OODA Analysis and Briefs

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Analysis

Covid-19, Gangs, and Conflict

The Coronavirus pandemic is fueling conflict and fostering extremism while concurrently empowering gangs, cartels, and mafias in their quest for power and profit. In COVID-19, Gangs, and Conflict, OODA Network Experts John P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker bring together a curated collection of both new and previously published material to explore the trends and…
Sinaloa Cartel-Linked “Freelancers” Introduce ESG-Friendly Meth recipe to Netherlands, EncroChat Probe Reveals

Sinaloa cartel-linked freelancers have brought their sustainable meth-cooking recipe to the Netherlands according to new evidence uncovered in the EncroChat encrypted crime-network probe. This is especially troubling given other reports of record numbers of meth labs being seized in the Netherlands this year, with more in the region producing far more meth than the local…
What The Business Strategist Should Know About Congress’s Latest Report On Future Threats and Defense

The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) chartered a special task force to assess what the nation should know about the dynamic national security environment and produce a report to guide future action. The report was just issued. It evaluates strategic priorities of the US DoD to seek better matches of national resources to next-generation threats…
OODA Monthly Meeting: Where our members gather online for trust based networking

OODA Network members are invited to participate in a monthly video call to discuss items of common concern to our membership. These highly collaborative sessions are great ways for our members to meet and interact with each other while talking about items of common interest. We also use these sessions to help better focus our…
OODA Network Interview: Masha Sedova

This OODA Network Expert interview is with Masha Sedova, Co-Founder of Elevate Security. Masha’s life story is a surprise and an inspiration. Read how this Russian-born emigre developed a synergy between left-brain and right-brain to solve one of our toughest problems in Cyber Security – the Insider Threat. Masha often hears executives opine “Humans are the…
Your Ransomware Payments Could Violate OFAC Sanctions

The U.S. Department of Treasure released an advisory today highlighting that ransomware payments could violate their Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanction controls. This advisory drastically changes the dynamic for how companies are managing ransomware response including the payment of ransoms directly or through third party negotiators. This is an advisory that every CISO,…
Cyber: The Art Of War

Foreign bad actors are conducting a covert cyber war. The pace, frequency, and intensity of cyberattacks are now greater than ever. As the physical realm inevitably merges with the cyber one, forming a new kind of infrastructure, cyberattacks on this infrastructure can have a catastrophic impact on our energy, waste, water, transportation, and telecommunications facilities.…
Changes In How The US Navy Incentivizes Innovation and Acquires New Solutions

Several years ago, the Navy selected Hondo (James) Geurts as their new Acquisition Chief. His previous experience buying for Special Operations Command taught him some unique ways to incentivize innovation and improve speed-to-capability. While some programs (ships, submarines, etc.) benefit from the full scrutiny of the Federal Acquisition Regulation, most IT systems do not. The…
Gary Harrington on Leadership Lessons from Delta Force to the CIA

Gary Harrington had a distinguished career of national service that included over three decades in top tier special operations groups including Delta Force and then transitioning into the CIA. Gary was one of the first to deploy into Afghanistan after 9/11 and was at the tip of the spear in many locations including as a…
The Future of Enterprise Robotics

Examples of robots and the use of robotics in business are all around us today. Their success in manufacturing and in assisting humans in critical missions has already been demonstrated as economically viable and this means their use will only grow. This special report seeks to provide insights that will inform your business strategy and…
DoD Intentions With Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Systems for Ground Forces

Unmanned ground systems have been around and in use in DoD for decades. They were used throughout WWII for various functions considered too dangerous for humans, like demolition missions or advancing on a battle front to draw enemy fire. What’s exciting today is the explosion of possibilities as we couple artificial intelligence with modern day sensors…
OODA Network Interview: Joel Wallenstrom

This post is based on an interview Joel Wallenstrom, CEO and President at Wickr. It is part of our series of interviews of OODA Network members. Our objective with these interviews is to provide actionable information of interest to the community, including insights that can help with your own career progression. We also really like…
Master the Skill of Spies, Investigators and Journalists to Better Your Business – OODA Training Event

Back by popular demand! What if you could land new clients, build relationships with investors and partners, and develop new contacts simply by asking more, and saying less? Add the art of inquiring to your skills repertoire from a journalist-turned-corporate investigator, who has leveraged the potent act of asking, and listening, to turn strangers into…
Deception in Cyber – OODA Research Report

OODA is pleased to release our first specialized research report focusing on the use of Deception technologies in the cybersecurity domain. We have seen first-hand the benefits of deception platforms and concepts of operation to reducing risk, and most strongly recommend organizations implement deception technologies. Our intent with this document is to qualify the market…
A Global CISO’s Ten Rules for Success

Neal Pollard is an OODA Network member and is the Global CISO at UBS. He recently posted his 10 rules for being a successful CIOS on LinkedIn and gave us permission to share them here. It is one of the best top 10 lists we’ve seen.

Briefs

Google Announces Enhanced Fraud Protection for Android

Google recently announced a new feature of Google Play Protect, which will block the installation of sideloaded applications that request sensitive permissions on Android devices. Fraudsters frequently leverage these permissions to intercept passwords via SMS or notifications. The feature will specifically scan for four requests from apps in real-time: RECEIVE_SMS, READ_SMS, BIND_Notifications, and Accessibility. If…
Pakistan counts votes in poll hit by violence and suspended mobile services

Pakistan has begun counting votes after general election polling ended on Thursday. Pakistan has experienced phone outages, militant attacks, and widespread violence during the highly polarized voting period. On Wednesday, an Islamic State attack on electoral candidates’ offices in Balochistan province killed 26 people. Despite a widespread troop deployment across the country and the temporary…
Israeli forces intensify strikes on Rafah in southern Gaza

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected ceasefire and hostage release terms proposed by Hamas as strikes continued on Gaza’s southernmost border city of Rafah. Netanyahu called Hamas’s proposal “delusional” and claimed victory is only months away. Before Netanyahu’s rejection of the proposal, intense diplomatic efforts tried to prevent conflict from reaching Rafah, where…
Signs of rare unrest among North Korean workers in China, researchers say

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service stated that North Koreans working in China have staged rare protests in response to poor working conditions and various “incidents and accidents.” In one instance in late January, as many as 3,000 North Koreans working at a military-affiliated trading company protested due to unpaid wages and strict pandemic-era lockdowns. China…
Kataib Hezbollah commander killed in Baghdad in US strike

USCENTCOM announced that they conducted an airstrike in Baghdad that killed at least one Kataib Hezbollah commander. Kataib Hezbollah is the organization responsible for a drone attack that killed three U.S. troops and injured dozens at Tower 22 in Jordan in late January. The now-deceased commander was Abu Baqir al-Saadi, who was in charge of…
Most Linux Systems Exposed to Complete Compromise via Shim Vulnerability

Multiple cybersecurity organizations identified a vulnerability in Shim, a small application involved in the secure boot process of most Linux distributions (CVE-2023-40547). A NIST advisory rated the vulnerability as critical with a CVSS score of 9.8, and a Red Hat advisory rated the vulnerability as high with a CVSS score of 8.3. The flaw in…
US Says China’s Volt Typhoon Hackers ‘Pre-Positioning’ for Cyberattacks Against Critical Infrastructure

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published a joint advisory on Wednesday that stated that the Chinese state-sponsored Volt Typhoon hacking group retains persistent access to numerous U.S. critical infrastructure organizations. CISA added that Volt Typhoon has remained in some IT environments for over five years without detection and is likely “pre-positioning” itself…
Verizon Says Data Breach Impacted 63,000 Employees

Verizon Communications first informed the Maine Attorney General’s Office on December 12, 2023, that they suffered an internal data breach on September 21, 2023. An unauthorized Verizon employee acquired a file that contained names, addresses, social security numbers, union affiliations, compensation rates, and other personally identifiable information of thousands of Verizon employees. Verizon recently told…
Ukraine war: Russian air strikes claim five lives in Kyiv and Mykolaiv

Russian missile and drone strikes targeted multiple cities across Ukraine, resulting in at least five deaths and numerous injuries. The attacks, which occurred in Kyiv, Mykolaiv, and other locations, caused extensive damage to residential buildings and infrastructure. Ukrainian authorities reported intercepting a significant number of missiles and drones, with Kyiv’s mayor noting that a downed…
Sebastián Piñera: Chile ex-president drowns after his helicopter crashes in lake

Former Chilean President Sebastián Piñera, aged 74, tragically died in a helicopter crash near Lago Ranco in southern Chile, with reports indicating he was piloting the aircraft. Piñera, a billionaire businessman who served two terms as president, drowned in the crash, while three other passengers survived. His death prompted national mourning and tributes. Piñera, known…
Sudan hit by internet blackout as civil war continues

Sudan has experienced a widespread internet blackout, leading many to attribute the disruption to the paramilitary group involved in the country’s 10-month civil war, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). However, the RSF has denied responsibility. NetBlocks, an internet freedom watchdog, reported a significant collapse in internet connectivity in Sudan, coinciding with a Sudanese hacktivist group…
Pakistan election: Two blasts kill 28 in Balochistan day before vote

Two bomb explosions occurred near candidates’ offices in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, killing at least 28 people and injuring many others on the eve of general elections. The first blast in Pishin district claimed 16 lives, while a second explosion in Qila Saifullah resulted in 12 deaths. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks. Balochistan,…
JetBrains Patches Critical Authentication Bypass in TeamCity

JetBrains issued a warning about a critical authentication bypass vulnerability in TeamCity, a widely-used build management server, which could be exploited remotely for arbitrary code execution. Tracked as CVE-2024-23917 with a CVSS score of 9.8, the flaw affects all TeamCity On-Premises versions from 2017.1 through 2023.11.2 and was discovered on January 19, 2024. Exploiting the…
Verizon Says Data Breach Impacted 63,000 Employees

Verizon Communications is informing over 63,000 employees about a data breach that exposed their personal information. Discovered on December 12, 2023, the breach occurred around September 21, 2023, when an employee accessed a file containing personal data without authorization. The compromised information includes names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, national identifiers, gender details,…
Device Authority Raises $7M for Enterprise IoT Identity and Access Management Platform

Device Authority, a UK-based provider of device identity management solutions, has secured $7 million in a Series A funding round led by Ten Eleven Ventures. The investment will support the expansion of the company’s product offerings and its presence in North America. Specializing in device identity lifecycle management and identity and access management (IAM) solutions…
Most Linux Systems Exposed to Complete Compromise via Shim Vulnerability

A critical vulnerability in Shim, a crucial component used by most Linux distributions during the boot process to support secure boot, has been identified. Tracked as CVE-2023-40547, the flaw allows a network attacker to bypass secure boot and take control of a vulnerable Linux system. This vulnerability arises from Shim’s HTTP protocol handling, leading to…
OpenAI is adding new watermarks to DALL-E 3

OpenAI’s image generator DALL-E 3 will add watermarks to image metadata as more companies roll out support for standards from the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA). The company says watermarks from C2PA will appear in images generated on the ChatGPT website and the API for the DALL-E 3 model. Mobile users will get…
German patent court rules against Intel over some of its chips

A court in Germany has issued an injunction against the sale of some of Intel’s chips, after finding in favour of a rival US company that had accused Intel of infringing its patent. The ramifications of Wednesday’s ruling could be far-reaching and lead to a ban on the sale of HP and Dell products containing…
Meet ‘Smaug-72B’: The new king of open-source AI

A new open-source language model has claimed the throne of the best in the world, according to the latest rankings from Hugging Face, one of the leading platforms for natural language processing (NLP) research and applications. The model, called “Smaug-72B,” was released publicly today by the startup Abacus AI, which helps enterprises solve difficult problems…
An astronaut controls a robotic dog from orbit

Swedish astronaut Marcus Wandt took control of a series of robots in Germany while on board the International Space Station, zipping around the Earth at 28,000 kilometers per hour (17,500 mph.) Researchers want to understand how time delays can affect the remote control of robots from an orbiting platform. Future astronauts could control rovers on…
Generative AI In The Workplace: 5 Takeaways From Pioneers In Microsoft Copilot Adoption

The speed of generative AI adoption is breathtaking. We only need look at how ChatGPT achieved wide-scale adoption in under a year—the internet took 17—and the excitement for tools like Microsoft Copilots to put the power of AI at employees’ fingertips. Yet the path to AI value in the workplace is less about flipping the…
How competition between big and small AI will shape the tech’s future

AI’s evolution will be shaped by conflicting bets on whether the technology’s fate is to keep growing more gigantic. Why it matters: “Big AI” and “small AI” chart two different futures for the tech that’s likely to dominate business and society over the next decade. A big AI win could lock in the power of today’s tech…
AMD unveils Embedded+ architecture for edge AI hardware

Advanced Micro Devices unveiled its brand new Embedded+ architecture, a fusion of AMD Ryzen Embedded processors with Versal adaptive System-on-Chips (SoCs) on a unified integrated board. These chips — a hybrid of PC processors and Xilinx programmable chips — are engineered to empower hardware companies looking to accelerate power-efficient AI applications. It’s aimed at enabling…
Supply chains to use GenAI

IDC predicts that by 2026, 60% of A2000 companies will use generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools to support core supply chain processes as well as dynamic supply chain design and will leverage AI to reduce operating costs by 5%. This AI revolution holds significant implications for manufacturers, retailers, and other supply chain participants, promising a more…
Sam Altman says ChatGPT should now be much less lazy

If you asked ChatGPT to do something lately and it refused, or sassily gave you the runaround, you’re not alone. On X last December, ChatGPT acknowledged that people were concerned it’s gotten too lazy. Last December, Altman wrote that “we haven’t updated the model since Nov. 11, and this certainly isn’t intentional,” much to the relief…
Deepfake scammer walks off with $25 million in first-of-its-kind AI heist

On Sunday, a report from the South China Morning Post revealed a significant financial loss suffered by a multinational company’s Hong Kong office, amounting to HK$200 million (US$25.6 million), due to a sophisticated scam involving deepfake technology. The scam featured a digitally recreated version of the company’s chief financial officer, along with other employees, who…
Meta Calls for Industry Effort to Label A.I.-Generated Content

Last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, called a nascent effort to detect artificially generated content “the most urgent task” facing the tech industry today. On Tuesday, Mr. Clegg proposed a solution. Meta said it would promote technological standards that companies across the industry could…
Nigerian President Dismisses Nation’s ‘Cybercrime Haven’ Image

The president of Nigeria recently delivered a speech that condemned the stereotype that the country is full of cybercriminals and scammers. Cybercrime is a big issue in Nigeria and the economic impact of cybercrime in Nigeria is $500 million annually. President Bola Tinubu explained that cybercrime has damaged the country’s reputation and he stressed that…
Microsoft Azure HDInsight Bugs Expose Big Data to Breaches

Three high-risk vulnerabilities have been uncovered in Microsoft Azure’s HDInsight, its big-data analytics service. Orca Security disclosed eight vulnerabilities in the cloud data tool four and a half months ago, and now there is a new finding. The new findings include a denial-of-service and two privilege escalation bugs afflicting the same services as the previous…
Govs Drive Sharp Growth of Commercial Spyware Cos according to Google

Governments seeking to spy on dissidents and people of interest to them have driven a proliferation in commercial spyware vendors in recent years, with more cyber-weapons brokers entering the market. What was the domain of the Israel-based NSO Group is not crowded with small CSVs with varying levels of sophistication and capabilities. Their operations have…
Spanish farmers join wave of protests

Farmers in Spain have joined their European counterparts in protests that are being staged across the country. Farmers in the European Union are demanding more flexibility, tighter controls on the produce of non-EU countries and more help from their government. In several regions, the farmers have blocked roads and caused disruption to motorists. A large…
Hundreds missing as thousands of homes burn in Chile wildfires

Wildfires continue to burn homes in Chile’s Valparaíso region and hundreds of people are missing. Over 120 people have been killed in the fires and thousands of homes have been burned. President Gabriel Boric said the fire is the worst catastrophe in the country since the earthquake in 2010. The fires broke out last week…
Colombia agrees with ELN rebel group to extend truce

Colombia has agreed with the National Liberation Army to extend a truce deal that expired last week. The government said it has agreed with the armed rebel group to extend the suspension of conflict for an additional six months. There is hope that the deal will end decades of violence in Colombia. ELN is Colombia’s…
Hugging Face launches open source AI assistant maker to rival OpenAI’s custom GPTs

Hugging Face, the New York City-based startup that offers a popular, developer-focused repository for open source AI code and frameworks (and hosted last year’s “Woodstock of AI”), today announced the launch of third-party, customizable Hugging Chat Assistants. The new, free product offering allows users of Hugging Chat, the startup’s open source alternative to OpenAI’s ChatGPT,…
How enterprises are using open source LLMs: 16 examples

VentureBeat and other experts have argued that open-source large language models (LLMs) may have a more powerful impact on generative AI in the enterprise. More powerful, that is, than closed models, like the ones behind OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT, or competitor Anthropic. But that’s been hard to prove when you consider examples of actual deployments. While…
Emotionally expressive ChatGPT-powered AI robots enhance human collaboration, study finds

In a new study published in Frontiers in Robotics and AI, researchers have demonstrated that robots equipped with the ability to express emotions in real-time during interactions with humans are perceived as more likable, trustworthy, and human-like. Utilizing advanced artificial intelligence, the study found that when robots displayed emotions that matched the context of their…
Taylor Swift Deepfakes Originated From AI Challenge

The pornographic deepfakes of Taylor Swift that proliferated on social media late last month originated from an online challenge to break safety mechanisms designed to block people from generating lewd images with artificial intelligence, according to social network analysis company Graphika. For weeks, users of internet forum 4chan have taken part in daily competitions to…
Russia and China compare notes on ‘military use of artificial intelligence’

China and Russia have agreed to consult and coordinate with each other on the military use of artificial intelligence, a technology that is becoming a new front in Beijing’s rivalry with Washington. During talks in Beijing on Thursday, departmental officials from the two countries had “a detailed exchange of assessments” of the use of AI…
Top U.S. Treasury Officials to Visit Beijing for Economic Talks

Top U.S. Treasury officials are visiting Beijing this week for a round of economic talks as the world’s largest economies look to continue engagement efforts that President Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, agreed to pursue last year. A Treasury official said that the two days of meetings would include “frank conversations” about China’s…
How have Red Sea Attacks by Yemen’s Houthi Fighters Affected Companies?

Attacks on vessels by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea have disrupted international trade on the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia. The strikes are targeting a route that accounts for about 15 percent of the world’s shipping traffic, forcing several shipping companies to reroute their vessels. The Houthi raids have had impacts…
US Senate Unveils $118bn Deal on Border, Aid for Israel and Ukraine

The United States Senate has unveiled a $118bn bipartisan deal that would boost border security and provide wartime aid for Israel and Ukraine. The bill announced on Sunday would provide $60bn in aid to Ukraine and $14.1bn in military aid to Israel. Also under the deal, the president would be granted new powers to immediately…
U.S. Strikes Iranian-Backed Targets for Third Day in a Row

The United States launched scores of strikes across the Middle East over the weekend as Secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken, set out for the region to push forward negotiations to secure the release of Israelis still held hostage in Gaza and get more humanitarian aid into the battered enclave. The American military has taken…
US Slaps Sanctions on ‘Dangerous’ Iranian Hackers Linked to Water Utility Hacks

On Friday, the US government announced sanctions against six Iranian Government officials caught launching cyberattacks against Israeli PLC vendor Unitronics. The Treasury Department said the six officials are part of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Cyber-Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC), a Tehran organization “responsible for a series of malicious cyber activities against critical infrastructure in the…
General Timothy Haugh Takes Lead of NSA and Cyber Command

General Timothy D. Haugh assumed command of the National Security Agency (NSA) and Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) on Friday, February 2, 2024. President Joe Biden chose Haugh back in May 2023 to take the leadership position that oversees America’s cyber warfare and defense, cryptology, and signals intelligence. General Haugh served in leadership positions at Sixteenth Air…
EU Adopts First Cybersecurity Certification Scheme for Safer Tech

The European Commission adopted the implementing regulation concerning the EU cybersecurity certification scheme on Common Criteria (EUCC). The outcome aligns with the candidate cybersecurity certification scheme on EUCC that ENISA drafted in response to a request issued by the European Commission. This new scheme falls under the EU cybersecurity certification framework. The objective of this…
EU countries strike deal on landmark AI rulebook

European Union member countries on Friday unanimously reached a deal on the bloc’s Artificial Intelligence Act, overcoming last-minute fears that the rulebook would stifle European innovation. EU deputy ambassadors green-lighted the final compromise text, hashed out following lengthy negotiations between representatives of the Council, members of the European Parliament and European Commission officials. The law…
Meta’s Reality Labs loses record $4.65 billion ahead of Apple’s Vision Pro launch

Meta continues to sink billions of dollars a quarter into developing the metaverse, and is just now facing its first real competitive threat from Apple. In its fourth-quarter earnings report Thursday, Meta said its Reality Labs unit recorded an operating loss in the period of $4.65 billion. Analysts were expecting a loss of $4.26 billion,…
Cook ‘incredibly excited’ about generative AI coming to Apple gear later in 2024

Tim Cook says that Apple is spending “a tremendous amount of time and effort” on AI features that will be announced in the coming months. Apple’s Cook took the opportunity of the firm’s latest financial earnings call to enthuse about the Apple Vision Pro and the future of AI. “We are announcing these results on…
Team designs robots to help with human habitation in space

In the coming decades, NASA plans to send human crews back to the moon, build a space station in lunar orbit, establish a permanent base on the lunar surface, and—hopefully—send astronauts to Mars. What could possibly go wrong? No, seriously, what could go wrong and how would we fix it? That is the question a group of…
Nvidia CEO Says Nations Seeking Own AI Systems Will Raise Demand

Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said countries around the world aiming to build and run their own artificial intelligence infrastructure at home will drive up demand for his company’s products. Nations including India, Japan, France and Canada are talking about the importance of investing in “sovereign AI capabilities,” Huang said in an interview Thursday…
Netherlands Fines Uber Over Data Protection

Dutch regulators have fined ride-hailing app Uber €10 million ($10.8 million) for lack of transparency in handling the personal data of its drivers. The Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) imposed the fine after 170 French drivers complained to a French human rights organisation. The complaint was dealt with in the Netherlands as it is where…
Biden to Veto Attempt to Overturn SEC Cyber Incident Disclosure Rules

The White House has announced that President Biden would veto an attempt by Republican lawmakers to overturn the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) recently implemented cyber incident disclosure rules. The rules, which took effect on December 18, 2023, require public companies to disclose material breaches within four business days of determining their material impact. The…
Grateful for E.U. Aid, Ukraine Now Waits for the United States

The European Union approved an assistance package of about $54 billion for Ukraine to help alleviate a potentially severe financial crisis. The money will cover pensions, payments to people displaced by war, and routine outlays such as salaries for teachers and doctors. In thanking the EU, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, also alluded to uncertainty over…
31 People Arrested in Global Cybercrime Crackdown

In a global operation named Synergia, led by Interpol and spanning 50 countries, law enforcement arrested 31 individuals targeting ransomware, banking malware, and phishing. The operation ran from September to November 2023 and identified over 1,300 suspicious command-and-control servers, with 70% taken down. Most of the seized servers were in Europe, with additional takedowns in…
Iran Slows Production of Enriched Uranium, the U.N.’s Nuclear Watchdog Says

In another indication that Iran may be seeking to de-escalate its confrontation with the United States, United Nations nuclear inspectors are seeing some signs that Tehran is lifting its foot, even if just a bit, on the acceleration of its nuclear program. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said…
DraftKings Hacker Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison

Joseph Garrison, a 19-year-old from Wisconsin, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for his involvement in a credential stuffing attack on a fantasy sports and betting website, believed to be DraftKings. In November 2022, Garrison used username and password pairs from other data breaches to access around 60,000 user accounts using the same…
US approves plan for strikes on Iran-linked targets in Iraq, Syria: Report

The United States has reportedly approved a plan to attack Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for the drone attack that killed three American soldiers five days ago. Iran has denied involvement in the drone strike in Jordan. There have not been many details about America’s plan but quoting unnamed US officials, weather…
OpenAI study reveals surprising role of AI in future biological threat creation

OpenAI, the research organization behind the powerful language model GPT-4, has released a new study that examines the possibility of using AI to assist in creating biological threats. The study, which involved both biology experts and students, found that GPT-4 provides “at most a mild uplift” in biological threat creation accuracy, compared to the baseline…
AI2 open sources text-generating AI models — and the data used to train them

The Allen Institute for AI (AI2), the nonprofit AI research institute founded by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, is releasing several GenAI language models it claims are more “open” than others — and, importantly, licensed in such a way that developers can use them unfettered for training, experimentation and even commercialization. Called OLMo, an acronym…
Google launches an AI-powered image generator

Taylor Swift deepfakes be damned, Google is releasing a new AI-powered tool, ImageFX, for image creation. Underpinned by Imagen 2, a GenAI image model developed by Google’s DeepMind team, ImageFX offers a prompt-based UI to create and edit images. That’s no different than tools like OpenAI’s DALL-E 3, Midjourney, Meta’s Imagine with Meta AI and…