Day: October 16, 2023

Poland’s liberal, pro-EU opposition on Monday looked on track to form the next government after official partial results and exit polls showed the ruling nationalists losing their parliamentary majority in the nation’s most pivotal election in decades.

The incumbent Law and Justice (PiS) party has repeatedly clashed with the European Union over the rule of law, media freedom, migration and LGBT rights since it swept to power in 2015. Opposition parties have vowed to mend ties with Brussels and scrap reforms they say have eroded Polish democracy.

An Ipsos exit poll published early on Monday gave PiS 36.6% of the vote, which would translate into 198 lawmakers in the 460-seat lower house of parliament.

Opposition parties, led by the former European Council president Donald Tusk’s liberal grouping Civic Coalition (KO), were projected to win a combined 248 seats, with the KO seen winning 31.0% of ballots cast.

Official results after 50% of voting districts had been counted put PiS on 38.3%, KO on 27.8% and its ally the centre-right Third Way on 14.4%. Generally more conservative rural areas and small towns report their results faster than large cities where liberal parties are strongest.

Victory for the opposition in a vote seen by analysts as the most significant election for Europe in years could potentially redefine the relationship between Brussels and the largest EU member state in central and eastern Europe.

Polish financial markets surged on the prospect of a government led by Tusk. The blue-chip WIG 20 (.WIG20) share index was up 4.8% at 1122 GMT, while the zloty currency was 0.85% firmer.

“The ousting of the nationalists will help to restore damaged relations with the EU,” said Lee Hardman, a senior currency analyst at MUFG bank.

“The zloty should continue to strengthen further in the near-term in anticipation of improving relations with the EU that will help to support growth and attract capital inflows.”

Tusk has said he would seek to unblock some 110 billion euros of EU funds earmarked for Poland, which have been frozen due to rule-of-law concerns.

Even if official results confirm the exit poll, Tusk and his allies from the Third Way and the New Left may have to wait weeks or even months before getting a turn at forming a government.

President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, has said he would give the first shot to the winning party. On Monday, Duda urged patience until the full election results were known. “We are waiting calmly, democracy in Poland is stable,” he said.

However, with the far-right Confederation seen winning just 6.4%, below expectations, according to the exit poll, PiS will struggle to forge a new government.

The leader of the Polish Peasants’ Party (PSL), part of Third Way, ruled out joining a PiS-led coalition.

“People who voted for us wanted change, they wanted PiS removed from power,” Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told private radio RMF FM.

Poland’s electoral commission put turnout in Sunday’s vote at 72%, based on partial results, the highest since the fall of communism in 1989, underlining the high stakes of this election.

Television footage showed several hundred, mostly young people queuing outside one polling station in the western city of Wrocław. It closed just before 3 a.m. (0100 GMT), some six hours after voting was officially meant to end.

In an aggressive campaign in which it sought to paint Tusk as a German stooge, PiS cast the election as a choice between uncontrolled illegal migration under the rule of leaders beholden to foreign interests and a government that would protect Poland’s borders, security and traditions.

However, PiS faced mounting discontent over what critics said was democratic backsliding and an erosion of women’s rights after the government enforced a near-total abortion ban in 2021.

PiS was also accused of using lucrative positions in state-controlled firms to reward supporters and of fueling inflation with loose fiscal policies.

“I expect that women will now have more rights, that they will feel safer,” said Iga Frackiewicz, 43, a banking administrator.

“I also hope that the nepotism will end, for example in state companies and in other places.”

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I covered the Rwandan genocide as a reporter. The language spilling out of Israel is eerily familiar

Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, set the tone as he spoke about how far to assign guilt for the worst single atrocity against Jews in his country’s history.

“It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true. They could’ve risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime,” said Herzog.

Chris McGreal writes for Guardian US and is a former Guardian correspondent in Washington, Johannesburg and Jerusalem

Continue reading…

A U.S. official had said that an agreement had been reached to allow Americans safe passage from the blockaded enclave to Egypt.

Researchers uncovered an ongoing campaign abusing popular messaging platforms Skype and Teams to distribute the DarkGate malware.

From July to September, researchers from Trend Micro observed a malicious campaign DarkGate campaign abusing instant messaging platforms to deliver a VBA loader script to victims.

The threat actors abused popular messaging platforms such as Skype and Teams to deliver a script used as a loader for a second-stage payload, which was an AutoIT script containing the DarkGate malware. The researchers speculate the originating accounts of the instant messaging applications were compromised through the leaked credentials available on cybercrime forums.

DarkGate is a commodity malware that was first spotted by Fortinet researchers in 2017, it supports multiple features, including the ability to perform the following operations:

• Execute discovery commands (including directory traversal)
• Self-update and self-manage
• Implement remote access software (such as remote desktop protocol or RDP, hidden virtual network computing or hVNC, and AnyDesk)
• Enable cryptocurrency mining functionality (start, stop, and configure)
• Perform keylogging
• Steal information from browsers
• Privilege escalation

In the latest campaign, threat actors abused a trusted relationship between the two organizations to deceive the recipient into executing the attached VBA script. Upon access to the victim’s Skype account, the attackers hijack an existing messaging thread and craft the naming convention of the files to relate to the context of the chat history.

The message sent to the victims from a compromised Skype account contains a VBS script with a filename following the following format: <filename.pdf> www.skype[.]vbs. The format is used to to trick the user into believing the file is a .PDF document instead of a VBA script (www.skype[.]vbs).

“Researchers from Truesec documented a similar DarkGate technique in early September. While the Skype routine masqueraded the VBS file as a PDF document, in the Teams version of compromise, the attackers concealed a .LNK file instead. Moreover, the sample that abused Teams came from an unknown, external sender.” continues Trend Micro.

Most of DarkGate attacks were observed in the Americas region, followed closely by those in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. 

Trend Micro warns that the introduction of any new application to an organization must be carefully scrutinized because it can potentially enlarge the attack surface. 

“Cybercriminals can use these payloads to infect systems with various types of malware, including info stealers, ransomware, malicious and/or abused remote management tools, and cryptocurrency miners.” concludes the report.

“As long as external messaging is allowed, or abuse of trusted relationships via compromised accounts is unchecked, then this technique for initial entry can be done to and with any instant messaging (IM) apps.”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, DarkGate)

The post DarkGate malware campaign abuses Skype and Teams appeared first on Security Affairs.

Qatar announced Monday the reunification of a group of Ukrainian children with their families, a start on the return of some of the thousands of children Ukraine says Russia forcibly took after launching its invasion in February 2022.

The repatriations took place after months of talks brokered by Qatar.

Officials familiar with the matter said four children, ages 2 to 17, were being reunited under an arrangement that could lead to more repatriations.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the State of Qatar facilitated the hosting of the children and their families at the Qatari Embassy in Moscow during the operation and accompanied them to their destination, ensuring their safety, comfort, and well-being,” Qatar’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in March for Russian President Vladimir Putin, alleging he was “responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation” of children from Ukraine.

Russian attacks

Ukraine’s military said Monday that Russia attacked overnight with five missiles and 12 drones.

The Ukrainian air force said it downed two of the missiles, which targeted the northern and eastern part of the Ukraine, as well as 11 of the drones.

Filip Pronin, the governor of the Poltava region in eastern Ukraine, said on Telegram that missile fragments hit several homes and injured at least three people.

Some information for this report came from Reuters. 

«Пока результатов нет, есть только огромные потери». Путин — об украинском наступлении  Meduza

NPR News: 10-16-2023 3AM EDT

Владимир Путин высказался об украинском контрнаступлении в интервью Медиакорпорации Китая перед поездкой в КНР на форум “Один пояс — один путь”.