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‘Stegano’ Malvertising Exposes Millions To Hacking
December 13, 2016 by admin
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Since October, millions of internet users have been exposed to malicious code embedded in the pixels from tainted banner ads designed to install Trojans and spyware, according to security firm ESET.
The attack campaign, called Stegano, has been spreading from malicious ads in a “number of reputable news websites,” ESET said in a Tuesday blog post. It’s been preying on Internet Explorer users by scanning for vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash and then exploiting them.
The attack is designed to infect victims with malware that can steal email password credentials through its keylogging and screenshot grabbing features, among others.
The attack is also hard to detect. To infect their victims, the hackers were essentially poisoning the pixels used in the tainted banner ads, ESET said in a separate post.
The hackers concealed their malicious coding in the parameters controlling the pixels’ transparency on the banner ad. This allowed their attack to go unnoticed by the legitimate advertising networks.
Victims will typically see a banner ad for a product called “Browser Defense” or “Broxu.” But in reality, the ad is also designed to run Javascript that will secretly open a new browser window to a malicious website designed to exploit vulnerabilities in Flash that will help carry out the rest of the attack.
Hackers have used similar so-called malvertising tactics to secretly serve malicious coding over legitimate online advertising networks. It’s an attack method that has proven to be a successful at quickly spreading malware to potentially millions.
The makers behind the Stegano attack were also careful to create safeguards to prevent detection, ESET said. For instance, the banner ads will alternate between serving a malicious version or a clean version, depending on the settings run on the victim’s computer. It will also check for any security products or virtualization software on the machine before proceeding with the attack.
ESET declined to name the news websites that were found unknowingly displaying the malicious ads, but cautioned that the attack was widespread, and could have been hosted through other popular sites as well.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/stegano-malvertising-ads-expose-millions-of-online-users-to-hacking.html
Is Facebook Moving Into A.I.?
December 6, 2016 by admin
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Facebook Inc is developing a way to automatically flag offensive material in live video streams, building on a growing effort to use artificial intelligence to monitor content, said Joaquin Candela, the company’s director of applied machine learning.
The social media company has been embroiled in a number of content moderation controversies this year, from facing international outcry after removing an iconic Vietnam War photo due to nudity, to allowing the spread of fake news on its site.
Facebook has historically relied mostly on users to report offensive posts, which are then checked by Facebook employees against company “community standards.” Decisions on especially thorny content issues that might require policy changes are made by top executives at the company.
Candela told reporters that Facebook increasingly was using artificial intelligence to find offensive material. It is “an algorithm that detects nudity, violence, or any of the things that are not according to our policies,” he said.
The company already had been working on using automation to flag extremist video content, as Reuters reported in June.
Now the automated system also is being tested on Facebook Live, the streaming video service for users to broadcast live video.
Using artificial intelligence to flag live video is still at the research stage, and has two challenges, Candela said. “One, your computer vision algorithm has to be fast, and I think we can push there, and the other one is you need to prioritize things in the right way so that a human looks at it, an expert who understands our policies, and takes it down.”
Facebook said it also uses automation to process the tens of millions of reports it gets each week, to recognize duplicate reports and route the flagged content to reviewers with the appropriate subject matter expertise.
Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg in November said Facebook would turn to automation as part of a plan to identify fake news. Ahead of the Nov. 8 U.S. election, Facebook users saw fake news reports erroneously alleging that Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump and that a federal agent who had been investigating Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was found dead.
However, determining whether a particular comment is hateful or bullying, for example, requires context, the company said.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/facebook-developing-artificial-intelligence-to-patrol-live-videos.html
Elon Musk Opens Gym For AI Programmers
Techie entrepreneur Elon Musk has rolled out an open-source training “gym” for artificial-intelligence programmers.
It’s an interesting move for a man who in 2014 said artificial intelligence, or A.I., will pose a threat to the human race.
“I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence,” Musk said about a year and a half ago during an MIT symposium. “If I were to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that… with artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. In all those stories with the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, and he’s sure he can control the demon. It doesn’t work out.”
Today, Musk is moving to help programmers use A.I. and machine learning to build smart robots and smart devices.
“We’re releasing the public beta of OpenAI Gym, a toolkit for developing and comparing reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms,” wrote Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s CTO, and John Schulman, a scientist working with OpenAI, in a blog post . “We originally built OpenAI Gym as a tool to accelerate our own RL research. We hope it will be just as useful for the broader community.”
The OpenAI Gym is meant as a tool for programmers to use to teach their intelligent systems better ways to learn and develop more complex reasoning. In short, it’s meant to make smart systems smarter.
Musk is a co-chair of OpenAI, a $1 billion organization that was unveiled last December as an effort focused on advancing artificial intelligence that will benefit humanity.
While Musk has warned of what he sees as the perils of A.I., it’s also a technology that he needs for his businesses.
The OpenAI Gym is made up of a suite of environments, including simulated robots and Atari games, as well as a site for comparing and reproducing results.
It’s focused on reinforcement learning, a field of machine learning that involves decision-making and motor control.
According to OpenAI, reinforcement learning is an important aspect of building intelligent systems because it encompasses any problem that involves making a sequence of decisions. For instance, it could focus on controlling a robot’s motors so it’s able to run and jump, or enabling a system to make business decisions regarding pricing and inventory management.
Two major challenges for developers working with reinforcement learning are the lack of standard environments and the need for better benchmarks.
Musk’s group is hoping that the OpenAI Gym addresses both of those issues.
Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/elon-musk-opens-training-gym-for-ai-programmers.html
Dropbox Beefs Up Security
August 25, 2015 by admin
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Two-factor authentication is widely regarded as a best practice for security in the online world, but Dropbox has announced a new feature that’s designed to make it even more secure.
Whereas two-step verification most commonly involves the user’s phone for the second authentication method, Dropbox’s new U2F support adds a new means of authenticating the user via Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) security keys instead.
What that means is that users can now use a USB key as an additional means to prove who they are.
“This is a very good advancement and adds extra security over mobile notifications for two-factor authentication,” said Rich Mogull, Securosis CEO.
“Basically, you can’t trick a user into typing in credentials,” Mogull explained. “The attacker has to compromise the exact machine the user is on.”
For most users, phone-based, two-factor authentication is “totally fine,” he said. “But this is a better option in high-security environments and is a good example of where the FIDO standard is headed.”
Security keys provide stronger defense against credential-theft attacks like phishing, Dropbox said.
“Even if you’re using two-step verification with your phone, some sophisticated attackers can still use fake Dropbox websites to lure you into entering your password and verification code,” the company explained in a blog post. “They can then use this information to access your account.”
Security keys, on the other hand, use cryptographic communication and will only work when the user is signing in to the legitimate Dropbox website.
Dropbox users who want to use the new feature will need a security key that follows the FIDO Alliance’s Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) standard. That U2F key can then be set up with the user’s Dropbox account along with any other U2F-enabled services, such as Google.
Will Cortana Impact Windows 10 Battery Life?
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It is just over a month until Microsoft introduces Windows 10, and as you should know by now, Cortana is one of the key elements of the new OS.
Cortana always listens in order to hear its name and be a smart digital assistant. This is Microsoft answer to Siri and Google Now that is making its way to Windows 10.
Unfortunately, this will affect your notebook battery life. We have spoken with a few industry sources and we can definitely confirm that Windows 10 with enabled Cortana will have an impact on the battery life. We are testing this as we speak to check how big the impact is.
We don’t know how significant the battery life decrease will be, but the good thing is that you will be able to switch Cortana off in case you don’t need it. We heard that many new Toshiba notebooks will come with a dedicated Cortana button, as this is the easiest way to save battery life. Cortana on Toshiba won’t listen until you press the button.
It would be smart if Microsoft would come up with Cortana enable / disable keyboard shortcut. Win + Q will enable Cortana news while Win + S will bring you directly to the Cortana search engine.
Windows 10 seems to be a logical upgrade for anyone who has Windows 8.1 on their notebooks and misses the options from Windows 7, and some familiar UI elements. We use Windows 8.1 on some devices, while most of our computers still have Windows 7 and nothing more. Microsoft DirectX 12 will force us to Windows 10 but from what awe can tell from Preview release, the upgrade to Windows 10 from with 7 seems like quite seamless and logical step.
Just make sure to be aware that your notebook battery life might suffer because of Cortana. Have in mind that this “talk to your PC and expect a smart answer” option can be disabled.
LinkedIn Acquires Startup Refresh
April 16, 2015 by admin
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In a move that could produce even more automated suggestions and tips for LinkedIn users, the professional network has purchased California startup Refresh, the maker of an app that gathers news and insights about participants in meetings.
Launched three years ago, Refresh is designed to be a “digital briefing book” that can call up online information related to people that users are scheduled to meet. The information can be anything from blog posts, news articles or Facebook posts to personal notes or favorite sports teams.
The Refresh mobile and desktop app is aimed at helping people relate to one another more quickly, but it can also be used to refresh one’s memory when running into acquaintances unexpectedly.
The details of the deal were not disclosed. Refresh has stopped taking on new users and its app will shut down April 15.
“Refresh has surfaced insights associated with hundreds of millions of meetings, and has been central to countless connections and closed deals,” co-founder Bhavin Shah wrote on the Refresh blog in announcing the deal.
LinkedIn already has an app called Connected that was somewhat of a rival to Refresh. It can log the people users have met and offer updates and information about interests shared with “connections,” which are acquaintances in the LinkedIn lingo. It’s unclear whether Refresh features will be added to Connected or the LinkedIn website itself.
“Our team will focus its efforts on providing LinkedIn members with more insights to help them better do their jobs,” Shah wrote.
Is Google Diverse?
June 10, 2014 by admin
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Google Inc shared the gender and ethnic makeup of its 50,000-strong workforce on Wednesday, disclosing a significantly below-average proportion of minorities and women employees that it said was “miles from where we want to be.”
Google’s disclosure of its workforce demographics represented a rare move for a U.S. company, even if the figures came as no surprise to those familiar with Silicon Valley, an industry long scrutinized for its lack of diversity. Blacks and Hispanics made up just 2 and 3 percent of overall employees at Google, respectively, while women accounted for 30 percent, the company said in a detailed blogpost.
That compares with the U.S. workforce average of about 47 percent women in 2012, according to the Department of Labor. For blacks and people of Hispanic descent, it was 12 and 16 percent, respectively.
“Put simply, Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity, and it’s hard to address these kinds of challenges if you’re not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts,” Laszlo Bock, senior vice president of people operations,said in the blog posting.
The employment gaps for women and minorities in the tech sector may stem from education, Bock said. Women earn roughly 18 percent of all computer science degrees in the United States; blacks and Hispanics make up less than 10 percent of U.S. college grads and collect fewer than 5 percent of degrees in computer science majors, respectively, he argued.
But Bock, who added that Google has donated more than $40 million to organizations promoting computer science education among women, said Google recognized the extent of the internal problem and was open to discussion about possible solutions.
Microsoft Updates Office Online
April 28, 2014 by admin
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Microsoft is updating its Web-based Office Online suite, closing the features gap with the main Office 365 and Office 2013 suites installed on users’ devices.
“We know you want features that allow you to move as seamlessly as possible between Office Online and the desktop,” wrote Kaberi Chowdhury, an Office Online technical product manager, in a blog post Monday.
Improvements to Excel Online include the ability to insert new comments, edit and delete existing comments, and properly open and edit spreadsheets that contain Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code.
Meanwhile, Word Online has a new “pane” where users can see all comments in a document, and reply to them or mark them as completed. It also has a refined lists feature that is better able to recognize whether users are continuing a list or starting one. In addition, footnotes and end notes can now be added more conveniently inline.
PowerPoint Online has a revamped text editor that offers a layout view that more closely resembles the look of finished slides, according to Microsoft. It also has improved performance and video functionality, including the ability to play back embedded YouTube videos.
For users of OneNote Online, Microsoft is now adding the ability to print out the notes they’ve created with the application.
Microsoft is also making Word Online, PowerPoint Online and OneNote Online available via Google’s Chrome Web Store so that Chrome browser users can add them to their Chrome App launcher. Excel Online will be added later.
The improvements in Office Online will be rolled out to users this week, starting Monday.
Office Online, which used to be called Office Web Apps, competes directly against Google Docs and other browser-based office productivity suites. It’s meant to offer users a free, lightweight, Web-based version of these four applications if they don’t have the desktop editions on the device they’re using at that moment.
Amazon, Microsoft Cut Cloud Storage Prices
February 6, 2014 by admin
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Last April, Microsoft agreed that it would match Amazon’s Web Services’ (AWS’) prices for compute, storage and bandwidth.
So when Amazon announced last Thursday that it would cut its S3 (Simple Storage Service) and Elastic Block Store (EBS) prices by up to 22%, Microsoft followed suit the very next day.
“We are matching AWS’ lowest prices (US East Region) for S3 and EBS, reducing prices by up to 20% and making the lower prices available in all regions worldwide,” Microsoft posted in its official blog.
For Microsoft’s “Locally Redundant Disks/Page Blobs Storage,” the company is reducing prices by up to 28%. It is also reducing the price of Azure Storage service by 50%.
Amazon’s new prices take effect Feb. 1. Microsoft’s price cuts begin March 13.
“We’re also making the new prices effective worldwide, which means that Azure storage will be less expensive than AWS in many regions,” Microsoft said.
Amazon said it dropped its prices for its S3 storage by 22% and its EBS standard volume storage and I/O operations by up to 50%.
Was Dropbox Really Hacked?
January 24, 2014 by admin
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Dropbox suffered a major outage over the weekend.
In one of the more bizarre recent incidents, after the service went down on Friday evening a group of hackers claimed to have infiltrated the service and compromised its servers.
However, on the Dropbox blog, Dropbox VP of engineering Ardita Ardwarl told users that hackers were not to blame.
Ardwari said, “On Friday evening we began a routine server upgrade. Unfortunately, a bug installed this upgrade on several active servers, which brought down the entire service. Your files were always safe, and despite some reports, no hacking or DDOS attack was involved.”
The fault occurred when a bug in an upgrade script caused an operating system upgrade to be triggered on several live machines, rendering them inoperative. Although the fault was rectified in three hours, the knock-on effects led to problems that lasted through the weekend for some users.
Dropbox has assured users that there are no further problems and that all users should now be back online. It said that at no point were files in danger, adding that the affected machines didn’t host any user data. In other words, the “hackers” weren’t hackers at all, but attention seeking trolls.
Dropbox claims to have over 200 million users, many of which it has acquired through strategic partnerships with device manufacturers offering free storage with purchases.
The company is looking forward to an initial public offering (IPO) on the stock market, so the timing of such a major outage could not be worse. Dropbox, which includes Bono and The Edge from U2 amongst its investors, has recently enhanced its business offering to appeal to enterprise clients, and such a loss of uptime could affect its ability to attract customers.