The Lighthouse IT Podcast

The Lighthouse IT Podcast - February 21st, 2025

This week, Matt and Griff discuss OpenAI's allegations that DeepSeek used OpenAI's models to train DeepSeek's open-source model. Bing is seeing a rise in search engine usage and authority due to its collaboration with ChatGPT, with some companies reporting better results from Bing Ads than Google Ads. Microsoft removed the price wall for the OpenAI o1 model addon, which is now free for all Copilot subscribers. Google is seeing a massive decrease in clicks overall as AI Overviews on search results pages reduce the number of people clicking search results. Google is also struggling with engaging Gen Z, which is largely migrating to Instagram and TikTok for product discovery. YouTube is seeing a shift as more users are accessing it through TVs than mobile devices. Meta is also working to try to attract more Gen Z users with a recent announcement of a Facebook refresh that might take you back to the 2010s. There was a recent cybersecurity win when ransomware group 8Base was effectively shut down after members were arrested in Thailand. Apple has released an emergency security update after a vulnerability was discovered in iOS. And finally, hackers are exploiting Google Tag Manager to skim credit cards on Magneto-based e-commerce sites.

https://hub.lighthousesol.com/blog/lighthouse-it-podcast-2/ainception-social-stats-8base-less-google-tag-skimming-376

The Lighthouse IT Podcast - February 7th, 2025

https://hub.lighthousesol.com/blog/lighthouse-it-podcast-2/pebble-os-apple-chip-vulnerability-unitedhealth-breach-deepseek-375

The Lighthouse IT Podcast - December 27th, 2024

https://hub.lighthousesol.com/blog/lighthouse-it-podcast-2/pineapple-checkboxes-social-stats-wrapped-buying-a-car-on-amazon-368

The Lighthouse IT Podcast - December 13th, 2024

This week, Matt and Griff discuss Meta's ambitious $10B plan to build a world-spanning undersea fiber-optic cable. The countdown for TikTok continues as the Appeals Court has upheld the decision that TikTok must be sold or banned in the United States, although they now plan to appeal the Supreme Court. The Browser Company is now working on developing a web browser with AI tools integrated directly into it. Zoom is also planning on going in on AI to the point of shifting focus away from video conferencing for what it calls "Zoom 2.0". The Google App on iOS has begun to automatically convert website text into links to Google Search results without input from the user or site owner. Emerging details on the Chinese hack of major US telecommunications networks are raising major concerns among US officials over the security of telecommunication infrastructure. Finally, Bluesky now has nearly 25M daily active users, but the EU wants them to comply with their digital regulations, and many people have called them out as to the validity of their claims of being a decentralized platform.

https://hub.lighthousesol.com/blog/lighthouse-it-podcast-2/meta-s-10b-cable-telco-trouble-google-hijacking-blueskys-ahead-367

The Lighthouse IT Podcast - November 29th, 2024

This week, Matt and Griff discuss recent security updates for MacOS, iOS, and VMware, including active exploitation of vulnerabilities and a Zero-Day flaw in Palo-Alto Firewalls enabling authentication bypass and root access. Finnish authorities suspect sabotage in the C-Lion1 data cable break. Amazon leaked data on 2.8M employees, while Chinese hackers targeted telecoms, including T-Mobile, in a months-long cyber-espionage campaign. The DOJ is challenging Google’s search monopoly, and OpenAI plans to launch a versatile AI agent, 'Operator.' Canada is forcing ByteDance to shut offices over security concerns, and Australia eyes social media restrictions for under-16s. Curious about influencer marketing costs?

https://hub.lighthousesol.com/blog/lighthouse-it-podcast-2/palo-alto-zero-day-googles-legal-battle-social-media-laws-more-366

The Lighthouse IT Podcast - November 15th, 2024

This week, Matt and Griff discuss Apple's updates to the Mac Mini hardware, Walmart is pushing hard towards eCommerce, even going so far as to implement a brand integration into Roblox and integrate actionable AI into its customer support chatbots. To everyone's shock and surprise (we are not actually surprised by this), another Fortinet vulnerability has been discovered and is actively exploitable by bad actors. Japanese researchers have recently launched the world's first wooden satellite into space to be studied for the potential of future wooden satellites. The vast majority of online reviews can be found on Google Business Profiles, and the vast majority of customers who leave those reviews expect said businesses to respond to those reviews. The increasingly popular Spotify Wrapped is nearly upon us, and while most users are simply excited to see a recap of what music they listened to, many brands are excited to copy the idea for their own services. And finally, recent reports show us which countries spend the most time, on average, interacting with social media.

https://hub.lighthousesol.com/blog/lighthouse-it-podcast-2/mac-tiny-walblox-fortijump-wooden-satellites-365

The Lighthouse IT Podcast - November 1st, 2024

This week, Matt and Griff discuss the recent discovery of the largest prime number known to date, and holy cow, it's a big one. Also, do you remember when Windows 10 was going to be Microsoft's last OS? Lighthouse IT Solutions remembers. But unfortunately, it doesn't matter anymore since Microsoft announced Windows 10's end of life will happen in less than a year! Hurricane Helene caused terrible damage; the most directly relevant to our industry wasn't first obvious but could be an interruption to the semiconductor supply chain. We go through some more WordPress drama, and The Internet Archive recently suffered a massive DDoS attack, taking down much of their services. In some good news, the FTC has finalized a rule to help consumers by forcing companies to make it easy and quick for users to unsubscribe from their services. Finally, an intern at ByteDance, owners of TikTok, was fired for embedding malicious code into their AI models. Also, this is a day late, but Happy Halloween.

https://hub.lighthousesol.com/blog/lighthouse-it-podcast-2/prime-time-click-to-cancel-death-of-windows-10-364

The Lighthouse IT Podcast - October 18th, 2024

This week, Matt and Griff discuss the growing dispute between WordPress.org and WP Engine over their contributions to the open-source project vs. their monetization of it. The internet domain .io has seen a spike in popularity from tech companies, but a potential upcoming change in domain ownership could also cause other unexpected changes to come. Cloudflare was thankfully able to thwart the largest DDoS attack ever, perpetrated using a series of compromised home routers. Finally, another set of major vulnerabilities has been discovered, and a patch has been released for another set of routers, this time Draytek; make sure you update your router with the latest patches.

https://hub.lighthousesol.com/blog/lighthouse-it-podcast-2/open-source-arguments-ddosflare-day-break-355

The Lighthouse IT Podcast - October 4th, 2024

This week, Matt and Griff discuss the discovery that Meta has been scraping public posts on Facebook and Instagram since 2007 and using that data to train their AI models. TikTok is hoping to avoid a ban in the U.S. without selling themselves and has taken their plight to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Additionally, TikTok has recently implemented search ads onto its platform, allowing advertisers to target users based on what they are searching on TikTok, and many younger people are using TikTok as a search engine. Speaking of search engines, Google Search now integrates The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine into its search results, allowing users to see past versions of web pages. Unfortunately for Google, they are still embroiled in their anti-trust lawsuit, although the CEO of YouTube, a company they also own, has testified on their behalf. Maker of Wi-Fi chipsets, MediaTek, recently released a patch for a critical vulnerability; make sure all your wireless devices are updated with their latest security patches. Finally, ServiceNow instances were found to have a data leak vulnerability due to a default misconfiguration in their Knowledge Base access control settings.

https://hub.lighthousesol.com/blog/lighthouse-it-podcast-2/wi-fi-chipset-hole-scraping-meta-google-archive-bantok-353

The Lighthouse IT Podcast - September 20th, 2024

This week, Matt and Griff discuss Yelp filing an antitrust lawsuit against Google on the grounds of Google unfairly dominating local search and advertising. Also unfortunate for Google, the DOJ recently ruled against them in their recent antitrust case, finding Google to be guilty of maintaining a "trifecta of monopolies" in the search market. Apple is looking to increase the functionality of the AirPods, with the upcoming AirPods Pro 2 including hearing aid features for users with mild to moderate hearing loss. For your weekly dose of schadenfreude, a group of TikTok users thought they figured out a sneaky way to exploit Chase ATMs for free money, only to figure out that actually, they were just committing check fraud. Phishing is one of the most common methods scammers use to trick people into giving them their data, passwords, and money, and the latest version of phishing that is on the rise is malicious QR codes, often pasted over legitimate ones. Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy companies, has filed a report with regulators announcing that they have suffered a data breach, full details of the scope of this breach are still pending. Finally, and most importantly, we need to decide once and for all, what is the best breakfast cereal?

https://hub.lighthousesol.com/blog/lighthouse-it-podcast-2/google-s-trust-issues-crimetok-cereal-competition-352