events – Page 5

Fourth Ethereum Platform Hacked This Month: Hacker Steals $8.4 Million From Veritaseum Platform

An anonymous reader writes: “Veritaseum has confirmed today that a hacker stole $8.4 million from the platform’s ICO on Sunday, July 23, ” reports Bleeping Computer. “This is the second ICO hack in the last week and the fourth hack of an Ethereum platform this month. An ICO (Initial Coin Offering) is similar to a classic IPO (Initial Public Offering), but instead of stocks in a company, buyers get tokens in an online platform. Users can keep tokens until the issuing company decides to buy them back, or they can sell the tokens to other users for Ethereum. Veritaseum was holding its ICO over the weekend, allowing users to buy VERI tokens for a product the company was preparing to launch in the realm of financial services.” The hacker breached its systems, stole VERI tokens and immediately dumped them on the market due to the high-demand. The hacker made $8.4 million from the token sale, which he immediately started to launder. In a post-mortem announcement, Middleton posted online today, the Veritaseum CEO said “the amount stolen was miniscule (less than 00.07%) although the dollar amount was quite material.” The CEO also suspects that “at least one corporate partner that may have dropped the ball and [might] be liable.” Previous Ethereum services hacks include Parity, CoinDash, and Classic Ether Wallet. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fourth Ethereum Platform Hacked This Month: Hacker Steals $8.4 Million From Veritaseum Platform

Hacker Steals $30 Million Worth of Ethereum From Parity Multi-Sig Wallets

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bleeping Computer: An unknown hacker has used a vulnerability in an Ethereum wallet client to steal over 153, 000 Ether, worth over $30 million dollars. The hack was possible due to a flaw in the Parity Ethereum client. The vulnerability allowed the hacker to exfiltrate funds from multi-sig wallets created with Parity clients 1.5 and later. Parity 1.5 was released on January 19, 2017. The attack took place around 19:00-20:00 UTC and was immediately spotted by Parity, a company founded by Gavin Wood, Ethereum’s founder. The company issued a security alert on its blog. The Ether stolen from Parity multi-sig accounts was transferred into this Ethereum wallet, currently holding 153, 017.021336727 Ether. Because Parity spotted the attack in time, a group named “The White Hat Group” used the same vulnerability to drain the rest of Ether stored in other Parity wallets that have not yet been stolen by the hacker. This money now resides in this Ethereum wallet. According to messages posted on Reddit and in a Gitter chat, The White Hat Group appears to be formed of security researchers and members of the Ethereum Project that have taken it into their own hands to secure funds in vulnerable wallets. Based on a message the group posted online, they plan to return the funds they took. Their wallet currently holds 377, 116.819319439311671493 Ether, which is over $76 million. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Author of Original Petya Ransomware Publishes Master Decryption Key

An anonymous reader writes: The author of the original Petya ransomware — a person/group going by the name of Janus Cybercrime Solutions — has released the master decryption key of all past Petya versions. This key can decrypt all ransomware families part of the Petya family except NotPetya, which isn’t the work of Janus, but is believed to be the work of a nation-state actor that targeted Ukraine. Most (original) Petya campaigns happened in 2016, and very few campaigns have been active this year. Users that had their files locked have wiped drives or paid the ransom many months before. The key will only help those victims who cloned their drives and saved a copy of the encrypted data. Experts believe that Janus released Petya’s decryption key as a result of the recent NotPetya outbreak, and he might have decided to shut down his operation to avoid further scrutiny, or being accused of launching NotPetya. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Author of Original Petya Ransomware Publishes Master Decryption Key

Germany Says Cyber Threat Greater Than Expected, More Firms Affected

From a Reuters report, shared by a few readers on Twitter: Germany’s BSI federal cyber agency said on Friday that the threat posed to German firms by recent cyber attacks launched via a Ukrainian auditing software was greater than expected, and some German firms had seen production halted for over a week. Analyses by computer experts showed that waves of attacks had been launched via software updates of the M.E.Doc accounting software since April, the BSI said in a statement. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With a Single Wiretap Order, US Authorities Listened In on 3.3 Million Phone Calls

US authorities intercepted and recorded millions of phone calls last year under a single wiretap order, authorized as part of a narcotics investigation, ZDNet’s Zack Whittaker reports. From the article: The wiretap order authorized an unknown government agency to carry out real-time intercepts of 3.29 million cell phone conversations over a two-month period at some point during 2016, after the order was applied for in late 2015. The order was signed to help authorities track 26 individuals suspected of involvement with illegal drug and narcotic-related activities in Pennsylvania. The wiretap cost the authorities $335, 000 to conduct and led to a dozen arrests. But the authorities noted that the surveillance effort led to no incriminating intercepts, and none of the handful of those arrested have been brought to trial or convicted. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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With a Single Wiretap Order, US Authorities Listened In on 3.3 Million Phone Calls

World’s First Floating Windfarm To Take Shape Off Coast of Scotland

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The world’s first floating windfarm has taken to the seas in a sign that a technology once confined to research and development drawing boards is finally ready to unlock expanses of ocean for generating renewable power. After two turbines were floated this week, five now bob gently in the deep waters of a fjord on the western coast of Norway ready to be tugged across the North Sea to their final destination off north-east Scotland. The ~$256 million Hywind project is unusual not just because of the pioneering technology involved, which uses a 78-meter-tall underwater ballast and three mooring lines that will be attached to the seabed to keep the turbines upright. It is also notable because the developer is not a renewable energy firm but Norway’s Statoil, which is looking to diversify away from carbon-based fuels. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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World’s First Floating Windfarm To Take Shape Off Coast of Scotland

Ethereum Exchange Reimburses Customer Losses After ‘Flash Crash’

An anonymous reader writes: “The price of ethereum crashed as low as 10 cents from around $319 in about a second on the GDAX cryptocurrency exchange on Wednesday, ” reports CNBC, calling it “a move that is being blamed on a ‘multimillion dollar market sell’ order… As the price continued to fall, another 800 stop loss orders and margin funding liquidations caused ethereum to trade as low as 10 cents.” An executive for the exchange said “Our matching engine operated as intended throughout this event and trading with advanced features like margin always carries inherent risk.” Though some users complained they lost money, the price rebounded to $325 — and according to a report on one trading site, “one person had an order in for just over 3, 800 ethereum if the price fell to 10 cents on the GDAX exchange, ” reports CNBC. “Theoretically this person would have spent $380 to buy these coins, and when the price shot up above $300 again, the trader would be sitting on over $1 million.” Yet the currency exchange announced Friday that they’re honoring everyone’s gains, while also reimbursing customers who suffered losses. “We view this as an opportunity to demonstrate our long-term commitment to our customers and belief in the future of this industry.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ethereum Exchange Reimburses Customer Losses After ‘Flash Crash’

Los Angeles Tests Reflective ‘Cool Pavement’ On Streets

mikeebbbd writes: As reported in the Los Angeles Daily News, during the current heatwave various officials swooped down on streets coated with an experimental light-gray sealer that makes the old asphalt into a “cool street” — and it works, with average temperature differences between coated streets and adjacent old asphalt around 10F. At a large parking lot, the temperature reduction was over 20F. If the material holds up and continues to meet other criteria, LA plans to use it on more pavement rehab projects, which could eventually make a difference in the heat island effect. The “CoolSeal” coating is apparently proprietary to a company named GuardTop LLC, costs $25-40K/mile, and lasts 5-7 years. At that price, it’s might not be used a lot, at least at first; typical slurry seals run $15-30K/mile. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Los Angeles Tests Reflective ‘Cool Pavement’ On Streets

Intel Announces X299, Skylake-X, and Kaby Lake-X Release Schedule

Ian Cutress, writing for AnandTech: At Computex a couple of weeks ago, Intel announced its new Basin Falls platform, consisting of the X299 chipset with motherboards based on it, a pair of Kaby Lake-X processors, and a set of Skylake-X processors going all the way up to eighteen cores, denoting the first use of Intel’s enterprise level high core-count silicon in a consumer product. As part of Intel’s E3 press release, as well as their presentations at the show, the new Core i9 processors were discussed, along with Intel’s continued commitment towards eSports. Intel gave the dates for the new platform as the following: 4, 6, 8 and 10-core parts available for pre-order from June 19th; 4, 6, 8 and 10-core parts shipping to consumers from June 26th; 12-core parts expected to ship in August; and 14, 16 and 18 core parts expected to ship in October. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cook Says Apple Is Focusing on Making an Autonomous Car System

An anonymous reader shares a Bloomberg report: After years toiling away in secret on its car project, Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has for the first time laid out exactly what the company is up to in the automotive market: It’s concentrating on self-driving technology. “We’re focusing on autonomous systems, ” Cook said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “It’s a core technology that we view as very important. We sort of see it as the mother of all AI projects, ” Cook said in his most detailed comments to date on Apple’s plans in the car space. “It’s probably one of the most difficult A.I. projects actually to work on.” “There is a major disruption looming there, ” Cook said on Bloomberg Television, citing self-driving technology, electric vehicles and ride-hailing. “You’ve got kind of three vectors of change happening generally in the same time frame.” Cook was also bullish about the prospects for electric vehicles, a market which last week helped Tesla become the world’s fourth-biggest carmaker by market capitalization, even as it ranks well outside the top 10 by unit sales.”It’s a marvelous experience not to stop at the filling station or the gas station, ” Cook said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Cook Says Apple Is Focusing on Making an Autonomous Car System

Ken May

Tag: events