Join us as we journey through all the tech news out there to bring you a few gems that caught our eyes. Enjoy as we wander through various sectors of life and business.
Healthcare
After the cyberattack on Ascension earlier this month the Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center issued a threat alert regarding the Black Basta ransomware group calling it a “major threat to the healthcare industry.” The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Department of Health and Human Services, and Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center released a joint advisory to help provide information and protect other organizations from falling victim as well.
Cybersecurity
Speaking of Black Basta…The Microsoft Threat Intelligence team has reportedly observed a cybercriminal group known to deploy Black Basta abusing the client management tool Quick Assist. While Quick Assist is a legit application (it is a default app on Windows 11 devices), mainly used to allow remote sharing of a device for troubleshooting purposes, it is being misused by these cybercriminals who are posing as IT Support to gain access to the device. I’m sure you can guess the rest - ransomware is installed, chaos ensues…not good. So what can you do to protect yourself and your company? It has been recommended to block or uninstall Quick Assist and other remote monitoring/management tools if not in use and remember knowledge is power so the more well trained and alert you and your staff are to spot things like tech support scams the better off you'll be. For more information read and maybe pass along to your peers/staff this super informative article: Cybercriminals Exploiting Microsoft's Quick Assist Feature in Ransomware Attacks
Finance
A brute force attack, aka enumeration attack, is a trial and error hacking method used to crack passwords, usernames, and even credit card information. Yes, that’s right - credit card info - and now hackers are using automated scripts and botnets to do this with extraordinary speed. It sounds pretty dismal, I know, but Visa is introducing a tool that uses generative AI to try to identify these attacks in real-time and stop them. Want to know more - check out this article: Visa applies generative AI to clamp down on brute force attacks
Now after all that heavy talk about hackers and ransomware on to something brighter.
Oil & Gas/Energy
Efficiency is the name of the game over at Honeywell as their latest technology will help them more efficiently produce two high demand chemicals while at the same time helping their customers lower carbon emissions. Not to mention the possible net cash margin increase of 15-50%! Efficiency, Sustainability, and Profitability - oh my! Read more here: Honeywell’s new naphtha technology set to improve energy efficiency and profitability in olefin production
Science & Engineering
Sound waves - they are all around us, an integral part of our lives. From the ones that reach us as our favorite song or our way-too-early morning alarm clock to the imperceptible, high-frequency, ultrasound waves that detect a fetus in the womb or a tumor in the body, we often take them for granted. Despite this, they are vital in a vast number of fields and for this acoustic lenses are essential as they accurately focus sound waves. Distortion is like the super-villain to these lenses and it has been an issue; when sound waves approach at non-perpendicular angles traditional acoustic metalenses suffer from sound distortion. Every villain needs a hero to defeat them right - well Professor Junsuk Rho and his team may be just those heroes. Check out this paper and their work on a wide field-of-hearing acoustic metalens free from aberrations: Wide field-of-hearing metalens for aberration-free sound capture | Nature Communications
I hope you found these recent bits of tech news as informative as we did!