Our Thinking | Intercity Technology

This Week's Top Tech News

Written by Sarah Potter | Jun 21, 2021 2:37:13 PM

Well the football was a bit disappointing wasn’t it? That’s if you’re an England fan of course… In much less disappointing, but much more informative news, we have this week’s round up of the best Tech News stories. Is it still coming home? We’re not sure. But one thing we are sure of, is that it’ll take you just 5 minutes to catch up on what’s going on.

Meat giant JBS pays almost £8m ransom to hackers after cyber attack

The world's largest meat processing company has paid a ransom worth $11m (£7.8m) to hackers behind a cyber attack on its computer systems.

JBS - which produces almost a quarter of America's beef - confirmed it handed over the funds on Wednesday. It comes after the Brazil-based company revealed on 31 May how its network had been targeted.

The FBI has attributed the ransomware attack to a Russian-speaking gang, REvil, and has vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice.

JBS USA chief executive Andre Nogueira said agreeing to pay the ransom was "a very difficult decision to make for our company and for me personally".

"However, we felt this decision had to be made to prevent any potential risk for our customers," he added.

The vast majority of the meat giant's facilities were operational at the time the ransom was paid, JBS said.

But bosses decided to meet the demands to avoid any unforeseen issues and ensure no data was exfiltrated.

Chip shortage addressed by US-EU tech alliance

Manufacturing more computer chips in Europe and the US will be one of the key focuses of a new technology alliance between the two.

The Trade and Technology Council (TTC) was unveiled following talks between European commissioner Margrethe Vestager and US President Joe Biden.

The group will also seek to set common standards for new technologies such as artificial intelligence. Both sides are concerned by the rise of China as a technology superpower.

A statement on the summit, includes a pledge to build "an EU-US partnership on the rebalancing of global supply chains in semiconductors".

The pandemic has led to global chip shortages and exposed weaknesses in supply chains, causing shortages of consumer electronics, such as gaming consoles, as well as slowing down production of cars.

Last month, IBM president Jim Whitehurst said the shortage could last for another two years.

The EU wants to increase its share of the global chip-manufacturing market from 10% to 20% and has promised $150bn (£100bn) towards the effort.

Meanwhile, the US has allocated $52bn to domestic chip manufacturing.

 

Hackers steal electronic arts’ code for fifa, madden, and battlefield video games ‘worth $28m’

Hackers have stolen source code for many of the top video games published by Electronic Arts (EA).

Online forums show that on 6 June, hackers claimed to have accessed 780GB of data from the publisher, including the code for Frostbite – the game engine for the FIFA, Madden, and Battlefield franchises. For comparison, the most expensive iPhone 12 device will hold 256GB of data.

This information could be used by developers looking to copy EA properties, or create cheat codes and hacks for games.

The theft includes the source code for FIFA 21, as well as its matchmaking service for FIFA 22, and proprietary EA frameworks and software development kits (SDKs).

The hackers are apparently trying to sell the information, providing screenshots of a small amount of the data that they gathered, according to Vice, which first reported the news. "Only serious and rep [reputation] members all other would be ignored," the hackers apparently wrote in a post.

The threat actor selling EA’s data who claims to have stolen the code – as well as points used as in-game currency – will apparently sell the information for $28 million, according to BleepingComputer, who reportedly spoke to the hacker.

McDonald's hit by data breach in Taiwan and South Korea

McDonald's is the latest big company to be hit by a data breach that has exposed customers' details. The world's biggest burger chain said cyber attackers had accessed a "small number" of files on customers in South Korea and Taiwan.

The breach included e-mail, delivery addresses and phone numbers - but not payment details. A spokeswoman for the firm said it would take steps to "notify regulators and customers listed in these files".

The details of the breach, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, were discovered during an external investigation after unauthorised activity was spotted on the company's network.

The company said its "substantial investment" in cyber security meant it was identified quickly.

"These tools allowed us to quickly identify and contain recent unauthorised activity on our network. A thorough investigation was conducted, and we worked with experienced third parties to support this investigation," it said.

Operations at its restaurants were not affected by the hack.

The fast food firm did say, however, that personal data on employees was also accessed - although it did not say in which countries.

Apple is urging owners of old iphones to get this software update right away

Apple has rolled out a new security update for its older gadgets running on iOS 12 such as the iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and iPad Air, to fix a trio of vulnerabilities including some which could lead to memory corruption.

“This update provides important security updates and is recommended for all users,” Apple said in the release notes for the iOS 12.5.4 update.

While most of the devices running on this iOS version were launched in 2013 or 2014 and would be currently six or seven years old, Apple has continued to update them with important security fixes.

Even though these gadgets have not received any new features with the launch of iOS 13, they are still under wide use.

A report by DeviceAtlas says about 8 per cent of iPhone users as of 2020 were still using iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus.

According to the tech giant, the new software patch targets a “maliciously crafted certificate” and two WebKit vulnerabilities – which could lead to arbitrary execution of codes by devices.