Explosions at the offices of a political party and an independent candidate in southwest Pakistan raise fresh security concerns a day before parliamentary elections. Two blasts took place near electoral candidates' offices in Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan, local officials said on Wednesday. In the first incident, at least 12 people were killed at the office of an independent candidate in Pishin district. A second explosion left 10 people dead in Qilla Saifullah, a town near the Afghan border. Khanzai Hospital, close to the first blast site in Pishin, treated numerous casualties, some with serious injuries. Jan Achakzai, provincial information minister of Balochistan, said the second explosion "took place close to the election office of the local JUI-F candidate" in Killa Saifullah. The religious party has previously been the target of militant attacks. In July last year, 44 people were killed by a suicide bomber at a political gathering of the party in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Balochistan has been the target of multiple groups of Islamist militants, including the Pakistani Taliban and the "Islamic State" militia. Separatist rebels have also been launching deadly attacks on the security forces and civilians. Pakistan going to the polls The explosions come a day ahead of the country's general election. Pakistan's 127 million voters get to elect a new parliament on Thursday that will choose a new prime minister after the vote.  Authorities have said they are boosting security at polling booths following Wednesday's blasts.  More than half a million security officers have already been deployed to ensure peace following a surge in militant attacks. The Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based think tank, said there had been a "staggering" rise in militant attacks in the past year with an average of 54 per month -- the most since 2015, when the army launched a massive crackdown on militant groups. Political parties have completed their campaigns and are now observing a quiet period leading up to the election as required by electoral regulations.

All important organisations including information technology (IT) infrastructures have been asked to take proper measures as the government’s computer incident response team in its regular surveillance noticed distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) cyber attacks very recently in Bangladesh. The government’s computer incident response team (BGD e-GOV CIRT) of Bangladesh Computer Council under Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division made the call in a press release in Dhaka today.    In computing, a denial-of-service attack is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to a network. In the DDoS cyber attack, use of different types of internet packets including TCP Push Flood, UDP Flood, TCP RST flood, TCP SYN Flood, TCP Window Size flood, IP fragment flood were noticed. Under the circumstances, all important information infrastructures have been recommended to set limit of anti-DDoS protection threshold after updating or setting anti-DDoS hardware and software following digital security guidelines to keep safe all IT infrastructures. How does a DDoS attack work? DDoS attacks are carried out with networks of Internet-connected machines, according to global network Cloudflare. These networks consist of computers and other devices (such as IoT devices) which have been infected with malware, allowing them to be controlled remotely by an attacker. These individual devices are referred to as bots (or zombies), and a group of bots is called a botnet. Once a botnet has been established, the attacker is able to direct an attack by sending remote instructions to each bot. When a victim’s server or network is targeted by the botnet, each bot sends requests to the target’s IP address, potentially causing the server or network to become overwhelmed, resulting in a denial-of-service to normal traffic.   Because each bot is a legitimate Internet device, separating the attack traffic from normal traffic can be difficult. Source: BSS AH

'Boithok', a government's video conferencing platform, will now be expanded to public offices across the country to hold virtual meetings aimed at securing official conversations and communications.   "The government is going to extend the usage of 'Boithok' at its offices across the country gradually," sources said.    As part of extending the usage of Boithok, BCC has taken initiatives to provide training to officials of each of the 64 districts about its functions and usage, the sources added.    Currently, the platform is being used only in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Financial Institution Division, Economic Relations Division, Security Services Division, Bangladesh Police, Energy and Mineral Resources Division, ICT Division, BCC, Department of ICT (DoICT), Digital Security Agency (DSA) on regular basis.   During pandemic, last year e-Government Computer Incident Response Team (BGD e-Gov CIRT) of the Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) of the ICT Division  developed Boithok for using at in government offices instead of using video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams to ensure the security of information.   "Step has been taken to hold training for the officials of 64 district offices to extend the usage of Boithok at all government offices," said Executive Director of BCC Dr Abdul Mannan adding a workshop will be held tomorrow at Chittagong Deputy Commissioner's office about the functions and usages of Boithok.   Dr Mannan said one of the most important features of the Boithok platform is the unlimited duration of the meeting and it supports meeting hosting with  200 people, and the development team is working to extend the capability to 500 people.    The video and audio quality of the Boithok platforms are very smooth and clear and over 1,100 successful meetings have already been held on the Boithok platform so far and users can join a meeting just by clicking on a meeting link within a few seconds, he said.    Boithak is enabling the users to share their necessities, and thoughts through perfect instant secure video conferencing that create a real scenario of a virtual meeting. "This platform is completely secure and users' data are entirely safe. Here no data/ recordings are stored outside of the country," said Project Director of (BGD e-Gov CIRT Tarique M Barkatullah and added it supports also an end-to-end encryption feature.     Tarique said this video conferencing application is very easy to use and user friendly too as it supports Android, IOS, Linux as well as all popular browsers that we use daily, he added. Source: BSS AH

Government and private offices of the country will be operative by half of the total manpower from tomorrow (Monday) to prevent transmission of coronavirus. The cabinet division has issued notification in this regard on Sunday. The notification said, considering the Covid-19 pandemic situation the following restrictions have been issued with effect from January 24 and it will be effective till February 6. All the government/semigovernment/autonomous/private offices will be operative maintaining half of the officials and employees following health protocols. The official activities will be performed virtually through e-documents, e-tendering, e-mails, SMS, Whatsapp and other medium. Bangladesh Supreme Court will issue directives regarding other courts of the country. Bangladesh Bank and financial institution division will provide directions regarding the banks, insurance and other financial institutions.

Government employees are facing financial problems in Afghanistan as government offices have mostly remained closed since the Ashraf Ghani government collapsed last month following the Taliban takeover. According to residents, they are facing financial problems as government offices have mostly remained closed and their wages have not been paid, Tolo News reported. Geti, a teacher at a government school, returned to her job a week after the Taliban came to power, but she has not received her salary yet. “I did not get a salary for two months. I face economic problems. The teachers in my school are the sole breadwinners for their families,” Tolo News quoted Geti as saying. Residents also voiced concerns over the closure of some offices across the country. People are waiting to receive their National Identity Card. Enayatullah, a Kabul resident, said, “I came to get my Identity Card. The process has not resumed. I ask that the process begins very soon,” Tolo News reported. It further reported that the Taliban government's acting Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund earlier on Wednesday ordered all ministries and some other government offices to immediately begin providing services to the people. It has been over a month when the Taliban captured Kabul after an aggressive and rapid advance against Afghanistan government forces amid the withdrawal of US and NATO troops from the country. The country plunged into crisis last month after Kabul fell to the Taliban and the democratically elected government of former president Ashraf Ghani collapsed. Source: ANI SA

 An order has been issued to complete all official works of the government offices on virtual platform in an attempt to implement ongoing travel curbs and tighter restrictions amid the severe corona virus situation across the country. “All the official works of government offices must have to operate on virtual platforms like e-document, e-tendering, e-mail, sms and whatsapp amid corona virus restrictions,” said an official circular here today. The cabinet division issued this instructions and it already has been sent to all concerned ministries and divisions. “Instructions have been given to keep closed all the government, semi-government, autonomous and non-government offices to check countrywide Covid-19 infections,” said the government circular. But, all the emergency services and offices remained open during the situation as an exception, it said. The official order also has asked to take necessary steps to accomplish all the official works of the government offices during this time on virtual platform. To check the spreading of novel corona virus, the government first enforced weeklong strict lockdown since July 1 and then it has been extended to July 14. Earlier, the cabinet division issued a gazette notification with 21 restrictions amid the ongoing coronavirus situation. Source: BSS AH

The Saudi embassy in Dhaka will accept the applications for visas, its extension and cancellation through the embassy authorized offices. The embassy also said, the visa holder must have to collect corona negative certificate through PCR lab tests. The certificates must have to obtain from Bangladesh government recognized medical centers. The PCR tests must be done 48 hours before departure to Saudi Arabia. For details people are requested to contact the embassy through email to [email protected]  AH

Offices are going to be opened from today (Monday) after completion of Eid-ul-Azha holidays. After three days officials of different government and private organizations will join their works. As well as bank-insurance and share markets are going to be opened. On Saturday Muslim community in the country observed holy Eid-ul-Azha. The holidays began from Friday for three days. Sunday was the last day of holidays. On the first day of work at the offices officials will exchange greetings with one another. On the day no major transaction will take place in the banks. Presence of officials will be less as many took extra leave in addition to the general holidays. They will join the offices some days later. Read In Bangla Version AH

The government has issued a gazette notification allowing limited operation of public transport and offices from May 31 to June 15 amid the coronavirus outbreak. Public Administration issued the gazette on Thursday. It said public transports – buses, trains and vessels – will have to maintain health guidelines. All government, semi-government and autonomous offices will resume under self-management but ailing staff and pregnant women have been asked to refrain from joining work, the notification said. Everyone has to wear face masks and strictly follow 13-point health directives. During the period, all officials are directed not to leave the work stations. Public transports were shut after the government announced general holidays from March 26 to contain the transmission of coronavirus. Meanwhile, the government has permitted markets and shops to remain open from 10am to 4pm on condition that they follow health rules.  But educational institutions will remain closed during this period. The health authorities announced detection of 2,029 new patients in the last 24 hours, raising the total cases to 40,321. Fifteen more people died from coronavirus during this period, taking the death tally to 559. Bangladesh reported its first cases on March 8 and the first death on March 18. The government shut down public transports and all non-essential services as it announced general holidays from March 26 to curb the transmission of coronavirus. Educational institutions were closed shortly after the virus was reported in Bangladesh. Source: UNB AH

On the occasion of Independence Day of Bangladesh the US embassy in Dhaka, consular section, public affairs section, Archer K Blood library and student advising center will remain closed on Tuesday. Independence Day is the national holiday in Bangladesh. But emergency services will be provided to the American nationals. To avail the service they can dial the number 5566-2000 and ask the duty officials. AH