When things go wrong, there is often a simple explanation. Or many
simple explanations.
Arizona
Beverages knocked offline by ransomware attack
The
company, famous for its iced tea beverages, is still rebuilding its
network almost two weeks after the attack hit, wiping hundreds of
Windows computers and servers and effectively shutting down sales
operations for days until incident response was called in, according
to a person familiar with the matter.
More
than 200 servers and networked computers displayed the same message:
“Your network was hacked and encrypted.” The company’s name
was in the ransom note, indicating a targeted attack.
…
It
took the company another five days before the company brought in
incident responders to handle the outbreak, the source said. Many of
the back-end servers were running
old and outdated Windows operating systems that are no longer
supported.
Most
hadn’t received security patches in years.
…
A
day after the attack hit, staff found the
backup system wasn’t configured properly
and were unable
to retrieve the data
for days until the company signed an expensive contract to bring in
Cisco incident responders. A spokesperson for Cisco did not
immediately comment. The company’s IT staff had to effectively
rebuild the entire network from scratch. Since the outbreak, the
company has spent “hundreds of thousands” on new hardware,
software and recovery costs.
… The
ransomware infection, understood to be iEncrypt (related to
BitPaymer) per a screenshot seen by TechCrunch, was triggered
overnight on March 21, weeks after the FBI contacted Arizona to warn
of an apparent Dridex malware infection. The FBI declined to
comment, but the source said incident responders believed
Arizona’s systems had been compromised for at least a couple of
months.
… Dridex
is delivered through
a malicious email attachment
Once the implant installs, the attacker can gain near-unfettered
access to the entire network and can steal passwords, monitor network
traffic and deliver additional malware.
A security question. Why was all that older data
on the web?
WSB-TV
reports:
Georgia Tech says more than a million people’s personal information may have been exposed after someone gained “unauthorized access” to a web application.
Officials said the breach impacts 1.3 million people, including “some current and former faculty, students, staff and student applicants.” They do not know what information was taken from the system, but it may include names, addresses, Social Security numbers and birth dates.
It’s a massive number considering the school’s current enrollment is just under 27,000 students plus faculty.
Read
more on WSB
And keep in mind that this is not Georgia Tech’s first breach. If
you search this site for “Georgia Tech,” you’ll find a number
of other incidents that have been noted on this site — and those
are only the ones that I know about. There could be more, and
probably are more.
We don’t need to wait for AI to find errors like
this.
Exclusive:
Boeing software engaged repeatedly before crash - sources
Boeing
anti-stall software on a doomed Ethiopian Airlines jet re-engaged as
many as four times after the crew initially turned it off due to
suspect data from an airflow sensor, two people familiar with the
matter said.
It
was not immediately clear whether the crew had chosen to re-deploy
the system, which pushes the nose of the Boeing 737 MAX downwards,
but one person with knowledge of the matter said investigators
were studying the possibility that the software had kicked in again
without human intervention.
Includes a model of Good Machine Learning
Practices.
FDA
developing new rules for artificial intelligence in medicine
The
Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that it is developing
a framework for regulating artificial intelligence products used in
medicine that continually
adapt based on new data.
The
agency’s outgoing commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, released a white
paper
that sets forth the broad outlines of the FDA’s proposed approach
to establishing greater oversight over this rapidly evolving segment
of AI products.
A
simple backgrounder.
THE FUTURE
OF THE INTERNET OF THINGS
… Gartner
defines
the
Internet of Things as the network of physical objects that contain
embedded technology (such as intelligent sensors) which can
communicate, sense or interact with internal or external systems.
This can generate volumes of real-time data that can be used by
organizations for a variety of applications, including smart
appliances to monitoring equipment performance. The Internet of
Things (IoT) is becoming so ubiquitous that ABI Research predicts
that
there will be more than 30 billion IP-connected devices and sensors
in the world by 2020.
What
could possibly go wrong?
An
interesting process. Are the defendants ghosts?
A district court in Florida has ordered 27
pirate site operators to each pay $1 million in damages. The
default judgment was ordered in favor of media giant ABS-CBN, which
has scored several victories in US courts this year. The sites in
question are mostly smaller streaming portals that offer access to
'Pinoy' content in the US and abroad.
… Despite
facing hefty damages, none of the site operators turned up in court.
This prompted ABS-CBN to file for a default judgment which was
granted by US District Judge William Dimitrouleas this week.
… ABS-CBN’s
most recent win follows a pattern of similar verdicts in recent
years. With these lawsuits, the company has managed to score dozens
of millions in damages from a wide variety of streaming sites with
relative ease.
While
this sounds like a success story, it is unknown whether the
Philippine media company has managed to recoup any damages from the
defendants, who are generally not known by name.
In
order to get at least some money from the defendants, ABS-CBN also
obtained an injunction against the advertisers of the pirate sites.
These services, including Google Adsense, RevenueHits, and Popads,
will have to hand over the outstanding revenue of these sites to the
media giant within a week.
A
new take on anti-trust?
Justice
Department Warns Academy Over Potential Oscar Rule Changes
Threatening Netflix
The
Justice Department has warned the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences that its potential rule changes limiting the eligibility of
Netflix and other streaming services for the Oscars could raise
antitrust concerns and violate competition law.
Perspective. Don’t curbside sales come at the
expense of in-store sales? If Amazon wants more physical locations,
they could buy Starbucks…
Amazon Is
Losing This $35 Billion Opportunity to Walmart and Target
Amazon.com is the dominant force in online
shopping in the U.S., accounting for about half of Americans' online
spending.
But there's a growing area where Amazon lags well
behind competitors like Walmart and Target. Curbside fulfillment for
online orders is increasingly popular, and Amazon is hard-pressed to
compete. Its main consumer-facing physical presence are its Whole
Foods Market locations, which account for nearly all of Amazon's 520
physical stores in North America. By comparison, Walmart has over
2,000 stores offering curbside pickup and will spin up 1,000 more by
the end of the fiscal year.
For my teaching toolkit
How to Use
BoClips to Find and Share Great Educational Videos
Back
in January I discovered BoClips
while
walking around the BETT
Show in
London. It's an educational video hosting site that has quickly
become one of my go-to resources. In fact, I like it so much that I
now include it in my Best
of the Web presentation.
BoClips
offers
more than two million videos from producers that you're probably
familiar with through their YouTube channels. Two of the producers
that many people notice right away are Crash Course and TED-Ed.
BoClips is different from a lot of the sites that simply hide the
"related content" and ads found on YouTube, but really just
use YouTube videos for their content. The videos that you find on
BoClips are actually hosted on BoClips with the permission of the
video producers.
Heads up!
Microsoft
stops selling ebooks and will refund customers for previous purchases
The
Verge – Ebooks will no longer be accessible as of July 2019:
“Starting today, Microsoft is ending all ebook sales in its
Microsoft Store for Windows PCs. Previously
purchased ebooks will be removed from users’ libraries in early
July. Even free ones will be deleted.
The company will offer full refunds to users for any books they’ve
purchased or preordered. Microsoft’s
“official reason,” according to ZDNet,
is that this move is part of a strategy to help streamline the focus
of the Microsoft Store. It seems that the company no longer has an
interest in trying to compete with Amazon, Apple Books, and Google
Play Books. It’s a bit hard to imagine why anyone would go with
Microsoft over those options anyway…”
For
my starving students.
Music history.
Boston
Public Library’s 78rpm Records Come to the Internet
Internet
Archives Blog – Reformatting the Boston Public Library Sound
Archives –
“Following eighteen months of work, more than 50,000 78rpm record
“sides” from the Boston Public Library’s sound archives have
now been digitized and made
freely
available online
by the Internet Archive. ”This project and the very generous
support and diversity of expertise that converged to make it
possible, all ensure the Library’s sound collections are not only
preserved but made accessible to a much broader audience than would
otherwise ever have been possible, all in the spirit of Free to All”
said David Leonard, President of the Boston Public LIbrary. In 2017,
the Boston Public Library transferred their
sound archives to
the Internet Archive so that the materials could be reformatted
digitally and preserved physically. Working in collaboration with
George
Blood LP,
using their specialty turntable and expert staff, these recordings
have been digitized at high standards so that others can use these
materials for research. This is now the largest collection within
the Great
78 Project,
which aims to bring hundreds of thousands of 78rpm recordings to the
Internet…”
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