I paesi membri del gruppo di monitoraggio internazionale MSMT hanno concluso che la Corea del Nord sta aumentando il suo utilizzo di criminalità informatica e il lavoro remoto svolto dai suoi cittadini all’estero, al fine di aggirare le sanzioni internazionali e sostenere i propri programmi nucleari e missilistici. Un recente rapporto, che copre gli anni da gennaio 2024 a settembre 2025, sottolinea tale strategia.

I redattori del rapporto evidenziano che praticamente tutte le attività illegali sono orchestrate da organizzazioni che sono già state sottoposte a misure punitive. Mediante società di comodo e gruppi IT anonimi, questi soggetti agiscono con l’obiettivo primario di sostenere finanziariamente programmi di armamenti vietati.

Secondo gli autori del documento, gli hacker nordcoreani hanno rubato almeno 2,8 miliardi di dollari in criptovalute durante questo periodo. Quasi la metà di questa cifra è stata imputata a un singolo episodio: l’attacco hacker all’exchange di criptovalute Bybit nel febbraio di quest’anno, che ha portato al furto di circa 1,4 miliardi di dollari.

Pyongyang continua inoltre a inviare all’estero delegazioni di addetti all’informatica che si spacciano per freelance. Si stima che attualmente tra 1.000 e 1.500 di questi specialisti lavorino solo in Cina. Il loro scopo è generare reddito sotto falsi nomi e convogliare i fondi al regime. Questa pratica viola direttamente le risoluzioni del Consiglio di Sicurezza delle Nazioni Unite che vietano agli Stati membri di assumere cittadini nordcoreani e ne impongono il rimpatrio.

Anche in Giappone, India, Emirati Arabi Uniti e Singapore sono state registrate vittime a causa di questo fenomeno. Il riciclaggio delle risorse digitali trafugate è avvenuto attraverso società di cambio ed exchange in diverse nazioni; il provento è stato poi convertito in contanti per comprare materie prime e attrezzature.

La Corea del Nord utilizza attivamente l’infrastruttura finanziaria e delle telecomunicazioni della Cina. Il rapporto cita 15 banche cinesi coinvolte in operazioni di riciclaggio di denaro. Inoltre, il regime si affida a una rete di intermediari in Cina, Vietnam, Laos, Emirati Arabi Uniti e persino Argentina. Questi facilitano transazioni in criptovaluta, acquisti di attrezzature e servizi di lavoro fittizi.

Le raccomandazioni del rapporto invitano gli Stati a rafforzare i controlli sulle transazioni in criptovaluta, a migliorare le procedure di verifica per l’assunzione di lavoratori da remoto, a bloccare gli account dei freelance sospetti e a impedire le transazioni collegate a intermediari nordcoreani. Particolare attenzione è rivolta alla necessità di rimpatriare tutti i cittadini nordcoreani che continuano a lavorare all’estero in violazione delle risoluzioni esistenti.

Secondo le stime, le entrate derivanti dalla criminalità informatica hanno già eclissato i guadagni della Corea del Nord antecedenti l’implementazione delle sanzioni globali nel 2016-2017. La criptovaluta, dopo essere stata riciclata, non solo copre le necessità interne, ma serve anche a sostenere la commercializzazione di armi verso altre nazioni.

L'articolo 2,8 miliardi in criptovaluta rubati! ecco come la Corea del Nord aggira le sanzioni ONU proviene da Red Hot Cyber.

One of the lost pleasures of our modern world is the experience of going shopping at a grocery store, a mall, or a drugstore, and finding this month’s electronics magazine festooned with projects that you might like to build. Sure, you can find anything on the Internet, but there’s something to be said about the element of surprise. Can any of those old projects still be of interest?

[Bettina Neumryr] thinks so. She has a hobby of finding old magazine projects and building them. Her most recent installment is a transistor tester from the June 1983 issue of Everyday Electronics.

The tester was quite a neat job for 1983, with a neat case and a PC board. It measures beta and leakage. There’s an analog meter that can measure the collector current for a fixed base current (beta or hfe). Leakage is how much current flows between emitter and collector with the base turned off.

In 1983, we’d have loved to have a laser printer to do toner transfer for the PC board, but of course, that was unheard of in hobby circles of the day. The tester seemed to work right off the bat, although there was a small adjustment necessary to calibrate the device. All that was left was to put it in a period-appropriate box with some printed labels.

We loved the old electronics and computer magazines. Usually, when we see someone working on an old magazine project, it is probably not quite a literal copy of it. But either way is cool.

youtube.com/embed/R4AF_30SUbA?…

hackaday.com/2025/10/27/magazi…

Gli aggressori utilizzano una tecnica di phishing avanzata, nota come CoPhish, che si avvale di Microsoft Copilot Studio per convincere gli utenti a concedere l’accesso non autorizzato ai propri account Microsoft Entra ID.

Un recente rapporto, descrive l’attacco nei dettagli e sottolinea come malgrado gli sforzi di Microsoft volti a rafforzare le politiche di consenso, permangano evidenti vulnerabilità negli strumenti di intelligenza artificiale offerti in cloud.

L’adozione crescente di strumenti come Copilot da parte delle organizzazioni evidenzia la necessità di un’attenta supervisione delle piattaforme low-code. In questo ambito, funzionalità configurabili dall’utente, progettate per favorire la produttività, possono inavvertitamente agevolare il phishing.
Un aggressore può utilizzare un agente Copilot Studio dannoso per indurre un bersaglio a cadere vittima di un attacco di phishing OAuth. L’aggressore o l’agente può quindi compiere azioni per conto dell’utente (Fonte Datadog Security Labs).
Questo attacco scoperto dai ricercatori di Datadog Security Labs, utilizza agenti di intelligenza artificiale personalizzabili ospitati su domini Microsoft legittimi per mascherare i tradizionali attacchi di consenso OAuth, facendoli apparire affidabili e aggirando i sospetti degli utenti.

Gli aggressori sono in grado di progettare e creare chatbot dall’aspetto innocuo, al fine di ottenere dagli utenti le credenziali di accesso e, successivamente, tokens OAuth utilizzabili per compiere azioni dannose, ad esempio, l’accesso ai calendari o la lettura delle email.

Gli attacchi di consenso OAuth, classificati nella tecnica MITRE ATT&CK T1528, consistono nell’indurre gli utenti ad approvare registrazioni di app dannose che richiedono ampie autorizzazioni per l’accesso a dati sensibili.

Gli attacchi condotti all’interno degli ambienti Entra ID prevedono la creazione di registri di applicazioni da parte degli aggressori al fine di ottenere l’accesso alle risorse messe a disposizione da Microsoft Graph, quali ad esempio la posta elettronica o OneNote. Ciò avviene mediante l’utilizzo di collegamenti di phishing che inducono le vittime a concedere il consenso. Una volta ottenuto l’approvazione, il token che ne deriva conferisce all’aggressore la possibilità di impersonificare l’utente, consentendo così l’estrazione dei dati o ulteriori azioni di compromissione.

Negli anni, Microsoft ha implementato misure di difesa più solide, come ad esempio le limitazioni relative alle applicazioni non verificate. Inoltre, un aggiornamento del luglio 2025 ha stabilito come impostazione predefinita “microsoft-user-default-recommended”, andando così a bloccare automaticamente l’accesso a autorizzazioni considerate ad alto rischio, quali Sites.Read.All e Files.Read.All, qualora non venga concessa l’approvazione da parte dell’amministratore.

Tuttavia, permangono delle lacune: gli utenti senza privilegi possono comunque approvare app interne per autorizzazioni come Mail.ReadWrite o Calendars.ReadWrite, mentre gli amministratori con ruoli come Amministratore applicazioni possono acconsentire a qualsiasi autorizzazione su qualsiasi app.

L'articolo Arriva CoPhish! Microsoft Copilot Studio usato per rubare account proviene da Red Hot Cyber.

La continua generazione di videoclip con attori famosi pubblicati senza il loro consenso sulla piattaforma Sora 2 ha nuovamente attirato l’attenzione sui problemi associati all’utilizzo di reti neurali per creare copie digitali di persone.

Dopo che il servizio di OpenAI ha pubblicato video generati con Bryan Cranston, tra cui un video con Michael Jackson, l’azienda ha annunciato che avrebbe rafforzato i controlli sull’utilizzo delle immagini e delle voci di personaggi famosi.

Lo stesso Cranston, il sindacato degli attori SAG-AFTRA e diverse importanti agenzie (United Talent Agency, Creative Artists Agency e Association of Talent Agents) hanno rilasciato una dichiarazione congiunta. Hanno sottolineato che OpenAI ha riconosciuto la generazione indesiderata e ne ha espresso rammarico. In risposta alle critiche, l’azienda ha ribadito il suo impegno nei confronti del principio di partecipazione volontaria alla creazione di copie digitali: nessun artista o performer dovrebbe apparire in tali video senza previa autorizzazione. Ha inoltre promesso di rispondere tempestivamente ai reclami relativi alle violazioni di questa politica.

Sebbene OpenAI non abbia divulgato i dettagli delle modifiche apportate all’app Sora, l’annuncio in sé ha rappresentato un passo importante nel riconoscimento pubblico del problema.

La piattaforma aveva già scatenato un’ondata di critiche dopo aver pubblicato video con immagini distorte di personaggi famosi. A seguito di questi incidenti, l’azienda ha revocato la sua precedente politica “predefinita” e ha promesso di fornire ai titolari dei diritti d’autore un controllo più granulare sulla generazione di contenuti, più vicino ai principi del consenso volontario per l’uso delle apparenze.

Sebbene Cranston abbia sottolineato la risposta positiva di OpenAI e l’abbia definita un importante esempio di promozione del dialogo, il presidente del SAG-AFTRA, Sean Astin, ha chiesto un intervento legislativo. Ha sottolineato la necessità di uno strumento legale in grado di proteggere i professionisti della creatività dalle copie non autorizzate su larga scala tramite l’intelligenza artificiale. In questo contesto, ha menzionato il disegno di legge NO FAKES (Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act), attualmente in discussione negli Stati Uniti, che mira a proteggere dalla replica digitale senza il permesso dell’artista originale.

Nel contesto della rapida diffusione dei modelli generativi e della loro integrazione nelle piattaforme mediatiche più diffuse, tali incidenti sollevano un interrogativo urgente: quali sono i limiti di ciò che è accettabile quando le tecnologie sono in grado di ricreare i volti e le voci delle persone con una fedeltà pressoché perfetta?

Mentre le aziende promettono di rafforzare i filtri e migliorare la supervisione, la comunità professionale continua a insistere sulle garanzie istituzionali, anche a livello legislativo.

L'articolo OpenAI rafforza i controlli su Sora 2 dopo critiche per video con attori famosi proviene da Red Hot Cyber.

Nel panorama delle minacce informatiche, pochi malware sono tanto persistenti e diffusi quanto Formbook. Nato come un semplice keylogger e form-grabber, si è evoluto in un potente infostealer venduto secondo il modello Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS), rendendolo accessibile a un’ampia platea di criminali informatici. La sua capacità di esfiltrare credenziali dai browser, client email e altri software lo rende uno strumento prediletto per ottenere un accesso iniziale alle reti aziendali.

In questo articolo, analizzeremo il sample di un dropper multi-stadio progettato per distribuire l’infostealer Formbook, e, a partire dalle evidenze raccolte, illustreremo le contromisure proposte da ELMI per prevenire, rilevare e rispondere a questa tipologia di minacce.

ELMIopera nel settore IT come System Integrator da quarant’anni, offrendo consulenza professionale e supportando aziende private e pubbliche nello sviluppo di progetti innovativi.
Attualmente, l’azienda è fortemente focalizzata sui temi della Digital Transformation, con particolare riferimento alle aree tecnologiche inerenti la Digitalizzazione dei processi, la Cyber Security, l’Asset Management, l’Intelligenza Artificiale generativa e la Blockchain.

Infostealer in azione: analisi tecnica di Formbook

Come osservato in diverse campagne recenti documentate anche dall’Agenzia per la Cybersicurezza Nazionale (ACN), la distribuzione di Formbook avviene principalmente tramite malspam (Malware Spam o Malicious Spam): email malevole confezionate per sembrare legittime (finte fatture, documenti di spedizione, preventivi o comunicazioni aziendali). Il messaggio contiene tipicamente un allegato (archivi compressi .zip/.rar o file Office con macro disabilitate) o un link che, una volta cliccato, porta al download di un file JavaScript offuscato. È proprio questo file, nel campione analizzato, a costituire il dropper iniziale che dà avvio alla catena di infezione.

L’obiettivo della fase iniziale è indurre l’utente a eseguire manualmente l’allegato — affidandosi quindi alla componente di ingegneria sociale più che a vulnerabilità software. Questo approccio, combinato con tecniche di offuscamento del codice e l’uso di servizi cloud legittimi per ospitare i payload successivi, rende la campagna particolarmente insidiosa e difficile da bloccare con i soli controlli perimetrali.

L’analisi è quindi partita da un campione JavaScript, rivelando una catena di infezione complessa che impiega PowerShell come stadio intermedio e culmina con l’esecuzione “fileless” del payload finale. L’attore della minaccia ha implementato molteplici tecniche di offuscamento ed evasione, e ha sfruttato un servizio legittimo (Google Drive) per ospitare il payload, rendendo il rilevamento basato sulla rete più difficile.

Questa analisi documenta in dettaglio ogni fase, mappando le Tattiche, Tecniche e Procedure (TTPs) osservate sul framework MITRE ATT&CK e fornendo gli Indicatori di Compromissione (IoCs) necessari per il rilevamento e la mitigazione.

L’obiettivo non è solo sezionare il malware, ma capire come un singolo file si inserisca nell’enorme ecosistema del cybercrime, alimentando il mercato nero dei dati e come possa impattare significativamente l’operatività e la riservatezza dei sistemi.

Nome File 8f7b48c9b0cb0702de08f98e8e4fb2cd47103b219beff7815dc8e742039c12cb.js

Tipo File .js

SHA256 8f7b48c9b0cb0702de08f98e8e4fb2cd47103b219beff7815dc8e742039c12cb

Dimensione 300 KB

Entropia 4976

VT https://www.virustotal.com

Dettaglio PEStudio

Catena d’infezione di Formbook: dal phishing all’esecuzione fileless
L’attacco si sviluppa attraverso una catena di eventi ben definita, progettata per aumentare la furtività e la probabilità di successo dell’infezione.

1. Malspam: mail con link o allegato malevolo.
2. Dropper: Viene eseguito il file .js iniziale. Lo script de-offusca e assembla in memoria un secondo payload, uno script PowerShell.
3. Loader: Lo script JS scrive il payload PowerShell su disco in %APPDATA%Plaidtry.ps1 e tenta di eseguirlo.
4. Evasione: Lo script PowerShell esegue controlli anti-analisi e anti-antivirus. Se l’ambiente è considerato sicuro, procede.
5. Download: Lo script PowerShell contatta un URL su Google Drive per scaricare un terzo payload, un file contenente dati codificati in Base64 (Pidg.chl).
6. Esecuzione Fileless: Il file scaricato viene letto, il suo contenuto Base64 viene decodificato in memoria, rivelando un iniettore di PE (Portable Executable).
7. Iniezione: L’iniettore alloca memoria nel processo powershell.exe stesso, vi scrive il payload finale di Formbook e ne avvia l’esecuzione, il tutto senza che l’eseguibile di Formbook venga mai salvato su disco.

Analisi del dropper Iniziale (File JavaScript)

Il campione iniziale viene veicolato tramite campagne malspam , una delle tecniche di distribuzione più comuni per Formbook, come documentato anche dall’ACN. L’efficacia di questa prima fase non si basa su vulnerabilità software, ma interamente sull’ingegneria sociale, studiata per ingannare e indurre l’utente a compiere un’azione decisiva.

Individuati 23 temi, sfruttati per diffondere campagne malevole in Italia, nella settimana del 20-26 Settembre

L’attore della minaccia confeziona un’e-mail che appare come una comunicazione legittima e urgente, ad esempio una finta fattura, un documento di spedizione o un preventivo. Il corpo del messaggio è solitamente breve e spinge la vittima a scaricare un allegato o visualizzare un documento esterno tramite un link.

Le campagne individuate relative al malware Formbook, distribuiscono quest’ultimo mediante email con allegati compressi come ZIP,TAR,7z.

Una volta scaricato ed estratto l’archivio, ci troviamo davanti ad un file di testo con estensione .js. Analizzando l’hash del file tramite i principali motori di TI notiamo che esso risulta segnalato come Trojan.

Il codice sorgente è fortemente offuscato: dopo un primo passaggio di formattazione la struttura sintattica risulta leggibile, ma le funzioni operative restano deliberatamente nascoste da nomi di variabili non significativi e dalla frammentazione del codice. L’analisi si è pertanto concentrata sull’identificazione di funzionalità che consentono l’interazione con il sistema operativo. La scoperta chiave è stata l’uso intensivo di ActiveXObject per istanziare oggetti COM di sistema:

• WScript.Shell: Per l’esecuzione di comandi.

• Scripting.FileSystemObject: Per la manipolazione di file.

• WbemScripting.SWbemLocator: Per l’interazione con WMI.

La logica principale dello script è un ciclo di assemblaggio: decodifica e concatena centinaia di piccole stringhe per costruire in memoria il payload della fase successiva, uno script PowerShell, che verrà salvato nella cartella %APPDATA% con il nome di “Plaidtry”.

Analisi del loader intermedio (script PowerShell)

Lo script Plaidtry.ps1 è a sua volta offuscato, ma con una logica interna. Contiene una funzione (Kuglepenne) di de-offuscamento che ricostruisce i comandi reali campionando caratteri da stringhe offuscate. Eseguendo questa funzione in un ambiente sicuro (PowerShell ISE), abbiamo potuto decodificare i comandi passo dopo passo.

Esempio de-offuscamento

Il cuore dello script è la logica di download. Imposta uno User-Agent di Firefox per mascherare la richiesta, quindi utilizza il metodo Net.WebClient.DownloadFile per scaricare un payload dall’URL di Google Drive precedentemente decodificato. Il file viene salvato come %APPDATA%Pidg.chl

Script PS de-offuscato

Dettaglio PROCMON

Dettaglio Folder

Il file Pidg.chl non è un eseguibile. È un file di testo contenente un’unica, lunga stringa codificata in Base64. Utilizzando PowerShell per decodificare questa stringa, abbiamo svelato l’ultimo e più pericoloso stadio dell’attacco: un iniettore di PE

Questo script, anch’esso altamente offuscato, è progettato per eseguire un file .exe senza mai scriverlo su disco. Le sue componenti chiave sono:

• PE Incorporato: Una variabile contenente una stringa Base64 di centinaia di kilobyte. Questa è la rappresentazione testuale del file Formbook.exe.
• API di Windows tramite P/Invoke: Lo script definisce un blocco di codice per creare un “ponte” verso le funzioni critiche di kernel32.dll, tra cui VirtualAlloc (per allocare memoria), WriteProcessMemory (per scrivere in memoria) e CreateThread (per eseguire codice in un nuovo thread).

La logica dello script è la seguente: decodifica la grande stringa Base64 per ricostruire in memoria i byte dell’eseguibile di Formbook. Successivamente, alloca una nuova regione di memoria all’interno del processo powershell.exe in cui è in esecuzione, vi copia i byte di Formbook e infine avvia un nuovo thread in quel punto.

Il risultato è che Formbook inizia la sua esecuzione come un thread all’interno di un processo PowerShell legittimo. A questo punto, l’infostealer inizierebbe la sua attività malevola: registrare i tasti premuti, rubare le credenziali salvate nei browser, catturare i dati dai form web e inviarli a un’altra infrastruttura C2 controllata dall’attaccante.

Indicazioni di mitigazione e contenimento contro gli infostealer

Dopo aver ricostruito la catena di infezione e le tecniche utilizzate da Formbook, è possibile delineare le principali azioni di mitigazione e contenimento. Lo scopo è ridurre la superficie d’attacco, bloccare la diffusione e preservare le evidenze per la triage/IR.

Mitigazione

• Isolare l’host sospetto: rimuovere la macchina dalla rete aziendale (network segmentation/isolation) preservando la macchina accesa per acquisizione forense; evitare reboot non pianificati che potrebbero cancellare evidenze volatili.
• Preservare le evidenze: acquisire immagine della memoria e snapshot del filesystem, raccogliere i log di processi, le chiavi di registro e i file sospetti (hash). Archiviare gli artefatti in area sicura con controllo degli accessi.
• Bloccare IoC a livello di rete ed endpoint: importare gli hash, i domini e gli URL conosciuti nei sistemi di prevenzione (SIEM,NGFW,XDR) e applicare regole temporanee per limitare il traffico verso host sospetti.

Eradicazione

• Indagine forense completa: correlare gli eventi (mail, download, esecuzione di script, attività di PowerShell) per stabilire il perimetro di compromissione e individuare eventuali movimenti laterali.
• Rimozione controllata: con piani di ripristino, rimuovere le componenti malevole e ripristinare gli host compromessi da backup affidabili;
• Rotazione credenziali: considerare la rotazione di credenziali e di eventuali segreti potenzialmente esfiltrati.

Prevenzione

• Limitare l’esecuzione di scripting non autorizzato: applicare policy di gruppo (GPO) per disabilitare o restringere l’uso di Windows Script Host (WSH) e l’esecuzione di script in cartelle temporanee dove non necessario.
• PowerShell: impostare policy di esecuzione restrittive, abilitare la protezione di runtime (AMSI/ConstrainedLanguage) e monitorare i moduli e le chiamate sospette.
• Application Execution Control: adottare controlli di application whitelisting (AppLocker/WDAC) per impedire l’esecuzione di binari e script non autorizzati.
• Monitoraggio comportamentale (XDR/EDR): attivare raccolta estesa di telemetria (process creation, parent/child chain, network connections, API di memoria) e regole di alerting su pattern sospetti (es. PowerShell con payload base64 molto lungo, uso di WScript.Shell, download da servizi di file hosting con agent/UA sospetto).
• Segmentazione e least privilege: segmentare reti critiche e applicare principi di least privilege agli account e ai servizi.
• Formazione e awareness: intensificare attività di phishing simulation e formazione degli utenti per ridurre il rischio d’apertura di allegati/JS malevoli.

Comunicazione e disclosure

• Coordinare la notifica: segnalare gli IoC e i dettagli tecnici alle autorità competenti (CSIRT aziendale o nazionale) e, se del caso, ai provider di hosting (es. Google per file Drive abusivi) seguendo le procedure di disclosure responsabile.
• Aggiornamento delle difese: condividere gli IoC con team Threat Intelligence e aggiornare regole SIEM/EDR per permettere threat hunting e prevenzione su larga scala.

Conclusioni sull’analisi di Formbook

L’analisi di questo campione dimostra una chiara tendenza verso catene di infezione complesse e “fileless”. L’attore della minaccia ha investito notevoli sforzi per eludere il rilevamento a ogni livello: l’offuscamento degli script iniziali, l’uso di servizi cloud legittimi per l’hosting dei payload e, infine, l’iniezione in memoria del malware vero e proprio.

Questa metodologia stratificata rappresenta una sfida significativa per le soluzioni di sicurezza tradizionali basate su firme e analisi di file. Sottolinea la necessità di un monitoraggio comportamentale avanzato (XDR) e costante in grado di rilevare attività anomale da parte di processi altrimenti legittimi come PowerShell. L’analisi, infine, ci ha permesso di ricostruire l’intera catena di attacco e di estrarre IoC e TTPs preziosi per rafforzare le posture difensive contro minacce simili.

Mapping MITRE ATT&CK per Formbook

Le TTPs osservate durante l’analisi sono state mappate sul framework MITRE ATT&CK.

Indicatori di Compromissione (IoCs)

• SHA256 (JS):

8f7b48c9b0cb0702de08f98e8e4fb2cd47103b219beff7815dc8e742039c12cb

• SHA256 (Pidg.chl):

C28CF95D3330128C056E6CA3CA23931DC8BBCB4385A1CE37037AF2E45B1734DC

• SHA256 (Plaidtry.ps1):

14345A45F4D51C63DFCDD1A5DC1EDD42BB169109A8903E33C4657C92AF6DF2830

• URL:

drive.google.com/uc?export=dow…

Fonti:ACN.GOV.IT ,CERT-AGID

Il supporto di ELMI nelle strategie di prevenzione e detection

ELMI propone un percorso integrato di prevenzione, rilevazione e risposta alle minaccestudiato specificamente per contrastare campagne di infostealer basate su phishing e fileless execution. La proposta combina soluzioni integrate, affiancando alla tecnologia un approccio consulenziale e formativo.

Soluzioni integrate per una sicurezza a 360°

Le misure tecniche rappresentano il primo baluardo nella protezione contro infostealer, richiedendo un’architettura di sicurezza multilivello che integra strumenti e processi dedicati. All’interno del suoSecurity Competence Center, ELMI mette a disposizione un set di soluzioni integrate che coprono l’intero ciclo di difesa.

• Servizio SOC H24: Control Room dedicata al monitoraggio, triage e gestione degli eventi di sicurezza H24/7 che possono impattare l’infrastruttura aziendale.
• ExtendedDetection & Response (XDR): soluzione di cybersecurity che integra e correla dati provenienti da endpoint, rete, email, server e cloud per offrire una visione unificata della sicurezza. Consente una rilevazione più rapida delle minacce e una risposta più efficace grazie all’analisi avanzata e all’automazione dei processi.
• Domain Threat Intelligence: servizio avanzato che monitora e analizza i domini aziendali per individuare vulnerabilità, minacce emergenti e account compromessi. Attraverso strumenti di analisi e intelligenza artificiale, supporta la mitigazione dei rischi e la protezione dell’integrità dei domini.
• Early Warning: bollettini informativi su minacce emergenti.
• Vulnerability Assessment & Threat Hunting: individuazione preventiva delle vulnerabilità e ricerca proattiva di minacce avanzate non ancora rilevate dai sistemi automatici.
• Cybersecurity Awareness: attività di formazione dedicate, per mantenere alta la consapevolezza del rischio e rafforzare la resilienza aziendale.

Il Security Competence Center integra, inoltre, servizi di Network Operation Center(NOC), dedicati alla gestione e al monitoraggio continuo della rete, e Managed Services, che consentono la gestione remota dell’infrastruttura IT, permettendo di configurare e controllare a distanza tutti i componenti aziendali.

I punti di forza del Security Competence Center di ELMI risiedono nell’approccio integrato agli incidenti informatici, nella disponibilità operativa H24 su tutto il territorio e nella capacità di offrire servizi personalizzati a 360°, garantendo così una protezione coerente e completa.

L’obiettivo non è solo quello di fornire singoli strumenti, ma costruire insieme al cliente una difesa coordinata, capace di anticipare le minacce, accelerare il rilevamento e garantire una risposta immediata.

Un approccio consulenziale e progressivo alla cybersecurity

A garantire l’efficacia dell’intero processo è la competenza di un team multidisciplinare, composto da figure specializzate come network engineer, system administrator e security analyst, con un solido background operativo e una visione end-to-end dell’infrastruttura IT.

Affrontare efficacemente il rischio cyber richiede un approccio strutturato, personalizzato e progressivo.Il supporto di ELMI si articola in tre momenti chiave:

• Audit preliminare,per fotografare lo stato di sicurezza e individuare le aree più critiche;
• Assessment tecnico e organizzativo, che misura la maturità delle difese esistenti rispetto a standard e framework internazionali;
• Roadmap personalizzata, con un piano d’azione su misura che unisce rafforzamento tecnologico, attivazione dei servizi SOC, formazione e definizione di policy.

Grazie a un approccio consulenziale e operativo integrato, ELMI accompagna i clienti lungo tutto il percorso di rafforzamento della postura di sicurezza, assicurando una progressiva riduzione del rischio e una maggiore resilienza rispetto a minacce complesse e in continua evoluzione.

L'articolo Anatomia di un furto di dati: Analisi tecnica dell’Infostealer “Formbook” proviene da Red Hot Cyber.

If you ever wanted to win a bar bet about a world record, you probably know about the Guinness book for World Records. Did you know, though, that there are some robots in that book? Guinness pointed some out in a recent post.

Ever wonder about the longest table-tennis rally with a robot or the fastest robotic cube solver? No need to wonder anymore.

Our favorite was the fastest robot to solve a puzzle cube. This robot solved the Rubik’s Cube in 103 milliseconds! Don’t blink or you’ll miss it in the video embedded. Of course, the real kudos go to the team that created the robot: [Matthew Patrohay], [Junpei Ota], [Aden Hurd], and [Alex Berta].

Another favorite was the smallest humanoid robot. In order to win this record, the robot must be able to move its shoulders, elbows, knees, and hips just like a human. It also has to be able to walk on two feet. This tiny little guy meets the requirements and stands only 57.6 mm (2.26 in) tall! Created by [Tatsuhiko Mitsuya] in April 2024, this robot can be controlled via Bluetooth.

We’ve seen entries in this category before — check them out in Almost Breaking The World Record For The Tiniest Humanoid Robot, But Not Quite.

youtube.com/embed/Ogchiuuhxnc?…

hackaday.com/2025/10/26/record…

In March 2025, Kaspersky detected a wave of infections that occurred when users clicked on personalized phishing links sent via email. No further action was required to initiate the infection; simply visiting the malicious website using Google Chrome or another Chromium-based web browser was enough.

The malicious links were personalized and extremely short-lived to avoid detection. However, Kaspersky’s technologies successfully identified a sophisticated zero-day exploit that was used to escape Google Chrome’s sandbox. After conducting a quick analysis, we reported the vulnerability to the Google security team, who fixed it as CVE-2025-2783.

Acknowledgement for finding CVE-2025-2783 (excerpt from the security fixes included into Chrome 134.0.6998.177/.178)

We dubbed this campaign Operation ForumTroll because the attackers sent personalized phishing emails inviting recipients to the Primakov Readings forum. The lures targeted media outlets, universities, research centers, government organizations, financial institutions, and other organizations in Russia. The functionality of the malware suggests that the operation’s primary purpose was espionage.

We traced the malware used in this attack back to 2022 and discovered more attacks by this threat actor on organizations and individuals in Russia and Belarus. While analyzing the malware used in these attacks, we discovered an unknown piece of malware that we identified as commercial spyware called “Dante” and developed by the Italian company Memento Labs (formerly Hacking Team).

Similarities in the code suggest that the Operation ForumTroll campaign was also carried out using tools developed by Memento Labs.

In this blog post, we’ll take a detailed look at the Operation ForumTroll attack chain and reveal how we discovered and identified the Dante spyware, which remained hidden for years after the Hacking Team rebrand.

Attack chain

Operation ForumTroll attack chain

In all known cases, infection occurred after the victim clicked a link in a spear phishing email that directed them to a malicious website. The website verified the victim and executed the exploit.

When we first discovered and began analyzing this campaign, the malicious website no longer contained the code responsible for carrying out the infection; it simply redirected visitors to the official Primakov Readings website.

Therefore, we could only work with the attack artifacts discovered during the first wave of infections. Fortunately, Kaspersky technologies detected nearly all of the main stages of the attack, enabling us to reconstruct and analyze the Operation ForumTroll attack chain.

Phishing email

Example of a malicious email used in this campaign (translated from Russian)

The malicious emails sent by the attackers were disguised as invitations from the organizers of the Primakov Readings scientific and expert forum. These emails contained personalized links to track infections. The emails appeared authentic, contained no language errors, and were written in the style one would expect for an invitation to such an event. Proficiency in Russian and familiarity with local peculiarities are distinctive features of the ForumTroll APT group, traits that we have also observed in its other campaigns. However, mistakes in some of those other cases suggest that the attackers were not native Russian speakers.

Validator

The validator is a relatively small script executed by the browser. It validates the victim and securely downloads and executes the next stage of the attack.

The first action the validator performs is to calculate the SHA-256 of the random data received from the server using the WebGPU API. It then verifies the resulting hash. This is done using the open-source code of Marco Ciaramella’s sha256-gpu project. The main purpose of this check is likely to verify that the site is being visited by a real user with a real web browser, and not by a mail server that might follow a link, emulate a script, and download an exploit. Another possible reason for this check could be that the exploit triggers a vulnerability in the WebGPU API or relies on it for exploitation.

The validator sends the infection identifier, the result of the WebGPU API check and the newly generated public key to the C2 server for key exchange using the Elliptic-curve Diffie–Hellman (ECDH) algorithm. If the check is passed, the server responds with an AES-GCM key. This key is used to decrypt the next stage, which is hidden in requests to bootstrap.bundle.min.js and .woff2 font files. Following the timeline of events and the infection logic, this next stage should have been a remote code execution (RCE) exploit for Google Chrome, but it was not obtained during the attack.

Sandbox escape exploit

List of in-the-wild 0-days caught and reported by Kaspersky

Over the years, we have discovered and reported on dozens of zero-day exploits that were actively used in attacks. However, CVE-2025-2783 is one of the most intriguing sandbox escape exploits we’ve encountered. This exploit genuinely puzzled us because it allowed attackers to bypass Google Chrome’s sandbox protection without performing any obviously malicious or prohibited actions. This was due to a powerful logical vulnerability caused by an obscure quirk in the Windows OS.

To protect against bugs and crashes, and enable sandboxing, Chrome uses a multi-process architecture. The main process, known as the browser process, handles the user interface and manages and supervises other processes. Sandboxed renderer processes handle web content and have limited access to system resources. Chrome uses Mojo and the underlying ipcz library, introduced to replace legacy IPC mechanisms, for interprocess communication between the browser and renderer processes.

The exploit we discovered came with its own Mojo and ipcz libraries that were statically compiled from official sources. This enabled attackers to communicate with the IPC broker within the browser process without having to manually craft and parse ipcz messages. However, this created a problem for us because, to analyze the exploit, we had to identify all the Chrome library functions it used. This involved a fair amount of work, but once completed, we knew all the actions performed by the exploit.

In short, the exploit does the following:

• Resolves the addresses of the necessary functions and code gadgets from dll using a pattern search.
• Hooks the v8_inspector::V8Console::Debug function. This allows attackers to escape the sandbox and execute the desired payload via a JavaScript call.
• Starts executing a sandbox escape when attackers call console.debug(0x42, shellcode); from their script.
• Hooks the ipcz::NodeLink::OnAcceptRelayedMessage function.
• Creates and sends an ipcz message of the type RelayMessage. This message type is used to pass Windows OS handles between two processes that do not have the necessary permissions (e.g., renderer processes). The exploit retrieves the handle returned by the GetCurrentThread API function and uses this ipcz message to relay it to itself. The broker transfers handles between processes using the DuplicateHandle API function.
• Receives the relayed message back using the ipcz::NodeLink::OnAcceptRelayedMessage function hook, but instead of the handle that was previously returned by the GetCurrentThread API function, it now contains a handle to the thread in the browser process!
• Uses this handle to execute a series of code gadgets in the target process by suspending the thread, setting register values using SetThreadContext, and resuming the thread. This results in shellcode execution in the browser process and subsequent installation of a malware loader.

So, what went wrong, and how was this possible? The answer can be found in the descriptions of the GetCurrentThread and GetCurrentProcess API functions. When these functions are called, they don’t return actual handles; rather, they return pseudo handles, special constants that are interpreted by the kernel as a handle to the current thread or process. For the current process, this constant is -1 (also equal to INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE, which brings its own set of quirks), and the constant for the current thread is -2. Chrome’s IPC code already checked for handles equal to -1, but there were no checks for -2 or other undocumented pseudo handles. This oversight led to the vulnerability. As a result, when the broker passed the -2 pseudo handle received from the renderer to the DuplicateHandle API function while processing the RelayMessage, it converted -2 into a real handle to its own thread and passed it to the renderer.

Shortly after the patch was released, it became clear that Chrome was not the only browser affected by the issue. Firefox developers quickly identified a similar pattern in their IPC code and released an update under CVE-2025-2857.

When pseudo handles were first introduced, they simplified development and helped squeeze out extra performance – something that was crucial on older PCs. Now, decades later, that outdated optimization has come back to bite us.

Could we see more bugs like this? Absolutely. In fact, this represents a whole class of vulnerabilities worth hunting for – similar issues may still be lurking in other applications and Windows system services.

To learn about the hardening introduced in Google Chrome following the discovery of CVE-2025-2783, we recommend checking out Alex Gough’s upcoming presentation, “Responding to an ITW Chrome Sandbox Escape (Twice!),” at Kawaiicon.

Persistent loader

Persistence is achieved using the Component Object Model (COM) hijacking technique. This method exploits a system’s search order for COM objects. In Windows, each COM class has a registry entry that associates the CLSID (128-bit GUID) of the COM with the location of its DLL or EXE file. These entries are stored in the system registry hive HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (HKLM), but can be overridden by entries in the user registry hive HKEY_CURRENT_USER (HKCU). This enables attackers to override the CLSID entry and run malware when the system attempts to locate and run the correct COM component.

COM hijacking in a nutshell

The attackers used this technique to override the CLSID of twinapi.dll {AA509086-5Ca9-4C25-8F95-589D3C07B48A} and cause the system processes and web browsers to load the malicious DLL.

This malicious DLL is a loader that decrypts and executes the main malware. The payload responsible for loading the malware is encoded using a simple binary encoder similar to those found in the Metasploit framework. It is also obfuscated with OLLVM. Since the hijacked COM object can be loaded into many processes, the payload checks the name of the current process and only loads the malware when it is executed by certain processes (e.g., rdpclip.exe). The main malware is decrypted using a modified ChaCha20 algorithm. The loader also has the functionality to re-encrypt the malware using the BIOS UUID to bind it to the infected machine. The decrypted data contains the main malware and a shellcode generated by Donut that launches it.

LeetAgent

LeetAgent is the spyware used in the Operation ForumTroll campaign. We named it LeetAgent because all of its commands are written in leetspeak. You might not believe it, but this is rare in APT malware. The malware connects to one of its C2 servers specified in the configuration and uses HTTPS to receive and execute commands identified by unique numeric values:

• 0xC033A4D (COMMAND) – Run command with cmd.exe
• 0xECEC (EXEC) – Execute process
• 0x6E17A585 (GETTASKS) – Get list of tasks that agent is currently executing
• 0x6177 (KILL) – Stop task
• 0xF17E09 (FILE \x09) – Write file
• 0xF17ED0 (FILE \xD0) – Read file
• 0x1213C7 (INJECT) – Inject shellcode
• 0xC04F (CONF) – Set communication parameters
• 0xD1E (DIE) – Quit
• 0xCD (CD) – Change current directory
• 0x108 (JOB) – Set parameters for keylogger or file stealer

In addition to executing commands received from its C2, it runs keylogging and file-stealing tasks in the background. By default, the file-stealer task searches for documents with the following extensions: *.doc, *.xls, *.ppt, *.rtf, *.pdf, *.docx, *.xlsx, *.pptx.

The configuration data is encoded using the TLV (tag-length-value) scheme and encrypted with a simple single-byte XOR cipher. The data contains settings for communicating with the C2, including many settings for traffic obfuscation.

In most of the observed cases, the attackers used the Fastly.net cloud infrastructure to host their C2. Attackers frequently use it to download and run additional tools such as 7z, Rclone, SharpChrome, etc., as well as additional malware (more on that below).

The number of traffic obfuscation settings may indicate that LeetAgent is a commercial tool, though we have only seen ForumTroll APT use it.

Finding Dante

In our opinion, attributing unknown malware is the most challenging aspect of security research. Why? Because it’s not just about analyzing the malware or exploits used in a single attack; it’s also about finding and analyzing all the malware and exploits used in past attacks that might be related to the one you’re currently investigating. This involves searching for and investigating similar attacks using indicators of compromise (IOCs) and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), as well as identifying overlaps in infrastructure, code, etc. In short, it’s about finding and piecing together every scrap of evidence until a picture of the attacker starts to emerge.

We traced the first use of LeetAgent back to 2022 and discovered more ForumTroll APT attacks on organizations and individuals in Russia and Belarus. In many cases, the infection began with a phishing email containing malicious attachments with the following names:

• Baltic_Vector_2023.iso (translated from Russian)
• DRIVE.GOOGLE.COM (executable file)
• Invitation_Russia-Belarus_strong_partnership_2024.lnk (translated from Russian)
• Various other file names mentioning individuals and companies

In addition, we discovered another cluster of similar attacks that used more sophisticated spyware instead of LeetAgent. We were also able to track the first use of this spyware back to 2022. In this cluster, the infections began with phishing emails containing malicious attachments with the following names:

• SCAN_XXXX_<DATE>.pdf.lnk
• <DATE>_winscan_to_pdf.pdf.lnk
• Rostelecom.pdf.lnk (translated from Russian)
• Various others

The attackers behind this activity used similar file system paths and the same persistence method as the LeetAgent cluster. This led us to suspect that the two clusters might be related, and we confirmed a direct link when we discovered attacks in which this much more sophisticated spyware was launched by LeetAgent.

Connection between LeetAgent and commercial spyware called Dante

After analyzing this previously unknown, sophisticated spyware, we were able to identify it as commercial spyware called Dante, developed by the Italian company Memento Labs.

The Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative recently published an interesting report titled “Mythical Beasts and where to find them: Mapping the global spyware market and its threats to national security and human rights.” We think that comparing commercial spyware to mythical beasts is a fitting analogy. While everyone in the industry knows that spyware vendors exist, their “products” are rarely discovered or identified. Meanwhile, the list of companies developing commercial spyware is huge. Some of the most famous are NSO Group, Intellexa, Paragon Solutions, Saito Tech (formerly Candiru), Vilicius Holding (formerly FinFisher), Quadream, Memento Labs (formerly Hacking Team), negg Group, and RCS Labs. Some are always in the headlines, some we have reported on before, and a few have almost completely faded from view. One company in the latter category is Memento Labs, formerly known as Hacking Team.

Hacking Team (also stylized as HackingTeam) is one of the oldest and most famous spyware vendors. Founded in 2003, Hacking Team became known for its Remote Control Systems (RCS) spyware, used by government clients worldwide, and for the many controversies surrounding it. The company’s trajectory changed dramatically in 2015 when more than 400 GB of internal data was leaked online following a hack. In 2019, the company was acquired by InTheCyber Group and renamed Memento Labs. “We want to change absolutely everything,” the Memento Labs owner told Motherboard in 2019. “We’re starting from scratch.” Four years later, at the ISS World MEA 2023 conference for law enforcement and government intelligence agencies, Memento Labs revealed the name of its new surveillance tool – DANTE. Until now, little was known about this malware’s capabilities, and its use in attacks had not been discovered.

Excerpt from the agenda of the ISS World MEA 2023 conference (the typo was introduced on the conference website)

The problem with detecting and attributing commercial spyware is that vendors typically don’t include their copyright information or product names in their exploits and malware. In the case of the Dante spyware, however, attribution was simple once we got rid of VMProtect’s obfuscation and found the malware name in the code.

Dante spyware name in the code

Dante

Of course, our attribution isn’t based solely on the string “Dante” found in the code, but it was an important clue that pointed us in the right direction. After some additional analysis, we found a reference to a “2.0” version of the malware, which matches the title of the aforementioned conference talk. We then searched for and identified the most recent samples of Hacking Team’s Remote Control Systems (RCS) spyware. Memento Labs kept improving its codebase until 2022, when it was replaced by Dante. Even with the introduction of the new malware, however, not everything was built from scratch; the later RCS samples share quite a few similarities with Dante. All these findings make us very confident in our attribution.

Why did the authors name it Dante? This may be a nod to tradition, as RCS spyware was also known as “Da Vinci”. But it could also be a reference to Dante’s poem Divine Comedy, alluding to the many “circles of hell” that malware analysts must pass through when detecting and analyzing the spyware given its numerous anti-analysis techniques.

First of all, the spyware is packed with VMProtect. It obfuscates control flow, hides imported functions, and adds anti-debugging checks. On top of that, almost every string is encrypted.

VMProtect anti-debugging technique

To protect against dynamic analysis, Dante uses the following anti-hooking technique: when code needs to execute an API function, its address is resolved using a hash, its body is parsed to extract the system call number, and then a new system call stub is created and used.

Dante anti-hooking technique (simplified)

In addition to VMProtect’s anti-debugging techniques, Dante uses some common methods to detect debuggers. Specifically, it checks the debug registers (Dr0–Dr7) using NtGetContextThread, inspects the KdDebuggerEnabled field in the KUSER_SHARED_DATA structure, and uses NtQueryInformationProcess to detect debugging by querying the ProcessDebugFlags, ProcessDebugPort, ProcessDebugObjectHandle, and ProcessTlsInformation classes.

To protect itself from being discovered, Dante employs an interesting method of checking the environment to determine if it is safe to continue working. It queries the Windows Event Log for events that may indicate the use of malware analysis tools or virtual machines (as a guest or host).

The strings Dante searches for in the event logs

It also performs several anti-sandbox checks. It searches for “bad” libraries, measures the execution times of the sleep() function and the cpuid instruction, and checks the file system.

Some of these anti-analysis techniques may be a bit annoying, but none of them really work or can stop a professional malware analyst. We deal with these techniques on an almost daily basis.

After performing all the checks, Dante does the following: decrypts the configuration and the orchestrator, finds the string “DANTEMARKER” in the orchestrator, overwrites it with the configuration, and then loads the orchestrator.

The configuration is decrypted from the data section of the malware using a simple XOR cipher. The orchestrator is decrypted from the resource section and poses as a font file. Dante can also load and decrypt the orchestrator from the file system if a newer, updated version is available.

The orchestrator displays the code quality of a commercial product, but isn’t particularly interesting. It is responsible for communication with C2 via HTTPs protocol, handling modules and configuration, self-protection, and self-removal.

Modules can be saved and loaded from the file system or loaded from memory. The infection identifier (GUID) is encoded in Base64. Parts of the resulting string are used to derive the path to a folder containing modules and the path to additional settings stored in the registry.

An example of Dante’s paths derivation

The folder containing modules includes a binary file that stores information about all downloaded modules, including their versions and filenames. This metadata file is encrypted with a simple XOR cipher, while the modules are encrypted with AES-256-CBC, using the first 0x10 bytes of the module file as the IV and the key bound to the machine. The key is equal to the SHA-256 hash of a buffer containing the CPU identifier and the Windows Product ID.

To protect itself, the orchestrator uses many of the same anti-analysis techniques, along with additional checks for specific process names and drivers.

If Dante doesn’t receive commands within the number of days specified in the configuration, it deletes itself and all traces of its activity.

At the time of writing this report, we were unable to analyze additional modules because there are currently no active Dante infections among our users. However, we would gladly analyze them if they become available. Now that information about this spyware has been made public and its developer has been identified, we hope it won’t be long before additional modules are discovered and examined. To support this effort, we are sharing a method that can be used to identify active Dante spyware infections (see the Indicators of compromise section).

Although we didn’t see the ForumTroll APT group using Dante in the Operation ForumTroll campaign, we have observed its use in other attacks linked to this group. Notably, we saw several minor similarities between this attack and others involving Dante, such as similar file system paths, the same persistence mechanism, data hidden in font files, and other minor details. Most importantly, we found similar code shared by the exploit, loader, and Dante. Taken together, these findings allow us to conclude that the Operation ForumTroll campaign was also carried out using the same toolset that comes with the Dante spyware.

Conclusion

This time, we have not one, but three conclusions.

1) DuplicateHandle is a dangerous API function. If the process is privileged and the user can provide a handle to it, the code should return an error when a pseudo-handle is supplied.

2) Attribution is the most challenging part of malware analysis and threat intelligence, but also the most rewarding when all the pieces of the puzzle fit together perfectly. If you ever dreamed of being a detective as a child and solving mysteries like Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Columbo, or Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Inc. gang, then threat intelligence might be the right job for you!

3) Back in 2019, Hacking Team’s new owner stated in an interview that they wanted to change everything and start from scratch. It took some time, but by 2022, almost everything from Hacking Team had been redone. Now that Dante has been discovered, perhaps it’s time to start over again.

Full details of this research, as well as future updates on ForumTroll APT and Dante, are available to customers of the APT reporting service through our Threat Intelligence Portal.

Contact: intelreports@kaspersky.com

Indicators of compromise

Kaspersky detections
Exploit.Win32.Generic
Exploit.Win64.Agent
Trojan.Win64.Agent
Trojan.Win64.Convagent.gen
HEUR:Trojan.Script.Generic
PDM:Exploit.Win32.Generic
PDM:Trojan.Win32.Generic
UDS:DangerousObject.Multi.Generic

Folder with modules
The folder containing the modules is located in %LocalAppData%, and is named with an eight-byte Base64 string. It contains files without extensions whose names are also Base64 strings that are eight bytes long. One of the files has the same name as the folder. This information can be used to identify an active infection.

Loader
7d3a30dbf4fd3edaf4dde35ccb5cf926
3650c1ac97bd5674e1e3bfa9b26008644edacfed
2e39800df1cafbebfa22b437744d80f1b38111b471fa3eb42f2214a5ac7e1f13

LeetAgent
33bb0678af6011481845d7ce9643cedc
8390e2ebdd0db5d1a950b2c9984a5f429805d48c
388a8af43039f5f16a0673a6e342fa6ae2402e63ba7569d20d9ba4894dc0ba59

Dante
35869e8760928407d2789c7f115b7f83
c25275228c6da54cf578fa72c9f49697e5309694
07d272b607f082305ce7b1987bfa17dc967ab45c8cd89699bcdced34ea94e126

securelist.com/forumtroll-apt-…

We always enjoy videos from [w2aew]. His recent entry looks at vertical or VFETs, which are, as he puts it, a JFET that thinks it is a triode. He clearly explains how the transistor works as a conductor unless you bias the gate to form a depletion zone.

The transistors have a short channel, which means they conduct quite well. The low gate resistance and capacitance mean the devices can also switch very quickly. These devices were once in vogue for audio applications. However, they’d fallen out of favor until recently. The reason is that they work quite well in switching power supplies.

How good is the on resistance? So good that his meter reported the probes were shorted instead of measuring the resistance. Pretty good. We’ve seen these VFET transistors used as switches to drive magnetic field coils many years ago and they replaced much more complex circuitry.

The curve tracer in the video is a beautiful instrument of its own. The digital displays give it a high tech yet retro look. A curve tracer, if you haven’t used one, plots stepped voltages against current flowing, and is very useful for examining semiconductor devices. While not as fancy, it is possible to make one to connect to a scope quite easily.

We are pretty sure that it is a Tektronix 576. We watched a repair of a similar unit, the 577, if you’d like to see some (probably) similar insides.

youtube.com/embed/93ke5wM0gZ0?…

hackaday.com/2025/10/26/vfets-…

There was a bit of a kerfuffle this week with the news that an airliner had been hit by space junk. The plane, a United Airlines 737, was operating at 36,000 feet on a flight between Denver and Los Angeles when the right windscreen was completely shattered by the impact, peppering the arm of one pilot with bits of glass. Luckily, the heavily reinforced laminated glass stayed intact, but the flight immediately diverted to Salt Lake City and landed safely with no further injuries. The “space junk” report apparently got started by the captain, who reported that they saw what hit them and that “it looked like space debris.”

We were a little skeptical of this initial assessment, mainly because the pilots and everyone aboard the flight were still alive, which we’d assume would be spectacularly untrue had the plane been hit by anything beyond the smallest bit of space junk. As it turns out, our suspicions were justified when Silicon Valley startup WindBorne Systems admitted that one of its high-altitude balloons hit the flight. The company, which uses HABs to gather weather data for paying customers, seems to have complied with all the pertinent regulations, like filing a NOTAM, so why the collision happened is a bit of a mystery.

Their blog post about the incident contains a clue, though, since they have made an immediate change to “minimize time spent between 30,000 and 40,000 feet,” which is the sweet spot for commercial aviation. They also state that future changes will allow them to monitor flight tracking data and autonomously avoid planes. From this, we gather that the balloons can at least control their altitude, which perhaps means this one somehow got stuck at 36,000 feet. We’d love to know more about these HABs; we wonder if there’s any way to track and recover these things like there is for radiosondes?

In other initially fake news, there was a bit of a stir in amateur radio circles with a report that Hytera ham radios were being banned from sale in the U.S. The report came in a video from Matt Covers Tech, and suggested that Hytera’s handy talkie radios had somehow fallen afoul of regulators. We did some checking around but couldn’t come up with anything to back up this claim until the indispensable Josh (KI6NAZ) over at Ham Radio Crash Course got ahold of the story and did his usual bang-up analysis. TL;DW — no, Hytera handy talkies are not being banned from sale in the U.S., but yes, the company does seem to be in a heap of trouble with the FCC and the federal government over some of their other shenanigans, to the point of felony indictments.

youtube.com/embed/RsX3JztCcLU?…

Back in the day, pranks were pretty simple and, with the possible exception of a burning poop-filled paper bag catching the bushes next to your front step on fire, mostly harmless. But pranks seem to scale with time and with technology, to the point where it’s now possible to stuff a dead-end street with 50 Waymos robotaxis. The stunt, which prankster Riley Walz describes in high-tech terms as “the world’s first Waymo DDoS” attack — we seriously doubt that — was carried out in a decidedly low-tech manner by enlisting 50 co-conspirators to simultaneously order a ride to San Francisco’s longest dead-end street. The Jaguar robotaxis dutifully reported to the address, packing the narrow street with waiting cars. Nobody got into the cars, resulting in a $5 missed-ride charge, but even if the riders did show up, we assume the autonomous cars would have had the robot equivalent of a stroke trying to figure out how to get out of each other’s way. Like most pranks, it was pretty cool as long as you weren’t the one on the receiving end. It’s not clear whether there were any repercussions for Riley — again, we doubt it — but we can imagine there would have been had anyone on that street needed fire or EMS while the attack was in progress.

If you’ve been worried about AI, you’re not alone. And while there’s plenty to be concerned about, according to Andy Masley, water use by AI data centers shouldn’t be one of them. In his excellent analysis, he looks at all the details of AI water use and comes to the convincing conclusion that, all things considered, U.S. data centers really don’t use that much water — about 0.2% of the 132 billion gallons consumed nationwide every day. Even then, that fraction of a percent includes the water needed to generate the electricity for those data centers; take that out, and the number drops to about 50 million gallons a day. And those figures are for all data centers; limited to just AI data centers, that number drops to about 0.008% of the freshwater consumed daily nationwide. We haven’t checked Andy’s math, of course, nor have we vetted his bona fides or checked to see if he has an axe to grind in this area. But it’s an eye-opening article nonetheless.

And finally, if you just can’t get enough of the surveillance state while you’re out in the world, you can now extend pervasive monitoring tech into the very heart of your home with the world’s first toilet wearable. The aptly named Throne One clips to the rim of your toilet and uses an array of sensors to monitor your gut health. The company doesn’t specify what sensors are used, but since the main data points seem to be where your poop falls on the Bristol Stool Scale and measuring hydration by urine color, there’s got to be a camera in there somewhere. There’s also allowance for multiple users, and while we suppose the polar opposite of facial recognition could be used to distinguish one butt from another, we’d imagine it would be simpler to determine who’s using the toilet via Bluetooth. There’s also a microphone, to listen in on “urinary dynamics” for those who pee standing up. Honestly, while we’d never actually use this thing, we’d love to do a teardown and see what’s inside. New in box only, of course.

hackaday.com/2025/10/26/hackad…

I use Mastodon from time to time and i am now trying Friendica.
People say that Friendica is really awesome and can do a lot of things, etc...
and ok it has groups like #Facebook does and other features that i have yet to explore, but i am quite disappointed i must say, most groups are basically dead with 3 users and no posts or very few posts.
On facebook i can find groups about weird things like VCR Fanatics or cool stuff, but here there is nothing ....

Am i missing something here? 🥺

homehack.nl/when-to-use-friend…

Ho trovato questo articolo che tratta brevemente i due, certo è un po' vecchietto, ma immagino che renda l'idea. Ci smanetterò ancora sopra.
Anche se, a meno di sbagliarmi, anche su #Mastodon posso interfacciarmi con #BlueSky e altri social federati

Non so, non so particolarmente convinto da questo Friendica.
Sicuramente ha molte più opzioni di Mastodon, ma mi pare tanto primordiale ancora e quando infili tante cose poi alla fine non viene bene niente. 😁

Quanta gente utilizza questo social network?