The Radisson Hotel Group joins the ranks of globally-recognized brands to be on the receiving end of a successful hack.  According to the company, a small percentage of their loyalty club members had some of their personal information accessed by an unauthorized and as yet unknown third party.

A research team has found an exploit that allows hackers to decrypt and view encrypted files on a number of well-known SSD drives.

 

 

 

They include:

Samsung T5 Portable
Samsung T3 Portable
Samsung 850 EVO
Samsung 840 EVO
Crucial MX 300
Crucial MX 200
Crucial MX 100

According to the research team:

"We have analyzed the hardware full-disk encryption of several SSDs by reverse engineering their firmware.

In recent months, hackers around the world have been finding new ways to invade people's privacy, hijacking an increasing number of cameras and microphones attached to smartphones and PCs.  Apple is responding to the evolving threat by introducing a new layer of physical security to their latest MacBooks.

Intel just can't seem to catch a break.  By now, almost everyone has heard about the dreaded Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities which have been plaguing the chip maker since they were first discovered.  Now, it seems there's a new chip-based threat.

If you own Apple devices that use iOS, watchOS, tvOS, or macOS, there's good news.  The company just released major updates for all of those.

They're available right now, and here are a few of the highlights:

For iOS 12.1, the big changes are as follows:

Group Face Time, with support for audio and video calls with up to 32 participants simultaneously
End-to-End encryption for your Face Time/Group Face Time conversations
A "Start Group Face Time" option from inside Group Messages
More than 70 new emoji's
Dual SIM support
Improved camera functionality
A variety of performance and battery life enhancements
And more

The big additions for watchOS are:

Automatic contact of emergency services if you are immobile for more than a minute after the device detects a hard fall.

Earlier this year, Google introduced a new and improved Gmail that gave users virtually unlimited customization options. In addition to that, it included some exciting new AI-based features that cut down on repetitive tasks and made email management significantly easier.

IBM has recently announced what is to be the largest open source acquisition in history.  They're buying Red Hat for a staggering $34 billion dollars.  This, as the saying goes, changes everything.

IBM has lagged behind its competitors for years in the area of cloud computing.

Google is rolling out some important changes that will make it easier for people who use their services to control their data.

They're starting with their most widely used service, which is search.  In the weeks ahead, it will be easier than ever for users to delete their search history, on both PC and Android devices.

Security in the Android ecosystem is awful.  There's just no other word to describe it.

In large part, the blame for that can be placed at the feet of Google.  Although they have succeeded in creating a wildly successful platform, their management of OEM devices (in particular, security updates for them) have been virtually nonexistent.

As far as hackers are concerned, no target is safe.  Not even the Girl Scouts.

Recently, one of the Girl Scouts' official email accounts was accessed by an "unauthorized third party" and as a result, as many as 2,800 girl scouts in Orange County, California may have had their personal information compromised.