Technology - Google News

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp hit by second outage within a month - Engadget
Internet Explorer security flaw allows hackers to steal files - Engadget
Microsoft reveals hackers gained access to its web email services for three months - BetaNews

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp hit by second outage within a month - Engadget

Posted: 14 Apr 2019 06:00 AM PDT

Just as the US was waking up to a lovely Sunday, Facebook was sadly tackling yet another massive outage -- its second one within a month. According to downdetector.com, soon after 6AM ET today, users across the world started experiencing issues with Facebook and its various platforms, including Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. At the time of writing -- well over two hours later -- the services were still down, leaving users unable to load fresh content or message each other, nor could we check the service status on Facebook's developer site. Unlike last time, the company had yet to comment on the situation via Twitter.

The latest incident is just one of the many worrying problems of late coming from this social platform giant. While Facebook blamed a server configuration change for last month's massive outage, it failed to address how up to 600 million user passwords were allegedly left exposed to some 20,000 employees in the form of plain text.

More recently, the company admitted that it had accidentally deleted posts created by its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, over the years, but stopped short of explaining how that happened. And let's not forget that Facebook is also busy tackling hate speech, fake news and conspiracy theories, though some leaked emails suggested that it was struggling in some areas.

As we wait for Facebook's full recovery before we can spend the rest of the weekend spamming friends' feeds, here's hoping the company doesn't turn such outage into a monthly event.

Update 4/14/19 8:58M ET: Some of the services are gradually recovering, with Instagram and Messenger now working for this author. That said, Facebook has yet to explain the situation on its Twitter page or developer site.

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Internet Explorer security flaw allows hackers to steal files - Engadget

Posted: 14 Apr 2019 06:52 AM PDT

Microsoft's Internet Explorer has a longstanding reputation for poor security, but it's now bad enough that you could be attacked jut by having it on your PC. Security researcher John Page has revealed an unpatched exploit in the web browser's handling of MHT files (IE's web archive format) that hackers can use to both spy on Windows users and steal their local data. As Windows opens MHT files using IE by default, you don't even have to run the browser for this to be a problem -- all you have to do is open an attachment sent through chat or email.

The vulnerability affects Windows 7, Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

This wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the disclosure of the flaw. Page posted details of the exploit after Microsoft reportedly declined to roll out an urgent security fix. It instead said a fix would be "considered" in a future release. While that does suggest a patch is on the way, it leaves millions of users potentially vulnerable unless they either turn off Internet Explorer or point to another app that can open MHT files.

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Microsoft reveals hackers gained access to its web email services for three months - BetaNews

Posted: 13 Apr 2019 11:34 PM PDT

Microsoft has confirmed that hackers were able to access customers' web-based email accounts for a period of three months at the beginning of the year. Between January 1 and March 28, unknown hackers hit the accounts of various Microsoft email services.

The company is in the process of sending notifications to those who have been affected by the issue and it recommends users change their account passwords.

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Microsoft says that a "limited subset" of consumer account where affected, and the hackers have now been stopped. The attack affected @msn.com, @hotmail.com and @outlook.com email addresses, but Microsoft is keen to stress that while the hackers may have been able to access email addresses, folder names and email subject lines, the content of emails -- including attachments -- was not accessed.

TechCrunch shares an email sent out to users by Microsoft:

Microsoft is committed to providing our customers with transparency. As part of maintaining this trust and commitment to you, we are informing you of a recent event that affected your Microsoft-managed email account.

We have identified that a Microsoft support agent's credentials were compromised, enabling individuals outside Microsoft to access information within your Microsoft email account. This unauthorized access could have allowed unauthorized parties to access and/or view information related to your email account (such as your e-mail address, folder names, the subject lines of e-mails, and the names of other e-mail addresses you communicate with), but not the content of any e-mails or attachments, between January 1st 2019 and March 28th 2019.

Upon awareness of this issue, Microsoft immediately disabled the compromised credentials, prohibiting their use for any further unauthorized access. Our data indicates that account-related information (but not the content of any e-mails) could have been viewed, but Microsoft has no indication why that information was viewed or how it may have been used. As a result, you may receive phishing emails or other spam mails. You should be careful when receiving any e-mails from any misleading domain name, any e-mail that requests personal information or payment, or any unsolicited request from an untrusted source (you can read more about phishing attacks at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/intelligence/phishing).

It is important to note that your email login credentials were not directly impacted by this incident. However, out of caution, you should reset your password for your account.

Microsoft has not said how many accounts were affected by the incident, nor has it given any indication of who may have been responsible. In addition to the email sent to customers, Microsoft's only further comment is a statement in which it says: " We addressed this scheme, which affected a limited subset of consumer accounts, by disabling the compromised credentials and blocking the perpetrators' access".

Image credit: hafakot / Shutterstock

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