A long-known weakness in an authentication protocol shipped in millions of routers, surveillance devices and satellite antennae is being used in attempts to compromise accounts at popular web services, according to new research from Akamai. The research findings add to concerns that hackers increasingly are using internet of things devices to stage attacks, a situation that experts say could be difficult or in some cases impossible to fix (see How an IT Pro Kicked Hackers Off Surveillance Cameras).

[Editor’s note: Ah, the ever-popular Gartner Hype Cycle. Love it or hate it, it’s always interesting. Customer Data Platforms appeared for the first time this year, positioned as just starting the climb to inflated expectations. I’d say CDPs a bit further along than that, but agree that we haven’t seen too much hype yet.]

GrowthLoop will use TransUnion identity data to improve U.S. consumer match rates on client files sent to advertising media such as Facebook and Google Ads.  The data should also help clients to find matches among records within their files, building more accurate customer profiles.  GrowthLoop calls itself a “composable CDP”, meaning it works with data assembled in external data warehouses.