A man who worked at the Monsanto Company has admitted stealing a trade secret from his former employer and attempting to sell it to the People’s Republic of China. Xiang Haitao was employed by the American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation and its subsidiary, The Climate Corporation, as an imaging scientist from 2008 to 2017. The 44-year-old former resident of Chesterfield, Missouri, exploited his position to steal a proprietary predictive algorithm dubbed the Nutrient Optimizer.  The algorithm…

Guest author Ben Hall is the lead technical developer for C# .NET at gov.uk (a United Kingdom public sector information website) and a .NET Foundation foundation member. He worked for nine years as a school teacher, covering programming and computer science. Ben enjoys making complex topics accessible and practical for busy developers. Deciding Between Docker Desktop and a DIY Solution At the heart of the Docker experience is Docker Engine. Docker Desktop’s ready-to-use solution for…

The new opt-in feature turns your idle PC into a cryptominer, with Norton skimming 15% off the top, plus market fees. Image: NortonLifeLock Cybersecurity software company NortonLifeLock is coming under fire for its decision late last year to begin installing Ethereum mining software on its Norton 360 customers’ PCs without their permission or knowledge.  Norton Crypto, the new Norton 360 mining component, isn’t enabled without the user opting in, but that hasn’t stopped users from…

By Guillaume Bourcy, Vice President, Data & Identity Solutions, TeleSign During the peak of the global pandemic, online shopping and cybercriminal activity hit unprecedented figures, hitting merchants’ bottom lines hard. Juniper Research predicts that merchant losses from eCommerce fraud in 2021 will be $20 billion, up from $17 billion in 2020. Slowing – or reversing ­– this trend makes prioritizing fraud prevention strategies across all eCommerce channels an imperative in 2022 and beyond. The first…

Security researchers say they have seen a “massive wave” of malicious hackers exploiting the comment feature in Google Docs to spread malicious content into the inboxes of unsuspecting targeted users. According to a blog post published by Avanan, the comments functionality of Google Docs, as well as its fellow Google Workplace web-based applications Google Sheets and Google Slides, is being exploited to send out malicious links. The flaw can be exploited by cybercriminals to send…

By Richard Hummel, Threat Intelligence Lead, NETSCOUTy In March 2018, a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) disrupted service for the developer platform GitHub. The attack, which lasted for approximately 20 minutes, was the largest on record. It was also a milestone. At roughly 1.2 terabits for second, it formally inaugurated the era of terabit-class attacks, roughly the equivalent of 25 or 30 high definition movies every second. It was followed one week later by…

A controversial ‘cybersecurity consultancy’ has said it’s closing after its report into alleged election fraud in Arizona was roundly rebuffed by officials. According to a reporter for The Guardian, boss Doug Logan “and the rest of the employees have been let go and Cyber Ninjas is being shut down.” Arizona Senate Republicans hired Cyber Ninjas to find evidence supporting Donald Trump’s widely debunked claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Its long-awaited report was this week…