Month: July 2022

Enlarge (credit: NASA)

As the Ukraine war ratcheted up political tensions between the US and Russia, the head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency tried to use the countries' partnership in the International Space Station (ISS) as a bargaining chip. Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin demanded that the West end its sanctions on Russia or the country would end its cooperation on the ISS, leaving the partnership in an awkward state. But earlier in July, Rogozin was dismissed and replaced by former Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov. At roughly the same time, the US and Russia came to an agreement that would see Russian cosmonauts fly to the station on SpaceX's Dragon vehicle in exchange for astronauts getting seats on Soyuz launches.

This might have been seen as an indication that the new administration at Roscosmos was in a more cooperative mood. Any such hopes were dashed on Tuesday, when Borisov announced that Russia would not be renewing its current commitment to the ISS, which ends in 2024. NASA's current plans involve keeping the station occupied through the end of the decade.

Russia has supplied a number of modules to the ISS, and its segments host solar panels that contribute to the station's power budget. More critically, it has provided the thrust that allows the ISS to maintain its orbit, which would otherwise gradually decay. At present, it's unclear what will happen to Russia's hardware when the country exits the partnership.

Enlarge / You, too, can look this cool while streaming from the PSVR 2 headset. (credit: PlayStation Blog)

Users of the original PlayStation VR headset quickly got used to sliding the display away from their faces when they needed to get a quick look at their surroundings. That won't be necessary on the PSVR 2, which will use a passthrough camera to provide a black-and-white view of the real-world environment.

In a PlayStation Blog post Tuesday, Sony discussed how PSVR 2 users could activate this passthrough function using a dedicated button on the headset or through a Control Center menu while using the device. The passthrough image—powered by four mounted cameras that also provide positional tracking without any external devices—is similar to those offered by competing headsets like the Oculus Quest.

Players will not be able to record the passthrough view using the PS5's built-in recording options, Sony said. But players who have a PS5 HD camera will be able to film themselves while in VR and overlay that image on a gameplay view for streaming purposes.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Researchers have unpacked a major cybersecurity find—a malicious UEFI-based rootkit used in the wild since 2016 to ensure computers remained infected even if an operating system is reinstalled or a hard drive is completely replaced.

The firmware compromises the UEFI, the low-level and highly opaque chain of firmware required to boot up nearly every modern computer. As the software that bridges a PC’s device firmware with its operating system, the UEFI—short for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface—is an OS in its own right. It’s located in an SPI-connected flash storage chip soldered onto the computer motherboard, making it difficult to inspect or patch the code. Because it’s the first thing to run when a computer is turned on, it influences the OS, security apps, and all other software that follows.

Exotic, yes. Rare, no.

On Monday, researchers from Kaspersky profiled CosmicStrand, the security firm’s name for a sophisticated UEFI rootkit that the company detected and obtained through its antivirus software. The find is among only a handful of such UEFI threats known to have been used in the wild. Until recently, researchers assumed that the technical demands required to develop UEFI malware of this caliber put it out of reach of most threat actors. Now, with Kaspersky attributing CosmicStrand to an unknown Chinese-speaking hacking group with possible ties to cryptominer malware, this type of malware may not be so rare after all.