It looks like the Oregon Ducks will be taking the next few weeks off.
That may be a good thing, in the end. It will give them a chance to recuperate after what was an incredibly embarrassing and abysmal loss to the Oregon State Beavers, where they blew a 17-point fourth-quarter lead to lose the rivalry game in Corvallis.
The loss opened the door for the Washington Huskies to decide the fate of the Ducks, which is never something that you want if you’re an Oregon fan. With Washington’s 51-33 win over the Washington State Cougars in the Apple Cup on Saturday night, it made it so there was a 3-way tie for 2nd place in the Pac-12 standings. The Utah Utes held the tie-breaker over both Oregon and Washington based on strength of record, giving them the spot vs. the USC Trojans in the Pac-12 Championship Game.
So next Friday in Las Vegas, it will be a rematch between the Utes and the Trojans, which is part two of a thrilling early-season game that ended in a 43-42 Utah win.
Dan Lanning will have to wait another year before making it to his first Pac-12 Championship game.
“We got an email from someone. And we accidentally clicked on it — it looks legitimate. We clicked on it. And then it was a hacker, and they asked us to give them ransom, or they threatened to delete our account,” Amanda Wadsworth, co-founder of Tiny Pies, a small business in Austin told KXAN News.
Ransomware attackers can also threaten to reveal customers’ information on the dark web, and there’s a lot of that data right now.
“Organizations are managing about 10 times more data than they were even five years ago,” said Bobbie Stempfley, vice president and business unit security officer for Dell Technologies.
“It’s an astronomical amount of data,” she added.
She said there’s been an increase in attack attempts. In fact, she said businesses like Dell have to fend them daily.
“It’s an environment where, when you put in better protections, the threat actors work to find better ways to go work around those protections,” Stempfley said.
She said Dell is constantly doing training and simulations for employees throughout the year so they don’t fall for ransomware attacks like phishing — when hackers try to lure you via email to click on a fake link.
Holiday shoppers beware
Security company Tanium said attacks like these increase during the holiday shopping season, as hackers try to capitalize on the surge of people surfing the web for deals.
“You’re going to potentially want to look for people impersonating your brand, by stealing websites or sending out emails,” said Melissa Bischoping, Tanium endpoint security research director.
It’s not just companies that hold your data that need to watch out for attacks, Bischoping said. Shoppers should be aware, too.
“Be aware when you receive an email, maybe advertising a holiday sale. Check and go through the official app or the official website that you trust versus just clicking on the link in the email,” she explained.
She said another common holiday scam is through botnets, which grab up inventory for some of the most in-demand products so they can sell it at a markup.
Bischoping said technology has made it easier for hackers to strike.
“It’s much easier than ever for threat actors to enter the marketplace by buying these sorts of pre-built kits to deliver their malware or set up their own botnet. And that does contribute to us seeing more activity,” she said.
It all lines up with the busiest time of year for your favorite shops.
“Security staffing may be low for people who are on vacation and so the security operations team is running around like the elves at the North Pole, trying to stay ahead of the increased demand as well as the increased threat actors,” Bischoping said.
Security tips
If you get an email about a shopping sale, go directly to the company’s website instead of clicking on any links.
Keep an extra eye out this season on your credit card for potential fraudulent charges.
Use different passwords for different websites that you shop on, so if one company gets hacked, your financial information won’t be misused at another company.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Power crews are on the scene of a substation problem in Corvallis and according to Pacific Power over 6,500 customers are without power, including most of Oregon State University.
Pacific Power first reported the issue at around 9 a.m. in a tweet that said the problem should be fixed by 3:00 p.m.
Oregon State University then shared in a tweet saying that power has been restored to Reser Stadium where the Oregon rivalry football game is set to take place at 12:30 p.m. Saturday.
It is unknown if the power outage will affect the game, but Oregon State said they would share any updates on their Twitter.
ODOT has almost 40 vacancies for seasonal and permanent positions on its road maintenance team in the eastern part of the state.
PORTLAND, Ore. — A chronic shortage of snow plow drivers has made clearing the roads in Oregon a challenge heading into winter weather, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation.
The agency has 132 vacancies across the state for maintenance positions including snow plow drivers, salt truck drivers and de-icers. About 40 of those vacancies are in eastern Oregon where there’s a greater need for drivers, according to ODOT.
“These are the maintenance drivers that we use when we get hit by a winter event, when it’s all hands on deck,” said Don Hamilton, an ODOT spokesperson.
Hamilton said the department’s vacancies are greater than they’ve been in recent years heading into the winter months, which is notable for drivers.
“The public is going to see a drop in what we can do — a decline in service on the roads when we git hit by a winter storm,” Hamilton said. “We might not be able to plow a road as quickly as we can, we might not be able to serve some of the roads, we might not be able to get salt and de-icer (trucks) out as frequently as we would like to do.”
Hamilton said the department is “working around the clock” to get the jobs filled this winter, but if the vacant positions remain open, they’ll try to get new drivers trained for next year’s winter season.
In the meantime, the shortage is forcing ODOT to enact some schedule flexibility.
“We’re trying to be creative with shifts and we have some days where we don’t have coverage in the early hours of the morning,” said Rich Lani, a regional district manager for ODOT.
New federal licensing rules for drivers resulted in longer wait times to obtain a commercial driver’s license, which contributed to the driver shortage, the agency said.
ODOT will pay for new snow plow drivers to get the special driver’s license. Lani said many drivers leave the agency for new jobs after the six-month snow plow season is over.
“They’re highly employable now,” Lani said. “They have this Class A CDL in their pocket and a lot of private industry will lure them away, pay them more money and offer year-round employment.”
Portland might fare better than the rest of the state if heavy snow is in the cards; the Portland Bureau of Transportation told KGW last month that it has a full crew lined up to operate its fleet of 55 snow plots over the winter, although the agency is always looking for extra workers.
PBOT set up a snow plow obstacle course in October as part of an annual round of training for plot operators to prepare for winter conditions. Drivers will also spend time practicing by driving their designated routes without the plow attached.
MISSION — Melinda Broncheau and Jiselle Halfmoon have joined the staff of Cayuse Native Solutions as the company continues to grow and offer services and products to tribes, tribal entities, and Native owned small businesses.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Oregon is the number one grower of Christmas trees in the United States but farmers are worried about how climate change could impact their future.
For Elizabeth and Paul, coming to Grabhorn Farms for a Christmas tree is a holiday tradition 22 years in the making.
“We’re Oregonians, so, we have to have a real tree.”
Owner Jeremy Scholz said this is the time of year all his effort pays off.
“People don’t realize how much work goes into growing a Christmas tree the rest of the year,” Scholz said. “Your 6′ tree is 6-12 years old, that’s 6-12 years of work.”
He also said that climate change is costing them.
“The hard part has been the dry summer,” he told KOIN.
In fact, last year, he says 99% of those seedlings he planted died in the heat dome.
“I took a big hit, each seedling costs money, it’s not fun.”
It’s also changing how they farm. The summers have been so hot, they are now switching up the types of trees they grow.
Another challenge for Christmas tree farmers has been inflation.
According to the Oregon Christmas Tree Growers Association, the cost of fertilizer is up 100% and fuel is up 80%.
Despite that, they say growers are doing their best to make Christmas as affordable as possible, so there are always trees at good prices, in many cases not raising tree prices as much as their input costs went up.
And for Elizabeth and Paul, having a real tree keeps the holiday spirit alive in their home.
“I think that’s what the holidays are about; Having tradition.”
The industry is also big elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Washington grows the fourth most Christmas trees in the US, according to the Washington State Department of Agriculture. They say there are nearly 400 Christmas tree farms in the Evergreen State.
