Cinnamon 3.8 Desktop Environment Released with Python 3 Support, Improvements

Scheduled to ship with the upcoming Linux Mint 19 "Tara" operating system series this summer, the Cinnamon 3.8 desktop environment is now available for download and it's a major release that brings numerous improvements, new features, and lots of Python 3 ports for a bunch of components. Among the components that got ported to Python 3 in the Cinnamon 3.8 release, we can mention cinnamon-settings, cinnamon-menu-editor, cinnamon-desktop-editor, cinnamon-settings-users, melange, background slideshow, the switch editor and screensaver lock dialogs, desktop file generation scripts, as well as all the utilities.

Canonical Releases Kernel Security Updates for Ubuntu 17.10 and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

For Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) users, today's security update addresses a bug (CVE-2018-8043) in Linux kernel's Broadcom UniMAC MDIO bus controller driver, which improperly validated device resources, allowing a local attacker to crash the vulnerable system by causing a denial of service (DoS attack). For Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) users, the security patch fixes a buffer overread vulnerability (CVE-2017-13305) in Linux kernel's keyring subsystem and an information disclosure vulnerability (CVE-2018-5750) in the SMBus driver for ACPI Embedded Controllers. Both issues could allow a local attacker to expose sensitive information.

Security: Updates, Reproducible Builds, Match.com and More

• Security updates for Tuesday

• Reproducible Builds: Weekly report #156

• A Match.com glitch reactivated a bunch of old profiles, raising concerns about user data

  A Match Group spokesperson confirmed that a “limited number” of old accounts had been accidentally reactivated recently and that any account affected received a password reset. Match.com’s current privacy statement, which was last updated in 2016, says that the company can “retain certain information associated with your account” even after you close it. But that Match Group spokesperson also told The Verge that the company plans to roll out a new privacy policy “in the next month or so,” in order to comply with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); under the new policy, all those years-old accounts will be deleted. The Verge has requested clarification on which accounts will qualify for deletion, and what “deletion” will specifically entail, but has not received a response as of press time.

• New hacks siphon private cryptocurrency keys from airgapped wallets

  Like most of the other attacks developed by Ben-Gurion University professor Mordechai Guri and his colleagues, the currency wallet exploits start with the already significant assumption that a device has already been thoroughly compromised by malware. Still, the research is significant because it shows that even when devices are airgapped—meaning they aren't connected to any other devices to prevent the leaking of highly sensitive data—attackers may still successfully exfiltrate the information. Past papers have defeated airgaps using a wide array of techniques, including electromagnetic emissions from USB devices, radio signals from a computer's video card, infrared capabilities in surveillance cameras, and sounds produced by hard drives.

• New hacker group targets US health-care industry, researchers say

  The group, which Symantec has named “Orangeworm,” has been installing backdoors in large international corporations based in the U.S., Europe and Asia that operate in the health-care sector.

  Among its victims are health-care providers and pharmaceutical companies, as well as IT companies and equipment manufacturers that work for health organizations.

today's howtos

• How to create a 2D game with Python and the Arcade library

• Added docker container to my org-teaching framework to ease org-mode exports

• How to share files between Linux and Windows

• How to Create Custom Live CD image using Cubic on Ubuntu

• What are the options for log management in Linux?