Switzerland Today

Dear Swiss Abroad,  

The word of the day in Switzerland today: hacking.

From a member of WikiLeaks who has come to Geneva to defend its founder, Julian Assange, to some alarming news about Russian hackers potentially selling Swiss consumers’ personal data.

Here is today’s briefing compiled for you.

KEYSTONE/© KEYSTONE / MARTIAL TREZZINI

In the news: WikiLeaks member in Switzerland to defend Julian Assange, head of UNRWA rejects resignation calls and Swiss bobsleigher under surgery.  

• A WikiLeaks official has come to Geneva to denounce the “persecution” of founder Julian Assange, a week ahead of a new decision by the High Court of Justice in London on his extradition. “This is the last stand,” he declared on Wednesday. 
• “I wont abandon ship”: the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini said he will not resign. “We have 13,000 employees in Gaza. I don’t believe the relief organisation has the means to monitor every single one of these employees outside of their working hours,” Lazzarini said. 
• Swiss bobsleigher has surgery after being hit by sled. Swiss bobsleigh athlete Sandro Michel was in a stable condition in hospital on Wednesday after surgery for injuries suffered when he was thrown to the ice and hit by the sled. 

KEYSTONE/© KEYSTONE

Selling Swiss data on a Russian hacker forum: real danger or over-exaggeration?

Today Swiss media have focused on the visit of a WikiLeaks’ member to Geneva. Since Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006, the media organisation has gained a reputation for releasing numerous classified documents, especially concerning the US military. But now, it is the Swiss who might worry about their own data being leaked elsewhere – namely Russia. But is this concern necessary?  

An articleExternal link by Swiss magazine Beobachter revealed that on a Russian hacker forum, a tool is being sold to copy cell phone numbers from a Swiss provider. It is selling for $12,000 (CHF10,634). The software could potentially clone e-SIMS and gain full access to an individual’s phone number as well as their data.  

Several experts interviewed by the magazine, however, doubt that this tool is authentic. Swiss phone providers, Swisscom, Salt and Sunrise assured the public that they are not aware of any hacking incidents. But IT security expert Abdelkader Cornelius told Beobachter that the hacker has already sold a similar tool in another forum. 

In the past few years, cyber-attacks have increased all around the world, including in Switzerland. So how vulnerable is the Alpine nation to these threats? My colleague Dominique Soguel provides an answer in this article.  

KEYSTONE

Science at the service of humanitarians: federal technology institute ETH Zurich new logistics tool saves ICRC over CHF3 million.

While new technologies can be worrying and potentially dangerous, they can also help save lives. Researchers at the institute have collaborated with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to develop a logistics planning tool that can improve the distribution of medical supplies in conflict zones.  

The challenges that humanitarian aid organisations face in conflict zone are innumerable. One such challenge is how to get medical goods from the ICRC headquarters in Geneva to the crisis areas. The supply chain goes through regional logistics centres and local warehouses, with bottlenecks and distribution problems occurring along the way time and again.  

That’s why the researchers have developed this new inventory calculator which was already introduced in Africa, the Middle East and Ukraine in 2023. It allows for a reduction of  inventory levels by 24%, as reported today by the Institute in a press releaseExternal link. The result? A saving of CHF3.6 million, cutting costs of storage and disposal of expired material.