The Blacklynx Brief - Vol.1

Welcome to the very first edition of the Blacklynx Brief. Our goal is to - like a good sommelier carefully selects a wine to go with your dinner - to select the latest news from the field of cybersecurity, AI and tech.

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Let’s kick things off with the cybersecurity news for the week of August 7th.

Cybersecurity News

Hospitals in the U.S. Play Unwanted Host to Ransomware

In the United States, the FBI is investigating a ransomware attack affecting hospitals across multiple states. The intruders, first spotted wreaking havoc at California-based Prospect Medical Holdings, have left their mark from Connecticut to Texas, cancelling elective surgeries and shutting emergency rooms. Medical dramas have just taken on a whole new meaning.

North Korean Hackers Join Russian Aerospace Industry (Uninvited)

North Korean state-backed hackers have infiltrated NPO Mashinostroyeniya, a Russian aerospace engineering firm with a flair for missiles and spacecraft. SentinelOne researchers caught the cyber-spying, giving a new twist to international relations and rocket science!

UK's Electoral Commission Faces "Vote" of No Confidence

The UK Electoral Commission had a significant breach, lasting over a year, in which the attacker made off with voter registries from 2014 to 2022, and even peeked at emails.

Russian Hacktivists Try Their Hand at Dutch Artistry:

The pro-Kremlin "hacktivist" group NoName057 is now eyeing the Netherlands, after successful "virtual tours" of Spain and Italy. Though the Dutch NCSC assures that the DDoS attacks are "often limited and symbolic," it seems these hacktivists are determined to leave their digital fingerprints across Europe.

Intel's GPU Driver Plays "Hide and Seek" with User Data: 

The latest Intel Arc GPU driver update is harboring a sneaky little feature that collects user telemetry data. From visited websites to your PC's bedtime routines, it's all up for grabs. ExtremeTech unraveled this hidden agenda, reminding us all to check those "custom installation" sections we always ignore during updates.

AI News

OpenAI's GPT-5 Trademark and ChatGPT Updates

OpenAI has filed for a trademark for GPT5, describing it as software for artificial production of human speech and text. Although no official announcements have been made about GPT5, OpenAI has announced updates to improve the chat GPT experience, including prompt examples and suggested replies.

YouTube's AI-Generated Video Summaries

YouTube is testing AI-generated video summaries to provide users with a quick overview of a video's content. This feature aims to help users decide if a video is worth watching, although it may not replace actually watching the video.

Stack Overflow's Decline and Overflow AI

With the introduction of AI tools like ChatGPT and GitHub Co-pilot, Stack Overflow has seen a decrease in traffic. Overflow AI has been introduced to provide AI-summarized answers based on Stack Overflow's knowledge base, making the platform more easily searchable.

AI Ethics: Kickstarter's Rules and Instagram's Labels

Kickstarter has announced new requirements for generative AI projects, and Instagram is working on labels for AI-generated content. Instagram plans to label content created or modified by AI, and Meta (formerly Facebook) will watermark images to determine if they were generated with Meta's AI.

AudioCraft: Generative AI Tool for Audio and Music

Meta has introduced AudioCraft, a platform that allows users to generate high-quality audio and music from text. The company claims to be open-sourcing their tools, including Music Gen, Audio Gen, and In-Codec.

Alibaba's Open-Sourcing of AI Models

Alibaba is open-sourcing the 7 billion parameter model called Quinn 7B, designed for content generation in both English and Chinese. This puts Alibaba in competition with Meta's open-source Llama 2.

That’s it from us for this week - looking forward to serving up Volume 2 next Friday. Keep an eye on your inbox and please share the newsletter.