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Category: computing – Page 2

Harvard Scientists Use Tiny Sound Waves To Protect Quantum Information

The same tiny vibrations that carry quantum information across a chip could also keep that information from fading away.

Quantum technologies face a persistent problem: qubits are extraordinarily sensitive to disturbances from their surroundings. Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have now protected a qubit using mechanical vibrations, essentially sound waves at the quantum scale.

The advance came from the laboratory of Marko Lončar, Tiantsai Lin Professor of Electrical Engineering. It could help make quantum networks smaller, reduce interference between components, and connect different kinds of qubits within a single hybrid system.

Attackers Exploit Issabel Framework Flaw Enabling Unauthenticated OS Command Execution

A critical security flaw in Issabel Framework, a web-based framework for the open-source unified communications PBX software, has come under active exploitation.

The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026–89026 (CVSS v3.1 score: 9.8/CVSS v4.0 score: 9.3), which can allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to execute arbitrary operating system (OS) commands by taking advantage of a hard-coded JSON Web Token (JWT) signing key.

The Issabel Framework “contains a hard-coded HS256 JWT signing key in the pbxapi index.php file that is identical across every installation, allowing unauthenticated remote attackers to forge valid bearer tokens,” VulnCheck said in an alert.

Windows 11 KB5124008 update breaks domain trust for some users

Microsoft is investigating reports that the Windows 11 KB5124008 security update is breaking domain trust relationships on some enterprise systems, preventing users from logging in with valid domain credentials.

Administrators report on Reddit and Microsoft’s Q&A forums that affected computers lose their secure channel with Active Directory after the Windows 11 update is installed and devices reboot.

Last week, Microsoft confirmed to BleepingComputer that it is aware of the reports and is investigating.

Early changes in the tumor environment may explain why immunotherapy works for some patients but not others

Two patients receive the same immunotherapy for the same cancer. In one, the tumor retreats and stays gone for years. In the other, the treatment does nothing. Oncologists still have no reliable way to tell these patients apart before therapy begins. Why does immunotherapy succeed for some and fail for others?

A new study led by Professor Dvir Aran of the Technion Faculty of Biology and the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science, together with first author Dr. Zhongyang Lin and collaborators including Professor Jürgen C. Becker of the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), offers a new way to think about that question. Its central message: The answer may depend less on how a tumor looks before treatment begins than on how it changes during the first weeks of therapy. The findings are published in the journal Cancer Cell.

At the center of the study is the tumor microenvironment, the complex ecosystem of immune cells, blood vessels and structural cells that surround and interact with the tumor. This environment can either support the immune system’s attack or suppress it, and researchers have long suspected it plays a major role in whether immunotherapy succeeds or fails.

Software rapidly tracks viral variants with high accuracy to aid outbreak responses

It was mid-2020, and Patrick Varilly, a software engineer and data scientist, was stuck at home, eager to help the world navigate the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. He reconnected with Pardis Sabeti, a core institute member of the Broad Institute who was at the forefront of analyzing how the SARS-CoV-2 virus was spreading, and with Ben Fry, her longstanding collaborator and principal at Fathom Information Design, a software firm known for tackling complex data problems. Varilly had worked closely with Sabeti and Fry at MIT more than 20 years earlier.

At the time, Sabeti, Fry and their teams were studying thousands of SARS-CoV-2 genomes from COVID-19 patients to reconstruct the path of viral transmission and identify which viral variants were emerging. Normally, retracing that path—by mapping how different variants are genetically related to each other in what’s called a phylogenetic tree—takes a lot of time and computing power.

Varilly, Sabeti and Fry saw an opportunity to accelerate the process while making data more accessible and easier to interpret. The result is Delphy, a new platform for rapid, interactive phylogenetic analysis. In a paper published in Nature, the researchers report how they rebuilt state-of-the-art phylogenetic tree models to make them faster, more efficient and scalable while maintaining the models’ accuracy. Because Delphy runs entirely within a web browser, anyone with a laptop can perform these analyses without specialized training, software or computing infrastructure.

Anderon, an IBM Company, Finalizes Agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce for a $1 Billion CHIPS Award to Accelerate R&D for U.S.-Based Pure-Play Quantum Foundry

Anderon announced the finalization of a $1 billion award under the CHIPS and Science Act with the U.S. Department of Commerce. The award will accelerate Anderon’s R&D efforts to advance the nation’s quantum wafer manufacturing capabilities.

Scientists Just Teleported an Image Across 100 Quantum Channels at Once

Quantum teleportation is poised to change the world.

It sounds like science fiction – that the quantum state of one system can be transferred, or ‘teleported’, to another system a great distance away at close to the speed of light.

It’s real, and it has been proven – at relatively small scales. But if quantum computers are ever going to communicate across large networks, they’re going to need a way to send a lot of quantum information at once – which means scaling it up.

New DDRop Attack Breaks Intel TDX and AMD SEV-SNP Confidential Computing

Researchers have disclosed a new hardware attack, called DDRop, that breaks the memory protection in Intel and AMD confidential computing by silently dropping writes to a server’s memory, so the processor keeps reading old encrypted data as if it were current.

The attack requires an attacker who already controls the server’s software and can briefly access the machine to insert a small circuit board, called an interposer, between the processor and a memory module.

The interposer costs under $200 to build. DDRop works against Intel TDX, Intel Scalable SGX, and AMD SEV-SNP, the hardware that cloud services use to keep customer data private while it is in use, even from the cloud provider.

Miniaturized bone marrow-on-a-chip tracks human immune cells as they build lasting antibody defenses

A scientific team has developed a laboratory model that reveals how antibody-producing plasma cells migrate, mature and survive within human bone marrow, a main location of long-lived antibody-producing plasma cells. The platform combines a lymph node-mimicking organoid with a tissue chip that mimics bone marrow, allowing scientists to observe key stages of plasma cell development that have been difficult to study in humans.

Analysis of the cells in the tissue chip provides essential new information that advances our understanding of plasma cell development and function. This model also supports testing of new therapies for infection prevention, inhibition of allergy and reduction of autoimmunity. The study is published in Science Advances.

“This innovative bioengineering platform provides a window into a hidden aspect of the function of the human immune system,” said John H. Powers III, M.D., acting director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

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