Geek News

It's not just private companies' websites falling victim to cryptocurrency mining hijacks . Security consultant Scott Helme and the Register have discovered that intruders compromised over 4,200 sites with Coinhive's notorious Monero miner , many of them government websites from around the world. This includes the US court info system, the UK's National Health Service and Australian legislatures, among others. The intruders spread their JavaScript code by modifying an accessibility plugin for the blind, Texthelp's Browsealoud, to inject the miner wherever Browsealoud was in use. The mining only took place for several hours on February 11th before Texthelp disabled the plugin to investigate. Government sites like the UK's Information Commissioner's Office also took pages down in response. As with most of these injections, your system wasn't facing a security risk -- you would have just noticed your system bogging down while searching for government i...

Most of the states fighting the FCC's net neutrality repeal are counting on lawsuits or legislative measures that could take years to process, but Montana Governor Steve Bullock isn't willing to wait. He just signed an executive order requiring that all internet providers with a Montana government contract from July 1st onward honor the principles of net neutrality for any customer in the state. Given that most major providers (including AT&T, Charter and Verizon) have government contracts, this forces telecoms to treat all traffic fairly regardless of what the FCC wants. Bullock also suggested that other states backing net neutrality could do the same. "This is a simple step," he said in a statement, adding that "we can't wait for folks in Washington DC to come to their senses and reinstate these [neutrality] rules." Whether or not the order sticks is another matter. The FCC crafted its repeal specifically to prevent states from reinstating c...