125581930
submission
Garabito writes:
The Department of Homeland Security has revealed that an unnamed US natural gas compression facility was forced to shut down operations for two days after becoming infected with ransomware.
The plant was targeted with a phishing e-mail, that allowed the attacker to access its IT network and then pivot to its OT (control) network, where it compromised Windows PCs used as human machine interface (HMI), data historians and polling servers, which led the plant operator to shut it down along with other assets that depended on it, including pipelines.
According to the DHS CISA report, the victim failed to implement robust segmentation between the IT and OT networks, which allowed the adversary to traverse the IT-OT boundary and disable assets on both networks.
124691072
submission
Garabito writes:
Ekans, a ransomware strain discovered last month contains the usual code for disabling data backups and mass-encrypting files on infected systems. But researchers at security firm Dragos found something else: code that actively seeks out and forcibly stops applications used in industrial control systems. Before starting file-encryption operations, the ransomware kills processes listed by process name in a hard-coded list within the encoded strings of the malware. These include: human-machine interfaces from Honeywell, Proficy Historian from General Electric, and licensing servers from GE Fanuc.
The targeted applications are used in industrial environments to monitor and control their processes and machines, and to historize process data. Having them down means a plant shutdown. This can also affect critical infrastructure, like power plants.
115151690
submission
Garabito writes:
Free Software advocate Richard M. Stallman gave a talk at Microsoft Campus yesterday. Stallman was invited by Microsoft Research.
Stallman's talk was related (as most of his talks) with Free Software, Privacy and the GPLv3. He also had a list of small requests to Microsoft: "make Github push users to better software license hygiene, make hardware manufactors to publish their hardware specs, make it easier to workaround Secure Boot."
While Microsoft has changed its attitude toward Open Source Software in the last years, this does not mean RMS has made peace with Microsoft: "If you're wondering whether Stallman's distaste for Microsoft has lessened over the years, his personal home page makes it clear that it has not".
105014012
submission
Garabito writes:
A Google internal trainning document revealed how the company instructs employees on how to treat temp, vendor and contractor (TVC) workers. This includes: "not to reward certain workers with perks like T-shirts, invite them to all-hands meetings, or allow them to engage in professional development training""Working with TVCs and Googlers is different,” the training documentation, titled the The ABCs of TVCs, explains. “Our policies exist because TVC working arrangements can carry significant risks."
The risks Google appears to be most concerned about include standard insider threats, like leaks of proprietary information, but also – and especially – the risk of being found to be a joint employer, a legal designation which could be exceedingly costly for Google in terms of benefits.
53956647
submission
Garabito writes:
"In April 2009, Australia’s then prime minister, Kevin Rudd, dropped a bombshell on the press and the global technology community: His social democrat Labor administration was going to deliver broadband Internet to every single resident of Australia. It was an audacious goal, not least of all because Australia is one of the most sparsely populated countries on Earth.
(..)
So now, after three years of planning and construction, during which workers connected some 210 000 premises (out of an anticipated 13.2 million), Australia’s visionary and trailblazing initiative is at a crossroads. The new government plans to deploy fiber only to the premises of new housing developments. For the remaining homes and businesses—about 71 percent—it will bring fiber only as far as curbside cabinets, called nodes. Existing copper-wire pairs will cover the so-called last mile to individual buildings."
24528720
submission
Garabito writes:
Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, has posted on his personal site: "As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, 'I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone.' Nobody deserves to have to die — not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing." His statement has spurred reaction from the community; some even asking to the Free Software movement to find a new voice.
17362226
submission
Garabito writes:
An error on Google Maps has caused an international conflict in Central America.
A Nicaraguan military commander, relying on Google Maps, moved troops into an area near San Juan Lake along the border between his country and Costa Rica. The troops are accused of setting up camp there, taking down a Costa Rican flag and raising the Nicaraguan flag, doing work to clean up a nearby river, and dumping the sediment in Costa Rican territory.
9285556
submission
Garabito writes:
Dick Brass, former vice-president at Microsoft, published an op-ed in The New York TImes , where he states that 'Microsoft has become a clumsy, uncompetitive innovator' and how 'it has lost share in Web browsers, high-end laptops and smartphones.'
He attributes this situation to the lack of a true system for innovation at Microsoft. Some former employees argue that Microsoft has a system to thwart innovation. He tells how promising and innovative technologies like ClearType and the original TabletPC concept become crippled and sabotaged internally, by groups and divisions that feel threated by them.
Brass states that internal competition at Microsoft has created a dysfunctional corporate culture and questions whether the company has much of a future if it doesn't regain its creative spark.
1749915
submission
Garabito writes:
A spider that had been sent to the International Space Station for a school science program was lost. The arachnid was sent in order to know if spiders can survive and makes webs in space, but now only one spider can be seen in the container. NASA isn't sure where the spider could have gone.
I for one, welcome our new arachnid overlords.
