[Music] here's what's coming up in the category 5 dot tv newsroom hackers are using a severe windows bug to compromise unpatched servers three javascript packages have been removed from the npm portal for containing malicious code nokia has been tasked with building a new 4g cellular network on the moon a new 80 watt wireless charging tech from xiaomi is blowing our minds and the raspberry pi compute module 4 has been released we'll let you know the specs and how this changes things for industrial iot stick around the full details and this week's crypto corner are coming up this is the category dot tv newsroom covering the week's top tech stories with a slight linux bias from the newsroom i'm becca ferguson to compromise unpatched servers one of the most critical windows vulnerabilities disclosed this year is under active attack by hackers who are trying to backdoor servers that store credentials for every user and administrative account on a network researchers gave the vulnerability the name zero logon because attacks work by sending a string of zeros in a series of messages that use the net logon protocol which windows servers rely on for a variety of tasks including allowing end users to log in to a network xero logon as the vulnerability has been dubbed gained widespread attention last month when the firm that discovered it said it could give attackers instant access to active directories which admins use to create delete and manage network accounts active directories and the domain controllers they run on are among the most coveted prizes in hacking because once hijacked they allow attackers to execute code and munition on all connected machines microsoft patched the security flaw in august on friday kevin beaumont working in his capacity as an independent researcher said in a blog post that he had detected attacks on the honeypot he uses to keep abreast of attack attacks that hackers are using in the wild when his lure server was unpatched the attackers were able to use a powershell script to successfully change an admin password and backdoor the server beaumont said that the attack appeared to be entirely scripted with all commands being completed within seconds with that the attackers installed a back door allowing remote administrative access to devices inside his mock network the attackers also enabled remote desktop as a result they would continue to have remote access even if the admin later patches the server people with no authentic authentication can use the exploit to gain domain administrative credentials as long as the attackers have the ability to establish tcp connections with a vulnerable domain controller in some cases attackers may use a separate vulnerability to gain a foothold inside a network and then exploit zero logon to take over the domain controller i think a good example of a way for these types of scripts to get into networks are out of date computers on the network yep and also social engineering scams we hear a lot about like you probably receive these emails that try to trick you into following through with a process of entering a credential or something like that the the risk that we run and the sad case that i see as in i t is that sometimes people think well i don't need to update that computer because it's in the back room nobody really uses it or oh well we need this one to still have windows xp because we have problems with one of our printers if we don't uh we're still seeing a lot of windows 7 systems and that is a tragedy if you have a windows 7 or windows xp system on your network just turn it off get rid of it yeah see the the thing is is with those systems so microsoft has what we call eol or end of life has has ended the life of these operating systems so they've said you've got to upgrade to windows 10. well i don't want to upgrade to windows 10 i like my windows 7. i understand that and i respect that however here's the problem hackers now are able to exploit these operating and as they do that as they find exploits there's a couple of things that happen one they either give away or sell those exploits or two they're just they're released to the public through whether it's through the dark web or even on github yep as as security research and so now these hackers if you will we're going to call them that but realistically in a lot of cases they're what we call script kitties and these are not even like hackers yes but they don't have to have a lot of knowledge because the the exploit is publicly that's right known and understood so if there are exploits that are available for an operating system what do we expect to happen we expect the operating system vendor microsoft in this case to patch that exploit to fix it and that's the case with windows 10. sadly though those that are eol it's not the case with an eol operating system sometimes we hear oh well i don't need support well microsoft has ended support that's what we've heard yeah they've ended support for windows 7. they've ended support for windows xp oh but i i've never had to call support i can handle it that's not what they're talking about at all what they're saying is they will not fix the patches it does the the exploits doesn't matter how severe they are it doesn't matter how easy they are to exploit so you have a windows 7 machine on your network well you are giving entry to one of these hackers who don't even have to be very good at hacking because the exploits are publicly known yep sometimes they're part of tools sometimes they can just download a free tool and they can say i want to with one check exploit windows 7 and so they get into a windows 7 box or they've tricked one of your employees even if they're just somebody in the back working in the warehouse they've tricked somebody into opening a file that now gives them access to the windows 7 machine the windows xp machine or the machine in the back room doesn't matter and here we're learning that microsoft servers now have an exploit that as long as a malicious party can gain access to any computer on the network they can now get domain administrator access to the entire network now scary now your windows 10 machines are no longer safe that's right because you've given them entry to your network as if they're a domain administrator oh see that's just bad news right there well it's bad news though why is ransomware a thing because what do they do they now okay i've gained access to this network i'm going to sell on the dark web access to this network you see this with um with townships and yeah with cities that was it the original script kitty who did it no what he just they just want they want to get in install their software and get out and then sell access that's right because that's quick money so why do people do it for money and that's how they do it so um yeah you gotta kind of keep things up to date so you know just a quick thought to ponder hey if you've got any obsolete machines on your network you've got to get them off and get your staff trained on cyber security practices understand what phishing scams are because you know oh well somebody clicked on a link and now their computer's infected but their computer is on your network but i was gonna get half of that prince's money that's a whole other worms right there jeff but i mean i when it comes to these kind of things to look at your system and say oh i don't want to spend seven eight hundred bucks for a new computer i wouldn't worry about updating this one you'll end up spending more in the long run or in in the short term no in the long run if you don't have your system patched because once they get access to everything you could be down and out but and i think when they have access to everything i think it's just important to realize that one entry point becomes access to everything so spend a couple hundred bucks get the new computer save yourself i don't know what it takes i mean it's different it's different for every case right yeah i had one person today who called and said i have a single windows 7 computer i don't want to upgrade it because it just works oh so here's here's an explanation and here becca has shared with us a story that simply tells us that all they need is access to that one computer and now they've got access to all computers of your computers and not in just like a samba way not in a a way that's like friendly and hopefully they don't find any ways into the back doors on those computers no they have administrator credentials on your network so they can do anything that's right anything they want when i think about my house i think i've got you're done i think i have seven devices not including phones and tablets and stuff like that that are connected to the network i don't want them to have access to that yeah i just can't stress enough though jeff i mean i think in the terms of businesses more so the home user but once they're in they're in you can't that you're done because you can't now shut down that windows machine that windows 7 machine no they're already into everything so what do you do replace everything have every single computer wiped because you don't know what tools they've installed that's expensive yeah so don't fall into that anyways that's a bad exploit that's really serious folks i hope we've stressed that enough that you understand that this is a bad one so make sure your network administrators are up and up and they understand these things and that you are protected and safe against these kinds of threats all right we're going to head back to becca three javascript packages have been removed from the npm portal for containing malicious code according to advisories from the mpm security team the three javascript libraries open shells on the computers of developers who imported the packages into their projects the shells allow threat actors to connect remotely to the infected computer and execute malicious operations the npm security team said that the shells don't depend on a particular operating system and could be used to compromise windows linux freebsd openbsd and other systems all three packages were uploaded to the npm portal in 2018 and each had hundreds of downloads since then the package's names are plutovs dash slack dash client node test 199 and nodetest1010 the npm security team said any computer that is that has this package installed or running should be considered fully compromised all secrets and keys stored on that computer should be rotated immediately from a different computer they warn the package should be removed but as full control of the computer may have been given to an outside entity there is no guarantee that removing the package will remove all malicious software resulting from installing it mpm security staff regularly scans its collection of javascript libraries considered the largest package repository for any programming language well i can't even get good cell coverage coverage at my cottage nokia is working with nasa to bring 4g to the moon nasa's artemis mission aims to establish a long-term human presence on the moon as a stepping stone toward mars colonization and to get things started nasa is extending 370 million dollars to 14 companies to provide the technology for the program from robotics to power generation and even cryogenics but it makes sense that these teams will need to be able to communicate with the mother planet the new network will be designed specifically for lunar conditions able to withstand the extreme temperature shifts and radiation the tech will also utilize small cell tech which as the name suggests is significantly smaller than the tall cell towers they are used to seeing here on earth they also use a lot less power the plan is for a lunar lander to carry the 4g communication system to the lunar surface in 2022 nokia's bell labs has been granted 14.1 million dollars for their part a new 80 watt wireless charging tech from xiaomi is blowing our minds and the raspberry pi compute module 4 becca has these stories coming up plus robert is here with the crypto corner don't go anywhere welcome back to the world of cryptos and welcome back to the crypto corner last week we spoke about banks in a few years time you will not recognize them anymore and i also mentioned to you not so long ago the chinese digital currency that will replace the riemann bee and that they already implemented it and they they're running some trials in shenzhen now this week there has been some development and i'd like to talk about that because it will have a direct impact on your life and my life so let's dive into this here the international monetary fund the head of that international organization is a lady called cristalina jojeva and she delivered a speech in regards to the new bretton woods moment now what is the bretton woods britain woods system is uh monetary management established the rules of commercial and financial relations between uh countries like u.s canada western europe australia and japan and so it's the system was first example of a fully negotiated order intended to govern monetary relations between independent states so that was bretton woods and she's speaking about the change of that system into something more modern now interesting enough on monday there was a meeting with a few central bankers talking about so-called cross-border payments but if you think about it look what type of people they were present so you've got the head of the saudi central bank you have got the head of all the central banks the head of the imf the head of the u.s central bank and the head of the malaysian central bank missing is europe which is interesting but there will be a reason i guess so they met together to talk about gross border payments now i don't believe that that's a real story the real story uh was also published by a gentleman called ron paul which i totally concur with so his thoughts is exactly how i'm thinking and what he's talking about is exactly this meeting that happened on monday that will replace the old bretton woods uh relationship between countries so what will happen it looks like that the central banks will collude and come up with a system a central bank system between all of them so there will not be another us dollar central bank system there will be one for each for all organizations and then from there it will be diversified and what can you do with such a system that's the interesting part and i love that is so it will change the circumvent the banking and finance fiscal system because you're directly interacting with people yeah so it's not like at the moment where the central bank in the u.s or canada doesn't matter comes up with some policy and then it goes it trickles down um the chain and you as the individual you probably see the least amount of money and probably at the highest interest rate that you can think of other people will benefit much stronger with digital money plus cryptocurrency so programmable you're able to do much more because now the central bank can directly influence uh the behavior of people and how do they do that yes they can say well if you're a restaurant owner you can you get the money directly into your pocket from us yeah so no more banks involved we'll do it directly it's possible it's central bank money they can change interest rates so in one instance or one industry they can have high interest rate than another what will happen with taxes yeah what will happen with the irs because they can deal with these things directly through programmable money it will take time to get it to that ultimate extent but it will happen as you as you can see so direct payments will be possible um they're also talking here about um yeah behavioral economics so not through some economists that are telling the government what to do and what not to do because that has failed in the past everybody's saying so what they're going to do is like a facebook a type of idea or tick tock idea or youtube idea where you're interested in people befriending you or where people are you're interested in getting more likes and so you change your behavior in regards to getting more likes and the same thing will happen with the money so and that will be all regulated through central bank without anybody from the outside world having a chance to have a significant influence so how that will look like at the end nobody knows of course but that these people are meeting together to discuss cross-order payments is something that i find highly interesting and that is of course fantastic news for bitcoin because bitcoin is outside of that system there's nobody that can regulate uh bitcoin it's decentralized um it's immutable you know other features of uh bitcoin so um bitcoin is a fantastic alternative all the other cryptocurrencies the major ones are definitely a good alternative let's see what libra will bring up but there's will be some good alternatives to um to the central uh centrally driven money through central banks so i hope you found that interesting and i hope you liked it and i hope i get a lack from you and i wish you a fantastic week so thank you very much for watching bye bye thank you robert just a reminder we're not providing financial advice but only sharing what's happening in the cryptocurrency market always remember that the cryptocurrency markets are ever-changing and always volatile so you should only spend what you can afford to lose now back to becca in the newsroom thank you robbie xiaomi has announced a new charging check that can fully charge a depleted smartphone in less than 20 minutes but it does it without any wires fast charging has become a key feature of many smartphones in recent years and for convenience sake wireless charging can be really great but of course wireless charging typically charges a phone with between 10 to 15 watts of power some phones like the oneplus 8 pro have wireless charging up to 40 watts but xiaomi's new charging tech promises a whopping 80 watts of wireless juice what does that mean in practical terms well according to the announcement unveiling the 80 watt me wireless charging technology a smartphone with zero percent charge of a four thousand milliamp hours battery will charge ten percent in just one minute fifty percent in eight minutes and be fully charged after 19 minutes finally a charger that will charge my phone from zero to a hundred percent right in like my lunch break see that's nice that's a game changer can you imagine i think about my kids and how we have like phones everywhere obviously i mean this is going to take like the latest and greatest tech but um it's always a case of oh i forgot to put my phone on the charger or it doesn't last long enough for the entire day and now that you know with the pandemic of course my kids are being homeschooled now kind of by force and everybody's on their devices the whole time so we've got zoom meetings happening on phones and it runs it depletes the battery yes but what i like is that it's wireless it's not just wiring that's amazing yeah it's wireless that's huge like the idea that i could take my phone not have to worry about chargers and just go just set it down set it down 20 minutes later i'm good to go that i love the other thing that i love about it the the concept is that um i think about as you just did if i could set it down on a table what if you could set it down on a restaurant table yes because a lot of restaurants have gone the route and i'm using restaurants as the example but a lot of places have gone the route of embedding usb yes so that you can plug in your usb cable to charge your phone but then all of a sudden people got wise to the fact that oh those usb ports could be malicious because usb also carries data or that's right who knows if it's too many volts and that you know maybe it's got a short or something like that and could fry my phone so then all of a sudden we're afraid to plug into the usb port because hey it could be something bad that's right well wireless charging you set it down it charges and you pick it up and you're done yeah but you can set it down for like three minutes and it's given you enough of a charge to get through most of the afternoon which is incredible awesome i i think just as a i mean you look around now and you've got all these charge stations for electric vehicles it would be great to start seeing little pop-ups in public places with this kind of stuff where you can literally put your phone down for five minutes and have enough to have a phone call to get help or whatever and it's all wirelessly i just pictured like a stretch of road and embed the receiver in the car and it recharges the autonomous car because it drives over this thing whoa we're getting into the tech now folks [Laughter] still i like it i'm excited about it the crazy thing is just in conclusion is that while what i just said is very sci-fi like when we were growing up that was like the future totally doable it's possible now that's ridiculous the raspberry pi foundation has launched a compute module with the specs of a raspberry pi 4. the raspberry pi foundation launched a new product monday the comp the compute module 4. it's hard to believe it's been so long but the raspberry pi 4 was released in june 2019. the compute module 4 brings the pi 4 to the industrial iot space featuring the same processor packed in a compute module just begging to be integrated into powerful iot appliances if you're unfamiliar with compute modules you can think of them as single board computers without all the ports and gpio pins they allow the computer components the brains of a raspberry pi to be integrated into robotics smart devices maker tech clusters or anything you can come up with that requires a tiny low powered linux computer at its heart since the compute module 4 shares its spec with the raspberry pi 4 developers can do all their prototyping on the pi 4 sbc but then order a bunch of compute module 4s to integrate into their commercial product just like the raspberry pi 4 the compute module 4 features a 64-bit arm based processor with video core vi graphics this is going to represent a huge upgrade for previous compute module customers and with 4k video output output at up to 60 frames per second plus the ability to decode h.265 video the compute module for the compute module 4 could be a game changer for multimedia driven devices such as smart tvs or set-top boxes the compute module 4 is available with your choice of 1 2 4 or 8 gigabytes ram and 8 16 or 32 gigabytes on board emmc flash storage wi-fi and bluetooth are also optional the price ranges from just 25 to 90 usd now imagine that jeff the raspberry pi compute module 4 yeah in one of your sbc projects or something like that powering it like the brains this is a pretty soon as becca said h.265 decoding so that's like video that is very cpu intensive yeah that's awesome like it says a lot that's more power than my plex server yes which is like who knows where that's going to take things i like the idea of cluster computing and that's where you take several computers connect them together through networking and basically install software beowulf or something like that that clusters them to make them be able to perform tasks together in such a way that it basically makes a super computer right out of several computers so you think about these raspberry pi cl uh cluster or the modules and and put like 10 of those together in a a cluster and you'd have like this compute module cluster that'd be nice computer with that much power when you can have eight gigs of ram on each board times that by 10. a lot can do a lot it's changing things folks the world is changing that's for sure what would you do with all that power and silence he's waiting for you to answer i i'm thinking i'm like what would i do with that how many people just went bitcoin mining sorry guys it's you know what's sad my first thought was could i automate like some of the utilities that i have in the kitchen to make food for me that was my first thought with a with a compute module four yeah it takes more than that but i know it could be the brains of such an operation clearly i'm hungry though your thoughts comment below we'd love to hear what uh what you would do with a compute module for thanks for watching the category 5 dot tv newsroom don't forget to like and subscribe for all your tech news with a slight linux bias and if you appreciate what we do become a patron at patreon.com category5 from the category 5 dot tv newsroom i'm becca ferguson