science – Page 15 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Up To 1.4M More Fake Wells Fargo Accounts Possible

An anonymous reader quotes the Bay Area Newsgroup: Wells Fargo may have opened as many as 3.5 million bogus bank accounts without its customers’ permission, attorneys for customers suing the bank have alleged in a court filing, suggesting the bank may have created far more fake accounts than previously indicated. The plaintiffs’ new estimate of bogus bank accounts is about 1.4 million, or 67%, higher than the original estimate — disclosed last year as part of a settlement with regulators — that up to 2.1 million accounts were opened without customers’ permission… The attorneys covered a period from 2002 to 2017, rather than the previously scrutinized five-year stretch from 2011 to some time in 2016 in which the bank acknowledged setting up unauthorized accounts. Wells Fargo terminated 5, 300 employees for creating fake accounts, and their CEO now acknowledges that “we had an incentive program and a high-pressure sales culture within our community bank that drove behavior that many times was inappropriate and inconsistent with our values.” In a possibly-related story, Wells Fargo plans to shut 450 branches over the next two years. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Up To 1.4M More Fake Wells Fargo Accounts Possible

Today’s Massive Ransomware Attack Was Mostly Preventable—Here’s How To Avoid It

Ransomware may be mostly thought of as a (sometimes costly) nuisance, but when it hinders the ability of doctors and nurses to help people with an emergency medical problems, that qualifies as armed robbery. Read more…

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Today’s Massive Ransomware Attack Was Mostly Preventable—Here’s How To Avoid It

Google Found Over 1,000 Bugs In 47 Open Source Projects

Orome1 writes: In the last five months, Google’s OSS-Fuzz program has unearthed over 1, 000 bugs in 47 open source software projects… So far, OSS-Fuzz has found a total of 264 potential security vulnerabilities: 7 in Wireshark, 33 in LibreOffice, 8 in SQLite 3, 17 in FFmpeg — and the list goes on… Google launched the program in December and wants more open source projects to participate, so they’re offering cash rewards for including “fuzz” targets for testing in their software. “Eligible projects will receive $1, 000 for initial integration, and up to $20, 000 for ideal integration” — or twice that amount, if the proceeds are donated to a charity. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scientists Finally Know What Makes These Weird Glass Droplets So Incredibly Strong

Something unusual happens when a drop of molten glass falls into water. As it cools, it creates a crystal clear tadpole-like droplet that’s bulletproof on one end, but impossibly fragile on the other. We’ve known about these droplets for 400 years, but scientists have only recently figured out what makes them almost… Read more…

Today’s Massive Ransomware Attack Was Mostly Preventable—Here’s How To Avoid It

Ransomware may be mostly thought of as a (sometimes costly) nuisance, but when it hinders the ability of doctors and nurses to help people with an emergency medical problems, that qualifies as armed robbery. Read more…

Continued here:
Today’s Massive Ransomware Attack Was Mostly Preventable—Here’s How To Avoid It

Google Found Over 1,000 Bugs In 47 Open Source Projects

Orome1 writes: In the last five months, Google’s OSS-Fuzz program has unearthed over 1, 000 bugs in 47 open source software projects… So far, OSS-Fuzz has found a total of 264 potential security vulnerabilities: 7 in Wireshark, 33 in LibreOffice, 8 in SQLite 3, 17 in FFmpeg — and the list goes on… Google launched the program in December and wants more open source projects to participate, so they’re offering cash rewards for including “fuzz” targets for testing in their software. “Eligible projects will receive $1, 000 for initial integration, and up to $20, 000 for ideal integration” — or twice that amount, if the proceeds are donated to a charity. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google Found Over 1,000 Bugs In 47 Open Source Projects

Microsoft Finally Bans SHA-1 Certificates In Its Browsers

An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet: With this week’s monthly Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has also rolled out a new policy for Edge and Internet Explorer that prevents sites that use a SHA-1-signed HTTPS certificate from loading. The move brings Microsoft’s browsers in line with Chrome, which dropped support for the SHA-1 cryptographic hash function in January’s stable release of Chrome 56, and Firefox’s February cut-off… Apple dropped support for SHA-1 in March with macOS Sierra 10.12.4 and iOS 10.3… Once Tuesday’s updates are installed, Microsoft’s browsers will no longer load sites with SHA-1 signed certificates and will display an error warning highlighting a security problem with the site’s certificate. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Finally Bans SHA-1 Certificates In Its Browsers

Up To 1.4M More Fake Wells Fargo Accounts Possible

An anonymous reader quotes the Bay Area Newsgroup: Wells Fargo may have opened as many as 3.5 million bogus bank accounts without its customers’ permission, attorneys for customers suing the bank have alleged in a court filing, suggesting the bank may have created far more fake accounts than previously indicated. The plaintiffs’ new estimate of bogus bank accounts is about 1.4 million, or 67%, higher than the original estimate — disclosed last year as part of a settlement with regulators — that up to 2.1 million accounts were opened without customers’ permission… The attorneys covered a period from 2002 to 2017, rather than the previously scrutinized five-year stretch from 2011 to some time in 2016 in which the bank acknowledged setting up unauthorized accounts. Wells Fargo terminated 5, 300 employees for creating fake accounts, and their CEO now acknowledges that “we had an incentive program and a high-pressure sales culture within our community bank that drove behavior that many times was inappropriate and inconsistent with our values.” In a possibly-related story, Wells Fargo plans to shut 450 branches over the next two years. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Germany Sets New National Record With 85 Percent of Its Electricity Sourced From Renewables

Germany was able to set a new national record for the last weekend of April with 85 percent of all electricity consumed in the country being produced from renewables — wind, solar, biomass, and hydroelectric power. Digital Trends reports: Aided by a seasonal combination of windy but sunny weather, during that weekend the majority of Germany’s coal-fired power stations weren’t even operating, while nuclear power stations (which the country plans to phase out by the year 2022) were massively reduced in output. To be clear, this is impressive even by Germany’s progressive standards. By comparison, in March just over 40 percent of all electricity consumed in the country came from renewable sources. However, while the end-of-April weekend was an aberration, the hope is that it won’t be for too much longer. According to Patrick Graichen of the country’s sustainability-focused Agora Energiewende Initiative, German renewable energy percentages in the mid-80s should be “completely normal” by the year 2030. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Germany Sets New National Record With 85 Percent of Its Electricity Sourced From Renewables

Today’s Massive Ransomware Attack Was Mostly Preventable—Here’s How To Avoid It

Ransomware may be mostly thought of as a (sometimes costly) nuisance, but when it hinders the ability of doctors and nurses to help people with an emergency medical problems, that qualifies as armed robbery. Read more…

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Today’s Massive Ransomware Attack Was Mostly Preventable—Here’s How To Avoid It