Computer law

The FBI says it has disrupted a long-running malware operation that allowed Russian spies to steal sensitive information from numerous countries, including NASA-member governments, prominent journalists, and other targets deemed to be of interest to the Russian government. The court-authorized operation, codenamed MEDUSA, disrupted a global peer-to-peer network of computers compromised by sophisticated malware called “Snake,” described by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) as the “premier cyberespionage malware” of…

As sure as night follows day, scammers have been quick to take an interest in ChatGPT, the advanced AI-powered chatbot from Microsoft-backed OpenAI that burst onto the scene in November. In a new security report posted by Meta on Wednesday, the company formerly known as Facebook said that since March alone, its security analysts have uncovered around 10 types of malware posing as ChatGPT and similar AI-based tools that aim to compromise online accounts, especially those of businesses. The scams could be delivered…

It’s a long-held belief that Macs are less at risk of malware and viruses than Windows PCs, but how true is that? Well, a new report has shed some light on the situation — and the results might surprise you. According to threat research firm Elastic Security Labs, roughly 39% of all malware infections happen on Windows PCs. In good news for Apple fans, only 6% of breaches occurred on macOS, making Mac systems far less vulnerable than their Windows counterparts. Sora Shimazaki / Pexels Yet Linux infections topped both…

Apple released an “extreme safety” measure bundled with iOS 16 last summer, and it’s targeted at sophisticated spyware that is usually deployed covertly against government agencies. It appears that Apple’s safety tool is effective, to a certain extent, against Pegasus — one of the most devastating surveillance attacks ever documented.  Citizen Lab, the security group based at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, has detailed a pair of zero-click exploits that targeted iOS 15…

ChatGPT is very simple to get started on. It’s free to sign up for, and you can either use your own email address or log in with your Google or Microsoft account. But you may have noticed that ChatGPT also asks for your phone number. Given all the concern over whether ChatGPT is safe to use, that may have thrown you for a loop, which begs the question — why does ChatGPT need your number after all? Hatice Baran / Unsplash Why ChatGPT requires a phone number Like many things you sign up for online, ChatGPT…

A self-professed novice has reportedly created a powerful data-mining malware using just ChatGPT prompts, all within a span of a few hours. Aaron Mulgrew, a Forcepoint security researcher, recently shared how he created zero-day malware exclusively on OpenAI’s generative chatbot. While OpenAI has protections against anyone attempting to ask ChatGPT to write malicious code, Mulgrew found a loophole by prompting the chatbot to create separate lines of the malicious code, function by function. After compiling…

The IRS-authorized tax preparation software service eFile.com recently suffered a JavaScript malware attack in the middle of tax season, according to BleepingComputer. The nefarious JavaScript file has been identified as popper.js and has been observed by eFile.com users as well as by security researchers. The malware is believed to have surfaced on the service around mid-March and has interacted with “almost every page of eFile.com, at least up until April 1st,” the publication added. Encountering this…

ChatGPT has been temporarily banned in Italy due to privacy concerns and faces a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint in the U.S. that calls for new releases of ChatGPT to be halted. According to the Associated Press, the Italian Data Protection Authority will maintain the ban “until ChatGPT respects privacy.” The problem with user data being visible to others during ChatGPT’s March 20 outage was mentioned as the reason for this action. No details were shared about how this ban would be enforced or…

Europol this week issued a stark warning highlighting the risks posed by criminals as  they get to grips with the new wave of advanced AI chatbots. In a post shared online this week, Europe’s law enforcement agency described how tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and GPT-4, and Google’s Bard, will be increasingly used by criminals looking for new ways to con members of the public. It identified three specific areas that concern it most. First up is fraud and social engineering, where emails are sent to targets…

A security researcher was recently able to change the top results in Microsoft’s Bing search engine and access any user’s private files, potentially putting millions of users at risk — and all it took was logging into an unsecured web page. The exploit was discovered by researcher Hillai Ben-Sasson at their team at Wiz, a cloud security firm. According to Ben-Sasson, it would not only allow an attacker to change Bing search results, but would also grant them access to millions of users’ private files and data.…