Tangle Tech

An undetected variant of a known Android spyware was reprotedly hiding on the Google Play app store for roughly two years, infecting tens of thousands of devices, experts have warned.  A report from Kaspersky says that in April 2024, its researchers uncovered a “suspicious sample” which turned out to be a new variant of the dreaded Mandrake malware . The new sample led the team to a total of five Android apps, which were available for two years, Kaspersky said. Cumulatively, these apps had more than 32,000 downloads. They were uploaded in 2022, with individual apps being available for download “for at least a year”, suggesting that not all were available at the same time.  Hiding in cryptocurrency and astronomy apps Regardless, the malware was hiding in a Wi-Fi file sharing app, an astronomy services app, an Amber for Genshin game, a cryptocurrency app, and an app with logic puzzles. “As of July 2024, none of these apps have been detected as malware by any vendor, accordi...

Hackers are giving the old “phishing with errors” scam a modern twist in a bid to trick victims into downloading dangerous malware onto their PCs.  Cybersecurity researchers from the Trellix Advanced Research Center have revealed how they recently observed a new campaign that targets Microsoft OneDrive users. In the campaign, the victims get an email address with a .HTML file attached, typically named “Reports.pdf”, in an attempt to trick the victim into thinking it’s an important, work-related document. When the victims open it, they get a window that resembles Microsoft OneDrive, with an error message stating that the device could not connect, and that the error needs to be addressed manually. Social engineering tactics “Failed to connect to the 'OneDrive' cloud service. To fix the error, you need to update the DNS cache manually." The message reads. The window also features two buttons: “Details”, and “How to fix.” Clicking the “Details” button redirects the vict...

As you're getting ready to hit the beach or travel to the Paris Olympics , beware: travel applications are among the most data-hungry and privacy-unfriendly apps. Cybersecurity experts at NordVPN , one of the best VPN providers on the market, have found the likes of Booking, Airbnb, and FlightRadar24 request some of the most unnecessary permissions to access your device functions. Put simply, they want to access your data even when it's unrelated to fulfilling their performance, including some of the most sensitive information like your biometrics details. All this is bad for your privacy, especially when considering the ever-growing threat of data breaches involving big companies. Booking.com, for instance, was the target of a major phishing campaign last year. While it may be unimaginable to plan your holiday without one of these apps, there are still some actions you can take to protect your privacy when using them. Travel apps: "Over 28% of permissions are excess...

Artificial intelligence can produce impressive images, but it isn't uncommon for these images to have weird problems, such as people with too many teeth or cityscapes with Escher-style street layouts. Google Gemini is working on upgrading its AI image creation feature to fix those sorts of problems, as first spotted in unfinished code by Android Authority. It appears a fine-tuning capability is on its way, which will allow users to make detailed edits to their AI-generated images.  Google Gemini's text-to-image tools can't make edits after creating the image right now. Instead, users have to submit new prompts, hoping the new prompt will fix any problems and create something that matches what they want to see. That can be especially tedious if there's only a small but still distracting error. According to the uncovered code, Gemini's fine-tuning feature will address the need for limited changes with two editing methods. The first option will let users submit a p...

Computer Express Link (CXL) improves how CPUs and GPUs interact with memory and accelerators, standardizing communication across devices, reducing delays, and making systems faster and more capable of handling large amounts of data - especially important for applications requiring rapid data processing, such as AI. At a recent media briefing, Jangseok Choi, Vice President of Samsung's new business planning team, revealed the company was forging ahead with its plans to begin making and shipping CXL enabled memory modules. “We plan to mass-produce 256 GB DRAM supporting CXL 2.0 within this year. We expect the CXL market to start blooming in the second half and explosively grow from 2028,” Choi told media. A decade in the making Samsung predicts that the adoption of CXL technology will result in an eight to tenfold increase in memory capacity per server, translating to a substantial leap in computational capabilities. CXL, “expands the highway linking the CPU and memory chips fro...

Ransomware and business email compromise (BEC) attacks are hitting businesses more than ever before, a new report by Cisco Talos Incident Response (Talos IR) has claimed. The report states ransomware and BEC accounted for almost two-thirds (60%) of engagements, combined. There had been fewer BEC engagements this quarter, compared to the previous one, Talos added, noting it was “still a major threat for the second quarter in a row.” At the same time, Ransomware accounted for almost a third (30%) of engagements this quarter, up by a quarter (22%) compared to the same time three months ago.  Tech firms in the crosshairs Furthermore, the researchers observed Mallox and Underground Team ransomware families for the first time, suggesting the number of threat actors in the industry continues to grow. At the same time, Black Basta and BlackSuit ransomware operations continue to wreak havoc among organizations. The majority of organizations falling victim to either ransomware or BEC ...

Today's Quordle is a potentially difficult one, even more so than usual, so read on if you need a little help. Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my Wordle today , NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles. S POILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers. Quordle today (game #917) - hint #1 - Vowels How many different vowels are in Quordle today? • The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 5 *. * Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too). Quordle today (game #917) - hint #2 - repeated letters Do any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters? • The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 3 . Quordle today (game #917) - hint #3 - uncommon letters Do the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today? • ...

Here's another mightily tough Connections puzzle for you. I solved it, but it took me a while. If you need some help, read on… What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Wordle hints and answers , Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too. SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers. NYT Connections today (game #413) - today's words (Image credit: New York Times) Today's NYT Connections words are… BUTTERFLY TUXEDO PEACOCK NERVE BEETHOVEN SPINE WILLY JACKET CORNUCOPIA KALEIDOSCOPE TORTOISESHELL JITTER CALICO COVER TABBY PAGE NYT Connections today (game #413) - hint #1 - group hints What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups? Yellow: Keen readers will know these Green: Who's a pretty feline? Blue: Worry Purple...

There’s no question that Nvidia has been the firm to profit the most from the recent boost and AI revolution, as it recently became the third most valuable company on the planet, ahead of Alphabet and Amazon, and for a time in June, it even took the top spot , rising above Microsoft and Apple. All of the big tech players want to be involved in AI, but few want to be dependent on Nvidia, and for that reason, many are seeking alternatives where possible. Microsoft and OpenAI are reportedly in the process of planning a data center project which would include a potentially AMD-powered AI supercomputer named " Stargate .” Now, the The Information claims OpenAI has had discussions with several chip designers, including Broadcom, about developing a new AI chip to challenge Nvidia. Bigger than AMD and Intel Broadcom is best known for designing, developing, and supplying a broad range of semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions, with products used in data center networkin...

Recently I attended an HP Imagine AI event, which covered the full scope of the tech giant’s plans for AI in both its software and hardware. This was one of many recent events, showcases, and hands-on from numerous manufacturers who are clamoring to show media and buyers what it can offer in this increasingly overcrowded market. While HP’s offerings were quite interesting and often seemed quite useful, this all poses a much larger question: what is the purpose of all this? A second question must be begged afterward: what is the true future for AI? Once you unravel all the glam of these AI events, the shiny new AI PCs, and the multitude of AI-powered software and tools, this is the foundational question left. After ruminating on it for a while, I believe I found my deceptively simplistic answer: accessibility—a simple answer, but a truly profound one that draws out AI’s true potential. (Image credit: Future) What did HP reveal?  HP first delved into its mission statemen...

The new SearchGPT feature introduced by OpenAI has stumbled in its rollout, as first discovered by The Atlantic. SearchGPT is a new tool designed to combine OpenAI's AI models with real-time web data for faster, more accurate answers. It's not widely available but represents OpenAI's vision of how AI and search will augment each other in the future. In a prerecorded video showcasing SearchGPT, the tool provided incorrect information about the dates of the Appalachian Summer Festival in Boone, North Carolina. The July 29 to August 16 dates SearchGPT reported are far from the June 29 to July 27 dates the event actually occurs. As reported by The Atlantic and further confirmed , the dates of the festival in SearchGPT's response are when the box office is closed. You can watch the full demo here . SearchGPT Still Looking AI hallucinations and errors are perennial complaints, a universal issue pretty much every AI user has encountered. In that sense, the mistake is ...

You may remember that a while back, we reported on a nifty feature hidden in test versions of  Windows 11 , allowing users to see and use their phone within the desktop OS (in File Explorer) as if it were an external drive. We have been waiting patiently for this feature to finally drop somewhere, and it looks like the time is now! In an official blog post , Microsoft announced that it’s gradually rolling out the feature to Windows testers with Android phones across the various Insider channels (there are four, from Canary to Release Preview). This means that for now, only some Windows 11 testers will be able to try out the feature, but the key takeaway is that Microsoft is working on releasing this - and it could be available for all users before too long. With the feature, you can sift through files and folders, including photos and videos, on your Android phone right in  File Explorer on the Windows 11 desktop.  You can also perform all the usual file-related acti...

Here's a nice, easy Strands puzzle to round off the week. I say it's easy – you might disagree of course. There are hints below if you need them. Want more word-based fun? Then check out my Wordle today , NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games. SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers. NYT Strands today (game #145) - hint #1 - today's theme What is the theme of today's NYT Strands? • Today's NYT Strands theme is… Go for the gold NYT Strands today (game #145) - hint #2 - clue words Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system. SWAG SWAM QUEST SQUARE STARE SCARE NYT Strands today (game #145) - hint #3 - spangram What is a hint for today's spangram? • The games NYT Strands today (game #145) - hint #4 - spangram position What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches? •...

After  months of speculation,  OpenAI's search engine, SearchGPT, is here but only as a prototype and in limited testing. Even so, it's a watershed moment for the generative AI company and may represent the first substantial challenge to Google's Search engine dominance. OpenAI announced that it's testing SearchGPT in a blog post on Thursday. It calls it a "temporary prototype" and only posts a waiting list for access. Even so, we're learning a lot about the kind of results you can expect from SearchGPT. The main screen will start with an open prompt box pre-filled with the phrase, "What are you looking for?" It will accept natural language queries, which is not unlike Google, but unlike the world's most popular search engine, SearchGPT will accept follow-up queries. One example is a search for "Best tomatoes to grow in Minnesota" and then a follow-up query, "Which of these can I plant now?" OpenAI implies that the co...

New research from cybersecurity firm Heimdal has showed a huge spike in brute force attacks against corporate and institutional networks across Europe, with most of the attacks originating in Russia. Brute force attacks are used to gain access to accounts and systems by using trial and error to guess weak passwords . Russian threat actors have been abusing this technique to exploit Microsoft infrastructure in an effort to avoid detection, with attacks occurring since as early as May 2024 but may have been happening earlier. Cities, companies and infrastructure under attack Over half of the attacks originate from IP addresses in Moscow, which are then used to target major cities across a range of countries in Europe, including the United Kingdom, Lithuania, Denmark and Hungary. Worryingly, the rest of the attack IPs originate in Amsterdam and Brussels, with major ISPs such as Telefonica LLC and IPX-FZCO being abused by the threat actors. Research by Heimdal shows that the attacks...

The terrifying ferocity of the Android vs iPhone debate means you'd be forgiven for thinking that no one ever switches sides. But according to a new report, that's far from the case – in fact, a surprisingly high percentage of new iPhone owners last month were people who have defected from Android. According to new data from CIRP (Consumer Intelligence Research Partners), in June 2024, a massive 17% of iPhone buyers in the US came from Android. As the report states, that was "the highest level of switching from Android to iOS among iPhone buyers" in the "last several quarters." While that might sound like a flag-waving moment for Apple fans, it may not be quite as positive for the iPhone as it sounds. As CIRP notes, this high percentage of Android switchers is a reflection of the difficulty that Apple is having in convincing existing iPhone owners to upgrade. A separate report this month found that the iPhone 15 series isn't selling as well as the...

Orico, in partnership with Western Digital, has launched a Kickstarter campaign for the Data Matrix Ultra , a new storage solution designed for creative professionals. This system looks well suited to handling high-resolution 4K and 8K video and supports intensive post-production workflows. The Data Matrix Ultra is designed to evoke the aesthetics of Apple products. It combines fast M.2 SSDs (with speeds up to 3000MB/s) with high-capacity WD Red HDDs, and includes CFexpress Type-B slots capable of speeds up to 1500MB/s, which is fast enough to edit 8K video.  This storage system comes in a variety of capacities ranging from 5TB to 112TB, with options for future expansion and upgrades to meet growing project demands. It allows for the daisy-chaining of up to five devices, for a potential maximum of 560TB of storage. Data Matrix Ultra supports a variety of RAID configurations - RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, and JBOD - providing data security through redundancy and backup options. Already fun...

Cybersecurity researchers from ESET have warned of a recently-discovered vulnerability in the Android version of the popular instant messaging application Telegram. The vulnerability allowed threat actors to deploy malware on the vulnerable devices, and apparently - it was being actively exploited for weeks. A threat actor called Ancryno took to a Russian-speaking underground forum in early June 2024, to sell a zero-day exploit for Telegram versions 10.14.4 and older. This drew the attention of ESET’s experts, and when a proof-of-concept (PoC) was published, they picked up the malicious payload, analyzed it, and confirmed that it works. Fake prompts The vulnerability allowed threat actors to create malicious .APK files (Android installation packages) which, to the recipient, look like a video message. Since Telegram automatically downloads all multimedia, all the victim needs to do is open up the chat window to receive the payload.  Users who disabled the automatic download ...

LG has unveiled a new addition to its MyView Smart Monitor lineup. The 32SR75U-W features a 31.5-inch, 16:9 4K VA UHD (3840 x 2160) display that supports HDR10 and boasts a brightness of 250 cd/m², ensuring clear visuals under various lighting conditions.  With a 3000:1 contrast ratio, it displays 1.07 billion colors and covers 90% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, making it a suitable choice for creative professionals who need accurate color reproduction for their projects. LG's monitor has a 60Hz refresh rate and 5ms response time, which is adequate for daily tasks. It offers wide viewing angles of 178 degrees, both horizontally and vertically. The monitor is equipped with flicker-safe technology and smart energy-saving features to reduce eye strain and lower energy consumption. It has an adjustable stand and is compatible with a 100 x 100mm VESA mount. 27-inch model also available Compared to Samsung's M7 Smart Monitor , which we liked for its versatility and competitive prici...

Another day, another Strands puzzle from the NYT to get your brain working. There are hints below if you need them. Want more word-based fun? Then check out my Wordle today , NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games. SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers. NYT Strands today (game #142) - hint #1 - today's theme What is the theme of today's NYT Strands? • Today's NYT Strands theme is… You're the best! NYT Strands today (game #142) - hint #2 - clue words Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system. SLUR SLURP MUST STUMP PICNIC EXCITE NYT Strands today (game #142) - hint #3 - spangram What is a hint for today's spangram? • Winner NYT Strands today (game #142) - hint #4 - spangram position What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches? • First: right, 6th row • Last: le...

Khadas, a Chinese brand founded in 2016 and known for creating a pretty handy mini PC and an incredible external AI processor , is back with perhaps its most interesting gadget yet. The Mind Graphics eGPU Module , which costs $999 and launches on August 1 on Amazon, works alongside your existing PC setup and adds an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti desktop graphics card to the mix.  The best way to think of the module is working with the Khadas Mind, the company's mini PC, to supplement its features. One of the problems of smaller PCs is, well, powerful components take up space, and adding on an extra external component is a neat way to solve this issue.  Mind Graphics eGPU Module External GPUs , or eGPUs, are nothing new, but with the rise of AI and processor-intensive apps for video editing, game development, and so on, the need to bolt on a huge GPU to your PC is only going to grow.  As you can see from the above image, the Mind Graphics eGPU Module resembles  m...