The Register

There's only one rule – don't attack Russia, duh

Check Point has spotted a fresh ransomware-as-a-service crew in town: VanHelsing, touting a cross-platform locker targeting Microsoft Windows, Linux, and VMware ESXi systems, among others. But so far, only Windows machines have fallen victim, we're told.…

‘It's just pure incompetence’ confesses penguin emperor

Linux kernel development boss Linus Torvalds has admitted his own “pure incompetence” led him to forget to deliver version 6.14 of the project.…

How many K8s systems are sat on the internet front porch like that ... Oh, thousands, apparently

Cloudy infosec outfit Wiz has discovered serious vulnerabilities in the admission controller component of Ingress-Nginx Controller that could allow the total takeover of Kubernetes clusters – and thinks more than 6,000 deployments of the software are at risk on the internet.…

Education authority still searching for an alternative after 13 years

A public body in Northern Ireland has granted Capita £208 million in additional contracts and extensions without competition after ditching a £485 million Fujitsu deal last November.…

Official PoE+ HAT+ for the Pi 5 still MIA

The Raspberry Pi team has launched a Power-over-Ethernet Injector aimed at users who are seeking to add some juice to their network but who lack a network switch capable of doing so.…

$280M of excess spending makes for a ripe - and reasonable - DOGE target

After blowing deadlines and budgets for years, the Pentagon has finally pulled the plug on a troubled project to overhaul its outdated civilian HR IT systems.…

Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting rackets

The FCC is investigating whether Chinese manufacturers black-listed on its so-called Covered List - including Huawei - are still somehow doing business in America, either by misreading the rules or willfully ignoring them.…

Ex-US Air Force officer says companies shouldn't wait for govt mandates

Interview  Former US Air Force cyber officer Sarah Cleveland worries about the threat of a major supply-chain attack from China or another adversarial nation. So she installed solar panels on her house: "Because what if the electric grid goes down?" …

PLUS: Russian bug-buyers seeks Telegram flaws; Another WordPress security mess; NIST backlog grows; and more!

Infosec In Brief  Organized crime networks are now reliant on digital tech for most of their activities according to Europol, the European agency that fights international crime on the continent and beyond.…

Capital costs of creating document-relational serverless database take their toll

FaunaDB - the database that promised relational power with document flexibility - will shut down its service at the end of May. The biz says it plans to release an open-source version of its core tech.…

And got away with it when someone else broke it even more comprehensively

Who, Me?  Welcome to another working week, and therefore to another instalment of Who, Me? It’s The Register’s reader-contributed Monday column that shares stories of your worst moments at work, and how you kept your career alive once the extent of the damage was discerned.…

PLUS: Zoho's Ulaa anointed India’s most patriotic browser; Typhoon-like gang targets Taiwan; Japan debates offensive cyber-ops; and more

Asia In Brief  China’s Cyberspace Administration and Ministry of Public Security has outlawed the use of facial recognition without consent.…

Looking to sort through large volumes of security info? Redmond has your backend

Microsoft's Security Copilot is getting some degree of agency, allowing the underlying AI model to interact more broadly with the company's security software to automate various tasks.…

CEO steps down after multiple failed attempts to take the DNA testing company private

Beleaguered DNA testing biz 23andMe – hit by a massive cyber attack in 2023 – is filing for bankruptcy protection in the US following years of financial uncertainty.…

The answer to the ultimate question of Linux, the Universe, and Everything?

Fedora 42 is now in beta testing, with more desktops and editions than ever.…

A lone voice cries out from reply-all chaos: 'Someone tell DOGE to rehire whoever maintains this email list'

EXCLUSIVE  Everybody loves a good email storm. But an insecure email distribution list accidentally spamming space agencies across the planet is undoubtedly one for the record books.…

First woman and first person of color pledges dropped

The purge of DEI language from US federal websites has claimed another victim. This time, it is NASA's pledge to land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon as part of the Artemis program.…

Return to office, hours and intensity of work cited as reasons to walk

Two in five techies quit in the past year because their employer didn't offer requisite flexibility with respect to hours, location and the "intensity of work."…

It's been a very busy week for Digicash Donald's administration

Analysis  Is the US retreating from its hardline stance on crypto? On Friday, the US Treasury Department lifted sanctions imposed on notorious crypto mixer Tornado Cash, once accused of washing billions in illicit crypto for criminals and nation-states alike.…

Tweaks mean smoother operation even on low-end kit

GNOME 48 is here, with some under-the-hood tweaks to improve performance even on low-end kit.…