CTC BLOG

Even as Facebook struggles to deal with a fresh data breach that affected nearly 50 million of its users, Google’s video streaming platform YouTube continues to host tutorials that claim to provide people ways to hijacking Facebook accounts, the media reported.

Hours after Facebook revealed the breach on Friday, some YouTube videos, which were seen several thousand times, described a method similar to the one used by the hackers to get access to the millions of Facebook accounts, The Telegraph reported on Saturday.

Reuters

In the fresh Facebook data breach case, hackers stole “access tokens” or digital keys that keep people logged in to Facebook so they do not need to re-enter their password every time they use the app.

Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s Head of Cyber Security Policy, told The Telegraph that he was “aware of certain videos describing different elements of the attack” and that the company was “looking into these to make sure people’s accounts are protected”.

A Google spokesperson was quoted as saying that the company carries out a careful review of flagged content, and will remove videos that encourage illegal activities of the hacking of accounts or sites with “malicious intentions”.

Guy Rosen, Facebook’s Vice President of Product Management, on Friday said the social networking giant had reset the access tokens of the almost 50 million accounts it know were affected to protect their security.

Rosen added that another 40 million users might have got exposed to similar attacks.

Google revealed its Android distribution statistics at the beginning of September just after launching Android Pie to the world. Having revised those numbers to the end of September, Android Pie continues to remain absent from the numbers.

Launched in early August for the Google Pixel and Pixel 2, Android Pie is now available for the Essential Phone, OnePlus 6 and also the Nokia 7 Plus. However, the numbers are still too low for Android Pie to make it to the list. What this essentially means is that Android Pie is currently available in less than 0.1 percent of the total number of Android smartphones across the world.

Android P

In comparison, Android Oreo saw a sizable jump, with Oreo 8.0 at 13.4 percent from the previously stated 11.4 percent and Oreo 8.1 at 5.8 percent, up from 3.2 percent. Collectively this adds up to a total of 19.2 percent, making it the third most used version of Android.

At the top of the pile, its still Android Nougat, which might have seen a small dip from 30.8 percent distribution to 29.3 percent, but continues to be the most popular amongst Android versions. A far as numbers are concerned, Android Marshmallow is at 21.6 percent and Lollipop at 18.3 percent. Rounding out the list is good old KitKat with just 7.8 percent.

Elon Musk’s future with Tesla Motors is clearer after the company settled a securities fraud lawsuit with the federal government, but there are other clouds hanging over the electric car maker.

Under an agreement announced Saturday by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk gets to remain CEO but must relinquish his chairman’s role for at least three years. The complaint originally sought Musk’s removal as CEO.

One immediate challenge for Tesla is to hire an independent chairman to oversee the company and, just as importantly, its mercurial leader. In effect, the settlement is forcing Tesla into bringing in some managerial help for Musk, which some investors have been calling for.

Elon Musk speaks at a community meeting. Image: Reuters

Tesla was on shaky financial ground even before government regulators set out to remove Musk. It has been under pressure to prove it can consistently manufacture enough cars to survive.

Tesla will soon release its production volume for the July through September period, likely by Wednesday. The manufacturing results will provide a gauge of Tesla’s financial health.

Musk told investors he expected Tesla to produce an average of 7,000 electric vehicles per week during the third quarter, enabling the company to post a profit — something it has rarely done since going public eight years ago.

Tesla’s stock is in need of good news, and the settlement should provide that. The stock is down 30 percent since hitting an all-time closing high of $379.57 on 7 August — the day Musk tweeted about possibly taking the company private, tweets that sparked the SEC lawsuit.

The steep downturn in Tesla’s market value may have influenced Musk to have an apparent change of heart and negotiate a settlement. Musk had rejected a settlement offer before the SEC sued Thursday, maintaining he had done nothing wrong when he posted a tweet declaring that he had secured the financing to lead a buyout of Tesla.

Investors had worried that Musk would be forced out of the company at a time when Tesla is possibly in a financial bind.

Here’s the problem: Tesla already has accumulated more than $10 billion in debt while it has been burning through about $1 billion in cash every three months. It ended June with $2.2 billion in the bank, meaning the company will likely have to borrow more unless it starts making money.

To compound matters, about $1.3 billion in debt is due to be repaid by March, including $230 million in November.

Analysts’ concerns about Tesla’s financial position will dissipate if the company began to make money in the third quarter, as Musk promised the company would do.

Tesla is expected to release its third-quarter financial results in early November.

The team at Big Bite Creative has developed a new website for Amnesty International using Gutenberg, soon to be launched at amnesty.eu. The agency worked in partnership with WordPress.com VIP to provide the London-based human rights organization with the tools to create multiple sites that could be uniquely customized for their editorial needs.

After successfully using Gutenberg to launch a site for an international bank, Big Bite CTO Jason Agnew said his team gained confidence to use the new editor for the Amnesty site. The client approached Bite Bite around the time of WordCamp Europe when Matt Mullenweg unveiled a roadmap for getting a stable Gutenberg release before the end of the year.

“On top of this the Amnesty project suited Gutenberg,” Agnew said. “Their brief mentioned 14 components which could be used to build out multiple sites. I honestly think it would have been difficult to build something that required this level of flexibility with a field manager like Fieldmanager, CMB2 or ACF. Perhaps it would have been possible with page builders like Visual Composer, but these platforms are still figuring out how they will work with the WordPress 5.0.”

Through the use of a combination of prompts, custom blocks, nested blocks, and predefined styles, Big Bite made it possible for even non-technical editorial staff to create and arrange content to build out websites for various outreach locations.

“It’s been fascinating to give the client full control over the site structure compared to the more traditional development of templates,” Agnew said. “We are still in the early stages of launching sites with the new platform, but the client has built up the EU site on their own without much support, which should be going live early October. Now they are in the process building out websites for Mali and Iran, with the goal to launch around 20 sites initially. We’ve had the editorial team describe the experience as fun – that’s from a team who have used WordPress with ACF in the past, which does offer an intuitive UI but still requires a level of training of what fields relate to what pieces of content on the front-end.”

As many others have reported, one of the most challenging things Big Bite encountered in extending Gutenberg was the project’s incomplete documentation.

“We’ve had our challenges, and particularly the Gutenberg documentation is not up to standard, which leads to a lot of time being wasted,” Agnew said. “But I have to say once our team get over the first block or two it wasn’t an issue. It’s important to say that the Gutenberg team Slack have been a great help when we did run into problems. We did discover IE11 support is still a work in progress, for example, copy & paste didn’t work, meta boxes wouldn’t render causing saving issues with posts.”

Agnew said for most issues there isn’t a lot one can do to resolve them apart from waiting for each update as the plugin improves, but it’s something agencies need to account for when working with clients. The Big Bite team also found that Gutenberg compatibility is still an issue for many of the plugins that they looked at using for the project.

“Apart from using Yoast we’ve mainly custom built the theme due to many plugins still requiring UI changes to work well with Gutenberg,” Agnew said. “Probably the most significant feature we wrote was language syndication system.”

Big Bite plans to open source Amnesty International’s full theme, which includes all of the custom blocks. Prior to that they are going to remove all the branding to avoid lots of new sites popping looking like the Amnesty brand. The agency is aiming for publishing the code the same day as WordPress 5.0 is released or earlier if the release is delayed beyond January.

For a closer look at the Amnesty International project, check out Big Bite’s announcement post. The video below was created in partnership with WordPress.com VIP and offers a tour of some of the custom Gutenberg blocks they created for Amnesty.

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We know how the camera maker RED had announced its plans to explore the smartphone market with a device that would be all about great mobile phone photography, along with a powerful battery, holographic display and more. But since then, we haven’t heard much besides a couple of leaks.

The Hydrogen One titanium version has been delayed, yet again, according to company founder Jim Jannard’s post. The aluminum version of the smartphone, however, might be on track for an October launch.

Red Hydrogen One

Jannard says in the post that supply chain issues are the reason for this delay. “All RED cameras are made in California at our factory in Orange County. We have control over everything. Unfortunately, we are not in the same position with Hydrogen. We are left to rely on the schedules and representations of our suppliers. In this case… we were let down pretty severely.”

Explaining that the phone was difficult to make, he went on to describe the manufacturing of the Titanium version as a “disaster” and “all fail.”

Jannard has earlier promised that there will be enough phone for pre-orders. Now that there aren’t any, he is making another promise that customers who pre-ordered the Titanium version will additionally get the Aluminium model first when those begin shipping, and then the Titanium whenever it is available. While he hasn’t been able to fulfill one promise, we aren’t sure if he should make another, that too for a free phone.

“We will send that to you at no charge,” “You are allowed to keep the aluminum as well,” he says

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Don’t scrimp on security – These are the best top-of-the-range antivirus software bundles you can buy in 2018.

In the kind of tech environment we live in, it’s almost unthinkable to willfully leave your network and computers vulnerable to a cyberattack. Experts report that 89% of all emails sent and received contain malware, and user-downloaded viruses are responsible for up to five million attacks every day.

But there’s another data point that can’t be overlooked: according to noted expert Brandon Gaille, fake antivirus programs account for 15% of all malware. Yes, that popup box that tells you the computer is already infected (you know, the one your mom keeps clicking on every single time, no matter how often you tell her not to do that)—gasp!—installs malware on your computer. Of course, fake tech support scams that offer to “clean” your computer of alleged threats just steal your money and access to your files.

Why do I need an antivirus bundle?

It’s not just about antivirus. With the ever-increasing number of cyber attacks taking place across the globe every day, we think it’s more important than ever to invest in your PC security. These bundles don’t just provide a premium antivirus – you get the whole package. From password protectors to secure file storage, security worries are a thing of the past.

But how do I know which antivirus bundle is right for me?

Don’t worry, we got you. We found the 5 best antivirus software bundles of the year, and we even put them into this handy table to help you choose.

Product	Avast Ultimate	Panda Dome Premium	Avira Prime	Kaspersky Total Security	Malwarebytes Premium
Price	From £6.67/month	From £7.44/month	From £7.17/month	From £2.33/month	From   £1.87/month
Free Version				30-day trial
Best Feature	All of Avast’s premium products in one discounted bundle	Powerful protection and premium unlimited VPN included	All-in-one access to flexible, premium services across your devices	Start with a basic bundle and only choose the add-ons you need	Outstanding, four-layer protection against high-level cyber threats
Devices covered	Up to 5	Up to 10 or unlimited	Up to 25	Up to 10	1 per purchase
Supported OS*	Windows, Mac, Android, iOS	Windows, Mac, Android, iOS	Windows, Mac, Android, iOS	Windows, Mac, Android, iOS	Windows, Mac, Android, iOS
Password Manager			Add-on		🗙
File Backup	🗙	20GB cloud storage	🗙		🗙
Parental Controls	🗙		🗙		🗙
VPN				🗙	🗙
Add-ons available	🗙	🗙			🗙
Moneyback Guarantee	30 days	30 days	30 days	14 days	30 days
24/7 Tech Support			🗙	🗙	🗙
	Read more	Read more	Read more	Read more	Read more

*Please note: Not all features are necessarily available for all devices.

Panda Dome Premium – Reliable security with a bunch of added features and unlimited VPN included

Panda Dome Premium

Premium unlimited VPN included
WiFi network protection
20GB cloud storage

🗙 Not all features are available on all devices

Panda is no stranger to the antivirus and anti-malware front, but with the addition of new features like a strong VPN, the name has changed to the more encompassing Panda Dome. As one of the best truly free AV titles (premium pricing unlocks more features, but the free account remains free for the life of the account), it quickly became a worldwide favorite.

The first thing users should know is Panda was the only AV title with a 100% virus detection rate in a field test by AV-Comparatives. This software blocks all known threats, including ransomware, while also helping keep tabs on your parental control and social media privacy settings, ensuring safe banking and shopping protection, and more.

Pricing – See latest offers

• 1 month plan = £9.99 per month
• 1 year plan = £7.44 per month (Save 25%)

Download Panda Dome Premium for Windows | Download Panda Dome Premium for Mac

Avira Prime – All-in-one access to flexible, premium services across your devices

Avira Prime

Protect up to 25 devices across your household
Great add-on features available
Includes software updater and system speed-up software

🗙 Not all features are available on all devices

As AV software goes, this one prices and downloads a lot more like an app than a strictly-PC title. With coverage for up to five devices simultaneously across multiple platforms and fair-use installation on up to 25 devices, there’s no reason to leave anything you use unprotected.

If there was a single feature to pinpoint about Avira that makes it stand out from its competitors, it’s the “you bought it, you get it” approach to doing business. As part of its company model, any new innovation or need that comes along in the future of digital is already paid for when you buy your download. Whether it’s a new patch or new coverage for an as-of-yet unreleased threat, you’re a subscriber so you’re good to go.

For Avira’s unbelievably low price, users get the full AV protection and a solid VPN, regardless of whether they’re using Windows, Mac, Android, or iOS. Windows and Android users can take advantage of a few other key features as well, like App Protection, Software Updater, and System Speed Up.

Pricing – See latest offers

• 5 devices for 1 month = £8.99 per month
• 5 devices for 1 year = £7.17 per month
• Unlimited devices for 1 month = £10.99 per month
• Unlimited devices for 1 year = £9.42 per month

Download Avira Prime for Windows | Download Avira Prime for Mac

Avast Ultimate – Get all of Avast’s premium products in one ultimate bundle

Avast Ultimate

Four premium Avast products included
Non-evasive scanning
50% discount when buying the bundle instead of individual products

🗙 Passwords and bundle unavailable for Mac

If you’re able to discern how a virus is likely to infect your computer, that can help you when choosing an AV title. Avast Ultimate’s most widely praised feature just might be its browser plug-in that blocks harmful websites. On top of that, it has a broad network of crowdsourced white list options, meaning websites get cleared for uninterrupted use all the time, whether you’ve tried visiting them or not.

Avast’s Ultimate bundle includes four of its best products; Premier antivirus, SecureLine VPN, Passwords Premium, and Cleanup Premium, so you know you’re getting all of Avast’s very best products in one handy bundle. One of its better features is a non-invasive scanning process. Some AV software even goes to lengths to warn you that a full scan can require significant time and slow things down somewhat, but Avast’s scanning has very little impact on functionality.

Avast Premier antivirus and Cleanup Premium covers one PC, though Passwords Premium and SecureLine VPN cover up to 5 devices. Unfortunately, Passwords and therefore the bundle are unavailable to download for Mac, but you can still get a premium antivirus, Cleanup Pro and SecureLine VPN for Mac.

Pricing – See latest offers

• 1 year plan = £7.50 per month
• 2 year plan = £6.87 per month
• 3 year plan = £6.67 per month

Download Avast Ultimate for Windows | Download Avast Security Pro for Mac

Kaspersky Total Security – Start with a basic bundle and keep costs low by only choosing the add-ons you need

Kaspersky Total Security

Only purchase the tools you need
File backup and secure encryption
Adds extra security when you shop on PC or Mac

🗙 Not all features are available on all devices

All spying accusations aside, there’s little doubt that Kaspersky Lab is one of the world’s most recognized digital security software titles. Yes, the US government banned the company’s products after allegations that Kaspersky operatives were using it for hacking government computers, which also prompted retailers like Best Buy to take the software off their shelves. But that doesn’t change Kaspersky’s capabilities for those consumers for whom that isn’t a concern.

Like some other developers, Kaspersky’s solid protection is doled out via a “cafeteria plan” for both home users and businesses. That means you only purchase the tools you need for the number of devices you want to protect, rather than putting up with a one-size-fits-all model, which is why the starting price is much lower than its competitors. The basic features included are antivirus, safe money, parental controls, password manager, and file backup and encryption, but there are plenty of add-ons to choose from. The software also protects multiple simultaneous devices, including Windows, Mac, and mobile.

Pricing – See latest offers

• 1 device for 1 year = £2.33 per month
• 3 devices for 1 year = £2.92 per month
• 5 devices for 1 year = £3.50 per month

Download Kaspersky Total Security for Windows | Download Kaspersky Total Security for Mac

Malwarebytes Premium – a bundle of powerful protection tools to stop advanced cyber threats in their tracks

Malwarebytes Premium

Outstanding protection from high-level security threats
Fast scanning feature
Powerful file and browser protection

🗙 Limited features

A handful of companies have long-standing reputations in computer security, and Malwarebytes might be one of the most recognized. More than just an antivirus title, it offers real-time protection against worms, rogues, dialers, trojans, rootkits, spyware, exploits, bots, and other malware, as well as the removal tool you need to get rid of any threats that make their way through.

Malwarebytes Premium is more than just antivirus. In fact, it’s not even truly an antivirus at all. The bundle includes four powerful tools to protect your device; an anti-malware function, the ability to block ransomware in order to prevent it from taking hold, a vulnerability blocker, and a feature that prevents you from being targeted by malicious websites. These four modules work together to prevent and clean both recognized and as-of-yet unknown threats.

Although it’s not technically an antivirus, it bundles some of the best, most powerful protection features for your device that money can buy, so advanced cyberattacks won’t need to worry you anymore. Unfortunately, the iOS app is only available in the US, but PC, Mac and Android protection is available for everyone (at an additional cost).

Pricing – See latest offers

• 1 PC for 1 year = £2.50 per month
• 1 PC for 2 years = £1.87 per month (Save 25%)

Download Malwarebytes Premium for Windows | Download Malwarebytes Premium for Mac

Conclusion

It’s time to take security seriously, and these premium antivirus bundles promise to do just that. With a range of features to suit your needs (and budget!), there’s an antivirus bundle for everyone.

If you’re new to this whole cybersecurity-business, start with the basics and check out the beginner’s guide to malware, viruses and spyware online.

OnePlus has finally put out its official first teaser of the OnePlus 6T giving the OnePlus fans an assurance of its arrival.

The phone has been on the rumour mill for a very long time now.

OnePlus 6. Tech2.

The company has tweeted out a video on its Twitter page. There is no information given out about the specification or even how the phone may look.

The video features a hexagonal “T” logo of the upcoming model. Also, the video gives out the message of “Unlock the future” quickly. This seems to be hinting at the in-display fingerprint sensor which has already been confirmed by the company.

OnePlus 6T. It’s coming. pic.twitter.com/Wrdt9sCdIs

— OnePlus (@oneplus) September 28, 2018

The phone has also been shown before in an advertisement which starred Amitabh Bachan. The company has also put out a second teaser giving the message of having “more power”. The teaser also for seconds shows, which seems to be a battery pack, thus maybe talking about a better battery life.

More power. It’s coming. #OnePlus6T pic.twitter.com/S8wEL329vx — OnePlus (@oneplus) September 29, 2018

The OnePlus 6T has also been confirmed to be revealed on 17 October as given out by the leaked invite.

According to the report in GSM Arena, the phone when launched in India will be an Amazon exclusive