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Syntax errors are the doom of us all, including botnet authors

Enlarge / If you're going to come at port 443, you best not miss (or forget to put a space between URL and port). (credit: Getty Images) KmsdBot, a cryptomining botnet that could…

Darknet markets generate millions in revenue selling stolen personal data

Enlarge (credit: Peach_istock via Getty Images) It is common to hear news reports about large data breaches, but what happens once your personal data is stolen? Our research shows that, like most legal…

Never-before-seen malware is nuking data in Russia’s courts and mayors’ offices

Enlarge Mayors' offices and courts in Russia are under attack by never-before-seen malware that poses as ransomware but is actually a wiper that permanently destroys data on an infected system, according to security…

Apple slices its AI image synthesis times in half with new Stable Diffusion fix

Enlarge / Two examples of Stable Diffusion-generated artwork provided by Apple. (credit: Apple) On Wednesday, Apple released optimizations that allow the Stable Diffusion AI image generator to run on Apple Silicon using Core…

My secret life as an 11-year-old BBS sysop

Enlarge / Benj Edwards' computer running The Cave BBS in 1994. (credit: Benj Edwards) Thirty years ago last week—on November 25, 1992—my BBS came online for the first time. I was only 11…

Hive Social turns off servers after researchers warn hackers can access all data

Enlarge (credit: Hive Social) Hive Social, a social media platform that has seen meteoric growth since Elon Musk took over Twitter, abruptly shut down its service on Wednesday after a security advisory warned…

OpenAI invites everyone to test new AI-powered chatbot—with amusing results

Enlarge / An AI-generated image of a chatbot exploding forth from squiggly radial lines, as was foretold by the prompt. (credit: Benj Edwards / Ars Technica) On Wednesday, OpenAI announced ChatGPT, a dialogue-based…

Disney’s new neural network can change an actor’s age with ease

Enlarge / An example of Disney's FRAN age-changing AI that shows the original image on the left and re-aged rows of older (top, at age 65) and younger (lower, at age 18) examples…

Play app with 100K downloads booted for forwarding texts to developer server

Enlarge (credit: Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) Google has removed two apps, one with more than 100,000 downloads, after receiving a report they were part of an illegal scheme that surreptitiously forwarded…

Chrome, Defender, and Firefox 0-days linked to commercial IT firm in Spain

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Google researchers said on Wednesday they have linked a Barcelona, Spain-based IT company to the sale of advanced software frameworks that exploit vulnerabilities in Chrome, Firefox, and Windows Defender.…