In questi giorni, sul noto forum underground exploit.in, attualmente chiuso e accessibile solo su invito – sono stati messi in vendita degli exploit per una vulnerabilità di tipo 0day che colpiscono i noti software WinRAR e WinZIP. L’annuncio, pubblicato dall’utente zeroplayer, propone tali exploit tra 80.000 e 100.000 dollari.

Specifica che non si tratta di un semplice 1day (cioè un exploit per una vulnerabilità già nota come CVE-2025-6218), ma di un bug sconosciuto e non ancora patchato.

Cosa sono gli exploit e cosa significa “0day”

Gli exploit sono strumenti o porzioni di codice che permettono di sfruttare vulnerabilità software per ottenere comportamenti non previsti dal programma, come l’esecuzione di codice malevolo, il furto di dati o il controllo completo di un sistema.

Quando parliamo di 0day, intendiamo vulnerabilità che non sono ancora conosciute dal produttore del software e per le quali non esistono patch: proprio per questo motivo sono particolarmente preziose nel mercato nero e incredibilmente pericolose.

Perché i bug su software come WinRAR o ZIP sono così critici

WinZIP e WinRAR sono i software più utilizzati al mondo per la gestione di archivi compressi come file ZIP e RAR. Una vulnerabilità RCE (Remote Code Execution) su questo tipo di programma permette a un attaccante di far eseguire codice malevolo semplicemente inducendo la vittima ad aprire o visualizzare un archivio compromesso.

Un possibile scenario d’attacco prevede l’uso di email di phishing, in cui l’utente riceve un allegato ZIP o RAR apparentemente innocuo. Basta un clic per attivare l’exploit e compromettere completamente il sistema, installando malware, ransomware o backdoor per il controllo remoto.

Il ruolo dei forum underground come exploit.in

Forum chiusi come exploit.in fungono da veri e propri marketplace per la compravendita di vulnerabilità, malware, dati rubati e altri strumenti usati nel cybercrime. Gli utenti che vendono exploit, come nel caso di zeroplayer, spesso offrono garanzie di affidabilità attraverso servizi interni chiamati Garant, che fanno da intermediari per evitare truffe tra criminali.

L’utente zeroplayer, che ha pubblicato gli annunci, appare come un profilo nuovo e ancora privo di una reputazione consolidata. Registrato sul forum exploit.in solo il 30 giugno 2025, conta appena 3 post e non ha ancora concluso transazioni certificate tramite il sistema di Garant interno alla piattaforma, che solitamente serve a ridurre il rischio di truffe tra venditori e acquirenti.

Sebbene abbia effettuato una registrazione a pagamento, pratica comune nei forum underground più chiusi per filtrare account fake e inattivi, questo elemento da solo non basta a definirlo affidabile agli occhi della community. Un account così recente potrebbe indicare due scenari contrapposti: da un lato, un vendor realmente in possesso di un exploit molto prezioso che sceglie di aprire un nuovo profilo per motivi di anonimato; dall’altro, un tentativo di frode per monetizzare la paura attorno a una vulnerabilità critica e ancora sconosciuta. La mancanza di feedback e attività passata rende difficile distinguere tra le due possibilità, ma sottolinea quanto sia complesso — perfino nei circuiti del cybercrime — fidarsi senza prove concrete dell’esistenza e dell’efficacia dell’exploit offerto.

La vendita di un exploit 0day per WinRAR rappresenta una seria minaccia, vista la diffusione globale del software. È un ulteriore richiamo all’importanza di mantenere i programmi sempre aggiornati, usare strumenti di sicurezza affidabili e prestare la massima attenzione alle email sospette, soprattutto se contengono allegati compressi.

L'articolo Exploit RCE 0day per WinRAR e WinZIP in vendita su exploit.in per email di phishing da urlo proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

The volume slider on our virtual desktops is a skeuomorphic callback to the volume sliders on professional audio equipment on actual, physical desktops. [Maker Vibe] decided that this skeuomorphism was so last century, and made himself a physical audio control box for his PC.

Since he has three audio outputs he needs to consider, the peripheral he creates could conceivably be called a fader. It certainly has that look, anyway: each output is controlled by a volume slider — connected to a linear potentiometer — and a mute button. Seeing a linear potentiometer used for volume control threw us for a second, until we remembered this was for the computer’s volume control, not an actual volume control circuit. The computer’s volume slider already does the logarithmic conversion. A Seeed Studio Xiao ESP32S3 lives at the heart of this thing, emulating a Bluetooth gamepad using a library by LemmingDev. A trio of LEDs round out the electronics to provide an indicator for which audio channels are muted or active.

Those Bluetooth signals are interpreted by a Python script feeding a software called Voicmeeter Banana, because [Maker Vibe] uses Windows, and Redmond’s finest operating system doesn’t expose audio controls in an easily-accessible way. Voicmeeter Banana (and its attendant Python script) takes care of telling Windows what to do.

The whole setup lives on [Maker Vibe]’s desk in a handsome 3D printed box. He used a Circuit vinyl cutter to cut out masks so he could airbrush different colours onto the print after sanding down the layer lines. That’s another one for the archive of how to make front panels.

If volume sliders aren’t doing it for you, perhaps you’d prefer tocontrol your audio with a conductor’s baton.

youtube.com/embed/e0OYAANYKug?…

hackaday.com/2025/07/09/volume…

[Cal Bryant] hacked together a home automation system years ago, which more recently utilizes Piper TTS (text-to-speech) voices for various undisclosed purposes. Not satisfied with the robotic-sounding standard voices available, [Cal] set about an experiment to fine-tune the Piper TTS AI voice model using a clone of a single phrase created by a commercial TTS voice as a starting point.

Before the release of Piper TTS in 2023, existing free-to-use TTS systems such as espeak and Festival sounded robotic and flat. Piper delivered much more natural-sounding output, without requiring massive resources to run. To change the voice style, the Piper AI model can be either retrained from scratch or fine-tuned with less effort. In the latter case, the problem to be solved first was how to generate the necessary volume of training phrases to run the fine-tuning of Piper’s AI model. This was solved using a heavyweight AI model, ChatterBox, which is capable of so-called zero-shot training. Check out the Chatterbox demo here.
As the loss function gets smaller, the model’s accuracy gets better
Training began with a corpus of test phrases in text format to ensure decent coverage of everyday English. [Cal] used ChatterBox to clone audio from a single test phrase generated by a ‘mystery TTS system’ and created 1,300 test phrases from this new voice. This audio set served as training data to fine-tune the Piper AI model on the lashed-up GPU rig.

To verify accuracy, [Cal] used OpenAI’s Whisper software to transcribe the audio back to text, in order to compare with the original text corpus. To overcome issues with punctuation and differences between US and UK English, the text was converted into phonemes using espeak-ng, resulting in a 98% phrase matching accuracy.

After down-sampling the training set using SoX, it was ready for the Piper TTS training system. Despite all the preparation, running the software felt anticlimactic. A few inconsistencies in the dataset necessitated the removal of some data points. After five days of training parked outside in the shade due to concerns about heat, TensorBoard indicated that the model’s loss function was converging. That’s AI-speak for: the model was tuned and ready for action! We think it sounds pretty slick.

If all this new-fangled AI speech synthesis is too complex and, well, a bit creepy for you, may we offer a more 1980s solution to making stuff talk? Finally, most people take the ability to speak for granted, until they can no longer do so. Here’s a team using cutting-edge AI to give people back that ability.

hackaday.com/2025/07/09/how-to…

We always enjoy [FloatHeadPhysics] explaining any math or physics topic. We don’t know if he’s acting or not, but he seems genuinely excited about every topic he covers, and it is infectious. He also has entertaining imaginary conversations with people like Feynman and Einstein. His recent video on tensors begins by showing the vector form of Ohm’s law, making it even more interesting. Check out the video below.

If you ever thought you could use fewer numbers for many tensor calculations, [FloatHeadPhysics] had the same idea. Luckily, imaginary Feynman explains why this isn’t right, and the answer shows the basic nature of why people use tensors.

The spoiler: vectors and even scalars are just a special case of tensors, so you use tensors all the time, you just don’t realize it. He works through other examples, including an orbital satellite and a hydroelectric dam.

We love videos that help us have aha moments about complex math or physics. It is easy to spew formulas, but there’s no substitute for having a “feeling” about how things work.

The last time we checked in with [FloatHeadPhysics], he convinced us we were already travelling at the speed of light. We’ve looked at a simple tensor explainer before, if you want a second approach.

youtube.com/embed/k2FP-T6S1x0?…

hackaday.com/2025/07/09/no-ten…

This week Jonathan chats with Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss about KDE’s eco initiative and the End of 10 campaign! Is Open Source really a win for environmentalism? How does the End of 10 campaign tie in? And what does Pewdiepie have to do with it? Watch to find out!

• * End Of 10 campaign: endof10.org/
• * KDE Eco project: eco.kde.org/

youtube.com/embed/COdArYxZWgg?…

Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show right on our YouTube Channel? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or contact the guest and have them contact us! Take a look at the schedule here.

play.libsyn.com/embed/episode/…

Direct Download in DRM-free MP3.

If you’d rather read along, here’s the transcript for this week’s episode.

Places to follow the FLOSS Weekly Podcast:

• Spotify
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Theme music: “Newer Wave” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

hackaday.com/2025/07/09/floss-…

E' successo ancora: un mio collega ha lasciato la bici alla stazione, regolarmente bloccata con un lucchetto, e stamattina non l'ha più trovata.

Capisco che il Paese abbia altri e più importanti problemi di cui occuparsi, ma sarebbe davvero uno sforzo proibitivo quello di dotare tutte le stazioni ferroviarie o degli autobus di una rastrelliera e di un paio di telecamere puntate sopra?

Per quanto ancora il furto della propria bici dovrà essere vissuto come la norma, come una tassa da pagare per lo "sfizio" di volersi muovere con il mezzo meno inquinante di tutti?

Io veramente non capisco...

#ciclismourbano