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visuals6x – stock.adobe.com Cleaning products manufacturer Clorox fell victim to a Scattered Spider social engineering attack two years ago – it blames its IT helpdesk provider, Cognizant By Alex Scroxton, Security Editor Published: 24 Jul 2025 16:50 IT services provider Cognizant is facing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit from one of its customers, which claims lax security procedures enabled the Scattered Spider hacking collective – blamed for the attacks on Marks & Spencer and Co-op Group – to access its systems by convincing a Cognizant helpdesk employee to reset a password. The August 2023 incident saw business at Clorox – a household name in cleaning products in the US – badly disrupted after it was forced to suspend production and shipping in the wake of the social engineering attack. It is thought to have cost the organisation almost $400m. In the lawsuit, filed in the California Superior Court, Clorox accused Cognizant of repeatedly giving a cyber criminal access to its network by handing them credentials without authenticating them or otherwise following basic cyber security processes. “Cognizant provided the service desk that Clorox employees could contact when they needed password recovery or reset assistance,” said Clorox in its complaint. “Cognizant’s operation of the service desk came with a simple, common-sense requirement: never reset anyone’s credentials without properly authenticating them first. Clorox made this easy for Cognizant by providing them with straightforward procedures to follow. “Despite assuring Clorox that it was following these procedures, Cognizant’s conduct on 11 August 2023 demonstrated spectacularly that it was failing to do so…. Cognizant’s failures resulted in a catastrophic cyber attack on Clorox.” Clorox’s complaint alleges that on 11 August, Cognizant’s service desk received a call from a hacker requesting a reset of an individual’s password – this person is identified in the complaint as Employee 1 – for the Okta identity management tool. It said the hacker told Cognizant they could not connect to the VPN without a password, following which the customer support agent “unilaterally” reset the password without questioning the caller or verifying their identity. It claimed this was in direct violation of its support procedures. At this point, Clorox’s complaint continues, the hacker tried their luck again and asked for a reset of their Microsoft multifactor authentication (MFA). Again, it says, this was done without verification. Cognizant – displaying a shocking level of incompetence – failed over and over at the most basic level and enabled a cyber criminal to gain a foothold in Clorox’s network Clorox’s legal complaint against Cognizant After conducting two follow-up calls to again reset Employee 1’s Okta and Microsoft passwords, the hacker then convinced Cognizant’s agent to reset the phone number Employee 1 used for SMS MFA. Clorox said that at no point during all of this did Cognizant’s agent verify the caller was the right person, or follow any of its identity support procedures, which had been updated a few months earlier. “Cognizant – displaying a shocking level of incompetence – failed over and over at the most basic level and enabled a cyber criminal to gain a foothold in Clorox’s network,” said the complainant. The complaint goes on to detail how, having accessed its systems, Scattered Spider then targeted Employee 2, an individual working on Clorox’s cyber security team, and used the same playbook to reset that person’s credentials. This enabled the gang to elevate their privileges within Clorox’s IT systems, establish persistence and begin lateral movement. Clorox said it detected the intrusion within three hours and took action to eject the hackers from its network, but not before being forced to pull the plug on multiple critical systems. On the basis of these alleged failings, claims that Cognizant intentionally misled Clorox into believing its staff were trained on its policies and procedures, and additional claims of “ongoing incompetence” that allegedly impeded the incident response efforts, Clorox is seeking to recover $49m in direct remediation damages and $380m in total. In a statement shared with Computer Weekly’s sister title Cybersecurity Dive, a Cognizant spokesperson said: “It is shocking that a corporation the size of Clorox had such an inept internal cyber security system to mitigate this attack. “Clorox has tried to blame us for these failures, but the reality is that Clorox hired Cognizant for a narrow scope of helpdesk services, which Cognizant reasonably performed. Cognizant did not manage cyber security for Clorox.” Read more on Data breach incident management and recovery M&S forces customer password resets after data breach By: Alex Scroxton The UK may not have a choice on a ransomware payment ban Security Budget Growth Plateaus in Healthcare By: Jill McKeon African health charity integrates digital tools with Cognizant By: Karl Flinders Read More

Amid what SAP CEO Klein has called this year’s ‘economic uncertainty’, the supplier posted 9% revenue growth for Q2 2025, with cloud revenue up 24% By Brian McKenna, Enterprise Applications Editor Published: 24 Jul 2025 16:45 SAP has announced revenue of €9.027bn for the second quarter of 2025, up 9% year-on-year, and a gross profit of €6.62bn. In its results statement, it chose to highlight partnership deals with Palantir, Accenture and China’s Alibaba. SAP said its cloud revenue was up 24%, with cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) sales up 30%. “AI innovations such as Joule becoming available ‘everywhere and for everything’, and SAP Business Data Cloud as a powerful accelerator of AI [artificial intelligence] make our portfolio ever stronger,” said SAP chief executive Christian Klein. “Enterprise operations are about to enter a new era, and SAP is best positioned to benefit from that evolution.” He led on the theme of “economic uncertainty” at this year’s Sapphire customer events in Florida and Madrid – uncertainty set in train by the US government’s trade conflict with the European Union and other global economies. The supplier listed in its statement companies that are continuing customers for its flagship Rise with SAP programme. This is a so-called business transformation-as-a-service programme that is fundamentally about cloud migration, and getting customers, new and existing, onto a cloud-delivered version of SAP’s S/4Hana ERP system based on its in-memory database, Hana. In Q2, the supplier made reference to Alibaba Group, Balluff, GSK, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, Sumitomo Rubber Industries and the University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz as on the so-called “Rise journey”. Among customer wins cited for the quarter were Accenture, Adobe, BAE Systems, BMW Group, Delta, Deutsche Börse, L’Oréal, Standard Chartered and Zurich Cantonal Bank. In the results statement, the supplier noted that Klein’s contract was extended by five years, until April 2030, during the quarter, and that the contract of chief financial officer Dominik Asam has been extended for two years to March 2028. Asam said: “As we move into the second half, we remain cautiously optimistic, keeping a close eye on geopolitical developments and public sector trends.” About geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty in 2025, Klein said in a media and analyst question and answer session at the European version of the Sapphire customer conference in May that “C-level conversations around trade conflict” had been affected by global turbulence, including for SAP, leading to simulations about commercial pipelines, the pace of customer interactions in certain industries and geographies. “The technology is there, especially around data, for doing predictions about supply chains,” he said. “There is the potential to go into deep recession, but so far so good. Let’s hope for the best, and at some point we can leave this trade conflict behind us.” Keith Kirkpatrick, an analyst at the Futurum Group, posted a positive evaluation of SAP’s Q2. “SAP turned in a solid Q2 for FY 2025, with strong growth in cloud revenue, faster ERP adoption and solid margin control,” he said. “Even with growing macroeconomic uncertainty, especially around tariffs, which are slowing down sales cycles in areas like the US public sector and industrial manufacturing, the company stuck to its full-year outlook. That shows confidence in its backlog, AI product lineup and regional reach.” Kirkpatrick also said more than half of Q2’s cloud orders were linked to AI. “So far, the company has launched 14 industry-specific AI agents to help with quoting, customer service, dispute handling and more,” he added. “By year-end, SAP expects to release 40 agents covering finance, supply chain and HR, including capabilities like predictive planning and intelligent cash flow management.” Read more on Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software Sapphire 2025: SAP mints business AI flywheel with Palantir on board By: Brian McKenna SAP Sapphire 2024: Building a modification-free clean-core cloud ERP By: Adrian Bridgwater SAP earnings rise, but no support extension By: Cliff Saran SAP AI initiatives expand on several fronts at Sapphire 2023 By: David Essex Read More

radub85 – stock.adobe.com Chairman, president and CEO Arvind Krishna talks of growth and margin expansion as Big Blue expects artificial intelligence to deliver internal savings of $4.5bn this year By Cliff Saran, Managing Editor Published: 24 Jul 2025 15:59 IBM expects to make $4.5bn in savings internally by scaling artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives. This is being achieved through a programme that Arvind Krishna, IBM’s chairman, president and chief executive officer, calls a “flywheel for growth and margin expansion”. In prepared remarks for IBM’s second quarter 2025 earnings call, Krishna said the business had achieved $3.5bn of annual run-rate savings by the end of 2024, adding that it believed it could achieve close to $4.5bn in annual run-rate savings by the end of 2025. Overall, IBM reported revenue of $17bn for the quarter, up by 8% on the same quarter last year. Meanwhile, annual recurring revenue from its software business grew to $22.7bn, up 10% on last year. That growth was led by containerisation and virtualisation platform OpenShift, which saw revenue rise by more than 20%. Having completed the $6.4bn acquisition of HashiCorp during the second quarter, IBM said its automation business had grown by 14%. According to Krishna, IBM is now seeing early signs of synergy between HashiCorp’s Terraform product and Ansible, which it acquired as part of the acquisition of Red Hat in 2019. Like other major enterprise tech providers, IBM has shifted its narrative away from digitisation to artificial intelligence (AI). “AI remains a powerful driver of transformation for our clients and for IBM,” said Krishna. “Our generative AI book of business continues to accelerate and now stands at more than $7.5bn. With our strong first-half performance, we are raising our full-year outlook for free cash flow, which we expect to exceed $13.5bn.” Deutsche Telekom is a recent customer win for IBM. The telco selected IBM Concert, an AI-powered tool that enables intelligent automation in patch management and the orchestration of security-related activities. Discussing the benefits of the IBM AI tool, Peter Leukert, group CIO of Deutsche Telekom, said: “Secure operating systems form the foundation for all applications, databases and services that we offer our customers. When it comes to patching, the time factor has taken on a critical role in the AI era. Those who use available updates immediately and automatically can reduce security risks. We face this challenge together with our partner.” “AI remains a powerful driver of transformation for our clients and for IBM. Our generative AI book of business continues to accelerate and now stands at more than $7.5bn” Arvind Krishna, IBM While the quarterly results show that IBM’s business has benefited from customers wanting to deploy AI, questions have been raised over whether the  is cannibalising its business. In the transcript of the company’s earnings call posted on Motley Fool, Krishna discussed the small amount of pricing pressure that comes when organisations consider any technology a commodity over when it is perceived as innovative. He said the main area of attention is how to reduce operational costs to allow for greater software investment. “People are looking at internal labour expenses and third-party labour expenses. They’re looking to decrease those to make room for what they’re doing around software,” he said. According to Krishna, the AI being built into the IBM product portfolio makes its products better and more competitive against rival products. He noted that IBM’s consulting business needed to focus on transformative projects and work with partners such as SAP, Oracle and Palo Alto Networks. “Consulting is a big piece of the AI book of business, which is coming, because people are directing their dollars [consulting on AI] as opposed to alternate forms of consulting. And that is why it’s really important to be focused on what we call transformative projects, which include AI.” Read more on Microservices IBM boss discusses long-term VM migration opportunity By: Cliff Saran IBM winding down its Russian business By: Karl Flinders IBM lived up to its neutrality promise to Red Hat By: Aaron Tan IBM fourth-quarter results show hybrid refocus By: Cliff Saran Read More

Apple’s first foldable iPhone looks certain to cost north of $2,000. (Image source: Concept Creator via YouTube) A new leak has now revealed vital pricing information on Apple’s first-generation foldable. The iPhone Fold, as it’s come to be called, has been tipped to arrive with a heavy price tag—higher than its Samsung counterpart’s but less than Huawei’s tri-folding Mate XT. By all indications, Apple is preparing its inaugural foldable to launch next year. While details of the foldable iPhone remain uncertain, a new leak has now provided some insight into how it could be priced—at least in the Chinese market. As revealed by leaker Setsuna Digital, Apple is set to price the iPhone Fold at a whopping CNY 15,999 in China. That converts into $2,230, and is said to only be valid for the 256 GB base configuration, with the jumps to the 512 GB and 1 TB SKUs each costing an extra CNY 2,000 ($280). Ergo, the top spec 1 TB model could cost an almost ridiculous CNY 19,999 ($2,790). Compared to other foldables, the leaked prices for Apple’s iPhone Fold border on ludicrous. The Galaxy Z Fold7, for example, starts at CNY 13,999 ($1,950) in China for the 256 GB model, and tops out at CNY 16,249 ($2,260) for the 1 TB SKU. It appears, however, that Apple may have its sights set on a more premium offering—Huawei’s Mate XT. That device has the advantage of being a tri-folding phone but starts at CNY 19,999 ($2,790) when equipped with 256 GB, making it quite a bit more expensive than the leak claims the iPhone Fold will be. It’s unclear how these prices will translate to the global market. If this source is anything to go by, though, it seems likely that Apple’s foldable iPhone will cost more than Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold8 next year—perhaps starting at about $2,200 in the US? That looks to be in line with previous estimates as well. Buy the Apple Watch Ultra 2 on Amazon. Related Articles Ricci Rox – Senior Tech Writer – 3033 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2017 I like tech, simple as. Half the time, you can catch me writing snarky sales copy. The rest of the time, I’m either keeping readers abreast with the latest happenings in the mobile tech world or watching football. I worked as both a journo and freelance content writer for a couple of years before joining the Notebookcheck team in 2017. Feel free to shoot me some questions on Twitter or Reddit if it so tickles thine fancy. Ricci Rox, 2025-07-23 (Update: 2025-07-23) Read More

Casio’s G-Shock x Little Thunder DW-5600MW-7 (pictured) is a limited edition watch. (Image source: G-Shock Hong Kong via Instagram) The Casio G-Shock x Little Thunder DW-5600MW-7 watch has been unveiled on social media. This limited edition timepiece is expected to be exclusive to Hong Kong. Features of the digital watch include a stopwatch, a multifunctional alarm and a blue green electroluminescent backlight. Casio has revealed a new limited edition collaboration model with Hong Kong-based cartoonist Little Thunder. This watch is based on the DW-5600MW-7, which was released in August 2018. The new G-Shock x Little Thunder DW-5600MW-7 watch has tiny black cartoons on the watch strap, and also features the artist’s name, ‘Little Thunder’, and the words ‘Unbreakable Dreams’. It appears to have the same white resin casing and positive (light background) display as the original model. It should measure 48.9 x 42.8 x 13.4 mm (~1.9 x 1.7 x 0.5 inches) and weigh 53 g (~1.9 oz). Features of the DW-5600MW-7 include a 24 hour countdown timer, a 1/100th second stopwatch and a multifunction alarm. Users can also choose to receive hourly time signals and flash alerts with a buzzer. The original version features a blue green electroluminescent backlight with afterglow. It is accurate to within 15 seconds each month, with a fully automatic calendar and 12 or 24 hour time formats. Plus, it is water resistant to 200 m and should run for around two years on a CR2016 battery. The Casio G-Shock x Little Thunder DW-5600MW-7 is expected to be exclusive to Hong Kong. The company has yet to announce when this limited edition watch will be released, and how much it will cost. Related Articles Polly Allcock – Senior Tech Writer – 4234 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2021 I’ve been interested in technology for as long as I can remember. From a young age, I have loved gadgets and understanding how things work. Since graduating, I have worked for several technology companies across FinTech, AdTech and Robotics. Polly Allcock, 2025-07-24 (Update: 2025-07-24) Read More

The LG Smart Monitor Swing features a 31.5-inch UHD IPS touchscreen panel (Image source: LG) LG has officially announced pricing and availability details for its latest Smart Monitor Swing. LG’s 31.5-inch Smart Monitor Swing portable monitor has a UHD IPS touchscreen panel, a highly flexible stand on a wheeled base, stereo speakers, multiple ports, and webOS 24. It offers tilt, swivel, height adjustments, and 360° movement. LG has officially announced the US pricing and availability details for its latest Smart Monitor Swing. The LG Smart Monitor Swing (32U889SA) is priced at $1,299.99 and is now available for preorder via LG’s official website, with shipping beginning in August 2025. LG’s new monitor builds on the success of LG’s category-bending StandByME (curr. available at $996.99 on Amazon) and StandByME 2.  The Smart Monitor Swing, designed for users who want productivity, entertainment, and creativity, features a 31.5-inch IPS touchscreen panel that outputs at a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels with a standard 60 Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 350 nits. Plus, the panel covers 95% of the DCI-P3 color gamut and offers a 5 ms response time.  Unlike the StandbyMe 2 portable monitor, it lacks a built-in battery, meaning you are still somewhat limited by the length of the power cable. LG packs a decent set of ports on the back, including three USB-C ports and two HDMI ports. Furthermore, the monitor also supports 65 W power delivery via a USB-C port. One thing that is common in both the Smart Monitor Swing and the StandbyME 2 is an adjustable arm that can tilt up and down, as well as swivel and pivot right/left and landscape/portrait.  All this setup is mounted on a highly flexible wheeled base stand that offers different height adjustments, providing the flexibility for various work modes, from sitting to standing, desk height, or tabletop. Software-wise, the productivity-focused monitor runs LG’s webOS 24 out of the box. Needless to say, the monitor also offers access to a wide array of popular streaming services, productivity apps, and smart home controls. Other features include integrated speakers, the LG ThinQ app, AirPlay, remote desktop, HDR10, auto brightness, and smart energy saving mode. Dimensionally, the Smart Monitor Swing measures 28.6 x 17.2 x 1.1 inches (726.4 x 436.8 x 27.9 mm) without the stand and weighs around 13.4 lbs (6 kg).  ▶ load Youtube video Related Articles Abhinav Fating – Tech Writer – 303 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2024 Abhinav is a tech enthusiast who finds it difficult to hold his excitement when it comes to the latest gadgets. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering and is obsessed with smartphones, smart home tech, and Laptops. You will find him scrolling memes on Instagram when he is not writing. Abhinav Fating, 2025-07-23 (Update: 2025-07-23) Read More

The Bee’s budget-friendly price is made possible by its exceptionally basic hardware, featuring just two microphones, a USB-C port, a status LED, and a mute button for the mics. The device is designed to transcribe the user’s conversations throughout the day and create personalised summaries. When granted access to emails, contacts, photos, location and calendars, the Bee smartphone app can build a searchable history of all events. However, an early review by The Verge noted that the wearable doesn’t always work flawlessly, in part due to its struggle to distinguish between actual conversations and film dialogues.   Read More

A Garmin poster, which sparked rumors of a new watch, was in fact advertising a sale on the Forerunner 265 (pictured). (Image source: Garmin) A recent Garmin social media post led many fans to believe that the brand was about to launch a new Forerunner smartwatch. However, it appears that the poster was actually advertising an upcoming discount on an existing smartwatch in China. Recent rumors about a new Garmin Forerunner smartwatch have proved incorrect. They began after the company released a cryptic poster on the Chinese social media site Weibo, with an obscured image of a smartwatch. This led many to believe that a new running wearable was about to be released. However, it turns out that this post was in fact advertising an upcoming sale. In some parts of China, on July 22nd, the Forerunner 265 smartwatch was reduced in price to CNY 1,999 (~$279), a figure indicated in the marketing poster. This is a CNY 1,381 (~$192), or roughly 40%, discount on the CNY 3,380 (~$472) RRP. As for offers in other markets, the black and gray Forerunner 265 is currently discounted from $449.99 to $421.60 at Amazon US. However, this is not a particularly good deal on the watch, which was reduced to $399.99 earlier in July and $349.99 across May and early June 2025. Garmin has already launched two new running smartwatches this year: the Forerunner 570 and Forerunner 970. However, customers are still hoping for a more affordable new release. Whether or when Garmin could announce a Forerunner 65 or Forerunner 170 smartwatch remains to be seen. A Garmin Weibo poster which sparked rumors of a new Forerunner smartwatch. (Image source: Garmin) Related Articles Polly Allcock – Senior Tech Writer – 4234 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2021 I’ve been interested in technology for as long as I can remember. From a young age, I have loved gadgets and understanding how things work. Since graduating, I have worked for several technology companies across FinTech, AdTech and Robotics. Polly Allcock, 2025-07-23 (Update: 2025-07-23) Read More

Music controls have disappeared from Google Maps. (Image source: Spotify) In the latest version of the Google Maps app, the media playback controls shown during navigation have disappeared. Not only that, but the settings option that switched on the media control overlay in Google Maps has now gone, too. Google is causing quite the commotion among travelers, as the Google Maps media control mechanism has simply disappeared from the latest stable version 25.28 of the Maps for Android app. Unfortunately, Google Maps media controls are missing from the 25.29 beta version as installed on a Pixel 9 Pro, too, which at first blush indicates that Google may have deprecated the useful playback control feature altogether. After all, this has happened before, since Google deprecated the Assistant Driving Mode in Maps back in the spring. It only left the media control toggle as a floating action button which could be called upon by going to the Settings>Navigation>Show media playback controls menu. The default media app option that lets Google Maps users pick between Spotify or YouTube controls was chucked as well. The media playback overlay in Google Maps has turned into a beloved feature for many audiophiles who wanted to be able to change tracks or pause listening without losing their route overview. When turned on, the Google Maps media controls overlay allowed to run, pause, or skip tunes, so one could control their music experience without having to exit or minimize the navigation window.  Did Spotify and YouTube control in Google Maps disappear? Thankfully, Google either heard the outcry in the community with a number of help tickets logged since the Maps media controls disappeared, or was simply unaware of the fact they have gone, and is now saying that the controls will be brought back. Asked for a comment by multiple publications, the search giant answered that it is “actively working to fix an issue that is affecting media playback controls on Google Maps,” though it didn’t specify when. As if to confirm that the removal of the Google Maps media playback control option was indeed a bug and not a feature of the newly updated Android app, those same controls are still present in the iOS version of Google Maps. Related Articles Daniel Zlatev – Senior Tech Writer – 1806 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2021 Wooed by tech since the industrial espionage of Apple computers and the times of pixelized Nintendos, Daniel went and opened a gaming club when personal computers and consoles were still an expensive rarity. Nowadays, fascination is not with specs and speed but rather the lifestyle that computers in our pocket, house, and car have shoehorned us in, from the infinite scroll and the privacy hazards to authenticating every bit and move of our existence. Daniel Zlatev, 2025-07-23 (Update: 2025-07-23) Read More

The Casio Edifice EFR-539D-2AV (pictured) is one of three new watches coming to Europe. (Image source: Casio, edited) The Casio Edifice EFR-539DE-2AV, EFR-539DE-3AV, and EFR-539DE-8AV watches are now listed at the brand’s online stores in various European countries. Said to be coming soon, the company describes these new chronographs as classic and imposing. These watches have a metal casing and strap, and feature a stopwatch. Casio has announced that the Edifice EFR-539DE watches will be released in Europe. Spotted on the brand’s international website earlier in July 2025, this large standard chronograph is available in three colorways. The Casio Edifice EFR-539DE-2AV (blue dial), EFR-539DE-3AV (green dial) and EFR-539DE-8AV (gray dial) are all listed at the brand’s online stores in countries like the Netherlands, France and Germany. In these markets, they will retail for €139, the same price as the older EFR-539D-1A2V model. While Casio has yet to confirm exactly when these three new watches will be released in Europe, they are listed as “Coming soon”, and prospective customers are invited to register their interest to receive an email when they launch. Casio’s new Edifice EFR-539DE timepieces are described as having a three-dimensional bezel, with the brand suggesting that they are “classic yet imposing”. Each has a stainless steel casing with an aluminum bezel, and a stainless steel bracelet with a triple folding clasp. They feature a screen lock back and mineral glass, and are water resistant to 100 m.  The analog watch face has three hands and a date display, with the timepiece said to remain accurate to within 20 seconds each month. Plus, these watches have a 1/10th second stopwatch with three measuring modes: elapsed time, split time and 1st-2nd place times. Whether or when the Casio Edifice EFR-539DE watches will be released in other markets like the US or the UK remains to be seen. From left to right: the Casio EFR-539DE-2AV, EFR-539DE-3AV and EFR-539DE-8AV. (Image source: Casio, edited) Related Articles Polly Allcock – Senior Tech Writer – 4234 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2021 I’ve been interested in technology for as long as I can remember. From a young age, I have loved gadgets and understanding how things work. Since graduating, I have worked for several technology companies across FinTech, AdTech and Robotics. Polly Allcock, 2025-07-23 (Update: 2025-07-23) Read More