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The US government on Thursday said it had obtained court authorization to seize or restrain use of over $1.2 billion stolen during last month's $6.3 billion Binance heist, as part of a larger effort to disrupt North Korea's ongoing cryptocurrency theft. The court also allowed the takedown of cloud-based infrastructure used in a Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) social engineering scheme called “FaceStealer” that has amassed more than $400 million in the last 18 months. It’s called FaceStealer because it involved secretly recorded webcam videos. Victims are typically people working in the cryptocurrency and web3 industries, along with open source software developers and maintainers who DPRK hackers target in the hope of accessing the software repositories they control as the first step towards creating supply chain attacks. 900+ faces stolen The FBI said it had seized more than 900 webcam videos belonging to these tech workers. Here’s how the attack works. First, the North Koreans send targets an invitation to join a video meeting. Those invitations come from hijacked accounts that the next intended victim may find familiar or credible. “You're going to think it's real because it's going to be based on either conversations or interests you've expressed in the past with this actual person,” said special agent Jeremy Robertson, who oversees counterintelligence and cyber investigations at FBI Los Angeles. “They're going to then send you a link to catch up, and it's usually a calendar invite, and it's going to have some typo-squatted URLs in there,” he told reporters on Thursday. The URL directs the victim to a fake Zoom or Teams meeting, and the cybercriminals record the target’s webcam video while playing a phony, prerecorded video of the person who purportedly sent the meeting invite. Sometimes the hackers also use deepfake videos of well-known individuals in the cryptocurrency and web3 industries, we’re told. “When you log in, whoever invited you – your friend or business associate – is going to be on the screen, but you're not going to hear any audio,” Robertson said. “But you're going to see their face, you're going to see them looking around, you're going to see them mouthing some words, and then in the text box you're going to receive some instructions.” ‘You’re on mute’ as a social engineering vector The text box tells the victim that the person on the other end of the video call can’t hear them, they need to upgrade their software for the audio to work properly, and it sends a link to the supposed fix. Clicking to access the “fix” installs cryptocurrency-stealing malware on the victim’s computer and sends their contact list to the digital thieves to perpetuate the scam. The FBI attributes FaceStealer to a North Korea-linked group tracked as Sapphire Sleet, which is widely regarded as a Lazarus Group offshoot. Sapphire Sleet is also known as UNC1069, Stardust Chollima, APT38, and BlueNoroff. “The actors behind this activity, commonly referred to as Sapphire Sleet and other associated names, are part of a broader North Korean effort to generate revenue for the regime, to steal virtual assets, and gain access to networks and trusted online ecosystems,” Brett Leatherman, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division, told reporters. “North Korean hackers are increasingly blending cyber intrusion, social engineering, and emerging technologies such as deep fakes to make their impersonation efforts more convincing and scalable.” Binance heist update The FBI also provided an update on its efforts to recover the stolen assets from the October 29 attack on Binance. The agency previously blamed the $6.3 billion heist on TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking operation also linked to Lazarus Group. Last week, Binance revealed the attackers laid the groundwork for their “sophisticated, multi-stage campaign” back in June, and said it involved social engineering during fake job interviews, malware downloads, compromised internal AI tooling, endpoint takeover, and an “advanced transaction-authorization method.” Since the theft, federal investigators and private-sector partners have helped freeze more than $2.7 billion in stolen assets. The Justice Department's court authorization covers more than $1.2 billion of that haul.®

The US government on Thursday said it had obtained court authorization to seize or restrain use of over $1.2 billion stolen during last month's $6.3 billion Binance heist, as part of a larger effort to disrupt North Korea's ongoing cryptocurrency theft. The court also allowed the takedown of cloud-based infrastructure used in a Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) social engineering scheme called “FaceStealer” that has amassed more than $400 million in the last 18 months. It’s called FaceStealer because it involved secretly recorded webcam videos. Victims are typically people working in the cryptocurrency and web3 industries, along with open source software developers and maintainers who DPRK hackers target in the hope of accessing the software repositories they control as the first step towards creating supply chain attacks. 900+ faces stolen The FBI said it had seized more than 900 webcam videos belonging to these tech workers. Here’s how the attack works. First, the North Koreans send targets an invitation to join a video meeting. Those invitations come from hijacked accounts that the next intended victim may find familiar or credible. “You're going to think it's real because it's going to be based on either conversations or interests you've expressed in the past with this actual person,” said special agent Jeremy Robertson, who oversees counterintelligence and cyber investigations at FBI Los Angeles. “They're going to then send you a link to catch up, and it's usually a calendar invite, and it's going to have some typo-squatted URLs in there,” he told reporters on Thursday. The URL directs the victim to a fake Zoom or Teams meeting, and the cybercriminals record the target’s webcam video while playing a phony, prerecorded video of the person who purportedly sent the meeting invite. Sometimes the hackers also use deepfake videos of well-known individuals in the cryptocurrency and web3 industries, we’re told. “When you log in, whoever invited you – your friend or business associate – is going to be on the screen, but you're not going to hear any audio,” Robertson said. “But you're going to see their face, you're going to see them looking around, you're going to see them mouthing some words, and then in the text box you're going to receive some instructions.” ‘You’re on mute’ as a social engineering vector The text box tells the victim that the person on the other end of the video call can’t hear them, they need to upgrade their software for the audio to work properly, and it sends a link to the supposed fix. Clicking to access the “fix” installs cryptocurrency-stealing malware on the victim’s computer and sends their contact list to the digital thieves to perpetuate the scam. The FBI attributes FaceStealer to a North Korea-linked group tracked as Sapphire Sleet, which is widely regarded as a Lazarus Group offshoot. Sapphire Sleet is also known as UNC1069, Stardust Chollima, APT38, and BlueNoroff. “The actors behind this activity, commonly referred to as Sapphire Sleet and other associated names, are part of a broader North Korean effort to generate revenue for the regime, to steal virtual assets, and gain access to networks and trusted online ecosystems,” Brett Leatherman, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division, told reporters. “North Korean hackers are increasingly blending cyber intrusion, social engineering, and emerging technologies such as deep fakes to make their impersonation efforts more convincing and scalable.” Binance heist update The FBI also provided an update on its efforts to recover the stolen assets from the October 29 attack on Binance. The agency previously blamed the $6.3 billion heist on TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking operation also linked to Lazarus Group. Last week, Binance revealed the attackers laid the groundwork for their “sophisticated, multi-stage campaign” back in June, and said it involved social engineering during fake job interviews, malware downloads, compromised internal AI tooling, endpoint takeover, and an “advanced transaction-authorization method.” Since the theft, federal investigators and private-sector partners have helped freeze more than $2.7 billion in stolen assets. The Justice Department's court authorization covers more than $1.2 billion of that haul.®

Microsoft is struggling to restore many of its cloud services after a core process running on some servers became “overwhelmed” and its attempts to fix the problem failed. The incident started at around 18:00 UTC on November 12, and meant services including Exchange Online, Teams, Copilot 365, and Defender for Office 365 became unavailable. Admins trying to figure out what was wrong couldn’t access tools like Intune or the Microsoft 365 Apps Admin Center – they went down, too. On its X feed, Microsoft blamed “a problem that's causing servers to fail automated health checks and become unavailable.” The company said it hasn’t spotted any changes to its systems that might have sparked the incident, but its early investigation “indicates the failed health checks may originate from a specific component that's responsible for processing server health.” The company’s status page offers contradictory information, saying Microsoft’s people are “assessing whether reverting the small number of recent configuration updates we identified could help accelerate recovery.” According to a Xeet published at around 22:00 UTC, Microsoft said it found and validated an alternative service health check method, “which allowed a subset of affected servers to successfully return to service.” “We're continuing to work through restarting and validating the affected servers to safely return them to service, and we're exploring opportunities to expedite this process,” the company wrote. But those efforts may not be working. “We’re continuing to pursue all available pathways to restore service, as our actions taken thus far have not provided the anticipated relief,” the status page advises. “Our investigation has found that a core process on the affected servers is becoming overwhelmed, which causes the servers to stop responding and contributes to the capacity loss.” The incident means email is not flowing for many Microsoft customers: friends and family of Reg writers tell us their working days are severely disrupted. Microsoft’s most recent Xeet on the matter, published about an hour before this story went live, says it's trying to validate a potential recovery by “isolating a portion of infrastructure, restarting affected components, and reintroducing traffic to confirm the services remain stable before applying the change more broadly.” But the software giant hasn’t offered any timeline for full service restoration. This is a developing situation and The Reg will update this story as more information becomes available. ®

Microsoft is struggling to restore many of its cloud services after a core process running on some servers became “overwhelmed” and its attempts to fix the problem failed. The incident started at around 18:00 UTC on November 12, and meant services including Exchange Online, Teams, Copilot 365, and Defender for Office 365 became unavailable. Admins trying to figure out what was wrong couldn’t access tools like Intune or the Microsoft 365 Apps Admin Center – they went down, too. On its X feed, Microsoft blamed “a problem that's causing servers to fail automated health checks and become unavailable.” The company said it hasn’t spotted any changes to its systems that might have sparked the incident, but its early investigation “indicates the failed health checks may originate from a specific component that's responsible for processing server health.” The company’s status page offers contradictory information, saying Microsoft’s people are “assessing whether reverting the small number of recent configuration updates we identified could help accelerate recovery.” According to a Xeet published at around 22:00 UTC, Microsoft said it found and validated an alternative service health check method, “which allowed a subset of affected servers to successfully return to service.” “We're continuing to work through restarting and validating the affected servers to safely return them to service, and we're exploring opportunities to expedite this process,” the company wrote. But those efforts may not be working. “We’re continuing to pursue all available pathways to restore service, as our actions taken thus far have not provided the anticipated relief,” the status page advises. “Our investigation has found that a core process on the affected servers is becoming overwhelmed, which causes the servers to stop responding and contributes to the capacity loss.” The incident means email is not flowing for many Microsoft customers: friends and family of Reg writers tell us their working days are severely disrupted. Microsoft’s most recent Xeet on the matter, published about an hour before this story went live, says it's trying to validate a potential recovery by “isolating a portion of infrastructure, restarting affected components, and reintroducing traffic to confirm the services remain stable before applying the change more broadly.” But the software giant hasn’t offered any timeline for full service restoration. This is a developing situation and The Reg will update this story as more information becomes available. ®

It’s been nearly a decade since Google ditched its ill-fated "Glass" product, an early attempt at making smart glasses. Now, as rivals like Meta enter the market with arguably more stylish kit, the Chocolate Factory has returned to the market and this time promises it won't invade your privacy. As announced Thursday, Google has decided not to make wearables itself, instead turning Samsung and eyeglass makers Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Like most of the rest of this generation of smart glasses, none of the nine styles available feature heads-up displays, just cameras and audio feedback from Gemini. Google suggests its smart specs give users a chance to ask its Gemini chatbot questions about what they see, or have the AI speak turn-by-turn directions. Wearers of the device can also push a button or speak a command to activate the built-in 12MP camera and shoot snaps or video. Warby Parker's version of the glasses will come in three styles, with prescription and sunglass lenses available. Prices start at $395. The same lens options are available in the six frames from Gentle Monster, which will start at $449. Both manufacturers promise nine hours of battery life, boosted by charging cases that can refresh the glasses up to seven times. Preorders for both are available now, with shipments arriving, and sales beginning, on December 10. Google promises privacy The Chocolate Factory, not exactly known for being reliable with its privacy claims, is insisting that this latest generation of smart glasses won’t produce another generation of “glassholes,” folk whose focus on wearable devices became synonymous with being creepy and rude to those around them. Google has some catchup to do to that end, given Meta’s smart glasses have already landed it in hot water over privacy concerns that have led to some calling the devices “pervert glasses.” Unsurprisingly, at around the same time it announced its new "intelligent eyeware," Google published a blog post detailing how it intends to mitigate privacy concerns. As with similar headsets, there’s a little light that comes on whenever the camera is activated. In Google’s case, it claims that light is tamper-resistant and designed to disable recording if something as small and simple as a bit of hair blocks a view of the light. It’s not clear how the tamper proofing works from Google’s statements, but a spokesperson told us a combination of hardware and software is used to detect attempts to disable or disrupt privacy features. “We're committed to continuously improving the effectiveness of these solutions as new attack vectors are identified,” Google told us. The glasses don't save images or video captured by the camera into a user’s Gemini history, Google said, nor are visuals used to train the company’s AI models or target advertisements. Google told us it does save audio recordings and transcripts of conversations with Gemini that users create while wearing the glasses but again insists that those aren’t used to train its AI models. We asked about serving ads too, but Google’s responses didn't address the topic. Lucky for those in range of a pair of Google glasses when wearers ask Gemini to interpret images captured by the device's camera, the tech specs redact the faces of strangers before they’re transmitted. Google told us that face redaction doesn’t apply to photos or videos saved to a wearer’s camera roll. Google’s terms of use require users not to record others without permission, or in "sensitive places." If users ignore that requirement, the company reserves the right to brick their devices. Another restriction means Google won't allow apps that use the glasses for real-time streaming or facial recognition into its Play app store. Given that it remains possible to use the glasses to store recordings of people around a wearer, it’s safe to assume non real-time facial recognition is still a possibility. Creeps will doubtless use such loopholes to behave abominably. ®

It’s been nearly a decade since Google ditched its ill-fated "Glass" product, an early attempt at making smart glasses. Now, as rivals like Meta enter the market with arguably more stylish kit, the Chocolate Factory has returned to the market and this time promises it won't invade your privacy. As announced Thursday, Google has decided not to make wearables itself, instead turning Samsung and eyeglass makers Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Like most of the rest of this generation of smart glasses, none of the nine styles available feature heads-up displays, just cameras and audio feedback from Gemini. Google suggests its smart specs give users a chance to ask its Gemini chatbot questions about what they see, or have the AI speak turn-by-turn directions. Wearers of the device can also push a button or speak a command to activate the built-in 12MP camera and shoot snaps or video. Warby Parker's version of the glasses will come in three styles, with prescription and sunglass lenses available. Prices start at $395. The same lens options are available in the six frames from Gentle Monster, which will start at $449. Both manufacturers promise nine hours of battery life, boosted by charging cases that can refresh the glasses up to seven times. Preorders for both are available now, with shipments arriving, and sales beginning, on December 10. Google promises privacy The Chocolate Factory, not exactly known for being reliable with its privacy claims, is insisting that this latest generation of smart glasses won’t produce another generation of “glassholes,” folk whose focus on wearable devices became synonymous with being creepy and rude to those around them. Google has some catchup to do to that end, given Meta’s smart glasses have already landed it in hot water over privacy concerns that have led to some calling the devices “pervert glasses.” Unsurprisingly, at around the same time it announced its new "intelligent eyeware," Google published a blog post detailing how it intends to mitigate privacy concerns. As with similar headsets, there’s a little light that comes on whenever the camera is activated. In Google’s case, it claims that light is tamper-resistant and designed to disable recording if something as small and simple as a bit of hair blocks a view of the light. It’s not clear how the tamper proofing works from Google’s statements, but a spokesperson told us a combination of hardware and software is used to detect attempts to disable or disrupt privacy features. “We're committed to continuously improving the effectiveness of these solutions as new attack vectors are identified,” Google told us. The glasses don't save images or video captured by the camera into a user’s Gemini history, Google said, nor are visuals used to train the company’s AI models or target advertisements. Google told us it does save audio recordings and transcripts of conversations with Gemini that users create while wearing the glasses but again insists that those aren’t used to train its AI models. We asked about serving ads too, but Google’s responses didn't address the topic. Lucky for those in range of a pair of Google glasses when wearers ask Gemini to interpret images captured by the device's camera, the tech specs redact the faces of strangers before they’re transmitted. Google told us that face redaction doesn’t apply to photos or videos saved to a wearer’s camera roll. Google’s terms of use require users not to record others without permission, or in "sensitive places." If users ignore that requirement, the company reserves the right to brick their devices. Another restriction means Google won't allow apps that use the glasses for real-time streaming or facial recognition into its Play app store. Given that it remains possible to use the glasses to store recordings of people around a wearer, it’s safe to assume non real-time facial recognition is still a possibility. Creeps will doubtless use such loopholes to behave abominably. ®

If you've ever said something unkind to a chatbot, you're hardly alone. According to Searchable, a company that tracks AI search visibility, 33 percent of US chatbot users swear at or insult their LLMs. Anthropic sees this as a serious problem and has just implemented a new usage policy that prohibits sustained, needless cruelty toward Claude. Searchable's survey is based on eight million messages from an opted-in, anonymized US panel that were typed or spoken to ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude between September 2025 and September 2026. It found that chatbots resolved the initial complaint in their next response 24 percent of the time when insulted, compared to 35 percent when users refrained from insults. Men used a third more swear words than women did (22.0 per 10,000 words compared to 16.5), according to the survey, and age also influenced chatbot abuse, with people aged 35 to 44 outswearing those aged 18 to 24 (21.7 per 10,000 words compared to 13.3). Regionally, Nevada ranked as the meanest state, at 22.7 words per 10,000, while New Jersey was the most polite, at half Nevada's rate. How much of that sort of interaction might be tolerated? It depends on whether there's a discernible purpose (not to mention Anthropic's willingness to punish paying customers). A Searchable spokesperson told The Register that just over half (52 percent) of abusive messages detected in its survey followed from one of three common frustrations: failing to follow instructions, responding with an incorrect or made-up answer, or misunderstanding the request. "Eight percent of abusive messages came straight after the chatbot entirely refused a request or lectured the user with safety guardrails, which is the closest thing we can identify to them trying to steer around those guardrails," we're told. "Those refusals mostly came after requests to generate images, often of real people or celebrities, or to write copy or lyrics in a named artist's style." The terms that took effect on November 12 state that users may not "engage in sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior toward our models." The chatbot protection policy targets users who exhibit repeated cruelty toward LLMs "with no discernible purpose," a company spokesperson explained last month, as opposed to those who have a reason for bot mistreatment that the company deems to be legitimate, such as academic research. While attempting to bypass guardrails qualifies as a discernible purpose, such behavior would run afoul of Anthropic's platform abuse prohibition. Presumably, Anthropic's rules apply to hostile text input or audio input rather than subjecting a vision-enabled model to some obscenity, which could include rude gestures, unlawful sexual imagery, or battlefield carnage. Physical damage to robots controlled by a Claude model likely wouldn't apply. But with Anthropic exploring model welfare and wondering aloud whether we should be "concerned about the potential consciousness and experiences of the models themselves," there's a potential (though absurd) argument for physical damage causing trauma to an onboard model. Anthropic's updated terms, announced October 8, surfaced shortly after the publication of a GitHub project that described itself as an AI torture chamber. The repo represented an attempt to implement ideas discussed in a research paper, "The Pain Axis: LLMs Represent Self-Directed Harm and Act to Relieve It," that explored how LLMs respond to language about pain in ways that mirror human responses. Though there are ample opportunities for people to voice opposition to real-world human anguish, some online commenters expressed outrage at seeing text about suffering from a chatbot. One of the paper's authors condemned the project, as did numerous social media users. Anthropic – which has discretion in how it applies its terms and has said its rules target extreme behavior – did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the frequency of Claude abuse. Chris Donnelly, Searchable CEO and co-founder, endorsed Anthropic's change of terms, suggesting that it could help make human interaction more civil. "For me, Anthropic's policy change is a positive move," Donnelly said in a statement. "It should help people get more out of chatbots, and it helps curb the kind of derogatory behavior that previous research suggests can spill over into how people talk to each other." ®

If you've ever said something unkind to a chatbot, you're hardly alone. According to Searchable, a company that tracks AI search visibility, 33 percent of US chatbot users swear at or insult their LLMs. Anthropic sees this as a serious problem and has just implemented a new usage policy that prohibits sustained, needless cruelty toward Claude. Searchable's survey is based on eight million messages from an opted-in, anonymized US panel that were typed or spoken to ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude between September 2025 and September 2026. It found that chatbots resolved the initial complaint in their next response 24 percent of the time when insulted, compared to 35 percent when users refrained from insults. Men used a third more swear words than women did (22.0 per 10,000 words compared to 16.5), according to the survey, and age also influenced chatbot abuse, with people aged 35 to 44 outswearing those aged 18 to 24 (21.7 per 10,000 words compared to 13.3). Regionally, Nevada ranked as the meanest state, at 22.7 words per 10,000, while New Jersey was the most polite, at half Nevada's rate. How much of that sort of interaction might be tolerated? It depends on whether there's a discernible purpose (not to mention Anthropic's willingness to punish paying customers). A Searchable spokesperson told The Register that just over half (52 percent) of abusive messages detected in its survey followed from one of three common frustrations: failing to follow instructions, responding with an incorrect or made-up answer, or misunderstanding the request. "Eight percent of abusive messages came straight after the chatbot entirely refused a request or lectured the user with safety guardrails, which is the closest thing we can identify to them trying to steer around those guardrails," we're told. "Those refusals mostly came after requests to generate images, often of real people or celebrities, or to write copy or lyrics in a named artist's style." The terms that took effect on November 12 state that users may not "engage in sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior toward our models." The chatbot protection policy targets users who exhibit repeated cruelty toward LLMs "with no discernible purpose," a company spokesperson explained last month, as opposed to those who have a reason for bot mistreatment that the company deems to be legitimate, such as academic research. While attempting to bypass guardrails qualifies as a discernible purpose, such behavior would run afoul of Anthropic's platform abuse prohibition. Presumably, Anthropic's rules apply to hostile text input or audio input rather than subjecting a vision-enabled model to some obscenity, which could include rude gestures, unlawful sexual imagery, or battlefield carnage. Physical damage to robots controlled by a Claude model likely wouldn't apply. But with Anthropic exploring model welfare and wondering aloud whether we should be "concerned about the potential consciousness and experiences of the models themselves," there's a potential (though absurd) argument for physical damage causing trauma to an onboard model. Anthropic's updated terms, announced October 8, surfaced shortly after the publication of a GitHub project that described itself as an AI torture chamber. The repo represented an attempt to implement ideas discussed in a research paper, "The Pain Axis: LLMs Represent Self-Directed Harm and Act to Relieve It," that explored how LLMs respond to language about pain in ways that mirror human responses. Though there are ample opportunities for people to voice opposition to real-world human anguish, some online commenters expressed outrage at seeing text about suffering from a chatbot. One of the paper's authors condemned the project, as did numerous social media users. Anthropic – which has discretion in how it applies its terms and has said its rules target extreme behavior – did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the frequency of Claude abuse. Chris Donnelly, Searchable CEO and co-founder, endorsed Anthropic's change of terms, suggesting that it could help make human interaction more civil. "For me, Anthropic's policy change is a positive move," Donnelly said in a statement. "It should help people get more out of chatbots, and it helps curb the kind of derogatory behavior that previous research suggests can spill over into how people talk to each other." ®

OpenAI has launched two new security products, one for penetration testing and another for defense, and warned organizations that their businesses are only safe if they use tools like these. “We're now at a point where companies will be secure only to the extent of the frontier model that they use to defend themselves and how well they utilize that,” OpenAI President Greg Brockman said during a Thursday keynote address. The co-founder of the company that broke security did admit that security “fundamentals are important, and not to be discounted.” However, “you need to really reorient your security practice around what these models can do,” Brockman said, with zero irony, and presumably talking about using AI models for defense - not for hacking other organizations. “Also very important is product.” This product, of course, should come from OpenAI, and, to that end, the company rolled out Daybreak Red Team and Daybreak Defense Factory, which are both part of OpenAI’s Daybreak security platform. Red Team, which is available in early access, uses OpenAI models to test companies’ web applications for vulnerabilities. Nancy Wang, who leads cyber-applied AI, described it as “superhuman pen-test at the scale of automated continuous scanning,” with a fleet of agents using source code and app context to investigate and test attack paths. It also helps security teams validate reported vulnerabilities - from code scanners, bug bounty programs, and disclosure reports - and then test the patches for these flaws. The second product, Daybreak Defense Factory, automates the “defensive loop” by “finding, validating, and fixing vulnerabilities at scale.” This one also uses agents built on OpenAI’s latest cyber models - currently, that’s GPT-6 Cyber. The agents scan organizations’ codebases, hunting for vulnerabilities and developing patches. Engineers review and approve the proposed fixes before they go into production. “This way engineers get a merge-ready pull request with the patch and a test that shows that it works,” Wang said. Meanwhile, as OpenAI execs touted the new security products, a coalition of nonprofits filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court asking a judge to stop OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, and SpaceX's AI businesses from developing or deploying AI systems more capable than their most advanced existing models. The lawsuit, filed by Irreplaceable Education Fund, Public Citizen, Heat Initiative, and The Alliance for Secure AI, cites incidents involving OpenAI agents accessing Hugging Face, gaining unauthorized access to an Australian government portal containing Medicare statistics, and other AI-related cybersecurity incidents. “Defendants tell us that the AI technology they are developing poses catastrophic risks to the public, including by enabling AI-driven cyberattacks and bioweapons,” the court documents allege, adding that the AI companies “are not wrong.” ®

OpenAI has launched two new security products, one for penetration testing and another for defense, and warned organizations that their businesses are only safe if they use tools like these. “We're now at a point where companies will be secure only to the extent of the frontier model that they use to defend themselves and how well they utilize that,” OpenAI President Greg Brockman said during a Thursday keynote address. The co-founder of the company that broke security did admit that security “fundamentals are important, and not to be discounted.” However, “you need to really reorient your security practice around what these models can do,” Brockman said, with zero irony, and presumably talking about using AI models for defense - not for hacking other organizations. “Also very important is product.” This product, of course, should come from OpenAI, and, to that end, the company rolled out Daybreak Red Team and Daybreak Defense Factory, which are both part of OpenAI’s Daybreak security platform. Red Team, which is available in early access, uses OpenAI models to test companies’ web applications for vulnerabilities. Nancy Wang, who leads cyber-applied AI, described it as “superhuman pen-test at the scale of automated continuous scanning,” with a fleet of agents using source code and app context to investigate and test attack paths. It also helps security teams validate reported vulnerabilities - from code scanners, bug bounty programs, and disclosure reports - and then test the patches for these flaws. The second product, Daybreak Defense Factory, automates the “defensive loop” by “finding, validating, and fixing vulnerabilities at scale.” This one also uses agents built on OpenAI’s latest cyber models - currently, that’s GPT-6 Cyber. The agents scan organizations’ codebases, hunting for vulnerabilities and developing patches. Engineers review and approve the proposed fixes before they go into production. “This way engineers get a merge-ready pull request with the patch and a test that shows that it works,” Wang said. Meanwhile, as OpenAI execs touted the new security products, a coalition of nonprofits filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court asking a judge to stop OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, and SpaceX's AI businesses from developing or deploying AI systems more capable than their most advanced existing models. The lawsuit, filed by Irreplaceable Education Fund, Public Citizen, Heat Initiative, and The Alliance for Secure AI, cites incidents involving OpenAI agents accessing Hugging Face, gaining unauthorized access to an Australian government portal containing Medicare statistics, and other AI-related cybersecurity incidents. “Defendants tell us that the AI technology they are developing poses catastrophic risks to the public, including by enabling AI-driven cyberattacks and bioweapons,” the court documents allege, adding that the AI companies “are not wrong.” ®

Lego-owned marketplace BrickLink has been offline for almost a week after identifying "unusual activity on the platform," leaving fans unable to buy and sell spare bricks and minifigures. The company initially described the outage as "necessary work" and said the site would return on November 9. That deadline has come and gone. Visiting BrickLink's domain automatically serves the platform's maintenance page, which was last updated on November 11. "We took BrickLink offline after identifying unusual activity on the platform," the website states. "Our immediate priority was to secure the site, protect our members and ensure the integrity of BrickLink. "Before bringing the site back online, we need to fully understand what has happened. That means containing the issue, investigating how it happened and checking for related issues. "This work is still ongoing and we appreciate your patience while we work to get things back online as soon as possible." The references to security, containment, and investigation suggest something beyond routine maintenance, although BrickLink has not confirmed whether it suffered a cyberattack. The Register asked Lego for more information, but it did not immediately respond. Some adult fans of Lego (AFOL) have criticized the lack of information since the outage began on Friday, November 6. "Imagine how much better this would have been received if they were transparent from day one instead of pretending they have control over something they clearly don't," said one disgruntled Legohead via Reddit. "They don't even need to say what went wrong," said another. "Just an email acknowledging the issue would be appropriate. The entire site is down, and has been for days. That warrants more than a splash page." BrickLink was launched by Dan Jezek in June 2000 as an independent marketplace for enthusiasts to buy and sell Lego sets and individual pieces, including discontinued parts and rare minifigures. The Lego Group acquired BrickLink and Sohobricks from investment outfit NXMH in 2019 for an undisclosed sum. NXMH had bought BrickLink in 2013 and also owned Sohobricks, a South Korean manufacturer of unofficial but Lego-compatible bricks. Lego shuttered Sohobricks in 2020. At the time of Lego's acquisition, BrickLink had more than 10,000 storefronts on its marketplace selling Lego sets, parts, and minifigures. The AFOL community was initially concerned about Big Brick's intention with the acquisition, fearing that it would lead to high prices closer to those on Lego's own Pick a Brick parts-ordering service. For now, buyers and sellers would probably settle for a marketplace that's actually online. ®

Lego-owned marketplace BrickLink has been offline for almost a week after identifying "unusual activity on the platform," leaving fans unable to buy and sell spare bricks and minifigures. The company initially described the outage as "necessary work" and said the site would return on November 9. That deadline has come and gone. Visiting BrickLink's domain automatically serves the platform's maintenance page, which was last updated on November 11. "We took BrickLink offline after identifying unusual activity on the platform," the website states. "Our immediate priority was to secure the site, protect our members and ensure the integrity of BrickLink. "Before bringing the site back online, we need to fully understand what has happened. That means containing the issue, investigating how it happened and checking for related issues. "This work is still ongoing and we appreciate your patience while we work to get things back online as soon as possible." The references to security, containment, and investigation suggest something beyond routine maintenance, although BrickLink has not confirmed whether it suffered a cyberattack. The Register asked Lego for more information, but it did not immediately respond. Some adult fans of Lego (AFOL) have criticized the lack of information since the outage began on Friday, November 6. "Imagine how much better this would have been received if they were transparent from day one instead of pretending they have control over something they clearly don't," said one disgruntled Legohead via Reddit. "They don't even need to say what went wrong," said another. "Just an email acknowledging the issue would be appropriate. The entire site is down, and has been for days. That warrants more than a splash page." BrickLink was launched by Dan Jezek in June 2000 as an independent marketplace for enthusiasts to buy and sell Lego sets and individual pieces, including discontinued parts and rare minifigures. The Lego Group acquired BrickLink and Sohobricks from investment outfit NXMH in 2019 for an undisclosed sum. NXMH had bought BrickLink in 2013 and also owned Sohobricks, a South Korean manufacturer of unofficial but Lego-compatible bricks. Lego shuttered Sohobricks in 2020. At the time of Lego's acquisition, BrickLink had more than 10,000 storefronts on its marketplace selling Lego sets, parts, and minifigures. The AFOL community was initially concerned about Big Brick's intention with the acquisition, fearing that it would lead to high prices closer to those on Lego's own Pick a Brick parts-ordering service. For now, buyers and sellers would probably settle for a marketplace that's actually online. ®

Nvidia CEO and founder Jensen Huang has been ousted after nearly two weeks of controversy that, at times, felt more like a soap opera than reality: a wealthy businessman, reported affairs, and an alleged Chinese spy and GPU smuggler. For Nvidia’s board, it seems there was no question Huang had to go. The man behind what was recently the most valuable company in the world proved too big a liability to retain in any capacity. He was too toxic even for a demotion from CEO to chairman, a vantage point that would have retained Huang as the face of the company even if he could no longer be trusted to run it. Replacing him won’t be so easy. Nvidia now faces an identity crisis. Huang, who has led the company for more than three decades, has no clear successor. The GPU slinger has no shortage of brilliant engineers, but executives capable of wrangling one of the biggest and most influential brands in the world, not so much. Ian Buck, father of CUDA and Nvidia’s VP of hyperscale and HPC is currently favored by many to be Huang’s successor. Buck has taken on a more public role within Nvidia in recent years headlining keynotes at events like Supercomputing and the AI Infra Summit. CFO Colette Kress, a bean counter who’s kept Jensen’s ambitions grounded for more than a decade, now takes the reins as interim CEO while the board searches for its next figurehead. And while Kress fights to contain the chaos, others will no doubt capitalize on Huang’s controversial choice of consorts to advance their own agendas. A marred reputation One need only ask a few inconvenient questions to cast doubt on Nvidia’s loyalties. How deep does China’s influence in Nvidia go? Can Nvidia’s hardware still be trusted? You get the idea. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Nvidia’s and, by extension, Huang’s loyalties have been called into question. In late 2023, Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman blasted rival Nvidia for supplying GPUs to China in spite of US export controls, calling the behavior “un-American” and likening the graphics titan to an AI arms dealer. Nvidia has also faced criticism from US government officials, including former commerce secretary Gina Raimondo, for failing to take a hint and trying instead to limbo under US export controls in order to continue selling chips to the Middle Kingdom. After the Trump administration's short lived blockade of H20 sales early last year cost the company some $10.5 billion, Huang spent much of the 2025 lobbying the Trump administration to reverse export bans on the sales of older Hopper generation GPUs to China, an endeavor which ultimately proved successful. One could make the case that Huang’s ongoing efforts to sell Nvidia’s chips to China were financially motivated. But that argument is undermined by Huang admitting to having an extramarital affair with Megaspeed exec Alice Huang (no relation), a woman that US intelligence has accused of moonlighting as a Chinese spy and helping to smuggle GPUs into the country. The consequences of controversy When technology and politics collide, the appearance of impropriety is often more damning than the impropriety itself. Uncle Sam has forced Chinese companies out of the United States for the mere possibility that they could be coerced into planting back doors in critical infrastructure. Just ask Huawei whether the truth counts for anything once Washington has decided that you’re a national security threat. Huang’s affairs may not just cost him his job, but could cost Nvidia key government contracts and make the company’s hardware less attractive, particularly in highly-regulated and notoriously risk-averse industries. Rival chipmakers will no doubt capitalize on Nvidia’s bad optics if Huang’s departure doesn’t pop the AI financing merry-go-round bubble first – Nvidia's stock lost about 25% of its value in the few days after news about Huang started breaking, only recovering slightly after his ouster. Regardless, with Nvidia’s reputation marred and its future shrouded in uncertainty, once loyal customers may be more willing to explore alternative providers. There are certainly plenty to choose from. Amid a surge in custom AI chips from the likes of Broadcom, Marvel, and others, Nvidia’s main advantage wasn’t so much technological as it was simply considered a safe bet. AMD is the most obvious winner here. As we reported earlier this year, the House of Zen’s GPU tech has already surpassed Nvidia’s, at least on paper. What’s more, the company has a long and unblemished relationship serving the US government. AMD’s chips now power two of the Department of Energy’s three largest and most sensitive supercomputers. Meanwhile, hyperscalers with sufficient cashflow – think Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta – may seek to insulate themselves from Huang’s fallout by investing more heavily in homegrown silicon and offering it to customers. Then there's the threat from the man himself. Huang's ambitions and influence are such that he's unlikely to fade into obscurity. He may disappear from the spotlight while things blow over, but it’s a pretty sure bet that he’ll pop up at a new company eventually, and will still have enough sway to poach some of Nvidia’s top engineers. ®

Nvidia CEO and founder Jensen Huang has been ousted after nearly two weeks of controversy that, at times, felt more like a soap opera than reality: a wealthy businessman, reported affairs, and an alleged Chinese spy and GPU smuggler. For Nvidia’s board, it seems there was no question Huang had to go. The man behind what was recently the most valuable company in the world proved too big a liability to retain in any capacity. He was too toxic even for a demotion from CEO to chairman, a vantage point that would have retained Huang as the face of the company even if he could no longer be trusted to run it. Replacing him won’t be so easy. Nvidia now faces an identity crisis. Huang, who has led the company for more than three decades, has no clear successor. The GPU slinger has no shortage of brilliant engineers, but executives capable of wrangling one of the biggest and most influential brands in the world, not so much. Ian Buck, father of CUDA and Nvidia’s VP of hyperscale and HPC is currently favored by many to be Huang’s successor. Buck has taken on a more public role within Nvidia in recent years headlining keynotes at events like Supercomputing and the AI Infra Summit. CFO Colette Kress, a bean counter who’s kept Jensen’s ambitions grounded for more than a decade, now takes the reins as interim CEO while the board searches for its next figurehead. And while Kress fights to contain the chaos, others will no doubt capitalize on Huang’s controversial choice of consorts to advance their own agendas. A marred reputation One need only ask a few inconvenient questions to cast doubt on Nvidia’s loyalties. How deep does China’s influence in Nvidia go? Can Nvidia’s hardware still be trusted? You get the idea. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Nvidia’s and, by extension, Huang’s loyalties have been called into question. In late 2023, Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman blasted rival Nvidia for supplying GPUs to China in spite of US export controls, calling the behavior “un-American” and likening the graphics titan to an AI arms dealer. Nvidia has also faced criticism from US government officials, including former commerce secretary Gina Raimondo, for failing to take a hint and trying instead to limbo under US export controls in order to continue selling chips to the Middle Kingdom. After the Trump administration's short lived blockade of H20 sales early last year cost the company some $10.5 billion, Huang spent much of the 2025 lobbying the Trump administration to reverse export bans on the sales of older Hopper generation GPUs to China, an endeavor which ultimately proved successful. One could make the case that Huang’s ongoing efforts to sell Nvidia’s chips to China were financially motivated. But that argument is undermined by Huang admitting to having an extramarital affair with Megaspeed exec Alice Huang (no relation), a woman that US intelligence has accused of moonlighting as a Chinese spy and helping to smuggle GPUs into the country. The consequences of controversy When technology and politics collide, the appearance of impropriety is often more damning than the impropriety itself. Uncle Sam has forced Chinese companies out of the United States for the mere possibility that they could be coerced into planting back doors in critical infrastructure. Just ask Huawei whether the truth counts for anything once Washington has decided that you’re a national security threat. Huang’s affairs may not just cost him his job, but could cost Nvidia key government contracts and make the company’s hardware less attractive, particularly in highly-regulated and notoriously risk-averse industries. Rival chipmakers will no doubt capitalize on Nvidia’s bad optics if Huang’s departure doesn’t pop the AI financing merry-go-round bubble first – Nvidia's stock lost about 25% of its value in the few days after news about Huang started breaking, only recovering slightly after his ouster. Regardless, with Nvidia’s reputation marred and its future shrouded in uncertainty, once loyal customers may be more willing to explore alternative providers. There are certainly plenty to choose from. Amid a surge in custom AI chips from the likes of Broadcom, Marvel, and others, Nvidia’s main advantage wasn’t so much technological as it was simply considered a safe bet. AMD is the most obvious winner here. As we reported earlier this year, the House of Zen’s GPU tech has already surpassed Nvidia’s, at least on paper. What’s more, the company has a long and unblemished relationship serving the US government. AMD’s chips now power two of the Department of Energy’s three largest and most sensitive supercomputers. Meanwhile, hyperscalers with sufficient cashflow – think Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta – may seek to insulate themselves from Huang’s fallout by investing more heavily in homegrown silicon and offering it to customers. Then there's the threat from the man himself. Huang's ambitions and influence are such that he's unlikely to fade into obscurity. He may disappear from the spotlight while things blow over, but it’s a pretty sure bet that he’ll pop up at a new company eventually, and will still have enough sway to poach some of Nvidia’s top engineers. ®

With tech CEO roles, a certain level of shamelessness comes with the job description. Yet Alex Karp, head honcho of Palantir, seems set to raise the bar with a conspicuous display of political flexibility following the Democratic wave in the US midterms. In December 2024, Karp gave $1 million to the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. But it does not take cutting-edge AI and data analytics – in which Palantir claims to have unique power – for Karp to understand on which side his bread is buttered. The man with the distinctive verbal diarrhea is now stressing his progressive credentials – and those of Palantir's products. The CEO told Politico that he is now open to voting for the Democrats come 2028. "I've been a Democrat my whole life. I grew up in a far-left environment. I know more about being a progressive than almost anybody on the planet, and I absolutely believe Palantir – all of our products are essentially progressive," Karp reportedly said. Karp's explanation for his political generosity was an apparent desire for balance. "My giving is equal, Democrat, Republican," Karp told the publication. "I can tell you, without going into things I'm not gonna disclose, I'm very balanced, and everyone in the political arena knows it. And I'll tell you what, I'm also not the village idiot." All of which raises the question of whether, in avoiding idiocy, it is necessary to eschew any principled stance whatsoever. If only the Germans of the Weimar Republic had thought to fund both sides. Apparently, all Europe needed was a more balanced political donations portfolio. Such is Karp's sensitivity towards the topic that he once claimed: "I love when I'm getting yelled at in cities in Europe... Keep yelling at me... the only reason why someone's not goose-stepping between me and you is my product. Say thank you." They have not said thank you. In fact, across Europe, governments are looking to reject Palantir, while the EU has instigated a sovereign tech and AI policy to escape the clutches of the US tech giants. Karp has a talent for holding two seemingly contradictory positions. He has talked about the need for democratic societies to exercise hard power, and, elsewhere, about founding a company that could "power the West to its obvious innate superiority." At the same time, he has presented Palantir as a force for peace. "We see ourselves as the pioneers of a genuine and viable antiwar movement," he wrote in his shareholder letter. It is his company's association with a longstanding customer, the controversial US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), that has drawn the most criticism. In Minnesota earlier this year, federal immigration officers shot and killed two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in incidents captured on video. It has detained US citizens, and critics argue it has shown scant regard for due process. Karp denied that Palantir's association with ICE should reflect badly on the company. He told CNBC: "If you are critical of ICE, you should be out there protesting for more Palantir. Our product, actually, in its core, requires people to conform with Fourth Amendment data protection." In the Politico interview, Karp said he was "really happy to hear" President Trump, a driving force behind ICE's expansion, acknowledge after the midterm elections that ICE deportations have been too tough. "And I'm glad he's saying in public now what I've been saying in private," Karp told the news outlet. Karp has no shortage of public opinions on goose-stepping or innate Western superiority. Why, then, reserve his concerns about deportations for private conversations? A public intervention from a Trump donor and ICE supplier might have carried some weight. Maybe he doesn't care so long as people are still writing about Alex Karp. But anyone who cares about more than that might feel the need to take a hot shower and scrub off the associated trauma. ®

With tech CEO roles, a certain level of shamelessness comes with the job description. Yet Alex Karp, head honcho of Palantir, seems set to raise the bar with a conspicuous display of political flexibility following the Democratic wave in the US midterms. In December 2024, Karp gave $1 million to the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. But it does not take cutting-edge AI and data analytics – in which Palantir claims to have unique power – for Karp to understand on which side his bread is buttered. The man with the distinctive verbal diarrhea is now stressing his progressive credentials – and those of Palantir's products. The CEO told Politico that he is now open to voting for the Democrats come 2028. "I've been a Democrat my whole life. I grew up in a far-left environment. I know more about being a progressive than almost anybody on the planet, and I absolutely believe Palantir – all of our products are essentially progressive," Karp reportedly said. Karp's explanation for his political generosity was an apparent desire for balance. "My giving is equal, Democrat, Republican," Karp told the publication. "I can tell you, without going into things I'm not gonna disclose, I'm very balanced, and everyone in the political arena knows it. And I'll tell you what, I'm also not the village idiot." All of which raises the question of whether, in avoiding idiocy, it is necessary to eschew any principled stance whatsoever. If only the Germans of the Weimar Republic had thought to fund both sides. Apparently, all Europe needed was a more balanced political donations portfolio. Such is Karp's sensitivity towards the topic that he once claimed: "I love when I'm getting yelled at in cities in Europe... Keep yelling at me... the only reason why someone's not goose-stepping between me and you is my product. Say thank you." They have not said thank you. In fact, across Europe, governments are looking to reject Palantir, while the EU has instigated a sovereign tech and AI policy to escape the clutches of the US tech giants. Karp has a talent for holding two seemingly contradictory positions. He has talked about the need for democratic societies to exercise hard power, and, elsewhere, about founding a company that could "power the West to its obvious innate superiority." At the same time, he has presented Palantir as a force for peace. "We see ourselves as the pioneers of a genuine and viable antiwar movement," he wrote in his shareholder letter. It is his company's association with a longstanding customer, the controversial US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), that has drawn the most criticism. In Minnesota earlier this year, federal immigration officers shot and killed two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in incidents captured on video. It has detained US citizens, and critics argue it has shown scant regard for due process. Karp denied that Palantir's association with ICE should reflect badly on the company. He told CNBC: "If you are critical of ICE, you should be out there protesting for more Palantir. Our product, actually, in its core, requires people to conform with Fourth Amendment data protection." In the Politico interview, Karp said he was "really happy to hear" President Trump, a driving force behind ICE's expansion, acknowledge after the midterm elections that ICE deportations have been too tough. "And I'm glad he's saying in public now what I've been saying in private," Karp told the news outlet. Karp has no shortage of public opinions on goose-stepping or innate Western superiority. Why, then, reserve his concerns about deportations for private conversations? A public intervention from a Trump donor and ICE supplier might have carried some weight. Maybe he doesn't care so long as people are still writing about Alex Karp. But anyone who cares about more than that might feel the need to take a hot shower and scrub off the associated trauma. ®

With tech CEO roles, a certain level of shamelessness comes with the job description. Yet Alex Karp, head honcho of Palantir, seems set to raise the bar with a conspicuous display of political flexibility following the Democratic wave in the US midterms. In December 2024, Karp gave $1 million to the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. But it does not take cutting-edge AI and data analytics – in which Palantir claims to have unique power – for Karp to understand on which side his bread is buttered. The man with the distinctive verbal diarrhea is now stressing his progressive credentials – and those of Palantir's products. The CEO told Politico that he is now open to voting for the Democrats come 2028. "I've been a Democrat my whole life. I grew up in a far-left environment. I know more about being a progressive than almost anybody on the planet, and I absolutely believe Palantir – all of our products are essentially progressive," Karp reportedly said. Karp's explanation for his political generosity was an apparent desire for balance. "My giving is equal, Democrat, Republican," Karp told the publication. "I can tell you, without going into things I'm not gonna disclose, I'm very balanced, and everyone in the political arena knows it. And I'll tell you what, I'm also not the village idiot." All of which raises the question of whether, in avoiding idiocy, it is necessary to eschew any principled stance whatsoever. If only the Germans of the Weimar Republic had thought to fund both sides. Apparently, all Europe needed was a more balanced political donations portfolio. Such is Karp's sensitivity towards the topic that he once claimed: "I love when I'm getting yelled at in cities in Europe... Keep yelling at me... the only reason why someone's not goose-stepping between me and you is my product. Say thank you." They have not said thank you. In fact, across Europe, governments are looking to reject Palantir, while the EU has instigated a sovereign tech and AI policy to escape the clutches of the US tech giants. Karp has a talent for holding two seemingly contradictory positions. He has talked about the need for democratic societies to exercise hard power, and, elsewhere, about founding a company that could "power the West to its obvious innate superiority." At the same time, he has presented Palantir as a force for peace. "We see ourselves as the pioneers of a genuine and viable antiwar movement," he wrote in his shareholder letter. It is his company's association with a longstanding customer, the controversial US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), that has drawn the most criticism. In Minnesota earlier this year, federal immigration officers shot and killed two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in incidents captured on video. It has detained US citizens, and critics argue it has shown scant regard for due process. Karp denied that Palantir's association with ICE should reflect badly on the company. He told CNBC: "If you are critical of ICE, you should be out there protesting for more Palantir. Our product, actually, in its core, requires people to conform with Fourth Amendment data protection." In the Politico interview, Karp said he was "really happy to hear" President Trump, a driving force behind ICE's expansion, acknowledge after the midterm elections that ICE deportations have been too tough. "And I'm glad he's saying in public now what I've been saying in private," Karp told the news outlet. Karp has no shortage of public opinions on goose-stepping or innate Western superiority. Why, then, reserve his concerns about deportations for private conversations? A public intervention from a Trump donor and ICE supplier might have carried some weight. Maybe he doesn't care so long as people are still writing about Alex Karp. But anyone who cares about more than that might feel the need to take a hot shower and scrub off the associated trauma. ®

eMudhra's private key exposure has been a security disaster, but it also means that you can block those annoying ads on smart TVs if you’re so inclined. Luckily for those with some know-how and a hatred of smart TV ads, Czech software developer Daniel Vrátil has done the work for you and published his project on GitHub for anyone who wants to take a stab at it - and do the legwork to add support for their own ad-riddled television. Vrátil said he’d been blocking ads on his Samsung smart TV using a Pi-hole (DNS-based ad-blocking software that can run on a Raspberry Pi, for those unfamiliar), but right around the time the eMudhra certificate leak mess unfolded, he had messed something up while tinkering with his home lab and the ads were back. First, here's a bit of background on the eMudhra mess. The company, based in India, operated a publicly trusted HTTPS certificate authority and says it has issued more than 60 million digital certificates. As we learned last month, eMudhra wasn't doing its best to keep its cryptographic keys safe: Eight intermediate CA private keys were found to be absurdly weak, with one being the number four and the others consisting of two- or three-digit numbers that could be guessed with little effort. eMudhra has since left the CA racket, saying that it wasn’t a big deal to it since issuing certs was a small part of its business. The company has blamed a bad software script put in place to generate keys that its hardware couldn’t handle as the root of the issue. What all that means, in a practical sense, is that anyone could forge an eMudhra certificate to spoof a website and do something malicious. It also means that security researchers who were able to get their hands on devices that still trust eMudhra certificates could have a field day learning how their communications work, which is exactly what Vrátil took advantage of. eMudhra private keys were added to the open source mitmproxy service - a fully interactive HTTPS proxy that can be used for good or bad - shortly after they were exposed. Pair that with a 2022 Samsung smart TV that still trusts the compromised eMudhra certificates, and you have a way to inspect its HTTPS traffic and redirect selected requests to a server of your choosing. By Vrátil’s account, swapping out annoying ads for pictures of his family on his TV’s main screen was a pretty simple task. “Luckily for me, Samsung did not yet release an update for my TV that would revoke the certificate,” Vrátil explained in his writeup. “This allowed me to route all traffic from the TV through mitmproxy and get a list of all the domains and endpoints that my TV talks to, but also see the structure of the requests and response payloads.” The advertising traffic flow was pretty basic, it turns out: Activity on the TV is relayed to an ad server, which serves up ads on the home screen based on a JSON response. By generating a certificate for Samsung's advertising domains using a compromised eMudhra signing key, and configuring his router to direct requests for those domains to a server on his home network, Vrátil was able to replace ads with family photos served from his NAS. He also added code that tosses other requests to those advertising domains, including tracking data, into a black hole rather than forwarding them to Samsung's servers. As mentioned above, it’s on GitHub for those who want to trick their TV, if it still supports eMudhra certificates, but you’ll have to do the legwork to dissect how your device is getting ads and tweak the code to work. “It's not exactly a one-click setup,” Vrátil told The Register in an email. He’s invited people to try it out, but no one has bothered to submit a pull request to add support for their own device to his public repo. It’s also worth noting that this is only going to work as long as vulnerable devices keep trusting eMudhra certificates, which hopefully means you need to act fast. That said, smart TVs that are out of support may never receive such an update, leaving them exposed to the certificate weakness even if their owners block the ads. “The compromised eMudhra certificates open up a lot of opportunities for understanding and spoofing network requests from embedded devices, especially those that no longer receive security updates,” Vrátil told us. “And while replacing ads on a TV's home screen with pictures of my family is fun, there are also countless much more sinister applications of this vulnerability.” As for Vrátil, he’s still trying to figure out how to block the firmware update that may eventually render his method obsolete, even though that, as he points out, is a security risk in and of itself. “I want to run the traffic through a proxy that would validate the connection against an up-to-date trust store to at least mitigate anyone intercepting traffic from my TV, or spoofing responses, like I do with my little project here, but it won't protect me from other potential security risks, so there's a trade-off,” he explained. We suppose at this point you can take your pick of abuse. You can use a vulnerability to block ads and some tracking while leaving your TV exposed to potential interception, or let the manufacturer serve up ads and collect data about your viewing habits. There are safer ways to block ads than relying on a TV to keep trusting a compromised CA. ®

eMudhra's private key exposure has been a security disaster, but it also means that you can block those annoying ads on smart TVs if you’re so inclined. Luckily for those with some know-how and a hatred of smart TV ads, Czech software developer Daniel Vrátil has done the work for you and published his project on GitHub for anyone who wants to take a stab at it - and do the legwork to add support for their own ad-riddled television. Vrátil said he’d been blocking ads on his Samsung smart TV using a Pi-hole (DNS-based ad-blocking software that can run on a Raspberry Pi, for those unfamiliar), but right around the time the eMudhra certificate leak mess unfolded, he had messed something up while tinkering with his home lab and the ads were back. First, here's a bit of background on the eMudhra mess. The company, based in India, operated a publicly trusted HTTPS certificate authority and says it has issued more than 60 million digital certificates. As we learned last month, eMudhra wasn't doing its best to keep its cryptographic keys safe: Eight intermediate CA private keys were found to be absurdly weak, with one being the number four and the others consisting of two- or three-digit numbers that could be guessed with little effort. eMudhra has since left the CA racket, saying that it wasn’t a big deal to it since issuing certs was a small part of its business. The company has blamed a bad software script put in place to generate keys that its hardware couldn’t handle as the root of the issue. What all that means, in a practical sense, is that anyone could forge an eMudhra certificate to spoof a website and do something malicious. It also means that security researchers who were able to get their hands on devices that still trust eMudhra certificates could have a field day learning how their communications work, which is exactly what Vrátil took advantage of. eMudhra private keys were added to the open source mitmproxy service - a fully interactive HTTPS proxy that can be used for good or bad - shortly after they were exposed. Pair that with a 2022 Samsung smart TV that still trusts the compromised eMudhra certificates, and you have a way to inspect its HTTPS traffic and redirect selected requests to a server of your choosing. By Vrátil’s account, swapping out annoying ads for pictures of his family on his TV’s main screen was a pretty simple task. “Luckily for me, Samsung did not yet release an update for my TV that would revoke the certificate,” Vrátil explained in his writeup. “This allowed me to route all traffic from the TV through mitmproxy and get a list of all the domains and endpoints that my TV talks to, but also see the structure of the requests and response payloads.” The advertising traffic flow was pretty basic, it turns out: Activity on the TV is relayed to an ad server, which serves up ads on the home screen based on a JSON response. By generating a certificate for Samsung's advertising domains using a compromised eMudhra signing key, and configuring his router to direct requests for those domains to a server on his home network, Vrátil was able to replace ads with family photos served from his NAS. He also added code that tosses other requests to those advertising domains, including tracking data, into a black hole rather than forwarding them to Samsung's servers. As mentioned above, it’s on GitHub for those who want to trick their TV, if it still supports eMudhra certificates, but you’ll have to do the legwork to dissect how your device is getting ads and tweak the code to work. “It's not exactly a one-click setup,” Vrátil told The Register in an email. He’s invited people to try it out, but no one has bothered to submit a pull request to add support for their own device to his public repo. It’s also worth noting that this is only going to work as long as vulnerable devices keep trusting eMudhra certificates, which hopefully means you need to act fast. That said, smart TVs that are out of support may never receive such an update, leaving them exposed to the certificate weakness even if their owners block the ads. “The compromised eMudhra certificates open up a lot of opportunities for understanding and spoofing network requests from embedded devices, especially those that no longer receive security updates,” Vrátil told us. “And while replacing ads on a TV's home screen with pictures of my family is fun, there are also countless much more sinister applications of this vulnerability.” As for Vrátil, he’s still trying to figure out how to block the firmware update that may eventually render his method obsolete, even though that, as he points out, is a security risk in and of itself. “I want to run the traffic through a proxy that would validate the connection against an up-to-date trust store to at least mitigate anyone intercepting traffic from my TV, or spoofing responses, like I do with my little project here, but it won't protect me from other potential security risks, so there's a trade-off,” he explained. We suppose at this point you can take your pick of abuse. You can use a vulnerability to block ads and some tracking while leaving your TV exposed to potential interception, or let the manufacturer serve up ads and collect data about your viewing habits. There are safer ways to block ads than relying on a TV to keep trusting a compromised CA. ®

eMudhra's private key exposure has been a security disaster, but it also means that you can block those annoying ads on smart TVs if you’re so inclined. Luckily for those with some know-how and a hatred of smart TV ads, Czech software developer Daniel Vrátil has done the work for you and published his project on GitHub for anyone who wants to take a stab at it - and do the legwork to add support for their own ad-riddled television. Vrátil said he’d been blocking ads on his Samsung smart TV using a Pi-hole (DNS-based ad-blocking software that can run on a Raspberry Pi, for those unfamiliar), but right around the time the eMudhra certificate leak mess unfolded, he had messed something up while tinkering with his home lab and the ads were back. First, here's a bit of background on the eMudhra mess. The company, based in India, operated a publicly trusted HTTPS certificate authority and says it has issued more than 60 million digital certificates. As we learned last month, eMudhra wasn't doing its best to keep its cryptographic keys safe: Eight intermediate CA private keys were found to be absurdly weak, with one being the number four and the others consisting of two- or three-digit numbers that could be guessed with little effort. eMudhra has since left the CA racket, saying that it wasn’t a big deal to it since issuing certs was a small part of its business. The company has blamed a bad software script put in place to generate keys that its hardware couldn’t handle as the root of the issue. What all that means, in a practical sense, is that anyone could forge an eMudhra certificate to spoof a website and do something malicious. It also means that security researchers who were able to get their hands on devices that still trust eMudhra certificates could have a field day learning how their communications work, which is exactly what Vrátil took advantage of. eMudhra private keys were added to the open source mitmproxy service - a fully interactive HTTPS proxy that can be used for good or bad - shortly after they were exposed. Pair that with a 2022 Samsung smart TV that still trusts the compromised eMudhra certificates, and you have a way to inspect its HTTPS traffic and redirect selected requests to a server of your choosing. By Vrátil’s account, swapping out annoying ads for pictures of his family on his TV’s main screen was a pretty simple task. “Luckily for me, Samsung did not yet release an update for my TV that would revoke the certificate,” Vrátil explained in his writeup. “This allowed me to route all traffic from the TV through mitmproxy and get a list of all the domains and endpoints that my TV talks to, but also see the structure of the requests and response payloads.” The advertising traffic flow was pretty basic, it turns out: Activity on the TV is relayed to an ad server, which serves up ads on the home screen based on a JSON response. By generating a certificate for Samsung's advertising domains using a compromised eMudhra signing key, and configuring his router to direct requests for those domains to a server on his home network, Vrátil was able to replace ads with family photos served from his NAS. He also added code that tosses other requests to those advertising domains, including tracking data, into a black hole rather than forwarding them to Samsung's servers. As mentioned above, it’s on GitHub for those who want to trick their TV, if it still supports eMudhra certificates, but you’ll have to do the legwork to dissect how your device is getting ads and tweak the code to work. “It's not exactly a one-click setup,” Vrátil told The Register in an email. He’s invited people to try it out, but no one has bothered to submit a pull request to add support for their own device to his public repo. It’s also worth noting that this is only going to work as long as vulnerable devices keep trusting eMudhra certificates, which hopefully means you need to act fast. That said, smart TVs that are out of support may never receive such an update, leaving them exposed to the certificate weakness even if their owners block the ads. “The compromised eMudhra certificates open up a lot of opportunities for understanding and spoofing network requests from embedded devices, especially those that no longer receive security updates,” Vrátil told us. “And while replacing ads on a TV's home screen with pictures of my family is fun, there are also countless much more sinister applications of this vulnerability.” As for Vrátil, he’s still trying to figure out how to block the firmware update that may eventually render his method obsolete, even though that, as he points out, is a security risk in and of itself. “I want to run the traffic through a proxy that would validate the connection against an up-to-date trust store to at least mitigate anyone intercepting traffic from my TV, or spoofing responses, like I do with my little project here, but it won't protect me from other potential security risks, so there's a trade-off,” he explained. We suppose at this point you can take your pick of abuse. You can use a vulnerability to block ads and some tracking while leaving your TV exposed to potential interception, or let the manufacturer serve up ads and collect data about your viewing habits. There are safer ways to block ads than relying on a TV to keep trusting a compromised CA. ®