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Early footfall data gathered by MRI Software indicated that footfall on UK high streets is down 6.2% on 2023 while shopping centres saw a 4.2% fall in visitors. The slump has been attributed to several factors such as cautious spending in the wake of the cost of living crisis, online shopping and Black Friday sales being not that long ago. READ MORE: WATCH: Barrow BID releases 'Live Aid' video featuring local businesses READ MORE: Shop Barrow Day 2024 hailed as 'best trading day of the year' READ MORE: Furness Coastguard appeal after vessel drifting in Walney Channel Boxing Day sales can also be tricky for smaller or independent businesses which usually run on tighter margins. Even many major retailers such as Next, M&S and John Lewis chose not to open the majority of their stores this year to give staff a break over the festive period. This is the case for many of Barrow's smaller shops that run on smaller numbers of staff. Jenny Stitches Fabrics shop on Dalton closed on Saturday, December 21and opened briefly on Saturday December 28 for anyone needing bits. The store will fully re-open Thursday, January 2. Marshal Lea Bridal Studio on Cavendish Street is also enjoying a well-deserved rest and will re-open on January 3. Footwear and Fascinators at Portland Walk opened briefly after Christmas however had to close due its owner coming down with a nasty bout of the flu. Owners Shelagh Morrall and John Hambler outside their shop Crafty Hobbies (Image: Crafty Hobbies) A store that closed on Boxing Day but chose to re-open on Friday, December 27 was Crafty Hobbies on Cavendish Street. Co-owner Shelagh Morrall said: "We don't really have a Boxing Day sale as such. We tend to reduce stock as and when needed throughout the year. "Since we re-opened it's been quite busy which is great - particularly on Saturday as we had people from all over come in - one man from as far as Birmingham - so it's nice to know people are coming in from outside to shop in Barrow. "We sold a number of vouchers before Christmas too so we'll be expecting an influx of those soon." Also enjoying a brisk trade was Expressions gifts, clothes and piercing shop. Expressions shop on Portland Walk in Barrow (Image: Newsquest) A spokesperson said: "We have plenty of reduced items in our sale at the moment with 20 - 25% off clothing and 50% off other bits. "It's gone very well after Christmas, especially in terms of piercings. We've seen more people over the past few days who have had Christmas money to spend and have been eager to get something pierced." The Lazy Days Home Furnishings store when it first opened on Dalton Road (Image: Lazy Days Home Furnishings) Lazy Day Home Furnishings has enjoyed its new location in the old Sports Direct unit on Dalton Road for just on a year now. The store is currently closed until January 4 when it will hold its own 'Genuine January Sale', however it has been enjoying a traditional Boxing Day sale online. Owner Rebecca Hill said: "We have £1m worth of stock to clear at cost and even less than cost prices in our January sale - until then we are only running a Boxing Day sale online until New Year's Day where customers can get 25% off. "In terms of our online Boxing Day Sale, sofas have been really busy so far and everything else has kept going steady."

When it comes to built-in TV speakers, you'll be hard-pressed to find a pair of drivers that deliver the volume, clarity, and soundstage that a more robust audio system can provide. We're talking about soundbars and full surround sound configurations. And while some of these home theater components can cost hundreds (or thousands) of dollars, every once in a while, an amazing discount creeps its way into our crosshairs. As luck would have it, we came across this doorbuster sale when looking through Best Buy deals: Right now, when you purchase the Samsung B Series 2.1ch Soundbar at Best Buy,... Michael Bizzaco

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Researchers cracked a Microsoft Azure method for multifactor authentication (MFA) in about an hour, due to a critical vulnerability that allowed them unauthorized access to a user's account, including Outlook emails, OneDrive files, Teams chats, Azure Cloud, and more. Researchers at Oasis Security discovered the flaw, which was present due to a lack of rate limit for the amount of times someone could attempt to sign in with MFA and fail when trying to access an account, they revealed in a blog post on Dec. 11. The flaw exposed the more than 400 million paid Microsoft 365 seats to potential account takeover, they said. When signing into a Microsoft account, a user supplies their email and password and then selects a pre-configured MFA method . In the case used by the researchers, they are given a code by Microsoft via another form of communication to facilitate sign-in. The researchers achieved the bypass, which they dubbed "AuthQuake," by "rapidly creating new sessions and enumerating codes," Tal Hason, an Oasis research engineer, wrote in the post. This allowed them to demonstrate "a very high rate of attempts that would quickly exhaust the total number of options for a 6-digit code," which is 1 million, he explained. "Simply put — one could execute many attempts simultaneously," Hason wrote. Moreover, during the multiple failed attempts to sign in, account owners did not receive any alert about the activity, "making this vulnerability and attack technique dangerously low profile," Hason wrote. Related: Cybersecurity Lessons From 3 Public Breaches Oasis informed Microsoft of the issue, which acknowledged its existence in June and fixed it permanently by Oct. 9, the researchers said. "While specific details of the changes are confidential, we can confirm that Microsoft introduced a much stricter rate limit that kicks in after a number of failed attempts; the strict limit lasts around half a day," Hason wrote. Another issue that allowed for the MFA bypass was that the available timeframe an attacker had to guess a single code was 2.5 minutes longer than the recommended timeframe for a time-based one-time password (TOTP) according to RFC-6238 , the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) recommendation for implementing MFA authentication. RFC-6238 recommends that a code expires after 30 seconds; however, most MFA applications provide a short grace period and allow these codes to be valid longer. "This means that a single TOTP code may be valid for more than 30 seconds," Hason explained. "The Oasis Security Research team's testing with Microsoft sign-in showed a tolerance of around three minutes for a single code, extending 2.5 minutes past its expiry, allowing 6x more attempts to be sent." Related: Tips for Preventing Breaches in 2025 This extra time meant that the researchers had a 3% chance of correctly guessing the code within the extended timeframe, Hason explained. A malicious actor trying to crack the code would have been likely to proceed and run further sessions until they hit a valid guess, which the researchers proceeded to do without encountering any limitations, he said. After 24 sessions of trying to guess the code, which would take around 70 minutes, a malicious actor would already pass the 50% chance of hitting the valid code. In their research, the Oasis team attempted this method several times, and once even found they guessed the code early on in the process, exposing how quickly MFA could be bypassed. While MFA is still considered one of the most secure ways to protect passwords to online accounts, the research demonstrates that no system is completely attacker-proof . Oasis recommended that organizations continue to use either authenticator apps or strong passwordless methods for protecting user accounts from malicious attacks. Related: Governments, Telcos Ward Off China's Hacking Typhoons Other best practices include one that has long been recommended for years as part of basic password hygiene: users should change passwords to their online accounts frequently. Moreover, any organization using MFA to protect accounts should add a mail alert to notify users of failed MFA attempts , even if they don't notify them of every failed password sign-in attempt, Hason noted. This latter advice also should be applied to any organization building MFA into a system or application, according to Oasis. MFA app designers also should ensure they include rate limits that don't allow for indefinite attempts to sign in, and lock an account after a certain time to limit successful MFA attacks or bypasses. Elizabeth Montalbano is a freelance writer, journalist, and therapeutic writing mentor with more than 25 years of professional experience. Her areas of expertise include technology, business, and culture. Elizabeth previously lived and worked as a full-time journalist in Phoenix, San Francisco, and New York City; she currently resides in a village on the southwest coast of Portugal. In her free time, she enjoys surfing, hiking with her dogs, traveling, playing music, yoga, and cooking.If You’d Invested $100/Month in Nvidia Starting a Decade Ago, Here’s How Much You’d Have Now