Tech

Ransomware crooks threaten to ID informants if cops don’t pay up

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Ransomware operators have delivered a stunning ultimatum to Washington, DC’s Metropolitan Police Department: pay them $50 million or they’ll leak the identities of confidential informants to street gangs. Babuk, as the group calls itself, said on Monday that it had obtained 250GB of sensitive data after hacking the MPD network. The […]

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FCC lets SpaceX cut satellite altitude to improve Starlink speed and latency

Enlarge / A SpaceX Starlink user terminal/satellite dish. (credit: SpaceX) SpaceX today was granted permission to use a lower orbit for Starlink satellites, as regulators agreed with SpaceX that the change will improve broadband speed and latency while making it easier to minimize orbital debris. In granting SpaceX’s request, the Federal Communications Commission dismissed opposition […]

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Cable-chewing beavers take out town’s Internet in “uniquely Canadian” outage

Enlarge / A wild beaver works furiously in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. (credit: Getty Images | Jeff R Clow) About 900 Internet users in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, lost service for 36 hours when beavers chewed through an underground fiber cable in what network operator Telus called a “very bizarre and uniquely Canadian […]

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Actively exploited Mac 0-day neutered core OS security defenses

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) When Apple released the latest version 11.3 for macOS on Monday, it didn’t just introduce support for new features and optimizations. More importantly, the company fixed a zero-day vulnerability that hackers were actively exploiting to install malware without triggering core Mac security mechanisms, some that were in place for more than […]

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Pentagon explains odd transfer of 175 million IP addresses to obscure company

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Andriy Onufriyenko) The US Department of Defense puzzled Internet experts by apparently transferring control of tens of millions of dormant IP addresses to an obscure Florida company just before President Donald Trump left the White House, but the Pentagon has finally offered a partial explanation for why it happened. The […]

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Apple’s AirDrop leaks users’ PII, and there’s not much they can do about it

Enlarge (credit: Apple) AirDrop, the feature that allows Mac and iPhone users to wirelessly transfer files between devices, is leaking user emails and phone numbers, and there’s not much anyone can do to stop it other than to turn it off, researchers said. AirDrop uses Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy to establish direct connections with […]

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Apple’s ransomware mess is the future of online extortion

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson) On the day Apple was set to announce a slew of new products at its Spring Loaded event, a leak appeared from an unexpected quarter. The notorious ransomware gang REvil said they had stolen data and schematics from Apple supplier Quanta Computer about unreleased products and that they would sell the […]

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Backdoored password manager stole data from as many as 29K enterprises

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) As many as 29,000 users of the Passwordstate password manager downloaded a malicious update that extracted data from the app and sent it to an attacker-controlled server, the app maker told customers. In an email, Passwordstate creator Click Studios told customers that bad actors compromised its upgrade mechanism and used it […]

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A Clubhouse bug let people lurk in rooms invisibly

Enlarge (credit: Sam Whitney | Wired | Getty Images) “Basically, I’m going to keep talking to you, but I’m going to disappear,” longtime security researcher Katie Moussouris told me in a private Clubhouse room in February. “We’ll still be talking, but I’ll be gone.” And then her avatar vanished. I was alone, or at least […]

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Comcast touts 4Gbps cable uploads in lab test, still limits users to 35Mbps

Enlarge / Picture of a Comcast router/modem gateway from the company’s website. (credit: Comcast) Comcast today offered the latest hint of a future in which its cable customers won’t be limited to 35Mbps upload speeds. Announcing a recent lab test, Comcast said its research team “deliver[ed] upstream and downstream throughputs of greater than 4Gbps” and […]