The News

Oracle got mega-hacked and is being a bit weird about it

More than 100 companies have likely been the victims of a sophisticated hack of Oracle’s business products by notorious Russian-linked group CL0P, according to a team of Google’s security researchers (IT News). Google Threat Intelligence Grouphas put out a pretty interesting report on — I’ll be honest — a very snazzy operation involving a zero-day exploit of Oracle’s E-Business Suite (Google). The hack, which appears to go back to at least July, has allowed CL0P to get their hands on a lot of data which they’re now threatening to release in emails to the victims sent over the weekend. (CyberScoop).

The Sizzle: Oracle has been very shifty, or at least a bit dumb, about all of this. They initially linked the extortion attempts to a previous exploit but then deleted that explanation and disclosed this new exploit (TechCrunch). Yes, Oracle hasn’t had a great few months vis a vis cybersecurity. Also of note: CL0P has a track record of mass extortion via hacking tech providers who hold data from a lot of organisations (CyberScoop). While big cloud providers are generally going to have more resources for their cybersecurity, it does also make them a big, fat target for attackers.

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The real scandal in the Deloitte AI report

Everyone has been alternating laughing and despairing at Deloitte’s admission that it did indeed use AI in its government report that hallucinated references and quotes (AFR, $). I mean, we’re talking about the people with an AI Institute for Government that helps “government use AI ethically to deliver better services, improve operations, and facilitate economic growth.”

But as two friends of the Sizzle Joseph Brookes of the excellent InnovationAus and campaigner Tom Studans have both pointed out that, despite the global attention and the almost painful levels of irony, no one seems to fucking care about the contents of the report itself.

From Brookes’ piece:

Apparently we still need consultants to tell us this, but it bears repeating: we have a broken welfare system that is unique globally for how much it punishes people for the crime of needing help. Don’t let some dumbass grad’s AI slip-up distract you from the fact that Australians should be ashamed this is still happening.

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The Sizzle Say: Australia to follow EU, Claude Code tips and Diablo 4 frustration

As always, if you wanna get involved (or even be able to read what’s on Slack) you can join the Slack server and forum via these links.

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Leftovers

Australia:

Rest of the world:

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Oh, Also

Nothing says love like a top-of-the-line graphics card

It used to be common for a bride’s family to gift a dowry as part of wedding celebrations. Something like a cow or, if you were wealthy, some land.

It appears the modern equivalent is gifting compute. From Reddit: “Recently in China, a girl gave her fiancé an RTX 5090 at their wedding. Context and translation are given in the comment.” (Video when you click through)

The OP gave some more context to the videos in the comment section:

So beautiful. I love love.

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Bargains

Electronics & electrics

Computing

Mobile

The End

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The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.