Microsoft’s board of directors had decided that it is necessary for them to post on the company’s official blog to give an update on their search for a new CEO.

As the chair of the Board’s search committee, I’m pleased with our progress. The Board has taken the thoughtful approach that our shareholders, customers, partners and employees expect and deserve. After defining our criteria, we initially cast a wide net across a number of different industries and skill sets. We identified over 100 possible candidates, talked with several dozen, and then focused our energy intensely on a group of about 20 individuals, all extremely impressive in their own right. As you would expect, as this group has narrowed, we’ve done deeper research and investigation, including with the full Board. We’re moving ahead well, and I expect we’ll complete our work in the early part of 2014.

Reacting to the uncertainty over the CEO search? Regardless of whether they manage to settle the nerves of investors and consumers, it still does not hide the fact that there was no succession planning in place.

Tech in Asia reports on the RaincheckPH app that makes rainfall prediction in the Philippines.

The next step would be to get mobile devices out into the areas that are prone to storms, and provide internet that the general public can easily access.

Chicago Tribune reports on a major credit card breach of Target’s customers. Payment card data was stolen starting from the Black Friday weekend.

Investigators believe the data was obtained via software installed on machines that customers use to swipe magnetic strips on their cards when paying for merchandise at Target stores, according to the person who was not authorized to discuss the matter and declined to provide further details.

Krebs on Security, a closely watched security industry blog that broke the news, said the breach involved nearly all of Target’s 1,797 stores in the United States, citing sources at two credit card issuers. The report said that “track data” from at least 1 million payment cards was thought to have been stolen before Target uncovered the operation, but that the number could be significantly higher.

It is a major security breach for the attackers to be able to compromise so many point-of-sales terminals across the US.

Update: Target has confirmed the breach.

Tech in Asia reports that Xiaomi has announced the beta launch of its wifi router. In this case, beta means you have to build the router yourself. Only 500 units are available at RMB 1 each.

Xiaomi has gained mass appeal in mainland China for its ability to satisfy users across the broad spectrum of Android, ranging from customization geeks to would-be Apple fans. Of course, the former group would likely be more interested in a build-it-yourself router than the latter. However, Xiaomi might be hoping that once this mundane hunk of silicon and plastic gets in the hands of a few dedicated users, excitement will spread, and so will the router.

FireEye reports on a mobile botnet called MisoSMS that is stealing SMS data from Android phones.

MisoSMS infects Android systems by deploying a class of malicious Android apps. The mobile malware masquerades as an Android settings app used for administrative tasks. When executed, it secretly steals the user’s personal SMS messages and emails them to a command-and-control (CnC) infrastructure hosted in China. FireEye Mobile Threat Prevention platform detects this class of malware as “Android.Spyware.MisoSMS.”

Seems like the majority of infected devices are in Korea. Still, Android users should remain alert.

Tech in Asia reports about AirHelp, a service that helps passengers claim compensation from airlines.

Airhelp believes that “you could be entitled to compensation of €250 to €600 ($344 to$826) if your flight is delayed by more than three hours, cancelled, or overbooked.” These claims can be filed even if the case goes back up to three years. Airhelp collects as many compensation claims as possible, processes them, and will take 25 percent commission out of every successful claim.

Co-founder and CEO Henrik Zillmer first got the idea when his flight got delayed for more than three hours and he wasn’t informed about his passenger rights. And when he found out about his rights, he was hit by a maze of links on the airline website when wanting to submit his claim. Afterwards, he did not hear back from the airline.

According to his research, “more than 20 million passengers every year are entitled to compensation (an average of €450 ($620) per passenger) but less than one percent actually get the compensation mainly because air passengers don’t know their rights and because airlines don’t inform them and make it as difficult as possible to claim it.”

You might be owed compensation that your airline did not inform you about. Or the airlines might force you to jump through a series of hoops before they finally pay you. Airhelp is here to, well, help you.