Subterms
Vlad Teodor/Getty Images The next time you consider using one of those free charging stations at the airport, hotel, or shopping center, it would be in your best interest to think twice. The dangers of public USB charging stations are not new — there’s even a name tied to the act: “juice jacking,” and a product […] More
Birdie+ features: Same pin-pull activation as the original Birdie alarm | 0.25 inches shorter than the original | Instant, 24/7 access to a Live Support Rep | Request and receive an “Excuse-to-Leave” call | Location sharing with emergency contacts | Six-month long battery lifeFollowing the success of the original Birdie alarm, the company recently rolled out a more compact, feature-rich successor, the Birdie+. The Birdie+ embodies the sleek look and fun colors of the original, and it has the same pull-apart pin-activated alarm function. But being 0.25 inches shorter, it’s even more compact. Unlike the 1st-generation alarm, the Birdie+ uses Bluetooth and an app connection (both for iOS and Android) to enable 24/7 internet connection with access to a live emergency support line. The line can dispatch first responders directly to your location or just remain on the phone with you until you feel safe as a precautionary measure. Additionally, you can request an “excuse to leave call” to swiftly remove yourself from sketchy situations while immediately sharing your location with designated contacts. With one discrete tap on the button, you’ll get an immediate pre-recorded excuse-to-leave call. The Birdie+ may have ditched the circular strobe light, but the tap-to-control button provides easy access to the live support features, so you won’t have to fumble through the phone app. The Birdie+’s upgraded connectivity does come at a price — on top of the $39.95 for the hardware, there’s an added $89.99 annual or $8.99 monthly subscription fee. If you ask me, however, it’s a small price to pay for peace of mind and on-demand assistance. It’s also worth noting that She’s Birdie says that the app subscription will activate 30 days after purchase. More
Image: Getty/Tom Werner The way we work has changed. The rise of remote and hybrid working means that many office professionals are no longer tied to an office all of the time. While working from home is a suitable option for many people, sometimes a change of scenery is nice — which is why some […] More
Image: Getty/Tom Werner The way we work has changed. The rise of remote and hybrid working means that many office professionals are no longer tied to an office all of the time. While working from home is a suitable option for many people, sometimes a change of scenery is nice — which is why some […] More
Getty Images/Javier Zayas Photography Your security and privacy have both become critically important. Businesses are not the only entities that have to keep sensitive information from prying eyes. You might have bank account details, contracts, wills, and other files on your desktop that should be locked behind a password, so only you can access them. […] More
David Gewirtz/ZDNET So. Programming. For people who program for a living, it’s a constant game of mental Jenga: one line of code stacked upon another, building a tower of code you hope is robust enough not to come crashing down. But it always does. Code never works the first time it’s run. And so, one […] More
A glitch in a scheduled system upgrade has been identified as the cause of immigration delays at Singapore’s Changi Airport, which only recently was again named the world’s best airport.Long lines were spotted Thursday morning at the country’s airport where travellers usually would not need more than mere minutes to clear immigration. In a series of posts on Facebook and Twitter, Singapore’s Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said it was experiencing “system slowness” at several passenger clearance checkpoints, including all automated departure lanes at all terminals at Changi Airport. Selected automated systems at the Woodlands and Tuas border checkpoints, through which travellers would enter neighbouring country Malaysia, also were affected.Immigration systems at coastal checkpoints were the only ones that were not disrupted. Passengers were advised to postpone non-essential travel and expect delays, as they would be redirected to manual lanes for immigration clearance. By 4pm the same day, automated immigration clearance at all checkpoints were back up and running.ICA said in a statement late-Thursday that preliminary investigations revealed a “technical glitch” had occurred during a pre-scheduled system upgrade, causing an “unanticipated system overload”. This brought down the automated immigration clearance systems, which affected all departure terminals at Changi Airport and arrival terminals at Terminals 2 and 4. ICA did not provide details on the system upgrade or whether the procedure was tested before the scheduled live rollout.Singapore Changi Airport earlier this month was named the World’s Best Airport for the 12th time at Skytrax’s World Airport Awards, which winners are voted by passengers. Singapore in recent years has placed emphasis on boosting the cyber resilience of its critical information infrastructures, including aviation, maritime, banking and finance, and healthcare. The country in 2021 tweaked its cybersecurity strategy to focus on OT (operational technology) and provided guidelines on the skillsets and technical competencies these sectors needed. The government had said this was critical to beef up the cybersecurity of OT systems, where attacks could pose physical and economic risks.Singapore defines OT systems to include industrial control, building management, and traffic light control systems that monitor or change the physical state of a system, such as railway systems.RELATED COVERAGE More
Singapore bank DBS’ second major online service outage in just over a year is “unacceptable” and indicative of its failure to ensure system availability. It now faces supervisory actions from industry regulator, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), which said it placed great emphasis on the reliability of banks’ critical IT systems. DBS on Wednesday morning said via its Facebook page that access to its digital services, including its mobile payment app PayLah, was unavailable. The bank said its systems were “secure and uncompromised”, but gave no details on what caused the disruption in its initial and subsequent updates as the outage persisted throughout the day. Some customers reported being asked to reset their PIN when they tried to log into their accounts, prompting concerns of a scam. One customer said DBS should have posted a service notification on its login page and disabled all login attempts to ease such concerns. The bank’s online services were restored in the evening, about 10 hours after they went down. Noting that the latest incident came a year after a similar service outage in November 2021, MAS said DBS had “fallen short” of the regulator’s expectations to ensure high system availability and swift recovery of its IT systems. The bank had been instructed to run a full investigation so the root cause of the disruption could be identified, MAS said, adding that it would take supervisory actions once the necessary facts were established.DBS’ November 2021 service outage lasted two days and was caused by a problem with the bank’s access control servers, resulting in customers’ inability to log into their account. For the disruption, MAS had imposed on the bank an additional regulatory capital requirement totalling SG$930 million.Singapore in recent years has implemented tighter guidelines for the financial sector, as part of efforts to boost the cyber resilience of the country’s critical information infrastructures. These include technology risk management processes, such as having “strong oversight” of partnerships with third-party service providers to ensure data confidentiality as well as security controls and stress tests.RELATED COVERAGE More
