Sore head after the weekend? Yep, us too. The football may have overshadowed some big tech news – so that’s why we’re here, to keep you up to date! Read on for the latest in tech…
About 200 US businesses have been hit by a "colossal" ransomware attack, according to a cyber-security firm.
Huntress Labs said the hack targeted Florida-based IT company Kaseya before spreading through corporate networks that use its software. Kaseya said in a statement on its own website that it was investigating a "potential attack".
Huntress Labs said it believed the Russia-linked REvil ransomware gang was responsible.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, a federal agency, said in a statement that it was taking action to address the attack.
The cyber-breach emerged on Friday afternoon as companies across the US were clocking off for the long Independence Day weekend.
"This is a colossal and devastating supply chain attack," Huntress Labs' senior security researcher John Hammond said in an email to Reuters news agency.
Dating scams surged during the lockdowns, with Which? reporting a 40% rise in cases involving people being tricked into transferring money to people they met online. In one man’s case, instead of asking for financial help the man he met persuaded him to sign up to an fake investment.
First he was persuaded to set up an account with Binance and pay in £500. Binance is a cryptocurrency exchange. His first payment on a Wednesday night was followed by more on Sunday and Monday, totalling £12,000. Each time the fraudster walked him through moving the money and “investing” it, and the screen appeared to show him making money and being free to transfer it back to Binance.
But after the transfer on Monday things started to unravel. His “account” on the trading site stopped working and “David” told him to contact its customer services. When he did he was told his account had been blocked and he needed to pay a 50% deposit of his account balance to unlock the funds.
He suspected something was wrong, but “after an anxious 24 hours” decided to pay the fine. Then he tried to withdraw his money, just as he had been shown, but to no avail. A call to “customer services” resulted in another request for cash. “At this stage I was absolutely distraught and knew that I had been scammed.”
The man said about the incident: “The police have said they do not have enough evidence to investigate and Grindr, Binance and my bank have all refused to investigate further. I feel a huge sense of injustice and this person is free to scam others – that’s what really hurts about this situation.”
Microsoft’s so-called blue screen of death (BSoD) will turn black in the new Windows 11 operating system, according to those with access to a preview of the software.
The screen appears when users have a problem on their computer, often prompting a restart.
A black background will replace blue, matching the logon and shutdown screens in the new system, the Verge reported.
The BSoD allows IT professionals to diagnose hardware and memory issues. It usually includes information and data that can help to analyse what problem caused the screen to appear.
In 2016, a QR code was added to it which users can scan to find out more information about the fault.
Windows 8 also added an unhappy face to the screen in 2012.
Photos of the new screen suggest both the QR code and :( symbol will remain on the black version.
A home filled with smart devices could be exposed to thousands of hacking or unknown scanning attacks in a single week, according to a report.
Homes in the UK have an average of more than 10 different connected devices, from televisions to thermostats.
But, while these products have benefits, they can also be a potential target for hackers.
Consumer publication Which? set up a fake home with connected products bought online, including smart TVs, printers, wireless security cameras, and wifi kettles.
They were then connected to the internet, exposing them to cyber threats and malware.
Working with cyber security specialists NCC Group and the Global Cyber Alliance, Which? saw 1,017 unique scans or hacking attempts from around the world in just the first week, with at least 66 of these being malicious.
An NFT of the original source code for the world wide web, written by its inventor Tim Berners-Lee, has sold for $5.4m at Sotheby’s in an online auction, the auction house said on Wednesday.
A non-fungible token (NFT) is a kind of crypto asset that records ownership of digital items, and has recently become a major asset in the creative world, with NFTs of artwork, music and internet memes selling for millions of dollars.
The NFT sold on Wednesday was created by the English scientist Berners-Lee in 2021 and represents ownership of various digital items from when he invented the world wide web in 1989.
The sale effectively comprises a blockchain-based record of ownership of files containing the original source code for the world wide web. The final price was $5,434,500 and half of the bidders were new to Sotheby’s.
