"Found in the wild:  The world's firs unkillable UEFI bootkit for Linux."

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Found in the wild: The world’s first unkillable UEFI bootkit for Linux

4 TTPs

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33Ars Technica - All content / 7h

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Bootkitty first UEFI bootkit for Linux

Over the past decade, a new class of infections has threatened Windows users. By infecting the firmware that runs immediately before the operating system loads, these UEFI bootkits continue to run even when the hard drive is replaced or reformatted. Now the same type of chip-dwelling malware has been found in the wild for backdooring Linux machines. Researchers at security firm ESET said Wednesda

FCC approves Starlink plan for cellular phone service, with some limits

Starlink launches direct-to-cell technology

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21Ars Technica - All content / 9h

Starlink yesterday obtained federal approval to provide service to cell phones, with some limits. The Federal Communications Commission issued an order that partially grants SpaceX's application while imposing conditions and deferring a decision on some aspects of the application. Starlink received approval to provide Supplemental Coverage from Space (SCS) within the United States. This means tha

Man suffers chemical burn that lasted months after squeezing limes

Ars Technica - All content / 3h

If Margaritaville were a real place, it should definitely keep a few dermatologists on hand. In a case of an oft-overlooked food preparation risk, a 40-year-old man showed up to an allergy clinic in Texas with a severe, burning rash on both his hands that had two days earlier. A couple of days later, it blistered. And a few weeks after that, the skin darkened and scaled. After several months, the

Today

What fossilized dino feces can tell us about their rise to dominance

Dinosaurs' dominance revealed through fossils

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Ars Technica - All content / 5h

Paleontologists have long puzzled over how the dinosaurs—originally relatively small and of minor importance to the broader ecosystem—evolved to become the dominant species some 30 million years later. Fossilized feces and vomit from dinosaurs might hold important clues to how and why this evolutionary milestone came about, according to a new paper published in the journal Nature. Co-author Marti

Teaching a drone to fly without a vertical rudder

Ars Technica - All content / 7h

Most airplanes in the world have vertical tails or rudders to prevent Dutch roll instabilities, a combination of yawing and sideways motions with rolling that looks a bit like the movements of a skater. Unfortunately, a vertical tail adds weight and generates drag, which reduces fuel efficiency in passenger airliners. It also increases the radar signature, which is something you want to keep as l

Smart gadgets’ failure to commit to software support could be illegal, FTC warns

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Makers of smart devices that fail to disclose how long they will support their products with software updates may be breaking the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act , the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warned this week. The FTC released its statement after examining 184 smart products across 64 product categories, including soundbars, video doorbells, breast pumps, smartphones, home appliances , and gara

OpenAI is at war with its own Sora video testers following brief public leak

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OpenAI has cut off testing access to its Sora video generation platform after a group of artists briefly shared their own early access in a publicly usable webpage Tuesday. The group, going by the moniker PR Puppets, claims the stunt was a protest against being asked to work as unpaid R&D and bug testers while participating in "art washing" of AI tools. But OpenAI says participation in the early

Google’s plan to keep AI out of search trial remedies isn’t going very well

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Google got some disappointing news at a status conference Tuesday, where US District Judge Amit Mehta suggested that Google's AI products may be restricted as an appropriate remedy following the government's win in the search monopoly trial. According to Law360 , Mehta said that "the recent emergence of AI products that are intended to mimic the functionality of search engines" is rapidly shiftin

Biased AI in health care faces crackdown in sweeping Biden admin proposals

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The Biden administration on Tuesday issued sweeping health care proposals that would see Medicare plans greatly expand access to blockbuster GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, bar insurers from skipping out on paying certain claims that were granted prior authorization, and reinforce guardrails on the use of AI. The proposals fit into the administration's existing aims to improve and protect access to care

After telling Cadillac to pound sand, F1 does 180, grants entry for 2026

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The United States will have a second team competing in Formula 1 from 2026, when Cadillac Formula 1 will join the sport as its 11th team. The result is a complete 180 for the sport's owner, which was highly resistant to the initial bid, first announced at the beginning of 2023. "As the pinnacle of motorsports, F1 demands boundary-pushing innovation and excellence. It's an honor for General Motors

Player 456 is back for revenge in Squid Game S2 trailer

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Lee Jung-Jae returns as Player 456 in the second season of Squid Game . The 2021 Korean series Squid Game was a massive hit for Netflix, racking up 1.65 billion viewing hours in its first four weeks and snagging 14 Emmy nominations. Fans have been longing for a second season ever since, and we're finally getting it this year for Christmas. Netflix just released the official trailer. (Spoilers for

Yesterday

ISPs say their “excellent customer service” is why users don’t switch providers

100+Ars Technica - All content / 1d

Lobby groups for Internet service providers claim that ISPs' customer service is so good already that the government shouldn't consider any new regulations to mandate improvements. They also claim ISPs face so much competition that market forces require providers to treat their customers well or lose them to competitors. Cable lobby group NCTA-The Internet & Television Association told the Federa

Licking this “lollipop” will let you taste virtual flavors

40Ars Technica - All content / 1d

Demonstrating lollipop user interface to simulate taste in virtual and augmented reality environments. Credit: Lu et al, 2024/PNAS Virtual reality (VR) technology has long sought to incorporate the human senses into virtual and mixed-reality environments. In addition to sight and sound, researchers have been trying to add the sensation of human touch and smell via various user interfaces, as well

The Atari 7800+ is a no-frills glimpse into a forgotten gaming era

Atari 7800+ is holiday's top console

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28Ars Technica - All content / 1d

Like a lot of children of the '80s, my early gaming nostalgia has a huge hole where the Atari 7800 might have lived. While practically everyone I knew had an NES during my childhood—and a few uncles and friends' older siblings even had an Atari 2600 gathering dust in their dens—I was only vaguely aware of the 7800, Atari's backward compatible, late '80s attempt to maintain relevance in the quickl

NASA awards SpaceX a contract for one of the few things it hasn’t done yet

NASA selects SpaceX for Dragonfly mission

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27Ars Technica - All content / 1d

When you compare SpaceX to the world's other space enterprises, it's probably easier to list the things SpaceX hasn't done instead of reciting all of the company's achievements. One of these is the launch of nuclear materials. SpaceX has launched a handful of planetary science missions for NASA, but these spacecraft have all used solar arrays to generate electricity. In this century, NASA's probe

QNAP firmware update leaves NAS owners locked out of their boxes

QNAP withdraws problematic firmware update

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87Ars Technica - All content / 1d

A recent firmware pushed to QNAP network attached storage (NAS) devices left a number of owners unable to access their storage systems. The company has pulled back the firmware and issued a fixed version, but the company's response has left some users feeling less confident in the boxes into which they put all their digital stuff. As seen on a QNAP community thread , and as announced by QNAP itse

Workers demand more transparency after Intel secures $8B CHIPS funding

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On Tuesday, the Biden-Harris administration finalized a CHIPS award of up to $7.865 billion to help fund the expansion of Intel's commercial fabs in the US. By the end of the decade, these fabs are intended to decrease reliance on foreign adversaries and fill substantial gaps in America's domestic semiconductor supply chain. Initially, Intel was awarded $8.5 billion, but it was decreased after In

Things aren’t looking good for infamous CEO of “health care terrorists”

Federal agents seize Steward executives' phones

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38Ars Technica - All content / 1d

Federal agents briefly detained infamous ex-hospital CEO Ralph de la Torre early last week and seized his phone, according to an investigative report from the Boston Globe. De la Torre is the ultra-wealthy former CEO of the now-bankrupt hospital chain Steward, once the largest for-profit health care company in the country. Steward and de la Torre have been accused of being " health care terrorist

Trump targets Mexico and Canada with tariffs, plus an extra 10% for China

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Donald Trump has said he will impose tariffs of 25 percent on all imports from Canada and Mexico, and an extra 10 percent on Chinese goods, accusing the countries of permitting illegal migration and drug trafficking. In a post on his social media site Truth Social, Trump said he would impose the tariffs on Canada and Mexico on his first day in office “on ALL products coming into the United States

Are any of Apple’s official MagSafe accessories worth buying?

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When Apple introduced what it currently calls MagSafe in 2020, its marketing messaging suggested that the magnetic attachment standard for the iPhone would produce a boom in innovation in accessories, making things possible that simply weren't before. Four years later, that hasn't really happened