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Submission + - DarkSide Ransomware Gang Quits After Servers, Bitcoin Stash Seized (krebsonsecurity.com)

Submitted by BeerFartMoron
BeerFartMoron writes: The DarkSide ransomware affiliate program responsible for the six-day outage at Colonial Pipeline this week that led to fuel shortages and price spikes across the country is running for the hills. The crime gang announced it was closing up shop after its servers were seized and someone drained the cryptocurrency from an account the group uses to pay affiliates.

“Servers were seized (country not named), money of advertisers and founders was transferred to an unknown account,” reads a message from a cybercrime forum reposted to the Russian OSINT Telegram channel.

“A few hours ago, we lost access to the public part of our infrastructure,” the message continues, explaining the outage affected its victim shaming blog where stolen data is published from victims who refuse to pay a ransom. The outage also took down its payment server and those that supply its distributed denial-of-service feature, which is used to turn up the heat on victims who balk at paying.

“Also, a few hours after the withdrawal, funds from the payment server (ours and clients’) were withdrawn to an unknown address,” the DarkSide admin says.

DarkSide organizers also said they were releasing decryption tools for all of the companies that have been ransomed but which haven’t yet paid.

“After that, you will be free to communicate with them wherever you want in any way you want,” the instructions read.

Submission + - Some vaccines only 10% effective against COVID variants (healthdata.org)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Data from a COVID-19 vaccine efficacy summary by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) reveals that the AstraZenica jab is only 10% effective against the B.1.351 & P.1 variants. B.1.351 emerged in South Africa, and P.1 in Brazil. mRNA vaccines are the most effective (Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and Sputnik-V), with other vaccines trailing behind. The British government is considering Pfizer booster shots for those who received the AstraZenica vaccine.

Submission + - SPAM: The Question About the Pipeline Shutdown that No One is Asking 1

Submitted by Nicola Hahn
Nicola Hahn writes: The real story isn't that part of the country is temporarily suffering gas shortages, it's that a company which generates billions of dollars in revenue somehow lacks the basic ability to fend off a mundane threat like ransomware. With the resources that they had at their disposal, how pray tell did the executives manage to screw things up so badly?

"Ransomware is a pervasive threat. Any chief information officer worth their salt will have the foresight to deploy the controls necessary to sufficiently raise the cost of attacks as well as limit the damage that they incur—particularly when it comes to protecting the American infrastructure. Entire frameworks have been designed for managing cybersecurity. They’ve been around for years. There is even guidance aimed squarely at the energy sector describing how to implement them. The security programs produced by these frameworks almost always involve essential activities like threat modeling and risk assessment, as well as performing table top exercises, penetration testing, and disaster recovery dry runs. It’s all about managing risk and forging a solid incident response playbook."
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Oblique wave detonation engine may unlock Mach 17 aircraft (newatlas.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: “Rotating detonation engines, in which the shockwaves from one detonation are tuned to trigger further detonations within a ring-shaped channel, were thought of as impossible to build right up until researchers at the University of Central Florida (UCF) went ahead and demonstrated a prototype last year in sustained operation. Due for testing in a rocket launch by around 2025, rotating detonation engines should be more efficient than pulse detonation engines simply because the combustion chamber doesn’t need to be cleared out between detonations.”

Submission + - Pentagon Surveilling Americans Without a Warrant, Senator Reveals (vice.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Pentagon is carrying out warrantless surveillance of Americans, according to a new letter written by Senator Ron Wyden and obtained by Motherboard. Senator Wyden's office asked the Department of Defense (DoD), which includes various military and intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), for detailed information about its data purchasing practices after Motherboard revealed special forces were buying location data. The responses also touched on military or intelligence use of internet browsing and other types of data, and prompted Wyden to demand more answers specifically about warrantless spying on American citizens.

Some of the answers the DoD provided were given in a form that means Wyden's office cannot legally publish specifics on the surveillance; one answer in particular was classified. In the letter Wyden is pushing the DoD to release the information to the public. A Wyden aide told Motherboard that the Senator is unable to make the information public at this time, but believes it would meaningfully inform the debate around how the DoD is interpreting the law and its purchases of data. "I write to urge you to release to the public information about the Department of Defense's (DoD) warrantless surveillance of Americans," the letter, addressed to Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, reads.

Submission + - If you prefer city living over nature, you might be a psychopath (nypost.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: City slickers are more likely to be psychotic — or so says a study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, which found a correlation between people who exhibit darker personality traits and a preference for urban over suburban and rural areas.

Using the crowdsourcing website Prolific, researchers at the University of Derby surveyed 304 UK-based adults on their preferred geographical setting, how connected they felt with nature and their personality type. The resulting data showed a correlation between socially averse personality traits — like sadism and narcissism — and being partial to inner-city living. A second study of another 235 UK-based adults concluded similar results.

“Psychopathy is inversely associated with nature connectedness,” authors wrote in the study’s highlight section, noting that “high scoring on psychopathy was associated with a preference for inner-city living, but did not match residential history.”

Their findings are possibly reflective of big-city residents failing to get the quality of life improvements that nature brings to less urban dwellers.

Researchers are still unsure, however, if nature is the chicken or the egg: Do city dwellers become more psychotic because of their lack of a connection to nature, or does the lack of nature make urbanites more prone to becoming psychopaths?

Submission + - New Spaceport Announced in Nova Scotia - Operational in 2023 (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by boudie2
boudie2 writes: Maritime Launch Services has secured financing it says will
allow it to begin construction on a spaceport facility this
fall and get its first launch off the ground in 2022.
The first Cyclone 4M medium-class launch vehicle would take
off in 2023. The company wants to construct a rocket-launching
site in Canso, Nova Scotia to send satellites into orbit for
use in near-earth imaging, communications and scientific
experiments.

President and CEO Steve Matier stated the company has been
approached by small satellite launchers, and MLS is
considering hosting one of them for a first flight to
orbit from the launch site as the facility scales up
its operations. The company is expecting additional
funding for the project will be secured through equity,
debt and launch contracts.

Submission + - Study finds alarming levels of 'forever chemicals' in US mothers' breast milk (theguardian.com) 2

Submitted by Hmmmmmm
Hmmmmmm writes: A new study that checked American women’s breast milk for PFAS contamination detected the toxic chemical in all 50 samples tested, and at levels nearly 2,000 times higher than the level some public health advocates advise is safe for drinking water.

PFAS, or per and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 9,000 compounds that are used to make products like food packaging, clothing and carpeting water and stain resistant. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and have been found to accumulate in humans.

They are linked to cancer, birth defects, liver disease, thyroid disease, plummeting sperm counts and a range of other serious health problems.

The peer-reviewed study, published on Thursday in the Environmental Science and Technology journal, found PFAS at levels in milk ranging from 50 parts per trillion (ppt) to more than 1,850ppt.

Though researchers are concerned by the findings, newborns are difficult to study so there has not been a thorough analysis of how PFAS affect them, said Sheela Sathyanarayana, a co-author of the study and pediatrician with the University of Washington.

But she added that studies of older children and adults have linked the chemicals to hormonal disruptions and suggests PFAS harm the immune system, which could be especially problematic for infants because breast milk bolsters their immune system.

Submission + - Tiny, Wireless, Injectable Chips Use Ultrasound to Monitor Body Processes (columbia.edu)

Submitted by sandbagger
sandbagger writes: Columbia Engineers develop the smallest single-chip system that is a complete functioning electronic circuit; implantable chips visible only in a microscope point the way to developing chips that can be injected into the body with a hypodermic needle to monitor medical conditions.

Sadly, one may also imagine that this technology will become a boogieman amongst the anti-science crowd.

Submission + - SPAM: Sonos Confident in Google Lawsuit Win; Gets Injunction vs. Nest Audio, YouTube

Submitted by CIStud
CIStud writes: Sonos expects to win International Trade Commission decision in August against "widespread infringer" Google. Meanwhile, a German court ruling has stopped the sale of Google Pixel smartphones, Nest speakers and YouTube music app in that nation. Speaking to investors, Sonos chief legal officer Eddie Lazarus says the company estimates Google infringes on more than 150 of its U.S. utility patents from 30 different patent families. Sonos originally sued Google in January 2020.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - In Wake Of Pipeline Hack, Biden Signs Executive Order On Cybersecurity (npr.org)

Submitted by PolygamousRanchKid
PolygamousRanchKid writes: President Biden signed an executive order Wednesday boosting America's cyberdefenses following a ransomware attack on a company that operates a pipeline that provides nearly half of the gasoline and jet fuel for the country's East Coast. The broad order, which the administration had been working on for months, aims to strengthen cybersecurity for federal networks and outline new security standards for commercial software used by both business and the public.

In a briefing with reporters Wednesday, a senior Biden administration official said that the order "reflects a fundamental shift in our mindset from incident response to prevention, from talking about security to doing security." The administration's goal is not only to boost federal defenses but also to use the purchasing power of the government to get those higher standards to trickle down to the private sector. The administration also wants to pilot a program like those Energy Star ratings on appliances so consumers know if software was developed securely.

It also establishes a Cybersecurity Safety Review Board to analyze incidents. It's modeled on the National Transportation Safety Board, which reviews airplane crashes and incidents with other modes of transportation.

While cyberthreats come from all over the world, the pipeline attack brought focus back to Russia, because Biden says the alleged criminal group has ties to the country. "I'm going to be meeting with President [Vladimir] Putin, and so far there is no evidence based on, from our intelligence people, that Russia is involved, although there's evidence that the actors' ransomware is in Russia," Biden has said. "They have some responsibility to deal with this."

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