MSFT Drops OS Ball, Again

Why is Microsoft Corporations' (NASDAQ: MSFT) CEO Satya Nardella touting underwater servers instead of focusing on the plight of current Windows Server and Desktop users dealing with the apparent incompetence of Microsoft staff and contractors running Windows Update systems? (With the latest screwup in Windows Update-land - the bad code pushed out to users in the October 2018 Update that deleted user files, and other necesary system files - is as of today NOT not fixed which caused the company to pull the October Update - and it's now November...) Is it the money from the cloud profit center (otherwise known as Azure) that's 'clouding' his vision? You be the judge!

GrrCon Augusta 2018, Joshua "Naga" Crumbaugh's 'Guaranteed Failure: Awareness The Greatest Cyber Insanity' →

Videography Credit: Irongeek (Adrian Crenshaw).

Amazon, The Rekognition Fail

This situation - the failure of a highly touted Amazon Corporation (NasdaqGS: AMZN) machine learning/psuedo-artificial-intelligence API/Database construct known as 'Amazon Rekognition' - is a Prime example of large-scale, resilient corporate hubris. Highly disappointing, yet the stock is not suffering... And, then there's this.

The Polar Exposure →

via the eponymous Ms. Smith, whilst writing at CSO, has detailed another Polar branded (Polar Flow) fitness tracking app exposure of service member's personally identifiable information (specifically locale, names and addresses). The flaw includes all users, even those who explicity set their particulars to private. Bad news for your Sunday morning jog...

Polar makes an online map available to its users and displays all their exercise routes and locations since 2014. According to an investigation by Bellingcat and De Correspondent, that map can also be used to let “anyone” find the names and addresses of military and intelligence agency personnel, as well as names and addresses for “personnel at nuclear storage facilities, maximum security prisons, military airports where nuclear weapons are stored, and drone bases.” - via Ms. Smith reporting for CSO

AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint: We're Selling Your Location Data To Prison Tech Company. Nothing To See Here!

via Zack Whittaker, writing at ZDNet's Zero Day, exposes the selling of mobile device location data (for all customers) to a prison technology-focused organization monikered 'Securus. Where's the consent? H/T

DOD, The Banning →

DOD Bans On-Base Sale of Huawei, ZTE Mobile Devices

via Graham Cluley, writing at GrahamCluley.com, comes this interesting story, originaly via Stu Woo and Gordon Lubold, both at The Wall Street Journal, in which, Messrs. Woo and Lubold detail the banning of Huawei and ZTE mobile products from Exchanges On-Base , world wide.

“Huawei and ZTE devices may pose an unacceptable risk to the department’s personnel, information and mission,“ said Army Maj. Dave Eastburn, a Pentagon spokesman, in a statement. “In light of this information, it was not prudent for the department’s exchanges to continue selling them.” - Dave Eastburn, MAJ US Army, a US Department of Defense spokesman - via Stu Woo and Gordon Lubold, both at The Wall Street Journal

Twelve Percentile →

Deaf, Dumb and Blind, but they sure play a mean pinball..., or, why only 12% of companies can detect a so-called 'sophisticated' cybersecurity attack.

Developer Errors Exposes 180 Million Phones to Compromise →

Oops, They Did It Again! Coupled with the other well-known security issues (e.g., the recently exposed (but decades old) SS7 Flaw) this latest display of security-related development governance (or lack-thereof) by the MNO's is highly dangerous; and spans borders.