Gadgetory

government databases are hit by another massive hack and this time fingerprints are stolen I'm Richard Carey this is your CNET update it's easy to become desensitized to hacking reports and data leaks these days but the latest government data breach isn't your standard hack more than 22 million people have had their personal information stolen from cyberattacks on the US government Office of Personnel Management the stolen private info is tied to past current and prospective employees so if you apply for a federal government job in the past 15 years and a background check was done there's a good chance you're in this mess this time it went beyond stealing Social Security numbers it also included health and financial history info on these employees neighbors and spouses along with more than a million people's fingerprints these are finger prints of people who needed government security clearances losing fingerprints is a big deal just like you see in the spy movies people can make synthetic prints to trick a security scanner and that means fingerprint scanners are now compromised this trick can even be done to fool the iPhones fingerprint scanner the head of the Office of Personnel Management Katherine Archuleta has resigned in wake of the breach but hackers didn't directly attack her department's computer systems they got in using the credentials of another contractor with access hackers go after the outside people with the keys remember the massive target credit card breach those hackers got into computer systems through a company that had security access to building ventilation systems it's no different than the movie cliche of someone breaking in by disguising themselves as the repairman or the janitor but it's being done on a cyber level well let's change topics to something lighter how about smartphones we could see the next big Samsung smartphone unveiled sooner than usual this year The Wall Street Journal reports that Samsung wants to show off the upcoming Galaxy Note 5 in mid-august it used to be a September reveal but it seems Samsung wants to woo us before the next iPhone comes out after all iPhones are now as large as the notes and for a brief time last year Apple was out scouring Samsung in mark sure and speaking of new products there's some buzz that Apple may update some of its iPods maybe as soon as Tuesday the report comes from the French tech blog I generation which has some credible source leaks in the past but there's also other evidence the newest version of iTunes has some code and graphics hidden inside showing iPods and new colors like a bold blue hot pink and beige and look closely at this discovered graphic see the date on the calendar Tuesday the 14th could that be this Tuesday coincidence that's it for this tech news update but there's always more at cnet.com from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey