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‘Phantom Taurus’ created custom malware to hunt secrets across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East

Threat-hunters at Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 have decided a gang they spotted two years ago is backed by China, after seeing it sling a new variety of malware.…

This is one way to add a lot of AI users in a hurry, which Wall Street wants to see

Salesforce developers have called for the SaaS-y CRM giant to wind back a change that saw the AI-powered Agentforce bot replace basic search functions on some online help pages.…

Charlie Javice, founder of college financial-aid startup Frank, was sentenced to over seven years in prison for defrauding JPMorgan by inflating user numbers before the bank's $175 million acquisition. CNN reports: Javice, 33, was convicted in March of duping the banking giant when it bought her company, called Frank, in the summer of 2021. She made false records that made it seem like Frank had over 4 million customers when it had fewer than 300,000. Addressing the court before she was sentenced, Javice, who was in her mid-20s when she founded the company, said she was "haunted that my failure has transformed something meaningful into something infamous." Sometimes speaking through tears, she said she "made a choice that I will spend my entire life regretting." Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein largely dismissed arguments by Javice's lawyer, Ronald Sullivan, that he should be lenient because the negotiations that led to Frank's sale pitted "a 28-year-old versus 300 investment bankers from the largest bank in the world." Still, the judge criticized the bank, saying "they have a lot to blame themselves" for after failing to do adequate due diligence. He quickly added, though, that he was "punishing her conduct and not JPMorgan's stupidity." Javice was among a number of young tech executives who vaulted to fame with supposedly disruptive or transformative companies, only to see them collapse amid questions about whether they had engaged in puffery and fraud while dealing with investors.

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Spotify founder Daniel Ek will step down as CEO by year's end, transitioning to executive chairman after nearly two decades at the helm. In his place will be Gustav Soderstrom and Alex Norstrom as co-CEOs. TechCrunch reports: "Over the last few years, I've turned over a large part of the day-to-day management and strategic direction of Spotify to Alex and Gustav -- who have shaped the company from our earliest days and are now more than ready to guide our next phase," Ek said in a statement. "This change simply matches titles to how we already operate. In my role as Executive Chairman, I will focus on the long arc of the company and keep the Board and our co-CEOs deeply connected through my engagement." In a post on X, Ek also mentioned that Spotify has been profitable for over a year. Ek has served as Spotify's CEO since he founded it in 2006, so this is a big change in leadership for the streaming giant.

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Amazon is replacing Android on new Fire TV hardware with its own Vega OS, debuting on the Fire TV Stick 4K Select. While major streaming apps are supported, sideloading is gone "because, well, this isn't Android anymore," notes 9to5Google. The company says "only apps from the Amazon Appstore are available for download." From the report: The company hasn't fully detailed all of the ins and outs of Vega, but Amazon hints that this is a move in the interest of performance. In a post, Amazon touches on Vega being "remarkably fast" despite the low-end hardware of its new Fire TV Stick 4K Select: "Our newest Fire TV Stick, the 4K Select, helps you maximize every pixel of your 4K TVs at an incredible value. It delivers vibrant 4K picture quality with HDR10+ support and apps that launch remarkably fast. The performance comes from our new operating system, Vega, which is responsive and highly efficient. Everything you need is right in the box -- it works with your favorite streaming services, and will soon support Xbox Gaming, Luna, and Alexa+." As pointed out by AFTVNews, the Fire TV 4K Select offers a mere 1GB of RAM, which is half as much as prior generations. So, in a way, that does speak to how lightweight this new platform is. But the bigger question is around apps. Amazon says that "your favorite streaming services" still work with Vega, and that Xbox, Luna, and Alexa+ will be coming "soon" (though they're already supported on existing Android-based Fire TV devices).

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UMass Amherst research promises better bioelectronic communication

Scientists affiliated with the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed an artificial neuron that can communicate efficiently with biological neurons, a research advance expected to accelerate the development of bioelectronic devices and interfaces.…

It's not just big tech anymore

The North Korean IT worker threat extends well beyond tech companies, with fraudsters interviewing at a "surprising" number of healthcare orgs, according to Okta Threat Intelligence.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A Chinese national has been convicted following an international fraud investigation which resulted in what's believed to be the single largest cryptocurrency seizure in the world. The Metropolitan Police says it recovered 61,000 bitcoin worth more than $6.7 billion in current prices. Zhimin Qian, also known as Yadi Zhang, pleaded guilty on Monday at Southwark Crown Court of illegally acquiring and possessing the cryptocurrency. A second person appeared in court on Tuesday to admit to their role in the scheme. Malaysian national Seng Hok Ling, of Matlock, Derbyshire, pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court of entering into a money laundering arrangement on or before April 23, 2024. According to the charge, he had been dealing in cryptocurrency on Qian's behalf, "knowing or suspecting his actions would facilitate the acquisition or control of criminal property by another." Between 2014 and 2017 Qian led a large-scale scam in China which involved cheating more than 128,000 victims and storing the stolen funds in bitcoin assets, the Met said in a statement. It said the 47-year-old's guilty plea followed a seven-year probe into a global money laundering web which began when it got a tipoff about the transfer of criminal assets. Qian had been "evading justice" for five years up to her arrest, which required a complex investigation involving multiple jurisdictions, said Detective Sergeant Isabella Grotto, who led the Met's investigation. She fled China using false documents and entered the UK, where she attempted to launder the stolen money by buying property, said the Met. "By pleading guilty today, Ms Zhang hopes to bring some comfort to investors who have waited since 2017 for compensation, and to reassure them that the significant rise in cryptocurrency values means there are more than sufficient funds available to repay their losses," said Qian's solicitor Roger Sahota, of Berkeley Square Solicitors. "Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are increasingly being used by organised criminals to disguise and transfer assets, so that fraudsters may enjoy the benefits of their criminal conduct," added deputy chief Crown prosecutor, Robin Weyell. "This case, involving the largest cryptocurrency seizure in the UK, illustrates the scale of criminal proceeds available to those fraudsters."

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Alongside its updated Sora 2 AI video generator, OpenAI has launched an iPhone-only social app called Sora that lets users consent to have friends create deepfake-style cameos of them. The invite-only app works a lot like TikTok with short remixable videos but enforces restrictions on public figures and explicit content. The Verge reports: In a briefing with reporters on Monday, employees called it the potential "ChatGPT moment for video generation." The Sora app is currently only available to US and Canada users, with other countries set to follow, and when someone receives access, they also get four additional invites to share with friends. There's no word on when an Android version might be released. Sora users can give their friends -- or, if they're feeling bold, everyone -- permission to create "cameos" with their own likeness using the new video model, which is dubbed Sora 2. The person whose likeness is being generated is a "co-owner" of that end result, OpenAI employees said, and they can delete it or revoke access to others at any time. Like TikTok, OpenAI's Sora app allows you to interact with other videos and trends using a "Remix" feature, but it only allows for the generation of 10-second videos for now.

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Plaintext transmissions, fixed MAC addresses, rotating 'unique' IDs, and more, make abuse easy

Tile Bluetooth trackers leak identifying data in plain text, giving stalkers an easy way to track victims despite Life360's security promises, a group of Georgia Tech researchers warns.…

Starting in November, Venmo and PayPal users will finally be able to send money directly to each other, ending years of workarounds despite Venmo being owned by PayPal. TechCrunch reports: This change means that PayPal users will now be able to find Venmo users by inputting their phone numbers, and later, their email addresses. If you don't want PayPal users to be able to find you, you can update your settings in the Venmo app by navigating to Settings - Privacy - Find me... and while you're at it, you might as well default your Venmo transactions to private via Settings > Privacy. You'll thank me in the long run. PayPal announced that it would broaden its network of payment systems in July, starting with Venmo, but the companies did not confirm the date of the update until now. This collection of partnerships, which PayPal has named PayPal World, will also work with Mercado Pago, NPCI International Payments Limited, and Tenpay Global. This will help users send money internationally without barriers and fees. Combined, Venmo and PayPal have 2 billion global users, according to PayPal.

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Yep, we're sure that will win folks over

Microsoft is testing talking avatars for Copilot to see if users feel more at ease chatting with a face instead of just a text box. Our US Editor tried them out, only to find the digital stare was more creepy than comforting.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted on Tuesday to consider whether to lift the long-standing prohibition on a merger between any of the largest four broadcast networks and to consider relaxing other media ownership rules. The FCC said it would consider public comments before deciding whether to reverse the rule that bars a merger among the "Big Four" networks: NBC, owned by Comcast, Walt Disney Co's ABC, Paramount Skydance's CBS or Fox. The FCC also said it was seeking public comment on whether to eliminate or revise a rule that limits a single entity from owning more than two of the four largest television stations in the same local market and a rule that limits the total number of local radio stations that may be owned in a single market. Previously, the FCC noted that a version of the rule barring dual ownership of networks has existed since the 1940s. A 2018 media ownership review concluded the bar should be upheld "because it advances the agency's core policy objectives of competition and localism. "We intend to take a fresh approach to competition by examining the broader media marketplace, rather than treating broadcast radio and television as isolated markets," FCC Chair Brendan Carr said. "If we determine that any rule no longer serves the public interest, we will fulfill our statutory duty to modify or eliminate those rules."

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Stopping the spread isn't the same as stopping attacks, period

Google on Tuesday rolled out a new AI tool in Drive for desktop that it says will pause syncing to limit ransomware damage, but it won't stop attacks outright.…

"sfw" stands for Socket Firewall, but perhaps also "safe for work."

Software security biz Socket has released a free command line tool to defend developers against supply chain attacks.…

Company faces a setback on the test stand

Firefly Aerospace's run of bad luck has continued after the first stage of its Alpha Flight 7 rocket was lost during testing.…

Linux-based System z emulator will go away on Dec. 31, replaced by cloud-based solution from ISVs

IBM is killing off a mainframe coding toolkit for PCs and withdrawing all support, directing developers to instead use a cloud-hosted environment for dev and test purposes.…

Microsoft began rolling out Windows 11 version 25H2 today, delivering the annual update as a compact enablement package to users who enable the "get the latest updates as soon as they're available" toggle in Windows Update. The company tested the release in its Windows Insider Release Preview ring during the previous month before the broader rollout.Version 25H2 shares its code base and servicing branch with the existing 24H2 release. Both versions will receive identical monthly feature updates going forward. The update removes PowerShell 2.0 and the Windows Management Instrumentation command-line tool to reduce the operating system's footprint. John Cable, vice president of program management for Windows servicing and delivery, said the release includes advancements in build and runtime vulnerability detection paired with AI-assisted secure coding. Microsoft designed the version to address security threats under its security development lifecycle policy requirements. The company plans to expand availability over the coming months and will document known compatibility issues on its Windows release health hub. Devices with detected application or driver incompatibilities will receive safeguard holds that delay the update until resolution.

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DashCam's autonomous vehicle may strike fear into the hearts... of delivery drivers

Rise of the machines Machines may soon be taking over the mean streets of suburban America . . . in the form of Dot by DoorDash. However, it'll be groceries and take-outs that it delivers rather than justice.…

LLM makers have to file a steady stream of reports in the name of transparency

A year after vetoing a tougher bill, California Gov Gavin Newsom has signed the nation's first AI transparency law, forcing big model developers to publish frameworks and file incident reports, but critics argue it's more paperwork than protection.…