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Discord: A Playground for Nation-State Hackers Targeting Critical Infrastructure

đŸ•”ïžâ€â™‚ïž Nation-state hackers are turning to Discord. Discover how they’re using this social platform for potential cyber-espionage and target critical infrastructure.

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In what’s the latest evolution of threat actors abusing legitimate infrastructure for nefarious ends, new findings show that nation-state hacking groups have entered the fray in leveraging the social platform for targeting critical infrastructure.

Discord, in recent years, has become a lucrative target, acting as a fertile ground for hosting malware using its content delivery network (CDN) as well as allowing information stealers to siphon sensitive data off the app and facilitating data exfiltration by means of webhooks.

“The usage of Discord is largely limited to information stealers and grabbers that anyone can buy or download from the Internet,” Trellix researchers Ernesto Fernández Provecho and David Pastor Sanz said in a Monday report.

SpaceX to launch Falcon 9 rocket tonight on 16th mission

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch 22 Starlink internet satellites to orbit this evening (Oct. 17), if all goes according to plan.

The Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today at 5:20 p.m. EDT (2120 GMT). If SpaceX doesn’t hit that target, there are five backup opportunities available between 6:11 p.m. EDT and 8:48 p.m. EDT (2211 to 48 GMT), company representatives wrote in a mission description.

‘Creepy’ detail in new Kendall Jenner video

This Jenner-active AI is frighteningly good.

Our sci-fi-inspired fears of artificial intelligence replicating us may not be unfounded: Meta set off alarm bells after introducing an AI chatbot named Billie that resembled Kendall Jenner so closely, they thought it was the model herself, the NY Post reports.

A video introducing the creepy Kardashian doppelganger is currently eliciting screams across the web.

Even the CIA is developing an AI chatbot

“The CIA and other US intelligence agencies will soon have an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT. The program, revealed on Tuesday by Bloomberg, will train on publicly available data and provide sources alongside its answers so agents can confirm their validity. The aim is for US spies to more easily sift through ever-growing troves of information, although the exact nature of what constitutes “public data” could spark some thorny privacy issues.

“We’ve gone from newspapers and radio, to newspapers and television, to newspapers and cable television, to basic internet, to big data, and it just keeps going,” Randy Nixon, the CIA’s director of Open Source Enterprise, said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We have to find the needles in the needle field.” Nixon’s division plans to distribute the AI tool to US intelligence agencies “soon.””.


The CIA confirmed that it’s developing an AI chatbot for all 18 US intelligence agencies to quickly parse troves of ‘publicly available’ data.

New AI algorithm promises defense against cyberattacks on robots

The researchers tested their algorithm on a replica of a US Army combat ground vehicle and found it was 99% effective in preventing a malicious attack.

Australian researchers have developed an artificial intelligence algorithm to detect and stop a cyberattack on a military robot in seconds.


The research was conducted by Professor Anthony Finn from the University of South Australia (UniSA) and Dr Fendy Santoso from Charles Sturt University in collaboration with the US Army Futures Command. They simulated a MitM attack on a GVT-BOT ground vehicle and trained its operating system to respond to it, according to the press release.

According to Professor Finn, an autonomous systems researcher at UniSA, the robot operating system (ROS) is prone to cyberattacks because it is highly networked. He explained that Industry 4, characterized by advancements in robotics, automation, and the Internet of Things, requires robots to work together, where sensors, actuators, and controllers communicate and share information via cloud services. He added that this makes them very vulnerable to cyberattacks. He also said that computing power is increasing exponentially every few years, enabling them to develop and implement sophisticated AI algorithms to protect systems from digital threats.

Google deals a deadly blow to passwords, switches to passkey

The tech giant is following Uber and eBay’s lead in ditching passwords and could have the greatest impact in making it happen.

The death of passwords is imminent and Google has taken a giant step in ensuring it by suggesting users switch to an easier option – passkeys. Starting immediately, Google users will be able to create passkeys and use them to sign in to their accounts, avoiding passwords when possible, the company said in a recent blog post.

Since the advent of the internet passwords have been the most hated component of the entire experience. Early on, users could get away with using simpler combinations of letters and numbers but as cybersecurity risks grew, passwords started becoming longer, tougher, and harder to remember.

AI researchers expose critical vulnerabilities within major large language models

Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and Bard have taken the world by storm this year, with companies investing millions to develop these AI tools, and some leading AI chatbots being valued in the billions.

These LLMs, which are increasingly used within AI chatbots, scrape the entire Internet of information to learn and to inform answers that they provide to user-specified requests, known as “prompts.”

However, computer scientists from the AI security start-up Mindgard and Lancaster University in the UK have demonstrated that chunks of these LLMs can be copied in less than a week for as little as $50, and the information gained can be used to launch targeted attacks.

150 GHz antenna-on-chip transmitter IC chip for beyond 5G/6G radio equipment

NEC Corporation has developed a 150 GHz transmitter IC chip and supporting technologies in preparation for Beyond 5G and 6G mobile access radio communication systems. According to an NEC survey, this is the first demonstration of preferred beam steering performance with 4-channel Antenna-on-Chip (AoC) IC technology using On the Air (OTA) radiation pattern measurement.

Based on innovative RF circuit design technology, it has become possible to integrate 150 GHz phased array antenna elements, phase shifters and transmission amplifiers into a . The 22-nm SOI-CMOS technology used for manufacturing this IC is cost effective, suitable for , and has the ability to support large scale integration of digital, analog and RF functionalities in a chip.

This allows for both higher frequencies and smaller sizes, which also contributes to lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and potentially accelerates social implementation.

Internet companies report biggest-ever denial of service operation

WASHINGTON, Oct 11 (Reuters) — Internet companies Google, Amazon and Cloudflare say they have weathered the internet’s largest-known denial of service attack and are sounding the alarm over a new technique they warn could easily cause widespread disruption.

Alphabet Inc-owned Google (GOOGL.O)said in a blog post published Tuesday that its cloud services had parried an avalanche of rogue traffic more than seven times the size of the previous record-breaking attack thwarted last year.

Internet protection company Cloudflare Inc (NET.N)said the attack was “three times larger than any previous attack we’ve observed.” Amazon.com Inc’s (AMZN.O) web services division also confirmed being hit by “a new type of distributed denial of service (DDoS) event.”

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