CyberSecure Specialist

White House officials concerned by AI chatbots’ potential for societal harm and the Silicon Valley powerhouses rushing them to market are heavily invested in a three-day competition ending Sunday at the DefCon hacker convention in Las Vegas. Some 2,200 competitors tapped on laptops seeking to expose flaws in eight leading large-language models representative of technology’s next big thing. But don’t expect quick results from this first-ever independent “red-teaming” of multiple models. Findings won’t be made…

SecurityWeek is publishing a weekly cybersecurity roundup that provides a concise compilation of noteworthy stories that might have slipped under the radar. We provide a valuable summary of stories that may not warrant an entire article, but are nonetheless important for a comprehensive understanding of the cybersecurity landscape. Each week, we will curate and present a collection of noteworthy developments, ranging from the latest vulnerability discoveries and emerging attack techniques to significant policy changes and…

Over a dozen vulnerabilities discovered by Microsoft researchers in Codesys products can be exploited to cause disruption to industrial processes or deploy backdoors that allow the theft of sensitive information. Germany-based Codesys makes automation software for engineering control systems. Its products are used by some of the world’s largest industrial control system (ICS) manufacturers, the vendor claiming that its software is found in millions of devices — roughly 1,000 different types of products made by…

Network security giant Check Point Software (NASDAQ: CHKP) on Thursday said it has agreed to acquire Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) solutions provider Perimeter 81 for roughly $490 million in “cash free, debt free” deal. Perimeter 81 launched in 2018 and offers a platform that helps businesses to secure remote access, network traffic, and endpoint devices with its cloud-delivered Zero Trust Network Access, Firewall as a Service, and Secure Web Gateway (SWG) offerings.…

The White House on Wednesday launched a competition offering millions of dollars in prize money for creating new artificial intelligence systems that can defend critical software from hackers. Competitors vying for some of the $18.5 million in prize money will need to design novel AI systems that quickly find and fix software vulnerabilities in electric grids, subways or other key networks that could be exploited by hackers, President Joe Biden’s administration said. “This competition will…