Tag: initial

Bloodhound preps for land speed record with 200MPH test run

It’s finally happened. Nine years after the Bloodhound project was announced at London’s Science Museum , the supersonic car has completed its first test runs. At a closed-off airstrip near Newquay airport, Cornwall, the monstrous vehicle roared across the tarmac at roughly 200 MPH. That figure is a long way off the team’s ultimate goal of 763 MPH, however, and a new world land speed record. Eventually, the team hopes to crack 1, 000 MPH at the dusty Kalahari desert in South Africa. Before then, however, the team had to prove that the car was more than vapourware and broken promises. Today, the car relied on a Eurojet EJ200 jet engine for thrust. That on its own could take the car to 650 MPH. The final configuration will also have a rocket system provided by Nordic aerospace company Nammo. For the initial record attempt, the Bloodhound will use a single monopropellant rocket which can produce around 40kN of thrust. It will then be swapped out for a hybrid rocket system that, combined with the jet engine, can carry the car to 1, 000 MPH. In total, the vehicle will produce 212kN of thrust, which is eight times the power output of a Formula 1 starting grid. To install the rocket system, however, Bloodhound needs cash. Funding has always been a problem for the team in Bristol, which relies on sponsorship and fan donations to operate. The trial runs in Cornwall, then, serve two purposes; they’re a vital form of testing, giving the team valuable data and insight into the practicalities of running the vehicle. They are, though, also a marketing tool which the team hopes will attract the interest and, ultimately, the cash of a deep-pocketed investor. Without extra funding, the team will have to delay its record attempt in late 2018. Bloodhound is driven by Andy Green, an RAF pilot who set the previous world land speed record with the Thrust SSC in 1997. He’ll be piloting the vehicle both for the initial land speed record (the team hopes to hit about 800 MPH) and the 1, 000 MPH attempt. Bloodhound is a complicated and intimidating car to operate, measuring 13.4 meters and weighing roughly seven and a half tonnes. In Cornwall, however, Green seemed unfazed —excited even — as he clambered into the cockpit. We’re not surprised; he’s waited as long as the public to finally push the accelerator pedal. Here’s hoping it won’t be quite as long before we see Bloodhound run again.

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Bloodhound preps for land speed record with 200MPH test run

Password-theft 0day imperils users of High Sierra and earlier macOS versions

(credit: Koichi Taniguchi ) There’s a vulnerability in High Sierra and earlier versions of macOS that allows rogue applications to steal plaintext passwords stored in the Mac keychain, a security researcher said Monday. That’s the same day the widely anticipated update was released. The Mac keychain is a digital vault of sorts that stores passwords and cryptographic keys. Apple engineers have designed it so that installed applications can’t access its contents without the user entering a master password. A weakness in the keychain, however, allows rogue apps to steal every plaintext password it stores with no password required. Patrick Wardle, a former National Security Agency hacker who now works for security firm Synack, posted a video demonstration here . The video shows a Mac virtual machine running High Sierra as it installs an app. Once the app is installed, the video shows an attacker on a remote server running the Netcat networking utility . When the attacker clicks “exfil keychain” button, the app surreptitiously exfiltrates all the passwords stored in the keychain and uploads them to the server. The theft requires no user interaction beyond the initial installation of the rogue app, and neither the app nor macOS provides any warning or seeks permission. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Password-theft 0day imperils users of High Sierra and earlier macOS versions

A second hacking group is targeting bank systems

It’s bad enough that one hacker group has been wreaking havoc on banking systems worldwide, but it’s apparently getting worse. Security firm Symantec reports that a second group, Odinaff, has infected 10 to 20 of its customers with malware that can cover up bogus money transfer requests sent through the ubiquitous SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) messaging system. Most of the attacks targeted Australia, Hong Kong, the UK, the Ukraine and the US. And unlike the initial attackers, Odinaff appears to be a criminal organization (possibly linked to the infamous Carbanak team) rather than a state-sponsored outfit. Symantec says it’s sharing info about Odinaff with banks, governments and rival security companies. SWIFT itself says that it had warned about the group in the early summer, so there’s a possibility that your bank is relatively prepared to deal with the threat. With that said, the news isn’t exactly comforting. It suggests that hackers still see SWIFT as a prime target, and that your bank’s security is that less certain as a result. Source: Reuters

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A second hacking group is targeting bank systems

Uber charges rider $16,000 for a 7-mile trip

But Uber knocked $15 off Jaime Hessel’s bill because it agreed that the driver had taken an “inefficient route.” Gothamist : Hessel told us by phone that she e-mailed Uber at 12:30 today to ask them for an explanation. Read the rest

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Uber charges rider $16,000 for a 7-mile trip