12/05/2021: Cybersecurity & Tech News Roundup

The NCSC's CyberFirst Girls competition announces its winners

Over the past couple of months, tech-savvy young girls in year 8 across the country have been competing in a contest to inspire the next generation of women code-breakers. The CyberFirst Girls competition was created by the National Cyber Security Centre's CyberFirst programme, which is tasked with helping young people get into cyber. CyberFirst Girls aims to target young girls specifically, in order to tackle the gender gap from early on. Many women cyber experts today will tell you that while they were in school, they weren't pushed towards a career in tech at all, never-mind cybersecurity - but all that's changing. Find out which school took home the title here, and check out our interview with two reps from CyberFirst just a few weeks ago on the Hacked Off podcast.

Amazon just sued a group of scammers for using its brand to gain clicks

A group of fraudsters have been sending text messages to customers pretending to be Amazon in order to send them to dodgy websites. Needless to say, Amazon's legal team had an absolute field day with them - taking the group to Washington federal court. The gang stands accused of falsely using Amazon's brand to entice customers with fake deals and discounts, sending them to potentially harmful websites and profiting off the entire endeavour.

Amazon's VP of Business Conduct & Ethics had this to say: "These bad actors are misusing our brand to deceive the public and we will hold them accountable. We also want to remind consumers to be vigilant and learn how to recognize the signs of a scam so they are protected, no matter where they shop." Read more here.

Tesla's autopilot function had

Last month, a Tesla car was involved in a fatal car crash, and the implications of this were felt around the world. Tech bosses and users alike started to question the safety of self-driving cars, as surely a Tesla with autopilot enabled should never crash? Following an investigation into the crash, researchers have found that the autopilot function wasn't in use at the time of the crash.

As one victim was found in the passenger seat and the other in the back when police arrived on the scene, they may have assumed that the car was driving itself. However Tesla has several checks in place to ensure that even when the car is indeed driving itself, there's still someone in the driver's seat. Read more here.

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