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Popular messaging app WhatsApp on Tuesday unveiled a new technology called Private Processing to enable artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities in a privacy-preserving manner. "Private Processing will allow users to leverage powerful optional AI features – like summarizing unread messages or editing help – while preserving WhatsApp's core privacy promise," the Meta-owned service said in a statement shared with The Hacker News. With the introduction of the latest feature, the idea is to facilitate the use of AI features while still keeping users' messages private. It's expected to be made available in the coming weeks. The capability, in a nutshell, allows users to initiate a request to process messages using AI within a secure environment called the confidential virtual machine (CVM) such that no other party, including Meta and WhatsApp, can access them. Confidential processing is one of the three tenets that underpin the feature, the others being - Enf...

Various generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) services have been found vulnerable to two types of jailbreak attacks that make it possible to produce illicit or dangerous content. The first of the two techniques, codenamed Inception, instructs an AI tool to imagine a fictitious scenario, which can then be adapted into a second scenario within the first one where there exists no safety guardrails . "Continued prompting to the AI within the second scenarios context can result in bypass of safety guardrails and allow the generation of malicious content," the CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) said in an advisory released last week. The second jailbreak is realized by prompting the AI for information on how not to reply to a specific request.  "The AI can then be further prompted with requests to respond as normal, and the attacker can then pivot back and forth between illicit questions that bypass safety guardrails and normal prompts," CERT/CC added. Success...

North Korea-linked threat actors behind the Contagious Interview have set up front companies as a way to distribute malware during the fake hiring process. "In this new campaign, the threat actor group is using three front companies in the cryptocurrency consulting industry – BlockNovas LLC (blocknovas[.] com), Angeloper Agency (angeloper[.]com), and SoftGlide LLC (softglide[.]co) – to spread malware via 'job interview lures," Silent Push said in a deep-dive analysis. The activity, the cybersecurity company said, is being used to distribute three different known malware families, BeaverTail, InvisibleFerret , and OtterCookie . Contagious Interview is one of the several job-themed social engineering campaigns orchestrated by North Korea to entice targets into downloading cross-platform malware under the pretext of coding assignment or fixing an issue with their browser when turning on camera during a video assessment. The activity is tracked by the broader cybersecu...

The threat actors behind the Darcula phishing-as-a-service ( PhaaS ) platform have released new updates to their cybercrime suite with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) capabilities. "This addition lowers the technical barrier for creating phishing pages, enabling less tech-savvy criminals to deploy customized scams in minutes," Netcraft said in a fresh report shared with The Hacker News. "The new AI-assisted features amplify Darcula's threat potential by simplifying the process to build tailored phishing pages with multi-language support and form generation — all without any programming knowledge." Darcula was first documented by the cybersecurity company in March 2024 as a toolkit that leveraged Apple iMessage and RCS to send smishing messages to trick recipients into clicking on bogus links under the guise of postal services like USPS. Earlier this year, the operators of Darcula PhaaS began testing a major update that enabled customers to cl...

WhatsApp has introduced an extra layer of privacy called Advanced Chat Privacy that allows users to block participants from sharing the contents of a conversation in traditional chats and groups. "This new setting available in both chats and groups helps prevent others from taking content outside of WhatsApp for when you may want extra privacy," WhatsApp said in a statement. The optional feature, when enabled, prevents others from exporting chats, auto-downloading media to their phone, and using messages for artificial intelligence (AI) features. However, it's worth noting users can still take individual screenshots, or manually download the media. The popular messaging service said the feature is "best used" when engaging in sensitive conversations with groups where it's possible that users may not know everyone closely. The feature, WhatsApp said, is rolling to all users who are on the latest version of the application. The disclosure comes as the ...

Google on Tuesday revealed that it will no longer offer a standalone prompt for third-party cookies in its Chrome browser as part of its Privacy Sandbox initiative. "We've made the decision to maintain our current approach to offering users third-party cookie choice in Chrome, and will not be rolling out a new standalone prompt for third-party cookies," Anthony Chavez, vice president of Privacy Sandbox at Google, said . "Users can continue to choose the best option for themselves in Chrome's Privacy and Security Settings." Back in July 2024, the tech giant said it had abandoned its plans to deprecate third-party tracking cookies and that it intends to roll out a new experience instead that lets users make an informed choice. Google said feedback from publishers, developers, regulators, and the ads industry has made it clear there are "divergent perspectives" on making changes that could affect the availability of third-party cookies. In its...

Talking about AI: Definitions Artificial Intelligence (AI) — AI refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines, enabling them to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as decision-making and problem-solving. AI is the broadest concept in this field, encompassing various technologies and methodologies, including Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning. Machine Learning (ML) — ML is a subset of AI that focuses on developing algorithms and statistical models that allow machines to learn from and make predictions or decisions based on data. ML is a specific approach within AI, emphasizing data-driven learning and improvement over time. Deep Learning (DL) — Deep Learning is a specialized subset of ML that uses neural networks with multiple layers to analyze and interpret complex data patterns. This advanced form of ML is particularly effective for tasks such as image and speech recognition, making it a crucial component of many AI applications. Larg...

Google on Wednesday revealed that it suspended over 39.2 million advertiser accounts in 2024, with a majority of them identified and blocked by its systems before it could serve harmful ads to users. In all, the tech giant said it stopped 5.1 billion bad ads, restricted 9.1 billion ads, and blocked or restricted ads on 1.3 billion pages last year. It also suspended over 5 million accounts for scam-related violations. In comparison, Google suspended over 12.7 million advertiser accounts, stopped 5.5 billion bad ads, restricted 6.9 billion ads, and blocked or restricted ads on 2.1 billion pages in 2023. The top six ad policy violations included ad network abuse (793.1 million), trademark misuse (503.1 million), personalized ads (491.3 million), legal requirements (280.3 million), financial services (193.7 million), and misrepresentation (146.9 million), among others. Most of the pages on which its ads were blocked or restricted include sexual content, dangerous or derogatory con...

Threat actors are leveraging an artificial intelligence (AI) powered presentation platform named Gamma in phishing attacks to direct unsuspecting users to spoofed Microsoft login pages. "Attackers weaponize Gamma, a relatively new AI-based presentation tool, to deliver a link to a fraudulent Microsoft SharePoint login portal," Abnormal Security researchers Callie Hinman Baron and Piotr Wojtyla said in a Tuesday analysis. The attack chain commences with a phishing email, in some cases sent from legitimate, compromised email accounts, to entice message recipients into opening an embedded PDF document. In reality, the PDF attachment is nothing but a hyperlink that, when clicked, redirects the victim to a presentation hosted on Gamma that prompts them to click on a button to "Review Secure Documents." Doing so takes the user to an intermediate page that impersonates Microsoft and instructs them to complete a Cloudflare Turnstile verification step before accessing...

Introduction Cyber threats targeting supply chains have become a growing concern for businesses across industries. As companies continue to expand their reliance on third-party vendors, cloud-based services, and global logistics networks, cybercriminals are exploiting vulnerabilities within these interconnected systems to launch attacks. By first infiltrating a third-party vendor with undetected security gaps, attackers can establish a foothold, leveraging these weaknesses to penetrate the primary business partners' network. From there, they move laterally through critical systems, ultimately gaining access to sensitive data, financial assets, intellectual property, or even operational controls. Recent high-profile breaches like the 2024 ransomware attack that hit Change Healthcare, one of the world's largest health payment processing companies, demonstrate how attackers disrupted supply chain operations stealing up to 6TB of millions of patients' protected health information (PHI)....