Category: iT news

Image copyright
Getty Images

Intel says the production of its next-generation chips will be set back until 2022, following years of delays getting its current-generation chips on sale.

The company said it was exploring “contingency plans” such as having third-party manufacturers produce some of its products.

In June, Apple said it would transition its Mac computers away from Intel processors and design its own chips.

One expert said Intel risked leaving a gap for competitors to step into.

Intel said it had identified a “defect” in its manufacturing process that led to the new delay.

What is a next-generation chip?

Chip-makers try to miniaturise their technology and processes so that they can pack more transistors on to a single silicon chip.

Doing so typically creates faster processors which are more energy-efficient.

This can give smartphones and laptops a longer battery life, and reduce energy consumption by data centres.

Intel’s current-generation chips are described as 10nm (nanometre) chips, and its next-generation will be 7nm chips.

These numbers used to be a measure of the tiny spaces in between transistors on a chip, but today they are simply marketing terms.

“Today, the metric commonly used by the experts to compare two different technologies is the transistor density,” said Dr Ian Cutress, senior CPU editor of the technology news site AnandTech, which reported Intel’s announcement.

Intel’s most dense 10nm designs are broadly equivalent to the most dense 7nm designs by rival chip-maker TSMC, he said.

Is Intel’s delay significant?

A delay in producing next-generation chips could give rivals a head start.

There are two main parts to Intel’s business: it designs computer chips and manufactures them. Most of its rivals only do one or the other.

TSMC simply manufactures chips designed by other companies, such as AMD and Apple.

“During most of the 2010s, one of Intel’s key marketable industry-leading features was that it was ahead of its competitors in manufacturing technology,” said Dr Cutress. “In recent years, Intel has been unable to develop new leading manufacturing technologies on its original timescales.”

While Intel’s current-generation 10nm chips were delayed by more than two years, TSMC was shipping its equivalent 7nm chips in bulk to major customers such as Apple, AMD, Huawei and Qualcomm.

While AMD already has a generation of current-generation chips on sale, Intel “has no answer for similar products in desktop computing, and is only promising a small launch of its first generation 10nm server processors by the end of the year”, Dr Cutress said.

“With all the delays Intel had on its 10nm production, its new 7nm chips were meant to solve that issue and make 10nm more of a footnote in Intel’s history. The delay to 7nm implies Intel is having issues with the development,” he added.

“If Intel fails to execute properly, then it leaves a large hole for its main competition to step into, as well as eroding 20 years of confidence in Intel’s ability to deliver high-performance and high-efficiency computing products.”

Image copyright
Aberystwyth University

A Welsh university has confirmed it was one of more than 20 institutions in the UK, US and Canada that has been affected after hackers attacked a cloud computing provider.

Aberystwyth University has reassured current students and alumni that “no bank account or credit card details were taken” in the attack.

The hack targeted Blackbaud, who are a leading provider of education financial management and administration software.

The ransomware attack happened in May.

Aberystwyth University it is “urgently investigating” after confirming the hack “affected a university alumni and supporter web portal and information management system.”

Blackbaud, a US-based company, has been criticised for not disclosing the hacking of their systems externally until July and for having paid the hackers an undisclosed ransom.

In some of the attacks on other universities, the data was limited to that of former students, who had been asked to financially support the establishments they had graduated from. But in others it extended to staff, existing students and other supporters.

‘Assurances’

About 10,000 students study at the 148-year-old mid Wales institution every year and the university said it has had reassurances that the “stolen data has now been destroyed and has no reason to believe it was misused”.

“Blackbaud has offered assurances that no bank account or credit card details were taken,” said a university spokesperson.

“We take data security extremely seriously. We are urgently investigating this incident and are awaiting further details from Blackbaud.

“We are in the process of contacting those online portal users and recipients of our alumni and supporter e-newsletters whom we believe may have been affected.”

The university has reported the breach to the Information Commissioner’s Office and has said it “will cooperate fully with any further steps they wish to take.”

Other institutions have also been affected include University of York, Loughborough University, University of London and University College, Oxford.

Firm ‘paid ransom demand’

Blackbaud, whose headquarters are based in South Carolina, declined to provide a complete lists of those impacted, saying it wanted to “respect the privacy of our customers”.

“The majority of our customers were not part of this incident,” the company claimed.

It referred the BBC to a statement on its website: “In May of 2020, we discovered and stopped a ransomware attack. Prior to our locking the cyber-criminal out, the cyber-criminal removed a copy of a subset of data from our self-hosted environment.”

The statement goes on to say Blackbaud paid the ransom demand. Doing so is not illegal, but goes against the advice of numerous law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, NCA and Europol.

Blackbaud added that it had been given “confirmation that the copy [of data] they removed had been destroyed”.

Blackbaud has said it is working with law enforcement and third party investigators to monitor whether or not the data is being circulated or sold on the dark web, for example.

Privacy law

Under General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), companies must report a significant breach to data authorities within 72 hours of learning of an incident – or face potential fines.

The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office [ICO], as well as the Canadian data authorities, were informed about the breach last weekend – weeks after Blackbaud discovered the hack.

An ICO spokeswoman said: “Blackbaud has reported an incident affecting multiple data controllers to the ICO. We will be making enquiries to both Blackbaud and the respective controllers, and encourage all affected controllers to evaluate whether they need to report the incident to the ICO individually.”

Image copyright
Getty Images

TikTok has blocked a number of hashtags related to the QAnon conspiracy theory from appearing in search results, amid concern about misinformation, the BBC has learned.

It comes days after Twitter banned thousands of QAnon-related accounts.

QAnon is a wide-ranging, unfounded conspiracy theory whose followers support US President Donald Trump.

They believe the president is battling a clandestine “deep state” network of political, business and media elites.

TikTok said it moved to restrict “QAnonTruth” searches after a question from the BBC’s anti-disinformation unit, which noticed a spike in conspiracy videos using the tag. The company expressed concern that such misinformation could harm users and the general public.

“QAnon” and related hashtags, such as “Out of Shadows”, ”Fall Cabal” and “QAnonTruth”, will no longer return search results on TikTok – although videos using the same tags will remain on the platform.

Videos using the “QAnon” hashtag, in particular, have millions of cumulative views and can still be found if a user’s algorithm directs them to the associated content.

Many videos promote unfounded conspiracy theories. Recently, some of them endorsed baseless claims linking furniture firm Wayfair to child trafficking.

Image copyright
Getty Images

TikTok’s intervention comes after Twitter announced measures earlier this week also aimed at cracking down on the QAnon conspiracy theorists, including banning thousands of accounts.

It said the suspensions will be applied to accounts that are “engaged in violations of our multi-account policy, co-ordinating abuse around individual victims, or are attempting to evade a previous suspension”.

Twitter also said it would stop recommending content linked to QAnon and block URLs associated with it from being shared on the platform, in an attempt to prevent “offline harm”.

Celebrities, including model Chrissy Teigen, have been victims of co-ordinated abuse from QAnon conspiracy theorists in recent weeks.

Sources close to Facebook say the social media site is looking to take similar action over supporters of the conspiracy theory. QAnon groups on the site have hundreds of thousands of members accumulatively.

What is QAnon?

QAnon began in October 2017 on the anonymous message board 4chan. A user claimed to have top security clearance within the US government and signed off their posts as “Q” – hence the name QAnon. Q communicates in cryptic posts and claims to be directly involved in a secret investigation into a global network of child abusers.

The total list of QAnon claims is enormous – and often contradictory.

Most recently, QAnon conspiracy theorists have spread a number of unfounded conspiracy theories about coronavirus, ranging from claims about the pandemic being a “hoax” to outlandish suggestions about face masks and vaccines.

The central theory about a malicious “deep-state” network of elites, followed on from the “pizzagate” saga in 2016 – a fake theory about Democratic Party politicians running a paedophile ring out of a Washington pizza restaurant.

Many QAnon influencers have big audiences on social media. They urge followers to “do their own research” – in other words, watch YouTube videos and talk to other supporters – to solve Q’s puzzles.

You might also be interested in watching:

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Image copyright
Reuters

Garmin, which makes GPS-enabled fitness trackers and navigational software, is suffering what it has described as an “outage”.

According to ZDNet, employees have claimed on social media that the firm is the victim of a ransomware attack, but this has not been confirmed.

Garmin Aviation said its flyGarmin website and mobile app, used by pilots, were also unavailable.

The company’s production line in Taiwan is also believed to have been affected.

The problems mean that customers are not currently able to log into Garmin Connect to record and analyse their health and fitness data.

And pilots who use flyGarmin cannot currently download up-to-date aviation databases, which is a legal requirement.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Ransomware is a type of malware. It lets hackers take control of a company’s systems and encrypt their data, demanding payment to release it. It is often sent via a malicious email link to employees.

Garmin has not officially confirmed the cause of its problems.

In a statement it said: “We are currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin.com and Garmin Connect. This outage also affects our call centres and we are currently unable to receive any calls, emails or online chats. Garmin are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and apologise for the inconvenience.”

Experts say it looks like a major problem for the firm.

“Garmin’s infrastructure has suffered a massive failure, and although the company has not officially confirmed it, the finger of suspicion points strongly in the direction of a ransomware attack,” wrote security consultant Graham Cluley.

“The danger isn’t only that fitness fanatics may not be able to record how many miles they jogged today. Garmin also provides services for aviators and sailors, meaning they may not be able to use their trusted apps for weather reports or filing flight plans.”

Mr Cluley added that fitness tracker data could be a “treasure trove” as it would show a user’s entire location history.

More than 20 universities and charities in the UK, US and Canada have confirmed they are victims of a cyber-attack that compromised a software supplier.

Blackbaud was held to ransom by hackers in May and paid an undisclosed ransom to cyber-criminals.

The US-based firm is the world’s largest provider of education administration, fundraising, and financial management software.

Blackbaud is not revealing the scale of the breach.

Dozens more charities and educational organisations may have been affected.

The cloud service company is facing criticism after taking weeks to warn victims that data had been stolen.

In some cases, the personal details were limited to those of former students, who had been asked to financially support the establishments from which they had graduated. But in other cases, it extended to staff, existing students and other supporters.

The institutions the BBC has confirmed have been affected are:

• University of Strathclyde
• University of Exeter
• University of York
• Oxford Brookes University
• Loughborough University
• University of Leeds
• University of London
• University of Reading
• University College, Oxford
• Middlebury College, Vermont
• West Virginia University
• New College of Florida
• Cheverus High School: Catholic High School Portland
• The Bishop Strachan School, Canada
• University of North Florida
• Ambrose University, Alberta, Canada
• Rhode Island School of Design, US

Other organisations, including charities, confirmed as affected are:

• Choir with No Name
• Vermont Foodbank
• Vermont Public Radio
• Northwest Immigrant Rights Project
• Human Rights Watch
• Young Minds

All the institutions are sending letters and emails apologising to those on the compromised databases.

Image copyright
Getty Images

In some cases, the stolen data included phone numbers, donation history and events attended. Credit card and other payment details do not appear to have been exposed.

Blackbaud, whose headquarters are in South Carolina, insists that “the majority of our customers were not part of this incident”.

It referred the BBC to a statement on its website: “In May of 2020, we discovered and stopped a ransomware attack. Prior to our locking the cyber-criminal out, the cyber-criminal removed a copy of a subset of data from our self-hosted environment.”

Paid the hackers

The statement goes on to say Blackbaud paid the ransom demand. Doing so is not illegal, but goes against the advice of numerous law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, NCA and Europol.

Blackbaud said once the hackers had been paid, they had given “confirmation that the copy [of data] they removed had been destroyed”.

“It is worrying that the supplier paid the ransom as, arguably, this encourages future attacks and doesn’t overcome the fact that data has been compromised. This demonstrates the multiplier effect of supply chain hacks and reinforces the advice that security needs to be a collaborative exercise,” Cath Goulding, chief information security officer at cyber-security firm Nominet said.

Image copyright
Getty Images

It’s unclear how many individuals have been sent notifications but some alumni and students affected have expressed concerns on social media and to the BBC that they are now worried about the cyber-criminals being true to their word.

Privacy law

Questions are being asked about why Blackbaud took weeks to inform its customers of the hack.

Under General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), companies must report a significant breach to data authorities within 72 hours of learning of an incident – or face potential fines.

The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office [ICO], as well as the Canadian data authorities, were informed about the breach last weekend – weeks after Blackbaud discovered the hack.

On the notice to its students, West Virginia University Foundation said it was “working with Blackbaud to understand why there was a delay between it finding the breach and notifying us, as well as what actions Blackbaud is taking to increase its security.”

Blackbaud has not said which products or services were attacked but one university pointed to an online tool called Raiser’s Edge NXT which manages records, and tracks engagement of donors, alumni and staff.

Image copyright
Getty Images

Mahima and Ananya are in the same class at a small private school in the northern Indian state of Punjab.

Teachers describe them both as “brilliant” students, but ever since classes moved online, they have found themselves on opposite sides of India’s digital divide.

Ananya, who lives in an urban area, has wi-fi at home, and says she is able to log in to her classes and follow them easily.

“The experience is awesome and classes are going really well. This is our school now,” she told BBC Punjabi.

But for Mahima, who lives in a village, it has been a frustrating experience.

For one, she has no home wi-fi. Instead she relies on her mobile phone’s 4G signal, a common source of internet across rural and small-town India.

But the phone signal is strongest on the terrace of her house, so Mahima often has no choice but to study there in the searing heat. Even then, she says, she may or may not be able to join the classes online.

“At times I miss lessons completely. I can’t watch online videos sent by the teacher. Downloading is a big problem. We only get electricity a few hours a day, so keeping the phone charged is also an issue,” she says.

Image copyright
Getty Images

“I have barely attended 10-12 classes in the last one and half months. At times I feel like crying because of the backlog. I am so behind the syllabus.”

The government has been touting online classes as a viable alternative, but unequal and patchy access to the internet has meant the experience is vastly different depending on location and household income.

With more than 630 million subscribers, India is home to the world’s second-largest internet user base. But connectivity is still an issue, especially since mobile data – rather than fixed line internet – is the main source.

The signal is often uneven, making it hard to stream videos smoothly, and electricity supply is erratic, which means devices often run out of charge.

All of this was recently flagged by state representatives to the federal ministry of human resource development, which oversees education in India.

The Indian Express newspaper quoted senior officials warning that almost 30% of the central state of Jharkhand had poor connectivity, while similar complaints had been made in Arunachal Pradesh in the north-east.

There are other issues too. The internet device most Indians use is a mobile phone – so many students follow classes on cheap phones rather than laptops. Many poor households have only one phone, and access to it is unreliable.

And then there are those who can’t afford any device at all.

Image copyright
Getty Images

In the southern state of Kerala, for instance, a teenager killed herself, allegedly because her family could not afford a mobile phone or a television (lessons are being aired on a special educational channel).

Her father told local journalists that he was a daily-wage earner and could not afford either.

“She was very worried that she would not be able to attend the classes. I had told her that some solution will be found by the teachers, but she was very upset,” he said.

Smriti Parsheera, a lawyer and technology policy researcher, told the BBC: “As everyone was unexpectedly thrust into an online-only environment, the type and number of devices that a family had became instrumental in deciding a student’s ability to engage with the system.

“At one extreme of this spectrum are those who do not have any type of device and therefore get completely excluded. Many students in government-run schools have faced this problem.

It’s not just about whether you can access the internet, she says – it’s how you do it too.

“There is a clear difference in the user experience of doing online classes on a mobile phone versus a computer or a laptop.”

State governments and civil associations have tried to address this.

The death of the student in Kerala compelled two rival student organisations to work together to provide television sets to students.

“In some houses, particularly in tribal communities, we are getting electrical connections established,” one representative told BBC Hindi.

Read more of the BBC’s original stories on the pandemic in India

But these efforts do little to bridge the gap in internet access. This has caused some experts to question if online education is a fair option at all.

Among them is Anurag Behar, CEO of Azim Premji Foundation, which funds education initiatives.

“The education of children cannot be done effectively online,” he told the BBC, adding that to do so would “damage education deeply and exacerbate inequities”.

Most disadvantaged children, he added, did not have any support to handle online education at home and are in families combating deep livelihood crises, making them unable to cope with other challenges.

“Unless we get a grip on these bare necessities, there is no point in bothering about the education of children.”

Reported by Sat Singh, Imran Qureshi and Ayeshea Perera

Image copyright
PA Media

A coronavirus contact tracing app for Northern Ireland will be launched next week, the health committee has been told.

Dan West from the Department of Health said the release of Stop Covid NI was supported by the executive.

The app will supplement the phone-based contact tracing programme already in place.

Northern Ireland will be the first part of the UK to have a contact tracing app.

The Republic of Ireland’s app launched earlier in July.

Both apps have been designed by the company Nearform.

Mr West, a chief digital information officer at the Department of Health, said the NI app would notify close contacts automatically.

It would also identify people at risk of infection who would be impossible to trace through the traditional method.

The app could launch as soon as 29 July.

It comes as the Northern Ireland Executive announced a further easing of lockdown restrictions from Friday.

‘Bluetooth handshake’

After a positive Covid-19 test result, a person will receive a unique code by text message.

That message will invite the person to enter the code if they use the app.

Entering the code will trigger a “Bluetooth handshake”, allowing the app to notify any other user who has been nearby for long enough to be at risk of infection.

“There will be some people who won’t be able to or won’t want to use the app, and that’s okay,” Mr West said.

“The more people who do use it, the more protection this will provide to the whole community. We can say that for sure.”

The app will be intended for over-18s initially, because of a conflict between data protection laws and the need for identifiable safeguarding consent.

Dr Eddie O’Neill from the Health and Social Care Board is meeting the children’s commissioner, the information commissioner’s office and the Children’s Law Centre to find a way through that.

Image copyright
Pacemaker

Health Minister Robin Swann previously said his department was working with its counterpart in the Republic of Ireland.

The ambition was to have the two systems work in tandem, so information about contacts who need to be traced can be shared by both governments.

The contact tracing programme has been operational in Northern Ireland since mid-May.

• The great coronavirus-tracing apps mystery

It involves people with a positive test result being contacted by phone.

The people they have been within 2m of for 15 minutes or more are called and advised about isolating or being tested if they have symptoms.

The app is an add-on to that, to help with contact tracing, and alert those who may not be easily contacted.

Mr West said the development and operation of the app in Northern Ireland “is orders of magnitude cheaper than the efforts in England to develop their app so far”.

He said it would cost less than £1m to build and operate.

The UK government is working on developing an app for use in the rest of the country.

In England an NHS team spent four months and nearly £12m developing an app which was trialled on the Isle of Wight but did not work as planned.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock then announced the new focus would be on a decentralised app using the Google Apple toolkit – but that was unlikely to be ready for months.

Microsoft has given gamers a first look at the gameplay of Halo Infinite, the next instalment of the hit series, which will be released for the Xbox Series X.

Bonnie Ross, head of developer 343 Industries, told BBC Click’s Marc Cieslak what she thought the previous games had done well, and not so well.

She told him the studio hoped to “get it right this time”.

See more at Click’s website and @BBCClick

Image copyright
Elaine Fancy

When the pandemic forced Pizza Pilgrims to close its 13 stores in London and Oxford in March, the business went from making 30,000 pizzas every week to zero. Of the 276 staff, 270 had to be furloughed.

While they opened one store in April to manage delivery, founder Thom Elliot still needed to find another way to make up for the lost revenue. “I tried to think of something that would serve our customers, who kept calling us, and also keep us relevant during these times,” he says in an interview.

Mr Elliot and his team decided to create pizza kits featuring all the raw ingredients you need to make your own pizza at home, but to do that he needed to upgrade his website. That’s where Shopify came in.

The Canadian company offers the technology for anyone to create an online store and sell their products, with added features such as inventory tracking and software to help understand sales trends.

Image copyright
Pizza Pilgrims

When Mr Elliot launched the new website along with the pizza kits, and posted about the new product on the company’s Instagram account, they sold out of the 50 kits within 25 seconds. Since early April, the new shop Pizza in the Post sold more than 25,000 kits.

“We’ve noticed that a lot of families like these kits so everyone can make pizza together during the lockdown,” he says.

The easing of lockdown restrictions has allowed the company to reopen 10 of its 13 stores.

Lockdowns have been a bonanza for Shopify, as companies have scrambled to sell products online. According to internal figures, new stores created on the Shopify platform grew 62% between 13 March and 24 April this year, compared to the prior six weeks.

It has become Canada’s most valuable public company, with profits last year of US$880m (£704m).

Image copyright
Pizza Pilgrims

“What’s interesting about this company is that not many people know about it but it’s been around since 2004,” says Dan Wang, associate professor of management at Columbia University in New York.

“They saw the trend of selling directly to small businesses before most, at a time when Amazon and other big players were taking centre stage.”

He points to big moves Shopify has made recently that will further elevate its position in online commerce. In particular, a deal with US giant Walmart, under which some of Shopify’s small business sellers will appear on Walmart’s online marketplace.

More Technology of Business

The goal is to bring 1,200 Shopify merchants to the marketplace this year.

“If you just take our US-based stores and aggregate them and pretend for a moment these stores are one single retailer, we are the largest online retailer after Amazon,” says Harley Finkelstein, Shopify’s chief operating officer.

“Technology has levelled the playing field so you don’t need to have a lot of money to build a brand that is the envy of hegemonic corporate giants, and the cool part of it is that consumers vote with their wallets and prefer to buy from local merchants.

“The pandemic acted as an accelerant where people started to prefer buying a mug or pen or whatever directly from the person who made it.”

That’s not to say though that people have been turning their backs on Amazon, which has also seen sales boom this year – in the first quarter revenue jumped 26% to $75.4bn (£59.4bn).

Shopify is going up against Amazon by launching its own warehouse and delivery network that lets shop owners deliver their products quickly to customers.

Image copyright
Shopify

To bolster that move, Shopify last year bought 6 River Systems, a company which provides software and robotics for warehousing and delivery systems.

Diving into warehousing doesn’t come as a surprise to some analysts.

“This move is definitely a direct shot at competing with Amazon,” says Pinar Ozcan, a professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at the University of Oxford.

“Amazon’s competitive advantages are its vast supplier portfolio, which Shopify can already compete with, and its seamless distribution network. Shopify has been falling short in this second aspect. By focusing on distribution, their business model is getting closer to Amazon’s, which is known to work well.”

But she adds there will always be a difference between the two companies. Shopify will probably never compete in unbranded everyday goods, particularly as Amazon has its own ranges of products like batteries, light bulbs and pots and pans.

Image copyright
Philip Warren Butchers

What matters most to retailers such as Ian Warren, managing director of Philip Warren Butchers in Cornwall, is that his business has a new outlet for his products.

As a meat supplier to more than 150 restaurants in the UK, Mr Warren’s business took a hit when lockdown began, inspiring him to launch a Shopify store dedicated to selling his products directly to consumers.

He estimates his store has attracted around 1,000 new customers who didn’t frequent his physical sites.

“I really didn’t think about building this kind of website before,” he says, “but we needed something bespoke that would cater to a different kind of demographic than our usual meat buyers from restaurants.”

Image copyright
Getty Images

The US and UK have accused Russia of testing a weapon-like projectile in space that could be used to target satellites in orbit.

The US State Department described the recent use of “what would appear to be actual in-orbit anti-satellite weaponry” as concerning.

Russia’s defence ministry earlier said it was using new technology to perform checks on Russian space equipment.

The US has previously raised concerns about new Russian satellite activity.

But it is the first time the UK has made accusations about Russian test-firing in space. They come just days after an inquiry said the UK government “badly underestimated” the threat posed by Russia.

In a statement on Thursday, US Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Non-proliferation, Christopher Ford, accused Moscow of hypocrisy after it said it wanted arms control to be extended to space.

“Moscow aims to restrict the capabilities of the United States while clearly having no intention of halting its own counter-space programme,” he said.

• Who owns outer space?
• Nasa ‘probing first allegation of space crime’

The head of the UK’s space directorate, Air Vice Marshal Harvey Smyth, said he was also concerned about the latest Russian satellite test, which he said had the “characteristics of a weapon”.

“Actions like this threaten the peaceful use of space and risk causing debris that could pose a threat to satellites and the space systems on which the world depends,” he said.

He urged Russia to be “responsible” and to “avoid any further such testing”.

Russia, the UK, the US and China are among more than 100 nations to have committed to a space treaty that stipulates that outer space is to be explored by all and purely for peaceful purposes.

The treaty adds that weapons should not be placed in orbit or in space.

The US said the Russian satellite system was the same one it raised concerns about in 2018 and earlier this year when the US accused it of manoeuvring close to an American satellite.

On this latest incident, Gen Jay Raymond, who heads US space command, said there was evidence Russia “conducted a test of a space-based anti-satellite weapon”.

Gen Raymond added: “This is further evidence of Russia’s continuing efforts to develop and test space-based systems and [is] consistent with the Kremlin’s published military doctrine to employ weapons that hold US and allied space assets at risk.”

This Russian test of what the Americans say is an anti-satellite weapon is part of a pattern of recent Russian space activity. In February the US military said that two Russian satellites manoeuvred close to an American one, and in April Moscow test-fired a ground-based satellite interceptor.

Only four countries – Russia, the US, China and India – have demonstrated an anti-satellite capability over the past decades. Anti-satellite warheads have been carried aloft by aircraft or rockets and satellites have also been illuminated by lasers.

But Moscow is also clearly looking at using one satellite to kill another. Interest in such weapons is growing given our reliance upon satellites for a variety of purposes such as intelligence gathering, communications, navigation and early-warning.

There is no treaty banning or limiting such weapons though a number of countries have argued for some kind of agreement to do just this.

But in military terms space has already become the new frontier with several countries organising specific commands in their armed forces to deal with both the defensive and offensive aspects of protecting their essential space-based systems.

A test of a new Russian satellite took place on 15 July with the aim of performing checks on the country’s space equipment, Russia’s defence ministry said at the time.

“During testing of the latest space technology, one of the domestic satellites was examined close up using the specialised equipment of small space craft,” the ministry said, according to Interfax news agency.

It added that “valuable information about the technical condition of the object under investigation” had been recorded.