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OpenAI on Friday said it would start showing ads in ChatGPT to logged-in adult U.S. users in both the free and ChatGPT Go tiers in the coming weeks, as the artificial intelligence (AI) company expanded access to its low-cost subscription globally. "You need to know that your data and conversations are protected and never sold to advertisers," OpenAI said . "And we need to keep a high bar and give you control over your experience, so you see truly relevant, high-quality ads—and can turn off personalization if you want." The company has positioned advertising as a way to ensure that the benefits of artificial general intelligence – a term used to describe a stage in machine learning when an AI system can reach or surpass human-level intelligence – can be made more accessible to the masses. In addition, it can be "transformative" for small businesses and emerging brands trying to compete, it added. It also emphasized that ads do not influence responses...

The JavaScript (aka JScript) malware loader called GootLoader has been observed using a malformed ZIP archive that's designed to sidestep detection efforts by concatenating anywhere from 500 to 1,000 archives. "The actor creates a malformed archive as an anti-analysis technique," Expel security researcher Aaron Walton said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "That is, many unarchiving tools are not able to consistently extract it, but one critical unarchiving tool seems to work consistently and reliably: the default tool built into Windows systems." This leads to a scenario where the archive cannot be processed by tools like WinRAR or 7-Zip, and, therefore, prevents many automated workflows from analyzing the contents of the file. At the same time, it can be opened by the default Windows unarchiver, thereby ensuring that victims who fall victim to the social engineering scheme can extract and run the JavaScript malware. GootLoader is typically distrib...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered five new malicious Google Chrome web browser extensions that masquerade as human resources (HR) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms like Workday, NetSuite, and SuccessFactors to take control of victim accounts. "The extensions work in concert to steal authentication tokens, block incident response capabilities, and enable complete account takeover through session hijacking," Socket security researcher Kush Pandya said in a Thursday report. The names of the extensions are listed below - DataByCloud Access (ID: oldhjammhkghhahhhdcifmmlefibciph, Published by: databycloud1104) - 251 Installs Tool Access 11 (ID: ijapakghdgckgblfgjobhcfglebbkebf, Published by: databycloud1104) - 101 Installs DataByCloud 1 (ID: mbjjeombjeklkbndcjgmfcdhfbjngcam, Published by: databycloud1104) - 1,000 Installs DataByCloud 2 (ID: makdmacamkifdldldlelollkkjnoiedg, Published by: databycloud1104) - 1,000 Installs Software Access (ID: bmodapc...

You lock your doors at night. You avoid sketchy phone calls. You’re careful about what you post on social media. But what about the information about you that’s already out there—without your permission? Your name. Home address. Phone number. Past jobs. Family members. Old usernames. It’s all still online, and it’s a lot easier to find than you think. The hidden safety threat lurking online Most people don’t realize how much of their personal life is sitting on public websites, data broker platforms, and sketchy directories. These sites don’t just sell your info to marketers—they make it available to anyone with internet access. And that’s when things can get dangerous. Exposed personal information can lead to: Doxxing incidents where personal info is leaked online Harassment that moves from your inbox to your doorstep Stalkers and scammers are building a profile on you using old addresses and phone numbers Strangers showing up where you live or work. It’s not just creep...

Security experts have disclosed details of a new campaign that has targeted U.S. government and policy entities using politically themed lures to deliver a backdoor known as LOTUSLITE . The targeted malware campaign leverages decoys related to the recent geopolitical developments between the U.S. and Venezuela to distribute a ZIP archive ("US now deciding what's next for Venezuela.zip") containing a malicious DLL that's launched using DLL side-loading techniques. It's not known if the campaign managed to successfully compromise any of the targets. The activity has been attributed with moderate confidence to a Chinese state-sponsored group known as Mustang Panda (aka Earth Preta, HoneyMyte, and Twill Typhoon), citing tactical and infrastructure patterns. It's worth noting that the threat actor is known for extensively relying on DLL side-loading to launch its backdoors, including TONESHELL. "This campaign reflects a continued trend of targeted spear...

A threat actor likely aligned with China has been observed targeting critical infrastructure sectors in North America since at least last year. Cisco Talos, which is tracking the activity under the name UAT-8837 , assessed it to be a China-nexus advanced persistent threat (APT) actor with medium confidence based on tactical overlaps with other campaigns mounted by threat actors from the region. The cybersecurity company noted that the threat actor is "primarily tasked with obtaining initial access to high-value organizations," based on the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and post-compromise activity observed. "After obtaining initial access — either by successful exploitation of vulnerable servers or by using compromised credentials — UAT-8837 predominantly deploys open-source tools to harvest sensitive information such as credentials, security configurations, and domain and Active Directory (AD) information to create multiple channels of access to their v...

Cisco on Thursday released security updates for a maximum-severity security flaw impacting Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Secure Email Gateway and Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager, nearly a month after the company disclosed that it had been exploited as a zero-day by a China-nexus advanced persistent threat (APT) actor codenamed UAT-9686. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-20393 (CVSS score: 10.0), is a remote command execution flaw arising as a result of insufficient validation of HTTP requests by the Spam Quarantine feature. Successful exploitation of the defect could permit an attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on the underlying operating system of an affected appliance. However, for the attack to work, three conditions must be met - The appliance is running a vulnerable release of Cisco AsyncOS Software The appliance is configured with the Spam Quarantine feature The Spam Quarantine feature is exposed to and reachable from the internet L...