Top of the Day

Google Revises AI Ethics Policy, Drops Ban on Weapons and Surveillance

(AI Insider – 5 February 2025) Google has removed its explicit commitment to avoiding AI applications for weapons and surveillance in an update to its AI Principles. Previously, the company pledged not to develop AI technologies that could cause harm, including those used for military or surveillance purposes that violate international norms. – https://theaiinsider.tech/2025/02/05/google-revises-ai-ethics-policy-drops-ban-on-weapons-and-surveillance/

European Commission publishes the Guidelines on prohibited artificial intelligence (AI) practices, as defined by the AI Act

(European Commission – 4 February 2025) The AI Act, which aims to promote innovation while ensuring high levels of health, safety, and fundamental rights protection, classifies AI systems into different risk categories, including prohibited, high-risk, and those subject to transparency obligations. The guidelines specifically address practices such as harmful manipulation, social scoring, and real-time remote biometric identification, among others. The guidelines are designed to ensure the consistent, effective, and uniform application of the AI Act across the European Union. While they offer valuable insights into the Commission’s interpretation of the prohibitions, they are non-binding, with authoritative interpretations reserved for the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The guidelines provide legal explanations and practical examples to help stakeholders understand and comply with the AI Act’s requirements. This initiative underscores the EU’s commitment to fostering a safe and ethical AI landscape. The Commission has approved the draft guidelines, but not yet formally adopted them. – https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/commission-publishes-guidelines-prohibited-artificial-intelligence-ai-practices-defined-ai-act

Governance and Legislation

ASEAN’s DEFA won’t plug the gender gap in entrepreneurship

(Adelia Rahmawati – East Asia Forum – 5 February 2025) ASEAN’s Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) aims to boost the region’s digital economy and enhance connectivity. But ASEAN’s women entrepreneurs face distinct challenges, including limited access to markets, funding and training. DEFA’s provisions on e-commerce, cross-border trade and digital talent mobility hold promise, but a gender-sensitive approach is essential. Addressing biases and providing targeted support for women in digital literacy, financial education and mentorship will be crucial to ensuring that DEFA fosters truly inclusive growth. – https://eastasiaforum.org/2025/02/05/aseans-defa-wont-plug-the-gender-gap-in-entrepreneurship/

Five Eyes Launch Guidance to Improve Edge Device Security

(Phil Muncaster – Infosecurity Magazine – 5 February 2025) The UK’s leading cybersecurity agency and its Five Eyes peers have produced new guidance for manufacturers of edge devices designed to improve baseline security. GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and allies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US published the document yesterday in response to mounting threats to virtual and physical devices that sit at the network edge. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/five-eyes-guidance-improve-edge/

Frontiers

Google Quantum AI Head Sees Commercial Quantum Within Five Years

(Quantum Insider – 5 February 2025) Google’s head of Quantum AI, Hartmut Neven, predicts that commercial quantum computing applications will be realized within five years, with innovations in fields like materials science, medicine, and energy. This optimistic timeline contrasts with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s forecast of at least 20 years for practical quantum computing, adding to the broader debate about the technology’s commercialization. Google, which has been pursuing quantum computing since 2012, has made significant progress, including breakthroughs with its Willow chip and a new approach to quantum simulation published in Nature. – https://thequantuminsider.com/2025/02/05/google-quantum-ai-head-sees-commercial-quantum-within-five-years/

AI Pioneer Yann LeCun Predicts a New Revolution in Artificial Intelligence

(AI Insider – 5 February 2025) Yann LeCun, a key figure in modern AI and Chief AI Scientist at Meta, has predicted another major breakthrough in artificial intelligence within the next five years, emphasizing that current systems remain too limited for applications such as domestic robots and fully autonomous vehicles. Speaking after being awarded the £500,000 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, LeCun stressed the need for AI to advance beyond language manipulation and develop a deeper understanding of the physical world. – https://theaiinsider.tech/2025/02/05/ai-pioneer-yann-lecun-predicts-a-new-revolution-in-artificial-intelligence/

Figure humanoid to ditch OpenAI mind, unleash new brainy robot genius in 30 days

(Sujita Sinha – Interesting Engineering – 5 February 2025) Figure AI, a company developing general-purpose humanoid robots, announced on Tuesday that it is ending its deal with OpenAI. The Bay Area-based robotics firm shared the news on X (formerly Twitter), stating that it has decided to focus on its own artificial intelligence due to a “major breakthrough.”. As reported by TechCrunch, CEO Brett Adcock discussed the decision but remained secretive about the details. He did, however, promise that Figure AI will reveal “something no one has ever seen on a humanoid” within the next 30 days. – https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/figure-ai-shuns-openai-brain

Defense, Intelligence, and Warfare

Navy’s 4th Fleet to start operation focused on unmanned systems countering illicit trafficking

(Justin Katz – Breaking Defense – 5 February 2025) The US Navy’s 4th Fleet will begin a new operation, dubbed Southern Spear, in the coming weeks focused on using robotic and autonomous systems to aid in the detection of illicit trafficking, the service recently announced. “Southern Spear will operationalize a heterogeneous mix of robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) to support the detection and monitoring of illicit trafficking while learning lessons for other theaters,” Cmdr. Foster Edwards, 4th Fleet’s hybrid fleet director, said in a statement last week. “Southern Spear will continue our (4th Fleet’s) move away from short-duration experimentation into long-duration operations that will help develop critical techniques and procedures in integrating RAS into the maritime environment.” – https://breakingdefense.com/2025/02/navys-4th-fleet-to-start-operation-focused-on-unmanned-systems-countering-illicit-trafficking/

Officials call for unified cyber standards for space systems

(Carley Welch – Breaking Defense – 5 February 2025) As information sharing between allies and partners becomes increasingly important in the space domain, the US needs to create a uniform set of cybersecurity standards for its space systems, government officials said Tuesday. Right now there are several entities and agencies who have or are working on their own set of cybersecurity standards for space systems. These include the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, OASIS and commercial providers. Additionally, a Biden-era executive order mandated practices that would protect commercial satellite systems against cyber attacks. – https://breakingdefense.com/2025/02/officials-call-for-unified-cyber-standards-for-space-systems/

Security

Spanish police arrest hacker accused of attacks on NATO, US Army

(Jonathan Greig – The Record – 5 February 2025) A hacker who claimed responsibility for dozens of cyberattacks on government institutions in Spain and the U.S. was arrested by Spanish National Police. Spanish officials touted the arrest in a statement on Wednesday, accusing the unnamed hacker of breaching systems used by the U.S. Army, United Nations, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and several government bodies in Spain. – https://therecord.media/spanish-police-hacker-army-nato

Italy says Paragon spyware targeted victims in dozens of European countries

(Suzanne Smalley – The Record – 5 February 2025) Seven Italians and victims in more than a dozen other European countries were targeted with spyware as part of a broad hacking campaign revealed by WhatsApp on Friday, the Italian government said. The country’s Agenzia per la Cybersicurezza Nazionale (ANC), a cybersecurity agency, is investigating the alleged hacking attempts by Paragon Solutions, the Italian government said in a statement Wednesday. – https://therecord.media/italy-paragon-spyware-targeted-european-victims-whatsapp

Thousands of McKinney, Texas, residents impacted by October data breach

(Jonathan Greig – The Record – 5 February 2025) A large suburb of Dallas informed thousands of residents that a cyberattack in October exposed sensitive information. The city of McKinney, about 35 minutes outside of Dallas, said its government systems were breached on October 31 but security systems only discovered the attack on November 14. – https://therecord.media/thousands-mckinney-texas-residents-impacted

Sophisticated Phishing Campaign Targets Ukraine’s Largest Bank

(Alessandro Mascellino – Infosecurity Magazine – 5 February 2025) A new phishing campaign orchestrated by the financially motivated threat group UAC-0006 has been discovered targeting customers of PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest state-owned financial institution. Cybersecurity analysts from CloudSEK identified an ongoing attack that employs password-protected archives containing malicious JavaScript, VBScript or LNK files to evade detection. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/phishing-campaign-targets-ukraines/

SmokeLoader malware aimed at multiple Ukrainian industries, using bug in file archiver

(Daryna Antoniuk – The Record – 5 February 2025) A Russian hacking campaign has exploited a vulnerability in a popular file archiver to infect Ukrainian government and private organizations with SmokeLoader malware, researchers have found. The bug, tracked as CVE-2025-0411, was discovered in 7-Zip, a free and open-source file archiver developed by Russian programmer Igor Pavlov. It was identified by researchers at Tokyo-based cybersecurity firm Trend Micro in September and patched two months later, giving hackers ample time to exploit it in the wild. – https://therecord.media/smokeloader-malware-ukraine-russia

Ransomware Payments Decline 35% as Victims Resist Demands

(James Coker – Infosecurity Magazine – 5 February 2025) Ransomware payments fell by 35% year-over-year in 2024 amid a growing refusal by victims to pay demands, according to a new Chainalysis report. Ransomware groups received approximately $813.55m in extortion payments from victims last year, which compares to a record $1.25bn in 2023. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/ransomware-payments-decline/

Mobile Malware Targeting Indian Banks Exposes 50,000 Users

(Alessandro Mascellino – Infosecurity Magazine – 5 February 2025) A sophisticated mobile malware campaign targeting Indian banks has compromised nearly 50,000 users by intercepting SMS messages, stealing banking credentials and exposing personal data. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/mobile-malware-indian-banks/

Cybercriminals Eye DeepSeek, Alibaba LLMs for Malware Development

(Kevin Poireault – Infosecurity Magazine – 5 February 2025) DeepSeek and Alibaba’s high-performing large language models (LLMs) have not only captivated AI enthusiasts but also caught the attention of cybercriminals. Many cybercriminals “are rushing” to test the newest Chinese-made LLMs to help them develop or improve malware, Sergey Shykevich, Threat Intelligence Group Manager at Check Point told Infosecurity during the firm’s CPX 2025 conference in Vienna. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/deepseek-alibaba-llms-malware/

Destructive Attacks on Financial Institutions Surge

(Phil Muncaster – Infosecurity Magazine – 5 February 2025) Over half (54%) of global financial institutions experienced cyber-attacks last year in which data was destroyed by adversaries, according to a new report from Contrast Security. The runtime security specialist claimed in its Modern Bank Heists Report 2025 that the figure represented a 12.5% increase on 2023. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/destructive-attacks-banks-surge-13/

Researchers warn of risks tied to abandoned cloud storage buckets

(Jonathan Greig – The Record – 5 February 2025) Cloud storage tools used by military, government and even cybersecurity organizations around the world have been left abandoned by their users, exposing them to a wide variety of security risks. Cybersecurity researchers at watchTowr published a lengthy report on Tuesday outlining the findings from a study of abandoned Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 buckets — tools used by a variety of organizations to store code, files, templates and more. – https://therecord.media/researchers-warn-of-risks-tied-to-abandoned-cloud-storage-buckets