Giant hole appears at 'the end of the world' in Siberia

[email protected] (The Independent)
July 18, 2014

Giant holeJul 18: A mysterious crater has appeared at the "end of the world" in Siberia, leaving a pit 80m wide and so deep it has not yet been measured.

Researchers are being dispatched to investigate the hole, which has confounded scientists with its dramatic appearance.

Some have speculated it could have been made by a meteorite striking earth, an underground explosion, or is a sinkhole caused by collapsing rock, the Siberian Times reported.

One imaginative online commentator claimed it could even be evidence "of the arrival of a UFO craft" to the planet.

The area's name, Yamal, translates as the "end of the world" and the remote peninsula reaches into the Arctic Ocean.

It holds some of Russia's largest gas reserves and the crater appeared less than 20 miles from the biggest gas field, Bovanenkovo.

The dark colour of the crater's sides was said in a Zvezda TV report to indicate "temperature processes" or burning.

Whatever caused it, it is large enough to comfortably fit several military helicopters in the entrance.

Experts from the Centre for the Study of the Arctic and the Cryosphere Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences will take samples of soil, air and water.

A spokesman for the Russian Emergencies Ministry's Yamal branch ruled out a meteorite but said it was too early to say what cause the crater.

Initial reports about the phenomenon were dismissed as fakes but evidence has proved its existence for the last two years.

Anna Kurchatova, from the Sub-Arctic Scientific Research Centre, told the Siberian Times global warming could be a cause.

She believes the hole was formed by a mixture of water, salt and gas, igniting an underground explosion.

The gas had accumulated in ice mixed with sand beneath the surface of what was a sea 10,000 years ago, and ignited when the permafrost melted "like popping a champagne bottle", she claimed.

If her analysis is correct, another explosion could have worrying implications for the many underground gas pipelines running through the region.

The nearby Bovanenkovo field is of central importance to gas supplies from Siberia to the world.

Yamal is also known for its huge reindeer herds, which are managed by the indigenous Nenets.

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Agencies
January 19,2020

New Delhi, Jan 19: Messaging service WhatsApp which on Sunday faced issues in transmitting multimedia content including pictures and images, prompting social media users to share hilarious memes and messages, resumed regular services after over two hours.

#WhatsAppDown was the trending hashtag on Twitter for most part of Sunday afternoon in India along with several other countries such as Brazil, Europe and also parts of Middle-East including UAE, reported downdetector.in, a realtime problem and outage monitoring website.

Users of the popular messaging app were unable to send media files, stickers and GIFs.

Most users immediately went to Twitter to find out about the problem and check if others were facing the same issue.

Numerous tweets and memes took over the internet as soon as the news broke about the WhatsApp tech issue. After around two hours of technical glitch, the app resumed full service.

Even after full recovery of media transfer, people globally still continued checking the status of the messaging app.

WhatsApp has been one of the prime messaging apps since May 2009 and has recently collaborated with Facebook.

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Agencies
May 19,2020

Cybersecurity researchers on Monday warned of a Trojan malware campaign which is targeting India's co-operative banks using COVID-19 as a bait.

Seqrite, the enterprise arm of IT security firm Quick Heal Technologies, detected the new wave of Adwind Java Remote Access Trojan (RAT) campaign.

Researchers at Seqrite warned that if attackers are successful, they can take over the victim's device to steal sensitive data like SWIFT logins and customer details and move laterally to launch large scale cyberattacks and financial frauds.

According to the researchers, the Java RAT campaign starts with a spear-phishing email which claims to have originated from either the Reserve Bank of India or a nationalised bank.

The content of the email refers to COVID-19 guidelines or a financial transaction, with detailed information in an attachment, which is a zip file containing a JAR based malware.

Upon further investigation, researchers at Seqrite found that the JAR based malware is a Remote Access Trojan that can run on any machine which has Java runtime enabled and hence it can impact a variety of endpoints, irrespective of their base operating system.

Once the RAT is installed, the attacker can take over the victim's device, send commands from a remote machine, and spread laterally in the network.

In addition, this malware can also log keystrokes, capture screenshots, download additional payloads, and extract sensitive user information, Seqrite said, adding that such attack campaigns can effectively jeopardise the privacy and security of sensitive data at the co-operative banks and result in large scale attacks and financial frauds.

To prevent such attacks, users need to exercise ample caution and avoid opening attachments and clicking on web links in unsolicited emails.

Banks should also keep their operating systems updated and have a full-fledged security solution installed on all the devices, Seqrite advised.

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Agencies
March 3,2020

Facebook on Monday launched a new consumer marketing campaign in India titled 'More Together'. India is the first country in the Asia Pacific region where such a campaign is being rolled out.

It is also the first time that Facebook is rolling out a 'high decibel campaign of this stature in India', the company said in a statement.

It is also the first time that Facebook is rolling out a 'high decibel campaign of this stature in India', the company said in a statement.

"India is at the heart of Facebook and one of our focus areas this year is to tell the exciting story of a service that is deeply embedded in the fabric of India," said Ajit Mohan, Vice President and Managing Director, Facebook India.

The campaign would have multiple campaigns over the next few weeks in eight languages and the one will be set in the context of Holi.

Facebook in 2019 introduced a new company logo to further distinguish the company from the Facebook app.

The company recently announced the appointment of Avinash Pant as the Marketing Director for India operations, to drive the consumer marketing efforts across the family of apps.

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