Irish DPC fines Meta/Facebook €265 million after data privacy incident

[German]The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has imposed a 265 million fine on Meta, Facebook's parent company. This follows a data protection incident in which millions of Facebook users' data was pulled from the company's systems via tools until September 2019. The Irish Data Protection Authority then launched a formal investigation in April 2021.

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Dell, HP, Lenovo uses outdated OpenSSL versionen in UEFI

Sicherheit (Pexels, allgemeine Nutzung)[German]A firmware analysis by security vendor Binarly has revealed that devices from Dell, HP and Lenovo use outdated versions of the OpenSSL encryption library in their UEFI implementations. This poses a risk, as encryption could be broken and the update supply chain compromised. The outdated OpenSSL versions gets onto these machines through an EFI Development Kit (EDK). Currently, however, there doesn't seem to be a solution for how device manufacturers can get a handle on the problem of using up to three outdated (some dating back to 2014) OpenSSL versions even in updated UEFI firmware.

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Windows 11 probably gets VPN status indicator in taskbar

Windows[German]It looks like Microsoft is internally working on providing Windows users with an indicator that signals whether a VPN connection is in use. In any case, Windows 11 Insider build 25247 contains a feature that has not yet been officially released, which can provide the network icon with a corresponding overlay.

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Funny Google search AI – all plants are algae

[German]Funny observation from a German blog reader in Google search. There seems to be "a shortage" in Google's search AI. Because all plants we are searching for, are quoted as algae in the search suggestions.

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Does iCloud for Windows breaks video downloads and shows other people's photos

[German]There are isolated reports of users complaining that they are shown unknown photos and broken videos using Apple's iCloud for Windows. The assumption is that this content comes from other users' accounts. Affected users  use iCloud for Windows to download the videos or get photos from unknown sources displayed there.

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Why ISL Online: Critical factors when choosing a remote desktop solution

[Sponsored Post]In the rapidly evolving IT world, choosing the right remote desktop software is critical for organizations that value security, ease of use and reliability. One provider of secure remote access that has been on the market since 2001 is ISL Online, which presents some considerations for choosing such software below. More ...


Hackers penetrate energy systems via outdated Boa web server of IoT components

Sicherheit (Pexels, allgemeine Nutzung)[German]Many vendors use outdated software components in their IoT components. Microsoft has now presented a case in which a web server that was discontinued in 2005 was misused to penetrate the systems of Indian power grid via vulnerabilities. The background is that this obsolete software is still used in IoT components.

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German data protection conference 2022 says Microsoft 365 still not GDPR compliant

[German]The use of Microsoft 365 (including Office 365) is still not compliant with European general data protection rules (GDPR). Anyone using the product is breaching European GDPR law – at least as far as the standard configuration specified by Microsoft is concerned. Despite subsequent improvements, Microsoft has not yet succeeded in ensuring the GDPR compliance of Microsoft 365. That is the conclusion of the Data Protection Conference 2022 in Germany.

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Mercedes USA offers "Acceleration increase" package for EQ models only with $1200 annual subscription

Mercedes[German]Little info tidbits from the world of electric cars. Mercedes is now offering a special feature for its electric models in the EQ series (EQE, EQS) in the US as an annual subscription. And it is an acceleration package that is supposed to improve the time to get from to 100 km/h by 0.8 to 1 second. In my eyes, the whole thing is part of the "experimental box" that carmakers use to figure out how to squeeze money out of drivers' pockets.

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Windows Remote Desktop connection issues to FQDN since October 2022

Windows[German]I have received reports of problems with remote desktop connections under Windows when they are made via FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name). The connections can then no longer be established. The problem has been occurring since October 2022 and a connection to the difficulties in connection with Remote Desktop problems seems to be given.

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Windows Server November 2022 updates cause LSASS memory leak

Windows[German]A German blog reader had already asked in a comment if anyone had noticed a memory leak caused by November 2022 updates to Windows Server 2016. I was about to write a separate blog post asking for that, but Microsoft just beat me to it and confirmed a memory leak in LSASS caused by the November 8, 2022 security updates in various Windows Server versions. The problem can be mitigated with a workaround.

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Posted in issue, Update | Tagged , , | 2 Comments