All posts by Paul Stradling

News

Tech News : Google : ‘No Jab, No Job’

CNBC recently reported that it had viewed a Google memo, circulated to employees, that they would lose pay, and eventually be sacked if they didn’t comply with the company’s Covid-19 vaccination policy.

Until Dec 3 To Declare Status, And Until Jan 18 To Comply

According to CNBC, the document circulated by Google’s leadership warned employees that they had until Dec 3 2021 to declare their vaccination status and to upload the documentation showing proof, or to apply for any medical or religious exemption. Google informed its employees back in July that it would require vaccinations for those returning to its offices following working from home during the lockdowns and the recent memo reportedly gives employees until Jan 18 2022 to comply with the company’s vaccination policy or enter measures that could lead to being sacked.

Leave, Unpaid Leave, Then Employment Termination

The document is also alleged to have said that failure to comply with vaccination mandated for those people employed and working in its US offices (i.e. needing to be vaccinated) would result firstly in “paid administrative leave” for 30 days followed by “unpaid personal leave” for up to six months. Failure to comply after these leave periods would allegedly result in the person’s employment being terminated.

Options?

It has been reported that those Google employees who really don’t want to get vaccinated may be able to get roles at companies that don’t conflict with the executive order and are able to request exemptions for religious beliefs or medical conditions.

Opposition at Google

The ‘no jab, no job’ executive order/vaccine mandate from Google has reportedly been opposed by several hundred employees who have circulated their own manifesto.

Not The Only Big Company To Do So

Following the Biden Administration’s request for U.S. companies with 100 or more workers to ensure their employees are fully vaccinated or regularly tested for Covid-19 by Jan 4, Google is certainly not the only one to take action.  For example, JP Morgan has recently sent a memo to staff asking those who are unvaccinated to take up the offer of a jab and asking any eligible employees to get a booster jab. Vaccination is also reported to have been made a requirement for US tech companies Uber and Facebook.

Criticism

The Biden Administration’s request for vaccinations and testing in bigger US companies and Google’s recent memo have been met with some criticism. For example, Republicans have criticised the move as infringing on the freedom of workers and putting extra demands on businesses. The manifesto from Google’s employees who object to the mandate has said that it is a sign of a “coercive” leadership at the company, looks like the antithesis of inclusion, and violates the company’s principles of inclusiveness. The manifesto also criticises Google for having/keeping a record of employees’ vaccination status which could be regarded as personal/private medical information.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

In the U.S., tens of millions of people remain unvaccinated and possibly unwilling to take up the jab of their own free will. With the virus still present and spreading, with companies wanting many workers to return to offices (not necessarily full-time), and with the Biden administration wanting to drive the vaccination forward, especially in big companies, this has resulted in the delicate situation that Google finds itself in.  This situation may also be particularly awkward for Google as it is reported to be trying to target the health-care industry for cloud business. Here in the UK, although there has been a much larger proportional take-up of the vaccine, and employment rights have required employers to be more careful, legislation was passed in June making Covid vaccinations compulsory for all care home staff. As more variants emerge and governments try to protect their health systems, populations, and economies, it is likely that vaccinations will be required for more employment, leisure/entertainment, and travel situations.

News

Tech Insight : What Is ‘Surveillance for Hire’?

After Meta (Facebook) recently reported alerting 50,000 people that it believed were being targeted by “surveillance-for-hire” entities, we take a look are who these entities are and what they do.

Meta’s Report

Following months of investigation, Meta recently informed 50,000 people that they were being targeted by seven “surveillance-for-hire” entities / “cyber mercenaries” who were targeting people in over 100 countries on behalf of their clients. It has been reported that Meta has issued cease-and-desist warnings against six of the seven entities it identified. The seventh is known to be in China but couldn’t be identified.

What Does “Surveillance-For-Hire” Mean?

The surveillance-for-hire industry consists of companies that use a combination of social engineering and technology to monitor and gather information about (and sometimes from) individuals for their clients. In the case of Meta’s investigation, these companies are described as entities that use “intrusive software tools and surveillance services indiscriminately to any customer — regardless of who they target, or the human rights abuses they might enable”. Surveillance-for-hire companies claim to use their surveillance services to tackle criminals and terrorists but, offer their services to many government and non-government groups that otherwise wouldn’t have these capabilities as well as private individuals, law firms, businesses, politicians and even law enforcement agencies. Meta’s investigation also claims that these surveillance companies also target journalists, dissidents, critics of authoritarian regimes, families of opposition and human rights activists.

Examples

Examples of surveillance-for-hire companies/cyber mercenaries include:

– Black Cube. Although it recently described itself as simply a “litigation support firm”, it is one of the companies identified recently by Meta. Black Cube was formed by former Israeli intelligence agency Mossad veterans. Meta suggested that Black Cube used fictitious personas to contact targets and obtain email addresses for phishing attacks (which Black Cube denies). Black Cube has previously made the news following reports by the New Yorker in 2017 that it was used by Harvey Weinstein to surveil reporters covering allegations about his assaults.

– NSO. Meta identified this company as being behind Pegasus spyware (software used to enable surveillance) that it sued in 2019 (and Apple has also sued).

– Cognyte. Based in Israel, Meta says that Cognyte sells access to its platform which enables managing fake accounts across social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and VKontakte (VK), and other websites to social-engineer people and collect data.

– Bluehawk CI. Based in Israel with offices in the UK and the US, Meta says that Bluehawk sells a range of surveillance-for-hire activities including social engineering, gathering of litigation-related intelligence about people, and managing fake accounts to trick them into installing malware. Meta alleges that the fake accounts pose as journalists working for media organizations like La Stampa (Italy) and Fox News (US) to trick targets into giving an on-camera interview.

– Cobwebs Technologies. Founded in Israel with offices in the United States, Meta says that Cobwebs Technologies sells access to its platform that enables reconnaissance across the internet, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, Flickr, public websites and “dark web” sites. Meta also claims that the accounts used by Cobwebs customers also engage in social engineering to join closed communities and forums and trick people into revealing personal information.

Issues

Some of the issues raised by Meta’s recent investigation that has shone a light on the entities in the surveillance-for-hire industry include:

– Their services are indiscriminately sold to anyone willing to pay, including known bad actors.

– They work across many platforms and national boundaries.

– Their capabilities are used by both nation-states and private enterprises. This means that they lower the barrier to entry for anyone willing to pay.

– It is often impossible for targets to know they are being surveilled across the internet.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The scale of this industry identified in Meta’s report indicates that this dark surveillance is widespread. The fact that there are many different companies who sell their services indiscriminately operating in secrecy means that it is hard to trace activity back to the client. Also, with these entities working across multiple platforms and national boundaries, a collective effort from platforms, policymakers, and civil society, as well public discussion about the use of surveillance-for-hire technology, greater transparency and oversight are now needed to help protect people. Also, as suggested by Meta, industry collaboration as well as more governance and regulator-led conversations about the ethics of these companies could help top protect their targets.

News

Security Stop-Press : Payroll System Provider For Sainsbury’s Hit By Ransomware Attack

It has been reported that Kronos, the payroll system provider for Sainsbury’s and many other big UK businesses was recently hit by a ransomware attack which affected its Private Cloud. For Sainsbury’s this meant the loss of a week’s worth of data for its 150,000 UK employees although it is understood that this hasn’t affected their Christmas pay. It has been reported that Kronos, a UKG company, has confirmed that some of its services are likely to be offline for several weeks as a result of the attack.

News

Tech Tip – Organise Your Chrome Bookmarks With Folders

If you’d like an easy way to organise all your Google Chrome browser bookmarks, try putting them in folders.  Here’s how:

To create a bookmark folder:

– On your computer, open Chrome.

– Top right, click on the 3 dots, then ‘Bookmarks’ and ‘Bookmark manager’.

– Top right, click on the 3 dots and ‘Add new folder’.

OR

– If you use the bookmarks bar, right-click the bookmarks bar and click on ‘Add Folder’.

To add your bookmarks to the folders:

– Top right, click on the 3 dots, then ‘Bookmarks’ and ‘Bookmark manager’.

– Drag a bookmark up or down or drag a bookmark into a folder on the left. Also, you can copy and paste bookmarks in the order you want.

– If you use the bookmarks bar, you can drag your bookmarks into the order you want.

News

Sustainability : 97% Cost Reduction For Lithium Batteries

With a recent study finding that the costs of producing lithium-ion battery technologies have fallen by about 97 per cent since their commercialisation three decades ago, we look at the reasons why, and the possible implications.

What Is A Lithium-Ion Battery?

A lithium-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery. The lithium ions in it move from the negative electrode through an electrolyte to the positive electrode during discharge, and back again when charging. Lithium-ion batteries have the advantages of being made small and yet having a relatively high ‘energy density’, a lower self-discharge rate than other battery types and are a low-maintenance battery. This makes them ideal for providing portable electricity and powering many of our favourite electronic business gadgets (e.g. mobile phones, laptops, and tablets). They are also now helping to enable the electrification of cars and buses and are beginning to support the integration of renewable energy resources into the electricity grid.

Cost Decline – Study In March

A previous study in March this year found that since their introduction in 1991, the cost of lithium-ion batteries had fallen at a comparable rate to that of solar photovoltaic panels. This rate of cost decrease for solar panels was thought to be exceptional, but the story of lithium-ion batteries has proved this to be wrong.

New Study – The Reasons For The Rapid Decline in Costs

The latest study, the results of which are published in the Journal Energy and Environmental Science (Micah Ziegler, Juhyun Song PhD, Jessika Trancik) show a 97 per cent reduction in the cost of lithium-ion technologies over the last three decades. The authors of the report suggest that the main reasons for the substantial cost reduction include:

– Greater efforts to increase charge density between the late 1990s and early 2010s (38 per cent cost reduction).

– Reductions in cathode materials prices (18 per cent of the cost reduction).

– Changes in non-material costs (14 per cent of the cost decline).

– A large reduction in costly public and private research and development, which accounted for the majority of the observed cost reduction. Most of the R&D contribution can be attributed to advancements in chemistry and materials science.

– Learning-by-doing, and economies of scale.

What Does This Mean For Your Organisation?

This massive reduction in the cost of lithium-ion battery technologies, mainly brought about by a reduction in R&D costs, has certainly benefitted organisations in terms of powering the various, ever-more compact devices used daily for work on the go. The cost reduction has also helped the growth of sales of electric vehicles and the general ongoing electrification of transportation.

In terms of the environment, reduced costs associated with electrochemical energy storage technologies may be helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing lithium-ion battery usage in stationary applications, helping to compensate for the intermittent supply of clean energy like solar and wind. This is enabling the growth of renewable energy technologies.  Cheaper electrochemical energy storage technologies (like lithium-ion batteries), therefore, is a factor that’s playing an increasingly important role in helping to tackle climate-change and move other green technologies forward.

News

Tech News : Teams App Blocked Emergency Call

It was recently discovered that a bug in the Pixel 3 phone meant that users who had the Teams app installed (even though they weren’t logged in) couldn’t call the US emergency 911 number.

What Happened?

A Reddit user reported that they had needed to call an ambulance for their grandmother who appeared to be having a stroke. The user dialled 911 just by typing and calling on their pixel 3 phone, only to find that the phone “got stuck” after one ring. The user reported that they were unable to do anything other than click through apps with an emergency phone call running in the background. Consequently, they were unable to tell the person on the other end which apartment they were in, or what the emergency was. The user also reported that the fault meant that there was no response from emergency vehicles, no evidence that 911 had been called (from a phone log perspective) and the user’s Verizon phone log showed no evidence that a 911 call had been made.

Google Confirmed The Fault Was Related To Teams App

Google later answered the user’s post on Reddit, saying that it had determined that the issue was caused by unintended interaction between the Microsoft Teams app and the underlying Android operating system, specifically for those running Android 10 or above. Google said that it expected a Microsoft Teams app update to be rolled out soon, and that it would also be providing an Android platform update on January 4. Google has also advised Pixel phone users to keep an eye out for Teams app updates and to ensure they are running the latest version.

What To Do

Google suggests that in order to avoid falling victim to the fault in the meantime, users with Microsoft Teams installed on any Android device running Android 10 and above could take the following steps:

– Check whether you are running Android 10 or above. Those not running Android 10 or above will not be impacted by the issue.

– Check to make sure that you are signed-in to your Teams app because the issue only occurs if the user is not signed in.

– Those who have the Microsoft Teams app downloaded, but are not signed in, should uninstall, and reinstall the app. This will address the problem in the interim, however a Microsoft Teams app update will also be required to fully resolve the issue.

– Keep an eye out for an update to the Microsoft Teams app, and ensure it is applied as soon as available.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

This story illustrates how the simple act of being able to make a phone call (on what is primarily a phone) can be prevented by aspects of the other tech and apps that are installed. It raises particular concerns because it relates to stopping an important 911 call. The positive aspects of the story are that the fault was brought to light and has been taken very seriously and acted upon quickly by both Microsoft and Google. This is good news for users and created a positive angle for what was potentially a very damaging story for Google and Microsoft. It also shows the value of thoroughly testing apps and the value of maintaining updates.

News

Featured Article : What’s All the Fuss About Julian Assange?

In this article, we take a look at some of the main details of the case of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, and what can be learned from this ongoing battle between Assange and the US government, whose secrets his website shared.

Who Is Julian Assange?

Julian Assange is 50-year-old Australian editor, publisher and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006.

He was born Julian Hawkins in 1971 in Townsville, Queensland, to Christine Hawkins a visual artist, and John Shipton, described as an anti-war activist and builder. The couple separated before his birth, his mum married actor Brett Assange, with whom she ran a small theatre company and who Julian regards as his father. After their divorce in 1979, and his mum’s involvement with a man Assange described as “a member of an Australian cult” (‘The Family’) Assange’s young life was nomadic, living in more than 30 Australian towns and cities by the time he reached his mid-teens and attending many different schools.

Despite what appears to be quite an unsettled childhood, Assange attended Central Queensland University (1994) where he studied programming, mathematics and physics, at the University of Melbourne. He is also reported to have used his computing skills to help the Victoria Police Child Exploitation Unit to catch and prosecute those involved in publishing and distributing child pornography.

Hacking

There are reports of Assange also using his computing skills as part of various hacking groups before he was charged in 1994 with 31 counts of hacking and related crimes, 24 of which he pleaded guilty to. He was only given a light penalty due to the absence of malicious or mercenary intent and his disrupted childhood.

What Is WikiLeaks?

WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organisation that publishes news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources on its whistleblower website wikileaks.org. Founded by Assange, WikiLeaks lists a large number of co-publishers, research partners and funders on its website, including The Guardian, The Telegraph, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

What Happened With Julian Assange and WikiLeaks?

In 2010 WikiLeaks published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. A former US soldier, Chelsea Manning disclosed to WikiLeaks nearly 750,000 classified (or unclassified but sensitive) military, and diplomatic documents. Consequently, Manning was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses.

What Leaks?

The ‘leaks’ given by Manning and published by Julian Assange via WikiLeaks included:

– The Baghdad airstrike Collateral Murder video (April 2010). This is 39 minutes of classified gunsight footage from air-to-ground attacks conducted by a team of two U.S. Apache helicopters in New Baghdad, just after the Iraq war.

– The Afghanistan war logs (July 2010) is a collection of over 91,000 classified Afghan War documents, covering the period between January 2004 and December 2009. 75,000 of these documents were made available to newspapers first and then released to the public via WikiLeaks.

– The Iraq war logs (October 2010) is the biggest leak in the military history of the United States. It consists of 391,832 United States Army field reports relating to the Iraq war from 2004 to 2009 and shows 66,081 civilian deaths out of 109,000 recorded deaths. These logs were published on Wikileaks.

– Details of Cablegate (November 2010). Cablegate refers to WikiLeaks releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by 274 of its consulates, embassies, and diplomatic missions around the world. Chelsea Manning was convicted for theft of these cables and violations of the Espionage Act and given a thirty-five-year prison sentence although was released in 2017, after serving seven years confinement.

What Was Julian Assange Initially Charged With?

In 2010, Julian Assange was issued an international arrest warrant over allegations of sexual misconduct. The allegations were that he had raped one woman and sexually molested and coerced another while on a visit to Stockholm to give a lecture. Assange denied the accusations and argued that the encounters were consensual. In 2019, Prosecutors in Sweden dropped the investigation.

London/Ecuador

Julian Assange claimed that the sexual misconduct allegation was a pretext that would enable the US to extradite him because of his role in the publication of secret American documents. After initially losing his battle with Sweden to avoid extradition, and while in London in 2012, Assange breached bail and took refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador in London where he was granted asylum on the grounds of political persecution.

After Ecuador’s President Correa, who was a known advocate of Wikileaks, was succeeded in office by Lenín Moreno, in April 2019, Ecuador withdrew Assange’s asylum status, and he was arrested at the embassy. It later emerged that Assange had fathered two children to a South African-born lawyer (and now his fiancée), Stella Morris, while he was still living in the Ecuadorean embassy. Stella Morris is reported to have been in a relationship with the Wikileaks founder since 2015.

Belmarsh

Following his arrest at the Embassy, in May 29019, Julian Assange was found guilty of breaching the Bail Act and sentenced to 50 weeks in prison. He was sent to Belmarsh maximum-security prison in London where he still resides.

Charges

In May 2019, the US justice department filed 17 new charges against him for violating the Espionage Act, relating to the publication of classified documents in 2010.

During his time spent in the Ecuadorian Embassy (which he could not leave) and his incarceration since, Assange’s health has suffered considerably. In January this year, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled against the United States’ request to extradite him, saying it would be “oppressive” given his mental health, but on 10 December 2021, Britain’s Court of Appeal ruled that Assange can be extradited to the US to face charges.

Mini-Stroke

It has also just been reported by Assange’s fiancée and mother of his two young children Stella Morris, that he suffered a mini-stroke on the first day of his High Court appeal hearing on October 27th, due to stress in his battle to avoid extradition from Britain to the United States.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The long-running (and often complicated) legal story of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks has many aspects to it. Although he has faced various accusations and smear campaigns that may have influenced how he is viewed by some people, this is essentially a story of whistleblowing online and its consequences. However, because the leaks related to classified US government military secrets, and Mr Assange has publicly evaded attempts by the US government to more directly punish him and bring him to face charges in the US, the saga has proved damaging to both the US government and Assange. Another important, less dramatic example of tech-related whistleblowing in the news recently is Frances Hauge’s allegations against Facebook (Meta). Although Assange’s and Hauge’s stories are very different, one common thread is the power of the Internet as a public publishing platform and an influencer in global matters. Businesses and organisations now have to know how to operate offline and online in ways that are ethical and compliant to give the right messages to their stakeholders.

News

Tech Insight : What Is A Password Manager?

In this tech insight, we look at challenges to using passwords, what password managers are, and why they are still so important.

The Limitations and Challenge of Passwords

Passwords have long provided a practical way to log in to websites, platforms, apps and other access gateways yet using passwords comes with many limitations and challenges, most of which are around security. These include:

Human Limitations and Human Error

People can typically only successfully remember shorter, more uniform, or more memorable strings of characters, and consequently these often end up being partly words, names, dates, or a combination thereof, which can make them easier to crack. Also, trying to remember longer groups of unrelated characters is unduly onerous for most people.

Password sharing (i.e., using the same password for multiple platforms/websites) is a security issue because if one site is compromised and password details are stolen, criminals can quickly attempt these in many other locations( which could result in financial loss and multiple accounts for one person being taken over.

The use of default passwords (e.g. with IoT devices and gadgets) or using very easy to guess/crack passwords are highly risky and expose users open to hacks, data-theft and financial loss. For example, the top 5 passwords in the (Nordpass) list of the 200 most commonly used passwords for 2021 are 123456, 123456789, 12345, qwerty, and password.

Criminal Activity

Cybercriminals have found passwords easier to beat in recent years due to factors such as:

– The massive leak of 2.6 billion rows of personal data from 12,000 files dubbed Collection #1, plus the many other collections of personal data and passwords now available to buy/swap/download on the dark web and other places.

– Password brute-forcing tools are now widely available online, e.g., Cain and Abel, Hashcat, John the Ripper, and Ophcrack.

Cyber-criminals can use the stolen/purchased password details for:

– Credential stuffing attacks. This is where cyber-criminals use software to automate the process of trying breached username/password pairs on many other websites to see if they can gain access.

– Phishing attacks.  The stolen credentials can be used to automatically send malicious emails to a victim’s list of contacts.

– Targeted digital identity attacks. The breached credentials can be used in targeted attacks designed to steal a victim’s entire digital identity or steal their money or even to compromise their social media network data.

Password Managers

Password managers are typically installed as browser plug-ins.  They are used to handle password capture and replay, and when logging into a secure site, they offer to save login credentials. On returning to that site, they can automatically fill in those credentials.

Password managers can also generate new passwords when needed and automatically paste them into the right places, as well as being able to sync passwords across all devices.

Popular Password Managers

Examples of popular password managers include Google Password Manager, Microsoft Authenticator, Dashline, LastPass, Sticky Password, Password Boss, Keeper (good for cross-platform uses), 1Password, and LogMeOnce.  There are also password vaults in other programs and CRMs that act as password managers, such as Zoho Vault, and Digital Vault.

Google Password Manager and Microsoft Authenticator

Google’s Chrome browser has a password manager to help to stop people from using weak passwords by suggesting combinations of characters that may be more secure. Microsoft’s Authenticator app can manage passwords for both Edge and Chrome.

Benefits of Password Managers

The main benefits of password managers include:

– Convenience and saving time. Having the password available in a secure browser extension is very helpful where, for example, the password has been forgotten or the password is too difficult to remember. Password managers are also particularly helpful for businesses, most of which have a large number of passwords to remember/store, and for businesses that may need to store a number of logins for their customers’ apps and platforms (e.g. digital marketing companies).

– Added security. Most password managers use 256-bit, military-grade AES encryption, thereby ensuring password security while keeping passwords close to hand for when they’re needed.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Even though big tech businesses are now offering users ways to log in that don’t use passwords (Microsoft announced in September that it is getting rid of all password logins and encouraging the use of an authenticator app or other solution) many businesses still need to use multiple passwords in a secure and convenient way. Password managers, therefore, serve a useful purpose in tackling the challenges of human limitations and human error, helping with work on the go and remote or hybrid working (syncronising passwords across devices), and the ongoing effort of cyber-criminals. The increased strength and convenience, however, mean that that the days of passwords now appear to be numbered but, in the meantime, there are many different password managers for businesses to choose from.

News

Tech News : A Peek at ‘Metaverse’

Meta (Facebook) has released a social VR experience called ‘Horizon Worlds’, giving users the first real look at the ‘Metaverse’ described by Mark Zuckerberg in the company’s recent re-brand announcements.

What Is Horizon Worlds?

Horizon Worlds (which launched via invite-only in beta last year) is a free, virtual space app that has been built with the Horizon creation tools. Users (over 18 and in the US and Canada) can create their own avatar, explore, work with others, and build and play their own games and activities as well as playing Meta’s base game. The user’s legless, floating avatar can fly around the virtual world and assemble a custom digital environment from building blocks and use pre-made code snippet scripts to set the rules for the games they create.

Explore Favourites

Meta says that a community has already begun to form around Horizon Worlds. Some of the community’s favourite games and activities that users can try out and experience include:

– A retro, arcade-style multiplayer platform battle royale with a vapor-wave theme called ‘Pixel Plummet’.

– A game called Wand & Broom where users can fly above ‘Townscity’ on a magic broom.

– A relaxing virtual ride on a river aboard a triple-decker riverboat, called ‘Mark’s Riverboat’.

Why?

The Metaverse is Facebook’s re-invention of its platform for the future and some critics have said it’s a way for the company to escape some of its problems and bad publicity in recent times (e.g., allegations by the whistleblower Frances Haugen). The vision for Horizon Worlds is “to develop a VR space with best-in-class tools for creators to build words and explore together.”

Criticism

Although an enthusiastic community has already built-up around Horizon Worlds and many people are excited about trying the experience, it’s still early days and this has brought inevitable criticism. For example, some have described Horizon Worlds as a lesser version of Minecraft.

Funding and Prizes

To help improve the experience and provide motivation for users to create, Meta announced a $10 million Creator Fund in October and has launched a Creator Competition with cash prizes.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For developers and those interested in creating games, Horizon Worlds provides new opportunities which could lead to new collaborative relationships, a way to showcase their talent, and perhaps develop potentially commercial game ideas, and win cash prizes. For Facebook, it’s a way to move more quickly towards their vision for the future of the platform, escape recent woes and bad publicity, harness the interest of younger users, and discover new product ideas and opportunities. For other social and developer platforms, it’s certainly something to watch closely (and experiment with), and it is potentially an area where they may wish to compete and stop Meta from gaining too much of an early advantage, should it prove to be very popular.

News

Security Stop-Press : Apache Log4j Security Vulnerabilities

The Apache Foundation has released an emergency update for a critical zero-day vulnerability in Log4j. This is a widely used logging tool included in almost every Java application. The problem that the update has been issued to address is that a bug in the Log4j library could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on a system that is using Log4j to write out log messages. The update can be found here: https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/security.html