Security - Posted On:2017-06-28 18:30:00 Source: bleepingcomputer
There are early signs of a new ransomware outbreak, currently affecting a large number of countries across the globe, such as the UK, Ukraine, India, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, and others. [...]
You won't escape Google ads in VR
advertising - Posted On:2017-06-28 18:15:08 Source: engadget
Sorry, folks, donning a virtual reality headset won't offer a refuge from internet advertising. Google's Area 120 incubator is experimenting with online ad formats designed with VR in mind. It's a lot trickier than slapping a banner on a website, as you might have already guessed. The team says it's trying to create ads that feel at home in VR and are relatively flexible, but are also \
Nutanix introduces two new tools in quest to simplify hybrid cloud management
Cloud - Posted On:2017-06-28 18:15:01 Source: techcrunch
Nutanix was born in 2009 as a storage company, but always had a broader view of the computing world. As company president Sudeesh Nair told me, they started with storage because they believed legacy storage was holding back data center transformation. Today the company made another step beyond that initial vision introducing two new products that they see as part of a larger hybrid cloud…
Security - Posted On:2017-06-28 18:15:00 Source: bleepingcomputer
There are early signs of a new ransomware outbreak, currently affecting a large number of countries across the globe, such as the UK, Ukraine, India, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, and others. [...]
Samsung Plans To Open $380 Million Home Appliance Plant In US, Creating Almost 1,000 Jobs
news - Posted On:2017-06-28 18:14:59 Source: slashdot
Samsung Electronics has agreed to open a $380 million home appliance manufacturing plant in Newberry County, South Carolina. The new plant is expected to generate 954 local jobs by 2020. CNBC reports: The South Korean firm said this year it was in talks to build a home appliances plant in the United States amid worries about protectionist policies under U.S. President Donald Trump put pressure on global companies to generate jobs in the country. "With this investment, Samsung is reaffirming its commitment to expanding its U.S. operations and deepening our connection to the American consumers, engineers and innovators," Samsung Electronics America President and CEO Tim Baxter said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Security - Posted On:2017-06-28 18:00:00 Source: bleepingcomputer
There are early signs of a new ransomware outbreak, currently affecting a large number of countries across the globe, such as the UK, Ukraine, India, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, and others. [...]
Security - Posted On:2017-06-28 17:45:00 Source: bleepingcomputer
There are early signs of a new ransomware outbreak, currently affecting a large number of countries across the globe, such as the UK, Ukraine, India, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, and others. [...]
Judges refuse to order fix for court software that put people in jail by mistake
Law & Disorder - Posted On:2017-06-28 17:44:59 Source: arstechnica
On Wednesday, a California appeals court denied efforts to overturn a county court’s decision not to intervene in an ongoing dispute between the public defender’s office and the administrative arm of the Alameda County Superior Court itself. The dispute is over the allegedly flawed court software.
The public defender, Brendon Woods, has argued since December 2016 that a recent upgrade is inadequate for Alameda County and has resulted in many mistaken jailings. In March 2017, a local judge rejected Woods’ demands to fix the software, which is known as Odyssey Court Manager and made by Tyler Technologies.
The 1st Appellate District, a state-level appeals court based in San Francisco, ruled that Woods lacked standing to bring the appeal “in his own right.” Even if there was standing, the plaintiffs did not establish that they would “suffer harm or prejudice in a manner that cannot be corrected on appeal.”
DHS won’t expand its laptop ban to all US-bound flights just yet
airline - Posted On:2017-06-28 17:30:05 Source: engadget
In a statement today, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly announced expanded security measures for US-bound flights. Kelly said the new measures were in response to terrorist groups' \
Security - Posted On:2017-06-28 17:30:02 Source: bleepingcomputer
There are early signs of a new ransomware outbreak, currently affecting a large number of countries across the globe, such as the UK, Ukraine, India, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, and others. [...]
Facebook's Secret Censorship Rules Protect White Men From Hate Speech But Not Black Children
technology - Posted On:2017-06-28 17:30:00 Source: slashdot
Sidney Fussell from Gizmodo summarizes a report from ProPublica, which brings to light dozens of training documents used by Facebook to train moderators on hate speech: As the trove of slides and quizzes reveals, Facebook uses a warped, one-sided reasoning to balance policing hate speech against users' freedom of expression on the platform. This is perhaps best summarized by the above image from one of its training slideshows, wherein Facebook instructs moderators to protect "White Men," but not "Female Drivers" or "Black Children." Facebook only blocks inflammatory remarks if they're used against members of a "protected class." But Facebook itself decides who makes up a protected class, with lots of clear opportunities for moderation to be applied arbitrarily at best and against minoritized people critiquing those in power (particularly white men) at worst -- as Facebook has been routinely accused of. According to the leaked documents, here are the group identifiers Facebook protects: Sex, Religious affiliation, National origin, Gender identity, Race, Ethnicity, Sexual Orientation, Serious disability or disease. And here are those Facebook won't protect: Social class, continental origin, appearance, age, occupation, political ideology, religions, countries. Subsets of groups -- female drivers, Jewish professors, gay liberals -- aren't protected either, as ProPublica explains: White men are considered a group because both traits are protected, while female drivers and black children, like radicalized Muslims, are subsets, because one of their characteristics is not protected. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
NBC Sports’ new Premier League plan is terrible for everyone
app - Posted On:2017-06-28 17:15:33 Source: engadget
When NBC Sports announced its new $50 Premier League Pass yesterday, it was easy for soccer fans in the US to get excited about the ability to watch without a cable subscription. However, upon close inspection, the new broadcast structure for England's top league may be worse than limiting a full slate of games to those who have a plan with Comcast, Time Warner or other providers. Allow me to explain. If you want the comprehensive slate of matches that has been available through the NBC Sports apps in the past, you'll have to pay for both the new subscription and a cable plan. The NBC Sports Gold Premier League Pass will give subscribers access to 130 games during the season for $50. The Premier League schedule has a lot more games than that, so where are the others? NBC says \
Security - Posted On:2017-06-28 17:15:01 Source: bleepingcomputer
There are early signs of a new ransomware outbreak, currently affecting a large number of countries across the globe, such as the UK, Ukraine, India, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, and others. [...]
Lawsuit claims Uber discriminates against people with disabilities
gear - Posted On:2017-06-28 17:00:34 Source: engadget
Uber launched a couple of new programs back in 2014 to serve people who use wheelchairs. UberAssist is a way to hail an UberX driver trained in accessibility and whose car can accommodate a folding wheelchair. UberWAV will send you an actual accessible vehicle with a rear-entry ramp and safety features for riders with accessibility needs. These programs are only available in a handful of larger markets like New York Washington DC or Portland, unfortunately. In addition, Uber may not have provided these services in equal ways to riders who need them even in cities where these programs exist. The Washington, DC-based Equal Rights Center (ERC) is suing Uber for denying that equal access to people with disabilities, claiming that the company is in violation of Title 3 of the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as the DC Human Rights Act. The organization conducted an investigation that compared the experience of customers with and without disabilities. The ERC claims that Uber makes people in wheelchairs wait an average of eight times longer for an accessible solution to arrive and had to pay twice as much in fares. Further, it alleges that none of the more than 30,000 Uber cars in DC is capable of serving individuals who can't use a folding wheelchair.\n\n\
Security - Posted On:2017-06-28 17:00:01 Source: bleepingcomputer
There are early signs of a new ransomware outbreak, currently affecting a large number of countries across the globe, such as the UK, Ukraine, India, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, and others. [...]
Tuesday’s massive ransomware outbreak was, in fact, something much worse
Law & Disorder - Posted On:2017-06-28 17:00:00 Source: arstechnica
Tuesday's massive outbreak of malware that shut down computers around the world has been almost universally blamed on ransomware, which by definition seeks to make money by unlocking data held hostage only if victims pay a hefty fee. Now, some researchers are drawing an even bleaker assessment—that the malware was a wiper with the objective of permanently destroying hard drives.
Initially, researchers said the malware was a new version of the Petya ransomware that first struck in early 2016. Later, researchers said it was a new, never-before-seen ransomware package that mimicked some of Petya's behaviors. With more time to analyze the malware, researchers on Wednesday are highlighting some curious behavior for a piece of malware that was nearly perfect in almost all other respects: its code is so aggressive that it's impossible for victims to recover their data.
In other words, the researchers said, the payload delivered in Tuesday's outbreak wasn't ransomware at all. Instead, its true objective was to permanently destroy as many hard drives as possible on infected networks, in much the way the Shamoon disk wiper left a wake of destruction in Saudi Arabia. Some researchers have said Shamoon is likely the work of developers sponsored by an as-yet unidentified country. Researchers analyzing Tuesday's malware—alternatively dubbed PetyaWrap, NotPetya, and ExPetr—are speculating the ransom note left behind in Tuesday's attack was, in fact, a hoax intended to capitalize on media interest sparked by last month's massive WCry outbreak.
The Petya Ransomware Is Starting To Look Like a Cyberattack in Disguise
it - Posted On:2017-06-28 17:00:00 Source: slashdot
Further research and investigation into Petya ransomware -- which has affected computers in over 60 countries -- suggest three interesting things: 1. Ukraine was the epicentre of the attack. According to Kaspersky, 60 percent of all machines infected were located within Ukraine. 2. The attackers behind the attack have made little money -- around $10,000. Which leads to speculation that perhaps money wasn't a motive at all. 3. Petya was either "incredibly buggy, or irreversibly destructive on purpose." An anonymous reader shares a report: Because the virus has proven unusually destructive in Ukraine, a number of researchers have come to suspect more sinister motives at work. Peeling apart the program's decryption failure in a post today, Comae's Matthieu Suiche concluded a nation state attack was the only plausible explanation. "Pretending to be a ransomware while being in fact a nation state attack," Suiche wrote, "is in our opinion a very subtle way from the attacker to control the narrative of the attack." Another prominent infosec figure put it more bluntly: "There's no fucking way this was criminals." There's already mounting evidence that Petya's focus on Ukraine was deliberate. The Petya virus is very good at moving within networks, but initial attacks were limited to just a few specific infections, all of which seem to have been targeted at Ukraine. The highest-profile one was a Ukrainian accounting program called MeDoc, which sent out a suspicious software update Tuesday morning that many researchers blame for the initial Petya infections. Attackers also planted malware on the homepage of a prominent Ukraine-based news outlet, according to one researcher at Kaspersky. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Telegram will register with Russia but won't share secure data
russia - Posted On:2017-06-28 16:45:03 Source: engadget
A few days ago, we reported that Russia's communications regulator demanded that messaging app Telegram hand over information, including decrypted user messages, or risk being banned from the country. Now, Reuters reports that Telegram has agreed to register with the Russian government but will not hand over any user data or messages. Russia claims it needs information from Telegram to put the app on a list of information distributors that officially operate within the country. While Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, says that the company is happy to register, he refuses to comply with any requests that violate Telegram's confidentiality policy.\n\nThe reason behind Russia's demands? It says that terrorists have been using the Telegram app to plan attacks, including a suicide bombing in April. While Telegram has been shutting down known terrorist channels on the network, it's easy for them to create new ones.\n\nThis is just the latest conflict in the ongoing struggle between the need to protect users' privacy and a desire to crack down on terrorist communication. For now, though, it appears as though users' Telegram data is safe: Durov has been vehemently arguing in favor of privacy protection on Twitter and has made it clear the service won't compromise on this issue.
Security - Posted On:2017-06-28 16:45:00 Source: bleepingcomputer
There are early signs of a new ransomware outbreak, currently affecting a large number of countries across the globe, such as the UK, Ukraine, India, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, and others. [...]
Microsoft Will Embed EMET Into Windows 10 Starting This Fall
Security - Posted On:2017-06-28 16:45:00 Source: bleepingcomputer
After previously stating it was dropping support for EMET in July 2018, Microsoft announced yesterday plans to embed its vaunted EMET security toolkit in the Windows 10 kernel during the operating system's major update, scheduled for October-November 2017. [...]