Month: March 2019

Enlarge / The Capitol Building in Washington DC. (credit: Getty Images)

On Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) joined Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) in announcing the Climate Action Now Bill, which is intended to stop the United States from exiting the Paris Agreement. President Donald Trump vowed to pull out of the Obama-era agreement in 2017, saying that its terms would unnecessarily harm US industry.

The Paris Agreement was signed by almost every country in the world, with the exception of Nicaragua and Syria. The signatory countries promised to take steps to hold global warming to 2°C, and the United States pledged to contribute $3 billion to help more impoverished countries reach the common goal.

Although Trump announced his intention to break the agreement two years ago, the terms of the agreement have required that the US continue to submit progress reports until it can formally petition to exit the Paris Agreement in November 2019. The US will have to remain in the agreement for a year after that before it can exit.

Enlarge / Then-director of the Marshall Space Flight Center Todd May (left) presents Vice President Mike Pence (center) with a Space Launch System model. Congressman Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) stands at right. (credit: NASA)

On Wednesday, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine appeared before the United States Congress to talk about the president's budget request for fiscal year 2020. There, Bridenstine faced a slew of questions about the Space Launch System rocket, particularly from representatives whose states have a large number of jobs tied to the program.

The questions came a day after Vice President Mike Pence put the SLS rocket program on notice in regard to his desire to send humans to the lunar surface by 2024. "If our current contractors can't meet this objective, then we'll find ones that will," Pence said. During the House appropriations hearing, legislators from SLS states wanted to make sure NASA still plans to use the rocket for the agency's heavy-lift needs.

For example, Alabama Rep. Martha Roby asked for Bridenstine's assurance that the SLS rocket was truly a great rocket the agency couldn't live without: "Can you highlight for us the key reasons SLS is the best approach for these missions and what capabilities it provides that other alternatives cannot?" she asked.

Enlarge (credit: iStock / Getty Images)

A critical vulnerability in the WinRAR file-compression utility is under active attack by a wide range of bad actors who are exploiting the code-execution flaw to install password stealers and other types of malicious software.

In one campaign, according to a report published by researchers from security firm FireEye, attackers are spreading files that purport to contain stolen data. One file, titled leaks copy.rar, contains email addresses and passwords that were supposedly compromised in a breach. Attackers claim another file, cc.rar, contains stolen credit card data. Other files have names including zabugor.rar, ZabugorV.rar, Combolist.rar, Nulled2019.rar, and IT.rar.

Hidden inside the files are payloads from a variety of different malware families. They include a keylogger known as QuasarRat and malware containing Chinese language text known as Buzy.