Latest news with #Redmond
Fox News
20 hours ago
- Business
- Fox News
Microsoft takes down malware found on 394,000 Windows PCs
Infostealer malware has been on the rise recently, and that's evident from the billions of user records leaked online in the past year alone. This type of malware targets everything from your name, phone number and address to financial details and cryptocurrency. Leading the charge is the Lumma infostealer. I have been reporting on this malware since last year, and security researchers have called it one of the most dangerous infostealers, infecting millions. There have been countless incidents of Lumma targeting people's personal data (more on this later), but the good news is that Microsoft has taken it down. The Redmond-based company announced it has dismantled the Lumma Stealer malware operation with the help of law enforcement agencies around the world. Microsoft confirmed that it has successfully taken down the Lumma Stealer malware network in collaboration with law enforcement agencies around the world. In a blog post, the company revealed that its Digital Crimes Unit had tracked infections on more than 394,000 Windows devices globally between March 16 and May 16. Lumma was a go-to tool for cybercriminals, often used to siphon sensitive information like login credentials, credit card numbers, bank account details and cryptocurrency wallet data. The malware's reach and impact made it a favored choice among threat actors for financial theft and data breaches. To disrupt the malware's operation, Microsoft obtained a court order from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, which allowed the company to take down key domains that supported Lumma's infrastructure. This was followed by the U.S. Department of Justice stepping in to seize control of Lumma's core command system and shut down marketplaces where the malware was being sold. International cooperation played a major role as well. Japan's cybercrime unit helped dismantle Lumma's locally hosted infrastructure, while Europol assisted in actions against hundreds of domains used in the operation. In total, over 1,300 domains were seized or redirected to Microsoft-managed sinkholes to prevent further damage. Microsoft says this takedown effort also included support from industry partners such as Cloudflare, Bitsight and Lumen, which helped dismantle the broader ecosystem that enabled Lumma to thrive. Lumma is a Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) that has been marketed and sold through underground forums since at least 2022. Over the years, its developers have released multiple versions to continually improve its capabilities. I first reported on Lumma in February 2024, when it was used by hackers to access Google accounts using expired cookies that contained login information. Lumma continued targeting users, with reports in October 2024 revealing it was impersonating fake human verification pages to trick Windows users into sharing sensitive information. The malware wasn't limited to Windows. In January 2024, security researchers found the infostealer malware was targeting 100 million Mac users, stealing browser credentials, cryptocurrency wallets and other personal data. To protect yourself from the evolving threat of infostealer malware, which continues to target users through sophisticated social engineering tactics, consider taking these six essential security measures: 1. Be skeptical of CAPTCHA prompts: Legitimate CAPTCHA tests never require you to press Windows + R, copy commands or paste anything into PowerShell. If a website instructs you to do this, it's likely a scam. Close the page immediately and avoid interacting with it. 2. Don't click links from unverified emails and use strong antivirus software: Many infostealer attacks start with phishing emails that impersonate trusted services. Always verify the sender before clicking on links. If an email seems urgent or unexpected, go directly to the company's official website instead of clicking any links inside the email. The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have strong antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe. Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices. 3. Enable two-factor authentication: Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) whenever possible. This adds an extra layer of security by requiring a second form of verification, such as a code sent to your phone, in addition to your password. 4. Keep devices updated: Regularly updating your operating system, browser and security software ensures you have the latest patches against known vulnerabilities. Cybercriminals exploit outdated systems, so enabling automatic updates is a simple but effective way to stay protected. 5. Monitor your accounts for suspicious activity and change your passwords: If you've interacted with a suspicious website, phishing email or fake login page, check your online accounts for any unusual activity. Look for unexpected login attempts, unauthorized password resets or financial transactions that you don't recognize. If anything seems off, change your passwords immediately and report the activity to the relevant service provider. Also, consider using a password manager to generate and store complex passwords. Get more details about my best expert-reviewed Password Managers of 2025 here. 6. Invest in a personal data removal service: Consider using a service that monitors your personal information and alerts you to potential breaches or unauthorized use of your data. These services can provide early warning signs of identity theft or other malicious activities resulting from infostealer malware or similar attacks. While no service promises to remove all your data from the internet, having a removal service is great if you want to constantly monitor and automate the process of removing your information from hundreds of sites continuously over a longer period of time. Check out my top picks for data removal services here. Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web. Microsoft's takedown of the Lumma Stealer malware network is a major win in the fight against infostealers, which have fueled a surge in data breaches over the past year. Lumma had become a go-to tool for cybercriminals, targeting everything from browser credentials to crypto wallets across Windows and Mac systems. I've been tracking this malware since early 2024, and its ability to impersonate human verification pages and abuse expired cookies made it especially dangerous. Do you feel tech companies are doing enough to protect users from malware like this? Let us know by writing us at For more of my tech tips and security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to Follow Kurt on his social channels Answers to the most asked CyberGuy questions: New from Kurt: Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
RTÉ News
a day ago
- Business
- RTÉ News
Irish publicans on the bar trade: "The show is basically over"
As nightclub numbers are dwindling, and Gen Z pivots away from booze, we ask publications how the Irish pub is doing in 2025. Kate Demolder writes. Ireland's pubs are closing, so say publicans and industry experts who have watched the decline in recent years. Once a bona fide third space, the Irish pub – a venue for celebration, commiseration and kinship [whether you're drinking or not] – is hitting breaking point, according to publicans. And the reasons for this are plenty. First up is price; in a time when drinks can leave you without change from a €10 note, the desire to have a tipple can wane. Second, they say, is education; a country known for its affiliation with alcohol, the average Irish person has seen the ravages of addiction first-hand, meaning the process of indulging in a night of drinking may have lost its initial appeal. Third is a change in consumer behaviour; one can't browse the internet these days without seeing another article about how Gen Z don't drink, instead choosing to spend time at gym classes and running clubs. "I have four kids aged between 22 and 30 and they're all gym bunnies," John Byrne, owner of The Lark Inn on Meath Street, says. "You see the younger generation in the pub maybe once a week for a match or a party, but you also might go a couple of months without seeing them. They don't see the pub as a way of socialising. And for those trying to save for a mortgage, forget about it." Byrne has worked on Meath Street for 35 years, often serving generations of the same family. Though tourists coming from the Guinness Storehouse bolster sales, he remains loyal to his locals. That said, he's had to pivot to innovative tactics to tempt young people in. "Quiz nights, bingo nights… different things to try give them a reason." He also refuses to raise his prices in an attempt to stand by his clientele. "Price is a massive thing," he says. "We charge €5 for a pint of Guinness and €5.50 for lager. Just last week, I was in town with my wife, and we paid double that. "People have a pop at me, saying you won't be making money charging those prices, but we're just trying to give people a reason to come out. It's a struggle, but once we're able to pay our bills and wages and have a little bit leftover, then we'll keep doing what we're doing." For Colm Redmond, of Johnny O'Loughlin's pub at The Zetland Country House Hotel in Connemara, the case is much the same. Redmond regularly makes headlines for his €4.50 pint of Guinness. "We're not trying to make money, we're just trying to keep customers," he says. Redmond is positive that business never picked up post-COVID. "A huge amount of people drink at home, which I genuinely believe is terrible for their mental health. The pub was never just about the booze, it was about teas and coffees and chats – and an awful lot of people are missing that." Back in March, French lawmakers overwhelmingly backed a bill making it easier to open bars in villages, a move aimed at reviving social lives in rural communities. France had just seen a sharp fall from about 200,000 bars and cafés serving alcohol in the 1960s to some 36,000 by 2015. Most of the closures were in rural areas, and echo the current situation in Ireland. According to a Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI) study, some 114 pubs on average have closed across the country every year of the last 18. The study, conducted in August 2024, claims that 2,054 pubs have ceased trading in Ireland since 2005, a reduction of 24%. Every one of the 26 counties in the Republic has seen the number of pubs in it decrease over the last two years, with closure rates highest in more rural counties. CEO of the Vintner's Federation of Ireland, Pat Crotty, who himself is a former publican, needs just a few words to convey why publicans are shutting their doors. "It's very difficult," he says of running an Irish pub today. "The net position for the publican outside of an urban area is that he's dying slowly." Even for pubs relying on tourists, the CSO has shown that tourist numbers are down at a time when they should be up." Crotty insists that publicans' hands are tied by way of legal and financial obligations, and that very few can go on at the rate they're currently going. "Inflation, the Living Wage, VAT, excise tax, water costs… It's tax on tax on tax. The thing is that the government continues to make these decisions that affect publicans around the country, without consulting publicans. "And to make matters worse, publicans submit their forms with all the details of their financials, so the guys making the decisions know whether or not they can afford it. And in a lot of cases, they can't. Which is why pubs are opening on fewer days, the service is getting worse, and so many are closing." Echoing this is Redmond: "Tapas bars are Spain at its best, and that's because anyone can go there and not have to spend too much to have a great meal and a glass of wine or whatever. Irish hospitality spots have to spend €30,000-€40,000 [on a kitchen] to sell a rasher. Those kinds of prices force restaurants to charge high prices, which means people can't go." The story of the Irish pub is one that is riddled with archaic and uncomfortable regulations. A prior example was the "Holy Hour," a practice introduced in the 1920s which dictated that all pubs be closed for an hour on Sundays, usually between 2pm and 4pm, in an attempt to curtail afternoon drinking by the workforce. Most pubs at the time simply shuttered their doors and continued to serve patrons inside. Realising this, the stipulation was dropped in 1999. The following year, a new requirement was listed. One that insisted meals be served to patrons of any establishment where alcohol was sold. The rule was dubbed the Intoxicating Liquor Act 2000, and regularly saw vats of chicken curry or chicken and chips carted around nightclubs and late licensed pubs as the music was stopped in an attempt to get people to eat. Most didn't, but it didn't matter. Some pubs simply placed a meal beside the pub's hatch to ward off Gardaí in case they came knocking. "Back then, gardaí would have looked in the door to see everyone was either being compliant or gone home," Crotty says. "Today, if they even looked, there would be nobody there." A 2024 benchmarking survey by the VFI found that 36% of pub turnover is currently consumed by labour costs alone, and that figure will increase to over 40% with the introduction of the Living Wage. The same survey found that 37% of publicans are considering retirement within the next two years, and 84% report that no family member wishes to inherit the pub. The pub's pivot in society from the main social setting to one of several might be responsible for this, so says Dr Perry Share, head of student success at Atlantic Technological University in Sligo and co-editor of the upcoming book The Irish Pub: Invention and Reinvention. There was no particular point when this shift happened, he says, but a number of different contemporary factors have resulted in a gradual pivot on a rolling basis from pub culture. "Drink driving legislation, the smoking ban, the rise in cafés, how people's houses are now invested in meaning that pubs no longer feel as necessary, bypasses, motorways, people buying better cars so they don't need to stop on long trips… they're all responsible," he says. "And that's the same across Europe. It's also not pub-specific. Places like hardware shops, banks, newsagents, post offices and a whole range of other businesses have been reduced in recent years to make way for consolidation. "Since the start of this century, I've noticed a drop from 13 pubs in my local town to four. And for the ones that remain, the owners are retiring and they're either going to be left empty or turned into residential spaces." Dr Share says that the difficulty in running a pub is also exacerbated by capital-rich groups which run multiple chains and locations at once. "It's hard to compete without being a niche development like, say, Fidelity in Smithfield, or having the backing of international capital. That said, while I don't think the Irish pub is going to disappear, I do know that certain types are disappearing all the time. The roadside pub being a perfect example." Despite this, Ireland still ranks third in the world for the number of pubs per capita, as per a survey by the Health Research Board. (The country listed with the highest number of pubs per capita is Slovakia - officially the Slovak Republic - while the second is Hungary.) However, figures collated by the blog Every Pub In Dublin show a stark reality. Just 30 new drinking holes – including replacement openings, rebrands and franchised developments like Pitch on Nassau Street – opened in 2024. Only two, however, are listed as "normal" pub openings: Old Fashioned Sams on Montague Street and Porter's on Camden Street. What does this mean? "An overreliance on tourism and international capital," Dr Share is certain. Could this be the decline of pub culture as we know it? "It's possible," Crotty says. "I hope not, but it is." And finally, when asked what he might say to someone who was enthusiastic to start up a pub, Redmond sighed before replying: "You're crazy. There's no future in the bar trade in rural Ireland unless things change dramatically. The show is basically over." Nobody's under any illusions about the future. In Dublin, Connemara or a roadside in Clare, the Irish pub is being put on the back burner. The question remains, however, where do we go now for our third space? With nightclubs and pubs closing, and late-night cafés practically non-existent, the only hope for the future of nightlife in Ireland is one that centres on systemic and legislative change. The ideas are there, and the will is too. The only thing that won't be? According to Crotty: "Pubs, if nothing changes from here on out."
Geek Wire
2 days ago
- Business
- Geek Wire
GeekWire Podcast: Microsoft, Remitly, and the new shape of work — plus, Amazon's NYT AI deal
A playful nod to classic computing on Microsoft's new campus: A vintage computer mouse emerges from a faux mouse hole in the wall — a bit of tech humor tucked into the modern workspace. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we discuss Amazon's new licensing agreement with The New York Times to train its AI platforms, a notable move in the evolving relationship between media and tech. We also go behind the scenes at two very different office spaces that reflect changing approaches to the workplace: Microsoft's sprawling and still-developing Redmond campus, and Remitly's globally inspired new headquarters in downtown Seattle. We start the show on a lighter note, with a confession about computer mouse loyalty and a debate over whether a trackpad is good enough in a pinch. Listen to the full episode below or wherever you get your podcasts. Related stories: With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop and reporter Kurt Schlosser. Subscribe to GeekWire in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Pushpay targets church payment niche
This story was originally published on Payments Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Payments Dive newsletter. The payments company Pushpay has a clientele that makes it stand out from its industry peers. Rather than processing purchases for for-profit companies, the Redmond, Washington-based firm handles donations to faith-based non-profits. Pushpay CEO Kenny Wyatt explained this month how the Redmond, Washington-based company moved to the U.S. and settled on this niche customer base after being founded by New Zealanders Chris Heaslip and Eliot Crowther in 2011. Wyatt joined the company last year and became CEO last month. The vast majority of the company's customers are churches, he said. A Pushpay spokesperson declined to say what the company charges customers in monthly and transaction fees. In a May 9 interview, Wyatt noted that processing donations is different from handling other kinds of transactions, such as credit card purchases. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. PAYMENTS DIVE: Tell me how Pushpay got started. KENNY WYATT: We were founded primarily as a payments provider focused on faith-based organizations as well as nonprofits, and we've continued to grow and move into more pieces of that category. Our church management system pairs churches with donations. We've also moved into streaming content, streaming media. We work with some of the largest churches in the United States. We serve about 15,000 churches preliminary across the U.S. Can you tell me a little bit about the history of your company? Our U.S. headquarters is here [in Redmond, Washington]. We were founded in New Zealand. The founders both came from New Zealand, but since the vast majority of our customers are here in the U.S., we consider the Great Northwest our home. Can you talk a bit more about the services you provide? I'll start with the software side. If you're an executive pastor for a church, what you care deeply about is connection. Who is walking through your front door, or who is watching you on a livestream? How do you create a connection? Sunday services, Wednesday services, running child check-ins, the volunteer schedule, the people database — organizing those things, that's the software piece of it. But the church all started around the congregants who walk in the front door [and donate to the church], and that's where the payments piece picks up. As they are in the service, or even outside of the service, they use the payments platform to process credit card donations or ACH donations. Do churches only see cash, credit card or ACH donations? Congregants can process crypto as well as other non-cash gifts [such as stock in a company]. Are stock and crypto donations common? It's a small total, but it does represent the largest gifts. We're seeing quite a few donations come through crypto. While it's a small percentage of total donation volume, it's multiples of cash or credit card gifts. How do you make money? The insights we can provide, people data, donation data, taking in the processes by which the church is operating and helping them do that better, that is worth something to them. [We charge] a monthly fee, and that gives them rich insights about their congregants. And then on the payments side, we are a payments business, so depending on the type of payment, we're collecting a very small fee. But it's making it much easier for the church to be able to collect donations and fund its ministry. Is processing donations different from processing payments for for-profit companies? The interface can be a bit different. If you're sitting at a service and there is a giving moment, there are multiple ways you can give. One is a recurring gift that you can set up on ACH or a credit card. One is a QR code, which is for new joiners or new congregants. Another is to be able to interact through a website or through a giving platform. We just launched Tap to Give [which lets congregants donate by tapping a button on a mobile app] a couple of weeks ago. Apple Pay has been adopted pretty heavily by many of our churches because of the ease of giving through the phone. There are a multitude of ways that congregants will engage that are different from swiping a credit card Recommended Reading BNPL growth prompts change from credit bureaus
Scottish Sun
4 days ago
- Sport
- Scottish Sun
Aston Villa set to sign Feyenoord striker Zepiqueno Redmond, 18, on free transfer
Unai Emery has been chasing a replacement for Jhon Duran Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) ASTON VILLA are set to sign young Feyenoord striker Zepiqueno Redmond on a free transfer. With Unai Emery hopeful the 18-year-old Dutch youth international will become as successful as Jhon Duran - the last teenage striker he signed. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 2 Zepiqueno Redmond has enjoyed a breakthrough season at Feyenoord Credit: Getty Duran cost Villa £14.5million when Emery signed him from Chicago Fire in January, 2023. And Villa made a cool £50million profit when they sold him to Saudi giants Al-Nassr two years later. Redmond's contract with Feyenoord expires at the end of June and Villa have beaten off interest from several clubs in the Premier League and across Europe. But the kid who can play as a striker or on the wing is poised to join Villa on a four-year deal. Emery has been looking to add a young forward to Villa's ranks since Duran was sold in January. Redmond has made nine senior appearances for Feyenoord and made his first team debut in November during a 4-1 win over Almere City in the Eredivisie. He went on to feature in the club's next two league matches and scored both of his side's goals in a 2-1 victory over MVV Maastricht in the KNVB Cup on December 17. Two months later, he made his Champions League debut, starting in a league phase clash against AC Milan at the San Siro, which ended in a 1-1 draw. BEST ONLINE CASINOS - TOP SITES IN THE UK 2 Jhon Duran left Villa for Al-Nassr in January Credit: Reuters He also featured in the round of 16 second leg against Inter, coming on for the final 15 minutes in Milan. Redmond has played for the Netherlands at Under-16, Under-17 and has been a regular for the Under-19s over the past year.
