The author who listens to the sound of the cosmos

Published: 28 August 2024
Categories: MIT Tech Review

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In 1983, while on a field recording assignment in Kenya, the musician and soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause noticed something remarkable. Lying in his tent late one night, listening to the calls of hyenas, tree frogs, elephants, and insects in the surrounding old-growth forest, Krause heard what seemed to be a kind of collective orchestra. Rather than a chaotic cacophony of nighttime noises, it was as if each animal was singing within a defined acoustic bandwidth, like living instruments in a larger sylvan ensemble. 

Unsure of whether this structured musicality was real or the invention of an exhausted mind, Krause analyzed his soundscape recordings on a spectrogram when he returned home. Sure enough, the insects occupied one frequency niche, the frogs another, and the mammals a completely separate one. Each group had claimed a unique part of the larger sonic spectrum, a fact that not

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Iran-based Cyber Actors Enabling Ransomware Attacks on US Organizations

Published: 23 August 2024
Categories: US-Computer Emergency Readiness Team

RSS Feed Source: MIT Technology Review

Summary

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3) are releasing this joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) to warn network defenders that, as of August 2024, a group of Iran-based cyber actors continues to exploit U.S. and foreign organizations. This includes organizations across several sectors in the U.S. (including in the education, finance, healthcare, and defense sectors as well as local government entities) and other countries (including in Israel, Azerbaijan, and the United Arab Emirates). The FBI assesses a significant percentage of these threat actors’ operations against US organizations are intended to obtain and develop network access to then collaborate with ransomware affiliate actors to deploy ransomware. The FBI further assesses these Iran-based cyber actors are associated with the Government of Iran (GOI) and—separate from the ransomware activity—conduct computer network exploitation activity in support of the GOI (such as intrusions enabling the theft of sensitive technical data against organizations in Israel and Azerbaijan).

This CSA provides the threat actor’s tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and indicators of compromise (IOCs), as well as highlights similar activity from a previous advisory (Iran-Based Threat Actor Exploits VPN Vulnerabilities) that the FBI and CISA published on Sept. 15, 2020. The information and guidance in this advisory are derived from FBI investigative activity and technical

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Worker Exceeded Annual Dose Limit

Published: 21 August 2024
Categories: IAEA

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Worker Exceeded Annual Dose Limit

Print View Posted on: 21 August 2024

Event Date: 11 December 2023 Event Type: Other Event Location: United States of America, Romeoville, Illinois/ SOFIE INES Rating: 2 (Final)

On December 11, 2023, a pharmaceutical technician noted a pressure issue with a synthesis cell, which contained 11.29 GBq (305 mCi) of Fluorine-18. The pharmaceutical technician opened the synthesis cell and Fluorine-18 splashed onto their upper chest, neck, and underarm. The pharmaceutical technician could feel wetness after the incident, and decontamination efforts were initiated within 3 to 5 minutes. The skin exposure calculations, based on radiological survey results, indicated that the pharmaceutical technician received an estimated shallow dose equivalent of 0.902 Sv (90.2 rem). The dose to the employee exceeded the U.S. regulatory limit for the annual dose to the skin of the extremities of 0.5 Sv (50 rem). NRC Event Number (EN) 56923

INES Rating: 2 – Incident (Final) as per 21 August 2024

Impact on people and the environment Release beyond authorized limits? No

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Best Practices for Event Logging and Threat Detection

Published: 20 August 2024
Categories: US-Computer Emergency Readiness Team

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Executive Summary

This publication defines a baseline for event logging best practices to mitigate cyber threats. It was developed by the Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASD’s ACSC) in cooperation with the following international partners: 

United States (US) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Security Agency (NSA). United Kingdom (UK) National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-UK). Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS). New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NZ) and Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT NZ). Japan National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC) and Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center (JPCERT/CC). The Republic of Korea National Intelligence Services (NIS) and NIS’s National Cyber Security Center (NCSC-Korea). Singapore Cyber Security Agency (CSA). The Netherlands General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) and Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD).

Event logging supports the continued delivery of operations and improves the security and resilience of critical systems by enabling network visibility. This guidance makes recommendations that improve an organization’s resilience in the current cyber threat environment, with regard for resourcing constraints. The guidance is of moderate technical complexity and assumes a basic understanding of event logging.

An effective event logging solution aims to:

Send alerts to the network defenders responsible for monitoring when cyber security events such as critical

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