Linux fréttir

Bad opsec

Thalha Jubair, one of the two UK teens arrested on Tuesday and accused of being members of the notorious Scattered Spider cybercrime gang, allegedly played a role in bilking more than 100 organizations out of at least $115 million in ransom payments. The cops nabbed him after following a number of clues, including paying for gift cards from a wallet on the same server that also held wallets receiving extortion payments.…

Until Microsoft lobbed it into a virtual volcano

A security researcher claims to have found a flaw that could have handed him the keys to almost every Entra ID tenant worldwide.…

Leo XIV voices concerns about AI taking jobs – and not just his own

Pope Leo XIV has crucified the idea of creating an AI version which would've allowed Catholics around the world to have a virtual audience with him – without the need for a trip to Vatican City.…

Valve is dropping support for Steam running on 32-bit versions of Windows, starting January 1, 2026. A report adds and comments: Steam has been available on Windows for more than two decades and, therefore, was built with 32-bit systems in mind. Today, every modern computer is 64-bit, with compatibility layers built in to support older 32-bit apps. So, even though 32-bit apps have carried forward, there's really no place for 32-bit operating systems anymore -- which is why Valve is axing support for them.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DSAG criticizes separate regimes for public, private cloud, says users need more time to upgrade in uncertain times

SAP's German-speaking user group has warned that the enterprise software giant's current licensing regime is creating unwanted difficulties in launching cloud migration and upgrade projects.…

Radware says flaw enabled hidden email prompts to trick Deep Research agent into exfiltrating sensitive data

ChatGPT's research assistant sprung a leak – since patched – that let attackers steal Gmail secrets with just a single carefully crafted email.…

Another blow for the legislation as Parliament continues to hear stakeholder views

As UK ministers continue to quiz stakeholders over the effectiveness of the Online Safety Act, one charity chief raised concerns over the robustness of Ofcom's enforcement of the controversial legislation.…

An anonymous reader shares a report: SoftBank Group will lay off nearly 20% of its Vision Fund team globally as it shifts resources to founder Masayoshi Son's large-scale AI bets in the United States, according to a memo seen by Reuters and a source familiar with the plan. The cuts mark the third round of layoffs at the Japanese investment conglomerate's flagship fund since 2022. Vision Fund currently has over 300 employees globally. Unlike previous rounds, when the group was saddled with major losses, the latest reductions come after the fund last month reported its strongest quarterly performance since June 2021, driven by gains in public holdings such as Nvidia and South Korean e-commerce firm Coupang. The move signals a pivot away from a broad portfolio of startup investments. While the fund will continue to make new bets, remaining staff will dedicate more resources to Son's ambitious AI initiatives, such as the proposed $500 billion Stargate project -- an initiative to build a vast network of U.S. data centers in partnership with OpenAI, the source added.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Q: How many Excel users do you need to correctly set the number formatting of a cell? A: Monday, January 1st, 1900

The inaugural finals of the UK Excel Championship have come and gone, and there is now one spreadsheet wrangler to rule them all, at least in the United Kingdom.…

Contractor sneakily fired after pointing out odious ignorance

On Call Welcome to another installment of On Call, The Register's Friday frolic through your tales of delightful tech support encounters.…

Security researcher Dirk-jan Mollema discovered two vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Entra ID identity platform that could have granted attackers administrative access to virtually all Azure customer accounts worldwide. The flaws involved legacy authentication systems -- Actor Tokens issued by Azure's Access Control Service and a validation failure in the retiring Azure Active Directory Graph API. Mollema reported the vulnerabilities to Microsoft on July 14. Microsoft released a global fix three days later and found no evidence of exploitation. The vulnerabilities would have allowed attackers to impersonate any user across any Azure tenant and access all Microsoft services using Entra ID authentication. Microsoft confirmed the fixes were fully implemented by July 23 and added additional security measures in August as part of its Secure Future Initiative. The company issued a CVE on September 4.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

YouTube vids explain digital tradecraft to reach spooks over Tor or VPN without blowing your cover

The UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, aka MI6, has created a dark web portal called “Silent Courier” that it hopes would-be foreign informants will find a suitably secure means of sharing secrets.…

Collaborationware CEO tried to smooth things over, but Hack Club now plans a strategy shift

Slack sent a nonprofit hacking club for teens a demand for $50,000, payable within a week, and threatened to delete the club’s message archive if it did not pay.…

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft is adding a whole load of AI agents to Teams today, promising Copilot assistants for every channel, meeting, and community. The new agents will also work across SharePoint and Viva Engage, and are rolling out for Microsoft 365 Copilot users. Facilitator agents will now sit in on Teams meetings, creating agendas, taking notes, and answering questions. Agents can also suggest time allotments for different meeting topics -- letting participants know if they're running over -- and create documents and tasks. A mobile version is designed to be activated "with a single tap" so you can make sure the agent doesn't miss out on "a quick hallway chat or a spontaneous in-person sync." Channel agents are designed to answer questions based on a channel's previous conversations and meetings and can also generate status reports for a project the same way.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Teams with UAV operator Flytrex for service that moves meals in minutes

Flying pigs may soon be on their way to some US households, after rideshare and food delivery behemoth Uber teamed with drone operator Flytrex for food delivery services.…

China's economy increasingly relies on 200 million "flexible workers" who lack formal employment contracts, pensions and urban residency permits despite comprising 25% of the national workforce and 40% of urban workers. The demographic includes 40 million day-wage factory workers and 84 million platform economy workers performing deliveries and ride-share driving. Factory gig workers average 26 years old, are 80% male, and 75-80% single and childless. These workers face systemic exclusions from urban benefits including healthcare, schooling and property ownership due to lacking urban hukou residency permits. China's Supreme Court ruled in August that workers can claim compensation from employers denying benefits, though enforcement mechanisms remain unclear. Economic data shows retail sales growth at yearly lows, continuing property price declines, and rising urban unemployment. Analysts project GDP growth potentially falling to 3% in the third quarter. Manufacturing hubs report increasing numbers of young workers sleeping in parks and under overpasses between temporary jobs.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thanks for the memories, Akatsuki

Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency has decided to abandon its Akatsuki Venus orbiter, after losing contact with the craft last year.…

If you're wondering what effect Intel's blockbuster deal with Nvidia will have on its existing product roadmaps, Intel has one message for you: it won't. PCWorld: "We're not discussing specific roadmaps at this time, but the collaboration is complementary to Intel's roadmap and Intel will continue to have GPU product offerings," an Intel spokesman told my colleague, Brad Chacos, earlier today. I heard similar messaging from other Intel representatives. Nvidia's $5 billion investment in Intel, as well as Nvidia's plans to supply RTX graphics chiplets to Intel for use in Intel's CPUs, have two major potential effects: first, it could rewrite Intel's mobile roadmap for laptop chips, because of the additional capabilities provided by those RTX chiplets. Second, the move threatens Intel's ongoing development of its Arc graphics cores, including standalone discrete GPUs as well as integrated chips. We're still not convinced that Arc's future will be left unscathed, in part because Intel's claim that it will "continue" to have GPU product offerings sounds a bit wishy-washy. But Intel sounds much more definitive on the former point, in that the mobile roadmap that you're familiar with will remain in place.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a state known for dairy, football, and broken tech dreams

Microsoft's CEO has claimed the operating system-slinger is building the "world's largest datacenter."…

But still no hero customer for Chipzilla's Foundry biz

Nvidia is set to become one of Intel's largest shareholders after the GPU giant announced on Thursday it would invest $5 billion in the struggling chipmaker under a co-development agreement targeting PCs and datacenter infrastructure.…