Long ago, over eight years ago, Facebook wanted to issue your internet driver’s license. Thankfully that failed, but now Mastercard and Microsoft have teamed up for a new digital identity plan that would include a “universally-recognized digital identity” for every person across the globe.
According to the press release, the digital identity could be used for digital services such as email, social media, movie and music streaming services, and rideshare platforms. It could be used to “simplify interactions with government agencies and services — such as filing taxes, applying to passport or securing” Social Security payments. It could also be used for financial services, such as setting up at a new bank or for loan or payment services. As for commerce, it could “enable a more personalized and efficient shopping experience online and in stores."
The companies suggested the “single, reusable digital identity” could solve identity verification issues, could help with fraud prevention, and give digital identities to more than 1 billion people who are not officially recognized.
The “strategic collaboration” for this digital identity platform involves Mastercard’s “expertise” in digital transactions and Microsoft’s identity technology. The identity services will be built on Microsoft Azure. It will reportedly let people “enter, control and share their identity data their way — on the devices they use every day.”
More about the new decentralized identity innovation will be revealed in the coming months.
More cybersecurity news:
Flaw in Zoom conferencing app allows hackers to remotely hijack meetings
Zoom’s Desktop Conference Application was recently patched to close a hole that would allow hackers to hijack screen controls, spoof chat messages and kick and lock out attendees. Tenable researchers released a proof-of-concept exploit, as well as a more technical look at how a hacker could hijack various components of a live meeting. If you use Zoom — and there are 750,000 companies that do — but would rather your meeting not be hijacked, then grab the patched version.
277,000 vulnerable routers exposed 1.7 million devices to attacks leveraging NSA’s Eternal exploits
Akamai researchers revealed that 277,000 devices are vulnerable to an UPnProxy flaw; 45,113 routers have already been compromised. The attackers behind the UPnProxy campaign are using the National Security Agency's (NSA) leaked Eternal family of exploits to target service ports used by Windows SMB. The confirmed injections exposed “1.7 million unique machines” to attackers.
If UPnP interests you, then you might want to check out security researcher x0rz’s post, “Hiding through a maze of IoT devices.” It describes “how to create the perfect anonymizing botnet by abusing UPnP features — without any infection.”
Prank inspires someone to offer printer hijacking service
Although it started as a prank to drum up more YouTube subscribers, someone decided to offer a service for hijacking a massive amount of printers. The ad for spraying the entire internet with print commands boasts “everyone will see your message” and “we have the ability to reach every single printer in the world!”
100 million Quora accounts compromised
Quora announced on Friday that it discovered someone had compromised 100 million accounts and may have made off with account information such as names, email addresses, hacked passwords, public content, and actions as well as non-public content and actions.
Jared and Kay Jewelers fix leaky sites that exposed customers’ orders
Signet Jewelers, which owns both Jared and Kay Jewelers, previously fixed a flaw to stop a data exposure issue on all new orders, but it wasn’t until Brian Krebs got involved that it also remedied “the data exposure for all past orders.”
Bye-bye Edge, hello to a Microsoft web browser build on Chromium?
Microsoft is reportedly ready to kick its Edge browser to the curb. If the report is true, then Microsoft intends to replace Edge in Windows 10 with a Chromium-powered browser.