Welcome to Volume 12 of the Blacklynx Brief.

Last week I polled you- the reader - to tell me what you think about the Blacklynx Brief.

Roughly 20% of my readership voted and the consensus is that you would like me to bring back the latest in cybersecurity.

Slightly surprising - but I’m not fighting it. The fields of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence are a bit like chocolate mousse and those baked onions you can find on your “Bicky Burger”. Nobody would ever put those two together - but for some strange reason something magic happens when you do.

(I’m not kidding about that - I once ate that exact combination in a restaurant and it was heavenly). Try it.

Cybersecurity News

🔔 Breaking News: Details Emerge on Okta Security Breach

The Okta security breach, which came to light last month, continues to send shockwaves across the cybersecurity realm. Okta is a company that provides multi factor authentication and identity access solutions to some very serious companies. It’s not the first time they were caught with their pants down. In March they also suffered an incident

The September breach , believed to have been orchestrated by an advanced persistent threat group, targeted Okta's internal systems using stolen tech support engineer credentials. Cloudflare, BeyondTrust, and now 1Password have all confirmed they were affected by the breach - but damage is limited or non-existent. In a recent press release, Okta stated that an internal investigation is underway, and impacted clients are being notified. About 170 companies or 1% of their customer base is affected.

💻 Cybercrime & Threat Intel

Spanish Cybercrime Crackdown: Spain's National Police unravels a cybercrime network responsible for online scams amassing over €3 million through smishing, phishing, and vishing. The group impersonated delivery firms and electricity suppliers but also engaged in a scam known as the “son in distress”. 4 million Spaniards got their data stolen. A total of 34 suspects are under custody.

Russian Whistleblower Jailed: Ex-Group-IB CEO Ilya Sachkov's appeal against his 14-year sentence has been denied. Accused of treason, he allegedly provided data to the US about ransomware groups, hackers and APT members and now finds himself in a maximum security prison for high treason.

Ransomware On The Rise: An alarming 514 ransomware incidents were reported in September 2023, marking it as the month with the highest recorded attacks EVER RECORDED. The numbers were compiled by NCC group using data published on Ransomware leak sites

Hunters International & Hive Connection: DataBreaches.net speculates that the extortion group Hunters International might be a reincarnation of the notorious Hive ransomware group.

Dutch Security Cams : There are roughly 315000 security cameras installed across the Netherlands. 55000 of those are privately owned. Those cameras are supposed to only film the owner’s property but an investigation showed that they often record public roads and other citizen’s private property. This is in violation of GDPR. Belgium has the same problem.

💸 Financial Cyber Threats

Crypto Laundering Menace: Elliptic's latest report highlights the disturbing rise in cross-chain cybercrime. Around $7 billion in crypto-assets have been laundered, with $2.7 billion occurring in the past year alone.

Charity Scams Amidst Conflict: As the Israel-Hamas conflict escalates, scammers exploit the situation with fake charity organizations. Be wary of suspicious donation requests. The FBI, IRS, FTC and the UK Government are warning citizens to be on the lookout when donating money to Israeli or Palestinian charity organization. Scammers have already set up fake organizations to collect funds from individuals looking to donate.

🌐 Malware Reversing Spotlight

I have some goodies for the technical readers - three of the best technical malware breakdowns I could find this week

Mallox Ransomware's New Target: Chinese firm Tinder Security Labs identifies MS-SQL databases as the prime target of the Mallox ransomware.

GoPIX Targets Brazilian Banks: Kaspersky has shed light on GoPIX, a banking trojan preying on the Brazilian financial sector since late 2022. Kaspersky has also released a report on a crypto-mining botnet targeting Windows Systems

XWorm : The CERT of Poland has “dewormed” XWorm - a popular RAT or Remote Access Trojan.

Allright , that’s it for cyber. On to the fun stuff.

AI News

🔔 Breaking News: AGI might have been achieved

Only two weeks ago in this very newsletter we talked about how OpenAi was looking to safely achieve AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) by 2030.

AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, refers to machines that possess the ability to understand, learn, and execute any intellectual task that a human can. Imagine a computer that can play chess at a grandmaster level, then write an original symphony, diagnose a medical condition, and hold a meaningful conversation about world history—all without being specifically programmed for any of these tasks. Unlike standard AI, which is designed for one specific job (like Siri for voice commands or a chess program for playing chess), AGI is adaptable and versatile, much like the human brain. It can switch between diverse tasks effortlessly and learn new ones without needing specific training

Decades ago, experts believed neural networks (computer models inspired by the human brain) couldn't fully mimic human thought due to their statistical design. New research refutes this, revealing that with a special training method called MLC, these networks can indeed think systematically like humans. Not only can they interpret data in human-like ways, but they also show human-like biases. This breakthrough bridges the gap between human brain studies and artificial intelligence, potentially revolutionizing both fields.

💻 AI Developments & Innovations

In other potential breaking news - a post on Medium claims to know details about the Large Language Model Google is about to unleash on the world. It’s codenamed “Gemini” - should be faster than GPT-4 and is trained on a gigantic dataset including ALL transcripts from ALL YouTube videos.

ChatGPT’s Cutoff Date Update: Remember when ChatGPT was nagging you he doesn’t know anything beyond September 2021. OpenAI is moving that date to September 2023. A mere 30 days behind the curve. Incredible !

Midjourney's Upscaling Tech: Midjourney has unveiled new AI upscalers, which have garnered significant attention. The upscaling feature enhances image details, making zoomed-out images appear more natural.

Midjourney's Mobile App: In another exciting development, Midjourney has launched its first mobile app .. sort of …, It’s called NijiiJourney. Created in collaboration with Spell Brush, this app is touted as an AI anime generator. It offers a live consistent generation feature, allowing users to view community-generated images in real-time.

Salmonn - Audio to Text Generator: A new AI named Salmonn has been introduced, which can convert audio to text. This AI can analyze audio similarly to how GPT for vision and chat analyzes photos. It’s created by Bytedance, the company that brought you TikTok. What can go wrong?

🌐 AI Tools & Applications

Hyperwrite's Autonomous AI Assistant: Hyperwrite's AI assistant has received a significant update, making it one of the most capable assistants on the market. It can effortlessly search for Italian restaurants in NYC, make reservations, and even draft marketing emails.

Meta AI's Mind-Reading Tech: Meta AI has unveiled research on real-time decoding of image perception from brain activity. The AI system, MEG, can decode visual representations in the brain, providing a rough visualization of what a participant sees. This is entering .. umm… interesting territory for sure.

🔍Analysis & Reports

Midjourney's Website Redesign: Midjourney has launched a redesigned website, currently in beta. This new design offers faster image loading and an enhanced browsing experience. With the introduction of DALLE3 in the ChatGPT client, Midjourney is feeling the heat.

AI's Potential in Real-World Solutions: The ever-evolving capabilities of AI hint at the potential of combining different AI technologies to address real-world challenges, such as providing accurate descriptions for the deaf.

Closing Thoughts

Started this newsletter beginning of the week and I find myself putting in new things that get released on Wednesday or Thursday Evening. The progress is just insane. AI is - just like the internet and the smartphone- one of those inventions that will change how the world looks and works.

And the cybersecurity part is a very interesting layer on top of that - because what about privacy, what about copyright , what about surveillance ?

Interesting times - to say the least

Until next week, keep exploring and stay curious!