New submitter Zorro writes: A ransomware attack sweeping the globe right now is launching about 8, 000 different versions of the virus script at Barracuda’s customers, Eugene Weiss, lead platform architect at Barracuda, told Axios, and it’s hitting at a steady rate of about 2 million attacks per hour. What to watch out for: An incoming email spoofing the destination host, with a subject about “Herbalife” or a “copier” file delivery. Two of the latest variants Barracuda has detected include a paragraph about legalese to make it seem official, or a line about how a “payment is attached, ” which tricks you to click since, as Weiss puts it, “everyone wants a payment.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Ransomware Hack Targeting 2 Million an Hour
Microsoft will start bundling drivers with Windows Store games to improve the performance of the game once downloaded. A report on Thurrott adds: This will work by the game download trigging Windows Update to acquire the minimum driver requirements to make sure that application works as intended. This may perturb some users who like having complete control over the driver updates for their hardware as this auto-download mechanism will overwrite the existing installation of the driver. Of course, you can still roll-back the update but hopefully Microsoft gives us a way to stop the auto-download of the driver via the Windows Store when this feature arrives. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes “Reuters reports that nineteen companies caught writing fake reviews on websites such as Yelp, Google Local and CitySearch have been snared in a year-long sting operation by the New York Attorney General and will pay $350, 000 in penalties. The Attorney General’s office set up a fake yogurt shop in Brooklyn, New York, and sought help from firms that specialize in boosting online search results to combat negative reviews. Search optimization companies offered to post fake reviews of the yogurt shop, created online profiles, and paid as little as $1 per review to freelance writers in the Philippines, Bangladesh and Eastern Europe. To avoid detection the companies used ‘advanced IP spoofing techniques’ to hide their true identities. ‘This investigation into large-scale, intentional deceit across the Internet tells us that we should approach online reviews with caution, ‘ said Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. ‘More than 100 million visitors come to Yelp each month, making it critical that Yelp protect the integrity of its content, ‘ said Aaron Schur, Yelp’s Senior Litigation Counsel.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
An anonymous reader writes “Days after the killing of leftist blogger Thaba Baba, mosques throughout Bangladesh called for a popular uprising to demand the killing of other bloggers who had held a rally calling for the death of Jama’at-e-Islami leaders convicted of war crimes. This happens in an atmosphere of ongoing tension between Left and Right, with the leftist government threatening to outlaw rightist parties while the right uses violence to quiet selected enemies.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.