Author: Carter

A Chinese espionage group known as UNC5221 has infiltrated Microsoft 365 systems using a backdoor called Brickstorm, along with two previously unknown malicious programs: Plenet and AgentPSD. According to the investigation, the attackers maintained a presence within the target network for a minimum of 18 months before anyone noticed. They also managed to breach the organization’s managed services provider (MSP). This group is also referred to as VerdantBamboo and has been active since at least 2023, exploiting previously unknown (zero-day) vulnerabilities in edge devices. The Brickstorm backdoor went undetected within the networks of various U.S.-based targets for over a year…

Federal agencies have only a few days left to carry out the Schedule Policy/Career reclassifications. They must notify affected employees of their new classifications and update personnel records by the June 10 deadline. With that date drawing near, many are trying to find out precisely which career civil servants — and how many — will be reclassified. Yet much of that information is still unclear. The White House has released a 229-page appendix that lists the agencies, job titles, and corresponding position description codes being moved into Schedule Policy/Career. So far, it is the most detailed public resource available on…

By Ryan Carlson, Technology Evangelist at Soracom IoT suffers from a pilot problem that rarely gets discussed. It’s not a technical issue. It’s the frustrating scenario where a successful proof of concept gathers dust in a presentation for two years, gets rebranded as a “Phase 2 initiative,” and silently fades away when the internal champion departs the organization. We’ve become incredibly skilled at creating 90-day demonstrations that prove a concept functions. Where we fall short is proving that it’s actually worth pursuing. This distinction is far more critical than the industry is willing to acknowledge. The unplanned gap When an…

Nina Raemont/ZDNETFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. Key takeaways from ZDNETApple’s developer conference begins Monday.Apple currently trails in the AI competition.Its collaboration with Google may significantly enhance its health platform.I’ve been using Google’s screenless Fitbit Air health tracker for several weeks now. While many draw comparisons with the premium Whoop band, testing this device actually got me thinking more about Apple—its strongest competitor.Although I wouldn’t mind Apple releasing its own screen-free tracker, what I’m really hoping for is a major overhaul of its health suite—and that needs to start with better software.Also: Whoop vs. Fitbit Air:…

This tutorial walks you through a complete, step-by-step workflow for using Qualcomm AI Hub Models. First, we set up the necessary packages, explore the library of available models, and prepare MobileNet-V2 to run locally with PyTorch. A key part of the process involves resolving a common input-format mismatch—specifically, transforming image data from NHWC arrangement into the NCHW layout the model requires. After that, we perform inference on both a built-in test input and an actual photograph, examine the highest-confidence predictions, run the official Qualcomm AI Hub command-line demo, and expand the example to include object detection with YOLOv7. We also…

I’ll proceed to paraphrase the provided article text, keeping the HTML structure intact. BALTIMORE — Lt. Gen. Paul Stanton is transforming how collaboration works at the Defense Information Systems Agency. The agency’s director explained that the interconnected nature of technology platforms and the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence are fueling this shift. “Our very nature requires us to integrate solutions in a meaningful way, which draws on contributions from multiple companies, which creates a reliance — our nation relies — on those solutions functioning together in a way that demands a culture of collaboration. That’s something we all need to…

David Gewirtz/ZDNETFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways Yellow sheet music backgrounds caused problems for playback apps.A command-line Python utility eliminated the PDF coloration.Artificial intelligence can most effectively serve as a code generator.Recently, my wife, Denise, began singing with the choir at her church. She has a beautiful voice. She needed to rehearse all the new pieces. The songs arrived in short booklets roughly the size of a trade paperback, printed on yellow stock. Her plan was to digitize those booklets into her computer as a PDF, strip out the color, and enlarge them…

Despite Bitcoin shedding nearly 17% of its value in a week — marking its sharpest weekly decline since July 2024 and erasing about $200 billion in market value over that span — die-hard believers in the world’s biggest cryptocurrency remain steadfast.These devoted supporters, often called “maximalists” or “maxis,” argue that Bitcoin holds unique potential as the only digital asset poised for lasting global monetary adoption. They believe the current slump isn’t a sign of weakness in Bitcoin itself but rather reflects a shift of investor money from crypto into artificial intelligence ventures. In their view, this creates a temporary shortage…

Shell is adopting AI agents from C3 AI, moving past simple issue detection to fully automated predictive maintenance.The energy company is expanding its existing rollout of the C3 AI Reliability Suite, which is already monitoring more than 30,000 vital assets in its upstream and downstream branches. Now Shell is planning to rely entirely on autonomous AI agents to run the whole repair and maintenance cycle.Spanning from the very first alert to a job already finished, this approach removes the need for continual human intervention and ensures resources flow to the spots they are most urgently required.“This growing collaboration with Shell…

A series of software supply chain attacks has rocked the npm ecosystem. Threat actors have leveraged both tampered and malicious versions of over 50 legitimate packages to deploy a Rust-based data-stealing tool and a self-propagating worm, respectively. JFrog reports that the data thief “collects every accessible secret on a developer’s workstation, conceals itself using an eBPF kernel rootkit, and communicates with its operator via Tor.” This stealer also uses stolen credentials to spread itself, drawing parallels to the notorious Shai-Hulud worm. The software supply chain security firm has named the new malware IronWorm. By uploading itself to the npm registry…