At the annual meeting of the IMF-World Bank last Thursday, regulators assured that fintechs will not be a threat to banks. However, they also called on financial authorities to make sure that traditional lenders are well-equipped to handle the changes these businesses will bring to their industry.   Indonesian finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who was also a panelist, said that technology can be used not only to innovate, but also prod incumbents such as banks to improve their business models The two monetary organizations also jointly published a paper called the Bali Fintech Agenda which aims to help policymakers […]

Leading figures in the infosec industry said that the arrest of high-ranking director in China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), Yanjun Xu, may prompt an increase in attacks from Chinese hacking groups within the next few months. US cybersecurity firm Recorded Future says that the MSS is the agency that oversees China’s cyber espionage operations. Meanwhile, both Crowdstrike CTO Dmitri Alperovitch and ex-Facebook CSO Alex Stamos said that the arrest may lead to the breakdown of Obama and Xi’s deal to stop all hacking operations aimed at intellectual property (IP) theft in the autumn of 2015. Source: ZDNet

Breitbart News recently published what it says is a leaked presentation showing how Google is struggling to find balance between allowing free speech and censoring harmful content. The research, entitled “The Good Censor”, was reportedly put together by Google employees with the aim to reassure the world that the company is protecting users against the negative aspects of free speech while providing them a platform where everyone can express themselves. It is said that the presentation concludes by saying that while transparency, consistency, and responsiveness are critical to addressing the problem, there is not a “right amount” of censorship that […]

In a post on Toutiao last Wednesday, Alipay said that hackers have stolen funds from its users using stolen Apple IDs, and the issue remains unresolved at present. The Ant Financial company said that they have already reached out to Apple who has yet to offer a solution. Alipay meanwhile advises customers who have their accounts linked to their Apple IDs to lower their transaction limits. According to state media Xinhua, it is estimated that some users have lost up to $288 due to the breach that hit both Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat.   Source: Reuters

In its recently published 2018 Asia Pacific Security Capabilities Benchmark Study, Cisco said that most companies in the Philippines only investigate half of the cybersecurity threat alerts that they get. The study took 150 respondents from the Philippines’ financial, telecommunications, retail, and software industries, all classified as medium and large enterprises. Cisco found that although the respondents said that they receive around 5000 alerts per day, which is the one of the lowest among the Southeast Asian countries.   However, Cisco Systems Philippines Managing Director Karrie Ilagan explained that this can be attributed to the country’s level of digitization, which […]