Tag: mitigation

Apple Is Going To Make It Harder to Hack iPhones With Zero-Click Attacks

Apple is going to make one of the most powerful types of attacks on iPhones much harder to pull off in an upcoming update of iOS. From a report: The company quietly made a new change in the way it secures the code running in its mobile operating system. The change is in the beta version of the next iOS version,…

Bitcoin Surges 25% In One Week. Warren Buffett Still Won’t Buy It

Last Sunday we reported Bitcoin’s price had surged 50% in the previous month. In the week since it’s surged another 24.8%. As Bitcoin celebrates its 12th anniversary, a Forbes columnist writes that Bitcoin “soared to $34,000 yesterday — but here’s why Warren Buffett will never own Bitcoin.” Buffett has called Bitcoin, among other names, “rat poison squared” and has said he…

How the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Fought the Pandemic

In a long article titled “Gates versus the Pandemic,” Fast Company looks at the many mitigation efforts launched by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. – It’s one of the largest funders of the World Health Organization. – It’s partnered with the governments of Norway and India, the World Economic Forum, and the research-charity Wellcome Trust to launch an important group…

SolarWinds Says 18,000 Customers Were Impacted by Recent Hack

IT software provider SolarWinds downplayed a recent security breach in documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. From a report: SolarWinds disclosed on Sunday that a nation-state hacker group breached its network and inserted malware in updates for Orion, a software application for IT inventory management and monitoring. Orion app versions 2019.4 through 2020.2.1, released between March…

hCaptcha Runs On 15% Of the Internet

In a blog post, hCaptcha announced that its bot detector is running on about 15% of the internet, adding they they “took most of this market share directly from Google reCAPTCHA.” From the post: Competing with Google and other Big Tech companies seems like a tall order: their monopolistic market power, platform effects and army of highly paid developers are generally…

NSF says Arecibo telescope will be dismantled

Heartbreaking news. After 57 years as a world-class resource for astronomy, the iconic Arecibo telescope is to be decommissioned, or withdrawn from service, the NSF announced today. The dish-type radio telescope – built into a natural depression in the landscape in Puerto Rico – appears to be headed for a “controlled disassembly.” Source: https://earthsky.org/space/arecibo-telescope-to-be-decommissioned…

SpaceX Starship as a trash collector in Earth orbit?

SpaceX Starship’s many tasks may include launching humans into space, carrying satellites into orbit and — perhaps — removing troublesome pieces of space debris. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/spacex-starship-clean-up-space-junk…

Hackers Can Now Reverse Engineer Intel Updates Or Write Their Own Custom Firmware

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Researchers have extracted the secret key that encrypts updates to an assortment of Intel CPUs, a feat that could have wide-ranging consequences for the way the chips are used and, possibly, the way they’re secured. The key makes it possible to decrypt the microcode updates Intel provides to fix security vulnerabilities and…

What If the Government Ran a Social Network?

A publicly-funded social network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation “has been proposed as one possible response if Facebook and Google limit services in Australia when the mandatory news code becomes law this year,” reports the Guardian: Facebook has warned it will block Australians from sharing news if the landmark plan to make digital platforms pay for news content becomes law….