12 OCTOBER2020|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE
THEUKGOVERNMENThas announced
thatitwill removeHuawei equipmentfrom
the country’s 5G network by 2027 on the
grounds of national security.
Culturesecretary OliverDowden told
the House of Commons that the UK will
impose aban on the purchase of all new 5G
infrastructure from Huawei by the end of
the year, with all existing equipmenttobe
removed by telecoms operators by 2027.
Dowden saidthat by the next election,
the UK will have implementedan
‘irreversible path’for the complete
removalofHuaweiequipmentfrom 5G
networks. Thedecision, spurred by the US
sanctions imposed on Huawei this year,will delay the UK’s 5G rollout by
up to two years, Dowden warned, at acost of up to £2bn.
The UK’s full-fibre broadband operators will also be giventwo years
to ‘transition’awayfromthe purchase of Huawei equipment,but the
government has no plans to remove the company from theUK’s2G,
3G,4Gorbroadband networks.
“This has not been an easy decision,but it is therightone forthe
UK telecomsnetworks,for our national securityand our economy,
both now andindeedinthe long run,”
Dowden said.
The National Cyber Security Centre
began to re-examine Huawei’s role in the
UK’s 5G networksinMay this year and
concluded thatUSsanctions will have a
‘severe’effect on Huawei’s supply chain,
meaning theChinese company may
have to use ‘untrusted’ technology.
AHuawei spokesperson told
ComputerShopperthe UK government’s
decision is “bad news foranyone in the
UK with amobilephone”.
“It threatens to move Britain into
the digital slow lane,push up bills and
deepen the digital divide.Instead of ‘levelling up’, the government is
levelling downand we urge them to reconsider,” the spokesperson said.
“Weremainconfident that the new US restrictions would not have
affected the resilience or securityofthe products we supply to the UK.
Regrettably,our future in theUKhas become politicised; this is about US
trade policy andnot security.Overthe past 20 years, Huaweihas focused
on building abetter-connected UK. As aresponsible business, we will
continue to support our customers as we have alwaysdone.”
SAYWHAT?
Bye-bye, Huawei: UK bans Chinese firm from 5G network
TWITTERHASBEENhit by the biggest hack in its14-year history,
which saw attackerscompromise the accounts of high-profile users –
including Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Barack Obama –tospread a
cryptocurrency scam.
The compromised accounts,which also included thelikes of Kanye
West, JeffBezos andMichael Bloomberg, all promised to philanthropically
givebacktothe community during Covid-19.Each posted fraudulent
messages that urgedTwitter users to send moneytoanumber of bitcoin
wallets, alongwith thepromise that users would be paid backdouble.
That,naturally,wasn’tthe case,and it appears that the hackers
simply took the moneyand ran. By the followingmorning numerous
bitcoin walletshad accumulatedsome
$120,000 (around£93,000).
To make matters worse,itappears
the hackerswere also able to download
private data belonging to ahandful of
the 130 compromised accounts, including
private messages, contacts, physical
location history,and interest and
demographic information.However,
Twitter said that none of these accounts
had verified status.
Followingthe breach, the company
said it detected what it believed to be “a
coordinated social engineering attack by peoplewho successfully targeted
someofour employees withaccess to internal systems and tools”.
Although unconfirmed by Twitter,anarticle in theNewYorkTimeshas
suggested that the social network became exposed after the hackers
gained access to credentials that had been sharedonTwitter’sinternal
Slack messaging channel, aservicethatsome companies use as an
alternative to email.
In light of the attack,the company placedheavy restrictionson
many account holders, including those who are verified, preventing
them from tweeting or resetting their passwords.
Twitter also said it had taken
significant steps’ to limitaccess to
internal systems andtools during its
investigation after it came to light that
employeestargeted in thesocial
engineeringattack haddirect access
to users’ accounts.
“We’re embarrassed, we’re
disappointed, and more than anything,
we’re sorry,” the company said.
“Weknow that we must work
to regainyour trust, andwewill
support all effortstobringthe
perpetrators to justice.”
Twitter suffers the biggest hack in its history
SAYWHAT?
wingmorning,numerous
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