Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency dealt blow by PayPal’s departure

Has PayPal just dealt a body blow to Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency?

In emails sent to journalists last week, the company abruptly announced that it was leaving the Libra Association, the 28-strong organisation of global companies and non-profits, including Facebook, set up to oversee its roll out.

Given that Libra was only announced in June, with a proposed launch in 2020, to the untrained eye this will look like an unexpected change of heart.

Unboxing the GPD P2 Max. World's smallest ultrabook

It is the world's smallest Ultrabook. With only about the size of an iPad mini 4, 8.9-inch screen 2560 1600 (WQXGA) resolution, 340ppi,  Intel the 8th generation core processor, 8~16GB memory, 256GB~512B M.2 NVMe SSD, fingerprint-unlock supported, QWERTY keyboard, integrated touch tablet Liquid cooling tube + fan, and PC level cooling solution.

Ransomware Hits Dental Data Backup Service Offering Ransomware Protection

THIS WEEK IN THE IRONIC NEWS:
DDS Safe, an online cloud-based data backup system that hundreds of dental practice offices across the United States are using to safeguard medical records and other information of their patients from ransomware attacks has been hit with ransomware.

Provided by two Wisconsin-based companies, Digital Dental Record and PerCSoft, the backend system of affected medical records retention and backup solutions has probably been hit by Sodinokibi ransomware, also known as Sodin or REvil malware.

Though it's not yet clear how attackers managed to compromise the company's infrastructure, the latest ransomware attack is yet another example of successful supply chain attack, crippling computer systems in 400 dental practice offices around the United States this week.

Hacker Ordered to Pay Back Nearly £1 Million to Phishing Victims

A prolific hacker who carried out phishing scams against hundreds of companies worldwide has been ordered to pay back more than $1.1 million (over £922,000) worth of cryptocurrencies to his victims.

Grant West, a 27-year-old resident of Kent, England, targeted several well-known companies around the world since 2015 to obtain the financial data of tens of thousands of customers and then sold that data on underground forums in exchange for Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies.

Around the World with an iPhone: Galapagos

Google, Mozilla, Apple Block Kazakhstan's Root CA Certificate to Prevent Spying

In a move to protect its users based in Kazakhstan from government surveillance, Google, Apple and Mozilla finally today came forward and blocked Kazakhstan's government-issued root CA certificate within their respective web browsing software.

Starting today, Chrome, Safari and Firefox users in Kazakhstan will see an error message stating that the "Qaznet Trust Network" certificate should not be trusted when attempting to access a website that responds with the government-issued certificate.

As The Hacker News reported last month, all major Kazakh Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are forcing their customers into installing a government-issued root certificate on their devices in order to regain access to their Internet services.

New Bluetooth Vulnerability Lets Attackers Spy On Encrypted Connections

Over a billion Bluetooth-enabled devices, including smartphones, laptops, smart IoT devices, and industrial devices, have been found vulnerable to a high severity vulnerability that could allow attackers to spy on data transmitted between the two devices.

The vulnerability, assigned as CVE-2019-9506, resides in the way 'encryption key negotiation protocol' lets two Bluetooth BR/EDR devices choose an entropy value for encryption keys while pairing to secure their connection.

Referred to as the Key Negotiation of Bluetooth (KNOB) attack, the vulnerability could allow remote attackers in close proximity to targeted devices to intercept, monitor, or manipulate encrypted Bluetooth traffic between two paired devices.