Bluetek IT Solutions Blog

The app you know will still be called Facebook

Facebook's new corporate name is Meta, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday, in an apparent effort to recast the company's public image from battered social network to tech innovator focused on building the next generation of online interaction, known as the "metaverse."

The Facebook app used by almost 3 billion people around the world every month will keep its name. But speaking at the company's Connect virtual reality conference, Zuckerberg said it's time to overhaul the corporation's identity to reflect its broader ambitions.

"It is time for us to adopt a new company brand to encompass everything that we do," he said. "From now on, we're going to be metaverse first, not Facebook first."

Seventeen years after Zuckerberg founded Facebook in his Harvard University dorm room, the company's brand has been badly dented by a succession of crises, from Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election to the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, which became public in 2018, to last month's damaging revelations from former Facebook employee turned whistleblower Frances Haugen.

Twitter rolls out paid subscription ‘Super Follows’ to let you cash in on your tweets

The feature, first revealed in February, will allow users to subscribe to accounts they like for a monthly subscription fee in exchange for exclusive content. For creators, Super Follows are another useful tool in the emerging patchwork of monetization options across social platforms.

Eligible accounts can set the price for Super Follow subscriptions, with the option of charging $2.99, $4.99 or $9.99 per month, prices fairly comparable to a paid newsletter. They can then choose to mark some tweets for subscribers only, while continuing to reach their unpaid follower base in regular tweets.

Paid subscribers will be marked with a special Super Follower badge, differentiating them from unpaid followers in the sea of tweets. The badge shows up in replies, elevating a follower’s ability to interact directly with accounts they opt to support. For accounts that have Super Follows turned on, the option will show up with a distinct button on the profile page.

Super Follows aren’t turned on for everyone. For now, the process remains application only, with a waitlist. The option lives in the Monetization options in the app’s sidebar, though users will need to be U.S.-based with 10K followers and at least 25 tweets within the last month to be eligible.

Trojan Horse for Malware

The graphics card inside your computer is a powerful tool for gaming and creative work, but it can also potentially serve as a Trojan horse for malware. Cybercriminals are finding ways to exploit graphics cards and their VRAM to inject malicious code into your system. The approach is claimed to have worked during a proof-of-concept hack on both discrete and integrated GPUs from AMD, Intel, and Nvidia.

Because antivirus software today cannot scan the graphics card’s own video RAM, known as VRAM, hackers are now targeting GPUs to carry out their dirty work. On the other hand, conventional methods used today that target the system’s main memory would trigger the antivirus software.

According to Bleeping Computer, a brief description of the hack was posted on a hacker forum, where one seller was trying to sell his proof-of-concept method to exploit the VRAM on GPUs. The seller stated that the method worked on Intel’s integrated UHD 620 and 630 graphics, as well as discrete solutions including the AMD Radeon RX 5700 and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650. It’s unclear if the attack would also work on other GPUs, like the recent Radeom RX 6000 series from AMD and theGeforce RTX 3000 series from Nvidia, both of which have seen high demand and short supply.

Make sure your router and devices are secure

If you want to add a bit more security to your device or simply make it easier to remember what you need to put in, you should look into changing your Wi-Fi router's password. Routers come with default passwords that are easy for anyone to guess or look up. Instead, you should change it to something more secure so that nobody can mess with your settings. Here's how to change your Wi-Fi router's password.

How to log into your router

1. First, you need to log into your router's web-based interface.

2. Connect to your router with your PC or mobile device.

3. Visit 192.168.0.1 or www.routerlogin.net.

4. A prompt will show up for login info.

5. Enter the username and password that's on the bottom of your router or what it says in the manual.

Industrial businesses were the second most targeted sector in 2020 and new research from Positive Technologies shows that an external attacker could penetrate the corporate network at 91 percent of them.

In addition, Positive Technologies penetration testers gained access to the industrial control system (ICS) networks at 75 percent of these companies. Once criminals have obtained access to ICS components, they can shutdown entire production lines, cause equipment to fail, or incidents that could cause serious harm.

Olga Zinenko, senior analyst at Positive Technologies, says, "Today, the level of cybersecurity at most industrial companies is too low for comfort. In most cases, Internet-accessible external network perimeters contain weak protection, device configurations contain flaws, and we find a low level of ICS network security and the use of dictionary passwords and outdated software versions present risks."