A team of computer scientists led by the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst announced a new method to automatically generate whole proofs that can be used to prevent software bugs and verify the correctness of the underlying code. Baldur is the new method involving Large Language Models' (LLMs) Artificial Intelligence (AI) power. Combined with the Thor tool, an efficacy of nearly 66 percent is reached.

According to Vercara, businesses faced about 800,000 cyberattacks in 2023, with over 60,000 of them being Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks and 4,000 falling victim to ransomware. Consumers have nuanced perceptions of cybersecurity incidents and are oftentimes unaware of their role in maintaining cyber hygiene within a business. These findings highlight the importance of brand trust in the digital landscape, with 75 percent of consumers expressing their willingness to cut ties with a brand after any cybersecurity incident.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recently started accepting submissions for its Voice Cloning Challenge, a public competition with a $25,000 top prize for ideas that protect consumers from the danger of AI-enabled voice cloning for fraudulent activity.  The Challenge was announced in mid-November in an effort to find ways to counter the misuse of voice cloning technology as it becomes more sophisticated due to the improvement of text-to-speech with the help of artificial intelligence.

A threat actor named "RET" claims to have sold the source code and a cracked version of the Zeppelin ransomware builder for $500. The threat intelligence company KELA discovered the claim on a cybercrime forum. Although the offer's legitimacy has yet to be confirmed, screenshots from the seller suggest that the package is real. The buyer could use the malware to launch a new Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) operation or create a new Zeppelin-based locker. Zeppelin stems from the Delphi-based Vega/VegaLocker malware family, which was active between 2019 and 2022.

Since mid-November, an Iran-linked hacktivist group called Cyber Toufan has breached over 100 organizations in and around Israel. The group has wiped servers, leaked sensitive data, and conducted follow-on attacks down the supply chain. Cyber Toufan compromised Signature-IT, an Israeli company specializing in hosting international websites for businesses, on November 16. The hacktivists were able to reach dozens of major Israeli companies and government organizations, as well as international companies.

Google recently announced the first Chrome security update of 2024, which resolves six vulnerabilities, including four reported by external researchers.  Google noted that all the four externally reported security defects are high-severity memory safety flaws, but bug bounty rewards were handed out only for three of them.  The first two bugs, tracked as CVE-2024-0222 and CVE-2024-0223, are use-after-free and heap buffer overflow vulnerabilities in the graphics rendering engine ANGLE.

Health technology company HealthEC has recently disclosed a data breach impacting close to 4.5 million customers of its business partners.  The company said that, between July 14, 2023, and July 23, 2023, an unauthorized actor accessed certain systems and exfiltrated files entrusted to HealthEC by its business partners.  The stolen files contained personal information such as names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, taxpayer identification numbers, medical information, health insurance information, and billing and claims information.

Freight shipping giant Estes Express Lines has recently started informing more than 21,000 individuals that their personal information was stolen in a ransomware attack.  The incident was identified on October 1, 2023, and the investigation into the matter determined that the attackers gained access to the company's network on September 26, 2023.  Estes told the Maine Attorney General's Office that the personal information that was compromised in the attack included names, other personal identifiers, and Social Security numbers.