Microsoft world wide outage Microsoft service takes a nose dive what's app users are warned they can run malicious scripts without warning and AI enhanced methods can read what's on your screen without even being in the room welcome to cyber security today I'm Jim love sitting in for Howard Solomon Microsoft's cloud services took a global nose dive today leaving thousands of users worldwide struggling to access key Services the outage which began around 11:30 UTC affected azure's networking infrastructure and azure front door service the impact appeared to be Global in nature extending from the US to the UK with outages reported in other regions as well a Microsoft spokesperson said we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience our experts are currently investigating the situation in order to resolve it as soon as possible now the impact was far-reaching affecting not only Geographic locations but affecting everything from email services to the popular game mcraft as one expert commented it seems slightly surreal that we're experiencing another serious outage of online services from Microsoft you would expect Microsoft's Network infrastructure to be bomb proof Microsoft did manage to implement some Network changes by afternoon in North America and was able to have many systems functioning but still reported sporadic outages as they noted as we investigate reports of specific services in regions that are still experiencing intermittent errors we believe that our network configuration changes have successfully mitigated the impacts of the usage Spike but that these changes are causing some side effects to certain services this outage comes less than 2 weeks after a major Global it incident caused by a flawed crowd strike update as Microsoft prepares for its quarterly earnings call today all eyes will undoubtedly be on how the tech giant plans to prevent such widespread disruptions in the future is it time to ask whether it's wise to have an infrastructure supplied in a fashion where an entire continent or perhaps even a worldwide usage can be taken down with a single error WhatsApp users are warned that WhatsApp vulnerability Python and PHP scripts can run without warning when opened as attachments security researcher samit dos discovered the vulnerability while testing file types that whats apppp allows while the app blocks many risky files like exes orbat it fails to stop Python and PHP scripts from executing a WhatsApp spokesperson told bleeping computer we warn users to never click on or open a file from somebody they don't know regardless of how they received it but experience has shown that given enough time and reaching enough users someone even in a development role or someone who should know better is bound to click on a file that they shouldn't it also doesn't address the potential for hijacked accounts to spread malicious scripts to contacts or chat groups others have pointed out that the vulnerability requires python to be installed in the affected host but given one stat showing that there over 20 million monthly downloads from python.org alone never mind other possible sources there seem to be an adequate amount of targets not surprisingly then dos expressed disappointment with whatsapp's response noting that it was a simple thing to prevent by simply adding the pyz or the py ZW or for our American counterparts pyz and pyw extensions to their block list he said meta can prevent potential exploitation through these pythonic zip files for Now WhatsApp users should exercise caution when opening attachments especially if python is installed on their system stay vigilant and think twice before clicking open on any unexpected AI can read your screen files imagine someone reading your screen without even being in the room researchers from Uruguay's University of the Republic have demonstrated that artificial intelligence can decode what's on your screen by intercepting electromagnetic radiation from HDMI cables lead researcher Fredrico loroco explains governments are worried about this but I wouldn't say the normal user should be too concerned but if you really care about your security whatever your reasons are this could be a problem the team's AI powered method can reconstruct text from intercepted HDMI signals with about 70% accuracy good enough for most human readers to decipher sensitive information like passwords or financial data while this type of attack requires sophisticated equipment and isn't likely to Target average users the researchers believe it's already being used against government agencies and sensitive industrial settings for now there's no need to panic about your home HDMI setup but if you notice a suspicious van parked outside your house next time and you're checking your crypto wallet well maybe it's time to invest in some electromagnetic shielding and that's our show you can find the show notes with Links at Tech newsday.com or.cat and a weekend interview show I'll be sitting in for Howard Solomon for a few more of these shows and we'll let you know when Howard will be back I'm your host Jim love thanks for listening