Month: June 2022

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An unusually advanced hacking group has spent almost two years infecting a wide range of routers in North America and Europe with malware that takes full control of connected devices running Windows, macOS, and Linux, researchers reported on Tuesday.

So far, researchers from Lumen Technologies' Black Lotus Labs say they've identified at least 80 targets infected by the stealthy malware, infecting routers made by Cisco, Netgear, Asus, and DayTek. Dubbed ZuoRAT, the remote access Trojan is part of a broader hacking campaign that has existed since at least the fourth quarter of 2020 and continues to operate.

A high level of sophistication

The discovery of custom-built malware written for the MIPS architecture and compiled for small office and home office routers is significant, particularly given its range of capabilities. Its ability to enumerate all devices connected to an infected router and collect the DNS lookups and network traffic they send and receive and remain undetected is the hallmark of a highly sophisticated threat actor.

Enlarge / Sony's InZone monitors use a "low-depth tripod stand" to provide more room for other peripherals, Sony said in its video announcement. (credit: Sony/YouTube)

Known for everything from TVs to cameras and smartphones, Sony is getting into gaming peripherals, it announced Tuesday. Sony's new InZone brand will include a pair of monitors, plus wireless and wired headsets aimed at PC and, naturally, PlayStation gamers.

Sony's first consumer monitors in ages

Sony isn't likely a name you think of when going PC monitor shopping. It hasn't made consumer monitors since the early 2000s, though it has continued to sell expensive, chunky professional monitors for broadcast and production. That changes with the flagship Sony inZone M9 and its sibling, the InZone M3.

The M9, never to be confused with the Samsung M8 4K smart monitor announced in March, is a 27-inch 4K HDR monitor with a 144 Hz refresh rate. Its most interesting feature, however, is its LED backlight with full-array local dimming (FALD), which—along with VESA DisplayHDR 600 certification and 95 percent claimed DCI-P3 coverage—is particularly appealing for HDR users.

Enlarge / It's not a Razer device unless it's posed next to a bunch of custom RGB lighting, right? In great news, the Razer Kishi V2 includes zero glaring lights, which we prefer here at Ars Technica. (credit: Razer)

In the years since the phrase "don't you people have phones" became a Blizzard-mocking meme, I've found myself honestly playing more video games on my smartphone. (But not Diablo Immortal, which spawned the meme.) In particular, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Google Stadia, and other cloud-gaming services have shined as options on my phone when Wi-Fi or 5G reception is decent.

While select games on these services have on-screen buttons as options, I won't play with anything less than a physical gamepad. Until this month, I relied on a standard, slim 8Bitdo gamepad, especially when traveling, but this required a phone-to-gamepad plastic harness—and, gosh, those things fall apart when tossed into my bags. There's gotta be something better, right?

Enter the Razer Kishi V2. At the somewhat steep price of $100, this clamp-to-your-phone gamepad is not a slam-dunk recommendation for anyone who doesn't regularly play console-styled games on their phone. But it gets closer to earning that value than Kishi's 2020 version.

Enlarge / The Space Launch System rocket will be back to the Vehicle Assembly Building this week. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann)

The US space agency has spent a long, long time designing, developing, building, and testing the Space Launch System rocket. When NASA created the rocket program in 2010, US legislators said the SLS booster should be ready to launch in 2016.

Of course, that launch target and many others have come and gone. But now, after more than a decade and more than $20 billion in funding, NASA and its litany of contractors are very close to declaring the 111-meter tall rocket ready for its debut launch.

On June 20, NASA successfully counted the rocket down to T-29 seconds during a pre-launch fueling test. Although they did not reach T-9 seconds, as was the original goal, the agency's engineers collected enough data to satisfy the requisite information to proceed toward a launch.

Enlarge (credit: Mario Tama | Getty Images)

The status of legal access to abortion is now prohibited, restricted, or uncertain in more than half of the US. However, abortion pills are still deemed safe by the Food and Drug Administration, and it's still legal for consulted certified prescribers to mail abortion pills to patients in any state. Thousands took to social media to post and raise awareness of options for mail-ordering abortion pills, only to have their posts deleted within minutes, sparking user protests of censorship.

Facebook and Instagram confirmed in an Associated Press report that posts offering to mail abortion pills to people in states suddenly without access would continue to be removed.

These posts violate company policies that prohibit the gift or sale of pharmaceuticals or drugs on the platforms, a Meta spokesperson told AP.

Enlarge / Streamlined aircraft of the 1930s and 1940s were an inspiration for the Hyundai Ioniq 6. (credit: Hyundai)

The physical unveiling of the Hyundai Prophecy concept car was an early casualty of COVID, originally scheduled for the hastily canceled 2020 Geneva auto show. That didn't stop it from blowing my socks off once Hyundai sent some images over the Internet, however. At the time, I didn't think the Korean automaker would put the concept—which I described as the result of "a transporter accident involving a Mercedes CLS and a Tesla Model 3"—into production.

Obviously, I was being a fool because just as the Hyundai 45 concept morphed into the excellent Ioniq 5 crossover, the Prophecy has been translated into production as the Ioniq 6 sedan. Like the Ioniq 5, the Ioniq 6 uses Hyundai's new E-GMP platform for 800 V vehicles, but importantly, it's actually smaller (with a 2-inch/50-mm shorter wheelbase) and will be cheaper than the angular Ioniq 5. (Yes, this still confuses me, because 6 is more than 5, so one expects a bigger, more expensive car, plus the Ioniq 7 is going to be a large seven-seater electric SUV, due next year.)

The most notable change from the concept is the Ioniq 6's extra height, an unavoidable consequence of having to package a 6-inch (150 mm) slab of lithium-ion batteries under the cabin's floor. I asked Hyundai design chief Sangyup Lee if he had been tempted to stretch the production car's wheelbase to maintain the concept's proportions.