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The hacker who took over San Francisco’s Muni got hacked

Last week, the San Francisco Municipal Light Rail system (the Muni) had to stop charging passengers to ride because a ransomware hacker had taken over its network and encrypted the drives of all of its servers. (more…)

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The hacker who took over San Francisco’s Muni got hacked

1 million Google accounts compromised by Android malware called Gooligan

(credit: Ron Amadeo) Researchers say they’ve uncovered a family of Android-based malware that has compromised more than 1 million Google accounts, hundreds of them associated with enterprise users. Gooligan, as researchers from security firm Check Point Software Technologies have dubbed the malware, has been found in at least 86 apps available in third-party marketplaces. Once installed, it uses a process known as rooting to gain highly privileged system access to devices running version 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, and KitKat) and version 5 (Lollipop) of Google’s Android operating system. Together, the vulnerable versions account for about 74 percent of users . The rooted devices then download and install software that steals the authentication tokens that allow the phones to access the owner’s Google-related accounts without having to enter a password. The tokens work for a variety of Google properties, including Gmail, Google Photos, Google Docs, Google Play, Google Drive, and G Suite. In a blog post published Wednesday morning , Check Point researchers wrote: Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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1 million Google accounts compromised by Android malware called Gooligan

Nintendo attractions are coming to all Universal theme parks

Universal Parks & Resorts and Nintendo announced today that they will be bringing a Nintendo-themed area—filled with themed attractions, shops, and restaurants—to Universal theme parks in Orlando, Hollywood, and Osaka “over the next several years.” The announcement is light on details about things like types of rides or included game franchises but full of buzzwords like “innovative,” “immersive and interactive,” “expansive,” and “breathtakingly authentic.” Still, the announcement represents the first concrete new information on the Nintendo/Universal partnership since it was first announced last year . Early reports of the “Mario area” in Universal’s Osaka park began to leak out via the Japanese press in March, but this is the first sign that Nintendo attractions will be coming to the United States parks as well. “We are working very hard to create attractions that can be equally enjoyable to anybody, regardless of age,” Nintendo Creative Fellow Shigeru Miyamoto said in a video accompanying the announcement. “We are constantly amazed how the park developers are bringing the essence of our games to life in the real world. Together we are building it with an eye for what guests will actually experience.” Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Nintendo attractions are coming to all Universal theme parks

This Cyber Monday Was the Biggest Online Shopping Day, Ever

Cyber Monday is likely to have been the biggest online shopping day in history, according to an analysis of visits to US retail websites. Online spending in the US yesterday hit a new record with $3.39bn spent online, a 10.2 percent increase year-over-year — ahead even of Black Friday, when $3.34bn was spent. ZDNet adds:Cyber Monday is expected to generate slightly less mobile revenue than Black Friday at $1.19bn, but that’s still a 48 percent increase on last year, according to the analysis by Adobe. Consumers have spent a total of $39.9bn online so far this month, it said, up 7.4 percent on last November, with 27 out of 28 days seeing online sales of over $1bn. The five best-selling toys in terms of quantity sold on Cyber Monday were Lego, Shopkins, Nerf, Barbie, and Little Live Pets. The five best-selling electronic products were Sony PlayStation 4, Microsoft Xbox, Samsung 4K TVs, Apple iPads, and Amazon Fire tablets, the company said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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This Cyber Monday Was the Biggest Online Shopping Day, Ever

Zynga sues 2 former employees over alleged massive data heist

Enlarge (credit: Scopely ) On Tuesday, Zynga sued two of its former employees. The company claims they stole confidential information and took it to their new employer, rival social gaming startup, Scopely. Massimo Maietti and Ehud Barlach worked as higher-up employees for the San Francisco-based Zynga until they left in July and September, respectively. Scopely, which makes Dice with Buddies , Wheel of Fortune Free Play , and others, is also named as a co-defendant in the case. According to Zynga’s 28-page civil complaint , Maietti was the creative director on “one of Zynga’s most ambitious soon-to-be released games, which goes by the code name ‘Project Mars.’” Barlach, for his part, was the general manager of Hit It Rich! Slots . Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Zynga sues 2 former employees over alleged massive data heist

Netflix Adds Offline Viewing for Phones and Tablets

Starting today, Netflix will let you download select shows so that you can watch offline. That means you can queue up your favorite shows to watch while you’re traveling or don’t want to use up your data plan. Read more…

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Netflix Adds Offline Viewing for Phones and Tablets

Ancient Bug Discovered in the Heart of Antarctica

Insects aren’t the first thing that come to mind when we think of Antarctica, but as the discovery of a rare Antarctic beetle shows, this frozen continent was quite different millions of years ago. Read more…

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Ancient Bug Discovered in the Heart of Antarctica

Vegans Are Pissed That Britain’s New Money Contains Meat

England recently introduced a new £5 note with high-tech, anti-counterfeit features. But some animal rights activists in the Land of Brexit™ are swearing off the bill completely. Apparently the new notes are made using just a dash of animal fat. Read more…

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Vegans Are Pissed That Britain’s New Money Contains Meat

Google Asked to Remove a Billion ‘Pirate’ Search Results in a Year

Copyright holders asked Google to remove more than 1, 000, 000, 000 allegedly infringing links from its search engine over the past twelve months, TorrentFreak reports. According to stats provided in Google’s Transparency Report for the past one year, Google was asked to remove over one billion links — or 1, 007, 741, 143 links. From the article: More than 90 percent of the links, 908, 237, 861 were in fact removed. The rest of the reported links were rejected because they were invalid, not infringing, or duplicates of earlier requests. In total, Google has now processed just over two billion allegedly infringing URLs from 945, 000 different domains. That the second billion took only a year, compared to several years for the first, shows how rapidly the volume of takedown requests is expanding. At the current rate, another billion will be added by the end of next summer. Most requests, over 50 million, were sent in for the website 4shared.com. However, according to the site’s operators many of the reported URLs point to the same files, inflating the actual volume of infringing content. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google Asked to Remove a Billion ‘Pirate’ Search Results in a Year