Folks who made unwanted purchases in Fortnite can start cashing in. Epic Games reached a

A hacking gang stole victims’ savings and tried to blackmail major companies including the maker of the best-selling Grand Theft Auto videogames, prosecutors claim. Arion Kurtaj, 18, and a 17-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons are accused of being “key players” in the LapsusS hacking group, a trial at Southwark Crown Court in London has heard. The duo, aided by unknown associates, are alleged to have hacked the servers and data files of broadband provider BT and mobile operator EE before demanding a four million dollar ransom on August 1 2021. Kurtaj is further accused of targeting transport giant Uber, financial technology firm Revolut and Rockstar Games, developer of the Grand Theft Auto series, in quick succession in September 2022, the court has heard. It’s perfectly plain from the evidence that those involved in the attacks were totally serious in this endeavour of hacking companies and stealing valuable data from those companies with the intention of profiting from that, sometimes on a huge scale, whether by blackmail or fraud Prosecutor Kevin Barry He allegedly tried to blackmail Rockstar Games by threatening to “leak the stolen source code for the Grand Theft Auto sequel onto internet forums”, the indictment states. Kurtaj and the youth are also accused of hacking software company Nvidia in February 2022 before threatening to “release Nvidia Corporation’s intellectual property on to the web” if it did not pay them. In a closing speech to the jury on Monday, prosecutor Kevin Barry said: “The victims in this case, and they undoubtedly were victims, they were members of the public who suffered the SIM swap frauds and losses as a result of that. “There were also big corporations who were targeted and attacked. “It hasn’t been suggested by anyone that any of these attacks were just individuals out for larks and laughs. “It’s perfectly plain from the evidence that those involved in the attacks were totally serious in this endeavour of hacking companies and stealing valuable data from those companies with the intention of profiting from that, sometimes on a huge scale, whether by blackmail or fraud.” He said the jury has heard evidence from members of the public who had their data stolen during the BT/EE hack. “They found their lives, some of them, turned upside down with accounts accessed and emptied of savings,” he said. He said one man’s account on Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange platform, had £38,000 taken from it. Mr Barry said “major corporations” were also targeted by the hacking gang and “enormous disruption and costs were suffered by them” as a result. He added: “Make no mistake, in this case, members of the jury, that losses experienced by these companies were real, they were a direct consequence of the defendants’ actions and those of their associates.” He added: “Any loss they suffered through activity like this will ultimately be passed on to their customers, people like us.” He told jurors “each of the defendants has previous convictions for committing computer-enabled offences in the recent past”. Psychiatrists have assessed Kurtaj as unfit to stand trial so the jury must decide whether he committed the acts alleged against him. Kurtaj is charged with 12 offences, including six counts under the Computer Misuse Act, three counts of blackmail and two counts of fraud. The youth is charged with two counts of blackmail, two counts of fraud and three counts under the Computer Misuse Act, relating to the BT/EE and Nvidia allegations. He previously pleaded guilty to one offence under the Computer Misuse Act and one count of fraud. The prosecutor is due to finish his speech on Tuesday.

In a recent livestream, Ross participated in a boxing match against N3on that was quite underwhelming for viewers

It’s been nearly a month since the Titan submarine tragically imploded on its descent down to the wreck of the Titanic, but social media’s morbid fascination with the event does not seem to have faded. A video outlining how the submersible imploded has gone viral, wracking up more than 10 million views since it was posted on YouTube at the start of July. The explainer goes into detail about how implosions differ from explosions, and what the disaster would have looked like. Titan began its journey towards the wreck of the cruise liner on June 18. Shortly after, it lost contact with people on the surface. The US Coast Guard later revealed the vessel had suffered a “catastrophic implosion”, after deep-sea robots found debris on 22 June. Officials later said “presumed human remains” were recovered from the site. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The video simulating the implosion was posted by AiTelly, an account which specialises in “3D engineering animations”. The narrator explains that in the Titan’s case, the implosion was caused by “high hydro-static pressure of the surrounding water, which happened within a fraction of a millisecond”. “At the depth the Titanic rests, there is around 5,600 pounds-per-square inch of pressure. That’s almost 400 times the pressure we experience on the surface. “As the submersible is deep in the ocean it experiences the force on its surface due to the water pressure. When this force becomes larger than the force [the] hull can withstand, the vessel implodes violently.” The animation shows the submersible suddenly bucking under the pressure, noting that the debris was found just 1,600 feet from the Titanic wreck, in five different parts. It said that a possible design flaw with the Titan was that it used “mostly carbon fibres, which have the advantage of being lighter than titanium or steel”. However, it added: “The properties of carbon fibres for deep sea applications are however not that well understood. It can crack and break suddenly.” The victims were Hamish Harding, 58, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman Dawood, 19, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, and Stockton Rush, 61. Social media users responded to the video in their droves. One person said: “Who in their right mind would consider going into one of those things? No matter how safe, you have to be pretty brave.” Another person said: “The whole world is on a morbid curiosity kick with this sub.” One commenter added: “The moments before the OceanGate imploded must’ve been a really scary and harrowing experience for the 5 people involved.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 26, 2023--

Singapore has gone from a mudflat swamp with fishing villages to an island metropolis boasting one of the

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI), as well aggressive state-aligned groups pose a significant threat to critical infrastructure, the UK’s cyber security agency has said. In its annual review, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) warned ongoing geopolitical challenges and AI also posed a threat to UK elections. Published on Tuesday, the NCSC’s Annual Review said the Centre, which is part of GCHQ, had seen the emergence of a new type of cyber adversary in the last year – state-aligned actors who are ideologically, rather than financially, motivated. The NCSC highlighted China and Russia as enduring and significant threats to UK cyber security, noting that many of the new state-aligned groups it had seen appear were sympathetic to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On artificial intelligence, the NCSC warned that the next general election in the UK, expected next year, will be the first to take place against the backdrop of significant advances in AI, which it said would enable and enhance existing challenges. The cyber security agency said that large language models (LLMs) – the technology apps such as ChatGPT are built on – would almost certainly be used to generate fake content as part of disinformation campaigns to disrupt the democratic process. Beyond the present challenges, we are very aware of the threats on the horizon, including rapid advancements in tech and the growing market for cyber capabilities Lindy Cameron, NCSC At the first AI Safety Summit, held in the UK earlier this month, industry figures and world leaders warned of the potential for AI to help cybercriminals carry out more sophisticated cyber attacks. “The last year has seen a significant evolution in the cyber threat to the UK – not least because of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine but also from the availability and capability of emerging tech,” NCSC chief executive Lindy Cameron said. “As our annual review shows, the NCSC and our partners have supported government, the public and private sector, citizens, and organisations of all sizes across the UK to raise awareness of the cyber threats and improve our collective resilience. “Beyond the present challenges, we are very aware of the threats on the horizon, including rapid advancements in tech and the growing market for cyber capabilities. “We are committed to facing those head on and keeping the UK at the forefront of cyber security.” The annual review said work needed to be done to ensure the UK kept pace with the changing threats, particularly in relation to enhancing cyber resilience in the nation’s infrastructure. Read More Private parole hearing for one of killers of James Bulger to begin Papers react to Sunak’s reshuffle ‘gamble’ over return of Cameron Thunderstorm warning in effect as downpours continue in parts of UK Immigration minister Robert Jenrick vows to see Rwanda deportation plan through Cost-of-living payments not enough to meet scale of the problem, say MPs Applications open for owners to register XL bully dogs before ban

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Astronomers have discovered a new way that stars can die. In a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy, experts have worked out that a minute-long gamma-ray burst of light, which occured in 2019 and evidence a star dying, happened because stars collided within the densely crowded environment near the supermassive black hole at the centre of an ancient galaxy. Normally gamma-ray bursts (GRB) last around two seconds and happen when stars collapse. “For every hundred events that fit into the traditional classification scheme of gamma-ray bursts, there is at least one oddball that throws us for a loop,” said study coauthor Wen-fai Fong, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, in a statement. “However, it is these oddballs that tell us the most about the spectacular diversity of explosions that the universe is capable of.” Over time, astronomers have observed three main ways that stars can die, depending on their size. Lower mass stars like our sun shed their outer layers as they age, eventually becoming dead white dwarf stars. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Massive stars burn through the fuel-like elements at their core and shatter in explosions called supernovas. Doing so can leave behind dense remnants like neutron stars or result in the creation of black holes. A third form of star death results when neutron stars or black holes begin to orbit one another in a binary system and spiral closer to one another until they collide and explode. But the new observation suggests a fourth type of death. “Our results show that stars can meet their demise in some of the densest regions of the universe, where they can be driven to collide,” said lead study author Andrew Levan, an astrophysics professor at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands, in a statement. “This is exciting for understanding how stars die and for answering other questions, such as what unexpected sources might create gravitational waves that we could detect on Earth.” “The lack of a supernova accompanying the long GRB 191019A tells us that this burst is not a typical massive star collapse,” said study coauthor Jillian Rastinejad, a doctoral student of astronomy at Northwestern, in a statement. “The location of GRB 191019A, embedded in the nucleus of the host galaxy, teases a predicted but not yet evidenced theory for how gravitational-wave emitting sources might form.” “While this event is the first of its kind to be discovered, it’s possible there are more out there that are hidden by the large amounts of dust close to their galaxies,” said Fong, who is also a member of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics at Northwestern. “Indeed, if this long-duration event came from merging compact objects, it contributes to the growing population of GRBs that defies our traditional classifications.” You learn something new every day. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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