Security News

LastPass says 12-hour outage caused by bad Chrome extension update
2024-06-07 22:02

LastPass says its almost 12-hour outage yesterday was caused by a bad update to its Google Chrome extension. The impact did not go unnoticed, with LastPass customers venting their frustration on Reddit and Twitter about the outage and their inability to retrieve their saved credentials and log in to sites.

OpenAI, Anthropic Research Reveals More About How LLMs Affect Security and Bias
2024-06-07 21:24

With Anthropic's map, the researchers can explore how neuron-like data points, called features, affect a generative AI's output. The researchers go into detail in their paper on scaling and evaluating sparse autoencoders; put very simply, the goal is to make features more understandable - and therefore more steerable - to humans.

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Catch Quotas in Peru
2024-06-07 21:05

Over-use of antibiotics in places like chicken farms and healthcare clinics hasbecome a leading driver of AMR. Luis Pedro Coelho, a computational biologist at Queensland University ofTechnology in Australia led a new study published in the journal Cell, whichpresents a huge database of nearly one million potential antibiotic compounds. "Bacteria fight against each other constantly in these environments, usingwarfare tools called peptides which are shot against other bacteria to kill them. The researchers mined this space for antibiotic peptides and found some hidden gems," Hiller said.

Security and Human Behavior (SHB) 2024
2024-06-07 20:55

This week, I hosted the seventeenth Workshop on Security and Human Behavior at the Harvard Kennedy School. This is the first workshop since our co-founder, Ross Anderson, died unexpectedly.

Apple to unveil new 'Passwords' password manager app for iPhones, Macs
2024-06-07 19:50

Apple will reportedly unveil a standalone password manager named 'Passwords' as part of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15 during the upcoming Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. According to sources speaking to Bloomberg, the app will be powered by Apple's iCloud Keychain, the current built-in password management system for macOS and iOS. While Keychain is a full-fledged password management tool that allows you to generate and store passwords for accounts you log in to and sync them between devices, it is hidden away in the settings, making it a bit cumbersome.

Defiant Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial Recall – tho as an opt-in
2024-06-07 19:40

Your profile can be used to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests. Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services, possible interests and personal aspects.

Christie's starts notifying clients of RansomHub data breach
2024-06-07 19:04

British auction house Christie's is notifying individuals whose data was stolen by the RansomHub ransomware gang in a recent network breach. While Christie's didn't name the attackers behind the May breach, the RansomHub gang added the auction house to its dark web leak portal, claiming it had breached its systems and stolen sensitive client data.

Windows Recall will be opt-in and the data more secure, Microsoft says
2024-06-07 19:01

The insistent public complaints and proof-of-concept tools have have borne fruit: Microsoft has realized that the security of its recently previewed Windows Recall feature leaves much to be desired, and has announced important changes. A few weeks ago, Microsoft presented Copilot+ PCs, a new line of computers powered by Windows 11 and delivering some specific new features.

Frontier warns 750,000 of a data breach after extortion threats
2024-06-07 18:45

Frontier Communications is warning 750,000 customers that their information was exposed in a data breach after an April cyberattack claimed by the RansomHub ransomware operation. "On April 14, 2024, we detected unauthorized access to some of our internal IT systems," reads the data breach notification sent to impacted customers.

Frontier warns 750,000 of a data breach after extortion threats
2024-06-07 18:45

Frontier Communications is warning 750,000 customers that their information was exposed in a data breach after an April cyberattack claimed by the RansomHub ransomware operation."On April 14, 2024, we detected unauthorized access to some of our internal IT systems," reads the data breach notification sent to impacted customers.