A new data wiper is discovered, patches for Lexmark printers and BIND are issued and more.

Welcome to Cyber Security Today. It’s Monday, January 30th, 2023. I’m Howard Solomon, contributing reporter on cybersecurity for ITWorldCanada.com and TechNewsday.com in the U.S.

Attention Windows administrators: If you aren’t already doing so, make sure your Active Directory is completely locked down. Hackers believed to be from Russia’s Sandworm group have a new data-wiping malware that gets distributed through Active Directory’s Group Policy. Researchers at ESET discovered this new strain after a cyber attack last week against a target in Ukraine. ESET calls this destructive malware SwiftSlicer. Among the ways to protect Active Directory are to limit the number of people who can access it, and make sure those who do have access use strong passwords, multifactor authentication and if possible hardware keys. Make sure these people are reminded not to fall for phishing scams claiming to be from the IT or support staff checking their credentials. Domain controllers also need to be secured the same way. For more advice from Microsoft on securing AD click here.

Attention network administrators using the open-source BIND 9 suite for domain controllers. The Internet Systems Consortium has issued advisories for four high severity vulnerabilities. They need to be addressed by installing the latest versions of the suite.

More on patches: Lexmark has warned a server-side request forgery vulnerability has been discovered in over 100 newer models of its printers. Patches are available for certain models of CX, XC, MX, MB and other printers.

Attention VMware administrators: Make sure the four fixes issued last week for the vRealize log analysis tool are installed fast. That’s because security researchers at Horizon3 are about to release an exploit showing how three of the vulnerabilities can be chained together to get into vRealize. Once hackers see a possible exploit they are fast to create a working one.

Last week’s dismantling of the IT infrastructure supporting the Hive ransomware gang was cheered by infosec pros. It shows the effective work of law enforcement around the world. Here’s another possible sign: The number of exchanges threat actors use to cash out ransomed or stolen cryptocurrency is dropping. Reporters at Wired noticed this fact in the annual crime report by researchers at Chainlysis. It counted only 915 cash-out services last year. That sound huge. But 68 per cent of all black market cash-outs are going through just five cryptocurrency exchanges. Chainalysis thinks this shows the international crackdown on money laundering is having an effect.

Here’s another reminder that hackers don’t necessarily strike fast if they get past your initial security controls. The Los Angeles Unified School District has revised the timeline for the ransomware attack it suffered last September. Initially the district said the attack took place over the Labor Day weekend. Now it says the intrusion started as early as July 31st and ended on September 3rd. This is another example of why constant monitoring and scanning for suspicious network activity is vital.

Finally, periodically cybersecurity companies issue warnings about vulnerabilities in internet-connected industrial control systems, or ICS. But the head of one vendor that sells ICS solutions warns patching vulnerabilities in this gear should be prioritized in the same way fixes for IT equipment are installed: Ask if the vulnerability is currently being used in an attack, and if the vulnerability could cause the company damage. If the answer to both questions is yes, address those vulnerabilities first. “There have been zero known ICS vulnerabilities leveraged in any ICS cyberattack,” says Robert Lee, chief executive of Dragos. There’s too much pressure on companies to patch everything fast, he said. Then there’s this memorable quote: “I have responded to more IT people taking down plants through patching than Russia, China and Iran combined.” Think about it.

Remember links to details about podcast stories are in the text version at ITWorldCanada.com. U.S. listeners can also find my stories on TechNewsDay.com.

Follow Cyber Security Today on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or add us to your Flash Briefing on your smart speaker.

The post Cyber Security Today, Jan. 30, 2023 – A new data wiper discovered, patches for Lexmark printers and BIND are issued and more first appeared on IT World Canada.

Big Tech forced to react and ignore safety as ChatGPT gains foothold, Intel reports historically bleak earnings and China’s top nuclear weapons uses American chips.

That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Monday, January 30, and I am your host, Ashee Pamma.

According to a report by the Washington Post, ChatGPT’s growing popularity is forcing Big Tech to move faster and potentially ignore safety concerns with new AI technologies. At Meta, employees have recently shared internal memos urging the company to speed up its AI approval process to take advantage of the latest technology. Google, which helped pioneer some of the technology underpinning ChatGPT, recently issued a “code red” around launching AI products and proposed a “green lane” to shorten the process of assessing and mitigating potential harms, according to a report in the New York Times. A Google employee said that people feel like OpenAI is newer and fresher, more exciting and has fewer sins to pay for and they can get away with this now. Meta’s Blenderbot and Galactica and Microsoft’s Tay either folded or gained low public interest after their launch. Microsoft seemingly has resorted to  embracing ChatGPT with its recent 10 billion investment in OpenAI and announcements to integrate the AI into its services.

Source: Washington Post

Intel saw $8 billion wiped off its market value on Friday after the U.S. chipmaker reported historic dismal earnings projections, as the personal-computer market faces an unprecedented slump. Its revenue forecast was also $3 billion below estimates as it struggled with slowing growth in the data center business. Intel shares closed 6.4% lower, while rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O) and Nvidia (NVDA.O) ended the session up 0.3% and 2.8%, respectively. Reuters reported that Intel has been losing market share to rivals which have used contract chipmakers such as Taiwan-based TSMC to make chips that outpace Intel’s technology. Analysts also claim that AMD data center chips have a strong price-performance advantage compared to Intel’s processors which would further drive down its share gains.

Source: Reuters

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, China’s top nuclear weapons research institute has bought sophisticated U.S. computer chips, despite long standing export restrictions aimed at limiting the use of any U.S. products for atomic-weapons research by foreign powers. A Journal review of research papers published by the China Academy of Engineering Physics  CAEP, one of the first Chinese institutions put on the U.S. blacklist, found that at least 34 over the past decade referenced using American semiconductors in the research. Most of the chips procured by the academy ranged in size from 7 nanometers to 14 nanometers, many of which are difficult for China to mass produce. They are widely available on the open market. Versions of Intel’s Xeon Gold and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX chips purchased by CAEP can be bought off Taobao, one of China’s largest e-commerce marketplaces.

Source: WSJ

Decreased advertising spend and revenue is driving the mass layoffs, a report by The Conversation revealed. Advertising revenue decreased last year – in part due to fears over a global recession triggered by the pandemic, leading to decreased expenditure on staffing. Large numbers of employees have been laid off from major tech companies, since the end of the pandemic hiring spree,  including Alphabet (12,000 employees), Amazon (18,000), Meta (11,000), Twitter (4,000), Microsoft (10,000) and Salesforce (8,000). The report reveals that these figures don’t include the downstream layoffs, such as advertising agencies laying off staff as ad spend reduces, or manufacturers downsizing as tech product orders decrease– or even potential layoffs yet to come. This does not mean much for consumers or the overall economy as work on tech products and services is still expanding, and layoffs, though striking, still represent a fraction of the total tech workforce.

Source: The Conversation

Microsoft is seeking to redesign and introduce a more touch-friendly navigation interface to the File Explorer app in Windows 11, according to a report from Windows Central. The new Explorer will reportedly have better photo viewing with larger previews, keyword and color tagging for organizing files as well as tighter integration with Microsoft 365 and OneDrive. An internal mock-up of the new interface features a new “recommended” section of files alongside the existing areas for pinned and recent files, with large previews of various documents and information about where the files are located (OneDrive, SharePoint, and the local Downloads folder are all listed). The new look will also come with “more modern code” under the hood, Ars Technica wrote.

Source: Ars Technica

That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. Also, catch the next episode of Hashtag Tendances, our weekly Hashtag Trending episode in French, which drops every Thursday morning. If you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, I’m Ashee Pamma.

The post Hashtag Trending January 30- Big Tech face pressure over AI; Intel’s devastating earnings call; American computer chips for China’s nuclear weapons first appeared on IT World Canada.

The idea of whether human like intelligence can be achieved using a compute simulation or Artificial Intelligence is not a new question. But how would we know when a computer had achieved human-like intelligence? Alan Turing, the man many consider to be the father of modern digital computing posited a solution to this question decades before digital computing became ubiquitous in our world. Turing created the machines that cracked the German codes in World War II. He died in 1954, two years before I was born. Turing posed a test to determine if a computer could be classed as intelligent. It came to be known as the Turing test

“At it’s essence, the Turing test is test for intelligence in a computer, requiring that a human being should be unable to distinguish the machine from another human being by using the replies to questions put to both.”

We know computers excel at calculations. But can they reason?

In 1997, an IBM computer called Deep Blue beat the world chess champion, Garry Kasparov. In 2013, another IBM computer, named Watson, beat two Jeopardy champions Despite those accomplishments, no-one claimed that they had passed the Turing test.

But in 2014 it was reported that a chatbot passed the test at an event held at the university of Reading, it was developed by 3 Russian programmers and was called “Eugene Goostman”.

We all saw a demo a few years back where’s Google’s AI ran a chat where it carried on a realistic conversation. Reportedly, Google’s Deep Mind later fooled at least one of its engineers who declared it “sentient”.

For the past few weeks, our imagination has been captivated by an artificial intelligence bot called ChatGPT. It’s a surprisingly realistic AI that can write write computer programs, answer questions and even write poetry and songs. There has been the requisite hysteria – will humans be replaced by it?

To sort out the hype and to figure out where things go from here, I invited Josh Tyson, co-author of the Age of Invisible Machines to talk about ChatGPT and the future of AI in business.

We covered serious topics and Josh had a unique view of how we should see Artificial Intelligence, but we also had some fun with this using ChatGPT to write parts of the script for this episode.

As always, if you have any comments or suggestions for guests and topics, we’d love to hear from you.

The post Hashtag Trending Weekend Edition, January 27, 2023 – Josh Tyson, co-author of bestseller, “Age of Invisible Machines” first appeared on IT World Canada.

There was no shortage of advice, updates and points to ponder for upwards of 200 attendees at a panel discussion held earlier this month at a virtual three-day conference called Quantum Days 2023.

The panel, moderated by Prof. Raymond Laflamme, a leading Canadian theoretical physicist who studied for his PhD under Stephen Hawking and currently teaches at the University of Waterloo, also contained an update and discussion on another panel of which he is chair of – The Expert Panel on Quantum Technologies.

In May, it was announced that, at the request of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) had formed a panel to “examine the impacts, opportunities and challenges quantum technologies present for Canadian industry, governments and Canadians.”

Laflamme said at the time that “quantum technologies have the potential to transform computing, sensing, communications, healthcare, navigation and many other areas. But a close examination of the risks and vulnerabilities of these technologies is critical.”

At this month’s event, he was joined by Jeff Kinder, project director of quantum technologies with the CCA, an organization that says it evaluates the “best available evidence on complex issues where the science may be challenging to understand, contradictory, or difficult to assemble,” as well as Dr. Jacqueline Bartlett, an associate professor from Memorial University, and Prof. Mauritz Kop, both of whom are members of the Expert Panel.

Kinder said that in addition to answering “a fairly broad main question about the opportunities and challenges of quantum technologies, there are three sub questions that provide a tighter focus for the assessment. These ask about leading practices and enabling conditions for the adoption of quantum technologies, as well as the social, ethical, and legal challenges associated with their adoption.”

Panel members, said Bartlett, who has worked with entrepreneurs and small businesses in the technology sector for 25 years, are examining quantum from a number of different lenses.

Describing it as a “bird level view,” she said they are “looking at programs, initiatives, policies, all the things you can imagine. What collaborations would really help drive the different sectors that we’re looking at, but equally important, is there any low-hanging fruit that we can get some early wins and if so, where are they? What are the priorities and are there preconditions that we have to meet before we can actually set some of the programs in place?”

While Bartlett’s expertise revolves around entrepreneurship, Kop, who is a visiting scholar at Stanford Law School and whose current research includes the ethical, legal, social, and policy implications (ELSPI) of quantum, spoke at length about the importance of having guidelines in place.

“Raising quantum ELSPI awareness is really about building bridges between disciplines – hard science, humanities and social sciences – and it’s about learning to speak each other’s language,” he said.

“We should apply a comprehensive quantum ELSPI vision to the Canadian quantum sector. Therefore, it’s a promising sign that Canada’s National Quantum Strategy explicitly mentions, in its own words, the importance of ethical, legal, social, and policy issues, such as innovation, societal impacts, national security, and intellectual property.”

Some questions to consider, said Kop, whose work on regulating AI, machine learning training data, and quantum technology have been published in Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley, and Yale universities’ scholarly journals, revolve around how to “operationalize quantum ethics into real world actions. Should we use codes of conducts and guidelines for responsible quantum design? And how do you agree on ethics, which is, of course, culturally sensitive.

“For example, while Western ideologies often focus on winning and conquering, native Canadians’ world view might emphasize living in harmony with our planet. It is a big difference.”

One of the central goals in the quantum ELSPI is for everyone to benefit from the prosperity quantum will bring to society, said Kop, but he wonders how we ensure equitable access.

Another key question that needs to be answered, he added, is will ELSPI considerations stifle innovation? Kop’s view is they will not: “They enable innovation, they convey trust, which is crucial for the acceptance of this technology.

“And one of the central goals in the quantum ELSPI concept is for everyone to benefit from the prosperity quantum will bring to society. But how do we ensure equitable access to quantum technologies such as the Imminent Internet for the least advantaged, either via fiber or satellite?

“I mean, Canada is a huge country. And we have to carefully think about the logistics and practicalities of access, not just talking about it, but doing it.”

In closing, he told the audience they can expect regulation on a federal level within the next three years, “so it might be good to start thinking about regulatory conformity and legal compliance today.”

The post Quantum Days 2023: CCA Expert Panel examining quantum through multitude of different lenses first appeared on IT World Canada.

At the recent Quantum Days 2023 panel that explored the inner workings of The Expert Panel on Quantum Technologies, a series of poll questions were sent to the audience following its completion that revolved around everything from what sectors are most likely to be early adopters to how Canada stacks up when it comes to salary compensation.

In terms of early adopters, respondents indicated that the top four would be Scientific Research, Defence/Space, Chemistry and Materials Science, and Telecommunications.

The compensation question, which asked for a true/false answer, read: “In Canada, but outside of academia, compensation for jobs requiring quantum expertise is keeping pace with other nations.” Upwards of 56 per cent of respondents said that statement was false, with the remainder saying it was true.

Expert Panel member Dr. Jacqueline Bartlett, an associate professor from Memorial University, described the response as an “early wake-up call. Over half of the people do not think that we are keeping up with the compensation that other countries are offering. I think that is an important indicator of things to come if we don’t change that.”

Mauritz Kop, a visiting scholar at Stanford Law School, who is also a member of the panel, warned that “you want to avoid a brain drain at all costs, so staying competitive is really important.”

And Prof. Raymond Laflamme, a leading Canadian theoretical physicist who currently teaches at the University of Waterloo and is chair of the panel, warned that “Canada is not the only country with a national strategy.

“In the last six or seven years it has become to lot harder, even in academia, to recruit people. For start-ups and the industry as a whole, it will be the same thing. As Jacqueline said, this is a red flag and it is something that we need to think about carefully and plan for the future to ensure that the ‘false’ answers don’t grow.”

The post Quantum Days 2023 poll examines salary compensation issues first appeared on IT World Canada.

Tensions were running high in the House of Commons Wednesday, as the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology (INDU) conducted hearings examining the proposed Rogers-Shaw merger. Academics and representatives from independent internet service providers (ISPs) TekSavvy and Globalive lambasted the C$26 billion merger deal, while the merging parties attacked rivals and mechanically parroted their own ideas of public interest and competition.

Witnesses opposing the merger included Ben Klass, senior research associate at the Canadian Media Concentration Research Project, Anthony Lacavera, chairman of Globalive, and Andy Kaplan-Myrth, vice-president, regulatory and carrier affairs at TekSavvy.

From Klass’ point of view, the Rogers outage should have served as a wake-up call that ‘bigger is not always better,’ especially when it comes to essential services on which we depend everyday. He questioned whether the priority in Canada is to promote competition or to cater to big businesses who wish to control crucial markets.

“How do we get back to the basics of competition and good prices in this market? And one of the answers to that is removing the dominance of the original providers,” he said. “These are companies that have been in the market for 30 years – Rogers, Telus, Bell – and they are firmly in control of it. They’ve maintained a 90 per cent share over even the 10 years of the fourth carrier policy. So I think it’s very important that you have a competitor that’s not reliant in this way on one of the dominant providers.”

Lacavera also pushed his own ambitions for a competitive wireless market, which he tried to re-enter with a bid to re-acquire Freedom Mobile (previously Globalive-owned WIND mobile, sold to Shaw in 2015) after the Rogers-Shaw announcement. He claimed that he offered C$900 million more than Rogers accepted from Videotron. “In no universe does it make sense for a company like Rogers to be able to select who their competitor is going to be, and then prop them up with a series of commercial agreements that now may actually be in violation of the Telecom Act.”

But Tony Staffieri, chief executive officer of Rogers, argued that the ‘lengthy judicial process’ is adequate to prove that the merger will not lessen competition, and in fact will increase competition. “It was far from a close case, this committee can feel satisfied that no stone was left unturned.”

‘Investments’ was equally a buzzword for the merging parties, and seemingly their way out to address every competition concerns brought up by community members. “We invest in networks. And in terms of affordability, we get up every day looking for more value add for our customers,” said Staffieri. He added that Rogers will be injecting C$6.5 to improve connectivity over the next five years: C$1 billion to connect rural and Indigenous communities, C$2.5 billion to expand its 5G network and C$3 billion in network services.

Staffieri also claimed that 3000 jobs will be created at Rogers, which a committee member questioned, having heard from company insiders that 4000-5000 people will be cut. Staffieri responded, “There will be areas that have overlap. And we will look to redeploy resources in areas that are growing.”

Furthermore, Paul McAleese, president of Shaw Communications, maintained that Rogers will never own Freedom Mobile and that there will continue to be four strong wireless competitors in each of British Columbia, Ontario and Alberta. “The dynamic, newly empowered Freedom-Vidéotron will have more than doubled the customer base with over three million subscribers and have all of the tools it requires to compete against the national carriers, including, critically, the 5G spectrum that Shaw does not possess.”

McAleese also proceeded to accuse Telus, along with Globalive, of undertaking a corporate campaign called Project Fox to “kill, shape and slow” the proposed transactions, and to replace Vidéotron with Globalive in the purchase of Freedom Mobile. He added that Telus does not in fact want competition in Western Canada, where it is the dominant provider.

“Project Fox is a blatant example of Telus’, shall we say, toxic and Machiavellian tactics, which include increased litigation, underhanded misinformation campaigns, and intensive lobbying to stoke opposition, while seeking, among other things, to alienate Western Canada from eastern Canada.” said McAleese.

McAleese also claimed that Lacavera, who he referred to as ‘Pinocchio’, has a dubious record in running a wireless company and that he inherited many challenges when Shaw purchased WIND mobile.

Lacavera probably saw the accusations coming and addressed the 2015 sale of WIND mobile to Shaw at the very outset of the hearings, noting, “We did not want to sell, we were dragged into a sale to Shaw. The business was doing fantastic as an independent pureplay. Our business model was validated, and Canadians were voting with their feet; we had almost a million subscribers. We voted against selling.” But he did not explain why and how the sale proceeded regardless.

Regarding allegations of conspiracy with Telus, Lacavera said; “I’m 50 years old, and I’ve never worked for anyone, yet. I’m not about to start working for anyone. So there’s no scenario where Globalive is in bed with Telus.”

Instead he claimed his association with Telus stops at a shared network agreement. “We’ve contributed spectrum that we own into the mix, and contribute to radio networks that we own on a shared basis with Telus.

Kaplan-Myrth detailed the difficulties of an independent ISP trying to survive in a telecom oligopoly. “TekSavvy is losing customers and has had to put investment plans on hold, including plans to purchase spectrum,” he said. “The wholesale regime is failing, and consumers have been paying the price. Internet prices in Canada continued to rise, including 13 per cent annual increases for some of the most popular speeds.”

The competitive power of Vidéotron was also put under scrutiny, as opposing witnesses alleged that the Québec-based carrier is receiving lower preferential rates and terms from Rogers to let it appear as a credible competitor. Without these favourable rates (likely illegal under the Telecommunications Act, witnesses noted), Vidéotron will be unable to support competition and hence fails as a remedy for the Roger-Shaw deal to proceed.

“Vidéotron is going to need those preferred rates in order to compete outside of its core cable footprint. They have the benefit of network in Quebec, they don’t have the benefit of any brand equity or any network outside of Quebec,” stated Kaplan-Myrth.

This question of illegal preferential rates warrants the interference of the CRTC before  Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne makes his decision, TekSavvy believes.

Minister Champagne said in an interview with the Toronto Star that he is in no hurry to give the merger the green light, and that he has no deadline as a regulator. He added that he wants assurances that Vidéotron will in fact will offer lower-cost services over a 10-year period.

“I’m a lawyer, so we will make sure that these undertakings are binding, and that there would be consequences” for failures to meet them,” said Champagne.

The post Critics face ‘scripted answers’ and conspiracy allegations from Rogers, Shaw and Québecor at House of Commons hearings first appeared on IT World Canada.

Consumers and business leaders have different priorities when it comes to data privacy, according to recent studies by Cisco Systems.

The contrast was revealed in the latest version of Cisco’s annual Data Privacy Benchmark Study, released for Data Privacy Week. Done last summer, the survey of more than 4,700 security professionals from 26 geographies included more than 3,100 respondents who were familiar with the data privacy program at their organizations.

They listed compliance with privacy laws as the most important priority for building customer trust, followed by transparency about how customer data is used.

By comparison, the report notes, a Cisco study of consumer attitudes done at the same time listed transparency as the top priority, followed by not selling personal information, and compliance with privacy laws.

“Certainly organizations need to comply with privacy laws,” says the Privacy Benchmark report, “but when it comes to earning and building trust, compliance is not enough. Consumers consider legal compliance to be a “given,” with transparency more of a differentiator.”

Among other findings

— 95 per cent of officials surveyed said privacy is a business imperative, up from 90 per cent in the 2021 study;

— 94 per cent agreed customers would not buy from them if their data was not properly protected;

— 95 per cent said privacy is an integral part of their organization’s culture, up from 92 per cent last year.

— respondents estimated the average spend on privacy at their organization was US$2.7 million, up from US$1.3 million three years ago. The most significant growth from 2021 to 2022 occurred at smaller organizations. Privacy spending at organizations with 50-249 employees increased more than 17 per cent to US$2.0 million, from US$1.7 million;

— respondents also believe the estimated dollar value of benefits from privacy were up significantly. The average estimate rose more than 13 per cent, to US$3.4 million, from US$3.0 million in the 2021 survey.

The report recommends organizations continue to invest in privacy and build privacy capabilities throughout their firms, especially among security and IT professionals and those who are involved directly with personal data processing and protection.

Firms should also be more transparent with customers about how their personal data is being used. “While organizations need to comply with the law, compliance alone is not enough; transparency is key to trust,” the report says.

If using artificial intelligence (AI) in solutions, they should be designed with AI ethics principles in mind, it adds, providing preferred management options to reassure customers, delivering greater transparency to the automated decision, and ensuring that a human is involved in the process when the decision is consequential to a person.

The post Data Privacy Week: Consumers, companies differ on privacy priorities, says study first appeared on IT World Canada.

Over 800,000 victims in a hack, Dutch hacker allegedly pedaled data of everyone in Austria and more.

Welcome to Cyber Security Today. It’s Friday, January 27th, 2023. I’m Howard Solomon, contributing reporter on cybersecurity for ITWorldCanada.com and TechNewsday.com in the U.S.

A Chicago company called Zacks Investment Research is notifying 820,000 customers that their information may be at risk. According to a copy of a letter sent to customers and filed with the state of Maine, in late December the company learned it had been hacked. Access was gained sometime several months before that. A database of customers who signed up for a product between the end of 1999 and February 2005 was stolen. The data included customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and passwords used for Zacks.com. Affected customers have to reset their passwords.

The Russian cyberwar over Ukraine continues. A number of denial-of-service attacks on Thursday hit German government, banking and airport websites. Some websites were knocked offline. It is believed to be retaliation against Germany for allowing tanks it builds to be sent to Ukraine,

A Dutch hacker arrested in November obtained and offered for sale the full name, addresses and dates of birth of virtually everyone in Austria. That’s about nine million people. Reuters says news is only now being released because other police forces are investigating the person. That’s because they were also selling similar data sets from Italy, the Netherlands and Columbia.

Researchers at Trellix say they recently patched over 61,000 open source Python projects on GitHub through an automated system. The effort was to fix a 15-year-old vulnerability some developers had unintentionally added to their projects. It took several months to find the impacted projects and install the patches. Trellix warned developers to have proper checks and evaluation methods when deciding to import code libraries and frameworks into their applications.

Is your company thinking about creating non-fungible tokens to boost customer loyalty? The recent experience of Porsche should make you think twice. Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs are digital assets on a blockchain that may or may not have value. Porsche has created NFTs for enthusiasts to acquire digital replicas of its cars. However, according to The Cyber Express crooks latched onto the Porsche name and have created fraudulent domains to dupe many into buying fake tokens with cryptocurrency. Any organization wanting to get into the non-fungible token game better have cybersecurity and blockchain expertise or their brand may be damaged.

Someone is leveraging the Google Ads invitation capability to send email messages promoting spam and sex websites. According to a news report, the invites are being sent from Google Ads accounts so they seem to be legitimate. They also avoid spam filters. Google Ads is a service for advertisers to create marketing campaigns.

Finally, New York State is asking the operators of Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall about the alleged use of facial recognition software to keep certain dangerous people out of its venues: Lawyers. According to Engadget, the technology is being used to keep out lawyers representing people suing the company. It quotes the Garden CEO saying to goal is to prevent evidence from being collected outside proper lawsuit procedures. New York State’s attorney general says what’s allegedly going on may violate civil and human rights laws.

That’s it for this morning’s podcast. But later today the Week in Review will be available. Guest commentator Terry Cutler of Montreal’s Cyology Labs will give advice for Data Privacy Week and comment on other news items.

Follow Cyber Security Today on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or add us to your Flash Briefing on your smart speaker. U.S. listeners can also find my stories on TechNewsDay.com.

The post Cyber Security Today, Jan. 27, 2023 – Over 800,000 victims in a hack, Dutch hacker allegedly pedaled data of everyone in Austria and more. first appeared on IT World Canada.

Layoffs hit IBM and SAP, smartphone shipments decline and Google shuts down more than 50,000 pro-People’s Republic of China (PRC) disinformation channels.

That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Friday, January 27th and I am your host, Ashee Pamma.

IBM announced it is cutting 3,900 jobs as part of asset divestments and after it missed its annual cash target. The layoffs, related to the spinoff of its Kyndryl business and a part of AI unit Watson Health – will cause a $300 million charge in the January-March period, IBM said. Meanwhile, SAP also announced it is laying off 3000 workers. The German software giant said it planned to carry out a “targeted restructuring program” to “strengthen its core business” and improve efficiency. IBM and SAP add to layoffs by major tech companies, including Amazon, Google and Meta who have reportedly shed 48,000 workers since the start of this year.

Source: Yahoo Finance and TechXplore

Worldwide smartphone shipments declined 18.3 per cent year over year to 300 million units in the fourth quarter of 2022 (4Q22), according to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. The drop marks the largest-ever decline in a single quarter. Heavy sales and promotions during the quarter helped deplete existing inventory rather than drive shipment growth. Vendors are increasingly prudent with their shipments and planning while realigning their focus on profitability, said Nabila Popal, research director with IDC. Even Apple that seemed immune, suffered a setback in its supply chain with unforeseen lockdowns at its key factories in China.

Source: IDC

Google says it shut down more than 50,000 accounts to combat a campaign called Dragonbridge, promoting pro-People’s Republic of China (PRC) disinformation in 2022 that focused on Taiwan, COVID-19 and U.S. politics. While most of the content pushed out by the disinformation network is “low quality and without a political message”, there was a higher volume of content released last year that was critical of the governments of Taiwan and the U.S. The group typically published content supportive of China’s response to COVID-19 and critical of how the U.S. handled the pandemic as well as the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While much of the content is targeted toward Chinese speakers, some of it is in English and other languages, Google says. Since 2019, has shut down more than 100,000 accounts on YouTube, Blogger and AdSense connected to Dragonbridge actors.

Source: The Record

A British man who planned to have a “robot lawyer” help a defendant fight a traffic ticket has given up the effort after receiving threats of possible prosecution and jail time. Joshua Browder, the owner of AI startup DoNotPay created a platform for people contesting traffic tickets to use arguments in court generated by artificial intelligence. The person challenging a speeding ticket would wear smart glasses that both, record court proceedings and dictate responses into the defendant’s ear from a small speaker. The system relied on a few leading AI text generators, including ChatGPT and DaVinci. Browder said he was threatened with Multiple state bar associations after he offered one million dollars to anyone willing to adopt his technology during a court fight.

Source: NPR

An AI-written speech was read for the first time in Congress. The brief two-paragraph speech read by the Massachusetts Democrat on the floor of the U.S. House on Wednesday was generated by the online AI chatbot ChatGPT, AP News reported. The congress member said part of the decision to read a ChatGPT-generated text was to help spark debate on AI and the challenges and opportunities created by it. He said he doesn’t want to see a repeat of the advent of social media, which started small and ballooned faster than Congress could react.The text generated from his prompt included sentences like: “We must collaborate with international partners like the Israeli government to ensure that the United States maintains a leadership role in AI research and development and responsibly explores the many possibilities evolving technologies provide.”

Source:  AP News 

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Continuing their expansion in Canada, Québecor and its subsidiary Vidéotron have just invested nearly $10 million to acquire new 5G wireless spectrum licenses, in Manitoba in the 600 MHz band and in Québec in the 3,500 MHz band.

This is “again demonstrating their determination to deliver on their promise to build out a reliable wireless network for the benefit of Canadian consumers,” the companies said in a press release.

The acquisition was completed following the auction of the residual spectrum licenses, which concluded yesterday, with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada announcing the provisionally successful bidders. Vidéotron is thus increasing its wireless service capacity and paving the way to an expansion of its wireless infrastructure outside Québec. In 2021, the company acquired, at a cost of $830 million, 294 blocks of spectrum in the 3500 MHz band in Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia and Québec.

“We have a clear objective: to bring healthy competition to the Canadian wireless market by breaking the oligopoly,” said Pierre Karl Péladeau, president and chief executive officer of Québecor. “Buying additional spectrum to follow up on the potential acquisition of Freedom Mobile is a key element of our business plan for extending our robust, powerful wireless network outside Québec and offering Canadian consumers better services at better prices, as we have been doing in Québec for more than 15 years.”

According to Vidéotron, as a result of its competitive pricing, Québec was the first region of the country to see lower wireless prices. Vidéotron reduced the cost of mobile plans in Québec to 35-40 per cent less than elsewhere in Canada. Québecor now wants to replicate this success in other provinces by becoming the fourth major wireless service provider.

The post Québecor acquires 5G spectrum licenses in Manitoba and Quebec first appeared on IT World Canada.