The Big Brother in your pocket: How a US company secretly tracks and rates half of the world's mobile users
Imagine a hidden system that tracks and scores you based on every phone call you make or take. It might sound like something straight out of a Black Mirror episode and remind you of China's controversial social credit system. But surprisingly, half of the world's mobile phone users are already part of a similar system, and many of them are Europeans, who are supposed to enjoy the strongest privacy protections.
NOYB, a privacy advocacy group, has filed a lawsuit against the US company TeleSign, a Belgian telecom provider BICS, and their mutual parent Proximus. They claim these companies are unauthorizedly profiling billions of phone users to assign them a 'reputation' or 'trust' score.
Facebook and Microsoft are the most popular phishing bait
A new report reveals the most impersonated brands in phishing attacks for the first half of 2023, with Facebook taking the top slot, followed by Microsoft.
The report from email security company Vade, shows Facebook accounted for 18 percent of all phishing URLs and Microsoft for 15 percent. Taken together these two accounted for more unique phishing URLs than the next top five brands combined (Crédit Agricole, SoftBank, Orange, PayPal and Apple).
How Artificial Intelligence enhances mergers and acquisitions
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how tech assets are evaluated for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) through more efficient, accurate, and predictive analyses.
M&A involves complex activities across multiple phases, requiring cohesive cooperation within a competitive timeframe. However, technologies like AI and data analytics have emerged as crucial drivers for successful M&A transactions. As Kevin Knoepp, operating partner and CTO at Trilogy Search Partners, notes, these tools significantly accelerate each step of the M&A process.
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Security teams continue to hire despite economic uncertainty
The cyber talent shortage is a greater concern for CISOs than ongoing economic uncertainty, according to the latest Information Security Maturity Report from ClubCISO and Telstra Purple.
Insufficient staff is named as the top (51 percent) concern for CISOs when asked which factors most affect their ability to deliver against their objectives.
Apple releases the first public beta of macOS Sonoma -- grab it now!
It is a little over a month since Apple made a developer beta version of macOS Sonoma available for download. Now the company has released the first public beta of the operating system, making a more stable -- but still early -- build available to a wider audience.
With the recent release of the developer beta, Apple had already dropped the requirement to have a paid-for developer account, but the fact that there were still a few hoops to jump through was off-putting to some. Now anyone with a compatible Mac is free to install the macOS Sonoma beta; here's what you need to do.
Emmy dominance by Apple TV+: Quality storytelling or Big Tech influence?
As Apple TV+ celebrates its record haul of 54 Emmy nominations across 13 Apple Originals, a deeper look into this achievement paints a rather unflattering portrait of the streaming landscape. The tech giant, not traditionally known for its entertainment content, has managed to secure the third highest number of nominations, a mere three years since its global launch. It raises questions: Have the Emmys become an echo chamber for Silicon Valley dollars? Is the true art of storytelling being overshadowed by big-budget, big-tech funded content?
A key component of this success lies in Apple's breakout hit, "Ted Lasso," which grabbed 21 nominations. However, the series has already won Emmys in its first two seasons, prompting one to wonder if Emmy voters are merely defaulting to established winners rather than seeking out new, innovative content.
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Durabook U11 rugged Windows 11 tablet gets 12th Gen Intel processor
Durabook has announced its rugged U11 Windows 11 tablet will now feature a 12th Generation Intel processor (Intel Core i7-1250U or i5-1230U). The U11's new CPU, an upgrade to Intel's Alder Lake platform, will substantially improve the device’s performance, offering up to 225 percent more speed than the previous 10th Gen CPU.
Additionally, the integration of the Coolfinity fanless thermal solution ensures the tablet operates silently while reducing downtime and repairs, thus increasing productivity. The addition of Intel Iris Xe Graphics propels the U11's computing capacity, capable of processing large volumes of data and video feeds in real-time.
Economic uncertainty drives digital transformation efforts
Enterprises plan to invest $33 million in digital transformation projects in the next 12 months, according to a survey of 600 senior IT decision makers.
But the research, from database platform Couchbase, also finds a shift in priorities. 78 percent of IT decision makers confirm their main priorities for transformation have changed in the last three years, and 54 percent say their digital transformation focus has become more reactive to market changes and customer preferences, in order to help the wider organization stay agile.
Only two percent of organizations feel confident in their cybersecurity strategies
While 75 percent of organizations have made significant strides to upgrade their infrastructure in the past year and 78 percent have increased their security budgets, only two percent of industry experts are confident in their security strategies, according to a new report.
The study, from critical infrastructure protection specialist OPSWAT, also finds most organizations have embraced public cloud hosting for their web applications, with an overwhelming 97 percent already employing or planning to implement containerization.
Hacking hybrid: Closing security gaps in a distributed workforce
When, where, and how we work has evolved. And in the past few years, the rise of flexible working patterns has helped improve employee wellbeing and created new opportunities to innovate. According to the Office of National Statistics, 44 percent of people in the UK work in a hybrid model -- making it almost as common as commuting to the office.
At the same time, these new freedoms have ushered in new priorities for security teams. Securing the enterprise is now more complex because the perimeter has become blurred. To address this, focus must be put on securing endpoints, such as PCs and printers -- the "ground zero" for most attacks. New cybersecurity strategies are needed to prevent, detect, and contain cyber-threats, but also enhance remote PC management to mitigate the risks associated with lost or stolen devices.
AI will outperform the average hacker in five years -- say hackers
The latest 'In the Mind of a Hacker' report from Bugcrowd, which includes responses from 1,000 white hat hackers across 85 countries, finds 55 percent saying that generative AI can already outperform hackers or will be able to do so within the next five years.
But despite this, hackers aren't especially worried about being replaced, with 72 percent saying that generative AI will not be able to replicate the creativity of human hackers.
Thunderbird 115 goes Supernova with brand new UI
It’s finally here. Mozilla has unveiled Thunderbird 115.0, a major new release of its open-source, cross-platform email client. The first major release since Thunderbird 102 debuted in late June 2022, Thunderbird 115 is dominated by one major new feature: A brand new user interface named Supernova.
The new Supernova user interface sees Thunderbird move away from its traditional two-pane layout with the option of a three-paned 'Vertical' layout, with the contents of the currently selected email displayed in a separate right-hand pane rather than below the message list.
Organizations lack visibility into malware attacks
While IT security leaders are concerned about attacks that use malware-exfiltrated authentication data, many still lack the necessary tools to investigate the security and organizational impact of these infections and effectively prevent follow-on attacks.
Research from cybercrime analytics company SpyCloud shows 98 percent of over 300 mid-market and enterprise IT security professionals from the US and UK surveyed say better visibility into at-risk applications would significantly improve their security posture.
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