Researchers Test UN’s Cybersecurity, Find Personal Data On 100K Employees

chicksdaddy shares a report from The Security Ledger: Independent security researchers testing the security of the United Nations were able to compromise public-facing servers and a cloud-based GitHub development account used by the U.N. and lift data on more than 100,000 staff and employees, according to a report by The Security Ledger. Researchers affiliated with Sakura Samurai, a newly formed collective…

How Will America’s Investigators Identify Capitol Hill Protesters?

“Both local police and the FBI are seeking information about individuals who were ‘actively instigating violence’ in Washington, DC, on January 6,” writes Ars Technica. Then they speculate on which tools will be used to find them:
While media organizations took thousands of photos police can use, they also have more advanced technologies at their disposal to identify participants, following what several…

Dog Domestication May Have Begun Because Paleo Humans Couldn’t Stomach the Original Paleo Diet

A new theory described today in Scientific Reports posits that hunter-gatherers whose omnivorous digestive system prevented too much protein consumption likely shared surplus meat with wolves. Those scraps may have initiated a step toward domestication. Scientific American reports: [Maria Lahtinen, a senior researcher at the Finnish Food Authority and a visiting scholar at the Finnish Museum of Natural History] did not…

Sealed US Court Records Exposed In SolarWinds Breach

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Krebs On Security: The ongoing breach affecting thousands of organizations that relied on backdoored products by network software firm SolarWinds may have jeopardized the privacy of countless sealed court documents on file with the U.S. federal court system, according to a memo released Wednesday by the Administrative Office (AO) of the U.S. Courts. The…

EPA Finalizes Rule Limiting Research Used for Public Health, Environmental Policy

The Environmental Protection Agency has finalized a rule that limits scientific research used in the crafting of public health and environmental policy. From a report: Researchers argue the rule that prioritizes studies with all data available publicly “essentially blocks” research that uses personal information and confidential medical records that can’t be released because of privacy conditions, per the New York Times,…

Farming Equipment is Beaming Back ‘Reams of Data’ To its Manufacturers

Farming equipment like combine harvesters “beam back reams of data to its manufacturer,” reports Forbes:
GPS records the combine’s precise path through the field as it moves. Sensors tally the number of crops gathered per acre and the spacing between them. On a sister machine called a planter, algorithms adjust the distribution of seeds based on which parts of the soil have…

T-Mobile Data Breach Exposed Phone Numbers, Call Records

T-Mobile has announced a data breach exposing customers’ proprietary network information (CPNI), including phone numbers and call records. From a report: Starting this week, T-Mobile began texting customers that a “security incident” exposed their account’s information. According to T-Mobile, its security team recently discovered “malicious, unauthorized access” to their systems. After bringing in a cybersecurity firm to perform an investigation, T-Mobile…

Police Turn To Car Data To Destroy Suspects’ Alibis

In recent years, investigators have realized that automobiles — particularly newer models — can be treasure troves of digital evidence. Their onboard computers generate and store data that can be used to reconstruct where a vehicle has been and what its passengers were doing. From a report: They reveal everything from location, speed and acceleration to when doors were opened and…

No leap second for December 31, 2020

World timekeepers have decreed there will be no leap second on December 31, 2020. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/leap-second-june-30-december-31-why-need-controversy…