Archive for October, 2025

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Enhance the gaming experience with specialized TV features designed for video games

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 9, 2025 by itnerd

As graphics and gameplay continue to become more true-to-life, having a television that can keep pace with what today’s video games offer is imperative.

With the growing popularity of gaming — according to a report by the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, more than half of Canadians play video games regularly — and rapid innovations in technology and design, it is no longer enough to simply plug a console into the TV and start playing.

Puneet Jain, Senior Director of Marketing and Ecommerce with Hisense Canada offers the following advice on the features to look for when shopping for the ultimate video game TV:

  • Refresh Rate — The faster the rate, the better the image will look on the screen. A variable refresh rate between 48Hz and 144Hz is ideal, reducing screen lag and supporting smooth visuals in motion. The higher the refresh rate, the better.
  • Low Latency MEMC — Motion Estimation, Motion Compensation (MEMC) technology seamlessly inserts frames for smoother motion and heightened visual clarity. This reduces input lag and motion blur, immersing the gamer in the gaming world.
  • AI Upscaling — Unlike traditional upscaling, AI upscaling computes neighbouring pixel colours to restore lost details and reduce image noise.
  • Synchronization — A feature like AMD FreeSync eliminates screen tearing and stuttering by aligning the TV’s refresh rate to match the frame rate of the gaming console. The result is a smoother, more fluid gaming experience with virtually no controller input lag.
  • Gaming Enhancements — Among the latest gaming innovations for TVs is the intuitive Game bar, which provides real-time information on the TV’s optimal settings for gaming, including a frame rate counter, Variable Refresh Rate status and input lag meter.
  • Big Screen — The Hisense PX3-PRO Trichroma laser cinema projector is designed specifically for Xbox, with a sharp 4K image on screen up to a massive 150 inches. It also boasts a refresh rate up to HSR 240, and a feature that automatically detects when your console is on and adjusts the projector settings to create seamless, lag-free gameplay.
  • Big Sound — Just like watching your favourite movie, the soundtrack and audio elements of a game complement the visuals. Look for multi-channel surround sound systems, combined with Dolby Atmos and AI Sound to deliver an immersive audio experience capturing everything from the quietest whispers to the most explosive scenes.

Hisense offers several televisions that package these technologies into its Game Mode feature, creating a dynamic gaming experience. Additional gaming features include “Gaming in Dolby” to provide deeper details and ultra-vivid colours with Dolby Vision, supported by Dolby Atmos enhancing dialogues, background noise and soundtracks.

The all-new QD5N, now available in Canada, is the latest addition to Hisense’s ultra-big screen family, featuring vivid colours and immersive audio for the ultimate gamer-ready performance. Equipped with Game Mode PRO, it offers a 144Hz refresh rate, Low Latency MEMC, VRR (48-44Hz), AMD FreeSync™ Premium, Auto Low Latency Mode and Hisense’s proprietary Game Bar for an ultra-responsive, super smooth and crystal clear gaming performance — there is virtually no screen tearing or output lag.

For more information, please visit hisense-canada.com. 

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Outpost24 Appoints Martin Roth as Chief Technology Officer to Advance Global Engineering and Innovation

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 9, 2025 by itnerd

Outpost24 today announced the appointment of Martin Roth as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Martin brings over 25 years of experience in software development, with a proven record of building and transforming technology organizations. His background combines deep technical expertise in product innovation and enterprise solution delivery with the ability to lead large, distributed teams in complex, security-sensitive environments. 

Before joining Outpost24, Martin held pivotal leadership roles at groundbreaking companies, such as Learnster, Viaplay, and Snow Software (now part of Flexera). In these roles, he was instrumental in scaling global Research & Development organizations through periods of rapid growth, establishing modern engineering and DevOps practices, and driving initiatives that dramatically strengthened delivery, innovation, and security across large enterprise software platforms.

At Outpost24, Martin will lead the company’s global engineering and technology strategy, shaping architecture, delivery, and development practices to drive agility and performance. Under his leadership, the company will accelerate its transition to cloud-native technologies, focusing on AI-driven solutions that will help its customers improve operational efficiency and their cybersecurity posture. He will drive a unified technical vision to enhance the delivery of the full-stack security platform—spanning continuous threat exposure management (CTEM), digital risk protection, cyber threat intelligence, and compliance—by building scalable systems and empowered teams that enable the company to innovate quickly and securely.

The appointment comes at a critical time for the cybersecurity industry, where proactive defence and a shift-left security approach are paramount. As threats become more sophisticated and regulatory pressures intensify, Outpost24 recognizes that world-class engineering is the foundation for delivering trusted, scalable security solutions. Martin’s expertise in building robust, high-availability enterprise platforms will be immediately leveraged to meet these escalating market demands.

Martin’s appointment follows recent additions to Outpost24’s leadership team, including a new Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and Chief Corporate Development Officer (CCDO) — reinforcing the company’s commitment to innovation, technical excellence, and global expansion.

With a strong European presence and thousands of customers worldwide, Outpost24 continues to build the technological backbone for modern Exposure Management and Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), helping organizations proactively identify, prioritize, and remediate cyber risks across both digital and human attack surfaces.

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Invoicely Data Breach Exposes PII and Payment Information

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 9, 2025 by itnerd

Website Planet has just published a report about a significant data breach involving Invoicely, a global billing and accounting platform.

What happened:

Cybersecurity researcher Jeremiah Fowler discovered a non-password-protected database containing nearly 180k records in XLSX, CSV, PDF, and various image formats. The exposed files included personally identifiable information (PII) such as names, physical addresses, phone numbers, tax ID numbers, and other sensitive details from service providers, partners, employees, and customers around the world.

Why it matters:

The exposure of names, email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, tax IDs, and financial account information presents a serious risk. This type of data can be exploited by cybercriminals for identity theft, financial fraud, spear-phishing, and social engineering attacks, among other threats.

You can read the full report here: https://www.websiteplanet.com/news/invoicely-breach-report/

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Discord Pwned And Personally Identifiable Info Is In The Wrong Hands

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 9, 2025 by itnerd

There is news that the official ID photos of around 70 thousand Discord users have potentially been leaked after a cyber-attack. This concerns me personally as I use the app with my online cycling team.

Darren James, a Senior Product Manager at Specops Software said this:

“Identity verification has become a key component in both Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Employee (KYE) scenarios. These requirements stem from recent legislation mandating that service providers make reasonable efforts to validate that their users are who they claim to be.”

“However, as we’ve seen in this case, if you are subject to these regulations—or even in the process of choosing a solution—you need to ensure that personally identifiable information (PII) is handled, processed, and stored securely, or ideally not stored at all unless required.”

“The high levels of identity assurance demanded in this age of AI-enhanced deepfakes will continue to grow. Businesses and consumers alike must understand the implications of these identity challenges, and vendors will need to implement appropriate safeguards to protect their customers’ privacy as well as their own reputations.”

Chris Hauk, Consumer Privacy Champion at Pixel Privacy follows with this:

“This breach underscores the concerns many privacy advocates, myself included, have about forcing websites to require users to submit images of their driver’s licenses and other personal and financial information before being allowed to access adult and other types of content. When third parties are involved, like in this case, it increases the risk to users’ information, as it increases the attack surface for breaches such as this.”

“Cybercriminals often target databases that contain personal and financial information, making info like driver’s licenses, social security numbers, credit card and banking account numbers, and other info a valuable commodity among the bad actors of the world.”

Now as far as our team is concerned, nobody on the team has submitted their personal documents to use Discord. Or more accurately, nobody has admitted to do so. IF they have, it’s likely not going to end well.

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Hug Your Younger Self…. Trend Or Risk?

Posted in Commentary on October 9, 2025 by itnerd

There is a social media trend that is making the rounds called “hug your younger self.” A quick search engine search shows that there’s all sorts of websites that will generate photos of your older and younger self hugging. But all is not what it seems when it comes to these websites according to Dr. Michael Peirce, Chief Scientist of Daon, a leading provider of digital identity solutions that help businesses verify, authenticate, and secure customer identities through biometric and multi-factor authentication.

What risks are associated with uploading childhood and current photos to LLMs?

“The primary risk is the same as loading any other kind of personally identifiable information onto the Internet. You lose all control of your personal data, and how, where, and by whom it is used for all time. It’s very similar to the viral “Tell your friends about yourself by answering 40 questions” game that went around social media for years. While individuals both shared and participated in this innocently, it created a treasure trove of data for fraudsters to use to attack knowledge-based authentication. The same principle exists in this case. Once your image is available online, people with bad intentions can use it for whatever they choose. Add to that the fact that deepfake technology is at the point that a believable image or even video can be generated from a single image, and you have the makings of a significant threat. Once bad actors have a deepfake, it can be used for blackmail, reputational harm, and even to defeat lower quality biometric security.

Furthermore, depending on the terms of usage of the LLMs, photos of your face may be used to help train future LLMs and other AI algorithms. The images might even be sold to other interested parties. Your face or its similarity could even become part of images provided back to other users in response to their LLM prompts. This could include images that, through no intention of the user, closely resemble you appearing in commercial or other applications. Legal precedent for unintentional use of AI generated likeness is still being established.”

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Healthcare Ransomware Roundup: Q1-Q3 2025 stats on attacks, ransoms, and data breaches 

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 9, 2025 by itnerd

Comparitech researchers have published a study looking at all things healthcare ransomware attacks for the first nine months of 2025. 

According to the study, 293 ransomware attacks occured in this time frame against hospitals, clinics, and other direct care providers. There was a further 130 attacks on businesses operating within the healthcare sector, such as pharma, billing, etc. 

Attacks on healthcare providers saw similar numbers in the same period last year, but attacks on healthcare businesses rose by 30 percent. 

You can read the report here: https://www.comparitech.com/news/healthcare-ransomware-roundup-q1-q3-2025-stats-on-attacks-ransoms-and-data-breaches/

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Forcepoint X-Labs Post –> Sharp Rise: Obfuscated JavaScript & Steganography Enabling Malware Delivery

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 8, 2025 by itnerd

This morning, the researchers at Forcepoint X-Labs have released new findings confirming that in Q3, organizations across industries have seen a steep increase in JavaScript-attachment-based campaigns that deliver a variety of information-stealing and RAT malware, such as DarkCloud, Remcos, Agent Tesla, and Formbook.

Authored by Senior Security Researcher Mayur Sewani, the post discusses (with supporting images and code) how attackers are cloaking their lures in everyday business communications with fake quotes, purchase orders, shipment alerts and even WeTransfer-style links to slip past conventional filters and take advantage of recipient’s trust. For this analysis, the X-labs team reviewed thousands of email subject lines and found similar social engineering tactics being used repeatedly.

These scripts act as downloaders, using PowerShell and steganography to deliver .NET-based RATs and Infostealers. Advanced obfuscation, sandbox evasion, and process hollowing highlight the increasing sophistication of these attacks. 

Sewani recommends that organizations combine advanced email filtering, endpoint protection, and user awareness to mitigate these threats.

The full post can be found at: https://www.forcepoint.com/blog/x-labs/q3-2025-threat-brief-obfuscated-javascript-steganography

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Canadian solar software company announces seed financing

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 8, 2025 by itnerd

Enurgen today announced it has secured $4.1M USD in new financing. The round was co-led by BDC, Brightspark, and Diagram, with participation from MaRS IAF.

The investment will accelerate the global expansion of Enurgen’s flagship software platform. Enurgen’s novel energy yield modelling software leverages advanced, physics-based models across the lifecycle of solar assets to deliver breakthrough rates of returns.

Meeting Market Momentum

This investment meets a critical moment in the solar industry. Global adoption is surging, but the sector is grappling with intense growing pains. Key incentives are disappearing, designs are becoming more complex, and Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) prices are under constant pressure. This puts downward pressure on PPA prices and exacerbates the challenge of systemic underperformance, where projects often fail to meet their financial expectations. As a result, there is a surging demand for more accurate models that can maximize returns and ensure long-term cash flows are realized.

Enurgen’s novel, physics-based approach is well-positioned to solve the model-to-field accuracy problem. It drives new energy yield performance gains across the entire asset lifecycle, from early-stage design into day-to-day operations, closing the critical gap between budgeted, expected, and realized energy yields.

Product and Market Impact

Enurgen’s DUET model, backed by over a decade of research and development, delivers high-resolution, 3D solar irradiance modelling. This novel approach enables incident light calculations to scale from an individual solar cell to gigawatt-scale ($1Bn+) power plants. As a result, it introduces new ways to:

  • Optimize energy yields (rates of return) for solar power plants,
  • Accelerate capacity and performance testing, ensuring power plants come online faster, and
  • Automate PV performance in operations, allowing small teams to effectively manage large portfolios of solar assets and quickly address the most critical issues.

By combining detailed simulations with real-world performance data, the gap between budgeted, expected, and actual production can be solved, turning energy yield into a predictable, bankable metric.

Next Phase of Growth

The funding will enable Enurgen to:

  • Expand customer deployments across key global markets,
  • Grow its technical and commercial teams to meet global demand,
  • Accelerate its product roadmap and release of next generation models, and
  • Strengthen customer support and partnerships to drive larger portfolio deployments.

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Bolo Program Unveils New Top 25 of Canada’s Most Wanted Fugitives

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 8, 2025 by itnerd

The faces of Canada’s most wanted fugitives filled a Vancouver news conference today as the latest iteration of the Bolo Program’s Top 25 list was unveiled, along with new incentives for members of the public to call in tips about the fugitives’ whereabouts.

Twenty-five ‘models’ filled a Vancouver Club ballroom clad in ‘spoof masks’ bearing the faces of fugitives wanted by 15 police agencies across the country, a one-of-a-kind innovative concept deployed for the first time by Bolo.

At the top of the list unveiled during the news conference is Quebec man Bryan Fuentes Gramajo, wanted by Toronto Police Service for a brazen and deadly shooting outside a north Toronto mall July 17, 2025. Fuentes Gramajo is believed to be a member of Zone 43 street gang, which operates heavily in Ontario and Quebec, with strong ties to British Columbia.

More than half a million dollars in rewards are being offered for information leading to the arrests of various suspects on the Top 25 list, an initiative that has seen great success in the past. The previous iteration of the list, unveiled in December 2024, saw nine of the 25 fugitives arrested. Of the 78 suspects featured in Bolo campaigns since the program’s inception in 2018, 42 have been located.

The latest iteration of the Top 25 list includes fugitives wanted by the Lévis Police Service, Montréal Police Service, Sûreté du Québec, Ottawa Police Service, Toronto Police Service, York Regional Police, Greater Sudbury Police Service, OPP ROPE Squad, Ontario Provincial Police, Winnipeg Police Service, Calgary Police Service, Edmonton Police Service, Delta Police Department, and Vancouver Police Department.

Top 25 List

  1. Bryan Fuentes Gramajo
    Wanted by Toronto Police Service for Murder
    Reward up to $100,000
  2. All Boivin
    Wanted by Sûreté du Québec for Drug Trafficking
    Reward up to $100,000
  3. Tamah McLean
    Wanted by Toronto Police Service for Murder
    Reward up to $100,000
  4. Tresor Horimbere
    Wanted by Winnipeg Police Service for Murder
    Reward up to $100,000
  5. Dylan Denis
    Wanted by Montréal Police Service for Murder
    Reward up to $100,000
  6. Pierry Philogène
    Wanted by Montréal Police Service for Murder
  7. Chad Dandan
    Wanted by Winnipeg Police Service for Murder
  8. Katherine Bergeron-Pinzarrone
    Wanted by York Regional Police for Murder
  9. Saed Osman
    Wanted by Edmonton Police Service for Murder
    Reward up to $50,000
  10. Noah Singh
    Wanted by Greater Sudbury Police Service for Murder
  11. Mohamed Shire
    Wanted by Ottawa Police Service for Murder
    Reward up to $50,000
  12. Dellano Robertson-Berry
    Wanted by Toronto Police Service for Murder
  13. Omid Mashinchi
    Wanted by Vancouver Police Department for Conspiracy
  14. Adrian Walker
    Wanted by Toronto Police Service for Murder
  15. Nicholas Singh
    Wanted by Ontario Provincial Police ROPE Squad for Being Unlawfully at Large
  16. Gurkirat Singh
    Wanted by Delta Police Department for Sexual Interference (Person under 16)
  17. Yusuf Ali
    Wanted by Winnipeg Police Service for Attempted Murder
  18. Joshua Grey
    Wanted by Ontario Provincial Police ROPE Squad for Being Unlawfully at Large
  19. Gibriil Bakal
    Wanted by Ottawa Police Service for Murder
  20. Christian Cuxum
    Wanted by Toronto Police Service for Murder
  21. Dharam Dhaliwal
    Wanted by Peel Regional Police for Murder
  22. Tommy Bernier-Thibault
    Wanted by Service de police de la Ville de Lévis for Assault
  23. Kiarash Parzham
    Wanted by Toronto Police Service for Murder
  24. Talal Amer
    Wanted by Calgary Police Service for Manslaughter
  25. Danick Miguel Bourgeois
    Wanted by Ontario Provincial Police for Murder

For information on each case, visit boloprogram.org.

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Inspired Go announces partnership with Haven Greens to deliver year-round greenhouse-grown lettuce for ready-to-eat meals in Canada

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 8, 2025 by itnerd

Inspired Go announced today that it has partnered with Haven Greens, Canada’s first fully automated greenhouse, to source 100 percent of the leafy greens used in its ready-to-eat meals. The agreement reflects a shared commitment to sustainability, innovation and building a more reliable food supply to Canadians.

Haven Greens, a Canadian, climate-controlled, touchless greenhouse, produces approximately 10,000 pounds of lettuce per day, 365 days a year, using AI-driven monitoring, robotics, and mobile gutter systems to oversee every step of production, from seeding to harvest. The closed-loop hydroponic system uses 90 percent less water than field farming, recycles nutrients, composts growth media, and is on track to achieve net-zero operations by 2027 with a 3 MW solar field under development.

Inspired Go integrates Haven Greens’ greenhouse harvests with its patented hexagon packaging, validated through third-party shelf-life testing to keep meals fresh for 5–7 days. The hexagon design not only protects ingredients from mingling but also stacks securely, reinforcing freshness and quality for customers.

To ensure delivery at peak condition, Inspired Go manages a network of 500+ trained contract drivers who operate optimized weekly routes across Canada’s major cities. Supported by dispatchers and guided by Inspired Go’s routing app, the drivers maintain predictable coverage and freshness for a highly perishable product category.

The company was recently named Champion winner of the Recharge Tomorrow Brand Challenge, a global competition recognizing ecommerce brands that excel in building strong, loyal subscription communities. Industry observers point to Inspired Go’s vertically integrated model, pairing local greenhouse sourcing, patented packaging, and direct-to-fridge delivery, as an example of how prepared food businesses can align sustainability, efficiency, and customer convenience.

For more information, visit inspired.ca

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