Issue #75 – Friday, 4th March 2022

Dear readers, 

For the second week, all eyes are again on the conflict in Ukraine. Hostilities on the cyber front – from cyberattacks and internet clampdowns to misinformation and disruptions to e-commerce and trade – have continued to escalate. 

This week’s digest is once again dedicated to developments on the digital battlefield (there’s more on the DW Observatory). Our thoughts are with the victims, wherever they are.

Stay safe,
Stephanie and the Digital Watch team

// UKRAINE //

Cyberattacks: Ukrainian border control attacked with malware; Russia’s space agency claimed to be shut down 

After disrupting internet access, attackers took aim at a Ukrainian border control station using wiper malware (which gets its name for its ability to wipe out data). This slowed down the process of allowing refugees entry into Romania, an EU country. Refugees were stuck at the borders because ‘Ukraine cannot process anything except on pencil and paper,’ a cybersecurity expert said.

A hacking group affiliated with Anonymous tweeted it had ‘shut down the Control Center’ of Russia’s Space Agency Roscosmos. According to the tweet, Russia lost ‘control over their own Spy Satellites’. But Roscosmos’ chief denied the reports. The CEO tweeted that ‘the information… is false. All our space control centres operate as usual.’

Deleting Russia from the internet? ICANN turns down request from Ukraine

ICANN has rejected Ukraine’s request to cut Russia off from the domain space. ICANN CEO Goran Marby said that the organisation’s policies do not allow it to act on one country’s request against another. Ukraine had requested ICANN to revoke Russian country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) – .ru, .РФ, and .su, and to shut down the subset of root servers located in Russia. 

Information war: Big Tech restricts access to Russian state media

There’s a parallel information war going on, and it’s unfolding primarily on online platforms. The allegations of misinformation are coming from both camps. The EU believes Russian media houses Russia Today and Sputnik are generating falsehoods and has banned access to their content. Russia and China say the information circulating about the Ukrainian conflict is false and inappropriate. 

Many tech exports to Russia halted

Export controls against Russia are quickly being put in place. The US’s financial sanctions and export controls, aimed at ‘choking off Russia’s import of technological goods’, will not only impact Russian imports of technology for the defence, aviation, and maritime sectors, but also access to semiconductors, telecommunication, encryption security, lasers, and sensors. 

Russia ousted from international payment system

SWIFT has confirmed that it will disconnect seven Russian banks from the international payment system, in line with the EU’s sanctions. 

// STATE OF THE UNION //

Competition and semiconductor industry among Biden’s top priorities 

The US investment in infrastructure will put the country ‘on a path to win the economic competition of the 21st century that we face with the rest of the world, particularly China’, US President Joe Biden declared during his annual State of the Union address. The US’ ambitions to rely on home-grown supply chains was one of the top priorities in Biden’s speech. 

President Biden mentioned two other digital policy priorities for the USA this year. The first is the country’s commitment to the new global digital tax regulations, negotiated by the OECD (the so-called Pillar Two of the new rules establishes a 15% minimum tax rate for multinationals. 

The second is the need to focus on children’s well-being, including social media’s impact on their mental health. ‘We must hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they’re conducting on our children for profit,’ Biden said.