Today’s topics include the expanding scope of the VW emissions software scandal, Why Michigan is suing HP over a failed project, Google Drive receives security upgrades, and AT&T is suing three former workers for allegedly unlocking mobile phones.
Volkswagen is facing investigations and public outrage around the world after it was discovered that it had deliberately loaded software into diesel engine computers that falsified emissions test results.
On Sept. 22, Volkswagen admitted that there were far more diesel vehicles affected by the installation of this software: an estimated 11 million—many more than the 482,000 first reported.
Volkswagen said Sept. 22 that it has set aside $7.3 billion to fix the software that manipulates emissions tests, a sum that is likely to be just the start of what it costs the automaker in government fines, repairs and lawsuits.
Hewlett-Packard is being sued by the state of Michigan for $49 million on claims that it failed to complete a project to replace an aging computer system in offices around the state.
Despite having 10 years to complete the project, HP has not delivered a computing system to replace the mainframe system that was built in the 1960s and is used by all 131 offices of the secretary of state as well as other internal work areas, according to Michigan officials.
The number of paying organizations using Google Drive crossed the one million mark earlier this year and Google appears to be ramping up its efforts to bolster the cloud storage service’s security features.
The cloud services giant introduced new features on Sept. 21 that are intended to give organizations more visibility and control over business files stored and shared by workers in Google Drive.
The new features add data retention and legal hold capabilities to the existing collection of e-discovery capabilities available with Google Drive.
AT&T is suing three of its former employees for participating in a scheme to illegally unlock smartphones that the company sold so that their owners could use them on other carrier networks, which is a violation of AT&T’s rules.
The 25-page lawsuit, filed recently in United States District Court in the Western District of Washington, names Marc Sapatin, Kyra Evans and Nguyen Lam, who formerly worked as support specialists in an AT&T office in Bothell, Wash., as defendants in the case.
Some 50 unidentified John Doe defendants also are named in the suit as co-conspirators for allegedly benefiting from the unauthorized smartphone unlocking processes.