Hackers stole 21.5 million Social Security Numbers in government breach

Last month, the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) learned it was the victim of a massive cyberattack–a breach that compromised personnel data of 4.2 million current and former Federal employees. That’s really bad. While investigating the incident, the OPM found evidence of another attack: one that compromises the privacy of 21.5 million individuals from the organization’s background check database. That’s a lot worse.

According to the New York Times, the two attacks are separate, but related–though this second attack is obviously much bigger. In fact, if you’ve had a background check run through the OPM any time in the last 15 years, you’re probably personally effected: the agency says any background investigation that occurred after 2000 is highly likely to be compromised. Potentially compromised data can include the Social Security Numbers, fingerprints (for 1.1 million of the aforementioned total), data from interviews conducted by background investigators and usernames and passwords used by applicants who filled out background check paperwork.

It’s bad, and the OPM know is–but the agency is trying to mitigate the situation. The organization’s cybersecurity page has been updated with a list of steps you can take to protect your identity, including warnings signs of identify theft, tips to update your passwords and avoid phishing scams, and what to do if you think you might be a victim. If you are affected by the hack, the OPM is willing to help–victims will be automatically be enrolled in 18 months of identity theft insurance, a identity restoration program and credit monitoring programs.

Think you might be affected? Check out the source link below.

[Image Credit: AP Photo/Cliff Owen]

Filed under: Misc, Internet

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Source: OPM, New York Times

WifiMapper launching on Android soon

If you’re a traveler, it can be pretty frustrating to lose your precious interwebz.  It can become even worse if you’re depending on it for navigation, leaving you frantically searching for a Wifi hotspot to get back on track.

This is the pain-point that OpenSignal aimed to alleviate when they developed WifiMapper.  The purpose of the WifiMapper app is to provide us a mapped database of available, free Wifi hotspots that are nearby.  The app works on a global scale and is constantly growing.

As of late, WifiMapper has only been available for iOS.  But OpenSignal has been quickly working to bring it to Android.  Currently, they are allowing those who are interested to grab a beta version of the Android app.

WifiMapper can also tell you the hotspot’s associated information, such as how the network performs or the type of venue it resides in.  It has integration with Foursquare, for contextual information, such as if the coffee is good at that location.  Two more features that are in the works are password sharing and offline hotspot maps.

Of course a large part of the database is from crowdsourcing, so make sure to contribute!

Source: WifiMapper G+ Community

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You won’t buy IBM’s 7nm chip, but it’s a big deal for computing

While Intel is finally getting its 14-nanometer sized chips out to the public, IBM today announced an even more impressive silicon breakthrough: The production of the first working 7nm chip. It’s particularly impressive since it took years for chip makers like Intel to move from 22nm chips to 14nm, which offer better power efficiency and faster overall speeds thanks to their denser manufacturing. IBM’s 7nm chip, produced together with partners including GlobalFoundries (which is taking over IBM’s semiconductor business) and Samsung, will offer similar benefits, but the road to get there was vastly more complex than 14nm chips. IBM says it’s using silicon germanium in electricity-conducting channels on the chip, as well as a new lithography method, dubbed Extreme Ultraviolet, to print finer circuits (which are around 10,000 times thinner than human hair). Perhaps most intriguingly it also keeps Moore’s Law, the notion that computing power will double roughly every 18 months, alive for the next few years.

“The implications of our achievement are huge for the computer industry,” wrote Mukesh Khare, IBM’s VP of semiconductor technology research. “By making the chips inside computers more powerful and more efficient, IBM and our partners will be able to produce the next generations of servers and storage systems for cloud computing, big data analytics and cognitive computing.”

Basically, the move towards 7nm is less about making desktop rigs faster, and more about making computing more efficient for laptops, mobile devices and other platforms. That should lead to huge leaps in battery life, even cheaper server time and leaps we can’t even imagine yet. It’ll likely be a while until we see 7nm chips in typical products, but IBM and its partners have proved one way to make them real. Things are even cloudier looking beyond 7nm: Khare says “there’s no clear path to extend the life of the silicon semiconductor further into the future,” and reaching the 5nm milestone will be even more difficult.

Filed under: Misc, Mobile

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Source: IBM

Yahoo wants you to gamble on fantasy sports

You already use Yahoo Sports to track your fantasy leagues, meticulously crafting winning line-ups each week for the sheer thrill of bragging rights–but what if you want to make it, well, interesting? Now you can: Yahoo just updated its fantasy sports app with daily, real-money tournaments.

Getting started is pretty simple: Yahoo Fantasy users can add up to $600 per day to participate in curated public contests, or private tournaments with their friends. The app uses a simplified salary limit ($200 budget per tournament), with winnings paid out at the end of each day via PayPal. Not confident enough in your draft to put cash on it? Don’t worry–Yahoo will also host several free tournaments each day for folks just want to play for fun.

The Yahoo Fantasy update comes at just the right time for the company: advertising revenue at Yahoo has been in a steady decline in recent months–gambling could be just what the firm needs to keep the books balanced. Online fantasy gambling is a fast growing market (remember that $250 million Disney poured into DraftKings?)–and with Yahoo poised to pocket 10-percent of all player entry fees, Daily Sports looks like a solid bet.

Filed under: Internet, Mobile

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Via: LA Times

Source: Yahoo