A research team has found an exploit that allows hackers to decrypt and view encrypted files on a number of well-known SSD drives.

They include:

Samsung T5 Portable
Samsung T3 Portable
Samsung 850 EVO
Samsung 840 EVO
Crucial MX 300
Crucial MX 200
Crucial MX 100

According to the research team:

"We have analyzed the hardware full-disk encryption of several SSDs by reverse engineering their firmware.

In recent months, hackers around the world have been finding new ways to invade people's privacy, hijacking an increasing number of cameras and microphones attached to smartphones and PCs.  Apple is responding to the evolving threat by introducing a new layer of physical security to their latest MacBooks.

Intel just can't seem to catch a break.  By now, almost everyone has heard about the dreaded Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities which have been plaguing the chip maker since they were first discovered.  Now, it seems there's a new chip-based threat.

Researchers have discovered a security flaw in MS Office 2016 and older versions that leave the door open to hackers who can take advantage of it to run malicious code on a target computer.

This latest hack exploits a flaw in the software's online video option, which allows users to embed a YouTube video via link inside the document.

If you own Apple devices that use iOS, watchOS, tvOS, or macOS, there's good news.  The company just released major updates for all of those.

They're available right now, and here are a few of the highlights:

For iOS 12.1, the big changes are as follows:

Group Face Time, with support for audio and video calls with up to 32 participants simultaneously
End-to-End encryption for your Face Time/Group Face Time conversations
A "Start Group Face Time" option from inside Group Messages
More than 70 new emoji's
Dual SIM support
Improved camera functionality
A variety of performance and battery life enhancements
And more

The big additions for watchOS are:

Automatic contact of emergency services if you are immobile for more than a minute after the device detects a hard fall.

Earlier this year, Google introduced a new and improved Gmail that gave users virtually unlimited customization options. In addition to that, it included some exciting new AI-based features that cut down on repetitive tasks and made email management significantly easier.

Yahoo has the dubious honor of having been on the receiving end of the largest data breach in history. As a consequence, the company has recently agreed to pay $50 million in damages and provide free credit monitoring services to its impacted users.

The company actually suffered a pair of breaches in 2013 and in 2014, although this information was not disclosed by the company until 2016.  All of the company's 3 billion users were impacted, and more than 200 million of them saw losses arising from that breach.

IBM has recently announced what is to be the largest open source acquisition in history.  They're buying Red Hat for a staggering $34 billion dollars.  This, as the saying goes, changes everything.

IBM has lagged behind its competitors for years in the area of cloud computing.

Would you leave the front door of your business wide open every night? Of course, you wouldn’t. When nobody’s at the office, you’ve got to protect your assets, usually behind locked doors, a complex security system and often even a network of CCTV cameras.

Google is rolling out some important changes that will make it easier for people who use their services to control their data.

They're starting with their most widely used service, which is search.  In the weeks ahead, it will be easier than ever for users to delete their search history, on both PC and Android devices.