Day: July 23, 2021

The “continue watching” section is the first thing you see when you open your favorite streaming service, and it often has a helpful list of series that you want to keep streaming…but it can also be filled with shows that you’ve given up on, or shows that you have completed but still show up because you didn’t finish enough of the credits.

It can be pretty annoying. Thankfully, you can fix your “continue watching” section for every major streaming service out there.

How to edit your viewing history on Netflix

To delete a show or movie from your “continue watching” section on Netflix, you’ll also need to remove it from your viewing history. This is only possible from the Account settings on the Netflix website.

1. Open the Netflix website in your browser (desktop or mobile), and log in with your account.
2. Click the Profile icon from the top-right corner and choose the “Account” option.
3. In the “My Profile” section, select your profile (if your account has multiple profiles), and click the “Viewing Activity” option.
4. Find the movie or the TV show that you want to hide, and click the Hide button (a circle with a line running through it). If you want to hide the entire series, click the “Hide Series” button.

How to edit the “Keep Watching” section on Hulu

Removing a show from Hulu’s watch history will also remove it from the “Keep Watching” section. Thankfully, that’s easily done.

1. Open the Hulu website in your browser, and navigate to the “Keep Watching” section.
2. Hover over a thumbnail of the movie or the TV show that you want to hide and click the “X” button to remove it from your watch history.
3. Click the “Done” button to complete the process.

How to edit your viewing history on HBO Max

HBO Max has a separate section from “continue watching” that you can edit directly from your browser or mobile app.

1. Open the HBO Max website in your browser and log in with your account.
2. Click the Menu button in the top-right corner, and choose the “Continue Watching” option.
3. Click the “Edit” button from the Continue Watching section.
4. All titles will now have a Remove button. Click the “Remove” button from the title that you want to hide from this list.
5. If you want to remove all titles, click the “Clear All” button. Once you’re done, click the “Done” button to save your edits.

How to edit your viewing history on Amazon Prime Video

You can remove “continue watching” items from the Account Settings section in Amazon Prime Video.

1. Open the Amazon Prime Video website in your browser and log in with your account.
2. Click the Profile button in the top-right corner and choose the “Account and Settings” page.
3. After signing in to your Amazon account, go to the “Watch History” tab.
4. Find the movie or TV show that you want to hide, and click the “Delete movie from Watch History” or “Delete episodes from Watch History” option.

How to edit your viewing history on Disney Plus

Disney+ has a “continue watching” feature, but there’s no option for editing such a list. Once you start watching a movie or a TV show, it will show up here.

The only way to remove it from “continue watching” is to finish it off. Yes, it’s archaic, but until Disney+ adds a feature for editing watch history, this is the only option.

Just open the movie or TV show that you want to remove from the watch list, and fast forward all the way to the end. Let it finish and once that’s done, it will be removed from the list (for a TV show, do this for the last episode).

How to edit the “Up Next” section on Apple TV+

The TV app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac makes it really easy to remove movies and TV shows from the “Up Next” section.

1. Open the TV app on your device, and go to the “Watch Now” tab.
2. Here, locate the movie or TV show that you want to hide. If you’re using an iPhone or iPad, tap and hold the media cover. If you’re on a Mac, hover over the media cover, and click the three-dotted Menu button.
3. Now, choose the “Remove from Up Next” option.

The movie or TV show will disappear from the Up Next section on all your devices.

How to edit your viewing history on Paramount+

While Paramount+ is a relatively new streaming service, it does have a feature for editing your “continue watching” list.

1. Open the Paramount+ website, log in with your account, and find the Keep Watching List section.
2. In the top-right corner of the Keep Watching List section, click the “Edit” button.
3. You will now see circles on every title in the list. Select the titles that you want to hide, and click the “Remove” button in the upper-right corner.

 

Nearly three weeks ago, a ransomware attack against a little-known IT software company called Kaseya spiraled into a full-on epidemic, with hackers seizing the computers as many as 1,500 businesses, including a major Swedish grocery chain. Last week, the notorious group behind the hack disappeared from the internet, leaving victims with no way to pay up and free their systems. But now the situation seemed close to finally being resolved, thanks to the surprise appearance on Thursday of a universal decryption tool.

The July 2 hack was about as bad as it gets. Kaseya provides IT management software that’s popular among so-called managed service providers, which are companies that offer IT infrastructure to companies that would rather not deal with it themselves. By exploiting a bug in MSP-focused software called Virtual System Administrator, the ransomware group REvil was able to infect not just those targets but their customers as well, resulting in a wave of devastation.

In the intervening weeks, victims had effectively two choices: pay the ransom to recover their systems, or rebuild what was lost through backups. For many individual businesses, REvil set the ransom at roughly $45,000. It attempted to shake down MSPs for as much as $5 million. It also originally set the price of a universal decryptor at $70 million. The group would later come down to $50 million before vanishing, likely in a bid to lay low during a high-tension moment. When they disappeared, they took their payment portal with them. Victims were left stranded, unable to pay even if they wanted to.

Kaseya spokesperson Dana Liedholm confirmed to WIRED that the company obtained a universal decryptor from a “trusted third party,” but did not elaborate on who provided it. “We have a team actively working with our customers who were affected, and will share more about how we will further make the tool available as those details become available,” Liedholm said in an emailed statement, adding that outreach to victims had already begun, with the help of antivirus firm Emsisoft.

“We are working with Kaseya to support their customer engagement efforts,” said Emsisoft threat analyst Brett Callow in a statement. “We have confirmed the key is effective at unlocking victims and will continue to provide support to Kaseya and its customers.”

Security firm Mandiant has been working with Kaseya on remediation more broadly, but a Mandiant spokeserson referred WIRED back to Liedholm when asked for any additional clarity around who provided the decryption key and how many victims still required it.

The ability free up every device that remains encrypted is undeniably good news. But the number of victims left to help at this point may be a relatively small chunk of the initial wave. “The decryption key is probably helpful to some clients, but is likely too little too late,” says Jake Williams, CTO of security firm BreachQuest, which has multiple clients who were hit in the REvil campaign. That’s because anyone who could reconstitute their data, through backups, payment, or otherwise, likely would have done so by now. “The cases where it’s likely to help the most are those where there’s some unique data on an encrypted system that simply can’t be meaningfully reconstituted in any way,” Williams says. “In those cases, we recommended those orgs immediately pay for decryption keys if the data was critical.”

Many of the REvil victims were small and mid-sized businesses; as MSP customers, they’re definitionally the types who prefer to outsource their IT needs, which in turn means they may be less likely to have reliable backups readily available. Still, there are other ways to rebuild data, even if it means asking clients and vendors to send whatever they’ve got and start over from scratch. “It’s unlikely anyone was holding out hope for a key,” Williams says.