Daily Archives: May 21, 2021

Driving Simulator Lets a Player Feel a Car’s Motions by Short-Circuiting Their Sense of Balance

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It turns out a process called galvanic vestibular stimulation—also known as GVS—can be used to alter a human’s sense of balance by electrically stimulating a nerve in the ear using electrodes. Researchers haven’t quite figured out the best uses of the technology—medical, military, and entertainment companies are all investigating it—but when used properly it can convince a person that they need to move their bodies to the left or right to maintain balance, which the body will automatically do all on its own, even if they’re standing perfectly still. As a result there’s a peculiar side effect of GVS: the technology can be used to partially control a human’s movements as if they were being operated remotely.

That’s exactly what Mean Gene Hacks is doing here. Using about $50 worth of external hardware (plus the cost of a gaming PC) they’ve made BeamNG.drive, a highly realistic physics-based driving simulator—interface with GVS hardware. Custom code translates an in-game vehicle’s motions into the electrical signals that alter a player’s balance, which are delivered to a player’s nerve endings through a pair of adhesive electrodes that attach to the neck just behind the earlobes. The resulting effect has the player uncontrollably leaning to the left or to the right while playing, as if effected by the same G-forces the car in the game is experiencing.

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Source: Terrifying Driving Simulator Lets a Player Feel a Car’s Motions by Short-Circuiting Their Sense of Balance

Russian malware will often not install on computers with a Russian virtual keyboard installed

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 KrebsOnSecurity noted that virtually all ransomware strains have a built-in failsafe designed to cover the backsides of the malware purveyors: They simply will not install on a Microsoft Windows computer that already has one of many types of virtual keyboards installed — such as Russian or Ukrainian

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DarkSide and other Russian-language affiliate moneymaking programs have long barred their criminal associates from installing malicious software on computers in a host of Eastern European countries, including Ukraine and Russia. This prohibition dates back to the earliest days of organized cybercrime, and it is intended to minimize scrutiny and interference from local authorities.

In Russia, for example, authorities there generally will not initiate a cybercrime investigation against one of their own unless a company or individual within the country’s borders files an official complaint as a victim. Ensuring that no affiliates can produce victims in their own countries is the easiest way for these criminals to stay off the radar of domestic law enforcement agencies.

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DarkSide, like a great many other malware strains, has a hard-coded do-not-install list of countries which are the principal members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) — former Soviet satellites that mostly have favorable relations with the Kremlin. The full exclusion list in DarkSide (published by Cybereason) is below:

Image: Cybereason.

Simply put, countless malware strains will check for the presence of one of these languages on the system, and if they’re detected the malware will exit and fail to install.

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Will installing one of these languages keep your Windows computer safe from all malware? Absolutely not. There is plenty of malware that doesn’t care where in the world you are. And there is no substitute for adopting a defense-in-depth posture, and avoiding risky behaviors online.

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Cybercriminals are notoriously responsive to defenses which cut into their profitability, so why wouldn’t the bad guys just change things up and start ignoring the language check? Well, they certainly can and maybe even will do that (a recent version of DarkSide analyzed by Mandiant did not perform the system language check).

But doing so increases the risk to their personal safety and fortunes by some non-trivial amount

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Source: Try This One Weird Trick Russian Hackers Hate – Krebs on Security

Colonial Pipeline hackers Darkside received $90 million in bitcoin

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DarkSide, the hacker group behind the recent Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, received a total of $90 million in bitcoin ransom payments before shutting down last week, according to new research.

Colonial Pipeline was hit with a devastating cyberattack earlier this month that forced the company to shut down approximately 5,500 miles of pipeline in the United States, crippling gas delivery systems in Southeastern states. The FBI blamed the attack on DarkSide, a cybercriminal gang believed to be based in Eastern Europe, and Colonial reportedly paid a $5 million ransom to the group.

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In a blog post Tuesday, Elliptic said DarkSide and its affiliates bagged at least $90 million in bitcoin ransom payments over the past nine months from 47 victims. The average payment from organizations was likely $1.9 million, Elliptic said.

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Of the $90 million total haul, $15.5 million went to DarkSide’s developer while $74.7 million went to its affiliates, according to Elliptic. The majority of the funds are being sent to crypto exchanges, where they can be converted into fiat money, Elliptic said.

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Source: Colonial Pipeline hackers Darkside received $90 million in bitcoin: Report

Just 100 Companies Create 90% of Plastic Waste

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Plastic producers have tried to make us think that individuals can solve pollution by improving our recycling and shopping habits. A new study makes it clear why that’s their tactic. Just 20 companies are responsible for more than half of the world’s trashed single-use plastic.

The Plastic Waste Makers Index, published Tuesday by the Australian foundation Minderoo, is a comprehensive account of the companies manufacturing plastic that goes into disposable products. It shows that energy giants and chemical conglomerates are among the 20 companies that created 55% of global plastic waste. Expanding the view just a bit further, the report also shows that just 100 businesses account for more than 90% of trashed plastic.

The top contributor to throwaway plastics, the report found, is Exxon. In 2019, it contributed 5.9 million metric tons of plastic that got thrown away. In close second and third were the world’s two largest chemical companies, U.S.-based Dow and China’s Sinopec. They created 5.5 million metric tons and 5.3 million metric tons of the stuff respectively.

The research also showed that recycled plastic account for just 2% of the world’s disposable plastics. The vast majority are made from virgin materials, meaning new fossil fuels were extracted to create them.

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Source: Just 100 Companies Create 90% of Plastic Waste