But we could be on the precipice of a something radically new. As the dawn of Web 3.0 nears, a number tech companies, analysts and enthusiasts are getting ready to usher in a new era of immersive, reality-blending online experiences colloquially known as the metaverse. The metaverse is currently more concept than reality, but that’s done little to stem the hype. According a global survey by Ciena, a networking systems and software company, 71% of professionals can see the metaverse becoming part of existing work practices....

The Outseer FraudAction team compiled the report based on the 49,000 attacks they tracked throughout Q2 of 2021. Armen Najarian, Outseer’s chief identity officer, told ZDNet that nearly half of the 49,000 cases Outseer detected in Q2 involved cybercriminals spoofing digital content and experiences, like a fake social media profile, a rogue mobile app or a spoofed website. “Bad actors impersonate credible brands this way to harvest consumer log-in credentials or personal data....

The president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, announced the decision on Tuesday (14) following intense criticism from fellow senators over the presidential move. The ruling overthrows Bolsonaro’s attempt to impose a series of hurdles to social media platforms to remove potentially false or harmful content, accounts, profiles and users, announced a week earlier. The provisional measure, effective immediately, needed Congress approval within 120 days to become a permanent item of the legislation - otherwise, it would expire after that timeframe....

“Right now, the ransomware guys, in Russia predominantly, get off pretty much free. There is very limited downside for them,” Alexander told a seminar at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Centre last week. “We have to attribute who’s doing it and make them pay a price.” We call out cybercrime groups like REvil and DarkSide, but we need to do more, he said. “Imagine if we indicted and put their picture up, and said, ‘That’s the guy, and if we can, we will arrest you....

Proofpoint researchers Selena Larson, Sam Scholten and Timothy Kromphardt, said the company sees thousands of telephone-based cyberattacks each day, with most falling into two different categories. Some use fake call centers to steal a victim’s money, and others use call centers to spread malware that can be used in other attacks. “The attacks rely on victims to call the attackers directly and initiate the interaction. Email fraud supported by call center customer service agents is prolific and profitable....

Racial disparities such as structural racism and bias have affected the ability for people of color to own homes in the US for years. An Urban Planet study using 2019 ACS data showed that white homeownership rate is 30 percentage points higher than the Black homeownership rate and higher than any other racial group in the US. Anywhere, an American real estate services company that owns major brands in the industry such as CENTURY 21, Coldwell Banker and Sotheby’s International Realty, found a way to implement AI into their business model to better connect with customers, remove biases and diversify homeownership....

If passed, the ‘Electronic Currency And Secure Hardware Act’’ (ECASH Act)’ would “direct the Secretary of the Treasury to develop and pilot digital dollar technologies that replicate the privacy-respecting features of physical cash.” The ECASH Act “would promote greater financial inclusion, maximize consumer protection and data privacy, and advance U.S. efforts to develop and regulate digital assets,” according to an announcement by US representative Stephen Lynch, who introduced the bill....

But what if you need to block someone you know, like a coworker, a neighbor, or an old flame? Can they tell you’ve blocked them? We’ll walk you through the ways someone may be able to tell if their number was blocked. Can someone tell if I block their number? First things first, if you block someone’s number, they won’t find out right away, if at all. They won’t get a notification saying they were blocked and won’t be able to see it plainly anywhere, but they can infer it....

While failure to comply with reporting requirements could see the provider slapped with a AU$555,000 fine, the draft rules also build in encryption-busting expectations. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner from January will have sweeping new powers afforded to her under the Online Safety Act 2020. Such powers include oversight of new set of Basic Online Safety Expectations (BOSE) that sets out a series of demands for big tech. These expectations [PDF] will apply to service providers including social media; “relevant electronic service of any kind”, such as messaging apps and games; and other designated internet services, such as websites....

Read on: We’ve rounded up high-demand careers in science, technology, engineering, and math. Agricultural, biological, and biosystems engineers Education: Bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering or biomedical engineering Median salary: $92,620 (biomedical engineer) Global population growth and international economic competition drive the need to improve agricultural production efficiency. But protecting the environment is also important. Agricultural engineers focus on the production and processing of our commercial food supply. They also work with issues related to the environment or food production-related technology....

Even more impressive is the generous no-contract option for all DSL speeds up to 100Mbps. Few providers offer such attractive high-speed plans without a commitment on your end. To better understand these offerings, we spent over four weeks analyzing six popular plans and comparing them across the four largest DSL providers. We found a service that offers exceptionally high speeds, though your experience will ultimately depend on your connection and location....

Also: Apple’s M2 MacBook Air: ZDNET Product of the Year First, you need to know that if a thief steals your iPhone, the first thing a clever one will do is swipe down and turn on airplane mode (and then turn off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Mobile data) so that you can’t track it with the Find My app. But there’s an easy way to block them from doing this and here it is....

The ChatGPT app for Slack will optimize how professionals communicate with each other and help them save a precious business resource – time. Also: How does ChatGPT work? The app, built by OpenAI on the Slack platform, will include various features to help speed up the message writing and reading process for users. Slack users will be able to harness the writing capabilities ChatGPT has become known for to access AI assistance to draft messages in seconds....

Starting with Chromebooks using 11th and 12th generation Intel silicon that have USB4/Thunderbolt 3 functionality, users will be informed if the cable does not support either USB4 or Thunderbolt, or simply cannot handle the data rates required. For instance, one warning says external monitors need cables to support 5Gbps transfers. “To enable a USB4 connection, replace the cable with a Thunderbolt 4 cable or a USB-C cable with a performance rating of SuperSpeed USB 5 Gbps or higher....

Geek speaks ZDNet spoke with Firebolt CEO Eldad Farkash. Similar to our last interaction with Farkash in December, the conversation focused on a combination of market and technology factors in the cloud data warehouse world. Also read: Varada and Firebolt launch cloud analytics query platforms Farkash shared some interesting insights. First he explained that, even if it may seem fast, a 6-month interval between Series A and B funding rounds is considered conservative in the Israeli startup scene....

Crisis shifts services digital transformation into high gear Every business is a digital business – an important lesson in 2020. Seventy-seven percent of service agents say their company views them as customer advocates. Seventy-eight percent of agents say their company views them as brand ambassadors. Your culture is your brand. And your customer facing employees reveal your culture. Seventy-eight percent of decision makers say they’ve invested in new technology as a result of the pandemic....

Crowdstrike’s total Q3 revenue was $380.1 million, a 63% increase over a year prior. Non-GAAP net income came to $41.1 million or 17 cents per share. The cybersecurity company added 1,607 net new subscription customers in the quarter for a total of 14,687 subscription customers as of October 31. That represents 75% year-over-year growth. Subscription revenue was $357 million, a 67% increase. Analysts were expecting earnings of 10 cents per share on revenue of $364....

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is not alone in warning companies to take action. Last week, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) also warned all organizations to take “near, urgent steps” to mitigate critical cyber threats in response to last week’s cyberattacks on Ukraine government websites and IT systems. This advice comes amid growing fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. CISA raised the alarm after Microsoft discovered wiper malware, dubbed “WhisperGate”, on several Ukraine systems....

The company will be renamed ZeroFox Holdings once the deal goes through and will have the ticker symbol “ZFOX.” The companies expect the deal to close in the first half of 2022. Monarch Alternative Capital LP and several other firms are also investing $170 million in the deal to merge the companies. James Foster, chairman and CEO of ZeroFox, said the transaction allows them to create “the industry’s first publicly traded company that is focused on providing an enterprise external cybersecurity SaaS platform....

The going notion is that serverless simplifies and can reduce the cost of running databases for highly variable traffic loads. With globally distributed databases, the costs of overprovisioning quickly add up. Astra DB joins a very select group of serverless databases and can span more than one region to varying extents. It’s currently the only one running on multiple clouds that’s in GA. Others include PlanetScale, which we covered just over a year ago that allows you to share MySQL across one or more regions selectively, but it is still currently in beta....