Category: Industry News

Industry News

NSCAI Report presents strategy for winning the artificial intelligence era

Agency News, Cyber Security CII sector, Industry News
The 16 chapters in the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) Main Report provide topline conclusions and recommendations. The accompanying Blueprints for Action outline more detailed steps that the U.S. Government should take to implement the recommendations.
The NSCAI acknowledges how much remains to be discovered about AI and its future applications. Nevertheless, enough is known about AI today to begin with two convictions.
First, the rapidly improving ability of computer systems to solve problems and to perform tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence—and in some instances exceed human performance—is world altering. AI technologies are the most powerful tools in generations for expanding knowledge, increasing prosperity, and enriching the human experience. AI is also the quintessential “dual-use” technology. The ability of a machine to perceive, evaluate, and act more quickly and accurately than a human represents a competitive advantage in any field—civilian or military. AI technologies will be a source of enormous power for the companies and countries that harness them.
Second, AI is expanding the window of vulnerability the United States has already entered. For the first time since World War II, America’s technological predominance—the backbone of its economic and military power—is under threat. China possesses the might, talent, and ambition to surpass the United States as the world’s leader in AI in the next decade if current trends do not change. Simultaneously, AI is deepening the threat posed by cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns that Russia, China, and others are using to infiltrate our society, steal our data, and interfere in our democracy. The limited uses of AI-enabled attacks to date represent the tip of the iceberg. Meanwhile, global crises exemplified by the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change highlight the need to expand our conception of national security and find innovative AI-enabled solutions.
Given these convictions, the Commission concludes that the United States must act now to field AI systems and invest substantially more resources in AI innovation to protect its security, promote its prosperity, and safeguard the future of democracy.
Full report is available at https://reports.nscai.gov/final-report
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Decoding public finance for disaster risk reduction and climate investments

Agency News, Industry News, Power/Energy/Oil & Gas sector, Water sector
The need to increase investments in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) is a well-accepted priority to minimize losses from disaster and climate change. However, there are challenges in articulating how much countries ought to spend, what areas they should prioritize, and which type of measure are more effective in achieving risk and losses reduction.  The absence of baseline information on expenditure trends hampers the analysis of most cost-efficient ways to reduce risk.
One way to gain insights into the current levels of investments is by conducting a review of public expenditure. The goal of such a review and budget tracking is to advise decision-makers on where gaps exist to realign budgets with priorities.
To aid this, some tools and methodologies have been developed to help governments track expenditures. Among these are ‘policy markers’ to conduct risk-sensitive budget reviews, climate and disaster risk management Public Expenditure and Institutional Reviews (PEIR), or longer-term initiatives on climate budget tagging.  Other methods of financial tracking include using national accounting systems and environmental expenditure reviews.
While there have been a few national exercises that have applied these tools and some success stories on institutionalizing budget tagging within performance budgeting and public financial management reforms, most countries in Asia-Pacific and sub-Saharan Africa do not track disaster-related investments and expenditures.
To increase uptake among countries, UNDRR’s Regional Offices for Asia-Pacific and Africa collaborated with UNDP to organize a two-day consultation on 3-4 February that brought together 69 representatives of organizations who have experience in conducting such reviews to exchange lessons and discuss how the methodology could be improved to better link DRR and CCA public expenditures.
“Disaster risk management public expenditure and institutional reviews have emerged as a critical tool for advocating for greater investment in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, especially from the context of results-based decision making,” said Mr. Ronald Jackson, Head of UNDP’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery team.
Where public expenditure reviews have been conducted, they have helped shed a light on current levels of investment, such as a recent review conducted by the UNDRR Regional Office for Africa of 16 African countries found that investments in DRR projects represent only 4% of national budgets on average.
“With the social-economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis and the ongoing climate emergency, it is becoming increasingly evident that governments need to increase budgetary allocations for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation,” commented Mr. Amjad Abbashar, Chief of the UNDRR Regional Office for Africa.
The purpose of budget tracking is not only to ensure proper allocation to line ministries at the central level but also to ensure that local governments receive support that is proportional to the disaster risks and impacts they are facing and their responsibilities to address them.
“In Malawi, we found that only 1% of environmental expenditure was spent at the district level. Yet it is at the district level that many of the environmental and climate resilience challenges exist and need to be addressed,” said Mr. David Smith of the joint UNDP-UNEP Poverty and Environment Initiative for Africa.
Another example is Nepal, which has transitioned to a federal system and devolved responsibilities to the local level, but is allocating only 15% of national appropriations to municipal governments, according to an example highlighted by Ms. Charlotte Benson, Principal Disaster Risk Management Specialist with the Asian Development Bank.
In addition to vertical and horizontal distributions of funds, another aspect of expenditure tracking that countries should consider are “negative expenditures”, which are expenses from risk-blind initiatives that negatively impact the achievement of climate and disaster resilience goals. This was a point echoed by both Mr. Asad Maken, UNDP’s Regional Advisor Governance of Climate Change Finance for the Asia Pacific Region, and Mr. Nohman Ishtiaq, UNDP Advisor to Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance.
Regardless of what methodology is adopted in reviewing, tagging and tracking expenditures, there was a consensus on the need to build the capacity of climate and disaster risk management agencies, in addition to the ministries of finance, to ensure that such coding expenditure and tracking become embedded in routine government processes.
This capacity building is particularly important considering that many of the country examples that were shared - Fiji, Mauritius, Mozambique and Pakistan - highlighted the need to contextualize tracking processes to local circumstances.
Moreover, conducting a budget tagging exercise or a public expenditure review can help developing countries access new streams of financing to implement DRR and CCA plans:
“We work very closely with National Designated Authorities that are ambitious in preparing Green Climate Fund proposals only to find that their lack of knowledge of ongoing climate and disaster-related expenditure is a huge hurdle for them to fill out the proposal,” noted Ms. Shivaranjani Venkatramani, a consultant with Oxford Policy Management, who has supported NDAs in South and Southeast Asia.
More importantly, simply engaging ministries of finance and planning in a budget tracking or public expenditure review can help bring DRR and CCA efforts into “the heart of economic decision making” and “shift climate and disaster resilience away from being an external environmental agenda to a domestic development priority,” according to Mr. Paul Steele Chief Economist at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
Beyond the benefits of helping governments uncover funding gaps, monitor the effectiveness of spending, facilitate decision making, improve transparency and raise awareness among critical partners, budget tagging and expenditure reviews can be part of a larger approach towards strengthening risk financing and risk-informing development process as a whole.
“Governments should move from a contingent liability approach of public financing to a social risk management approach to reduce unplanned expenditures. It is equally important that we complement public finance tagging and tracking with the required level of political advocacy, such as with the ongoing work on the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures,” noted Mr. Animesh Kumar, Officer-in-Charge of UNDRR’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.
Developing a good understanding of the budgetary landscape can also help countries develop integrated national financing frameworks (INFF), which are a tool to finance national priorities, including the implementation of national DRR strategies.
At the global level, it was noted that much of what was discussed at the consultation can feed into ongoing global intergovernmental processes related to the 2030 Agenda.
“The timeliness of this workshop is essential in that there are very important global initiatives that are unfolding, and the knowledge unearthed in this conversation can benefit the considerations and deliberations for the implementation of these initiatives,” said Mr. Marco Toscano-Rivalta, Head of UNDRR’s Liaison Office in New York and Chief (designate) of UNDRR’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.
Examples of such initiatives include the Interagency Task Force on Financing for Development and High-Level Meeting on ‘Financing for Development in the Era of COVID-19 and Beyond.’ Mr. Toscano-Rivalta also highlighted the potential role of national supreme auditors in budgetary and expenditure tracking to generate the desired level of accountability and transparency.
As a follow-up to the consultation, the group will consider documenting the methodologies and case studies in the form of a publication and potentially consider an analysis of how DRR and CCA could be imbedded in COVID-19 economic recovery efforts.
[Source: UNDRR]
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Cybersecurity for 5G: ENISA Releases Report on Security Controls in 3GPP

Agency News, Cyber Security CII sector, Industry News
Cybersecurity for 5G: ENISA Releases Report on Security Controls in 3GPP
The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) provides authorities with technical guidance on the 5G Toolbox measure for security requirements in existing 5G standards.
The Agency has released its Security in 5G Specifications Report about key security controls in the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the main body developing technical specifications for fifth generation of mobile telecommunications (5G) networks. As vendors, system integrators and operators build, deploy and manage 5G networks, the ENISA publication underlines the need for cybersecurity and for the national regulatory authorities in charge of cybersecurity policy development and implementation to have a good understanding of these controls.
This new ENISA report is directly driven by the objectives set in the EU toolbox for 5G security - mainly technical measure ‘TM02’. This technical measure calls on the relevant authorities in EU Member States to ensure and evaluate the implementation of security measures in existing 5G standards (3GPP specifically) by operators and their suppliers.
The aim of the report is to help national and regulatory authorities to better understand the standardisation environment pertaining to 5G security, 3GPP security specifications and key security controls that operators must implement to secure 5G networks.
More specifically, the report provides:
- A high-level overview of the specification and standardisation landscape for the security of 5G networks, and of the main activities by various standardisation organisations and industrial groups in the area of 5G;
- An explanation of the technical specifications developed by 3GPP for the security of 5G networks, with a focus on optional security features;
- Summary of key findings and good security practices.
The ENISA report also covers security considerations beyond standards and specifications, such as testing and assurance, product development, network design, configuration and deployment, and operation and management.
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WMO boosts regional cooperation in Asia-Pacific

Agency News, Industry News, Water sector
The Typhoon Committee, which symbolizes the successful cooperation between WMO and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, holds its 53rd annual session, woth participants from the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) and national Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) agencies who will exchange information on achievements of the past session, review activities of the Members, as well as operational and research collaborations, with the clear focus on reducing the number of lives lost and damage to property caused by tropical cyclones and typhoons.
On top of the disruption and catastrophic impacts caused by COVID-19, the Asia-Pacific region was hit by successive hazards in 2020, including tropical cyclones, floods, droughts, sand and dust storms and heatwaves. 23 named tropical cyclones of tropical storm intensity or above formed over the western North Pacific and the South China Sea.
The strongest tropical cyclone of the season was Super Typhoon Goni (2019). It made landfall over northern Philippines on 1 November and caused catastrophic damage. A minimum pressure of 912.1 hPa was reported in Virac and a maximum gust of 198 km/h was reported in Legaspi City. 25 people died and 399 injured, and the social and economic loss was estimated to be over 17 billion Philippines Peso, according to a report from the Philippines national meteorological and hydrological service PAGASA.
Two major tropical cyclones hit the Korean Peninsula within a few days in early September, with Typhoon Maysak making landfall near Busan on 3 September, followed by Haishen on 7 September. Maysak brought 1037 mm of rainfall over two days to a site on Jeju Island, and wind gusts on the island up to 165.6 km/h, with high waves of more than 8 m. The damage costs of Mayask and Haishen reaches over 200 million USD, with a possible recovery cost of 548 million USD, according to a report submitted to the Typhoon Committee by the Korea Meteorological Administration. Both tropical cyclones led to significant flooding on the Korean Peninsula and in western Japan, and 41 lives were lost when a ship sank off western Japan during the passage of Maysak.
Sustainable Development
Although countries across the region have committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 — to ensure that ‘no one is left behind’ – this will remain a challenge if their populations remain susceptible to disasters that threaten to reverse hard-won progress towards the SDGs.
Building on the success of the Typhoon Committee, WMO continues to work with countries in the region, often in partnership with other United Nations entities, to build greater resilience to natural disasters that wreak a heavy economic and human toll.
In particular, WMO and UNESCAP in 2020 focused on implementing collaborative activities under their Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). These activities highlight the synergistic benefits that are derived from both organisations’ work on building resilience to climate and disaster risks and the promotion of impact-based early warning services and systems.
This MoU was renewed by Ms Armida Salsiah-Alisjahbana, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of UNESCAP and Prof. Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of WMO on 21 September 2019 during the UN Climate Summit held in New York, based on their aligned values and objectives and desire to work together in areas of mutual interest.
A Joint Workshop on Strengthening Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems and Early Actions in Southeast Asia was organized by WMO and hosted by UNESCAP in Bangkok, Thailand from 18 to 20 February 2020. Participants reached a consensus on developing a coordinated Southeast Asia-wide framework for strengthening the hydro-meteorological disaster risk management and capacity development of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services.
The Regional Climate Outlook Fora (RCOFs) have been guided and supported by WMO and its partners to promote collaboration, knowledge and information sharing on seasonal climate prediction and its likely implications for the most impacted socio-economic sectors since the late 1990s. The potential to add further value to the outputs of RCOFs through impact-based products was introduced by UNESCAP during the South Asian Seasonal Climate Outlook Forum (SASCOF), the Forum on Regional Climate Monitoring, Assessment and Prediction for Asia (FOCRAII) and the East Asia winter Climate Outlook Forum (EASCOF).
Looking ahead, with its official membership in the United Nations’ Regional Collaborative Platform in Asia and the South-West Pacific, WMO will build on the achievements of 2020 and further expand regional cooperation in the broader context of sustainable development. In 2021, the partnership will continue its critically important mission to build resilience to climate and disaster risk; and promote the social and economic benefits of impact-based early warning services in the Asia Pacific region. WMO’s longstanding and manifold regional initiatives and capacity development programmes in Asia-Pacific will now be further enhanced.
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Fujitsu Leverages World's Fastest Supercomputer and AI to Predict Tsunami Flooding

Industry News, Water sector
A new AI model that harnesses the power of the world's fastest supercomputer, Fugaku, can rapidly predict tsunami flooding in coastal areas before the tsunami reaches land.
The development of the new technology was announced as part of a joint project between the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IREDeS) at Tohoku University, the Earthquake Research Institute at the University of Tokyo, and Fujitsu Laboratories.
The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent tsunami highlighted the shortcomings in disaster mitigation and the need to utilize information for efficient and safe evacuations.
While tsunami observation networks in Japanese coastal waters have been strengthened since then, using the data produced from those networks to predict a tsunami's path once it hits land has gained greater urgency. This is especially true since a major earthquake is likely to hit Japan's densely populated east coast sometime in the near future.
Tsunami prediction technologies will allow authorities to obtain accurate information quickly and aid them in effectively directing evacuation orders.
Fujitsu, Tohoku University, and The University of Tokyo leveraged the power of Fugaku to generate training data for 20,000 possible tsunami scenarios based on high-resolution simulations. These scenarios were used to streamline an AI model that uses offshore waveform data generated by the tsunami to predict flooding before landfall at high spatial resolution.
Conventional prediction technologies require the use of supercomputers and make rapid prediction systems difficult to implement. The current AI model, however, can be run in seconds on ordinary PCs.
When the model was applied to a simulation of tsunami flooding in Tokyo Bay following a large earthquake, it achieved highly accurate predictions with a regular PC within seconds. The results matched tsunami flooding of the tsunami source models released by the Cabinet Office of Japan.
The research team will continue to make use of Fugaku's high-speed performance in the future by training the system with additional tsunami scenarios. Doing so will help realize AI that can predict tsunami flooding over even wider areas.
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ITU to advance AI capabilities to contend with natural disasters

Cyber Security CII sector, Industry News
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) – the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies – has launched a new Focus Group to contend with the increasing prevalence and severity of natural disasters with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).
In close collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the ITU Focus Group on 'AI for natural disaster management' will support global efforts to improve our understanding and modelling of natural hazards and disasters. It will distill emerging best practices to develop a roadmap for international action in AI for natural disaster management.
"With new data and new insight come new powers of prediction able to save countless numbers of lives," said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. "This new Focus Group is the latest ITU initiative to ensure that AI fulfils its extraordinary potential to accelerate the innovation required to address the greatest challenges facing humanity."
Clashes with nature impacted 1.5 billion people from 2005 to 2015, with 700,000 lives lost, 1.4 million injured, and 23 million left homeless, according to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 developed by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).
AI can advance data collection and handling, improve hazard modelling by extracting complex patterns from a growing volume of geospatial data, and support effective emergency communications. The new Focus Group will analyze relevant use cases of AI to deliver technical reports and accompanying educational materials addressing these three key dimensions of natural disaster management. Its study of emergency communications will consider both technical as well as sociological and demographical aspects of these communications to ensure that they speak to all people at risk.
"This Focus Group looks to AI to help address one of the most pressing issues of our time," noted the Chair of the Focus Group, Monique Kuglitsch, Innovation Manager at ITU member Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute. “We will build on the collective expertise of the communities convened by ITU, WMO and UNEP to develop guidance of value to all stakeholders in natural disaster management. We are calling for the participation of all stakeholders to ensure that we achieve this."
Muralee Thummarukudy, Operations Manager for Crisis Management at UNEP explained: "AI applications can provide efficient science-driven management strategies to support four phases of disaster management: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. By promoting the use and sharing of environmental data and predictive analytics, UNEP is committed to accelerating digital transformation together with ITU and WMO to improve disaster resilience, response and recovery efforts."
The Focus Group's work will pay particular attention to the needs of vulnerable and resource-constrained regions. It will make special effort to support the participation of the countries shown to be most acutely impacted by natural disasters, notably small island developing states (SIDS) and low-income countries.
The proposal to launch the new Focus Group was inspired by discussions at an AI for Good webinar on International Disaster Risk Reduction Day, 13 October 2020, organized by ITU and UNDRR.
"WMO looks forward to a fruitful collaboration with ITU and UNEP and the many prestigious universities and partners committed to this exciting initiative. AI is growing in importance to WMO activities and will help all countries to achieve major advances in disaster management that will leave no one behind," said Jürg Luterbacher, Chief Scientist & Director of Science and Innovation at WMO. "The WMO Disaster Risk Reduction Programme assists countries in protecting lives, livelihoods and property from natural hazards, and it is strengthening meteorological support to humanitarian operations for disaster preparedness through the development of a WMO Coordination Mechanism and Global Multi-Hazard Alert System. Complementary to the Focus Group, we aim to advance knowledge transfer, communication and education – all with a focus on regions where resources are limited."
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How artificial intelligence can help transform Europe’s health sector

Agency News, Health & Social Care, Industry News
A high-standard health system, rich health data and a strong research and innovation ecosystem are Europe’s key assets that can help transform its health sector and make the EU a global leader in health-related artificial intelligence applications.
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) applications in healthcare is increasing rapidly.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, challenges linked to our ageing populations and shortages of healthcare professionals were already driving up the adoption of AI technologies in healthcare.
The pandemic has all but accelerated this trend. Real-time contact tracing apps are just one example of the many AI applications used to monitor the spread of the virus and to reinforce the public health response to it.
AI and robotics are also key for the development and manufacturing of new vaccines against COVID-19.
A fresh JRC analysis shows that European biotech companies relying on AI have been strong partners in the global race to deliver a COVID-19 vaccine.
Based on this experience, the analysis highlights the EU’s strengths in the “AI in health” domain and identifies the challenges it still has to overcome to become a global leader.
High standard health system safeguards reliability of AI health applications
Europe’s high standard health system provides a strong foundation for the roll out of AI technologies.
Its high quality standards will ensure that AI-enabled health innovations maximise benefits and minimise risks.
The JRC study suggests that, similarly to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is now considered a global reference, the EU is in a position to set the benchmark for global standards of AI in health in terms of safety, trustworthiness, transparency and liability.
The European Commission is currently preparing a comprehensive package of measures to address issues posed by the introduction of AI, including a European legal framework for AI to address fundamental rights and safety risks specific to the AI systems, as well as rules on liability related to new technologies.
Strong European research ecosystem supported by EU funding
At the moment, the EU is already well positioned in the application of AI in the healthcare domain - slightly behind China but on par with the US.
But judging from the EU’s research capacities, there is more potential.
The JRC analysis notes the strong investment of European biotech companies in research: in the EU, almost two thirds of all medical AI players are involved in research, against approximately one-third in China.
Consequently, Europe has a strong and diversified research and innovation ecosystem in the area of AI in health.
European companies are particularly strong in health diagnostics, health technology assessment, medical devices and pharmaceuticals.
The EU’s research framework programmes play an important role in the European research and innovation landscape in this domain.
A JRC report published in 2020 indicates that 146 projects linked to AI in health have been launched under the Horizon 2020 framework programme.
The funding of AI in health related projects has been increasing over time, reaching over €100 million in 2020.
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Global Resiliency Dialogue Releases Report Detailing Consideration of Climate Risk in Building Codes

Industry News, Power/Energy/Oil & Gas sector, Transport sector
The Global Resiliency Dialogue published findings of its first international survey in the report, The Use of Climate Data and Assessment of Extreme Weather Event Risks in Building Codes around the World.
The Global Resiliency Dialogue was established in 2019 by The International Code Council, the Australian Building Codes Board, the National Research Council of Canada, and the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, to foster global collaboration in addressing evolving climate risks in codes and standards. The aim is to create an international resiliency guideline and enable collaborative research efforts that will aid jurisdictions across the globe to better prepare the building stock to withstand the more extreme weather events, including high wind, flooding, and wildfire, that the evidence and science tells us have been and will continue to increase in frequency and duration.
The report is the first deliverable of the Global Resiliency Dialogue and provides valuable context about the current level of integration of climate science in the provisions of advanced building codes around the world. The report shows that, while many countries are actively considering the integration of models and methodologies that would more accurately predict the risk to buildings during their anticipated life cycle, the vast majority of advanced building codes implemented globally still rely on historical data to assess the risk to buildings from extreme weather events.
“There is great value in building code development and research organizations around the world collectively considering how building safety codes and standards can best adapt to address existential challenges like climate change,” said International Code Council Chief Executive Officer Dominic Sims, CBO. , “There is a demand in many jurisdictions in the United States and around the world that have already experienced devastating impacts of more frequent and intense weather-related hazards for buildings that are safe and durable even in these changing conditions. The International Code Council is committed to playing a leading role in working with stakeholders in the government and standards community, as well as with our global partners, to develop tools and solutions that effectively address these concerns.”
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Criminal Network Stealing over €12m from US-Based Banks Broken

Agency News, Industry News
The criminal network deceived 50 financial institutions through shell companies
A cross-border operation coordinated by Europol and led by the Spanish National Police (Policía Nacional) and the US Secret Service resulted in the dismantling of an organised crime group involved in fraud and money laundering. The operation involved also police services from Austria, Denmark and Greece as well as the US Department of Justice and the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
On the coordinated from Europol action day, 6 October 2020, law enforcement offices carried out more than 40 house searches, arrested 37 suspects (2 in Austria, 11 in Greece, 23 in Spain and 1 in the UK) and seized 13 luxury cars. The follow up actions led to the freeze of 87 bank accounts worth €1.3 million.
Overall results:
- 105 suspects arrested
- 88 house searches
- Over €12 million in damages
- 87 accounts with more than €1.3 million frozen
- €406 000 euros seized in cash
- 14 high-end vehicles seized
- 19 European arrest warrants executed
The criminal organisation, mainly formed of Greek nationals, set up shell companies in the United States and opened bank accounts for these companies. To gain the trust of the financial institutions, members of the criminal network made transfers to the US-based accounts from different locations in the EU. Based on this trust, the American-based banks issued debit and credit cards for these accounts. Retailers in on the scam, most of whom were in Spain, used the payment cards to finance the available credited amounts on the cards. To launder the stolen funds, they transferred them to different bank accounts, owned by members of the criminal network located in several EU countries. More than 50 American financial institutions became victims of these fraudulent activities losing over €12 million.
Europol facilitated the information exchange, the operational coordination and provided analytical support for this eight months long investigation. During the operation, Europol set up a coordination centre at its headquarters with the use of a virtual command post to enable liaison officers from the involved countries, Europol experts and a representative from Eurojust to coordinate the operational activities. Europol also deployed an analyst to Greece to provide real-time analytical support to investigators on the ground.
The Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (J-CAT) at Europol supported the operation. This standing operational team consists of cyber liaison officers from different countries who work from the same office on high profile cybercrime investigations.
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Compromise of U.S. Water Treatment Facility

Agency News, Cyber Security CII sector, Industry News, Water sector
On February 5, 2021, unidentified cyber actors obtained unauthorized access to the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system at a U.S. drinking water treatment facility. The unidentified actors used the SCADA system’s software to increase the amount of sodium hydroxide, also known as lye, a caustic chemical, as part of the water treatment process. Water treatment plant personnel immediately noticed the change in dosing amounts and corrected the issue before the SCADA system’s software detected the manipulation and alarmed due to the unauthorized change. As a result, the water treatment process remained unaffected and continued to operate as normal. The cyber actors likely accessed the system by exploiting cybersecurity weaknesses, including poor password security, and an outdated operating system. Early information indicates it is possible that a desktop sharing software, such as TeamViewer, may have been used to gain unauthorized access to the system, although this cannot be confirmed at present date. Onsite response to the incident included Pinellas County Sheriff Office (PCSO), U.S. Secret Service (USSS), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) have observed cyber criminals targeting and exploiting desktop sharing software and computer networks running operating systems with end of life status to gain unauthorized access to systems. Desktop sharing software, which has multiple legitimate uses—such as enabling telework, remote technical support, and file transfers—can also be exploited through malicious actors’ use of social engineering tactics and other illicit measures. Windows 7 will become more susceptible to exploitation due to lack of security updates and the discovery of new vulnerabilities. Microsoft and other industry professionals strongly recommend upgrading computer systems to an actively supported operating system. Continuing to use any operating system within an enterprise beyond the end of life status may provide cyber criminals access into computer systems.
Click here for a PDF version of this report.
Technical Details
Desktop Sharing Software
The FBI, CISA, EPA, and MS-ISAC have observed corrupt insiders and outside cyber actors using desktop sharing software to victimize targets in a range of organizations, including those in the critical infrastructure sectors. In addition to adjusting system operations, cyber actors also use the following techniques:
- Use access granted by desktop sharing software to perform fraudulent wire transfers.
- Inject malicious code that allows the cyber actors to
 - Hide desktop sharing software windows,
 - Protect malicious files from being detected, and
 - Control desktop sharing software startup parameters to obfuscate their activity.
- Move laterally across a network to increase the scope of activity.
TeamViewer, a desktop sharing software, is a legitimate popular tool that has been exploited by cyber actors engaged in targeted social engineering attacks, as well as large scale, indiscriminate phishing campaigns. Desktop sharing software can also be used by employees with vindictive and/or larcenous motivations against employers.
Beyond its legitimate uses, when proper security measures aren’t followed, remote access tools may be used to exercise remote control over computer systems and drop files onto victim computers, making it functionally similar to Remote Access Trojans (RATs). TeamViewer’s legitimate use, however, makes anomalous activity less suspicious to end users and system administrators compared to RATs.
Windows 7 End of Life
On January 14, 2020, Microsoft ended support for the Windows 7 operating system, which includes security updates and technical support unless certain customers purchased an Extended Security Update (ESU) plan. The ESU plan is paid per-device and available for Windows 7 Professional and Enterprise versions, with an increasing price the longer a customer continues use. Microsoft will only offer the ESU plan until January 2023. Continued use of Windows 7 increases the risk of cyber actor exploitation of a computer system.
Cyber actors continue to find entry points into legacy Windows operating systems and leverage Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) exploits. Microsoft released an emergency patch for its older operating systems, including Windows 7, after an information security researcher discovered an RDP vulnerability in May 2019. Since the end of July 2019, malicious RDP activity has increased with the development of a working commercial exploit for the vulnerability. Cyber actors often use misconfigured or improperly secured RDP access controls to conduct cyberattacks. The xDedic Marketplace, taken down by law enforcement in 2019, flourished by compromising RDP vulnerabilities around the world.
Mitigations
General Recommendations
The following cyber hygiene measures may help protect against the aforementioned scheme:
- Update to the latest version of the operating system (e.g., Windows 10).
- Use multiple-factor authentication.
- Use strong passwords to protect Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) credentials.
- Ensure anti-virus, spam filters, and firewalls are up to date, properly configured, and secure.
- Audit network configurations and isolate computer systems that cannot be updated.
- Audit your network for systems using RDP, closing unused RDP ports, applying multiple-factor authentication wherever possible, and logging RDP login attempts.
- Audit logs for all remote connection protocols.
- Train users to identify and report attempts at social engineering.
- Identify and suspend access of users exhibiting unusual activity.
Water and Wastewater Systems Security Recommendations
The following physical security measures serve as additional protective measures:
- Install independent cyber-physical safety systems. These are systems that physically prevent dangerous conditions from occurring if the control system is compromised by a threat actor.
- Examples of cyber-physical safety system controls include:
 - Size of the chemical pump
 - Size of the chemical reservoir
 - Gearing on valves
 - Pressure switches, etc.
The benefit of these types of controls in the water sector is that smaller systems, with limited cybersecurity capability, can assess their system from a worst-case scenario. The operators can take physical steps to limit the damage. If, for example, cyber actors gain control of a sodium hydroxide pump, they will be unable to raise the pH to dangerous levels.
Remote Control Software Recommendations
For a more secured implementation of TeamViewer software:
- Do not use unattended access features, such as “Start TeamViewer with Windows” and “Grant easy access.”
- Configure TeamViewer service to “manual start,” so that the application and associated background services are stopped when not in use.
- Set random passwords to generate 10-character alphanumeric passwords.
- If using personal passwords, utilize complex rotating passwords of varying lengths. Note: TeamViewer allows users to change connection passwords for each new session. If an end user chooses this option, never save connection passwords as an option as they can be leveraged for persistence.
- When configuring access control for a host, utilize custom settings to tier the access a remote party may attempt to acquire.
- Require remote party to receive confirmation from the host to gain any access other than “view only.” Doing so will ensure that, if an unauthorized party is able to connect via TeamViewer, they will only see a locked screen and will not have keyboard control.
- Utilize the ‘Block and Allow’ list which enables a user to control which other organizational users of TeamViewer may request access to the system. This list can also be used to block users suspected of unauthorized access.
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