Researchers
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The new ransomware groups worrying security researchers in 2025
Ransomware gangs are being arrested and taken down, but the threat from the data locking malware doesn’t go away. In 2024, a number of completely new ransomware gangs entered the fray. Take, for example, up and coming group Termite, which claimed responsibility for the Blue Yonder cyber-attack, or the AI-assisted Funksec group. The last year has seen fragmentation in the…
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Virginia Tech researchers raise red flags about mixed-reality security – Computerworld
“There are only a few collaboration platforms in use today for enterprise and defense, and a good chunk of the potentially vulnerable collaboration tools most likely don’t connect to the open internet,” Sag said. “That’s why I think a lot of the implementations that the government wants to use — or any kind of secure applications like enterprises [rely on] —…
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There’s a new ransomware player on the scene: the ‘BlackLock’ group has become one of the most prolific operators in the cyber crime industry – and researchers warn it’s only going to get worse for potential victims
The BlackLock ransomware group has become one of the most prolific operators in the Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) ecosystem, with experts warning it could accelerate its growth over the next year. Also known as El Dorado, BlackLock was ranked as the the seventh most active ransomware group based on the number of posts on its data leak site by…
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Researchers trained an OpenAI rival in half an hour for less than $50
To do this, researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington used a method known as distillation — which allows smaller models to draw from the answers produced by larger ones — to refine s1 using answers from Google’s AI reasoning model, Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental. Google’s terms of service note that you can’t use Gemini’s API to “develop…
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Researchers Just Found Photo-Scanning Malware on Apple’s App Store for the First Time
Not all apps are safe. It’s why I always recommend downloading apps from official app stores, like the iOS App Store and Google Play Store, rather than a random website: Apple and Google both have policies to scan for malware and stop them before reaching app stores. But neither company is perfect, and apps infected with malware end up on…
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Almost half of US organizations still using Kaspersky, researchers claim
Almost half (40%) of US organizations are still using Kaspersky software despite a ban enacted in the summer, new research from Bitsight has revealed. Though the ban went into effect months ago, active use of Kaspersky products remains high, with more than 1,000 US organizations observed to be connecting to Kaspersky servers post-ban. Bitsight said only 58% of US organizations…
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Researchers claim an AMD security flaw could let hackers access encrypted data
Researchers have exposed an issue with the memory implementation on AMD’s data center chips that could threaten the integrity of data, but the chipmaker has hit back at the claims. In a paper due to be presented at IEEE in 2025, researchers from University of Lübeck, KU Leven, and University of Birmingham highlighted a potential weakness in AMD’s secure encrypted…
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New EagleMsgSpy Android spyware used by Chinese police, researchers say
A previously undocumented Android spyware called ‘EagleMsgSpy’ has been discovered and is believed to be used by law enforcement agencies in China to monitor mobile devices. According to a new report by Lookout, the spyware was developed by Wuhan Chinasoft Token Information Technology Co., Ltd. and has been operational since at least 2017. Lookout presents abundant evidence linking EagleMsgSpy to…
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Security researchers set up an API honeypot to dupe hackers – and the results were startling
Attackers are quick off the mark in targeting and accessing APIs to enter company networks and steal data, according to the results of an API ‘honeypot’. API security firm Wallarm set up their trap last month, and has now reported on its first 20 days of activity. “We expected that it might take longer to have compelling data to report,…
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Are ‘ghost engineers’ stunting productivity in software development? Researchers claim nearly 10% of engineers do “virtually nothing” and are a drain on enterprises
Just under a tenth (9.5%) of software engineers do almost no work, according to new research from academics at Stanford University. One researcher, Yegor Denisov-Blanch, posted the findings to his X account, dubbing the staff who work less than 10% as hard as the median engineer as ‘ghost’ engineers. These engineers do “virtually nothing,” Denisov-Blanch said, and it’s possible that…
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