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World News

Three extra main cities are underneath Taliban management, as the federal government’s forces close to collapse.

Three more major cities are under Taliban control, as the government’s forces near collapse.

KABUL, Afghanistan – Three large cities in western and southern Afghanistan were confirmed to have fallen to the Taliban as the insurgent race for control of the country accelerated.

The Taliban captured Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, on Friday morning after a week-long battle that left parts of the city to rubble, hospitals full of wounded and dying, and residents asking what would come next under their new rulers. Hours earlier, the insurgents had captured Herat, a cultural center in the west, and Kandahar, the country’s second largest city, where the Taliban first proclaimed their so-called emirate in the 1990s.

The speed of urban collapse, combined with the announcement by American officials Thursday that they would evacuate most of the U.S. embassy, ​​has compounded panic across the country as thousands attempt to flee the Taliban’s advance.

Only three large Afghan cities – including the capital Kabul – remain under state control, one is besieged by the Taliban. With the collapse of Lashkar Gah and Kandahar, the Taliban now effectively control southern Afghanistan, a powerful symbol of their resurrection, just weeks before the United States will withdraw completely from the country.

Last week, the Taliban took over Afghan cities in a swift offensive, placing them well-positioned to attack Kabul. The government’s armed forces appear to be on the verge of complete collapse. Some American officials fear that the Afghan government will not hold out for another month.

Helmand Province is an unstable area that has been largely controlled by the Taliban since 2015. In recent months, the Afghan government has struggled to hold its own there, and recent air strikes by the United States and the Afghan Air Forces in the region have failed to halt the Taliban’s offensive.

Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, has been on the brink of disaster for more than a decade. Helmand has long been the home of the Taliban, which after the rise of the group in neighboring Kandahar in 1994 spread into the province and earned millions there from the illegal sale of opium poppies.

The fall of Lashkar Gah is a sad coda for the American and British military missions to Helmand, which together lasted over a decade. Both countries focused much of their efforts on securing the province, losing hundreds of troops there to roadside bombs and brutal shootings.

Kandahar in particular is a huge asset to the Taliban. It is the economic center of southern Afghanistan, and it was the birthplace of the uprisings in the 1990s and served as the militant capital for part of their five-year rule. By conquering the city, the Taliban can effectively proclaim a return to power, if not complete control.

On Friday, officials from Uruzgan and Zabul, two provinces long believed to be the Taliban’s heartland, said local elders in both are negotiating a full surrender of the territory to the insurgent group.

Taimoor Shah in Kandahar contributed to the coverage.

Categories
Politics

Biden Indicators Government Order to Bolster Federal Authorities’s Cybersecurity

Biden Signs Executive Order to Bolster Federal Government’s Cybersecurity

WASHINGTON – As the east coast suffered the effects of a ransomware attack on a major oil pipeline, President Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday that set tough new standards for the cybersecurity of software sold to the federal government.

The move is part of an overall effort to strengthen the defense of the United States by encouraging private companies to practice better cybersecurity or at risk of being banned from federal treaties. However, the bigger effect may come from what, over time, might look like a government safety rating for software products, similar to how cars get a safety rating or restaurants in New York get a health safety rating.

The contract comes amid a wave of new cyberattacks that are more sophisticated and far-reaching than ever before. Last year, around 2,400 ransomware attacks hit corporate, local and federal agencies in blackmail schemes that block or publish victims’ data unless they pay a ransom.

The most pressing fear is an attack on critical infrastructure, a point that Americans who panicked to buy gasoline became clear this week. A ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline’s information systems forced the company to shut down a critical pipeline that has been supplying 45 percent of the east coast’s gasoline, diesel and jet fuel for several days.

While every president since George W. Bush has issued new guidelines to strengthen the country’s digital defenses, Biden’s command is designed to dig deep into the private sector. And it’s far more detailed than any previous effort.

For the first time, the US will require all software purchased by the federal government to meet a set of new cybersecurity standards within six months. Although companies would have to self-certify, violations would be removed from federal procurement lists, which could affect their chances of selling their products in the commercial market.

The contract also sets up an incident review board, much like the teams that investigate aircraft accidents to learn lessons from major hacking episodes. The White House dictates that the first incident investigated will be the SolarWinds hack, in which Russia’s leading intelligence agency changed the computer code of an American company’s network management software. It gave Russia broad access to 18,000 agencies, organizations, and companies, mostly in the United States.

The new regulation also stipulates that all federal agencies must encrypt data, regardless of whether it is stored or transmitted – two very different challenges. When China stole 21.5 million files via federal employees and contractors who had security clearance in place, none of the files were encrypted so they could be easily read. (Chinese hackers, investigators later concluded, encrypted the files themselves – so as not to be discovered when they sent the sensitive records back to Beijing.)

Previous efforts to set minimum standards for software failed at Congress, particularly at a major showdown nine years ago. Small businesses have said the changes are not affordable and larger businesses have resisted an intrusive role the federal government plays in their systems.

But Mr Biden decided it was more important to act quickly than try to fight for broader mandates on Capitol Hill. Its staff said it was a first step, and industry officials said it was bolder than expected.

Updated

May 12, 2021, 7:36 p.m. ET

Amit Yoran, the executive director of Tenable and a former cybersecurity officer in the Department of Homeland Security, said the question everyone was wondering was whether Mr. Biden’s orders would stop the next Colonial or SolarWinds attacks.

“No politics, government initiative or technology can do that,” said Yoran. “But that’s a good start.”

Government officials have complained that Colonial had poor defenses, and although it built a hard shell around its computer networks, it had no way of monitoring an adversary who got inside. The Biden administration hopes that the standards set out in the Executive Ordinance, which require multifactor authentication and other protective measures, will become widespread and improve security worldwide.

Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, praised the order but said it should be followed by Congressional action.

Mr Warner said the recent attacks “have shown what has become increasingly apparent in recent years: that the United States is simply unwilling to fend off government sponsored or even criminal hackers who intend to compromise our systems for profit or espionage.” “

The new order is the first major public part of a multi-faceted review of defense, offensive, and legal strategies against opponents around the world. However, this arrangement focuses solely on deepening the defense in hopes of deterring attackers because they fear they will fail – or are at greater risk of being detected.

The Justice Department is setting up a new task force to take over ransomware. Now that it has been discovered in recent months that such attacks are more than just blackmail, they can topple economic sectors.

Mr Biden announced sanctions against Russia for the SolarWinds hack, and his national security adviser Jake Sullivan said there would be “invisible” consequences as well. So far, the United States has not taken similar action against the Chinese government because it was believed to have been involved in another attack and exploited loopholes in a Microsoft system used by large corporations around the world.

The Executive Order was first drafted in February in response to the SolarWinds intrusion. This attack was particularly nifty because hackers working for the Russian government managed to modify the company’s under development code that unsuspectingly distributed the malware in an update to its software packages. It was discovered during Mr Biden’s transition and led him to state that he could not trust the integrity of the federal computer systems.

Established under the Executive Ordinance, the review body is jointly chaired by the Minister of Homeland Security and a private sector official, based on the specific episode currently being investigated, in order to attract industry executives who fear the investigation could be fodder for lawsuits .

Since it was created by executive order rather than an act of Congress, the new body will not have the same extensive powers as a security body. However, officials remain confident that this will be helpful in identifying vulnerabilities, improving security practices, and pushing companies to invest more in improving their networks.

Much of the executive order focuses on information sharing and transparency. The aim is to reduce the time it takes for organizations that have been hacked or discover vulnerabilities to share this information with the Cyber ​​Security and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Categories
Business

Airline CEOs ramp up stress on governments to open up U.S., U.Ok. journey

Airline CEOs ramp up pressure on governments to open up U.S., U.K. travel

A United Airlines passenger plane arrives over residential buildings to land at Heathrow Airport in west London, United Kingdom, on March 13, 2020.

Matthew Childs | Reuters

The CEOs of several major US and UK airlines on Tuesday increased pressure on their respective governments to revitalize air travel between the two countries and called for a summit to discuss the matter.

“Public health must guide the reopening of international air travel and we are confident that the aviation industry has the right tools, based on data and science, to enable a safe and meaningful restart of transatlantic travel,” it said the letter to US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and his British counterpart Grant Shapps. “US and UK citizens would benefit from the extensive testing capabilities and successful trials of digital health data verification applications.”

The letter was signed by the CEOs of Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and JetBlue Airways, who plan to start service between the US and the UK this summer, and the US industrial group Airlines for America.

Executives pointed out the surge in vaccinations and the economic benefits of reopening travel. The US is currently banning most non-US citizens or permanent residents traveling from the UK, while US visitors are subject to a 10-day quarantine when entering the UK

The US Department of Transportation and the United Kingdom Department of Transportation did not comment immediately.

Categories
Health

China topics some vacationers to anal swabs, angering international governments.

China subjects some travelers to anal swabs, angering foreign governments.

China is requiring some travelers arriving from overseas to receive an invasive anal swab test as part of its coronavirus containment measures, which has outraged and shocked several foreign governments.

Japanese officials said Monday they had formally asked China to exclude Japanese citizens from the test, adding that some who received it complained of “psychological distress”. And the US State Department most recently said it registered a protest with the Chinese government after some of its diplomats were forced to undergo anal swabs, despite Chinese officials denying it.

It is not clear how many such swabs have been administered or who is subject to them. Chinese state media have acknowledged that some arrivals in cities like Beijing and Shanghai are required for the tests, although reports said requirements may vary depending on whether travelers were rated as high-risk.

Chinese experts have suggested that traces of the virus could survive longer in the anus than in the respiratory tract, and that samples of the former could prevent false negative results. China has put some of the toughest containment measures in the world, including blocking most foreign arrivals, and has largely suppressed the epidemic.

Lu Hongzhou, an infectious disease specialist at Fudan University in Shanghai, told the state-controlled tabloid Global Times that nasal or throat swabs could cause “nasty reactions” that could result in below-average samples. He admitted that stool samples could replace anal swabs to avoid similar discomfort.

Other experts – including in China – have questioned the need for anal testing. The Global Times quoted another expert, Yang Zhanqiu, as saying that nasal and throat swabs are still most effective because the virus is transmitted through the airways.

Benjamin Cowling, professor of public health at the University of Hong Kong, said in an interview that even if someone tested positive on an anal swab but not a breath swab, he or she probably wouldn’t be very contagious.

“The value of detecting people with the virus is in stopping transmission,” said Professor Cowling. “If someone has an infection but is not contagious to anyone, we didn’t have to recognize that person.”

A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said this week the government will make “science-based adjustments” to its containment policies.

Professor Cowling said he did not know what the scientific rationale for the existing policy was. “I suppose there is some evidence leading to this decision, but I haven’t seen that evidence,” he said.