Artwork: The Conversation The Australian newspaper today, quoting Senate Speaker Scott Ryan, said that on March 27, the computer network of the Australian Parliament was attacked by hackers for nearly 24 hours. As soon as the attack was discovered, appropriate controls were put in place to lock down the accounts of MPs and staff working in Parliament to ensure that information was not compromised. These measures prevented malicious actors, but left MPs and staff working for the Australian Parliament unable to access their accounts on the Parliament computer network for about a week. On the same day, March 27, the computer network of one of Australia’s largest media companies, Nine Entertainment, was also attacked by hackers, affecting the broadcast of many television programs. Nine Entertainment was forced to change broadcast locations and rebroadcast some old shows to overcome the impact of this attack. According to information from Australian authorities, in recent years, public agencies and businesses of this country have become the target of many cyber attacks. Typically, the National Assembly computer network attack before the country held the National Assembly elections in 2019. MP Andrew Hastie, Australia’s assistant defense minister, said: “Cyber ​​attacks are low-cost and difficult to detect. At the same time, these attacks can be carried out at any time and from any location”, so it’s time to think about “cyberspace as a battlefield”.

Social network icons Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. Photo: Kyodo / VNA According to the Vietnam News Agency reporter in Germany, the Hamburg Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, where Facebook has a branch in Germany, has sent a ban to the social network that owns the popular messaging service WhatsApp. From the beginning of this year, when running the WhatsApp software, a window will automatically pop up. The first page states that WhatsApp is updating its terms of use and data protection regulations, in which the first statement: WhatsApp cannot read or listen to chats because they are encrypted, and second: WhatsApp are making adjustments to make it simpler to chat with businesses. Next, the second page said that WhatsApp is updating its terms of use and data protection regulations, which confirmed that WhatsApp does not change privacy in private chat, but added information on how to get it. chat with the business as desired and how the business can manage user chat sections. Especially at the bottom of page 2 there is only the “agree” button and the user cannot do otherwise. If you do not agree with the new update, starting May 15, using WhatsApp may experience problems, such as being unable to receive or send messages, even if the account is not deleted or disabled. In short, WhatsApp requires users to agree to their new policy in order to continue using the service after May 15, in which an update will allow more information from WhatsApp to be shared with Facebook. and other apps like Instagram and Messenger (such as contacts and profile data), except for encrypted chat content. According to a statement by the Hamburg’s Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, the terms of the above agreement will be invalidated in Germany for three months, and the office will refer the case to the European Data Protection Authority, The independent EU agency enforces the rules across the bloc. According to Hamburg State Data Protection Commissioner Johannes Caspar, Facebook’s data protection breaches in the past as well as the September general elections in Germany indicate the risk of “mass building user profiles”. can be taken advantage of. He emphasized the ruling was intended to protect the rights and freedoms of millions of users across Germany. The official is concerned not only about privacy, but that records could be used to “influence voter choices and manipulate democratic decisions”. Currently in Germany there are about 60 million WhatsApp users, the most popular chat application currently in the country. However, in response to the ban, a WhatsApp spokesperson confirmed that the ban was issued without a legitimate basis and is based on a “basic misunderstanding” of the purpose and effect of the update. Therefore, a ban will not affect further rollout of the update.