Month: June 2022

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

As hacker groups working continue to hammer a former Windows zero-day that makes it unusually easy to execute malicious code on target computers, Microsoft is keeping a low profile, refusing even to say if it has plans to patch.

Late last week, security firm Proofpoint said that hackers with ties to known nation-state groups were exploiting the remote code execution vulnerability, dubbed Follina. Proofpoint said the attacks were delivered in malicious spam messages sent to fewer than 10 Proofpoint customers in European and local US governments.

Microsoft products are a “target-rich opportunity”

In an email on Monday, the security company added further color, writing:

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Thomas Trutschel)

Update 6/7/2022 2:00 pm ET: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its prevalence estimates for coronavirus variants Tuesday and has now provided separate estimates for omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, which were previously reported together. Based on data collected up to June 4, BA.5 is estimated to account for 7.6 percent of US cases, while BA.4 is estimated to account for 5.4 percent. BA.2.12.1 is still the dominant variant in the US, estimated to account for 62.2 percent of cases.

Original story 6/6/2022 6:17 pm ET: Omicron subvariant BA.2.12.1 has overtaken BA.2 as the dominant version of the pandemic coronavirus in the US, now accounting for an estimated 59 percent of cases nationwide. But BA.2.12.1's reign may end as quickly as it began, with yet another batch of omicron subvariants gaining ground—BA.4 and BA.5—and threatening to cause more breakthrough infections.

BA.2.12.1 has a transmission advantage over BA.2, which itself has an edge over the initial omicron subvariant, BA.1, that caused a towering surge of US cases in mid-January. BA.2 peaked in mid-April, accounting for 76 percent of US cases at its height. But then came BA.2.12.1, which is named for being the 12th lineage stemming from BA.2 and the first branch of that BA.2.12 lineage.

Enlarge (credit: Netflix)

It's Geeked Week courtesy of Netflix, which means a smorgasbord of new teasers for upcoming series. Most notably, we got some new teaser footage for The Sandman, a teaser for the third and final season of Locke & Key, and a full trailer for the Resident Evil live-action series. There were also teasers for a new series from the creators of the masterful German series Dark, called 1899; Mike Flanagan's The Midnight Club; the anthology series Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities; and Wednesday, Tim Burton's new series focused on a grown-up Wednesday Addams.

(Spoilers for prior seasons of Locke & Key below.)

The Sandman

Sandman fans have longed for a screen adaption of Neil Gaiman's iconic graphic novels for decades, and we're finally getting it, thanks to Netflix, executive producer David Goyer (Foundation), and showrunner Allan Heinberg. Gaiman has been heavily involved as an executive producer and has regularly enthused on social media about his delight about how the series turned out. If this teaser is any indication, we're inclined to agree. It certainly gets the look and feel of the graphic novels exactly right.

Enlarge / True external display support is coming to M1-powered iPads in iPadOS 16. (credit: Apple)

CUPERTINO, Calif.—Apple formally announced the latest update to its iPad operating system, iPadOS 16, during the keynote presentation of its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on Monday. As usual, the tablet operating system will share many of the features and app updates introduced with the newest version of the iPhone-focused iOS, but it will also include a few iPad-specific changes to improve the multitasking and productivity capabilities of those larger devices.

An updated Collaboration feature, for instance, will allow users to work together in real time with specific apps. You'll be able to send a document from Apple's Pages app to a group through one "collaboration link," allowing multiple users to edit the same file instead of everyone having to deal with their own copy. This ability appears to work similarly compared to apps like Google Docs. An entirely new app called FreeForm also provides a shared canvas for collaborative meetings, note-taking, sketching, and communication using FaceTime or Messages.

Speaking of Messages, the app is receiving the same updates that it's getting in iOS 16 and macOS Ventura: the ability to edit or unsend recent messages, plus the ability to mark conversations as unread if you want to be reminded to come back to them later.