Chinese video surveillance equipment manufacturer Hikvision has recently announced patches for two vulnerabilities in its security management system, HikCentral Professional.  The most important of these flaws is CVE-2024-25063, a high-severity bug that could lead to unauthorized access to certain URLs.  The bug affects HikCentral Professional version 2.5.1 and below.

Energinet, the Danish national transmission system operator for electricity and natural gas, together with researchers from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), demonstrated how quantum key encryption can protect society from the threat posed by quantum computers. Quantum computers have the potential to penetrate current Information Technology (IT) security systems and be used to gain control of the critical infrastructure that supports the supply of electricity, gas, and water.

A team of researchers developed one of the first generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) worms, which can spread from one system to another. Ben Nassi, a Cornell Tech researcher, together with fellow researchers Stav Cohen and Ron Bitton, developed the AI worm dubbed "Morris II." They demonstrated how the AI worm can attack a generative AI email assistant, stealing data from emails and sending spam messages. The team was able to break some security protections in ChatGPT and Gemini.

A new research project led by David Lo, a computer science professor at Singapore Management University (SMU), aims to develop a method for finding cybersecurity vulnerabilities in a software application's source code. Professor Lo and his team propose developing a localized and specialized Large Language Model (LLM) solution, specifically a large data model tuned for vulnerability discovery and contextualized to the government code base.

New research proposes a novel approach to addressing the challenges posed by deepfake technology, which creates manipulated media content resembling authentic footage. The researchers' method combines the miniXception and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) models to better analyze suspicious content and identify deepfake images with greater than 99 percent accuracy. The continued development of deepfakes may reduce the effectiveness of security systems put in place for authentication.

Gretchen Matthews, mathematics professor and director of the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative in Southwest Virginia, discusses new hard problems that can support cryptography for today's computing devices but could also survive an attack by an adversary through a quantum computer. Cybersecurity that protects sensitive online data heavily relies on the difficulty of solving a hard math problem. However, quantum computers are highly effective at solving the problems currently being used.

CyLab's picoCTF seeks to close the cybersecurity workforce gap by introducing cybersecurity to the next generation through its annual online hacking competition. The competition, aimed at college, high school, and middle school students, provides a gamified environment for practicing and demonstrating cyber skills. Megan Kearns, picoCTF program director, emphasizes that the picoCTF hacking competition provides an environment for students to apply theoretical knowledge and demonstrate their developing skills.

Researchers have discovered a new Linux variant of a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) called BIFROSE, also known as Bifrost. It uses a deceptive domain that spoofs VMware. According to researchers at Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42, the new version of Bifrost bypasses security measures and compromises targeted systems. BIFROSE has previously been offered for sale in underground forums for up to $10,000. The malware was used by BlackTech, a state-backed hacking group from China that has targeted organizations in Japan, Taiwan, and the US.

New research on consumer understanding of privacy terms, released by the Consumer Policy Research Centre and UNSW Sydney, reveals that Australian consumers do not understand how companies, including data brokers, track, target, and profile them. The report also found that 70 percent of Australians believe they have little or no control over how their data is shared between companies. This article continues to discuss insights regarding consumers' understanding of data broking, data privacy, and what it means for them.

According to online reports from Anycubic customers, someone hacked their 3D printers to warn them that they are vulnerable to attacks. The perpetrator added a hacked_machine_readme.gcode file to their devices, which typically contains 3D printing instructions, informing users that their printer is affected by a critical security flaw. This vulnerability allegedly allows potential attackers to control any Anycubic 3D printer it affects using the company's MQTT service Application Programming Interface (API). This article continues to discuss the hacking of Anycubic 3D printers.