Akira ransomeware

Why in the news

• Recently, CERT-In cautioned against ransomware Akira’ attack.

About Akira

• An Internet ransomware virus ‘Akira’ that steals vital personal information and encrypts data leading to extortion of money from people has been reported in cyberspace.
• This computer malware is targeting Windows and Linux-based systems.
• This group first steals the information, then encrypts data on their systems and conducts double extortion to force the victim into paying.

About ransomeware

• Ransomware is a malware designed to deny a user or organization access to files on their computer.
• By encrypting these files and demanding a ransom payment for the decryption key, cyber-attackers place organizations in a position where paying the ransom is the easiest and cheapest way to regain access to their files.

About CERT-In

• It is the nodal agency for responding computer security incidents in India. It comes under Ministry of electronics, Information and communication technology.

GS PAPER – II

Stem Cell transplantation

Why in the News

• A person infected with HIV has been cured by stem cell transplantation.

• The level of virus in his blood remained undetectable 20 months after his antiretroviral therapy was discontinued.

What makes this patient different?

• One factor differentiates the Geneva patient, as he is being referred to, from the other five cured after stem cell transplant – his donor did not have the gene mutation that researchers had specifically selected in all the previous cases.

• The mutation is associated with lower risk of contracting the infection.

About the Geneva patient

• He had been living with HIV since the 1990s, the Geneva patient underwent a stem cell transplant in 2018 for an aggressive form of leukemia.

• One month after the transplant, his doctors found a significant reduction in the number of HIV-infected cells. They then started reducing his medicines and stopped them in November 2021.

• Twenty months later, his tests did not find any viral particles, latent reservoirs of the infection, or elevated immune response against the virus.

What is the genetic mutation in the other donors?

• In the first five cases, the treatment teams looked for donors with CCR5 delta 32 mutation.

• Those who inherit the mutation from one of the parents have fewer receptors and are less likely to get the infection.

• Only 1% of the people in the world carry two copies of the CCR5-delta 32 mutation- meaning they got it from both parents – and another 20% carry one copy of the mutation, mainly those of

• HIV lowers immunity in infected individuals by attacking the CD4 immune cells. However, to gain entry into these cells, it needs receptors on the surface. People who inherit the CCR5 delta 32 mutation from both parents do not form these receptors, essentially locking the virus out of the cells.

Can stem cell transplant become routine treatment for HIV?

• It is highly unlikely. There are 38.4 million people living with HIV currently and it would be impossible to find a matching donor for all of them. In addition, the CCR5 delta 32 mutation mainly occurs in Caucasians, meaning it would not be very difficult to find donors for patients from high-burden countries, mainly in Africa.

• Besides, stem cell transplantation is a major procedure and comes with its own risks, including the risk of the patient rejecting the donor cells. Even with the trans- plants, the virus may learn to infect cells through other mechanisms.

• Instead, treatment of HIV across the world depends on effective antiretroviral therapy. These cocktails suppress the replication of the virus within the body, allowing the number of CD4 immune cells to bounce back. They also reduce the viral particles to undetectable levels, meaning the person can no longer transmit the infection to others. The drugs prevent the progression to the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) stage.

• However, the anti-retroviral therapy needs to be taken for life. It doesn’t remove the virus completely from the body, and the viral count goes up again whenever therapy is stopped.

GS PAPER – III

Inside the ‘world’s biggest office space’ in Surat

Why in the news

• SURAT IS now home to what is being called the world’s biggest office space, the Surat Diamond Bourse (SDB).

• It is a hub of cutting and polishing diamonds.

Why a new diamond bourse?

• The Surat Diamond Bourse (SDB) has been planned to expand and shift the diamond trading business from Mumbai to Surat, the hub of cutting and polishing diamonds.

What are the project’s features?

• The SDB has been built on an area of 66 lakh square feet at DREAM (Diamond Research and Mercantile) city.

• The Surat Diamond Bourse will have over 4,200 offices ranging from 300 square feet to 7,5000 square feet each.

• The bourse has nine towers, each with ground plus 15 floors.

• All diamond-related activities and infrastructure, such as sale of rough diamonds and polished diamonds, diamond manufacturing machineries, software used in diamond planning, diamond certificate firms, lab-grown diamonds, etc. will be available in the bourse.

• Apart from this, 27 retail outlets of diamond jewellery will also be opened, for international and national buyers.

GS PAPER – II

Russia strikes Odesa cathedral

Why in the NEWS

• Russia’s latest strike on Odesa on Sunday killed two people and severely damaged a historic Orthodox cathedral.

Key development

• UNESCO condemned the “brazen” attack on Odesa, which hit several sites in the port city’s World Heritage centre.

About Transfiguration Cathedral

• The 18th-century Transfiguration Cathedral, the biggest Orthodox Church in Odesa, lies within the UNESCO-protected historic city centre.
• Transfiguration Cathedral – originally built in 1794 under imperial Russian rule – was hit. Clergymen rescued icons from rubble inside the badly damaged shrine, which was demolished un- der Stalin in 1936 and re- built in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Un- ion. Ukraine denounced the cathedral strike as a “war crime”.

About Black Sea

• The Black Sea is a marginal Mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia.
• It is bounded by Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia.