Cybersecurity is the rickety scaffolding supporting everything you do online. For every new feature or app, there are a thousand different ways it can break – and a hundred of those can be exploited by criminals for data breaches, identity theft, or outright cyber heists. Staying ahead of those exploits is a full-time job, and one of the most lucrative and sought-after skills in the tech industry. All too often, it’s something up-and-coming companies decide to skip out on, only to pay the price later on.
The feature was first piloted in the UK earlier this year, and works by automatically warning users when they launch eligible financial apps while screen sharing during calls with numbers that aren’t in the device’s contact list. The warning forces a 30-second pause period that aims to “break the spell of the scammers’ social engineering,” according to Google.
An exposed dataset from the license plate surveillance company Flock, which is known to work with the US Border Patrol and ICE via local police, showed that some of the AI annotators paid to classify American license plates are located in the Philippines.
After 404 Media contacted Flock for comment, the dataset disappeared.
The infrastructure buildout will add nearly 1.3 gigawatts of capacity for AI and cost up to $50 billion, the company said. US government customers will have access to both AWS Trainium AI chips and NVIDIA chips, and Amazon said it plans to start building the data centers in 2026.
On November 12, hackers stole account records and legal agreements from a company you’ve probably never heard of: SitusAMC. It handles commercial real estate and residential loans for the likes of JPMorgan Chase and Citi, who were among Situs’ Wall Street clients notified about the breach, the New York Times reported.
[The New York Times]
The next generation of BitLocker, Microsoft’s encryption feature in Windows, will require next-generation Windows devices that are built on unannounced chips. “Hardware acceleration of BitLock requires the capability in the silicon platform,” says Windows chief Pavan Davuluri. “As and when those capabilities are available, the OS will be able to unlock them for users.”
A new setting allows your 1Password vault to automatically unlock alongside your Mac or PC. It’s part of three new security presets rolling out now to individual and family plans — biz plans coming soon.
The browser is now better at blocking “fingerprinters” that gather information about your system to ID you, even after clearing cookies or using private browsing. Mozilla says the improvements almost halve the number of Firefox users tracked by fingerprinting, preventing websites from obtaining details about hardware specifications, touchscreen support, and dock or taskbar dimensions.
Facing waves of cuts, reassignments, and rampant politicization, CISA is staring down a diminished role in US cyber defenses.
The DOJ is charging two former ransomware negotiators at DigitalMint, along with a former incident response manager at Sygnia, for allegedly hacking and attempting to extort at least five US-based companies using ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware, as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times. The “rogue” trio allegedly got a $1.2 million ransom from one victim. DigitalMint and Sygnia say they are cooperating with the investigation.
But it doesn’t sound too worried about it. Last week the Crimson Collective group claimed to have accessed the company’s servers, but Nintendo told Japan’s Sankei Shimbun that no personal or business information appears to have leaked, with the breach seemingly limited to website servers.
Apple has updated its bug bounty program, doubling the top reward to $2 million, plus bonuses that could take payouts over $5 million, for “exploit chains that can achieve similar goals as sophisticated mercenary spyware attacks.” Apple says that’s “the largest payout offered by any bounty program” it’s aware of.
Discord updated its press release to name the third-party vendor that was compromised:
This was not a breach of Discord, but rather a breach of a third party service provider, 5CA, that we used to support our customer service efforts.
The breach may have leaked government IDs of 70,000 users.
Japan’s weekend is saved now that shipments of Asahi Super Dry have resumed following a ransomware attack that shutdown Japan’s most popular brewery last week. (Russian-speaking hacking group Qilin claimed responsibility.) There were concerns that the nation’s supply could evaporate in just a few days, but things are slowly returning to normal:
Asahi Breweries resumed production at all six of its domestic factories from October 2 and partial shipments of Asahi Super Dry has resumed. Beginning October 15, partial shipments of products including Asahi Draft Beer and Asahi Dry Zero will also resume, as part of ongoing recovery efforts.
[Asahi Group Holdings, Ltd.]
