Child abuse referrals to NSPCC up 80% since lockdown started
- The number of referrals from the NSPCC about child abuse has increased by 79% since the UK-wide lockdown was imposed in March, according to the charity’s data
- Calls to its helpline resulted in 923 referrals to police and social services between April and November
- Almost a third related to neglect and the charity warned more children could be at risk over Christmas
- The Children’s Commissioner for Wales said the pandemic had a “real and significant” impact on the most vulnerable children
- One caller to NSPCC Cymru’s hotline reported concerns their neighbour’s son was being neglected
- They said they could hear the father screaming and shouting obscenities towards his three-year-old son
Cyberpunk 2077: Sony pulls game and Microsoft issue refunds
- Sony has pulled Cyberpunk 2077, one of the year’s most-anticipated games, from its store and offered refunds to all players
- The unprecedented move follows complaints that the game has been riddled with bugs and glitches, and is prone to crashes
- Microsoft later said it would also refund any dissatisfied Xbox players
- Developer CD Projekt Red has promised to issue patches to improve the game for those who do not return it
- It’s unclear when Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) plans to return the game to the PlayStation Store
Queens Speech to be broadcast on Amazon Smart speaker
- The Queens Speech will be broadcast via Amazon Echo’s Alexa
- Users will be able to summon Her Majesty into their living rooms from 3 pm GMT with the words “Alexa, play the Queen’s Christmas Day message”
- The privilege isn’t reserved just for those from the UK; anyone with their Amazon Echo set to English – be that British, American, Australian, Canadian or Indian – will be able to listen to the speech
- “After a challenging year, millions of people from across the Commonwealth will be eagerly awaiting Her Majesty the Queen’s message on Christmas Day,” said Eric King, the director of Alexa Europe
- For more information on using your smart speaker safely this Christmas, read our recent article here
Bug gave away personal information on Instagram
- Security researcher Saugat Pokharel discovered a bug on Instagram which made it so that an attacker could easily get their private information
- The bug, which was fixed after being reported to Facebook, was exploitable by business accounts that were given access to an experimental feature the company was testing
- The attack used Facebook’s Business Suite tool, available to any Facebook business account
- All business users had to do was send a direct message on Instagram to call up the information.
- Pokharel found that the attack worked on accounts that were set to private and accounts that were set to not accept DMs from the public
