Security News

1. Hour One develops technologies for creating high-quality digital characters based on real people. The upshot of this is that what appears to be a real human could talk about any product or subject at all, to the point of infinite scale. Read More.

2. Microsoft announced the availability of an out-of-band update that addresses the vulnerability in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2. Read More

3. Most devices accessing the Internal Revenue Service’s internal network using wireless connections and virtual private networks weren’t authenticated, according to an audit. Read More

4. Facebook have discussed a “kill switch” to shut off political advertising after Election Day since the ads, which Facebook does not police for truthfulness, could be used to spread misinformation. Read More

5. Future Tesla cars may come with a built-in feature that can make sure no kids are inadvertently left behind in hot cars. The device uses millimeter-wave radar technology to detect movements within a vehicle and to classify its occupants. Read More

6. 67-year-old former CIA officer and FBI linguist was arrested Friday after allegedly selling U.S. government secrets to China for thousands of dollars spanning multiple years. Read More

7. YouTube banned a large number of Chinese accounts it said were engaging in “coordinated influence operations” on political issues. Read More

8. U.S. Department of State’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program will pay for info that can identify or locate someone working with or for a foreign government for the purpose of interfering with U.S. elections through certain illegal cyber activities. Read More

9. China AI chat robots can make 3,000 calls a day without getting tired or temperamental and even blocking their number won’t stop them. Read More

10. Apple accidentally approved one of the most popular Mac malware threats – OSX.Shlayer – as part of its security notarization process. Read More

Attacks / Breaches

1. Federal prosecutors have charged Uber’s former security chief, Joseph Sullivan, with obstruction of justice for attempting to hide the company’s 2016 data breach from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Read More

2. Experian has suffered a major breach of customers’ personal information, affecting an estimated 24 million South Africans and nearly 800,000 businesses. Read More

3. Credit card provider Capital One Financial Corp fined with $80 million over last year’s data breach that exposed the personal information of more than 100 million credit card applicants of Americans. Read More

4. Canon has suffered a ransomware attack that impacts numerous services, including Canon’s email, Microsoft Teams, USA website, and other internal applications. Read More

5. Ritz Hotel Data Breach Allowed Scammers to Make Expensive Purchases With Stolen Credit Card Information. Read More

6. A hacker has released the databases of Utah-based gun exchange, hunting, and kratom sites for free on a cybercrime forum. Read More

7. Havenly, a US-based interior design web site, has disclosed a data breach after a hacker posted a database containing 1.3 million user records for free on a hacker forum. Read More

8. The University of Utah was stung by cybercriminals for almost $500,000 in ransom following a July attack that gave the state’s flagship institution the choice of sacrificing private student and employee data, or paying up and hoping the information wasn’t compromised. Read More

9. Intel is investigating a security breach after earlier today 20 GB of internal documents, with some marked “confidential” or “restricted secret,” were uploaded online on file-sharing site MEGA. Read More

10. US corporate travel management firm Carlson Wagonlit Travel has suffered an intrusion, and it is believed the company paid a $4.5m ransom to get its data back. Read More