Author: esimantiras

CISA issues rare emergency directive as ‘critical’ cyber vulnerabilities emerge

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CISA issues rare emergency directive as ‘critical’ cyber vulnerabilities emerge

source: federalnewsnetwork.com  |  image: pexels.com

Agencies have until Monday to mitigate vulnerabilities in five products from VMware that permit attackers to have deep access without the need to authenticate.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a new emergency directive today saying the vulnerabilities in VMware Workspace ONE Access (Access), VMware Identity Manager (vIDM), VMware vRealize Automation (vRA), VMware Cloud Foundation, and vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager put federal networks and systems at immediate risk.

“These vulnerabilities pose an unacceptable risk to federal network security,” said CISA Director Jen Easterly in a release. “CISA has issued this Emergency Directive to ensure that federal civilian agencies take urgent action to protect their networks. We also strongly urge every organization — large and small — to follow the federal government’s lead and take similar steps to safeguard their networks.”

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Cyber security: Global food supply chain at risk from malicious hackers

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Cyber security: Global food supply chain at risk from malicious hackers

source: bbc.com  |  image: pexels.com

Modern “smart” farm machinery is vulnerable to malicious hackers, leaving global supply chains exposed to risk, experts are warning.

It is feared hackers could exploit flaws in agricultural hardware used to plant and harvest crops.

Agricultural manufacturing giant John Deere says it is now working to fix any weak spots in its software.

A recent University of Cambridge report said automatic crop sprayers, drones and robotic harvesters could be hacked.

The UK government and the FBI have warned that the threat of cyber-attacks is growing.

John Deere said protecting customers, their machines and their data was a “top priority”.

Smart technology is increasingly being used to make farms more efficient and productive – for example, until now the labour-intensive harvesting of delicate food crops such as asparagus has been beyond the reach of machines.

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Self-driving cars could be potential crime witnesses

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Self-driving cars could be potential crime witnesses

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

 

The police in San Francisco see camera-laden autonomous vehicles as potential witnesses in their criminal investigations, setting off alarm bells for privacy advocates, VICE reports.

Why it matters: As Axios has reported, self-driving cars capture and store huge databases of images so that they can train their algorithms and become better drivers. What that means is that bystanders are often captured in the footage, raising privacy concerns.

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A designer and a NASA Scientist Fight a $244 Billion Problem

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A designer and a NASA scientist team up to fight a $244 billion problem that’s hiding in plain sight

source: fastcompany.com  |  image: pixabay.com

 

The debut project from Brooklyn-based Betterlab takes aim at a condition that affects a third of people worldwide.

 

earsightedness doesn’t sound that scary, but more and more people around the world are suffering from its clinical name: myopia. Because of myopia, China can’t find enough pilots, while the world is losing $244 billion in productivity a year, and that’s just the beginning: By 2050, more than half the world’s population is projected to have myopia—and as many as 10% of that group will go blind from the condition.

The problem was once primarily genetic, but new cases are increasingly attributed to kids getting too much screen time and too little sunlight for the eyes to develop properly. And while research has found that preventing myopia isn’t much more complicated than spending enough time outside, a new pair of glasses developed by designer Todd Bracher and a former NASA scientist aims to fix myopia without forcing anyone to change their behavior, take drugs, or wear special prismatic lenses. They were a finalist in our recent World Changing Ideas awards.

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FBI, CISA, and NSA warn of hackers increasingly targeting MSPs

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FBI, CISA, and NSA warn of hackers

increasingly targeting MSPs

source: bleepingcomputer.com, contributed by FAN Steve Page  |  image:  pixabay.com

 

Members of the Five Eyes (FVEY) intelligence alliance today warned managed service providers (MSPs) and their customers that they’re increasingly targeted by supply chain attacks.

Multiple cybersecurity and law enforcement agencies from FVEY countries (NCSC-UK, ACSC, CCCS, NCSC-NZ, CISA, NSA, and the FBI) shared guidance for MSPs to secure networks and sensitive data against these rising cyber threats.

“The UK, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, and U.S. cybersecurity authorities expect malicious cyber actors—including state-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT) groups—to step up their targeting of MSPs in their efforts to exploit provider-customer network trust relationships,” the joint advisory reads.

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Anatomy of a Phishing Scam…

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Anatomy of a Phishing Scam As Told Through Scamming the Scammer

 

image - phishing

source: blog.avast.com. |  image:  pixabay.com

to view all images associated with this blog post, go to Avast.com

Here’s a “scam the scammer” SMS conversation to highlight some of the red flags to look out for the next time your “boss” messages you.

Sometimes it feels like scammers are coming at you from every direction these days. They’re on the phone. They’re on SMS. They’re on social media. Sorting the real from the nonsense can feel like a full time job but, for some people, that “job” turns into fun.

That’s what happened recently when a professional woman in New York City decided to play around a little bit with her “boss,” (spoiler: not her boss) who was making odd requests via text. And while “scam the scammer” situations like this one are often hilarious, they’re also a great way to learn about the methodology that scammers use to trick people into giving them money. 

So let’s take a look at the following “scam the scammer” SMS conversation to highlight some of the red flags to look out for the next time your “boss” messages you. 

1. They set up a situation where you can’t talk to them on the phone.

“Josh” makes it clear up front that he can’t talk on the phone. Obviously there are some situations where this is legitimate — like if he was actually Josh and was actually at a conference — but “Cris,” as an employee, would likely know if her boss was out of office. The scammer is hoping that Cris doesn’t know her boss’ schedule.

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Bill Gates predicts this technology will replace smartphones

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Bill Gates predicts this technology will replace smartphones

 

source: marca.com/en/lifestyle/us-news  |  image: pixabay.com

 

The company Chaotic Moon is developing an innovative electronic tattoo

Software magnate, investor and philanthropist Bill Gates has become a kind of guru of the new realities that humanity is living and now the co-founder of Microsoft has predicted a new type of technology that, among other things, would replace smartphones.

It is not the first time that Gates dares to make predictions, as he showed when he spoke about a new pandemic that will attack humanity, now the author and lecturer has spoken of an electronic tattoo.

What technology will replace smartphones according to Bill Gates?

The billionaire businessman refers to the electronic tattoos developed by the company Chaotic Moon, a biotechnology-based technique that aims to analyze and collect information from the human body through it.

Among the data that this tattoo will store, there is initially talk of medical and sports information, with which it will be possible to prevent and control diseases, as well as improve physical and sports performance by means of vital signs.

How will the electronic tattoo be placed on people?

Although this electronic tattoo is still in the development phase, it is known that it will be applied temporarily on the skin, with small sensors and trackers that send and receive information through a special ink that conducts electricity.

Gates wants electronic tattoos to replace smartphones

However, the initial implementation of electronic tattoos is not enough for Bill Gates, who wants this futuristic device to become the replacement for today’s smartphones.

Gates’ idea, which has already been seen in several Hollywood movies, is that people can use the electronic tattoo developed by Chaotic Moon to call, send messages or look up an address.

Although it is not yet possible to speak of an approximate time for the electronic tattoo to be available, Gates and his team are looking for a way to use it to become the new device with which people carry out many of the things they do through smartphones.

 

North Korean hackers targeting journalists with novel malware

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North Korean hackers targeting journalists with novel malware

source: bleepingcomputer.com  |  image: pixabay.com

 

North Korean state-sponsored hackers known as APT37 have been discovered targeting journalists specializing in the DPRK with a novel malware strain.

The malware is distributed through a phishing attack first discovered by NK News, an American news site dedicated to covering news and providing research and analysis about North Korea, using intelligence from within the country.

The APT37 hacking group, aka Ricochet Chollima, is believed to be sponsored by the North Korean government, which sees news reporting as a hostile operation, and attempted to use this attack to access highly-sensitive information and potentially identify journalists’ sources.

After NK News discovered the attack, they contacted the malware experts at Stairwell for further assistance, who took over the technical analysis.

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FBI Warns of BlackCat Ransomware That Breached Over 60 Organizations Worldwide

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FBI Warns of BlackCat Ransomware That Breached Over 60 Organizations Worldwide

 

source: thehackernews.com  |  image: pixabay.com

 

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is sounding the alarm on the BlackCat ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS), which it said victimized at least 60 entities worldwide between as of March 2022 since its emergence last November.

Also called ALPHV and Noberus, the ransomware is notable for being the first-ever malware written in the Rust programming language, which is known to be memory safe and offer improved performance.

“Many of the developers and money launderers for BlackCat/ALPHV are linked to DarkSide/BlackMatter, indicating they have extensive networks and experience with ransomware operations,” the FBI said in an advisory published last week.

The disclosure comes weeks after twin reports from Cisco Talos and Kasperksy uncovered links between BlackCat and BlackMatter ransomware families, including the use of a modified version of a data exfiltration tool dubbed Fendr that’s been previously only observed in BlackMatter-related activity.

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Security tool guarantees privacy in surveillance footage

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Security tool guarantees privacy in surveillance footage

 

source: news.mit.edu  |  image: pixabay.com

 
“Privid” could help officials gather secure public health data or enable transportation departments to monitor the density and flow of pedestrians, without learning personal information about people.

Surveillance cameras have an identity problem, fueled by an inherent tension between utility and privacy. As these powerful little devices have cropped up seemingly everywhere, the use of machine learning tools has automated video content analysis at a massive scale — but with increasing mass surveillance, there are currently no legally enforceable rules to limit privacy invasions. 

Security cameras can do a lot — they’ve become smarter and supremely more competent than their ghosts of grainy pictures past, the ofttimes “hero tool” in crime media. (“See that little blurry blue blob in the right hand corner of that densely populated corner — we got him!”) Now, video surveillance can help health officials measure the fraction of people wearing masks, enable transportation departments to monitor the density and flow of vehicles, bikes, and pedestrians, and provide businesses with a better understanding of shopping behaviors. But why has privacy remained a weak afterthought? 

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