Another week, another This Week on iTP rundown of the top stories here on the site!
The internet, in particular, seems to have had a pretty busy and colorful week this past week. From Will Smith slapping Chris Rock memes to leaks from "hacktivist" group Anonymous, a lot went down and we are about to talk about it right now.
5. Apple and Meta Scammed by Hackers Into Handing Over Sensitive User Data
Believe it or not, Apple and Meta, two of the biggest tech companies in the world, have been scammed by hackers into giving sensitive data by hackers. How did the hackers manager to do so? By using a fake emergency data request that law enforcement officials typically use.
The scam is reportedly to have taken place last year. A cybercriminal group that has since disbanded is said to be behind it.
4. NASA Announces Earendel: The Farthest Star Ever Captured by Hubble
NASA had been teasing that they have a big announcement coming up and true enough, it is a very big and important one. In fact, the space agency ended up announcing that the Hubble Space Telescope has captured the farthest star it has seen to date.
The star has been named Earendel and it is being reported that the light from the star had to travel around 12.9 billion years before it could reach our planet. It is also being said that the star is millions of times brighter than our own sun.
3. Will Smith and Chris Rock Best Memes for Oscars 2022
Arguably the most talked about event of the week, actor Will Smith made headlines during this year's Oscars when he went up the stage and slapped fellow comedian Chris Rock. Prior to the event now known as "The Slap," Rock had joked about the bald head of Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who has alopecia.
Needless to say, the internet did not waste any time and there were soon a number of memes going around related to the incident.
2. Anonymous Not Done With Leaks, Plans To Dump 1.22TB of Data That Will 'Blow Russia Away'
To say that cyber "hacktivist" group Anonymous is not happy with Russia and its government's decision to invade Ukraine is probably the understatement of the year. In fact, the group seems to be far from done hacking and stealing sensitive information from the country and its companies.
Its latest leak involves a mining company that is said to have refused to leave Russia. Anonymous has also warned that it is preparing for another leak that it describess will "blow Russia away."
1. Google Chrome Security Update: CVE-2022-1096 a High-Severity Zero-Day Exploit
This past week's top story involves a Google Chrome security update that includes an emergency fix for a zero-day exploit.
The zero-day bug is tracked as CVE-2022-1096 and is considered a high-severity Type Confusion in the Chrome V8 JavaScript engine. Type confusion flaws usually cause browsers like Google Chrome to crash after the vulnerability is exploited.
