Also on today’s menu:
Exploiting Personal Information For Profit
Old Systems Vulnerable If Not Updated
Hollis Man Critically Injured On Mount Cube
A team of scientists at the European Space Agency was studying two actively forming stars in the Vela Constellation, some 1,470 light-years from earth in the Vela Constellation, when, just below the two stars on the deep-space image was an object that resembled a huge, red question mark.
Representatives of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, explained, “It is probably a distant galaxy, or potentially interacting galaxies. Their interactions may have caused the distorted question mark-shape.”
As intriguing as the shape is, the scientists are more interested in the two stars, Herbig-Haro 46/47, that are surrounded by material that “feeds” them as they grow.
Exploiting Personal Information For Profit
We’ve all received them: Posts asking us to copy and paste something on social media, answering some seemingly trivial question like naming your first car or favorite movie — the types of questions that serve as security questions for online banking accounts or other protected websites. By copying and pasting, you may be spreading hidden computer code that opens you up to hacking, similar to sharing files in Messenger. All are clandestine methods used by bad actors to gain access to your private data, whether for marketing or more criminal purposes.
Another way hackers are able to steal information they may later use is through artificial intelligence-driven applications such as the sports analysis company whose database was leaked online. The paid service for professional athletes monitors athletes while training or competing, then offers advice on such things as stance and posture. That data becomes part of the hackers collection information for fraud or identity theft.
The BreachAware® Research Team found 4,228,354 such leaked accounts last week. Many of those attacks are made possible by automatic data collection in which users must opt out to avoid exposing their personal information — such as the EZ-Pass system we previously reported upon. Now Meta, which has announced its intention to offer Europeans a free choice to deny its targeted ad tracking, will not offer the same opt-out provision to users in the United Kingdom. That is because a new post-Brexit bill lowers the threshold for having to provide that option.
The Open Rights Group notes that the bill is changing wording on which requests for personal data can be refused, from “manifestly unfounded or excessive” to “vexatious or excessive”, meaning that companies will be able to avoid telling users what information they collect about you and how they use that data.
Of course, opt-out only works if people pay attention to their risk. People who continue to copy and paste, communicate via Messenger, and fail to check their privacy settings are already giving companies — and hackers — access to thousands of “data points” to make them targets for marketing and fraud.
Old Systems Vulnerable If Not Updated
It is not only applications on social media and health tracking devices that are vulnerable to exploitation. Smart meters such as the Schneider Electric ION and PowerLogic power meters have vulnerable operations by transmitting user IDs and passwords in plain text with every message.
The flaw makes it possible for an attacker with passive interception capabilities to obtain credentials, then authenticate and change configuration settings or potentially modify the meters’ firmware. That would allow hackers to trigger shutdowns that would send the demand load to other parts of the grid network. “In a worst-case scenario, a domino effect could theoretically lead to a blackout,” according to Daniel dos Santos, head of security research at Forescout.
“It’s one of those examples of things that were designed at an earlier time,” he said. “So it’s definitely a relevant enough issue that made them reevaluate the need for a secure version of the protocol for a product line that is older but still used a lot.”
Hollis Man Critically Injured On Mount Cube
Seventy-year-old Patrick Tyler of Hollis is being evaluated at Dartmouth Health following a fall while hiking on Mount Cube in Orford. Tyler was descending from the summit on August 7 when he slipped and fell on a wet, steep area, severely striking his head.
His spouse called New Hampshire Fish and Game about 12:40 p.m. Conservation Officers, members of the Upper Valley Wilderness Response Team, and personnel from the Orford, Hanover, Thetford, Lyme, Canaan, Rumney, Wentworth, and Grafton fire departments responded, but Tyler’s condition rapidly deteriorated, and a New Hampshire Army National Guard Blackhawk crew was called in to assist in the rescue.
The ground crews reached Tyler about 2:30 p.m. and attempted to stabilize his condition. However, due to worsening weather, the flight crew could make it only as far as Plymouth before making a second attempt to reach Tyler from the west. Determining that a helicopter rescue would not be possible, the ground crews brought Tyler down via the Cross-Rivendell Trail, arriving at the trailhead about 5:20 p.m. Upper Valley Ambulance then took him to Dartmouth Health for further evaluation and treatment of his life-threatening condition.
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