Tag Archives: security

Windows RDP lets you log in using revoked passwords. Microsoft is OK with that.

The ability to use a revoked password to log in through RDP occurs when a Windows machine that’s signed in with a Microsoft or Azure account is configured to enable remote desktop access. In that case, users can log in over RDP with a dedicated password that’s validated against a locally stored credential. Alternatively, users… Read More »

AI-generated code could be a disaster for the software supply chain. Here’s why.

In AI, hallucinations occur when an LLM produces outputs that are factually incorrect, nonsensical, or completely unrelated to the task it was assigned. Hallucinations have long dogged LLMs because they degrade their usefulness and trustworthiness and have proven vexingly difficult to predict and remedy. In a paper scheduled to be presented at the 2025 USENIX… Read More »

iOS and Android juice jacking defenses have been trivial to bypass for years

All three of the ChoiceJacking techniques defeat Android juice-jacking mitigations. One of them also works against those defenses in Apple devices. In all three, the charger acts as a USB host to trigger the confirmation prompt on the targeted phone. The attacks then exploit various weaknesses in the OS that allow the charger to autonomously… Read More »

FBI offers $10 million for information about Salt Typhoon members

The FBI is offering $10 million for information about the China-state hacking group tracked as Salt Typhoon and its intrusion last year into sensitive networks belonging to multiple US telecommunications companies. Salt Typhoon is one of a half-dozen or more hacking groups that work on behalf of the People’s Republic of China. Intelligence agencies and… Read More »

New Android spyware is targeting Russian military personnel on the front lines

Russian military personnel are being targeted with recently discovered Android malware that steals their contacts and tracks their location. The malware is hidden inside a modified app for Alpine Quest mapping software, which is used by, among others, hunters, athletes, and Russian personnel stationed in the war zone in Ukraine. The app displays various topographical… Read More »

That groan you hear is users’ reaction to Recall going back into Windows

Security and privacy advocates are girding themselves for another uphill battle against Recall, the AI tool rolling out in Windows 11 that will screenshot, index, and store everything a user does every three seconds. When Recall was first introduced in May 2024, security practitioners roundly castigated it for creating a gold mine for malicious insiders,… Read More »

Researcher uncovers dozens of sketchy Chrome extensions with 4 million installs

The extensions share other dubious or suspicious similarities. Much of the code in each one is highly obfuscated, a design choice that provides no benefit other than complicating the process for analyzing and understanding how it behaves. All but one of them are unlisted in the Chrome Web Store. This designation makes an extension visible… Read More »

OpenAI helps spammers plaster 80,000 sites with messages that bypassed filters

“AkiraBot’s use of LLM-generated spam message content demonstrates the emerging challenges that AI poses to defending websites against spam attacks,” SentinelLabs researchers Alex Delamotte and Jim Walter wrote. “The easiest indicators to block are the rotating set of domains used to sell the Akira and ServiceWrap SEO offerings, as there is no longer a consistent… Read More »

“The girl should be calling men.” Leak exposes Black Basta’s influence tactics.

A leak of 190,000 chat messages traded among members of the Black Basta ransomware group shows that it’s a highly structured and mostly efficient organization staffed by personnel with expertise in various specialities, including exploit development, infrastructure optimization, social engineering, and more. The trove of records was first posted to file-sharing site MEGA. The messages,… Read More »