Technologies

LastPass Owner GoTo Says Hackers Stole Customer Data Backups

The company also says it has evidence an encryption key used to secure the data was also stolen in the November hack.

GoTo, the parent company of password management service LastPass, has revealed that hackers stole some customers’ encrypted data during a security breach in November.

The breach, which stemmed directly from one that occurred in August, allowed an «unauthorized party» to gain access to some customers’ information stored on a third-party cloud storage service shared by LastPass and parent GoTo. Company data stolen in August that was then used in November to break into another LastPass database to capture unencrypted customer data like names, email and billing addresses, phone numbers, and IP addresses. No unencrypted credit card data was exposed, the company said.

Now, GoTo says some of its other enterprise products have been affected by the hack, including the theft of encrypted customer backups — copies of data emergency recovery — for Central, Pro, join.me, Hamachi and RemotelyAnywhere. The company also said it has evidence that an encryption key used to secure the data for some of its customers was also stolen.

«The affected information, which varies by product, may include account usernames, salted and hashed passwords, a portion of multi-factor authentication (MFA) settings, as well as some product settings and licensing information,» GoTo CEO Paddy Srinivasan said in a blog post update Monday. «In addition, while Rescue and GoToMyPC encrypted databases were not exfiltrated, MFA settings of a small subset of their customers were impacted.»

Srinivasan also said the company doesn’t believe any other GoTo products were affected by the theft. GoTo didn’t indicate how many customers were affected by theft but did say it’s informing those who may have been impacted by the hack.

LastPass is designed to let people securely generate and save passwordsacross their devices, store digital records, and share both with trustedcontacts.But in late December, LastPass CEO Karim Toubba acknowledged thata security incident the company first disclosed in August hadultimately paved the way for an unauthorized party to steal customeraccount information and vault data.

GoTo didn’t immediately respond to a request for additional information.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Oct. 15 #591

Here are hints — and the answers — for the NYT Strands puzzle for Oct. 15, No. 591.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a fun one, once you understand the theme. Some of the answers are a bit tough to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Going up?

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Not an escalator, but…

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

ROTATE, LOBE, NOPE, RATS, STAR, SAME, LOSE, VOTE, BUTTE, SAMS, BAMS

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

ALARM, OPEN, CLOSE, LOBBY, GROUND, BASEMENT

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is ELEVATORBUTTONS. To find it, look for the E that’s three letters to the right on the bottom row, and wind straight up, and then straight down.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Oct. 15, #387

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Oct. 15, No. 387.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is packed with abbreviations, so if that’s your thing, it’s a good day for you. If you’re struggling but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Hoops.

Green group hint: Are you in a league?

Blue group hint: Alma maters.

Purple group hint: Knock it out of the park.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Basketball defenses.

Green group: Fantasy football positions.

Blue group: Big 12 schools, abbreviated.

Purple group: ____ hitter.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is basketball defenses. The four answers are 2-3, man, press and zone.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is fantasy football positions. The four answers are D/ST, Flex, QB and WR.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Big 12 schools, abbreviated. The four answers are BYU, TCU, UCF and WVU.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ____ hitter. The four answers are cleanup, designated, no and pinch.

Technologies

Catch These Rare Comets Zooming Past Earth This October

The Lemmon comet won’t return for another 1,300 years.

A pair of once-in-a-lifetime comets will rocket through our skies this October. It’s a rare treat for skywatchers, as they won’t be back again for hundreds of years.

The comets — C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) and C/2025 R2 (SWAN) — look similar from our perspective. You can spot these green gaseous globes and their streaming tails now. But the comets will be even easier to see later this month.

SWAN will shine the brightest around Oct. 20, NBC News reports. Just a day later, on Oct. 21, Lemmon will make its peak showing in the dark sky.

If you want to witness these comets shooting past Earth, the coming weeks will be the best time. There won’t be another chance; the next time SWAN will come by again will be in 650 to 700 years, and Lemmon won’t return for another 1,300 years, CNN reports.

Comets are known to buck even the most careful predictions, but wary observers might catch these rare spectacles in October from their backyards in the pre-dawn morning or night sky.

New comets on the scene

Lemmon and SWAN were both discovered in 2025. Lemmon was discovered on Jan. 3 in Arizona by the Mount Lemmon Survey — using a 60-inch telescope installed on Mt. Lemmon to find celestial objects — which lent the comet its name.

«Current models are showing the comet will likely peak between 3.5 and 4.5 magnitudes when it is nearest to Earth on October 21, which is dimmer than what they showed last week,» Saint Louis Science Center wrote in an October update. «This is still bright enough that it could become naked-eye visible from light-polluted locations.»

A Ukrainian amateur astronomer named Vladimir Bezugly discovered the SWAN comet on Sept. 11 while he was looking through images captured by SWAN, a science instrument called Solar Wind ANisotropies, which is installed on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory in space.

«It was an easy comet for detection due to sufficient brightness in the (ultraviolet) band and location in the SWAN images, exactly in its center,» Bezugly told Universe Today. He also noted it’s the 20th official SWAN comet so far.

How to see Lemmon and SWAN this October

The darker the night sky, the easier it will be to see comets, moons, planets and stars. If you live in a city, bundle up and take an evening skygazing trip to the country where there’s less light pollution, with blankets, chairs and something warm to drink.

It takes a while for your eyes to adjust to the darkness. Find a comfortable spot where you can stay still and gaze up. The comets might be bright enough to see without aid, but NASA recommends binoculars as a great entry-level stargazing tool.

Telescopes are one of the best ways to skygaze, and you might be able to find one to use or rent at your local library or university. But modern telescopes can also be fairly affordable.

Smartphone apps can also be helpful when trying to identify celestial phenomena and where to find them. Check out our list of stargazing apps for a few recommendations.

A sky full of wonders

Aside from the newly discovered comets, skywatchers have a few other cosmic treats to enjoy this month.

The Orionids meteor shower — when Earth travels through the massive tail of Halley’s Comet — began earlier this month, but you’ll be able to see the meteors through the beginning of November.

The next supermoon, known as the beaver moon, will take place on Nov. 5.