Poisoned Android notifications could hijack Google Gemini’s voice assistant without a malicious app.
Category: mobile phones
Google adds Android protection against AI deepfake scam calls
Google is introducing a new Android security feature that will detect and flag phone calls in which scammers use artificial intelligence to impersonate a user’s personal contacts.
Called “fake call detection,” the feature is rolling out globally this month to Android 12 and later devices, starting with Pixel devices, and will be enabled by default.
Once activated, it works automatically when both a caller and recipient are using Phone by Google: when a contact places a call, their device sends a silent, encrypted confirmation signal to the recipient’s device in real time.
Dutch Authorities Dismantle Botnet Linked to 17 Million Infected Devices
Dutch authorities have announced the takedown of a botnet that enslaved millions of infected devices, including computers, tablets, smartphones, and IoT devices, to carry out malicious attacks.
The bot network, per the Dutch Politie and the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), consisted of at least 17 million infected devices. More than 200 servers located in the Netherlands acted as the platform’s backend infrastructure.
According to a statement issued by the NCSC, police officials seized a subset of these servers from a hosting provider that provided the infrastructure. The provider is said to have subsequently taken the botnet offline following its use for criminal purposes.
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Dutch govt disrupts malware botnet with 17 million infected devices
Dutch authorities have taken offline a massive botnet of 17 million devices and seized more than 200 servers at a local provider that supported the operation.
The action was carried out following an investigation from the Police in collaboration with the country’s cybersecurity agency, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).
According to the authorities, the seized servers controlled “computers, tablets, and smartphones to carry out cyberattacks.”
Low-power, flexible radio-frequency transistors break 100 GHz barrier
Over the past decades, electronics engineers worldwide have been trying to develop devices that could enable even faster communications between devices, all while consuming less energy. To meet the demands of the sixth generation (6G) of wireless communication technology, these devices should operate at frequencies above 100 gigahertz (GHz).
So far, developing flexible electronic components that can operate at these high frequencies while consuming little power has proved challenging. One promising approach for fabricating these devices entails the use of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), extremely thin and cylindrical structures with advantageous electrical and thermal properties.
Researchers at Peking University and Stanford University recently developed new flexible and low-power CNT-based transistors that operate at frequencies above 100 GHz. These transistors, presented in a paper published in Nature Electronics, could potentially help to speed up communications between future smartphones, sensors, wearable devices, and other flexible devices.
New magnesium alloy design improves stability and ion transport in solid-state batteries
The modern world runs on invisible energy. Hidden inside smartphones, laptops, and electric vehicles, are batteries that quietly power everyday life. As society becomes increasingly dependent on portable and sustainable energy, the development of compact and reliable battery technology has become one of the most important technological challenges of our time.
Lithium-ion batteries currently dominate the battery industry, but alternatives that could offer improved safety, lower cost, and higher energy density are being actively explored. Solid-state magnesium batteries have long been considered a promising next-generation energy technology. However, instability inside these batteries remains a major obstacle to their development.