This week, Cloudflare introduced a user-friendly alternative to CAPTCHAs, Turnstile. Obviously, CAPTCHAs aren’t very popular among internet users and they can be very troublesome. Turnstile aims to save Internet users 500 years of time every day. Also this week, Google and GoDaddy announced a partnership that allows users to manage Google Ads activities through GoDaddy’s marketing dashboard. The new integration simplifies customizing and creating paid Google campaigns. Another tech giant, AMD announced the launch of Ryzen Embedded V3000 Series processors. AMD’s new processors are adding the Zen 3 core to the V-Series portfolio.
Cloudflare replacing CAPTCHA with a user-friendly alternative
Cloudflare introduced its alternative to CAPTCHAs. Cloudflare’s new solution, Turnstile is a smarter and invisible solution that automatically chooses from a rotating suite of browser challenges that work behind the scenes. Turnstile is also capable of recognizing Private Access Tokens from users on the latest versions of macOS or iOS. Turnstile achieved the same stable solve rate as old-school CAPTCHAs. The new solution enabled Cloudflare to reduce its own use of CAPTCHA by 91%.
GoDaddy and Google joining forces
GoDaddy and Google are teaming up to offer a new Google Ads solution on GoDaddy’s marketing dashboard. GoDaddy users will be able to manage their Google Ads activities through GoDaddy’s marketing dashboard. The new solution also enables users to select keywords and themes for Google campaigns. Also, customers will only pay per click, thus they won’t be charged unless a visitor clicks on the ad. Google is offering new Google Ads users $500 in ad credits when they spend $500 in the first 60 days of activating their accounts.
AMD introduces Ryzen Embedded V3000 Series processors
AMD announced the launch of Ryzen Embedded V3000 Series processors, which adds the Zen 3 core to the V-Series portfolio to deliver reliable, scalable processing performance for a wide range of storage and networking system applications. Ryzen Embedded V3000 Series processors offer up to 124% greater CPU performance, 50% improved memory transfer rate, 2X CPU core count, and improved I/O connectivity. AMD’s new processors are available in four, six, and eight-core options with low thermal design power profiles ranging from 10W to 50W for storage and networking systems.
AlmaLinux OS 8 now supports s390x
The AlmaLinux OS development team has released AlmaLinux OS 8 that supports s390x, making the release unique distribution as CentOS did not provide support for s390x. To add s390x support on AlmaLinux OS, the R&D company Sine Nomine Associates (SNA) joined as a foundation member. Previously, SNA developed the leading CentOS-based mainframe Linux distribution known as ClefOS. Neale Ferguson, Chief Scientist at SNA commented that AlmaLinux was most in line with the open source ideology.
FARGO ransomware targeting vulnerable Microsoft SQL servers
The ransomware known as FARGO is targeting vulnerable Microsoft SQL servers to encrypt files and demand ransom. According to the researchers, along with GlobeImposter, FARGO is one of the most prominent ransomware that targets vulnerable MS-SQL servers. The encrypted file gets a file name of OriginalFileName.FileExtension.Fargo3 and the ransom note is generated with the filename ‘RECOVERY FILES.txt’. The file also threatens the organizations to publish the database in the public domain.
American Airlines suffers data breach
American Airlines confirmed a data breach, caused by an employee’s hacked Microsoft 365 account, targeted by a phishing campaign. The investigation showed that the attackers accessed multiple employees’ accounts as a result of phishing attacks and used them to spread phishing emails. The company stated that the attacks started on September 16th. According to a filing, over 1,700 employees and customers are impacted by the incident.
20-year-old AMD workaround in Linux kernel is getting fixed
K. Prateek Nayak, AMD engineer, revealed that a 20-year-old chipset workaround in the Linux kernel can still be applied to modern AMD processors. The workaround is now being fixed for old systems and it will also help with the performance of modern systems. A patch is posted, enabling ACPI processors’ idle code to avoid a workaround on AMD Zen systems. ACPI support was initially added to the Linux kernel in 2002. The AMD patch is now merged for Linux kernel 6.0 and is expected to be included in the next week’s release.