Tag Archive for: ‘totally

The FBI Is Hacking Into Private Computers, But It’s Totally Fine

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a sign on the side of a building: The FBI Is Hacking Into Private Computers, But It’s Totally Fine

© Getty Images
The FBI Is Hacking Into Private Computers, But It’s Totally Fine



a sign on the side of a building: Indianapolis - Circa June 2017: Federal Bureau of Investigation Indianapolis Div

© Getty Images
Indianapolis – Circa June 2017: Federal Bureau of Investigation Indianapolis Div

The government got a judge to authorize the effort to remove malicious code from the Exchange Server hack.

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Early this year, a group of hackers associated with the Chinese government, known as Hafnium, exploited a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Exchange Server. The attack allowed them to gain access to over 60,000 servers, including those of major corporations and banks.

This attack is separate from the SolarWinds hack that affected thousands of customers last year through a backdoor vulnerability in the company’s software. In that case, a Russian group was able to piggyback on SolarWinds’ software, which–when installed via an update on client networks–allowed the hackers to deploy malicious code. In that case, Microsoft worked with Fire Eye to cut off the attack by sink-holing the domain used to receive further instructions.

INC. TODAY’S MUST READS: New Research: Status Reports Can Make Teams Less Effective

This attack was different, in that it took advantage of a known security flaw that affected on-premises exchange servers. Known as a zero-day attack, hackers were able to exploit the vulnerability without any interaction from the user, and without them knowing that malicious code had been placed on the server. The breach was so widespread that the Biden administration called for a “whole of government response.”

It appears Microsoft was first notified of the problem in January, but did not release a patch until March. That was also the first time the issue was acknowledged publicly. During that time, hackers had access to sensitive information at thousands of companies, government agencies, and other organizations.

Since then, many were able to patch the flaw and remove malicious code, known as web shells. Some users, however, had yet to mitigate the attack. Even if they had installed the patch, the government said that a few hundred organizations had not removed the web shells from infected servers.

INC. TODAY’S MUST READS: How to Stay Innovative During Times of…

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Your pets and you will totally love these product designs: Part 4

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If you own a pet, you know they are the true masters of our home, and we are their abiding slaves, tending to their every need, always at their beck and call! They’re the apple of our eyes, and we would do almost anything to keep them happy and comfy,  including showering them with fun little products, that they can play around with and keep themselves busy! From an indoor game for your doggo to a robot companion for your cat, we’ve curated a collection of exciting, functional, and entertaining pet products that your pets and you will totally love! These are products that help you bond with your pets, and spend that extra special quality time with them. Your pets will thank you for these!

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In all the desk designs I’ve seen over the years, this is a first for me! It’s called ‘Ascend’ and it’s been created by Dan Devine for all the cat ladies and fellas out there. Like any cat person will tell you, the moment you give attention to anything but your furry friend, they’ll find a way to lounge on your keyboard or knock over your utensils until it’s back on them! Designed with this in mind, the wood desk has been crafted with multiple ramps and landings for cats to perch up and play. If you can’t fight ’em, invite ’em!

Simple and elegant, the Leaf transforms any plastic bottle you may have lying around into a doggy drinking apparatus. Perfect for those dog walks, the Leaf retrofits onto any regular PET (PolyEthylene Terephthalate) bottle with the standard 28mm diameter threaded neck. Made out of food-grade silicone, the leaf wraps around the bottle, and when flipped over (dog-eared, if you will), becomes a bowl for your dog to drink water from. The cupped leaf along with the reinforcing silicone veins give the dog a vessel to drink out of. Once done, the leaf can be folded back to wrap around the bottle. The leaf can also aid in easy bottle filling by acting as a funnel!

The Circle Zero from PLUTO is a smart litter box that takes care of your cat’s business. Designed to be fully automated, fully enclosed, and exceptionally silent, the litter box comes with a completely enclosed design to provide a private experience. Sensors on the box detect the…

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Graham Cluley on the Totally Unprepared Politics podcast

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Just before the UK’s General Election in December, I recorded an interview with the “Totally Unprepared Politics” podcast.

Thanks to Adill Al-ashgar for inviting me on the show. And don’t worry, although we do touch on some politics, it’s mostly about cybersecurity.

Graham Cluley

Sony: We Are Totally Open For Crossplay, Game Developers: No, You Totally Are Not

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It’s a really dumb saga that has gone on for far too long, but Sony has built for itself a public history of not allowing gamers to cross-play multiplayer games on their Playstations with players on other consoles. This is all an attempt to get Playstation owners to convince their friends to also buy Playstations so that they can game together, which is exactly the kind of protectionist hardball that makes Sony, you know, Sony. The backlash against Sony last summer was bad enough that Microsoft and Nintendo, rivals in the console space, decided to put out joint advertisements together along with a social media campaign essentially trolling Sony over the issue, while pointing out to gamers worldwide that owners of Nintendo and Xbox consoles very much could play with one another.

In one of the all-time underwhelming responses to a PR crisis in the history of gaming, Sony did enable crossplay… for exactly two games. Fortnite and Rocket League have crossplay enabled, but literally nothing else. Which made it somewhat baffling that the Chairman of Sony Interactive managed to claim in a recent interview that the lack of crossplay at this point was all the developers’ fault.

“People keep saying, ‘Why doesn’t Sony allow more people to have it,’” Sony’s Shawn Layden told Game Informer. “All it takes is for publishers and developers who wish to permission it. As ever, just work with your PlayStation account manager, and they will walk you through the steps that we’ve learned through our partnership with Epic on how this works. I don’t believe right now there is any gating factor on that. I think they’re open to make proposals, because the Fortnite thing worked pretty well.”

It’s a striking claim in many ways. First, the inclusion of a phrase like “as ever” must surely be infuriating to any developer or gamer who knows the history of crossplay on Sony’s hardware. It’s not “as ever.” At best, it’s “as very, very recently.” Second, the claim makes no sense. Developers and publishers across the spectrum have managed to get crossplay enabled on Xbox and Nintendo hardware, but the claim is that they’ve just been too lazy to do so with Sony? All while they’re screaming that they want their games to be crossplay enabled? Come on.

And it’s not just me saying so. Layden’s comments were met with immediate backlash from developers.

Finn Brice, the CEO of Chucklefish, which developed and published the recent Advance Wars-inspired hit Wargroove, took issue with Layden’s characterization in a thread about the interview on the gaming forum ResetEra.

“We made many requests for crossplay (both through our account manager and directly with higher ups) all the way up until release month,” Brice wrote. “We were told in no uncertain terms that it was not going to happen.”

Wargroove is currently available, with cross-play, on Switch, Xbox One, and PC. The game is slated to launch later this year on PlayStation 4. Brice added that while it might be more complicated from a policy standpoint on PlayStation’s part, for Chucklefish, implementing cross-play is as easy as flipping a switch, something people have speculated about ever since Fortnite maker Epic Games accidentally enabled cross-play between Xbox One and PS4 back in September of 2017.

In other words, Sony is Sonying all over this. Why in the world this kind of comment should be thought to do anything other than anger both gamers and game developers alike is beyond me. Blame developers for your own protectionist behavior that refuses what your own customers want? That’s ballsy, even for Sony.

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