Microsoft has warned that Chinese state-backed hackers are targeting critical US cyber infrastructures for intelligence gathering across many industries.

US software giant Microsoft warned that the Chinese cyber actor codenamed “Volt Typhoon” revealed “post-compromat credential access” and “network system discovery-oriented, covert and targeted malicious activities” against critical infrastructure organizations in the USA. .

“Microsoft assesses with moderate confidence that the Volt Typhoon action is aimed at developing capabilities that could disrupt the critical communications infrastructure between the United States and the Asian region during future crises,” the company said in its warning.

While Microsoft informed that the actor in question has been active since mid-2021, it advised customers affected by a possible unauthorized access to close their accessed accounts and change their passwords.

On the other hand, in the news of the American New York Times, citing anonymous sources, it was claimed that the US intelligence was aware of the fact that the aforementioned cyber actor had access to US networks when the Chinese balloon entered US airspace in February.

In the news, it was claimed that Volt Typhoon’s activity in February was focused on the communication infrastructure between the USA and the island of Guam.

The island of Guam is the most critical point in the US strategy to contain China and is home to the largest US military base in the region.

Following Microsoft’s warning, the US has issued a joint Cybersecurity Alert with the cybersecurity authorities of the four countries to draw attention to a set of actions associated with the Chinese state-backed cyber actor.

Joint alert is the United States’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and NSA, as well as Australian Signals Agency Australian Cybersecurity Center (ACSC), Canadian Communications Security Authority Cybersecurity Center (CCCS), New The National Cyber Security Center of Zealand (NCSC-NZ) and the UK’s National Center for Cyber Security (NCSC-UK) also participated.

In the warning published, it was reported that the relevant institutions believed that the actor identified by Microsoft could apply the same techniques to other countries and other sectors.

Stating that one of Volt Typhoon’s main tactics is to hide using built-in network management tools, the institutions included the information, “Some of the built-in tools used by this actor are wmic, ntdsutil, netsh and PowerShell.”

“My biggest fear is that we, as the tech industry, may cause significant damage to the world,” said Samuel Harris Altman, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of OpenAi, which developed ChatGPT.

Speaking at the US Senate Judiciary subcommittee, OpenAi’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Samuel Harris Altman, said: “My biggest fear is that we, as the technology industry, may cause significant damage to the world. I think it could be different,” he said.

“As with all technological revolutions, I expect a significant impact on employment, but it’s very difficult to predict exactly what that impact looks like,” said Altman, warning the Senate that ChatGPT technology “could go to a very bad place”.

According to the newspaper Oxygen, Samuel Harris Altman, speaking about the growing popularity of ChatGPT and the positive and negative possibilities of artificial intelligence, acknowledged that the government should step in to ensure these changes are managed.

In the 3-hour meeting, Altman advised the US Senators to establish an independent mechanism to conduct licensing audits of artificial intelligence technologies, and stated that this would allow a set of security standards, including the assessment of their dangerous capabilities, to be established.

This way, Altman said, we can ensure that the models “can’t self-replicate and move on their own.”

Speaking to the committee meeting, some senators also warned about corporate cooperation in the artificial intelligence market, pointing to the problems that will be faced if a small number of technology companies dominate this sector.

Scientists announced the discovery of a new planet called TOI-733b, which is stated to be about twice the size of Earth.

Scientists have discovered a new planet about twice the size of Earth and covered with oceans.

It is stated that this planet, called TOI-733b, is only one of more than 5 thousand exoplanets that have been known after the first discovery in the 1990s.

TOI-733b was found 245 light-years away by NASA’s telescope TESS. It has been noted that the relative similarities of the planet orbiting a star slightly smaller than the sun in a period of only 4.9 days could play a key role in understanding the formation of planets in the universe.

THE INTERESTING SIDE OF THE PLANET ‘SIZE’

It was stated that the particularly interesting aspect of TOI-733b for researchers is its size.

Density measurements on the planet from a distance show that it has either lost the atmosphere it once had or is a planet that is completely covered with water.

However, several data points indicate that TOI-733b’s atmosphere is slowly depleting, which may be due to its proximity to its star’s heat.

Other theories suggest that TOI-733b lost its hydrogen and helium and instead retained an atmosphere filled with water vapor or regenerated a secondary atmosphere made up of heavier elements.

“ONE KEY PIECE”

The research on the planet by Astronomy & Astrophysics noted how exciting and “interesting” the discovery of the planet is in the field of astronomy, saying it has the potential to be “a small but key piece to solving the big puzzles in exoplanet science”.

“With the promise of increasingly in-depth theoretical analysis and high-precision follow-up by current and future facilities, we appear to be on our way to answering important questions about planet formation and evolution,” the research said.

New research; found that fried foods are not only beneficial for physical health, but also cause mental disorders such as depression.

According to a study published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, data from more than 140,000 people who consumed fried food for 11 years revealed a link between fried food consumption and anxiety disorder and depression.

The data obtained from the UK Biobank, which contains the health data of 500 thousand people in the United Kingdom, was analyzed by a group of scientists in Hangzhou, China.

Studies have shown that eating french fries increases the risk of anxiety disorder by 12 percent and the risk of depression by 7 percent.

The researchers put forward the thesis that the results obtained may be related to a chemical called acrylamide that occurs during the frying process.

However, the researchers stressed that the results from the study are preliminary, and there is no need to give advice to stop eating french fries.

“There is no need to panic about the ill effects of fried food,” Yu Zhang, co-author of the article, told CNN.

It was reported that the US technology company Microsoft will settle in the investigation carried out on the grounds that it violated the US export controls and sanctions, and will pay a total fine of $ 3.3 million.

In a statement made by the US Department of Commerce, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the Department of Commerce and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury gave a total of $ 3.3 million to Microsoft for violations of US export controls and sanctions laws. sentence was reported.

In the statement, which stated that Microsoft voluntarily disclosed the alleged violations to both BIS and OFAC, it was noted that the company cooperated in the joint investigation carried out by BIS’s Export Enforcement Office and OFAC.

In the statement, Microsoft reportedly took corrective measures after discovering the ongoing situation that preceded export controls and sanctions in connection with Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In the statement, it was stated that BIS imposed an administrative fine of 624 thousand 13 dollars on Microsoft, while OFAC imposed a fine of 2 million 980 thousand 266 dollars for 1,339 violations of the sanctions regulations covering Ukraine/Russia, Cuba, Iran and Syria.

In the statement, it was stated that Microsoft was given a loan of $ 276 thousand 382 by the BIS, subject to meeting its requirements under the settlement agreement with OFAC, and the total penalty amount was $ 3 million 327 thousand 897.

The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement that most breaches between 2012 and 2019 were related to sanctioned Russian entities or individuals in the Crimea region, as a result of Microsoft’s failure to identify and block the use of its products by sanctioned parties.

A new feature has been introduced for Microsoft Teams. Thanks to this feature, the background of your conversations will now look more realistic.

Microsoft is adding a new green screen feature for Teams. This new feature, which will make the background appear more realistic in video calls, will also increase the virtual background experience.

NEW FEATURE WILL SEPARATE THE USER PROPERLY FROM THE FUND

The new feature was announced in a blog post. There are some nuances to use this feature in Microsoft Teams. The wall or wallpaper in the background should be unstained and should be preferred plain without anything like a poster or frame on it. Users need to apply the background effect to enable the green screen effect and choose the background color carefully for the effect to be of better quality.

On the other hand, the effect works much better if you already have a green screen. But of course this is not a requirement.

The feature can be used on Windows devices and versions with Intel processors on macOS. So if you’re using a Mac with an M1 or M2 processor, you can’t use this feature right now.

The green screen feature, which does not currently support the together mode, is open to everyone. To enable it, you need to apply a background effect in your Teams meeting. You can choose the color of the wall behind you or green if you have a custom green screen.

Thanks to the Russian spacecraft Skif, people in the Arctic will have access to the internet in 2026, the TASS news agency reported on Friday.

In the statement made by the press service of the Sphere Congress, it was noted that internet access will be provided in the North Pole from 2026 with the Skif satellites belonging to the project.

According to the press service, there is almost no Internet access in the Arctic. People in the region can access the Internet using American satellite phones, but this method is slow and expensive to access the global network.

In October 2022, Russia successfully placed a Skif-D satellite into orbit using the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle. In the future, eight Skif satellites are planned to enter orbit to form a multi-satellite orbital constellation.

According to new reports, Apple has stopped the production of M2 processors for a while.

Although Apple seems to be progressing well according to the numbers, it is having problems in some parts. Apple, which stopped the production of the iPhone mini series on the grounds that it did not see ‘as much demand’ as it wanted, this time prefers a similar scenario for the M2 processor.

APPLE’S SALES ARE DROPPING TOO

In the news, behind this decision of Apple lies the expectation of a decrease in Mac sales. In the news reported by SamMobile, it was also written that Apple’s decision will affect Samsung. According to reports, Apple completely stopped the production of M2 processors for MacBooks in January and February.
According to the allegations, although production started partially in March, it is produced in a much more limited way compared to the same period last year.

The source of these claims, which started in the South Korean media, is the decline in global demand for computers.

Apple, which has a significant share in computer sales, is also affected by this decline. Actually, it’s not a surprise for Apple either. There was a statement from Apple that ‘the PC market is in a difficult situation’ and that they ‘may have difficulties in the short term’.

Another crazy move came from Elon Musk, who bought Twitter.

Elon Musk replaced Twitter’s logo with Dogecoin.
Elon Musk has made a change that will be on the agenda on the social media platform Twitter. Musk replaced Twitter’s logo with Dogecoin.

After the logo started to be displayed on the Twitter homepage, there was a great increase in Dogecoin, gaining more than 30 percent in value. There was no official statement.

While there was no official statement from the company after the change, Elon Musk aroused curiosity with his tweet.

In the cartoon in the tweet, the Shiba dog gives his license to the police he was caught while driving. The blue bird photo on the driver’s license says, “That’s the old photo.”

pic.twitter.com/wmN5WxUhfQ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2023

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Scientists from the Royal Astronomical Society discovered a massive black hole, which they named PBC J2333.9-2343, facing directly to the earth.

According to scientists from the Royal Astronomical Society, the black hole, called PBC J2333.9-2343, is located about 657 million light-years from Earth and is about 40 million light-years wide. It was stated that the black hole is about 40 times larger than the Milky Way galaxy.

The study’s lead author, a researcher at the Millennium Institute for Astrophysics, Dr. “We started studying this galaxy because it showed strange properties. Our hypothesis was that the relativistic jet of the supermassive black hole was deflected, and we had to do a lot of observations to confirm this idea,” said Lorena Hernandez-Garcia.

“The fact that we see the core no longer feeding the lobes means they are very old. These are remnants of past activity, whereas structures closer to the core represent younger and more active jets,” added Hernandez-Garcia.

“TOO FAR TO CREATE A THREAT”

The researchers detected a blazar, an active galactic nucleus considered to be one of the most powerful phenomena in the universe, at the center of the galaxy, noting that the light emitted from the blazar is directed directly towards the earth.

While it was reported that the huge size of the black hole was “scary”, it was recorded that it was far enough from the world to pose no threat.

BLAZAR

Blazar is a dense quasar associated with a predicted supermassive black hole at the center of an active, giant elliptical galaxy.

Blazars are members of a larger group of active galaxies hosted by active core galaxies. The word blazar was coined by astronomer Edward Spiegel in 1978 by combining the letters BL Lac bodies and highly polarized quasars with high variability.