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More than a dozen U.S. utilities that were targets in a recent wave of cyberattacks have been identified by The Wall Street Journal. Some of the utilities, most of which are relatively small, are located near dams, locks and other critical infrastructure.

These electricity providers were singled out in a hacking campaign that was brought to light in August by researchers at a Silicon Valley cybersecurity company. But little was known about the attacks until now.

Google has increased the maximum prize for its Android bug bounty program to $1 million for anyone who can compromise the Titan M security chip found in its Pixel phones. The top prize is for a “full chain remote code execution exploit with persistence” of the dedicated security chip. On top of that, there’s an additional 50 percent bonus if a security researcher is able to find an exploit on specific developer preview versions of Android, resulting in a potential prize of $1.5 million. The new rewards take effect starting today.

Introduced with 2018’s Pixel 3, Google’s Titan M security chip cordons off your smartphone’s most sensitive data from its main processor to protect against certain attacks. Google says the chip offers “on-device protection for login credentials, disk encryption, app data, and the integrity of the operating system.” Since its introduction, the chip has also been integrated with Android’s security key functionality where it’s used to store a person’s FIDO credentials. Suffice it to say, the integrity of the Titan M is an important element for the security of recent Pixel devices.

San Francisco, Nov 10 (IANS) Google’s cybersecurity project named “Chronicle” is imploding in trouble and some employees feel its management “abandoned and betrayed” the original vision, media reports said.

Chronicle’’s CEO and Chief Security Officer have already left and the Chief Technology Officer is leaving later this month while other key officials are eyeing an exit, according to the Motherboard.

In June this year, Chronicle lost its status as an independent entity when it formally joined Google to become part of its Cloud security offerings.