Posts Tagged: alerts

Defense Department alerts over 20,000 employees about email data breach

The Department of Defense sent a data breach notification letter to thousands of current and former employees alerting that their personal information had been leaked, DefenseScoop reported on Tuesday. While the department first detected the incident in early 2023, the notifications didn’t begin to go out until earlier this month. More than 20,000 individuals appear to be affected by the breach. 

The letter explains that emails messages were “inadvertently exposed to the internet” by a Defense Department “service provider.” The emails contained personally identifiable information. While the agency doesn’t clarify what type of information, PII generally ranges from information like social security numbers, home address or other sensitive details. “While there is no evidence to suggest that your PII was misused, the department is notifying those individuals whose PII may have been breached as a result of this unfortunate situation,” the letter says. It urges affected parties to sign up for identity theft protection.

According to TechCrunch, the breach stems from an unsecured cloud email server that leaked sensitive emails onto the web. The Microsoft server, which was likely misconfigured, could be accessed from the internet without so much as a password. 

“As a matter of practice and operations security, we do not comment on the status of our networks and systems. The affected server was identified and removed from public access on February 20, 2023, and the vendor has resolved the issues that resulted in the exposure,” the Department of Defense said in a statement. “DOD continues to engage with the service provider on improving cyber event prevention and detection. Notification to affected individuals is ongoing.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/defense-department-alerts-over-20000-employees-about-email-data-breach-164528056.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Twitter’s rebrand to X is causing scam alerts on Microsoft Edge

'Twitters swift rebrand to X is generating yet another issue. As reported by Bleeping Computer, the social media platform is causing Microsoft's Edge browser to throw up a warning, indicating some sort of security problem.

It seems to be related to how Edge and other Chromium-based web browsers deal with favicons (or 'Progressive Web App Icon Change', if you want to get super technical about it). With the Twitter rebrand being so sudden, Edge likely thinks X is a scam. The security alert prompts users to review the icon update and reads, "If this web app is trying to trick you into thinking it's a different app, uninstall it."

But as Bleeping Computer points out, PWA is working as intended. It is supposed to alert you when a website suddenly changes its favicon as that could indicate a potential redirect to a scam website. Presumably, this is temporary and will be fixed quickly. We've reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update this story once we've heard back. 

An alert from Microsoft Edge suggesting that the Twitter rebrand to X may be a scam.
Florian / X

This is similar to an incident earlier this week, where X was blocked in Indonesia as it has laws forbidding gambling or porn. The X.com domain's previous owners broke the country's content laws.

Still, this is yet another indicator of how sudden the Twitter-to-X transition was. Other companies such as Meta and Microsoft already own trademarks on variations of X, which could land Musk's company some lawsuits. X even ran into trouble when attempting to change its signage at its San Francisco headquarters, as it didn't have the required permits. The company had to abandon its would-be facelift and leave the old bird logo and the letters "er" intact for a day or so.

The sudden name change is part of a larger plan to turn Twitter into a "super app" that's similar to China's popular WeChat. The platform could theoretically be used for payments, messaging and calls in the future.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/twitters-rebrand-to-x-is-causing-scam-alerts-on-microsoft-edge-203531493.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

How to turn off AMBER alerts and other emergency alerts on iPhone and Android

The AMBER alert system is important, but there’s a way to toggle off this notification. We show you how on iPhones and Android devices.
Digital Trends

Google is rolling out a rapid Air Raid Alerts System for all Android phones in Ukraine

By now you are probably aware of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which is resulting in a huge humanitarian crisis in the country and widespread devastation caused by Russia’s indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas. It’s shocking, shameful, and has resulted in millions of Ukrainians trying to cross the border into friendly nations such as Poland and […]

Come comment on this article: Google is rolling out a rapid Air Raid Alerts System for all Android phones in Ukraine

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Android’s Live Transcribe gets sound alerts and transcript saving

Google is making Live Transcribe, its Android app for easy voice transcription, a lot more useful. Now, in addition to jotting down spoken words, it'll also make you aware of things like a dog barking or audience clapping. It'll give deaf and hard of…
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Netgear’s smart security light alerts you of unwanted guests

Netgear is taking another stride into smart home security under its Arlo banner. The company has already released a bunch of comprehensive surveillance cameras, and its latest piece of connected hardware is a wireless, outdoor security light. Like sm…
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