Netflix Tests First Big TV App Redesign in Years
- Written by Shipra Sanganeria Cybersecurity & Tech Writer
- Fact-Checked by
Netflix revealed last week that it is testing a major redesign of the Home screen on its TV app. The first major redesign in about a decade is still being rolled out and aims to make it easier and quicker to find and select shows based on user interests.
According to The Verge , the updated homepage will replace the current static tiles for shows and movies with boxes that automatically expand to display easily readable details like a show’s runtime, synopsis, trailer, and number of episodes.
“We often see members doing gymnastics with their eyes as they’re scanning the home experience,” Pat Flemming, Netflix’s senior director of product, told The Verge. “We really wanted members to have an easier time figuring out if a title is right for them.”
In addition to reorganizing and consolidating show and movie information, Netflix is relocating the menu button from the left side to the top of the screen. Users can press the Back button on their remote to automatically access the top-row menu instead of scrolling manually.
The new streamlined menu has dropped some of the existing options like “categories”, “new & popular”, and “my list” buttons. It now includes options like search, home, shows, movies, and a new “My Netflix” tab, which was already introduced on its mobile app in 2023 .
Viewers who are still interested in the “categories” option can access it by clicking the “search” tab on the redesigned homepage.
FBI Recovers Over 7,000 Decryption Keys From Ransomware Service LockBit: Urges Victims To Reclaim Data
- Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
- Fact-Checked by
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) disrupted LockBit and retrieved over 7,000 decryption keys—bits of information to recover encrypted data—that could help victims get stolen information back.
FBI Cyber Assistant Director Bryan Vorndran made the announcement at the 2024 Boston Conference on Cyber Security on June 5. During his speech, Vondran shared more details on the operation, the criminal charges against alleged administrator Dimitri Khoroshev and six other co-conspirators, and the conclusions of the investigation. The agent also urged victims or people who suspect themselves to be victims of this cyber threat to visit the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov .
Vorndran explained that Khoroshev, also known under aliases like “LockBitsupp”, “Nerowolfe”, and “Putinkrab” allows cybercriminals to use his LockBit ransomware-as-a-service software to steal private information from businesses and individuals in exchange for 20% of any ransom acquired.
According to Vorndran’s announcement, Khoroshev launched LockBit in 2019. Three years later, in 2022, it became “the most-deployed ransomware variant in the world,” responsible for over 2,400 attacks worldwide and more than 1,800 in the United States alone, inflicting billions of dollars in losses on victims.
The FBI agent also said that LockBit continued to store private data even after promising to delete it after the ransom was paid.
Vorndran affirmed that when a victim pays to prevent a leak they are just preventing the immediate release, not a future exposure. “Even if you get the data back from the criminals, you should assume it may one day be released, or you may one day be extorted again for the same data,” he said.
Just like the cloud company Snowflake recently did after learning about massive data breaches related to its clients, the FBI recommended including multi-factor authentication (MFA) as a security measure as well as other basic practices like keeping safe and encrypted backups, applying effective logging management, as well as taking time to plan ahead for different scenarios and create protocols along with teams and relevant members of the organization.
