Month: February 2023

The Deepfake Dangers Ahead

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The Deepfake Dangers Ahead

source: wsj.com, contributed by Artemus Founder, Bob Wallace  |  image: pexels.com

 

AI-generated disinformation, especially from hostile foreign powers, is a growing threat to democracies based on the free flow of ideas

 

By Daniel Byman, Chris Meserole And V.S. Subrahmanian

Feb. 23, 2023 9:58 am ET

Bots, trolls, influence campaigns: Every day we seem to be battling more fake or manipulated content online. Because of advances in computing power, smarter machine learning algorithms and larger data sets, we will soon share digital space with a sinister array of AI-generated news articles and podcasts, deepfake images and videos—all produced at a once unthinkable scale and speed. As of 2018, according to one study, fewer than 10,000 deepfakes had been detected online. Today the number of deepfakes online is almost certainly in the millions.

We can hardly imagine all the purposes that people will find for this new synthetic media, but what we’ve already seen is cause for concern. Students can have ChatGPT write their essays. Stalkers can create pornographic videos featuring images of the people they are obsessed with. A criminal can synthesize your boss’s voice and tell you to transfer money.

Deepfakes risk leading people to view all information as suspicious.

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3 Overlooked Cybersecurity Breaches

Posted on by esimantiras

3 Overlooked Cybersecurity Breaches

source: thehackernews.com  |  image: pexels.com

 

Here are three of the worst breaches, attacker tactics and techniques of 2022, and the security controls that can provide effective, enterprise security protection for them.

#1: 2 RaaS Attacks in 13 Months

Ransomware as a service is a type of attack in which the ransomware software and infrastructure are leased out to the attackers. These ransomware services can be purchased on the dark web from other threat actors and ransomware gangs. Common purchasing plans include buying the entire tool, using the existing infrastructure while paying per infection, or letting other attackers perform the service while sharing revenue with them.

In this attack, the threat actor consists of one of the most prevalent ransomware groups, specializing in access via third parties, while the targeted company is a medium-sized retailer with dozens of sites in the United States.

The threat actors used ransomware as a service to breach the victim’s network. They were able to exploit third-party credentials to gain initial access, progress laterally, and ransom the company, all within mere minutes.

The swiftness of this attack was unusual. In most RaaS cases, attackers usually stay in the networks for weeks and months before demanding ransom. What is particularly interesting about this attack is that the company was ransomed in minutes, with no need for discovery or weeks of lateral movement.

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Shape-shifter

Posted on by esimantiras

Shape-shifter

 

source: newatlas.com, contributed by FAN, Bill Amshey  |  image: pexels.com

 

Scientists reported this week they’ve created a material that can be molded into forms that can shift between being liquid and solid.

Why it matters: Shape-shifting materials could be used for a range of applications — from biomedical devices to electrical circuitry that could be wirelessly repaired, study co-author Carmel Majidi, a professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, told me in an email.

How it works: The material is made from the metal gallium — which melts at about 86 degrees Fahrenheit — embedded with magnetic particles.

  • Electricity generated from a rapidly alternating magnetic field creates heat that liquifies the metal.
  • A magnet is then used to move the material around. When it cools back down to room temperature, the metal solidifies.
  • The researchers’ inspiration? Sea cucumbers that can soften into a material that sinks between your fingers — and then stiffen again.

In one experiment, the material was cast as a Lego-like figure, liquified and moved out of a jail cell, then recast in a mold.

  • They also tested the material by having it jump over moats and climb walls.
  • In another experiment, it softened around a small ball in order to remove it from a model stomach — a proof of concept for potential biomedical applications.

Yes, but: Operating in the human body would likely require a non-toxic material that could degrade and one with a higher melting point, which could possibly be created by adding other metals to gallium, the authors note.

China’s Top Airship Scientist Promoted Program to Watch the World From Above

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China’s Top Airship Scientist Promoted Program to Watch the World From Above

source: nytimes.com, contributed by FAN, Bill Amshey  |  image: pixabay.com

 

Corporate records and media reports reveal an airship scientist at the center of China’s high-altitude balloon program. Companies he has founded were among those targeted by Washington.

In 2019, years before a hulking high-altitude Chinese balloon floated across the United States and caused widespread alarm, one of China’s top aeronautics scientists made a proud announcement that received little attention back then: His team had launched an airship more than 60,000 feet into the air and sent it sailing around most of the globe, including across North America.

The scientist, Wu Zhe, told a state-run news outlet at the time that the “Cloud Chaser” airship was a milestone in his vision of populating the upper reaches of the earth’s atmosphere with steerable balloons that could be used to provide early warnings of natural disasters, monitor pollution or carry out airborne surveillance.

“Look, there’s America,” Professor Wu said in an accompanying video, pointing on a computer screen to a red line that appeared to trace the airship’s path across Asia, northern Africa, and near the southern edge of the United States. By the time of the report, it was over the Pacific Ocean.

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Researchers shrink camera to the size of a salt grain- Princeton Engineering

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Researchers shrink camera to the size of a salt grain- Princeton Engineering

source: https://engineering.princeton.edu, contributed by Artemus Founder, Bob Wallace  |  image: pexels.com

see images of the cameras here

Micro-sized cameras have great potential to spot problems in the human body and enable sensing for super-small robots, but past approaches captured fuzzy, distorted images with limited fields of view.

Now, researchers at Princeton University and the University of Washington have overcome these obstacles with an ultracompact camera the size of a coarse grain of salt. The new system can produce crisp, full-color images on par with a conventional compound camera lens 500,000 times larger in volume, the researchers reported in a paper published Nov. 29 in Nature Communications.

Enabled by a joint design of the camera’s hardware and computational processing, the system could enable minimally invasive endoscopy with medical robots to diagnose and treat diseases, and improve imaging for other robots with size and weight constraints. Arrays of thousands of such cameras could be used for full-scene sensing, turning surfaces into cameras.

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Protect your privacy: A guide to avoiding drone surveillance

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Protect your privacy: A guide to avoiding drone surveillance

source: foxnews.com  |  image: pexels.com

It’s difficult to learn who owns a drone; some have their registration numbers visible, usually in case the owner loses sight of it.

I share a ton of tips to protect your privacy online. Do this quick 30-second check to keep your Google and Facebook accounts safe if you haven’t yet.

What about when you leave your home? Just about everywhere you go, you’re being watched. 

Not all cameras are out in the open, either. I once found more than a dozen cameras in an Airbnb I rented. Here are my best tips for spotting hidden cams in a rental, new apartment, home, or hotel room. But now we have drones to deal with.

The internet is a dangerous place. Join over 400,000 people and stay updated with my free daily newsletter.

I spy with my eye a drone in the sky

The other day, I heard a familiar buzz while swimming in my backyard pool. Sure enough, a drone hovered overhead and quickly vanished when I shooed it away with my hand. That’s how I got the idea for this post.

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Is Your EV Charging Station Safe? New Security Vulnerabilities Uncovered

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Is Your EV Charging Station Safe? New Security Vulnerabilities Uncovered

source: thehackernews.com  |  image: pexels.com

Two new security weaknesses discovered in several electric vehicle (EV) charging systems could be exploited to remotely shut down charging stations and even expose them to data and energy theft.

The findings, which come from Israel-based SaiFlow, once again demonstrate the potential risks facing the EV charging infrastructure.

The issues have been identified in version 1.6J of the Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) standard that uses WebSockets for communication between EV charging stations and the Charging Station Management System (CSMS) providers. The current version of OCPP is 2.0.1.

“The OCPP standard doesn’t define how a CSMS should accept new connections from a charge point when there is already an active connection,” SaiFlow researchers Lionel Richard Saposnik and Doron Porat said.

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IT Leaders Reveal Cyber Fears Around ChatGPT

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IT Leaders Reveal Cyber Fears Around ChatGPT

source: infosecurity-magazine.com  |  image: pexels.com

 

The majority (51%) of security leaders expect ChatGPT to be at the heart of a successful cyber-attack within a year, according to new research by BlackBerry.

The survey of 1500 IT decision makers across North America, the UK and Australia also found that 71% believe nation-states are likely to already be using the technology for malicious purposes against other countries.

ChatGPT is an artificially intelligence (AI) powered language model developed by OpenAI, which has been deployed in a chatbot format, allowing users to receive a prompt and detailed response to any questions they ask it. The product was launched at the end of 2022.

Cyber-Threats from ChatGPT

Despite its enormous potential, information security experts have raised concerns over its possible use by cyber-threat actors to launch attacks, including malware development and convincing social engineering scams.

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Ants can detect the scent of cancer in urine

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Ants can detect the scent of cancer in urine

source: livescience.com, contributed by FAN Steve Page  |  image: pexels.com

 

Ants use their antennae to sniff out cancer

Ants can be trained to detect cancer in urine, a new study finds.

Although ant sniffing is a long way from being used as a diagnostic tool in humans, the results are encouraging, the researchers said.

Because ants lack noses, they use olfactory receptors on their antennae to help them find food or sniff out potential mates. For the study, published Jan. 25 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences(opens in new tab), scientists trained nearly three dozen silky ants (Formica fusca) to use these acute olfactory receptors for a different task: finding tumors.

In a lab, scientists grafted slices of breast cancer tumors from human samples onto mice and taught the 35 insects to “associate urine from the tumor-bearing rodents with sugar,” according to The Washington Post(opens in new tab). Once placed in a petri dish, the ants spent 20% more time next to urine samples containing cancerous tumors versus healthy urine, according to the study.

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