Radio România Internațional

Tag: Cyber crime

  • July 7, 2020 UPDATE

    July 7, 2020 UPDATE

    Covid-19 — Another 31 people have died in Romania from coronavirus infection, the Strategic Communication Group announced on Tuesday, taking the death toll to 1,799. 397 new cases of contamination were reported also on Tuesday which brings the total number of cases to 29.600. 5,095 Romanians from abroad have tested positive for the new coronavirus and 122 people have died. The National Committee for Emergency Situations has updated the list of green countries, whose citizens will not be isolated or quarantined upon entering Romania. As of Tuesday flights have been resumed to and from 32 European states and 12 countries from other continents. These countries are: Bulgaria, Monaco, Croatia, the UK, The Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Island, Switzerland, Spain, France, Belgium, Germany, Slovenia, Denmark, The Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Slovakia, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, Finland, Malta, Lithuania, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Andorra, the Faeroes Islands and Vatican. The list of third countries includes Canada, Morocco, Algeria, Australia, Rwanda, Uruguay, Japan, South Korea, Georgia, New Zealand, Tunisia and Thailand. The list has been drafted according to the number of new cases of contamination reported in the past 14 days per 100 thousand inhabitants.



    Economy — Romania’s economy will register a 6% decrease in 2020, according to estimates made public on Tuesday by the EC. The estimates are similar to those made in May. For next year, the EC estimates a growth rate of Romania’s GDP of 4% as against the 4.2% forecast made in May. The EC warns that growth prospects are still susceptible to certain risks. In another move, the EC estimates show an inflation rate of 2.5% in 2020 and of 2.8% in 2021. As regards the EU economy, the EC has warned that it is going to face deep recession following the coronavirus pandemic, despite the rapid and comprehensive response given by the EU states.



    Motion — The Romanian Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday debated a simple motion of no confidence filed by the opposition Social Democratic Party against the Liberal minister of development Ion Stefan, whom they accused of incompetence and forgery. The Social Democrats also mentioned integrity issues related to minister Stefans financial statements and his controversial move of cutting down on the anticorruption personnel and resources within the ministry. Minister Ion Stefan replied that the motion only included calumnies and verbal attacks. The vote on the motion is scheduled for next week.



    Senate – The Romanian Senate on Tuesday voted a bill stipulating that local elections will be held on September 27. The draft law also mentions that the polling stations will be located within lightweight constructions and living containers. The bill will be forwarded to the Chamber of Deputies, a decision-making body. Initially scheduled for June, the local elections have been postponed due to the pandemic. The mandates of the mayors, county council presidents and of the local and county councilors have consequently been extended by 6 months.



    Football – The Bucharest-based football teams FCSB and Dinamo will play, on Wednesday evening, the decisive match of the Romanian Football Cup’s semifinals. In the first match, played on Dinamo’s turf, FCSB won 3-0. The other semifinal will be played on Thursday pitting CSM Poli Iasi against Sepsi OSK Sfantu Gheorghe. In the first match Sepsi defeated Poli Iasi 5-1. The final of Romania’s Cup will be played on July 22, in Ploiesti, in the south.



    Cybercrime — The Italian and Romanian police have arrested 12 alleged cyber criminals accused of financial fraud and money laundering. The damage stands at more than 20 million dollars. Eurojust, the EU Agency dealing with judicial cooperation in criminal matters among agencies of the member states, says that following searches, one of the most important organized crime groups from Italy was dismantled. The group was selling inexistent goods and services, including fictitious properties, and it was cloning known websites to make the victims transfer the money. (tr. L. Simion)

  • May 18, 2019 UPDATE

    May 18, 2019 UPDATE

    NATO The North-Atlantic Alliances largest communications exercise Steadfast Cobalt 2019 begins on Sunday in Otopeni, near Bucharest. Taking part are over 1,200 Romanian and foreign military from 35 NATO IT&C structures, the Romanian Defence Ministry announces in a news release. Scheduled to conclude on June 2, Steadfast Cobalt 2019 is aimed at the joint training of troops in the provision of multinational support in NATO operations and at practicing the standard procedures required in order to ensure the interoperability of NATO human and technical resources.




    CYBER-CRIME The EU member states have adopted a mechanism enabling them to punish individuals or entities from outside the bloc that commit cyber attacks. It is for the first time that the EU responds to cyber attacks in this form. Under the new mechanism, Brussels will be able to introduce travel restrictions and to freeze the assets and accounts of suspected offenders.





    JOBS Rome is hosting until Sunday a job fair for the Romanians who seek to return to their home country. The executive president of the organising association, Casa România, Dorin Coman, explains that the project took shape after the organisation found out that Romania lacks 250,000 workers in constructions alone. According to him, an objective is to help Romanians come back home, to find accurate information about the developments in the country, about the jobs available and the salary level. Taking part in the fair are many Romanian companies, operating especially in the field of constructions. According to the Italian Statistical Institute, nearly 1.2 million Romanians were living in Italy in 2018.




    TRADE FAIR Romanian furniture producers are taking part for the 2nd consecutive year in the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York – ICFF, an American global design platform. Between May 19 and 22, Romanian companies will president their products alongside more than 900 other participants from 72 countries. The Romanian pavilion is organised by the Ministry for the business environment, trade and entrepreneurship, jointly with the Romanian Furniture Producer Association. According to the Ministry, in last years edition the quality, the environment-friendly raw materials used, the innovative finishing and diversity of styles brought Romanian producers contracts of around 1 million UDS.




    HANDBALL The mens handball team CSM Bucharest Saturday won the Challenge Cup, defeating the Portuguese side Madeira Andebol SAD in the decisive leg of the finals, 26-20. In the first leg, in Portugal, the 2 teams had drawn, 22-22. Challenge Cup is the 3rd-tier inter-club competition in Europe. The current Cup holders are Potaissa Turda, from north-western Romania. Another 3 Romanian teams have also won the trophy so far: CSA Steaua Bucharest (in 2006), CS UCM Reşiţa (in 2007, 2008, 2009) and HC Odorheiu Secuiesc (in 2015), while CSU Bucovina Suceava was a finalist in 2009. In womens handball, CSM Bucureşti was kicked out from the Champions League quarter-finals by the French team Metz, after having qualified into the so-called Final Four for the past 3 years, and after having won the trophy in 2016.



    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

  • October 4, 2018 UPDATE

    October 4, 2018 UPDATE

    JUSTICE – Romanias President, Klaus Iohannis, on Thursday signed the decree under which he promulgated the controversial law on the functioning of the Superior Council of Magistracy. The president has however reiterated that he does not support the changes brought to the bill, which alongside the Law on the judicial organisation, promulgated in July and the one on the status of magistrates, is part of a package called the Justice Laws. The president claims the changes brought to the existing legal framework in the field of justice is a downfall for democracy in Romania. The president requests that the three laws be re-analysed. We recall that the Justice Laws, in the form proposed and adopted by the ruling majority made up of the Social Democratic Party-the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats have been criticised by civil society, also through large protests, and by the Opposition, and have made the subject of significant reproaches by the European institutions. This week, the First Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, has said in the European Parliament during a debate on the rule of law in Romania, that the country has taken steps backwards in the reform of the judiciary and the fight against corruption, also through the changes brought to the Justice Laws.



    CORRUPTION – The Romanian police have confirmed that the former tourism minister Elena Udrea and the former head of the Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT), Alina Bica, have been detained in Costa Rica, following intelligence sent from Bucharest. According to judicial sources, the two are to be heard in court. They have applied for asylum in Costa Rica, and that is why judges might postpone a decision regarding their extradition. Udrea and Bica were under investigation, surveillance and monitoring by the Costa Rican authorities, as they were wanted internationally by Interpol, following the sentences they had received in Romania for corruption. For a long time seen as the most influential character in the former president Traian Basescus entourage, Udrea received from the High Court of Cassation and Justice a final 6-year prison sentence for bribe taking and abuse of office. The same court sentenced Bica to 4 years in prison, in a case in which she was accused of aiding and abetting a criminal.



    NATO- Bucharest will pay special heed to strengthening transatlantic relations, during the Romanian presidency of the EU Council, in the first half of 2019, defence minister Mihai Fifor has said in Brussels. Attending the NATO defence ministers meeting in Brussels, minister Fifor has drawn attention to the importance of fighting hybrid and cyber attacks and underlined the importance of military mobility, a domain in which Romania supports the idea of adopting common NATO-EU standards. On Wednesday, the first day of the meeting, the participants analysed the stage of implementation of the decisions made by the allies at the July summit in Poland and assessed NATOs relation with Georgia.



    REFERENDUM – The campaign for the referendum on redefining family in the Romanian Constitution, due on October 6-7 ends on Friday, 7 a.m. local time. Romanian citizens are called to the polls to say whether they agree to see the definition in the Constitution, which currently reads ‘the consented marriage between spouses, changed into ‘the consented marriage between a man and a woman, the definition proposed by Parliament. The initiative to change the phrasing in the Constitution came from the Coalition for Family, which comprises several Christian organizations. The coalition gathered 3 million signatures to support their initiative. The referendum has been criticized by associations that protect the rights of sexual minorities. For the referendum to be valid, at least 30% of the voters registered on electoral lists must take part, and 25% of the votes must be valid.



    CYBERCRIME – The Romanian Foreign Ministry expresses its solidarity with Great Britain, following Londons denouncement of hostile cyber actions. ‘Romania, in its capacity as EU and NATO member state, situated in the proximity of regions marked by instability, is facing such challenges too reads a communiqué issued by the ministry. Bucharest has reconfirmed its commitment to supporting the fight against cyber attacks and has voiced interest in cooperating with Great Britain and the other allies in implementing firm and concrete measures aimed at preventing and curbing such phenomena. Previously, the British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt had accused the Russian military intelligence services (GRU) of perpetrating cyber attacks against companies and institutions across the world. Hunt has also announced that Great Britain and its allies will discuss about imposing new sanctions on Russia.



    MONETARY POLICY – The Romanian Central Bank has decided to maintain the monetary policy interest rate at 2.5% per year, and the one for bank deposits at 1.5%. The interest rate for loans will stand at 3.5%. These interest rates are used in the relations between commercial banks and the Central Bank. The values of the current rates for minimum reserve requirements applicable to liabilities in RON and in hard currencies have also been maintained. (Translated by M. Ignatescu and D. Vijeu)

  • December 2, 2016 UPDATE

    December 2, 2016 UPDATE

    DIPLOMACY Romanian diplomats have announced their surprise and amazement over a decision by the Foreign Ministry in neighboring Hungary to forbid the Hungarian diplomats to participate in receptions and festivities staged on Thursday on the occasion of Romanias National Day. The Ministry said, upon request from Radio Romania, that such a decision is hard to understand all the more so as the respect for a countrys national symbols and values are an undisputable part of the set of values the European Union and the Transatlantic community are based upon. The Foreign Ministry adds that Romania has been a country deeply attached to such values. We recall that Romania celebrates its National Day on December 1st, to mark the union in 1918 of the province of Transylvania with the Romanian kingdom. The union completed the process of forming the Romanian unitary state after the First World War, when all the Romanian provinces belonging to various multinational empires, united.



    CYBER CRIME The Romanian police have joined authorities from 29 other countries to dismantle the worlds largest computer network responsible for launching cyber-attacks the world over, the General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police has announced. Code-named Avalanche, the operation was launched last week at the end of investigations that lasted five years. Five people have been detained, 37 buildings searched and 39 servers seized. According to Romanian Police sources, over 500 thousand computers were being affected on a daily basis from this infrastructure, which became operational in 2009. The perpetrators used viruses to hack into computers and withdraw money from the victims accounts. Avalanche was the largest police operation of this kind with 800 thousand web domains blocked or closed down in order to be taken out of the hackers control. Among the countries involved in the Avalanche operation were Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, Britain and the United States.



    PROTEST Around 15 hundred workers protested on Friday morning in front of Romanias biggest carmaker Dacia, in Mioveni, southeastern Romania, denouncing the condition of commuter buses assuring the transport of employees and the drivers lack of experience. Production was stopped for an hour at the plant. The protest has been triggered by two collective accidents, the first in early August, when 13 people were wounded, and another one last week, when 17 other people were wounded. Trade union leaders have cautioned this is only the first in the series of protests that will follow unless their claims are met. We recall the first Dacia car was produced in Romania in 1966. Since 1999 the brand has belonged to French group Renault accounting for roughly 30% of the French carmakers sales.



    UN The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon has expressed appreciation for the significant progress Romania has made in terms of implementing democratic values as well as for Bucharests contribution to the efforts of promoting peace, sustainable development and human rights the world over. The UN official has highlighted the activity of Romanias public servants, including officers in charge of the UN high officials protection. Ban Ki-moon and the president of the UN general assembly, Peter Thomson, on Thursday attended the reception offered by Bucharests permanent mission at the United Nations on the occasion of Romanias National Day. In turn Peter Thomson has said he appreciates Romanias activism and the wide range of commitments assumed at all levels in over 60 years of UN membership.



    EUROPOL In a report published in the Hague, the European police, EUROPOL, have warned that the Islamic State has been planning new attacks in Europe in the near future. There is risk for the refugees from Syria to be recruited and radicalized, while IS fighters can get infiltrated among the refugees, the report says. Experts believe that car bomb attacks can be carried out in France, but also in Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain and Germany. The US Department of State also last week announced there is credible information about the Al Qaeda and the Islamic State and their branches, which are planning terror attacks in Europe around the winter holidays. Jihadists have this year carried out bloody attacks in Belgium, France, Germany and Turkey.



    UNESCO – Traditional handwoven fabrics from Romania and the Republic of Moldova are starting Friday part of UNESCOs immovable cultural list. These tapestry works are produced in local communities of craftsmen and are considered genuine works of art, used to decorate the interior of homes, but also part of certain celebrations. UNESCO added to the same list the El Callao Carnival of Venezuela, the puppet theatre of Slovakia and the Czech Republic and traditional pottery from Cini, Turkey.



    HANDBALL Romanias national handball side leaves for Sweden on Saturday to participate in the European Championship due over December 4th and 18th. In the final tournaments group D Romania will be playing Norway on December 5th, take on Russia two days later and on Croatia on December 9th. The first three sides in each group will qualify for the second stage, which has two series of six groups each. Romanias team is being lead by Spanish coach Ambros Martin, who last week replaced Swedish Thomas Ryde, under whose guidance our handballers won bronze at the World Championship in Denmark in 2015. In 2013 and 2014, Ambros Martin was designated the worlds best coach after having won two Champions Leagues trophies with Hungarian side Gyor.


    (Translated by D. Bilt and V. Palcu)

  • December 2, 2016

    December 2, 2016

    CYBER CRIME The Romanian police have joined authorities from 29 other countries to dismantle the world’s largest computer network responsible for launching cyber attacks the world over, the General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police has announced. Code-named Avalanche, the operation was launched last week at the end of investigations that lasted five years. Five people have been detained, 37 buildings searched and 39 servers seized. According to Romanian Police sources, over 500 thousand computers were being affected on a daily basis from this infrastructure, which became operational in 2009. The perpetrators used viruses to hack into computers and withdraw money from the victims’ accounts. Avalanche was the largest police operation of this kind with 800 thousand web domains blocked or closed down in order to be taken out of the hackers’ control. Among the countries involved in the Avalanche operation were Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, Britain and the United States.



    HANDBALL Romania’s national handball side leaves for Sweden on Saturday to participate in the European Championship due over December 4th and 18th. In the final tournament’s group D Romania will be playing Norway on December 5th, take on Russia two days later and on Croatia on December 9th. The first three sides in each group will qualify for the second stage, which has two series of six groups each. Romania’s team is being lead by Spanish coach Ambros Martin, who last week replaced Swedish Thomas Ryde, under whose guidance our handballers won bronze at the World Championship in Denmark in 2015. In 2013 and 2014, Ambros Martin was designated the world’s best coach after having won two Champions League’s trophies with Hungarian side Gyor.



    UN The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon has expressed appreciation for the significant progress Romania has made in terms of implementing democratic values as well as for Bucharest’s contribution to the efforts of promoting peace, sustainable development and human rights the world over. The UN official has highlighted the activity of Romania’s public servants, including officers in charge of the UN high officials’ protection. Ban Ki-moon and the president of the UN general assembly, Peter Thomson, on Thursday attended the reception offered by Bucharest’s permanent mission at the United Nations on the occasion of Romania’s National Day. In turn Peter Thomson has said he appreciates Romania’s activism and the wide range of commitments assumed at all levels in over 60 years of UN membership.



    EUROPOL In a report published in the Hague, the European police, EUROPOL, have warned that the Islamic State has been planning new attacks in Europe in the near future. There is the risk for the refugees from Syria to be recruited and radicalized, while IS fighters can get infiltrated among the refugees, the report says. Experts believe that car bomb attacks can be carried out in France, but also in Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain and Germany. The US Department of State also last week announced there is credible information about the Al Qaeda and the Islamic State and their branches, which are planning terror attacks in Europe around the winter holidays. Jihadists have this year carried out bloody attacks in Belgium, France, Germany and Turkey.



    DIPLOMACY Romanian diplomats have announced their surprise and amazement over a decision by the Foreign Ministry in neighboring Hungary to forbid the Hungarian diplomats to participate in receptions and festivities staged on Thursday on the occasion of Romania’s National Day. The Ministry said, upon request from Radio Romania, that such a decision is hard to understand all the more so as the respect for a country’s national symbols and values are an undisputable part of the set of values the European Union and the Transatlantic community are based upon. The Foreign Ministry adds that Romania has been a country deeply attached to such values. We recall that Romania celebrates its National Day on December 1st, to mark the union in 1918 of the province of Transylvania with the Romanian kingdom. The union completed the process of forming the Romanian unitary state after the First World War, when all the Romanian provinces belonging to various multinational empires, united.


  • Cyber risks and vulnerabilities

    Cyber risks and vulnerabilities

    Earlier this year, Europol director Rob Wainwright told Radio Romania about the complexity of cyber risks, given that many suspects are radicalized by the Internet and thus are ready to carry out cyber terrorist acts by themselves, as independent actors making up a very small community. This phenomenon has been gaining momentum of late, spreading global panic.



    The US Government has recently announced that hackers have managed to penetrate the firewalls of the US Defence Department and extracted information from their database on 5.6 million digital fingerprints, by 4.5 million more than originally announced. Also this spring data theft targeted archives storing decade-long information.



    In Romania, the Romanian Intelligence Service experts blocked nearly 40,000 cyber-attacks in one single day. These are but two examples, although news agencies are filled with reports of cyber crimes. The estimated impact of this phenomenon is staggering. Cyber crime amounts to 445 billion dollars worth of yearly losses, while the world’s top 10 economies bear half of this amount, reads a recent study. The document also points out that cyber risks extend well beyond aspects pertaining to privacy of data or reputation, while the inter-connection of digital devices and companies brings about new risks.



    After all, we live in the digital era. But with all its pros and cons, cyber space can be even more dangerous than real life. At least this is the conclusion of a panel of IT experts from 20 countries who convened in September in the city of Sibiu, in central Romania, as part of the International Congress “Cyber security in Romania — A platform for public-private dialogue”.



    Cyber security is key to states, businesses and ordinary citizens, as the number and scope of cyber attacks is constantly growing, says Laurent Chrzanovski, a representative of the Swiss Webacademy, who is also the manager of the Congress in Sibiu: ”All our operating systems, the browsers we use, the word processing or graphic design software, they are all flawed. And hackers take huge advantage of these flaws, unless you have powerful anti-virus software or a firewall installed on your computer. Besides, cyber crimes related to the field of social networking are also on the rise, because people are incredibly naïve when it comes to social networks”.



    Cyber threats gain in scope from one year to the next. The attacks now not only target the political field, but also the military and the economy, says the deputy director of CYBERINT National Centre with the Romanian Intelligence Service Gabriel Mazilu. The Romanian official believes cyber attacks are masterminded by four types of hackers: states, organized crime cells, radical extremists and terrorist groups.



    Gabriel Mazilu: “The greatest threat is posed by individual states, that have a big impact on national security. Next there are the organized crime networks, while cyber attacks by extremists and terrorists are at a low national security risk for Romania for the time being. While the technologies they use pose little threat right now, we are devoting a great deal of attention to these two types of actors in order to better understand how this phenomenon evolves and to be able to anticipate the moment it becomes a genuine threat to Romania’s national security”.



    Organizations and institutions involved in combating cyber crime in Romania try to identify the hackers, as education and prevention are the best weapons against them, says Commissioner Sorin Stanica with the Institute for Crime Research and Prevention with the Romanian Police: “Cyber crime comes in different forms. It can range from person harassing or the so-called cyber-bullying, to more serious crime, such as online fraud, which can bring serious losses to the state or even child pornography using IT systems. The real issue at stake here is that the perpetrator remains anonymous. Why? Because more often than not, online criminals take advantage of their anonymity, which keeps them from facing their victims”.



    Experts believe that social danger of cyber crime is really high.