Over 90 percent of endpoint security incidents involve legitimate binaries

Cybercriminals use a variety of tactics to cloak their activity and that includes using trusted tools, like PowerShell, to retrieve and execute malicious code from remote sources. A new report from eSentire reveals that 91 percent of endpoint incidents detected in Q1 2018 involved known, legitimate binaries. "eSentire Threat Intelligence data shows heavy use of legitimate Microsoft binaries, such as PowerShell and mshta.exe, popular tools for downloading and executing malicious code in the initial stages of a malware infection," says Eldon Sprickerhoff, founder and chief security strategist, eSentire. "PowerShell can also be leveraged by adversaries to reduce their on-disk footprint… [Continue Reading]

Gentoo Linux Github Organization hacked and repo code compromised

A hacker managed to take control of the Github account for Gentoo Linux, going as far as inserting malicious code into the distros. The malware was designed to delete user data. Although the situation is now under control, an investigation is underway to determine what happened. Anyone who has downloaded a Gentoo distro or other files recently, is warned to "refrain from using code from the Gentoo Github Organization" for the time being. See also: Microsoft officially announces agreement to acquire GitHub in $7.5 billion deal Google releases open source 'GIF for CLI' terminal tool on GitHub Linux Mint Debian… [Continue Reading]

Win a 2TB diskAshur PRO2 hardware encrypted hard drive #BetaNews20

Throughout June, to celebrate BetaNews’ 20th birthday, we have been giving away some incredible prizes and while the month is drawing to a close now, we still have more giveaways for you enter. The diskAshur Pro 2 range of portable USB hard drives from iStorage makes it easy to keep your personal files and folders private thanks to the integrated PIN authenticated XTS-AES 256-bit hardware encryption. Unlocking the drive is just a matter of tapping your PIN into the keypad and pressing the unlock button. To secure it again, just press the lock button, or eject the drive. SEE ALSO:… [Continue Reading]

OnePlus is looking to come to the US as it promises two years of software updates and a 5G phone

At Mobile World Congress Shanghai, OnePlus CEO and founder Pete Lau said that his company is determined to make a proper entry into the North American market and is working with US carriers to make it happen. OnePlus has also said that it is looking to produce a 5G phone in 2019, and it will take advantage of its relationship with Qualcomm to make this happen. For current and future OnePlus owners, the company also made commitments about software and security updates. See also: Fix on the way for OnePlus 6 bootloader security flaw OnePlus unveils the OnePlus 6 smartphone,… [Continue Reading]

Amazon's new Show Mode turns a Fire tablet into a slimmed-down Echo Show -- for free

Amazon is always looking for new ways to get its Alexa digital assistant into more homes. It’s rolled out a variety of Echo products over the years, most recently the Fire TV Cube, and Echo Dot Kids Edition. A year ago, the company introduced the Echo Show, an Alexa powered device with a built-in 7-inch touchscreen. Today, the retail giant announces a free software update to turn an existing Fire tablet into a slimmed down Show, and there’s a new charging dock to complete the experience too. Show Mode is available for Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 10 tablets… [Continue Reading]

Shift to DevOps leads to more time spent troubleshooting

A new report from log management platform Scalyr reveals that as organizations shift from more traditional architectures to microservices, they release software more frequently, but spend more time troubleshooting issues. The State of DevOps Observability Report, based on a survey of 155 software development practitioners, finds that organizations are shifting away from traditional, monolithic architectures, with three-quarters of survey respondents delivering at least some of their applications and more than one-third delivering most of their applications as microservices. However, this shift has put pressure on DevOps observability. Despite having multiple visibility tools, respondents who deliver software in this modern way… [Continue Reading]

Amazon introduces its largest and fastest tablet for kids

Amazon’s Fire tablets have been a big success for the company, with the Kids Editions proving very popular with parents. As well as offering age-appropriate content, they come with a kid proof case which makes them much harder to break than regular tablets. Today the retail giant introduces a new model to the range. The Fire HD 10 Kids Edition is its largest kid friendly device to date, and for a price that’s very reasonable. The Fire HD 10 Kids Edition offers a 10.1-inch 1080p Full HD display, an ultra-fast quad-core processor, 32 GB of storage with up to 256… [Continue Reading]