SoylentNews

turgid writes:

Saturn's largest natural satellite, Titan, is believed to have a sub-surface ocean containing liquid water from data sent by NASA's Cassini mission. However, new analysis indicates that this might be slushy ice rather than liquid water, as an article in Gizmodo explains.

The Cassini spacecraft made 124 fly-bys of Titan collecting radar and gravity measurements which scientists interpreted as indicating the existence of a sub-surface ocean of water and ammonia. The Huygens lander, deployed on Titan by Cassini, collected data from radio signals further reinforcing this hypothesis.

Due to the presence of liquid water, Titan became a candidate for the existence of life, and perhaps future probes.

However, the Cassini data were inconclusive. Titan is deformed by tidal forces during its orbit of Saturn, which means that its interior cannot be completely solid. An alternative hypothesis has been proposed which says that under the solid crust there may be an ocean of slushy ice and pockets of liquid water rather that a single, continuous liquid ocean.

Models of Titan predict that the liquid water may get as warm as 20C and convection would circulate minerals from the rocky core up to the crust.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-uefi-flaw-enables-pre-boot-attacks-on-motherboards-from-gigabyte-msi-asus-asrock/

The UEFI firmware implementation in some motherboards from ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock is vulnerable to direct memory access (DMA) attacks that can bypass early-boot memory protections.

The security issue has received multiple identifiers (CVE-2025-11901, CVE-2025‑14302, CVE-2025-14303, and CVE-2025-14304) due to differences in vendor implementations

DMA is a hardware feature that allows devices such as graphics cards, Thunderbolt devices, and PCIe devices to read and write directly to RAM without involving the CPU.

IOMMU is a hardware-enforced memory firewall that sits between devices and RAM, controlling which memory regions are accessible for each device.

During early boot, when UEFI firmware initializes, IOMMU must activate before DMA attacks are possible; otherwise, there is no protection in place to stop reading or writing on memory regions via physical access.

The vulnerability was discovered by Riot Games researchers Nick Peterson and Mohamed Al-Sharifi. It causes the UEFI firmware to show that the DMA protection is enabled even if the IOMMU did not initialize correctly, leaving the system exposed to attacks.

Peterson and Al-Sharifi disclosed the security isssue responsibly and worked with CERT Taiwan to coordinate a response and reach affected vendors.

The researchers explain that when a computer system is turned on, it is "in its most privileged state: it has full, unrestricted access to the entire system and all connected hardware."

Protections become available only after loading the initial firmware, which is UEFI most of the time, which initializes hardware and software in a secure way. The operating system is among the last to load in the boot sequence.

On vulnerable systems, some Riot Games titles, such as the popular Valorant, will not launch. This is due to the Vanguard system that works at the kernel level to protect against cheats.

"If a cheat loads before we do, it has a better chance of hiding where we can't find it. This creates an opportunity for cheats to try and remain undetected, wreaking havoc in your games for longer than we are ok with" - Riot Games

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/creating-apps-like-signal-or-whatsapp-could-be-hostile-activity-claims-uk-watchdog

Developers of apps that use end-to-end encryption to protect private communications could be considered hostile actors in the UK.

That is the stark warning from Jonathan Hall KC, the government's Independent Reviewer of State Threats Legislation and Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, in a new report on national security laws.

In his independent review of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act and the newly implemented National Security Act, Hall KC highlights the incredibly broad scope of powers granted to authorities.

He warns that developers of apps like Signal and WhatsApp could technically fall within the legal definition of "hostile activity" simply because their technology "make[s] it more difficult for UK security and intelligence agencies to monitor communications."

He writes: "It is a reasonable assumption that this would be in the interests of a foreign state even if though the foreign state has never contemplated this potential advantage."

The report also notes that journalists "carrying confidential information" or material "personally embarrassing to the Prime Minister on the eve of important treaty negotiations" could face similar scrutiny.

While it remains to be seen how this report will influence future amendments, it comes at a time of increasing pressure from lawmakers against encryption.

While the report's strong wording may come as a shock, it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Encrypted apps are increasingly in the crosshairs of UK lawmakers, with several pieces of legislation targeting the technology.

Most notably, Apple was served with a technical capability notice under the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) demanding it weaken the encryption protecting iCloud data. That legal standoff led the tech giant to disable its Advanced Data Protection instead of creating a backdoor.

The Online Safety Act is already well known for its controversial age verification requirements. However, its most contentious provisions have yet to be fully implemented, and experts fear these could undermine encryption even further.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.theverge.com/science/841169/ai-data-center-opposition

If there's one thing Republicans and Democrats came together on in 2025 — at least at the local level — it was to stop big, energy-hungry data center projects.

For communities sick of rising electricity bills and pollution from power plants, data centers have become an obvious target. Fights against new data centers surged this year as grassroots groups, voters, and local lawmakers demanded more accountability from developers. Already, they've managed to block or stall tens of billions of dollars' worth of potential investment in proposed data centers. And they're not letting up.

"We expect that opposition is going to keep growing," says Miquel Vila, an analyst at the research firm Data Center Watch who's been tracking campaigns against data centers across the US since 2023.

The group's latest report found that developers either canceled or delayed 20 projects after facing pushback from locals, representing $98 billion in proposed investments in the second quarter of this year. In fact, from late March through June, $24.2 billion in projects were blocked and $73.7 billion delayed. That's an increase compared to 16 blocked or postponed projects from 2023 through the first quarter of this year, the group notes.

The number of proposed data center projects has grown, which is a big reason why opposition is also picking up steam. Inventory in the four biggest data center markets in North America — Northern Virginia, Chicago, Atlanta, and Phoenix — grew by 43 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of this year, according to commercial real estate company CBRE. But plans for massive new facilities have also sparked battles across the nation.

Data centers eat up a lot of electricity, particularly for more powerful chips used for new AI models. Power demand for data centers is expected to grow by 22 percent by the end of the year compared to last year. A high-density rack of servers in an AI data center might use as much as 80 to 100 homes' worth of power, or upward of 100 kilowatts, according to Dan Thompson, a principal research analyst at S&P Global. AI also requires a lot of water to keep servers cool and generate electricity and could use as much annually as the indoor needs of 18.5 million US households by 2028 by one estimate.

Google dropped its plans for a new data center in Franklin Township, Indiana, in September after residents raised concerns about how much water and electricity the new data center would use. The Indianapolis City-County Council was reportedly expected to deny the project's rezoning application. That victory for residents in Indiana isn't captured in the Data Center Watch report, which is only updated with information through June.

Other data center projects that are moving forward or already operating still face resistance. Elon Musk's xAI, for example, faces a potential lawsuit from the NAACP and Southern Environmental Law Center over pollution from its data center in Memphis. Peak nitrogen dioxide concentration levels have jumped by 79 percent in the area surrounding the data center since it started operating in 2024, according to research from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville requested by Time magazine.

xAI, which is building a second, larger data center in Memphis, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from The Verge, but says "We're moving toward a future where we will harness our cluster's full power to solve intractable problems," on its website.

hubie writes:

Researchers succeed in detecting and tracking microplastics across varying ocean depths:

Publishing in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, researchers at Kyushu University report that they have developed a new method to more accurately analyze the distribution of small microplastics in the ocean at various depths. Their findings showed that concentrations of small microplastics suspended in the ocean range from 1,000 to 10,000 particles per cubic meter. The team also discovered that small microplastics sink to the depths of the ocean in two distinct ways: some attain near-neutral buoyancy and drift at specific depths, while others sink rapidly to the deep sea.

Since the advent of plastic in the early 20th century, plastic waste and pollution have been a global issue. As plastics degrade, they break off into smaller pieces. When they reach less than 5 mm in size, they are called microplastics.

"When these microplastics degrade further to 10-300 µm, we call them small microplastics. Many researchers are investigating the distribution and movement of microplastics in the ocean. However, when they reach that size, they become harder to collect and analyze," explains Professor Atsuhiko Isobe of Kyushu University Research Institute for Applied Mechanics and one of the researchers who led the study. "There was no standardized protocol to evaluate the presence of small microplastics in the ocean that could minimize contamination, particle loss, and potential fragmentation."

Most ocean microplastics are made of polyethylene and polypropylene. These materials are less dense than seawater, so they float near the sea surface. However, over time, algae, bacteria, and other marine organisms attach to their surface in a process called biofouling. This results in the microplastic increasing in weight and sinking toward the seafloor.

[...] "Our findings revealed that small microplastics reach sea depths via two distinct pathways: drifting and sinking. In the first pathway, small microplastics reach neutral buoyancy with the seawater. They then drift in an area of the ocean where water density is between 1,023 and 1,025 kilograms per cubic meter at depths of about 100 to 300 meters," Isobe continues. "These small microplastics will drift through this layer for approximately 20 to 40 years."

The other way small microplastics reach the depths of the sea is by increasing their density through biofouling, causing them to sink to the seafloor. The team observed that the concentration of small microplastics drifting in the ocean ranged from 1,000 to 10,000 particles per cubic meter of seawater.

Journal Reference: Mao Kuroda, Atsuhiko Isobe, Keiichi Uchida, Ryuichi Hagita, and Satoru Hamada, "Settling and Along-Isopycnal Subduction of Small Microplastics Into Subsurface Layers of the Western North Pacific Ocean", Environmental Science & Technology, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c08983

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

North Korean infiltrator caught working in Amazon IT department thanks to lag — 110ms keystroke input raises red flags over true location:

A barely perceptible keystroke delay was the smoking gun that led to the uncovering of a malign imposter.

A North Korean imposter was uncovered, working as a sysadmin at Amazon U.S., after their keystroke input lag raised suspicions with security specialists at the online retail giant. Normally, a U.S.-based remote worker's computer would send keystroke data within tens of milliseconds. This suspicious individual's keyboard lag was "more than 110 milliseconds," reports Bloomberg.

Amazon is commendably proactive in its pursuit of impostors, according to the source report. The news site talked with Amazon's Chief Security Officer, Stephen Schmidt, about this fascinating new case of North Koreans trying to infiltrate U.S. organizations to raise hard currency for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), and sometimes indulge in espionage and/or sabotage.

Schmidt says that Amazon has foiled more than 1,800 DPRK infiltration attempts since April 2024. Moreover, the rate of attempts continues apace, with Amazon reckoning it is seeing a 27% QoQ uplift in North Koreans trying to get into the Amazon corporation.

You have to look for them, to find them

However, Amazon's success can be almost entirely credited to the fact that it is actively looking for DPRK impostors, warns its Chief Security Officer. "If we hadn't been looking for the DPRK workers," Schmidt said, "we would not have found them."

With this company policy explained, a blip on the Amazon security radar was caused earlier this year when a new sysadmin's Amazon laptop monitor alerted security personnel about unusual behavior.

Amazon security experts took a closer look at the flagged 'U.S. remote worker' and determined that their remote laptop was being remotely controlled – causing the extra keystroke input lag. Schmidt emphasizes that good-quality security software was key to this investigation.

It turns out that the DPRK had access to this Amazon laptop located in Arizona. A woman found to be facilitating this fraud on behalf of North Korean imposter workers was sentenced to several years in prison earlier this year.

As well as red flag computer network symptoms, the fumbling use of American idioms and English-language articles continues to be a giveaway when conversing with such impostors.

Tip of the iceberg

The problem of North Koreans infiltrating U.S. corporations for profit, mischief, and more is undoubtedly a serious one. We've covered sizable FBI seizures of equipment recently, perhaps showing just the tip of the iceberg. More successful infiltrations by the DPRK, as well as hostile nations like Iran, Russia, and China, are likely to be ongoing.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/google-is-shutting-down-its-dark-web-report-feature-in-january/

Google is discontinuing its "dark web report" security tool, stating that it wants to focus on other tools it believes are more helpful.

Google's dark web report tool is a security feature that notifies users if their email address or other personal information was found on the dark web.

After Google scans the dark web and identifies your personal information, it will notify you where the data was found and what type of data was exposed, encouraging users to take action to protect their data.

For example, if Google identifies your email on the dark web, you will be advised to turn on two-step authentication to protect your Google account.
Google sunsets the dark web report tool

In an email seen by BleepingComputer, Google confirmed it will stop monitoring for new dark web results on January 15, 2026, and its data will no longer be available from February 16, 2026.

"We are discontinuing the dark web report, which was meant to scan the dark web for your personal information," reads an email seen by BleepingComputer.

"It will stop monitoring for new results on January 15, 2026 and its data will no longer be available from February 16, 2026. While the report offered general information, feedback showed that it did not provide helpful next steps."

"We're making this change to instead focus on tools that give you more clear, actionable steps to protect your information online. We will continue to track and defend you from online threats, including the dark web, and build tools that help protect you and your personal information."

Google will continue to invest in other tools, such as Google Password Manager and the Password Checkup tool.

"In the meantime, we encourage you to use the existing tools we offer to strengthen your security and privacy, including Security and Privacy Checkups, Passkey, 2-Step Verification, Google Password Manager, and Password Checkup," Google explained in an email.

Google says users can also use the "Results about you" tool to find and request the removal of their personal information from Google Search results, like their phone number and home address.

However, some of you might miss Google's dark web report, which notified users even when their address was found on the dark web.

In addition, Google's dark web report consolidated all potential dark web leaks in one place so that you could act quickly.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Senators demand Big Tech pay upfront for data center spikes in electricity bills:

Senators launched a probe Tuesday [December 16, 2025] demanding that tech companies explain exactly how they plan to prevent data center projects from increasing electricity bills in communities where prices are already skyrocketing.

In letters to seven AI firms, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) cited a study estimating that "electricity prices have increased by as much as 267 percent in the past five years" in "areas located near significant data center activity."

Prices increase, senators noted, when utility companies build out extra infrastructure to meet data centers' energy demands—which can amount to one customer suddenly consuming as much power as an entire city. They also increase when demand for local power outweighs supply. In some cases, residents are blindsided by higher bills, not even realizing a data center project was approved, because tech companies seem intent on dodging backlash and frequently do not allow terms of deals to be publicly disclosed.

AI firms "ask public officials to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) preventing them from sharing information with their constituents, operate through what appear to be shell companies to mask the real owner of the data center, and require that landowners sign NDAs as part of the land sale while telling them only that a 'Fortune 100 company' is planning an 'industrial development' seemingly in an attempt to hide the very existence of the data center," senators wrote.

States like Virginia with the highest concentration of data centers could see average electricity prices increase by another 25 percent by 2030, senators noted. But price increases aren't limited to the states allegedly striking shady deals with tech companies and greenlighting data center projects, they said. "Interconnected and interstate power grids can lead to a data center built in one state raising costs for residents of a neighboring state," senators reported.

Under fire for supposedly only pretending to care about keeping neighbors' costs low were Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Equinix, Digital Realty, and CoreWeave. Senators accused firms of paying "lip service," claiming that they would do everything in their power to avoid increasing residential electricity costs, while actively lobbying to pass billions in costs on to their neighbors.

For example, Amazon publicly claimed it would "make sure" it would cover costs so they wouldn't be passed on. But it's also a member of an industry lobbying group, the Data Center Coalition, that "has opposed state regulatory decisions requiring data center companies to pay a higher percentage of costs upfront," senators wrote. And Google made similar statements, despite having an executive who opposed a regulatory solution that would set data centers into their own "rate class"—and therefore responsible for grid improvement costs that could not be passed on to other customers—on the grounds that it was supposedly "discriminatory."

An Anonymous Coward writes:

GenTabs processes everything you do through your open tabs and chat history to automatically create interactive apps for that task:

On Thursday, Google announced Disco, an experimental web browser that juggles dozens of open tabs while researching topics or planning trips. This is yet another AI browser, with the main feature being GenTabs, which is based on Gemini 3.

GenTabs processes everything you do through your open tabs and chat history, then automatically creates interactive web applications tailored to that task. You don't have to code anything; instead, you describe what you need in plain language, and GenTabs builds it.

Amid an influx of AI browsers, Google knows where Disco stands. "It's early, and not everything will work perfectly," reads a statement from Chrome and Creative Lab leaders Manini Roy and Amit Pitaru. "We're starting with a small cohort of testers, and their feedback will help us understand what's useful, what needs work, and what they'd like to see in the future."

Disco is starting small with a cohort of testers on macOS. If that's your preferred operating system, you can join the waitlist through Google Labs.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://thenaturenetwork.co.uk/the-secret-life-of-moles-what-theyre-really-up-to-underground/

While you're walking above ground, completely unaware, an entire civilisation of furry engineers is constructing elaborate tunnel networks beneath your feet. Moles live in a hidden world that's far more complex and fascinating than most people realise. Here's what they're up to while we're not paying attention (or aren't even aware they're there!).

They're building underground cities with specific room purposes.

Mole tunnel systems aren't random burrows; they're carefully planned communities with designated areas for sleeping, food storage, waste disposal, and nurseries. These underground cities can span several acres with multiple levels and connecting corridors.

Each tunnel serves a specific function, from hunting highways to emergency escape routes. The main tunnels act like underground motorways, while smaller offshoots serve as dining rooms where moles pause to eat captured prey.

They can dig 18 feet of tunnel in a single hour.

Moles are incredibly efficient excavators, capable of moving astonishing amounts of soil in very short periods. Their powerful front paws and specialised shoulder structure allow them to literally swim through earth like water. Their digging speed means the tunnel network under your garden could expand dramatically overnight. A single mole can create 150 feet of new tunnels in just one day when conditions are right.

They're nearly blind but navigate using supersonic senses.

Moles have tiny eyes that can barely detect light and dark, but they navigate their dark world using incredibly sensitive touch and vibration detection. Their snouts contain over 100,000 nerve fibres, which is six times more than human hands. They can sense earthworm movement from several inches away and detect the slightest vibrations through the soil. This sensory system is so precise, they can hunt effectively in complete darkness underground.

They maintain underground food pantries with live storage.

Moles don't just eat what they catch immediately. Instead, they create sophisticated food storage systems with paralysed but living earthworms. Their saliva contains toxins that immobilise prey without killing it, keeping meat fresh for weeks. These underground larders can contain hundreds of stored earthworms, providing reliable food supplies during harsh weather when hunting becomes difficult. It's essentially a living refrigerator system beneath the ground.

canopic jug writes:

It is that time of the year again and as the new year starts, Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain reminds us that works from 1930 ascend to public domain. These works become available for use by any and all in any manner they may wish.

On January 1, 2026, thousands of copyrighted works from 1930 enter the US public domain, along with sound recordings from 1925. They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon.[3] The literary highlights range from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying to Agatha Christie’s The Murder at the Vicarage and the first four Nancy Drew novels. From cartoons and comic strips, the characters Betty Boop, Pluto (originally named Rover), and Blondie and Dagwood made their first appearances. Films from the year featured Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, the Marx Brothers, and John Wayne in his first leading role. Among the public domain compositions are I Got Rhythm, Georgia on My Mind, and Dream a Little Dream of Me. We are also celebrating paintings from Piet Mondrian and Paul Klee. Below you can find lists of some of the most notable books, characters, comics, and cartoons, films, songs, sound recordings, and art entering the public domain.[4] After each of them, we have provided an analysis of their significance. At the end of the article, we explain:

Why all of this matters
How do copyright and trademark law apply to characters?
What is the impact of the long copyright term?
What are the basic rules for determining whether something is public domain?
Conclusion

Previously:
(2022) Public Domain Day 2022
(2021) Public Domain Day in the USA: Works from 1925 are Open to All!
(2020) January 1, 2020 is Public Domain Day: Works From 1924 Are Open to All!
(2018) Public Domain Day is Coming
(2018) Public Domain Day, 2018
(2016) The Public Domain Once Again Loses In The New Year
(2014) Happy Public Domain Day: Here are the Works that Copyright Extension Stole From You in 2015

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/12/home-depot-exposed-access-to-internal-systems-for-a-year-says-researcher/

A security researcher said Home Depot exposed access to its internal systems for a year after one of its employees published a private access token online, likely by mistake. The researcher found the exposed token and tried to privately alert Home Depot to its security lapse but was ignored for several weeks.

The exposure is now fixed after TechCrunch contacted company representatives last week.

Security researcher Ben Zimmermann told TechCrunch that, in early November, he found a published GitHub access token belonging to a Home Depot employee, which was exposed sometime in early 2024.

When he tested the token, Zimmermann said that it granted access to hundreds of private Home Depot source code repositories hosted on GitHub and allowed the ability to modify their contents.

The researcher said the keys allowed access to Home Depot's cloud infrastructure, including its order fulfillment and inventory management systems, and code development pipelines, among other systems. Home Depot has hosted much of its developer and engineering infrastructure on GitHub since 2015, according to a customer profile on GitHub's website.

Zimmermann said he sent several emails to Home Depot but didn't hear back.

Nor did he get a response from Home Depot's chief information security officer, Chris Lanzilotta, after sending a message over LinkedIn.

Zimmermann told TechCrunch that he has disclosed several similar exposures in recent months to companies, which have thanked him for his findings.

"Home Depot is the only company that ignored me," he said.

Given that Home Depot does not have a way to report security flaws, such as a vulnerability disclosure or bug bounty program, Zimmermann contacted TechCrunch in an effort to get the exposure fixed.

When reached by TechCrunch on December 5, Home Depot spokesperson George Lane acknowledged receipt of our email but did not respond to follow-up emails asking for comment. The exposed token is no longer online, and the researcher said the token's access was revoked soon after our outreach.

We also asked Lane if Home Depot has the technical means, such as logs, to determine if anyone else used the token during the months it was left online to access any of Home Depot's internal systems. We did not hear back.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://linuxiac.com/ventoy-1-1-09-released-with-experimental-btrfs-support/

Ventoy 1.1.09 is out with fixes for openSUSE 16.0 boot issues, Arch Linux persistence problems, and early experimental Btrfs support.

Ventoy, the popular multi-boot utility for creating bootable USB drives from ISO files, has just released a brand-new version, 1.1.09, with the most notable addition being experimental support for the Btrfs file system. However, at this stage, the implementation is deliberately limited.

Ventoy only supports Btrfs in single, non-RAID mode, and ISO files stored on Btrfs volumes cannot be compressed. The project stresses that this functionality is still experimental and intended for early testing rather than production use.

On the compatibility front, Ventoy 1.1.09 resolves a boot issue affecting openSUSE Leap 16.0, restoring the ability to start installation and live images reliably on systems impacted by the regression.

Another important fix addresses a problem where the persistence plugin failed to work with recent Arch Linux releases, a change that should be particularly relevant for users relying on persistent live environments.

Lastly, the update includes fixes for display bugs in the VentoyPlugson WebUI, improving usability when managing plugins and configuration through the browser interface.

For more about the new Ventoy 1.1.09 release, see the changelog. Downloads are available from the project's website.

At the same time, the Ventoy project continues to develop iVentoy, an enhanced PXE server and its companion solution for network-based operating system deployment. It supports Legacy BIOS, IA32 UEFI, x86_64 UEFI, and ARM64 UEFI modes, and is compatible with more than 110 common operating system types, including Windows, WinPE, Linux, and VMware images.

= Links in article:

Ventoy.net

iVentoy.net

OpenSUSE 16.0

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Research reveals that artificial sources of ultraviolet radiation cause cellular mutations that can be the seeds of future cancers, including highly deadly melanoma:

Tanning bed users are known to have a higher risk of skin cancer, but for the first time researchers have found that young indoor tanners undergo genetic changes that can lead to more mutations in their skin cells than people twice their age.

The study, which was led by UC San Francisco and Northwestern University, appears Dec. 12 in Science Advances.

"We found that tanning bed users in their 30s and 40s had even more mutations than people in the general population who were in their 70s and 80s," said Bishal Tandukar, PhD, a UCSF postdoctoral scholar in Dermatology who is the co-first author of the study. "In other words, the skin of tanning bed users appeared decades older at the genetic level."

Such mutations can lead to skin cancer, which is the most common cancer in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society. Among those skin cancers is melanoma, which accounts for only about 1% of skin cancers but causes most of the deaths. About 11,000 Americans die annually from melanoma, primarily from exposure to ultraviolet radiation.

UV radiation occurs naturally in sunlight, as well as in artificial light sources like tanning beds. Rates of melanoma have risen along with the use of tanning beds in recent years, disproportionately affecting young women, who are the main clients of the tanning industry.

[...] The young tanning bed users had more skin mutations than people twice their age, especially in their lower backs, an area that does not get much damage from sunlight but has a great deal of exposure from tanning beds.

"The skin of tanning bed users was riddled with the seeds of cancer — cells with mutations known to lead to melanoma," said senior author A. Hunter Shain, PhD, associate professor in the UCSF Department of Dermatology.

"We cannot reverse a mutation once it occurs, so it is essential to limit how many mutations accumulate in the first place," said Shain, whose laboratory focuses on the biology of skin cancer. "One of the simplest ways to do that is to avoid exposure to artificial UV radiation."

Journal Reference: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ady4878

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/blog/labs/fake-leonardo-dicaprio-movie-torrent-agent-tesla-powershell
https://archive.vn/bPDJI

After noticing a spike in detections involving what looked like a movie torrent for One Battle After Another, Bitdefender researchers started an investigation and discovered that it was a complex infection chain.

The film, Leonardo DiCaprio's latest, has quickly gained notoriety, making it an attractive lure for cybercriminals seeking to infect as many devices as possible.

People often search for the latest movies on the internet, hoping to find a copy of a new release that has just begun its theater run or is only available via pay-per-view streaming. And since users are looking for entertainment, the possibility of infection from downloading a film might not cross their minds.

However, what seems like a simple download can quickly turn into something far more dangerous. Instead of the expected video file, users unknowingly download a compilation of PowerShell scripts and image archives that build into a memory-resident command-and-control (C2) agent, also known as a trojan (RAT – Remote Access Trojan) under the name of Agent Tesla.

This type of malware is designed with a single purpose: to provide attackers with unfettered access to the victim's Windows computer. Once they have a foothold, criminals can access the computer remotely and steal financial and personal information or use the device to launch additional attacks.

The trend of embedding malware in torrents and fake multimedia files that pretend to offer movies and TV shows is not new, but it has gained a lot of steam in the last year or so.

For example, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning was used to spread the Lumma Stealer, which targets passwords, cookies, crypto wallets, credentials from remote desktop tools, and more.

The Agent Tesla malware in this fake movie release has been used for years in many campaigns, including email phishing and COVID-19 vaccination registration.

This investigation documents every layer of this new attack and shows how the components work together to support its efforts to evade detection.