Chinese-owned app TikTok has been accused of harvesting its users’ data, and was even described as a potential national security risk by White House officials. On Friday, President Trump said he intended to ban the video-sharing platform from the US because of these concerns, although over the weekend he appeared to approve of a potential
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Smartwatch maker Garmin paid a multi-million dollar ransom to criminals who encrypted its computer files through a ransomware negotiation business called Arete IR, sources have told Sky News. Earlier this week Sky News reported that Garmin had obtained the decryption key to recover its files from the WastedLocker virus. Security sources believe this virus has
The Chinese-owned short-video app TikTok could be sold to Microsoft after an apparent change of mind by President Trump. On Friday he said he intended to ban TikTok from the US because of concerns about the data of US users and appeared to dismiss the idea of a takeover by an American company. The US
Scientists are investigating whether minks can pass on coronavirus to humans, after outbreaks at farms in Spain and the Netherlands. It is thought that the outbreaks started with infected workers on the mink farms, passing the virus on to the small animals. Scientists believe it is “plausible” that the minks then passed it back to
Chinese video-sharing app TikTok has responded to Donald Trump’s threat of a US ban by declaring: “We’re not planning on going anywhere.” In a video aimed at the app’s supporters, TikTok spokesperson Vanessa Pappas said it was “here for the long run” and called people to “stand for TikTok”. It followed a suggestion from the
Donald Trump has vowed to ban Chinese video-sharing app TikTok from operating in the US. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, the president said: “As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States.” He did not specify how he intended to achieve what he described as a “severance”, but he
A teenager from Bognor Regis is one of three people accused over the Twitter hack that saw the accounts of politicians and celebrities compromised. The US Department of Justice said Mason Sheppard faces three charges. The 19-year-old, also known as “Chaewon”, has been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering,
Twitter has revealed how accounts belonging to celebrities including Barack Obama, Jeff Bezos and Kim Kardashian were hijacked by Bitcoin scammers two weeks ago. At the time the company confirmed that a “co-ordinated social engineering attack” had allowed criminals to post tweets from celebs’ accounts offering to send $2,000 for every $1,000 sent to a
On this edition of the Sky News Daily podcast with Dermot Murnaghan, we discuss NASA’s launch of the Perseverance rover – the first leg of returning rock samples to Earth with the hope of finding microbial life and paving the way for humans to go to the planet. We look at why we go to
NASA has successfully launched its new Perseverance rover to Mars, beginning a mission to search for signs of alien life on the planet. The Mars 2020 mission launched on the back of an Atlas V rocket, the most powerful currently in use by humanity, which took its payload to an altitude of greater than 250
The mysterious origins of Stonehenge’s giant sarsen stones have finally been uncovered. A sample of one of the megaliths taken by a maintenance worker in 1958 has revealed the 20-tonne stones come from West Woods – just 15 miles away from the site, near Marlborough. Robert Phillips worked for a Basingstoke-based diamond cutting business that
Britain has signed a deal for the supply of up to 60 million doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine developed by Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. No vaccine has yet been approved to treat or prevent COVID-19. The UK could begin vaccinating priority groups, such as frontline health
Twitter gave the president’s son a 12-hour time out from tweeting on Tuesday after he posted a link to a video containing what Twitter said was misleading information about COVID-19. Donald Trump Jr posted a video promoting the drug hydroxychloroquine, which his father has also promoted and claimed to be taking himself as a precaution
A 1,000-year-old treatment for eye infections can be used to tackle antibiotic-resistant infections, scientists say. Antibiotic resistance is an increasing challenge for modern medicine as more naturally occurring antimicrobials are needed to tackle infections capable of resisting treatments currently in use. New research from the University of Warwick has investigated natural remedies to fill the
Social media companies must “go much further and faster in removing hateful content” from their platforms, the prime minister’s spokesman has said. The comments from Downing Street came in the wake of Twitter’s perceived inaction to address antisemitic tweets posted by grime artist Wiley. A number of users, including celebrities and politicians, are staging a
Smartwatch maker Garmin has obtained the decryption key to recover its computer files from a ransomware attack last Thursday, Sky News has learnt. Last week, Garmin’s services were taken offline after hackers infected the company’s networks with a ransomware virus known as WastedLocker. A number of the company’s services were operational again on Monday as