Comment Bandwagon effect (Score 1) 26
In the latest example of this craze, the company that makes all that iStuff is rebranding to "Apple". How lame is that?
Comment Re:Scalping (Score 1) 144
They probably projected that the labor shortage and supply chain gridlock crisis would be over by now. Or at least would be showing tangible signs of progress toward being resolved eventually.
So in a way, this is a bad omen. How many other potentially useful projects are being abandoned these days, as people who usually get things done just give up on trying to get things done?
Comment Re:Brilliant! (Score 2, Informative) 52
> Exactly what leverage does the Biden Admin think they have
List of US arms sales to Taiwan
"Might be a small delay in delivery of those defensive weapons systems you guys ordered. You know how things are these days..."
Remember, Joe Biden as Vice-President in 2016 threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid to Ukraine unless they ousted their top prosecutor. There was a lot of polarized brouhaha and conspiracy theory about the "real" reason for doing so, but the plain fact of threatening to withhold the aid is uncontroversial because Biden himself boasted about it on video to reporters. So it's not entirely a stretch to imagine he'd twist Taiwanese arms to get the outcome he wants.
Submission + - Sophisticated Mac Malware Targets M1, x86; Has Self-Destruct But No Payload Yet (redcanary.com)
Nihilist_CE writes: First detected in August of 2020, the Silver Sparrow malware is interesting in several unsettling ways. It uses the macOS Installer Javascript API to launch a bash process to gain a foothold into the user's system, a hitherto-unobserved method for bypassing malware detection. This bash shell is then used to invoke macOS's built-in PlistBuddy tool to create a LaunchAgent which executes a bash script every hour. This is the command and control process, which downloads a JSON file containing (potentially) new instructions.
Besides the novel installation method, Silver Sparrow is also mysterious in its payload: a single, tiny binary that does nothing but open a window reading "Hello, World!" (in v1, which targets Intel Macs) or "You did it!" (in v2, which is an M1-compatible fat binary). These "bystander binaries" are never executed and appear to be proofs-of-concept or placeholders for future functionality.
The malware also includes a self-destruct mechanism: If a file exists at ~/Library/._insu during its hourly execution, the script deletes itself and all traces of its existence.
Besides the novel installation method, Silver Sparrow is also mysterious in its payload: a single, tiny binary that does nothing but open a window reading "Hello, World!" (in v1, which targets Intel Macs) or "You did it!" (in v2, which is an M1-compatible fat binary). These "bystander binaries" are never executed and appear to be proofs-of-concept or placeholders for future functionality.
The malware also includes a self-destruct mechanism: If a file exists at ~/Library/._insu during its hourly execution, the script deletes itself and all traces of its existence.
Thanks to contributions from Erika Noerenberg and Thomas Reed from Malwarebytes and Jimmy Astle from VMware Carbon Black, we quickly realized that we were dealing with what appeared to be a previously undetected strain of malware.
According to data provided by Malwarebytes, Silver Sparrow had infected 29,139 macOS endpoints across 153 countries as of February 17, including high volumes of detection in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, and Germany.
Though we haven’t observed Silver Sparrow delivering additional malicious payloads yet, its forward-looking M1 chip compatibility, global reach, relatively high infection rate, and operational maturity suggest Silver Sparrow is a reasonably serious threat, uniquely positioned to deliver a potentially impactful payload at a moment’s notice. Given these causes for concern, in the spirit of transparency, we wanted to share everything we know with the broader infosec industry sooner rather than later.
Submission + - 51st Known Mersenne Prime Found! (mersenne.org)
chalsall writes: The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has discovered the largest known prime number, 2^82,589,933-1, having 24,862,048 digits. A computer volunteered by Patrick Laroche from Ocala, Florida made the find on December 7, 2018. GIMPS has been on amazing lucky streak finding triple the expected number of new Mersenne primes — a dozen in the last fifteen years.
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interlard - vt., to intersperse; diversify -- Webster's New World Dictionary Of The American Language
