Meizu quits the smartphone business to focus on AI

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Meizu quits the smartphone business to focus on AI
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Meizu seemingly quits the smartphone business, as the company plans to focus on AI. This news does not come as a shock, but it is still a bit surprising. I’ll explain why soon, but let’s first see what happened.

Meizu has decided to quit the smartphone business to focus on AI

A well-known tipster, Roland Quandt, reported that Meizu said that the company is “All in on AI”. He also said that the meaning behind it is “no more phones from us”. The company is stopping production on “traditional phones”, it’s said.

To quote the company exactly: “Meizu has decided to go All in AI and will stop traditional “smartphone” projects”. The company will focus on the creation of “tomorrow’s devices” driven by AI.

Meizu was acquired by Geely back in 2022

As some of you may know, Meizu was acquired by Geely back in 2022. Geely is a Chinese car maker, for those of you who are out of the loop. Meizu did make some phones since then, but not a lot.

Considering that Meizu barely releases any phones every year, some sort of change was expected. Meizu’s CEO, Shen Ziyu, did note that smartphone consumers are now taking a longer time to upgrade their devices.

It seems like Meizu is canceling the development of its upcoming smartphone models, the Meizu 21 Pro, Meizu 22, and Meizu 23. Shen said that the move away from the smartphone business actually resonates with Meizu’s history.

The company started off as an MP3 manufacturer

Some of you may know that Meizu started off as an MP3 manufacturer. It did not start as a smartphone manufacturer. It did switch to the smartphone business at one point, and it did great… for a while. Many expected great things from Meizu, but things took the wrong turn.

Shen added that Meizu is fully ready to embrace AI. The company seems to be planning to launch a new mobile operating system tailored for the AI era. Some sort of an AI hardware product is also coming later this year.

Meizu does reassure its consumers that support existing products will remain live, so no worries there.


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Russian Hackers Hit Mail Servers in Europe for Political and Military Intel

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Russian Hackers Hit Mail Servers in Europe for Political and Military Intel
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A Russian-linked actor, TAG-70, has targeted mail servers in Ukraine, Georgia, and Poland, aiming to collect intelligence on European political and military activities, particularly related to Ukraine’s war efforts.

Recorded Future’s Insikt Group has identified TAG-70, a potential threat actor allegedly working for Belarus and Russia, targeting government, military, and infrastructure entities across Europe and Central Asia since December 2020. The latest round of attacks was observed between October and December 2023.

The group is also known as Winter Vivern, TA-473, and UAC-0114. According to Insikt Group’s report (PDF), Tag-70 was discovered exploiting cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in Roundcube webmail servers across Europe.

The group mainly targeted government, military, and national infrastructure in Georgia, Poland, and Ukraine whereas targets were also observed in Belgium, France, the Czech Republic, Germany, and the UK. 

TAG-70, reportedly, used social engineering techniques to gain unauthorized access to mail servers across 80 organizations, including the Iranian Embassies in Moscow and the Netherlands, and the Georgia Embassy in Sweden.

The campaign aimed to gather intelligence on European political and military affairs, potentially gaining strategic advantages or undermining European security and alliances. Servers were primarily affected in Ukraine (30.9%), Georgia (13.6%), and Poland (12.3%)

Russian Hackers Hit Mail Servers in Europe for Political and Military Intel
The geographical distribution of victims affected by the TAG-70s Roundcube exploit in October 2023, according to Recorded Future.

This espionage attack uses spearphishing emails to deliver JavaScript payloads, exploiting the Roundcube vulnerability tracked as CVE-2023-563. Malicious code logs users out of Roundcube, presenting a new sign-in window.

The zero-day exploit allowed unauthorized access to mail servers across 80 organizations, including transport, education, chemical, and biological research sectors. The activity is similar to previous campaigns by other Russian-aligned threat groups like BlueDelta and Sandworm, which also targeted email solutions like Roundcube.

The compromised email servers pose a significant risk to Ukraine’s war effort, diplomatic relations, and coalition partners. Researchers warn that cyber-espionage groups targeting webmail software platforms, including Roundcube, may expose sensitive information about Ukraine’s defence efforts, partner countries, and third-party cooperation. They predict that these groups will continue targeting these platforms as Ukraine’s conflict continues and tensions with the EU and NATO rise.

Organizations must patch Roundcube installations, detect indicators of compromise (IoCs), and implement robust cybersecurity measures to mitigate the threat. Other effective security measures include strengthening email security, preferring encryption, secure email gateways, regular audits, employee awareness training, and network segmentation. The sophisticated attack methods and potential national security impact highlight the need for vigilance and awareness.

  1. Microsoft Executives’ Emails Breached by Russia Hackers
  2. Russian Hackers Employ Telekopye Toolkit in Phishing Attacks
  3. Russian APT29 Hacked US Biomedical Giant in TeamCity Breach
  4. Microsoft Outlook Flaw Exploited by Russian Forest Blizzard Group
  5. Russian Midnight Blizzard Hackers Hit MS Teams in Precision Attack

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WhatsApp is testing a new status upadate tray in Android beta

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WhatsApp is testing a new status upadate tray in Android beta
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One part of the WhatsApp experience is being able to see other people’s status updates when you go to the Updates tab. This is pretty convenient, but people have had their gripes for a while. Well, WhatsApp is currently testing a new status update tray in the Android beta, and it’s going to make a lot of people happy.

Currently, this feature is being tested. This means that WhatsApp could very well take this feature away or change it. So, you’ll want to take this news with a grain of salt. There’s no 100% guarantee that that will launch this feature.

WhatsApp is testing a new status update tray that may make people happy

This feature was discovered in the WhatsApp beta for Android version 2.24.4.23. You can download this update if you are part of the Android beta version of the app. However, there’s a chance that you still won’t see it even if you get the update. WhatsApp is testing this on a limited number of users.

Currently, when you are on the update tab, you’ll see status updates from other users. In order to check the contents of the stories, you’ll have to tap on the user’s profile pictures. That’s not all too inconvenient, but it can be tedious if there are a lot of stories to go through. However, with this update, WhatsApp is testing the ability to get a quick preview of the stories before you tap on the icons.

Looking at this screenshot below, we see a large preview of a story. So, when you are scrolling through the available stories, you will see a preview of the first story posted for each person. This will allow you to see them and get an idea of what the person is posting. It will eliminate the need to tap on every person’s individual profile picture just to see the first story.

At this point, we have no idea when/if WhatsApp plans on releasing this feature to the public. Since it’s still in testing, it could be a while before we see this feature hit the surface. We’ll just have to be patient.


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New WiFi vulnerabilities open home, enterprise networks to attack

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New WiFi vulnerabilities open home, enterprise networks to attack
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Two major flaws in open-source software could enable bad actors to break into password-protected home and enterprise WiFi networks. The vulnerabilities affecting WiFi networks were published in Top10VPN, with contributions from Mathy Vanhoef, a leading security researcher. The two flaws are separate, but together, open up many home and enterprise WiFi networks to attacks. Specifically, the security vulnerabilities allow for what are known as authentication bypass attacks. These would allow hackers to trick users into connecting to cloned versions of trusted networks, intercept their data, and join the real networks without a password.

How many devices are at risk from these WiFi network vulnerabilities?

The biggest flaw concerns wpa_supplicant v2.10 and lower, which is used by Android devices to connect to password-protected WiFi networks. Additionally, the researchers say that wpa_supplicant is also used to connect to WiFi networks in Linux and ChromeOS devices, so the vulnerabilities are far-reaching. According to the paper, this flaw will only affect devices that aren’t configured properly. However, the researchers add that many Android devices aren’t configured properly. They suspect that 2.3 billion Android users could be affected by this one security flaw.

The wpa_supplicant security issue only concerns enterprise networks (WPA2-E or WPA3-E), so home users need not worry. But considering how many businesses and schools use enterprise networks, it’s still an issue. The education sector seems particularly at risk since ChromeOS devices are extremely common there. Plus, students may be more likely to be duped by cloned WiFi networks, especially at younger ages. It’s also risky due to the fact that sensitive information is often secured by these enterprise networks.

The second vulnerability concerns the IWD software and affects home networks. However, it only puts Linux devices at risk, so not many users will be affected by this flaw.

How can you protect your devices?

These security issues have been reported. The wpa_supplicant bug is being tracked as CVE-2023-52160, and the IWD flaw is being tracked as CVE-2023-52161. Presumably, work is being done to patch these flaws immediately.

In fact, there are already some fixes for certain platforms. ChromeOS devices can be updated to version 118, which includes a fix for the wpa_supplicant bug. However, Android devices are still waiting for a fix, which will come in a subsequent Android security update. Until then, the researchers say that a CAT tool can be used to secure their devices. Linux users will need to wait for their preferred distro to release a patch for wpa_supplicant.


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Why keeping track of user accounts is important

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Why keeping track of user accounts is important
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CISA (the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency) has issued a cybersecurity advisory after the discovery of documents containing host and user information of a state government organization’s network environment—including metadata—on a dark web brokerage site.

An attacker managed to compromise network administrator credentials through the account of a former employee of the organization. The attacker managed to authenticate to an internal virtual private network (VPN) access point, further navigate the victim’s on-premises environment, and execute various lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) queries against a domain controller.

CISA suspects that the account details fell in the hands of the attacker through a data breach. This would not have posed a problem if the account had been disabled when the employee left. But the account still had access with administrative privileges to two virtualized servers including SharePoint and the workstation.

The incident responders’ logs revealed the attacker first connected from an unknown virtual machine (VM) to the victim’s on-premises environment via internet protocol (IP) addresses within their internal VPN range.

On the SharePoint server, the attacker obtained global domain administrator credentials that were stored locally on the server. This account also provided the attacker with access to the on-premises Active Directory (AD) and Azure AD.

The attacker executed LDAP queries to collect user, host, and trust relationship information. The results of these queries are believed to have been among the information that was offered for sale.

Mitigation advice

When an employee leaves there may be several possible reasons not to immediately remove all their accounts. But you should at least remove their privileges as soon as possible and change the password.

The CISA advisory lists several points of advice about user accounts:

  • Review current administrator accounts and only maintain those that are essential for network management.
  • Restrict the use of multiple administrator accounts for one user.
  • Create separate administrator accounts for on-premises and Azure environments to segment access.
  • Implement the principle of least privilege and grant only access to what is necessary. It makes sense to revoke privileges after the task they were needed for is done.
  • Use phishing-resistant multifactor authentication (MFA). The only widely available phishing-resistant authentication is FIDO/WebAuthn authentication.

More general tips are:

  • Account and group policies: Set up a robust and continuous user management process to ensure accounts of offboarded employees are removed and can no longer access the network.
  • Awareness of your environment: Maintain a robust asset management policy through comprehensive documentation of assets, tracking current version information to maintain awareness of outdated software, and mapping assets to business and critical functions.
  • Patching procedures: If you do not have a Vulnerability and Patch Management solution, establish a routine patching cycle for all operating systems, applications, and software.
  • Monitoring and logging: It’s essential to keep an eye on what is happening in your environment so you are aware of atypical events and logs that can help you figure out what happened exactly.

Our business solutions remove all remnants of ransomware and prevent you from getting reinfected. Want to learn more about how we can help protect your business? Get a free trial below.


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Google reveals Galaxy A35 design and specs ahead of launch

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Google reveals Galaxy A35 design and specs ahead of launch
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The Galaxy A35 and Galaxy A55, Samsung‘s upcoming mid-range smartphones, have been consistently leaking in recent weeks. The devices have appeared in several certification and benchmark listings. The company has also put up support pages for the duo on its official website. The former has now been spotted on the Google Play Console, revealing its design and some specs.

Samsung’s Galaxy A35 listed on the Google Play Console

The Google Play Console listed the global version of the Galaxy A35 (model number SM-A356E) with 6GB of RAM. As confirmed through Geekbench last week, the phone will also come in an 8GB RAM variant. It will be powered by Samsung’s Exynos 1380 chipset, also found in last year’s Galaxy A54 and Galaxy Tab S9 FE series. The 5nm processor has four ARM Cortex-A78 CPU cores clocked at 2.4GHz and four Cortex-A55 cores at 2.0GHz.

Samsung has paired the CPU with ARM’s Mali G68 GPU operating at a maximum frequency of 950MHz. This listing also confirms the rumored display resolution of 1080×2340 pixels with a 450 DPI screen density. We should be looking at a 6.6-inch Super AMOLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. The accompanying image confirms a hole-punch display for the Galaxy A35 rather than a notch like its predecessor.

This change makes the device look more premium and modern. Samsung has also recently introduced a new design element that it calls the “Key Island” design. It has raised the frame around the power and volume buttons to make a sort of island around them. We first saw this design on the Galaxy A15 and Galaxy A25 a couple of months ago. The Galaxy A35 and Galaxy A55 will arrive with the same overall look, though there are a few minor differences.

Samsung Galaxy A35 Google Play Console 2

For example, the Galaxy A55, which is the most superior model in the lineup, has its camera lenses protruding out of the back panel more than the Galaxy A35. It also features a metallic frame, which is confirmed by leaked renders. We exclusively leaked the official renders of both handsets last month. The devices have also leaked through multiple other sources in recent weeks. An official launch date is still missing.

Samsung might unveil the new A-series devices in April

Rumors say Samsung will launch the Galaxy A35 and Galaxy A55 a few weeks later than expected. The 2023 models arrived in March, so the upcoming duo could debut in early April. While the phones look identical, they will differ significantly internally. The devices will pack different processors and cameras, among other things. We expect more leaks about the Galaxy A35 and Galaxy A55 in the build-up to launch.

Samsung Galaxy A35 Google Play Console 1


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Mark Zuckerberg reveals the forces driving tech industry layoffs

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Mark Zuckerberg reveals the forces driving tech industry layoffs
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There has been an increase in the number of IT businesses reporting layoffs in recent months. Many individuals are perplexed. Mark Zuckerberg, one of the most well-known people in the internet sector, recently provided some explanation for why this may be occurring.

Mark Zuckerberg’s explanation

The CEO of Meta appeared in a Friday podcast interview with Morning Brew Daily. He stated that the businesses are still getting used to the post-pandemic environment. In an extensive discussion, he covered a wide range of issues, including competition with Apple.

Mark Zuckerberg points to the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on the economy. These were to blame for the tech industry’s current round of layoffs. Many firms have seen a sharp decline in income. As a result, many of them are being forced to close or operate at reduced capacity around the globe. Because of this, tough choices have had to be taken, including making layoffs, to weather the economic storm.

But, why is the epidemic particularly affecting IT businesses so severely? Zuckerberg claims that advertising revenue has been severely impacted by the epidemic. Moreover, it is a big source of income for digital businesses. Tech firms that depend on advertising as their main source of income are suffering the impact of corporations. Hence, they are reducing their advertising budgets and consumers are spending less.

The shift in consumer behaviour

Consumer behaviour has changed significantly as more individuals remain at home and rely on technology for communication, entertainment, and work. It’s possible that certain IT businesses are finding it difficult to adjust to these developments and that, as a result, their services or products are becoming less in demand. This change in customer behaviour may force businesses to make unpopular choices, including layoffs, to survive.

Increased competition

New companies and established firms are always fighting for market share in the tech industry, which is recognized for its intense rivalry. To be competitive in this highly competitive environment, businesses may need to simplify their processes and concentrate on their core competencies. Making difficult choices about employee numbers and reorganizing the company to become more flexible and effective may be necessary to achieve this.

Economic uncertainty

The economic picture is unclear for the future; many analysts anticipate a protracted period of economic recovery. In an environment like this, computer businesses could be recruiting and investing more conservatively to guard against future legal problems. To maintain long-term survival and balance their budgets, corporations may have to lay off employees as a result of this cautious strategy.

The importance of diversification

In addition, Zuckerberg underlined the value of diversity during difficult economic times. Businesses with several revenue sources, such as e-commerce or subscription services, are more resilient to market fluctuations than those that depend just on advertising. Through diversification, businesses may counteract losses in one sector with growth in another, giving them more security in tumultuous times.

The economic difficulties brought on by the epidemic are the primary cause of the present layoffs occurring at IT businesses. Businesses that have diversified their income streams are better positioned to withstand the storm as they must make difficult decisions to survive. It will be interesting to watch how the IT business changes and adjusts to the new normal as we navigate these uncertain times.

In conclusion, Mark Zuckerberg’s justification clarifies the reasons for the current wave of layoffs at IT businesses. Companies now have to make tough choices to survive due to the pandemic’s economic effects, especially on advertising income. The secrets to surviving the storm are diversification and having several revenue streams.


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Nothing Phone (2a) gets benchmarked ahead of launch

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Nothing Phone (2a) gets benchmarked ahead of launch
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The Nothing Phone (2a) was benchmarked ahead of its launch. The phone appeared over at AnTuTu 10 listing. Do note that this could be a pre-release build, however, so take note that the results may not be the most accurate.

The Nothing Phone (2a) ended up getting benchmarked ahead of launch

Now, in the image below, you’ll see the Nothing Phone (2a), it’s the first in line. Next to it are the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ and the OnePlus Nord CE 3, respectively. The Nothing Phone (2a) seemingly scored the highest out of the three.

Nothing Phone 2a AnTuTu 10

The phone managed to reach 738,164 points on AnTuTU 10, while it reached 236,788 points in the CPU test, and 180,516 points in the GPU test. This test also revealed a score of 137,288 points in the memory portion, and 183.572 points in the UX portion.

These results probably come from the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 processor. That is the rumored chip for this smartphone. A number of sources reported the same thing, actually, so it’s probably true.

All phones compared here are fueled by the same processor, the MediaTek Dimensity 7200

The other two phones that are included here are also fueled by the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 chip, by the way, that’s why they were included in this comparison by the source.

What about the phone’s other specs? Well, the Nothing Phone (2a) is said to be available in both 8GB and 12GB RAM flavors, with 128GB and 256GB of storage, respectively.

A 50-megapixel main camera is said to be backed by a 50-megapixel ultrawide camera, and both sensors are said to be provided by Samsung. The phone will support 45W wired charging, and ship with Android 14 out of the box. The Nothing OS 2.5 will be included on top fo Google’s OS.

The phone’s pricing is expected to start at €349 in Europe, while the 12GB RAM model will cost €399. The phone will not launch in the US, it will only be available through the developer program.

The Nothing Phone (2a) will launch on March 5, after the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, for some reason, even though Nothing will be in Barcelona.


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OpenAI wants to own the term “GPT”, but it can’t

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OpenAI wants to own the term “GPT”, but it can’t
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Whenever you think of the term GPT, you usually think of the company OpenAI. The company’s smash-hit chatbot ChatGPT has brought the term GPT into the public mind space. However, this is not a term that the company created. However, OpenAI is now attempting to trademark the term GPT, but the US Patent Trademark Office (PTO) is not letting it.

The term GPT has been tossed around a lot nowadays, and it’s heavily associated with AI technology. This is true, as the term means “Generative Pre-trained Transformer.” It’s all in the name; a generative AI model is a pre-trained piece of technology that generates data. So, any piece of generative AI technology uses a GPT.

OpenAI wants to trademark the term GPT, but it can’t

If you want to get a trademark in the US, you will need to fill out a lengthy application and have the US PTO review it. Getting a trademark is a lengthy and expensive process and, just like any application process, it has the possibility of being rejected. Well, this is the case with OpenAI.

The company wants to trademark the term GPT so that it can claim ownership over it. However, according to the report, the US PTO says that the term GPT is much too broad of a term. This is true, as GPT is a literal branch of technology. Imagine trying to trademark the term OLED.

OpenAI argues that the term GPT isn’t too broad of a term, as it’s not immediately understood by the public. This is true, as not many people outside of the tech space know what GPT means. However, the PTO office argues that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if people know about it or not. What matters is that it’s a term that applies to basically the entirety of generative AI.

Google uses GPTs along with Meta, X, Anthropic AI, and the billions of other AI chatbots and image generators that have popped up over the last year and four months. Also, many of the generative AI tools on the market use the term GPT. So, there’s no telling what sort of legal ramifications could occur if OpenAI were able to trademark GPT.

When it comes to trademarking, you’re only able to appeal your claim twice. So, third strike, and you’re out. OpenAI tried to trademark GPT back in May of 2023, and this is now the company’s first appeal. It can only appeal once more before being shut down for good.


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SolarWinds ARM Flaw Let Attackers Execute Remote Code

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SolarWinds ARM Flaw Let Attackers Execute Remote Code
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SolarWinds has released their Access Rights Manager version 2023.2.3, in which several vulnerabilities associated with Deserialization and Directory Traversal leading to Remote code execution have been fixed. The CVEs of these vulnerabilities were assigned with

  • CVE-2023-40057 (Deserialization of Untrusted Data Remote Code Execution)
  • CVE-2023-23476 (Directory Traversal Remote Code Execution Vulnerability)
  • CVE-2023-23477 (Directory Traversal Remote Code Execution Vulnerability)
  • CVE-2023-23478 (Deserialization of Untrusted Data Remote Code Execution) and 
  • CVE-2023-23479 (Directory Traversal Remote Code Execution Vulnerability).

The severity for these vulnerabilities ranges between 7.9 (High) and 9.6 (Critical). Several organizations use Access Rights Manager to gather reports about who has access to data and when the data was accessed.

However, SolarWinds has credited multiple security researchers for reporting these vulnerabilities.

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SolarWinds ARM Flaw

Remote Code Execution in SolarWinds ARM : (CVE-2023-40057 and CVE-2024-23478)

These vulnerabilities existed in the SolarWinds Access Rights Manager, which allows an authenticated user to abuse a SolarWinds service that could result in remote code execution on the vulnerable instance. The severity for these vulnerabilities has been given as CVE-2023-40057 (9.0 – Critical) and CVE-2023-23478 (8.0 – High). 

There was no additional information about this vulnerability provided by SolarWinds nor evidence of exploitation in the wild. SolarWinds also thanked Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) for responsibly disclosing this vulnerability.

Directory Traversal Remote Code Execution Vulnerability: (CVE-2024-23476, CVE-2024-23477 and CVE-2024-23479)

These vulnerabilities existed in the SolarWinds Access Rights Manager that could allow an unauthenticated user to perform a remote code execution on the vulnerable instance. The severity for these vulnerabilities has been given as CVE-2024-23476 (9.6 – Critical), CVE-2024-23477 (7.9 – High), and CVE-2024-23479 (9.6 – Critical). 

Moreover, these vulnerabilities were credited to an Anonymous person working with Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative. However, there was no additional information about these vulnerabilities nor any evidence of exploitation of this vulnerability.

All of these vulnerabilities existed on SolarWinds Access Rights Manager 2023.2.2. SolarWinds urges all its users to upgrade to the latest version, 2023.2.3, to prevent these vulnerabilities from being exploited by threat actors.

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