This week, the whole world was mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Like many big incidents that shake the trending topic lists on various social media channels, the Queen’s death has created an opportunity for threat actors that uses phishing techniques as well. Also this week, VMware has revealed the huge impact of Linux kernel 5.19 on the performance of ESXi VMs, due to Retbleed mitigations.
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Queen Elizabeth II’s death is used in phishing attacks
The death of Queen Elizabeth II has interested the hackers that utilize phishing techniques. Some users have spotted a mail-based phishing campaign that impersonates Microsoft, asking for Microsoft credentials for accessing an “Interactive AI Memory Board”, in honor of Queen Elizabeth II. According to the reports, the threat actor uses the EvilProxy phishing kit.
Retbleed fix on kernel 5.19 causes a 70% performance hit on ESXi VMs
VMware performance team has tested Linux kernel 5.19 and noticed that this kernel version has a major performance hit on ESXi virtual machines. Those performance penalties go up to 70% in computing, 30% in networking, and 13% in storage. The team has found that Retbleed mitigations cause the issue, which is possible to disable but causes a huge security risk.
Tech giants have formed PyTorch Foundation for AI progress
Many tech giants have come together and formed PyTorch Foundation. The foundation aims to accelerate the progress in artificial intelligence and machine learning. The board includes representatives from AMD, AWS, Google Cloud, Meta, Microsoft Azure, and Nvidia. This foundation will be responsible for the management of the PyTorch while not touching the code, core project, and technical management structure.
Arm announces its Arm Neoverse roadmap for cloud and data center
Arm has unveiled its roadmap for the upcoming Neoverse V2 chips, which will be aiming for the cloud and data center industries. The Neoverse V2 platform, which is codenamed Demeter, features the latest V-series cores and Arm CMN-700 mesh interconnects. It provides improved performance for cloud and HPC workloads.
KDE Plasma 5.26 beta is now available
The KDE Project has announced the release of the KDE Plasma 5.26 beta desktop environment. The beta release introduces some improvements for television-based use cases with Bigscreen, Aura Browser, and Plank Player. It also delivers some improvements in Discover and Kickoff, as well as enhancements in Wayland support. KDE Plasma 5.26 final version is expected in mid-October this year.
EndeavourOS Artemis Nova 22.9 has landed with kernel 5.19
The developers of EndeavourOS have released the Artemis Nova 22.9 version, which comes with Linux kernel 5.19. This release is a small update but it also delivers some changes in Grub and repositories. As usual, it delivers the latest packages for Calamares, Firefox, Mesa, Xorg-Server, and nvidia-dkms as well.
Microsoft 365 updates will now be delivered very smoothly
Microsoft has announced a new feature for its Microsoft 365 applications that allows very smooth updates while the users are away from the PC, or the PC is locked. The new feature, named “Update under lock”, can apply the patches if it is safe to do by shutting down the applications. Then in just four seconds, it restores every window to its previous state. This new feature affects Microsoft 365 subscriptions, Visio, and Project as well as Office 2016, 2019, and 2022.