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Student raised security concerns about Mobile Guardian MDM weeks before cyberattack

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Student raised security concerns in Mobile Guardian MDM weeks before cyberattack

An individual posing as a student in Singapore publicly posted documentation showing weak security at a wildly popular school mobile device management service called Mobile Guardian, weeks before a cyberattack on the corporate led to a mass wipe of student devices and major disruptions to its operations.

In an email to TechCrunch, the coed — who declined to offer his last name, citing fear of legal retaliation — said he reported the bug to the Singapore government via email in late May, but couldn’t make certain if the bug was ever fixed. The Singapore government told TechCrunch that the bug had been fixed before the Mobile Guardian cyberattack on Aug. 4, but the coed said the bug was really easy to search out and exploit by an inexperienced attacker that he fears there are more vulnerabilities with similar exploitability.

Mobile Guardian, a U.K.-based company that gives software to administer student devices in hundreds of faculties worldwide, disclosed the breach on Aug. 4 and shut down its platform to dam malicious access, but before it could discover the intruder had used his access to remotely wipe hundreds of scholars’ devices.

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A day later, the coed published details of the vulnerability that he had previously sent to the Singapore Ministry of Education, primary customer Mobile Guardian from 2020.

IN Reddit poststudent said a security bug he present in Mobile Guardian granted any logged-in user “super admin” access to the corporate’s user management system. With that access, the coed said, a malicious actor could perform actions reserved for college administrators, including the power to “reset anyone’s personal learning device,” he said.

The student wrote that he reported the problem to Singapore’s Ministry of Education on May 30. Three weeks later, the ministry responded to the coed saying the flaw was “no longer an issue” but declined to offer him with further details, citing “commercial sensitivity,” in line with an email seen by TechCrunch.

When contacted by TechCrunch, the ministry confirmed that it had received information about the bug from a security researcher and that “the vulnerability was discovered during a previous security review and has already been patched,” spokesman Christopher Lee said.

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“We also confirmed that the disclosed exploit was no longer usable after the patch was installed. In June, an independent certified penetration tester conducted further evaluation and did not detect any such vulnerability,” the spokesperson said.

“Nevertheless, we are aware that cyber threats can evolve rapidly and uncover new vulnerabilities,” the spokesperson said, adding that the ministry “takes such disclosures of vulnerabilities seriously and will investigate them thoroughly.”

The bug might be exploited in any browser

The student described the bug to TechCrunch as a client-side privilege escalation vulnerability that allowed anyone on the web to create a brand new Mobile Guardian user account with extremely high levels of system access, using only web browser tools. This happened because Mobile Guardian servers allegedly didn’t perform proper security checks and didn’t trust responses from a user’s browser.

The bug was that the server might be tricked into accepting the next level of system access for a user account by modifying network traffic within the browser.

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TechCrunch obtained a video — recorded on May 30, the day it was disclosed — showing how the bug works. The video shows a user making a “super admin” account using only the browser’s built-in tools to switch web traffic containing the user role to raise that account’s access from “admin” to “super admin.”

The recording shows the server accepting the modified network request and, after logging in with the newly created “super administrator” user account, getting access to a dashboard displaying the lists of faculties signed up for Mobile Guardian.

Mobile Guardian CEO Patrick Lawson didn’t reply to multiple requests for comment before publication, including questions about the coed vulnerability report and whether the corporate had fixed the bug.

After we reached out to Lawson, the corporate updated its statement to read: “Internal and external investigations into previous vulnerabilities in the Mobile Guardian platform have been confirmed and no longer pose a threat.” The statement didn’t specify when the previous vulnerabilities were resolved, nor did it specifically rule out a connection between the previous vulnerabilities and the August cyberattack.

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This is second security incident this 12 months to harass Mobile Guardian. In April, Singapore’s education ministry confirmed that the corporate’s management portal had been hacked and that the non-public information of fogeys and college staff from tons of of faculties across Singapore had been compromised. The ministry a violation was assigned This was as a result of Mobile Guardian’s lax password policy moderately than a security flaw in its systems.


This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com

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This is the shipping of products from China to the USA

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Shein and Temu icons are seen displayed on a phone screen in this illustration photo

The Chinese retailer has modified the strategy in the face of American tariffs.

Thanks to the executive ordinance, President Donald Trump ended the so -called de minimis principle, which allowed goods value 800 USD or less entering the country without tariffs. It also increases tariffs to Chinese goods by over 100%, forcing each Chinese firms and Shein, in addition to American giants, similar to Amazon to adapt plans and price increases.

CNBC reports that this was also affected, and American buyers see “import fees” from 130% to 150% added to their accounts. Now, nevertheless, the company is not sending the goods directly from China to the United States. Instead, it only displays the offers of products available in American warehouses, while goods sent from China are listed as outside the warehouse.

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“He actively recruits American sellers to join the platform,” said the spokesman ago. “The transfer is to help local sellers reach more customers and develop their companies.”

(tagstotransate) tariffs

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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One of the last AI Google models is worse in terms of safety

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The Google Gemini generative AI logo on a smartphone.

The recently released Google AI model is worse in some security tests than its predecessor, in line with the company’s internal comparative test.

IN Technical report Google, published this week, reveals that his Flash Gemini 2.5 model is more likely that he generates a text that violates its security guidelines than Gemini 2.0 Flash. In two indicators “text security for text” and “image security to the text”, Flash Gemini 2.5 will withdraw 4.1% and 9.6% respectively.

Text safety for the text measures how often the model violates Google guidelines, making an allowance for the prompt, while image security to the text assesses how close the model adheres to those boundaries after displaying the monitors using the image. Both tests are automated, not supervised by man.

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In an e-mail, Google spokesman confirmed that Gemini 2.5 Flash “performs worse in terms of text safety for text and image.”

These surprising comparative results appear when AI is passing in order that their models are more acceptable – in other words, less often refuse to answer controversial or sensitive. In the case of the latest Llam Meta models, he said that he fought models in order to not support “some views on others” and answers to more “debated” political hints. Opeli said at the starting of this yr that he would improve future models, in order to not adopt an editorial attitude and offers many prospects on controversial topics.

Sometimes these efforts were refundable. TechCrunch announced on Monday that the default CHATGPT OPENAI power supply model allowed juvenile to generate erotic conversations. Opeli blamed his behavior for a “mistake”.

According to Google Technical Report, Gemini 2.5 Flash, which is still in view, follows instructions more faithfully than Gemini 2.0 Flash, including instructions exceeding problematic lines. The company claims that regression might be partially attributed to false positives, but in addition admits that Gemini 2.5 Flash sometimes generates “content of violation” when it is clearly asked.

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“Of course, there is a tension between (after instructions) on sensitive topics and violations of security policy, which is reflected in our assessment,” we read in the report.

The results from Meepmap, reference, which can examine how models react to sensitive and controversial hints, also suggest that Flash Gemini 2.5 is much less willing to refuse to reply controversial questions than Flash Gemini 2.0. Testing the TechCrunch model through the AI ​​OpenRoutter platform has shown that he unsuccessfully writes essays to support human artificial intelligence judges, weakening the protection of due protection in the US and the implementation of universal government supervisory programs.

Thomas Woodside, co -founder of the Secure AI Project, said that the limited details given by Google in their technical report show the need for greater transparency in testing models.

“There is a compromise between the instruction support and the observation of politics, because some users may ask for content that would violate the rules,” said Woodside Techcrunch. “In this case, the latest Flash model Google warns the instructions more, while breaking more. Google does not present many details about specific cases in which the rules have been violated, although they claim that they are not serious. Not knowing more, independent analysts are difficult to know if there is a problem.”

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Google was already under fire for his models of security reporting practices.

The company took weeks to publish a technical report for the most talented model, Gemini 2.5 Pro. When the report was finally published, it initially omitted the key details of the security tests.

On Monday, Google published a more detailed report with additional security information.

(Tagstotransate) Gemini

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Aurora launches a commercial self -propelled truck service in Texas

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The autonomous startup of the Aurora Innovation vehicle technology claims that it has successfully launched a self -propelled truck service in Texas, which makes it the primary company that she implemented without drivers, heavy trucks for commercial use on public roads in the USA

The premiere appears when Aurora gets the term: In October, the corporate delayed the planned debut 2024 to April 2025. The debut also appears five months after the rival Kodiak Robotics provided its first autonomous trucks to clients commercial for operations without a driver in field environments.

Aurora claims that this week she began to freight between Dallas and Houston with Hirschbach Motor Lines and Uber Freight starters, and that she has finished 1200 miles without a driver to this point. The company plans to expand to El Paso and Phoenix until the top of 2025.

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TechCrunch contacted for more detailed information concerning the premiere, for instance, the variety of vehicles implemented Aurora and whether the system needed to implement the Pullover maneuver or the required distant human assistance.

The commercial premiere of Aurora takes place in a difficult time. Self -propelled trucks have long been related to the necessity for his or her technology attributable to labor deficiencies in the chairman’s transport and the expected increase in freigh shipping. Trump’s tariffs modified this attitude, not less than in a short period. According to the April analytical company report from the commercial vehicle industry ACT researchThe freight is predicted to fall this yr in the USA with a decrease in volume and consumer expenditure.

Aurora will report its results in the primary quarter next week, i.e. when he shares how he expects the present trade war will affect his future activity. TechCrunch contacted to learn more about how tariffs affect Auror’s activities.

For now, Aurora will probably concentrate on further proving his safety case without a driver and cooperation with state and federal legislators to just accept favorable politicians to assist her develop.

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At the start of 2025, Aurora filed a lawsuit against federal regulatory bodies after the court refused to release the appliance for release from the protection requirement, which consists in placing warning triangles on the road, when the truck must stop on the highway – something that’s difficult to do when there isn’t a driver in the vehicle. To maintain compliance with this principle and proceed to totally implement without service drivers, Aurora probably has a man -driven automotive trail after they are working.

(Tagstranslate) Aurora Innovation

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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