Written By Unknown on Senin, 13 April 2015 | 23.33
A Chinese state-backed hacking group has been stealing information from foreign companies and journalists for more than a decade undetected, it is claimed.
US cybersecurity company FireEye says the group has even managed to carry out sophisticated attacks on networks which are not connected to the internet.
The details were published in a report on Monday and reveals that the group - known as APT30 - has been operating since 2004.
FireEye's chief technology officer Bryce Boland said he believes China is behind APT30, saying it had stolen information "about journalists, dissidents and political developments in relation to China targeting government and military organisations, and targeting economic sectors of interest to China's economy".
The victims of the group's attacks have not been named for security reasons but are based in Asia.
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The group infected victims' computers by sending emails to their targets from a supposedly trusted source.
Once opened, the emails installed malware called Mysterious Eagle onto the computers which could be controlled and monitored remotely.
The software is written to be operated by Chinese-language users and managed to infiltrate secure networks which are not connected to the internet by infecting USB drives which are transferred between machines.
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Mr Boland told the Financial Times: "That shows the sophistication in targeting the more sensitive government networks, and particularly military and non-internet connected networks.
"The capability to attack air-gapped networks is not unique but it is certainly not common."
With property prices rising and many young people still finding it hard to get a mortgage, more and more would-be homeowners across Britain are turning to one of the oldest methods of building.
Cob building involves using earth, sand, straw and clay as the raw materials for walls. It's estimated that a three-bed cob home would cost in the region of £25,000 to build.
All that's needed is a plot of land and planning permission - and the right knowledge.
Charlotte Eve runs classes on how to build cob homes from her Norfolk base and says that hundreds of people are signing up to learn the skills needed for their own projects.
Natural, cheap materials are used in DIY cob building
"You can't get more sustainable than a cob home," she told Sky News.
"You dig your foundations on site and you use the clay from that foundation trench to make your walls. It's very environmentally friendly and it's also cheap - cheap in terms of construction costs and also in terms of heating the finished home.
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"Your costs for the project are extremely low."
Self building accounts for only 10% of the UK market. That's despite lower costs - £150,000 for the average project, which is £80,000 less than a ready-made home.
Tony Tkaczuk from Lancashire is working on an upgrade of his cob cottage and says he'd recommend a self-build to anyone.
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"It's very fulfilling actually, you have done it yourself and that's a great feeling," Tony told Sky News.
"You can work together as a team, like my wife and I do. And at the end it's wonderful to think to yourselves 'yes, we did that'."
At the Building Research Establishment (BRE) in Watford, experts monitor construction trends across the UK each year. They point out that around 11,000 projects in Britain last year were self-builds.
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"There's a lot of time, energy and emotion required," said BRE's chief executive, Dr Peter Bonfield. "There are a lot of benefits to self-builds, you can feel really proud of what you have achieved.
"There are also a lot of professional companies out there doing this kind of thing day in and day out. So it's a choice really, a big decision for people."
The Government hopes self-built properties could help combat a housing shortfall of 750,000 homes across the UK by 2025.
A warning has been issued to those booking holidays online, as it is revealed that British holidaymakers were conned out of £2.2m last year.
Criminal groups have targeted online booking firms to steal cash from unsuspecting customers and many only find out they have been conned when they arrive at their hotel and find no record of their booking.
A report from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau found that in one case a holidaymaker lost £62,000 in a fraud relating to a dodgy timeshare scheme.
But losses are not just financial, with a third of victims saying the fraud has a substantial impact on their health as well as their finances and 167 victims said the impact of the crime was so severe they needed medical treatment.
The scams see a spike in the summer months and in December, which mean that many ruined trips will be for those trying to visit loved ones for Christmas.
The report shows that, during a 12-month period, 1,569 cases of holiday booking fraud were reported to the police action fraud team, with most relating to plane tickets, hacking accounts, posting fake adverts online and setting up bogus websites.
Sports and religious trips were an attractive target because of limited availability and higher prices and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and World Cup in Brazil were also targeted, with many people paying for fake tickets or accommodation.
Those aged between 30 and 49 were most often targeted and most victims were defrauded by methods such as bank transfers or cash with no means of getting their money back. Only a small number paid by credit or debit card where some form of redress is available.
Mark Tanzer, ABTA chief executive, said: "Holiday fraud is a particularly distressing form of fraud as the loss to the victim is not just financial but it can also have a high emotional impact.
"Many victims are unable to get away on a long-awaited holiday or visit to loved ones and the financial loss is accompanied by a personal loss.
"We would also encourage anyone who has been the victim of a travel-related fraud to report it so that the police can build up a case, catch the perpetrators and prevent other unsuspecting people from falling victim."
Detective chief superintendent Dave Clark, the City of London Police head of economic crime, said: "Online shoppers must be vigilant and conduct all the necessary checks before booking a break to ensure the conmen are kept at bay."
The Conservatives have said they will take family homes out of inheritance tax by introducing a new allowance which effectively increases the threshold for tax to £1m.
David Cameron said that if his party wins the 7 May election, parents will be offered a new £175,000 allowance to enable them to pass property on to children tax-free after they die.
For properties worth more than £2m, the allowance will be gradually tapered away so that those worth more than £2.35m do not benefit.
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Inheritance tax is currently payable at a rate of 40% on the value of an estate above the £325,000 threshold - or £650,000 if a couple takes advantage of the existing allowance.
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It is thought around 22,000 families will benefit from the move by 2020 and Mr Cameron said the costs would be paid for by a £1bn raid on pension tax relief for people earning more than £150,000.
Mr Cameron said: "We will take the family home out of inheritance tax.
"That home that you have worked and saved for belongs to you and your family.
"You should be able to pass it on to your children. And with the Conservatives, the taxman will not get his hands on it."
The Conservatives promised a £1m inheritance tax threshold in the 2010 election, but were blocked by Liberal Democrats from implementing it when in coalition.
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Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper told Sky's Murnaghan programme it is the "wrong priority" and "won't affect 90% of estates".
She said: "They are talking about a £140,000 tax cut for properties that are worth around £2m at a time when you've got families still losing their homes because of the bedroom tax, at a time when pensioners and families have had to pay more VAT."
The Institute For Fiscal Studies said the change would "disproportionately" benefit those on higher incomes.
In an observation published on its website after the announcement, the IFS said: "Since the children of those with very large estates are disproportionately towards the top of the income distribution the gains from this (and in fact any) IHT cut will also go disproportionately to those towards the top of the income distribution."
Meanwhile, Labour has revealed its plans to crackdown on tax-dodgers if it wins the election, hoping to cut avoidance and evasion by at least £7.5bn a year by the middle of the next Parliament.
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Shadow chancellor Ed Balls said it would take a Labour government to "call time" on the Tories' "lax approach", adding that Labour would set targets for HMRC to reduce tax avoidance by at least £7.5bn a year.
He said: "We will close the loopholes the Tories won't act on, increase transparency, toughen up penalties and abolish the non-dom rules.
"And our first Budget will make sure that, following an immediate review of HMRC, it has all the powers and resources it needs to come down hard on tax avoidance and evasion."
Conservative Treasury minister David Gauke said: "Ed Miliband and Ed Balls turned a blind eye to aggressive tax avoiding and evading for 13 years when they were in charge - they were the tax avoiders' friends."
The Lib Dems have also set out their tax plans, promising "light at the end of the tunnel" with moves to eliminate Britain's deficit by 2017/18.
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Nick Clegg said his plan has "a heart as well as a brain", trying to drive home his claim that his party will cut less than the Conservatives and borrow less than Labour.
Spelling out plans for a consolidation totaling £27bn by 2017/18, made up of £12bn in additional tax, £12bn in public spending reductions and £3bn in welfare cuts, Mr Clegg challenged the other parties to spell out in similar detail how they would balance the nation's books.
He said: "We are going to spread the burden of finishing the job of fixing the economy fairly across society.
"Yes that means more cuts, but it also means asking the wealthiest to pay their fare share too."
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Genworth Financial, a troubled US insurance company, is in talks with one of the financial services industry's most prolific investors about the sale of a business that includes a range of products sold to UK customers.
Sky News understands that JC Flowers, a private equity firm, is one of several bidders in talks with Genworth about acquiring its lifestyle protection unit, which comprises operations in more than 25 countries, including Britain.
The division had been identified as non-core by Genworth's management as long ago as 2012, but it was only put up for sale late last year, when investment bankers at Barclays were hired to oversee an auction.
Bankers estimate that the division could fetch in the region of $500m (£341m).
In addition to JC Flowers, which owns stakes in UK companies including OneSavings Bank and Cabot Financial, a debt collector, Apollo and Warburg Pincus are said to have expressed an interest in the Genworth business.
Genworth Lifestyle Protection writes both direct and reinsurance business including to large global companies that want access to the wholesale market.
Its products include credit-linked protection for customers when they are unable to meet repayments on specific financial commitments in the event of illness, accident, unemployment, disability or death.
The division's auction comes as Genworth explores a wider break-up, including through a sale of its Life and Annuity Insurance Company.
In February, it announced a strategic after recording a $1.6bn (£1.1bn) loss in the second half of last year because it did not have suufficient money set aside to cover payouts on long-term care policies.
Speaking at the time, Tom McInerney, Genworth's president and chief executive, said: "I am disappointed by the continued challenges in our older LTC [long-term care] blocks and how it is overshadowing otherwise strong performance and momentum in other businesses, however we have taken steps on many fronts to deal with these challenges in order to strengthen and rebuild the future."
Google could face formal charges in the EU's antitrust inquiry into the search and email giant.
Investigators have been looking at whether Google has abused its large search market share by pushing its own products.
Rivals such as Microsoft want more competition in areas like online maps, search and shopping.
The case has dragged on for five years, and some legal analysts now expect Europe's antitrust commissioner Margrethe Vestager to file formal charges against Google, the New York Times reported.
This could increase pressure on Google to settle to avoid a formal finding of wrongdoing and a massive fine.
The record penalty imposed on a company for competition offences is £800m - levied on Intel in 2009 for abusing its dominance of the computer chip market.
The maximum fine against Google could be as much as £4.4bn.
Microsoft was hit with fines totaling almost £1.4bn over a decade for antitrust-related issues.
While Google's competitors in Europe would welcome tough action, US president Barack Obama warned Europe in February against making "commercially driven" decisions to penalise Google and Facebook.
Google has offered three previous settlements to resolve the case.
Just over a year ago is offered to give competing products bigger visibility on the site, and make it easier to advertisers to move their campaigns to rivals.
One of the biggest car rental operators in the UK is to snap up Auto Europe, a US rival, in a move that will create a transatlantic industry powerhouse.
Sky News understands that CarTrawler, which is based in Dublin and has been majority-owned by BC Partners for the last year, is in advanced talks about a takeover of Auto Europe, which targets Americans planning holidays overseas.
The deal, which could be announced as soon as this week, will give CarTrawler a substantial presence in the vast US market.
One source described the transaction as "transformational" for CarTrawler, whose operations include the well-known Holiday Autos brand.
Auto Europe is being acquired from Court Square, a New York-based private equity firm, and will represent an important phase of a strategy known in the private equity industry as a 'buy-and build'.
Speaking last year when BC announced its takeover of CarTrawler, Matthew Tooth, a partner at the buyout firm, said it was keen to grow the company "on a global scale".
"CarTrawler offers a truly unique proposition to its online travel partners, enabling them to optimise the revenue potential from car rental through offering end customers access to an unrivalled breadth of rental options across many suppliers," he said.
"For suppliers, CarTrawler facilitates access to many distribution channels that would otherwise not be available."
CarTrawler's portfolio of partners includes some of the world's leading international airlines, hotel groups and online travel retailers, including Aer Lingus, Virgin Australia and Starwood Hotels.
The company's rapid growth was illustrated by its sale for well over £350m in March 2014, just two years after it had changed hands for little more than £75m.
The previous takeover of CarTrawler, by ECI Partners, another investment firm earned multimillion pound windfalls for Greg and Niall Turley, the brothers who founded the business and oversaw its expansion into more than 170 countries.
CarTrawler announced the acquisition of the online assets of Holiday Autos in 2013, buying them from Travelocity Global, which was then the parent company of Lastminute.com, the online leisure bookings company.
In 2013, CarTrawler, which has become a popular platform for companies to rent cars online, had annual bookings of around 5 million vehicles, and sales of more than £425m.
Last year's deal also saw Insight Venture Partners, another private equity group, acquire a minority stake in CarTrawler.
The value of the Auto Europe deal was unclear on Monday.
Ed Miliband has attempted to convince voters he can be trusted with the economy pledging to cut the deficit year on year and saying: "I am ready" to lead the country.
The Labour leader promised to get the Budget back into surplus "as soon as possible" and said that everything listed in the party's manifesto could be paid for.
The manifesto, launched by Mr Miliband on the set of Coronation Street and titled Britain Can Be Better, promised to "secure the family finances of the working people of Britain".
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Mr Miliband said the manifesto was not a "shopping list of proposals" as he sought to persuade a sceptical public he could be trusted with the nation's finances by introducing a "triple lock" of responsibility.
Word cloud: The larger the word the more times Mr Miliband said it
He said a Labour Government would: cut the deficit every year, that every measure contained in the manifesto was fully funded and Labour would meet fiscal rules with the national debt falling.
Mr Miliband attempted to capitalise on the Conservatives' refusal to spell out how they would find the extra £8bn of funding for the NHS and said David Cameron's party had proposed £20bn of unfunded commitments.
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He said: "Nothing is more dangerous to our NHS than pretending you'll be able to protect it without being able to say where the money's coming from. You can't fund the NHS with an IOU and the Conservative Party need to learn that."
But Mr Miliband made some eye-catching pledges in the 84-page Labour Party Manifesto 2015 including:
:: Wrap around childcare - primary schools to provide care from 8am-6pm
:: £2.5bn Time to Care fund for NHS off back of mansion tax and tobacco firm levy
:: Increase income tax for those earning more than £150,000
:: No increase in income tax, VAT, National Insurance for those on basic and higher rate income tax
:: Scrap winter fuel allowance for pensioners with an income of more than £42,000 a year
:: Freeze energy prices
:: Tighten tax avoidance rules to yield £7.5bn a year
:: Cut tuition fees to £6,000
:: More powers for the Welsh and Scottish Parliament
:: Extend the vote to 16-year-olds
With 24 days to go until the General Election, Mr Miliband said: "The reason we can make these commitments is because we will make sure those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest burden.
"So we'll reverse David Cameron's tax cut for millionaires to help pay down the deficit.
"We'll crack down on hedge funds who avoid paying their fair share. We'll stop HMRC operating double standards.
"And we'll do something that no government has done for over 200 years - we'll say enough is enough to the people who live here, work here, send their kids to school here but don't want to pay taxes here and we will abolish the non-dom rule."
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Polls show that voters trust Labour less with the economy than the Conservatives and Mr Miliband has struggled to play down forgetting to mention the deficit in his conference speech.
Labour says it will have the current Budget in surplus by the end of the next parliament, however, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have said they will do so by 2017/18.
In an answer to recent criticism that Labour is against big business and wealth-creators, Mr Miliband said Labour was "pro business but not pro business as usual".
He said Labour would champion small and medium-sized businesses with a cut in business rates to help them create the jobs, wealth and profits of the future.
Mr Miliband also said he would champion the little man against the giant energy firms and painted himself as the man who would stand up for the little people against the powerful interests.
He said: "With me as Prime Minister, no powerful interest, will outweigh the interests of working people."
The Labour leader said the last four-and-a-half years had tested whether he was ready to become leader.
He said: "I am ready. Ready to put an end to the tired old idea that as long as we look after the rich and powerful we will all be OK. Ready to put into practice the truth that it is only when working people succeed, that Britain succeeds."
Chancellor George Osborne said the manifesto had provided "no new ideas for Britain" and said the Conservative manifesto, which will be launched tomorrow, would provide a better future for the country.
He said Labour's plans would see "higher taxes, more debt and a return to the economic chaos of the past".
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg caused controversy by comparing Labour's pledge on borrowing to a bottle-a-day alcoholic "saying they have no plans to drink more vodka". He added the manifesto was "not worth the paper it's written on".
David Cameron said: "Ed Miliband still won't apologise for the fact that the last Labour government spent too much, borrowed too much, taxed too much, and crashed our economy in a most appallingly dramatic fashion.
"Frankly if you cannot learn the lessons of the past you cannot possibly provide the leadership for the future."
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said that Labour's plans would leave the deficit at £30bn - it currently stands at £90bn - by 2020.
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Speaking after Mr Miliband's speech, IFS director Paul Johnson told The Daily Politics Labour's manifesto had provided "no additional clarity" on how quickly it wanted to reduce the deficit.
He said: "The Labour party have repeated what they have said over the last several months, which is that they want to get to get to current budget balanced as soon as they can in the next parliament.
"Now, it really, really matters how soon that is. If they want to get there within three years, which is sort of what they might be thought to have signed up to in the fiscal responsibility charter earlier this year, that's a really significant amount of spending cuts or tax rises over the next three years.
"If they are happy to wait til the end of the parliament, which is also sort of consistent with what they signed up to, then actually we don't need any spending cuts over the next five years."
The Labour Party will introduce new laws allowing football supporters to appoint or remove two club directors and buy shares when the club changes hands if it wins the election.
The pledge, first made last year by shadow sports minister Clive Efford, was included in the Labour manifesto launched by Ed Miliband in Manchester.
If enacted, it would require clubs such as Manchester United, owned and run by the Glazer family, to make room for two supporter appointees on its board, or even face two of its directors - all siblings - being removed. Fans groups would also be given the chance to buy shares should the club be sold.
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Video:Labour Manifesto Speech Highlights
The promise was one of just four measures relating to sport set out in a 188-word, four paragraph section of the 86-page document that sets out the party's pitch for government.
The manifesto also restates Labour's promise to provide two hours of organised sport in school; to review fan ownership in other sports; and to "ensure" the Premier League invests 5% of its broadcast revenue in grassroots funding.
The pledge to make supporter representation a legal requirement builds on previous commitments to address concerns that fans have insufficient say in the running of their clubs.
The party says it will introduce the legislation to ensure that supporters have an "effective means" of influencing the management of their club.
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It reads: "Football clubs are an important part of many people's identity and sense of belonging.
"They are more than just businesses. But despite their importance in the lives of their members and supporters, too often there are no effective means for fans to have a say in how their clubs are run.
"Labour will provide the means for supporters to be a genuine part of their clubs. We will introduce legislation to enable accredited supporters trusts to appoint and remove at least two of the directors of a football club and to purchase shares when the club changes hands."
The manifesto contains no detail on the nature of the legislation required, but requiring private companies to directorships to a stakeholder group may be unprecedented in UK business law.
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It is likely to be resisted by many professional clubs, particularly those in the Premier League, half of which are under overseas ownership.
The practice is common in Europe, where supporters have a controlling stake of "50% plus one" enshrined in law.
Labour has long been an advocate of the supporters trust model, and in government helped fund the establishment of Supporters Direct, which promotes fan ownership. Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, is a former chairman.
There is little else in the manifesto to hearten advocates of the benefits of sport in building an active, healthy population.
The commitment to two hours of school sport is the only mention of policy beyond football, which will disappoint those who believe the UK is in danger of squandering the London 2012 legacy.
By its own measures Coalition policy is failing, with participation in grassroots sports falling, placing the Olympic promise to "inspire a generation" in danger.
Labour's plans were welcomed by the Football Supporters' Federation.
It said: "The Football Supporters' Federation welcomes any proposals from political parties that aim to strengthen the voice of football fans.
"Whether its ticket prices, ownership, diversity, or safe standing, supporters must be involved in reform of the game. Football fans should have a voice in the boardroom."
Labour has retreated on a threat to carve up Britain's biggest banks less than 15 months after Ed Miliband said lenders would be forced to sell "significant numbers of branches".
Sky News can reveal that Labour has quietly drawn up plans to accept TSB, which has already been operating as an independent entity for more than a year, as one of two new banks that the party has said it wants to challenge the main high street players.
In its General Election manifesto published on Monday, Labour said it would "increase competition on the high street".
"Following the Competition and Market Authorities [sic] inquiry we want a market share test and at least two new challenger banks," it said.
Sources inside Labour and the banking sector said that shadow cabinet ministers had recently indicated that they were prepared to accept TSB and Williams & Glyn - which is in the process of being carved out of Royal Bank of Scotland - as the two designated challengers if they demonstrated the potential to reach a 5% share of key banking markets.
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TSB currently has a market share of just under 4.5% but is gaining new current account customers at a faster rate than many of its competitors, buoyed by the industry's embryonic seven-day switching service.
It is in the process of being acquired by Spain's Banco Sabadell in a £1.7bn deal.
In a speech in January 2014, Mr Miliband pledged to break up the biggest UK banks, saying that the process would begin immediately after a Labour government came to power.
"On day one of the next Labour government, we will ask the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to report within six months on how to create at least two new sizeable and competitive banks to challenge the existing high street banks," he said.
"I want to be clear about the difference this will mean: this is not about whether we should have new banks, the question this government is still asking, but about how.
"It is not about creating new banks that control some tiny proportion of the market, but new banks that have a substantial proportion and can compete properly with existing banks.
"And we are not asking whether existing banks might have to divest themselves of significant number of branches, we are asking how we make that happen."
Mr Miliband's speech underscored his determination to be seen as a champion of market reform in areas where consumers are widely perceived to have suffered from excess concentration.
In energy, that prompted a pledge to freeze retail prices for 20 months, which was repeated in the manifesto.
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However, Mr Miliband's critics are likely to accuse him of watering down the pledge to impose "a day of reckoning" on the banking industry.
Since the Labour leader's intervention last year, the CMA has opened a formal inquiry into the personal current account and SME banking markets, with its recommendations for reform expected later this year.
In a paper on banking reform published earlier this year, Labour repeated its pledge to see the creation of "at least two new challenger banks to address the lack of competition in the sector and a market share test to ensure the market stays competitive for the long term".
Although the paper said the CMA would be asked to advise on "how much the market share of the big banks should be reduced", there was no reference to an enforced branch or market share sell-off by the main high street lenders.
A Labour source insisted that its plans to improve competition in banking had been "consistent" throughout the period since Mr Miliband's January 2014 speech.
