BREAKING: Google Play And YouTube Have Issues

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 5, 2024 by itnerd

It appears that Meta services are not the only services that have issues today. Joining Facebook, Instagram and Messenger on Down Detector’s list of services that are down are YouTube and Google Play:

Now I just tested YouTube and this is what I get:

I don’t have an Android phone on me as I am currently offsite. Like the Meta outages, there’s no ETA for resolution at this time.

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BREAKING: Facebook, Instagram & Messenger Are All Down

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 5, 2024 by itnerd

If you’re trying to get access to Facebook, Instagram or Messenger, good luck with that as all three services appear to be down based on downdetector.ca:

As it stands, you might not be able to log into any of these services, or you might have been forcefully logged out of those platforms. At this time there’s no ETA as to when this will be resolved.

I am also tracking other outages that might be happening at the moment and I will post a separate story once I confirm or deny that those services are working or not.

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KAYAK Launches Suite of AI-Powered Tools

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 5, 2024 by itnerd

Today, KAYAK, the world’s leading travel search engine, is dropping a new suite of AI products to help make travel planning decisions faster, easier and more intuitive. These innovations are the result of extensive training of ChatGPT’s AI model on KAYAK’s proprietary database of billions of consumer travel queries. 

At the forefront of today’s release is KAYAK PriceCheck, a new patent-pending price comparison tool. Anyone with KAYAK’s app can upload a screenshot of a flight itinerary from any site, and KAYAK will quickly check hundreds of sites to verify they’re getting a great price.

Also launching today is Ask KAYAK – the company’s latest AI-driven innovation designed to improve and personalize the search experience.  Ask KAYAK lets travelers use simple text entries to search and refine their results. 

Wondering where to go with your family for spring break that’s less than 3 hours from NYC and will cost less than $300 per person? Just Ask KAYAK and you’ll get family-friendly destinations a short-distance away that fit your budget.

Travelers will also see a chat box in the results page where they can input their specific hotel, car or flight requirements. For example, they can enter “United, nonstop, morning departure, <$500” and quickly see their results. Ask KAYAK starts rolling out today and will soon be available to all users in the US, UK and Canada with more markets to follow.

But wait, there’s more. KAYAK is also introducing the following new ways to make travel planning easier:

  • Check the scores. Our Provider Quality Scores gives travelers greater confidence when booking a flight by rating providers against a set of quality factors (like price accuracy, customer service, fee transparency and customer satisfaction). Scores are for Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) only.
  • Compare ticket options to get what you want. View all of your options even more easily, like what is and what is not included in your flight ticket, when deciding between a basic economy, economy, premium economy or business class ticket for your US domestic flight. 
  • KAYAK Trips – now with live updates. With a new simplified itinerary view, KAYAK Trips keeps all your travel plans in one place – no matter where you booked. Now, not only can you build your itinerary through automatic inbox syncing, but you can also get real-time travel updates on your home/lock screens (on iOS).
  • Passwords are so 2023. Passkeys are a more secure and user-friendly way to sign in to KAYAK. In fact, since implementing passkeys and ditching passwords, KAYAK reduced the average time it takes users to sign-up and sign-in by 50%. 

There’s a lot of great stuff happening at KAYAK. Learn more about the features announced today HERE. 

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Red Canary Announces Full Coverage of All Major Cloud Providers

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 5, 2024 by itnerd

Red Canary today announced full coverage of its detection and response capabilities to include all major cloud infrastructure and platform services providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Red Canary can detect suspicious activity across all major cloud environments and seamlessly correlate that data with other leading cloud security products, enabling enterprises to find and stop threats before they can cause damage. Red Canary’s vendor-agnostic approach underpins these new capabilities, providing security teams with actionable threat intelligence and comprehensive visibility from the control plane to containers and workloads.

Security teams rely on various tools, but integrating them internally for threat detection and response can be challenging, especially in large organizations with multicloud environments. Recent research shows that many businesses are currently using or planning to use at least two cloud infrastructure providers and about 31 percent are using four or more. As a result, IT and security teams are facing an increasing number of new cloud threats. In fact, in 2023, Red Canary detected cloud account compromises 16 times more frequently than in 2022, ranking it among the top five MITRE ATT&CK techniques analyzed across 58,000 confirmed threats identified in 216 petabytes of telemetry. 

With Red Canary, organizations can protect their cloud environments, identities, and endpoints, all using a single, intelligence-led security operations platform. This industry-leading approach significantly improves the productivity of overwhelmed security analysts by eliminating the need to look across multiple tools, sift through raw alerts from various sources, and manually analyze data. By trusting Red Canary to detect and respond to prevalent threats, internal security teams can have more time to focus on their business’s specific security needs and requirements.

What’s new:

Defend complex environments and streamline workflows with comprehensive detection and response coverage across all major cloud providers

  • Amazon: Amazon Web Services (AWS), including AWS CloudTrail and Amazon GuardDuty
  • Microsoft: Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Sentinel, Microsoft Defender XDR, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud
  • Google: Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Google Workspace

Get 24×7 access to cloud security expertise

  • Actionable threat intelligence: 400+ updated threat profiles provide deep insights into cloud threats and how adversaries operate in cloud environments
  • Run more effective tabletops: New scenarios allow customers to confidently understand, prepare for, and effectively respond to prevalent and emerging threats

Enhance threat protection across containers and production environments

  • Additional support for containers and Kubernetes: Improved metadata collection adds new insights for Linux-based environments empowering security analysts to quickly locate threat origins

Enrich threat data with identified risks and misconfigurations

  • Deeper integrations with cloud security posture management (CSPM) tools: Correlated alert data from vendors like Lacework and Wiz provides additional context that speeds up threat detection and response, and optimizes prevention efforts

Operationalize cloud-native SIEM investments 

  • Co-managed Microsoft Sentinel engagement: Expanded services to deploy and optimize SIEM technology include a security goals consultation along with analytics, threat hunting queries, automation playbooks, and dashboards to maximize SIEM value

MDR for Cloud availability:

  • Support for Microsoft Azure is generally available
  • Support for Amazon Web Services is generally available
  • Support for Google Cloud Platform is currently in early access and expected to be generally available in Q2 of this fiscal year
  • Wiz support is expected to be generally available in Q2 of this fiscal year

Additional resources:

  • Learn more by reading the announcement blog
  • Register now and join the upcoming webinar on how to identify and address security challenges in multicloud environments on March 19
  • Register now for the webinar unveiling the 2024 Threat Detection Report on March 13 

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Former Twitter Execs Suing Elon Musk For Unpaid Severance

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 5, 2024 by itnerd

Right now Elon Musk is fighting an insane number of lawsuits related to his purchase of Twitter. You can now add one more to that as a bunch of ex-execs from Twitter are suing him over unpaid severance:

Former Twitter executives including CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, head of legal Vijaya Gadde and General Counsel Sean Edgett filed a new lawsuit against Elon Musk and X Corp. in federal court arguing that they are owed $128 million in unpaid severance.

In their complaint, lawyers for the ex-Twitter executives say that after Musk backed himself into a deal to buy Twitter, now X Corp., for $44 billion, he took revenge against these executives personally, and tried to recover some of his expenses by “repeatedly refusing to honor other clear contractual commitments.”

Musk and X Corp. have been “stiffing employees, landlords, vendors, and others” since they took over Twitter, the lawyers allege, an allusion to more than 25 vendor nonpayment lawsuits filed against the social media business by companies including software and service providers and a landlord.

“Musk doesn’t pay his bills, believes the rules don’t apply to him, and uses his wealth and power to run roughshod over anyone who disagrees with him,” the complaint says.

The complaint also alludes to comments Musk made to his official biographer, Walter Isaacson, that “he would ‘hunt every single one of’ Twitter’s executives and directors ‘till the day they die.’”

The ex-Twitter executives’ lawyers argue, “These statements were not the mere rantings of a self-centered billionaire surrounded by enablers unwilling to confront him with the legal consequences of his own choices. Musk bragged to Isaacson specifically how he planned to cheat Twitter’s executives out of their severance benefits in order to save himself $200 million.”

The suit, Agrawal et al v. Musk et al, was filed in California’s Northern District and follows news that settlement talks between X Corp. and ex-Twitter managers broke down in a related case in Delaware, Woodfield v. Twitter Inc., where $500 million in unpaid severance to former Twitter managers and engineers is in dispute.

Well, that’s likely to enrage Elon. While I am not a lawyer, I don’t see how Elon can simply continue to do this and expect to come out on the winning side. Perhaps it might be in his interest to settle these lawsuits. But Elon rarely does things that are in his interest.

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City Of Hamilton Confirms That They Have Been Pwned In A Ransomware Attack

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 5, 2024 by itnerd

I’ve been sitting on this for a few days, but now that the City Of Hamilton has confirmed that they got pwned in a ransomware attack, I’m publishing this story. Here’s what is known about the incident:

City manager Marnie Cluckie named the nature of the cyber attack for the first time during a virtual call Monday afternoon, alongside Mayor Andrea Horwath. The call was the city’s first media conference since the breach began on Feb. 25. 

The incident has shut down almost all city phone lines, paralyzed city council and impacted dozens of services including the bus schedule app, library WiFi and permit applications.

The city hasn’t provided a timeline for when the situation will be resolved.

“It’s impossible to know how long it will take us to get fully up and running again,” Cluckie said.

“I can tell you that we will only restore systems when we are confident we can do so safely and securely.” 

The city does not believe personal data has been accessed, she said. Hamilton police have been notified and will be investigating.

Cluckie said she’s been tightlipped about what’s happening behind the scenes as the situation is “sensitive” and would not reveal the amount of money the attackers are asking for or where they’re located. 

The city has insurance coverage for cybersecurity breaches, she said. 

This illustrates that no organization is safe from an attack like this without proper defences being in place. I for one would like to know exactly how they got in and what the City of Hamilton will do to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. Because anything that shuts down services on a scale like this is a non trivial event.

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HP Unveils Broadest Consumer Portfolio of AI-Enhanced Laptops

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 5, 2024 by itnerd

Today, HP is continuing to build on their news at CES, announcing HP’s newest Envy and Pavilion laptop PCs – now the broadest consumer portfolio of AI-enhanced laptops. These devices are designed to unlock your creativity and productivity with the latest AI capabilities for the most personalized experiences yet.

Exciting new features across both the Envy and Pavilion portfolios include:

  • Either Intel® Core™ Ultra or AMD Ryzen™ processors – both offering dedicated NPUs for even more personalized performance.
  • HP Smart Sense, which leverages AI to automatically optimize elements of the device like fan noise, temperature, and performance tailored to your workflow.
  • Copilot in Windows, which complements your capabilities and creativity with intelligent assistance and relevant answers. These are HP’s first devices with the Copilot key, where you can access this AI-powered intelligent assistant with a single press of a button. Also available is an innovative AI meeting assistant through a 30-day trial of Otter.ai.
  • Audio tuning by Poly with Poly Studio, and up to a 5MP camera for the perfect collaboration pair up.
  • ENERGY STAR® Certified and up to EPEAT® Gold with Climate+ Registered to extend HP’s commitment to a more sustainable future, incorporating recycled materials before, during, and after use.

The HP Pavilion Series – Personalized Computing for Every Creative Pursuit

The HP Pavilion series combines premium features with customizable performance for maximum value. Whether editing content or enjoying a little down time, the latest Pavilion laptop PCs provide sharp 16:10 visuals, an expanded port lineup, and long-lasting battery life to match your hustle.

The new HP Pavilion 16-inch Laptop PC brings a brilliant OLED display option to the Pavilion lineup for the perfect portable powerhouse, providing:

  • An Epic Canvas for Creation: Take advantage of 10.3% more vertical viewing space than the previous Pavilion 16 with a larger precision touchpad and backlit keyboard assist for comfortable browsing. On Intel® models, get up close and personal with the stunning detail of optional NVIDIA® graphics or immerse yourself in entertainment on up to an IMAX Enhanced Certified OLED display. 
  • Configurations to Fit Every Flow: Tackle your most intensive projects with a range of collaboration tools shared across the portfolio, choosing from several Intel® or AMD models and an optional FHD IR camera. HP Fast Charge provides a timely battery boost ahead of a long day of creativity, resulting in up to 19 hours of battery life on devices with up to an Intel® Core™ Ultra processor – a 44% increase over the previous Pavilion 16.

The HP Pavilion 16 is expected to be available in April at HP.com, Best Buy and Costco. The version with Intel®Core™ processors has a starting price of $1,199.99. The version with AMD Ryzen™ processors has a starting price of $899.99.

The HP Envy Series – Unparallelled Adaptability for Limitless Personalization

The new HP Envy x360 14 inch 2-in-1 Laptop PC and HP Envy x360 16 inch 2-in-1 Laptop PC are adaptable companions that move with you, delivering:

  • Flexibility to Power Your Lifestyle: Choose between 14- and 16-inch versions with either Intel® or AMD Ryzen™ processors, perfect for versatile functionality, featuring a high-strength aluminum design, and Thunderbolt™ 4 ports (on Intel® models). Both new laptops power through all-day use for up to 17 hours of immersive creativity. 
  • Expertly Curated Sights and Sounds: Experience unmatched clarity and comfort with an immersive 16:10 screen ratio, enhanced by upgrades to the keyboard and touchpad for more comfortable browsing, editing, and gaming. The optional 2.8K OLED display features an IMAX Enhanced certification for superior visuals. 

The 14- and 16- inch models are expected to be available beginning in March at HP.com as well as Best Buy and Staples. The HP Envy x360 14 with Intel® Core™ processors has a starting price of $1,399.99. The AMD version has a starting price of $1,299.99. The HP Envy x360 16 with Intel® Core™ processors has a starting price of $1,799.99. The AMD version has a starting price of $1,499.99.

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Visa Names Michiel Wielhouwer as President and Country Manager for Canada 

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 5, 2024 by itnerd

Today, Visa announced the appointment of Michiel Wielhouwer, previously the Executive Director of Visa’s France, Belgium, and Luxembourg business, to President and Country Manager for Visa Canada. He will succeed Stacey Madge, who served in this role for the past seven years. 

Wielhouwer joins Visa Canada at a time of growth and opportunity as the company establishes new secure ways to pay, driven by its innovation and fintech strategy. Wielhouwer will continue to deliver value for Visa’s key clients, partners, and stakeholders while living the company’s purpose to uplift everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.  

Wielhouwer is a Visa veteran with 22 years of experience across five different markets. He brings deep financial services knowledge and leadership to Canada. Originally from the Netherlands and a multi-lingual speaker, Wielhouwer’s global background is a welcome addition to the multicultural and bilingual Canadian market. 

Wielhouwer steps into the role following the successful leadership of Stacey Madge. In Madge’s seven years with the organization, Visa Canada has seen tremendous growth through new client relationships, fintech collaborations, product innovations, and acceleration of money movement. Under her leadership, Canada has become a talent hub for Visa and a respected payments leader in the country. In her next chapter, Madge will be dedicating her talents to board, community, and foundation work.  

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Cisco Study Reveals Canadian Employees Crave In-person Experiences, But Offices Are Not Delivering

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 5, 2024 by itnerd

Today, Cisco released findings from its Reimagining Workspaces Survey which showed working preferences are shifting as employees crave in-office collaboration and social interactions, and now, the race is on for workspace design and technology to catch up.

Study data found that 76 per cent of Canadian companies are choosing to partially or fully mandate a return to the office with productivity, team communication, and workplace culture as key drivers for the decision. Sixty-four per cent of employees positively support their organization’s decisions, however their motives have significantly evolved.

Canadians want to be in the office to collaborate (58%), ideate (27%), and foster connections with colleagues (28%), but current workspaces do not meet this need. Most (83%) employers allocate at least half the office to individual work stations. As a result, only 40 per cent of employees say their offices are very well prepared to support changing hybrid work needs.

Technology is a Baseline Expectation; AI-Enabled Features are Highly Desired
When it comes to the ideal workspace, both employees and employers agree that technology is foundational. Canadian employees ranked technology infrastructure and connectivity (93%) as the most important in office design, followed by layout and seating arrangements (90%), and collaboration and meeting spaces (86%).

Employees also see an opportunity for artificial intelligence (AI) to improve collaboration and their working experiences, but AI adoption among employers is not keeping pace. For example, while over half (53%) of employees agree AI-powered meeting room devices would be most useful to them, only 36 per cent of employers plan to invest in them. Similarly, while 81 per cent of employees agree AI-assistant tools would be most useful to them, only 61 per cent of employers intend to invest in these features.

Flexibility and Hybrid Work Models are Here to Stay
The data shows working preferences across all levels of employees are evenly split so flexibility will continue to be essential for organizations as they work to meet employee expectations. Of Canadian employers, 24 per cent prefer a mix of working from home and the office, 37 per cent prefer to be mostly in the office, and 34 per cent prefer working mainly from home. The trend is mirrored in employees as 29 per cent prefer a mix of working from home and the office, 34 per cent prefer to work mostly from the office, and 30 per cent prefer working mostly from home.

Office Redesigns are Underway
Organizations are beginning to transform office spaces. Two-thirds (64%) of employers have redesigned their office in the wake of the pandemic or are planning to do so in the next 24 months.

Regular enhancements to workspace layouts (63%) and technology features (60%) are the top items for organizations that have allocated budgets to office redesign, however considerations for AI and cybersecurity are lagging which means businesses may not be setting themselves up for long-term success. Only 21 per cent plan to prioritize AI technology in their office redesign and just 18 per cent have allocated a budget for cybersecurity. It is critical businesses allocate resources and focus on AI and cybersecurity. AI will fuel significant transformation for businesses that can successfully harness it and a strong cybersecurity posture will ensure that every organization, including its data, its people and its customers, is protected.

The Cisco Canada Reimagining Workspaces Survey is based on an online research survey conducted with 150 Canadian employers and 500 Canadian employees in January and February 2024.

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New Zealand Central Bank Announces New 72 Hour Cyber Incident Notification Requirement

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 5, 2024 by itnerd

New Zealand’s central bank announced that banks must report major cyber incidents within 72 hours, as it plans to implement formal cyber reporting requirements over the next year after regulators supported proposals by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) on the importance of having access to information on cyber resilience from the central bank.

Last year, after New Zealand saw a rise in cyber-attacks, the government was motivated to boost its cyber defenses by setting up a lead agency to make it easier for the public and businesses to seek help during network intrusions. Furthermore, RBNZ collaborated with the Financial Markets Authority (FMA), New Zealand’s financial markets regulator, to develop shared reporting requirements that can be used for both agencies.

The following RBNZ cyber resilience reporting requirements will be implemented in phases through 2024:

  • Material cyber incident reporting requirement: within 72 hours
  • Periodic reporting of all cyber incidents: large entities to be required to report all cyber incidents every six months and other entities annually
  • Self-assessment using the RBNZ’s Guidance on Cyber Resilience: large entities every year and other entities every two years.

Dave Ratner, CEO, HYAS had this comment:

   “Regulations requiring timely reporting are popping up across multiple geographies and verticals, and while they are in general a good thing, the definition of what is and isn’t ‘material’ is often not entirely clear.  Nevertheless, for an organization to be in a position to comply with these new regulations will require cyber resiliency solutions that are capable of alerting them to the telltale signs of a breach and see the initial digital exhaust indicating an attack in progress.  Most organizations are likely not prepared today and need to prioritize resiliency in 2024 to ensure that they are.”


Mark B. Cooper, President & Founder, PKI Solutions follows with this comment:

   “With regulators adopting stricter notification requirements, now more than ever, banks need to respond with their own stricter, higher levels of security posture management practices if they’re going to avoid having to report incidents.

   “The challenges organizations face is no longer limited to just advanced encryption or identity protection measures, but it highlights the critical need for pro-active, vigilant monitoring to quickly identify misconfigurations and alert security resources and staff. Prompt remediation is essential to defend against attacks that lead to triggering a notification.”

Requirements like these are a good thing from two perspectives. First it makes sure that any incident isn’t covered up. Second, it will “encourage” organizations to up their game in terms of their cyber defences to make sure that they don’t get pwned. These sorts of requirements need to be put into effect everywhere as that is one thing that will make us safer.

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