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Accusations that Russia is behind cyber attacks designed to subvert key continental European elections, and that the UK Government is backing a multi-million pound loan to a giant car company crippled by major computer interference, highlight how The Eye too has been targeted by Russian hackers.
It’s been revealed that officials will underwrite a £1.5 billion loan guarantee to Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) after a mass cyber attack forced a shutdown last month
The loan is expected to give suppliers some certainty amid the continued shutdown, as it will help bolster JLR’s cash reserves with the firm paying back companies in its supply chain – although there are concerns about ‘moral hazard’, and companies always knowing they will be bailed out by the UK Government.
Production was stopped at car factories in Halewood on Merseyside and Solihull in the West Midlands, as well as at its engine manufacturing centre in Wolverhampton.
JLR, which is owned by India’s Tata Motors, shut down its systems in order to limit potential damage from the cyber attack.
It occurred at what is traditionally a popular time for consumers to take delivery of a new vehicle, with the latest batch of fresh registration plates becoming available on September 1.
The disruption extended well beyond JLR’s own production lines, with its network of parts suppliers also forced to restrict their operations.
Some repair garages have also warned that existing Jaguar or Land Rover owners may face delays if their cars need new parts.
This worrying news comes after Marks & Spencer (M&S) and Co-Op were also struck earlier this year.
As well as disrupting its online business, the hack affected M&S in-store too, leaving shelves bare in the days after it was targeted, and the huge company admitted that some personal customer data was taken during the attack.
Most of the firm’s systems had to be switched off, and without the technology that links stores and warehouses, food went to waste.
The website, through which one-third of M&S fashion, home and beauty is sold, was down for around six weeks.
The stock price dropped by almost 14 per cent in that period, while competitors like Next rallied.
Once most of the business was back up and running, M&S estimated it had lost a total of £300 million in operating profit as a result of the attack, roughly one-third of what it made last year.
Criminal gangs may be involved here, but the background is disturbing as it has also emerged that Czechia has been flooded by pro-Russian disinformation as a crucial election approaches, where voters may tilt the country even further towards the European Union (EU).
There is a huge volume of fake news – and it has increased steadily since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine to a record high of some 5,000 articles per month, according to Vojtěch Boháč, an investigative journalist with Czech outlet Voxpot.
A recent Voxpot investigation found that the 16 largest disinformation websites churn out more content than all Czech traditional media outlets combined.
Articles ranged from critical takedowns of the EU and NATO to extraordinary conspiracy theories, including claims that Brussels is promoting cannibalism as a solution to climate change.
In Moldova too there is enormous concern.
Leading up to a critical Parliamentary vote there yesterday, the Prime Minister Dorin Recean warned that Moscow was spending “hundreds of millions” of Euros as part of a “hybrid war” to try to seize power, which he described as “the final battle for our country’s future”.
The Moldovan President Maia Sandu warned of “massive Russian interference” after voting, saying the future of her country, which is flanked by Ukraine and Romania, was at stake.
Although tiny in comparison, we too have attracted the unwanted attention of those connected to Russian authorities.
Our site always used to get a couple of ‘allow requests’ from e-mail addresses with the .ru (Russia) ending, but recently this has increased massively, and at one point there were four or five A DAY!
There has also been a marked increase in online ‘disinformation’ campaigns, which appears to be linked to the cyber attacks.
In the past Viginum, the French foreign-disinformation watchdog, announced it had detected preparations for a large disinformation campaign in France, Germany, Poland and other European countries.
Russia has been at the forefront of internet disinformation techniques at least since 2014, when it pioneered the use of bot farms to spread fake news about its invasion of Crimea.
Viginum said it had uncovered a Russian network of 193 websites which it codenames ‘Portal Kombat’.
Most of these sites, such as topnews.uz.ua, were created years ago and many were left dormant. But over 50 of them, such as news-odessa.ru and pravda-en.com, have been created since 2022.
French authorities think they are ready to be activated aggressively as part of what one official calls a “massive” wave of Russian disinformation.
Viginum says it closely watched the sites over several months, and managers there have concluded that they do not themselves generate news stories, but are designed to spread “deceptive or false” content about the war in Ukraine, both on websites and via social media.
The underlying objective it would seem, is to undermine support for Ukraine in Europe, and according to the French authorities, the network is controlled by a single Russian organisation.
This alarming information will only serve to underline the worries of managers at JLR, although at least they now have the large UK Government loan to tide them over.
We don’t even have that!
Tomorrow – how during 42 years in journalism (when he was trained to use simple language, avoiding jargon) for Phil it has always been paramount to be able to TELL A GOOD TALE, and this is now put centre stage by a new book about one of the greatest storytellers ever: Robert Louis Stevenson.
