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While massive, global cyber theft and data breaches may capture the headlines, there are many other issues surrounding the future of cryptocurrency. Fraud and cybersecurity activity is necessary for creative destruction in the cryptocurrency marketplace. OODA CEO Matt Devost captured the current climate in the crypto market noting that: “We needed to wash all the…
In a series of posts entitled Autonomous Everything, we are exploring automation in all its technological forms, including legacy working assumptions about the term itself. Autonomy is not just about the future of the automobile and personal mobility but includes a broad autonomous future in areas such as Security Automation, Automation and the Workforce, Automation – or…
Last year, OODA Network Member Congressman Will Hurd was a Commissioner for the Aspen Institute’s Information Disorder Report. Congressman Hurd will take part in a Keynote Conversation at OODAcon (which is the final event of the event to be held on Tuesday, October 18th). In the run-up to the event next week, the following is an…
We now turn our focus to a recommendation made by the Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task Force on Cybersecurity calling for the international expansion of the Vulnerabilities Equities Process (VEP). Our analysis is also based on a recent Rand Report which is the impressive Ph. D. dissertation by Lindsey Polley – a former Defense…
In a series of posts entitled Autonomous Everything, we are exploring automation in all its technological forms, including legacy working assumptions about the term itself. We began the series in June with a description of the first autonomous ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Autonomy includes a broad autonomous future in areas such as Security Automation, Automation…
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) continues to model an operational structure with an effective public/private partnership component that yields actionable results. The latest success is the evolution of the CISA Cybersecurity Advisory Committee (CSAC which meets quarterly) and its subcommittees, specifically the time-sensitive work of the Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Misinformation and Disinformation…
Leading up to and during its invasion of Ukraine, Russian cyber attacks have been well documented and tracked and have included standard offensives such as DDoS, malware, and phishing to impact their targets. Indeed, according to the article, throughout the conflict, DDoS activity has increased 200 percent, malware attacks were up by 400 percent, and…
We have integrated Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) research into our OODA Loop research and analysis on topics ranging from artificial intelligence, dis- misinformation and information disorder (what we characterize as a crucial strategic need for National Cognitive Infrastructure Protection), technology talent retention, and the CHIPS Act. The recent CSET report “China’s Advanced…
Putin’s annexation speech of 30 September 2022 included declarations of his view of the world that make it clearer than ever that he wants all of Russia to believe the West is at war with them. He also made his best case for other nations globally that Russia is on their side in opposition to…
The MIT AI Policy Forum (AIPF) is a global initiative at The MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, which was launched in 2018. The Blackstone Group Chairman Stephen A. Schwarzman, donated $350 million of the $1.1 billion of funding committed to the school, which is the “single largest investment in computing and AI by an American…
In Part 1 of this interview, we checked in with Mergeflow CEO and OODA Network Member Florian Wolf about all things machine learning and small data. In Part 2, we continue the conversation with Florian spanning a wide range of topics, including the real-life lessons of machine learning innovation, the centrality of data, problem-solving over…
You don’t have to wait for a CISA advisory to act! Act now! Russia’s sabotage of the Nordstream pipelines in the Baltic were probably done for many reasons. Just prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine they conducted tests of space based attack systems. Now they have shown they can attack undersea system and will do…
China’s national security interests revolve around three core issues: its national sovereignty, the security of its sovereign interests, and its economic growth. Current President Xi Jinping has repeatedly used the word “national security” in speeches before the Chinese Communist Party to underscore its importance to China’s continued rise as a global leader. According to a…
The debate about the “dual hat” leadership structure of the NSA and Cyber Command has evolved into a study group effort (announced by the White House this week) to review the fact that “both Cyber Command and NSA have always been helmed by the same military officer, a role currently filled by Army Gen. Paul…
Dick’s Sporting Goods has reported that its internal systems have been breached. Dick’s Sporting Goods has informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that its internal systems have been breached. The cyber attack was able to access confidential company information and is still on going. There is no publicly available information at this time as to…
CISA has added a new flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog. A vulnerability of the Apache OFBiz system has been added to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog after CISA has received information about in the wild exploitation. This vulnerability is related to a previously patched vulnerability in the Apache OFBiz system. There are currently…
Google has increased the rewards for identifying Chrome vulnerabilities. Google has significantly increased the rewards available to those that identify vulnerabilities in Chrome. The highest rewards are available to those that can demonstrate remote code execution in non-sandbox environments. Additional rewards are available for those that demonstrate flaws in MiraclePtr and flaws related to memory…
After creating an impressive (not to mention somewhat TikTok famous) AI-powered voice recorder, Plaud is launching a more ambitious gadget: a wearable designed to be with you all the time, recording your notes and meetings and helping you get stuff done. The device is called the NotePin, and the pill-shaped gadget and accessory lineup seems…
Earlier this summer, the San Francisco-based AI startup Anthropic — a leading rival of OpenAI when it comes to developing useful new large language models (LLMs) — unveiled a surprise new feature it called “Artifacts.” The feature allowed users of Anthropic’s Claude family of LLMs and chatbots on the web to enable a new window…
If you’re stressing over cloud cost increases, you’re not alone. Three out of every five organizations saw cloud spending increase in the past year, with nearly four in 10 who experienced price hikes saying their costs jumped by more than 25% — this according to a recent survey of IT professionals commissioned by cloud provider…
While two-legged humanoid robots are super-popular right now from manufacturers like Apptronik, Amazon (in partnership with Agility Robotics), Sanctuary AI, Figure.ai, Tesla, and Fourier Intelligence, it’s likely that robot innovation will diversify rather than consolidate over the next few years as we enter an emerging golden age of robotics. At least, that’s my key takeaway…
U.S. technology companies are pursuing energy assets held by bitcoin miners as they race to secure a shrinking supply of electricity for their rapidly expanding artificial intelligence and cloud computing data centers. Those data centers are driving the fastest U.S. power demand growth since the start of the millennium, outpacing grid expansions and leaving giant…
Yesterday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico announced that the Mexican government is “pausing” relations with the U.S. Embassy. This statement follows months of building tensions in Mexico. López Obrador has been making plans to rebuild the judiciary, affecting both diplomatic ties with the U.S. and Mexico’s political system. Now, the pause in relations…
Israel has launched a major raid on the occupied West Bank, deploying hundreds of soldiers as well as jets and drones. At least nine Palestinians have been killed thus far in the attack. This large-scale ground and air attack is the largest such operation in around two decades. The raid began early this morning and…
Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, arrived in Beijing, China yesterday. As Biden’s top aide, Sullivan will aim to address various national security issues with China before a new administration enters office. Among these issues, Sullivan will discuss how the U.S. and China can work together to address fentanyl and expand high-level military contacts.…
The Israeli military says that special forces have rescued a captive from a Gaza tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip. The captive, Kaid Farhan al-Kadi, is a 52-year-old who was captured by Hamas. During Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, he was working as a warehouse guard in southern Israel when he was abducted. Al-Kadi…
In April, a BlackSuit ransomware attack on Young Consulting was discovered. The software solutions provider is now notifying over 950,000 individuals whose information was compromised in the data breach. The company found that the attackers were able to access its network between April 10 and April 13. The hackers stole personal information such as names,…
This week, the U.S. Department of State announced that it is offering a $2.5 million reward for information which leads to the arrest of Volodymyr Kadariya. Kadariya is a Belarusian national who is allegedly a mass malware distributor. He was indicted in June 2023 with multiple charges including wire fraud conspiracy, computer fraud conspiracy, and…
Researchers have discovered a new phishing campaign using Microsoft Sway. The attacks are being referred to as a “Quishing” campaign. Quishing is a method of phishing which uses QR codes leading to malicious pages. The campaign is primarily focusing on victims in Asia and North America. Anyone with a Microsoft account can access Microsoft’s Sway,…
USDoD’s identity has been revealed through investigations by CrowdStrike and others. USDoD is an infamous hacker known for leaking high-profile data from various large organizations. Some of his targets have been the FBI, Airbus, TransUnion, National Public Data (NPD), and even CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike distributed a private report last week revealing USDoD’s identity as 33-year-old Luan…
Later this fall, Apple will ship a brand new, Apple Intelligence-infused Siri in iOS 18.1. The revamped digital assistant will gain a variety of new features that hopefully make it smarter than ever. But according to a new report, there’s another AI ‘personality’ in the works at Apple. This other personality, entirely separate from Siri,…
OpenAI, Adobe and Microsoft have thrown their support behind a California bill requiring tech companies to label AI-generated content, according to letters from the companies viewed by TechCrunch. The bill is headed for a final vote in August. AB 3211 requires watermarks in the metadata of AI-generated photos, videos and audio clips. Lots of AI companies…
AI is finally beginning to fulfill its massive transformative potential, as evidenced by the spate of new AI-enabled products across text, images, video, audio, and more. But as far as production-ready products go, one modality has thus far been notably less present from this ongoing Cambrian explosion of AI: physical actions. The types of physical actions…
Generative AI models aren’t actually humanlike. They have no intelligence or personality — they’re simply statistical systems predicting the likeliest next words in a sentence. But like interns at a tyrannical workplace, they do follow instructions without complaint — including initial “system prompts” that prime the models with their basic qualities and what they should…
Apple has announced the date of its next major event, where the iPhone 16 is expected to launch. On Monday, September 9 the tech giant is hosting a special event with the tag line “It’s Glowtime.” The event will take place at 10 am PT at the Steve Jobs Theater in Apple Park and will…
Dam failure in Sudan leaves dozens dead and major city without water. A dam failure in eastern Sudan has left dozens dead and destroyed a number of settlements. The dam’s reservoir also served as the primary water source for the de facto capital of the government, Port Sudan. Aid groups say that the city is…
Russia has launched large scale attack against Ukrainian infrastructure. Russia has launched its largest strike of the war to date against Ukrainian infrastructure. Missiles and drones targeted facilities across the country and caused damaged to critical infrastructure such as dams and railways. The Ukrainian armed forces claimed to have intercepted large numbers of missiles and…
Following an exchange of fire over the weekend, Israeli officials have not ruled out future operations. Following a series of strikes by both sides over the weekend, Israeli officials have said the situation on the Lebanon border is still not acceptable. Government assistance for displaced Israeli citizens has been extended through September leading some to…
A new report estimates that China has spent over $15 billion dollars on exercises in the Pacific in 2023. An internal report conducted by the Armed Forces of Taiwan estimated that China spent over $15 billion dollars on exercises in the Pacific in 2023. This estimate was produced in order to help Taiwan develop its…
SonicWall has issued a patch for an improper access control bug. SonicWall has issued a statement that a patch has been released to protect against an improper access control bug. The bug could allow malicious actors to bypass and shutdown firewalls. The company has said that is it not aware of any in the wild…
Versa Networks systems have been attacked by Chinese APT Volt Typhoon. Malware hunters have found that the Chinese APT Volt Typhoon have exploited a zero-day vulnerability in Versa Director systems. CISA has moved to classify this vulnerability as a “must patch” vulnerability due to this attack. Versa Networks released a statement saying that clients which…
Texas Dow Employees Credit Union is notifying customers that their personal data was stolen. The Texas Dow Employees Credit Union (TDECU) is notifying customers that their personal data was stolen in 2023. TDECU’s systems were compromised in 2023 as part of the MOVEit zero-day exploit by the Russian ransomware group, Cl0p. TDECU has said that…
A newly identified flaw in LiteSpeed could impact millions of WordPress sites. Researchers have identified a flaw in the LiteSpeed plugin that could allow malicious actors to gain administrative access to WordPress pages. A patch has been released for the vulnerability. Exploitation of the flaw has already begun with nearly 60,000 attacks taking place in…
China’s tech giants have doubled capital spending this year as they splurge on artificial intelligence infrastructure, despite US sanctions designed to limit the country’s progress in the crucial technology. Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu had combined capital expenditure of Rmb50bn ($7bn) in the first half, compared with Rmb23bn a year earlier. The groups said the focus…
IBM is shutting down its China research and development department, the latest retreat from the country by top U.S. technology companies. The company is moving its China R&D functions to other overseas facilities, Jack Hergenrother, an IBM executive, told employees at a virtual meeting on Monday morning, according to employees who attended. Hergenrother said IBM faced…
We’ve long been fascinated with the idea of having robots around the house to take care of daily chores, freeing us up for more interesting pursuits. Though it would be cool to think that a robot like the Jetsons’ Rosey is just around the corner, we’re going to have to wait a bit longer for…
AI-driven coding assistants have amassed nearly $1bn of funding since the start of last year, a signal that software engineering is becoming the first “killer app” for generative artificial intelligence. Companies such as Replit, Anysphere, Magic, Augment, Supermaven and Poolside AI raised $433mn so far this year alone, bringing the total since January 2023 to…
The internet is becoming awash in words and images generated by artificial intelligence. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, wrote in February that the company generated about 100 billion words per day — a million novels’ worth of text, every day, an unknown share of which finds its way onto the internet. A.I.-generated text may show up as…
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has supervised a test of domestically-developed attack drones, state media KCNA reported. Photos published by North Korean media on Monday showed a white drone with X-shaped tails and wings crashing into and destroying a target resembling South Korea’s K-2 main battle tank. Kim, who was pictured at a desk…
China’s military has stepped up army and police patrols along its western border with Myanmar amid deepening conflict between the military regime and armed groups opposed to its coup. Fighting has escalated there since late last year when ethnic armed groups formed an alliance to push the military from the area. A Beijing-brokered truce in…
With fears rising that a wider war could break out in the Middle East, the United States has steadily been moving Navy forces closer to the area, including two aircraft carrier groups and a guided-missile submarine. This is a clear effort to deter Iran and its allies from more intense attacks on Israel. While the…
Amid fears of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, the two sides on Sunday mounted the biggest round of cross-border strikes since the war in Gaza began. Within hours, both sides appeared to de-escalate, at least temporarily, but signaled that the violence and dangerous tensions could continue. For weeks, Israelis have…
The Dutch Data Protection Authority has fined Uber €290 million ($320 million) for alleged failure to protect drivers’ personal information in EU-US data transfers. Uber strongly refutes the decision and it plans on filing an appeal. The Data Protection Authority (DPA) in the Netherlands says Uber collects information such as taxi licenses, location data, photos,…
The Port of Seattle and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac) have been struck this weekend by a cyberattack that disrupted operations and left thousands of travelers scrambling. This incident serves as a stark warning of the persistent and escalating threats we face. The Port of Seattle and Sea-Tac Airport’s system outages, which began on Saturday morning,…
Some CrowdStrike customers complained on Thursday about degraded performance, which the cybersecurity giant blamed on a cloud service issue. Fortunately, unlike last month when a bad CrowdStrike update caused significant disruptions to major organizations around the world, this time the issue only caused some services not to work properly and slowed down systems. CrowdStrike rushed…
An Iranian hacking group tried to go after the WhatsApp accounts of staffers in the administrations of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, Meta Platforms said Friday. Meta said it discovered the network of hackers, who posed as tech support agents for companies including AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, after individuals who received…
Nearly two years since ChatGPT sparked a global generative AI fever, CIOs have turned talk into action, shifting priorities, setting up experiments and mitigating roadblocks along the way. But as enthusiasm for generative AI shows signs of cooling, tech leaders will likely need to recalibrate their strategy. Generative AI is approaching a moment of reckoning,…
For centuries, the biggest goal of science was alchemy — to turn lead into gold. It turns out this is actually possible in nuclear physics and is called transmutation. Bombard mercury with neutrons in a nuclear reactor or particle accelerator…and presto! Gold. Today, thanks to AI, we are witnessing potentially the greatest transmutation in history.…
Meta and Spotify are once again teaming up — this time, on the matter of open source (or to be precise, open-weight) AI which the companies claim are being hampered by regulations. In joint statements published to both companies’ respective websites on Friday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek complain that EU…
Hugging Face, the open-source AI powerhouse, has taken a significant step towards democratizing low-cost robotics with the release of a detailed tutorial that guides developers through the process of building and training their own AI-powered robots. The tutorial, published today, builds upon the company’s LeRobot platform launched in May and marks a significant move to…
State-linked Chinese entities are using cloud services provided by Amazon or its rivals to access advanced U.S. chips and artificial intelligence capabilities that they cannot acquire otherwise, recent public tender documents showed. The U.S. government has restricted the export of high-end AI chips to China over the past two years, citing the need to limit…
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that in an overnight raid, Ukrainian forces attempted to strike the Kursk Nuclear Power Station. While Putin did not provide any evidence behind his claims, he said that Russia informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about the attack. The IAEA is the United Nations nuclear watchdog. Ukraine has not…
Today, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Kyiv, Ukraine where he was greeted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. This is India’s first visit to Ukraine by a prime minister since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The two leaders will begin talks today in a “friendly” and “historic” visit. It is expected…
Almost all rail freight traffic in Canada was shut down for a little less than 17 hours. How, the federal government has ordered arbitration and the end of the shutdown. The shutdown was threatening to disrupt the U.S. supply chain and harm Canada’s economy. Canada’s labor minister, Steve MacKinnon, said that he expects trains to…
On Thursday, Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice ruled that Nicolàs Maduro won the country’s presidential election in July. The ruling comes amidst overwhelming evidence that Maduro’s opponent instead received the most votes. The court stated that “national and international experts” and tally reports from the vote machines verified Maduro’s victory. However, the court is filled…
A new information stealer is being used to target Apple users. The malware is called “Cthulhu Stealer” and is written in Golang but disguised as legitimate software. Victims who launch the unsigned file are asked to enter various passwords. Cthulhu Stealer can then harvest system information and access iCloud Keychain passwords. The malware also is…
A Latvian national is being charged in the U.S. for his activity involving the Karakurt cybercrime group. He was living in Moscow, Russia but has now been extradited to the U.S. this month. The Latvian, Deniss Zolotarjovs, is being charged with stealing data, extorting victims, and laundering ransom payments for the past three years. Zolotarjovs…
A near-field communication (NFC) traffic stealer is targeting Android users to obtain their banking information. NFC allows devices to communicate wirelessly when nearby. The attacker calls victims pretending to be a bank employee and notifies them about a security incident on their card. They ask for the victim to change their PIN and verify their…
Velvet Ant, a China-linked hacking group, used a CLI command injection zero-day to install malware on Cisco Nexus switches. Velvet Ant is a little known but accomplished espionage group. The hackers gained access to the Nexus switch by using valid administrator credentials. Then, they used a command injection vulnerability to jailbreak the device, giving them…
As AI tools become increasingly accessible, companies face a new trend: BYOAI or Bring Your Own AI. Sometimes also referred to as Shadow AI, this trend, reminiscent of the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) movement, is reshaping how employees interact with technology in the workplace. As AI tools become more accessible and user-friendly, workers are…
Silicon Valley’s tech bros are having a difficult few weeks. A growing number of investors worry that artificial intelligence (AI) will not deliver the vast profits they seek. Since peaking last month the share prices of Western firms driving the ai revolution have dropped by 15%. A growing number of observers now question the limitations…
In a new letter, OpenAI chief strategy officer Jason Kwon insists that AI regulations should be left to the federal government. As reported previously by Bloomberg, Kwon says that a new AI safety bill under consideration in California could slow progress and cause companies to leave the state. A federally-driven set of AI policies, rather than…
Even the most capable robots aren’t great at sensing human touch; you typically need a computer science degree or at least a tablet to interact with them effectively. That may change, thanks to robots that can now sense and interpret touch without being covered in high-tech artificial skin. It’s a significant step toward robots that…
Is AI going to eliminate a lot of developers’ jobs? There is a gulf between developers and the general population when it comes to answering that question. If you were to ask developers if they think their jobs are in danger in the near term, most of them will quickly tell you that there is no…
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