Good morning, here’s to a new month. It’s getting colder, but the tech news is heating up (it’s not, but that would have been a great segue). We should just jump straight in, eh?
1. Amnesty International waited 5 months to disclose breach
On late Friday, Amnesty International Australia sent an email to supporters informing them their data may be at risk due to “anomalous activity” detected in its IT environment back in December. While Amnesty International took quite a while to tell its supporters it had suffered a security breach, the organisation said its investigation is now complete and is confident only ‘low risk’ info was accessed. Read more about it here.
2. Online food marketplace Providoor enters liquidation
It’s been a rough several months for grocery delivery apps in Australia. Just last month, MilkRun announced that it was closing down. Before this, lesser-known competitors, like Voly, Quicko and Send all folded. Now, Providoor has entered liquidation, per a notice on its website. Providoor was an online marketplace for high-end restaurants and food co-founded by celebrity chef Shane Delia during the COVID-19 lockdowns. “While today is a very sad day, I am proud of Providoor and what it has achieved. We served more than one million meals and built something that made a difference during some very dark days,” Delia wrote.
3. Medibank to keep cyber attack report from the public
The Australian is reporting that Medibank will not be releasing a report into what actually happened when the private health insurer suffered a cyber attack last year. While the organisation said it has implemented recommendations from the report (prepared by Deloitte), a spokeswoman told The Australian the review includes confidential and sensitive information about the cyber security measures that Medibank has in place to protect customers and other data from malicious cyber-attacks and that releasing it wouldn’t be in the interests of its customers or the broader Australian community to publicly release the findings.
4. Today in Musk land…
Twitter CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter (of course) to inform its tiny userbase that his social media platform will allow media publishers to charge users on a per-article basis with one click, as The Guardian notes, he’s calling the move a win for both the public and media organisations. The feature, to be rolled out this month, will enable users who do not “sign up for a monthly subscription to pay a higher per article price for when they want to read an occasional article”.
Rolling out next month, this platform will allow media publishers to charge users on a per article basis with one click.
This enables users who would not sign up for a monthly subscription to pay a higher per article price for when they want to read an occasional article.…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2023
5. Emirates introduces check-in robot
Airline Emirates over the weekend officially unveiled what’s been touted as the world’s first check-in robot assistant. Called Sara, per Business Traveller we learn that the robot will work at the company’s new City Check-In and Travel Store at the Dubai International Financial Centre which behaves like a remote check-in centre, allowing passengers to check in for flights and drop off their luggage as early as 24 hours and up to four hours before their flight.
BONUS ITEM: A terrible segue to start, but a better one to end on.
“Moment woman flips out at robot ‘receptionist’ and smashes it up with plank of wood in huge meltdown”
It will get worse as the mental states continue to move in the current direction. https://t.co/KPdQcSekn8
— Brian Roemmele (@BrianRoemmele) April 28, 2023
Have a great week ahead.