China is recruiting talented citizens through local “hacking competitions” and weaponising their talents to attack Western governments, according to a report by ETH Zurich University’s Centre for Security Studies. The revelation, coupled with recent admissions by Dutch officials about the wide scope of Chinese hacking efforts, has amplified fears about China’s growing “hack-for-hire” programme. The report titled “From Vegas to Chengdu”, uncovers a two part hacker system: Eugenio Benincasa, report author and senior researcher, documents how Chinese security researchers began dominating international hacking competitions after 2014. At the Pwn2Own competition, Chinese teams’ winnings increased from 13% in 2014 to 79%…

China is on course to develop an arsenal of up to 1,000 nuclear weapons within six years, the head of Nato has warned. Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary general, said the communist state was investing heavily in modern weaponry, including nuclear missiles, which would grow to 1,000 warheads by 2030. He added that the dual threats of nuclear armed adversaries – China and Russia – was a new threat to the west and Nato which could no longer be ignored. Mr Stoltenberg said: “And that means that in a not very distant future Nato may face something that it has never…

There is a new sense of optimism among South African citizens living with power blackouts, deteriorating services and an ailing economy that the backward slide that began under Jacob Zuma’s reign, could be reversed.

Kwazulu-Natal is the biggest threat to stability in South Africa.

The Kremlin has vowed to exact an “extremely painful” retaliation after the G7 group of countries agreed to provide Ukraine with a $50bn (USD) loan to help the country in its war with Russia. The move followed the announcement by President Joe Biden that the US has signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement with Ukraine. Most of the money would be provided in the form of a loan from the US government that would be backed by windfall profits being earned on roughly $300 billion in immobilised Russian assets. The vast majority of the money is being held in EU…

Leaked documents indicate alternative peace plans from other countries will be promoted that will be diluting Ukraine’s peace formula.

The development of the uMkhonto we Sizwe Party (MKP), at least in terms of their political rhetoric and the touch points they use for their political message, matches almost dot for dot the development of the MAGA movement in the United States.

The Paris Olympics is facing a dual threat of attacks by the ISIS terrorist group and a Russian disinformation campaign, intelligence chiefs have claimed. The disclosure follows an announcement by the terror group which has called on “lone wolves” to carry out drone strikes on Paris during the 2024 Olympics. The terror group made an apparent bomb threat on the French capital, releasing a mock-up image of a drone being flown at the Eiffel Tower on a website linked to the militant Islamist group. “Lone wolves’ Olympics have begun with the Will of Allah,” the post read. Last week Russia…

A British former military intelligence officer has said that the high civilian death toll in the Israeli hostage rescue operation would have been difficult to avoid. Colonel Philip Ingram, a former member of the Intelligence Corps and a NATO planner, said the involvement of civilians in the detention of the hostages meant that they had become legitimate targets. He spoke out amid the growing international criticism surrounding the rescue operation. Hamas claimed that over 200 Palestinians were killed and wounded in the military operation but did not distinguish between civilians and terrorists in this figure, while the Israeli Government said…

A deepfake video of former President Donald Trump advocating for antisemitism has appeared online, National Security News can reveal. While the signs of manipulation are evident, with some users flagging mismatched lip movements, the video has still managed to fuel antisemitic comments among some viewers, highlighting the ongoing battle against digital disinformation and the concerning trend of increasing hate speech online. The video, styled as a “Fox News” broadcast with a breaking news banner, falsely shows Trump saying: “If we want to make America great, we’ve got to make antisemitism great again.” The post containing the video has amassed over…

Russia is still able to generate 30,000 recruits a month to fight on the frontline in Ukraine despite suffering in excess of 500,000 casualties, western officials have said. The Russian summer offensive has cost Moscow a record 1,200 personnel killed or wounded daily, raising questions over whether the country’s population can sustain the war.Russian forces have suffered a total of 500,000 casualties, of whom more than 150,000 were killed in action, since their 2022 invasion, western officials have reported. The high casualty rate appears to have been confirmed by President Vladimir Putin, who inadvertently stated last week that Russia was…

We have a breakaway group that is quite substantial, the uMkhonto we Sizwe party, which is essentially ANC members that left the organisation and this provides for President Ramaphosa the opportunity actually to go forward in a way that he thinks would be best for the country.