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Websites for a Russian-linked ransomware gang blamed for attacks on hundreds of businesses worldwide have gone offline.

Monitors say a payment website and a blog run by the REvil group became suddenly unreachable on Tuesday.

The reason behind the disappearance is unknown, but has sparked speculation that the group may have been targeted deliberately by authorities.

It comes amid growing pressure between the US and Russia over cyber-crime.

US President Joe Biden said he raised the issue with Vlamidir Putin during a phone call on Friday, after discussing the subject during a summit with the Russian president in Geneva last month.

Mr Biden told reporters that he had “made it very clear to him…we expect them to act” on information and also hinted the US could take direct digital retaliation on servers used for intrusions.

The timing of Tuesday’s outage has sparked speculation that either the US or Russian officials may have taken action against REvil – though officials have so far declined to comment and cyber experts say sudden disappearances of groups are not necessarily uncommon.

The development comes after a series of high-profile ransomware attacks which have hit major US businesses this year.

The FBI accused REvil – also known as Sodinokibi – of being behind a ransomware attack on the world’s largest meat processing company JBS last month.

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The group is considered prolific and last week demanded a huge bitcoin ransom for an attack which targeted IT firm Kaseya and hundreds more businesses worldwide.

REvil is one of the most prolific and feared of all ransomware gangs and if this really is the end, it’s extremely significant.

The rumour mill is in hyperdrive about what’s behind this sudden shutdown but one hacker who claims to be an affiliate of the gang gave me some insights. I’m yet to confirm his identity but other researchers say his claims are highly plausible.

He claims that the US “Feds took down” elements of their websites and so they pulled the plug on the rest of their operation. He also said there was pressure from the Kremlin too saying: “Russia is tired of the US and other countries crying to them.”

Like all hacker claims we have to take them with a large dollop of salt but if this scenario proves to be accurate, it shows a dramatic shift in policy from Russia which has so far been happy to sit back and let gangs like REvil operate without fear of intervention.

However another comment from my contact also hints at the bigger picture. He says he has no plans to retire and is already planning another unknown venture. “Make one go away, more will rise,” he warned.

Heathrow’s Terminal 5 saw long queues at security on Monday morning because of the absence of more than 100 staff.

The airport said the issue had arisen because the security staff were instructed to self-isolate by the NHS Test and Trace app.

Some passengers experienced lengthy queues from 06:00. Many complained that there was limited social distancing.

It comes as the government faces calls to bring forward changes to Covid self-isolation rules.

The disruption affected only Terminal 5 and did not involve Border Force officers.

Some passengers complained on Twitter about “total chaos” and posted pictures of large crowds at the terminal.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
View original tweet on Twitter
One passenger, Kathryn Wylie, was travelling to Glasgow when she was caught up in the disruption. “It was manic,” she told the BBC.

“In Terminal 5, both security queues were backed up, with little being done to move people forward who had the closest upcoming flights.

“Luckily, one lady came through handing out water, but I’m not sure that went on very long.

“Once you finally got through to the security screening, there were maybe only two to four of the belts functioning, which made the whole process even more drawn out.”

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Kathryn said that once she was on board the plane, its departure was delayed for another hour to allow people to get onto the flight who had not yet made it through security.

Keaton Stone, a BBC producer on The Sky at Night, also tweeted about the queues.

“Never seen Heathrow so busy!!!!” he said.The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
View original tweet on Twitter
Most Covid restrictions are due to end on 19 July, however planned changes to self-isolation rules are not expected until 16 August at the earliest.

But many companies, especially in the hospitality and leisure sectors, say their reopening plans are in disarray due to the number of staff having to isolate because they have come into close contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid.

On Monday, business lobby group the CBI urged ministers to bring forward changes to the rules, saying it would help ensure reopening was a “confident” not “anxious” process.

A Heathrow spokesperson said: “Earlier today, we experienced some passenger congestion in Terminal 5 departures, due to colleagues being instructed to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace.

“We have activated additional team members to assist passengers with their journeys and the operation has now returned to normal. We apologise to our passengers for any inconvenience caused.”

The Department for Health and Social Care has been approached for comment on the NHS test and Trace app.

If you are less focused on climbing the corporate ladder since the coronavirus crisis forced more of us to work from home, you are not alone.

That is according to a study by Aviva, which found 47% of employees were less career-focused because of the pandemic.

Around two in five people said they could never switch off from work.

“One result of this always-on, ever-present culture is that 40% of employees are concerned about work-related burnout,” the insurer said.

Half of people complained that the boundary between work and home had become “increasingly blurred”. And the impact of that has disproportionately affected women, with 46% concerned about burnout – compared to 35% of men.

Meanwhile, 24% of women said the pandemic had a negative impact on their work-life balance. That compares to 16% of men.

“The pandemic may have been a collective experience, but the impact has been fragmented in so many ways, with women especially facing particularly acute stresses from the blurring of lines between home and work,” Debbie Bullock, wellbeing lead at Aviva said.

The study of more than 2,000 employees of larger companies found that just 14% would favour returning to the office full time, with 15% saying they would prefer to work from home five days a week.

Gender divide
Men were more likely to favour a full return to the office, while more women said they would rather work from home full time.

Aviva said employers would need to “carefully examine” how they bring staff back to avoid deepening the gender divide between men and women.

It warned of “the risk that those – often women – with primary care roles for their children or parents are put under increasing strain”.

“The journey towards the workplace of the future has been accelerated by the pandemic,” Aviva’s Ms Bullock said.

“Employees will look for something in return to encourage them back to the office, and employers must ensure offices become a destination for collaborating, mentoring and socialising to rebuild relationships.”

Last month, dating app Bumble shut its offices for a week to combat workplace stress. Its 700 staff worldwide were told to switch off and focus on themselves.

One senior executive at the firm tweeted that founder Whitney Wolfe Herd had made the move “having correctly intuited our collective burnout”.

Microsoft is to give its non-executive staff a $1,500 (£1,080) bonus for their work during the pandemic.

The company told the BBC it was a symbol of appreciation “during a uniquely challenging year”.

It added: “We are proud to recognise our employees with a one-time monetary gift.”

In the first quarter of 2021 Microsoft’s profits rose 38% on the same period last year.

The Verge reported that employees below vice-president level who joined no later than 31 March 2021 would receive the payment, including part-time workers.

The big tech firms have done well during the pandemic and Microsoft is not the only firm to have made bonus payments to staff.

In March 2020, Facebook gave employees a $1,000 (£720) bonus to help them with increased expenses caused by the pandemic, such as those associated with setting up a home office.

Google made a similar $1,000 payment in May 2020.

In December, Amazon gave front-line employees a $300 (£216) dollar bonus with part-time workers receiving $150.

Amazon’s revenue rose by 38% in 2020 to $386bn (£279bn).

Former US president Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against tech giants Google, Twitter and Facebook, claiming that he is the victim of censorship.

The class action lawsuit also targets the three companies’ CEOs.

Mr Trump was suspended from his social accounts in January over public safety concerns in the wake of the Capitol riots, led by his supporters.

On Wednesday, Mr Trump called the lawsuit “a very beautiful development for our freedom of speech”.

In a news conference from his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, Mr Trump railed against social media companies and Democrats, who he accused of espousing misinformation.

“We are demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing, and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing, and cancelling that you know so well,” he said.

The suit requests a court order to end alleged censorship. Mr Trump added if they could ban a president, “they can do it to anyone”.

None of the tech companies named have yet responded to the lawsuit, which was filed to a federal court in Florida.

Mr Trump was joined at the announcement by former Trump officials who have since created the not-for-profit America First Policy Institute.

The former president called the post that got him banned from Twitter, “the most loving sentence”.

According to Twitter, the tweets that resulted in Mr Trump’s ban for “glorification of violence” were from 8 January, two days after the rioting in the nation’s capital. The riot followed his repeated claims, without evidence, that the election was rigged in Joe Biden’s favour.

He wrote that the “great patriots” who voted for him will have “a giant voice” and “will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form”, and in another post said he would not attend President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

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At the same time on Wednesday, Mr Trump’s Republican allies in Congress released a memo describing their plan “to take on Big Tech”.

The agenda calls for antitrust measures to “break up” the companies, and a revamping of a law known as Section 230.

Section 230, which Mr Trump tried to repeal as president, essentially stops companies like Facebook and Twitter from being liable for the things that users post. It gives the companies “platform” rather than “publisher” status.

“It’s a liability protection the likes of which nobody in the history of our country has ever received,” Mr Trump said, criticising the law on Wednesday.

He added that the law invalidates the companies’ statuses as private companies.

The lawsuit has been criticised by legal experts, who pointed to Mr Trump’s habit of issuing lawsuits for media attention but not aggressively defending the claims in court. His argument of free speech infringement has also been questioned by analysts, as the companies he accuses have those same First Amendment protections in determining content on their sites.

Trump struggles to be heardDonald Trump’s muzzling on social media has been extremely effective.

His megaphone removed, Trump has struggled to be heard at times.

His plans for his own social media platform have so far come to nothing.

This lawsuit illustrates, if it were needed, just how important the big social media companies are to him.

A key strategy of Trumpism is being able to speak directly to voters – bypassing traditional media.

Facebook proved particularly important to Trump – giving him access to millions of Americans at the click of a button.

Experts believe the lawsuits are unlikely to succeed.

Mr Trump will argue that his First Amendment rights have been violated. But tech companies will say that, as private companies, they have the right to decide who uses their platform – an argument that is likely to succeed.

House Republicans, too, want to introduce legislation that will “break up” Big Tech. However, without a majority in either house they will struggle to do so.

Trump desperately wants to get back into your newsfeed, but that may not be likely to happen anytime soon.

Chinese gaming giant Tencent is rolling out facial recognition to stop children playing between 22:00 and 08:00.

The “midnight-patrol” technology will stop “tricks” circumventing the government curfew, introduced in 2019 with a cap on what young gamers could spend on in-game transactions, it says.

The bans require gamers to register with their official IDs, linked to a national database.

But children have reportedly been using adults’ IDs instead of their own.

And now, anyone playing for a certain length of time will require a facial scan to prove they are an adult.

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Tencent started testing the system in 2018 – but it will now cover more than 60 games from the world’s biggest game company.

It announced the expansion on China’s QQ messaging service, calling it “zero-hours cruising”, which China news site Sixth Tone translated as “midnight patrol”.

Many of Tencent’s top titles, such as Honour of Kings and Game for Peace, are for phones – mobile gaming is far more popular in China than the West.

Facial recognition is easier to implement using a phone’s camera than on a computer or games console.

And age checks using cameras are already being suggested to verify users’ age for online sales of adult products.

The World Health Organization formally recognised gaming addiction in 2018.

And the following year, the NHS adopted treatment plans for what is seen as a rare disorder affecting only a small proportion of hardcore gamers.

But in China, video games have often been accused of having a negative impact on young people, including near-sightedness in children.

And in a bid to tackle what China considers “problem” gaming, all new titles must be approved by a regulator, which in 2018 “froze” releases and has since appeared to limit the number.

Audio-edit software Audacity has denied accusations its new privacy policy has transformed it into “possible spyware”.

The open-source free tool, with 100 million users worldwide, is popular with podcast and music editors.

Its updated policy says data can be shared with its Russia-based infrastructure company, WSM, as well as regional law enforcement.

Audacity says the only data it exchanges with its users is software updates and error reports.

But since the updated policy was published last week, there have been angry calls from concerned users to uninstall the product or revert to an older version.

And technology website Fosspost described the most recent version as “possible spyware”.

“One would not expect an offline desktop application to be collecting such data, phoning home and then handing that data to governments around the world whenever they see fit,” it wrote.

Alert users
Audacity was bought by the Cyprus-based firm Muse Group in April 2021.

Muse head of strategy Daniel Ray told BBC News: “We don’t know anything about our users.

“We don’t want users’ personal information – that doesn’t help us.”

The company, which bought Audacity in April, intended to release more frequent updates and wanted to alert users, Mr Ray said.

And the policy, “written by lawyers, to be understood by lawyers rather than the average person”, was a requirement for any software that sent any form of information back to its creators.

It also stated under-13s could no longer use the Audacity app, to comply with data laws, Mr Ray said

But anyone of any age could still use the product in its offline mode.

The policy says Audacity collects “very limited data” about users – no “direct identifiers” such as names or contact details – and an account profile is not required.

But it may share the personal data it does gather with:

staff members
law enforcement, government agencies and regulators
auditors, advisers and legal representatives of the company
potential buyers of the business
And while European user data is stored in Europe, it may “occasionally” share data with its headquarters in Russia.

This was to monitor signs of potential distributed-denial-of-service (DDOS), when a platform is deliberately flooded with data requests intended to knock it offline, Mr Ray said.

And individual Internet Protocol (IP) addresses were scrambled, using an encryption technique called hashing.

The company was not seeking to monetise the 21-year-old product, Mr Ray said, but it was seeking to “modernise” it.

“Previously, updates were every few years,” he said, “we want to do them every few weeks.

“If you don’t have ways of informing users about updates they might miss, then you put the burden on the user to keep up with the pace of change”.

About 200 US businesses have been hit by a “colossal” ransomware attack, according to a cyber-security firm.

Huntress Labs said the hack targeted Florida-based IT company Kaseya before spreading through corporate networks that use its software.

Kaseya said in a statement on its own website that it was investigating a “potential attack”.

Huntress Labs said it believed the Russia-linked REvil ransomware gang was responsible.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, a federal agency, said in a statement that it was taking action to address the attack.

The cyber-breach emerged on Friday afternoon as companies across the US were clocking off for the long Independence Day weekend.

Kaseya said one of its applications that runs corporate servers, desktop computers and network devices might have been compromised.

The company said it was urging customers that use its VSA tool to immediately shut down their servers.

Kaseya said in its statement that a “small number” of companies had been affected, though Huntress Labs said the number is already about 200 and counting.

It is not clear what specific companies have been affected – a Kaseya representative contacted by the BBC declined to give details.

Kaseya’s website says it has a presence in over 10 countries and more than 10,000 customers.”This is a colossal and devastating supply chain attack,” Huntress Labs’ senior security researcher John Hammond said in an email to Reuters news agency.

At a summit in Geneva last month, US President Joe Biden said he told Russian President Vladimir Putin he had a responsibility to rein in such cyber-attacks.

Mr Biden said he gave Mr Putin a list of 16 critical infrastructure sectors, from energy to water, that should not be subject of hacking.

REvil – also known as Sodinokibi – is one of the most prolific and profitable cyber-criminal groups in the world.

The gang was blamed by the FBI for a hack in May that paralysed operations at JBS – the world’s largest meat supplier.

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The group sometimes threatens to post stolen documents on its website – known as the “Happy Blog” – if victims don’t comply with its demands.

REvil was also linked to a co-ordinated attack on nearly two dozen local governments in Texas in 2019.

Sir Richard Branson has named the date he’ll fly to the edge of space. It will be 11 July, or very soon after.

He’ll be a passenger in the back of the Unity rocket plane his Virgin Galactic company has been developing in the US for the better part of two decades.

The vehicle can climb to an altitude of 90km (295,000ft), giving those onboard a few minutes of weightlessness and a view of the curvature of the Earth.

Sir Richard’s intention is to introduce a commercial spaceflight service.

Some 600 individuals have already lodged deposits to take the ride.

Witnessing the British entrepreneur do it means those customers are now getting extremely close to having to hand over the full ticket price, which in some cases will be $250,000 (£180,000).

Sir Richard Branson said: “I truly believe that space belongs to all of us. After 17 years of research, engineering and innovation, the new commercial space industry is poised to open the Universe to humankind and change the world for good.

“It’s one thing to have a dream of making space more accessible to all; it’s another for an incredible team to collectively turn that dream into reality.”

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Absolutely key to Virgin Galactic moving forward with its business was the granting last week of a commercial spaceflight licence by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Sunday 11 July is the opening of what’s termed a flight “window”. The Galactic team will aim to make the ascent on that day, but it could of course be delayed because of unfavourable weather conditions or perhaps a technical issue.

If the mission does indeed go ahead on that Sunday, it would mean Sir Richard stealing a march on his rival in sub-orbital space tourism, fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos.

The founder of the online retail empire Amazon.com has sunk a fortune into his hobby of building rockets and has announced his own trip to the edge of space on 20 July.

He’s invited three individuals to join him in his New Shepard booster and capsule system: his brother Mark; a mystery person who paid $28m (£20m) at auction for a seat; and the famed female aviator Wally Funk.

Eighty-two-year old Funk trained to be an astronaut in the 1960s and will become the oldest ever spacefarer when she rockets to an altitude of 100km with Mr Bezos.

The Amazon man has yet to detail how he’ll sell tickets more generally for New Shepard, but this is his plan.

Sir Richard has clearly moved his first flight up in response to Mr Bezos naming the date for his inaugural mission.

The original schedule for the next Unity flight called for four Virgin Galactic employees to ride as passengers to test the cabin experience for future tourists. Only after that outing was Sir Richard supposed to strap himself in.

He’ll now be one of the four testers – alongside Beth Moses, Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor; Colin Bennett, lead operations engineer; and Sirisha Bandla, vice president of government affairs.

The two pilots up front will be Dave Mackay and Michael “Sooch” Masucci.

Space tourism is a sector being rekindled after a decade’s hiatus.

Throughout the 2000s, seven wealthy individuals paid to visit the International Space Station (ISS). But this adventurism, organised under the patronage of the Russian space agency, ceased in 2009.

Now, new initiatives abound, and some of these will be aiming much higher than the sub-orbital flights from Sir Richard and Jeff Bezos.

California tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has already lined up several private missions in his Dragon capsules. These vehicles reach several hundred km above the Earth and will stay up for days.

The Russians, too, are reprising their commercial flights to the ISS, and there are even those who want to launch private space stations for people to visit. Among these is Axiom, a company started by a former Nasa ISS programme manager.

UK-based space start-up OneWeb has received a cash injection of $500m (£361m) from Indian firm Bharti Global.

The deal means Bharti will now take a 39% stake, making it the biggest shareholder in the satellite provider.

The UK government is also a major shareholder after it and Bharti put in $1bn to buy OneWeb out of bankruptcy last year.

The new investment will help OneWeb launch more commercial satellites into space later this year.

OneWeb is building a network of low Earth orbit satellites to deliver broadband connections around the world.

The deal is expected to complete in the second half of this year.

“In just a year and during a global pandemic, together we have transformed OneWeb, bringing the operation back to full-scale. With this round of financing, we complete the funding requirements,” Bharti Global’s Managing Director Shravin Mittal said in a statement.

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In total, the company has secured $2.4bn of funding to deliver on its ambitions. Paris-based Eutelsat took a stake in OneWeb with a $550m investment in April.

Japanese technology giant SoftBank is also a major investor.

Under the deal, the UK government, Eutelsat and SoftBank will each own 19.3% of the firm.

UK Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said the deal is a vote of confidence in the company: “It’s clear that investors see a strong future for this incredible, cutting-edge company and a robust commercial case for investment.”

The British government had been criticised for using UK taxpayer money to rescue a bankrupt company at the time of the bailout.

Earlier this week, OneWeb signed a deal with BT to explore ways to provide broadband internet to remote parts of the UK and people at sea.

The two companies said they will look at how to improve the speed that people can access data in remote areas, and how to improve the signal people can get on their phone, including how to stop it cutting out so much.

The UK government has also launched ‘Project Gigabit’, which aims to improve rural broadband coverage across the country.

OneWeb competes with providers such as Jeff Bezos’ Project Kuiper as well as Elon Musk’s Starlink, which was recently granted a license by the UK regulator to operate.

Starlink began a UK trial of its services in January after Ofcom granted it a licence in November.

OneWeb says it currently has 218 satellites, and is due to launch a further 36 on Thursday.