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Malware That Fakes Bank Login Screens Found In Google Ads

tedlistens quotes a report from Fast Company: For years, security firms have warned of keystroke logging malware that surreptitiously steals usernames and passwords on desktop and laptop computers. In the past year, a similar threat has begun to emerge on mobile devices: So-called overlay malware that impersonates login pages from popular apps and websites as users launch the apps, enticing them to enter their credentials to banking, social networking, and other services, which are then sent on to attackers. Such malware has even found its way onto Google’s AdSense network, according to a report on Monday from Kaspersky Lab. The weapon would automatically download when users visited certain Russian news sites, without requiring users to click on the malicious advertisements. It then prompts users for administrative rights, which makes it harder for antivirus software or the user to remove it, and proceeds to steal credentials through fake login screens, and by intercepting, deleting, and sending text messages. The Kaspersky researchers call it “a gratuitous act of violence against Android users.” “By simply viewing their favorite news sites over their morning coffee users can end up downloading last-browser-update.apk, a banking Trojan detected by Kaspersky Lab solutions as Trojan-Banker.AndroidOS.Svpeng.q, ” according to the company. “There you are, minding your own business, reading the news and BOOM! — no additional clicks or following links required.” The good news is that the issue has since been resolved, according to a Google spokeswoman. Fast Company provides more details about these types of attacks and how to stay safe in its report. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Malware That Fakes Bank Login Screens Found In Google Ads

Univision to buy Gawker for $135m

Univision won the auction for Gawker Media with a $135m bid , reports Peter Kafka. … the auction is a disappointing conclusion for Gawker Media owner Nick Denton, who founded the company in 2002. Last year, as rival media companies like Vice, BuzzFeed and Vox Media (which owns this site) were raising money at increasingly high valuations, Denton was arguing that his company was worth $250 million or more. The price was depressed by the circumstances of the sale: a $140m award against it after publishing a Hulk Hogan sex tape and losing the subsequent lawsuit, which was secretly funded by vengeful billionaire Peter Thiel. Though experts generally expect Gawker to prevail on appeal, it was forced into bankruptcy by the penalty and the only other bidder was Ziff Davis, at $90m. This weds Gawker to The Onion and Fusion in the Univision website stable; The Onion is very much its own thing, but Fusion’s web presence is quite similar to Gawker itself and one wonders will it blend?

Cable Expands Broadband Domination as AT&T and Verizon Lose Customers

The cable industry’s grip on the U.S. broadband space increased last quarter, with Comcast and Charter gaining nearly 500, 000 subscribers, combined. Phone companies AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, and Frontier, however, all lost Internet customers. ArsTechnica reports:The 14 largest ISPs, accounting for 95 percent of the US market, gained 192, 510 Internet customers in Q2 2016, bringing the total to 91.9 million, Leichtman Research Group reported today. Cable companies accounted for all of the gains, adding 553, 293 subscribers for a new total of 57 million. The phone companies lost 360, 783 subscribers, bringing them down to 34.9 million. Phone companies’ losses more than doubled since Q2 2015, when they lost about 150, 000 subscribers. Comcast and Charter, the two biggest ISPs, led the way in subscriber gains. Comcast added 220, 000 broadband subscribers to boost its total to 24 million, while Charter (the new owner of Time Warner Cable) added 277, 000 subscribers for a new total of 21.8 million. AT&T lost 123, 000 subscribers, lowering its total to 15.6 million. Verizon lost 83, 000, leaving it with 7 million Internet customers. CenturyLink and Frontier lost 66, 000 and 77, 000, respectively. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Cable Expands Broadband Domination as AT&T and Verizon Lose Customers

Here’s How A Tesla Taxi Held Up After 100,000 Miles

Christian Roy of Quebec City has been using his Tesla Model S as a taxi for over two-and-a-half years, accumulating over 100, 000 treacherous taxi miles. How did this high-tech electric car stand up to that much cab abuse? Read more…

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Here’s How A Tesla Taxi Held Up After 100,000 Miles

He must be serious about Mars: Elon Musk invests $2 billion in carbon fibers

(credit: SpaceX) SpaceX appears to be betting big on carbon fiber composites, which could increase the capacity of its future rockets to get people and supplies into space—and eventually to the surface of Mars. According to a report in Nikkei Asian Review , SpaceX has signed an agreement with Toray Carbon Fibers estimated to be worth $2 billion to $3 billion. The total price and delivery dates have yet to be finalized. It is not immediately clear exactly when, and in which launch vehicles, these lightweight composites will be employed by SpaceX. But the company is not alone in its interest—NASA and other aerospace companies have been experimenting with the materials because they have the potential to increase the amount of payload that can be carried by a rocket. They could also lower overall manufacturing cost. The scale of the deal seems telling, however. If the value of the deal as reported is correct, in the billions of dollars, it seems probable that the carbon fiber composites would be used in SpaceX’s proposed Mars Colonial Transporter rocket. This is the very large (but still under development) rocket the company plans to use to transport humans to Mars. SpaceX is already far along in the production of its Falcon Heavy rocket, which is based on the Falcon 9 core stage. The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, which SpaceX has successfully been landing this year, has tank walls and domes built from an aluminum lithium alloy. (Ars has reached out to SpaceX for comment on this story and will update accordingly). Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Windows Holographic coming to all Windows 10 PCs next year

We already knew that all Windows 10 PCs will be compatible with Windows Holographic, a “mixed reality” experience that’ll let you immerse yourself in faraway lands. Now, we know when that will be. Terry Myerson, Executive VP of Microsoft’s Windows and Devices group, just came on stage at the Intel Developer’s Forum to announce there’ll be an update to Windows 10 to add the holographic shell update as soon as next year. This means that all mainstream PCs will soon have holographic or mixed reality capabilities. Thanks to a Windows Holographic Platform collaboration with Intel, Myerson said compatible PCs includes tiny Intel NUCs with embedded Iris graphics, as well as the latest and greatest PCs. It’ll have optimization for PCs and laptops, and it’ll be compatible with Project Alloy as well.

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Windows Holographic coming to all Windows 10 PCs next year

Linux Traffic Hijack Flaw Also Affects Most Android Phones, Tablets

Zack Whittaker, writing for ZDNet: As many as 80 percent of Android devices are vulnerable to a recently disclosed Linux kernel vulnerability. Security firm Lookout said in a blog post on Monday that the flaw affects all phones and tablets that are running Android 4.4 KitKat and later, which comes with the affected Linux kernel 3.6 or newer. According to recent statistics, the number of devices affected might run past 1.4 billion phones and tablets — including devices running the Android Nougat developer preview. Windows and Macs are not affected by the vulnerability. The flaw, disclosed at the Usenix security conference last week, is complicated and difficult to exploit. If an attacker can pull off an exploit, they could inject malicious code into unencrypted web traffic from “anywhere”. However, the source and destination IP address would need to be known in order to intercept the traffic, adding to the complexity of carrying out a successful attack.The exploitability isn’t easy, though. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Group claims to hack NSA-tied hackers, posts exploits as proof

(credit: Shadow Brokers ) In what security experts say is either a one-of-a-kind breach or an elaborate hoax, an anonymous group has published what it claims are sophisticated software tools belonging to an elite team of hackers tied to the US National Security Agency. In a recently published blog post, the group calling itself Shadow Brokers claims the leaked set of exploits were obtained after members hacked Equation Group (the post has since been removed from Tumblr). Last year, Kaspersky Lab researchers described Equation Group as one of the world’s most advanced hacking groups , with ties to both the Stuxnet and Flame espionage malware platforms. The compressed data accompanying the Shadow Broker post is slightly bigger than 256 megabytes and purports to contain a series of hacking tools dating back to 2010. While it wasn’t immediately possible for outsiders to prove the posted data—mostly batch scripts and poorly coded python scripts—belonged to Equation Group, there was little doubt the data have origins with some advanced hacking group. Not fully fake “These files are not fully fake for sure,” Bencsáth Boldizsár, a researcher with Hungary-based CrySyS who is widely credited with discovering Flame, told Ars in an e-mail. “Most likely they are part of the NSA toolset, judging just by the volume and peeps into the samples. At first glance it is sound that these are important attack related files, and yes, the first guess would be Equation Group.” Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

NVIDIA brings desktop-class graphics to laptops

With the GeForce GTX 1080, NVIDIA pushed the boundaries of what a $600 graphics card can do . That flagship card was joined by the GTX 1070 and GTX 1060 , two lower-power cards based on the same 16nm Pascal architecture at a much more affordable price. Now, it’s bringing mobile versions of those cards that match their desktop counterparts in almost every area — including being VR ready. That’s not hyperbole. The top-of-the-line 1080M has 2, 560 CUDA cores and 8GB of 10Gbps GDDR5x memory. The desktop chip has the same. The only difference is clock speed: it’s set at 1, 556MHz, while the desktop version is 1, 607MHz. The two do share the same boost clock (1, 733MHz) though, and both have access to all the new technology introduced for the Pascal architecture . That means simultaneous multi-projection, VRWorks, Ansel and the rest. If you want an idea what those specs translate to in real-world performance, how’s this: when paired with an i7-6700HQ (a quad-core 2.6GHz chip with 3.5GHz turbo), Mirror’s Edge Catalyst , 126; Overwatch , 147; Doom , 145; Metro Last Light , 130; Rise of the Tomb Raider , 125. Those are the 1080M’s FPS figures when playing at 1080p with “ultra” settings at 120Hz. NVIDIA is really pushing 120Hz gaming, and many of the first crop of Pascal laptops will have 120Hz G-Sync displays. 4K gaming, too, is more than possible. At 4K with “high” settings the same setup can push 89FPS on Overwatch , 70FPS with Doom , and 62FPS with Metro Last Light ( according to NVIDIA). Only Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and Rise of the Tomb Raider fall short of 60FPS, both clocking in at a very playable 52FPS. At the chip’s UK unveil, NVIDIA showed the new Gears of War playing in 4K in real-time, and there were absolutely no visible frame drops. With figures like that, it goes without saying that VR will be no problem for the 1080M. The desktop GTX 980 is the benchmark for both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, and the 1080M blows it away. If you’re looking for more performance, the 1080M supports overclocking of course — NVIDIA suggests as high as 300MHz — and you can expect laptops sporting two in an SLI configuration soon. The major drawback for the 1080M is power. We don’t know its exact TDP yet, but given the near-identical desktop version runs at 180W, you’d imagine it’s got to be at least 150W. NVIDIA has tech that counters that heavy power load when you’re not plugged in, of course. Chief among these is BatteryBoost, which allows you to set a framerate (i.e. 30FPS), and downclocks the GPU appropriately to save power — if your card is capable of pushing 147FPS plugged in, that’s going to be a fair amount of power saved. Whatever the battery savings possible, though, it won’t change the fact that the 1080M is only going to slide into big laptops. That’s fine for those already used to carrying around behemoths on the go, but plenty of gamers prefer something more portable. Enter the 1070M. NVIDIA says this chip will fit into any chassis that currently handles the 980M, which covers a lot of laptops. Just like the 1080M, the 1070M matches its desktop sibling in many ways. You’ve actually got slightly more in the way of CUDA cores — 2, 048 vs. the desktop’s 1, 920, but again they’re clocked slower (1, 442MHz vs. 1, 506MHz). Memory is the same — 8GB 8Gbps GDDR5 — and it too benefits from both the Pascal architecture itself and the new software features that come with it. GTX 1080 GTX 1080M GTX 1070 GTX 1070M CUDA cores 2, 560 2, 560 1, 920 2, 048 Base clock 1, 607MHz 1, 556MHz 1, 506MHz 1, 442MHz Boost clock 1, 733MHz 1, 733MHz 1, 683MHz 1, 645MHz Memory 8GB GDDR5X 8GB GDDR5X 8GB GDDR5 8GB GDDR5 Memory speed 10Gbps 10Gbps 8Gbps 8Gbps Memory Bandwidth 320GB/sec 320GB/sec 256GB/sec 256GB/sec When faced off against the desktop 1070, the 1070M holds its own. In nearly every test we saw, it got within a couple of percentiles of the desktop card. We’re talking 77FPS in The Witcher 3 (1080p maxed settings, no HairWorks) vs. 79.7FPS on the 1070; 76.2FPS in The Division (1080p ultra) vs. 76.6FPS; and 64.4FPS in Crysis 3 (1080p very high) vs. 66.4FPS. The one outlier was Grand Theft Auto V , which dropped down to 65.3FPS vs. 73.7FPS on the desktop 1070. 4K gaming is a stretch on the desktop 1070, and that carries over here, but this card is more-than VR ready. NVIDIA says that it’ll support factory overclocking on the 1070M soon, so you may see laptops offering a little more grunt “in a couple of months.” Rounding off the lineup is the 1060M, the mobile version of NVIDIA’s $249 “budget” VR-ready card. It’s something of the exception to the rule here. Yes, it offers 1, 280 CUDA cores and 6GB 8Gbps GDDR5 memory, which is equal to the desktop 1060. But at the lower end of the range the fact that they’re clocked lower (1, 404MHz vs. 1, 506MHz) hurts performance quite a bit more. In side-by-side comparisons, NVIDIA’s benchmarks suggest you’ll get within ten percent or so of the desktop card. That’s not to say that the 1060M is a slouch. For traditional gaming, you’re not going to hit 60FPS at 1080P in every game without thinking about settings, but if you can play it on a desktop GTX 980, it’s probably a safe bet that the 1060M can handle it. That’s insanely impressive when you consider that the 1060M will fit into the same chassis as the 970M — think “ultra portable” gaming laptops. GTX 1060M GTX 1060 GTX 980 CUDA cores 1, 280 1, 280 2, 048 Base clock 1, 404MHz 1, 506MHz 1, 126MHz Boost clock 1, 670MHz 1, 708MHz 1, 216MHz Memory 6GB GDDR5* 6GB GDDR5 4GB GDDR5 Memory speed 8Gbps 8Gbps 7Gbps Memory Bandwidth 192GB/sec 192GB/sec 224GB/sec *Up to In reality, the 10-percent gap between the 1060 and the 1060M probably makes it slightly slower than the GTX 980, but the difference is almost negligible. I wasn’t able to push the 1060M too hard on the “VR ready” promise — you can read about the demo and why the 1060M matters in a separate article — but the demo I had was solid. And really, being able to plug an Oculus into something as slim as a Razer Blade was unthinkable a few months ago, so it’s probably best not to complain. Acer, Alienware, Asus, Clevo, EVGA, HP, Gigabyte, Lenovo, MSI, Origin, Razer, Sager and XMG are just some of the OEMs signed up to make laptops with the new Pascal chips. Many will announce updated and all-new models today, while some might hold off a while. But expect lots of super-powerful, VR-ready gaming laptops very soon.

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NVIDIA brings desktop-class graphics to laptops

20 hotels suffer hack costing tens of thousands their credit card information

(credit: HEI Hotels & Resorts) The chain that owns Starwood, Marriott, Hyatt, and Intercontinental hotels—HEI Hotels & Resorts— said this weekend that the payment systems for 20 of its locations had been infected with malware that may have been able to steal tens of thousands of credit card numbers and corresponding customer names, expiration dates, and verification codes. HEI claims that it did not lose control of any customer PINs, as they are not collected by the company’s systems. Still, HEI noted on its website that it doesn’t store credit card details either. “We believe that the malware may have accessed payment card information in real-time as it was being inputted into our systems,” the company said. The breach appears to have hit 20 HEI Hotels, and in most cases, the malware appears to have been active from December 2, 2015 to June 21, 2016. In a few cases, hotels may have been affected as early as March 1, 2015. According to a statement on HEI’s website, the malware affected point-of-sale (POS) terminals at the affected properties, but online booking and other online transactions were not affected. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Ken May

Author: kenmay