Security News
Security policy management firm Tufin announced this week that the SecureCloud component of the Tufin Orchestration Suite now supports the Google Cloud Platform. Adding support for Google Cloud now allows Tufin customers to secure applications across the three leading cloud providers - Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
A Mozilla Foundation update to the Firefox web browser, released Tuesday, tackles one critical vulnerability and a handful of high-severity bugs. The specific critical bug in Firefox was also highlighted earlier this month in Google's Chrome browser security update, where it was rated as a high-severity flaw.
The global Google services outage yesterday was caused by the company's Identity Management System failing after a bug restricted its storage space. According to a tweet and a Google status report, the outage was caused by the company's automated quota management system reducing the amount of storage available to Google's authentication system.
Google makes its money from being the world's middle man for online advertising. The more ambitious can install software like PiHole, which sits on your home network and does the same for all traffic, if you're comfortable with setting up servers and tinkering with DNS. The more technical you are, the more options you get - although why no mainstream home router makers have put ad and track filtering in their products is slightly mystifying.
Google users are currently experiencing issues around the world, with users unable to access Gmail, YouTube, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Calendar, and other Google services. According to DownDetector and user reports, Google services are currently experiencing an outage in the U.S, Europe, and other parts of the world.
Molerats cyberespionage group has been using in recent spear-phishing campaigns fresh malware that relies on Dropbox, Google Drive, and Facebook for command and control communication and to store stolen data. Designed for cyberespionage, the malware attempts to avoid detection and takedown efforts by using Dropbox and Facebook services to steal data and receive instructions from the operators.
Some ad networks are known for ruining Google Chrome's web browsing experience with videos or large images. In September, Google announced that it will start disbanding ad iframes using too many system resources.
Google has snapped up Goldman Sachs cybersecurity veteran Phil Venables to manage security and risk for the important Google Cloud franchise. Venables, a cybersecurity leader with a storied career in the financial services sector, will be Google Cloud's first Chief Information Security Officer.
France's CNIL data privacy watchdog slapped 135 million euros in fines on US tech titans Google and Amazon for placing advertising cookies on users' computers without consent. The 100-million-euro fine against Google is the largest sanction the regulator has ever imposed, which it justified by the fact 90 percent of French internet users use the firm's search engine.
Google, which makes most of its money from online ads, insists it wants ad blockers to continue working under the latest, more locked-down iteration of its Chrome browser extension platform, known as Manifest v3. As a way to measure the problem, Alexandre Blondin, Chrome product manager, pointed out in a blog post on Wednesday that when Google integrated the Chrome Web Store with its Google Safe Browsing infrastructure, "The number of malicious extensions that Chrome disabled to protect people grew by 81 percent."