Tech News
To guard against cyberattacks in space, researchers ask “what if?”
Security - Posted On:2024-07-05 15:00:00 Source: arstechnica
If space systems such as GPS were hacked and knocked offline, much of the world would instantly be returned to the communications and navigation technologies of the 1950s. Yet space cybersecurity is largely invisible to the public at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.
Cyberattacks on satellites have occurred since the 1980s, but the global wake-up alarm went off only a couple of years ago. An hour before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, its government operatives hacked Viasat’s satellite-Internet services to cut off communications and create confusion in Ukraine.
I study ethics and emerging technologies and serve as an adviser to the US National Space Council. My colleagues and I at California Polytechnic State University’s Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group released a US National Science Foundation-funded report on June 17, 2024, to explain the problem of cyberattacks in space and help anticipate novel and surprising scenarios.
How ShinyHunters hackers allegedly pilfered Ticketmaster data from Snowflake
Security - Posted On:2024-06-18 12:45:00 Source: arstechnica
Hackers who stole terabytes of data from Ticketmaster and other customers of the cloud storage firm Snowflake claim they obtained access to some of the Snowflake accounts by first breaching a Belarusian-founded contractor that works with those customers.
About 165 customer accounts were potentially affected in the recent hacking campaign targeting Snowflake’s customers, but only a few of these have been identified so far. In addition to Ticketmaster, the banking firm Santander has also acknowledged that their data was stolen but declined to identify the account from which it was stolen. Wired, however, has independently confirmed that it was a Snowflake account; the stolen data included bank account details for 30 million customers, including 6 million account numbers and balances, 28 million credit card numbers, and human resources information about staff, according to a post published by the hackers. Lending Tree and Advance Auto Parts have also said they might be victims as well.
Snowflake has not revealed details about how the hackers accessed the accounts, saying only that the intruders did not directly breach Snowflake’s network. This week, Google-owned security firm Mandiant, one of the companies engaged by Snowflake to investigate the breaches, revealed in a blog post that in some cases the hackers first obtained access through third-party contractors, without identifying the contractors or stating how this access aided the hackers in breaching the Snowflake accounts.
Ransomware gangs are adopting “more brutal” tactics amid crackdowns
Security - Posted On:2024-06-11 13:00:00 Source: arstechnica
Today, people around the world will head to school, doctor’s appointments, and pharmacies, only to be told, “Sorry, our computer systems are down.” The frequent culprit is a cybercrime gang operating on the other side of the world, demanding payment for system access or the safe return of stolen data.
The ransomware epidemic shows no signs of slowing down in 2024—despite increasing police crackdowns—and experts worry that it could soon enter a more violent phase.
“We’re definitely not winning the fight against ransomware right now,” Allan Liska, a threat intelligence analyst at Recorded Future, tells WIRED.
Ransomware gangs are adopting “more brutal” tactics amidst crackdowns
Security - Posted On:2024-06-11 10:15:00 Source: arstechnica
Today, people around the world will head to school, doctor’s appointments, and pharmacies, only to be told, “Sorry, our computer systems are down.” The frequent culprit is a cybercrime gang operating on the other side of the world, demanding payment for system access or the safe return of stolen data.
The ransomware epidemic shows no signs of slowing down in 2024—despite increasing police crackdowns—and experts worry that it could soon enter a more violent phase.
“We’re definitely not winning the fight against ransomware right now,” Allan Liska, a threat intelligence analyst at Recorded Future, tells WIRED.
Faulty valve scuttles Starliner’s first crew launch
Security - Posted On:2024-05-07 10:00:00 Source: arstechnica
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams climbed into their seats inside Boeing's Starliner spacecraft Monday night in Florida, but trouble with the capsule's Atlas V rocket kept the commercial ship's long-delayed crew test flight on the ground.
Around two hours before launch time, shortly after 8:30 pm EDT (00:30 UTC), United Launch Alliance's launch team stopped the countdown. "The engineering team has evaluated, the vehicle is not in a configuration where we can proceed with flight today," said Doug Lebo, ULA's launch conductor.
The culprit was a misbehaving valve on the rocket's Centaur upper stage, which has two RL10 engines fed by super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants.
Hackers are using developing countries for ransomware practice
Security - Posted On:2024-04-24 11:00:00 Source: arstechnica
Cyber attackers are experimenting with their latest ransomware on businesses in Africa, Asia, and South America before targeting richer countries that have more sophisticated security methods.
Hackers have adopted a “strategy” of infiltrating systems in the developing world before moving to higher-value targets such as in North America and Europe, according to a report published on Wednesday by cyber security firm Performanta.
“Adversaries are using developing countries as a platform where they can test their malicious programs before the more resourceful countries are targeted,” the company told Banking Risk and Regulation, a service from FT Specialist.
Hackers are carrying out ransomware experiments in developing countries
Security - Posted On:2024-04-24 10:15:00 Source: arstechnica
Cyber attackers are experimenting with their latest ransomware on businesses in Africa, Asia and South America before targeting richer countries that have more sophisticated security methods.
Hackers have adopted a “strategy” of infiltrating systems in the developing world before moving to higher-value targets such as in North America and Europe, according to a report published on Wednesday by cyber security firm Performanta.
“Adversaries are using developing countries as a platform where they can test their malicious programs before the more resourceful countries are targeted,” the company told Banking Risk and Regulation, a service from FT Specialist.
Roku forcing 2-factor authentication after 2 breaches of 600K accounts
Security - Posted On:2024-04-19 14:00:00 Source: arstechnica
Everyone with a Roku TV or streaming device will eventually be forced to enable two-factor authentication after the company disclosed two separate incidents in which roughly 600,000 customers had their accounts accessed through credential stuffing.
Credential stuffing is an attack in which usernames and passwords exposed in one leak are tried out against other accounts, typically using automated scripts. When people reuse usernames and passwords across services or make small, easily intuited changes between them, actors can gain access to accounts with even more identifying information and access.
In the case of the Roku attacks, that meant access to stored payment methods, which could then be used to buy streaming subscriptions and Roku hardware. Roku wrote on its blog, and in a mandated data breach report, that purchases occurred in "less than 400 cases" and that full credit card numbers and other "sensitive information" was not revealed.
All the pieces are in place for the first crew flight of Boeing’s Starliner
Security - Posted On:2024-04-18 08:45:00 Source: arstechnica
Ground teams on Florida's Space Coast hoisted Boeing's Starliner spacecraft atop its United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket this week, putting all the pieces in place for liftoff next month with two veteran NASA astronauts on a test flight to the International Space Station.
This will be the first time astronauts fly on Boeing's Starliner crew capsule, following two test flights without crew members in 2019 and 2022. The Starliner Crew Flight Test (CFT) next month will wrap up a decade and a half of development and, if all goes well, will pave the way for operational Starliner missions to ferry crews to and from the space station.
Starliner is running years behind schedule and over budget. SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft has flown all of NASA's crew rotation missions to the station since its first astronaut flight in 2020. But NASA wants to get Boeing's spacecraft up and running to have a backup to SpaceX. It would then alternate between Starliner and Crew Dragon for six-month expeditions to the station beginning next year.
How will astronauts cruise around the Moon? NASA narrows choice to three options
Security - Posted On:2024-04-04 10:45:00 Source: arstechnica
NASA has made another bold bet on the nation's commercial space industry, this time asking private companies to provide a lunar rover that can survive for up to a decade near the South Pole of the Moon.
The space agency on Wednesday announced the selection of three teams, led by Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolab, to work on designs for a rover that can be used by astronauts and function autonomously when no crew is around.
Each company will work with the space agency for the next year or so to reach what is known as a "preliminary design review" for their vehicle. The initial awards are not huge; each is a few tens of millions of dollars. But this work will set the stage for a demonstration phase, which will be worth significantly more.
How to hack the Jacksonville Jaguars’ jumbotron (and end up in jail for 220 years)
Security - Posted On:2024-04-03 17:15:00 Source: arstechnica
Was someone messing with the Jacksonville Jaguars' giant jumbotron?
On September 16, 2018, the Jaguars were playing the New England Patriots when the in-stadium screen experienced, in the US government's words, "a loss in reference sync which manifested as a large horizontal green lines [sic] appearing across one whole video board."
On November 18, during a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, it happened again—but this time, entire video sub-boards filled with green.
Hackers can unlock over 3 million hotel doors in seconds
Security - Posted On:2024-03-22 10:15:00 Source: arstechnica
When thousands of security researchers descend on Las Vegas every August for what's come to be known as “hacker summer camp,” the back-to-back Black Hat and Defcon hacker conferences, it's a given that some of them will experiment with hacking the infrastructure of Vegas itself, the city's elaborate array of casino and hospitality technology. But at one private event in 2022, a select group of researchers were actually invited to hack a Vegas hotel room, competing in a suite crowded with their laptops and cans of Red Bull to find digital vulnerabilities in every one of the room's gadgets, from its TV to its bedside VoIP phone.
One team of hackers spent those days focused on the lock on the room's door, perhaps its most sensitive piece of technology of all. Now, more than a year and a half later, they're finally bringing to light the results of that work: a technique they discovered that would allow an intruder to open any of millions of hotel rooms worldwide in seconds, with just two taps.
Today, Ian Carroll, Lennert Wouters, and a team of other security researchers are revealing a hotel keycard hacking technique they call Unsaflok. The technique is a collection of security vulnerabilities that would allow a hacker to almost instantly open several models of Saflok-brand RFID-based keycard locks sold by the Swiss lock maker Dormakaba. The Saflok systems are installed on 3 million doors worldwide, inside 13,000 properties in 131 countries.
$30 doorbell cameras can be easily hijacked, says Consumer Reports
Security - Posted On:2024-02-29 12:15:01 Source: arstechnica
Video doorbell cameras have been commoditized to the point where they're available for $30–$40 on marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, Temu, and Shein. The true cost of owning one might be much greater, however.
Consumer Reports (CR) has released the findings of a security investigation into two budget-minded doorbell brands, Eken and Tuck, which are largely the same hardware produced by the Eken Group in China, according to CR. The cameras are further resold under at least 10 more brands. The cameras are set up through a common mobile app, Aiwit. And the cameras share something else, CR claims: "troubling security vulnerabilities."
$30 doorbell cameras have multiple serious security flaws, says Consumer Reports
Security - Posted On:2024-02-29 06:45:01 Source: arstechnica
Video doorbell cameras have been commoditized to the point where they're available for $30–$40 on marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, Temu, and Shein. The true cost of owning one might be much greater, however.
Consumer Reports (CR) has released the findings of a security investigation into two budget-minded doorbell brands, Eken and Tuck, which are largely the same hardware produced by the Eken Group in China, according to CR. The cameras are further resold under at least 10 more brands. The cameras are set up through a common mobile app, Aiwit. And the cameras share something else, CR claims: "troubling security vulnerabilities."
Beware of scammers sending live couriers to liquidate victims’ life savings
Security - Posted On:2024-01-29 17:30:00 Source: arstechnica
Scammers are stepping up their game by sending couriers to the homes of elderly people and others as part of a ruse intended to rob them of their life savings, the FBI said in an advisory Monday.
“The FBI is warning the public about scammers instructing victims, many of whom are senior citizens, to liquidate their assets into cash and/or buy gold, silver, or other precious metals to protect their funds,” FBI officials with the agency’s Internet Crime Complaint Center said. “Criminals then arrange for couriers to meet the victims in person to pick up the cash or precious metals.”
The scammers pose as tech or customer support agents or government officials and sometimes use a multi-layered approach as they falsely claim they work on behalf of technology companies, financial institutions, or the US government. The scammers tell the targets they have been hacked or are at risk of being hacked and that their assets should be protected. The scammers then instruct the targets to liquidate assets into cash. In some cases, the scammers instruct targets to wire funds to a fake metal dealer who will ship purchased merchandise to the victims’ homes.
Just 10 lines of code can steal AI secrets from Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm GPUs
Security - Posted On:2024-01-17 14:15:00 Source: arstechnica
As more companies ramp up development of artificial intelligence systems, they are increasingly turning to graphics processing unit (GPU) chips for the computing power they need to run large language models (LLMs) and to crunch data quickly at massive scale. Between video game processing and AI, demand for GPUs has never been higher, and chipmakers are rushing to bolster supply. In new findings released today, though, researchers are highlighting a vulnerability in multiple brands and models of mainstream GPUs—including Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD chips—that could allow an attacker to steal large quantities of data from a GPU’s memory.
The silicon industry has spent years refining the security of central processing units, or CPUs, so they don’t leak data in memory even when they are built to optimize for speed. However, since GPUs were designed for raw graphics processing power, they haven’t been architected to the same degree with data privacy as a priority. As generative AI and other machine learning applications expand the uses of these chips, though, researchers from New York-based security firm Trail of Bits say that vulnerabilities in GPUs are an increasingly urgent concern.
New attack steals AI secrets from GPUs made by Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm
Security - Posted On:2024-01-17 13:30:00 Source: arstechnica
As more companies ramp up development of artificial intelligence systems, they are increasingly turning to graphics processing unit (GPU) chips for the computing power they need to run large language models (LLMs) and to crunch data quickly at massive scale. Between video game processing and AI, demand for GPUs has never been higher, and chipmakers are rushing to bolster supply. In new findings released today, though, researchers are highlighting a vulnerability in multiple brands and models of mainstream GPUs—including Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD chips—that could allow an attacker to steal large quantities of data from a GPU’s memory.
The silicon industry has spent years refining the security of central processing units, or CPUs, so they don’t leak data in memory even when they are built to optimize for speed. However, since GPUs were designed for raw graphics processing power, they haven’t been architected to the same degree with data privacy as a priority. As generative AI and other machine learning applications expand the uses of these chips, though, researchers from New York-based security firm Trail of Bits say that vulnerabilities in GPUs are an increasingly urgent concern.
Google researchers report critical 0-days in Chrome and all Apple OSes
Security - Posted On:2023-12-01 09:45:00 Source: arstechnica
Researchers in Google's Threat Analysis Group have been as busy as ever with discoveries that have led to the disclosure of three high-severity zero-day vulnerabilities under active exploitation in Apple OSes and the Chrome browser in the span of 48 hours.
Apple on Thursday said it was releasing security updates fixing two vulnerabilities present in iOS, macOS, and iPadOS. Both of them reside in WebKit, the engine that drives Safari and a wide range of other apps, including Apple Mail, the App Store, and all browsers running on iPhones and iPads. While the update applies to all supported versions of Apple OSes, Thursday’s disclosure suggested that the in-the-wild attacks that are exploiting the vulnerabilities targeted earlier versions of iOS.
“Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited against versions of iOS before iOS 16.7.1,” Apple officials wrote of both vulnerabilities, which are tracked as CVE-2023-42916 and CVE-2023-42917.
Google researchers report critical zero-days in Chrome and all Apple OSes
Security - Posted On:2023-11-30 20:15:00 Source: arstechnica
Researchers in Google's Threat Analysis Group have been as busy as ever, with discoveries that have led to the disclosure of three high-severity zero-day vulnerabilities under active exploitation in Apple OSes and the Chrome browser in the span of 48 hours.
Apple on Thursday said it was releasing security updates fixing two vulnerabilities present in iOS, macOS, and iPadOS. Both of them reside in WebKit, the engine that drives Safari and a wide range of other apps, including Apple Mail, the App Store, and all browsers running on iPhones and iPads. While the update applies to all supported versions of Apple OSes, Thursday’s disclosure suggested in-the-wild attacks exploiting the vulnerabilities targeted earlier versions of iOS.
“Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited against versions of iOS before iOS 16.7.1,” Apple officials wrote of both vulnerabilities, which are tracked as CVE-2023-42916 and CVE-2023-42917.
Rocket Report: Beyond Gravity to study fairing reuse; North Korea launches satellite
Security - Posted On:2023-11-23 08:00:01 Source: arstechnica
Welcome to Edition 6.20 of the Rocket Report! We apologize for missing last week, but both Stephen and I were in transit to South Texas for the Starship launch. To make up for it this week's report is extra long, and a day early due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. But that doesn't mean the spaceflight action stops, with an eagerly awaited hot fire test of the Ariane 6 rocket expected Thursday. See below for details on how to watch live.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
North Korea launches spy satellite. North Korea's launch of a small, solid-fueled Chŏllima-1 rocket, which has a capacity of about 300 kg to low-Earth orbit, appears to have been successful, Reuters reports. Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said the US Space Force data had cataloged two new objects in an orbital plane consistent with the launch from North Korea at the time stated by Pyongyang.