Your daily dose of tech news, in brief.

Welcome to Monday, everyone! It is also World Turtle Day. At first, I thought it was a day for the Great A'Tuin, a World Turtle from the Discworld series, but we have a few days until the Glorious 25th of May. World Turtle Day was created to bring attention to, and increase knowledge of and respect for, turtles and tortoises, and encourage human action to help them survive and thrive.

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Cisco Issues Patch for New IOS XR Zero-Day Vulnerability Exploited in the Wild

Cisco has addressed a zero-day vulnerability in its IOS XR router software that allowed unauthenticated attackers to remotely access Redis instances running in NOSi Docker containers. This affects multiple Cisco router platforms, including NCS 540 & 560, NCS 5500, 8000, and ASR 9000 series routers.

According to The Hacker News:

"Tracked as CVE-2022-20821 (CVSS score: 6.5), the issue relates to an open port vulnerability that could be abused by an unauthenticated, remote attacker to connect to a Redis instance and achieve code execution.

"A successful exploit could allow the attacker to write to the Redis in-memory database, write arbitrary files to the container filesystem, and retrieve information about the Redis database," Cisco said in an advisory.

"Given the configuration of the sandboxed container that the Redis instance runs in, a remote attacker would be unable to execute remote code or abuse the integrity of the Cisco IOS XR Software host system.""

For those of you who may be affected by this, Cisco does provide workarounds if you cannot immediately apply the security updates.

Learn more about IOS XR zero-day patch at The Hacker News.

Linus Torvalds debuts 'boring old plain' Linux kernel 5.18

Linux creator Linux Torvalds has announced the stable Linux kernel version 5.18 release after making it through the final week of development with "no unexpected nasty surprises".

According to The Register:

"Torvalds called for developers to "run boring old plain 5.18" before getting excited about the forthcoming version 5.19.

That description is a little harsh on the new cut of the kernel, which offers notable additions such as the software-defined silicon code that verifies cryptographically signed licenses to enable dormant features in Intel silicon.

We asked Intel about this, again, and the company still won't share specifics. We were told that Intel is "committed to developing flexible solutions that meet the unique demands of our customers and partners and lead the industry" and "At this time we have no specific product details to share regarding feature activation.""

Beyond Intel Software Defined Silicon (SDSi), Linux 5.18 looks to have brought numerous CPU and graphics updates for Intel and AMD chips, as well as support for Tesla's Full Self Driving (FSD) system on chip, and support for the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W.

Learn more about Linux kernel 5.18 at The Register.

The Week in Ransomware - May 20th 2022 - Another one bites the dust

Lawrence Abrams brings us the latest in ransomware news in "The Week in Ransomware".

According to Bleeping Computer:

"This week's biggest news is the Conti ransomware gang beginning to shut down their operation, with internal infrastructure taken offline and team leaders/members told that the brand is ending.

While the 'Conti' brand may be shut down, cybersecurity firm Advanced Intel says that the cybercrime syndicate will continue to operate, with members joining other ransomware operations or the Conti leadership taking over smaller operations.

By splintering into smaller 'cells,' it is believed that Conti will be able to evade law enforcement more easily and simply switch between different ransomware operation's encryptors. While this may mean less revenue for the syndicate, it creates greater mobility for the overall operation."

If you find these kinds of updates interesting and informative, make sure to check out community member dbeato's latest "The SOC Briefing for May 20th - Updates Here we Come!".

Learn more about the latest in ransomware at Bleeping Computer.

But there's more going on in the world galaxy than that.

Boeing's Starliner unmanned test flight docks at International Space Station for the first time

On Friday, Boeing's CST-100 Starliner successfully docked itself to the International Space Station, demonstrating after years of delays, that the vehicle can potentially bring humans to the ISS.

According to ZDNet:

""We have learned so much as we've worked together to prepare for this mission, and we look forward to watching the spacecraft arrive at the space station for the first time and continuing to learn and improve as we prepare to fly our astronauts on Starliner."

While Starliner remains docked at the space station until Wednesday, the aircraft will recharge its battery using solar arrays while the space station crew performs periodical system checks and ground controllers evaluate data gathered during its flight, Boeing said.

The spacecraft is also expected to return with more than 600 pounds of cargo, including reusable oxygen tanks that will be refurbished on earth and sent back to the station on a future flight."

Learn more about the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft at ZDNet.

These SpaceX moon and sunrise Starlink satellite launch photos are just incredible

I'll put some words here but, if you're interested in space, you'll definitely want to check out these pictures.

According to Space.com:

""What you're looking at on your screen is this incredible live shot of the being being captured by one of our tracking cameras at the Cape," SpaceX production manager Jessie Anderson said during a live broadcast. "Now, these are the same cameras that we use to track Falcon 9 during launch, and today we're getting a bonus view of the moon, which looks pretty incredible there on your screen." Anderson said the view was captured with the help of a SpaceX launch engineer named John."

Learn more about photos from space at Space.com.

And you can't not know this.

Lonestar plans to put datacenters in the Moon's lava tubes

This one is a bit about technology, IT professionals, and space, all rolled into one.

According to The Register:

"Imagine a future where racks of computer servers hum quietly in darkness below the surface of the Moon.

Here is where some of the most important data is stored, to be left untouched for as long as can be. The idea sounds like something from science-fiction, but one startup that recently emerged from stealth is trying to turn it into a reality. Lonestar Data Holdings has a unique mission unlike any other cloud provider: to build datacenters on the Moon backing up the world's data."

Learn more about lunar datacenters at The Register.

What was the most interesting story today? Vote in our poll below. Also, check out previous editions of Snap! to stay in the know on important and entertaining tech and science news.

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