It’s not hard to hack a computer, especially when security is not a priority for so many businesses out there. Look at any computer/network security focused website and pretty much every day you come across evidence of some hack being reported, most of the time well after the attackers have either stolen gigabytes of data, or in a lot of cases, encrypted it all and asked for a ransom. How does all of this happen with seemingly nothing done to deter criminals from continuing this lucrative business? Well, by being countries that have weak cybersecurity laws, for one. Another, criminals don’t have to be smart, they just have to be opportunistic… enter: Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS).

On April 20th, it was announced that the U.S. Government was directing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Department of Energy, and the electricity industry to conduct a 100-day sprint in which they will address critical risks to the U.S. power grid. It, “represents swift, aggressive actions to confront cyber threats from adversaries who seek to compromise critical systems that are essential to U.S. national and economic security,” according to the announcement.

For the record, Macs are not immune from infections of malicious software. This is proof that, “ain’t nobody safe!”

Researchers at Red Canary have discovered that nearly 30,000 Macs in 153 countries have been infected with a new malware strain called Silver Sparrow. Although the delivery of additional payloads has not been observed yet, its forward-looking M1 chip compatibility, global reach, relatively high infection rate, and operational maturity suggests Silver Sparrow is a reasonably serious threat that is uniquely positioned to deliver a potentially impactful payload at a moment’s notice.

A cyborg soldier controlled entirely by AI. A cybernetically enhanced human roaming the streets doing all kinds of jobs for money. These sound like plots out of a movie or video game. That’s because they are! But don’t let fiction fool you. These developments are coming to the real world sooner than you think.

It is always amazing to look back at old sci-fi movies and literature, getting glimpses of what the future may hold regarding technology. Whether it is the tv walls from Fahrenheit 451 or the communicators from Star Trek. So much of our technology today was inspired by the sci-fi genre, but none so intriguing to me as a universal translator. Sci-fi has showcased characters wearing a small device like a hearing aid to automatically shift foreign languages into their own native language.