Archives for October 2021

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Most Americans across party lines have serious concerns about cyberattacks on U.S. computer systems and view China and Russia as major threats, according to a new poll.

The poll by The Pearson Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that about 9 in 10 Americans are at least somewhat concerned about hacking that involves their personal information, financial institutions, government agencies or certain utilities. About two-thirds say they are very or extremely concerned.

Roughly three-quarters say the Chinese and Russian governments are major threats to the cybersecurity of the U.S. government, and at least half also see the Iranian government and non-government bodies as threatening.

The broad consensus highlights the growing impacts of cyberattacks in an increasingly connected world and could boost efforts by President Joe Biden and lawmakers to force critical industries to boost their cyber defenses and impose reporting requirements for companies that get hacked. The poll comes amid a wave of high-profile ransomware attacks and cyber espionage campaigns in the last year that have compromised sensitive government records and led to the shutdown of the operations of energy companies, hospitals, schools and others.

“It’s pretty uncommon nowadays to find issues that both large majorities of Republicans and Democrats” view as a problem, said David Sterrett, a senior research scientist at The AP-NORC Center.

Biden has made cybersecurity a key issue in his young administration and federal lawmakers are considering legislation to strengthen both public and private cyber defenses.

Michael Daniel, CEO of the Cyber Threat Alliance and a former top cybersecurity official during the Obama administration, said the poll shows the public is firmly aware of the kind of threats posed online that cybersecurity experts have been stressing for years.

“We don’t need to do a whole lot more awareness raising,” he said.

The explosion in the last year of ransomware, in which cyber criminals encrypt an organization’s data and then demand payment to unscramble it, has underscored how gangs of extortionist hackers can disrupt the economy and put lives and livelihoods at risk.

One of the cyber incidents with the greatest consequences this year was a ransomware attack in May on the company that owns the nation’s largest fuel pipeline, which led to gas shortages along the East Coast. A few weeks later, a ransomware attack on the world’s largest meat processing company disrupted production around the world.

Victims of ransomware attacks have ranged from key U.S. agencies and Fortune 500 companies to small entities like Leonardtown, Maryland, which was one of hundreds of organizations affected worldwide when software company Kaseya was hit by ransomware during the Forth of July weekend.

“We ended up being very lucky but it definitely opened our eyes that it could happen to anyone,” said Laschelle McKay, the town administrator. She said Leonardtown’s I.T. provider was able to restore the town’s network and files after several days.

The criminal syndicates that dominate the ransomware business are mostly Russian-speaking and operate with near impunity out of Russia or countries allied with Russia. The U.S. government has also blamed Russian spies for a major breach of U.S. government agencies known as the SolarWinds hack, so named for the U.S. software company whose product was used in the hacking.

China has also been active. In July, the Biden administration formally blamed China for a massive hack of Microsoft Exchange email server software and asserted that criminal hackers associated with the Chinese government have carried out ransomware attacks and other illicit cyber operations.

“The amount of Chinese cyber actors dwarfs the rest of the globe, combined,” Rob Joyce, the director of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency, said at a recent conference. “The elite in that group really are elite. It’s a law of large numbers.”

Both Russia and China have denied any wrongdoing.

Older adults are much more likely to view Russia and China as serious threats. A large majority of adults over 60 say the Russian and the Chinese governments are a big threat, but only about half of those under 30 agree.

Democrats — at 79% — are somewhat more likely than Republicans — at 70% — to say the Russian government is a big threat. Former President Donald Trump, a Republican, has routinely downplayed Russian aggression. In his first comments after the SolarWinds hack was discovered in December, Trump contradicted his secretary of state and other top officials and suggested without evidence that China was behind the campaign.

____

The AP-NORC poll of 1,071 adults was conducted Sept. 9-13, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Omnibus, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

Copyright
© 2021 . All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

When the pandemic hit the U.S. last year, grocery delivery company Instacart suddenly became a lifeline for millions of consumers. Sales volumes skyrocketed; in one month, the company added 300,000 drivers to keep up with its orders.

“We saw five years of growth packed into one year,” Instacart CEO Fidji Simo said.

Demand has waned this year but remains above pre-pandemic levels. San Francisco-based Instacart __ which is a private company __ expects to see double-digit transaction growth this year.

But the company __ which offers delivery from 55,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada through its 500,000 contract workers __ is also trying to expand in other ways, like offering advertising services and non-grocery delivery from stores like Dick’s Sporting Goods. An initial public offering is likely in its future.

Guiding Instacart through this new normal is Simo, a former executive at Facebook who joined Instacart’s board in February and took over as CEO in August. Simo __ the daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter of fishermen __ says Instacart appealed to her because its mission is feeding people.

“I grew up with a very large, rambunctious French Sicilian family where the way we show love, the way we show care, is always food,” said Simo, who was born in France.

Simo spoke with The Associated Press about Instacart’s future. Her comments have been edited for length.

Q. How would you describe the changes Instacart has seen over the last 18 months?

A. Grocery is one of the largest segments of commerce but it’s only 10% penetrated online. And we think over the next five years, it’s going to get to 20%, 30%, like most other commerce segments. I would say that, before the pandemic, many people weren’t even aware that a service like ours existed. And that has been changed forever. We are seeing that many people are now making it part of the way they run their household.

Q. Instacart is the U.S. market leader for grocery delivery, but it’s facing a lot of competition. Uber Eats and DoorDash have recently added grocery partners, for example. How will Instacart remain on top?

A. You know, any attractive market will always attract a lot of competition. And to a certain extent, I’m glad that there’s a lot of attention on online grocery right now, because that’s making this behavior just much more democratized. I would say that in terms of the competition, what we’re focused on is really being the best partner to all retailers. That’s why pretty much all of the top retailers are on our platform. And that matters enormously, because when you talk to customers about what they care about when it comes to buying online, they care enormously about selection and they care enormously about their loyalty to particular retailers. And so our positioning is very, very different from that of our competitors.

Q. Instacart’s ad business __ promoting products on its site from food companies like Kraft Heinz __ tripled in revenue in the first part of this year. Why is that business so critical for Instacart?

A. It’s an important part of the consumer experience. We think that, through advertising, they’re going to be able to discover brands they wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. But it’s also an important part of our business model because it allows us to make the service cheaper for consumers and charge grocers less. And I fundamentally believe that if we want 30% of people to shop online, we are going to have to make online grocery delivery cheaper overall.

Q. Prior to Instacart, you spent a decade leading development and strategy for the Facebook app. What lessons from Facebook are you bringing to Instacart?

A. I’ve always been fascinated by complex marketplaces. Facebook was one and certainly Instacart is one as well, a four-sided marketplace between consumers, shoppers, retailers and food brands. And I think this ability to think in terms of ecosystems and how to balance all the sides of the marketplace that I learned at Facebook is serving me well at this job.

Q. You recently announced that you are co-founding Metrodora, a clinic and research foundation in Salt Lake City that will study, diagnose and treat complex neuroimmune disorders. Why is this issue so important to you?

A. Right after my pregnancy, I started having a lot of weird symptoms, including fainting. Sadly, I wasn’t diagnosed at the time. I was told that I was a tired mom who needed some sleep. After many, many months of tests and probing, I was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, abbreviated as POTS. It’s a neuroimmune condition, which means that it impacts both the immune system and nervous system. I’ve been incredibly lucky to have access to the best doctors and to find great treatments. Despite that, it took me close to five years to be diagnosed. There isn’t enough research being done on why so many people __ 80% of whom are women __ can get so sick with these conditions. So when I realized that was the case, I usually don’t handle things passively. Everybody who knows me would tell you I like to fix problems.

Copyright
© 2021 . All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is considering providing a military training mission to Ukraine amid lingering tensions between Russia and its neighbor, officials said Monday.

Acting on a request from Ukraine for help with “professional military education,” the EU sent a fact-finding mission to the country last month. The topic will be discussed during a summit Tuesday in Kyiv, the officials said on condition of anonymity in accordance with EU practices.

The results of the mission have yet to be analyzed in order to define how the 27-nation bloc could best help. One official said the EU’s political and security committee, which is responsible for the common foreign and security policy, will go back to the issue in November.

Ukraine is locked in a bitter tug-of-war with Russia, which in 2014 annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and has since been backing a deadly separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. This summer Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged closer ties between his country, NATO and the EU. Russia is adamantly against Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, getting NATO membership.

The EU has imposed economic sanctions against Russia and targeted Russian individuals and entities with restrictive measures in response to the annexation of Crimea and what it calls the “deliberate destabilization of Ukraine.”

The European Council, which represents the national governments of all EU nations, on Monday adopted new sanctions on eight more individuals, including judges, prosecutors and security officers.

“Those individuals have taken biased decisions in politically-motivated cases, and prosecuted or oppressed opponents of the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol,” the council said.

According to the EU, the Russian travel bans and asset freezes now target 185 people and 48 entities.

The annexation and Moscow’s backing of rebels in the east of Ukraine, where more than 14,000 have been killed since 2014, plunged Russia’s relations with the West to post-Cold War lows. The tensions rose again this year after Russia increased troop numbers near its borders with Ukraine, including in Crimea, eliciting international outrage.

At Tuesday’s summit, EU Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are set to reiterate the EU’s “unwavering” commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, officials said. Zelenskyy will represent Ukraine during the talks.

They will also discuss disinformation and cybersecurity with their Ukrainian counterparts. Both sides have already started a cyber-dialogue, with a second round of discussions on that topic scheduled for next year.

“What we are looking to achieve is to really put in place a mechanism to strengthen and deepen on almost a daily basis the inter-institutional cooperation on cybersecurity,” an official said.

Other discussions at the summit will center around the progress made since the EU and Ukraine signed a free trade and visa-free travel deal in 2014.

The EU will acknowledge efforts made by Kyiv to keep pushing reforms — including in the rule of law and judiciary, and the creation of effective anti-corruption mechanisms. Other topics will also include climate change, aviation, energy, and cooperation in tackling the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Copyright
© 2021 . All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

ROME (AP) — Moderna has no plans to share the recipe for its COVID-19 vaccine because executives have concluded that scaling up the company’s own production is the best way to increase the global supply, the company’s chairman said Monday.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Noubar Afeyan also reiterated a pledge Moderna made a year ago not to enforce patent infringement on anyone else making a coronavirus vaccine during the pandemic.

“We didn’t have to do that,” Afeyan said. ”We think that was the right, responsible thing to do.” He added: “We want that to be helping the world.”

The United Nations health agency has pressed Moderna to share its vaccine formula. Afeyan said the company analyzed whether it would be better to share the messenger RNA technology and determined that it could expand production and deliver billions of additional doses in 2022.

“Within the next six to nine months, the most reliable way to make high-quality vaccines and in an efficient way is going to be if we make them,” Afeyan said. Asked about appeals from the World Health Organization and others, he contended that such pleas assumed ”that we couldn’t get enough capacity, but in fact we know we can.”

Moderna “went from having zero production to having 1 billion doses in less than a year,” Afeyan said, referring to the Massachusetts-based company’s sprint to develop the vaccine and produce it in large quantities. “And we think we will be able to go from 1 to 3 billion” in 2022.

“We think we are doing everything we can to help this pandemic,” Afeyan added, citing the company’s increasing output and its pledge on patent infringement.

He noted that $2.5 billion (about 2.1 billion euros) and 10 years were spent in developing the platform that makes Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.

“Others joined the hunt when COVID-19 came along, and we’re glad to see that the capacity therefore has been increased considerably beyond what Moderna would have been able to do” by itself, Afeyan said.

Asked how successful he thought others might be if they started from scratch using Moderna patents, he declined to speculate. But “it’s hard for me to imagine that they would be able to get any meaningful scale in a short time frame at the quality we would be able to do as a certainty” for 2022.

Asked about recent criticism that Moderna has been furnishing its vaccine mainly to wealthy countries while low-income countries clamor for the product, Afeyan said the company supplied a “quite significant” output to poorer nations, mostly through its work with the U.S. government, which contracted early in the pandemic with the company for doses.

Moderna is working with multiple governments “to help them secure supplies for the express purpose of supplying to low-income countries,” the executive said.

“There is more supply in the EU and the U.S. government than they will be able to use,” said Afeyan, who is also a co-founder of Moderna.

Separately, Moderna made a commitment in May to Covax, the U.N.-backed vaccine program, to arrange for a total of 500 million does to go to poorer countries. He said probably 40 million doses would begin to ship in the last three months of this year, with the rest shipping next year.

The COVID-19 vaccine is Moderna’s only commercial product. The company announced plans last week to open a vaccine plant somewhere in Africa. Afeyan said he hopes a decision will be made soon on an exact location. Still, it could take years to get the plant up and running.

Afeyan spoke on the last full day of a visit to Italy in which he met Pope Francis, who has appealed for universal vaccine access. He also appeared in Venice to promote a humanitarian prize.

Co-founded by Afeyan, the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative aims to “empower modern-day saviors to offer life and hope” to those urgently needing basic humanitarian aid. Through the prize, the organization has awarded $5 million in grants to more than 30 humanitarian projects to help people recover from war, famine, genocide, human rights violations and other challenges.

Copyright
© 2021 . All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.