Month: June 2016

Enlarge (credit: Jakub Kroustek)

The crypto ransomware racket is a booming business that generates lots of revenue, so it only makes sense that the scourge is growing. And with new titles entering the market on almost a weekly basis, how do the criminals behind them make their malware stand out?

In the case of Jigsaw, a ransomware package that was first spotted in April by researchers with the Bleeping Computer security site, the answer is to be as brazen and mean-spirited as possible while at the same time making the payment process as easy as possible. A case in point: Jigsaw not only threatens the permanent loss of personal data, it also holds out the fear that victims' dirty laundry will be published for all to see. And it uses a taunting tone when notifying people of their options. Witness the screenshot above from a recent version. It states:

Very bad news! I am a so-called ransomware/locker with following advanced functions: Encrypting all your data.
Collecting all logins, contacts, eMail, Passwords and Skype History .....Done!
Uploading all of it on a server .....................Done!
Sending a copy of those Datas to ALL of your contacts..............Pending

The doxing threat, which was added last week, is pure evil genius because it gives victims a strong incentive to pay the ransom even when the purloined data is available on a backup drive.

The updated Get Windows 10 app, with its decline option.

Microsoft is finally ending the malware-like trickery of the "Get Windows 10" upgrade offer that's shown to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users.

Mary Jo Foley reports that a clearer upgrade promotion will roll out this week. It will have three options—"Upgrade now," "Choose time," and "Decline free offer"—with the last of these options dismissing the update altogether. Critically, pressing the X in the corner of the window will have the same effect as the decline option.

This change addresses one of the most unpleasant features of the promotion: some weeks ago, Microsoft changed the behavior of the X button to make it simply defer the upgrade rather than decline it altogether. This behavior was contrary to any reasonable expectations Windows users might have, and contrary to the way the promotion behaved at its introduction.

(credit: CDC)

As Zika virus outbreaks continue to rage in South and Central America, lapping at US borders, scientists are making significant strides toward an effective vaccine.

Two types of experimental Zika vaccines, a DNA vaccine and an inactivated virus vaccine, were each able to completely protect mice with one dose, researchers report Tuesday in Nature. The animal data—the first to be published for Zika vaccines—follows news last week that the Food and Drug Administration gave two companies the green light to test another Zika DNA vaccine in humans. The companies, not associated with the researchers behind today’s study, reported that they have done similar animal studies with their vaccine, but they didn’t publish the results.

With today’s animal data, researchers are hopeful about the fate of the vaccines. “The protection was striking,” Dan Barouch, a study coauthor and vaccine researcher at Harvard Medical School, said in a press briefing. “Of course we need to be cautious about extrapolating results from mice into humans,” he noted, but the strength of the findings “certainly raise optimism” that we’re on our way to a safe and effective vaccine.

(credit: Luis Quintana Barney)

And lo, that which was rumored last night has come to fruition this morning. On Tuesday morning, Volkswagen Group proposed a number of companion settlements with the Department of Justice representing the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the Federal Trade Commission, more than 40 state attorneys general, and a class-action complaint from people who bought 2.0L diesel cars from Volkswagen and Audi.

The amount of the settlements will tally more than $15 billion, with $10.033 billion going toward compensating consumers. In a conference call on Tuesday morning, Elizabeth Cabraser, the court-appointed lead counsel for Volkswagen consumer plaintiffs, detailed exactly how the German automaker would compensate its customers after the company was discovered last September to have included illegal software on many of its recent diesel models. The software helped the diesel vehicles pass federally required emissions tests in a lab but turned off the cars’ emissions control systems while under normal driving conditions, causing significantly increased levels of nitrogen oxide to spew on open roads.

Cabraser noted that owners of certain diesel VW Golfs, Passats, Jettas, Beetles, and Audi A3s would be eligible for a buyback equal to the amount the car was worth in September 2015—a range from a low of around $12,000 to a high of about $44,000. The buybacks would be accepted “regardless of condition,” Cabraser said, “as long as it’s drivable.”

NASA/Bill Ingalls

On Tuesday, NASA and its contractor, Orbital ATK, conducted the second and final qualification motor test for the Space Launch System’s booster.

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Say what you will about the Space Launch System. It's expensive, costing so much that NASA can't really afford to build payloads to fly on it. The Senate specified the rocket to fly with components derived from the Space Shuttle expressly to preserve jobs that otherwise would have been lost following the shuttle's retirement. And the entirely expendable launcher uses 1970s technology while private companies are focusing on smaller, modern, and reusable rockets.

All of that, more or less, is true. But it is also undeniable that the Space Launch System, whenever it does fly, will be one hell of a firecracker. On Tuesday, the space agency offered a taste of that when it demonstrated the firing of one of the solid rocket boosters that will help blast the SLS rocket off of the launch pad.

These boosters will provide about 75 percent of the thrust needed to lift the rocket and its payload into low-Earth orbit. As implied by their name, the boosters burn a solid composite made largely of aluminum. During Tuesday's test, a single booster produced about 3.2 million pounds of thrust. By way of comparison, a Falcon 9 rocket with its nine engines produces about 1.7 million pounds of thrust.