Pacific salmon are foundation species to British Columbia’s coastal ecosystem, and have been a key source of nutrients and energy to some of Canada’s most iconic species, including bears and killer whales, for thousands of years. More recently, they have shared their waters with net pens filled with non-native Atlantic salmon that are being farmed for food.

Some wild Pacific salmon populations have been in sharp decline since the early 1990s. For example, more than half of all Chinook salmon populations in southern B.C. are endangered or threatened. For decades, scientists have been trying to pinpoint the exact causes of these declines.

Southern resident killer whales also live in the area, and have been listed as endangered since 2005. These killer whales feed primarily on Chinook salmon, whose shrinking populations are contributing to the decline of these endangered killer whales.

In an effort to try and understand what might be driving these declines, scientists like myself are investigating if the growing number of salmon farms off the B.C. coast may play a role. We’re concerned that pathogens may be spilling over from farmed salmon to wild salmon and contributing to these widespread declines.

In a new study published in Science Advances, we found that a salmon virus that is common on fish farms was introduced to southern B.C. roughly 30 years ago and is continually transmitted between farmed and wild salmon.

Fish farms and the risk of virus spillover

The large number and density of Atlantic salmon within fish farming operations means they have a high risk of developing disease. Since viruses and other infectious agents are commonly found on salmon farms, some scientists have gone as far as to refer to them as “pathogen culture facilities.” Environmental groups and industry regularly debate whether these pathogens spillover and cause disease in wild fish populations.

One of the most discussed viruses is Piscine orthoreovirus (PRV). PRV is common in salmon farming operations and causes heart disease in Atlantic salmon. Yet government and industry groups maintain that PRV is “endemic to B.C.” and poses “no more than a minimal risk” to Fraser River sockeye salmon. The report’s conclusions are often erroneously extrapolated to all species.

Scientists dissect wild Pacific salmon tissues for molecular analysis and to sequence viral genomes. (Amy Romer), Author provided

The word “endemic” has two meanings. Ecologists use it to describe plants and animals native to a region. But epidemiologists use it to refer to a continual and stable presence of an infectious agent in a defined area. Regardless of the intended meaning, our analysis found that neither is true.

Viruses leave a genetic fingerprint

Genome sequencing can be used to monitor the evolution of a virus — as we’ve seen during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. We applied the same techniques to track the paths of different lineages of PRV at different scales, between oceans, but also locally, between different populations of salmon off the coast of B.C.

Mutation rates of viruses are high, and over time, their genomes accumulate genetic differences. These changes to the genome make it possible to understand the origin and dispersal of viruses sampled from different locations.

A PRV lineage found commonly in the North East Pacific came from the North Atlantic. We estimate that it was first introduced to coastal B.C. waters relatively recently, approximately 30 years ago. This matches the timing of Atlantic salmon egg imports from Europe to B.C., which helped kick off salmon farming in the province.

Global transmission of Piscine orthoreovirus. (Gideon Mordecai), Author provided

Two lines of evidence point strongly to the transmission of the virus between farmed and wild salmon. Wild Chinook salmon were more likely to be infected with PRV when they were closer to salmon farms. And a genomic analysis found that farmed and wild salmon share the same viral variants, suggesting continual transmission.

Further analysis of the PRV genomes in B.C. waters indicate that the number of PRV infections in the region has increased by two orders of magnitude over the last two decades, a pattern that aligns with the regional growth in farms, where nearly all of the fish become infected.

All variants of the virus, including the type of PRV found in B.C., cause heart lesions in Atlantic salmon. Research in B.C. has found the same disease associated with PRV on Atlantic salmon farms.

Same virus, different disease

More importantly to the ecology of B.C., PRV has been linked to a different disease in Pacific salmon. In Chinook salmon, PRV is associated with “jaundice/anemia,” a disease that is the result of red blood cells bursting, leading to liver and kidney damage.

Despite the evidence linking PRV to disease in both Atlantic and Chinook salmon, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) does not classify PRV as a disease agent. This enables the ocean-based fish farms to be stocked with fish infected with the virus.

Our findings show that salmon farms are a source of infection for wild fish. The research provides evidence that supports growing calls to minimize the interactions between salmon farming and wild fish. Given that DFO’s science and decision-making are not independent, I believe that the regulation of the aquaculture industry should be separated from DFO’s responsibility to protect wild salmon.

Disease interactions with farmed fish impact not only the health of wild salmon, but all that rely on them — including the endangered southern resident killer whale. With so many factors at play, conserving salmon is a daunting process. But a small increase in the survival of juvenile salmon that migrate from rivers out to the open ocean can result in millions more adult salmon returning to their natal spawning grounds, a vital resource to both the ecology and people within coastal British Columbia.

Gideon Mordecai is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Medicine at University of British Columbia. 

This article appears courtesy of The Conversation and may be found in its original form here. 

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Almost inadvertently, US energy security has been threatened by a ransomware attack which demonstrated dramatically how the consequences of such hacks are escalating.

This one probably won’t be the worst, but it will change the way governments respond to ransomware.

Colonial Pipeline carries gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from Houston to New York, with an array of branch lines servicing states across the eastern seaboard of the US. On Saturday May 8, Colonial announced that it had been the victim of a ransomware attack and that to contain the threat it “proactively took certain systems offline,” which “temporarily halted all pipeline operations.”

In a sense that highlights critical infrastructure’s vulnerability. The halt to pipeline operations was entirely unintended by those who carried out the ransomware attack and the operational disruption was “collateral damage.”

The hackers did not target the pipeline’s industrial control systems to deliberately stop the flow of oil. Colonial itself shut down systems to prevent further spread of malware. This disruption would likely have been far worse had the group intended to disrupt the pipeline.

As the shutdown continued over several days, petrol prices surged, service station queues lengthened, customers hoarded fuel as pumps ran dry and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission warned people to “not fill plastic bags with gasoline.” The US Department of Transportation temporarily loosened road transport rules to allow more road-based shipment of fuel as concern over shortages escalated within government.

By Monday May 10, the FBI announced that DarkSide ransomware was responsible for the Colonial hack.

DarkSide operates on a “ransomware as a service” business model, providing centralized services that their “affiliates” can use to extort money from victim organizations. The affiliates conduct the operations, but DarkSide receives a 10–25 percent cut of the ransom. Services fundamental to running ransomware operations include payment servers, encryption and decryption tools to lock and unlock victim data, and a blog to claim responsibility, advertise hacks and pressure companies.

But beyond ransomware, DarkSide affiliates also steal data and threaten to leak it. As victims with good backups may still be motivated by the threat of sensitive data being leaked, this second method of extortion is increasingly common among ransomware gangs. In these instances, DarkSide would collect and store victim data on staging servers.

Other services were even more innovative. It appears that DarkSide was also willing to let paying customers know when they’d hacked publicly listed companies ahead of their blog announcements, presumably so they could short sell stocks ahead of the news of a ransomware attack.

While they were developing a portfolio of extortion tools and tactics, DarkSide was also attempting to manage its reputation to avoid attracting law enforcement attention. It stated that it would not attack medical facilities, schools and universities, non-profits, governments and the funeral sector.

There’s good evidence that the criminals are Russian. They recruit Russian-speaking affiliates and advertise on Russian language forums, they don’t attack the former Soviet republics of the Commonwealth of Independent States and their malware won’t attack devices with Russian language settings.

In the aftermath of the Colonial Pipeline hack, DarkSide issued a statement saying:

We are apolitical, we do not participate in geopolitics, do not need to tie us with a defined government and look for other our motives. Our goal is to make money, and not creating problems for society. From today we introduce moderation and check each company that our partners want to encrypt to avoid social consequences in the future.

In part this seems to be an attempt to distance DarkSide from the Russian government; parts of Eastern Europe and Russia are a permissive environment where cyber criminals are tolerated, but if gangs start to cause geopolitical problems local law enforcement could suddenly become motivated to act.

And diplomatic pressure is being applied. US President Joe Biden said that although he didn’t believe the Russian government was involved, the criminals were Russian. “We have been in direct communication with Moscow about the imperative for responsible countries to take decisive action against these ransomware networks,” Biden said.

Within a day of discovering the attack the CEO of Colonial Pipeline had decided to pay the ransom, saying later that “it was the right thing to do for the country.” The pipeline returned to full operation within the week, although the decryption tool was reportedly so slow that Colonial continued to restore from backups.

Paying ransoms is clearly undesirable from a public policy point of view—it encourages further ransomware attacks and funds the evolution of the ransomware ecosystem. Yet at the same time ransom negotiations will settle on a price where the cost–benefit of paying can be justified and there are many situations where payment is clearly in the best interests of stakeholders.

But cyber insurance should not be used to pay ransoms. Unlike many other types of insurance, cyber insurance deals with a human adversary and the threat is rapidly evolving. Current practice is a vicious circle where insurance payouts encourage and fund improved ransomware which extracts more insurance payouts. Perversely, ransomware hackers will search for their victims’ insurance policies and then use the insured amount to set ransom demands.

In total, DarkSide appears to have extracted at least $90 million in ransoms since August, and more than $9 million in the month of May alone. That was made up of $4.4 million from a chemical distribution company and $5 million from Colonial Pipeline. With increasing attention—Biden said the US would “pursue a measure to disrupt their ability to operate” – the sum seems to have been enough for the hackers.

The day after Biden’s statement the DarkSide hackers said they’d lost access to their infrastructure including their blog and payment servers and would be shutting their service. Lightning-fast US retaliatory action seems unlikely given the time required to prepare for a cyber operation, and the DarkSide crew may simply have taken the money instead of paying their affiliates.

In the short term, DarkSide may have disappeared but, given the sheer volume of money available, other criminals will fill the void. Beyond improving defences, this story also shows that a promising approach is to focus on the ransomware ecosystem and its incentives.

DarkSide and similar groups actively try to avoid law enforcement attention and minimize associations with the state in which they operate. Western nations need to align diplomatic, intelligence and law enforcement efforts to make it much harder for ransomware crews to operate with impunity.

Tom Uren is a senior analyst in ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre. This article appears courtesy of The Strategist and may be found in its original form

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Cdre Jude Terry Makes History as Royal Navy’s First Female Admiral

For the first time in the centuries-long history of the Royal Navy, a female officer will be appointed to the rank of admiral. Commodore Jude Terry, who has served for nearly a quarter of a century, has been selected for promotion to rear admiral – making her the most senior woman in the Royal Navy, past or present.

She will be responsible for sailors and Royal Marines from the moment they are recruited to their final day in Service – spanning their entire careers by overseeing training, welfare and career management.

The 47-year-old will be promoted to rear admiral next year and take over as the Royal Navy’s Director of People and Training and Naval Secretary. Of making history she says simply, “someone has to be first.”

“I have always thought of myself as a naval officer first, then a logistics officer, then Jude and finally as a female. The Navy genuinely doesn’t look at your gender and is an equal opportunities employer – it wants you to be part of a team and deliver outputs to support operations,” she says.

“I have been really lucky throughout my career. I’ve enjoyed great jobs, wonderful support from my family, worked with great people, seized the opportunity to see the world and contribute to a number of operations which have made a difference to people’s lives including Afghanistan, Somalia and Sierra Leone to name a few.”

She currently serves as deputy director of the department she is earmarked to take over, with the goal of helping to shape the Royal Navy and its people up to 2040.

“I am delighted with Commodore Jude Terry’s selection for promotion to Rear Admiral,” said First Sea Lord Admiral Tony Radakin. “Jude is part of a cohort of trailblazers in the Royal Navy who have seized the opportunities on offer and risen to the top. This builds on a rich career of naval and broader Defence appointments, all of which she has excelled at.”

Terry has spent the bulk of her seagoing career in Plymouth-based warships, including survey vessel HMS Scott and two spells with helicopter carrier HMS Ocean.

Of her 12-month second draft to HMS Ocean she spent ten away from the UK in the Baltic and Gulf, and she was responsible for working with a documentary team producing the series Warship for BBC Channel 4.

Her career has taken her to the Gulf and Middle East, Indian Ocean, Far East and the Caribbean. Commodore Terry was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the New Year’s Honours List in 2017 for her efforts during three years at the UK military’s operational hub, Permanent Joint Headquarters, during which she was involved in the end of Britain’s front-line operations in Afghanistan, overseeing the closure of bases at Lashkar Gar, Bastion and Kandahar, and the successful efforts to curb the spread of the Ebola virus in west Africa in 2014 – 2015.

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A court in Singapore has approved a prosecutor’s request to freeze the assets of Lim Oon Kuin (also known as O.K. Lim) and his family as litigation continues over the alleged financial fraud at Lim’s businesses. The freeze covers an astonishing $3.5 billion in holdings, and it opens a path to further loss recovery for the creditors of oil trading house Hin Leong Trading, the linchpin in Lim’s former empire.

Lim’s business empire collapsed last year amidst allegations of fraud, and he has been charged with abetment of forgery. Singaporean prosecutors contend that he directed an executive at Hin Leong to falsify documents in order to obtain tens of millions of dollars in trade financing, then failed to repay the money. In May, prosecutors added 23 more charges against OK Lim in connection with allegedly fraudulent transactions with China Aviation Oil (Singapore), bringing the total to 25 counts.

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the court-appointed manager for Hin Leong Trading, the Lim family manipulated the firm’s books through irregular accounting entries in order to hide trading losses. The methods allegedly included overstating inventory and accumulating more debt by deceiving lenders, the same acts alleged in Singaporean prosecutors’ criminal suit. The misstatements made Hin Leong look profitable, and the company racked up about $3.5 billion in debt that it ultimately could not repay.

With creditors in control of Hin Leong and two related firms, Ocean Tankers and Xihe Capital, liquidation of Lim’s businesses is proceeding quickly. Despite the rapid-pace sales, however, creditors of Hin Leong have been able to recover less than a tenth of the total $3.5 million owed.

The new freeze seeks to preserve the Lim family’s personal assets for possible recovery, including the holdings of Lim’s son Lim Chee Meng and daughter Lim Huey Ching. The order requires the family to maintain holdings valued at $3.5 billion or more in Singapore. They may still trade or sell their assets – and even remove them from the country – so long as the total does not fall below that threshold, according to the court.

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A new study commissioned by Seas At Risk, an association of environmental organizations from across Europe, shows that microplastics in the marine environment come from numerous sources and economic sectors, and have widespread environmental impacts, including climate implications. Released in advance of the upcoming European Commission’s EU Green Week 2021. The study carried out by the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology explores the sources and solutions for microplastics.

“Given the expected exponential increase of global plastic production, and the subsequent release of microplastics into the environment, it is vital to urgently prevent this pollution from escalating, and to avoid dramatic consequences on marine biodiversity, global ecosystems, and the climate,” says Frédérique Mongodin, Senior Marine Litter policy officer with Seas At Risk. “As certain types of plastics release more microplastics, toxic chemicals, and GHGs than others, choosing the right type of plastic and additives in the design phase can drastically reduce microplastic pollution. However, only the adoption of mandatory and targeted upstream measures at EU level will enable the necessary adjustments across sectors.”

Seas At Risk cites data that shows global plastic production has been increasing exponentially since the 1950s. It stood at over 200 million tons produced in 2000 increasing to 368 million tons in 2019. They cite a forecast that production will exceed 500 million tons by 2025 and 650 million by 2030.

The research looks at the sources of microplastics in the marine environment finding that personal care products that contain added microplastics, such as glitter, or microbeads found in scrubs, only constitute two percent of the total microplastics released into the marine environment. They contend that the majority of microplastics in the ocean are unintentionally added microplastics, and come from sources such as tire dust, synthetic textile fibers, city dust, and marine paints. Additional microplastics resulting from the degradation of larger plastic items at sea come from most economic sectors they report, including agriculture, construction, tourism, aquaculture, fisheries, and shipping.

Of all plastic entering the ocean, the report says that 94 percent ends up on the seabed, where it will take centuries to degrade, releasing chemicals, microplastics, and nanoplastics in the process, which are all harmful to both marine life and the ecosystem balance. The GMIT study says that microplastics also have implications for the climate, both by contributing to the emission of GHGs and by reducing the mitigation effects of the ocean against climate change.

Once exposed to solar radiation, certain types of plastics (mainly single-use plastics and packaging) undergo a gradual degradation and fragmentation process. This releases GHGs, such as methane and ethylene. Methane contributes to greenhouse gas effects 34 times more than carbon dioxide. With an expected increase of 33-36 percent in plastic production by 2025, emissions of methane are predicted to rise to exceed 100 million tons if no mitigation efforts are implemented.

The report says that the most concerning environmental impacts of microplastics contribute to the loss of biodiversity, with implications on the marine food webs, and threaten ecosystem balance. In the study, GMIT researchers identified concerns over the ingestion of microplastics by marine organisms and the bio-accumulation of hazardous substances by marine fauna and flora.

Depending on their characteristics, certain types of plastics release a much higher quantity of microplastics, toxic chemicals, or GHG emissions compared to others. Therefore, the solutions proposed in the study aim to prevent microplastic release at the source.

They are calling for banning specific types of plastics that are proven to release a high number of microplastics, such as synthetic foam polymers used in packaging and boxes as well as plastic mulch in agriculture and horticulture. They also say that mandatory eco-design requirements should be set for textiles at the design stage to gradually eliminate the most problematic fabrics and additives. They also propose the establishment of a maximum threshold for microplastic release by tires into the environment.

The study says that a ban on all non-essential single-use plastic products should be implemented to reduce microplastic pollution in the long term. Others steps should include phasing out potentially toxic additives and create an open-access database of plastic additives to provide information on the presence of chemicals in products.

Among the mandates that they propose governments enact are for the containment of plastic production and recycling facilities to prevent the release of pellets as well as best practice for the handling rules and regular staff training to prevent the loss of maritime containers and fishing gear at sea as this generates large quantities of secondary microplastics.

The complete report and recommendations is available on the Seas At Risk website.

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General cargo ship NAZMIYE ANA capsized while performing cargo operations at Castellon port, Spain, Med, in the evening May 28. The ship capsized upside down with superstructure resting on the ground and bottom being above waterline. Two crew are missing, search under way, most probably they’ve been trapped inside. The ship arrived at Castellon on May 27, from Barcelona.
General cargo ship NAZMIYE ANA, IMO 8516598, dwt 2086, built 1985, flag Panama, manager SINOP SHIPPING CORP.

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