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IT

Hoverboards Recalled For Fire and Explosion Risks -- Again (cnbc.com) 37

Posted by msmash from the oops-they-did-it-again dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: The Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled hoverboards from several companies over concerns the devices could catch fire or explode. The series of recalls affects roughly 16,000 hoverboards from brands including iHoverspeed, Sonic Smart Wheels, Tech Drift, iLive, Go Wheels, Drone Nerds, LayZ Board and Smart Balance Wheel. All the brands of self-balancing scooters share a common problem: lithium-ion batteries that could potentially overheat and cause a fire or explode. The agency is advising owners to stop using the hoverboards immediately and return them to the appropriate company for a replacement. Consumers can visit the CPSC website for details on the recalls and how to contact companies for replacements.
Security

Amazon Is Cutting Prices at Whole Foods Again (cnn.com) 122

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon is giving Whole Foods shoppers an early gift for the holidays. The grocer announced Wednesday it's slashing prices again, this time on several "holiday staples," including sweet potatoes, canned pumpkin and turkey. If you're an Amazon Prime member, you'll pay even less for turkey: Whole Foods slashed turkey prices to $1.99 per pound (compared to $2.49 for non-Prime members), or $2.99 per pound for an organic turkey ($3.49 for non-Prime members).
Security

Forbes '30 Under 30' Conference Website Exposed Attendees' Personal Information (vice.com) 12

Posted by msmash from the embarrassment-of-the-day dept.
An anonymous reader shares a Motherboard report: Every year, Forbes' 30 Under 30 list recognizes people blessed with both youth and exceptional talent in their field -- including celebrities, startup founders, doctors, and artists. These are smart, savvy professionals -- and when some of them include information security pros, they're bound to go poking around for vulnerabilities. That's what Yan Zhu, a privacy engineer who made the 2015 list, was doing when she found a gaping privacy hole in the way Forbes handles recipients' personal information. Once you make the list, Yan told me in a Twitter direct message, Forbes asks you to register for its annual Under 30 Summit conference. "They send you a link for conference registration, but it's not tied to your email address," she said. "So you can literally enter anyone's email address who is also a 30 Under 30 member and it shows you their personal info." That information carries over into all future years, she said.
Transportation

Boeing 757 Testing Shows Airplanes Vulnerable To Hacking, DHS Says (aviationtoday.com) 140

Posted by BeauHD from the safety-first dept.
schwit1 shares a report from Aviation Today: A team of government, industry and academic officials successfully demonstrated that a commercial aircraft could be remotely hacked in a non-laboratory setting last year, a DHS official said Wednesday at the 2017 CyberSat Summit in Tysons Corner, Virginia. "We got the airplane on Sept. 19, 2016. Two days later, I was successful in accomplishing a remote, non-cooperative, penetration. [Which] means I didn't have anybody touching the airplane, I didn't have an insider threat. I stood off using typical stuff that could get through security and we were able to establish a presence on the systems of the aircraft." Hickey said the details of the hack and the work his team are doing are classified, but said they accessed the aircraft's systems through radio frequency communications, adding that, based on the RF configuration of most aircraft, "you can come to grips pretty quickly where we went" on the aircraft. Patching avionics subsystem on every aircraft when a vulnerability is discovered is cost prohibitive, Hickey said. The cost to change one line of code on a piece of avionics equipment is $1 million, and it takes a year to implement. For Southwest Airlines, whose fleet is based on Boeing's 737, it would "bankrupt" them. Hickey said newer models of 737s and other aircraft, like Boeing's 787 and the Airbus Group A350, have been designed with security in mind, but that legacy aircraft, which make up more than 90% of the commercial planes in the sky, don't have these protections.

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