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Space Telescope In Safety Mode Due To Bug

NASA announced in a statement last Wednesday that the Webb Space Telescope's instruments have been in safe mode intermittently since December, however, scientific operations resumed at the beginning of the week. During this period of safe mode, all of Webb's non-essential systems were shut down several times, meaning that no scientific operations were active and, naturally, making it impossible to carry out any observations. The US aerospace agency has since announced that the problem has been resolved. Valued at more than 10 billion dollars, the main purpose of the "Webb" telescope is to study not only the observation of stars, but also the evolution of galaxies and the formation processes of these stars and planets, using infrared wavelengths. From NASA's press release, it is also possible to understand that this bug was responsible for activating the attitude control system, which guides the direction in which this observatory should be pointed. The continuation of the original article via Gizmodo can be read here.

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British Airways Flights Affected by Software Error

British Airways flights were suspended last Tuesday morning due to a bug in the flight planning system, leading to several planes being held up. According to the British airline: "Our teams have now resolved a temporary issue that affected some of our long-haul flight planning systems, leading to a number of delays." The problem is said to be related to the software that British Airways pilots access via their Apple iPads, according to Bloomberg, and that the system is being updated. The airline also confirmed that the vast majority of short-haul flights were not at all affected by the problem, stressing that none of its planes had any technical or safety problems. The continuation of the original article via World Times Todays can be read here.

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The Life of a Software Bug

Last Monday, Instagram said it had fixed a software bug that made it impossible for thousands of user accounts to access the platform. The problem lasted for more than eight hours and also led to the identification of suspended accounts. According to the outage tracking website Downdetector, the number of reports on this incident reached over 7500. "This bug was responsible for causing people in different parts of the world to have problems accessing their accounts, causing a temporary change in the number of followers for some," according to a tweet from Instagram itself. The US company, owned by Meta, has not detailed what caused the problem or whether the suspended bot accounts have been restored again. The original article via Metro can be read at: https://metro.co.uk/2022/11/01/instagram-fixes-bug-that-locked-people-out-of-their-accounts-for-hours-17675243/

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Instagram Fixes Bug That Blocked Accounts for Several Hours

Last Monday, Instagram said it had fixed a software bug that made it impossible for thousands of user accounts to access the platform. The problem lasted for more than eight hours and also led to the identification of suspended accounts. According to the outage tracking website Downdetector, the number of reports on this incident reached over 7500. "This bug was responsible for causing people in different parts of the world to have problems accessing their accounts, causing a temporary change in the number of followers for some," according to a tweet from Instagram itself. The US company, owned by Meta, has not detailed what caused the problem or whether the suspended bot accounts have been restored again. The original article via Metro can be read at: https://metro.co.uk/2022/11/01/instagram-fixes-bug-that-locked-people-out-of-their-accounts-for-hours-17675243/

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Those Bugs That Cost Millions of Dollars

Sometimes a small error or bug can be responsible for very serious damage. In this article, we'll look at some of the types of mistakes that are made when creating/using software that have been responsible for millions of dollars in damage. The Morris Worm is one such case. A "worm" is an autonomous malware computer program that multiplies and spreads to other computers. This was a very short but dangerous bug initially written by a graduate student called Morris. Its popularity gained emphasis as it inspired the introduction of a new layer of computer security - Internet security. This was the first worm to invade the internet and damage another computer without a cable or physical means, programmed to exploit weak passwords and phrases. The "Y2k" bug is also another such example. At least in a direct way, this bug was not responsible for millions of dollars spent, but it did cause countless costs due to the fear it caused in people. With the arrival of the year 2000, a large part of humanity was afraid of a mistake that had been made in previous decades. To understand this bug, it is necessary to understand the metric system we have now and the one that existed before to calculate everything related to time, including research, statistics, etc. Nowadays, the whole system is changed to a constant year number (date). The number of the year we live in is, of course, 2022 and the computer considers it to be 2022, however, this is not how numbering worked before: Before the advent of computers, people didn't have a long-term thought process about how dates could be numbered, and so until now only the first 2 digits of the date of the year in which they lived were used. This means that, for someone living in 1998, the computer would only consider 98 to be the important part and would discard the other 2 digits. So, from the year 2000 onwards, many people thought that the numbers would start to overlap and that computers would start to transmit incorrect information, leading to a certain desperation and urgency to buy or sell this hardware. However, the reality is that none of this actually happened. In the first few days, the vast majority of companies simply changed their date systems and the way they process them, and everything went back to normal. It is estimated that all this fear is responsible for a loss of more than 1.2 million dollars and that, if this bug had actually occurred as expected, this loss could have reached 200 billion dollars. Finally, "Mt. Gox" - the world's largest bitcoin transaction in the 2010s, until it was hit by a software bug that proved fatal. The problem revealed itself every time a money transaction took place: the request would be sent to the servers, but due to an error in the program, the transaction would end up not taking place, thus causing an estimated loss of 1.5 million dollars for the senders and recipients of these sums. The original article via Medium can be read at: https://fadingeek.medium.com/worst-computer-bugs-which-costed-millions-of-dollars-8eb1f34b5ba6

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Software Test Engineers: Who They Are and Why We Need Them

Software Test Engineers create and test procedures to ensure that the software developed by the company doesn't have any problems or bugs and works exactly as it was designed. In general, these professionals ensure that the software reaches the market free of errors and technical problems. This procedure not only guarantees the quality of the product, but also helps to maintain the brand's image among customers. Software test engineers also have an advanced knowledge of software engineering, a keen attention to detail; and when it comes to problem solving, they are able to identify even the tiniest errors and flaws in the software. So why are Software Test Engineers so important? Ultimately, every product must deliver the quality it sets out to. Failing to do so can damage a company's reputation, and even more so if a customer has invested money in buying or using your software. Quality assurance explains the importance of software testing. When companies or people invest in their software and don't get the promised quality, they tend not to wait for the problem to be solved. Time becomes as important to companies as the investment itself, and waiting for things to improve means wasting that investment. So, by testing software before it reaches the market, you can assure your customers that their time and business are valuable. However, there are several problems that can arise during this testing phase, such as: architectural flaws; security problems or even a faulty design. There are, of course, many more errors or problems that can significantly damage the overall user experience. Therefore, the project team must set enough time for the test engineers to find faults, revert to the development unit and ensure that everything runs smoothly, offering a faithful user experience. The ultimate goal of software creation is to satisfy the needs of your customers. The best user experience can only be achieved through several stages of testing, and time defined to make the software free of any kind of errors. The emphasis placed on this skewer, the transmission of a good, faithful user experience can help build the right target audience. The original article via News Break Original can be read at: https://original.newsbreak.com/@angela-ash-1592974/2678160611049-software-test-engineers-what-they-are-and-why-you-need-them

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Election Results Suspended Due to Software Problem

In the United States of America, the results of the primary elections in Kane County, Illinois, were completely paralyzed last Tuesday due to problems with the software system. The chairman of the Kane County Republican Party, Kenneth Shepro, said in a statement that the electoral authorities had informed him that a bug was at the root of the problem: "Hart InterCivic technicians are working to correct the problem," said the US politician. The results were frozen for more than an hour. The original article via Shaw Local News Network can be read at: https://www.shawlocal.com/news/election/2022/06/29/primary-election-results-stalled-in-kane-due-to-software-problem/

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Software Error Causes Flight Delays and Cancellations

In Germany, a bug in the Air Traffic Control System led to the cancellation of numerous flights at Frankfurt Airport. It's not the first time that the German Air Traffic Control System has suffered technical problems, this time Frankfurt Airport was affected by an unexpected interruption. The operator of Germany's largest airport, Fraport, reported the problem, immediately informing that there would be disruptions throughout European airspace and therefore delays in operations and isolated flight cancellations. The investigation into the technical problem revealed that it was related to a software failure during the installation of an update to the Langen Control System. Although the problem was resolved early in the morning local time, all passengers were instructed that delays and cancellations were to be expected for the rest of the day, before operations returned to normal. The Langen Control Center is responsible for the lower airspace in Germany's central regions, including some of the country's busiest airports, such as Düsseldorf, Cologne and Frankfurt. The original article via Simple Flying can be read at: https://simpleflying.com/german-atc-issue-flight-delay/

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Young Syrian Discovers Facebook Bugs Causing Security Failures

Baraa Habab is the name of a young Syrian who recently discovered security flaws in Facebook, but his concerns were ignored by the US company. To draw attention to these problems, Baraa hacked the account of one of Facebook's founders, prompting them to thank him and offer him a job. The 25-year-old from Damascus was forced to leave his university, where he was studying Information Engineering, and his home country because of the civil war that has been raging since 2011. Driven by his passion for the world of programming, Baraa's resilience and hard work have been crucial to withstanding all the difficulties he has faced since then. Between 2016 and 2017, he eventually discovered a software bug on Facebook, so he wrote several times to report the problem, in both Arabic and English, but without any feedback. To ensure that his concerns were legitimate, Baraa Habab surprised the Facebook administration itself by accessing several private and public Facebook pages, without knowing the username, email or password associated with the page, and without even contacting the owners of the pages. One of these pages was precisely that of Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, where the young Syrian wrote on his wall in both English and Arabic: "There is no 100% protection, there is always a flaw.". And that's how Baraa got Facebook's attention, and was even offered a contract to work in security. With an attachment to Facebook, Baraa ended up discovering another software error later in 2018. An error that would allow the privacy of millions of users to be affected without their knowledge. In addition to helping countless people find solutions to technical problems, as well as many victims of Facebook fraud, Baraa Habab also helps companies in the field of information security and protection, and also plays a role in training and education on the subject of digital extortion. The original article via Middle East Monitor can be read at: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220618-young-syrian-man-discovers-several-facebook-security-loopholes/

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Cybersecurity Chiefs Order Bugs Exploited by Hackers Fixed

US cybersecurity authorities last week ordered all federal agencies to fix software flaws exploited by hackers. These are believed to be linked to foreign governments. "These vulnerabilities pose an unacceptable risk to the security of the federal network," said Jen Easterly, director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in a statement. CISA's "emergency directive" gives agencies five days to update the vulnerable software, or as a last resort, remove it entirely from their networks. It does not apply to Pentagon computer networks, which are not under CISA's jurisdiction. The vulnerabilities in question are found in a type of software made by VMware, whose products are widely used in the US government. On April 6, the California-based technology giant issued a fix for the software flaws that would allow hackers not only to access files remotely, but also to install themselves on the network itself. Two days after the patch was released, hackers discovered an alternative way of breaking into computers using the vulnerabilities, according to CISA. This event forced VMWare to release software updates to plug these newly discovered vulnerabilities, which CISA ordered the agencies to address. The agency has not identified the hackers or which systems they served as. As a rule, CISA officials use their emergency authority to force agencies to address serious software flaws when spies or criminals might attack their security. In the last three years, the agency has used its resources 10 times, including in response to the so-called SolarWinds hacking campaign, believed to have been carried out by Russian agents. This ultimately went unnoticed by US authorities for a long time, resulting in a security breach of at least nine federal agencies, including those dealing with national security, such as the departments of Homeland Security and Justice. The original article via CNN International can be read at: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/18/politics/software-bug-warning-vmware/index.html

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