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Broadcom will pay $61 billion to become the latest company to acquire VMware

Enlarge (credit: VMWare) Chipmaker Broadcom will be acquiring VMware for $61 billion in cash and stock, the companies announced today. Broadcom is best known for designing and selling a wide range of wired…

Omnipotent BMCs from Quanta remain vulnerable to critical Pantsdown threat

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) In January 2019, a researcher disclosed a devastating vulnerability in one of the most powerful and sensitive devices embedded into modern servers and workstations. With a severity rating of…

“Tough to forge” digital driver’s license is… easy to forge

Enlarge (credit: Service NSW) In late 2019, the government of New South Wales in Australia rolled out digital driver's licenses. The new licenses allowed people to use their iPhone or Android device to…

Why it’s hard to sanction ransomware groups

Enlarge (credit: Rob Engelaar | Getty Images) This story was originally published by ProPublica. On February 25, the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, a prolific ransomware gang called Conti made a proclamation on…

Researchers find backdoor lurking in WordPress plugin used by schools

Enlarge (credit: BeeBright / Getty Images / iStockphoto) Researchers said on Friday that they found a malicious backdoor in a WordPress plugin that gave attackers full control of websites that used the package,…

How we learned to break down barriers to machine learning

Dr. Sephus discusses breaking down barriers to machine learning at Ars Frontiers 2022. Click here for transcript. (video link) Welcome to the week after Ars Frontiers! This article is the first in a…

2 vulnerabilities with 9.8 severity ratings are under exploit. A 3rd looms

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Malicious hackers, some believed to be state-backed, are actively exploiting two unrelated vulnerabilities—both with severity ratings of 9.8 out of a possible 10—in hopes of infecting sensitive enterprise networks…

Twitter deal leaves Elon Musk with no easy way out

Enlarge (credit: Chris Delmas/Getty Images) Since the financial crisis, corporate lawyers have aspired to build the ultimate ironclad merger contract that keeps buyers with cold feet from backing out. The “bulletproof” modern deal…

New Bluetooth hack can unlock your Tesla—and all kinds of other devices

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) When you use your phone to unlock a Tesla, the device and the car use Bluetooth signals to measure their proximity to each other. Move close to the car…

Researchers devise iPhone malware that runs even when device is turned off

Enlarge (credit: Classen et al.) When you turn off an iPhone, it doesn’t fully power down. Chips inside the device continue to run in a low-power mode that makes it possible to locate…