News of the Cyber World

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CYBERTHREATS

Google Play Store riddled with phishing apps that steal your cryptocurrency

At least 20 cryptocurrency phishing apps were found on the Google Play Store with the sole purpose of draining cryptocurrency wallets.

Cyble Research and Intelligence Labs (CRIL) has identified several phishing apps on the Google Play Store that act as real wallets to steal cryptocurrency.

The apps these scammers copy include SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, Hyperliquid, and Raydium.

“These apps have been progressively discovered over recent weeks, reflecting an ongoing and active campaign,” Cyble said.

The apps use phishing techniques to harvest mnemonic phrases, a string of random words that function as a backup to recover a cryptocurrency wallet if the user's private key is lost or even stolen.

After finding the apps, the research team reported them to Google, which took most of them down.

The researchers observed that these malicious applications “exhibit consistent patterns, such as embedding Command and Control (C&C) URLs within their privacy policies and using similar package names and descriptions.”

However, the apps were published under different developer accounts, and these accounts were initially used to distribute legitimate apps, Cyble said.

“In addition to the 20 applications that shared similar privacy policies and leveraged the Median framework, we also identified two applications that used different package names and privacy policies.”

Crypto scam costs adviser a 10-year ban and investors millions

In an apparently unfortunate series of events for investors, an Australian financial adviser is said to have misappropriated millions by sending their money to a “crypto scam.” While there are no reports of criminal charges against the adviser, she was banned from offering financial services for ten years.

The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) said that, between March 2022 and June 2023, financial adviser Glenda Maree Rogan sent at least AUD $14.8 million ($9.6 million) of funds invested by clients, family, and friends to an unspecified "crypto-based investment scam."

During that time, Rogan was a financial adviser with the Fincare group of companies and an authorized representative of Australian financial services licensee Private Wealth Pty Ltd.

According to ASIC, the adviser lied to clients and misled them when presenting the nature, risks, and liquidity of the investment to trick them into trusting her with their money. For example, she falsely claimed that the investment product was a high-yield fixed interest account and not a crypto asset. Moreover, clients were told that in this investment, she acted as a representative of Fincare.

The Australian regulator said they found that the investors’ funds were actually sent to bank accounts belonging to Rogan and her own company, before the majority of the funds were used to buy an unspecified crypto asset. The latter was then transferred to wallets nominated by the Financial Centre, purportedly a UK-based trading platform, which is also on ASIC's Investor Alert List as it is an unlicensed entity.

"ASIC found that Ms Rogan would have had suspicions about the legitimacy of the Financial Centre from at least October 2022," the regulator said, banning Rogan not only from offering financial services but also from controlling any financial services company.

In any case, ASIC noted that the investigation is still ongoing and the adviser can still appeal the ban. At the same time, the regulator also urged Rogan's victims to lodge their complaints with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. However, ASIC did not elaborate on the losses her clients might have incurred.

It's not the first time ASIC has uncovered a malicious, crypto-related investment scheme. For example, as reported by Cybernews.com this past March, the regulator charged Brendan Gunn in a crypto-related criminal case. Gunn is the brother of Rachael Gunn, a.k.a. Raygun, who bewildered the world with her unusual breakdancing at the Olympics in the summer of 2024.

Extorting the afterlife? Hackers breach cemetery, stealing personal data

As if there was a lack of proof that ransomware gangs would target anyone, threat actors pushed the bar even lower, adding a cemetery to their list of victims.

One of the most prolific ransomware cartels currently in operation, INC Ransom, apparently managed to hack a cemetery. The gang recently added The Catholic Cemeteries of the Diocese of Hamilton in Canada to their dark web forum, used to showcase its latest victims.

As is usual in ransomware attacks, threat actors shared samples of the allegedly stolen data. The Cybernews research team cautiously investigated the sample, finding that attackers shared various documents and personal details.

According to the team, the leaked details include:

Financial documents
Territory plans
Contracts
Names
Dates of birth
Employee pay slips

At least in theory, attackers could use these details against grieving customers for financial fraud and targeted scams. Threat actors could target grieving relatives, impersonating the funeral service provider, and tricking individuals into revealing sensitive personal information.

Meanwhile, INC Ransom is one of the most prominent ransomware cartels currently operating. First observed in July 2023, the cyber cartel has been inching towards the top, with victims like a DoD defense contractor, Stark AeroSpace, the San Francisco Ballet, the City of Leicester in England, the NHS Dumfries and Galloway Health Board of Scotland, and the Xerox Corporation on its list.

According to Cybernews’ dark web monitoring tool, Ransomlooker, INC Ransom has victimized at least 163 organizations over the past 12 months.

Tech error exposes personal details of top American bank’s customers

U.S. Bank, one of the largest banks in the United States, has contacted an unknown number of individuals about an unauthorized party accessing their personal details.

The bank, publicly traded as U.S. Bancorp, sent out breach notification letters to individuals whose data may have been exposed. According to the notification, a tech error in early April exposed personal user details.

“During the week of April 8th, 2025, due to a technical configuration error, your account was accessed by a fraudulent actor and personal information was made visible,” reads the letter.

U.S. Bank claims that unauthorized parties may have accessed:

Account numbers
Names
Addresses
Phones
Email addresses

In theory, threat actors could utilize the details for identity theft as well as phishing attacks.

Information that the bank submitted to the Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation notes that at least one Massachusetts resident was exposed, marking the “financial account breached” box on the form.

We have reached out to the U.S. Bank to confirm the exact number of individuals who may have been impacted by the “technical configuration error.”

The Minneapolis-headquartered U.S. Bank is the seventh-largest bank in America. Last year, the bank, which operated over 2,000 branches in the US, reported revenue of $27.5 billion and assets of $664 billion.

Hackers claim attack on New York’s landmark 550 Madison Avenue

Extortion hackers claim to have stolen hundreds of gigabytes of data from a company operating at the legendary New York landmark: the former AT&T building at 550 Madison Avenue.

The Qilin ransomware cartel added 550 Madison to their leak site, claiming they’ve managed to get their hands on a whopping 700 gigabytes of data. However, the Cybernews research team has investigated the claims and has only found five data samples.

According to the team, samples of the data allegedly stolen from the building operator, OAC 550 Owner, include passport photos, incident reports, mortgage assignments, and a service contractor agreement.

As is usually the case with ransomware gangs, threat actors threaten to leak more details if their demands are not met. Affiliates of Qilin, a gang that operates under the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model, often utilize this tactic, too.

We have reached out to the company for a comment and will update the article once we receive a reply.

550 Madison, completed in 1984, was first built to house AT&T headquarters. Later, the building was sold to Sony. Currently, the building is owned by the investment company Olyan.

The landmark building houses the Chub Group, an American-Swiss insurance company, French luxury fashion retailer Hermès, private equity company Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, and other businesses.

The culprit behind the attack, Qilin ransomware, has been steadily growing its influence this year. While the gang has been operating since 2022, it ramped up the volume of attacks in 2025, targeting 68 entities in April alone.

Earlier this week, the gang allegedly breached Asefa, the Spanish subsidiary of France’s SMABPT.

Qilin made headlines earlier this year after taking on SK Group, a global energy and manufacturing giant. According to Cybernews’ dark web monitoring tool, Ransomlooker, the gang has victimized at least 344 companies over the last 12 months.

AI ‘ghost students’ are targeting college kids and stealing their financial aid

Cybercriminals are stealing the identities of real college kids to enroll in online classes and apply for student aid. Then, using AI chatbots to attend classes, the bad actors collect the financial aid, leaving unsuspecting students saddled with tens of thousands in debt.

The new scam is likely fueled by the rise in artificial intelligence tools and the popularity of online classes, according to a new report this week by The Associated Press, which states that “college enrollments have been surging” across the US. The question is, how many of them are AI?

Not only are the chatbots fostering the theft of tens of millions of fraudulent financial aid dollars, but they are also creating havoc on college campuses, with some professors reporting full rosters of students – and empty classrooms.

The AI-generated students are also snapping up slots for coveted classes, essentially icing out the real students from enrolling in the courses they need to graduate.

Not surprisingly, the AP found the most popular online classes for AI chatbots to sign up for tended to be ones that allow students “ to watch lectures and complete coursework on their own time.”

Obviously not in it for the education, these AI “ghost students” are said to attend the classes just long enough to cash out the student’s financial aid check, with many real students unaware their identities are being used for fraud.

Millions of college applications per year

Choosing to analyze fraud reports in California due to its size, the AP said in 2024 alone, the west coast state showed nearly 1.2 million fraudulent college applications, leading to the theft of over $11 million in unrecoverable funds awarded to students at the state, local, and federal levels.

And out of those 1.2 million applications, close to 225,000 of them were believed to be fake enrollments, the news outlet said, adding that in the other state reports they analyzed, the percentages were similar.

What's more, in the several cases profiled by the AP, the real students had only found out about the identity theft by chance.

Largest ever data leak exposes over 4 billion user records

In what’s likely the biggest data leak to ever hit China, billions of documents with financial data, WeChat and Alipay details, as well as other sensitive personal data, were exposed to the public. Worryingly, there’s little that impacted users can do to protect themselves.

The supermassive data breach likely exposed hundreds of millions of users, primarily from China, the Cybernews research team’s latest findings reveal. A humungous, 631 gigabytes-strong database was left without a password, publicizing mind-boggling 4 billion records.

Bob Dyachenko, cybersecurity researcher and owner at SecurityDiscovery.com, together with the Cybernews team, discovered billions upon billions of exposed records on an open instance.

The database consisted of numerous collections, containing from half a million to over 800 million records from various sources. The Cybernews research team believes the dataset was meticulously gathered and maintained for building comprehensive behavioral, economic, and social profiles of nearly any Chinese citizen.

“The sheer volume and diversity of data types in this leak suggests that this was likely a centralized aggregation point, potentially maintained for surveillance, profiling, or data enrichment purposes,” the team observed.

There’s no shortage of ways threat actors or nation states could exploit the data. With a data set of that magnitude, everything from large-scale phishing, blackmail, and fraud to state-sponsored intelligence gathering and disinformation campaigns is on the table.

What data was included in the largest Chinese data breach?

Despite the team’s best efforts, Cybernews only got a peek at the database because the exposed instance was quickly taken down. This also prevented the team from revealing the identity of the database's owners. However, collecting and maintaining this sort of database requires time and effort, often linked to threat actors, governments, or very motivated researchers.

The team managed to see sixteen data collections, likely named after the type of data they included.

The largest collection, with over 805 million records, was named “wechatid_db,” which most likely points to the data coming from the Tencent-owned super-app WeChat.

Elon Musk’s X partially recovers after a massive outage hits US users

Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) showed signs of recovery on Saturday, following a major outage that prevented thousands of US users from accessing the platform.

An outage tracking site, Downdetector.com, showed severe disruptions, peaking at over 10,000 and then dropping to around 1,041 by 7:42 p.m. ET. The platform bases its scores on user-submitted problem reports.

The network has already suffered multiple serious outages since Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in 2022.

Similar outages in March happened allegedly due to DDoS attacks. The self-proclaimed hacktivist group Dark Storm claimed responsibility for the disruptions.

“Due to Elon Musks and Donald Trumps blatant fascism and lack of humanity we as a digital army for the people will continue our peaceful DDoS protests against X formerly known as Twitter. Thank you for your love and support," a Bluesky user who goes by the name ‘Puck Arks’ said in his third post addressing the outage.

Musk has recently brought up uptime issues at X, saying there is a need for “major operational improvements”.

Back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms.

I must be super focused on 𝕏/xAI and Tesla (plus Starship launch next week), as we have critical technologies rolling out.

As evidenced by the 𝕏 uptime issues this week, major operational…

undefined Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2025

Android Trojan Crocodilus Now Active in 8 Countries, Targeting Banks and Crypto Wallets

A growing number of malicious campaigns have leveraged a recently discovered Android banking trojan called Crocodilus to target users in Europe and South America.

The malware, according to a new report published by ThreatFabric, has also adopted improved obfuscation techniques to hinder analysis and detection, and includes the ability to create new contacts in the victim's contacts list.

"Recent activity reveals multiple campaigns now targeting European countries while continuing Turkish campaigns and expanding globally to South America," the Dutch security company said.

Crocodilus was first publicly documented in March 2025 as targeting Android device users in Spain and Turkey by masquerading as legitimate apps like Google Chrome. The malware comes fitted with capabilities to launch overlay attacks against a list of financial apps retrieved from an external server to harvest credentials.

It also abuses accessibility services permissions to capture seed phrases associated with cryptocurrency wallets, which can then be used to drain virtual assets stored in them.

The latest findings from ThreatFabric demonstrate an expansion of the malware's geographic scope as well as ongoing development with enhancements and new features, indicating that it's being actively maintained by the operators.

Select campaigns aimed at Poland have been found to leverage bogus ads on Facebook as a distribution vector by mimicking banks and e-commerce platforms. These ads lure victims to download an app to claim supposed bonus points. Users who attempt to download the app are directed to a malicious site that delivers the Crocodilus dropper.

Other attack waves targeting Spanish and Turkish users have disguised themselves as a web browser update and an online casino. Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, and the United States are among the other nations that have been singled out by the malware.

In addition to incorporating various obfuscation techniques to complicate reverse engineering efforts, new variants of Crocodilus have the ability to add a specified contact to the victim's contact list upon receiving the command "TRU9MMRHBCRO."

It's suspected that the feature is designed as a countermeasure to new security protections that Google has introduced in Android that alerts users of possible scams when launching banking apps during a screen-sharing session with an unknown contact.

CRYPTO NEWS

Trump reports $57m earnings from family crypto firm

US President Donald Trump has reported over $57m in income from a family-linked crypto firm – making it one of his largest single earnings.

According to the financial disclosure report released by the Office of Government Ethics, Trump earned more than $57 million in 2024 from his stakes in World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance protocol and cryptocurrency company.

The firm was founded in the same year, and a Trump business entity owns 60% of World Liberty, netting 75% of revenues from its WLFI governance token sales. Trump’s three sons, Donald Jr., Eric, and Barron, are also actively involved in the venture.

“Crypto is one of those things we have to do,” Trump said on X when championing his crypto venture. “Whether we like it or not, I have to do it.”

World Liberty Financial allows users to invest in cryptocurrency and then use these assets for borrowing and lending. The project is positioned as a move toward financial innovation and a shift away from traditional banking.

Conflict of interest

The firm has continuously drawn scrutiny from regulators about the potential risks and regulatory concerns. As such, in June, Senate Democrats demanded more details about a multi-billion-dollar transaction between World Liberty Financial and a pool of investors that includes foreign nationals.

The disclosure might now bring even more scrutiny over Trump’s increased investment in cryptocurrencies and whether he might be using his influence for personal gain.

In 2025, World Liberty Financial announced it would launch a dollar-pegged stablecoin, USD1, backed by US currency, which sparked a temporary setback.

"The launch of a stablecoin directly tied to a sitting President who stands to benefit financially from the stablecoin's success is an unprecedented conflict of interest presenting significant threats to both our financial system and our democracy," Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Jeff Merkley of Oregon said in the June 10 letter.

Trump, however, has continuously denied accusations of conflict of interest, arguing that his involvement is related to the aim to promote technological innovation in the US.

Cryptocurrency firm founder sentenced in wash trading case

The founder of a financial services firm known as the crypto “market maker”, Gotbit, received a sentence on charges related to a multi-year scheme to manipulate cryptocurrency trading volume on behalf of his company's clients.

The Russian-born founder and CEO of Gotbit, Aleksei Andriunin, was sentenced to eight months in prison, to be followed by one year of supervised release, according to the press release. In March 2025, he pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston to charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation.

As a result of an #FBI Boston investigation, Gotbit Consulting, a financial services firm known in the crypto industry as a “market maker,” & its founder Aleksei Andriunin, of Russia & Portugal, were sentenced for market manipulation & fraud conspiracy. https://t.co/CNpz0BD4aE pic.twitter.com/jIFg1Z3nt6

undefined FBI Boston (@FBIBoston) June 13, 2025
Prosecutors say Gotbit and Andriunin were indicted on the same charges. Two of Gotbit’s directors, Fedor Kedrov and Qawi Jalili, were also charged.

Allegedly, between 2018 and 2024, Gotbit participated in “wash trading” – artificially inflating the trading volume for various cryptocurrency companies, using multiple accounts to avoid detection.

These tactics were marketed to clients – Andriunin admitted to manipulating the trading price and volume of tokens for clients that included Robo Inu and Saitama. They were charged in a separate case.

“Gotbit made wash trades worth millions of dollars on behalf of clients and received tens of millions of dollars in payments from clients,” prosecutors explained.

As part of the plea, Gotbit was ordered to forfeit a total of approximately $23 million in seized crypto and sentenced to a term of probation for five years, with the condition that Gotbit cease its operations.

Andriunin was extradited from Portugal to the US.

The case is part of a wider crackdown on “wash trading”, with Gotbit being the third firm to receive such criminal charges. Earlier cases involved MyTrade in October 2024 and CLS Global FZC LLC in April 2025, which were charged with providing an unlawful wash trading service and offering illegal “volume support” services, respectively.

SPACE

Musk urges to de-orbit International Space Station

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared “serious concerns” over the long-term safety of the International Space Station (ISS), urging to de-orbit it within two years.

“There are potentially serious concerns about the long-term safety of the [ISS]. Some parts of it are simply getting too old and obviously that risk grows over time,” Musk posted on X early on Friday morning. “Even though SpaceX earns billions of dollars from transporting astronauts & cargo to the ISS, I nonetheless would like to go on record recommending that it be de-orbited within 2 years.”

There are potentially serious concerns about the long-term safety of the @Space_Station. Some parts of it are simply getting too old and obviously that risk grows over time.

Even though @SpaceX earns billions of dollars from transporting astronauts & cargo to the ISS, I… https://t.co/TcyUwcwHfE

undefined Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 13, 2025
The author of the original post, Casey Handmer, who worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), claims that there are more structural problems with the ISS than is being disclosed.

The news came just hours after NASA postponed the Axiom Mission 4 to the ISS because of a pressure leak in one of the station's Russian-built segments. It was set to be the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station.

The first leaks were detected in 2019 and traced to a tunnel in the Russian Zvezda module, although they were essentially under control.

“As part of an ongoing investigation, NASA is working with Roscosmos to understand a new pressure signature, after the recent post-repair effort in the aft most segment of the International Space Station’s Zvezda service module,” NASA stated.

However, later in November 2024, NASA warned that the leak could now lead to a “catastrophic failure” and put its commitment to operate the ISS through 2030 at risk. Still, NASA and Roscosmos have continuously disagreed over the cause and severity of the leak. According to Bob Cabana, a former NASA astronaut, Russian engineers believe the cracks are likely caused by “high cyclic fatigue” from micro-vibrations. In turn, NASA cites a variety of potential factors, including pressure and mechanical stress, residual stress, material properties of the module, and environmental exposure.

Earlier this year, Musk already called for ISS to be deorbited “as soon as possible.”

It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the @Space_Station.

It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility.

White House scrutinizes SpaceX contracts amid ongoing Trump-Musk tensions, sources say

The White House earlier this month directed the Defense Department and NASA to gather details on billions of dollars in SpaceX contracts following the public blowout between President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, four people familiar with the order told Reuters.

Sparking an ongoing review, the administration ordered the agencies to scrutinize Musk’s contracts to ready possible retaliation against the businessman and his companies, these people said. As Reuters reported on Thursday, Pentagon officials are simultaneously considering whether to reduce the role that SpaceX, Musk’s space and satellite company, may win in an ambitious new US missile defense system.

Reuters couldn’t determine whether the White House intends to cancel any of the approximately $22 billion in federal contracts SpaceX now has. But the review shows the administration is following through on a threat by Trump during his spat with Musk last week to possibly terminate business and subsidies for Musk ventures. “We’ll take a look at everything,” the president said, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on June 6.

In an email to Reuters, a White House spokesperson didn’t answer questions about Musk's business, saying the “Trump administration is committed to a rigorous review process for all bids and contracts.” In a separate statement, a spokesperson at NASA said the agency “will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the president’s objectives in space are met.”

Neither SpaceX nor officials at the Defense Department responded to requests for comment.

The people familiar with the order said the contract scrutiny is intended to give the administration the ability to move fast if Trump decides to act against Musk, who until recently was a senior advisor to the president and the head of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The review is “for political ammunition,” one of the people said.

Whether the US government could legally, or practically, cancel existing contracts is unclear. But the possibility underscores concerns among governance experts that politics and personal pique could improperly influence matters affecting government coffers, national security and the public interest.

“There’s an irony here that Musk’s contracts could be under the same type of subjective political scrutiny that he and his DOGE team have put on thousands of other contracts,” said Scott Amey, a contracting expert and general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group based in Washington. “Any decision shouldn’t be based on the egos of two men but on the best interests of the public and national security.”

AI SOURCES

ChatGPT mostly sources Wikipedia, others rely more on Reddit – study

ChatGPT, Google AI, and Perplexity source their information drastically differently. This highlights the complexity of artificial intelligence (AI) visibility optimization, a new study has found.

Profound, a company helping brands monitor and influence their presence in AI search engines, has analyzed 30 million citations across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity from August 2024 to June 2025.

Distinct patterns in how each platform sources information were uncovered, the study says. Perhaps a little surprisingly, OpenAI’s ChatGPT shows a clear preference for Wikipedia, which accounts for nearly half (47.9%) of its top citations within its top 10 most-cited sources.

According to Profound, Wikipedia's dominance suggests the importance of maintaining accurate Wikipedia entries. However, the company also sees a healthy mix of traditional media (Reuters, New York Post) and tech-focused sites (TechRadar, G2).

Still, Google AI Overviews shows a more balanced distribution across platforms. Its top source or citation for answers was Reddit at only 21%.

Highlighting strong integration with Google’s ecosystem, YouTube is close at 18.8%, the study has found. Plus, it’s clear that Google’s product places a significant emphasis on professional content, such as that shared on LinkedIn and Gartner.

Perplexity, on the other hand, shows a unique concentration in community platforms: it really favors Reddit at 46.7%. This suggests heavy reliance on community discussions, Profound says.

INTERPOL

INTERPOL Dismantles 20,000+ Malicious IPs Linked to 69 Malware Variants in Operation Secure

INTERPOL on Wednesday announced the dismantling of more than 20,000 malicious IP addresses or domains that have been linked to 69 information-stealing malware variants.

The joint action, codenamed Operation Secure, took place between January and April 2025, and involved law enforcement agencies from 26 countries to identify servers, map physical networks, and execute targeted takedowns.

"These coordinated efforts resulted in the takedown of 79 percent of identified suspicious IP addresses," INTERPOL said in a statement. "Participating countries reported the seizure of 41 servers and over 100 GB of data, as well as the arrest of 32 suspects linked to illegal cyber activities."

Vietnamese authorities arrested 18 suspects, and confiscated devices, SIM cards, business registration documents, and money worth $11,500. Further house raids have led to the arrest of another 12 people in Sri Lanka and two individuals in Nauru.

The Hong Kong Police, per INTERPOL, identified 117 command-and-control servers hosted across 89 internet service providers. These servers were designed to act as a hub to launch and manage malicious campaigns, such as phishing, online fraud, and social media scams.

Countries involved in Operation Secure include Brunei, Cambodia, Fiji, Hong Kong (China), India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kiribati, Laos, Macau (China), Malaysia, Maldives, Nauru, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Vietnam.

The development comes weeks after a global operation led to the seizure of 2,300 domains associated with the Lumma Stealer malware. In a separate operation last October 2024, police also disrupted infrastructure and seized data associated with RedLine and MetaStealer families.

Information stealers, often sold on the cybercrime underground on a subscription basis, are seen as a stepping stone for threat actors to gain unauthorized access to target networks. These malicious programs make it possible to siphon browser credentials, passwords, cookies, credit card details, and cryptocurrency wallet data from infected machines.

FAA STILL USES FLOPPY DISKS

FAA Aims to Modernize Air Traffic Control by Eliminating Ancient Systems Running on Floppy Disks

The Trump Administration’s FAA has announced plans to overhaul outdated air traffic control (ATC) systems, which currently rely on floppy disks and Windows 95 operating systems to keep America’s airports running safely and efficiently. Recent high profile failures make it clear that relying on old systems is no longer an option.

Tom’s Hardware reports that in a recent House Appropriations Committee meeting, Trump’s acting FAA administrator Chris Rocheleau outlined an ambitious goal to bring the nation’s air traffic control (ATC) systems into the 21st century. The current state of the ATC infrastructure is a major concern, with most towers and facilities using outdated technologies such as paper strips, floppy disks, and computers running Windows 95.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy emphasized the importance of this modernization project, stating, “This is the most important infrastructure project that we’ve had in this country for decades. Everyone agrees — this is non-partisan. Everyone knows we have to do it.”

Last month, air traffic control failures at Newark Airport brought these problems into focus. As Breitbart News previously reported:

The ongoing disruptions at Newark Airport have been attributed to a variety of factors, including radar outages, air traffic controller shortages, and other issues. According to the FAA, Newark has been experiencing an average of 34 arrival cancellations per day since mid-April, with delays increasing throughout the day from an average of five in the mornings to 16 by the evening. These delays typically last between 85 and 137 minutes on average.

In response to the mounting problems, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced on Sunday that the Trump administration plans to reduce the number of flights in and out of Newark Airport for the “next several weeks.” Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, Duffy stated that he will convene a meeting with all the airlines operating out of Newark this week to determine the extent of the reduction. He added that the reduction will fluctuate, with a larger decrease expected in the afternoons when international flight arrivals make the airport busier.

However, upgrading the ATC system is a complex undertaking. Some systems cannot be shut down as they are crucial for safety, making it impossible to simply switch off a site and swap out ancient components for newer ones. Additionally, the upgrades must be protected against hacking and other vulnerabilities to prevent any breaches that could cripple the nation.

The FAA has been investing significant funds into maintaining its old ATC systems, which need to operate 24/7. Despite ongoing repair, upkeep, and overhaul efforts, the age of these systems seems to be catching up. The White House has not yet disclosed the cost of this update.

ROBOT PARADE

Robotic dogs march in a military parade in Washington, DC

Robotic dogs, drones, and a robotic combat vehicle were the latest showcases of the future of warfare on June 14th, as the US Army celebrated its 250th anniversary.

The parade, held on Donald Trump’s 79th birthday, displayed different eras of the military, showcasing drones and autonomous robotic dogs as the Army’s future. The dogs are formally known as Quadruped Unmanned Ground Vehicles (Q-UGVs).

The machines are commonly tested for patrol, surveillance, and logistics support roles, seamlessly integrating into the parade format.

The Ripsaw M5, a fully autonomous robotic combat vehicle designed for high speed and agility, was another highlight. It was developed by the team Ripsaw, which consists of Textron Systems, Howe & Howe, and FLIR Systems.

The vehicle came with a remotely operated wheeled platform fitted with a turret system and an ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) drone, according to Defense Blog. It can operate silently, has a mine-clearing line (MICLIC), mine plover, and an attached improvised explosive device (IED) defeat roller, equipped with an agile counter mechanism.

Another notable highlight was the Ghost, a Medium-Range Reconnaissance (MRR) Small Unmanned Aircraft System (SUAS). It’s a helicopter-type advanced medium-range aerial drone, developed for reconnaissance and gathering intelligence.

While the parade was largely dominated by traditional warfare units, the presence of unmanned platforms showcased the Army’s move towards incorporating robotics into its operations.

The event marked the first time tanks had rolled through the streets of Washington in over 30 years. It featured 150 vehicles, 50 aircraft, and about 6,600 troops.