A new kind of attack is targeting unsecured Internet of Things devices by scrambling their software and rendering them useless.

Security firm Radware first spotted the newly-found "BrickerBot" malware last month after it started hitting its own devices, logging hundreds of infection attempts over a few days. When the malware connects to a device with their default usernames and passwords – often easily found on the internet – the malware corrupts the device's storage, leading to a state of permanent denial-of-service (PDoS) attack, known as "bricking."

In other words, this attack, "damages a system so badly that it requires replacement or reinstallation of hardware," said Radware.

Like the Mirai botnet, most famous for bringing down wide swathes of the US internet last year in a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, the BrickerBot also uses "the same exploit vector" by brute-forcing telnet accounts with lists of available usernames and passwords.

The researchers say that the attackers also have an affinity for targeting devices on Ubiquiti networks. Once inside, the malware runs a sequence of commands, which "try to remove the default gateway and disable TCP timestamps as well as limiting the max number of kernel threads to one," which would scramble the device's memory.
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"Unfortunately, even after performing the factory reset, the camera device was not recovered and hence it was effectively bricked," said Radware.

Presbyopia, or farsightedness caused by the loss of elasticity in your eyes as you age, affects 83% of adults over the age of 45 in North America, and nearly everyone is forced to wear glasses by the time they hit 50. Combined with an increasing concern for the long-term effects of staring at a screen all day, and the future starts to look blurry. But studies show that smartphone apps might retrain your brain to improve your sight.
The New York Times spent some time with GlassesOff, the only app backed by medical studies that claim to improve eyesight. Austin Frakt, the writer of the Times report, used the app for a month. The app told him his ability to read text improved by about 33% by the time testing was finished.

GlassesOff uses perceptual learning to improve your vision by training your eyes to view specific images. It deploys “Gober” patches, or black, white, and, gray images to stimulate the brain so it can learn and recognize patterns. After firing up the app, users will see an extremely low contrast image with circles in the background. A pattern then flashes on the screen for a matter of milliseconds, and a second pattern flashes soon after. Users must then decide which image appeared more focused.

That may sound like those fun tests your eye doctor gives you during a routine checkup, but this is a lot more punishing. To be effective, users must use the app hundreds of times on a daily basis, and as Frakt points out, “Weeks into it, I began to dread the monotonous labor.”

The science behind the application isn’t much different than practicing how to hit a baseball in a batting cage. The ball shoots out of the machine, your eyes catch a glimpse of white, and your brain reacts accordingly. The more you do it, the slower that ball appears, and the better equipped you are to try a faster speed.

That brings us to the surprising science behind this app—it doesn’t help your eyes, it trains your brain.  Your eyes pick up data of an image and send it to your brain where it unscrambles into recognizable objects. Our brains only have around 250 milliseconds to process words read at a normal speed. If the brain is unable to recognize a word in that time, it won’t be able to understand it. By flashing difficult-to-see images, you can speed up the time it takes for your brain to process that data and improve different parts of your vision. Some studies agree that the technique can “significantly improve visual performance for older adults.”

Others are not as hopeful.

“Human vision quality is determined by the physical eye and the way the brain reads the information that the eye captures,” ophthalmologist Michelle Rhee told CBS News. “To think that we can reverse presbyopia or reverse having to wear glasses for myopia and any of those different prescriptions solely on neuroplasticity is just not accurate.”

Frakt says his vision is equivalent to someone ten years younger than him after testing GlassesOff for just a few months.
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But that alleged benefit doesn’t come cheap. The app costs $25 for three months, which is enough time to get through the main program. It costs $60 a year for “maintenance training” after that. But those charges pay for themselves in convenience and price if they can keep you from needing reading glasses sometime down the road.

The ongoing war between malicious hackers and technology security specialists has been waging for as long as the Internet has been widely used. One tool in the arsenal is called a Botnet. A Botnet essentially is a number of devices which are connected by the internet and controlled remotely by the botnet’s owner. But how are these made? Why are they almost always associated with nefarious activities? And are there any botnets out there doing good?

There are a few ways for someone to start amassing a botnet. The most common involves an individual purchasing or building a malicious program that will infect a targeted computer or network of computers. Usually this is in the form of a Trojan Horse, but it can be done with drive-by downloading or exploitation of browser vulnerabilities. The program then logs into the victim’s command and control server, and as simple as that the infected computer is now at the mercy of the botnet’s owner.

Botnets can be rather small, to impressively massive in scale. However, the only individuals who may have any guess as to how large these networks are would be the botnet operators themselves. This is because the infected computers rarely experience any disruptions in normal service except when they are being used for various tasks that the owner has commanded them to take part in. Also most attempts to track botnets by the number of IP addresses within them may lead to inaccurate estimates, since the owner may be tumbling through numerous IPs.

Botnets usually get a bad reputation because of the overwhelming number of malicious activities that they have been used in. Especially with media outlets reporting sensationalist stories of attacks using botnets – which seem to always blame the Internet more than the actual human attackers.

That being said, botnets usually are used for things like distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. These DDoS attacks have played large roles in attacking financial institutions and other organizations in the past. It makes sense, as a botnet can provide an incredible amount of traffic/power to an attack like that with the keystrokes of a single actor. But botnets are also used in spyware campaigns, click fraud, and dubious bitcoin mining.

However, not all botnets are used for such activities. The difference between botnets used in illegal activities and botnets which are helpful for benevolent and benign applications, appears to be what we call them and how we acquire them. Cloud computing applications like Amazon Web Services seems to share a large amount of characteristics of botnets as far as their usability. The difference, of course, is that we call that “Infrastructure as a Service” and all of the computing power is legally rented out to users.
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So some types of botnets can be used for good – provided that the companies and individuals renting out AWS are on the level. But with the reputation that botnets have, it’s easy to understand why AWS and other similar services would call themselves “Cloud Computing” as opposed to “Botnet.”

In our super-connected world, the data we are generating makes big data an inviting career field for young people.

"Big" hardly seems large enough to describe big data these days. With connected devices like Fitbits and smartphones, massive amounts of data are created every day at an exponential rate. But the sheer size of big data isn't what is most impressive; it's the gold mine of business insights it offers when analyzed.
For young professionals with big data analytics degrees, the field offers almost limitless potential and a wide range of careers from which to choose. Here's a look at a few of these emerging careers.

Big Data Architects. It's one thing to brainstorm innovative products, like Siri or a smart refrigerator, but it's another to bring those ideas to life. Similar to a construction architect, a data architect designs the framework of the latest technology and data systems, determining the structural requirements needed to securely store an abundance of information. With the demand for both immediacy and privacy, a data architect must develop a system that considers future roadblocks, such as storage and data sharing.

As the competition for innovation increases, data architects will be responsible for both the short-term and long-term technology vision for their companies. Aside from a comprehensive education, employers look for candidates with a vast knowledge of database languages like SQL, NoSQL, Python and SPSS.

Data Scientists. One part statistician and one part software engineer, a data scientist is the brains behind data interpretation. Data scientists take massive amounts of data and whittle them down into concise statistics to use in predictive and prescriptive modeling. From there, the data scientist can generate valuable insights that improve business performance. As an example of data science, the Uber surge charge on New Year's Eve was determined by a data scientist after measuring analytical trends within the current landscape.
Equipped with sharp problem-solving skills and a healthy dose of creativity, data scientists are a tremendous asset to all industries.

Big Data Managers. Managing data architects, scientists and a full team of technicians – not to mention managing the actual data – requires a data manager to oversee all processes and communicate day-to-day operations to company leadership. A data manager knows the intricacies of the tech world as well as the overall corporate strategy. They're the jacks of all trades, if not the master of all.

A data manager is responsible for organizing the data being produced, ensuring quality, implementing strategy, and then reporting back to leadership. They leverage insights provided by data scientists to recommend new products, predict future roadblocks and streamline business logistics. In addition to experience in Hadoop and Hive, this high-level role requires cross-functional skills such as programming and management. As companies continue to adapt to newer systems, the demand for someone to coordinate data processes will continue to increase as well.
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The technology revolution is not slowing down. Our world is becoming more connected by the minute, creating tremendous growth and opportunity in the field of big data analytics. If you know someone who is looking for a career that will let them transform the future of technology – and earn big bucks while doing it –- a job in big data could be the ticket to success.

Confirming rumors, Samsung last week revealed the existence of "Bixby," a new AI assistant that debuted with the Galaxy S8 and will challenge Apple's Siri with some new technologies.

Bixby, for instance, can handle many tasks that otherwise use touch or button input, Samsung said. Siri —and other AIs, like Google Assistant – typically only support a small selection of voice commands. Through contextual awareness, Bixby users should even be able to mix touch and voice input.

Bixby will also offer what Samsung describes as "cognitive tolerance," allowing it to recognize commands with incomplete information. As needed, it will prompt for more details.

In iOS 10 and macOS Sierra, Siri still requires that people use specific, fully-formed voice commands, which also don't adapt to what's onscreen. Google Assistant is more flexible, but doesn't support a mix of touch and voice.

The S8 has a dedicated Bixby button letting people trigger the assistant at any time, Samsung noted. Just a handful of pre-installed apps will support the platform at first however, and the company will only "eventually" release an SDK for third-party developers.
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First-party support should gradually extend to other Samsung hardware, including not just phones but devices like TVs and air conditioners.