• Article

News over the past week has been dominated by the fallout from the WannaCry ransomware. Now the hacking group that released the NSA's hacking tool kit into the wild has announced plans to start an exploit subscription service in June.

ShadowBrokers used a blog post to announce that next month will see the launch of "TheShadowBrokers Data Dump of the Month" service. Described as "being like wine of month club," such a subscription service would attract a great deal of interest from intelligence agencies and would-be hackers alike, particularly if -- as the group suggests -- it includes access to Windows 10 exploits.

Continue reading →

Webcamoid is a surprisingly versatile open-source webcam suite for Windows, Linux and Mac. Launch the program and it looks very simple. The image from the default webcam is displayed, there’s a small transparent toolbar at the bottom of the screen, and nothing else at all.

The toolbar seems basic, at least initially. There’s a Camera icon, clicking it takes a snapshot of the current screen and offers to save it as a PNG. Useful, but nothing special.

Continue reading →

In the US, May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and Facebook is using this to raise awareness of the tools it offers for those in need of help. The social network says that it wants to help people connect with the help they need to promote good mental health and well-being.

The company is also expanding its suicide prevention tools -- something it has offered for a decade now -- by working with new partners. The latest addition to the fold is The Trevor Project to help offer support to LGBTQ youth, and Facebook also says that its overall arsenal of tools has been improved by advancements in technology.

Continue reading →

Facebook is set for a potentially explosive legal case after the company was accused of stealing proprietary technology.

In a California district court, a judge has laid out a detailed timeline regarding the upcoming legal battle between Facebook and UK data center company BladeRoom over allegations that the social network stole the latter's server and rack technology for use in its own Open Compute Project.

Continue reading →

The UK government has defended the NHS's cyber-security procedures, days after a number of trusts were taken offline by the WannaCry ransomware.

Security minister Ben Wallace said that the NHS had followed "pretty good procedures" in dealing with the attack.

Continue reading →

The WannaCry/WannaCrypt ransomware attack has hit businesses and individuals hard. It has now infected and locked over 300,000 computers across more than 150 countries.

It’s the most successful -- and damaging -- cyber attack in years, despite being rather poorly executed. If you’ve wondered how much money such an attack generates we have the answer -- and it’s not as much as you might think, given the scale.

Continue reading →

There are countless gaming accessories nowadays, such as mice, keyboards, and headsets to name a few. Believe it or not, some companies even design gaming furniture. Yes, chairs designed for playing video games are a real thing. Not only are there seats for living rooms and bedrooms, but for computer desks too. Are gaming chairs gimmicky? A bit, but they are very fun too!

Today, CORSAIR releases the T1 RACE Gaming Chair. While the design is inspired by racing games, it can be sat in while playing any genre. In fact, it can serve as a normal office chair too, so you can look cool while editing spreadsheets in Excel. It is even rated for an impressive 265 pounds.

Continue reading →

While smart televisions are very common nowadays, not all are created equally. Some of them can have laggy performance and poor user interfaces. Amazon aimed to change that with its "Fire TV Edition," which integrates its quality video experience into the television itself -- no need to add a dongle or box. This is clearly designed to compete with Roku's similar integrated platform.

Today, Element Electronics announces the first ever models of televisions with the aforementioned Amazon Fire TV Edition experience. What makes these sets particularly special, however, is that they also offer 4K UHD resolution. You can even access the Alexa assistant using the included voice remote.

Continue reading →

Just a couple of weeks since a leak of season five of Orange is the New Black was held to ransom, the same is now happening with the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean 5. Yesterday Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that hackers had stolen one of the company's movies, and it has since transpired that it is the upcoming Johnny Depp flick.

Subtitled "Dead Men Tell No Tales", Pirates of the Caribbean 5 is due to hit the big screen next week, and hackers are demanding a ransom from Disney to avert a leak ahead of the official launch. This is the latest move in the world of piracy that shows a marked shift from the previous aim of release groups simply wanting to be the first to push out a decent quality rip of a movie.

Continue reading →

The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ are two amazing flagships, and, if you're an UK owner, you will like Samsung's latest high-end smartphones even more, as Samsung Pay support is now available.

Samsung Pay arrives in the UK well after Android Pay, which Google introduced a year ago. But, as the saying goes, better late than never. The mobile payments service lets you "make purchases almost anywhere contactless debit cards or credit cards are accepted."

Continue reading →

The weakest point in any network is usually the endpoint, so effective protection measures are essential to fend off cyber attacks.

Security specialist Guidance Software is launching an updated version of its EnCase Endpoint Security solution aimed at providing enhanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities for businesses.

Continue reading →

E-signature and security firm DocuSign has confirmed a data breach in which attackers gained access to a database containing customer email addresses. The company says that no other data was revealed in the security breach, but it led to a large phishing campaign.

Attackers used the stolen email addresses to spam people with emails containing an infected Microsoft Word document. The company insists that its core service remains secure, but coming in the wake of the WannaCry ransomware attack, people around the world are on high alert.

Continue reading →

Just a few days ago, the BBC revealed that it was planning to introduce password checks for iPlayer users so it could ensure that a valid TV license is in place. Following on from this, the corporation has updated its Privacy and Cookies Policy.

The changes mean that personal information is shared with TV Licensing to check whether individuals have paid for a license. The BBC also says that it will use the personal data it collects to deliver "relevant advertising" on the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Continue reading →

Privacy Repairer is a portable tool for viewing and managing Windows 10 telemetry and privacy settings.

There’s now almost a whole sub-genre of software doing more or less the same thing, but Privacy Repairer has more than enough extra power and detail to justify its tiny download.

Continue reading →

In any organization teams often waste valuable time requesting, tracking and chasing documents. In the process they can run up against file size and mailbox limitations as well as trying to track who holds and has sent which files.

To help with all this, collaboration specialist Huddle is launching a new File Request feature designed to make the collection of files more secure, and up to 80 percent more efficient.

Continue reading →