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TECHNOLOGY Friday 30 June 2017
Global cyberattack may have aimed for havoc, not extortion

By RAPHAEL SATTER and hit by the malware, said
JAN M. OLSEN Thursday that most of its
Associated Press terminals are now opera-
PARIS (AP) — The cyber- tional, though some termi-
attack that has locked nals are “operating slower
up computers around the than usual or with limited
world while demanding functionality.”
a ransom may not be an Problems have been re-
extortion attempt after all, ported across the shippers’
but something more sin- global business, from Mo-
ister: an effort to create bile, Alabama, to Mumbai
havoc in Ukraine, security in India. When The Associ-
experts say. ated Press visited the lat-
“There may be a more ne- ter city’s Jawaharlal Nehru
farious motive behind the Port Trust on Thursday, for
attack,” Gavin O’Gorman, example, it witnessed sev-
an investigator with U.S. eral hundred containers
antivirus firm Symantec, piled up at just two yards,
said in a blog post . “Per- out of more than a dozen
haps this attack was never yards surrounding the port.
intended to make money Trucks loaded with containers are lined up outside a terminal at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust “The vessels are coming,
(but) rather to simply dis- in Mumbai, India, Thursday, June 29, 2017. the ships are coming, but
rupt a large number of Associated Press they are not able to take
Ukrainian organizations.” the container because all
The rogue program ini- noted that any criminals puny sum of $10,000. demands were a smoke the systems are down,”
tially appeared to be ran- would have had difficulty Others, such as Russian screen. trading and clearing
somware, a fast-growing making money off the epi- anti-virus firm Kasper- Ransomware or not, com- agent Rajeshree Verma
and lucrative breed of demic given that they ap- sky Lab, said that clues puter specialists worldwide told the AP. “The port au-
malicious software that pear to have relied on a in the code suggest the were still wrestling with its thorities, they are not able
encrypts its victims’ data single email address that program’s authors would consequences, with vary- to reply (to) us. The ship-
and holds it hostage until a was blocked almost im- have been incapable of ing degrees of success. ping companies they also
payment is made. mediately and a single Bit- decrypting the data in Danish shipping giant A.P. don’t know what to do. ...
But O’Gorman was one coin wallet that, to date, any case, adding further Moller-Maersk, one of the We are actually in a fix be-
of severalresearchers who has collected the relatively evidence that the ransom global companies hardest cause of all this.”q

Amazon Prime Day promo starts

night of July 10, now 30 hours

NEW YORK (AP) — Ama- program, so Amazon typi- “how to make clearance
zon is extending its annual cally gets more sign-ups, look good.”
“Prime Day” promotion to too. This year’s promotion will
30 hours this year. While Amazon has claimed start at 9 p.m. ET on July 10
Amazon will offer discounts success, there have been and end at 3 a.m. ET July
and other deals in an ef- grumblings that Prime Day 12.
fort to boost sales during deals are unimpressive or It used to run for 24 hours.
the slower summer months. involve older models. It will be available in 13
The deals are open only Last year, Benchmark ana- countries, including the In this Tuesday, May 9, 2017, photo, a package from Amazon
to members of Amazon’s lyst Daniel Kurnos called U.S., U.K., Germany, Japan Prime is loaded for delivery on a UPS truck, in New York.
$99-a-year Prime loyalty Prime Day an example of and China.q Associated Press
Facebook now deleting 66K posts a week in anti-hate campaign

NEW YORK (AP) — Face- sexual orientation and company said. Last year it with a social media side
book said Tuesday that it other “protected charac- deleted the post of a black are wrestling to find the
deleted about 66,000 posts teristics.” The Menlo Park, activist, who had posted balance between allowing
a week in the last two California, company said hate mail he received that for free speech, and tamp-
months as the social me- it mostly relies on its 2 billion included slurs. Facebook ing down on extremism.
dia giant cracks down on users to report any hate- said it restored the post Last week, Google said
what it deems to be hate ful posts they see. Workers and apologized. it was cracking down on
speech. The company said then review the posts and “We know that these kinds terrorist propaganda and
in a blog post that deleting decide whether to delete of mistakes are deeply up- other extremist videos on
posts can “feel like censor- it. Facebook Inc. said it setting for the people in- its YouTube site amid inten-
ship,” but that it is working plans to hire an additional volved and cut against the sifying criticism about the
on explaining its process 3,000 people in the next grain of everything we are internet’s role in mass vio-
better and improving its en- year to review posts. That’s trying to achieve at Face- lence. It also said it was hir-
forcement of hate speech. on top of the 4,500 people book,” said Facebook Vice ing more people to monitor
Facebook defines hate it currently has reviewing President Richard Allan, in hate and extremism online, This Monday, June 19, 2017,
speech as attacks on peo- posts. the blog post. and to prevent its dissemi- photo shows Facebook
launched on an iPhone, in
ple based on their race, It has made mistakes, the Almost all tech companies nation through YouTube.q North Andover, Mass.