The Register

How it first spread, Win XP wasn't actually hit, and more Vid It has been a week since the Wannacry ransomware burst onto the world's computers – and security researchers think they have figured out how it all started.…

Just keep putting those eggs in the one basket, friends Password manager LastPass has added a new feature to its software: the ability to store two-factor authentication codes. This is great news. For hackers.…

Don't worry, no programmers were harmed, says web ads giant Google I/O A kitchen worker remains in critical condition after suffering life-threatening injuries from a blaze at the annual Google I/O developer conference on Thursday.…

Don't worry, no programmers were harmed, says web ads giant Google I/O A kitchen worker remains in critical condition after suffering life-threatening injuries from a blaze at the annual Google I/O developer conference on Thursday.…

Bloke accused of setting up bogus share-trading biz in pump-and-dump scam While Fitbit investors may be weeping over the wearable upstart's slumped share price, at least one person made out like a bandit on the stock, allegedly.…

The judge told us to tell you to cough up or ship out Analysis The lead Uber engineer at the heart of self-driving tech theft accusations made by Waymo against Uber has been told by his bosses to start talking or pick up his pink slips.…

And how about that $3m in registration fees, hm? A US federal appeals court has struck down rules requiring recreational drones and other model aircraft to be registered with America's aviation watchdog, the FAA – but left in place airspace restrictions affecting drones in the Washington, DC area.…

Meanwhile, Vine may have leaked your email, phone number – oops Twitter has spent much of the day tackling gremlins in its systems that have left loads of users unable to access parts of the jibber-jabber service.…

'I have a sickness,' former politician notices while facing two years in chokey Disgraced politician Anthony Weiner has finally realized what the rest of the world has known for some time.…

Ambitious storage startup halts after setting fire to cash Startup Formation Data Systems has shuttered its operations, we're told. Sources familiar with the matter said it closed down on May 16.…

Enter the snag-dragon Updated While the rest of the world had its eyes firmly on the WannaCrypt outbreak, digital certificate firm Comodo suffered an unrelated but protracted database problem that affected its billing systems.…

Now run along and play with your new friends Veeam has issued the tenth version of its Availability Suite backup and restore product, saying it offers a wider-ranging data protection environment than ever before.…

Data breaches smack bottom line, cautions survey Companies that suffer a data breach can expect to see their share price fall by five per cent and watch two to three per cent of customers take their business elsewhere.…

Well, here are some plates full of bite-sized news anyway For this round-up of storage news we start with Data Gravity and Veeam, move on to a McLaren super car crash, and pass through company news, some customer wins, news snippets and on to people moves.…

'Call our tech support... have you tried turning it on and off again?' Dell has finally 'fessed up about the BIOS update that borked some customers PCs, and advised punters to do what many have tried so far without any success – contact its tech troubleshooters for resolution.…

Confusingly, ISPs are also sending out genuine warnings Scoundrels have latched on to the WannaCrypt outbreak as a theme for scam emails. Coincidentally some consumers are receiving seemingly genuine warnings from their ISPs related to suspected infection during last week's worldwide ransomware outbreak.…

All F-35Bs for the Navy – but, oddly, isn't set in stone The UK will buy a grand total of 17 F-35B fighter jets between 2020 and 2022 – and acquiring the A model of the supersonic stealth fighter hasn’t been ruled out.…

It's not me, it's you. Ofcom proposes new switching regime It's considered a cold way to end most relationships, but customers may soon be able to consciously uncouple from their mobile providers by simply sending a text.…

Tappy the robot is a Happy robot A jury has agreed that Huawei committed industrial espionage in United States, ordering the Chinese giant to pay $4.8m in damages.…

Augmented reality drone detection, all the way from Hampshire London’s City airport is replacing its air traffic control tower with zoomable cameras worked from a base in Hampshire, according to reports.…

Watch your backup I became a Solaris system administrator in the 1990s: first proper job out of university. I read a lot about the Morris Worm – believed to be the first of its type, and of interest to me because the Sun-3 kit I looked after was vulnerable.…

Sales bounce by a quarter for Q1... oh the vanity Just when you’d thought Salesforce had quit its habit of posting quarterly losses, the biz swung back into the red during its first quarter of 2017/18 - on the back of bumper growth.…

'Defendant’s behaviour is a threat to civilised society', claims Texan A Texan is suing his date for the cost of a cinema ticket after she upset him by sending a bunch of texts to a pal while watching Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2.…

Bain and KKR also get stuck into Tosh flash biz sale Broadcom is gearing up to deliver a $20bn (2.2 trillion yen) bid for Toshiba’s Memory Business, reports Bloomberg.…

Sooo... that's not gonna work for you mate Windows XP PCs infected by WannaCrypt can be decrypted without paying ransom by using a new utility dubbed Wannakey.…

Normal service resumes for trigger-happy CSC and HPE Ent Services It was only a matter of time before DXC Technology – the corporate pile-up between CSC and HPE’s former Enterprise Services division – began using staff cuts to lighten the overheads. And so it begins.…

Hold the forklift, Chad Sakac tells El Reg Analysis Hyperconverged infrastructure appliances (HCIAs) are ready to take on the bulk of data centre x86 workloads but won't necessarily kill off the SAN.…

Dropped probe after tiring of waiting for him to come out Updated Sweden's director of public prosecutions has today dropped the rape investigation into Julian Assange.…

You scratch mine, I'll scratch yours Something for the Weekend, Sir? When I was younger, I had a chronic problem with fluff gathering in awkward-to-reach places.…

Hursley R&D team do their part to entertain Ginni IBM’s glorious leader Ginni Rometty – also known in some corners as the axe woman – this week cocked a snook to the corporate directive on travel restrictions by flying into the Hursley-based R&D centre in a Big Blue chopper.…

Trust, independence, credibility – we've heard of those Open source insider There's been a good deal of ongoing discussion about Google AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages.…

Fleshy VMs, voices in your head and asking what the scammer is wearing also work ON-CALL If it's Friday, it must be time for On-Call, our weekly column that recounts readers experiences of being asked to dodgy jobs at dodgy times for dodgy reasons.…

Free payroll service claimed to make money with commissions and short term loans Fallen Australian payroll-services-for-contractors company Plutus Payroll convinced clients and staff that it had hit upon a business model let it fund free payroll services with clever money market plays, commission deals with financial services companies and by selling workers' details to marketers.…

'World’s thinnest hologram' touted by boffins A group of scientists has developed the “world’s thinnest hologram” – a thousand times thinner than a human hair, they claim.…

Web-connected sneakers? We imagine a lot of sole searching when/if these get hacked Chip-and-lawsuit designer Qualcomm has drawn up a patent on blueprints for an internet-connected shoe.…

Now that Chrome and Firefox call out HTTP, phisherpholk are getting certified Browser-makers' decision to put big red warning lights in the faces of users when they hit sites too slack to use HTTPS is backfiring a little, as crooks are accelerating their use of encryption.…

Overly accommodating Linux distro can't enforce access policy Recent versions of the Ubuntu Linux distro fail to limit system access for guest accounts.…

On-prem rules say Windows Server barely runs in 32 GB, but cloud is another matter Microsoft's quietly revealed that it's shrunk Windows Server's footprint, at least when you run it in Azure.…

Game of Clones: ArcaOS 5.0 promises to pick up where OS/2 Warp and eComStation left off An outfit called Arca Noae has released a new version of IBM's venerable OS/2 operating system, named ArcaOS 5.0.…

No, not who you're thinking of. Sad! A US Secret Service agent tasked with protecting the White House has started a 20-year stretch for sending explicit snaps to underage girls – sometimes while on duty.…

Race against Amazon demands rapid iteration, and cash Google I/O Eager to catch up to Amazon and its Echo interactive speaker, Google at its annual developer conference on Wednesday offered everyone in attendance free Google Home hardware and $700 in Cloud Platform service credit to create apps that converse with the Google Assistant inhabiting its device.…

But FBI blunder may let alleged pedo walk free from court A judge has ruled that people who give their knackered computers to Best Buy's Geek Squad for repairs have no comeback if technicians find and report any illegal material to the Feds.…

Eyeball-chasing ad giant literally traps your eyeballs Google I/O Google wants more for its Daydream virtual reality platform than phone displays framed in cheap cardboard.…

FCC report finds lessons, mentions no fines as yet A wrongly updated whitelist was behind the five-hour nationwide outage of AT&T's emergency 911 service in March, a report by America's phone regulator, the FCC, has revealed.…

Bipartisan bill wants to stave off another WannaCry Two US senators have proposed a law limiting American intelligence agencies' secret stockpiles of vulnerabilities found in products.…

CWA says members in 36 states prepping for stoppage A union representing 40,000 AT&T Mobility workers is threatening a nationwide strike this weekend after negotiations with the telco stalled.…

FCC parties like it's 1996 As expected, on Thursday America's broadband watchdog, the FCC, voted 2-1 to start the process to gut net neutrality rules.…

Redmond's OS needs to be cool for consumers, but its best chances are with business Microsoft presented its latest Windows 10 strategy to developers at its Build event in Seattle last week.…

Pointblank weaknesses have since been patched Three home security systems were riddled with bugs, according to new research made public this week.…

Melondream devs seek investors Miles Deep, the porn AI editor we wrote about last year can now be found in an app, called MelonDream.…