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Scientists Discover a New Cousin of Diamond That Was Thought To Exist Only in Theory

Diamond and graphite have a new carbon cousin called diamondiyne, with a crystal structure confirmed so far only in microscopic patches.

A carbon structure proposed 35 years ago has finally taken shape in a thin film where two liquids meet. Using relatively inexpensive equipment, researchers at the University of Gothenburg have created diamondiyne for the first time, adding a new three-dimensional structure to the forms carbon can take.

Diamondiyne is a carbon allotrope, a form of the element distinguished by how its atoms are arranged. Diamond and graphite are familiar examples. To create diamondiyne, the researchers joined carbon atoms through triple bonds. The material crystallizes into a network of tetrahedra, shapes with four triangular faces, connected corner to corner in all three dimensions.

A Quantum Breakthrough Inside a Diamond Could Help Solve One of Einstein’s Greatest Mysteries

Electrons inside a diamond have given a floating, centimeter-sized device a quantum nudge, opening a new path toward testing how quantum physics and gravity fit together.

Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have used electron spin inside a diamond to drive the motion of a centimeter-scale (roughly 0.4-inch-scale) levitating device. Published in Science Advances, the experiment offers a new way to explore quantum effects in objects massive enough to matter in future investigations of gravity.

Quantum mechanics already makes lasers, MRI scanners, semiconductors, and quantum computers possible. But testing its stranger predictions in larger objects is difficult because heat, vibration, and other environmental disturbances can overwhelm delicate quantum behavior.

Cisco Warns of Active Attacks Exploiting New Critical Secure Email Gateway Vulnerability

Attackers are exploiting a critical flaw in Cisco Secure Email Gateway that lets a sender with no login write files to the appliance’s operating system, Cisco said in an advisory on Wednesday.

The attacker sends an email with a crafted attachment through the gateway and, if it succeeds, could then run commands as root. The appliance filters an organization’s email for spam, malware, and other threats, and only a gateway with the File Reputation service enabled and a Content Scanner Tools package older than version 25.3.0.5525 is vulnerable.

The fix has been shipping since September 14 in AsyncOS 15.5.5–014 and 16.5.0–780, the builds Cisco listed as fixed in a hardening release that day, which the company now says covered this flaw. It also arrives as a Content Scanner Tools update, version 25.3.0.5525 or later, which installs without a software upgrade or a restart.

Hirudo Android Trojan Uses Patched Banking Apps to Bypass Their Built-In Security Checks

“However, Play Protect also provides offline detection for known potentially harmful applications, meaning that the mechanism does not completely disable its protection,” ThreatFabric noted last month. “We therefore assess that the technique is more likely intended to reduce the effectiveness of online reputation and code-analysis mechanisms rather than bypass Play Protect entirely.”

Depending on the nature of the lure app used, the dropper is also designed to serve bogus screens to capture payment PINs, serve fake screens requesting login credentials for banks and wallet apps, display fake lock screen pattern and PIN overlays, and facilitate total remote control of the device.

While all this behavior is par for the course when it comes to Android banking trojans, it’s their attempts to replace the target banking app with a tampered copy that stand out. Specifically, the purpose-built replacements embed a hooking engine to blind signature, accessibility, screen-capture, and Play Integrity checks from within the app. The replacement targets eight Indonesian apps.