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iOS and Android Combined For Record 99% of Smartphone Sales Last Quarter

An anonymous reader writes: The research firm Gartner has crunched some numbers and found that Android and iOS accounted for a record 99.1% worldwide market share in the second calendar quarter of 2016, which is compared to 96.8% in the year-ago period. What some may view as even more shocking is that Android accounted for 86.2% of the market share in the second quarter, up from 82.2% a year ago. Meanwhile, iOS lost some ground as it dropped to 12.9% market share from 14.6% in the year-ago period. It’s no surprise that Windows and BlackBerry have been losing market share. They dropped to 0.6% and 0.1% market share worldwide respectively. Just six years ago, BlackBerry and Symbian operating systems were industry leaders. Now, they’re industry losers. Which third-party operating system has what it takes to take on the establishment? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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iOS and Android Combined For Record 99% of Smartphone Sales Last Quarter

Malware That Fakes Bank Login Screens Found In Google Ads

tedlistens quotes a report from Fast Company: For years, security firms have warned of keystroke logging malware that surreptitiously steals usernames and passwords on desktop and laptop computers. In the past year, a similar threat has begun to emerge on mobile devices: So-called overlay malware that impersonates login pages from popular apps and websites as users launch the apps, enticing them to enter their credentials to banking, social networking, and other services, which are then sent on to attackers. Such malware has even found its way onto Google’s AdSense network, according to a report on Monday from Kaspersky Lab. The weapon would automatically download when users visited certain Russian news sites, without requiring users to click on the malicious advertisements. It then prompts users for administrative rights, which makes it harder for antivirus software or the user to remove it, and proceeds to steal credentials through fake login screens, and by intercepting, deleting, and sending text messages. The Kaspersky researchers call it “a gratuitous act of violence against Android users.” “By simply viewing their favorite news sites over their morning coffee users can end up downloading last-browser-update.apk, a banking Trojan detected by Kaspersky Lab solutions as Trojan-Banker.AndroidOS.Svpeng.q, ” according to the company. “There you are, minding your own business, reading the news and BOOM! — no additional clicks or following links required.” The good news is that the issue has since been resolved, according to a Google spokeswoman. Fast Company provides more details about these types of attacks and how to stay safe in its report. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Malware That Fakes Bank Login Screens Found In Google Ads

Cable Expands Broadband Domination as AT&T and Verizon Lose Customers

The cable industry’s grip on the U.S. broadband space increased last quarter, with Comcast and Charter gaining nearly 500, 000 subscribers, combined. Phone companies AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, and Frontier, however, all lost Internet customers. ArsTechnica reports:The 14 largest ISPs, accounting for 95 percent of the US market, gained 192, 510 Internet customers in Q2 2016, bringing the total to 91.9 million, Leichtman Research Group reported today. Cable companies accounted for all of the gains, adding 553, 293 subscribers for a new total of 57 million. The phone companies lost 360, 783 subscribers, bringing them down to 34.9 million. Phone companies’ losses more than doubled since Q2 2015, when they lost about 150, 000 subscribers. Comcast and Charter, the two biggest ISPs, led the way in subscriber gains. Comcast added 220, 000 broadband subscribers to boost its total to 24 million, while Charter (the new owner of Time Warner Cable) added 277, 000 subscribers for a new total of 21.8 million. AT&T lost 123, 000 subscribers, lowering its total to 15.6 million. Verizon lost 83, 000, leaving it with 7 million Internet customers. CenturyLink and Frontier lost 66, 000 and 77, 000, respectively. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Cable Expands Broadband Domination as AT&T and Verizon Lose Customers

Seagate Reveals ‘World’s Largest’ 60TB SSD

An anonymous reader writes: While Samsung has the world’s largest commercially available SSD coming in at 15.36TB, Seagate officially has the world’s largest SSD for the enterprise. ZDNet reports: “[While Samsung’s PM1633a has a 2.5-inch form factor, ] Seagate’s 60TB Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) SSD on the other hand opts for the familiar HDD 3.5-inch form factor. The company says that its drive has “twice the density and four times the capacity” of Samsung’s PM1633a, and is capable of holding up to 400 million photos or 12, 000 movies. Seagate thinks the 3.5-inch form factor will be useful for managing changing storage requirements in data centers since it removes the need to support separate form factors for hot and cold data. The company says it could also scale up capacity to 100TB in the same form factor. Seagate says the 60TB SSD is currently only a ‘demonstration technology’ though it could release the product commercially as early as next year. It hasn’t revealed the price of the unit but says it will offer ‘the lowest cost per gigabyte for flash available today.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Seagate Reveals ‘World’s Largest’ 60TB SSD

London’s Metropolitan Police Still Running 27,000 Windows XP Desktops

An anonymous reader writes: London’s Met Police has missed its deadline for abandoning the out-of-date operating system Windows XP, as findings reveal 27, 000 computers still run on the software two years after official support ended. Microsoft stopped issuing updates and patches for Windows XP in Spring 2014, meaning that any new bugs and flaws in the operating system are left open to attack. A particularly risky status for the UK capital’s police force – itself running operations against hacking and other cybercrime activity. The figures were disclosed by Conservative politician Andrew Boff. The Greater London Assembly member said: ‘The Met should have stopped using Windows XP in 2014 when extended support ended, and to hear that 27, 000 computers are still using it is worrying.’ As in similar cases across civil departments, the core problem is bespoke system development, and the costs and time associated with integrating a new OS with customized systems. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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London’s Metropolitan Police Still Running 27,000 Windows XP Desktops

Hackers Make the First-Ever Ransomware For Smart Thermostats

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, writing for Motherboard: One day, your thermostat will get hacked by some cybercriminal hundreds of miles away who will lock it with malware and demand a ransom to get it back to normal, leaving you literally in the cold until you pay up a few hundred dollars. This has been a scenario that security experts have touted as one of the theoretical dangers of the rise of the Internet of Things, internet-connected devices that are often insecure. On Saturday, what sounds like a Mr. Robot plot line came one step closer to being reality, when two white hat hackers showed off the first-ever ransomware that works against a “smart” device, in this case, a thermostat. Luckily, Andrew Tierney and Ken Munro, the two security researchers who created the ransomware, actually have no ill intention. They just wanted to make a point: some Internet of Things devices fail to take simple security precautions, leaving users in danger. “We don’t have any control over our devices, and don’t really know what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, ” Tierney told Motherboard. “And if they start doing something you don’t understand, you don’t really have a way of dealing with it.” Tierney and Munro, who both work UK-based security firm Pen Test Partners, demonstrated their thermostat ransomware proof-of-concept at the hacking conference Def Con on Saturday, fulfilling the pessimistic predictions of some people in security world. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Hackers Make the First-Ever Ransomware For Smart Thermostats

900M Android Devices Vulnerable To New ‘Quadrooter’ Security Flaw

An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a report from CNET: Four newly-discovered vulnerabilities found in Android phones and tablets that ship with a Qualcomm chip could allow an attacker to take complete control of an affected device. The set of vulnerabilities, dubbed “Quadrooter, ” affects over 900 million phone and tablets, according to Check Point researchers who discovered the flaws. An attacker would have to trick a user into installing a malicious app, which wouldn’t require any special permissions. If successfully exploited, an attacker can gain root access, which gives the attacker full access to an affected Android device, its data, and its hardware — including its camera and microphone. The flaw even affects several of Google’s own Nexus devices, as well as the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, according to the article, as well as the Blackberry DTEK50, which the company describes as the “most secure Android smartphone.” CNET adds that “A patch that will fix one of the flaws will not be widely released until September, a Google spokesperson confirmed.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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900M Android Devices Vulnerable To New ‘Quadrooter’ Security Flaw

Nigerian Scammers Infect Themselves With Own Malware, Reveal New Fraud Scheme

“A pair of security researchers recently uncovered a Nigerian scammer ring that they say operates a new kind of attack…after a few of its members accidentally infected themselves with their own malware, ” reports IEEE Spectrum. “Over the past several months, they’ve watched from a virtual front row seat as members used this technique to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from small and medium-sized businesses worldwide.” Wave723 writes: Nigerian scammers are becoming more sophisticated, moving on from former ‘spoofing’ attacks in which they impersonated a CEO’s email from an external account. Now, they’ve begun to infiltrate employee email accounts to monitor financial transactions and slip in their own routing and account info…The researchers estimate this particular ring of criminals earns about US $3 million from the scheme. After they infected their own system, the scammers’ malware uploaded screenshots and all of their keystrokes to an open web database, including their training sessions for future scammers and the re-routing of a $400, 000 payment. Yet the scammers actually “appear to be ‘family men’ in their late 20s to 40s who are well-respected, church-going figures in their communities, ” according to the article. SecureWorks malware researcher Joe Stewart says the scammers are “increasing the economic potential of the region they’re living in by doing this, and I think they feel somewhat of a duty to do this.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Nigerian Scammers Infect Themselves With Own Malware, Reveal New Fraud Scheme

Luxury Liner SS United States Cannot Be Put Back In Service

tomhath writes: Once the fastest ocean liner ever built, the SS United States has been mothballed for almost 50 years. An ambitious project to refurbish the SS United States as a luxury liner has been abandoned due to insurmountable technical and commercial obstacles. Plan B, to turn it into a floating hotel/convention center, might go forward. Miami Herald provides some history of the SS United States in its report: “The iconic 1950s vessel, which was bigger than the Titanic and once carried celebrities across the Atlantic Ocean, was set for a $700 million overhaul by the Los Angeles-based luxury line, which also has offices in Miami. The SS United States was decommissioned in 1969 and has been gutted and docked in Philadelphia for two decades on the Delaware River. On its maiden voyage in 1952, the ship traversed the Atlantic in three days, 10 hours and 42 minutes — a record it held until 1990.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Luxury Liner SS United States Cannot Be Put Back In Service

LibreOffice 5.2 Officially Released

prisoninmate writes from a report via Softpedia: LibreOffice 5.2 is finally here, after it has been in development for the past four months, during which the development team behind one of the best free office suites have managed to implement dozens of new features and improvements to most of the application’s components. Key features include more UI refinements to make it flexible for anyone, standards-based document classification, forecasting functions in Calc, the spreadsheet editor, as well as lots of Writer and Impress enhancements. A series of videos are provided to see what landed in the LibreOffice 5.2 office suite, which is now available for download for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows operating systems. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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LibreOffice 5.2 Officially Released