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Category: cybercrime/malcode – Page 6

Malicious MoltBot skills used to push password-stealing malware

More than 230 malicious packages for the personal AI assistant OpenClaw (formerly known as Moltbot and ClawdBot) have been published in less than a week on the tool’s official registry and on GitHub.

Called skills, the packages pretend to be legitimate tools to deliver malware that steals sensitive data, like API keys, wallet private keys, SSH credentials, and browser passwords.

Originally named ClawdBot and switching to Moltbot and now OpenClaw in under a month, the project is a viral open-source AI assistant designed to run locally, with persistent memory and integrate with various resources (chat, email, local file system). Unless configured properly, the assistant introduces security risks.

Securing the Neural Frontier: Cybersecurity and Privacy Risks in Brain-Computer Interfaces and Neurotechnology

Please see my LinkedIn article: “Securing the Neural Frontier.”

We are poised to witness one of the most significant technological advancements in human history: the direct interaction between human brains and machines. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), neurotechnology, and brain-inspired computing have already arrived and need to be secure.

Link.

Emerging Technology Convergence Will Shape Our Future

The future won’t be built on one breakthrough. It will be shaped by how well we mesh AI, quantum, 5G, IoT, and human intelligence into secure, resilient systems. Technology advantage now comes from orchestration, not adoption.

My latest Forbes article explores why this convergence will define the next decade.

#AI #QuantumComputing #EmergingTechnology #Cybersecurity #Leadership #FutureOfTech.

Link to article.

The next decade of innovation will not be defined by a single breakthrough technology. Instead, it will be shaped by the convergence of multiple emerging technologies.

Scientists teach microorganisms to build molecules with light

Researchers are continually looking for new ways to hack the cellular machinery of microbes like yeast and bacteria to make products that are useful for humans and society. In a new proof-of-concept study, a team from the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology showed they can expand the biosynthetic capabilities of these microbes by using light to help access new types of chemical transformations.

The paper, published in Nature Catalysis, demonstrates how the bacteria Escherichia coli can be engineered to produce these new molecules in vivo, using light-driven enzymatic reactions. This framework sets the foundation for future development in the emerging field of photobiocatalysis.

“Photobiocatalysis is basically light-activated catalysis by enzymes. Without light, the target enzyme cannot catalyze a reaction. When light is added, the target enzyme will be activated,” said Huimin Zhao (BSD leader/CAMBERS/CGD/MMG), Steven L. Miller Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. “We have published many papers showing that it is possible to combine photocatalysis with enzyme catalysis to create a new class of photoenzymes. These artificial photoenzymes can catalyze selective reactions that cannot be achieved by natural enzymes and are also very difficult, or sometimes even not possible, with chemical catalysis.”

Google disrupts IPIDEA residential proxy networks fueled by malware

IPIDEA, one of the largest residential proxy networks used by threat actors, was disrupted earlier this week by Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) in collaboration with industry partners.

The action included taking down domains associated with IPIDEA services, infected device management, proxy traffic routing. Additionally, intelligence has been shared on the IPIDEA software development kits (SDK) that distributed the proxying tool.

The operators of IPIDEA advertised it as a VPN service that “encrypts your online traffic and hides your real IP address,” used by 6.7 million users worldwide.

Hugging Face abused to spread thousands of Android malware variants

A new Android malware campaign is using the Hugging Face platform as a repository for thousands of variations of an APK payload that collects credentials for popular financial and payment services.

Hugging Face is a popular platform that hosts and distributes artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), and machine learning (ML) models, datasets, and applications.

It is considered a trusted platform unlikely to trigger security warnings, but bad actors have abused it in the past to host malicious AI models.

Aisuru botnet sets new record with 31.4 Tbps DDoS attack

The Aisuru/Kimwolf botnet launched a new massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that peaked at 31.4 Tbps and 200 million requests per second, setting a new record.

The attack was part of a campaign targeting multiple companies, most of them in the telecommunications sector, and was detected and mitigated by Cloudflare last year on December 19.

Aisuru is responsible for the previous DDoS record that reached 29.7 Tbps. Another attack that Microsoft attributed to the botnet peaked at 15.72 Tbps and originated from 500,000 IP addresses.

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