 Google in a convicted abuser of its monopoly positions, having been fined on two occasions by the European Commission for anti-competitive behavior. Now the company may be facing the heat closer to home, according to the New York Post, who reports that the Department of Justice is looking into starting an investigation into Google’s abuse of its Android monopoly in the USA. According to the Post’s two sources, Makan Delrahim told senators at a hearing the feds could investigate Google’s use of the Android mobile operating system. Google has already been investigated by the FTC for abusive practices in its search monopoly in 2013, but after a 20-month investigation, this came to nothing. Since then, however, President Trump has come to power, and while generally favorable to big business, he is not a fan of Google and other internet companies, who he feels is biased against him. In August President Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow said the administration was “taking a look” at whether Google should be regulated and would do “some investigation and some analysis”. Google we convicted in July by the EU of abusing its dominant position in Android and has until the 22nd of October to present solutions to the European Commission. Some have suggested this may include unbundling the Google Play Store from Google’s other apps and services, which would allow companies such as Amazon, Facebook and also Microsoft to compete with Google on a much more level playing field. Feeling the heat in the USA also may make Google more likely to offer an effective settlement. Learn more on this by visiting OUR FORUM.  Yesterday we reported on a phishing attack that utilizes the Azure Blob storage solution in order to have login forms secured by a Microsoft issued SSL certificate. After reviewing the URLs utilized by the same attacker, BleepingComputer noticed that these same bad actors are also utilizing the Cloudflare IPFS gateway for the same purpose. Last month Cloudflare released an IPFS gateway that allows users to access content stored on the IPFS distributed file system through a web browser. As part of this implementation, all connections to the IPFS gateway are secured using SSL certificates issued by CloudFlare. By storing the HTML for phishing scams on IPFS, the attackers can then utilize Cloudflare's IPFS gateway to display the stored HTML document. For example, this attacker is using the gateway to display the following phishing form. The benefit of doing this is that the forms will then be secured using an SSL certificate issued by a well known company like Cloudflare, which could help to convince users that the form is legitimate. When the user submits the form, their phone number and email will be submitted to a page operated by the attackers at searchurl.bid. The user will then be redirected to a PDF titled "Business Models, Business Strategy and Innovation". Learn more on OUR FORUM. The surprise announcement from yesterday was a brand-new product for Microsoft, the Surface Headphones. Now it seems this was just the start of a theme, as today it was revealed that Microsoft has invested in a smart headphone startup Human Inc. The company, which started on Indiegogo, is developing its Sound wireless headphones, which feature a unique truly wireless over the ear design, allowing the company to do more with the larger surface area, such as comfortable touch controls, embed more smarts and offer better sound quality with larger drivers and better sound isolation. Human is promising their headphones will also offer intelligent voice control, all-day comfort and fit, powerful sound, and more, and raised $21 million in Series B investment, with Microsoft a prominent strategic investor. While headphones may seem like an unusual venture for Microsoft, the devices are likely designed to serve Microsoft’s main productivity theme by making developers and other office workers more efficient by isolating them from noise and disturbance and simultaneously giving them easy access to smart assistants such as Cortana to help them get their work done. The product appears to have been in development for some years, and the company appears to have dropped some of its more ambitious goals such as fitness and sleep tracking. Navigate to OUR FORUM to learn more. |
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