Month: May 2024

Enlarge / The front page of BreachForums.

The FBI and law enforcement partners worldwide have seized BreachForums, a website that openly trafficked malware and data stolen in hacks.

The site has operated for years as an online trading post where criminals could buy and sell all kinds of compromised data, including passwords, customer records, and other often-times sensitive data. Last week, a site user advertised the sale of Dell customer data that was obtained from a support portal, forcing the computer maker to issue a vague warning to those affected. Also last week, Europol confirmed to Bleeping Computer that some of its data had been exposed in a breach of one of its portals. The data was put up for sale on BreachForums, Bleeping Computer reported.

On Wednesday, the normal BreachForums front page was replaced with one that proclaimed: “This website has been taken down by the FBI and DOJ with assistance from international partners.” It went on to say agents are analyzing the backend data and invited those with information about the site to contact them. A graphic shown prominently at the top showed the forum profile images of the site's two administrators, Baphomet and ShinyHunters, positioned behind prison bars.

Enlarge / Still images taken from videos generated by Google Veo. (credit: Google / Benj Edwards)

On Tuesday at Google I/O 2024, Google announced Veo, a new AI video synthesis model that can create HD videos from text, image, or video prompts, similar to OpenAI's Sora. It can generate 1080p videos lasting over a minute and edit videos from written instructions, but it has not yet been released for broad use.

Veo reportedly includes the ability to edit existing videos using text commands, maintain visual consistency across frames, and generate video sequences lasting up to and beyond 60 seconds from a single prompt or a series of prompts that form a narrative. The company says it can generate detailed scenes and apply cinematic effects such as time-lapses, aerial shots, and various visual styles

Since the launch of DALL-E 2 in April 2022, we've seen a parade of new image synthesis and video synthesis models that aim to allow anyone who can type a written description to create a detailed image or video. While neither technology has been fully refined, both AI image and video generators have been steadily growing more capable.

Enlarge (credit: Oleksandr Shatyrov | iStock Editorial / Getty Images Plus)

Within approximately 12 seconds, two highly educated brothers allegedly stole $25 million by tampering with the ethereum blockchain in a never-before-seen cryptocurrency scheme, according to an indictment that the US Department of Justice unsealed Wednesday.

In a DOJ press release, US Attorney Damian Williams said the scheme was so sophisticated that it "calls the very integrity of the blockchain into question."

"The brothers, who studied computer science and math at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, allegedly used their specialized skills and education to tamper with and manipulate the protocols relied upon by millions of ethereum users across the globe," Williams said. "And once they put their plan into action, their heist only took 12 seconds to complete."