A growing part of the internet is devoted entirely to fraudulent advertising. According to a new report by White Ops, ad-fraud sites make up roughly 20 percent of ad-serving sites on the web, despite having no human traffic whatsoever. The sites make money entirely from traffic bots, designed to mimic human visits to generate ad revenue for the sites’ creators.

Traffic bots have long been a problem for web advertising, also known as “click fraud.” The good news is that, while it remains a billion-dollar industry, advertisers are slowly getting wise to the tricks. According to White Ops, ad-fraud sites are on track to make $6.5 billion in 2017, down from $7.2 billion the previous year.

The problem is particularly acute for desktop video ads, which draw criminals through high prices and a relative scarcity of legitimate inventory. The survey found that 22 percent of desktop video ads were viewed only by traffic bots, a figure that’s held steady from year to year.

MICROSOFT HAS RESPONDED to claims that its Windows 10 Enterprise operating system ignores user preferences in Group Policy with the advice that, basically, it does and you shouldn't meddle with it.

Samsung has added a location tracking app to its TVs that will allow you – and them – to keep track of other people’s real-time locations. They make it easy for you to expose your friends and family to their tracking: Simply type in the person’s phone number, and they will receive a text they can use to add themselves to your group. Perhaps your mom is happy for you to see what route she’s taking to get to your house, but it’s important to note that once someone is added, everyone else in the group can also see where they are in real time using any type of screen equipped with the Glympse app.

Hackers have gone back to the future by attempting to infect targets with booby-trapped subtitle files.

By crafting malicious subtitle files for films and TV programmes, which are then downloaded by viewers, attackers can hope to take complete control of any device running the vulnerable platforms. Hackers have pushed trojans under the guise of subtitle files as far back as 2003.

This time around vulnerabilities in particular media player software packages are playing a role in facilitating the attack. Users of popular players – including VLC, Kodi, Popcorn Time and Stremio – are most at risk, according to researchers at security firm Check Point.

The vendors involved all addressed the reported issues before Check Point went public with a warning on Tuesday. Stremio and VLC have also released new software versions incorporating the fix.

"The Windows 10 China Government Edition is based on Windows 10 Enterprise Edition, which already includes many of the security, identity, deployment, and manageability features governments and enterprises need," said Windows boss Terry Myerson.

"The China Government Edition will use these manageability features to remove features that are not needed by Chinese government employees, like OneDrive, to manage all telemetry and updates, and to enable the government to use its own encryption algorithms within its computer systems."

Details are very thin about what else is missing compared to the Windows 10 builds available in the West. Presumably a lot less information is collected by the notoriously data-hungry OS, and little of it is likely to flow to Redmond's servers. Any info that is extracted is almost certainly staying in China.

Civil liberties group Liberty described the introduction of the measures as a “beacon for despots everywhere”.

Theresa May is also planning to regulate the internet, allowing the government to decide what web users can post, share and publish online.

“The Snooper’s Charter recently passed without fuss from the public,” said Douglas Crawford, digital privacy expert at BestVPN.com.

“Now British intelligence agencies and law enforcement organisations have the power to survey data and digital communications, and online security experts have determined the government now has the ability to spy on us at any time.

“It’s clear the British public has a long way to go in order to become fully informed about the realities of online monitoring. Taking steps to ensure personal privacy is censored should be the first port of call.”

Another research done by an independent IT security analyst shows a number of privacy issues in Windows 10. Even after you have properly configured Windows 10 Creators Update using Group Policy in the Enterprise edition, the operating system may disregard these settings and continue to utilize your bandwidth and "phone home" to send data.

...

Windows 10's Privacy related settings are just a ruse to throw unsuspecting users offguard so they think their privacy is being maintained. Repeatedly, it has been demonstrated by various researchers that they are meaningless and do not fully prevent your PC from doing unwanted communications with numerous Microsoft and third party computers.

Microsoft’s Windows 10 is a privacy nightmare. Here’s how to protect yourself.

Samsung's eye-scanning security technology, used on the new Galaxy S8 smartphone, has been fooled with a photograph and a contact lens.

The iris-scanner can be used to unlock the phone simply by looking at it, which Samsung says provides "airtight security".

But researchers at Chaos Computer Club had easily tricked the device with a picture of an eye, Motherboard said.

Samsung told the BBC it was "aware of the issue".

Wi-Fi can pass through walls.

This fact is easy to take for granted, yet it's the reason we can surf the web using a wireless router located in another room.

But not all of that microwave radiation makes it to (or from) our phones, tablets, and laptops. Routers scatter and bounce their signal off objects, illuminating our homes and offices like invisible light bulbs.

Now, German scientists have found a way to exploit this property to take holograms, or 3D photographs, of objects inside a room — from outside it.

Robots have already cost millions of factory jobs across the nation. Next up could be jobs at your local stores.

Between 6 million to 7.5 million existing jobs are at risk of being replaced over the course of the next 10 years by some form of automation, according to a new study this week from by financial services firm Cornerstone Capital Group.

That represents at least 38% of the current retail work force, which consists of 16 million workers. Retail could actually lose a greater proportion of jobs to automation than manufacturing has, according to the study.

If you're experiencing some issues with your wireless service in Jonesboro, it could be tied to a fiber cut.

That is according to a representative with AT&T.

Seven cyber exploits purportedly stolen from the US National Security Agency (NSA) have been identified in 'EternalRocks', a new type of malware detected by a Croatian tech security advisor.

Some of the world’s biggest nuclear powers are under threat from a notorious hacker group.

It's More Than Just A Cyber Attack!

On the morning of Fri., May 12th, 2017, an unprecedented ‘‘ransomware’’ cyber attack struck tens of thousands of victims in 150 countries.

WannaCry, the ransomware program, also known as WannaCrypt, WanaCrypt0r 2.0, Wanna Decryptor, and others similar, began with infecting one computer, until infecting all others in a local area network (LAN).

The ransomware encrypts the infected computer's hard disk drive, then attempts to gain access so it can further spread on random computers connected to the internet via TCP port 445.

Bitcoin is now up over 135% year-to-date, having screamed above $2000 and $2100 overnight as the dollar limped to 6-month lows...

Facebook is allowing users to share death threats, videos of self-harm and pictures of animal torture, it emerged yesterday.

Leaked company documents reveal staff moderating the social media website are told not to delete such content.

Secret slides detailing ‘permissible’ posts also suggest videos of violent deaths do not always need to be deleted because they can help create awareness of issues such as mental illness.

Small changes can have a big impact...

The code used in the latest attack is similar to that used in past hacks blamed on Kim Jong-Un’s regime, leading some to point the finger at Pyongyang.

But the North has now denied the claims, notably but not exclusively advanced by South Korean experts, and hit back Friday to accuse its opponents of spreading propaganda.

“It is ridiculous,” Kim In-Ryong, North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters, suggesting Washington and Seoul were behind the allegation.

“Whenever something strange happens, it is the stereotyped way of the United States and the hostile forces to kick off a noisy anti-DPRK campaign.”

Last week, another round of cyber-attacks crippled computer systems across the world. As these attacks become more frequent, Americans need to understand what it means for their financial security.

For better or worse, a huge portion of what we do today happens online. And that includes our banking and investing.

The NHS could be considering switching its software infrastructure from Windows to Ubuntu, after Windows XP vulnerabilities were exploited in the recent cyber attack that crippled the National Health Service. Or is it just an elaborate gag?

The NHSbuntu platform came to our attention via Dr Dean Jenkins, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and editor-at-large of BMJ Case Reports, who writes about it on Differential Diagnosis, his blog.

According to Dr Jenkins, the Linux-based NHSbuntu is a "modern, secure, open source, operating system being considered by Jeremy Hunt for the NHS."

He adds that as NHSbuntu is built on the "industrial strength Ubuntu desktop," it offers a full-fat security feature set to meet the NHS's needs, including secure email, smartcard authentication and whole disk encryption, plus support for modern web browsers and popular office software.

The world has been stunned over the past few days by the advent of “Ransomware;” the use of sophisticated cyber attacks on vital systems in order to (supposedly) extort capital from target businesses and institutions. I am always highly suspicious whenever a large scale cyber incident occurs, primarily because the manner in which these events are explained to the public does not begin to cover certain important realities. For example, the mainstream media rarely if ever discusses the fact that many digital systems are deliberately designed to be vulnerable.

Google is set to let users pay off their debts without lifting a finger.

The tech giant has announced a new feature that will allow users to transfer funds to friends or family via Google Assistant.

Those living in the US will just say 'Ok Google, send $10 to Jane for pizza', and the AI will pull money from a linked debit card and forward it to the recipient.

What could possibly go wrong?

WikiLeaks has published a new batch of the ongoing Vault 7 leak, detailing a spyware framework – which "provides remote beacon and loader capabilities on target computers" – allegedly being used by the CIA that works against every version of Microsoft's Windows operating systems, from Windows XP to Windows 10.

Dubbed Athena/Hera, the spyware has been designed to take full control over the infected Windows PCs remotely, allowing the agency to perform all sorts of things on the target machine, including deleting data or uploading malicious software, and stealing data and send them to CIA server.

Good news is that another security researcher, Benjamin Delpy, developed an easy-to-use tool called "WanaKiwi," based on Guinet's finding, which simplifies the whole process of the WannaCry-infected file decryption.

All victims have to do is download WanaKiwi tool from Github and run it on their affected Windows computer using the command line (cmd).

WanaKiwi works on Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and 2008, confirmed Matt Suiche from security firm Comae Technologies, who has also provided some demonstrations showing how to use WanaKiwi to decrypt your files.

Although the tool won't work for every user due to its dependencies, still it gives some hope to WannaCry's victims of getting their locked files back for free even from Windows XP, the aging, largely unsupported version of Microsoft's operating system.

Scoundrels have latched on to the WannaCrypt outbreak as a theme for scam emails. Coincidentally some consumers are receiving seemingly genuine warnings from their ISPs related to suspected infection during last week's worldwide ransomware outbreak.

Action Fraud warned about a dodgy email trying to trick BT customers on Thursday.

Alert: We have fresh reports about this fake BT email that takes advantage of the global #WannaCry ransomware attack https://t.co/mOgZ3y9JY3 pic.twitter.com/ZyuhEO3sdC

— Action Fraud (@actionfrauduk) May 18, 2017

Recipients, who were falsely warned that they would be locked out of their account unless they completed a bogus "security check", commented that the emails were convincing.

Meanwhile, former Twitter property Vine has begun to warn users after it discovered a vulenrability that exposed some user account details.

"The bug had the potential to expose the email address or phone number associated with a Vine account to third parties under certain circumstances," the ex-video sharing site said.

"We have already notified all affected account holders for whom we have a verified email address on file, so if you weren’t notified, you most likely weren’t affected."

In this video, software and blockchain developer Vin Armani examines the WannaCry ransomware that the corporate media acted like it was the end of the world. Ultimately it appears to be an amateurish false flag attack on bitcoin. But upon digging into the bitcoin addresses used in the attack, Vin discovers a potentially much more nefarious attack on bitcoin.

By Catherine J. Frompovich

Recently, the NSA announced it no longer will conduct “about searches” as part of its Upstream Surveillance. That sounds great, but can we really believe them.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), who has filed lawsuits against NSA regarding the unconstitutional and warrantless searches it conducts, NSA’s statement is a win in the fight against surveillance, but more reforms still are needed.

So really, what freedom prize did citizens win?...

Wondering whatever happened to all the Galaxy Note 7 devices that did not catch on fire and were returned to Samsung? Well there are reports coming out that they are refurbishing these phablets and will be selling them to what they hope is a forgiving and forgetful market. Of course they will have to undergo and pass all the safety standards all over again but would you be willing to still get this device if it hits the market?

The best thing I can say about Windows 10 S is that it’s not Windows RT. RT ran on ARM processors, so you couldn’t run any of your existing applications on it. At least with Windows 10 S, you can run a few older Windows apps: Evernote, Slack, Photoshop Elements and Autodesk Sketch. But serious programs, such as Microsoft Office? Nope. Full Photoshop? Hardly! Full Autodesk? Don’t make me laugh! Heck, you can’t even run Office 365 on it — at least not yet, anyway.

This is not a small office/home office PC operating system.

So tell me, why would you ever want to run Windows 10 S?

Last week's WannaCry ransomware attack led to worldwide cyber chaos, crippling vital computer systems such as those used by the NHS.
Now victims of the hack are reporting they have received a chilling new message from the cyber criminals behind the scheme.
Infected computers have received a pop-up encouraging users to send the attackers cash in exchange for their files.

Security software designed to prevent bank fraud has been fooled by a BBC reporter and his twin.

BBC Click reporter Dan Simmons set up an HSBC account and signed up to the bank's voice ID authentication service.

HSBC says the system is secure because each person's voice is "unique".

But the bank let Dan Simmons' non-identical twin, Joe, access the account via the telephone after he mimicked his brother's voice.

The bank said it would "review" ways to make the ID system more sensitive following the BBC investigation.

Theresa May is planning to introduce huge regulations on the way the internet works, allowing the government to decide what is said online.

Particular focus has been drawn to the end of the manifesto, which makes clear that the Tories want to introduce huge changes to the way the internet works.

"Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet," it states. "We disagree."

Senior Tories confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the phrasing indicates that the government intends to introduce huge restrictions on what people can post, share and publish online.

A judge has ruled that people who give their knackered computers to Best Buy's Geek Squad for repairs have no comeback if technicians find and report any illegal material to the Feds.

Browser-makers' decision to put big red warning lights in the faces of users when they hit sites too slack to use HTTPS is backfiring a little, as crooks are accelerating their use of encryption.

So says Netcraft, which has turned its web server probes onto phishing sites in the wake of Chrome 56 and Firefox 51 adding warnings about insecure sites that request passwords.

The firm's data shows that since the two browsers started to berate HTTP-only operations, phishing sites added an extra layer of credibility by adding HTTPS.

Windows XP PCs infected by WannaCrypt can be decrypted without paying ransom by using a new utility dubbed Wannakey.

Wannakey offers in-memory key recovery for Win XP machines infected by the infamous ransomware strain. The fix can be used to dump encryption keys from memory. This RSA private key, once recovered, can be used to restore encrypted files on infected computers.

Caveats and limitations apply. Compromised machines must not have been rebooted after being infected, otherwise the crucial keys will already have been discarded from volatile memory. That's quite a big ask a week after the devastating WannaCrypt outbreak, especially since initial advice centred on turning off machines to stop the further spread of infection across corporate networks.

In the video below, Vin Armani gives an update about YouTube and Facebook’s latest attempt to censor content on their platforms. He discusses a brand new Facebook tool to further censor conspiracy theories, and misleading and sensational content. Well, that’s subjective.

Facebook posted a press release to announce the new tool, writing:

"We want to help people build an informed community on Facebook. That’s why we’re always working to understand which posts people consider misleading, sensational and spammy so we can show fewer of those and show more informative posts instead.

"We hear from our community that they’re disappointed when they click on a link that leads to a web page containing little substantive content and that is covered in disruptive, shocking or malicious ads. People expect their experience after clicking on a post to be straightforward.

Two US senators have proposed a law limiting American intelligence agencies' secret stockpiles of vulnerabilities found in products.

The Protecting our Ability To Counter Hacking (PATCH) Act [PDF] would set up a board chaired by an Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official to assess security flaws spies have found in code and hardware, and decide if manufacturers should be alerted to the bugs so they can be fixed for everyone.

By Nicholas West

The desire for security, efficiency and convenience is a narrative that continues to incrementally condition the population to accept the erosion of privacy and civil liberties on a number of fronts. The modern-day airport can certainly test the patience of even the most saintly, so it’s somewhat understandable that people have come to hope for anything that promises to deliver them to the exit as rapidly as possible, and preferably with the least amount of contact with airport personnel.

The concurrent fear surrounding terrorists and immigrants (apparently understood now to be one and the same) further greases the slippery slope as we accelerate to a full-on police state where “papers please” is set to be replaced by a less-intrusive biometric scan...

Here we go again. We are under Version 2 cyber-attack. This one is different from the first WannaCry attack. The experts are saying this attack will be worse. The new attack targets the same vulnerabilities as the WannaCry ransomware worm exploited, but there will be no freezing of files this time.

Steven Frank, founder of Portland, Oregon-based Panic Inc, said he fell victim to a poisoned download of the Handbrake video transcoder that resulted in the installation of a backdoor on his Mac.

"HandBrake had been nagging me for some time to install an update. I finally decided, for whatever reason, to do the update," Frank explained. "There was a note in HandBrake's update dialog that the incremental update was not available, and that I'd have to download an entirely fresh copy from their server."

By the time he heard the news about the HandBrake infection, Frank said, his machine had not only been accessed by a hacker via the backdoor, but had been harvested for Git server credentials that were then used to access and copy the code for several of the company's closed-source products. Panic develops a number of games and utilities for both macOS and iOS.

British police have charged a man under antiterror laws after he refused to hand over his phone and laptop passwords.

Muhammad Rabbani, international director of CAGE, was arrested at Heathrow in November after declining to unlock his devices, claiming they contained confidential testimony describing torture in Afghanistan as well as information on high-ranking officials. CAGE positions itself as a non-profit organization that represents and supports families affected by the West's TWAT (aka The War On Terror).

On Wednesday this week, he was charged under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000: specifically, he is accused of obstructing or hampering an investigation by refusing to cough up his login details.

Dell's latest BIOS update is bricking some machines – apart from a power light, they refuse to boot up at all, say users.

The Texan tech titan's own support forums are filling up with frustrated users who took the support assistant’s advice to download the latest program.

Many of those who installed the update now cannot boot up their machines. One typical explanation posted was: "Add me to the list Dell Inspiron 20 model 3052, updated on the weekend, woke up to a solid amber/orange light and a dead computer. Contacted Dell on facebook and this is what I was told "The updates Dell releases don't affect the system. But it would enhance the performance of the system" ummmm no....if they broke they need to fix it."

Three home security systems were riddled with bugs, according to new research made public this week.

Rapid7 found 10 vulnerabilities after putting Comcast XFINITY, ADT, and AT&T Digital Life systems through their paces. The issues range from a "fail open" condition on the external door and window sensors, to weak, pre-shared Wi-Fi access passwords on to cleartext (unencrypted) network communications. It's a not unfamiliar list given the lamentable state of IoT security more generally.

Potential hackers would need to be physically close to their target to attempt to abuse any of these vulnerabilities, according to Rapid7. Remote hacks over the internet would not be possible but with proximity all manner of mischief is possible.

Google has helped Al-Qaeda and other Salafist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood gain new members at the dawn of the Syrian conflict, secret documents and e-mails published by Wikileaks show. The then director of Google Ideas, Jared Cohen coordinated actions to support the groups often dubbed as rebels with then U.S. Foreign Minister Hillary Clinton and Deputy U.S. State Secretary William Burns. Google employed it’s expertise in the IT sector to help the conflict in Syria gain traction.

By Kevin Samson

The new “smart world” that we are embarking upon as an increasing number of our computerized devices and objects become part of The Internet of Things has promised more convenience and more efficiency. And, yet, not a day seems to pass without a report about hacking.

11-year-old Reuben Paul took the stage at the World Forum cyber security conference in The Hague to give a demonstration of the threat...

A former UK spy chief has hit out at Microsoft for cutting support for its Windows XP system that could have protected public services from massive cyberattacks such as the one that paralyzed the National Health Service (NHS) last week.

Writing in The New York Times over the weekend, sociologist Zeynep Tufekci placed the blame squarely on Microsoft for its decision to stop supporting older Windows versions. “Companies like Microsoft should discard the idea that they can abandon people using older software,” Tufekci wrote. “Industry norms are lousy to horrible, and it is reasonable to expect a company with a dominant market position, that made so much money selling software that runs critical infrastructure, to do more.”

ZDNet was even harsher. “The real problem here is that for decades the IT industry as a whole has been selling rubbish products,” a post argued. “It's become fabulously wealthy by making products that are broken to begin with, and often, directly or indirectly, charging customers to fix them.”

-On May 4, a Taiwanese netizen emailed the helpline of ThunderCrypt ransomware after his PC got infected, and said that he only makes $400 monthly, and he couldn't afford the 0.345 bitcoin he was asked to pay. He later got decrypted by the helpline because they thought they have largely overestimated the nation's income.

An 11-year-old “cyber ninja” has stunned an audience of security experts by hacking into their Bluetooth devices to manipulate a robotic teddy bear, showing in the process how interconnected smart toys “can be weaponised”.

Reuben Paul, who is in sixth grade at school in Austin, Texas, and his teddy bear Bob wowed hundreds at a cyber-security conference in the Netherlands.

Spotted by Bosko Stankovic, an information security engineer at DefenseCode LLC, the vulnerability in the default configuration of the latest version of Chrome allows malicious websites to trick users into downloading a .scf (Shell Command File format) file without prompting the user as it would typically do with other types of downloads. By bypassing this option, the malicious .scf file lies dormant in the downloads directory until a victim opens the directory, at which point the file automatically runs without the user having to click on it.

Once up and running, the file allows the attacker to gain access to a victim’s username and Microsoft LAN Manager password hash. That leaves the victim open to attacks, including a so-called Server Message Block relay attack that allows the hacker to use the credentials to authenticate to a personal computer or network resource.

English translations have been suppressed and now that there is one (in progress) it looks like google is censoring it.

To other vendors using embedded Windows: where are your warnings and patches?

Commuters at Washington DC's Union Station were left unsure if they were coming or going on Monday, when streamed smut started to appear on digital signs during peak hour. And it appears there's a rash of such incidents taking place around the world.

As Twitter users like @_joannaw recorded, “The monitors at Union Station just started playing Pornhub.”

Vulnerable Windows Server Message Block (SMB) shares central to last week's WannaCrypt outbreak are still widely deployed and frequently hunted, security researchers warn.

Rapid7 found over a million internet-connected devices that expose SMB on port 445. Of those, more than 800,000 run Windows, and – given that these are nodes running on the internet exposing SMB – it is likely that a large percentage of these are vulnerable versions of Windows with SMBv1 still enabled.

"While scanning for devices that expose port 445 has been observed for quite some time, the volume of scans on port 445 has increased since 2017-05-12 [Friday], and a majority of those scans are specifically looking to exploit MS17-010, the SMB vulnerability that the WannaCry[pt] malware looks to exploit," Rapid7 reports.

This (probably) isn't a spear phishing attack but we were too afraid to verify

In this video, Vin Armani talks with Swarm City contributor Matthew Carano about how they’re building a platform to decentralize everything. They set out to create a decentralized ride-sharing company after their town banned Uber and the project turned into so much more. Find out how it works below:

A 70-year-old Swedish woman in Dalarna is being prosecuted for hate speech after claiming on Facebook she saw migrants defecating in the streets and setting fire to cars.

According to the prosecution, the woman “expressed a disparaging view of refugees” on Facebook. She stands accused of having taken to the social media website in early July 2015 to make the “derogatory” post, alleging that migrants “set fire to cars, and urinate and defecate on the streets”.

The latest movies in the Disney franchises “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Cars” are set to hit the big screen this summer, but Disney CEO Bob Iger is reportedly warning that hackers are holding an unreleased Disney film for ransom, to be paid in Bitcoin.

WannaCry, the global cyber ransomware attack that infected more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries, yielded the hackers less than $70,000, and no federal computer systems were infected, according to the White House.

There is no such thing as cyber security. The only choice is more security or less security, as the recent hack of the National Security Agency demonstrates.

Electronic signatures outfit DocuSign has warned world+dog that one of its email systems was cracked by phisherpholk.

The company has of late reported an extensive phishing campaign that sees messages with the subject line “Completed *company name* - Accounting Invoice *number* Document Ready for Signature” land in plenty of inboxes. As is the way with such things the mail carried a link to a Microsoft Word document bearing “macro-enabled-malware.”

By Nicholas West

Even as the military has downplayed its willingness to delegate lethal decision making to artificial intelligence, it appears to be developing systems which could do exactly that.

The rise of Big Data has been a boon for the military and surveillance industries, as the exponential increase in computer processing power has enabled the collection and storage of information on a scale and speed never before seen. However, with that collection and storage also comes the need to meaningfully analyze it. So far, that has been a restriction which is not proving easy to overcome.

Nowhere is this challenge better highlighted than in warfare...

In the circular firing squad of WannaCrypt, the world's largest recorded ransomware outbreak, nobody looks good.

Not end-users for clinging to dated and unprotected Windows PCs despite warnings, not the government whose National Health Service saw 61 organisations compromised, and certainly not Microsoft – the actual author of Windows.

Just last night, The Register revealed that even though Microsoft had been griping about NSA exploit stockpiles at the weekend, it had also been sitting on its own stockpile ...of patches: Friday's WinXP fix was built in February.

The now infamous Windows vulnerability (MS17-010) exploited by the WannaCrypt ransomware has also been abused to spread another type of malware, specifically a cryptocurrency miner.

The Adylkuzz campaign predates WannaCry by severals day and may even have limited the spread of last week’s WannaCry infection, according to security firm Proofpoint.

"Initial statistics suggest that this attack may be larger in scale than WannaCry[pt], because this attack shuts down SMB networking to prevent further infections with other malware (including the WannaCry[pt] worm) via that same vulnerability," according to Proofpoint.

Targeted machines are used to mine for the Monero cryptocurrency. Monero is an alternative to Bitcoin recently adopted by the AlphaBay darknet market to trade in drugs, stolen credit cards, and counterfeit goods.

WinAntiRansom is an excellent program that provides better protection against ransomware than any of the other programs designed for that purpose.

With better functionality comes more complexity often, but this is not the case here as everything is handled automatically for the user. This does not mean that you have to give up control though, as you can monitor and manage the activity at any time, and enable advanced mode for more control.

The program has been designed to block ransomware, but there is little reason why it won't stop other malware as well dead in its tracks, especially those malicious programs that share similarities with ransomware.

It is a complementary security tool all in all that runs well alongside traditional antivirus software.

What should we make of the global ransomware attacks which happened today?

We’ve documented that the intelligence services intentionally create digital vulnerabilities, then intentionally leave them open … leaving us exposed and insecure.

Washington’s Blog asked the highest level NSA whistleblower ever* – Bill Binney – what he thinks of the attacks.

The update on the WannaCry RansonWare Attack is: Multiple security researchers have claimed that there are more samples of WannaCry out there, with different ‘kill-switch’ domains and without any kill-switch function, continuing to infect unpatched computers worldwide.

By Catherine J. Frompovich

To most utility customers, AMI Smart Meters may be an unknown entity, even though they have one on their electric service, and probably on their natural gas and water utilities too! The goal is to have at least 90 million AMI Smart Meters installed in the USA by 2020. Larger cities already are AMI SM-retrofitted...