Sandy Himel is associate professor and head of government information and the Cajun and Creole Music Collection at University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Photo: Doug Dugas/University of Louisiana at Lafayette In 1950s southern Louisiana and southeast Texas, a new kind of music filled hopping dance halls: swamp pop. The genre, typified by electric guitars, pianos, […]
KrebsOnSecurity turns 13 years old today. That’s a crazy long time for an independent media outlet these days, but then again I’m bound to keep doing this as long as they keep letting me. Heck, I’ve been doing this so long I briefly forgot which birthday this was! Thanks to your readership and support, I […]
Millions of people likely just received an email or snail mail notice saying they’re eligible to claim a class action payment in connection with the 2017 megabreach at consumer credit bureau Equifax. Given the high volume of reader inquiries about this, it seemed worth pointing out that while this particular offer is legit (if paltry), […]
Photo: BrandonKleinPhoto / Shutterstock.com Two U.S. men have been charged with hacking into the Ring home security cameras of a dozen random people and then “swatting” them — falsely reporting a violent incident at the target’s address to trick local police into responding with force. Prosecutors say the duo used the compromised Ring devices to […]
The year 2023 is just around the corner and we cannot wait to continue to share more informative, useful, and interesting library posts with you all in! But just before the new year comes, we want to recap the eventful and peculiar year of 2022 from the libraries’ world. In this post, we will share […]
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) today seized four-dozen domains that sold “booter” or “stresser” services — businesses that make it easy and cheap for even non-technical users to launch powerful Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks designed knock targets offline. The DOJ also charged six U.S. men with computer crimes related to their alleged […]
Microsoft has released its final monthly batch of security updates for 2022, fixing more than four dozen security holes in its various Windows operating systems and related software. The most pressing patches include a zero-day in a Windows feature that tries to flag malicious files from the Web, a critical bug in PowerShell, and a […]
InfraGard, a program run by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to build cyber and physical threat information sharing partnerships with the private sector, this week saw its database of contact information on more than 80,000 members go up for sale on an English-language cybercrime forum. Meanwhile, the hackers responsible are communicating directly with […]
Now that I’ve almost entirely removed myself from Twitter, I’m looking around at how to…well, do whatever it is I want to do now. I’m definitely going to stick to Mastodon for awhile, and now I’m playing around with adding this old blog to ActivityPub and auto-posting to my Mastodon when I write here. I’m […]
Ransomware groups are constantly devising new methods for infecting victims and convincing them to pay up, but a couple of strategies tested recently seem especially devious. The first centers on targeting healthcare organizations that offer consultations over the Internet and sending them booby-trapped medical records for the “patient.” The other involves carefully editing email inboxes […]
After a year of unprecedented challenges and impressive successes, it’s time to celebrate the resilience of librarians. This holiday season, focus on gifts that highlight goodwill, inclusivity, and the joy of books. We’ve rounded up a list of presents that are fun, thoughtful, and affordable—most items are less than $40. And while you’re shopping, don’t […]
In December 2021, Google filed a civil lawsuit against two Russian men thought to be responsible for operating Glupteba, one of the Internet’s largest and oldest botnets. The defendants, who initially pursued a strategy of counter suing Google for interfering in their sprawling cybercrime business, later brazenly offered to dismantle the botnet in exchange for […]
ConnectWise, which offers a self-hosted, remote desktop software application that is widely used by Managed Service Providers (MSPs), is warning about an unusually sophisticated phishing attack that can let attackers take remote control over user systems when recipients click the included link. The warning comes just weeks after the company quietly patched a vulnerability that […]
In this week’s post, The Daring Librarian, Gwyneth A. Jones, shares her tips on how you can set up a makerspace at your library or school, for very little or no costs at all! This post originally appeared on Gwyneth’s own blog. You can find the original article here: https://www.thedaringlibrarian.com/2019/04/makerspace-for-little-or-nothing.html Makerspace for Little or Nothing You […]
This is a guest blog post by digitization lab assistant Abigail Watson, who has been with Stanford Libraries’ Digital Production Group since March 2021. Content warning: this blog contains mentions of the Holocaust, death, and trauma. My name is Abigail, and I have been working in digitization with the Digital Production Group at Stanford Libraries […]
A recent scoop by Reuters revealed that mobile apps for the U.S. Army and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were integrating software that sends visitor data to a Russian company called Pushwoosh, which claims to be based in the United States. But that story omitted an important historical detail about Pushwoosh: In 2013, […]
Every year, voters from small towns and big cities alike decide on ballot measures that affect libraries. This year was no different—and as in past years, American Libraries and the Public Library Association have partnered to look at some of the wins and losses across the country. While libraries notched notable victories in 2022, some […]
On November 17, I was able to attend most of an amazing book talk sponsored by Library Futures. It was with the authors of two timely books, Chokepoint Capitalism (Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow), and Data Cartels (Sarah Lamdan). You can, and should, watch the entire recording! In Chokepoint Capitalism, “by analyzing book publishing and […]
Peter is an IT manager for a technology manufacturer that got hit with a Russian ransomware strain called “Zeppelin” in May 2020. He’d been on the job less than six months, and because of the way his predecessor architected things, the company’s data backups also were encrypted by Zeppelin. After two weeks of stalling their […]
In this week’s Princh Library Blog post, guest writer Glory Odochi Okeagu shares her insights of the everyday life of public libraries in Nigeria, discussing their challenges, duties, how the community perceives them, and some examples of initiatives established by Nigerian libraries. Are you curious what Princh can offer for your library and your patrons? […]
