The Raspberry Robin malware is being used to deliver all kinds of destructive code, including ransomware, to compromised endpoints, Microsoft has warned.
It seems the malware, first discovered late in 2021, and whose endgame was unknown at the time, transformed into an infection service available to anyone with cash to pay.
Cybersecurity researchers from Microsoft have published a detailed blog post in which they describe Raspberry Robin as “part of a complex and interconnected malware ecosystem”, with links to other malware families and alternate infection methods.
Infection for hire
Whoever is behind Raspberry Robin kept busy over these last couple of weeks, as according to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint data, almost 3,000 devices in 1,000 organizations have experienced at least one Raspberry Robin payload-related alert in the last 30 days.
Payloads differ, the company further explained, from FakeUpdates malware which led to possible EvilCorp activity, to IceID, Bumblebee, and Truebot. This is all July 2022.
In October 2022, though, Microsoft also spotted Raspberry Robin being used by FIN11 (AKA TA505, - the group behind the Dridex banking trojan and Locky ransomware). This activity led to Cobalt Strike hands-on-keyboard compromises, the company explained, sometimes with a Truebot infection in between the Raspberry Robin and Cobalt Strike stages. Following the Cobalt Strike beacon, the group deployed the Clop ransomware.
All things considered, Microsoft concluded that the group behind Raspberry Robin is taking payments to deploy various malware and ransomware to its victims’ endpoints.
“Given the interconnected nature of the cybercriminal economy, it’s possible that the actors behind these Raspberry Robin-related malware campaigns—usually distributed through other means like malicious ads or email—are paying the Raspberry Robin operators for malware installs,” the report concludes.
Raspberry Robin was first identified when researchers from Red Canary discovered a “cluster of malicious activity”. The malware is usually distributed offline, via infected USB drives. After analyzing an infected thumb drive, the researchers discovered that the worm spreads to new devices via a malicious .LNK file.
The multi-level body of the iPhone 14 Pro case is made of titanium and has a black PVD coating used by Rolex to create black dials, cases and bracelets.
Cloud misconfigurations are one of the biggest causes of data breaches these days, and one security researcher has now set out to fix it with a new tool.
Built on Python, S3crets Scanner allows security researchers and analysts to look for “secrets” that companies exposed to the public, by mistake, through their company’s AWS S3 storage buckets.
As explained by BleepingComputer, secrets include authentication keys, access tokens, or API keys, all of which can be used by threat actors to deal plenty of damage. For example, these secrets can be used to access the company’s corporate network and endpoints, which could result in data theft, malware infections, or even ransomware attacks.
Targeting PII
The tool was built by security researcher Eilon Harel to only look for secrets exposed by mistake. It does so by only scanning S3 buckets that have specific configurations set to false, such as “BlockPublicAcls”, “BlockPublicPolicy”, “IgnorePublicAcls”, and “RestrictPublicBuckets”. Any other buckets are filtered out.
Buckets that match the above criteria will be downloaded as text files, and scanned using the Trufflehog3 tool which checks for credentials and private keys on S3 buckets, but also GitHub, GitLab, and filesystems. Harel created a unique set of rules for Trufflehog3, which targets personally identifiable information (PII) exposure, as well as internal access tokens.
Harel believes the tool can help businesses expose fewer secrets, consequently suffering fewer data leaks and similar cybersecurity incidents. He also believes it can be used for white-hat operations, as researchers can scan publicly accessible buckets for misconfigurations and notify the businesses before bad actors.
A multi-cloud environment is essential for businesses these days, but securing data in such a system is one of the biggest challenges they face. A recent report by cybersecurity experts Radware states that 70% of senior execs, DevOps leaders, and other seniors, aren’t confident they can properly secure both on-prem and multi-cloud environments.
We're not even a week in from Elon Musk becoming the owner (or 'Chief Twit' as he calls the position) of Twitter, and already his plans for overhauling the verification process sounds like a terrible idea.
According to The Verge, Musk is planning to raise the monthly price of Twitter Blue, which gives you the ability to edit tweets, as well as get custom icons and exclusive features, from $4.99 / £4.99 / AU$5.99 to $19.99 / £19.99 / AU$20.99. By subscribing, Twitter Blue users will also now be verified, which gives them a blue tick next to their username - something that was once limited to verified users, such as notable public figures, politicians and members of the media.
Users who are already verified will have a 90-day window to sign up for this new plan, or they will lose their blue tick.
This could already be a fatal decision for the platform, especially when this could allow trolls with few followers to pay to get verified, making the blue tick system irrelevant.
Paying for the blue tick is just wrong
The whole verification process is being revamped right nowOctober 30, 2022
See more
Getting verified on Twitter can be a slow, frustrating affair, in which you have to send the company multiple web links as proof that you're a real person and deserving of the blue tick.
Some people have been denied multiple times, and it took two tries for me to get the blue tick. I still don't know why I was denied the first time, but it's fair to say that the process should be looked at.
However, charging $20 a month for this is not the way to go. It's the equivalent of opening the floodgates and diminishes the point of verification - which was to help users know if an account is authentic, or of public interest. At four times the price of what a Twitter Blue subscription currently is, it's going to be a hard sell.
Combined with the fact that Musk has allegedly told Blue's developers that they will be fired if this feature isn't live by November 7, we could be about to see Twitter's dark days begin, and possibly the end of how you can freely use your account on the platform.
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The iPhone 15 Pro series is now unlikely to get an 8P camera lens upgrade, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Apple is expected to release the iPhone 15 lineup in the second half of 2023. He had previously suggested that high-end iPhone 15 models could arrive with solid-state buttons for power and volume.
Apple supplier Foxconn's COVID-19 woes at its vast iPhone manufacturing facility in China's Zhengzhou city could slash the site's November iPhone shipments by up to 30 percent, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Alleged live images of the Realme 10 Pro+ were leaked recently and showcase the handset with a curved screen. Realme has confirmed that the Realme 10 series will launch in November. Recent rumours have hinted that the Realme 10 4G, Realme 10 5G, and Realme 10 Pro+ could be a part of this upcoming smartphone lineup.
Meta’s latest VR headset, the Meta Quest Pro, is finally getting into users' hands, and it looks like many aren’t impressed with the next-generation device.
Following its October 25 launch, preorders for the Meta Quest Pro – a much more powerful and feature-packed device than Meta’s Oculus Quest 2 – are arriving at people’s doors, and users are taking to social media to share their thoughts.
Unfortunately for Meta, several of the posts we’ve seen on platforms like Reddit are far from positive, with titles like “Quest Pro sucks” and “Returning the Quest Pro” appearing just a day after the device was released. Reading through the posts it’s clear users share a few key frustrations related to passthrough and the Quest Pro’s VR capabilities.
One big upgrade for the Meta Quest Pro is its color passthrough, meaning while wearing the headset you can see a full-color video feed of the outside world. In theory, this should allow it to better facilitate mixed-reality experiences than the Quest 2's black-and-white passthrough. When we demoed the headset ahead of its launch, we thought this feature had a lot of potential – the mixed reality titles we played were some of the best experiences we’ve had while wearing a Meta headset – but out in the real world the passthrough isn’t popular.
Users are complaining that unless you’re in a very bright space, the image is far too grainy, especially when you consider you’ve paid $1,500 / £1,500 / AU$2,450 for the privilege.
According to some users, the Meta Quest Pro kinda blows(Image credit: Meta)
Additionally, as we suspected, the Quest Pro isn’t the most immersive headset for playing VR titles like the best Oculus Quest 2 games. We didn’t get to play any VR games during our brief hands-on time, but we were worried they wouldn’t be as immersive as they were using a Quest 2 because of the Quest Pro’s design.
Unlike a typical VR headset, which forms a seal around your eyes, the Meta Quest Pro leaves a large gap between the screen and your face so you can see the real world at all times. For mixed reality we thought this was a benefit, but – as users have found – when you’re trying to escape into virtual reality being able to see the real world can be super off-putting. You can buy blinders for the Pro headset to mitigate this issue, but when you’re already paying so much for the device, shelling out more for what feels like an essential add-on is a tough pill to swallow.
It’s worth noting that other users have had a more positive experience, and the complaints we referenced above could be coming from a loud minority rather than the majority of users. Nonetheless, they’re worth paying attention to. Considering the high cost of the Meta Quest Pro you want to be absolutely sure it’s the best headset for you. By reading through people’s reviews you can better determine if it is indeed what you want to buy, or if you’d be better off with one of the other options out there.
Analysis: the best VR headset for you
The Meta Quest Pro does have some strengths. When we tried the headset, we found that its mixed reality experiences were incredibly immersive – thanks to its more open design and color passthrough – and face tracking did make interacting with other users feel more genuine.
However, its price is rather higher and its focus on mixed reality comes at a cost to its VR experience (unless you purchase the additional add-on that blocks out the real world).
So even though it’s Meta’s latest headset, you might find that the Meta Quest Pro isn’t the best option for you.
Maybe Meta's other headset, the Oculus Quest 2, would be best for you(Image credit: Shutterstock / Boumen Japet)
If you’re after a more budget-friendly VR headset, then right now, you’ll want to go for the Oculus Quest 2 or Pico 4. Based on our experience with both devices, the Quest 2 has a slight edge. Despite having worse specs, its software is generally more polished, it has a better selection of games and apps, and it’s more widely available (the Pico 4 is only available in the UK, Europe, and Asia).
However, if you’re in the UK the Pico 4 is one to consider. It’s slightly cheaper than the Quest 2 (though the Pico 4 doesn’t come with a free game like Beat Saber), and as I mentioned, it’s slightly more powerful. The software does let it down, but Pico has made considerable improvements to the device already. With exclusive games like a VR version of Just Dance on its way to the Pico platform, we could see the Pico 4 match and even surpass the Quest 2 in the coming year.
While it’s not as talked about as the Quest 2, you might also want to consider the best VR headset in terms of raw performance: the Valve Index. It’s pricey (costing $999 / £919 / about AU$1,425), and you need a solid PC to run many of its best VR games (setting you back at least another $500 / £500 / AU$750), but in return, you get a great headset. The image quality and its knuckle controllers help make your VR titles feel even more interactive. This headset offers the best way to play some of VR’s greatest games like Half-Life: Alyx.
If you have a PC and don't mind wires, the Valve Index could be the best VR headset for you(Image credit: Valve)
The only downsides are that the Valve Index is wired and requires a fair amount of setup and space, thanks to its base stations. But these drawbacks are more than made up for by the Index’s performance.
One other device to consider is the Oculus Quest 3. Sure, it’s not available today, but it is coming next year (according to Meta). Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said it will cost $300 to $500, which is about the price of the Quest 2 right now. We also expect to see the PlayStation VR 2 in 2023, though you’ll need a PS5 to use it. So If none of the headsets above tickle your fancy there’s no harm in waiting a few months and seeing if the next generation of VR devices suits your needs (and your budget) better than what’s out there now.
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While we wait patiently for The Witcher season 3, there's some good news and some potentially bad news for fans of the fantasy series: Netflix has renewed the show for a fourth season, but star Henry Cavill won't be returning as Geralt of Rivia.
As per the Netflix announcement, Liam Hemsworth – perhaps best known as Gale Hawthorne in The Hunger Games series – will be stepping into the role. That casting change is just about the only information we have on season 4 at the moment.
"My journey as Geralt of Rivia has been filled with both monsters and adventures, and alas, I will be laying down my medallion and my swords for Season 4," said the departing Cavill in a statement. "In my stead, the fantastic Mr. Liam Hemsworth will be taking up the mantle of the White Wolf."
"As with the greatest of literary characters, I pass the torch with reverence for the time spent embodying Geralt and enthusiasm to see Liam's take on this most fascinating and nuanced of men. Liam, good sir, this character has such a wonderful depth to him, enjoy diving in and seeing what you can find."
"As a Witcher fan I'm over the moon about the opportunity to play Geralt of Rivia," added Hemsworth. "Henry Cavill has been an incredible Geralt, and I'm honored that he's handing me the reins and allowing me to take up the White Wolf’s blades for the next chapter of his adventure."
"Henry, I've been a fan of yours for years and was inspired by what you brought to this beloved character. I may have some big boots to fill, but I'm truly excited to be stepping into The Witcher world."
Wait and see
You can of course find reactions of all kinds to the news on social media, but it's probably best to reserve judgment on the switch until season 4 actually appears – though it's fair to say Cavill has been great in the role and is going to be hard to replace.
In an ideal world the casting would have stayed fixed, but there's no reason why Hemsworth can't also impress as Geralt. We've recently seen deliberate casting changes in HBO's House of the Dragon – another epic fantasy series that's developed a loyal following – showing that they can work if done right.
Then there's Doctor Who of course, which recently said goodbye to Jodie Whittaker as its main star. The difference here is that casting changes are built into the narrative of the show, but again its evidence that they don't have to kill the momentum of a series.
We are going to have to wait a while to see how Hemsworth does though. Presumably filming hasn't yet started on The Witcher season 4, and there's no indication that it will get underway shortly either. We're looking at a 2024 release at the earliest.
Netflix will be hoping the change from Cavill to Hemsworth won't have an impact on the popularity of the show, which is one of its biggest hits. The spin-off The Witcher: Blood Origin is making its debut on Christmas Day and should keep fans going until season 3 drops at some point next year.
What we didn't get from Netflix is any reason for the change. Given Cavill has just revealed that he's returning as Superman in another movie, perhaps he just doesn't have the time for The Witcher any more – or perhaps he just feels like he needs to take some time away from the Continent now.
The Google Pixel Tablet is taking its time on the journey between the first reveal of the device (May 2022) and it actually being available to buy (sometime in 2023), and that means a wide window of opportunity for leaks and rumors to appear.
As spotted by the team at 9to5Google, we may have been given our first look at the software running on board the Pixel Tablet, via a blog post on keyboard shortcut updates that are coming to the Google Keep app on Android.
It's difficult to know for sure, but it makes sense that Google engineers would already be using the tablet internally, and the size of the GIF scales up to the expected Pixel Tablet screen resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels.
Details, details
The animated image doesn't tell us too much about how the Pixel Tablet is going to look in terms of its software, but we can see a docked row of icons along the bottom of the screen, and the familiar Android status bar along the top.
That status bar is bigger than it would normally be on an Android phone, making room for what looks like a Google account switcher button – enabling you to quickly jump between different users on the device.
The green and black color scheme matches some of the promotional material that Google has already put out as well, further evidence that this image has indeed been grabbed from a Pixel Tablet running Android 12L.
Analysis: what we know so far
When it comes to what we know so far about the Google Pixel Tablet, we've got a mixture of officially confirmed details plus a few unofficial leaks and rumors. For example, Google has itself said that the tablet will use the same Tensor G2 chipset that runs the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro phones.
We also know that there will be a Charging Speaker Dock accessory available for the Google Pixel Tablet, which will charge up the slate and also turn it into something of a smart hub for the home – much like the Google Nest Hub, in fact.
When it comes to unconfirmed rumors, a 10.95-inch screen, Wi-Fi 6, and internal storage options of 128GB and 256GB have been mentioned. There has also been chatter that the tablet is going to come fitted with 4GB of RAM.
Those leaks suggest something a bit more mid-range rather than premium, but we'll have to wait and see to know for sure. Google has told us that the device is going to make an appearance at some point in 2023 – we can't be more precise than that, but considering it was announced in May 2022, we're expecting it sooner rather than later.
It’s the early 2010s, and Mohit Lad and Ricardo Oliviera are working well into the evening, developing their internet monitoring software ThousandEyes in their startup’s first office in San Francisco. The city is energy conscious enough that the lights in the building will go off at 6pm on the dot, and it takes a phone call and a passcode to get things back up and running. Oliviera has had enough of this, and has written a script using Twilio, which offers APIs to automate phone calls.
This works for a week, until the lights turn off of their own accord again. After frantically debugging the script in the dark, the founders realize that their script is absolutely fine. The problem is that Twilio is hosted on an Amazon Web Services (AWS) data center on the other side of the country, which has been brought down due to a storm.
As he speaks from Austin, Texas in 2022, Lad thinks this was a prescient moment to describe the way the internet works today.
The changing internet
“Every time there’s an Amazon outage, something breaks because the way applications are being built right now, there’s a lot more API calls than ever before,” he tells TechRadar Pro.
“Previously, you would see - 10 years ago, 20 years ago - when you were building applications, you would include the code inside through libraries. Now you do an API call. An API call means you insert a dependency into some provider that may be sitting somewhere you don’t know.
“So as things get concentrated, if there are outages in parts of Amazon's environment, what happens is even things you don't anticipate breaking will break, like your doorbell cam may not work because they have an API call where on Amazon.”
“And I think one, one pattern you will start to find is that there's more and more unpredictability that will come through in terms of ripple effects. When large networks or large hosting providers, cloud providers go down.”
The best illustration for how the internet has changed, according to Lad, is the switch from data being stored on a business’ own premises to trusting cloud service providers, like AWS, Google Drive, and Microsoft Azure, with the data, usually as a cost-cutting measure. That, and a familiar interface, are the most obvious benefits, but this too, comes at a price.
“Companies used to put everything in their own data center,” he notes. “Now they’re going into cloud, they don’t control it. They used to build their applications in their own premises, like a CRM, or HR application. And even that is now done on Salesforce, Workday, or Office 365. We’re using Teams, right? Teams is hosted in the cloud.”
“The single thing that connects all of this together is the internet. And if it doesn’t work. Or portions of it don’t work, then it severely impacts user experience. The whole concept of ThousandEyes was started because we believe that the quality of the internet impacts quality of life.”
The ThousandEyes software
Part of what makes ThousandEyes indispensable to over 170 Fortune 500 companies, the top ten banks in the US, and customers such as Mastercard, Volvo, and HP, is that it maps routes between vital company infrastructure and the cloud providers hosting it.
“Think about Google Maps, or Waze. It’s all about providing a visual around what’s happening between point A and point B, so you can make the right decision,” says Lad. “That sort of end-to-end view of what the journey is between your end users and application, which is missing in the current market world.”
Lad maintains that ThousandEyes remains a vital resource because of the way the internet works. “The internet is essentially a collection of different networks. What ThousandEyes is doing is providing a view showing that journey and highlighting if there’s an outage somewhere, and that gives you the ability to route around it.”
To illustrate, he shares what he calls “the 30,000 feet view” inside the ThousandEyes software - a total overview of outages across the internet, with the estimated geographical impact depicted on an interactive map.
The closest, publicly available approximation to the “30,000 feet view” Lad showcased, available on the ThousandEyes website.(Image credit: ThousandEyes)
Another example Lad gives of ThousandEyes’ unique functionality is its ability to drill down into where exactly an outage is coming from within a network. He picks an ongoing outage at random - a US provider is down, impacting traffic coming from Australia, via Cloudflare.
“So if we drill down, it shows up as Sydney, and you can look at specific parts of this network in Sydney, where the outages are,” he explains. “And knowing this, if you’re using this provider and you have critical customers in Australia, you actually know there’s an outage going on in that part of the environment. You can avoid this network, and make sure your users have a consistent experience and be able to help them out of a blind spot.”
Getting ThousandEyes funded
Since the company began around ten years ago, Lad says that this belief has only become more important. The road to getting to where he and ThousandEyes are today was difficult, and, it turns out, a last ditch effort. Lad’s plans to enter into academia at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) were scuppered, and his US visa was running out. Something had to be done.
In July 2008, Lad began working at an internet startup, but within two months was told that he was being let go as a result of layoffs because of the financial crisis. This, he says, opened his eyes. Oliviera, his labmate at UCLA, had been asking him to start a company with him, and he wasn’t interested. Redundancy, Lad says, made him decide to take a chance, although it initially seemed an unlikely one.
“Nobody was willing to fund ThousandEyes,” he notes. “A lot of people didn’t think the internet was going to be important enough to be monitored. We ended up raising money from the National Science Foundation, from the US government.”
That initial grant of $150,000 built the first version of ThousandEyes, but Lad is quick to point out that, in practice, it wasn’t a life-changing sum of money. ThousandEyes’ first datacenter, he says, was built in a garage with servers that had been thrown out into the street.”
“One of the things that came out of [the financial crisis] was a lot of equipment being put in recycle bins outside companies in the Bay Area. Even today, we have the first server we put in place in our office.”
Ricardo Oliveira (left) and Mohit Lad (right) with ThousandEyes’ first server, still live and kicking.(Image credit: ThousandEyes)
The state of funding for technology startups right now isn’t quite so bleak, says Lad. “Last year was quite crazy. Everybody was throwing a lot of money. I think, this year, investors are more disciplined around fundamentals, and are being pretty selective about where they invest and how they invest. And sometimes these market shifts are a good opportunity to really understand where to focus.”
“Take ThousandEyes as an example. If we had gotten a lot of money from day one, we would have gone and tried all these different things to build a product and probably failed. The fact that we had very little money meant that we had to really focus on the one thing we could sell. And sometimes I feel like overfunded companies are essentially writing their own failure when they raise too much money and try to grow faster.”
“There’s still a lot of investor money. [...] There are other government programmes in different countries, and I would definitely encourage people to leverage [them]. Sometimes these programmes won’t give you quick money - [the National Science Foundation grant was] spread out over increments every three months. But it does help you, and puts more discipline in how you operate. So, I think: look for alternative ways.”
“My recommendation to entrepreneurs building software companies [today] is to focus on getting early customers. That’s the best way to build the company, validate the product.”
Predicting the internet
To commit to monitoring the internet is also to commit to the idea that the internet is constantly changing. It’s the first thing Lad admits when we ask him about the unpredictability of ThousandEyes’ monitoring solutions. That change can be problematic, he says, in that companies’ own senses of self-preservation sometimes govern the internet.
“[The internet’s] also very complex, and it’s not controlled by one entity. So every network is making decisions that are sometimes in their own self-interests. For example, occasionally networks will announce IP addresses that don’t belong to them, and they can suck traffic into their site, and this is how even big sites like Google have gone down. This is what’s called BGP hijacks, or route hijacking. ”
“Even the best networks with the best engineers can’t control availability, because somebody else on the internet announces that they are Google and traffic starts going to them. This is part of what makes the internet really fascinating, and really difficult to predict.”
The ThousandEyes platform in action.(Image credit: ThousandEyes)
ThousandEyes is by no means giving up hope, though, and Lad says that the company has built technology that uses historical data to predict outages at particular times of the day - much like those early days for the company in San Francisco, but without having to wait for the outages to happen before companies can react.
“We can’t predict every outage,” he's quick to point out. “We won’t predict if a lightning strike takes out a data center. But if there’s a certain pattern that we can predict based on past data - for example, at 9AM on a Tuesday you always have issues with Microsoft 365 from this office, but you won’t have this problem if you switch [internet service providers]. That’s the kind of prediction we can make.”
The mention of natural disasters is genuinely surprising, and we have to admit that we haven’t thought too much about how environmental factors, or indeed climate change, are impacting the stability of the internet. Separately, Lad uses recurring fires in New York, which impact a large portion of the East Coast’s ability to connect to the internet, and beavers chewing through cables as examples of unpredictable events that affect connectivity.
Cisco's acquisition of ThousandEyes
Lad claims that a large part of ThousandEyes’ ability to help as many companies as possible (and, by extension, people) is the company’s acquisition by Cisco in 2020 which, as it turns out, is an unusual and engaging story.
“Cisco was a customer of ThousandEyes from 2014, and they actually spoke at our conferences as well,” he explains. “They were using it on their internal side to understand their employees' experiences, as they were adopting the internet more and more between their offices, moving things to cloud, so they were using ThousandEyes internally to be proactive on outages that were happening.”
“Every product functionality we released, they were adopting it. And I think a couple of things happened. One: the Cisco engineering teams made some changes where they decided that the Cisco platform should potentially run other applications as well, and when they were making these changes, the IT team, the customer side of Cisco, came to us and wanted to run ThousandEyes on all the Cisco devices in the branch offices. So we worked with them to get 1000s running on the Cisco devices.
“A couple things happened as a result [of that]. The leadership side [of Cisco], all the way to the CEO, started learning about how ThousandEyes [was] being used within Cisco. And Cisco being the company that basically helped build the internet, [they think] “if there’s something that we’re using as a first party, we should look at it.”
“The other thing [was] that, before we came to Cisco, we had more than a hundred Fortune 500 [customers]. So every time Cisco would have advisory meetings with some of these customers, they would bring ThousandEyes up to the leadership and say “you should consider partnering.”
Lad believed - and still believes - that Cisco and ThousandEyes’ goals were aligned: wanting to build the best view of the internet. He and Oliviera thought that, by partnering with Cisco, they would be best equipped to gather data from all corners of the world.
Lad has agreed to this interview largely to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the acquisition, although it is still tempting to ask him whether he finds it difficult being a huge cog in a big machine. However, he preempts this question before it’s asked, by discussing ThousandEyes’ unique role within Cisco.
“We’re set up as an independent business unit, not part of a certain product group within Cisco. And that’s because the internet threads to every piece of Cisco’s business. And because we help monitor, visualize, and understand the internet, [we’re] helping all the product lines sort of benefit from the galvanized data. [...] We’re still operating like a startup, except at that Cisco scale.”
He says that one of the key benefits of the Cisco partnership is the ability to get first meetings with customers, as the ThousandEyes company can trade on Cisco’s brand recognition. Another is that, by continuing to integrate ThousandEyes with Cisco devices, the amount of data that ThousandEyes can collect is increasing exponentially. “I look back,” he says, “and it was one of the best decisions we made.”
The internet in the future
As Lad looks forward, he thinks that there are challenges coming, but, equally, to celebrate.
“There isn’t one thing I would say that’s going to change,” he says. “I just feel connectivity is so critical that people live their lives around just being able to connect to something really quickly.”
“It’s also the devices that are becoming increasingly internet connected. That’s also going to challenge how the internet is evolving and how it needs to support all these billions of billions of devices that are coming online.”
“The last thing I would add is that there’s a large population of the world that is still not online. And there are areas, especially in Africa, and parts of Asia and India, where people are connected through their cell phones. [...] And I do think, in those markets in particular, the ecosystem is evolving around that lifecycle versus building things for desktops and laptops.”
Lad isn’t necessarily convinced that future changes to the way humanity takes to technology will be quite so rapid. “It’s not typical to have such a rapid acceleration of a trend overnight, so I feel like some of these changes are going to be accelerated more regionally, or are going to be gradual, globally. But [things] will continue to evolve.”
“What I see is that some of the changes are stirred by an application that makes life easier for people. And suddenly people start coming online or using a cell phone because they can get something done. They can accept payments for their work [for example], so that's the reason why they have a cell phone.”
For the most part, Lad won’t be drawn to discuss fears about the future of the internet. He describes himself as an optimist for the internet’s future, and continues to see it as a force for good. There’s an overriding sense that to him, ThousandEyes is not about keeping watch over and pushing back against the internet, but embracing it as a tool, and working to keep it accessible.
“Obviously, the internet is one of the reasons why your online accounts can get hacked, and all of that. So there's definitely a lot of bad stuff happening, but I think my hope and optimism is the good trumps the bad.”
“And we're able to use it for the right reasons. And it really continues to change lives and connect people and create, you know, an experience where people from different parts of the world are able to come together no matter where they are.”
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Gaming laptops are a great way to play the latest games when you're away from home, and they are increasingly powerful enough to make great desktop PC replacements for many gamers.
It's no wonder then that gaming laptops are some of the most popular deals during Black Friday, especially because many of the best gaming laptops are also fairly expensive. This is even more true for laptops with RTX 3080 GPUs or high-resolution and high-refresh displays from top brands like Razer, Gigabyte, and Alienware. But with some good Black Friday gaming laptop deals, these laptops can see some dramatic price cuts, sometimes by more than $500/£500.
But even if you're looking for something more in the midrange or budget category, there are still going to be some great cheap gaming laptop deals, and in many cases, you'll be able to find plenty, like the HP Victus 15, that won't force you to sacrifice too much when it comes to hardware or performance.
There are some laptop deals that you'll want to avoid though, and not just on the low end of the price spectrum where you'd expect to find some of the shoddier products. There are going to be plenty of high-end gaming laptops that look great at first glance, but are much less of a deal when you dig deeper into the specs.
As we all get ready for the holiday sales event, there are a whole lot of reasons to expect great deals this year and we'll help you sort out which ones to look for and which ones to avoid.
What to look for in a Black Friday gaming laptop deal
So what should you be on the lookout for when you go Black Friday shopping? There are some key points to remember when it comes to buying a gaming laptop.
First, we're already pushing the bounds of what a great gaming laptop really needs to play the best PC games, since nearly every modern AAA game is targeted at console compatibility first rather than trying to max out what the best gaming PC is capable of handling. The days of asking "But can it run Crysis?" have come and gone, honestly.
As such, there's very little reason to turn your nose up at a 12th-gen Intel Core i5 or an AMD Ryzen 6000-series CPU paired with an Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU, since this kind of gaming laptop is more than capable of playing everything currently available at pretty high settings at 1080p.
And since 1080p is what even high-end gaming laptops generally stick with in order to max out the display's refresh rates, you don't need much more than this right now and these are going to see some great price cuts this Black Friday.
Second, keep in mind that on a laptop, a 4K display doesn't really get you that much more than a 1080p in terms of crispness. Yes, you're doubling the pixels-per-inch, so images will be twice as sharp, but the images are also going to be much smaller on a 14- or 15-inch display than they would be on the best gaming monitors pushing 32 or 42 inches across.
Our eyes just aren't able to appreciate the fine details on something as small as a gaming laptop display, especially not when things are blazing across in an action-packed title like Doom Eternal or some competitive shooters. At most, look for 1440p if all you care about is PC gaming. You're not missing out on much by settling for 1080p, but you will likely save a lot of money.
There are a couple of Black Friday-specific considerations to mention as well. First, you're going to see a lot of high-end laptops with very gaming-specific hardware get some eye-popping price cuts this Black Friday.
Here's an example from last year:
Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED YD, 15.6-inch 4K AMOLED, Intel i7-11800H, Nvidia RTX 3080, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD |$2,999$1,899 at Newegg (Instant savings and rebate)
Save $1,100 - Right off the bat, you're saving $800 with this Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED, but with an additional mail-in rebate offer, you can save another $300, bringing the total savings to $1,100. This is definitely one of the best Black Friday gaming laptop deals we've seen, but it ends early tomorrow morning, so you need to move on it soon if you want to save big on this beast.
If you are keen on getting a laptop that can play the latest games with the highest graphics fidelity possible, then you can find some great deals on the best mobile workstations for creative professionals that have all of the same hardware as the most premium gaming laptop, but come with perks like OLED 4K displays that gaming laptops generally lack.
The drawback is that these displays are going to have standard 60Hz refresh rates, since that isn't the kind of thing that creatives really need for their work. Non-OLED displays might also have awful pixel response as well, which make them less suitable for fast-paced gaming.
That said, if you're looking to take in the eye candy at a leisurely pace, then a creative workstation might be a smart way to get a great deal on very powerful hardware. If you're looking to game competitively though, you're going to want to stick to proper gaming laptops with more responsive, higher-refresh displays.
Gaming laptops across the board will see price cuts
(Image credit: Future)
We've been doing this for many, many years now, and we've got plenty of experience watching how the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales events tend to run. The past couple of years has, with the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting supply chain issues, upended things for sure.
There are still some pretty consistent throughlines though, namely that the cadence of gaming laptop releases provides plenty of incentive for retailers to clear out some inventory and make way for newer products with the very latest hardware.
These latter gaming laptops are usually the least likely to see price cuts, but that will still happen, so don't expect the only gaming laptops to go on sale to be those that are one or two generations behind everyone else.
What's more, most of the newest mobile computing hardware, like new mobile processors and GPUs, are announced early in the year, typically around CES. And since most laptop hardware has been on the market for several months now, if not for over a year, we're expecting new mobile CPUs and GPUs to be announced or at least teased in January from AMD, Intel, and Nvidia.
That means that demand for the current-gen tech is likely to soften this Black Friday as people wait to see what is revealed next year. As a result, prices on current-gen gaming laptops will have to drop lower to compensate, and you should definitely take advantage of these deeper price cuts.
One of the best ways to see what kind of gaming laptop deals to expect this year is to look at what we saw last year. Thanks to the magic of the internet, we're able to bring you some highlights from our 2021 Black Friday coverage to illustrate.
Asus ROG Zephyrus M16, RTX 3060, Intel Core i9, 40GB RAM: $3,329$2,449 at Newegg
Save $880 on this incredible gaming laptop from Asus ROG, one of the most respected producers of gaming laptops in the world. Not only are you getting that RTX 3060 GPU, but also an 11th-gen Intel i9 processor and a whopping 40GB of RAM.
MSI Creator 15 A11UE-491 | Intel Core i7, RTX 3060, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD:$1,849$1,449 at Newegg
Save $400 - Black Friday / Cyber Monday sees this mid-range laptop from MSI's Creator line at 22% off. That's $400 in savings for a notebook that will supercharge your creative workflows, whether that's photo and video editing, graphic design, or streaming your gaming sessions. Besides the 11th-gen i7, RTX 3060, 16GB RAM innards, you're also getting that crisp 4K display.
MSI Sword 15 A11UD-001 | Intel Core i7, RTX 3050 Ti, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD:$1,199.99$899.99 at Best Buy
Save $300 - MSI's Dragon Blade-inspired not only looks good, but also comes with a lot of power. And, it's 25% off from now until Black Friday, dropping this specific configuration below $1,000. What do you get in exchange? An 11th-gen Intel Core i7, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 TI GPU, 8GB RAM, and 512GB SSD storage, alongside an FHD screen. That's not too shabby for 1080p gaming.
MSI Pulse GL66 11UGK-001| Intel Core i7, RTX 3070, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD:$1,499$1,294 at Amazon Save $204 - You need not spend over $2,000 on an RTX 3070-powered gaming laptop. For one day only, MSI is dropping the price of this powerful piece of kit down and giving you $204 in savings. The only thing better than its high-end internals are its fast 1080p screen that boasts a 144Hz refresh rate, perfect for fast-paced games.
Dell G15, AMD Ryzen 7, Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti, 8GB, 512GB |$1,149$879 at Best Buy
Save $270 - This 15.6-inch gaming laptop from Dell brings some serious power for less than $1,000 this Black Friday. With an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H CPU, Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti graphics, 8GB DDR4 RAM, 512GB SSD, and a 120Hz refresh rate, your games will look and play great on the go.
Things to avoid this Black Friday when shopping for a gaming laptop
(Image credit: Ninma)
No matter what kind of gaming you plan to do, there are a couple of things that you're likely to see this Black Friday that you're going to want to avoid unless the price is absolutely unbeatable.
First, don't look for anything less than 8GB RAM unless you are only planning on casual gaming. Windows 11 is going to take up a lot of RAM, so you're not going to have a whole lot to work with for your other programs, and gaming generally requires a good bit of RAM in order to run smoothly.
If you're looking at high-end devices, make sure that you're not paying extra for "premium" hardware from two or three generations ago. If you see a $2,000 gaming laptop with a ninth-gen Intel Core i7 in it, you can get new hardware for roughly the same price elsewhere, and you definitely should.
Another thing you might see a lot of right now is a "gaming" Chromebook. Look, don't get us wrong, we love Chromebooks, but Chromebooks typically don't have the specs required for locally installed games (and couldn't run almost any of them even if they did), and cloud gaming is viable but still iffy on a Chromebook. Come back to us next year once we've had a chance to really push the new line of gaming Chromebooks to see what they are capable of before making that kind of jump.
Finally, there is the question of MacBooks. Typically, MacBooks haven't been seen as gaming machines in a serious way and that hasn't really changed even with the latest Apple silicon.
There are plenty of games that you can play on a Mac, mind you, and some of us are actually quite bullish on the Mac's gaming potential in the years ahead. Capcom just released Resident Evil Village on the Mac and other developers are likely to start following suit in the coming years, but we're not there yet and the future of Mac gaming remains to be seen. If you're looking to play all of the latest PC games right now, you're still going to need a Windows laptop.
Gaming laptop spec cheat sheet
One of the most overwhelming things about shopping for a gaming laptop on Black Friday is trying to make sense of the completely incomprehensible specs that manufacturers tend to throw at customers. If you've never bought a gaming laptop before or you're buying one for someone else and you aren't a gamer yourself, it can feel like you're reading a foreign language.
Fortunately, we have tested so many gaming laptops that we've learned what's worth buying and what is best avoided. We've broken down the kinds of specs you're going to want to target for premium devices, our suggested specs for the best balance between performance and price, and the minimum specs you should be targeting if you're looking for a more budget option but still want the laptop to provide a solid gaming experience.
Component
Premium
Suggested
Minimum
CPU
Intel Core i9-12XXX or AMD Ryzen 9 6XXX
Intel Core i7-12XXX or AMD Ryzen 7 6XXX
Intel Core i5-11XXX or AMD Ryzen 5 5XXX
GPU
Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti or greater
Nvidia RTX 3060 or RTX 2070
Nvidia GTX 1650
RAM
32GB or greater
16GB
8GB with a free DIMM slot
Storage
More than 1TB
1TB
256GB
Monitor Resolution
2160p (4K)
1440p
1080p
Monitor Refresh Rate
240Hz or higher
165Hz
144Hz (60Hz if 4K resolution)
Today's best gaming laptop deals
If you don't want to wait for Black Friday, you can check out some of the best gaming laptop deals available right now.
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బాలీవుడ్లో సీనియర్ నటి జయ బచ్చన్ సంచలన వ్యాఖ్యలు చేశారు. తన మనవరాలు నవ్య నవేలి నందా గురించి చేసిన ఆసక్తికరమైన వ్యాఖ్యలు ప్రస్తుతం మీడియాలో చర్చనీయాంశమయ్యాయి. నవ్య నవేలి గురించి వాట్ ది హెల్ నవ్య అనే ప్రాడ్ కాస్ట్లో అఫైర్లు, రిలేషన్షిప్స్ గురించి తన అభిప్రాయాలను వెల్లడించారు. పెళ్లి కాకుండానే తన మనవరాలు బిడ్డను
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If you're looking to dramatically improve your competitive gaming experience, investing in a dedicated gaming keyboard is one of the easiest and best ways to get ahead.
Over the years, the best gaming keyboards have become more popular on Black Friday, since many gamers appreciate their value more as well as the fact that a good amount of them can be quite costly – especially since the high-end keyboards tend to include customizable macros, mechanical keys, RGB lighting, very fast response times, higher build quality, and more premium features. But with the right Black Friday deal, you can easily nab one of the more expensive models for less than $100 or even less than $50.
And if you happen to be looking in the mid or low-range category, the sales will make those prices even sweeter. And best of all, there are already plenty of options that offer nearly the same experience as a high-end model at a lower cost.
However, there are some deals you wouldn't want to touch with a ten-foot pole, and this doesn't just apply to the low-range models either. Sometimes you could be getting what seems to be an excellent deal on a high-end gaming keyboard but doesn't offer the features or build quality that should come with it.
But that's where we come in. We've tested a lot of the best keyboards around and we know what it takes to make or break a gaming experience, so we're here to guide you through the process so you can get the best deal possible as we head into the holidays.
What to look for in a Black Friday gaming keyboard deal
(Image credit: Future)
So what should you be on the lookout for when you go Black Friday shopping? There are some key points to remember when it comes to buying a gaming keyboard and ensuring you get the smoothest experience possible.
Largely, gaming keyboards have such a wide range of features and builds to fit a variety of buyers' needs. However, depending on what end of the price spectrum you're looking to buy from, there are tips and tricks that can help your experience.
The number one feature to look out for when shopping for a high-end gaming keyboard is build quality. Most other features are important as well but if the gaming keyboard is made of cheap plastic then it will break down quickly. For an expensive keyboard, it should be made of an aluminum alloy and the keys should be mechanical.
The former means that the body of the keyboard needs to be sturdy due to how much punishment they take and most high-end keyboards should be mostly made of aluminum. The latter refers to the fact that keyboards either use membrane or mechanical keys. Mechanical keys have a switch under the key and membrane keys send an electrical current between two plastic membranes. Mechanical reacts much faster to clicks and lasts far longer than the cheaper membrane ones.
Cheaper keyboards tend to use membrane keys and have plastic bodies, which can be detrimental for hardcore gaming sessions but would be perfectly fine for more casual gameplay and productivity work. And some of the low and mid-range keyboards can even mimic the mechanical feel of more expensive ones even with membrane keys. But keyboards in this category should never be more than $50, anything above that price range should have mechanical keys at the very least.
There is one Black Friday-specific consideration to mention as well, namely that you're going to see a fair amount of high-end keyboards getting deep cuts this time of year. Here's an example from last year:
Corsair K70 RGB MK.2 Low Profile Rapidfire gaming keyboard |$149$89 at Best Buy
Save $60 - Save on desk space with this low profile mechanical gaming keyboard from Corsair, featuring Cherry MX Low Profile Speed Switches and a lightweight aluminum frame and USB port passthrough. View Deal
Features that gaming keyboards should have are some level of customizable keys and/or macros (though the amount and level will vary depending on price point) and a fast response time with 1ms or less being ideal.
Another factor you'll want to look for is the size, which depends on how much desk space you have. If you have plenty, then a normal-sized keyboard with a tenkey pad is perfectly fine. But less space may require a tenkeyless keyboard, which forgoes the tenkey and is much smaller and portable. You can find the best mini keyboards cutting across all price ranges, and many will be on sale during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
All kinds of gaming keyboards will see price cuts
(Image credit: Future)
We have years of experience in finding the best tech deals during the holidays, so we know how Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales events tend to run. The past couple of years have turned the norm around quite a bit, due to the pandemic and resulting supply chain issues, which has made things more chaotic.
Even with that, however, there are still plenty of consistent patterns to work with. The tech industry in general has plenty of practices that have survived these past couple of years, such as the tendency to drop prices on older products in order to make way for newer models.
The latter is less likely to receive price cuts, though you may see the occasional sale on such products, which can still make it worthwhile to keep track of the latest gaming keyboards. Older keyboards aren't the only ones to go on sale during the holiday season.
Furthermore, because new tech tends to come out either during the holiday season or at the start of the next year, demand for current-gen gaming keyboards will drop and retailers will be forced to lower prices as a result.
One of the best ways to see what kind of gaming keyboard deals to expect this year is to look at what we saw last year. And, in order to help you compare deals from last year, we're able to bring you some highlights from our 2021 Black Friday coverage to demonstrate.
Razer Power Up Bundle V2 (Cynosa Lite, Gigantus V2 L, DeathAdder Essential, BlackShark V2 X) | $79 at Walmart If you're looking to outfit your PC gaming setup with some essential peripherals from Razer, this Power Up Bundle from Walmart has everything you need. It comes with a Cynosa Lite gaming keyboard, a Gigantus V2 L desktop mat, a DeathAdder Essential gaming mouse, and a BlackShark V2 X gaming headset, so at $79, you're saving some big money on buying these separately.View Deal
Corsair K100 RGB Mechanical gaming keyboard |$229$189 at Amazon
Save $40 - Enjoy cutting-edge performance from Corsair with the K100 RGB Pro Optical-Mechanical gaming keyboard, featuring 44-zone RGB, a durable aluminum frame, Axon Hyper-Processing technology for faster throughput, and Cherry MX Speed RGB Silver mechanical key switches – all for 17% off this Black Friday.View Deal
SteelSeries Apex Pro Mechanical Gaming Wired Keyboard |$199$163 at Amazon
Save $36 - Get 18% off this SteelSeries mechanical gaming keyboard with adjustable actuation switches, OLED smart display, aluminum construction and a magnetic wrist rest for comfortable gameplay. View Deal
Corsair K60 RGB Pro SE Mechanical gaming keyboard |$99$69 at Amazon Save $30 - If you're in the market for a new gaming keyboard, the K60 RGB Pro Mechanical gaming keyboard from Corsair offers a great balance between functionality and price thanks to this Corsair Black Friday offer from Amazon. View Deal
Das Keyboard X50Q Programmable |$199$152.15 at Amazon
Save $46.85 - If you're looking for the ultimate work and gaming keyboard, the Das Keyboard X50Q is a great choice. With programmable RGB keys, pre-programmed applet support, Gamma Zulu mechanical switches, and more, you can't go wrong when you want to move seamlessly between work and play.View Deal
Things to avoid in a Black Friday gaming keyboard deal
(Image credit: TechRadar)
Unfortunately, the holiday season means more opportunities to sell mediocre gaming keyboards at prices that are often overinflated yet disguised as a good deal. And while it can be difficult to root out every shoddy keyboard offer, there are ways to eliminate the most egregious examples.
These tips apply more to high-end posing gaming keyboards, as there tend to be more retailers that try to push less than steller models on unassuming buyers while pretending they're premium.
Any high-end keyboard should be made from an aluminum or steel alloy, period. If you're spending premium prices then it should be made of premium material. This goes double for the keys, which should always be industry-standard mechanical Cherry MX keys.
In terms of specs, the response time should be 1ms or less and it should have customizable keys and macros of some sort. Of course the type and amount of it depends on the price and the type of gaming keyboard, with MMO gaming requiring more of each, but it needs to be a feature as hardcore and competitive gaming requires it.
Features like RGB lighting are usually included but are merely window-dressing – extremely expensive window dressing that can raise the price of a gaming keyboard by tens of dollars easily. So if you happen to see a keyboard with it but the specs are a bit lower than normal, that’s a terrible deal.
Finally, there's the eternal wired keyboard versus wireless debate, and we’re here to tell you that it’s largely up to personal preference. There’s not enough of a difference between response time to justify one or the other, so get which one works best for you and don’t fall for the additional charge for wireless because guaranteed it’s not worth the extra cost.
If you do go wireless though, and you plan on playing competitive esports, make sure the keyboard supports 2.4Ghz wireless and not just Bluetooth connectivity. Bluetooth has a higher input latency than 2.4GHz wireless, so it isn't as suitable for competitive play.
Today's best gaming keyboard deals
If you don't want to wait for Black Friday, you can check out some of the best gaming keyboard deals available right now.
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