Security News > 2021

Facebook Says Palestinian Intelligence Used Platform to Spy on Citizens
2021-04-21 18:57

Facebook said Wednesday it had disabled accounts used by the Palestinian Authority's internal intelligence organisation to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political opponents. In a report, the US social media giant also said it had identified and disabled "Politically motivated" espionage operations by a group believed to be based in Gaza and affiliated with Hamas, the Islamist rulers of the Palestinian enclave.

US Takes New Aim at Ransomware After Most Costly Year
2021-04-21 18:55

The Justice Department is taking new aim at ransomware after a year that officials say was the most costly on record for the crippling cyberattacks. Formation of a task force of FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors is an acknowledgment of the growing threat posed by ransomware attacks, in which hackers lock up computer data and demand ransom payments in order to give it back.

When cryptography attacks – how TLS helps malware hide in plain sight
2021-04-21 18:33

Ten years ago, even the biggest and most popular online services in the world, such as Facebook, Gmail and Hotmail didn't use TLS all the time - it was thought to be too complicated, too slow, and not always necessary. These days we expect our web browsing to be protected by TLS all the time.

Windows 10 Task Manager now lets you throttle resource-hungry apps
2021-04-21 18:12

Microsoft has added a new experimental 'Eco mode' feature to the Windows 10 Task Manager in the latest Preview build available for Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. Starting with Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 21364, users will see a new option added to the process context menus in the Task Manager, which allows them to throttle process resources to release memory and CPU cycles for other tasks.

Windows 10 now lets you throttle resource-hungry programs
2021-04-21 18:12

Microsoft has added a new experimental 'Eco mode' feature to the Windows 10 Task Manager in the latest Preview build available for Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. Starting with Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 21364, users will see a new option added to the process context menus in the Task Manager, which allows them to throttle process resources to release memory and CPU cycles for other tasks.

Apple supplier Quanta Computer confirms it's fallen victim to ransomware attack
2021-04-21 17:58

Quanta Computer, an ODM laptop manufacturer and prolific Apple supplier, has now confirmed that digital burglars broke into its systems. "In a statement provided to Bloomberg, Quanta said:"Quanta Computer's information security team has worked with external IT experts in response to cyber attacks on a small number of Quanta servers.

Massive Qlocker ransomware attack uses 7zip to encrypt QNAP devices
2021-04-21 17:44

A massive ransomware campaign targeting QNAP devices worldwide is underway, and users are finding their files now stored in password-protected 7zip archives. The ransomware is called Qlocker and began targeting QNAP devices on April 19th, 2021.

Linux bans University of Minnesota for committing malicious code
2021-04-21 17:08

In a rare, groundbreaking decision, Linux kernel project maintainers have imposed a ban on the University of Minnesota from contributing to the open-source Linux project. The move comes after a group of UMN researchers were caught submitting a series of malicious code commits, or patches that deliberately introduced security vulnerabilities in the official Linux codebase, as a part of their research activities.

Google fixes exploited Chrome zero-day dropped on Twitter last week
2021-04-21 17:03

Google has released Chrome 90.0.4430.85 to address an actively exploited zero-day and four other high severity security vulnerabilities impacting today's most popular web browser. PoC dropped on Twitter, zero-day fixed one week later.

How Not to Micromanage Talented Employees
2021-04-21 16:59

I have worked with many other talented individuals over the years who are equally, if not even more, capable of doing so themselves. So why is micromanagement such a common occurrence? I'm not an expert, of course, though I suspect it stems from a combination of difficulty transitioning away from being the one who gets the work done and needing to take responsibility for work you can manage but cannot control.