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An employee at Apple’s Cork campus in Ireland has tested positive for the Coranavirus, the Irish Independent reported. The company confirmed the case of Covid-19. Over the weekend, Apple encouraged employees who were able to to work from home at a number of global locations, although Cork does not appear to be one where this policy was initially implemented.

“One of our employees in Cork has been confirmed to have Covid-19,” the company said in a statement. “We are closely coordinating with the local health authorities who feel the risk to others is low, and the individual remains in self-isolation. As a precaution, we have asked some of our team members to stay at home while we work with the Health and Safety Executive to assess the situation. We are continuing to regularly deep clean all our offices and stores and will take all necessary precautions in accordance with guidance from health authorities.” The Apple campus employs over 6,000 people.

Almost as soon as the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak became clear, misinformation and conspiracy theories relating to it began spreading. Not surprisingly, Facebook is an absolute hub of inaccurate information. Wired took a look at what is being shared across various groups on the platform.

This fake news has spread through “cure” books on Amazon, WhatsApp viral texts, and even the mainstream media. Now, according to data taken from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned tool that tracks the diffusion of viral stories, a small army of Facebook fringe groups are following suit and pivoting to a new hot topic: coronavirus misinformation. The posts, which are filling innocuous Facebook groups normally dedicated to political discussions and flight deals, are a strange evolution of conspiracy theories that have been knocking around the internet for years. One much-mooted theory, for example, is that the coronavirus has been caused by radiation from 5G masts. One of these posts, on Smart Meter Health problems UK, garnered 191 reactions, 188 comments and 86 shares – eleven times the normal amount for the group.

Earlier this week, I reported on research by an Australian think tank that highlighted how Uyghur Muslims in China were being exploited, maltreated, and used in the manufacturing of products. Apple is one of the companies whose supply chain was cited in the report. Now, the Associated Press has published further on-the-ground reporting about the exploitation of this minority during the making of tech products. Apple is again one of the firms mentioned, along with the likes of Lenovo and Huawei.

OFILM’s website indicates the Xinjiang workers make screens, camera cover lenses and fingerprint scanners. It touts customers including Apple, Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, HP, LG and Huawei, although there was no way for the AP to track specific products to specific companies. Apple’s most recent list of suppliers, published January last year, includes three OFILM factories in Nanchang. It’s unclear whether the specific OFILM factory the AP visited twice in Nanchang supplies Apple, but it has the same address as one listed. Another OFILM factory is located about half a mile away on a different street. Apple did not answer repeated requests for clarification on which factory it uses. In an email, Apple said its code of conduct requires suppliers to “provide channels that encourage employees to voice concerns.” It said it interviews the employees of suppliers during annual assessments in their local language without their managers present, and had done 44,000 interviews in 2018.

Senior U.S Senators have once again urged the British government to not give Huawei any role in the development of the country’s 5G network, Sky News reported. In total, 20 lawmakers from both parties signed the open letter.

In a letter to MPs, the group of US politicians – including both Democrats and Republicans – expressed their “significant concern” with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to hand the Chinese company an infrastructure role. Critics allege Huawei has close links to the Chinese government and its equipment could be used for espionage purposes – something the company has always denied. US President Donald Trump has put trade restrictions on Huawei and previously suggested future intelligence-sharing cooperation with America’s “Five Eyes” allies – the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – could be put at risk if the UK worked with the firm.

Another great ‘Today in Apple History’ from Cult of Mac today. On this day in 1987, the legendary Macintosh II was launched.

Although four Mac models already have been released, the definitive, full-number name of the Macintosh II makes clear that this is a major upgrade for the product line. With a massive hardware boost, optional color display (!) and a new open architecture, it does not disappoint! By far the biggest change with the Mac II? Its open architecture, which allows users to expand the computer. More than just a tech upgrade, this marked a fundamental shift in the way Apple engineers thought about the Macintosh.

Apple is set to pay up to $500 million to settle a U.S class action related to iPhone slowing allegations, Reuters reported. Claimants said that Apple slowed down devices to encourage users to upgrade to newer ones.

The preliminary proposed class-action settlement was disclosed on Friday night and requires approval by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California. It calls for Apple to pay consumers $25 per iPhone, which may be adjusted up or down depending on how many iPhones are eligible, with a minimum total payout of $310 million. Apple denied wrongdoing and settled the nationwide case to avoid the burdens and costs of litigation, court papers show.

A former NSA hacker argued that stealing and then repurposing Mac malware can be more powerful than creating it from scratch. Patrick Wardle demonstrated one example of how he went about it at RSA Conference, ArsTechnica reported.

Patrick Wardle, who is now a security researcher at the macOS and iOS enterprise management firm Jamf, showed how reusing old Mac malware can be a smarter and less resource-intensive approach for deploying ransomware, remote access spy tools, and other types of malicious code. Where the approach really pays dividends, he said, is with the repurposing of advanced code written by government-sponsored hackers. “There are incredibly well-funded, well-resourced, very motivated hacker groups in three-letter agencies that are creating amazing malware that’s fully featured and also fully tested,” Wardle said during a talk titled “Repurposed Malware: A Dark Side of Recycling.” “The idea is: why not let these groups in these agencies create malware and if you’re a hacker just repurpose it for your own mission?” he said.