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Hackers steal secret crypto keys for NordVPN. Here’s what we know so far

Breach happened 19 months ago. Popular VPN service is only disclosing it now.
Hackers breached a server used by popular virtual network provider NordVPN and stole encryption keys that could be used to mount decryption attacks on segments of its customer base. A log of the commands used in the attack suggests that the hackers had root access, meaning they had almost unfettered control over the server and could read or modify just about any data stored on it. One of three private keys leaked was used to secure a digital certificate that provided HTTPS encryption for nordvpn.com. The key wasn't set to expire until October 2018, some seven months after the March 2018 breach. Attackers could have used the compromised certificate to impersonate the nordvpn.com website or mount man-in-the-middle attacks on people visiting the real one. Details of the breach have been circulating online since at least May 2018.

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Bolivia election: Anger mounts over result confusion

Violent protests have erupted in at least nine cities in Bolivia amid ongoing confusion about the result of Sunday's presidential election.
Suspicion arose among opponents of the incumbent, Evo Morales, after the quick count was surprisingly halted. His main rival, Carlos Mesa, said the quick count's results were fraudulent. Counting is still under way with Mr Morales in first place but currently with not enough of a lead to stave off a second round. Bolivia's Supreme Electoral Tribunal is currently running two separate counts. The quick count, at 95.6% of votes verified, puts Mr Morales ahead of Mr Mesa with a lead of 9.33 percentage points. That is just short of the 10-percentage-point advantage he needs to win outright in the first round. If that result were to be confirmed, Mr Morales and Mr Mesa would face each other in a run-off on 15 December. The detailed count shows the two neck and neck. With 72% of the votes counted, Mr Morales just had a 0.58 percentage point lead over Mr Mesa, making a second round highly likely.

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Drugs firms reach $260m opioid settlement

Four drugs companies have reached a $260m (£200m) deal over their role in fuelling the US opioid crisis.
The agreement means that a nine-week trial, which had been scheduled to start in Cleveland, has been avoided. It settles accusations by two counties against Israel-based drugmaker Teva and drug distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson. A trial for Walgreens Boots Alliance, which had also been accused, will be rescheduled. The last-minute deal with Summit and Cuyahoga counties was announced on Monday by the judge overseeing the trial in Ohio. It had been closely watched as the first of thousands of similar cases to go forward.

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Alexa and Google Home abused to eavesdrop and phish passwords

Amazon- and Google-approved apps turned both voice-controlled devices into "smart spies."
*By now, the privacy threats posed by Amazon Alexa and Google Home are common knowledge. Workers for both companies routinely listen to audio of users—recordings of which can be kept forever—and the sounds the devices capture can be used in criminal trials. Now, there's a new concern: malicious apps developed by third parties and hosted by Amazon or Google. The threat isn't just theoretical. Whitehat hackers at Germany's Security Research Labs developed eight apps—four Alexa "skills" and four Google Home "actions"—that all passed Amazon or Google security-vetting processes. The skills or actions posed as simple apps for checking horoscopes, with the exception of one, which masqueraded as a random-number generator. *

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El Chapo: Mexican police free drug lord's son as Culiacán battle erupts

Heavy fighting broke out in northern Mexico on Thursday after security forces detained a son of the jailed drug kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.
Fighting raged for several hours after Ovidio Guzmán López was found during a routine patrol in the city of Culiacán. Footage showed heavily-armed men firing on police, with cars, bodies and burning barricades strewn in the road. Police withdrew without Mr Guzmán in their custody to avoid further violence, officials said. Mexico's security minister, Alfonso Durazo, told Reuters news agency that a patrol of National Guard militarised police came under intense fire from outside the house where they had located Mr Guzmán, forcing them to retreat from the building for their own safety and "to recover calm in the city".

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Unpatched Linux bug may open devices to serious attacks over Wi-Fi

Buffer overflow can be triggered in Realtek Wi-Fi chips, no user interaction needed.
A potentially serious vulnerability in Linux may make it possible for nearby devices to use Wi-Fi signals to crash or fully compromise vulnerable machines, a security researcher said. The flaw is located in the RTLWIFI driver, which is used to support Realtek Wi-Fi chips in Linux devices. The vulnerability triggers a buffer overflow in the Linux kernel when a machine with a Realtek Wi-Fi chip is within radio range of a malicious device. At a minimum, exploits would cause an operating-system crash and could possibly allow a hacker to gain complete control of the computer. The flaw dates back to version 3.10.1 of the Linux kernel released in 2013.

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Netflix feels the pressure as competitors circle

As the famed and admired early-mover in the high-quality streaming industry, Netflix has built a formidable business worth in the region of $125bn. In the past three months, it added 6.7million new subscribers, bringing its total userbase to 153million worldwide.
But the next three months will prove to be its most challenging yet. Soon, Netflix will be competing with Disney+, HBO Max and Apple+ - all companies with enormous brand recognition and a strong desire to take their own slice of streaming’s riches. On Wednesday, Netflix wrote to investors to tell them that competition would be a good thing. The rising tide of streaming services would just tempt more people away from “linear TV”, as they term it, and into streaming services. “Just like the evolution from broadcast TV to cable, these once-in-a-generation changes are very large and open up big, new opportunities for many players,” the company told investors.

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The latest Google shutdowns: Daydream VR, Google Clips

At the same time Google launches products, it also takes some away.
Google's big hardware event happened yesterday, which saw the announcement of the Pixel 4, Pixelbook Go, Nest Wi-Fi, Nest Home Mini, and new Pixel Buds. While the "Made by Google 2019" event was going on, Google was quietly shutting down enough products that it could have also held a mini "Killed by Google 2019" event that same day. Pour one out for the Google Daydream VR headset and the Google Clips camera. Google Daydream View launched in 2016 and was Google's swing at proper phone-based virtual reality. Like the Samsung and Oculus collaboration Gear VR, the Daydream View was a cheap, light, "dumb" headset that featured VR lenses and little else. You slotted a smartphone into the front, and the phone switched to a VR mode, rendering a stereoscopic image that was blasted into your eyeballs through the lenses. You already have an expensive smartphone, so why not dip your toe in the VR waters with a cheap $100 headset.

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Bulgaria v England: Police arrest six following racist abuse at Euro qualifier

Bulgarian police have identified 15 fans they suspect are responsible for subjecting black England players to racist abuse and arrested six of them.
The nine not arrested are under police investigation, with three wanted. England's 6-0 Euro 2020 qualifier win over Bulgaria in Sofia was stopped twice in the first half following racist chanting by home supporters. "We do not tolerate such behaviour," Bulgaria Ministry of the Interior commissioner Georgi Hadzhiev said. Bulgaria's football chief Borislav Mikhailov resigned on Tuesday. Bulgaria manager Krasimir Balakov said after the game he "didn't hear" any chanting, having previously accused England of having a bigger racism problem. But Balakov has since posted a statement on Facebook, acknowledging the incidents on Monday and apologising to "English footballers and to all those who felt offended".

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In 2019, multiple open source companies changed course—is it the right move?

"We have to draw a line between open source and the right to make money with open source."
Free and open source software enables the world as we know it in 2019. From Web servers to kiosks to the big data algorithms mining your Facebook feed, nearly every computer system you interact with runs, at least in part, on free software. And in the larger tech industry, free software has given rise to a galaxy of startups and enabled the largest software acquisition in the history of the world. Free software is a gift, a gift that made the world as we know it possible. And from the start, it seemed like an astounding gift to give. So astounding in fact that it initially made businesses unaccustomed to this kind of generosity uncomfortable. These companies weren't unwilling to use free software, it was simply too radical and by extension too political. It had to be renamed: "open source." Once that happened, open source software took over the world.