13/05/2021: Cybersecurity & Tech News Roundup

Tesla has stopped accepting payments via Bitcoin

Not long after his announcement about accepting Dogecoin payments, Elon Musk has taken to Twitter to announce that he's turning his back on Bitcoin. From now on, Tesla will no longer accept Bitcoin payments from its customers. Needless to say, following this statement, the value of Bitcoin fell by over 10%, and interestingly, Tesla shares also dropped.

Elon Musk had this to say: "We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel. Cryptocurrency is a good idea... but this cannot come at great cost to the environment." Will this push Bitcoin miners to invest in greener options? Read more here.

Are Facebook moderators getting enough support?

In order to make social media platforms family-friendly, most tech giants employ a combination of sophisticated algorithms and human moderators. While we've had no complaints from the algorithms just yet, staring at potentially harmful images on a daily basis has understandably been taking a toll on Facebook's human employees.

The problem with AI is that, even though it's getting there, it still can't discern whether a user should be blocked or content should be deleted as well as a human. Due to this, Facebook needs a moderating workforce, but what does constant exposure to graphic, unsettling content do to your mental health. The Communication Workers Union in Ireland have taken Facebook to court, demanding better psychological support or staff. In the court case, moderators spoke out about the mental health issues they're suffering with as a direct result of their job, as well as the unethical workplace culture they've had to endure. Read more here.

The foreign secretary has sent a warning to Russia about ransomware gangs

Dominic Raab, the UK's foreign secretary, made an appearance at the NCSC's CYBERUK conference just yesterday, and part of his keynote speech included a stark warning to Russia. Not a day goes by without some sort of ransomware attack, or data breach, (or both), happening on British businesses or our public sector. While the hackers behind these attacks are often unknown, many signs still point to cyber-criminals based in Russia.

While the foreign secretary wasn't directly accusing Russia of sending these attackers our way, he said that the nation "can't just wave their hands and say it's nothing to do with them. Even if it is not directly linked to the state they have a responsibility to prosecute those gangs and individuals." Read more here.

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