Microsoft outage 'stark reminder' of how much we rely on tech

BBC, Laura Cress, 13 November 2026 

Getty Images The red green blue and yellow Microsoft logo on a glass
building Getty Images

A critical Microsoft outage lasting more than 22 hours has raised questions about how heavily vital services rely on a handful of major tech firms. 

The disruption, which affected Microsoft 365 services such as Outlook, was caused by routine automated checks that took some servers offline, overloading the remaining ones with traffic. 

The recovery took nearly a full day while engineers gradually restored services, highlighting how embedded the tech giant's services are in modern society. 

Flora Hamilton, executive director of the Small Business Charter, said the outage was a "stark reminder" of how much firms "rely on digital systems" - like Microsoft Outlook - "to keep their operations running". 

"For many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), access to email is fundamental to everything from communicating with customers and suppliers to generating income," she said. 

The disruption was not just confined to businesses, but also affected organisations and public institutions around the world. 

Around 430 million people globally use Microsoft 365, and issues were reported across more than 70 countries. 

The fallout from the outage had a wide-ranging effect, knocking out email systems for the US House of Representatives and Australian intelligence agencies, as well as disrupting court systems in Singapore and airline support desks in India. 

Microsoft has since apologised for the issue, which it said was due to a technical failure rather than a cyber-attack. 

There was no "ETA" for when services will be fully recovered, Microsoft added in a statement late on Friday (GMT). 

Walter Pasquarelli, an AI strategist, told the BBC that for governments, businesses and critical infrastructure, the outage had "put their vulnerabilities and dependence in plain sight". 

"Looking ahead, as AI assistants are plugged into our email, calendars and files, a failure like this may spread even further," he said. 

Microsoft says email queues 'approaching normal levels' after global outage hits Outlook and Teams users

Gergely Orosz, a former leading software engineer at several major tech companies, said while these kinds of outages weren't unheard of, what was unusual was the time it took for Microsoft to recover from it. 

A spokesperson for the US tech company said "given the scale of demand" it restored services gradually. 

"While this took longer, it helped ensure a stable restoration," a spokesperson said. 

Orosz said the resulting upset showed "our reliance on a few large US corporations". 

He said a solution for the future could be to split services per region to reduce the impact, something which already happens with Amazon's cloud computing service, AWS. 

For now, Microsoft said it was reviewing what went wrong, with the findings expected to inform steps to prevent a similar disruption from happening again.

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Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO after alleged affairs

Move follows admission of affair with woman alleged to be Chinese spy and reported relationships with two employees 

The Guardian, Dan Milmo and Dara Kerr, 12 Nov 2026

Jensen Huang has resigned as chief executive of Nvidia.

Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images 

Jensen Huang has resigned as chief executive of Nvidia after reports of extramarital affairs with an alleged Chinese spy and two company employees.

He will be replaced on an interim basis by Nvidia’s chief financial officer, Colette Kress, until a full-time successor is named.

Shares in the chipmaker plunged by 13% when Wall Street opened, after Huang’s departure was announced. After a partial rebound, they closed down 4.3% on Thursday, wiping more than $180bn (£135bn) off Nvidia’s value on the day and around $490bn for the week – valuing the company at $4tn. 

The statement from Nvidia’s board of directors confirming Huang’s departure did not mention the spying scandal and personal conduct revelations, instead paying tribute to Huang’s “profound” contributions to the company he co-founded. 

“Jensen’s contributions to Nvidia are profound. Nvidia is one of the most consequential technology companies in the world. The board and the company thank Jensen for his immeasurable contributions to the company and the industry,” the statement said. 

It added that Huang had resigned as chief executive, president and Nvidia board member “effective immediately”. 

Donald Trump, who had defended Huang at first as the scandal threatened to overwhelm the Nvidia co-founder, quickly moved on to potential successors on Thursday, posting on social media that he should be replaced by Tim Cook, Apple’s former chief executive and current executive chair. 

“NOW THAT Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to take his place – TIM COOK of Apple,” Trump wrote, adding: “A Legend replaces a Legend!” 

The chipmaker’s board earlier this week appointed the leading law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct a “thorough and independent” investigation into the relationship with Alice Huang, an Nvidia customer and Chinese citizen who is no relation to the Nvidia boss. Nvidia had previously denied anything unusual about the relationship, but that changed on Sunday when Jensen Huang admitted he had been unfaithful to his wife, Lori, without referring to Alice Huang directly. 

The law firm had directed Jensen Huang to continue to lead Nvidia as the investigation continued. 

However, late on Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Huang had a separate extramarital affair with a company employee named Kimberly Powell. She was Nvidia’s vice-president of healthcare and was reportedly captured on video being affectionate with Huang at a hotel during a company conference in March. 

The report added to the pressure on Huang, as the board called a meeting late on Wednesday to discuss the chief executive’s future. 

Powell has been approached for comment. 

After Huang’s resignation was announced on Thursday, Reuters reported a third alleged affair. The newly uncovered liaison was another Nvidia employee, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke to the news outlet. Reuters did not reveal her name. 

Nvidia’s board said it would consider internal and external candidates for the chief executive’s role, with Cook featuring among potential runners and riders before Trump’s intervention. Cook stepped down as chief executive at Apple in September but still has a senior executive role at the company. Rene Haas, the chief executive of Arm Holdings, a UK-based chipmaker, has also been mooted, along with Lisa Su, the chief executive of the chipmaker AMD. 

Huang ran Nvidia tightly and managed about 60 direct reports. Internal candidates include Kress and Ian Buck, who manages the company’s AI hardware and software products. Huang’s two children, Madison and Spencer, also work at Nvidia but are in their mid-30s and relatively inexperienced. The chipmaker also announced the appointment of Harvey Jones, a tech investor and entrepreneur, as its first-ever chair.

Dan Ives, a senior US tech analyst, said the board had done what “it needed to do, which is rip off the Band-Aid and take Nvidia into its next chapter without him” and that the company remained ahead of its competitors. 

However, Neil Wilson, an analyst at the investment platform Saxo UK, said Nvidia would need a “great CEO” to replace Huang. 

“His technical knowledge and understanding of every last bit of product is basically unique and impossible to replicate,” Wilson said, adding nonetheless that Nvidia was well placed in terms of upcoming products and orders. 

Huang’s exit from the company he co-founded in 1993 removes a senior figure in Silicon Valley at a time when the AI arms race between the US and China is at an apex. He owns more than 870m shares, or about 3.6% of the company, and was worth $145bn on Thursday morning, according to Bloomberg, making him the world’s 13th richest person. 

Unlike many of his contemporaries at other leading tech companies, Huang has dozens of direct reports, an unusual management structure that emphasises his control over the company. 

The entire AI ecosphere relies on Nvidia, which engineers advanced chips used to train AI models and power companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic. It is also one of the most valuable companies on Earth, with a market cap that hit $5tn at one point last year. 

Huang has denied any knowledge that Alice Huang allegedly worked for the Chinese government. The pair were seen together around the world, dining in restaurants and attending meetings, over the past few years. Alice Huang is a businesswoman and head of the Singapore-based datacentre firm Megaspeed, who US intelligence services suspect of being a Chinese asset according to multiple reports. 

On the same day that Jensen Huang admitted having an affair, Nvidia’s board of directors announced the company was launching an investigation regarding reports that he was the target of a foreign intelligence effort. Huang has agreed to testify before US Congress.

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Few Silicon Valley executives have been as synonymous with their companies
as Jensen Huang, the co-founder and chief executive of Nvidia.Credit...Manuel
Orbegozo for The New York Times

Nvidia hires major New York law firm to investigate Jensen Huang affair

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has become the face of the US AI boom

Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, during President Trump’s state visit to
Beijing in May.He was not included initially, but joined at the last minute
at Mr. Trump’s invitation.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Despite Denial, Trump Was Told on Trip to China About Spying on Nvidia Leader 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jensen Huang is living proof that AI’s rockstar CEOs are also a hidden risk

President Trump met with leaders of the artificial intelligence industry 

at the White House in September.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Nvidia hires major New York law firm to investigate Jensen Huang affair

BBC, Kali Hays, Lily Jamali, 10 November 2026 

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has become the face of the US AI boom

Nvidia has hired New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to investigate the affair between its chief executive and an alleged Chinese spy. 

Jensen Huang, a co-founder of Nvidia who has led it to become one of the most valuable companies in the world, admitted to having a romantic relationship with a woman outside of his marriage. 

The woman, Alice Huang, is alleged to be a spy for Beijing. She was an executive at a Singaporean company Megaspeed, which has been a customer of Nvidia. 

Nvidia said on Tuesday that Wachtell attorney Joon Kim was set to lead "a thorough and independent investigation" into Jensen Huang's affair. The FBI is also conducting its own probe. 

Nvidia is widely considered one of the most important companies behind the US artificial intelligence (AI) boom given it is the sole manufacturer of a crucial computer chip required for successfully operating AI tools. 

Shares in the company fell to a near-yearly low on Tuesday, wiping more than $500bn (£375bn) off Nvidia's stock market value since Friday, even as tech stocks have recovered since last week's sell-off. 

Jensen Huang's relationship with an executive of an Nvidia customer, who is also believed by the US government to be spying for China, has business and national security implications. 

Megaspeed had been suspected of helping divert Nvidia chips to China, a concern that Nvidia has said was investigated and debunked. 

Nvidia has also maintained the US government did not inform the firm that Megaspeed posed an intelligence concern. 

According to the New York Times, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a memo to top officials in Washington in spring of this year warning that the Nvidia boss was in a close relationship with a Chinese spy. 

Beijing has rejected claims that Jensen Huang has been targeted, with its foreign ministry saying the allegations were "intended to smear and malign China". 

US President Donald Trump said Monday that he had spoken to Jensen Huang and that the Nvidia boss told him "I had no idea she was a spy." Trump said he believed the him. 

However, the relationship has drawn more political attention. Congressional leaders of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs have asked Jensen Huang to appear next week for a closed door briefing. 

The Nvidia boss has yet to say whether he will attend, a person familiar with the committee's demand told the BBC. 

The committee has the authority to subpoena Jensen Huang, effectively forcing him to appear before the committee, if deemed necessary. 

When announcing on Sunday that it would investigate the affair, Nvidia's board said it had no reason to believe the company's secrets or national security were compromised. 

It added that a committee of independent directors would oversee the probe. 

Joon Kim, who will lead Nvidia's investigation, is a former US Attorney for New York's Southern District and spent several years working as a government attorney focused on fraud and other criminal acts. 

Wachtell is one of the largest law firms in the US and has several notable clients in the tech industry. Among them are OpenAI and Salesforce. 

The investigation will likely be treated as urgent, according to sources familiar with the matter, as Jensen Huang's public image is tightly intertwined with Nvidia. 

He has become a key public figure in the development on AI, arguing the technology is a "new industrial revolution" and is on par with the advent of electricity. 

It is unclear, however, if Wachtell will be able to interview Alice Huang, who is also known as Huang Le, and is not related to Jensen Huang. 

A spokesperson for Nvidia declined to comment on Tuesday when asked if Jensen Huang had retained any additional of his own legal representation amid the company investigation and the separate one launched by the FBI.

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Huang’s Resignation From Nvidia Reverberates Through A.I. Industry (New)

Jensen Huang Said to Have Had Relationship With Nvidia Executive Who Reports to Him (New)

Few Silicon Valley executives have been as synonymous with their companies
as Jensen Huang, the co-founder and chief executive of Nvidia.Credit...Manuel
Orbegozo for The New York Times

Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, during President Trump’s state visit to
Beijing in May.He was not included initially, but joined at the last minute
at Mr. Trump’s invitation.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Despite Denial, Trump Was Told on Trip to China About Spying on Nvidia Leader 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jensen Huang is living proof that AI’s rockstar CEOs are also a hidden risk

President Trump met with leaders of the artificial intelligence industry 

at the White House in September.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Tech Billionaires Face Tricky Political Waters After Democratic Sweep

Many donated money to President Trump’s favored causes and became his allies. Now that political alignment may be a liability. 

The New York Times, Eli Tan, Theodore Schleifer and Erin Griffith, Nov. 5, 2026

President Trump met with leaders of the artificial intelligence industry 

at the White House in September.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

In September, President Trump hosted a White House luncheon to discuss artificial intelligence, flanked by some of the world’s wealthiest tech executives: Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and others. They had the president’s ear to pitch an A.I. future uninhibited by regulation or guardrails. 

For two years, it had been that easy to get what they wanted. Tech billionaires and their companies donated money to Mr. Trump’s favored causes, including the White House ballroom. The moguls posed for photos and lavished him with praise and gifts. Amazon heavily promoted a movie about Melania Trump. 

Then on Tuesday, the American public delivered a rebuke of the tech industry’s agenda. Overnight, the billionaires’ political alignment with the president may have become a liability. 

Democrats, riding a wave of anti-tech sentiment, including distrust of tech leaders, opposition to data centers and fears of job loss fueled by A.I., will soon control Congress and prominent state governments. In victory speeches around the country, they made tech titans avatars of inequality and corruption that plagued the Republican Party in the election cycle. 

That puts some tech executives in a trickier position. It may be harder for them to make progress on their goals of A.I. dominance. Many saw their net worths drop on Thursday as investors sold out of A.I. and chip stocks, driving the tech-heavy Nasdaq down more than 5 percent. And some may even find themselves under investigation. 

“You guys aren’t the actual leaders of the Valley. You’re the mis-leaders of the Valley,” said Reid Hoffman, a founder of LinkedIn who is one of the country’s top Democratic donors and a leader of the tech industry’s progressive wing. “It will no longer be that these MAGA voices in the Valley are in charge.” 

Silicon Valley’s shift to the right began in 2024, when Mr. Musk and others went all-in on Mr. Trump, visiting Mar-a-Lago and taking up powerful positions in his administration. New political groups supporting niche interests like cryptocurrency spent enormous sums to promote their agendas. 

Guests at Mr. Trump’s inauguration last year included, from right in the front row,

Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sánchez Bezos and Mark

Zuckerberg. Credit...Ricky Carioti

This time, the money was even bigger. Among the 20 biggest donors in the mid terms were tech billionaires, including the venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. 

An Andreessen-backed cryptocurrency group, Fairshake, spent tens of millions on a mission to defeat Sherrod Brown, the Democrat running for Senate in Ohio. Mr. Musk poured over $474 million into Republican super PACs, including hundreds of millions to support Ken Paxton, the Texas Republican nominee for the Senate. And a Musk-endorsed billionaire ran for governor in Ohio.

Mr. Musk’s results, said Rohan Patel, a former Tesla vice president reporting to Mr. Musk who now works in Democratic politics, are a “total repudiation of his ugly brand of politics.” 

Neil Malhotra, a professor of political economy at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, said tech leaders had mostly been acting out of self-preservation. 

“They understand when you have a president who is willing to use the state to intervene in the economy, it’s smart business practice to be on good terms with the administration,” he said. 

Dr. Malhotra noted that most business leaders would rather that the government not move too far from the center in either direction. After the 2024 election, “Republicans overinterpreted their mandate,” he said. 

Now, tech leaders may find their business dealings under investigation. “They are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we’ll be printing,” Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, posted on social media on Tuesday. 

The tech titans appeared triumphant in one race: A proposed billionaire tax in California is on the cusp of being defeated. Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, and other tech investors and founders poured about $330 million into efforts to vanquish the measure, which called for a one-time 5 percent tax. A companion measure that would effectively ban all future wealth taxes also appeared likely to pass. 

Still, anti-billionaire and anti-tech sentiment was prominent in victory speeches around the country. Mr. Paxton’s opponent in Texas, James Talarico, whom Mr. Hoffman backed with nearly $17 million, compared his race to David versus Goliath. 

“We just sent a message to every billionaire megadonor, every trillionaire megadonor,” he said. He called out “the billionaires who own the social media algorithms, who own the cable news networks, who own the politicians.” This election was a referendum on their power, too, he said. 

Roy Cooper, a Democrat who won a Senate seat in North Carolina, said in his victory speech on Tuesday that “we told Washington loud and clear that North Carolinians will always matter more than the billionaires and the insiders.” 

The left-wing victor in Michigan’s Senate race, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, said he would be “taking on the corporations and the billionaires, special interests who’ve rigged the system against us for far too long.” 

And Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who won re-election in Georgia, called out “the titans of Silicon Valley,” who “dig bunkers for themselves and warn that the artificial intelligence they’re creating risks human extinction.”

Senator Jon Ossoff, Democrat of Georgia, called out “the titans of Silicon

Valley” while speaking on election night at an Atlanta hotel. Credit...Nicole Craine

for The New York Times

Late Tuesday, as the results of the election rolled in, the hosts of the tech podcast “All-In,” who are tech investors, expressed surprise and disappointment in a livestream at the possibility that Texas’ Republican governor, Greg Abbott, could lose his bid for a fourth term. 

The tech industry had assumed that after Mr. Abbott won, he would lift a moratorium on data centers in Texas and that construction would begin again, the “All-In” hosts said. Pro-business Texas is the second-largest state for data center projects, representing roughly 30 percent of the planned capacity for 2028, according to SemiAnalysis, a research group. 

Gina Hinojosa, the Democrat who beat Mr. Abbott, has said she would keep the moratorium going until the state could pass legislation around data centers, delaying projects from coming online for many months. 

Gina Hinojosa and James Talarico campaigning in San Antonio on Sunday.
Credit...Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times

Chamath Palihapitiya, an “All-In” host, connected the slowdown or halt of data center projects to the performance of A.I.-related stocks and, ultimately, the fate of the U.S. economy. He warned of a recession, noting that losing the computing power of new data centers was the “single most effective way to tank the market.” 

Mr. Musk, who donated $5 million to Mr. Abbott’s campaign, posted on social media after the results: “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.” 

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Jensen Huang is living proof that AI’s rockstar CEOs are also a hidden risk (New)

Meta fined $25bn for 'lies' over user data privacy

BBC, Kali Hays, 21 October 2026 

Meta has been hit with numerous legal fines this year

Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp has been hit with the largest ever fine against it for its business practices. 

A judge in New Mexico on Wednesday ordered the company to pay $25bn (£18.6bn) following a two-week trial earlier this year that found it had spent years lying to the public about how it handled Facebook user data. 

"The lies extend beyond Facebook's data practices as well," the judge said, adding they went to "the heart of Facebook's core business practices". 

Meta's head lawyer CJ Mahoney said the ruling made it "all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico". The company intends to appeal, a move Mahoney said will be successful. 

The fine is the largest to date against Meta, which has either been fined or agreed to settle several other lawsuits this year, including an $18bn deal with California over child safety. 

New Mexico's lawsuit stemmed from the role of Meta, then still doing business as Facebook, in what became known as the Cambridge Analytica scandal. 

That firm utilised data and information from millions of Facebook users as part of its work in political consulting, including on work related to the 2016 US Presidential election, which saw Donald Trump elected for the first time. 

New Mexico had also accused Meta of intentionally misleading the public on how it benefitted from content that included hate speech, and how such rules against it were enforced. The jury found the company had intentionally misled the public on those claims, too. 

Meta disputed those accusations. "At its core, this lawsuit seeks to impose a tax on speech to enforce new rules for what people can say online," Mahoney added. 

Lawyers for New Mexico sued the company over many statements Meta executives had made over the years that user data was never shared with or accessed by third parties without a user's permission, when in reality it had been. 

They claimed that the entire population of the state, roughly two million people, was impacted by Meta's dishonesty regarding the way it controlled user data. A jury found that Meta had violated state laws more than 40 million times. 

"For too long, powerful technology companies have operated as though their size and influence put them beyond the reach of the law," New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said on Wednesday. 

"Today's result makes clear that no corporation is too powerful to be held accountable." 

The state lawyers sought up to $40bn in fines against Meta. Meta had argued anything beyond $3.4bn would be unconstitutional. 

Judge Francis Mathew on Wednesday was direct in his decision to fine Meta an amount roughly equal to its profits each quarter. 

He said Meta's violations of law and misrepresentations to the public about how their Facebook data was used and shared were "willful" and spanned "more than 11 years", stretching from 2010 to 2021. 

Communications between senior executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, were "designed to mislead the public", Judge Mathew wrote in his order. 

While the full amount of the penalty against Meta, based on thousands of violations of state law, was calculated as $219bn, Judge Mathew reduced the penalty to the $25bn fine. 

It follows a $5bn fine levied by the US Federal Trade Commission in 2019 against the company over its data privacy practices. 

New Mexico has been one of Meta's most notable adversaries in court. The state this year also fined Meta almost $1bn for misleading the public about the safety of its social media platforms for children. 

The judge overseeing that lawsuit ultimately compared Meta to an industrial polluter of the air, with its form of pollution being "the psychological harm and sexual exploitation of children". 

As large as the fines against Meta are, the company is spending much more on infrastructure as it works to catch up with other tech companies in the artificial intelligence (AI) race. 

Zuckerberg said during a call with financial analysts that Meta's consumer-focused AI tool Muse was already being used by 10 million people. 

"Growing Muse to serve billions of people is both our mission and our strategy," Zuckerberg said. 

To that end, Meta expects to spend at least $135bn this year on mostly AI projects, but could spend up to $145bn. 

The company is spending so much on AI that it reported negative cash flow of more than $2bn - an apparent first for Meta since it listed on the public stock market 14 years ago, according to a BBC review of its past financial documents. 

Cash flow represents the money a company retains after paying for operations and investments. So, Meta is now spending more than it brings in, even as it brings in more money than ever. 

Meta's revenue increased 26% for July to September compared to a year ago, hitting $64.5bn. Its profits also tripled to $9.8bn. 

Still, the company intends to spend more on AI investments. Meta's chief financial officer Susan Li announced a new stock split on the call, in which existing Meta shareholders will receive one new share on non-voting stock. 

Li said the new class of stock was not yet intended for one specific investment, but she alluded to ongoing costs related to AI and said the company could use "more funding flexibility" next year.

Hackers force French supermarket fridges to heat up to 50C in ‘unprecedented’ cyber-attack

The Guardian/Reuters in Paris, 12 October 2026 

Hundreds of Intermarché shops and Coopérative U outlets in France hit, with fears Dutch chains also affected

The branches affected would have to ‘throw away all of the products’
 that are fresh and frozen, Intermarché said.
Photograph: Virginie Lefour/BELGA MAG/AFP/Getty Images

Hackers have forced the temperature of many French supermarket fridges up to 50C overnight, in an “unprecedented” cyber-attack affecting several hundred stores across the country, with fires and food losses reported. 

The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Monday ⁠the large-scale attack was “affecting connected refrigerators ⁠in several ​major food retailers across France”. Reported damage included “food losses and fires”, it added. 

The prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, instructed France’s national cybersecurity agency ANSSI to investigate, ⁠a person in his office said. 

France “was coordinating with its European counterparts, as other countries may also be affected”, while also investigating whether any other French ⁠firms were at risk, they said. 

Les Mousquetaires, which owns retailer Intermarché, said about 150 of its stores had been ​hit, with fridges heated up to 50C for six hours. ‌It had thrown all the food away to avoid any health risks, a spokesperson said. 

Dominique Schelcher, chief executive of Coopérative ‌U, said his supermarkets had also been hit by the attack. “Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and to the food supply of the French people is of extreme gravity and is unprecedented,” he wrote on X. 

Several other supermarket chains, including Carrefour, Monoprix and Auchan, did not respond to requests for comment. According to BFM TV, France’s largest supermarket chain E Leclerc was also affected, with hackers “managing to remotely trigger the forced defrosting of the refrigeration systems in numerous stores”. E Leclerc did not respond to a request for comment. 

The attack may not have been confined to France. The Dutch supermarket company ‌Ahold Delhaize said it was also dealing with a “security issue” in its network, and had taken several systems offline to protect them. 

Stores of its Albert Heijn chain, ​the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands, which also has several stores in Belgium, remained open in both countries. But its online app and delivery system were down, while electronic price tags often displayed the wrong information. 

It was not clear if there was any link between the French supermarket attack and the ⁠problems flagged by Ahold Delhaize. 

Delhaize supermarkets, also part of Ahold Delhaize but operating ​in Belgium and Luxembourg, were ​also affected by the security issue, ​Belgian media reported. 

The source close to Lecornu said ANSSI had identified a vulnerability ​in software supplied by ‌the Danish company Danfoss. 

Australia admits cyber defences 'inadequate' as medical hack hits millions

France24 – AFP, 26 October 2022 

Hackers have accessed millions of medical records at Medibank, one of Australia's
largest private insurers SAEED KHAN AFP/File

Sydney (AFP) – Hackers accessed millions of medical records at one of Australia's largest private health insurers, the company said Wednesday, prompting the government to admit the nation's cyber safeguards were "inadequate". 

This was the latest in a series of hacks targeting millions of people that have brought Australian companies' lax approach to cyber security into sharp relief. 

Medibank chief executive David Koczkar said information about each of the company's 3.9 million policy holders -- some 15 percent of Australia's population -- had been compromised. 

"Our investigation has now established that this criminal has accessed all our private health insurance customers' personal data and significant amounts of their health claims data," he said in a statement to the Australian stock exchange. 

"This is a terrible crime. This is a crime designed to cause maximum harm to the most vulnerable members of our community." 

The cyber attack was revealed last week, but it was not known until now how many people were impacted. 

The hackers have previously threatened to leak the data, starting with 1,000 famous Australians, unless Medibank pays a ransom. 

Medibank on Wednesday also confirmed it was not insured against cyber attacks, estimating the hack could cost the company as much as Au$35 million (US$22 million). 

The Medibank hack followed an attack on telecom company Optus last month that exposed the personal information of some nine million Australians -- almost a third of the population. 

The Optus attack was one of the largest data breaches in Australian history. 

'Inadequate'

Australia's Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has previously accused companies of stockpiling sensitive customer data they did not need. 

Firms currently face paltry fines -- Au$2.2 million -- for failing to protect customer data. 

Dreyfus last week said these fines would be ratcheted up to Au$50 million. 

"Unfortunately, significant privacy breaches in recent weeks have shown existing safeguards are inadequate," he said. 

"It's not enough for a penalty for a major data breach to be seen as the cost of doing business." 

Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil on Tuesday said the fallout from the Medibank hack was "potentially irreparable". 

"One of the reasons why the government is so worried about this is because of the nature of the data," she told Australia's parliament. 

"When it comes to the personal health information of Australians, the damage here is potentially irreparable." 

O'Neil has previously described hacking as a "dog act" -- an Australian phrase reserved for something especially shameful or despicable.

Apple to make iPhone 14 in India in shift away from China

Yahoo – AFP, September 2022 

Apple will manufacture its new flagship smartphone in India, the US tech giant said Monday, as it seeks to diversify production away from a dependence on China. 

The iPhone supply chain is based mainly in China but the country's zero-Covid policies and tensions with the United States have hurt production, analysts say. 

"We're excited to be manufacturing iPhone 14 in India," Apple said in a brief statement. 

The California-based firm already makes older iPhone models in India via Taiwanese manufacturers such as Foxconn, which has a factory in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. 

The latest announcement comes just weeks after Apple launched new smartphones. The tech behemoth is commencing production of the iPhone 14 in India much earlier than it did for previous models, Canalys analyst Sanyam Chaurasia said. 

"Over the last couple of years, it has been increasingly diversifying its supply chain to India," Chaurasia told AFP. 

About 7.5 million iPhones -- around three percent of Apple's global production -- were made in India last year, the analyst added. 

"We expect that the local production of iPhones could reach more than 11 million this year," he said. 

Apple's announcement will be a boost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Make in India" strategy under which he has urged foreign businesses to manufacture goods in the South Asian nation.

Elon Musk breaks Twitter silence with photo with Pope

France24 –AFP, 2 July 2022 

The location and details of the meeting were not specified Handout
ELON MUSK'S TWITTER ACCOUNT/AFP

Rome (AFP) – American billionaire Elon Musk on Saturday broke his silence on the Twitter social media site, which he plans to buy, posting a picture of himself with Pope Francis. 

"Honored to meet @Pontifex yesterday," Musk tweeted next to a photograph of him and four of his children with the Argentinian-born pontiff. 

The location and details of the meeting were not specified by the Tesla and SpaceX boss, while the Vatican did not comment on his private audience with Pope Francis. 

Last week Musk said that his $44-billion move to take over Twitter remained held up by "very significant" questions about the number of fake users on the social network. 

The richest man in the world added then that there were also questions about Twitter's debt and whether shareholders will vote for the deal.