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When is Black Friday? In 2025, Black Friday is set for Friday, November 28. It’s one of the best times of the year to score deep discounts on Nintendo Switch consoles, games, and accessories from major retailers like Best Buy, Walmart, and Amazon. We expect many of these sales to carry over until Cyber Monday, December 1. Is the PlayStation 5 really cheaper during Black Friday? Absolutely! Sony’s PlayStation 5 always sees significant discounts during Cyber Week. Retailers often cut prices on console bundles, controllers, and popular games, with price drops usually exceeding $100. This shopping event is one of the best times to pick up a PS5 or expand your game library. At the time of this writing, the price drops are rather humble. We are still in the lead-up to Black Friday, so expect things to improve later.How did we choose these early Black Friday deals?At ZDNET, we only highlight PlayStation deals worth your consideration; the same kind we’d consider ourselves. For this roundup, I specifically sought out PS5 consoles, bundles, accessories, and games about 15% off or more. Black Friday is still several weeks away, so significant discounts are not yet available. Knowing this, I expanded my search to include lesser discounts to fill out the list. Although some price drops aren’t as deep as others, they’re still worth consideration because they offer unique value in other areas.I considered hands-on experience, real-world performance, and customer feedback. Every recommendation on this list is backed by careful research and expert insight so that you can confidently shop these early Black Friday sales.What are the best Black Friday deals?ZDNET’s experts have been searching through early Black Friday sales to find the best discounts. These are the best Black Friday deals so far, by retailer:And the best Black Friday deals by product category or price point: More

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It has now become a mainstream tactic for big ransomware groups to create so-called “leak sites” where they upload and leak sensitive documents from companies who refuse to pay the ransomware decryption fee.
These “leak sites” are part of a new trend forming on the cybercriminal underground where ransomware groups are adopting a new tactic called “double extortion.”
The perfect example of how ransomware gangs are currently using “leak sites” and “double extortion” to put pressure on victims to pay is the case of the University of Utah.
Last week, the university’s management admitted to paying $457,000 to a ransomware gang even if they recovered their encrypted files using previous backups.
In a statement posted on its website, the university justified its payment by revealing that the ransomware gang threatened to leak files containing sensitive student data online if the university did not agree to pay regardless if they recovered their original files.
Dozens of ransomware groups operate leak sites
Such incidents are becoming more common these days as more and more ransomware groups shift to operating a leak site to put additional pressure on victims.
The good news is that not all ransomware gangs operate leak sites.
However, this number has been steadily growing since December 2019, when the operators of the Maze ransomware launched the first-ever leak site.
Today, the list of ransomware gangs who operate leak sites includes the likes of Ako, Avaddon, CLOP, Darkside, DoppelPaymer, Maze, Mespinoza (Pysa), Nefilim, NetWalker, RagnarLocker, REvil (Sodinokibi), and Sekhmet.
Some of these groups are small-time operators that even malware analysts have barely heard of, but some, like Maze, DoppelPaymer, REvil, and NetWalker, are some of today’s largest ransomware threat actors, responsible for a large chunk of ransomware attacks.
Other groups, like BitPaymer, WastedLocker, LockBit, ProLock, and the Dharma family, have not yet adopted leak sites. The reasons are unknown, but malware researchers have told this ZDNet reporter in previous conversations that some criminal groups like to operate without drawing too much attention to themselves — and leak sites tend to draw way too much attention from journalists, cyber-security firms, and law enforcement officials alike.
Conti launches leak site
But last week, we had another major ransomware group shift to this double-extortion tactic and launch a leak site.
Know as Conti, this is a relatively new ransomware strain. However, reports from Arete, Bleeping Computer, and Carbon Black claim that Conti “is being operated by the same group that conducted Ryuk ransomware attacks in the past” — with Ryuk being one of the most active ransomware operations from the past two years and one of the biggest players on the ransomware scene.
Discovered by a malware analyst going by the pseudonym of BreachKey, the Conti leak site is available at different URLs on both the public internet and the dark web.
BreachKey says the site already lists 26 companies that have fallen victim to the group’s attacks and have declined to pay the ransom, and that for each company listed on the site, the Conti group has leaked documents obtained from their networks.

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All in all, the launch of yet another leak site shows that the double-extortion scheme is here to stay with ransomware gangs.
This new trend also means changes need to take place in how companies treat ransomware attacks. While in the past, victim companies only had to recover files and get back to day-to-day operations, today, ransomware attacks almost always involve the theft of sensitive corporate data, employee or customer personal details.
This, in turn, means that most ransomware incidents also require an in-depth incident response and broad network audits to discover lingering backdoors that could be used for future attacks, but also public disclosure and data breach notifications, which are necessary when any type of personal user/employee data has been stolen. More

Amazon/ZDNETI’m old enough to remember a time before the widespread availability of power tools. Back then, you had to drill, screw, saw, and run fasteners all by hand. Those days are gone, and we’re now in a time when you can pick up cordless power tools at prices that will make you look twice!Milwaukee has a great deal on its M18 nine-tool combo kit More

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