US government warns hackers are targeting nuclear plants
"Since May, hackers have been penetrating the computer networks of companies that operate nuclear power stations and other energy facilities, as well as manufacturing plants in the United States and other countries," The New York Times reports. The news comes via a joint report issued by the the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which says several power plants have already been hacked. The two agencies released the report with an amber warning, which is the second-highest severity rating.
"The report did not indicate whether the cyberattacks were an attempt at espionage — such as stealing industrial secrets — or part of a plan to cause destruction," The New York Times says. "There is no indication that hackers were able to jump from their victims' computers into the control systems of the facilities, nor is it clear how many facilities were breached."
At this point, researchers know the attacks would begin with targeted phishing emails, which were sent to control engineers who had "direct access to systems that, if damaged, could lead to an explosion, fire, or a spill of dangerous material." While there has been no confirmation about who is behind the attacks, analysts suspect it is Russia due to similarities to other documented attacks.
Owners of the new Surface Pro report hibernation issues
A small group of owners of Microsoft's latest iteration of the Surface Pro are reporting their devices are plagued by hibernation issues that are "causing unwanted, random shutdowns." Microsoft has confirmed the existence of the problem and says it is looking into it with a spokesperson telling customers, "We are aware of a small group of customers reporting a scenario with their new Surface Pro in which the device inadvertently hibernates."
"The problem seems to be happening to a variety of models, running both i5 and i7 processors," ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley says. "It's not clear whether this problem could be fixable through a software update or not. Microsoft has had a number of battery/power issues with previous Surface models, which in some cases took months to fix."
Microsoft unveiled its newest Surface Pro earlier this year, listing it as the successor to the Surface Pro 4.
90-year-old Dutch woman (falsely) accused of being a Microsoft scammer
"A 90-year-old woman from the Dutch city of Helmond has been accused of being behind the infamous Microsoft scam," Myce writes. "The scammers call people on a massive scale and pretend to be Microsoft support employees. They claim there is a computer problem that they can solve."
But there's one problem: The Dutch woman is innocent. According to Dutch police, the scammers spoofed the woman's phone number so victims would see a phone call from her number. "Research has shown that the scammers can use any random phone number," Dutch law enforcement said in a statement on Facebook.
"In this case the scammers used the phone number of the 90-year-old woman who was quickly falsely identified as being behind the scam on the internet," Myce says. "The elderly woman suffered a lot of nuisance because angry victims found her address as connected to the phone number. The Dutch police stresses that people should share their information with the police and shouldn't investigate on their own to prevent people from being falsely accused."
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