Far Out
Apple’s annual event took place earlier this month with the theme of “Far Out” and included many exciting announcements.
Four new iPhones are being released – iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max. The 14 will have a 6.1″ display while the 14 Plus will have a 6.7″ display and both models will run the A15 Bionic chip. There will be a rear “main” camera with a larger sensor on the back, and a front facing camera with a new auto-focus system for better and faster selfies. The Pro and Pro Max will follow suite in display sizing, but will run on a new chip called A16 Bionic. The front facing camera has been designed as a “dynamic island” to blend into darker features of the phone. Ranging in price, all versions are available for pre-order and will begin shipping in September or October depending on the specific model.
In addition to the iPhones, the new Apple Watch Series 8 was also announced. Although it looks similar to the previous version, there is now a pair of temperature sensors to track changes to your body temperature over time. There is also a more capable sensor suite that can detect if you’re in a car crash to begin the process of contacting emergency services more quickly. The Apple Watch Ultra, a more rugged Watch designed for athletes is also available. Some features include a larger digital crown, improved compass functionality, a quick toggle “night-mode”, and new sports-focused bands, among others.
Version two of AirPods Pro was shown with noise cancellation that is twice as effective, touch based controls instead of squeeze-based, and up to six hours of listening time per charge. To learn more about the new AirPods Pro and details about the new Watches and iPhones, visit here for the full event recap.
Vishing
Cisco recently disclosed a security incident resulting from sophisticated voice phishing, or vishing, attacks at targeted employees. Researchers at Cisco Talos believe the attack was carried out by an initial access broker who had the intent of selling access to compromised accounts to other threat actors.
The attacks first gained access to Cisco’s networks after hacking an employee’s personal Google account. From here, they stole the employee’s Cisco passwords via Google Chrome’s password syncing feature. Then, they were able to use various social engineering tactics to expand their access. The attacker attempted to bypass MFA using various techniques, including vishing which has become an increasingly common social engineering technique.
Cisco took immediate action to contain and eradicate the bad actors once the incident was identified. They did not identify any impact to their business as a result, including no impact to Cisco products, services, sensitive customer data, sensitive employee information, intellectual property, or supply chain operations. In addition to taking action, Cisco has also taken steps to remediate the impact by further hardening their IT environment. Since the discovery, there has not been any ransomware observed or deployed and Cisco has successfully blocked attempt’s to access their network.
To learn more about the attack, the response, and security awareness training opportunities, visit here for details.
Team Shout-Out’s
Help us in celebrating some of our employees and their impressive years of service with MCG, Inc.
Joe Pullara, 11 years
Jamaal Erskine, 10 years
Joe Gonzalez, 5 years
Madeline Marte, 4 years
We are looking forward to more team outings and many more years together!
