Lifeboat Foundation

A vulnerability in WPForms, a WordPress plugin used in over 6 million websites, could allow subscriber-level users to issue arbitrary Stripe refunds or cancel subscriptions.

Tracked under CVE-2024–11205, the flaw was categorized as a high-severity problem due to the authentication prerequisite. However, given that membership systems are available on most sites, exploitation may be fairly easy in most cases.

The issue impacts WPForms from version 1.8.4 and up to 1.9.2.1, with a patch pushed in version 1.9.2.2, released last month.

Conversely, proprietary LLMs typically offer robust security features but still pose data privacy and control risks. Using these models involves sharing sensitive data with a third-party provider, which could lead to regulatory penalties if a breach occurs.

LLMs also lack transparency regarding their training data and how datasets are formed. Be mindful of potential bias and fairness issues and consider a human-in-the-loop approach, where specialists review and manage the model’s output.

Continue reading “Transforming Businesses With LLMs: Risks And Use Cases” »

Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Lithuania researchers, and scientists from Japan have developed a unique nanolaser. Although the dimensions of this laser are so small that its structure can only be seen through a powerful microscope, its potential is vast. With applications in early medical diagnostics, data communication, and security technologies, this invention could also become a key tool for the study of light and matter interactions.

Depending on the application, lasers differ in the way light is amplified and produced, which determines the color of the radiation and the quality of the laser beam.

“Nanolasers are lasers that use structures a million times smaller than a millimeter to generate and amplify light, and the laser radiation is generated in an extremely tiny volume of material,” says Dr. Mindaugas Juodėnas, one of the authors of the invention.

South Australia has the highest wind and solar share – an average of around 72 per cent over the last 12 months – vastly more than other state in Australia, and higher than any other gigawatt scale grid in the world.

Renewable energy critics, particularly those that don’t understand the way that grids work, instantly assume that this means South Australia’s grid must be weak and unreliable. But that is simply not true, and a new report from Australian Energy Market Operator on “system strength” underlines why this is so.

System strength is an important part of grid security, and – according to AEMO – describes the ability of the power system to maintain and control the voltage waveform at a given location, when the grid is running normally and particularly when it has to deal with a major disturbance.

Critical flaws in MLflow, PyTorch, and more enable remote code execution, threatening AI and ML security.

In today’s world, the fight against counterfeiting is more critical than ever. Counterfeiting affects about 3% of global trade, posing significant risks to the economy and public safety. From fake pharmaceuticals to counterfeit currency, the need for secure and reliable authentication methods is paramount. Authentication labels are commonly used—such as holograms on bank notes and passports—but there is always a need for new unfalsifiable technologies.

This is where research recently published in Applied Sciences comes into play. Led by a team of scientists from Oxford University, the University of Southampton, and Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron, the work focuses on developing a new technology for writing and reading covert information on authentication labels.

This technology leverages the unique properties of Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ thin films, which can change their structure when exposed to specific types of laser light. By using circularly or linearly polarized laser light, the researchers can encode hidden information in these thin films. This information can then be revealed using a simple reading device, making the technology both advanced and accessible.

Researchers have developed an innovative optical technology capable of enhancing data transmission by utilizing spatial-frequency patching metasurfaces.

This approach allows light beams to carry significantly more data across multiple independent channels, overcoming traditional optical beam limitations. Its applications extend to secure communication, encryption, and advanced optical systems.

Revolutionary optical technology for data transmission.

“This work shows that sensitive information can be leaked in ways that previously haven’t been considered,” said Poorya Mollahosseini, a graduate student at Princeton and the paper’s co-lead author with Sayed Saad Afzal, a graduate student at MIT.

How are underwater communications protected?

The security of underwater communications relies heavily on the inability of sound traveling underwater to penetrate the surface, the researchers said. Signals that carry information are transmitted underwater as sound waves. Because water and air have very different densities, the water’s surface acts as a barrier for sound. When underwater sound waves hit the surface, they mostly just bounce off.

Free-space optical communication links promise better security and increase bandwidths but can suffer from noise in daylight. This is particularly detrimental in quantum communications where current mitigation techniques, such as spectral, temporal, and spatial filtering, are not yet sufficient to make daylight tolerable for satellite quantum key distribution (SatQKD). As all current SatQKD systems are polarization-encoded, polarization filtering has not been investigated. However, by using time-and phase-encoded SatQKD, it is possible to filter in polarization in addition to existing domains. Scattered daylight can be more than 90% polarized in the visible band, yielding a reduction in detected daylight between 3 dB and 13 dB, such that polarization filtering can reduce the brightness of 780 nm daylight to below the unfiltered equivalent at 1,550 nm. Simulations indicate that polarization filtering increases the secure key rate and allows for SatQKD to be performed at dawn and dusk. This could open the way for daylight SatQKD utilizing shorter near-infrared wavelengths and retaining their benefits.

Published by Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.