Daily Archives: October 15, 2021

US Puts Cryptocurrency Industry on Notice Over Ransomware Attacks 

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Suspected ransomware payments totaling $590 million were made in the first six months of this year, more than the $416 million reported for all of 2020, U.S. authorities said on Friday, as Washington put the cryptocurrency industry on alert about its role in combating ransomware attacks.  The U.S. Treasury Department said the average amount of reported ransomware transactions per month in 2021 was $102.3 million, with REvil/Sodinokibi, Conti, DarkSide, Avaddon, and Phobos the most prevalent ransomware strains reported.  President Joe Biden has made the government’s cybersecurity response a top priority …

US Donates 9.6 Million Additional COVID Vaccine Doses to Pakistan

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The United States announced Friday an additional 9.6 million doses of Pfizer coronavirus vaccine are being shipped to Pakistan through the global vaccine-sharing COVAX initiative. The shipment brings to more than 25 million the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses donated by Washington to the Pakistani people, said the American Embassy in Islamabad. “The United States is proud to partner with Pakistan to get effective, life-saving Pfizer vaccinations into the arms of Pakistanis, and Pakistan has done a great job of distributing our donated vaccines,” U.S. Chargé d’affaires Angela Aggeler was quoted as saying. “This …

Pan African Film Festival Begins in Burkina Faso

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The Pan-African Film Festival of Ouagadougou returns to Burkina Faso this weekend after being canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. One Burkinabe director, who has made a film documenting a nursery for the infants of sex workers, talks about the importance of telling African stories through cinema. Moumouni Sanou is a documentary film director from Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso’s second largest city. In 2019, he made a film, which is being screened at The Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, or FESPACO. Night Nursery follows the story …

Facebook Objects to Releasing Private Posts About Myanmar’s Rohingya Campaign

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Facebook was used to spread disinformation about the Rohingya, the Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar, and in 2018 the company began to delete posts, accounts and other content it determined were part of a campaign to incite violence.  That deleted but stored data is at issue in a case in the United States over whether Facebook should release the information as part of a claim in international court.  Facebook this week objected to part of a U.S. magistrate judge’s order that could have an impact on how much data internet …