security

A new Apple short film called The Underdogs: Blue Screen of Death has been posted to the company’s YouTube channel as part of an occasional series that was first launched back in 2019.

Eight minutes long, it’s a gentle comedy that highlights the built-in security features of Macs while also showing off a whole range of the company’s ecosystem features …

A TransUnion data breach has exposed sensitive personal information for millions of US consumers, including dates of birth and social security numbers.

However, reports of a major Gmail security problem affecting all 2.5 billion users are false, though loosely based on a far more contained incident back in June …

More than 10,000 organizations around the world are at risk from hackers after a serious security flaw was discovered in Microsoft’s popular Sharepoint platform, used to store and share confidential documents. The majority of companies at risk are said to be in the US.

Update: Bloomberg reports that the National Nuclear Security Administration was among the organizations breached – see the end of the piece …

We learned earlier this year that the British government had secretly ordered Apple to create a backdoor into encrypted data for all iCloud users worldwide. Specifically, it wanted a way to see personal data protected by Apple’s introduction of Advanced Data Protection (ADP), which extended end-to-end encryption to almost all iCloud data, meaning not even the iPhone maker could access it.

Apple has been fighting the secret order in secret court hearings, but it now appears that the US government is using technology agreement negotiations to force Britain to back down …

An alleged Verizon data breach has seen hackers offering for sale a database of 61 million customer records, which includes personal information useful for both phishing attempts and identity theft.

Update: Verizon told us it has checked the data and it is not from its customers – see the end of the piece.

Thousands of ASUS wireless routers have been compromised by a botnet that has also been targeting Cisco, D-Link, and Linksys devices. The way in which routers are infected means that they remain under the control of attackers even if the firmware is updated.

Update: The company has issued a statement, added to the end of the piece.