. Rather like special forces embedded behind enemy lines, hackers conceal themselves undetected for months or years. To the guardians of the network, they are just another innocent user. 'Both Salt and Volt Typhoon were in play for years before being detected,' writes Martin. 'And they are strategic compromises of the West on a scale hitherto unseen by any other cyber power.' Not only do we not know when the attack is over, we don't even know when it has begun. How did this happen? If I haven't depressed you enough, this is where it gets particularly troubling. Cybersecurity is a gnarly failure of accountability and regulation that spans decades of indifference, and implicates business complacency and government apathy. The internet protocols (IP) we use today are completely rotten. The great and the good of the IT and telecommunications industries spent the entire 1980s in international committees devising complex secure networking protocols, only to be met with mistrust and specifications no one really wanted. Fed up with waiting, we adopted today's protocols, which were cheap and simple to implement, but not secure. Now, the international standards bodies that might devise a successor to IP are dominated by China. When they fail, suppliers can hide behind licensing agreements and expensive lawyers. No one goes to prison for bad security design. Their customers – us – are guilty of negligence too. Salt Typhoon took advantage of a bug in Cisco routers that users had not bothered to fix for seven years. As a society, we rush to implement technologies without thinking too hard about externalities. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) opens up lots of new holes, and also lowers the bar so that even the technically unskilled can plant hacks. All in all, then, this may not seem a good time to force Britons to use a new government identity service. Especially when you know that 'red team' penetration testing proved in March that this could be penetrated by hostile foreign agents without them being detected. This is what Baroness Neville Jones calls 'a piece of critical infrastructure'. Chinese agents may already be 'living off the land' inside the One Login system, on which your government wallet has been built, and soon perhaps, your digital ID. But don't expect Peter Kyle, the Science and Technology Minister, to put the brakes on the One Login project when he's its biggest fan. To survive and prosper, we need serious and technically aware people in his position, who listen to the security professionals. Kyle appeared on Newsnight last week wearing jeans and a T-shirt and trainers, all of which were intended to signal to viewers his youthful love of digital technology. He is 54.
South Wales Argus
27 minutes ago
- South Wales Argus
Minister dismisses idea of split in Cabinet over Palestinian statehood
Sir Keir Starmer has been facing calls to immediately make the change amid the continued desperate situation in Gaza. Israel announced at the weekend that it would suspend fighting in three areas of Gaza for 10 hours a day and open secure routes for aid delivery Health Secretary Wes Streeting is among those to have signalled a desire for hastened action calling for recognition 'while there's still a state of Palestine left to recognise'. While Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the Government wants to recognise a Palestinian state 'in contribution to a peace process'. Speaking to Good Morning Britain, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: 'There's no split. The whole of the Labour Party, every Labour MP, was elected on a manifesto of recognition of a Palestinian state, and we all want it to happen. 'It is a case of when, not if.' He added: 'It's about how we use this moment, because you can only do it once to have a meaningful breakthrough.' He had earlier told Sky News that recognition would happen 'in this Parliament [..,.] if it delivers the breakthrough that we need'. Later this week, the Prime Minister is expected to chair a Cabinet meeting on the conflict. The UK is working with Jordan to airdrop aid into Gaza and evacuate children needing medical assistance, with military planners deployed for further support. Humanitarian aid is airdropped to Palestinians over Gaza City (Jehad Alshrafi/AP) However, the head of the UN's Palestinian refugee agency has warned such efforts are 'a distraction' that will fail to properly address deepening starvation in the strip, and could in some cases harm civilians. Images and warnings of starvation emerging from Gaza in recent days have piled pressure on the Israeli government over its conduct in the conflict. The Prime Minister held crisis talks with French and German counterparts on Saturday, during which Number 10 said they agreed 'it would be vital to ensure robust plans are in place to turn an urgently-needed ceasefire into lasting peace'. A Downing Street readout of the call made no mention of Palestinian statehood, which Sir Keir has faced calls to immediately recognise after French president Emmanuel Macron announced his country would do so in September. Some 221 MPs from Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, SNP, Greens, Plaid Cymru, SDLP and independents have signed a letter pressuring the Government to follow suit at a UN meeting next week. The majority of those who have signed, 131, are Labour MPs.
Western Telegraph
29 minutes ago
- Western Telegraph
Minister dismisses idea of split in Cabinet over Palestinian statehood
Sir Keir Starmer has been facing calls to immediately make the change amid the continued desperate situation in Gaza. Israel announced at the weekend that it would suspend fighting in three areas of Gaza for 10 hours a day and open secure routes for aid delivery Health Secretary Wes Streeting is among those to have signalled a desire for hastened action calling for recognition 'while there's still a state of Palestine left to recognise'. While Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the Government wants to recognise a Palestinian state 'in contribution to a peace process'. Speaking to Good Morning Britain, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: 'There's no split. The whole of the Labour Party, every Labour MP, was elected on a manifesto of recognition of a Palestinian state, and we all want it to happen. 'It is a case of when, not if.' He added: 'It's about how we use this moment, because you can only do it once to have a meaningful breakthrough.' He had earlier told Sky News that recognition would happen 'in this Parliament [..,.] if it delivers the breakthrough that we need'. Later this week, the Prime Minister is expected to chair a Cabinet meeting on the conflict. The UK is working with Jordan to airdrop aid into Gaza and evacuate children needing medical assistance, with military planners deployed for further support. Humanitarian aid is airdropped to Palestinians over Gaza City (Jehad Alshrafi/AP) However, the head of the UN's Palestinian refugee agency has warned such efforts are 'a distraction' that will fail to properly address deepening starvation in the strip, and could in some cases harm civilians. Images and warnings of starvation emerging from Gaza in recent days have piled pressure on the Israeli government over its conduct in the conflict. The Prime Minister held crisis talks with French and German counterparts on Saturday, during which Number 10 said they agreed 'it would be vital to ensure robust plans are in place to turn an urgently-needed ceasefire into lasting peace'. A Downing Street readout of the call made no mention of Palestinian statehood, which Sir Keir has faced calls to immediately recognise after French president Emmanuel Macron announced his country would do so in September. Some 221 MPs from Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, SNP, Greens, Plaid Cymru, SDLP and independents have signed a letter pressuring the Government to follow suit at a UN meeting next week. The majority of those who have signed, 131, are Labour MPs.
