Today a massive DDoS attack took out a major piece of Internet infrastructure , causing huge outages across the United States and Europe. Watch it spread like a disease across the States. Read more…
Read the original:
Watch America’s Internet Get Wiped Out by a Massive DDoS Attack
The Wall Street Journal wants a “substantial number” of newsroom employees to take a buyout, editor-in-chief Gerard Baker announced to his staff in a memo sent to WSJ staff Friday morning. Read more…
See the original article here:
Executive Accidentally Reveals Layoffs in Reply All Nightmare
Happy Friday! If you’ve had trouble this morning accessing your favorite internet outlet, you’re not alone. Dyn, one of the internet’s biggest domain name servers (DNS) got hit with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack this morning, making it quite difficult to reach some of the biggest sites and services on the web. Twitter, Spotify, the New York Times , Reddit, Yelp, Box, Pinterest and Paypal are just a handful of the sites under siege this morning. Most of the outages appear to have centered on the east coast, though a few other regions of the US also saw issues. Dyn says that services have been restored to normal, although you might see some lingering weirdness for a little bit. Here’s hoping Dyn truly has this DDoS under control so we can make it through the rest of the week without the internet collapsing on us again. Update, 12:25PM ET: It looks like this attack has been renewed. Twitter is down entirely, and other affected sites are responding much slower than normal (or not at all) right now. We’ll keep an eye on this and update as things develop. Via: Gizmodo Source: Dyn
See more here:
Some of the biggest sites on the internet were shut down this morning (update: down again)
(credit: michael ) A serious vulnerability that has been present for nine years in virtually all versions of the Linux operating system is under active exploit, according to researchers who are advising users to install a patch as soon as possible. While CVE-2016-5195, as the bug is cataloged, amounts to a mere privilege-escalation vulnerability rather than a more serious code-execution vulnerability, there are several reasons many researchers are taking it extremely seriously. For one thing, it’s not hard to develop exploits that work reliably. For another, the flaw is located in a section of the Linux kernel that’s a part of virtually every distribution of the open-source OS released for almost a decade. What’s more, researchers have discovered attack code that indicates the vulnerability is being actively and maliciously exploited in the wild. “It’s probably the most serious Linux local privilege escalation ever,” Dan Rosenberg, a senior researcher at Azimuth Security, told Ars. “The nature of the vulnerability lends itself to extremely reliable exploitation. This vulnerability has been present for nine years, which is an extremely long period of time.” Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments
See more here:
“Most serious” Linux privilege-escalation bug ever is under active exploit (updated)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Target is the top corporate installer of solar power in the USA with 147MW installed on 300 stores. Walmart is close behind with 140MW, while Ikea has installed solar on 90% of its retail locations. The Solar Energy Institute of America (SEIA) report shows over 1, 000MW of solar installed in almost 2, 000 unique installations by the largest corporate entities in the country. Additionally these groups have more than doubled their installation volume year on year, with 2015 seeing a total of 130MW, while 2016 is projected to be closer to 280MW. Big box retail locations offer some of the best potential spaces for solar power to be installed — on top of square, flat structures and in previously built parking lots. The average size of an installation by a company in this group is about 500kW — 75X the size of an average residential solar installation. The RE100 organization has signed up 81 global corporations (many on the SEIA list) who have pledged 100% renewable energy. “We’re incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made in improving building efficiencies and reducing environmental impact. Our commitment to installing solar panels on 500 stores and distribution centers by 2020 is evidence of that progress” — said John Leisen, vice president of property management at Target. The geographic breakdown of solar installations is based upon three main drivers — good sunlight, expensive electricity and state level renewable mandates, with Southern California having all three. The northeast USA, with its expensive electricity and aggressive clean energy push, has been on par with California (50% of total solar) for commercial installations. A report put together by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the World Resources Institute (WRI) breaks down the various state level laws that support corporations going green — and, without surprise, it becomes clear that the legal support of renewable energy is a definite driver. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Link:
Target Passes Walmart As Top US Corporate Installer of Solar Power
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: The Tennessee Valley Authority is celebrating an event 43 years in the making: the completion of the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant. In 1973, the TVA, one of the nation’s largest public power providers, began building two reactors that combined promised to generate enough power to light up 1.3 million homes. The first reactor, delayed by design flaws, eventually went live in 1996. Now, after billions of dollars in budget overruns, the second reactor has finally started sending power to homes and businesses. Standing in front of both reactors Wednesday, TVA President Bill Johnson said Watts Bar 2, the first U.S. reactor to enter commercial operation in 20 years, would offer clean, cheap and reliable energy to residents of several southern states for at least another generation. Before Watts Bar 2, the last time an American reactor had fired up was in 1996. It was Watts Bar 1 — and according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, it cost $6.8 billion, far greater than the original price tag at $370 million. In the 2000s, some American power companies, faced with growing environmental regulations, eyed nuclear power again as a top alternative to fossil fuels such as coal and oil. A handful of companies, taking advantage of federal loan guarantees from the Bush administration, revived nuclear reactor proposals in a period now known as the so-called “nuclear renaissance.” Eventually, nuclear regulators started to green light new reactors, including ones in Georgia and South Carolina. In 2007, the TVA resumed construction on Watts Bar 2, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The TVA originally said it would take five years to complete. The TVA, which today serves seven different southern states, relies on nuclear power to light up approximately 4.5 million homes. Watts Bar 2, the company’s seventh operating reactor, reaffirms its commitment to nukes for at least four more decades, Johnson said Wednesday. In the end, TVA required more than five years to build the project. The final cost, far exceeding its initial budget, stood at $4.7 billion. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
See original article:
First New US Nuclear Reactor In 20 Years Goes Live