With the world focused on the situation between Ukraine and Russia it’s hard to keep up with the pace of news. One thing that has stood out from the tech side is the number of tech companies that have severed business ties with Russia as a form of dissent or punishment for their actions on the world stage. We discuss this story and more on this week’s Rundown.
Verizon Taps Celona for Private 5G | 1:02
Mobile World Congress was last week in Barcelona and one of the big news items from the event was the announcement that Verizon Business is going to start offering a private 5G service by partnering with Celona. As seen at Mobility Field Day, Celona has technology that provides private connectivity using CBRS. Verizon will offer a fully managed solution as well as a DIY setup that is configured and managed by the customer. The offering is designed to complement Verizon’s existing infrastructure in areas like stadiums or hospitals.
Read More: Verizon Business taps start-up Celona for private 5G
New Linux Kernel Bug In the Pipe | 4:24
It’s patch time! Again. A new Linux kernel vulnerability has been found that has the potential to cause some serious headaches. Known as “Dirty Pipe”, this bug is found in kernel version 5.8 and later. The vulnerability allows a user to gain root-level privileges on a system through some known bugs. This could allow the attacker to overwrite read-only files. The bug was disclosed to researchers on February 20th and the latest versions of the kernel have been patched. However, many installations are running unpatched kernels and could be vulnerable.
Read more: New Linux bug gives root on all major distros, exploit released
Google has Fiery Eyes on Mandiant | 8:39
Google is picking up some big security assets this week with the announcement that they are acquiring Mandiant. The deal is going to cost Google $23/share or around $5.4 billion dollars. Mandiant was formerly a part of FireEye but was divested last year as a way to position the firm as more of a threat intelligence and response company. FireEye merged with McAfee Enterprise back in October and changed their name to Trellix. Mandiant continued along as a publicly traded company until Tuesday. Microsoft had been in talks to acquired the firm but walked away in February. The deal is expected to increase the security behind Google Cloud and directly compete with Microsoft Azure.
Read more: Google in Talks to Acquire Mandiant
New Consortium Formed for UCIe Chiplets | 12:42
A new industry consortium is focusing on the way that chips interconnect. the Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) standard was donated to the entity by Intel. The idea is to create a standard way for chiplets to communicate with each other. Chiplets are a way to combine advances in processor technology while things like memory and I/O controllers can be an older generation without the need to be built onto the CPU die or validated for the new architecture in traditional ways. The idea is to be able to provide advances in the technology at a much quicker pace as well as reducing development costs. The new consortium includes industry heavyweights like AMD, Intel, Meta, Qualcomm, and Samsung. Absent is NVIDIA, who is reported to be exploring chiplets for their GPU architectures.
Read more: Industry Consortium Forms to Drive UCIe Chiplet Interconnect Standard
Samsung Breached By NVIDIA Hack Team 16:37
The Lapsus$ crew followed up their NVIDIA hack with a new victim this week. Samsung announced they had been hacked shortly after a 190GB torrent file was discovered that contains a lot of embarrasing confidential information from the electronics giant. Lapsus$ says they have code for biometric unlock algorithms, bootloader source code, and even some files from Qualcomm. The crew hasn’t made any demands yet as they did in the NVDIA hack.
Read more: Samsung hacked by same hackers as NVIDIA, 190GB worth of data stolen
Tech World Turns Away from Russia | 22:12
With the world focused on the situation between Ukraine and Russia it’s hard to keep up with the pace of news. One thing that has stood out from the tech side is the number of tech companies that have severed business ties with Russia as a form of dissent or punishment for their actions on the world stage. VMware, Cisco, Apple, Microsoft, Veeam, and many others have announced they are temporarily halting their businesses there and will no longer be taking on new customers. This is part of a wider group of companies that have also made announcements from car companies to restaurant chains and more every day. Reports are hinting that Russia may soon sever ties to the global Internet and start to use their own DNS and TLS infrastructure to serve users internally to the country.
Storage Field Day 23 is happening now through March 11
Tech Field Day Exclusive with Cisco 2022 is march 16 and 17
Python Web Conference is March 21-25
Security Field Day 7 is March 23-25
The Gestalt IT Rundown is a live weekly look at the IT news of the week. It broadcasts live on Facebook every Wednesday at 12:30pm ET. To watch along, “Like” our Facebook page. Be sure to subscribe to Gestalt IT on YouTube for even more weekly video content.
