The Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) has issued a warning to all New Zealand businesses to be prepared for cyber attacks, following almost a week of daily attacks on the New Zealand stock exchange (NZX). The attacks have caused outages, sometimes for hours, of NZX’s public-facing website since Tuesday last week. Today it continued trading… Read more »
Have you used Google lately and been greeted by a yellow warning saying that the way Australians search on Google is under threat? To understand why these messages are appearing, Media Files interviewed former chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Professor Allan Fels, and CEO of the Public Interest Journalism Initiative (PIJI),… Read more »
Throughout our lifetimes we consume, collate, curate, host and produce a staggering quantity of data – some by our own hand, some by others on our behalf, and some without our knowledge or consent. Collectively, our “digital footprints” represent who we are and who we were. Our digital legacies are immortal and can impact those… Read more »
There has been a clash of clans in mobile gaming, with angry birds Apple, Google and Epic Games in a saga over in-app payments. Video game developer Epic’s massively popular “battle royale” game Fortnite was removed from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store last week. Android players can still download the game directly… Read more »
Australia’s long-awaited cybersecurity strategy, pledges to spend A$1.67 billion over the next ten years to improve online protection for businesses, individuals and the country as a whole. The lion’s share of the cash will go towards policing and intelligence, with smaller amounts set aside for a grab bag of programs from cybersecurity training to digital… Read more »
In what seems to be a common occurrence, Chinese video-sharing app TikTok is once again in the headlines. After months of speculation about national security risks and users’ data being harvested by the Chinese Communist Party, US President Donald Trump has announced plans to ban TikTok in the United States any day now. In response,… Read more »
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced that metropolitan Melbourne will move to “stage 4” restrictions from 6pm Sunday, as new cases of COVID-19 continue to rise. The state recorded another 671 cases and 7 deaths on Sunday. Andrews has declared a state of disaster from 6pm on Sunday, imposing a nightly curfew on Melbourne… Read more »
That COVID is hurting young workers more than older ones is widely recognised. What’s less well known is that even before COVID-19, in the decade leading up to it, incomes for young people (aged 15 to 34) were falling in real terms while incomes for others continued to climb. A graph that was created by… Read more »
Twitter has announced it’s taking sweeping action to limit the reach of content associated with QAnon. Believers of this fringe far-right conspiracy theory claim there is a “deep state” plot against US President Donald Trump led by Satan-worshipping elites from within government, business and media. Twitter has banned more than 7,000 accounts tweeting about QAnon,… Read more »
TikTok, the made-in-China, video-sharing platform beloved by youth and influencers alike, is suddenly everywhere in our new world of COVID-19 lockdowns and social distancing. The platform’s growth has been tremendous, but this has come at a cost: it has come under increasing scrutiny from politicians in the US and allies like Australia over concerns about… Read more »
Gone are the days when economic policy was adjusted once each year by the government in the budget and fine-tuned once each month at meetings of the Reserve Bank board. The coroanvirus means we haven’t had a budget in more than a year. What the Reserve Bank has done to interest rates means its monthly… Read more »
The government is set to continue a revamped and re-targeted wage subsidy when it delivers its Thursday economic statement amid massive uncertainty about the trajectory of COVID-19 in the two largest states. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann on Sunday said JobKeeper would be extended but with changes. “There will be some adjustments to the scheme to… Read more »
The Australian Cyber Security Growth Network (AustCyber) on Monday released a report modelling the potential impact of cyberattacks and sustained digital outages on Australia. The Digital Trust Report’s modelling suggests four weeks of partial “digital disruption” could displace up to 163,000 jobs and damage the economy to the tune of A$30 billion. According to AustCyber’s… Read more »
With all of the immense challenges we face on Earth this year, space can feel like an afterthought. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the hope of a growing space industry was palpable. Ribbons were cut, buildings were dedicated and Australia’s space industry was going to triple in size in just ten years. But a few weeks… Read more »
In an age of isolation, video sharing platform TikTok has emerged as a bonding force for many. But recent headlines allege the service, owned by Beijing-based company ByteDance, is feeding users’ data to the Chinese Communist Party. Earlier this week, the Herald Sun reported that an unnamed federal MP was pushing for the app to… Read more »
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