Month: July 2021

Iran’s railroad system came under cyberattack Friday, a semi-official news agency reported, with hackers posting fake messages about train delays or cancellations on display boards at stations across the country.  The hackers posted messages such as “long delayed because of cyberattack” or “canceled” on the boards. They also urged passengers to call for information, listing the phone number of the office of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  The semiofficial Fars news agency reported that the hack led to “unprecedented chaos” at rail stations.  No group took responsibility. Earlier in the day, Fars said trains across Iran had lost their electronic tracking system. It wasn’t immediately clear if that was also part of the cyberattack. Fars later removed its report and instead quoted the spokesman of the state railway company, Sadegh Sekri, as saying “the disruption” did not cause any problem for train services.  In 2019, an error in the railway company’s computer servers caused multiple delays in train services.  In December that year, Iran’s telecommunications ministry said the country had defused a massive cyberattack on unspecified “electronic infrastructure” but provided no specifics on the purported attack. It was not clear if the reported attack caused any damage or disruptions in Iran’s computer and internet systems, and whether it was the latest chapter in the U.S. and Iran’s cyber operations targeting the other. Iran disconnected much of its infrastructure from the internet after the Stuxnet computer virus — widely believed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli creation — disrupted thousands of Iranian centrifuges in the country’s nuclear sites in the late 2000s.  
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U.S. President Joe Biden said he discussed recent ransomware attacks on the U.S. from Russia in a phone call Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.Biden said he told Putin, “I made it very clear to him that the United States expects when a ransomware operation is coming from his soil, even though it’s not sponsored by the state, we expect them to act if we give them enough information to act on who that is.”He told reporters at a White House signing ceremony Friday that the call “went well. I’m optimistic.”When asked if there would be consequences if Russia did not take action against ransonware criminals, he answered, “Yes.”Biden also said the two leaders “set up a means of communication now on a regular basis” to discuss such issues.Russia denies responsibilityRecent ransomware attacks have been linked to groups based in Russia. The Kremlin has denied any responsibility for the attacks.The White House said in a statement after the call that “President Biden underscored the need for Russia to take action to disrupt ransomware groups operating in Russia.”It said, “President Biden reiterated that the United States will take any necessary action to defend its people and its critical infrastructure in the face of this continuing challenge.”The Kremlin said that the two leaders agreed to cooperate on issues of cybersecurity and that the collaboration “must be permanent, professional and nonpoliticized and should be conducted via special communication channels … and with respect to international law.”The call came more than three weeks after the two leaders met in Geneva on June 16, when Biden appealed to Putin to crack down on cyber hackers in Russia.Some information for this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press. 
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Karmic fortune has arrived to the digital art market, with a kaleidoscopic splash of colors and the face of a revered Thai monk offering portable Buddhist good luck charms to tech-savvy buyers.Sales of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — virtual images of anything from popular internet memes to original artwork — have swept the art world in recent months, with some fetching millions of dollars at major auction houses.CryptoAmulets is the latest venture to chase the craze, with founder Ekkaphong Khemthong sensing opportunity in Thailand’s widespread practice of collecting talismans blessed by revered monks.”I am an amulet collector and I was thinking about how I could introduce amulets to foreigners and to the world,” he told AFP.Collecting amulets and other small religious trinkets is a popular pastime in Buddhist-majority Thailand, where the capital Bangkok has a market solely dedicated to the traders of these lucky objects.Their value can rise thousands of dollars if blessed by a well-respected monk.Despite being a digital format, Ekkapong wanted CryptoAmulets to have the same traditional ceremony as a physical piece, which is why he approached Luang Pu Heng, a highly regarded abbot from Thailand’s northeast.”I respect this monk and I would love the world to know about him — he is a symbol of good fortune in business,” he said.Luang Pu Heng last month presided over a ceremony to bless physical replicas of the digital amulets, which show a serene image of his face.He splashed holy water onto his own visage as his saffron-robed disciples chanted and scattered yellow petals on the altar where the portraits were mounted.’We just tried to simplify it’One challenge was trying to explain the concept of NFTs to the 95-year-old abbot, who assumed he would be blessing physical amulets.”It’s very hard so we just tried to simplify it,” said Singaporean developer Daye Chan.”We said to him that it’s like blessing the photos.”Transforming amulets into crypto art also means the usual questions of authenticity plaguing a talisman sold in a market are eliminated, he added.”There are so many amulets being mass produced… All the records could be lost and these physical items can be easily counterfeited,” Chan said.NFTs use blockchain technology — an unalterable digital ledger — to record all transactions from the moment of their creation.”For our amulet, even a hundred years later, they can still check back the record to see what the blockchain is,” Chan said.But founder Ekkaphong would not be drawn on the karmic effectiveness of digital amulets, compared to their real-life counterparts.”They are different,” he said.On the CryptoAmulets website online gallery, different inscriptions are written in Thai — “rich,” “lucky” or “fortunate,” for instance — around each of the tokens.They are priced on a tiered system in ethereum, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, and are currently selling for between $46 and $1,840.Sales have been slow ahead of Sunday’s purchase deadline, with only 1,500 tokens sold out of the 8,000 available, and with Thais making up most of the buyers.Thai chef Theerapong Lertsongkram said he bought a CryptoAmulet because of his reverence for objects blessed by Luang Pu Heng, which he says have brought him good fortune.”I have had several lucky experiences such as winning small lottery prizes… or being promoted on my job,” said Theerapong, who works in a Stockholm restaurant.”I did not know anything about NFTs before, but I made the decision to buy it as I respect Luang Pu Heng so much,” he told AFP.But fellow collector Wasan Sukjit — who adorns the interior of his taxi with rare amulets — has a harder time with the concept.”Amulets need to be something physical, something people can hold,” he scoffed.”I prefer the ones I can hang on my neck.” 
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