Lifeboat Foundation

Authentication service Okta is warning about the “unprecedented scale” of an ongoing campaign that routes fraudulent login requests through the mobile devices and browsers of everyday users in an attempt to conceal the malicious behavior.

The attack, Okta said, uses other means to camouflage the login attempts as well, including the TOR network and so-called proxy services from providers such as NSOCKS, Luminati, and DataImpulse, which can also harness users’ devices without their knowledge. In some cases, the affected mobile devices are running malicious apps. In other cases, users have enrolled their devices in proxy services in exchange for various incentives.

Unidentified adversaries then use these devices in credential-stuffing attacks, which use large lists of login credentials obtained from previous data breaches in an attempt to access online accounts. Because the requests come from IP addresses and devices with good reputations, network security devices don’t give them the same level of scrutiny as logins from virtual private servers (VPS) that come from hosting services threat actors have used for years.

A US bank is facing a proposed class action lawsuit for allegedly failing to protect its customers’ sensitive personal information and suffering a massive data breach.

SouthState Bank, which has over $45 billion in assets, is being hit with a class action lawsuit led by plaintiff Latonya Gore in Florida, filings show.

The suit concerns a February 2024 data breach that compromised the banks’ clients’ full names, financial account numbers and Social Security numbers.

Security researchers have uncovered a chilling global epidemic: an old malware that has been spreading uncontrollably for years. Despite its creators seemingly abandoning the project years ago, this insidious USB worm has lived on, potentially infecting millions of new machines around the world.

The worm, which first hit the scene in 2019 as a new variant of the infamous PlugX malware, had a devious trick up its sleeve. It could automatically copy itself onto any USB drive connected to an infected machine, allowing it to hitch a ride and infect new computers without any user interaction required.

But at some point, the hackers abandoned the malware’s command-and-control server, essentially cutting off their ability to oversee the infected machines. One might assume this would be the end of the line for the pesky worm, but that was not the case.

It is a common hack to stretch a balloon out to make it easier to inflate. When the balloon stretches, the width crosswise shrinks to the size of a string. Noah Stocek, a PhD student collaborating with Western University physicist Giovanni Fanchini, has developed a new nanomaterial that demonstrates the opposite of this phenomenon.

Working at Interface Science Western, home of the Tandetron Accelerator Facility, Stocek, and Fanchini formulated two-dimensional nanosheets of tungsten semi-carbide (or W2C, a chemical compound containing equal parts of tungsten and carbon atoms) which when stretched in one direction, expand perpendicular to the applied force. This structural design is known as auxetics.

Russian military intelligence hackers have been exploiting a Windows vulnerability since at least 2020 according to a new Microsoft report. Here’s what you need to know.

Cyber attackers are experimenting with their latest ransomware on businesses in Africa, Asia, and South America before targeting richer countries that have more sophisticated security methods.

Hackers have adopted a “strategy” of infiltrating systems in the developing world before moving to higher-value targets such as in North America and Europe, according to a report published on Wednesday by cyber security firm Performanta.

“Adversaries are using developing countries as a platform where they can test their malicious programs before the more resourceful countries are targeted,” the company told Banking Risk and Regulation, a service from FT Specialist.

In China, scientists say they’re developing technology that uses lasers to propel submarines nearly as fast as a jet engine.

As the South China Morning Post reports, engineers at the Harbin Engineering University in Heilongjiang province — where, notably, China’s first experimental submarine was developed — claim that the country’s military is close to achieving this colossal feat.

The idea behind the burgeoning technology is ingenious: lasers generate plasma underwater, which then creates a so-called “detonation wave” to propel a submarine vessel forward. As the SCMP notes, Japanese researchers first proposed this sort of laser propulsion methodology 20 years ago, and in China, scientists have been trying to figure out how to hack it for at least a decade.

It is a common hack to stretch a balloon out to make it easier to inflate. When the balloon stretches, the width crosswise shrinks to the size of a string. Noah Stocek, a Ph.D. student collaborating with Western physicist Giovanni Fanchini, has developed a new nanomaterial that demonstrates the opposite of this phenomenon.

Quantum computers, systems that process and store information leveraging quantum mechanical phenomena, could eventually outperform classical computers on numerous tasks. Among other things, these computers could allow researchers to tackle complex optimization problems, speed up drug discovery and better protect users against cyber-security threats.