Tag Archive for: Terrifying

Top election leaders worry ‘terrifying’ AI will dupe voters


Top election leaders worry ‘terrifying’ AI will dupe voters

Semi-annual gathering of election leaders focuses on use of generative artificial intelligence, growing withdrawals from key election fraud prevention alliance

The potential use of content-generating artificial intelligence and deepfake videos to sway or dupe voters is a growing concern of secretaries of state across the country, according to interviews with a dozen and a half top election leaders at their semi-annual gathering held this week in the nation’s capital. “This is the number one issue that we’re talking about behind the scenes at this conference,” said Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams. “It’s a big concern,” echoed David Scanlan, secretary of state in New Hampshire. Scott Schwab, the secretary of state in Kansas and newly-installed president of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), said the challenge of AI in campaigns and elections is “very real, very fast.”Nebraska Secretary of State Robert Evnen warned, “It can also be very damaging and destructive.”Legislation focuses on deepfakesPhil McGrane, who oversees Idaho elections as secretary of state, said he recently tried out a generative AI tool – and quickly discovered its fallibility. “I had it write a bio of me, and it provided information that was written very persuasively but was, in fact, inaccurate.”A few states are starting to take legislative action. In Washington, Steve Hobbs, the secretary of state, said he helped introduce legislation, signed into law in May by Gov. Jay Inslee, that “goes after the deepfakes” by requiring disclosure of manipulated videos in political ads. Such AI-distorted videos make it appear a speaker said something that, in reality, they did not. “We have to get ahead of this threat,” Hobbs said.WATCH FULL INTERVIEWS WITH TOP STATE ELECTION LEADERS AT THE END OF THIS STORY.“I think that it’s just going to…

Source…

The Terrifying Malware Targeting Meta Ad Accounts


Ducktail: The Malware Targeting Meta Ad Accounts

It is the malware that’s terrifying digital marketers. It’s called Ducktail — and, with a pinch of social engineering, it can get into your Meta ad accounts and start spending millions of dollars on your company’s credit card.

And if you think two-factor authentication will save you, you’re wrong, because this exploit can even get past hardware keys like Yubico.

It happened to MTA Digital, a performance ad agency in Poland. Paweł Skibiński leads paid social there. They noticed the hack when a colleague was at a workshop, showing their biggest client some of their campaign performance.

Paweł: He saw that something was wrong with the naming of the campaigns. And he [said] “Wait a minute, these are not our campaigns.” Then we just ended the workshop.

The hackers had gotten in, essentially ignoring their two-factor authentication, and started spending. More than a million dollars.

Paweł: It was using a browser plugin — some of the plugins [were] hacked, and they used that to get access.

Tod: But what did the plugin’s functionality purport to do? Like, presumably you didn’t download a plugin for your browser called “Let us into your Facebook account.” What did it pretend to be on its way in?

Paweł: This was some kind of grammar plugin, but it was [one] of the normal ones. So it wasn’t that suspicious…. With some plugins, they want more access to the website than the other ones. 

We now have a very strict list of plugins that we can use on the browser that we are logged into company accounts in.

For example, the TikTok pixel helper, we don’t use it on those accounts, because it just asks for too much. And last time I checked Twitter’s pixel helper — it was like more than two years ago — but at that time, it was also just asking for too much.

Then, they got hacked a second time. But this time, the hackers didn’t even need a browser plugin. Skibiński believes they were able to scrape the two-factor backup codes using an invisible web browser.

This weekend, our full conversation where Paweł and his colleague go step-by-step how they were hacked and what brands and agencies can do to protect themselves from this very scary malware.

Source…

‘Absolutely terrifying prospect’: How the midterms could weaken U.S. election security


It’s “an absolutely terrifying prospect,” said J. Alex Halderman, a computer security expert and professor at the University of Michigan who has repeatedly exposed flaws in voting systems but has also debunked Trump’s claims about 2020 fraud.

For years, physical safeguards such as padlocks and cameras have prevented intruders from exploiting the digital flaws that security experts routinely find in election equipment. But this year’s elections could sweep away these safeguards in key battleground states, in yet another example of fallout from Trump’s baseless allegations of vote-rigging.

Larry Norden, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Elections and Government Program at New York University, said ongoing efforts “to get people in office to provide unauthorized access to election equipment to untrustworthy parties” are putting elections at risk.

Republican candidates promoting Trump’s election conspiracy theories include Pennsylvania gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano — who would get to appoint the secretary of state and has said he could order his pick to “decertify every machine in the state with the stroke of a pen” — and Kristina Karamo, Mark Finchem, Jim Marchant and Diego Morales, who are running for secretary of state in Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and Indiana, respectively.

POLITICO requested interviews with all of these candidates. A Karamo spokesperson initially suggested that an interview might be possible but did not arrange one. Efforts to reach Morales’ campaign were unsuccessful. Spokespeople for the other candidates did not respond to emails.

Authorities in several states, including Pennsylvania, Arizona and Michigan, have scrambled to replace election equipment after pro-Trump officials compromised their security. In Colorado, a grand jury this year indicted a county clerk on charges that she had conspired to breach the security of her office’s voting systems. (The clerk, Tina Peters, later lost the GOP primary for Colorado secretary of state.)

Election offices routinely conduct official audits by scrutinizing paper records and electronic data to ensure that the vote tallies are correct, and these offices…

Source…

Android WARNING: Terrifying malware on Google Play Store BREAKS through advanced security – Express

Android WARNING: Terrifying malware on Google Play Store BREAKS through advanced security  Express

ANDROID users have been put on alert about a terrifying new piece of malware found on the Google Play Store that can break through advanced security.

“android security news” – read more