News
Monthly selection of cyber news
June 2020, issue 3
Kazakhstan News
1 June
Deputies to support the development of digital technology in rural areas with legislation
Parliamentarians initiated the bill to provide broadband Internet access to rural localities through Telecom operators’ joint use of telecommunications infrastructure.
3 June
Kazakhtelecom for security: new solution to stem the spread of Covid-19 presented
Kazakhtelecom has announced the successful testing and launch of a platform solution using video surveillance cameras to monitor compliance with safety standards during the pandemic. The new platform will allow the user to track how strictly people adhere to the rules, i.e. the wearing of masks and maintaining the necessary distance from each other.
3 June
Almaty precinct inspectors will receive modern token-video recorders
Equipping precinct inspectors with video-camera tags will allow them to monitor their work online and ensure their safety.
3 June
Initial car registration available online for legal entities
Businesses will now be able to register their vehicles purchased from official Kazakhstan dealers on the egov.kz portal, according to the National Information Technology press service.
11 June
Digitalisation reduces healthcare sector tension
The Kazakhstan Institute for Social Development "Rouhani Air" continues its series of discussions on socially-significant areas of law. The second discussion platform "Openness in the health sector: how new trends affect access to information" was held online, Elorda info reports.
11 June
Billion tenge seized by Internet scammers
"A group organising an Internet fraud mechanism around the introduction of one billion tenge of cryptocurrency into circulation has been exposed in Almaty,"- Minister of Internal Affairs Turgumbayev [D1] [AA2] said.
11 June
Digital documentation adopted by Parliament
Parliament has adopted a law amending a number of legislative acts regulating digital technology so that digital documents are now recognised as the equivalent of paper-based documents, Tengrinews.kz reports.
12 June
Kazakhstan takes part in a discussion of the roadmap for digital cooperation within the UN
On 11 June, UN Secretary-General A Guterres presented a roadmap for digital cooperation, which was developed during thematic discussions on the impact of rapid technological changes in the achievement of sustainable development goals and targets.
18 June
KZ-CERT eliminates a viral mailing list mimicking Ministry of Health documentation
The KZ-CERT computer incident response service has eliminated a malicious phishing email that mimics documentation from the Kazakhstan Ministry of Health.
22 June
Digital hygiene: personal data in the healthcare system
The "Electronic Health Passport" project was launched in 2019 as part of the digitalisation of medicine, and by spring 2020, electronic health passports, according to the Minister of Health Elzhan Birtanov, had been created for everyone in Kazakhstan, and are currently available from the eGov mobile app.
22 June
New Information Security Committee head appointed
Ruslan Abdikalikov has been appointed Chairman of the Information Security Committee of the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace, Tengrinews.kz reports.
22 June
The pandemic has had a positive impact on e-Commerce development in Kazakhstan
By 2025, retail e-commerce will reach 10% of all turnover. As the world continues to develop technology, non-cash payments and e-commerce has found its niche. At the end of 2019, the global e-commerce market was worth $ 3.5 trillion.
23 June
Digital Internet availability map launched
The Internet availability map contains data on the availability of existing optical infrastructure and mobile broadband coverage. The Digitalkz.kz/map/ allows provides information to the Kazakhstan public on Internet access levels across the country.
24 June
Government agency websites switched to an integrated Internet platform
Basic information on state bodies and their structural divisions is published on their official Internet resources. However, if we count sites belonging to all the ministries, their committees and departments, regional akimats and those in the cities, districts, villages and such like, their number is already in the hundreds. An integrated platform for government agency Internet resources has been launched to reduce the number of individual sites.
25 June
The Prime Minister gave a number of instructions on digitalization issues
Askar Mamin held a Presidential Commission meeting to discuss the implementation of digitalisation, Tengrinews.kz reports, with a link to the official website of the Prime Minister.
26 June
Law legalising digital documents and robots signed in Kazakhstan
The President has signed a bill into law amending legislative acts regulating digital technology.
26 June
A mysterious dark net cybercriminal may be a hacker from Kazakhstan
The international Group-IB, specialising in cyber-attack prevention, has revealed the identity of an alleged Russian-speaking hacker Fxmsp, who for three years had been selling access to corporate networks on the dark net. The individual is believed to be a Kazakhstan resident, Sputnik reports.
Caspian news
3 June
Huawei will pay tax in Uzbekistan
Huawei Corporation has registered for tax purposes in Uzbekistan, the Uzbekistan State Tax Committee reports. According to the GNC, Huawei Services (Hong Kong) Co., Limited registered in China on 1 June. Earlier it had been reported that companies such as Yandex, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Samsung and Apple have registered for the same purpose in Uzbekistan, CentralAsia reports.
8 June
Mobile Internet speed in Uzbekistan increases by 18%
Fixed Internet speed in Uzbekistan has increased by 6%, and mobile Internet-by 18% according to the Ministry of Information Technology Development, with reference to an Ookla report. Wired Internet speed around the world has improved by 1% and mobile Internet by 7%, "Italics" reports.
8 June
Kyrgyz schools in “real virtuality”
The Ministry of Education and Science in the Kyrgyz Republic has predicted that remote learning will be the only form of teaching in the next academic year.
10 June
Microsoft: Piracy levels in Azerbaijan have decreased significantly
Azerbaijan has seen a significant decline in software piracy levels.
12 June
The Kyrgyzstan state tax service has reacted to reports its data portal was had been hacked and data belonging to over 800,000 taxpayers made freely available saying that there are no risks of confidential tax information being leaked.
100 IT training centres to be opened in Uzbekistan
According to the results of a presidential meeting discussing the development of the digital economy, at least 100 digital technology training centres are due to be opened across Uzbekistan. Schools and colleges will offer young people short courses in programming basics, e-Commerce and graphic design, Kursiv reports.
16 June
Another case of SMS phishing fraud discovered in Azerbaijan
According to the Centre for Combating Computer Incidents, the fraudsters sent SMS and then called explaining they had transferred money by mistake, demanding it be returned to them.
23 June
Kyrgyzstan President outlines further plans for digitising the country
On 22 June, the Kyrgyzstan President held a meeting with adviser Dastan Dogoev and Head of the State Committee for Information Technology and Communications Altynbek Isailov, where he instructed the former to coordinate the implementation of state digital transformation policy.
24 June
Fixed wireless access technology should be available to everyone
Connectivity is a basic prerequisite for digital integration and a springboard for accessing the many socio-economic benefits of digital technology. However, as of June 2019, less than 60% of the world's population has access to the Internet, which means there is still some way to go.
26 June
Law on the manipulation of information
Late last night, the Kyrgyz Parliament voted on the controversial "information manipulation" bill, which was initiated by a member of the United Enugwu-Progress faction Gulshat Asylbaev and member of the SDPK faction Yoroi Osmonova.
29 June
Functions of the "centre for digital economy research" defined
The Government adopted a resolution outlining measures to organise the activities of specific organisations in the Uzbekistan Ministry for the Development of Information Technology and Communication system.
29 June
Law On Telecommunications amended
Draft amendments to the Law On Telecommunications were discussed at a plenary session of the Majlis and later voted into law.
Russian news
2 June
FSB opposes the expanded use of biometrics
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has sharply criticised the project to expand the use of biometric data on an integrated single system due to the risk of data leaks.
3 June
Russia wants to increase fines for leaking personal data ten-fold
Russia has proposed increasing the maximum penalty for leaking personal data. According to the new version of the Administrative Offences Code, the fine will increase ten-fold from 50 thousand to 500 thousand Roubles. Experts are concerned about the tough measures, as the amount could be critical for businesses during the pandemic period.
4 June
80% of Russian companies do not comply with basic password requirements
A recent study by Rostelecom Solar specialists showed that 80% of companies do not even comply with basic password rules, which could be an issue if they run into cybercriminals, who are almost guaranteed to infiltrate corporate networks.
Due to COVID-19, the number of vulnerable computers in Russia increases by 230%
Due to the forced self-isolation caused by the spread of COVID-19, the number of vulnerable Windows computers in Russia increased by 230% to 101,000. The statistics were provided by DeviceLock specialists.
6 June
Putin demands the creation of a genetic data database of Russian citizens
Russia plans to create a database of genetic data of its citizens according to a list of presidential instructions after a meeting to discuss the development of genetic technology.
9 June
Putin signs a Unified Federal Register of Citizens Information Act
Vladimir Putin has signed a law allowing the creation of a unified federal register of citizens' data, with a transition period valid until 31 December 2025.
18 June
Freed: Roskomnadzor and the Russian Prosecutor General remove the Telegram block
Over two years have passed since Telegram was blocked in Russia. Roskomnadzor apparently no longer sees the point in restricting its use, which is why removal of the block was announced.
20 June
33% of microbusinesses in Russia have suffered from cyber threats while working remotely
During the pandemic a number of large organisations, as well as smaller businesses and start-ups have faced cyber risks related to working remotely.
29 June
Andrei Krutskikh, director of the department of international information security, speaks about the number of cyberattacks aimed at the country's critical information infrastructure.
30 June
54% of sites make it difficult to delete personal data
More than 50% of all popular Internet resources do not allow you to delete your account with a simple click of a button, Izvestia writes. This is confirmed in a study by Digital Security. In other words, removing your personal data by clicking on a button and confirming your action, for example using a code provided in an SMS, is available on only 25 resources (46% of the number checked). Six portals (11%) hide the functionality carefully, and 18 of the analysed sites (33%) only allow users to delete personal data by contacting technical support, some of who require a written request. The remaining five resources (9%) failed to delete accounts, according to the study.
Previous issues | May 2020, issue 2
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