Marriott International has revealed that its Starwood Hotel reservation database has been hacked. An investigation carried out by the company revealed that hackers have had unauthorized access to the Starwood network since 2014.

The astonishing revelation means that information of half a billion guests could have been exposed -- including sensitive personal data such as home address and passport number -- and Marriott says there is evidence that data has been copied from its network.

Instagram has announced the rollout of Close Friends, a feature that makes it possible to create a list of people with whom you'd like to share Stories. This is very different to the current approach which sees Stories shared with everyone.

The feature has been beta tested for nearly a year and a half and is now ready for primetime. Rolling out to iOS and Androind in the coming days, the new feature will be welcomed by those who had concerns about privacy on Instagram.

Cybercriminals are just as keen to exploit the holiday shopping boom as anyone else, with DDoS attacks on eCommerce providers increasing by over 70 percent on Black Friday compared with other days in November. On Cyber Monday, attacks increased by 109 percent compared with the November average.

Cloud anti-DDoS company Link11 has released data showing several attacks observed during Black Friday and Cyber Monday were of up to 100 Gbps bandwidth, and the average attack volume on both days was just under 6Gbps.

There are many annoyances associated with owning a computer -- spam emails, phishing attacks, viruses and online advertising to name but a few -- but technical support scams are among the most worrying. They take advantage of people's ignorance and/or better natures, posing as tech support operatives from big companies over the phone.

Being one of the best-known technology companies in the world, it's little surprise that a huge number of these tech support scams purport to be Microsoft calling to offer help with computer problems. Such scams are responsible for conning people out of large amounts of money, but progress has been made in India where -- following reports from Microsoft -- arrests have been made at a number of call centers.

Mechanical keyboards can be great, but for a while, it felt like they were all designed for millennial gamers. Many of these keyboards look like futuristic alien devices -- chock full of multi-colored RGB lighting and textured WASD key caps. There's nothing wrong with that if you are a young gamer in his/her bedroom, but what if you are an adult professional that just wants a mechanical keyboard for typing? An appropriate product is much more elusive.

Last week, Razer launched a mechanical keyboard designed for productivity, although it could still be used for gaming, of course. Today, famed manufacturer CHERRY announces a new keyboard that focuses on work, rather than play. The "MX Board 1.0 TKL," as it is called, is both compact and affordable. Best of all, the tenkeyless keyboard features conservative dimmable white lighting -- nothing colorful or funky.

Hot on the heels of TIDAL arriving in the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 users, Plex has announced integration with the high-quality music service in its media tool.

You don't need a paid-for Plex Pass to enjoy TIDAL in Plex, but there are special subscription deals available if you do have one. There's also no need to have a server set up -- you can access TIDAL from within the Plex apps.

Americans are more worried about a cyberattack disrupting the financial and banking system than attacks against hospital/emergency services, voting systems or power grid/energy supply companies.

This is among the findings of a survey by ESET to mark National Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Month, which surveyed 1,500 Americans to discover their views on critical infrastructure attacks.

The entire point of purchasing a security suite is so you know it has your back. You want it to be assured the company has invested heavily in development to make sure it can counter the latest threats.

German-based independent security institute AV-Test regularly tests the latest security suites, pushing them through a range of measures including performance against the latest threats, plus how they impact your system. You don’t want a security suite to slow your PC.

The US Army has revealed that Microsoft has won a contract worth $480 million to supply prototype augmented reality equipment. The deal could see the Army purchasing 100,000 HoloLens headsets from the company.

Microsoft says the deal is an extension of its existing relationship with the Department of Defense. The company has previously faced criticism from its employees for bidding for military contracts, but it responded by saying it believed that those defending the US should have access to the best technology. Winning this latest contract -- the aim of which is to "increase lethality by enhancing the ability to detect, decide and engage before the enemy" -- is likely to face similar criticism.

Dell has announced that it has instigated a mandatory password reset for customers after it suffered a cyberattack earlier in the month.

In a statement, the company confirmed that its network had been subject to "unauthorized activity" on November 9 in which attackers tried to gain access to customer information. Dell says that data was limited to names, email addresses and hashed passwords, adding there is "no conclusive evidence" that data was extracted. The forced password reset is described as a measure to "limit the impact of any potential exposure".

Google's products and services can be "hit or miss." For every revolutionary offering, such as Gmail or Maps, there are utter failures such as Google+ or Glass. I don't fault the search giant for failing, however, as I appreciate its risk-taking.

One of the company's biggest successes is Google Translate. If you aren't familiar, it quite literally translates languages, helping people communicate the world over. Is it perfect? No, sometimes the translations are a bit muddied, but more often than not, the message is conveyed well enough. Today, Google announces big changes to Translate on the web. Not only is it getting prettier, but it is gaining new functionality too.

The Windows 10 October 2018 Update might be a mess, but that’s not deterring Microsoft from putting in the hours on the next big feature update -- codenamed 19H1 -- due out next spring.

The latest release to Insiders on the Fast ring is Build 18290, and it comes with a number of improvements and additions.

Windows 10 is terrible these days for many reasons. It started out pretty great, but the quality of the operating system has been rapidly declining with every passing update. The only thing seemingly worse than Windows 10 is the horrible Microsoft Store -- an embarrassing collection of low-quality apps with a handful of decent ones sprinkled in.

Earlier this year, Apple brought its popular iTunes to the Microsoft store, and today, another music app shows up there -- Tidal. Yes, rapper Jay-Z's struggling streaming music service now has an app for Windows 10 in the Microsoft Store. Does anyone really care, though?

iPhones have a tendency to hold their value more than other phones -- and it's a similar story with other Apple products. If you were thinking of upgrading your handset to one of the latest models and you're considering trading it in with Apple, you'll be pleased to hear that your old iPhone just became more valuable.

Apple is running a time-limited promotion which means you could bag yourself up to $100 extra credit when you take advantage of the Apple GiveBack program. You could earn up to $300 to put towards your next Apple device.

The use of open source components in development projects is commonplace, but vulnerabilities in these components can be easily overlooked and leave the resulting applications insecure.

Open source security and license compliance management company WhiteSource is aiming to make it easier for developers to spot problems in components with the launch of a free tool.