Philippines Bank hit by SWIFT Hacking Group allegedly linked to North Korea

SWIFT Bank Hackers have attacked another bank in the Philippines using the same modus operandi as that in the $81 Million Bangladesh Bank heist.

Security researchers at Symantec have found  evidence that malware used by the hacking group shares code similarities with the malware families used in targeted attacks against South Korean and US government, finance, and media organizations in 2009.

These historic attacks were attributed to the North Korean hacking group known as Lazarus, who hacked Sony Pictures in 2014.

“At first, it was unclear what the motivation behind these attacks were, however, code sharing between Trojan.Banswift (used in the Bangladesh attack used to manipulate SWIFT transactions) and early variants of Backdoor.Contopee provided a connection,” Symantec blog post says.

In past few months, some unknown hackers have been targeting banks across the world by gaining access to SWIFT, the worldwide inter-bank communication network that is being used to transfer Billions of dollars every day.

Two weeks ago, Investigators from British defense contractor BAE Systems discovered that malware used in the Bangladesh $81 million cyber heist was almost identical to one used to infiltrate banks inEcuador and Vietnam.

Investigators are examining possible breaches at as many as 12 banks linked to Swift’s global payments network.



In the wake of several cyber attacks against banks, the head of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) promised to improve payment system security with new programs and tighten the guidelines for auditors and regulators.

Twitter Loosens Tweet's Leash

Twitter on Tuesday announced a number of changes to tweets, including what will be included in a message's 140-character count.

The changes, which will be rolled out in the coming months, were outlined by Twitter Senior Product Manager Todd Sherman:

• When replying to a tweet, tagged @names at the beginning of the reply no longer will be included in the character count.
• Photos, GIFs, videos, polls and quote tweets no longer will be counted against the character limit.
• Tweets that begin with a username will be delivered to all followers of that user. Previously, a period had to be inserted before the username, otherwise the tweet would be seen only by the followers of the writer of the tweet and any other usernames in the tweet.
• Users will be able to retweet and quote tweet themselves.

Platform for Narcissism

While the proposed changes aren't likely to cause a squawk among most Twitter users, self-retweeting may irk some of them, maintained John Carroll, a mass communications professor at Boston University.

"There are a lot people who will look on retweeting yourself with dismay," he told TechNewsWorld.

"People are so self-obsessed that it could become a form of spam that clogs up people's timelines," Carroll continued. "It's one more platform for narcissism."

A good thing about the changes, though, is that they show a flexibility that has been absent in the past. "Twitter held firm too long on a very stringent format," said Andreas Scherer, managing partner at Salto Partners.

"This announcement is a sign that the company is willing to rethink the experience users have with its service," he told TechNewsWorld.

Power-User Appeal

Nevertheless, the changes probably will be interesting only to power users of the service, said Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research.

"They won't do anything at all to drive user growth," he told TechNewsWorld.

Twitter power user Erna Alfred Liousas, an analyst with Forrester Research, welcomed the changes.

"They're addressing things that didn't make sense to all of us who use the platform on a regular basis," she told TechNewsWorld.

"The changes will re-enforce why we're on the platform. We'll actually be able to have conversations without being penalized for including a person or link or photo," Liousas said.

"The changes won't bring new users to the platform," she added, "but they'll make the experience overall a lot smoother."

Growth Woes

Twitter has been in the Wall Street doghouse for some time for failing to attract new users to its fold at rates comparable to competitors such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

The number of monthly active Twitter users worldwide rose only 2.6 percent from the first quarter of 2015 to the same period in 2016, from 302 million to 310 million, according to Statista.

Twitter is trapped in a paradox. "Its media presence is far bigger than its media footprint," BU's Carroll noted.

"It has only 65 million active users in the U.S. That's a really small number compared to Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat," he continued.

"Twitter has this outsized media presence because of who tends to use it -- sports figures, news media and entertainment personalities," Carroll said. "Because of that it gets more publicity than other platforms that are larger in scope."

While the latest changes will appeal to existing users, they won't address Twitter's bigger problem, said Brian Blau, a research director at Gartner.

"Twitter hasn't yet been effective at solving the issue of attracting, onboarding and retaining new users at significant growth rates," he told TechNewsWorld.

"That new level of interest in Twitter hasn't been seen yet, and while the new tweet features are good updates, they likely won't help to change the situation with growth on their own," Blau added.

Personality Problem

The changes won't change Twitter's revenue picture either. "The proposed changes make sense, but won't be enough to dramatically move the needle," Salto's Scherer said.

"They're more of an incremental improvement that won't enable new revenue streams with a potential for future exponential growth in revenue and earnings," he noted.

"Wall Street is expecting more from its former wunderkind. It appears that time is running out," Scherer added.

Part of Twitter's problem is how it stacks up against its competition, maintained Greg Sterling, vice president of strategy and insight for the Local Search Association.

"Other sites have more personality than Twitter. Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook have an intangible thing that's more inviting and engaging to some people," he told TechNewsWorld.

"The audience Twitter needs to go after is the younger audience -- the Snapchat and Instagram users," Sterling said. "That's hard because those two sites have a mindshare monopoly on that population."

Versatile iBot Wheelchair to Make a Comeback

Toyota and DEKA Research and Development last week announced an agreement that will revive development of the iBot, a wheelchair that can climb stairs.

The companies revealed their pact to develop mobility solutions for the disabled community at the annual convention of the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

One of the first initiatives under the agreement will be to resurrect the iBot, which uses a balancing technology similar to the Segway's that allows it to perform tasks such as climbing stairs.

The motorized chair has two sets of wheels that can be rotated to allow it to negotiate stairs. It also allows an operator to go from a sitting position to a standing configuration of about 6 feet and remain mobile, which makes it easier to talk and walk with a companion.

Toyota will license DEKA's balancing technologies for medical rehabilitative therapy and potentially other purposes.

Ahead of Its Time

Plans for the iBot were first aired in 2001, but DEKA -- which was founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen -- and partner Johnson & Johnson couldn't get the price of the wheelchairs below US$25,000. They stopped making them in 2009.

"When Johnson & Johnson were producing those wheelchairs, they were developing a technology that was well ahead of its time, so a lot of things they were using were probably very expensive," noted Hermano Krebs, a principal research scientist at MIT's Newman Laboratory for Biomechanics and Human Rehabilitation.

"They were not able to reduce the price or get the right reimbursement for the device, so J&J stopped producing the iBot," he told TechNewsWorld.

"Technologies like accelerometers, gyroscopes and many other things have evolved in the last 15 years that could amount to a significant reduction in cost," Krebs said. "That's why Toyota is interested in restarting the concept."

Life Changer

The wheelchairs could have a significant impact on a person's life, noted Krebs, who had an opportunity to sit in one of the original iBot production models.

"It was an exciting experience. You can only imagine what it's like for a body that's been bound in a traditional motorized wheelchair to have the ability to go up stairs and to go through terrains that before they could not go," he said.

"It expands quite significantly the number of things they can do in an independent fashion," Krebs added.

The iBot is part of a new generation of wheelchairs that aim to bring style and panache to the devices -- devices like the Whill Model M, a futuristic-looking wheelchair with four-wheel drive introduced earlier this year.

"Whill treats the users of these devices as consumers," said Whill Marketing Director Chris Koyama.

"I think the conventional way of thinking of them is as patients -- strictly medical -- which is why wheelchairs are strictly functional," he told TechNewsWorld.

Marrying Function and Design

Whill covers the functional aspect of a wheelchair, but it covers an emotional aspect as well. "We believe that the emotional aspect of the industry is lacking," Koyama said.

That emotional aspect of a product is expressed in design. "Design is all around us -- in our homes, in our electronics," he explained. "When you look at conventional wheelchairs, they lack that aspect."

What's more, traditional wheelchairs don't take into account the individuality of their operators.

"We believe people have certain lifestyles. We try to keep in mind how people live their lives, especially if they want to lead an active lifestyle," Koyama said.

"That's why our chair has four-wheel drive, so people don't have to think twice if they're going over grass or gravel. That's why our chairs can go over a 3-inch curb while other chairs can do an inch or maybe 2 inches," he noted.

"Active people go a lot difference places," Koyama added, "so we needed to consider a lot of different environments."

Google's Abacus May Count Out Passwords

By the end of the year, Android devs will be able to use a trust API from Google's Project Abacus in their apps, Google ATAP Director Dan Kaufman suggested at last week's I/O conference.

The API, which will run in the background continually, is aimed at doing away with passwords.

It will use a smartphone's sensors to check users' current locations, typing patterns and voice patterns, as well as for facial recognition. It will create a cumulative trust score that will authenticate users so they can unlock their devices or sign into applications.

"We'll go out to several very large financial institutions for initial testing" this June, Kaufman told developers. If the tests go well, Google plans to release the API to Android devs worldwide by year end.

"I think the issue is Google isn't trusted itself and has a horrid history of losing interest in initiatives once they're launched," remarked Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

"The potential for aggravation with both the customer and the financial institution is impressive and likely will stand as a huge barrier to adoption," he told TechNewsWorld. "Generally, a failure would lock users out of their accounts."

Trust API Issues

"The problem has always been that a really good biometric -- such as a retinal scan or fingerprint -- typically is hard to collect," observed Michael Jude, a research program manager at Frost & Sullivan.

"Less than reliable biometrics are easy to collect but require validation, usually by collecting several -- but the more you collect, the more chances for authentication failure," he told TechNewsWorld.

If biometrics fail, a standby such as a password or some form of support infrastructure to do a reset is required, and "this could be complex for both the user and the service provider," Jude pointed out.

On the positive side, "when [the trust API] works, it could provide a faster, more secure, consistent method of gaining access to secure sites," Enderle suggested.

However, "Google's reputation of being unsecure, of not following through, of not listening to partners, and the complexity of the solution stand against this effort," he said.

Potential Privacy Problems

An API-based security protocol will put personal information in the cloud to some extent, Jude noted, so "the question will be, do you trust your service provider with that kind of information?"

Further, the trust API will be always on, running continually in the background, and that could be a concern -- especially because many Android apps send back users' information to devs, often without the knowledge of the device's owner.

That always-on feature means users it will be easy to track users -- and with Americans being concerned about surveillance without warrants by the NSA, the FBI and various police agencies, there might be a backlash.

On the other hand, the feature could make it easier to track terrorist or criminal suspects.

There has been at least one legal ruling requiring a suspect to unlock a cellphone protected by fingerprint authentication, and with user information more readily available, law enforcement might push harder to seize data.

"This is a problem," Jude said. "This approach to security potentially opens a lot of personal information up to coercive disclosure. I'm just waiting for someone to build a countermeasure that lets users clear a mobile data device with a voice command."

Other Possible Issues

The trust API may not be quite as accurate as Google asserts.

Google Patents Tech to Limit Injuries in Vehicle-Pedestrian Accidents

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The United States Patent and Trademark Office earlier this week granted Google a patent for "Adhesive Vehicle Front End For Mitigation of Secondary Pedestrian Impact." The patent application, filed a year and a half ago, credits Google employees Alex Khaykin and Daniel Lynn Larner as the inventors of the new technology.

Larner contributed to several other Google patent applications, including one for an "Energy-absorbing apparatus," filed in August 2014 and still pending; and one for "Devices and Methods for an Energy-Absorbing End of a Vehicle," filed in May 2014 and granted in November 2015. Vehicular safety technology is a common theme in these patents.
This latest patent grant is for "a system for protecting a colliding object from a secondary impact, after an initial impact with a vehicle, including a vehicle having a front end." The system includes an adhesive layer covered with a thin membrane that becomes exposed during a collision with an object, so that the colliding object will adhere to the vehicle.
In other words, this system is designed so that if a car were to hit a pedestrian, that person would in essence stick to the front of the car instead of being thrown forward

Understanding the Principle

As a concept technology it sounds much like "people flypaper," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.
"The concept is a good one. When a person is hit, if you can keep them on the car the damage is limited to the initial contact -- but if you don't, the person is more likely to suffer additional damage," he told TechNewsWorld. That could include injuries from falling off the vehicle and getting run over, for example.
There are some issues to work out, he suggested. If the outer shell were to fail, it could expose the adhesive, which could be difficult to clean.
"In addition, this likely wouldn't age well," Enderle speculated. "Adhesives of this type rarely do, and particularly after it got covered with other stuff stuck to it, getting it to then hold a person would be nearly impossible."

Autonomous Feature

Google's patent application describes how the technology could be utilized with autonomous vehicles -- something that the tech giant has been hard at work developing. It's possible this technology could be intended as an added safety feature for testing of autonomous vehicles, but not make it into full production vehicles.
"Right now, Google has been testing its vehicles at low to medium speeds, but as the testing continues it may be seeking to add other safety measures, and this could be one of those," said Gonzalez.
The technology could work with any car, but if implemented, it likely would require replacement of the adhesive-coated hood several times a year to ensure proper functioning, suggested Enderle.
"Coupled with the less-than-attractive idea of having super flypaper on the front of your car," he said, "that makes this solution highly unlikely to be implemented by anyone that doesn't want to showcase all the things they ran into that are now stuck to their hood."

Microsoft Tightens Screws on Terrorists Posting Online

Microsoft last week announced plans to crack down on terrorist content, perhaps in response to the Obama administration's intense effort to get Silicon Valley's help in preventing organizations like ISIS from using social media as a recruiting and fundraising tool.

Microsoft has amended its terms of use to prohibit the posting of terrorist content on its various platforms, extending the existing prohibition on hate speech and advocacy of violence against others. The company categorized terrorist content as material posted by or in support of any organizations in the Consolidated United National Security Council Sanctions list, which includes groups the UN Security Council considers terrorist organizations.
The prohibition specifically deals with content that depicts graphic violence, encourages violent action, endorses a terrorist group or its acts, or encourages people to join such groups, according to Microsoft.
It was inevitable that there would need to be new approaches to combat terrorism in the digital arena, Microsoft said, noting the importance of the Internet as a communications hub.
Recent events have served as a reminder that it can be used for the worst reasons imaginable, the company added.

Alternative Narratives

Microsoft will continue using its notice and takedown process for removing prohibited content. When brought to its attention through its online reporting tool -- whether by governments, concerned citizens or other groups -- such content will be removed.
In a nod to censorship concerns, Microsoft said it would remove links to terrorist-related content from Bing search results when the takedown would be required of search providers under local law. The company already operates that way in France, for example, where police authorities routinely report links to terrorist-related content.
The antiterror efforts Microsoft and others have undertaken should be effective, said Todd Helmus, senior behavioral scientist at the Rand Corp., because in addition to limiting access to terror networks, the companies are providing alternative messaging.
"What's noteworthy about Microsoft and what you're seeing from the other social media giants is that not only are there efforts to remove content or limit access to content, but also ... opportunities for counter content," he told the E-Commerce Times. "That's also a very important aspect of this as well."
Microsoft routinely gets government requests for customer data. During the second half of 2015, the firm received 39,083 requests involving more than 64,000 users globally, for example.
Twitter, Facebook and others in recent months have taken steps to crack down on the use of their sites for terrorist activity, hateful speech or content promoting violence. The changes followed the revelation that the shooters in the San Bernardino massacre in 2015 were inspired by social media linked to ISIS.

Censorship Concerns

While concerned about violence against U.S. citizens, civil liberties advocates expressed concern that crackdowns like this may serve only to push dangerous speech underground while threatening the First Amendment rights of innocent civilians.
"Creating a free-floating ban on certain types of speech, no matter how controversial, only serves to hide controversial ideas in the shadows -- it makes no one safer," argued ACLU attorney Lee Rowland.
"Public dialogue about racism, terrorism and other evils is the most critical step in ultimately defeating it," she told the E-Commerce Times.
Censorship of speech based on national security claims often backfires, Rowland noted, as was the case when Apple voluntarily blocked applications that identified sites of U.S. drone strikes because they included "objectionable material."
Microsoft plans to partner with nongovernmental organizations to display public service announcements with links to positive messaging, as well as alternative narratives for some search queries, with the goal of deterring troubled individuals from heading down a path toward violence.
Microsoft is seeking creative new ways to deal with the issue. For example, it is providing funding and technical support to Dartmouth College Professor Hany Farid to develop a technology to help stakeholders identify copies of patently terrorist content, including images, video and audio. Such a solution could help avoid the game of whack-a-mole that often occurs when content that is taken down soon reappears elsewhere.
The company is a founding member and financial supporter of a new private-public partnership to help counter terrorist abuse of Internet platforms. Founded in Geneva last month, the partnership includes the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, with civil society, academic, government and industry representatives.
Microsoft also is adding resources to its YouthSpark initiative, which provides material to help young social media users engage in safer online socializing and distinguish factual information from hate speech.

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Atlanta (CNN)If dogs could talk, Melody Jackson knows what they would say. Or at least, what she'd like them to say.Jackson, an associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has developed technology that is giving dogs a voice, an ability she says is crucial for search and rescue, bomb detection and therapy dogs. The dogs wear vests equipped with sensors that can send either audible cues or text notifications to a smartphone.

Jackson earned her Ph.D. in computer science from Georgia Tech in 1998 and has trained assistance dogs for nearly 20 years. Now she's putting her two passions together. Jackson's research team, which includes professor Thad Starner and research scientist Clint Zeagler, has created high-tech vests for canines for a project called FIDO, which stands for "Facilitating Interactions for Dogs with Occupations." The program is sponsored by The National Science Foundation and also the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA.

The vests have been approved by Jackson's 8-year-old border collie, Sky.

"He actually has helped us design a lot of these sensors, by telling us what works and what doesn't work," she says. "So, he's sort of our first line of testing before we go out to the rest of the world. He's a very critical part of our design team."

The vest has side sensors that the dogs trigger with a bite or a nudge of their nose. They're trained with toys, identifying between a Frisbee or a ball, and telling their handler which is which. Jackson explains this is an example of a "discrimination task" that can be translated to more important tasks, such as bomb detection, where the dog would tell his handler what explosive he or she has scented.

Jackson has been observing bomb dog training in hopes of putting her vests to the test with canines on patrol with soldiers on the battlefield.

"A bomb-sniffing dog has pretty much one alert that says, 'Hey, I found an explosive." But that dog knows what explosive is in there. ... They know if it's something stable like C4 or something unstable and dangerous like TATP that needs to be handled carefully," Jackson says. The problem is "they have no way to tell their handler."

Jackson and her research team have also developed a medical alert vest that allows a dog to find a missing or trapped person, activate a sensor, and let that person know that help is on the way. This task could be instrumental during an earthquake or disaster rescue where a trapped or injured person is in need of assistance. This vest is being beta tested by a real service dog team in California, Jackson says.

Georgia Tech is also working to develop a vest that allows the handler to track the dog wearing it. When the dog finds its target, the dog activates a sensor that sends GPS coordinates back to the handler. The dog then tells the person in jeopardy that help is on the way, and the rescue canine does not have to leave the victim's side.

Jackson believes there are personal applications for this technology as well.

"What if that dog could reach around and pull a tab on its vest and call 911 with your GPS location, and text your husband: 'By the way she's at Starbucks on Fifth and Spring, and she's having a seizure right now.' Your husband would know immediately that 911 is on the way."

The vest could be helpful for a person who cannot speak or a hearing-impaired person. The dog could tell others to get help with the phrase "Excuse me, my handler needs your attention." Jackson's dogs are also trained to discriminate between a doorbell or a fire alarm, and to activate the appropriate sensor on their vest to text a message to the handler's cell phone.

"A hearing dog helps someone who's deaf, so they alert to things like the doorbell ringing or the baby crying or someone calling your name," Jackson says. "What they'll do is nudge their owner and take them to the source of the sound. ... What if that sounds is a tornado siren? That's just in the environment. The dog has no way to lead you to the source of that sound."

Jackson says one of her dogs was able to understand the vest and its capabilities in just 27 seconds. She believes any trainable dog would be able to pick up on the technology very quickly. Source:CNN