The European Union says three porn sites are now subject to stricter rules under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The bloc has designated Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos as "very large online platforms" (VLOPs) after determining that they each have an average of more than 45 million monthly users in the EU. As such, the three sites are subject to the same stringent rules as the likes of Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok.

The European Commission (the EU's executive arm) says VLOPs have until February 17 to comply with the DSA's general requirements. Those include making it easy for users to flag illegal content, prioritizing reports from "trusted flaggers," providing a means of appeal for content moderation decisions, publishing an annual transparency report detailing content moderation processes and bolstering their systems to "ensure a high level of privacy, security and safety of minors."

The three porn sites also have four months to comply with additional obligations. For instance, they're required to have mitigation measures in place to prevent the spread of illegal content. This, according to the Commission, includes "child sexual abuse material and content affecting fundamental rights, such as the right to human dignity and private life in case of non-consensual sharing of intimate material online or deepfake pornography." The three sites must also offer researchers publicly available data and be subject to an annual external independent audit. The Commission says these measures will "empower and protect users online, including minors, and duly assess and mitigate any systemic risks stemming from their services."

The Commission says it will keep a close eye on the three porn sites to make sure they comply with the rules, "especially concerning the measures to protect minors from harmful content and to address the dissemination of illegal content." 

When asked for comment, Pornhub directed Engadget to a statement claiming that "as of July 31, 2023, Pornhub has 33 million average monthly recipients of the service in the European Union, calculated as an average over the period of the past six months." As such, Pornhub disputes the EU's claim that it has more that 45 million monthly users in the bloc. Engadget has also asked XVideos and Stripchat for comment.

The penalties for failing to comply with the DSA's requirements are severe. Platform holders can be fined up to six percent of their annual global revenue. The Commission may also issue penalties of up to five percent of average daily worldwide revenue for each delayed day that VLOPs fail to abide by remedies, interim measures or commitments. In extreme cases, the EC can also ask national courts to temporarily block access to a given service.

The Commission, which designated its first 19 Very Large Online Platforms and Search Engines under the DSA in April, is already holding some VLOPs to account. Earlier this week, the EU opened formal infringement proceedings into X over potential violations of the DSA. Among other things, investigators are looking into whether the platform is doing enough to mitigate risks to "civic discourse and electoral processes." They're also examining the "suspected deceptive design" of features such as paid checkmarks. In October, the EU said it was looking into Meta's and TikTok's handling of the conflict between Israel and Hamas under the DSA.

Update 12/20 8:38AM ET: Added Pornhub's statement.

Blue Origin is taking another stab at its first launch in 15 months as New Shepard's 24th mission is scheduled to take flight on Tuesday. The company had to scrub a planned launch on Monday due to a ground system issue. Today's launch window opens at 11:37AM ET and the webcast starts 20 minutes beforehand. You can watch the launch below.

The uncrewed science mission has 33 payloads, more than half of which were developed by NASA, Blue Origin says. The other payloads are from K-12 schools, universities and STEAM-centric organizations. The manifest also includes 38,000 student postcards from the Club for the Future initiative.

The Federal Aviation Administration grounded New Shepard after an uncrewed launch attempt in September 2022 didn't go as planned. The booster failed after takeoff but it was able to separate successfully from the capsule. Although the capsule made a safe parachute landing, the booster was destroyed when it hit the ground in a designated hazard area.

Xfinity says a data breach likely led to attackers obtaining customers' usernames and hashed passwords. Other personal information may have been exposed, such as names, contact information, the last four digits of social security numbers, dates of birth and secret questions and answers. The company added that its analysis of the attack is ongoing, which may explain why it hasn't disclosed the number of customers who have been affected. Xfinity also notes that it informed law enforcement about the incident.

On October 10, Citrix disclosed a vulnerability in software that Xfinity and many other businesses use. It provided guidance on how to mitigate the vulnerability on October 23 and Xfinity said it swiftly patched the problem. However, while carrying out a routine cybersecurity check two days later, Xfinity spotted suspicious activity in its systems. It later determined that bad actors accessed its internal network between October 16 and 19.

Xfinity says it's informing customers of the incident via its website, email and by other means. It's urging them to change their passwords, to make sure they don't use the same passwords on different accounts and to enable two-factor or multi-factor authentication. Xfinity also suggested that folks who use the same login credentials on other accounts change their passwords on those.

This isn't the first security incident Xfinity has had to deal with. Back in 2018, it emerged there was a bug in a Comcast website used to activate Xfinity routers. The issue led to some customers' home addresses being exposed, along with the name and password for their Wi-Fi networks.

Xfinity says a data breach likely led to attackers obtaining customers' usernames and hashed passwords. Other personal information may have been exposed, such as names, contact information, the last four digits of social security numbers, dates of birth and secret questions and answers. The company added that its analysis of the attack is ongoing, which may explain why it hasn't disclosed the number of customers who have been affected. Xfinity also notes that it informed law enforcement about the incident.

On October 10, Citrix disclosed a vulnerability in software that Xfinity and many other businesses use. It provided guidance on how to mitigate the vulnerability on October 23 and Xfinity said it swiftly patched the problem. However, while carrying out a routine cybersecurity check two days later, Xfinity spotted suspicious activity in its systems. It later determined that bad actors accessed its internal network between October 16 and 19.

Xfinity says it's informing customers of the incident via its website, email and by other means. It's urging them to change their passwords, to make sure they don't use the same passwords on different accounts and to enable two-factor or multi-factor authentication. Xfinity also suggested that folks who use the same login credentials on other accounts change their passwords on those.

This isn't the first security incident Xfinity has had to deal with. Back in 2018, it emerged there was a bug in a Comcast website used to activate Xfinity routers. The issue led to some customers' home addresses being exposed, along with the name and password for their Wi-Fi networks.

Xfinity says a data breach likely led to attackers obtaining customers' usernames and hashed passwords. Other personal information may have been exposed, such as names, contact information, the last four digits of social security numbers, dates of birth and secret questions and answers. The company added that its analysis of the attack is ongoing and it has informed law enforcement about the incident.

In a filing with Maine's attorney general's office, Xfinity owner Comcast disclosed that the intrusion has impacted 35.8 million people. As TechCrunch points out, Comcast had 32.3 million broadband customers as of the end of September, indicating that the vast majority of Xfinity customers have been affected by the breach.

On October 10, Citrix disclosed a vulnerability in software that Xfinity and many other businesses use. It provided guidance on how to mitigate the vulnerability on October 23 and Xfinity said it swiftly patched the problem. However, while carrying out a routine cybersecurity check two days later, Xfinity spotted suspicious activity in its systems. It later determined that bad actors accessed its internal network between October 16 and 19.

Xfinity says it's informing customers of the incident via its website, email and by other means. It's urging them to change their passwords, to make sure they don't use the same passwords on different accounts and to enable two-factor or multi-factor authentication. Xfinity also suggested that folks who use the same login credentials on other accounts change their passwords on those.

This isn't the first security incident Xfinity has had to deal with. Back in 2018, it emerged there was a bug in a Comcast website used to activate Xfinity routers. The issue led to some customers' home addresses being exposed, along with the name and password for their Wi-Fi networks.

Update 12/19 8:00AM ET: Updated to note the number of people who were impacted by the breach.