Galaxy Note 10 Reveal is Tomorrow; Apple Card Rolls Out to Limited Customers; AT&T Employees Took Bribes to Plant Malware; Industrial Cyberattacks Have Doubled Last 6 Months

Samsung is holding Unpacked tomorrow, and will show off the Galaxy Note 10. Businessinsider.com reports that it will sport the same ‘Infinity O’ display as the S10, and has no visible fingerprint reader on the back, so probably has an in-display fingerprint sensor lurking in the 6.3 inch screen. It will rock a 3 lens camera system….standard, ultra-wide, and zoom. The Note 10 is thought to have a 25W charger, but will support 45 W charging, so much quicker charging speeds will be noticeable right away over previous models. There MAY be a ‘Pro’ or ‘Plus model with a 6.8 inch screen and a 4th camera, as well as bigger battery. Tomorrow, Samsung will reveal all.

Over at Apple, they have started rolling out the Apple Card to a limited number of customers. According to macrumors.com, random people who signed up on the website will get invites to go ahead and apply. The card will be available in the Apple Wallet app almost instantly to those who qualify, and they can order a physical card to be delivered later this month. The full rollout of the Apple Card is expected in a couple weeks to the general public. Apple has posted a dozen videos on their website relating to the Apple Card if your inner fanboy or fangirl can’t wait!

Terrible behavior that screws around vast numbers of people continues on the internet and in service of same. Zdnet.com says AT&T employees took bribes to unlock millions of smartphones and install malware and unauthorized hardware on the company’s network, according to the Department of Justice. The DOJ has a case active against Muhammad Fahd, a 34 year old man from Pakistan, and his co-conspirator, Ghulam Jiwani (now believed to be deceased.) The scheme was active from 2012 to 2017. The unlocking of iPhones was the relatively innocuous part. The pair got employees to install malware such as a key logger, which let Fahd hoover up ‘confidential and proprietary information regarding the structure and functioning of AT&T’s internal protected computers and applications.’ In addition, they had the bribed employees place more malware in the system that ran automated actions gathering info and unlocking phones without any need for the crook to interact with AT&T employees. So far, the government and AT&T both claim that no users’ personal data was exposed, but the company lost over $5 million a year due to the unlocked phones.

Cyberattacks designed to cause damage have doubled the past 6 months. According to arstechnica.com, over half of them are in the manufacturing sector. The word comes from a report by IBM’s X-Force IRIS incident response team. The malware, Industroyer, Not Petya, Student, and others, are designed to cause damage rather than just to do covert surveillance or data theft. Until late last year, almost all such attacks were by state actors, but the response team says in the hast months cybercriminals have been involved. The most common initial infection vectors are phishing emails, the theft of credentials required to enter an internal network, watering hole attacks, and the successful compromise of third parties with a connection to the true target. Ah, the good news never stops coming!