Gamers Nexus (2.23M subscribers)

July 19, 2024

Video length: 26m 33s

00:00 - AMD Zen 5 Announcements

01:49 - 9950X, 9900X, 9700X, 9600X Specs

05:15 - AMD Redesigning Zen

09:38 - Performance Claims

12:38 - AMD Engineering Discussion Panel

21:18 - Chipset Comparison (X870E vs. X870, B850, & B840)

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Earlier today, an errant update shipped by Crowdstrike began causing Windows machines running the software to display the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death,” rendering those systems temporarily unusable. Like most security software, Crowdstrike requires deep hooks into the Windows operating system to fend off digital intruders, and in that environment a tiny coding error can quickly lead to catastrophic outcomes.

In a post on Twitter/X, Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz said an update to correct the coding mistake has been shipped, and that Mac and Linux systems are not affected.

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” Kurtz said on Twitter, echoing a written statement by Crowdstrike. “The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”

Posting to Twitter/X, the director of Crowdstrike’s threat hunting operations said the fix involves booting Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE), deleting the file “C-00000291*.sys” and then restarting the machine.

The software snafu may have been compounded by a recent series of outages involving Microsoft’s Azure cloud services, The New York Times reports, although it remains unclear whether those Azure problems are at all related to the bad Crowdstrike update.

A reader shared this photo taken earlier today at Denver

International Airport. Credit: Twitter.com/jterryy07

Reactions to today’s outage were swift and brutal on social media, which was flooded with images of people at airports surrounded by computer screens displaying the Microsoft blue screen error. Many Twitter/X users chided the Crowdstrike CEO for failing to apologize for the massively disruptive event, while others noted that doing so could expose the company to lawsuits.

Meanwhile, the international Windows outage quickly became the most talked-about subject on Twitter/X, whose artificial intelligence bots collated a series of parody posts from cybersecurity professionals pretending to be on their first week of work at Crowdstrike. Incredibly,Twitter/X’s AI summarized these sarcastic posts into a sunny, can-do story about Crowdstrike that was promoted as the top discussion on Twitter this morning.

“Several individuals have recently started working at the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike and have expressed their excitement and pride in their new roles,” the AI summary read. “They have shared their experiences of pushing code to production on their first day and are looking forward to positive outcomes in their work.”

The top story today on Twitter/X, as brilliantly

summarized by X’s AI bots.

 

Matt Burgess at Wired writes that within health care and emergency services, various medical providers around the world have reported issues with their Windows-linked systems, sharing news on social media or their own websites.

“The US Emergency Alert System, which issues hurricane warnings, said that there had been various 911 outages in a number of states,” Burgess wrote. “Germany’s University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein said it was canceling some nonurgent surgeries at two locations. In Israel, more than a dozen hospitals have been impacted, as well as pharmacies, with reports saying ambulances have been rerouted to nonimpacted medical organizations.”

In the United Kingdom, NHS England has confirmed that appointment and patient record systems have been impacted by the outages.

“One hospital has declared a ‘critical’ incident after a third-party IT system it used was impacted,” Wired reports. “Also in the country, train operators have said there are delays across the network, with multiple companies being impacted.”

This is an evolving story. Stay tuned for updates.

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Only a handful of times in history has a single piece of code managed to instantly wreck computer systems worldwide. The Slammer worm of 2003. Russia’s Ukraine-targeted NotPetya cyberattack. North Korea’s self-spreading ransomware WannaCry. But the ongoing digital catastrophe that rocked the internet and IT infrastructure around the globe over the past 12 hours appears to have been triggered not by malicious code released by hackers, but by the software designed to stop them.

Two internet infrastructure disasters collided on Friday to produce disruptions around the world in airports, train systems, banks, health care organizations, hotels, television stations, and more. On Thursday night, Microsoft’s cloud platform Azure experienced a widespread outage. By Friday morning, the situation turned into a perfect storm when the security firm CrowdStrike released a flawed software update that sent Windows computers into a catastrophic reboot spiral. A Microsoft spokesperson tells WIRED that the two IT failures are unrelated.

The cause of one of those two disasters, at least, has become clear: buggy code pushed out as an update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon monitoring product, essentially an antivirus platform that runs with deep system access on “endpoints” like laptops, servers, and routers to detect malware and suspicious activity that could indicate compromise. Falcon requires permission to update itself automatically and regularly, since CrowdStrike is constantly adding detections to the system to defend against new and evolving threats. The downside of this arrangement, though, is the risk that this system, which is meant to enhance security and stability, could end up undermining it instead.

“It's the biggest case in history. We’ve never had a worldwide workstation outage like this,” says Mikko Hyppönen, the chief research officer at cybersecurity company WithSecure. Around a decade ago, Hyppönen says, widespread outages were more common due to the spread of worms or trojans. More recently, global outages have happened on the “server side” of systems, meaning outages often stem from cloud providers such as Amazon’s Web Services, internet cable cuts, or authentication and DNS issues.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on Friday that the issues were caused by a “defect” in code the company released for Windows. Mac and Linux systems were not affected. “The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,” Kurtz said in a statement, adding the problems were not the result of a cyberattack. In an interview with NBC, Kurtz apologized for the disruption and said it may take some time for things to be back to normal.

Security and IT analysts searching for the root cause of the gargantuan outage say that it appears to be related to a “kernel driver” update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon software. Kernel drivers are the software components that allow applications to interact with Windows at its deepest level, the core of the operating system known as its kernel. That highly sensitive level of access is necessary for security software, so that it can run prior to any malicious software installed on the system and access any part of the system where hackers might seek to plant their code. As malware has improved and evolved, it has pushed defense software to require constant connection and more extensive control.

That deeper access also introduces a far higher possibility that security software—and updates to that software—will crash the whole system, says Matthieu Suiche, head of detection engineering at the security firm Magnet Forensics. He compares running malicious code detection software at the kernel level of an operating system to “open-heart surgery.”

Yet it’s nonetheless surprising that a kernel driver update would be able to cause such a massive global computer crash, says Costin Raiu, who worked at Russian security software firm Kaspersky for 23 years and led its threat intelligence team before leaving the company last year. During his years at Kaspersky, he says, driver updates for Windows software were closely scrutinized and tested for weeks before they were pushed out.

More importantly, they require that Microsoft also vet the code and cryptographically sign it, suggesting that Microsoft, too, may well have missed whatever bug in CrowdStrike’s Falcon driver triggered this outage. “It’s surprising that with the extreme attention paid to driver updates, this still happened,” says Raiu. “One simple driver can bring down everything. Which is what we saw here.”

A Microsoft spokesperson told WIRED that the “CrowdStrike update was responsible for bringing down a number of IT systems globally,” and added that “Microsoft does not have oversight into updates that CrowdStrike makes in its systems,” without further explanation of whether Microsoft does in fact inspect and sign kernel driver updates.

Raiu adds that even so, CrowdStrike is far from the only security firm to trigger Windows crashes with a driver update. Updates to Kaspersky and even Windows’ own built-in antivirus software Windows Defender have caused similar Blue Screen of Death crashes in years past, he notes. “Every security solution on the planet has had their CrowdStrike moments,” Raiu says. “This is nothing new but the scale of the event.”

Cybersecurity authorities around the world have issued alerts about the disruption, but have similarly been quick to rule out any nefarious activity by hackers. “The NCSC assesses that these have not been caused by malicious cyber attacks,” Felicity Oswald, CEO of the UK’s National Cyber Security Center, said. Officials in Australia have come to the same conclusion.

Nevertheless, the impact has been sweeping and dramatic. Around the world, the outages have been spiraling as companies, public bodies, and IT teams race to fix bricked machines, which involves manually taking machines through a series of corrective steps, including rebooting. In the UK, Israel, and Germany, health care services and hospitals saw systems that they use to communicate with patients disrupted, and canceled some appointments. Emergency services in the US using 911 have reportedly had problems with their lines too. In the earliest hours of the outages, some TV stations, including Sky News in the UK, stopped live news broadcasts.

Global air travel has been one of the most impacted sectors so far. Huge lines formed at airports around the world, with one airport in India using handwritten boarding passes. In the US, Delta, United, and American Airlines grounded all flights at least temporarily, with a dramatic graphic showing air traffic plummeting above the US.

The catastrophic situation reflects the fragility and deep interconnectedness of the internet. Numerous security practitioners told WIRED that they anticipated or even worked with clients to attempt to protect against a scenario where defense software itself caused cascading failures as a result of malicious exploitation or human error, as is the case with CrowdStrike. “This is an incredibly powerful illustration of our global digital vulnerabilities and the fragility of core internet infrastructure,” says Ciaran Martin, a professor at the University of Oxford and the former head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Center.

The ability of one update to trigger such massive disruption still puzzles Raiu. According to Gartner, a market research firm, CrowdStrike accounts for 14 percent of the security software market by revenue, meaning its software is on a wide array of systems. Raiu suggests that the Falcon update must have triggered crashes at cloud providers such as Azure and Amazon Web Services, which vastly multiplied the disaster. “CrowdStrike is big, but it can’t be this big,” Raiu says. “Airports, critical infrastructure, hospitals. It cannot be just CrowdStrike everywhere. I suspect we’re seeing a combination of factors, a cascading effect, a chain reaction.”

Hyppönen, from WithSecure, says his “guess” is that the issues may have happened due to “human error” in the update process. “An engineer at CrowdStrike is having a really bad day,” he says. Hyppönen suggests that CrowdStrike could have shipped software different to what they had been testing or mixed up files, or there could’ve been a combination of different factors. “Software like this has to go through extensive testing,” Hyppönen says. “That's what we do. That's what CrowdStrike, of course, does. You have to be really careful about what you ship, which is tough to do because security software is updated very frequently.”

While many of the impacts of the outage are ongoing and still unraveling, the nature of the problem means that individually impacted machines may need to be rebooted manually rather than through an automated process. “It could be some time for some systems that just automatically won’t recover,” CrowdStrike CEO Kurtz told NBC.

The company’s initial “workaround” guidance for dealing with the incident says Windows machines should be booted in a safe mode, a specific file should be deleted, and then rebooted. “The fixes we’ve seen so far mean that you have to physically go to every machine, which will take days, because it’s millions of machines around the world which are having the problem right now,” says Hyppönen from WithSecure.

As system administrators race to contain the fallout, the larger existential question of how to prevent another, similar crisis looms large.

“People may now demand changes in this operating model,” says Jake Williams, vice president of research and development at the cybersecurity consultancy Hunter Strategy. “For better or worse, CrowdStrike has just shown why pushing updates without IT intervention is unsustainable.”

Update 7/19/2024, 11 am ET: Added comment from Microsoft saying that the Azure outage and the CrowdStrike kernel driver issue are unrelated.

Update 7/19/2024, 12:30pm ET: Added further comment from Microsoft about its lack of oversight of CrowdStrike's updates.

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While Microsoft was not directly at fault for this CrowdStrike-created patch, Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella posted a message on his X account stating that the company is "working closely with CrowdStrike and across the industry" to help fix the problem so businesses and organizations can "safely bring their systems back online."

CNBC has posted updates throughout the day today on the effects the CrowdStrike software problem has had worldwide. Epic Systems, the large healthcare software company, confirmed the current issue has kept many businesses from accessing Epic's systems.

The UK's National Health Service has also reported the outage has prevented some appointment bookings for doctors in the NHS, along with preventing access to patient records.

Delivery services Federal Express and UPS have reported the CrowdStrike outage will impact some deliveries of their packages. Some of them that were scheduled to be delivered on Friday could be delayed.

CNN has even more reports on the continuing CrowdStrike effects. It states that over 2,000 fights have been canceled in the US. It added:

In addition to flights, the technical disaster has affected some 911 operations in the United States; mass transit in New York and Washington, DC; banking in Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom; Hong Kong’s Disneyland; and the Israeli health service.

Elon Musk, owner of X, Tesla, SpaceX, and other tech companies, posted word on his own X account, stating, "We just deleted Crowdstrike from all our systems, so no rollouts at all." It's not clear if he got rid of CrowdStrike for all of his companies or just some of them.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz has apologized for this incident, and stated the company would "work with each and every customer to make sure we can bring them back online." He admitted that it "could be some time for some systems that just automatically won't recover."

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Its Falcon platform is a unified, cloud-delivered security solution designed to prevent all types of attacks, including malware and beyond. However, a recent update to the Falcon Sensor agent on Windows has triggered a critical issue: a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) boot loop that renders affected systems unusable. This widespread problem has disrupted operations across various sectors, notably impacting airlines, banks, and healthcare providers.

CrowdStrike has acknowledged the issue and halted further deployment of the faulty update. An alert sent to users confirms that they are aware of crashes on Windows hosts related to the Falcon Sensor, specifically bugcheck/blue screen errors. Unfortunately, an official solution to recover Windows PCs caught in the BSOD boot loop remains elusive. There are several workarounds to fix the issue, read about them below.

Official Workaround for CrowdStrike BSOD issue on Windows PCs:

• Boot your Windows PC into Safe Mode or Windows Recovery Environment.
• Go to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike
• Locate and delete file matching "C-00000291*.sys"
• Boot normally

Another way is to prevent CrowdStrike from starting using either of the following methods:

Method 1:

• Go into Command Prompt from Recovery options.
• Navigate to C:\Windows\System32\Drivers
• Rename CrowdStrike to Crowdstrike_Old
• Restart the PC.

Method 2:

• Boot your Windows PC into Safe Mode or Windows Recovery Environment.
• Go to Windows Registry
• Edit the following key to disable the csagent.sys from loading.
  • HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSAgent\Start from a 1 to a 4

If you are running Windows on a AWS EC2 instance, you can try the following method:

• Detach the EBS volume from the impacted EC2

• Attach the EBS volume to a new EC2

• Fix the CrowdStrike driver folder as per the workaround suggested by CrowdStrike

• Detach the EBS volume from the new EC2 instance

• Attach the EBS volume to the impacted EC2 instance

   

The above method can also be applied for Windows instances running on Google Cloud Platform.

Update 1:

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz tweeted the following in response to the outages caused by CrowdStrike.

CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We…

 

— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024

Here's the official summary of the details published by CrowdStrike:

Summary

 

CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows hosts related to the Falcon Sensor.

 

Details

 

Symptoms include hosts experiencing a bugcheck\blue screen error related to the Falcon Sensor.

 

Windows hosts which have not been impacted do not require any action as the problematic channel file has been reverted.

 

Windows hosts which are brought online after 0527 UTC will also not be impacted

 

Hosts running Windows 7/2008 R2 are not impacted

 

This issue is not impacting Mac- or Linux-based hosts

 

Channel file "C-00000291*.sys" with timestamp of 0527 UTC or later is the reverted (good) version.

 

Channel file "C-00000291*.sys" with timestamp of 0409 UTC is the problematic version.

 

Current Action:

 

CrowdStrike Engineering has identified a content deployment related to this issue and reverted those changes.

 

If hosts are still crashing and unable to stay online to receive the Channel File Changes, the following steps can be used to workaround this issue:

 

Workaround Steps for individual hosts:

 

Reboot the host to give it an opportunity to download the reverted channel file. If the host crashes again, then:

 

Note: Bitlocker-encrypted hosts may require a recovery key.

 

Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment

 

NOTE: Putting the host on a wired network (as opposed to WiFi) and using Safe Mode with Networking can help remediation.

 

Navigate to the %WINDIR%\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory

 

Locate the file matching “C-00000291*.sys”, and delete it.

 

Boot the host normally.

 

Workaround Steps for public cloud or similar environment including virtual:

 

Option 1:

 

Detach the operating system disk volume from the impacted virtual server

 

Create a snapshot or backup of the disk volume before proceeding further as a precaution against unintended changes

 

Attach/mount the volume to to a new virtual server

 

Navigate to the %WINDIR%\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory

 

Locate the file matching “C-00000291*.sys”, and delete it.

 

Detach the volume from the new virtual server

 

Reattach the fixed volume to the impacted virtual server

 

Option 2:

 

Roll back to a snapshot before 0409 UTC.

 

AWS-specific documentation:

 

To attach an EBS volume to an instance

 

Detach an Amazon EBS volume from an instance

 

Azure environments:

 

Please see this Microsoft article

 

Bitlocker recovery-related KBs:

 

BitLocker recovery in Microsoft Azure

 

BitLocker recovery in Microsoft environments using SCCM

 

BitLocker recovery in Microsoft environments using Active Directory and GPOs

 

BitLocker recovery in Microsoft environments using Ivanti Endpoint Manager

 

Source: CrowdStrike

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As per the screenshot, a download speed of 8102.6 Mbps was recorded on a device located in Jacksonville, Florida. Meanwhile, the network achieved upload speeds of 2794.7 Mbps with an overall ping of 40ms. These numbers are for a "mobile community gateway" the company appears to be working on.

SpaceX currently offers residential download speeds between 25 to 220 Mbps. However, the company can install massive receivers under its Community Gateway commercial offering to provide fiber-like internet to multiple homes in a remote location.

A land-based Community Gateway can deliver simultaneous upload/download speeds of up to 10 Gbps. SpaceX charges an upfront cost of $1.25 million and a monthly fee starting at $75,000 for this service. Last year, in partnership with OptimERA, its first community gateway was installed on the remote island of Unalaska, Alaska.

"Speedtest from @starlink’s new mobile community gateway capability, no land in sight," Nicolls wrote, hinting that the test may have occurred in remote waters. The mobile community gateway appears to be a spin-off of Community Gateway intended to deliver gigabit internet speeds in remote locations at sea and the air.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reposted the screenshot and said, "For large commercial or community users, the Starlink Gateway terminal provides over 8Gbps of downlink and soon over 8Gbps uplink too."

While there isn't any info available on what the tech will look like and its pricing, it was reported in February that SpaceX was testing sea-based drone ships to act as gateways for its Starlink internet.

The company has installed more than 6,000 satellites to power its internet from space, and a recent report estimates it to turn profitable this year. It's trying to bring space-powered internet to more people by exploring ways such as direct communication between Starlink satellites and smartphones.

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From August 23, 2024, a certain percentage of existing goo.gl links will start displaying an interstitial page like the one below to notify users that the link will no longer be supported after August 25, 2025. Over time, Google will increase the percentage of links that show the interstitial page until the shutdown date. After the shutdown date, all goo.gl links will return a 404 response.

The Google team wrote the following regarding the goo.gl redirection retirement:

"We understand the transition away from using goo.gl short links may cause some inconvenience. If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to us at Firebase Support. Thank you for using the service, and we hope you join us in moving forward into new and innovative ways for navigating web and app experiences."

While the interstitial page may help track and adjust affected links, it may cause problems with 302 redirects. It will prevent the redirect flow from completing correctly. Also, the embedded social metadata of the destination page will no longer show where the initial link was displayed. So, goo.gl users are advised to transition their links as soon as possible. To prevent the interstitial page from affecting your existing cases, you can add the new query parameter "si=1" to existing goo.gl links.

Source: Google - Image via Depositphotos.com

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Developing robots that can effectively tackle these tasks has so far proved fairly challenging. Many proposed approaches to train robots on fabric manipulation tasks rely on imitation learning, a technique to train robot control using videos, motion capture footage, and other data of humans completing the tasks of interest.

While some of these techniques achieved encouraging results, to perform well they typically require substantial amounts of human demonstration data. This data can be expensive and difficult to collect, while existing open-source datasets do not always contain as much data as those for training other computational techniques, such as computer vision or generative AI models.

Researchers at National University of Singapore, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Nanjing University recently introduced an alternative approach that could enhance and simplify the training of robotics algorithms via human demonstrations. This approach, outlined in a paper pre-published on arXiv, is designed to leverage some of the many videos posted online every day, utilizing them as human demonstrations of everyday tasks.

"This work begins with a simple idea, that of building a system that allows robots to utilize the countless human demonstration videos online to learn complex manipulation skills," Weikun Peng, co-author of the paper, told Tech Xplore. "In other words, given an arbitrary human demonstration video, we wanted the robot to complete the same task shown in the video."

While previous studies also introduced imitation learning techniques that leveraged video footage, they utilized domain-specific videos (i.e., videos of humans completing specific tasks in the same environment in which the robot would be later be tackling the task), as opposed to arbitrary videos collected in any environment or setting.

The framework developed by Peng and his colleagues, on the other hand, is designed to enable robot imitation learning from arbitrary demonstration videos found online.

The team's approach has three primary components, dubbed Real2Sim, Learn@Sim and Sim2Real. The first of these components is the central and most important part of the framework.

"Real2Sim tracks the object's motion in the demonstration video and replicates the same motion on a mesh model in a simulation," Peng explained. "In other words, we try to replicate the human demonstration in the simulation. Finally, we get a sequence of object meshes, representing the ground truth object trajectory."

The researchers' approach utilizes meshes (i.e., accurate digital representations of an object's geometry, shape and dynamics) as intermediate representations. After the Real2Sim component replicates a human demonstration in a simulated environment, the framework's second component, dubbed Learn@Sim, learns the grasping points and placing points that would allow a robot to perform the same actions via reinforcement learning.

"After learning grasping points and placing points in the simulation, we deployed the policy to a real dual-arm robot, which is our pipeline's third step (i.e., Sim2Real)," Peng said. "We trained a residual policy to mitigate the Sim2Real gap."

The researchers evaluated their proposed approach in a series of tests, specifically focusing on the task of knotting a tie. While this task can be extremely difficult for robots, the team's approach allowed a robotic manipulator to successfully complete it.

"Notably, many previous works require 'in domain' demonstration videos, which means the setting of demonstration videos should be the same as the setting of the robot execution environment," Peng said. "Our method, on the other hand, can learn from 'out of domain' demonstration videos since we extract the object's motion in 3D space from the demonstration video."

In the future, the new approach introduced by Peng and his colleagues could be applied to other complex and challenging robot manipulation tasks. Ultimately, it could facilitate the training of robots via imitation learning, potentially enabling new advancements in their skills.

"My plan for future work would be to expand the Real-Sim-Real idea to other tasks," Peng added.

"If we can replicate an object's motion in simulation, could we replicate the real world in simulation? The robotics community is facing a data scarcity problem, and in my opinion, if we can replicate the real world in simulation, we can collect data more efficiently and better transfer learned policy to real robots."

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The cause of the failure has been identified as an update to Crowdstrike Falcon antivirus software installed on Windows 10 PCs, but Mac and Linux machines running the same cybersecurity software have been spared. Crowdstrike, which specializes in endpoint security protection for corporate networks, has just released the following statement:

"Crowdstrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.

"Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack.

"The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.

"We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website.

"We further recommend organisations ensure they're communicating with Crowdstrike representatives through official channels.

"Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of Crowdstrike customers."

Unfortunately, the nature of the problem means that fixing it isn't as simple as installing a patch. The workaround to break the infinite boot cycle on affected Windows machines involves manually booting into safe mode, navigating to the CrowdStrike directory, and deleting the system file that caused the problem. As such, it could be a while before all services impacted by the content update are back up and running.

For those who have a Windows machine that has succumbed to the botched update (now rolled back), Crowdstrike has outlined the following steps system admins need to take to get back up and running:

1.     Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment.
2.     Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory.
3.     Locate the file matching 'C-00000291*.sys', and delete it.
4.     Boot the host normally.

As expected, Apple's system status webpage shows no issues with its services, however there have been scattered reports of problems with contactless payments across some businesses, which could prevent Apple Pay transactions from being processed.

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It's possible we are looking at the largest IT outage in history.

More than 70% of the world's desktop computers run on Microsoft Windows software.

A software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike has now taken a large number of those machines offline.

The faulty code has led to global disruption with an economic impact that is as yet incalculable - but likely to be huge.

The "Falcon Sensor" product designed to protect Windows from malicious attacks is used widely on Mac and Linux systems as well as within more bespoke software for things like cash machines.

< Watch the video at the source page. >

'We're deeply sorry'

Thankfully, the update that caused the Microsoft meltdown did not affect these other software families - if it had, the impacts could have been catastrophic.

Serious questions

There are serious questions of course for CrowdStrike. As a leading provider of security software for large companies like Microsoft.

The situation may also lead to calls from Microsoft users about what more the company could do to ensure products made for their software aren't going to cause major outages like this one.

There are questions too for anyone whose livelihood depends on IT products made by an increasingly powerful oligopoly of tech companies.

< Watch the video at the source page. >

Global tech issues explained

Any engineer will tell you over-reliance on one system leaves you open to a "single point of failure". Critical digital infrastructure has to have redundancy - back up systems - built in to ensure it is resilient.

Thankfully, it seems IT in emergency services, hospitals, air traffic control, water and power utilities and government departments have come through largely unscathed.

That is reassuring.

But for everyone else, the global disruption caused by a bit of routine IT maintenance raises profound questions about the reliability of the software on which the world runs.

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The ongoing IT outage that has struck dozens of companies around the world in recent hours could actually take weeks to fix, according to an expert.

Millions of people on multiple continents have had their plans thrown into chaos today followin update to a product from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike that has been impacting Windows PC.

Computer Care's director of technology Simon Pardo told The Express: "An IT failure double whammy has brought the world to its knees this morning, and the ongoing chaos will be costing businesses billions of pounds every hour.

"Two separate problems have struck at the same time, with issues hitting Microsoft’s 365 services, and an update from anti-malware product Crowdstrike that is pushing computers into a blue screen of death.

“Updates should always be thoroughly tested before they are pushed out to users, and it’s hard to know whether this is human error or a failure of process."

The outage has affected businesses operating with Microsoft services (Image: Getty)

He noted that while Microsoft services have been slowly returning online, the wider problem could leave businesses facing weeks of disruption.

Mr Pardo continued: "Unfortunately, there is not a huge amount you can do if your computer has the blue screen of death.

"Computer users will need to wait for their IT team to resolve the issue, and many people may need to work from their phone or use a pen and paper in the meantime.

“This is a wake-up call for all the companies that have been floored by this attack. Organizations need to urgently review their disaster recovery plans to make sure they can deal with such problems."

Cybersecurity experts have warned the ongoing outage highlights a "critical" weakness.

On Friday morning, major delays reported at airports grew, with most attributing the problems in booking systems of individual airlines.

In the U.S., the FAA said the airlines United, American, Delta and Allegiant had all been grounded.

Airlines and railways in the U.K. were also affected, with longer than usual waiting times.

With athletes and spectators arriving from around the world for the Paris Olympics, the city’s airport authority said its computer systems were not affected by the outage, but that disruptions to airline operations was causing delays at two major Paris airports. The Paris Olympics organizers said the outage affected their computer systems and the arrival of some delegations and their uniforms and accreditations had been delayed.

Martin Greenfield, the CEO of cybersecurity monitoring firm Quod Orbis, noted the issue exposed an "over-reliance on single-point solutions" that has left companies vulnerable.

Mr Greenfield said: "Whilst such threats can have huge impact, steps to prevention are often quite straightforward.

"Organizations must adopt a more holistic approach to their cyber resilience, implementing a multi-layered defence strategy that encompasses not just software solutions, but also robust policies, regular training, and proactive threat hunting.

"A key component of this approach should be continuous controls monitoring, which allows for real-time visibility into the effectiveness of security measures and rapid response to emerging threats."

Airlines, railways and television stations in the United Kingdom were being disrupted by the computer issues.

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A massive global Microsoft outage has hammered Australian businesses including Woolworths, Qantas, the ABC and Foxtel, 7-Eleven - with computers around the country repeatedly crashing and displaying the 'blue screen of death'. 

The country was struck by an unprecedented cyber event at about 3pm on Friday, with at least 48 Australian services suffering outages, according to the Down Detector website on Friday afternoon.   

The outage is believed to have been caused by Crowdstrike security software which caused computers to crash, with users posting photos of the chaos on the online platforms that were still available. 

Massive queues formed as checkouts failed at Woolworths supermarket stores and airport departure boards failed prompting airline staff to advise customers to 'Google' when their flights left. 

Financial services include Bendigo Bank, NAB, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, ANZ, Bank Australia, St George, Adelaide Bank, Me Bank, Bank of Queensland and Visa have been impacted, according to Down Detector. 

Other services affected include MyGov, NBN, Centrelink, ASX, and Australia Post, along with a number of social media entertainment services including Netflix, Facebook, Instagram, X, Xbox, Google Cloud, Open AI, Reddit, Nine, Foxtel, and the ABC.

Vodafone, Optus, Aussie Broadband, iiNet, and Opticomm were among the telecommunications companies impacted by the outage.

CrowdStrike promises to 'provide cloud workload and endpoint security, threat intelligence, and cyberattack response services.'

The National Cyber Security Coordinator informed users the outage was not due to a hack. 

It said: 'There is no information to suggest it is a cyber security incident.

'Our current information is this outage related to a technical issue with a third-party software plarform employed by affected companies.'

A message on the CrowdStrike support page read: 'CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows hosts related to the Falcon Sensor. 

'Symptoms include hosts experiencing a bugcheck\blue screen error related to the Falcon Sensor. Our Engineering teams are actively working to resolve this issue and there is no need to open a support ticket. 

'Status updates will be posted below as we have more information to share, including when the issue is resolved. 

Outages have caused major delays at shopping centres and supermarkets like Woolworths, with customers left unable to pay for their shopping. 

One shopper wrote on X: '90% of my local Woolworths registers had the #BSOD. Queues a mile long, absolute chaos.'

One major Woolworths in Redfern only had one checkout working, out of eight. The rest had shopping baskets placed on top while the checkout screen showed the blue screen of death. 

Media organisations including the ABC, SBS, Channel 7, Channel 9 and News Corp Australia, reported issues with networks. 

ABC News anchors were left without autocues and graphics, while Sky News reverted to an international Fox News broadcast for an hour. 

Sky then started playing a pre-recorded message from reporter Tom Connell, standing in front of a blue error screen. 

Other Foxtel channels were replaced by the message: 'We apologise for this break in transmission and will return to normal programming as soon as possible.'

One ABC reporter explained they could not put vision to air.

'Somehow, studios and cameras seem to be working, but I was sitting at my desk, scripting a story for the news when ... the system we use to build our news bulletin and the output our news bulletins crashed,' they said.

'Social media friends working for different companies all being affected by the same blue screen popping up on their computers. 

'It appears it is making things pretty impossible in terms of putting news together and the news to air. I think at the moment, we are doing the best we can in the studio, able to cross to reporters around the country, but in terms of being able to put things together, we are having serious troubles with those computer systems.'

Major delays are also expected at airports, as self-service check-in systems came to a grinding halt.

The IT issues have also impacted affecting other countries, with outages reported in New Zealand, Japan and India.

Public services have also been delayed, with customers having to be turned away at Services NSW and government workers booted from their devices and unable to access Microsoft Teams. 

A spokesperson for the NSW Government said it is aware of the outage.

'Departments are activating business continuity plans to ensure ongoing service,'the statement said.

The blue screen on Microsoft software reads: 'Your device ran into a problem and needs to restart.'

'We're just collecting some error info and then we'll restart for you'.

Crowdstrike issued a statement to its website shortly after 4pm AEST, saying the crashes are related to the 'Falcon sensor'.

Source:

The Coalition for Secure AI (CoSAI), a new industry body, was announced today at the Aspen Security Forum. The founding Premier Sponsors of CoSAI include Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and PayPal. Amazon, Anthropic, Cisco, Chainguard, Cohere, GenLab, OpenAI, and Wiz are also founding sponsors.

This open-source initiative aims to offer guidance through open-source methodologies, standardized frameworks, and tools, empowering developers to create Secure-by-Design AI systems. CoSAI will specifically focus on the secure development, integration, deployment, and operation of AI systems, mitigating risks such as model theft, data poisoning, prompt injection, scaled abuse, and inference attacks.

Similar to other open-source community projects, CoSAI will establish a Project Governing Board to advance and manage its overall technical agenda, and a Technical Steering Committee comprised of AI experts from academia and industry to oversee its various workstreams.

The initial work of CoSAI will focus on the following:

• Software supply chain security for AI systems: enhancing composition and provenance tracking to secure AI applications.
• Preparing defenders for a changing cybersecurity landscape: addressing investments and integration challenges in AI and classical systems.
• AI security governance: developing best practices and risk assessment frameworks for AI security.

David LaBianca, Google, CoSAI Governing Board co-chair said the following regarding the formation of CoSAI.

CoSAI’s establishment was rooted in the necessity of democratizing the knowledge and advancements essential for the secure integration and deployment of AI. With the help of OASIS Open, we’re looking forward to continuing this work and collaboration among leading companies, experts, and academia.

CoSAI's mission to create an open-source approach to AI security is a crucial step towards building trust and fostering responsible development in this rapidly evolving AI industry. By addressing the fragmented nature of current security practices and providing clear, standardized guidelines, CoSAI aims to empower developers and organizations to create AI systems that are inherently secure.

Source: CoSAI

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Over the past few months, all leading AI companies have been releasing cost-effective AI models to lower costs for developers. Claude 3 Haiku and Gemini 1.5 Flash are examples of such models. Today, OpenAI announced its own cost-effective AI model called GPT-4o mini. The new GPT-4o mini model will be cheaper and faster than the current OpenAI models, and it will replace the GPT-3.5 Turbo model in OpenAI's lineup.

GPT-4o mini has achieved an 82% score on MMLU, which is decent compared to GPT-4o's score of 89%. The main competitors to GPT-4o mini are the Gemini 1.5 Flash and Claude 3 Haiku models, which have scored 79% and 75% on MMLU, respectively.

GPT-4o mini will cost approximately $0.60 USD per million output tokens and $0.15 USD per million input tokens. This is 60% cheaper than the GPT-3.5 Turbo model it will replace. It also matches the price of Gemini 1.5 Flash and Claude 3 Haiku. The context window remains 128,000 tokens, and it comes with a knowledge cutoff of October 2023.

The new GPT-4o mini model is now available for developers via APIs. Consumers can also use this model through ChatGPT web and mobile apps. Enterprise users will gain access to GPT-4o mini next week.

With the release of GPT-4o mini, OpenAI has taken a significant step towards making advanced AI more accessible and affordable for a wider range of users. While maintaining a competitive edge in performance, this new model addresses the growing demand for cost-effective solutions in the AI landscape.

via: CNBC

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What you need to know

• The Immortal Lock is a user-made level compatible with the original 1996 first-person shooter Quake on PC.
• The mod requires a modern 64-bit port built from Quake's source code, vkQuake, to run.
• While Quake is 28 years old, The Immortal Lock requires modern hardware to run smoothly, and a solid-state drive (SSD) is strongly recommended for installation.

Despite DOOM getting most of the love from Bethesda Softworks and its Microsoft parents, I still love Quake after all these years. The 1996 classic was a game-changer for PC gamers, bringing first-person shooters into the third dimension with a new game engine that its developers would eventually outsource and revolutionize 3D gaming in general. One thing I never thought about Quake, however, was, "man, this game is too easy."

Well, too bad because an all-new playable level designed by modder Amelie C. Langlois, also known as ComfyByTheFire, delivers The Immortal Lock, a gigantic custom level for Quake. They promote the horror-themed segmented map as a story-driven experience with "extremely challenging fights" in what might go down as the understatement of the century because this thing is absolutely crushing, even with a scalable difficulty selection.

About two and a half years ago, we shared a report which showed how there was hardly any difference (just 3%) in gaming performance between DDR4 and DDR5 RAM. Those tests were done by TechSpot’s Steven Walton – best known for his Hardware Unboxed YouTube channel.

During that time, getting DDR5 RAM was hard. It was expensive and only Intel’s Alder Lake CPUs supported it optionally.

Later, AMD released Ryzen 7000 series with DDR5 RAM only support. This was different from Intel, whose CPUs support both DDR4 and DDR5 until now.

AMD’s move was enough to help DDR5 prices reduce significantly over the course of time. Now DDR5 RAM is far cheaper to get and could become a standard – if not already one.

Now, as we move towards more and more people preferring DDR5 RAM for gaming, it’s important to know the difference in its performance when compared to DDR4 in modern games. Looks like we have a fair idea now.

16% To 22% Faster Depending On CPU

TechSpot’s Steven Walton again benchmarked DDR5 vs DDR4 RAM in games. This time with more modern games and more CPUs.

DDR4’s comparison this time however was with a faster DDR5 RAM – DDR5-7200MHz for Raptor Lake and DDR5-6400 for Alder Lake CPUs. The number of games tested too are lesser but it gives us some idea.

Those who don’t like reading and would rather watch the video instead can do so via his YouTube video about the same.

The benchmarks have revealed something really important. DDR5 RAM is far faster than DDR4 in newer games than it was two and a half years ago.

Both Intel Core i9-14900K and Intel Core i5-14600K saw an average performance improvements of 16%.

The Alder Lake CPUs saw even bigger performance improvements. With Intel Core i9-12900K seeing an average increase of massive 22% and Intel Core i5-12600K seeing an 20% increase in performance.

The game which saw the biggest performance improvements in FPS was Baldur’s Gate 3. Which saw it’s performance increase by a big 35% on the i5-12600K CPU.

The least performance improvement was seen in Counter-Strike 2. Which had just 2% increase in performance on both Intel Core i9-14900K and Intel Core i5-14600K.

Results Explained

There are two things to understand here. One is, games are making a better use of faster RAM now. Which is great. This means that the performance difference between DDR5 and DDR4 RAM is going to increase further as more and more games release.

The second important thing to see here is that Steve mentions how Alder Lake CPUs get more performance improvements than Raptor Lake. The reason he says is simple, Raptor Lake CPUs come with more cache.

For example, Intel Core i9-14900K has 36MB cache, whereas i9-12900K has 30MB cache. Similarly, Intel Core i5-14600K comes with 24MB cache, whereas i5-12600K comes with 20MB cache. In both the cases, the difference of cache is around 18%.

What happens here is that due to the larger cache size, the CPU needs to go to the RAM lesser amount of times. This means lesser need for faster RAM. So smaller cache size means Alder Lake requires more RAM hits, allowing it to benefit more from the faster RAM speeds.

Conclusion

While DDR5 RAM is still more expensive than DDR4 RAM, going forward that price difference will decrease further. Whereas, more and more games will better utilize the faster DDR5 RAM, increasing the difference between DDR5 and DDR4 in performance.

So the current suggestion will be to buy DDR5 RAM sticks instead of DDR4 ones. Provided that one can afford them, that is.

Either way, Intel Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200 series CPUs are going to support only DDR5 RAM. Not to mention, AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs support only DDR5 RAM since launch and even the recently announced AMD Ryzen 9000 supports only DDR5 RAM.

So going forward, DDR5 RAM is the best way to go. After all, we are now seeing a confirmed performance benefit from it.

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Since the acquisition closed in 2021, the Google-fication of Fitbit has largely meant a reduction in features and a focus from Google on getting people onto the Fitbit app. Long-time users have flocked to Fitbit—sometimes upon Fitbit's request—to share hundreds of complaints about recent changes. However, Google has been mostly unresponsive to customer feedback.

Web app discontinuation angers users

In June, Google announced it was discontinuing Fitbit.com's online dashboard. After July 8, users seeking similar features that the web app provided have to download the Fitbit mobile app. On Fitbit’s Community forum, a company representative confirmed that users’ “details and logging for activities, nutrition, sleep, and weight” would remain available via the app. However, the change inconvenienced users who preferred or needed to access such data on a bigger screen than a phone's. Worse, the app lacks some of the features of the online dashboard, such as food logging.

 

Despite these obvious user drawbacks, the need to Googlize Fitbit seemed to drive the change. Announcing the news on the Community forum, a Fitbit company rep said:

Combined with Google’s decades of being the best at making sense of data, it’s our mission to be one combined Fitbit and Google team. Consolidating the Fitbit.com dashboard into the Fitbit app is a part of that mission, and will allow us to focus on features that provide even more valuable insights to our users.

Google has invested in the Fitbit app, which includes plans to let premium subscribers test experimental generative AI Fitbit features soon. Google is also developing a large language model for new features for the Fitbit app that users are being forced onto. Google has been pushing users to the Fitbit app for a while; in 2022, Fitbit devices lost the ability to sync with computers.

 

It's worth mentioning that users disgruntled with Fitbit are more likely to complain online. However, it's notable that Fitbit’s announcement has been met with 1,523 (as of this writing) mostly negative replies, with new responses still coming in. Another thread on Fitbit's forum that requests to keep the web dashboard currently has 601 upvotes. You can find outraged users on Reddit, too.

 

The most common complaints are around losing previously available features.

 

"Change is fine. Removing key features is not," Community member Seymourh86 wrote in June. "Unless you want people to go to competitors ..."

 

Comments from this week show that users are not over the change. DebL555, for example, said today that they're "extremely disappointed and frustrated I cannot access my Dashboard on my PC." Yesterday, NessWeb dubbed the change "an incredibly bad decision," adding:

It's particularly awful for anyone with a visual disability or a finger dexterity issue. It's still bad for everyone else because you just can't see as much on a 3" screen as you can see on a real computer ...

 

Bring back the web interface!!

As has been the case every time there have been problems with Fitbit post-acquisition, theories that Google is making Fitbit worse to push people toward the Pixel Watch run rampant. Others on the Community forum were upset because they felt like Google was ignoring feedback from long-time Fitbit customers.

 

In June, a user going by jessicabilasano wrote:

I just hope Fitbit does not end up like any other Google purchase that turns into a nightmare product/company. Google, instead of removing things that users love about Fitbit features, why not improve them? Listen to your customers/consumers.

However, a lack of response to public, negative customer feedback has become commonplace for the Fitbit brand lately.

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The emphasis of this update is on upgrading the graphics of the game. The site states:

Rendering of environmental objects such as trees, rocks, and grass has been moved to a GPU-based system, allowing for denser worlds with increased performance. Planetary flora, minerals and curiosities have improved levels of detail from further distances and a broader range of angles.

The game also has new water effects on planets with more realistic waves and ripples. Ships can also now actually land on water. You will also see more realistic-looking clouds and experience improved wind effects. Shadows in the game now look better, as well.

Along with the new visuals, No Man's Sky has received some content updates with Worlds - Part 1. There's a new expedition where players will join together to battle on planets where there are lots of bug-themed aliens to take down. Before you ask, this expedition is definitely inspired by Starship Troopers. The update will also give players access to create new Solar sail ships, along with a big battle mech to fight enemies on planets.

Since this update is called Worlds - Part 1, you can expect the second part of this World update to be released later this summer. There's no word on what Worlds - Part 2 will have in terms of new features and content.

Some of the graphical upgrades for this update are also being used in Light No Fire. That is Hello Games' next major title, which was first announced in December 2023. It will take place on an alternative fantasy Earth and will include a massive survival RPG experience. There's no word on when the new game will launch.

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About two and half years ago, Intel released the Alder Lake series of CPUs. These CPUs used a newly introduced LGA1700 CPU socket, which required new motherboards. Intel followed it up with the Raptor Lake series of CPUs.

These Raptor Lake CPUs too used the LGA 1700 socket, allowing compatibility of using the same motherboards that are used for Intel Alder CPUs.

While everyone expected a new Intel CPU series and new CPU socket to succeed the Raptor Lake, Intel surprised everyone by refreshing the Raptor Lake series with the 14th-gen Raptor Lake Refresh series. These Raptor Lake Refresh series CPUs too used the same CPU socket.

Now, while Intel is preparing to launch Intel Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200 series with an entirely new CPU architecture and new LGA 1851 CPU socket, it looks like Intel doesn’t want to forget the LGA 1700 users behind and wants to release more CPUs on the platform.

More CPUs Coming On LGA 1700

Twitter (now X) based leaker @Jaykihn has been leaking a lot of specs these days. In a new leak, @Jaykihn has revealed that Intel is preparing two new sets of CPUs for the LGA 1700 CPU socket.

First is a Hybrid architecture based on Alder Lake / Raptor lake chips. This seems to use the same or similar specs (with minor naming difference) as the current-gen CPUs.

Big difference being them called Core 3, Core 5, Core 7 series, rather than the current i3, i5 or i7. Surprisingly, they will only come in 65W and 45W variants, suggesting non-K CPUs.

P-Core Only CPUs

The second thing mentioned in the tweet is even more important. It reveals that Intel is preparing an entirely new architecture of CPUs with only P-Cores and no E-Cores whatsoever.

This series of CPUs is named Bartlett-S and will have an 8 P-Core CPU, a 10 P-Core CPU and a huge 12 P-Core CPU.

While the 8P-Core CPU is expected to come with a 45W TDP, the 10 P-Core may have 65W TDP and the 12 P-Core one will have 125W TDP.

This makes a big change to currently available consumer CPUs from Intel, whose P-Cores max out at 8 cores per CPU. A higher P-Core count CPU is something people are asking from years and it looks like Intel is finally giving it to them.

Not only that, having only P-Cores makes a lot of sense on desktops. There are no strong power limits on desktops, so it makes less to have E-cores on their CPUs.

As for Bartlett range, VideoCardz mentions that it’s not new. It was earlier mentioned for network and other uses. It was never spoken about for consumer CPUs. But now that’s expected to change.

As for the release dates, it’s expected that Raptor Lake Refresh 2 will come early January 2025. Whereas the Bartlett line-up of CPUs may come in the third quarter of 2025.

By this time, Intel Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200 series on LGA 1851 socket might become a standard.

Targeting AM4 Of AMD

While some might wonder, why is Intel releasing more CPUs in an LGA 1700 CPU socket which is going to be outdated by then. After all, this goes against Intel’s usual track record of having only two or max three series of CPUs on a single CPU socket.

The answer is simple. AMD has released a huge amount of CPUs on the now outdated AM4 CPU socket. With about 145 CPU released for it as per AMD. AMD launched the AM4 way back in 2016 and it’s still releasing CPUs on it. So Intel is probably wanting to counter AMD with its own long-running CPU socket.

Now, whether this rumor is true or Intel changes its plans, it’s to be seen. Meanwhile, let’s see how Intel Arrow Lake performs. It’s going to take on AMD Ryzen 9000 series of CPUs that are going to release on 31st July, which is months before Intel Arrow Lake releases.

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We're asking everyone to avoid this unfinished build and to not spoil the game for those excited to experience it for the first time at launch.

Original story - Developer Saber Interactive and publisher Focus Entertainment recently announced that their long-awaited third-person shooter Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has gone gold and will officially be released as planned on September 9. Unfortunately, a nearly finished build of the game has been leaked and found its way onto pirate torrent sites.

Eurogamer reports that many people have downloaded and played the game's build and uploaded videos of gameplay from that version on YouTube. It added that Saber Interactive is attempting to shut down these videos via YouTube copyright strikes, but that has not stopped many from viewing what could be considered spoilers for the game's single-player storyline and campaign.

There's no word on how the leaked build of Space Marine 2 got on the internet, and Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment have not commented on the situation so far.

Besides the single-player campaign, which can also be played by up to three people in co-op, Space Marine 2 will also have two more gameplay modes. One is another three-player co-op mode called "Operations," where you will be able to select from six different Space Marines classes, along with lots of customization options for players.

The other mode is Eternal War. It's an online competitive mode in which two teams of six players each battle it out on a number of different maps and three different game types. Saber Interactive has also confirmed it will support dedicated services for its online modes.

While Saber initially announced that it would release an online public beta for the game before the launch, the developer later revealed that it had decided to cancel that beta test. The developer stated it wanted to concentrate on polishing the full game and getting rid of any remaining bugs and issues before the planned release on September 9. The game will be available for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S platforms.

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What you need to know

• Baldur's Gate 3 first lauched back in 2023, with the Windows PC version arriving in August, a PlayStation 5 version in September, and an Xbox Series X|S version in December. 
• Developer and publisher Larian Studios has been working for a while on an official mod toolkit, allowing players to more easily create, upload, and download mods. 
• According to Larian Studios, modding tools will arrive alongside several other improvements in Patch 7, an update planned to arrive in September 2024. 
• The studio is still working on crossplay and photo mode, but these features are still further off than the modding tools.

Players will soon be able to further expand their adventures in Faerûn with ease.

The long-awaited official mod support for Baldur's Gate 3 is on the way, with developer and publisher Larian Studios outlining on Tuesday a window where players can expect to see the toolset arrive alongside other features.

The next big update for Baldur's Gate is Patch 7, and it's with this update that players will finally get access to Larian's official tools for creating, uploading, and downloading mods for their adventures. Patch 7 is now slated to arrive at some point in September 2024. When it arrives, mod support will be officially handled through mod.io, which allows for cross-platform support. 

Mods will initially only be available on Windows PC, but Larian says this will quickly expand to Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and Mac players.

What else is coming in Baldur's Gate 3 Patch 7?

Patch 7 for Baldur's Gate 3 also includes some big improvements for how local split-screen play works. While the vertical screen split will remain whenever players walk off in different directions, when player characters are close together, the screen will "merge" making for a nicer image. 

Additional changes are coming to Honour Mode, with different characters getting new Legendary Actions to make it even more of a challenge than it already was.

Finally, evil players are being rewarded for their despicable behavior, with expanded ending cinematics for "Bad" endings, including Dark Urge and non-Dark Urge playthroughs. You still won't be able to smooch Gortash though.

Eurogamer reports that many people have downloaded and played the game's build and uploaded videos of gameplay from that version on YouTube. It added that Saber Interactive is attempting to shut down these videos via YouTube copyright strikes, but that has not stopped many from viewing what could be considered spoilers for the game's single-player storyline and campaign.

There's no word on how the leaked build of Space Marine 2 got on the internet, and Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment have not commented on the situation so far.

Besides the single-player campaign, which can also be played by up to three people in co-op, Space Marine 2 will also have two more gameplay modes. One is another three-player co-op mode called "Operations," where you will be able to select from six different Space Marines classes, along with lots of customization options for players.

The other mode is Eternal War. It's an online competitive mode in which two teams of six players each battle it out on a number of different maps and three different game types. Saber Interactive has also confirmed it will support dedicated services for its online modes.

While Saber initially announced that it would release an online public beta for the game before the launch, the developer later revealed that it had decided to cancel that beta test. The developer stated it wanted to concentrate on polishing the full game and getting rid of any remaining bugs and issues before the planned release on September 9. The game will be available for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S platforms.

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Kaspersky confirmed the news to Zero Day, saying that beginning July 20 it will "gradually wind down" its U.S. operations and eliminate U.S.-based positions as a result of the new ban, despite initially vowing to fight the ban in court.

"The company has carefully examined and evaluated the impact of the U.S. legal requirements and made this sad and difficult decision as business opportunities in the country are no longer viable," the company said in a statement. Kaspersky did not say how many workers in the U.S. division were being let go except to say "it affects less than 50 employees in the U.S." Workers have told Zero Day that they are receiving severances but declined to discuss the nature of the severances.

The U.S. Commerce Department announced the ban in June after what it said was an "extremely thorough investigation." Commerce officials did not elaborate on the nature of the investigation or what it uncovered, but officials cited national security concerns that Kaspersky or the Russian government could use its software to spy on American customers or sabotage systems.

The Department of Homeland Security had previously issued a directive in 2017 banning federal government agencies and departments from installing Kaspersky software on their systems. An amendment passed in the 2018 Defense Authorization Act also banned the use of Kaspersky software on U.S. military systems. These bans only covered government systems, not commercial systems, however. So the Commerce Department ban last month effectively puts an end to Kaspersky's commercial business in the country as well.

DHS didn't cite any specific justification for its ban in 2017, but media reports quoting anonymous government officials referenced two incidents. According to one story, an NSA contractor developing offensive hacking tools for the spy agency had Kaspersky software installed on his home computer where he was developing the tools, and the software detected the source code as malicious code and extracted it from his computer, as antivirus software is designed to do. A second story claimed that Israeli spies caught Russian government hackers using Kaspersky software to search customer systems for files containing U.S. secrets.

Kaspersky denied that anyone used its software to search for secret information on customer machines and said that the tools on the NSA worker's machine were detected in the same way that all antivirus software detects files it deems suspicious and then quarantines or extracts them for analysis. Once Kaspersky discovered that the code its antivirus software detected on the NSA worker's machine were not malicious programs but source code in development by the U.S. government for its hacking operations, CEO Eugene Kaspersky says he ordered workers to delete the code.

Antivirus software – whether made by Kaspersky or U.S.-based firms like Symantec – requires excessive privileges and access to files in order to scan them for malicious code. Given the potential for abuse, and Russia's adversarial relationship with the U.S., the government has deemed Kaspersky software a risk, though officials have never provided evidence that Kaspersky or the Russian government used its software to spy on customers.

In discussing the recent ban, Commerce officials said they acted after they were alarmed to discover that U.S. state and local governments and critical infrastructure were using the software, in light of the Russian government’s ability to compel Russian companies to assist it with surveillance.

"Given the Russian government’s continued offensive cyber capabilities and capacities to influence Kaspersky’s operations ... we have to take the significant measure of a full prohibition if we’re going to protect Americans and their personal data," U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told reporters in a phone call last month. "When Americans have software from companies owned or controlled by countries of concern – such as Russia, such as China – integrated into their systems... those countries can use their authority over those companies to abuse that software to access and potentially exploit sensitive U.S. technology and data."

Asked if officials had evidence that the Russian government was using Kaspersky software to spy on customers, Raimondo and other government officials declined to say.

"In terms of specific ... instances of the Russian government using [Kaspersky software to spy] we generally know that the Russian government uses whatever resources available to perpetrate various malicious cyber activities," one senior Commerce official said on background. "We do not name any particular actions in this final determination, but we certainly believe that it’s more than just a theoretical threat that we describe."

The company accused the Commerce Department of basing its decision on the current "geopolitical climate and theoretical concerns, rather than on a comprehensive evaluation of the integrity of Kaspersky’s products and services."

For years before Kaspersky began selling software in the U.S. its code was embedded in software and hardware appliances of other companies – cybersecurity firm F-Secure, for example, used the Kaspersky antivirus engine in its own software between 1996 and 2006. Kaspersky code was also embedded in routers, firewalls and other devices sold in the U.S.

The company didn't begin selling its own standalone software products in the U.S. until 2005. Its sales here rose rapidly over the years due to aggressive marketing and software giveaways and deals that made the company a household name. Last year the company reported its global earnings were $721 million and, until the ban was announced last month, its sales in the U.S. comprised "just under 10%" of its total revenue. The company also claims there are "more than a million endpoints" in U.S. being protected by Kaspersky products.

The recent ban on new sales of its software in the U.S. also prevents Kaspersky from providing updates for software already being used in the U.S. – that ban begins September 29. This means the Kaspersky antivirus software will become less effective over time, since the company will not be able to update it with signatures to detect new threats as they're discovered. Kaspersky software also continues to be embedded in systems sold by other vendors; the ban means that those vendors and customers who have it embedded in systems will have to replace the Kaspersky code with a different solution.

Raimondo said, however, that users of the software will not face legal penalties if they continue to use Kaspersky products.

"U.S. individuals and businesses that continue to use or have existing Kaspersky products and services are not in violation of the law," Raimondo said. "However, I would encourage you in as strong as possible terms to immediately stop using that software and switch to an alternative in order to protect yourself and your data and your family.”

In addition to the ban, the Commerce Department put three Kaspersky entities on its trade-restrictions entities list, which would prohibit U.S.-based suppliers from doing business with Kaspersky.

Updated: To add Kaspersky statement about the number of workers in the U.S. affected by its decision to close the division.

Source

In early June this year, AMD announced Zen 5 based Ryzen 9000 series of desktop CPUs. In it, AMD announced release of four different models. However, while AMD revealed that the Ryzen 9000 series of CPUs will come in July, it didn’t mention when in July.

Today, at Tech Day, AMD revealed a lot of things about Ryzen 9000 series and many other things. Tom’s Hardware has a complete coverage for those who want to read.

In that revelation, VideoCardz reports that AMD has announced that Ryzen 9000 series is going to officially release on 31st July.

However, AMD has not revealed the prices for these CPUs yet. Tom’s Hardware says that it’s going to come before the launch.

Ryzen 9700X Beats Ryzen 5800X3D, Ryzen 9600X Beats Intel i5-14600K

During that conference, AMD also revealed their projected performance benefits. Among the most interesting one is that Club386 reports that AMD claims that Ryzen 9700X beats AMD Ryzen 5800X3D CPU in gaming by about 10%, while using 40W less power.

When AMD Ryzen 5800X3D was released, it was a game changing CPU and remains not only extremely powerful for gaming, but also remains one of the most sold CPUs out there. So, a non-X3D CPU beating a once flagship CPU is not a small feat.

Not to mention, AMD claims that Ryzen 9700X performs similarly to Ryzen 7800X3D in gaming, which is the best performing gaming CPU out there.

Club386 also reports that AMD claims that the 6-core Ryzen 9600X beats Intel i5-14600K in gaming by 14%. Which is a big number. Especially considering that Ryzen 9600X is a CPU with a 65W TDP and Intel i5-14600K has a TDP of 125W.

But first, these are AMD benchmarks, so don’t believe the marketing. Second, Intel is going to release Intel Core Ultra 200 CPU series later this year. So expect Intel to give it back to AMD here.

Lower Temps

Interestingly, Club386 reports that AMD has revealed that Ryzen 9000 will come with 15% thermal resistance improvement, leading to 7°C lower temps at a same TDP.

This is due to AMD optimizing the thermal material between silicon and heat spreader for Ryzen 9000. This is in addition to a tweaked layout which minimizes localized hotspots that had previously caused overall temperatures to increase on Zen 4.

Those who might not know, Ryzen 7000 series of CPUs are known to hit 95°C. AMD said that they are designed to hit such high temps. So any temp improvements are much welcomed.

There’s some confusion on the process node, though. Club386 says AMD Ryzen 9000 is made on TSMC’s N4X process, whereas Tom’s Hardware says it’s going to be made on TSMC’s N4P. There are some differences between both of them. So we aren’t sure as of now, we will come to know later.

Ryzen 9000 Specs Table

AMD Ryzen 9000 series is initially releasing with four different models. Their specs are below.

More Chipsets

Interestingly, AMD Ryzen 9000 is said to use the same 6nm I/O chip used in Ryzen 7000. So the built-in GPU and many other things are relatively the same.

However, while AMD Ryzen 9000 is compatible with all AM5 motherboards, AMD also announced new 800 series chipsets. In the 800 series chipsets, AMD has introduced a new B840 chipset, which limits to PCIe 3.0 across the board, supports only USB 3.2 10Gbps and allows overclocking only RAM.

The motherboards based on this B840 chipset are expected to be quite cheap. Now whether it will be available for consumers or limited to just OEMs is a question that can be only answered later. But most are likely to buy B650 or B850 motherboards.

It must be mentioned that AMD series 800 chipset based motherboards are not expected to release by the time AMD Ryzen 9000 CPUs are launched.

Conclusion

AMD Ryzen 9000 series is going to not only release a few months earlier than its rival Intel’s Core Ultra 200 series of CPUs, but AMD is also making big claims about its improvements. From performance to thermal.

Now it’s to be seen whether those claims are true. We for one wouldn’t completely trust marketing claims from any company, but they give us some idea. Either way, it’s best to wait for official pricing and reviews from different reviewers to be sure about it.

Source

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