A cyber attack which disrupted access to a council website and its systems is being investigated with the relevant authorities to establish the full impact of the crime, officials have said. On Tuesday, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) suffered a suspected ransomware attack. The website remains down and the local authority says it is currently uncertain of the extent of the damage caused by the attack. A ransomware attack is where hackers maliciously infiltrate an organisation’s website or systems, stealing sensitive data which they in turn use for monetary gain. While investigative work continues, the Comhairle’s priority in response to this incident remains to restore and secure services, ensuring their continued delivery to those in our communities who need them most Comhairle nan Eilean Siar spokesman The council says it is working alongside Police Scotland, the Scottish Government and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to establish the full impact of Tuesday’s incident. A council spokesperson said: “While investigative work continues, the Comhairle’s priority in response to this incident remains to restore and secure services, ensuring their continued delivery to those in our communities who need them most. “One key aspect of achieving this aim has been work on the processing of benefit and support payments. “While payments have been made to the public, restrictions to file access has affected other scheduled payments. “The impact to IT systems has also meant that invoices due to creditors cannot be paid at this time.” The spokesperson added: “The Comhairle appreciates the impact late payments can have and is working to resolve these issues as soon as possible. “The Comhairle will be in contact with the affected individuals to provide updates and support. “The Comhairle’s email system is now restored and work is ongoing to redirect numbers for key public services. “A temporary website is also in development which will allow members of the public to access key information.” Temporary phone numbers for social care and social work services can be found on Comhairle nan Eilean Siar’s page on X, formerly known as Twitter. The council says its human resources, occupational health and ardseileach care home can be contacted on their usual telephone numbers. A spokesperson for NCSC said: “We are working with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar to fully understand the impact of an incident.” Police Scotland and the Scottish Government were contacted for comment. Read More Setback for Ireland as EU legal adviser recommends revisit of Apple tax case Smartphones ‘may be able to detect how drunk a person is with 98% accuracy’ Ireland and Apple await major development in long-running EU tax dispute Guidance urges parents not to buy smartphones for primary school children William ‘blown away’ by futuristic technology from Singapore start-ups Return of original Fortnite map causes record traffic on Virgin Media O2 network

Nasa has released the most colourful picture of the universe ever made. The space agency created the image by combining data from the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes to capture light that has never been seen before in one image. The picture shows the galaxy cluster known as MACS0416, which is about 4.3 billion light years from Earth. The reds, blues and bright yellows of the picture represent one of the most comprehensive views of the universe ever taken, Nasa said. The colours represent the wavelengths of light captured, going from the shortest in blue to the longest in red. Those colours also help show the distances of those galaxies. Those galaxies that are closer and more active tend to be blue, while the red ones are further away – though some are also red because the vast amount of cosmic dust in the galaxy absorbs the blue of the light from stars. It was created by gathering both visible and infrared light captured by both telescopes. The original imagery was taken by Hubble in 2014, which captured some of the faintest and youngest galaxies ever detected, and it was then combined with Webb’s infrared data to look even further into the early universe. As well as making for a stunning image, researchers are already studying the data used to create it to examine the galaxy cluster and what it might mean for the universe as a whole. The Webb observations can be used to find “transients”, which are objects that change brightness over time. In the image there are some 14 transients – most of which are likely to be individual stars that are becoming brighter, with a minority that are thought to be supernovae. “We’re calling MACS0416 the Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster, both because it’s so colorful and because of these flickering lights we find within it. We can see transients everywhere,” said Haojing Yan of the University of Missouri in Columbia, lead author of one paper describing the scientific results. One of them in particular is notable, and has been named Mothra. The object is being magnified by up to 4,000 by a process called gravitational lensing – and is notable because it was in both the new Webb images and the original Hubble ones. Scientists still don’t know how that could happen, since the alignment of galaxy clusters and stars needed to magnify something that much is delicate and would be expected to change. Scientists believe that the likely explanation is another unseen object that could be up to a million times bigger than our Sun and is unidentified. “The most likely explanation is a globular star cluster that’s too faint for Webb to see directly,” stated Jose Diego of the Instituto de Física de Cantabria in Spain, lead author of the paper detailing the finding. “But we don’t know the true nature of this additional lens yet.” The findings are detailed in two new papers, one to be published in The Astrophysical Journal and another that already appears in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Read More Nasa gets ‘puzzling’ data back from spacecraft exploring distant object Nasa sending VR headset up to ISS to treat astronaut’s mental health All-UK space mission will ‘push boundaries of human knowledge’ All-female Nasa astronaut team departs International Space Station on spacewalk Watch: Nasa astronauts step out of ISS for spacewalk Jupiter has a creepy ‘face’ in haunting Halloween photo by NASA

By Saeed Azhar and David French NEW YORK Goldman Sachs is working on a dozen projects which will

WhatsApp might be getting ads, according to its boss. The company has categorically ruled out that it would be put advertising in the inbox. But it might come elsewhere in the app, such as WhatsApp’s “Status” feature, which works like Instagram stories. WhatsApp has long resisted introducing ads to any part of its platform. That sets it apart from other Meta platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, which heavily integrate advertising. WhatsApp has long been rumoured to be considering putting ads into its app, with rumours stretching back as long as five years ago. But it has largely resisted the temptation, in part because of worries about whether it would concern privacy-conscious users, whom WhatsApp has particularly targeted. In September, the Financial Times reported that it was looking at changing that. The company was evaluating whether it would work to show ads in the conversation list, the paper reported. Meta outright denied that it had been testing or working on that feature, or that it planned to. “We aren’t doing this,” WhatsApp head Will Cathcart said on Twitter. But in an interview with Brazilian newspaper Folha De S.Paulo, Mr Cathcart was asked whether the app would continue to be free and not show ads. And he said that some ads might come to other parts of the platform. The app will not put ads within the “messaging experience”, such as the inbox or chats themselves. Instead, it could come in other parts of the app, such as the Status feature as well as the new Channels tool that allows people to subscribe to messages from creators. The company could also introduce the option to charge people to subscribe to those channels, he said. That could also be advertised within those Channels. He did not give any firm information about when the feature would arrive, or any commitment that it would actually be introduced. Read More Political ads on Instagram and Facebook can be deepfakes, Meta says Instagram working to let people make AI ‘friends’ to talk to Big tech poses ‘existential threat’ to UK journalism, survey of editors finds

Siemens Energy AG’s talks with the German government and main shareholder Siemens AG on billions in loan guarantees

Bacteria could be used to improve the fertility of lunar soil to allow us to live on the Moon, scientists have said. The breakthrough new study combined three different bacteria on lunar soil to see how it would affect the growth of a plant – and found that it dramatically helped improve the fertility of material taken from the Moon. Adding the three bacteria to the soil helped the researchers grow the planet, which was a relative of tobacco named benth. The bacteria work by increasing the amount of a kind of phosphorus in the soil. That is a major nutrient for plants and adding more of it means that plants will grow more easily and populous. Previous studies have shown that it is possible to grow cress using lunar soil. But it has been found to be difficult to support plants, and studies have shown that it is actually worse than volcanic ash from our own planet. What’s more, lunar soil has less nitrogen, which is required to grow plants. What phosphorus there is also comes in a form that cannot be used by plants. If we are to live on the Moon, therefore, scientist will have to find new ways to grow plants. And the researchers suggest that the breakthrough trio of bacteria could be a key step towards that aim. That in turn will help support life in future lunar bases, the researchers note in a new study published today. The work is described in a new paper, ‘Phosphorus-solubilizing bacteria improve the growth of Nicotiana benthamiana on lunar regolith simulant by dissociating insoluble inorganic phosphorus’ published in Communications Biology. Read More One of Saturn’s moons found to have all ingredients essential for life Nasa gets ‘puzzling’ data back from spacecraft exploring distant object Telescope reveals stunning images of the universe as it has never been seen before

The UK government is preparing to offer significantly higher subsidies for new offshore wind farms to get the

Siemens Energy AG has reached a provisional agreement with the German government and main shareholder Siemens AG to

LONDON (Reuters) -Allen & Overy has suffered a "data incident", the London-founded law firm said on Thursday, after social media

(Reuters) -Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp on Thursday lifted its annual capital expenditure forecast to around $7.5 billion and said it

Omegle, a popular website used to video chat with strangers, is shutting down after almost 15 years. The closure comes amid increasing criticism that the site endangered its users, with reports of child sexual abuse and other crime on the platform. Omegle allowed users to sign up and then be launched into a video chat with another stranger using the site. The two could chat for as long as they wished – until they ended that conversation and embarked on a new one. The app was launched in 2009, and became popular almost straight away. Its founder said that its popularity was a result of “meeting new people being a basic human need”. Quickly, however, it became known for explicit and other criminal content. Leif K-Brooks, the company’s founder, admitted that Omegle had been misused, “including to commit unspeakably heinous crimes”. The site attempted to introduce new features to stop that misuse, such as “monitored chats” that would allow moderators to try and stop criminals using the site. But they did not work, and the site continued to receive criticism for its lack of safety. Now Mr K-Brooks has said that the criticism has become too much, and Omegle will shut down. The intensity of the fight over use of the site had forced him to decide to shut it down, he said, and it will stop working straight away. “As much as I wish circumstances were different, the stress and expense of this fight – coupled with the existing stress and expense of operating Omegle, and fighting its misuse – are simply too much. Operating Omegle is no longer sustainable, financially nor psychologically. Frankly, I don’t want to have a heart attack in my 30s,” wrote Leif K-Brooks, who has run the website since founding it. Omegle saw a huge surge in popularity during the pandemic, as people not only flocked to the site but recorded their interactions and shared them on social media. But that popularity also brought more awareness of the problems on the site, and increased criticism of it. Mr K-Brooks acknowledged that criticism. But he also suggested that at least some of it was in bad faith, and that it was intended to force the site to shut down. “In recent years, it seems like the whole world has become more ornery. Maybe that has something to do with the pandemic, or with political disagreements. Whatever the reason, people have become faster to attack, and slower to recognize each other’s shared humanity. One aspect of this has been a constant barrage of attacks on communication services, Omegle included, based on the behavior of a malicious subset of users,” he wrote. He said that the site had been shut down on the basis of “fear”. “If something as simple as meeting random new people is forbidden, what’s next?”, he wrote, comparing the end of Omegle to “shutting down Central Park because crime occurs there – or perhaps more provocatively, destroying the universe because it contains evil”. The decision to shut down Omegle comes amid increasing concern about regulation of the internet and how best to protect its users. It comes just days after the introduction of the UK’s Online Safety Act, for instance, which aims to hold platforms to account for crimes on their platform, including online grooming. Read More Omegle anonymous chat app shuts down after 14 years Setback for Ireland as EU legal adviser recommends revisit of Apple tax case New AI Pin clips ChatGPT to your clothes Setback for Ireland as EU legal adviser recommends revisit of Apple tax case New AI Pin clips ChatGPT to your clothes Google issues three-week warning to Gmail account holders

Omegle, a popular website used to video chat with strangers, is shutting down after almost 15 years. The closure comes amid increasing criticism that the site endangered its users, with reports of child sexual abuse and other crime on the platform. Omegle allowed users to sign up and then be launched into a video chat with another stranger using the site. The two could chat for as long as they wished – until they ended that conversation and embarked on a new one. The app was launched in 2009, and became popular almost straight away. Its founder said that its popularity was a result of “meeting new people being a basic human need”. Quickly, however, it became known for explicit and other criminal content. Leif K-Brooks, the company’s founder, admitted that Omegle had been misused, “including to commit unspeakably heinous crimes”. The site attempted to introduce new features to stop that misuse, such as “monitored chats” that would allow moderators to try and stop criminals using the site. But they did not work, and the site continued to receive criticism for its lack of safety. Now Mr K-Brooks has said that the criticism has become too much, and Omegle will shut down. The intensity of the fight over use of the site had forced him to decide to shut it down, he said, and it will stop working straight away. “As much as I wish circumstances were different, the stress and expense of this fight – coupled with the existing stress and expense of operating Omegle, and fighting its misuse – are simply too much. Operating Omegle is no longer sustainable, financially nor psychologically. Frankly, I don’t want to have a heart attack in my 30s,” wrote Leif K-Brooks, who has run the website since founding it. Omegle saw a huge surge in popularity during the pandemic, as people not only flocked to the site but recorded their interactions and shared them on social media. But that popularity also brought more awareness of the problems on the site, and increased criticism of it. Mr K-Brooks acknowledged that criticism. But he also suggested that at least some of it was in bad faith, and that it was intended to force the site to shut down. “In recent years, it seems like the whole world has become more ornery. Maybe that has something to do with the pandemic, or with political disagreements. Whatever the reason, people have become faster to attack, and slower to recognize each other’s shared humanity. One aspect of this has been a constant barrage of attacks on communication services, Omegle included, based on the behavior of a malicious subset of users,” he wrote. He said that the site had been shut down on the basis of “fear”. “If something as simple as meeting random new people is forbidden, what’s next?”, he wrote, comparing the end of Omegle to “shutting down Central Park because crime occurs there – or perhaps more provocatively, destroying the universe because it contains evil”. The decision to shut down Omegle comes amid increasing concern about regulation of the internet and how best to protect its users. It comes just days after the introduction of the UK’s Online Safety Act, for instance, which aims to hold platforms to account for crimes on their platform, including online grooming.