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Showing posts with label Amazon Web Services. Show all posts
Technology
Amazon Web Services Artificial Intelligence AWS Ocelot cat qubits Quantum computing quantum error correction Quantum Technology Technology

Amazon Unveils Ocelot: A Breakthrough in Quantum Error Correction

 

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced a groundbreaking quantum prototype chip, Ocelot, designed to tackle one of quantum computing’s biggest challenges: error correction. The company asserts that the new chip reduces error rates by up to 90%, a milestone that could accelerate the development of reliable and scalable quantum systems.

Quantum computing has the potential to transform fields such as cryptography, artificial intelligence, and materials science. However, one of the primary hurdles in its advancement is error correction. Quantum bits, or qubits, are highly susceptible to external interference, which can lead to computation errors and instability. Traditional error correction methods require significant computational resources, slowing the progress toward scalable quantum solutions.

AWS’s Ocelot chip introduces an innovative approach by utilizing “cat qubits,” inspired by Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment. These qubits are inherently resistant to certain types of errors, minimizing the need for complex error correction mechanisms. According to AWS, this method can reduce quantum error correction costs by up to 90% compared to conventional techniques.

This technological advancement could remove a critical barrier in quantum computing, potentially expediting its real-world applications. AWS CEO Matt Garman likened this innovation to “going from unreliable vacuum tubes to dependable transistors in early computing — a fundamental shift that turned possibilities into reality.”

By addressing the error correction challenge, Amazon strengthens its position in the competitive quantum computing landscape, going head-to-head with industry leaders like Google and Microsoft. Google’s Willow chip has demonstrated record-breaking computational speeds, while Microsoft’s Majorana 1 chip enhances stability using exotic states of matter. In contrast, Amazon’s Ocelot focuses on error suppression, offering a novel approach to building scalable quantum systems.

Although Ocelot remains a research prototype, its unveiling signals Amazon’s commitment to advancing quantum computing technology. If this new approach to error correction proves successful, it could pave the way for groundbreaking applications across various industries, including cryptography, artificial intelligence, and materials science. As quantum computing progresses, Ocelot may play a crucial role in overcoming the error correction challenge, bringing the industry closer to unlocking its full potential.
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User Privacy
Amazon Web Services Christmas Scam Cyber Fraud Data Leak US Citizens User Privacy

Massive Data Breach Puts Millions at Risk During Christmas Season

 

As the Christmas season approaches, millions of U.S. citizens could face a potential holiday nightmare after a major data breach exposed 5 million unique credit and debit card details online. The leak threatens to compromise countless transactions during the festive shopping spree.

Security experts from Leakd.com revealed that 5 gigabytes of private screenshots were found in an unsecured Amazon S3 bucket, a cloud storage service provided by Amazon Web Services. These screenshots depict unsuspecting consumers entering sensitive data into fraudulent promotional forms, lured by offers that seem "too good to be true," such as free iPhones or heavily discounted holiday products.

The scam operates by enticing consumers with exclusive holiday gifts or significant discounts, requiring them to make a small payment or subscription to claim the offer. These offers often include a countdown timer to create a sense of urgency, pressuring individuals to act quickly without scrutinizing the details.

However, the promised items never arrive. Instead, the fraudsters steal sensitive data and store it on an unsecured server, where it can be accessed by anyone. This poses a heightened risk during the holiday season when shoppers are more vulnerable due to increased spending, making it easier for malicious actors to carry out unauthorized transactions unnoticed.

What to Do If You’re Affected

If you recently filled out a form promising an unbelievable offer, there’s a strong chance your privacy may have been compromised. Here’s what you should do:

  • Contact Your Bank: Inform your bank immediately and request a card replacement to prevent unauthorized transactions.
  • Monitor Bank Statements: Keep a close eye on your statements for any suspicious transactions. Report anything you don’t recognize.
  • Dispute Fraudulent Charges: If you notice unauthorized charges, contact your bank to dispute them and explore options for reimbursement.

The Growing Threat of Christmas Scams

Unfortunately, credit card theft isn’t the only scam cybercriminals are leveraging this holiday season. Security researchers have reported an increase in text-based scams impersonating delivery services. These scams target online shoppers, exploiting the busy season to steal sensitive information or money.

Examples of such scams include fake delivery notifications requesting payment for a package and inks leading to phishing websites that steal personal or payment information.

How to Protect Yourself

To safeguard yourself during the holiday season:

  • Verify Offers: Avoid offers that seem too good to be true, especially those requiring personal or payment details.
  • Check Sender Legitimacy: Double-check emails or texts claiming to be from delivery companies. Visit the official website directly rather than clicking on links.
  • Enable Fraud Alerts: Activate alerts with your bank to be notified of any unusual transactions.
  • Educate Family Members: Warn loved ones about these scams, especially those who may be less tech-savvy.

The holiday season should be a time of joy, not stress caused by data breaches and scams. By staying vigilant and taking proactive measures, you can protect yourself and your finances from cybercriminals looking to exploit this festive time of year.

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Technology
Amazon Web Services Artifcial Intelligence Internet Data LLM Technology

The Impact of AI-Generated Content on Internet Quality

 



In a comprehensive study conducted by the Amazon Web Services (AWS) AI Lab, a disconcerting reality has surfaced, shaking the foundations of internet content. Shockingly, an extensive 57.1% of all sentences on the web have undergone translation into two or more languages, and the culprit behind this linguistic convolution is none other than large language model (LLM)-powered AI.

The crux of the issue resides in what researchers term as "lower-resource languages." These are languages for which there is a scarcity of data available for the effective training of AI models. The domino effect begins with AI generating vast quantities of substandard English content. Following this, AI-powered translation tools enter the stage, exacerbating the degradation as they transcribe the material into various other languages. The motive behind this cascade of content manipulation is a profit-driven strategy, aiming to capture clickbait-driven ad revenue. The outcome is the flooding of entire internet regions with an abundance of deteriorating AI-generated copies, creating a dreading universe of misinformation.

The AWS researchers express profound concern, eemphasising that machine-generated, multi-way parallel translations not only dominate the total translated content in lower-resource languages but also constitute a substantial fraction of the overall web content in those languages. This amplifies the scale of the issue, underscoring its potential to significantly impact diverse online communities.

The challenges posed by AI-generated content are not isolated incidents. Tech giants like Google and Amazon have grappled with the ramifications of AI-generated material affecting their search algorithms, news platforms, and product listings. The issues are multifaceted, encompassing not only the degradation of content quality but also violations of ethical use policies.

While the English-language web has been experiencing a gradual infiltration of AI-generated content, the study highlights that non-English speakers are facing a more immediate and critical problem. Beyond being a mere inconvenience, the prevalence of AI-generated gibberish raises a formidable barrier to the effective training of AI models in lower-resource languages. This is a significant setback for the scientific community, as the inundation of nonsensical translations hinders the acquisition of high-quality data necessary for training advanced language models.

The pervasive issue of AI-generated content poses a substantial threat to the usability of the web, transcending linguistic and geographical boundaries. Striking a balance between technological advancements and content reliability is imperative for maintaining the internet as a trustworthy and informative space for users globally. Addressing this challenge requires a collaborative effort from researchers, industry stakeholders, and policymakers to safeguard the integrity of online information. Otherwise this one-stop digital world that we all count on to disseminate information is destined to be doomed. 



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Security
Amazon Web Services attackers AWS Cloud Device Cyber Attacks Data Data Safety data security Hackers Safety Scammers Scams Security

SCARLETEEL Hackers Target AWS Fargate in Latest Cryptojacking Campaign

 

An continuing sophisticated attack effort known as SCARLETEEL continues to target cloud settings, with threat actors currently focusing on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Fargate.

According to a new report from Sysdig security researcher Alessandro Brucato, "Cloud environments are still their primary target, but the tools and techniques used have adapted to bypass new security measures, along with a more resilient and stealthy command and control architecture."

The cybersecurity firm originally revealed SCARLETEEL in February 2023, describing a complex attack chain that resulted in the theft of confidential information from AWS infrastructure and the installation of bitcoin miners to illicitly profit from the resources of the compromised systems.

However, Sysdig told The Hacker News that it "could be someone copying their methodology and attack patterns." Cado Security's follow-up investigation revealed possible connections to the well-known cryptojacking outfit TeamTNT.

The threat actor's recent action is a continuation of his propensity to target AWS accounts by taking advantage of weak public-facing web apps in order to achieve persistence, steal intellectual property, and maybe earn $4,000 per day utilizing bitcoin miners.

According to Brucato, "The actor discovered and exploited a flaw in an AWS policy which allowed them to escalate privileges to AdministratorAccess and gain control over the account, enabling them to then use it however they wanted."

The rival starts by taking advantage of JupyterLab notebook containers that are set up in a Kubernetes cluster. Using this initial foothold, the adversary conducts reconnaissance on the target network and gathers AWS credentials to gain further access to the victim's environment.

The installation of the AWS command-line tool and the Pacu exploitation framework for later exploitation come next. The assault is notable for using a variety of shell scripts, some of which target AWS Fargate compute engine instances, to retrieve AWS credentials.

"The attacker was observed using the AWS client to connect to Russian systems which are compatible with the S3 protocol," Brucato said, adding the SCARLETEEL actors used stealthy techniques to ensure that data exfiltration events are not captured in CloudTrail logs.

Other actions done by the attacker include the employment of a DDoS botnet virus known as Pandora and the Kubernetes Penetration Testing tool Peirates, all of which point to continued efforts on the side of the actor to monetize the host.

"The SCARLETEEL actors continue to operate against targets in the cloud, including AWS and Kubernetes," Brucato said. 

"Their preferred method of entry is exploitation of open compute services and vulnerable applications. There is a continued focus on monetary gain via crypto mining, but [...] intellectual property is still a priority."



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Swiss
Amazon Web Services Cyber Crime Data Privacy FBI Russian Swiss

A Swiss Hacker Uncovered Confidential FBI Terrorism Screening Center File

Personal information of civilians who were on an outdated version of the US Government's No Fly List and Terrorist Screening Database was found on an open server by a 23-year-old Swiss hacker.

On January 12, Maia Arson Crimew, an influential hacker noted by the Department of Justice in a separate indictment, discovered the highly sensitive documents while browsing through a search engine full of unsecured servers. 

The text file "NoFly.csv," which refers to the subset of people in the Terrorist Screening Database who have been prohibited from flying because of suspected or known ties to terrorist organizations, was found after server analysis.

According to crimew, there were reportedly more than 1.5 million entries on the list overall. The data includes names and birthdates. The number of distinct people was significantly fewer than 1.5 million because it also contained many aliases.

According to the hacker, CommuteAir, an Ohio-based minor airline, maintained the insecure Amazon Web Services cloud server that contained the No Fly List as well as confidential data on roughly 1,000 of the airline's employees. Their passport numbers, addresses, and phone numbers were apparently included in this data.

Many of the names on the list appeared to be of Arabic or Middle Eastern ancestry, however, there were also Hispanic and Anglican-sounding names. The uncovered No-Fly list had several well-known names, including Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who was recently released from a US prison in exchange for US basketball player Brittney Griner. Also included on the list were alleged IRA members, an Irish paramilitary group. Another person was listed as being 8 years old by crimew based on their birth year.

While those on the smaller No-fly list are known or suspected terrorists who are prohibited from traveling to or inside the US, those on the Terrorist Screening Database may be subject to enhanced security checks and inspections when traveling.

According to the FBI, a list of people shared among government agencies is the Terrorism Screening Database, which is intended to prevent the kind of intelligence failures that took place before 9/11. The more constrained, smaller No Fly List is contained within it. People who have been screened for terrorism may be subject to further security checks and limitations. No one from the No Fly List is allowed to board an airplane in the United States.
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Kaspersky
Amazon Web Services Botnets Cloudfare Cryptocurrency Frauds Cyber Attacks DDOS Attacks ISP Kaspersky

Cloudflare Blocks a  DDoS Attack with 15 million Requests Per Second

 

On Wednesday, Cloudflare, an internet infrastructure company, revealed it has successfully resisted one of the largest volumetric distributed denials of service (DDoS) attacks ever seen. A DDoS attack with a pace of 15.3 million requests per second (rps) was discovered and handled earlier this month, making it one of the greatest HTTPS DDoS attacks ever. 

According to Cloudflare's Omer Yoachimik and Julien Desgats, "HTTPS DDoS assaults are more pricey of necessary computational resources due to the increased cost of establishing a secure TLS encrypted connection." "As a result, the attacker pays more to launch the assault, and the victim pays more to mitigate it. Traditional bandwidth DDoS assaults, in which attackers seek to exhaust and jam the victim's internet connection bandwidth, are different from volumetric DDoS attacks. Instead, attackers concentrate on sending as many spam HTTP requests as possible to a victim's server to consume valuable server CPU and RAM and prevent legitimate visitors from accessing targeted sites."

Cloudflare previously announced it mitigated the world's largest DDoS attack in August 2021, once it countered a 17.2 million HTTP requests per second (rps) attack, which the company described as nearly three times larger than any prior volumetric DDoS attack ever observed in the public domain. As per Cloudflare, the current attack was launched from a botnet including about 6,000 unique infected devices, with Indonesia accounting for 15% of the attack traffic, trailed by Russia, Brazil, India, Colombia, and the United States. 

"What's intriguing is the majority of the attacks came from data centers," Yoachimik and Desgats pointed out. "We're seeing a significant shift away from residential network Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and towards cloud compute ISPs." According to Cloudflare, the attack was directed at a "crypto launchpad," which is "used to showcase Decentralized Finance projects to potential investors." 

Amazon Web Services recorded the largest bandwidth DDoS assault ever at 2.3 terabytes per second (Tbps) in February 2020. In addition, cybersecurity firm Kaspersky reported this week about the number of DDoS attacks increased 4.5 times year over year in the first quarter of 2022, owing partly to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
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Trend Micro
Alibaba Amazon Web Services AWS Cisco Talos Crypto Mining Cyber Security Kubernetes Linux TeamTNT Trend Micro

AWS, and Alibaba Cloud was Attacked by Crypto Miners

 

An intel source recently provided Cisco Talos with modified versions of the TeamTNT cybercrime team's infected shell scripts, an earlier version of which was documented by Trend Micro. The malware creator modified these tools after learning that security experts had disclosed the prior version of its scripts. These scripts are intended primarily for Amazon Web Services (AWS), but they might also be used on-premise, in containers, or in other Linux instances. 

There are multiple TeamTNT payloads focusing on bitcoin mining, persistence, and lateral movement employing tactics like identifying and installing on with all Kubernetes pods in a local network, in addition to the primary credential stealer scripts. A script containing user credentials for the distribution system server and another with an API key which may allow remote access to a tmate shared login session is also included. Defense evasion functions aimed at defeating Alibaba cloud security technologies are included in some TeamTNT scripts.

When it comes to decision making obtaining credentials, the script looks for them in the following places and APIs: 

  • It attempts to obtain the string 'AWS' from /proc/*/environ from the Linux system environment variables. 
  • Obtaining the string 'AWS' from Docker environment variables with the command $(docker inspect $) (docker ps -q).
  • /home/.aws/credentials and /root/.aws/credentials are the default AWS CLI credential file locations.
While the query itself will not be caught by Cisco Secure Cloud Analytics, the alert "AWS Temporary Token Persistence" will detect later use of these credentials to generate further temporary credentials. Finally, the virus saves any credentials acquired by the preceding functions to the file "/var/tmp/TeamTNT AWS STEALER.txt" and uses cURL to transfer it to the URL http://chimaera[.]cc/in/AWS.php before deleting it. 

No CloudTrail, GuardDuty, or SCA events were generated when the script ran on the target EC2 instance for all network traffic was restricted by the VPC Security Group such as the script could not access TeamTNT's servers. 

The core of the defense impairment functions is directed against Alibaba Cloud Security's numerous agents, how, they also target Tencent Cloud Monitor and third-party BMC Helix Cloud Security, agents. While the bulk of malicious scripts targets AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) virtual machines, these bots are most typically detected running inside Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS) or a Tencent Cloud VM. They could theoretically be put on a VM operating on AWS or any other service, but it would be unusual. TeamTNT makes no attempt to disable AWS CloudWatch, Microsoft Defender, Google Cloud Monitor, Cisco Secure Cloud Analytics, CrowdStrike Falcon, Palo Alto Prisma Cloud, or other popular cloud security tools in the United States. 

The Alibaba defense damage routines have been retrieved and saved here from the script Kubernetes root payload 2.sh. Since static analysis of the defense impairment functions is problematic due to the presence of multiple Base64 encoded strings, those functions have been decrypted and placed back into the file ali-defense-impairment-base64-decoded.sh.txt. 

"Cybercriminals who have been exposed by security researchers should update those tools to keep functioning successfully," stated Darin Smith of Talos. 

The serious remote code execution problem in Spring Framework (CVE-2022-22965) has been leveraged to deploy cryptocurrency miners, in yet another example of how threat actors quickly co-opt recently revealed flaws into existing attacks. To deploy the cryptocurrency miners, the exploitation efforts employ a unique web shell, but not before switching off the firewall and disabling other virtual currency miner processes.
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Pharmaceutical Firms
Amazon Web Services Data Breach FBI information exposed Personal Details Pharmaceutical Firms

A Data Breach To An AWS Portal Glitch By Ravkoo, A US-based Online Pharmacy

 

Ravkoo, an online prescription filling service, suffered a data breach, exposing health and other sensitive information. The company's prescription interface is hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS). 

A security incident occurred in a specific instance that saved prescription information, allowing the information to be easily accessed. The unauthorized access occurred in September 2021, and the Ravkoo security team discovered it in October of that year. 

On January 3rd, 2022, around 150,000 potentially affected customers received breach notification letters. Ravkoo has discovered no cause to assume the exposed data was spreading or being utilized for nefarious activities at the time of writing their public statement, but that could change. The FBI and other authorities have been notified, and they are working with Ravkoo to investigate the situation further to determine who may be responsible. 

"Ravkoo has no indication that any of your personal information has been or will be exploited as a result of this occurrence at this time. Nonetheless, out of an abundance of caution, Ravkoo chose to alert you about this incident," according to Alpesh Patel, the online pharmacy's CEO, because it hasn't received any reports of identity theft relating to the data breach since September 27, the date of the incident. Ravkoo also claims to have reported the event to the appropriate authorities and to be working with forensic experts to examine the issue and improve its security posture. The hacker also provided records of 340,000 prescriptions written by Ravkoo between November 3, 2020, and September 11, 2021, totaling $8.5 million in medicine prices, according to Micah Lee of The Intercept. 

Ravkoo's identity monitoring services are available to users who may have been affected by the breach. The scope of the exposed data has not been released, however, the concerned parties should report any unlawful activity they see. Health information can be sold and exploited to commit medical identity theft, as we discussed earlier this week. For those who have their information utilized unlawfully, this might result in a variety of problems. Following an occurrence like this, it's critical to remain vigilant.
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