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Category: Europe

Chinese-Linked Attackers Exploit Check Point Flaw to Deploy ShadowPad and Ransomware

A previously unknown threat activity cluster targeted European organizations, particularly those in the healthcare sector, to deploy PlugX and its successor, ShadowPad, with the intrusions ultimately leading to deployment of a ransomware called NailaoLocker in some cases. The campaign, codenamed Green Nailao by Orange Cyberdefense CERT, involved the exploitation of a new-patched security flaw

Apple purges apps without contact info from EU app store, as DSA deadline hits

A change requiring app developers to disclose their address, phone number, and email information to consumers has gone live on the App Store within the European Union. Apple on Tuesday announced it has removed any EU apps that haven’t yet complied with the Digital Services Act (DSA), a regulation that had added a requirement in…

Open source LLMs hit Europe’s digital sovereignty roadmap

Large language models (LLMs) landed on Europe’s digital sovereignty agenda with a bang last week, as news emerged of a new program to develop a series of “truly” open source LLMs covering all European Union languages. This includes the current 24 official EU languages, as well as languages for countries currently negotiating for entry to…

Azul Achieves DORA Compliance

In December Azul announced that the integrated risk management practices for its OpenJDK solutions fully support the requirements of the European Union’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) provisions. The stability, resilience and integrity of Azul’s solution not only ensure DORA compliance but also enhance digital resilience and mitigate risks. Azul received assurance in December, but…

Europe denies dropping AI liability rules under pressure from Trump

The European Union has denied that recent moves to row back on some planned tech regulation — principally by ditching the AI Liability Directive, a 2022 draft law which had been aimed at making it easier for consumers to sue over harms caused by AI-enabled products and services — were made in response to pressure…

EU’s Disinformation Code moves closer to becoming DSA benchmark

Staying on the right side of the European Union’s online rulebook when it comes to the slippery topic of disinformation is set to get easier for platforms that commit to the bloc’s long-standing Code of Practice on Disinformation. You know, the voluntary Code that Elon Musk pulled X (formerly Twitter) out of back in 2023.…

Defense and resilience tech reached an all-time high 10% of all VC funding in Europe

The war in Ukraine served as a wakeup call for Europe, and defense tech went from a sector that most European VCs didn’t touch to one of the top investment areas within deep tech. This shift is captured in Dealroom’s latest report on Defence, Resilience, and Security (DSR) in Europe, released together with the NATO…

EU abandons ePrivacy, AI liability reforms, as bloc shifts focus to competitiveness & data access for AI

A long stalled bid to beef up European Union rules around online tracking technologies — and put penalties on a similar footing to the bloc’s data protection framework, GDPR, which allows for fines of up to 4% of annual turnover for breaches — has been withdrawn by the Commission after co-legislators failed to reach agreement…

EU looks to the private sector to help fund ‘AI Gigafactories’, eyeing the frontier AI race

The European Union is courting the private sector as it looks to step up compute capacity for training large AI models. Giving a speech at the AI Action Summit in Paris on Monday, the EU’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, talked up the potential of homegrown AI startups but said the region’s developers must have…

Thai authorities detain four Europeans in ransomware crackdown

In a sweeping international law enforcement operation, Thai authorities arrested four Europeans in Phuket, accusing them of orchestrating ransomware attacks affecting Swiss companies worldwide. The suspects are allegedly tied to the 8Base ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) gang, which extorted $16 million worth of Bitcoin from over 1,000 individuals. The operation, termed “Phobos Aetor,” reflected a tightly coordinated…

Fortifying cyber security: What does secure look like in 2025?

The evolving cybersecurity landscape has increased security pressures for IT leaders. With the World Economic Forum estimating, the global cost of cybercrime is projected to reach $10.5trillion annually in 2025, the situation is only escalating[1]. The rise of new technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the complexities introduced by flexible working have made  IT…

German court orders X to give data access to democracy researchers ahead of federal elections

Under European Union law, X is one of a handful of major social media platforms that has a duty to facilitate public interest researchers’ access to support the study of systemic risks — such as to elections and other democratic processes. But the Elon Musk-owned company formerly known as Twitter has been blocking civil society…

CIOs and CISOs grapple with DORA: Key challenges, compliance complexities

In force since January, the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) has required considerable effort from CIOs and CISOs at 20 types of financial entities to achieve compliance. For many, the journey is not complete. “In the past months, financial entities targeted by DORA have been busy internally defining roles and responsibilities related to ICT security,…

EU details which systems fall within AI Act’s scope

The European Union has published guidance on what constitutes an AI system under its new AI Act. The risk-based framework for regulating applications of artificial intelligence came into force last summer — with the first compliance deadline (on banned use cases) kicking in last weekend. Determining whether a particular software system falls within the act’s…

OpenAI launches data residency in Europe

OpenAI on Thursday launched data residency in Europe, allowing European organizations to meet local data sovereignty requirements while using the AI company’s products. Data residency refers to the physical location of an organization’s data, as well as the local laws and policy requirements imposed on that data. Most tech giants and cloud providers offer European…

Shein gets more questions from EU about DSA compliance

After consumer protection scrutiny dialled up on fast-fashion giant Shein in the European Union on Wednesday, the bloc’s executive announced Thursday that it’s sent a fresh request for information (RFI) to the ecommerce platform under the Digital Services Act (DSA), a pan-EU online governance framework. The Commission oversees larger platforms’ compliance with a subset of…

Cherry Ventures raises a new $500M fund for early stage and beyond, but will it be enough?

It’s sometimes said that European VC doesn’t have the firepower to compete with VCs in the U.S., which regularly raise billion-dollar+ funds these days. Perhaps further evidence of this view persists in the news that Berlin-based Cherry Ventures has closed its latest fund at $500 million, to be split between early-stage rounds and follow-on rounds…

Shein hit with consumer protection action in EU as bloc unboxes strategy to tackle low-cost ecommerce risks

Chinese ecommerce and fast fashion giant Shein is facing fresh scrutiny in the European Union in relation to consumer protection rules following the launch of a coordinated action by the bloc’s Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPCN). The action is being conducted with reference to the EU’s Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, Consumer Rights Directive, Unfair Contracts…

Silent Lynx Using PowerShell, Golang, and C++ Loaders in Multi-Stage Cyberattacks

A previously undocumented threat actor known as Silent Lynx has been linked to cyber attacks targeting various entities in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. “This threat group has previously targeted entities around Eastern Europe and Central Asian government think tanks involved in economic decision making and banking sector,” Seqrite Labs researcher Subhajeet Singha said in a technical…

EU puts out guidance on uses of AI that are banned under its AI Act

The first compliance deadline kicked in a couple of days ago for the European Union’s AI Act, a risk-based framework for regulating uses of artificial intelligence — banning a narrow selection of so called “unacceptable risk” use-cases of AI, such as social scoring that could lead to detrimental or unfavourable treatment; or harmful manipulation using…

Who’s Behind the Seized Forums ‘Cracked’ & ‘Nulled’?

The FBI joined authorities across Europe last week in seizing domain names for Cracked and Nulled, English-language cybercrime forums with millions of users that trafficked in stolen data, hacking tools and malware. An investigation into the history of these communities shows their apparent co-founders quite openly operate an Internet service provider and a pair of…

AI systems with ‘unacceptable risk’ are now banned in the EU

As of Sunday in the European Union, the bloc’s regulators can ban the use of AI systems they deem to pose “unacceptable risk” or harm. February 2 is the first compliance deadline for the EU’s AI Act, the comprehensive AI regulatory framework that the European Parliament finally approved last March after years of development. The…

Backdoor in Chinese-made healthcare monitoring device leaks patient data

US federal agencies have warned that a popular Chinese-made patient monitor device used in medical settings across the US and Europe has a built-in backdoor that leaks patient data to an unauthorized remote server. The backdoor, present also in a rebranded version of the device, also allows the remote server, which appears to belong to…

FBI takes down Cracked.to and Nulled.to in a global law enforcement operation

FBI has taken down Cracked.to, Nulled.to, and a few other hack sites cybercriminals use for dropping stolen credentials, software cracks, and remote desktop hacks in a coordinated law enforcement operation. In Operation Talent, several domains suspected of facilitating hacking activities have been busted with a law-enforcement “seizure” notice now showing up on their landing. “This…

DeepSeek might have a trademark problem in the U.S.

Chinese AI company DeepSeek has been accused of IP theft, faced privacy inquiries in Europe, and has been the target of an enormous cyberattack. Now, it appears the company has a new headache on its hands: a U.S. trademark conflict. On Tuesday, DeepSeek filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) seeking…

Alice&Bob raises $104M, says quantum computers based on cat qubits will be ready by 2030

Quantum computing remains something of a holy grail in the world of technology: it promises a huge leap in computing power, but only if someone can figure out how to square away the fault rates that prevent any scaling of the tech. Now, one of the more promising quantum startups in Europe is announcing a…

Mistral’s origin story has an insuretech founder at its heart

If you’ve been following the AI industry, Mistral should be a familiar name by now. The French AI startup with a $6 billion valuation is arguably the biggest AI company working on foundation models in Europe. Alan, on the other hand, isn’t as well known. The health insurance unicorn has been quietly growing to become…

Cybersecurity needs women — and it needs to treat them better

The participation of women in cybersecurity is vital, a non-negotiable proposition. Forget any current handwringing over diversity and equity; it’s fundamental that the contribution of women to the profession has made cybersecurity better. The proverbial door was kicked open long ago for women, who have made major contributions to the development of information security. But…

The EU wants to talk to US tech companies ahead of Germany’s upcoming election

The European Union will give tech and social media companies a “stress test” to see how they handle misinformation ahead of Germany’s election next month. European Commission officials have invited tech companies, including: X, Meta, Snap, TikTok, Google, Microsoft, and LinkedIn, to a meeting on January 31, according to multiple news outlets. During this meeting,…

Trump’s not happy with how EU regulators have treated US tech giants

President Donald Trump isn’t happy with how European Union regulators have treated U.S.-based tech companies including: Google, Meta, and Apple. On stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump put EU regulators on blast. He said that the EU’s cases against these U.S. tech companies are “a form of taxation,” according to Bloomberg reporting.…

New backdoor discovered that specifically targets Juniper routers

Researchers at Black Lotus Labs have uncovered an operation where a back door is dropped onto enterprise-grade Juniper Networks routers and listens for specific network signals, known as “magic packets,” to execute malicious commands.  The campaign, which researchers at the cybersecurity wing of Lumen Technologies refer to as “J-Magic,” was active between mid-2023 and mid-2024.…

Government battles against tech could leave consumers less secure

Regulators around the globe are seeing the market power of consumer-facing tech companies and bringing cases against some of the industry’s biggest household names. They portray these legal fights as the conflicts of giants: the companies versus government regulators. Regulators have an essential mission to ensure companies play by the rules, preserving competition and giving…

GDPR Compliance in the US: Checklist and Requirements

The European Union (EU)’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) isn’t just a European concern. As GDPR-U.S. interactions become more complex, international businesses (including American ones) must comply with this regulation when handling data from EU citizens. If your company collects, processes, or stores data from the EU or European Economic Area (EEA)—including Iceland, Norway, and…

EU to take aim at healthcare cyber threat

The European Commission is presenting an action plan to strengthen cybersecurity in healthcare as one of its key priorities in the first 100 days of the commission’s new mandate. The healthcare sector has been under increasing pressure from cyberattacks in the past few years, with 309 cybersecurity incidents reported by member states in 2023. Ransomware…

Europe orders Elon Musk’s X to submit documents on its recommendation algorithms

The European Commission (EC) says it has requested information from Elon Musk’s X related to the algorithms that determine the content it recommends to users. The EC wants to determine how those algorithms may or may not be compliant with the Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes key obligations on online platforms operating across the…

Nelly raises $51 million to digitalize medical practices across Europe

Nelly wants to become the biggest fintech startup in the healthcare industry. The Berlin-based startup is already working with more than 1,200 medical practices in a handful of European countries. But there are thousands more that could benefit from an upgrade for their administrative workflows. That’s why Nelly recently raised €50 million in funding (around…

Venture funding remains stable in France thanks to AI startups

Alex Dewez, a partner at 20VC, just released its highly anticipated State of the French tech ecosystem report. This is a nice followup to Atomico’s State of European Tech report, with a more granular view on French startups in particular. As a reminder, the bottom line of Atomico’s report is that European startups raised $45…

Fancy Bear spotted using real Kazak government documents in spearpishing campaign

A hacking group linked to Russian intelligence has been observed leveraging seemingly legitimate documents from the Kazakhstan government as phishing lures to infect and spy on government officials in Central Asia, according to researchers at Sekoia. The files, laced with malware, include draft versions of diplomatic statements, correspondence letters, internal administrative notes and other documents…

CoreWeave, a $19B AI compute provider, opens its first international data centers in the UK

Coreweave, the $19 billion cloud computing company that provides companies with AI compute resources, has formally opened its first two data centers in the U.K. — its first outside its domestic U.S. market. CoreWeave opened its European headquarters in London last May, shortly after hitting a $19 billion valuation off the back of a $1.1.…

Mastodon announces transition to non-profit structure

Decentralized social network organization Mastodon said Monday that it is planning to create a new non-profit organization in Europe and hand over ownership of entities responsible for key Mastodon ecosystem and platform components. This means one person won’t have control over the entire project. The organization is trying to differentiate itself from social networks controlled…

EU approves $35B Synopsys and Ansys merger, subject to divestment conditions

The European Commission (EC) has given the greenlight for Synopsys to acquire Ansys, though the companies must divest some half-a-dozen products as part of the proposed remedies. Chip design software maker Synopsys revealed last January its plans to acquire Ansys, a simulation software developer that helps engineers model and analyze the physical behavior of products, such as chips,…

Facebook Marketplace to display eBay listings to appease EU regulators

Meta is set to start displaying eBay listings in its own Facebook Marketplace classifieds platform, in an effort to appease European regulators. Back in November, Meta was hit with a €798 million fine by the European Commission (EC) in Europe for breaching antitrust rules. The EC contended that Meta created “unfair trading conditions” by connecting…

The biggest data breach fines, penalties, and settlements so far

Sizable fines assessed for data breaches in recent years suggest that regulators are getting more serious about cracking down on organizations that don’t properly protect consumer data. Hit with a $ 1.3 billion fine for unlawfully transferring personal data from the European Union to the US, Meta tops the list of recent big-ticket sanctions, with…

May Mobility reveals electric autonomous minibus at CES 2025

May Mobility, an autonomous vehicle technology startup, unveiled at CES 2025 the next vehicle in its portfolio: an electric, autonomous minibus made in partnership with European electric bus manufacturer Tecnobus.  Ann Arbor-based May Mobility offers on-demand and fixed-route autonomous shuttles on campuses and in planned communities. Today its fleet consists of 40 Toyota Sienna minivans that…

Holiday Shopping Meets Cyber Threats: How Source Defense Detected the ESA Store Attack

by Source Defense In a recent high-profile incident covered by Forbes, our Source Defense Research team identified a sophisticated Magecart attack targeting the European Space Agency’s online store. This case study demonstrates why leading organizations worldwide trust Source Defense to protect their client-side security. In the December 2024 incident, Forbes reported what it called “one…

SquareX Researchers Expose OAuth Attack on Chrome Extensions Days Before Major Breach

SquareX, an industry-first Browser Detection and Response (BDR) solution, leads the way in browser security. About a week ago, SquareX reported large-scale attacks targeting Chrome Extension developers aimed at taking over the Chrome Extension from the Chrome Store. On December 25th, 2024, a malicious version of Cyberhaven’s browser extension was published on the Chrome Store that…

The CSO guide to top security conferences

There is nothing like attending a face-to-face event for career networking and knowledge gathering, and we don’t have to tell you how helpful it can be to get a hands-on demo of a new tool or to have your questions answered by experts. Fortunately, plenty of great conferences are coming up in the months ahead.…

Permira’s Brian Ruder talks AI, Squarespace acquisition, and the value of co-leadership

It has been a busy year in the private equity realm, with countless big-money acquisitions unfolding. The take-private space specifically has seen some sizable transactions, with private equity firms spearheading more than a dozen billion-dollar deals for public tech companies. London-headquartered Permira was a key protagonist, joining Blackstone to acquire European online classifieds group Adevinta…

Italy Fines OpenAI €15 Million for ChatGPT GDPR Data Privacy Violations

Italy’s data protection authority has fined ChatGPT maker OpenAI a fine of €15 million ($15.66 million) over how the generative artificial intelligence application handles personal data. The fine comes nearly a year after the Garante found that ChatGPT processed users’ information to train its service in violation of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation…

Nvidia clears regulatory hurdle to acquire Run:ai

Chip company Nvidia gets the green light from the European Union to complete its acquisition of Run:ai. The EU came to a unanimous decision today that Nvidia could go ahead with its acquisition of Israeli GPU orchestration platform Run:ai, according to reporting from Bloomberg. The European Commission determined that if the merger went through other…

European Solo GP Robin Capital closes first fund with €15M to play with

Robin Capital — the Germany-based, Solo GP-led VC fund by former entrepreneur Robin Haak — has hit its final close of ‘Robin Fund One’ at €13 million. Combined with its additional growth-focused investment vehicle of €2m, the fund now has a total of €15 million to play with. In the realm of European Solo GPs,…

Sequoia’s Matt Miller is exiting the firm after making headlines earlier this year

The writing was on the wall, seemingly.  Sequoia Capital partner Matt Miller announced on Wednesday that he’s leaving the powerhouse outfit after a 12-year career to build his own new firm focused on European founders. He added he will remain a venture partner with Sequoia and maintain his board seats while fleshing out the “specifics…

EU asks for views on plan to force Apple to open up iOS

The European Commission has published draft proposals for how Apple must meet interoperability requirements flowing from the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) — inviting feedback on proposed measures targeted at areas like iOS notifications, data transfer, and device set-up by January 9, 2025. European Union regulators then have until around mid March to adopt final…

Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

Apple and Meta are warring in Europe over the balance between interoperability and privacy, Reuters reports. The fight focuses on the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), a competition regulation that requires designated gatekeepers (including Apple and Meta) not to restrict rivals’ access to so-called core platform services. In Apple’s case, this means: iOS, iPadOS,…

In potential reversal, European authorities say AI can indeed use personal data — without consent — for training

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) issued a wide-ranging report on Wednesday exploring the many complexities and intricacies of modern AI model development. It said that it was open to potentially allowing personal data, without owner’s consent, to train models, as long as the finished application does not reveal any of that private information. This…

HubPhish Exploits HubSpot Tools to Target 20,000 European Users for Credential Theft

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new phishing campaign that has targeted European companies with an aim to harvest account credentials and take control of the victims’ Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure. The campaign has been codenamed HubPhish by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 owing to the abuse of HubSpot tools in the attack chain. Targets include…

Five years later… Netflix hit with Dutch data access fine

Five years later sounds like a half-baked sequel to a well-known zombie flick franchise. But it’s a reference to how long it’s taken a data access complaint against Netflix to deliver a penalty decision in the European Union. The fine that’s — finally — been issued under the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is…

Meta fined $263M over 2018 security breach that affected ~3M EU users

Meta has been fined €251 million (around $263 million) in the European Union for a Facebook security breach that affected millions of users which the company disclosed back in September 2018. The penalty, issued on Tuesday by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) — enforcing the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — is far from…

EU to investigate TikTok’s response to election security risks in Romania

TikTok is now subject to not one but two open Digital Services Act (DSA) investigations after the European Union announced on Tuesday that it has opened a formal proceeding focused on election risks — and specifically risks in the context of recent elections in Romania. The probe will focus on TikTok’s recommender systems — principally “risks…

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