Thank you for reading the LinuxSecurity.com weekly security newsletter. The purpose of this document is to provide our readers with a quick summary of each week's most relevant Linux security headlines.

LinuxSecurity.com Feature Extras:

How SQL / NoSQL Databases Enable Blockchain Applications to Become GDPR Compliant - Blockchain, being a decentralized & dis-intermediated data store, is being considered for rapid adoption, in several industries like Supply Chain Management, P2P Global Transactions, Internet of Things, Electoral Voting, Stock Exchanges etc...

Email Security FAQs Answered by Guardian Digital - With email-related attacks becoming increasingly prevalent and serious, effectively securing your email accounts is more important than ever before.

(Dec 10)

WordPress users are facing another security worry following the discovery of a massive botnet. Attackers have infected 20,000 WordPress sites by brute-forcing administrator usernames and passwords. They are then using those sites to infect even more WordPress installations.
(Dec 9)

Nearly a month after the midterm elections, details on a hack of the Republican National Congressional Committee reveals that meddling in the midterms was much worse than it seemed on election day. The hack probably should have been the biggest news of the week, but for a little distracting--and important!--thing called the Mueller probe.
Nearly 70% of UK Firms Hit by a Cyber-Attack in 2018 (Dec 10)

Over two-thirds of UK firms have fallen victim to a cyber-attack over the past year, with many claiming they don't get enough guidance from the government on how to combat threats, according to RedSeal.
(Dec 9)

Malware authors, ad farmers, and scammers are abusing a Firefox bug to trap users on malicious sites.
New Google+ Breach Will Lead to Early Service Shutdown (Dec 11)

As vulnerabilities go, it was the best sort: found by internal testing before it led to a security breach. Nevertheless, the latest Google+ software vulnerability was enough to push forward shutting down the service: Google now says it will be shuttered by April 2019 rather than the originally planned August 2019.
Equifax breach was ‘entirely preventable' had it used basic security measures, says House report (Dec 11)

A House Oversight Committee report out Monday has concluded that Equifax's security practices and policies were sub-par and its systems were old and out-of-date, and bothering with basic security measures -- like patching vulnerable systems -- could've prevented its massive data breach last year.
(Dec 12)

A recently patched trio of flaws in Samsung's mobile site was leaving users vulnerable to attackers who could have reset their user passwords and hijacked their accounts, The Register reports.
Apache Misconfig Leaks Data on 120 Million Brazilians (Dec 13)

The identity numbers of 120 million Brazilians have been found publicly exposed on the internet after yet another IT misconfiguration.
Google+ to power down early after second security hole found (Dec 12)

Google has disclosed the second security hole in its Google+ social network in three months. This one exposed private information from 100 times as many users as the first, and has prompted the company to hasten the service's demise.
(Dec 13)

A day after Google announced a Google+ API leak that could have exposed the personal information of over 52.5 million users, a Rhode Island government entity filed a class-action lawsuit in a California court.
Blockchains should have ‘privacy by design' for GDPR compliance (Dec 14)

General data protection regulation (GDPR) and blockchain is one of the industry's most contentious debates at the moment.
(Dec 14)

"Pay $20,000 worth of bitcoin, or a bomb will detonate in your building" A massive number of businesses, schools, government offices and individuals across the US, New Zealand and Canada on Thursday received bomb threats via emails that caused nationwide chaos, forcing widespread evacuations and police response.