Google recently announced significantly boosted rewards for Chrome browser vulnerabilities reported through its Vulnerability Reward Program (VRP).  With the updated rewards, Google says security researchers may earn as much as $250,000 for a single issue or even more if specific conditions are met.  As before, the highest payouts will go to researchers who demonstrate memory corruption bugs in non-sandboxed processes.

The Play ransomware group has recently published gigabytes of data allegedly stolen from US-based semiconductor supplier Microchip Technology.  The company revealed that operations at some of its manufacturing facilities were disrupted due to the attack. Microchip provides microcontroller, mixed-signal, analog, and Flash-IP solutions to 123,000 customers across the industrial, automotive, consumer, aerospace and defense, communications, and computing sectors.

Today, the National Security Agency (NSA) released a copy of an internal lecture delivered by Rear Admiral Grace Hopper from August 19, 1982. Known as one of the most influential figures in the development of early computing technologies, Hopper’s contributions have left an indelible mark on the field of computer science, particularly in the realm of programming languages. The lecture, which Hopper delivered during her tenure at the NSA, provides a rare glimpse into the thoughts and expertise of a woman who played a pivotal role in shaping modern computing.

According to security researchers at Chainalysis, online fraudsters are rapidly adapting their activities to run more impactful scams of shorter duration.  The researchers noted that online scams are one of the largest areas of illegal activity that they monitor, with billions of dollars worth of crypto flowing to illicit accounts in the year to date (YTD).

According to security researchers at Comparitech, ransomware attacks on US schools and colleges have surged in recent years, with 491 incidents recorded since 2018, impacting over 8000 educational institutions and exposing 6.7 million individual records.  The researchers noted that in 2023, the number of attacks reached a record high of 121, marking a significant increase from the 71 attacks reported in 2022. The average downtime per attack has also grown, rising from just under nine days in 2021 to 12.6 days in 2023.

By grigby1 

By krahal

The backdrop flurry of the US presidential election on 5 November comes with increasing cyber heat, for worse, and with counter measures, somewhat better.

By grigby1

Hundreds of open source Large Language Model (LLM) builder servers and dozens of vector databases leak sensitive data to the web. There is a rush among companies to implement Artificial Intelligence (AI) into their business workflows, but not enough attention is paid to securing these tools and the information they handle. Naphtali Deutsch, a researcher at Legit Security, scanned the web for two potentially vulnerable open source AI services: vector databases, which store data for AI tools, and LLM application builders, such as Flowise.

"Peach Sandstorm," an Iran-backed hacking group, has created a new custom multi-stage backdoor to infiltrate targets during cyber espionage operations. Microsoft Threat Intelligence named the new malware "Tickler," which has been used in attacks against targets in the satellite, communications equipment, oil and gas as well as federal and state government sectors. Microsoft Threat Intelligence discovered two samples of the Tickler malware launched by Peach Sandstorm in compromised environments between April and July 2024.