Tech

How hackers used smarts and a novel IoT botnet to plunder email for months

Enlarge It’s not the kind of security discovery that happens often. A previously unknown hacker group used a novel backdoor, top-notch trade craft, and software engineering to create an espionage botnet that was largely invisible in many victim networks. The group, which security firm Mandiant is calling UNC3524, has spent the past 18 months burrowing […]

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Elon Musk sold $8.5B in Tesla stock after agreeing to $44B Twitter deal

Enlarge / CEO Elon Musk at SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, California, on October 10, 2019. (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto) Elon Musk has raised $8.5 billion from selling part of his stake in Tesla, boosting his cash position ahead of his planned purchase of Twitter. The sales were made between Tuesday and Thursday, after Twitter’s […]

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One of the most powerful DDoSes ever targets cryptocurrency platform

Enlarge A cryptocurrency platform was recently on the receiving end of one of the biggest distributed denial-of-service attacks ever after threat actors bombarded it with 15.3 million requests, content delivery network Cloudflare said. DDoS attacks can be measured in several ways, including by the volume of data, the number of packets, or the number of […]

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Russia wages “relentless and destructive” cyberattacks to bolster Ukraine invasion

Enlarge / Flag of Russia on a computer binary codes falling from the top and fading away. (credit: Getty Images) On March 1, Russian forces invading Ukraine took out a TV tower in Kyiv after the Kremlin declared its intention to destroy “disinformation” in the neighboring country. That public act of kinetic destruction accompanied a […]

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Businesses are adopting Windows 11 more quickly than past versions, says Microsoft

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Data suggests that gamers are moving to Windows 11 at a steady pace but not nearly as quickly as they warmed to Windows 10 a few years ago. For historically change-averse businesses, surprisingly, the opposite may be true—Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during the company’s Q3 2022 earnings call that enterprises […]

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Microsoft finds Linux desktop flaw that gives root to untrusted users

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Vulnerabilities recently discovered by Microsoft make it easy for people with a toehold on many Linux desktop systems to quickly gain root system rights— the latest elevation of privileges flaw to come to light in the open source OS. As operating systems have been hardened to withstand compromises in recent years, […]

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The first “Meta Store” is opening in California in May

Enlarge / The first Meta Store won’t necessarily be your one-stop shop for all things sold by Meta—as this artistic interpretation points to one thing not sold by the store until further notice. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) On May 9, Meta will double down on its metaverse sales pitch by… making people drive […]

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Hackers are exploiting 0-days more than ever

Enlarge / VPNfilter had a total of nine modular tools discovered thus far by researchers, potentially turning thousands of routers into a versatile attack platform. Previously unknown “zero-day” software vulnerabilities are mysterious and intriguing as a concept. But they’re even more noteworthy when hackers are spotted actively exploiting the novel software flaws in the wild […]

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Hackers hammer SpringShell vulnerability in attempt to install cryptominers

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Malicious hackers have been hammering servers with attacks that exploit the recently discovered SpringShell vulnerability in an attempt to install cryptomining malware, researchers said. SpringShell came to light late last month when a researcher demonstrated how it could be used to remotely execute malicious code on servers that run the Spring […]

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Critical bug could have let hackers commandeer millions of Android devices

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Security researchers said they uncovered a vulnerability that could have allowed hackers to commandeer millions of Android devices equipped with mobile chipsets made by Qualcomm and MediaTek. The vulnerability resided in ALAC—short for Apple Lossless Audio Codec and also known as Apple Lossless—which is an audio format introduced by Apple in […]