Sophisticated Attacks Over Hotel Wi-Fi exposed
Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab has discovered that criminals have been exploiting the wifi networks of certain luxury hotels in Asia to steal confidential information.
The group, known as the ‘Darkhotel’ hackers modified their code in order to target only the machines of those they wished to infiltrate. This indicates they had advanced knowledge of their victims’ whereabouts and which hotels they would be staying in.
The goal of the hackers seems to have been to gain access to services like Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Twitter accounts for a number of American and Asian business executives. It is also clear that the plan was to snoop on their targets for as long as possible, long after the initial infection.
Kaspersky Lab’s Costin Raiu said “the perpetrators could have had multiple motivations and may have been nation state-sponsored hackers or cyber criminals”.
“So far all victims we have been able to trace are very important people and they make sense in the context,” he said. “Maybe what we have here is the same framework being used by two different groups – one with a focus on other nation states, the other focusing on business interests… it wouldn’t be abnormal.
“I know that at least one of the victims was particularly staying in a hotel because she attended a conference event in that particular city.”
Upon further investigation at the hotel, Kaspersky Labs have found that the attacks date back to at least 2009. The scheme was not restricted to hotels either. Their malware has also cropped up on peer-to-peer file sharing networks like BitTorrent, and as email attachments where the targets appear to have been governments, defence firms and NGOs – lured with relevant topics on nuclear energy and defence capabilities.
These attacks were sophisticated, exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities. This means the methods used had not been seen before, and therefore had not been fixed by software vendors. In addition to this, the code was ‘signed’ with security certificates, designed to prevent exactly this kind of attack.
“This type of targeted attack is uncommon. The steps taken to infect the machines and factors that have to be in place for it to work make it a very specialist type of infection,” said Mark James, security specialist at anti-virus firm ESET.
Richard Cassidy, senior solutions architect at Alert Logic, added: “We are seeing a very sophisticated attack on the target networks by this cell, who have put a great deal of thought into what information they want, who they are targeting and how to write malware that provides the best chance of getting what they’re after.”
Can The Eurozone Really Bounce Back From Recession?
Frankfurt, home to the European Central Bank. Here, they are lagging behind The Bank Of England and the Federal Reserve when it comes to taking decisive action to prompt growth, and less creative in its choice of tools to get the job done.
Germany has just narrowly avoided a triple-dip recession, a great relieft, but expectations for Europe’s two largest economies are still low. Things are looking slightly more rosy in France, with news that the economy had grown by 0.3%. Don’t be fooled though, this growth hides are a more fundamental weakness in the country. This growth was entirely due to the French government’s spending, combined with the accumulation of unsold goods.
It isn’t just France and Germany where things are looking bleak. They aren’t the exception, but rather indicative of the Eurozone as a whole. Unlike the United Kingdom and United States, the eurozone has never really shown convincing signs of recovery from the recession of 2008.
So why exactly has Europe suffered so mcuh? The European Central Bank has been slower than the Bank Of England and the Federal Reserve in taking action to boost their economies. Quantitive easing is now on the horizon for the eurozone, something that the US and UK enacted almost six years ago.
Austerity in the eurozone has weakened domestic demand. Attempting to reduce budget deficits before growth returned was a huge mistake on the part of the German government. With consumers reluctant, or unable to spend, and businesses not investing, Europe has been largely dependant on exports to keep the economy afloat. Slowing growth in the strongest emerging markets has made it harder to sell good overseas. Trade within the Eurozone has also stagnated, adding to the turmoil.
There is, however, some happiness to be found amongst all this doom and gloom. The fall in oil prices will mean lower energy bills and help to boost the disposable income of consumers. The tumbling value of the Euro means exports to the rest of the world are more competitive.
Policy makers must be careful to not confuse narrowly avoiding another recesssion with decisive growth. Clearly, the road ahead is still rocky for the region and there is no guarantee that it will really recover at all. What the eurozone needs is clear action from the European Central Bank and European Investment Bank. Germany will play a crucial role in the recovery, and to do so it must realise that
4G To Receive A Speed Boost In Some UK Cities
The adoption of an improved version of 4G by some UK mobile operators means that many of us could soon be enjoying faster browsing speeds.
Dubbed 4G+ by EE, and 4.5G by competitors Vodafone, the new technology is capable of achieving up to 150 mbps. As we’ve come to expect, it is unlikely customers will actually reach those kinds of speeds. 90 mbps is a more realistic prediction, and still much faster than existing 4G networks.
The rollout will be slow, initially only applicable to two handsets; Samsung Galaxy Alpha and Note 4. EE has stated that 150 sites across central London will be the first to enjoy the new speeds, and the rest of the capital should be upgraded by June 2015. Work to provide similar benefits to Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester will begin next year.
EE said “on top of our existing 1800MHz spectrum layer, we’ve added a layer of 2.6GHz spectrum and configured our network to enable downlink carrier aggregation. This is the primary feature of LTE-Advanced – and we’re calling it 4G+. Some of Europe’s other top operators, like Swisscom, SFR and Bouygues, as well as Optus in Australia, are already using the term 4G+ for this first stage of carrier aggregation.”
Vodafone began to rollout the new 4G technology in October across three cities – London, Birmingham and Manchester. A spokesperson said that more cities will be added throughout 2015. Despite the select few handsets capable of fully utilising the new technology, it has been revealed that other 4G customers should see improved browsing speeds as a knock on effect of expanding the network’s general capacity.
Mobile expert at USwitch, Ernest Doki said “We may eventually see the same tech deliver speeds faster than the fixed line broadband in the UK, which could be a life-changing concept for those people stranded by a painfully slow rural rollout”.
The announcement comes as welcome news after recent research damned UK mobile networks for their poor coverage, and heavy reliance on old 2G networks, particularly in rural areas.
Real Wages Shrank More In The Past Five Years Than Any Other Period Since Victorian Times
You may think things are looking up in the UK. You’d be wrong. Just take a look at our nation’s GDP. It is 6% lower than it was in 2008. How does that
In the past, British labourers generally insisted on maintaining rising pay. When recessions hit this meant cutting jobs, rather than reducing pay.
With the recent major recession things played out differently. A number of factors including globalisation, the fall of unions and a more conservative fiscal policy led to workers to accept a reduction in pay in return for keeping their jobs.
The plus side of this is that unemployment stayed below rates seen in previous recessions. At it’s highest in 2011, unemployment reached 8.4%. This is considerably lower than the peaks of 10.7% we saw in 1993. At present the unemployment rate is at 6.5%. I should point out this includes self employed and part time workers, but it is still a vast improvement on previous years.
Annual wage inflation (excluding bonuses) is down to the lowest level on record at 0.7%, and is well below the overall CPI inflation of 1.9%
The real measure of all this is of course the relationship between wages and inflation, and the cost of living. The numbers here are less rosy. The fall in ‘real’ wages between 2009 and 2013 of 8% is more drastic than any other period going as far back as 1864.
Where do we go from here? Many have speculated that the real wage growth we have enjoyed in the last few decades was the exception rather than the rule. That is to say, there is no real reason to expect a return to a consistent 2.5% increase plus inflation as was the case since the seventies.
Other economists say that the pressures of globalisation might mean that the long term trend could be closer to 1% increase plus inflation, perhaps even less.
National Grid Looks To The Continent In Its Time Of Need
National Grid recently made clear its intentions to import more electricity from Europe as part of new measures to maintain Britain’s power supply and reduce consumer energy bills.
The company said that British consumers would stand to save £1 billion annually as a result of buying cheaper electricity from power stations in continental Europe. National Grid also warned that electricity prices in Britain would remain higher than elsewhere in Europe, where heavy investment in renewables such as solar and wind is continuing to bring prices down.
Energy secretary, Ed Davey, Ofgem, and several energy companies have backed proposals to boost the number of interconnectors, which supply Britain with electricity from the continent.
National Grid revealed in August that it will peruse emergency measures to fend off a full blown energy crisis in the coming two years. This is a result of extremely low energy reserves, estimated to be as low as 2 percent.
The group is also promoting new incentives to big businesses to turn off machinery and lights at peak hours in order to help ease the strain on the network. These measures are entirely optional but National Grid hopes they will go some way to helping alleviate the looming energy crisis.
The government is offering incentives to customers to lower their energy usage as a cheaper alternative to building new power plants. Ministers believe that such measures have the potential to save energy equivalent to that produced by 22 power stations by 2020.
Chief executive of National Grid, Steve Holiday, said that these incentives will become increasingly important as new solar and wind farms are brought on line, to cover the natural lulls in renewable energy production. He added “It is the world we are beginning to move into”.
The first subsidies offered to energy companies will be held in December by capacity auction. Energy companies that participate must agree to build new power stations or use their own incentives to save an amount of energy equivalent to that which a power station would generate. These new subsidies are intended to replace the emergency reserve set up by National Grid.
The chief strategy officer of Flextricity, Alistair Martin said that due to the complex structure of the proposed scheme, it is more likely that the big six power companies will opt to build more power stations, despite it being the more expensive option.
“The Big Six’s business models mean that it’s hard for them to get involved in energy consumers’ habits. The details of the scheme have come out more their way than the consumers’ way,” he said.
Chief executive of OfGem, Dermot Nolan said: “The Department of Energy has gone through endless amounts of pain to make sure it works smoothly. But the proof is in the pudding.”
