Tag Archives: Biz & IT

Two of the Kremlin’s most active hack groups are collaborating, ESET says

But ESET said its most likely hypothesis is that Turla and Gamaredon were working together. “Given that both groups are part of the Russian FSB (though in two different Centers), Gamaredon provided access to Turla operators so that they could issue commands on a specific machine to restart Kazuar, and deploy Kazuar v2 on some… Read More »

Two UK teens charged in connection to Scattered Spider ransomware attacks

Federal prosecutors charged a UK teenager with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and other crimes in connection with the network intrusions of 47 US companies that generated more than $115 million in ransomware payments over a three-year span. A criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday (PDF) said that Thalha Jubair, 19, of London, was part of… Read More »

New attack on ChatGPT research agent pilfers secrets from Gmail inboxes

ShadowLeak starts where most attacks on LLMs do—with an indirect prompt injection. These prompts are tucked inside content such as documents and emails sent by untrusted people. They contain instructions to perform actions the user never asked for, and like a Jedi mind trick, they are tremendously effective in persuading the LLM to do things… Read More »

How weak passwords and other failings led to catastrophic breach of Ascension

Amid Ascension’s decision not to discuss the attack, there aren’t enough details to provide a complete autopsy of Ascension’s missteps and the measures the company could have taken to prevent the network breach. In general, though, the one-two pivot indicates a failure to follow various well-established security approaches. One of them is known as security… Read More »

White House officials reportedly frustrated by Anthropic’s law enforcement AI limits

Anthropic’s AI models could potentially help spies analyze classified documents, but the company draws the line at domestic surveillance. That restriction is reportedly making the Trump administration angry. On Tuesday, Semafor reported that Anthropic faces growing hostility from the Trump administration over the AI company’s restrictions on law enforcement uses of its Claude models. Two… Read More »

ChatGPT may soon require ID verification from adults, CEO says

OpenAI joins other tech companies that have tried youth-specific versions of their services. YouTube Kids, Instagram Teen Accounts, and TikTok’s under-16 restrictions represent similar efforts to create “safer” digital spaces for young users, but teens routinely circumvent age verification through false birthdate entries, borrowed accounts, or technical workarounds. A 2024 BBC report found that 22… Read More »

Millions turn to AI chatbots for spiritual guidance and confession

Privacy concerns compound these issues. “I wonder if there isn’t a larger danger in pouring your heart out to a chatbot,” Catholic priest Fr. Mike Schmitz told The Times. “Is it at some point going to become accessible to other people?” Users share intimate spiritual moments that now exist as data points in corporate servers.… Read More »

Modder injects AI dialogue into 2002’s Animal Crossing using memory hack

But discovering the addresses was only half the problem. When you talk to a villager in Animal Crossing, the game normally displays dialogue instantly. Calling an AI model over the Internet takes several seconds. Willison examined the code and found Fonseca’s solution: a watch_dialogue() function that polls memory 10 times per second. When it detects… Read More »

OpenAI and Microsoft sign preliminary deal to revise partnership terms

On Thursday, OpenAI and Microsoft announced they have signed a non-binding agreement to revise their partnership, marking the latest development in a relationship that has grown increasingly complex as both companies compete for customers in the AI market and seek new partnerships for growing infrastructure needs. “Microsoft and OpenAI have signed a non-binding memorandum of… Read More »

35 percent of VMware workloads expected to migrate elsewhere by 2028

During Gartner’s event, Palmer posited that Broadcom’s VMware doesn’t view hyperscalers as strategic partners and vice versa. AWS took issue with Broadcom disallowing AWS and its channel partners to resell VMware Cloud on AWS, telling CRN in May 2024 that it was “disappointed” by the news. Still, hyperscalers, including AWS, have remained interested in doing… Read More »