Month: September 2023

Earlier this year, Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC announced that it was delaying the opening of a computer chip plant in the U.S. state of Arizona because of a shortage of specialized workers. But during a visit to Taiwan this week, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs told officials that the project is back on schedule and should have no further delays. From Phoenix, Arizona, Levi Stallings has our story. ...

For decades, Russian and eastern European hackers have dominated the cybercrime underworld. These days they may face a challenge from a new contender: China.  Researchers at cybersecurity firm Proofpoint say they have detected an increase in the spread of Chinese language malware through email campaigns since early 2023, signaling a surge in Chinese cybercrime activity and a new trend in the global threat landscape.  "We basically went from drought to flood here," said Selena Larson, senior threat intelligence analyst at Proofpoint and one of the authors of a new Proofpoint report on Chinese malware.   The increase, Larson said, could be due to several factors.  "There might be increased availability, there might be an ease of access to some of this malware, (and there might be) just increased activity by Chinese-speaking…

Germany's interior ministry has proposed forcing telecommunications operators to curb their use of equipment made by China's Huawei and ZTE, a government official said Wednesday, sparking warnings of likely disruption and possible legal action. The interior ministry wants to impose the changes to 5G networks after a review highlighted Germany's reliance on the two Chinese suppliers, as Berlin reassesses its relationship with a country it dubs both a partner and a systemic rival. Telecom operators swiftly criticized the proposals, while Huawei Germany rejected what it called the "politicization" of cyber security in the country. "Such an approach will have a negative impact on the digital transformation in Germany, inhibit innovation and significantly increase construction and operating costs for network operators," it said in a statement. Germany's interior ministry has designed…

Google announced Tuesday that its Bard chatbot would be integrated into Gmail, YouTube and other applications in a push to broaden Alphabet’s user experience. Google has spent years refining its generative AI without immediate plans to release a chatbot, until OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT late last year and partnered with Microsoft to popularize the cutting-edge tool. Google scrambled to put together its response: Bard. Google cleared hurdles earlier this year to release Bard across the globe in dozens of languages, squeaking past European regulators who raised questions about the chatbot’s effect on data security. The search engine giant is now waging a campaign to win public support. These new updates — Bard extensions — represent the company’s most ambitious attempt at popularizing generative AI. Going forward, Bard can work as a…

Britain has invited China to its global artificial intelligence summit in November, with foreign minister James Cleverly saying the risks of the technology could not be contained if one of its leading players was absent. "We cannot keep the UK public safe from the risks of AI if we exclude one of the leading nations in AI tech," Cleverly said in a statement on Tuesday.   Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants Britain to become a global leader in AI regulation and the summit on Nov. 1-2 will bring together governments, tech companies and academics to discuss the risks posed by the powerful new technology. Britain said the event would touch on topics such as how AI could undermine biosecurity as well as how the technology could be used for public…

Just as many in the United States are starting to explore how to use artificial intelligence to make their lives easier, U.S. adversaries and criminal gangs are moving forward with plans to exploit the technology at Americans’ expense. FBI Director Christopher Wray issued the warning Monday, telling a cybersecurity conference in Washington that artificial intelligence, or AI, “is ripe for potential abuses.” “Criminals and hostile foreign governments are already exploiting that technology,” Wray said, without sharing specifics. “While generative AI can certainly save law-abiding citizens time by automating tasks, it can also make it easier for bad guys to do things like generate deepfakes and malicious code and can provide a tool for threat actors to develop increasingly powerful, sophisticated, customizable and scalable capabilities,” he said. Wray said the FBI…

Solar panels soak up blinding noontime rays that help power a water desalination facility in eastern Saudi Arabia, a step towards making the notoriously emissions-heavy process less environmentally taxing. The Jazlah plant in Jubail city applies the latest technological advances in a country that first turned to desalination more than a century ago, when Ottoman-era administrators enlisted filtration machines for hajj pilgrims menaced by drought and cholera. Lacking lakes, rivers and regular rainfall, Saudi Arabia today relies instead on dozens of facilities that transform water from the Gulf and Red Sea into something potable, supplying cities and towns that otherwise would not survive. But the kingdom's growing desalination needs — fueled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's dreams of presiding over a global business and tourism hub — risk clashing…

For more than three decades, Somalia's digital identity system remained stagnant, untouched by the major technological changes sweeping the globe. That standstill is now coming to an end, says Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre. In a historic move, Barre convened a two-day conference in Mogadishu on Saturday, marking the official return of civil registration and the issuance of national ID cards. “Today marks a great day for Somalia as we finally lay the foundations of a reliable and all-inclusive national identification system that is recognized worldwide,” Barre said. After the official inauguration of the system Saturday by the prime minister in Mogadishu, the President of the Federal Republic of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who was in the city of Dhusamareb commanding the fight against al-Shabab militants in central Somalia,…

The Scattered Spider hacking group said on Thursday it took six terabytes of data from the systems of multibillion-dollar casino operators MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment as both companies probed the breaches. Speaking to Reuters via the messaging platform Telegram, a representative for the group said it did not plan to make the data public and declined to comment on whether it had asked the companies for ransom. The group's contact was provided to Reuters by a cybersecurity expert who runs an online repository of malware samples called "vx-underground," and declined to be named. Caesars and MGM did not respond to requests for comment on the amount of data that was breached. Caesars reported to regulators on Thursday it had found that on Sept. 7 hackers took data on…