Kaspersky Lab's description of "Slingshot" malware is said, by anonymous US officials, to have burned a long-running Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) operation against the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. JSOC is thought to have abandoned the intelligence-collection effort.
German authorities join other governments in requesting explanations from Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica data use scandal in which the company is embroiled.
Yesterday Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke his public silence on the affair, but most observers think this was too little and too late, and a good lesson in how not to respond to the public about a very public incident. Reports to the contrary, Zuckerberg did indeed (on CNN) say he was sorry the whole thing had happened, and promised to do better with customer data. He framed the incident as being fundamentally about third-party apps, and it appears that Facebook's response will initially at least concentrate on reining those in.
Zuckerberg indicated his intent to testify before US Congressional panels investigating the company's data protection practices. So far, however, testimony has come from elsewhere in Facebook's leadership.
Shareholders are filing lawsuits against Facebook. The data handling incident has severely hit the company's value.
The Cambridge Analytica affair continues to prompt calls for more regulation of social media.
Fake news is seen by some as posing war risks as well as the chance of election manipulation.
Major US electronics retailer Best Buy, evidently responding to security concerns about the Chinese company, has stopped selling Huawei phones.