Nuclear Bits

OnePlus Confirms Hack that Stole Credit Card Data; Up to 40k Users Affected

In an updated post on the official forum, OnePlus has today confirmed the previously reported data breach in which users’ credit card info was suspected to be stolen from the company’s website.

We are deeply sorry to announce that we have indeed been attacked, and up to 40k users at oneplus.net may be affected by the incident. We have sent out an email to all possibly affected users.

OnePlus says that the attackers injected malicious code into their website, which then read the credit card info that customers were entering while making a payment. Only customers who entered their credit card numbers directly on the OnePlus website between November 2017 and January 11, 2018 are affected, i.e. customers who used an existing ‘saved’ credit card, and users who checked out using PayPal are unaffected.

Props to the company for being transparent about the hack and laying it out so well on the forums.

Page Speed to be a Factor in Mobile Search Ranking

Zhiheng Wang and Doantam Phan, posting on Google’s Webmaster Central Blog:

The “Speed Update,” as we’re calling it, will only affect pages that deliver the slowest experience to users and will only affect a small percentage of queries. It applies the same standard to all pages, regardless of the technology used to build the page. The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a slow page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content.

You can check here whether your website is mobile-friendly. It’s time to start shedding that extra weight.

Mozilla Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality

The internet is a global, public resource. It relies on the core principle of net neutrality (that all internet traffic be treated equally) to exist. If that principle is removed — with only some content and services available or with roadblocks inserted by ISPs to throttle or control certain services — the value and impact of that resource can be impaired or destroyed.

Ending net neutrality could end the internet as we know it. That’s why we are committed to fighting the order.

If you’re reading this and live in the US, you can help by making a call.

Popular BitTorrent Client Transmission Suffers from a Critical “Low Complexity” Flaw

Dan Goodin, reporting for ArsTechnica:

There’s a critical weakness in the widely used Transmission BitTorrent app that allows websites to execute malicious code on some users’ computers. That’s according to a researcher with Google’s Project Zero vulnerability reporting team, who also warns that other BitTorrent clients are likely similarly susceptible.

The issue is explained here and is said to likely affect other BitTorrent clients too.

Although the flaw was reported to the Transmission developers back in November 2017, an update with a patch has still not been issued. If you’re a Transmission user, you can temporarily disable the “Remote Access” option to mitigate any attacks.