AI Is Being Used to 'Turbocharge' Scams - WIRED

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AI Is Being Used to 'Turbocharge' Scams - WIRED

Code hidden inside PC motherboards left millions of machines vulnerable to malicious updates, researchers revealed this week. Staff at security firm Eclypsium found code within hundreds of models of motherboards created by Taiwanese manufacturer Gigabyte that allowed an updater program to download and run another piece of software. While the system was intended to keep the motherboard updated, the researchers found that the mechanism was implemented insecurely, potentially allowing attackers to hijack the backdoor and install malware. Elsewhere, Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky revealed that its staff had been targeted by newly discovered zero-click malware impacting iPhones. Victims were sent a malicious message, including an attachment, on Apple’s iMessage. The attack automatically started exploiting multiple vulnerabilities to give the attackers access to devices, before the message deleted itself. Kaspersky says it believes the attack impacted more people than just its own staff. On the same day as Kaspersky revealed the iOS attack, Russia’s Federal Security Service, also known as the FSB, claimed thousands of Russians had been targeted by new iOS malware and accused the US National Security Agency (NSA) of conducting the attack. The Russian intelligence agency also claimed Apple had helped the NSA. The FSB did not publish technical details to support its claims, and Apple said it has never inserted a backdoor into its devices. If that’s not enough encouragement to keep your devices updated, we’ve rounded up all the security patches issued in May. Apple, Google, and Microsoft all released important patches last month—go and make sure you're up to date. And there’s more. Each week we round up the security stories we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click on the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there. Lina Khan, the chair of the US Federal Trade Commission, warned this week that the agency is seeing criminals using artificial intelligence tools to “turbocharge” fraud and scams. The comments, which were made in New York and first reported by Bloomberg, cited examples of voice-cloning technology where AI was being used to trick people into thinking they were hearing a family member’s voice. Recent machine-learning advances have made it possible for people’s voices to be imitated with only a few short clips of training data—although experts say AI-generated voice clips can vary widely in quality. In recent months, however, there has been a reported rise in the number of scam attempts apparently involving generated audio clips. Khan said that officials and lawmakers “need to be vigilant early” and that while new laws governing AI are being considered, existing laws still apply to many cases. In a rare admission of failure, North Korean leaders said that the hermit nation’s attempt to put a spy satellite into orbit didn’t go as planned this week. They also said the country would attempt another launch in the future. On May 31, the Chollima-1 rocket, which was carrying the satellite, launched successfully, but its second stage failed to operate, causing the rocket to plunge into the sea. The launch triggered an emergency evacuation alert in South Korea, but this was later retracted by officials. The satellite would have been North Korea’s first official spy satellite, which experts say would give it the ability to monitor the Korean Peninsula. The country has previously launched satellites, but experts believe they have not sent images back to North Korea. The failed launch comes at a time of high tensions on the peninsula, as North Korea continues to try to develop high-tech weapons and rockets. In response to the launch, South Korea announced new sanctions against the Kimsuky hacking group, which is linked to North Korea and is said to have stolen secret information linked to space development. In recent years, Amazon has come under scrutiny for lax controls on people’s data. This week the US Federal Trade Commission, with the support of the Department of Justice, hit the tech giant with two settlements for a litany of failings concerning children’s data and its Ring smart home cameras. In one instance, officials say, a former Ring employee spied on female customers in 2017—Amazon purchased Ring in 2018—viewing videos of them in thei...