ShinyShiny snippets: Bitcoin once again slips below $20,000
Bitcoin on Sunday dropped 1.54% to $19,804, slipping from the 20,000 mark after losing $310 from its previous close. The world’s biggest and best-known cryptocurrency is down 58.9% from the year’s high of $48,234 on March 28. Ether, the coin linked to the ethereum blockchain network, dropped 3.2 % to $1,422.1 on Sunday, losing $47 from its previous close. Reuters
Hackers have told the BBC they carried out a destructive cyber-attack against Holiday Inn owner Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) “for fun”. Describing themselves as a couple from Vietnam, they say they first tried a ransomware attack, then deleted large amounts of data when they were foiled. They accessed the FTSE 100 firm’s databases thanks to an easily found and weak password, Qwerty1234. An expert says the case highlights the vindictive side of criminal hackers. UK-based IHG operates 6,000 hotels around the world, including the Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and Regent brands. BBC
In August, LastPass had admitted that an “unauthorized party” gained entry into its system. Any news about a password manager getting hacked can be alarming, but the company is now reassuring its users that their logins and other information weren’t compromised in the event. In his latest update about the incident, LastPass CEO Karim Toubba said that the company’s investigation with cybersecurity firm Mandiant has revealed that the bad actor had internal access to its systems for four days. They were able to steal some of the password manager’s source code and technical information, but their access was limited to the service’s development environment that isn’t connected to customers’ data and encrypted vaults. Engadget
Extra-terrestrial water has been discovered for the first time in a meteorite that landed in the UK. The meteorite crashed into a driveway in the Gloucestershire town of Winchcombe last February and is believed to hold clues about where the water in the Earth’s vast oceans came from. Some 12% of the sample was made up of water, and offers a lot of insights since it was the least contaminated specimen to be collected, according to Ashley King, a researcher in the planetary materials group at the Natural History Museum. “The composition of that water is very, very similar to the composition of water in the Earth’s oceans,” he told the British Science Festival. Sky News
Fortnite Chapter 3, Season 3 has been going for just about the entire summer. In fact, the season began on June 5th, two weeks before the Summer Solstice. It ends, just a couple days before the official start of Fall. We’ve had some clues drop about the new season, which is called Paradise—though that appears to be a darkly ironic title. While Season 3’s Vibin moniker gave it fun summery vibes, Paradise is an odd framing for what appears to be a very spooky season. Weird liquid chrome is present in each of the teaser images so far, and it appears our heroes—and the map—may get sucked under the gooey, oily looking stuff. Forbes
