Gaming

Customers of Revolut, the banking services provider, have been targeted by a series of scam texts and malicious Google ads. Scammers are employing phishing texts and elaborate advertising that contain bogus phone numbers in order to steal data.

According to the UK consumer advice website Which?, one victim has lost nearly £8,000 as a result of a malicious attack. It says that last week alone five people got in touch with them after receiving text messages, which had apparently been sent from Revolut with most stating ‘your account has been temporarily locked’.

People receiving the messages were also asked to click on a link and update their photo ID. Other messages have referred to authentication codes and have asked recipients to visit a web page if they ‘did not request this code’. 

The web addresses used in the links take unsuspecting users to fake sites, with carefully adjusted URLs such as the https://revoiut.help example on the Which? website that used an ‘i’ instead of an ‘l’.

There have been other variations on the theme, with one text appearing to come from revolut-supportgb.co, but with another web address disguised behind it. Revolut has previously warned of scammers posing as their phone support agents in a blog post at the beginning of January.

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Security threats

The consumer who lost £8,000 called a number that appeared on a fake Revolut Google advert. After being told to resubmit his ID following an email saying it had expired, he used Google to search for a Revolut phone number in order to confirm everything was legitimate.

During the course of speaking to people purporting to be from Revolut, he was told to download a remote access tool called TeamViewer QuickSupport. This gave them access to his mobile phone in order to verify his account, via the Revolut app. As a result, the victim had £7,938 removed from his account. Revolut has since reimbursed the customer in full.

A spokesperson for Revolut told Which?: “Revolut takes the protection of all our customers extremely seriously. We are fully aware of the industry-wide risk of customers being duped by organised criminals. Our sophisticated and comprehensive anti-fraud systems have a very strong track record of preventing and reporting fraudulent transactions.

To ensure our customers are alert to the risk of fraud, we regularly send alerts and general security advice via in-app notifications, email, social media and our blog. We know how stressful these situations can be for customers and do everything possible to help victims of fraud retrieve their funds.”

The consumer advice website underlines that you should never be asked to share your login details, one-time password or asked to install anything on your phone. Similarly, if someone claims to be from Revolut over the phone, ask them to send you an in-app message to confirm that they are a real agent.

Via: Which?

 

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One of Russia’s most advanced state-sponsored hacker groups has added several devious new tools to its arsenal, security researchers have warned.

Although the Turla group is still using the v4 version of the ComRAT malware, ESET researchers warned that this has since been updated to include two new features: exfiltration of victim’s antivirus logs, and the ability to control the malware via a Gmail inbox. 

According to ESET, the antivirus logs are stolen by the malware and then uploaded to one of its command-and-control servers.

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The malware was discovered to have been deployed in January, targeting parliaments and Foreign Affairs ministries of three unidentified European governments.

Turla malware

The Gmail control mechanism is another new functionality, wherein the malware commandeers the victim’s browser, loads a predefined cookie file and initiates a session to the Gmail web dashboard.

Once this is done, Turla operators can simply send an email to the Gmail account with instructions in an attached file. The ComRAT malware will read the email, download the attachment, and read and execute the instructions therein. All data thus collected will be sent back to the Gmail inbox and thereby to the operators. 

Matthieu Faou, an ESET researcher, told ZDNet that collecting antivirus logs might be to "allow them to better understand if and which one of their malware sample[s] was detected." This would help tweak the malware to avoid detection in the future. 

It is typically challenging to figure out which files were “exfiltrated” by the attackers, Faou pointed out, adding that for relatively advanced groups, however, “it is not uncommon to try to understand if they are detected or if they leave traces behind them or not."

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Via: ZDNet

PS Plus deals can save you up to 47% well ahead of the Days of Play sale due to kick off in June. That means you can already save on your three or 12 month subscription, and seeing as Europe and the UK are only seeing 30% cut from the PS Plus price, this offer may even beat out next month's discounts. 

PS Plus is the PS4's online play platform, but you'll also receive free games every month with your subscription. This month's offerings bring Cities: Skylines and Farming Simulator 19 to your console – though they're usually much better than that lineup. That means these discounts are sitting incredibly well this week, especially if you've been shopping for the best PS4 deals and bundles.

If you're looking to spend as little as possible, these PS Plus deals start at $14.99 for a three month membership, however we'd really point you towards this 47% discount on a 12 month PS Plus subscription, now available for $31.89. That's very nearly a 50% discount on the usually $60 PS Plus membership. So, whether you're simply topping up your subscription or you want to spend your gaming time in a more social way right now, these PS Plus deals are offering some excellent discounts to get you there for less. 

Not in the US? These subscriptions won't work in other countries, but we're rounding up the latest PS Plus sales in your location further down the page. 

Today's best PS Plus deals

All the latest PS Plus deals

Below, you'll find the latest PS Plus deals wherever you are, however if shopping through CDKeys, remember to check the region of the code you are purchasing. As CDKeys lists its products in all prices regardless of region, technical gremlins can sometimes sneak their way into our price checking tools. 

PS4 game deals

You can find plenty more PS Plus deals over on our dedicated page, but if you're looking for something you can hold why not check out the latest PS4 controller deals from around the web. We're also sorting through the best cheap PS4 games to bring you excellent prices on top releases. If you've just grabbed a PS4 Pro, you might also be checking out the latest cheap 4K TV deals to make the most of that resolution. 

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is about to receive a slew of new content as part of its Season 4 update, with new playable characters on the way including the fan-favorite Captain Price.

Activision dropped an explosive trailer for the upcoming season, and teased that “The story is far from over”, which could hint at additional content for the game’s single-player campaign. We also got to see a glimpse of Captain Price entering the battle royale mayhem of Warzone, and there’s a peek at the map Scrapyard that debuted in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

All-out war

Warzone, Call of Duty’s free-to-play battle royale mode, has recently added extra steps to combat cheats by introducing new measures such as two-factor authentication. It also reached an impressive milestone of over 60 million players, and continues to be one of the most popular games on the streaming platform Twitch. 

There’s less than a week left to grind through Season 3’s battle pass before Season 4 kicks off on June 3, but thankfully all players can earn double XP, weapon XP and battle pass tier progression starting Friday (May 29) to Sunday (June 1). If you want to unlock all the cosmetics on offer and recoup some Call of Duty points (Call of Duty’s in-game currency), you won't want to miss out. 

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is available on PS4, Xbox One and PC. The only question is: where we droppin’?

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Google is in a soup. 

It has been sued for allegedly tracking Android users’ location without their consent and even when the location tracking features had been manually disabled.

According to a report in Washington Post, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has filed the lawsuit saying that Google kept location tracking running in the background for certain features, like weather and for web searches using its search engine and Chrome browser, even after the user disabled app-specific location tracking. 

The tracking apparently stopped only after users turned off broader system-level tracking. The complainant alleged that Google stealthily collected the location data for whatever reason it wanted to.

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“Though Google claims to have obtained consent to collect and store its users’ data, that consent is based on a misleading user interface, as well as other unfair and deceptive acts and practices,” the lawsuit alleges.

The allegation is Google collected location data to deliver targeted ads to Arizona residents who may not have consented to such tracking in the first place.

The lawsuit also alleges that Google changes its privacy permissions without notifying users and that its WiFi settings are misleading because they must be turned off in two separate places to disable location tracking.

Google’s Android operating system dominates the smart phone market, and its search engine comprises the overwhelming majority of online searches.

Our services are mischaracterized: Google

Brnovich wanted Google to pay back ill-gotten profits from its alleged misdeeds, totaling perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars, the attorney general said. 

As it happens, this is not the first time Google is under attack for such alleged missteps. The company has mostly responded to privacy concerns over the years with ad-hoc measures like making it easier to auto-delete one's location data, and cracking down on offending third-party apps that do so without consent.

But its efforts are mostly viewed with suspicion, and the general refrain among lay people is: Google knows wherever you are, and whatever you do.

Google is cliaming that its services are being mischaracterized. “We have always built privacy features into our products and provided robust controls for location data,” Google spokesman Jose Castaneda was quoted as saying by the news agency AP.  “We look forward to setting the record straight.”

Google and its YouTube subsidiary, as well as the other major tech companies, are facing a number of regulatory and legal issues right now, following antitrust and privacy enforcement in the European Union.

It's our favourite internet plan out there right now, Martin Lewis is raving about it and it undercuts the rest of the market for price…you'll just need to be very quick if you want to get your hands on it.

Vodafone has always had one of the best value broadband deals out there but right now it is at its height. With bills of just £22.95, it is cheaper than most fibre plans, while also going double on the speeds, landing you an average of 63Mb.

That already makes this a strong offering but then when you include the fact that Vodafone isn't charging any upfront costs, offering discounts to existing customers and is throwing in a £75 Amazon voucher on top, nothing comes close to this.

This promotion has already been extended once but with an end date of May 28 (tonight), we wouldn't risk seeing if Vodafone is feeling generous a second time. And if you do happen to miss it, there are plenty of other strong fibre broadband deals out there.

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Vodafone's fantastic fibre broadband deal in full:

It's worth noting that if you head straight to the Vodafone website and try to find this deal, you won't be able to – at least not with that generous Amazon.co.uk Gift Card. This is an offer that's exclusivity to only a few websites, and you have to click through from one of the links on this page.

Read more:

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The OnePlus 8 series sale date has been pushed ahead, yet again. The OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro were set to go on sale starting tomorrow (May 29). However, due to unforeseen circumstances, the sale date is now pushed ahead and the new sale date will be soon announced. 

The OnePlus 8 series production was temporarily halted last week and has altered the sales plan. Due to this particular reason, the date had to be pushed ahead in India. The new date for open sale will be soon announced by the company.

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OnePlus also mentioned that the OnePlus 8 device will go on sale tomorrow across online and offline channels at 12 PM. However, this will be a limited sale and not everyone might be able to get their hands on. The special Pop-up bundle box sale did take place as planned for the OnePlus 8 today but in very limited quantities. Moreover, the deliveries are currently slated for July second week. 

The OnePlus 8 went on a special sale in India a couple of weeks ago and became the best seller on Amazon. Again, the units were very limited. If you have already pre-booked OnePlus 8 Series 5G on Amazon or OnePlus stores you can purchase devices as and when stocks are available.

The delay is production is quite understandable as manufacturing units for most products are working with one-third capacity, given the social distancing norms that are in vogue due to the growing Covid-19 cases. 

The lower-than-normal workforce also means a slower process and thus, the delay. Another reason might also be that recently six Oppo employees tested positive for coronavirus. And, since Oppo and OnePlus share the same production unit, the company was also forced to halt the production.

Lastly, since OnePlus is trying to produce all of their OnePlus 8 series devices in India, there are now left with no choice but, wait and ramp up the production in the coming days. It remains to be seen how the federal government and the states respond when the fourth phase of India's lockdown comes to an end this Sunday. 

The shortage of workforce has already hit  India's smartphone output and delivery. Most of the companies are working with less than 50% of the workforce and even warehouses across the country are finding it hard to function smoothly. 

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A couple of weeks ago, we saw the very first image of the Oppo Reno 4, the next model in the frequently-updated Reno series. However, things have moved forward rather quickly  since then, and we now know a lot more about the handset than just its physical design. So, here’s everything we know about the upcoming Reno 4. 

Oppo Reno 4 Renders and Design

From the first live image that leaked, we could tell that the Reno 4 had a revamped rear design. So, while the Reno 2 was known for its slick and completely flat rear panel with no camera bumps, the Reno 4 offers a cameras bump placed on the top left corner, instead of centre much like the Reno 3 Pro. 

The whole of last week has seen official teasers from Oppo confirming the leaked design along with triple camera setup. Also, we would likely see a Pro version, although there are no hints at it, for the moment.     

What the official renders do not reveal is the front design. However, leaks on Weibo have pretty much revealed full renders of the handset including the front. And the big surprise is the inclusion of a curved display. The renders leaked last week and we now have confirmation of their authenticity as the Reno 4 appears on TENAA this week. 

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This is the first time that the series will receive a curved display and it is also likely to make the series more expensive. The 5G series will come in Crystal Diamond Blue and Purple Taro colour options initially, as seen in official renders, while we also saw a White model in live images. The back panel also peculiarly has a large-sized “Reno Glow” logo embossed on it which is pretty weird to see alongside a smaller “Oppo” branding.   

That’s all we know about the design of the Reno 4 but let’s look at the specifications. 

Oppo Reno 4 series Specifications

The closest look at the spec-sheet has been through a TENAA entry this week. Thankfully, this is also the most authentic database that you can think of in China. Two models – PDPM00 and PDNM00 – have been spotted which reinforces our belief in a Pro model. 

Both the models are very similar in terms of dimensions – the former which we believe to be the Reno 4 measures 159.3×74.0×7.8mm while the latter measures 159.6×72.5×7.6mm. 

The standard Reno 4 will sport a 6.4-inch FHD+ (2400×1080p) AMOLED display while  the Reno 4 Pro, on the other hand, will come equipped with a 6.5-inch curved display. Both handsets will be equipped with the in-display fingerprint sensor. 

And while the TENAA entry doesn’t mention it, we expect the series to rock the Snapdragon 765G SoC. Considering all the power-packed hardware, it is surprising to see Oppo pack in a timid 4,000mAh cell in there though. 

On a shooting spree

Talking about the cameras, the twin models both have 48MP sensors and the difference is mostly in the secondary modules. So, while the Reno 4 has a 8MP ultra-wide shooter, and a 2MP monochrome portrait lens, the Reno 4 Pro has a 12MP dedicated low-light sensor and a 13MP telephoto sensor.

One of the biggest surprises is the inclusion of a dual front camera on the Reno 4 while the Reno 4 Pro just has a single camera cutout. Both the models get a 32MP primary lens with the addition of a 2MP depth sensor on the standard model. Interestingly, Oppo has confirmed support for 65W SuperVOOC 2.0 for the Reno 4 series but we expect it on the Pro model. 

That’s all we know about the Oppo Reno 4 series as of now. For now, there’s no launch date for its arrival, but considering the flood of information we’ve had in the past week, it could be announced any day now. 

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Apple is giving its Indian customers the capability to order customised versions of its entire range of computing devices. The configure-to-order and build-to-order options would be available for the MacBook Air (click to buy), Mac Mini, iMac and other computers. 

Under the scheme customers from India would be able to request custom needs such as enhanced memory and storage or inclusion of more powerful graphics cards when they purchase a machine from Apple. 

This is the first time that Apple would be offering customisation of their products in the Indian market, in spite of the fact that users in India had been requesting the CTO and BTO features that have been part of the company's package in several countries. Apple has never offered its entire bouquet of computing devices in the country and most upgrades were sought once the customers got their hands on the machines. 

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Has it come too late though?

An official working for one of Apple's service delivery across the south of India believes that this move by the Cupertino-based tech giant should have come much earlier. "Take a look at the grey market operations and how much the company tends to lose because customers usually go to upgrade their Macs to these shops located in major cities such as Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad," the official says requesting anonymity. 

For Apple, India has shifted from being on the periphery in the first decade of the new millennium to being a key market. Tim Cook had said during an investor call late in 2019 that emerging markets led by India, Brazil, Thailand, Turkey and Mainland China had seen double-digit growth during the December quarter. 

What do the users get?

A notice on the Apple India website says customers interested to get upgrades or want to customise their purchases could get in touch with local Apple authorised resellers various options and calculate what they would have to pay for enhancing a graphics card or simply adding some memory to their preferred machine. 

The company is promising delivery within four to five weeks after orders are placed and payments made. In the past, customers had no choice but to go with base models of the computing devices, which means a MacBook Pro would only have 8GB of RAM. 

Would it really change things?

However, it remains to be seen whether the stiff pricing that Apple is quoting for such upgrades could still prove a dampener for many users. For example, the company is charging $400 for an extra 16 GB of RAM, but a trip to Bangalore's grey market could result in savings of up to 30-50% on such a deal. Of course, there is no warranty once you get the device opened by uncertified hands. 

How Tim Cook's Apple sees it differently

From the company's perspective, this only shows that Apple and its CEO Tim Cook are serious about India as a market. Cook had waxed eloquent about how customers in the country were boosting sales of both iPhones and iPads over most of 2019. 

That growth might have been driven by the multiple price cuts that Apple brought in for the iPhone XR, but the fact remains that Apple as a brand has matured enough for Cook to consider shifting production to India and also committing to open its own online stores in the country. 

The iPhone 11 series (click to buy) also saw good traction amongst the Indian customers, given that the device was priced aggressively and Apple followed a sound channel strategy to drive its sales. Immediately after this success, Apple announced that it would be bringing the HomePod smart speaker to India to compete with Google Home and the Amazon Echo. 

Of course, the Covid-19 pandemic may have stymied sales but the fact remains that Apple is bullish nonetheless and the next twelve months could see the company bringing more of its products and services to India. Who knows, Apple TV Plus could soon join the Bollywood bandwagon and take on Netflix and Amazon Prime. 

Via: MacRumors 

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Necessity, they say, is the mother of all invention. Perhaps the need to get rid of excess stock was the reason Chuwi, one of the most innovative Chinese PC vendors out there, has decided to merge the designs of two of its existing mini PCs (the GT Box and the HiGame) into a brand new workstation, the Corebox.

At the heart of this new product is an Intel Core i5-5257U from 2016, which has been used as a base for a number of products, along with the Core i3-5005U (also a Broadwell-based processor).

It's just like Intel’s current 14nm processors, but doesn’t feature the sort of refinements found in 10th generation Core CPUs.

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At $349 (roughly £285/AU$530), the Corebox will be the most affordable Core i5 CPU on the market when it launches on Amazon later this month. The device will come with 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, two HDMI ports, four USB 3.0 connectors, a Gigabit Ethernet port and two audio connectors.

All this is crammed into an all-metal chassis that’s just under 2000cc, providing just enough space for an extra hard disk drive and cooling. Add in handles on either side and you've got a rather attractive and versatile workstation.

However, while the Chuwi Corebox looks an exciting machine, there could well be better alternatives on the market at a similar price point.

Dell’s Inspiron 3471, for example, is an equally small PC priced at $330. It might only have 4GB of RAM and a 1TB hard disk drive, but its Core i3-9100 CPU is twice as fast as the Core i5-5257U. It also comes with a mouse, DVD writer, keyboard, card reader and even a VGA port.

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