Tag: Data

Discover if your data have been leaked with Proton Mail’s new tool

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date April 22, 2024
No Comments on Discover if your data have been leaked with Proton Mail’s new tool

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Proton Mail has just unveiled a new Dark Web Monitoring feature in a bid to bolster its security capabilities against widespread data breaches.

Incidents of data leaks are reportedly on the rise, as billions of people’s credentials are exposed. The longer this sensitive information remains on the web, the easier is for cybercriminals to exploit it to their advantage. This new tool from Proton seeks to challenge this. By identifying and alerting you as soon as your credentials appear in a breach, you will be able to take action before bad actors get to them.

Already one of the most secure email providers on the market, Proton Mail now claims to be the first email service to combine end-to-end encryption and dark web monitoring protections. The new feature is now available on its web and desktop apps, but only for paid subscribers.

Encryption alone isn’t enough

As the Head of Anti-Abuse & Account Security at Proton, Eammon Maguire, explained, the dark web is filled with leaked information, data, and credential dumps—and that’s something that not even the strongest end-to-end encryption alone cannot protect against.

Take the data leak that occurred in January this year, for instance. Dubbed the “Mother of all data breaches,” it unveiled a 12TB database that contained more than 26 billion records. It is the largest data breach to date. One of the best VPN providers, Surfshark, has analysed data breach records from 2004 onwards, and calculated that 3,353 accounts have been breached every minute in the first quarter of 2024—a considerable jump from the end of last year’s average of just 627.

The owners of this leaked data are often unaware, yet cybercriminals are busy trading their sensitive details to launch identity fraud and other attacks. By taking advantage of the fact that most people may reuse their passwords on multiple accounts, criminals often execute what’s known as a “credential stuffing attack.” They enter thousands of these stolen passwords and email addresses across various platforms on the lookout for a potential match.

“While data breaches of third-party sites leading to the leak of personal information (such as your email address) can never be entirely avoided, automated early warning can help users stay vigilant and mitigate worse side effects such as identity theft,” said Maguire.

That’s exactly when Proton Mail’s new Dark Web Monitoring tool comes in—a way for you to react as quickly as possible in case your credentials are being exposed.

The feature regularly scans all the corners of the dark web, which is exactly the section of the internet where your stolen personal information ends up. It looks for email addresses, passwords, and any other personal details linked to your account.

Proton will alert you in case it finds leaked details of any of your accounts for third-party websites. You’ll receive comprehensive information about the breach and the data compromised. The provider will also suggest the steps to take to safeguard your digital identity and mitigate potential risks.

Stay safe from cyber threats!Dark Web Monitoring is available to all paying users of #ProtonMail. If you register for an online service that gets hacked or suffers a #databreach, Proton will now alert you, so you can take immediate action. 1 / 2 pic.twitter.com/qijm01eV3eApril 22, 2024

Proton’s dark web detection tool relies upon the company’s very own threat intelligence datasets alongside data coming from a leading firm in digital threat management, Constella Intelligence.

The provider promises that no user data is ever shared with third parties to do this. However, Maguire explained the team does analyze reports “from third parties any time they find leaked information or data stolen in a hack from a third-party online service that’s tied to a Proton Mail email address or a Proton Pass/SimpleLogin alias.”

Now available for paid subscribers on the web and desktop apps, Proton Mail Dark Web Monitoring can show all known breaches that have affected your accounts over the last two years. Those that carry a higher risk to your privacy are marked with red, while those where fewer details have been compromised are marked with orange.

Maguire said that Dark Web Monitoring will soon send notifications also to your Android or iPhone device so that you can take action even quicker. The plan is also to extend the data to watch out for, including custom domain emails and external email addresses you used to register to its Proton VPN, Proton Pass, and Proton Drive.

He said: “You may not be able to avoid data breaches, but thanks to Dark Web Monitoring and other Proton security features, you can mitigate risks and stay in control of your digital identity.”

In case you believe to be particularly at risk of cyberattack, we also recommend checking out its Proton Sentinel program which is available for all Unlimited, Family, and Business subscribers.

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Tags Data, Discover, leaked, Mails, Proton, tool

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Discord’s updated Terms of Service are exactly the wrong response to its recent data breaches

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date April 20, 2024
No Comments on Discord’s updated Terms of Service are exactly the wrong response to its recent data breaches

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It seems that Discord has been in the news for one reason or another lately, ranging from layoffs to massive privacy breaches and information theft by third parties. And now there’s something new on the horizon — one that may not seem like such a huge deal now but could cause massive issues later on down the line for Discord users.

Discord has recently updated its forced arbitration clause in its Terms of Service for its service for US residents, a decision that follows many other corporations that operate primarily in the US. According to the clause, any users who reside in the US waive their right to a jury trial, which includes any class action suits:

screenshot of discord TOS — (Image credit: Future)

But why would Discord bother to update its TOS now?

The answer likely lies in the other troubles Discord has found itself in lately, concerning the harvested information and chats from the service. Recently a publically accessible website has been discovered aggregating billions of Discord chats and is set to sell that data to the highest bidder. And back in January 2024, Discord bots were found to have been used in information-stealing campaigns. There’s also the fact that, according to its own policies, Discord itself has full authorization to create data profiles on users and sell them to third parties as it sees fit.

Discord is doing a disservice to its users with its updated TOS

Discord responded that it was investigating these breaches but they’ve been ongoing for years now, since at least 2020. And instead of fully investing in addressing them and properly safeguarding user data, the service instead decides to ensure that US users can’t exercise their right to jury trial. Forced arbitration strips the collective legal rights of users, allowing corporations to wield their full legal strength against mere individuals with far less power.

This essentially means that Discord has chosen to protect itself instead of its US user base. It’s allowing bad actors to run rampant throughout its service and then disallowing those same users the right to collectively demand accountability for having their private data repeatedly stolen and sold. One could even assert that this is preparation to allow Discord to expand its own data collection with impunity, as users in the US would have little legal recourse to challenge that as well.

If that’s not a massive alarm bell as for what’s to come in the future, then none else exists.

What you can do about it

For an email template:”I DO NOT AGREE TO THE AGREEMENT TO ARBITRATE FOR THE ACCOUNT(S) LISTED/DESCRIBED BELOW:, and in the event I should change my username or discriminator, “get your ID by enabling dev mode & right clicking your profileApril 18, 2024

There is an important step you can take right now, however, to make it clear that you’re not waiving your right to a jury trial. According to the TOS, you may opt out of this forced arbitration clause by “emailing an opt-out notice to [email protected] within 30 days of April 15, 2024 or when you first register your Discord account, whichever is later.” Twitter / X user @guldeuxchats has provided an excellent template that you can use to write out your email.

You can also obtain your Discord user ID number by enabling developer mode in the Discord settings and include that in your email. This is handy in case you ever change your username and need to permanently reference your account for your records’ sake.

If enough people in the US opt out of this clause before the deadline and spread this information around, then it could send a message to Discord to get its priorities straight and protect its user base — the same userbase that has contributed to the growth of this service in the first place.

It’s not like this is the first time Discord has been forced to walk back massive privacy concerns either. The service previously landed itself in hot water when it erased entire sentences from its privacy policy that explicitly protected users from having voice and video chats scraped for data. But thanks to enough public pushback, those protections were reinstated again. Now it’s time to do it again.

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Tags breaches, Data, Discords, response, Service, terms, updated, wrong

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Malicious Google Ads found promoting a fake IP scanner that just wants to steal your data

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date April 19, 2024
No Comments on Malicious Google Ads found promoting a fake IP scanner that just wants to steal your data

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Security researchers have spotted another malicious advertising campaign in Google Ads that sees hackers impersonating multiple legitimate software companies.

While definitely not the first of its kind, this campaign was said to be unique for distributing a sophisticated Windows backdoor.

The campaign was first spotted by cybersecurity researchers from Zscaler Threat labs, who noted between November 2023, and March 2024, unidentified threat actors registered at least 45 domains. All of them were typosquatted versions of port scanning and IT management software companies, such as Advanced IP Scanner, Angry IP Scanner, IP scanner PRTG, and ManageEngine.

New malware

Then, they somehow managed to create an ad campaign on Google Ads to promote these sites. Usually, hackers would do it by obtaining access to a legitimate Google Ads account, possibly one with a proven track record of “clean” ads.

Consequently, whoever would search for this type of software on Google would be presented with these ads in the top of the search engine results page, as well as in other locations reserved for ads. Those who would open the site, and download the programs offered there, would end up getting the MadMxShell backdoor.

This backdoor, The Hacker News reports, is a brand new piece of malware. Its infection chain is relatively long, and includes multiple DLL and EXE files.

“The backdoor uses techniques such as multiple stages of DLL side-loading and DNS tunneling for command-and-control (C2) communication as a means to evade endpoint and network security solutions, respectively,” the researchers explained.

“In addition, the backdoor uses evasive techniques like anti-dumping to prevent memory analysis and hinder forensics security solutions.”

So far, the researchers don’t know who the attackers are, or what their motives for the campaign might be. A backdoor has numerous use cases, from data theft and espionage, to unauthorized access, setting up persistence, and even remote control.

Cisco Duo says a third-party data breach stole MFA SMS logs

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date April 16, 2024
No Comments on Cisco Duo says a third-party data breach stole MFA SMS logs

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Cisco Duo has confirmed some sensitive customer data was stolen after a third-party cyber-incident.

In a breach notification letter sent to affected customers, Cisco Duo said that its telephony provider, which it didn’t name, was compromised on April 1 2024. Unidentified threat actors mounted a phishing attack against the third party, through which they stole login credentials for the company’s systems.

With those login credentials, the attackers downloaded SMS and VoIP MFA message logs associated with specific Duo accounts. The logs were generated in March, it was said.

Smishing incoming

“The message logs did not contain any message content but did contain the phone number, phone carrier, country, and state to which each message was sent, as well as other metadata (e.g., date and time of the message, type of message, etc.),” the message reads.

“The Provider confirmed that the threat actor did not download or otherwise access the content of any messages or use their access to the Provider’s internal systems to send any messages to any of the numbers contained in the message logs.”

Obtaining phone numbers and other metadata is probably enough to run social engineering attacks such as phishing, or even engage in identity theft. Cisco warned its customers to be wary of any incoming SMS messages. “Please also consider educating your users on the risks posed by social engineering attacks and investigating any suspicious activity.”

When the victim company discovered the incident, they invalidated the compromised credentials and pinged Cisco about what had happened. They then implemented “additional technical measures” to prevent similar incidents in the future, as well as to mitigate the damage done by this attack.

Cisco Duo has more than 100,000 customers and processes more than a billion authentications every month. It has more than 10 million downloads on Google Play.

Via BleepingComputer

Ransomware attack hits top chipmaker Nexperia, huge hoard of data set to be leaked

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date April 16, 2024
No Comments on Ransomware attack hits top chipmaker Nexperia, huge hoard of data set to be leaked

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Top chipmaker Nexperia suffered a ransomware attack last month which saw threat actors get away with a terabyte of sensitive corporate data.

“Nexperia has become aware that an unauthorized third party accessed certain Nexperia IT servers in March 2024,” the company said in a statement shared with BleepingComputer. “We promptly took action and disconnected the affected systems from the internet to contain the incident and implemented extensive mitigation.”

The company later brought in third-party security experts to determine the nature and the scope of the incident, and took “strong measures” to terminate the unauthorized access.

Dark Angels

In the meantime, a threat actor calling itself Dunghill Leak assumed responsibility for the attack, claiming they were in possession of a terabyte of confidential data. To prove its claims, the group shared a sample, which included microscope scans of electronic components, employee passports, non-disclosure agreements, and other information.

The group is now demanding an unknown ransom payment, and if Nexperia declines, they will allegedly leak:

371 GB of design and product data, including QC, NDAs, trade secrets, technical specifications, confidential schematics, and production instructions.
246 GB of engineering data, including internal studies and manufacturing technologies.
96 GB of commercial and marketing data, including pricing and marketing analysis.
41.5 GB of corporate data, including HR, employee personal details, passports, NDAs, etc.
109 GB of client and user data, including brands such as SpaceX, IBM, Apple, and Huawei.
121.1 GB of various files and miscellaneous data, including email storage files.

Nexperia is a subsidiary of Wingtech Technology, a major Chinese chipmaker that operates plants in Germany and the UK. It builds transistors, diodes, MOSFETs, and logic divides, it was said. Its annual revenue exceeds $2 billion.

In its writeup, BleepingComputer claims the Dunghill Leak site is linked to the Dark Angels ransomware group.

Is there a moral imperative for businesses to share data?

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date April 16, 2024
No Comments on Is there a moral imperative for businesses to share data?

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Imagine a world where knowledge, data, insights, breakthroughs aren’t hoarded but shared, with a purpose: to tackle the monumental challenges facing our communities, societies and planet. This isn’t a utopian ideal, but a technical reality, and more importantly, moral imperative today.

Debates that were once the domain of Ivory Tower academics are front and center in the boardrooms of organizations working in energy, defense, transportation and healthcare. Stung by years of instability, volatility, global crises, conflict, and tension, companies are desperate to increase resilience, efficiency and competitiveness. There is growing evidence of individuals within enterprises keen to work cooperatively in ecosystems, who see the vastness of the challenges their businesses face and know that it is only possible to meet those challenges in partnership with others.

But enthusiastic individuals have been struggling against corporate and political inertia. In the midst of the pandemic, the World Economic Forum highlighted a lack of will at the highest levels to collaborate across geographies, across boundaries. Adoption of initiatives to enable collaboration, desire for consensus, and expectation of standardization are slowed by self interest, and perceived commercial realities.

Ali Nicholl

Founding Member and Head of Engagement at IOTICS.

Growing understanding

Despite a growing understanding that sharing information leads to better outcomes for customers and companies, and usually as a result benefits people’s lives and the planet, some industries are slower than others when it comes to being open to sharing data in a mixed trust or zero trust environment. The orthodoxy says that the solution is to convince the majority of the rightness of a course of action, and get agreement on how to act, and then to implement change.

That isn’t how you change the world. The sad reality is that in a global market slow and steady doesn’t win a race, I’d argue it never has, but it certainly won’t if the race track is crumbling around you. Look at the healthcare industry, for example. Organizations here are dealing with more problems in more complex ways that are more expensive than ever before. But these problems are approached with 20th century budgets and ideas. As a result, many healthcare systems are at breaking point.

Greater demands

In every aspect of our life we are seeing greater and greater demands on our resources, personal, societal and governmental. One of the challenges that the utilities sector faces is accurately identifying and supporting customers living with vulnerabilities. Despite mandates from regulators around data sharing, progress has been slow and many vulnerable customers face potentially dangerous situations. Utilities companies hold information on customers that, if available securely across an ecosystem, could allow emergency help to be directed to those who need it most in the event of a storm or flood. Sharing data could also help provide tailored extra support by being more flexible around payments.

In defense, despite the heightened geopolitical risk, encapsulated by the notion we are now on a pre-war footing, the UK armed forces are facing an equipment funding shortfall of £17bn over the next 10 years. Civil and military aerospace and industrial manufacturers are confronting supply chain disruption, spiraling prices, and skills shortages. We simply do not have the runway for business as usual. Siloed effort, and worse repeated reinvention of effort, are wasting resources at every level of the supply chain.

Technology-enabled cooperation can inspire and accelerate societal change for a thriving planet. New technologies, approaches, and capabilities are being developed by brilliant individuals and organisations all the time, but working together and leveraging expertise from across sectors, geographies and organisations can provide sustainable solutions. The automotive industry is investing in data spaces to enable interoperable supply chains from rare earth materials to on-the-road innovation. Embedding resilience, increasing adaptability and enhancing the value in their individual expertise and specialisms.

Data has become our most valuable commodity, but it is often siloed within organizations due to technical, regulatory or commercial barriers. Concerns around intellectual property (IP), commercial asset & secrets, and cybersecurity are held up as the barrier to working and thriving in ecosystems. Technologies now exist that can mitigate these risks, enabling sovereignty of data, and secure cooperation without exposure to commercially sensitive or individually identifiable information.

Exploring different models

Despite these innovations, reticence remains, and there is still an unwillingness to explore different models and new approaches. I passionately believe that to delay further is immoral. To know that it is possible to address climate change, to increase climate resilience, to improve social inequality, to protect the most vulnerable in our society and ensure that no one is left behind as we transition to new technologies, energy and models and to not act is now a choice. To hide behind initiatives that are little more than talking shops, sustainability approaches that don’t address the underlying wastefulness and roadmaps for change that won’t see impact for decades, if at all, is a dereliction of leadership.

It is also a disservice to shareholders. I accept the commercial realities we all work within. So let’s remove the moral and speak to selfish altruism. A recent KPMG report stated ‘Every day, organizations deal with increasing amounts of data, originating from both inside and outside the organization. Due to centralized data ownership and data access, transparency and timeliness have become bottlenecks in many organizations’.’ Those bottlenecks cost money, they represent inability to bring capabilities to market, to seize opportunities and to maximize profits. Inability to cooperate in ecosystems limits export markets, diminishes resilience, and prevents the innovation and adaptation necessary to capitalize on new technologies.

Unwillingness to grasp the imperative of rapidly exploring, leveraging and exchanging data, knowledge and systems across ecosystems, is hurting your businesses. It is limiting the upside of your strategy and leaving you vulnerable to the symptoms and consequences of the generational challenges that we face. There might be a moral imperative for data sharing. But there’s a commercial one too.

We’ve listed the best cloud optimization service.

This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro’s Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

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Tags businesses, Data, imperative, moral, Share

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Real life 6G speed tests revealed by Japanese tech giants — 100Gb/s transmissions could become the norm for mainstream wireless network data transfer within a few years

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A consortium of Japanese technology behemoths, including NTT DOCOMO, NTT, NEC, and Fujitsu, have revealed the results of their real-world 6G speed tests.

The ground-breaking achievement shows the group’s ability to achieve ultra-high-speed 100Gb/s data transmission, marking a pivotal moment in the advent of the 6G wireless communication era.

The four firms, which have been working together on the project since 2021, jointly developed a sub-terahertz 6G device and demonstrated its proficiency in 100Gb/s transmissions in the 100GHz and 300GHz bands over distances of up to 100 meters. The achievement is exceptionally noteworthy as it is approximately 20 times faster than the current 5G maximum data rate of 4.9Gb/s.

Verification test in the 100 GHz and 300 GHz bands — (Image credit: Fujitsu)

Setting the 6G standard

Each of the four companies brings a particular expertise to the project: DOCOMO developed the wireless equipment capable of handling these enormous data rates, NTT developed a device capable of transmitting 100Gb/s per channel, NEC contributed a multi-element active phased array antenna, and Fujitsu showcased world-leading efficiency in a high-output power amplifier.

Despite the hurdles associated with the higher frequencies of the sub-terahertz band, the companies believe high-capacity wireless communication is obtainable. Leveraging each company’s strengths, they pledge to continue their collaborative R&D efforts to set the standard for 6G telecommunications.

When 6G eventually becomes mainstream, it is predicted to support diverse applications such as ultra-HD video streaming and real-time control in autonomous vehicles. 6G technology like this could see 100Gb/s transmission speeds potentially becoming the new norm.

The key assumption for these findings is uncontested achievement in 100Gbps transmission over a distance of 100 meters in the 100GHz and 300GHz bands, and the attainment of an equivalent isotropic radiation power of 50 dBm. It’s important to note that the actual data rates may vary based on the communication environment and network congestion.

Could JWST solve cosmology’s big mystery? Physicists debate Universe-expansion data

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date April 15, 2024
No Comments on Could JWST solve cosmology’s big mystery? Physicists debate Universe-expansion data

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This image, taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the globular star cluster Terzan 1. — Observations of the current Universe suggest a faster rate of cosmic expansion than predictions based on early-Universe data.Credit: NASA/ESA/Judy Schmidt

Cosmology seems to be heading for a showdown on one of its most basic questions: how fast is the Universe expanding?

For more than a decade, two types of measurement have been in disagreement. Observations of the current Universe typically find the rate of expansion — called the Hubble constant — to be about 9% faster than predictions based on early-Universe data.

Mystery over Universe’s expansion deepens with fresh data

Researchers hoped that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which launched in late 2021, would help to settle the question once and for all. But consensus has so far failed to materialise. Instead, two teams of cosmologists have calculated different values for the Hubble constant — despite both observing the recent Universe using the JWST.

Wendy Freedman, an astronomer at the University of Chicago in Illinois, and her collaborators presented preliminary results from their JWST observations today at a conference at the Royal Society in London. The Hubble constant they measured was 69.1 kilometers per second per megaparsec, meaning that galaxies separated by one million parsec (around 3 million light years) are receding from each other at a rate of 69.1 km/s.

This is only slightly larger than the 67 km/s per megaparsec predicted using early-universe data from Europe’s Planck satellite. But it is at odds with recent work by Adam Riess, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and his collaborators, who calculated a substantially higher Hubble constant, of at least 73 km/s per Mpc¹^,²^,³.

Stars and supernovas

Freedman’s team analyzed three types of star that are used as distance indicators, or ‘standard candles’, in nearby galaxies. Understanding the average brightness of standard candles helps astronomers estimate how far away the same types of star are in more distant galaxies, which appear as they were billions of years ago. Together with observations of supernova explosions in the same galaxies, standard candles can be used to measure the Universe’s current rate of expansion.

Riess, whose observations were based on the same three types of star, warns that it is too early to draw conclusions from any of the JWST data. “The Hubble Space Telescope has collected a mountain of data over several decades, including four separate and direct calibrations of [the Hubble constant],” he says. “Our JWST programme and Wendy’s are tiny by comparison.”

This new map of the Universe suggests dark matter shaped the cosmos

It would be premature to comment on Freedman’s results because they have not yet been published, says Kristin McQuinn, an astronomer at Rutgers University in New Jersey who is leading her own study of standard candles with JWST. “It is hard to evaluate their results without seeing their data.”

Freedman says that multiple techniques will need to agree before the Hubble constant issue is solved. “We need more than one method, and we need more than three if we want to put this issue to rest,” she told delegates at the London meeting.

Cosmologist George Efstathiou, a leading member of the Planck collaboration who is based at the University of Cambridge, UK, sees the glass half full, saying that the latest JWST results are remarkably close to Planck’s. “They are 4 km/s away from each other, which is not a lot,“ he says.

Hiranya Peiris, a cosmologist also at the University of Cambridge, says that she wouldn’t be surprised if the recent-Universe observations were to end up converging towards the Planck early-Universe results. But she agrees that it will be crucial to add a completely new technique to the mix. Observations of gravitational waves could offer a ‘clean’ approach that doesn’t suffer from the confounding factors that are always present when observing stars, she adds.

If the discrepancy is here to stay, it could mean that the current theoretical model of the expansion of the Universe — which relies on Einstein’s general theory of relativity — needs to be amended. Theorists have been busy trying to find explanations for the Hubble-constant discrepancy, but none of them are compatible with every set of observations, says cosmologist Eleonora Di Valentino at the University of Sheffield, UK. “At least 500 models have been proposed, and none of them is satisfactory.”

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Tags Big, cosmologys, Data, debate, JWST, mystery, physicists, solve, Universeexpansion

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An incredible $100 billion bet to get rid of Nvidia dependence — tech experts reckon Microsoft will build a million-server strong data center that will primarily use critical inhouse components

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Microsoft and OpenAI are reportedly in the process of planning a groundbreaking data center project which would include an AI supercomputer named “Stargate”.

A report by Anissa Gardizy and Amir Efrati in The Information claims the goal of the project, which would be financed by Microsoft to the tune of over $100 billion, and which reportedly has a launch date set for 2028, is to reduce the two companies’ reliance on Nvidia, something that a lot of the tech giants involved in AI are increasingly looking to try to do.

Microsoft and OpenAI’s plan reportedly involves five phases, with Stargate being the fifth and most ambitious one.

The data center will be the supercomputer

The cost of the project is attributed to the age-old “sources familiar with the plans” (The Information says these are “a person who spoke to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about it and a person who has viewed some of Microsoft’s initial cost estimates”), but neither Microsoft nor OpenAI have yet commented on the specifics of the project.

The new data center project is expected to push the boundaries of AI capability and could potentially exceed $115 billion in expenses. This is more than triple the amount Microsoft spent on capital expenditures for servers and equipment last year. Microsoft is currently working on a smaller, fourth-phase supercomputer for OpenAI that is expected to launch around 2026, The Information claims.

Shedding more light on the report, The Next Platform says, “The first thing to note about the rumored “Stargate” system that Microsoft is planning to build to support the computational needs of its large language model partner, OpenAI, is that the people doing the talking – reportedly OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman – are talking about a data center, not a supercomputer. And that is because the data center – and perhaps multiple data centers within a region with perhaps as many as 1 million XPU computational devices – will be the supercomputer.”

The Next Platform also says if Stargate does come to fruition it will be “based on future generations of Cobalt Arm server processors and Maia XPUs, with Ethernet scaling to hundreds of thousands to 1 million XPUs in a single machine,” and it definitely won’t be based on Nvidia GPUs and interconnects, which seems like a safe bet if the rumors are to be believed.

A 30,000TB tower powered by a 70-year-old technology — Spectra Logic proves that data tape still has a place in an AI world with storage system that can handle thousands of LTO-9 tapes

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Spectra Logic has introduced the Spectra Cube tape library, a cloud-optimized system for on-premise, hybrid cloud, and IaaS environments that is designed to be quickly deployed, dynamically scaled, and easily serviced without tools or downtime.

The Spectra Cube library is managed by the company’s recently announced LumOS library management software, which provides secure local and remote management and monitoring.

The tower is compatible with LTO-6, LTO-7, LTO-8, and LTO-9 technology generations and will reportedly support LTO-10 when it becomes available. LTO-6 support allows users to read old tapes all the way back to LTO-4 with an LTO-6 tape drive. The solution features high tape cartridge exchange performance, a TeraPack Access Port for easy tape handling, and drive interfaces including Fibre Channel and SAS.

Up to 30PB of native capacity

With a capacity-on-demand expansion model, the Spectra Cube allows for additional tape slots and drives to be enabled via software without downtime. The library offers up to 30PB of native capacity and supports up to 16 partitions for shared or multi-tenant environments.

“As cloud data continues to grow rapidly, the escalating costs of public cloud storage have forced a reckoning, leading to significant interest in moving data to more economical locations including on-prem clouds and hybrid clouds,” said Matt Ninesling, senior director of tape portfolio management at Spectra Logic.

“Compared to typical public cloud options, Spectra Cube solutions can cut the costs of cold storage by half or more, while providing better data control and protection from existential threats like ransomware.”

The price of a fully-fledged Spectra Cube library ranges from under $60,000 to over $500,000 depending on configuration, number of tape drives, amount of media, and other additions to the base library.