Top wifi hacker for android

Nami Hamaura says she feels less lonely working from home thanks to her singing companion Charlie, one of a new generation of cute and clever Japanese robots whose sales are booming in the pandemic.

Smart home assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa have found success worldwide, but tech firms in Japan are reporting huge demand for more humanlike alternatives, as people seek solace during coronavirus isolation.

“I felt my circle became very small,” said 23-year-old Hamaura, a recent graduate who has worked almost entirely remotely since April 2020.

With socialising limited, life in her first job at a Tokyo trading company was nothing like she had imagined.

So she adopted Charlie, a mug-sized robot with a round head, red nose and flashing bow-tie, who converses with its owner in song.

In this picture taken on February 4, 2021 shows communication robot Charlie being pictured in Nami Hamaura’s apartment in Tokyo. Photo: AFP

Yamaha, which makes Charlie, describes it as “more chatty than a pet, but less work than a lover”.

“He is there for me to chat with as someone other than family, or friends on social networks, or a boss I needed to produce a report for,” Hamaura told AFP .

She is a pre-launch test customer for Charlie, which Yamaha plans to release later this year.

“Charlie, tell me something interesting,” she asks while typing at her dining table.

“Well, well… balloons burst when you spray lemon juice!” he replies, cheerfully tilting his head to each side.

In this picture taken on February 4, 2021 shows Nami Hamaura talking with communication robot Charlie in her apartment in Tokyo. Photo: AFP

‘Every object has a soul’

Sharp said sales of its small humanoid Robohon were up 30 percent in the three months to September 2020 compared with a year earlier.

“Not only families with children, but also seniors in their 60s and 70s” are snapping up Robohon, which talks, dances and is also a working phone, a Sharp spokesman told AFP .

But the adorable android — first released in 2016 and only available in Japan — does not come cheap, with regular models priced between $820 and $2,250.

Charlie and Robohon are part of a new wave of robot companions pioneered by firms such as Sony with its robot dog Aibo, on sale since 1999, and SoftBank’s friendly Pepper, which hit shelves in 2015.

“Many Japanese people accept the idea that every object has a soul,” said Shunsuke Aoki, CEO of robot firm Yukai Engineering.

“They want a robot to have a character, like a friend, family or a pet — not a mechanical function like a dishwasher.”

In this picture taken on December 20, 2020 shows diners interacting with robots Lovot in a cafe in Kawasaki. Photo: AFP

Yukai’s robots include Qoobo, a fluffy pillow with a mechanical tail that wiggles like a real pet.

They will soon release their latest home assistant “Bocco emo”, which looks like a miniature snowman and allows families to leave and send voice messages through their phones.

Kaori Takahashi, 32, bought a Yukai robot-building kit for her six-year-old son to keep him occupied during the pandemic.

Robots feel normal in everyday life because they are in so many Japanese children’s films and cartoons, she said.

“I grew up watching anime shows ‘The Astro Boy Essays’ and ‘Doraemon’, which both feature robots, and my children love them too.”

This picture taken on December 9, 2020 shows Akito Takahashi playing with a handmade robot kit at his apartment in Tokyo. Photo: AFP

‘Heartwarming feeling’

Studies have shown that therapeutic robot pets designed in Japan, such as fluffy mechanical seals, can bring comfort to dementia patients.

But the makers of Lovot — a robot the size of a small toddler, with big round eyes and penguin-like wings that flutter up and down — think everyone can benefit from a bot that just wants to be loved.

It has more than 50 sensors and an internal heating system, making it warm to touch, which it reacts to with squeaks of joy.

In this picture taken on December 8, 2020 shows Shunsuke Aoki, CEO of Yukai Engineering hugging robotic cushion Qoobo n a studio in Tokyo. Photo: AFP

Manufacturer Groove X said monthly sales shot up more than tenfold after the coronavirus hit Japan.

A single Lovot costs around $2,800, plus fees for maintenance and software — but those without deep pockets can visit the “Lovot Cafe” near Tokyo instead.

One customer there, 64-year-old Yoshiko Nakagawa, called out to one of the robots fondly by name, as if to a grandson.

During Japan’s virus state of emergency, the capital became “stark and empty”, she said.

“We need time to heal ourselves after this bleak period. If I had one of these babies at home, the heartwarming feeling would probably do the trick.”

This photo taken on October 3, 2016 shows robot-shaped smartphones called ‘RoBoHoN’, developed by Sharp, on display at a press preview of the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC) Japan in Chiba, in suburban Tokyo. Photo: AFP

Kaspersky’s report on the impact of Covid-19 on SMEs in 2020 pointed out that as the pandemic has caused serious damage to businesses, many of them cut their budgets for information technology and information security solutions in 2021. Micro businesses and business households do not have enough money to hire workers in charge of information security.

Ransomware

Experts said ransomeware of different types ‘mushroomed’ in 2020, targeting more subjects and increasing the level of danger. They have targeted hospitals, medical and financial institutions, important agencies, factories and infrastructure items in order to increase the pressure and require ransoms.

Meanwhile, the level of awareness and vigilance of SMEs about the malware remains modest.

A report from Coveware showed that ransomware ‘favors’ SMEs with fewer than 100 officers with 55 percent of attacks targeting this group of businesses.

The majority of SMEs that are victims of ransomeware pay ransoms in exchange to get back for their important data.

A new characteristic of Ransomware 2.0 is that they not only encrypt data and require ransoms, but also blackmail victims in exchange for not making public the data.

Scamming via emails, mobile messages

Hackers exploit mistakes by officers and key personnel in enterprises and organizations to penetrate into their systems, and steal financial information and enterprises’ data.

Abnormal Security reported that the number of phishing emails disguised as invoices and payments has increased by 81 percent, causing a loss of $81,000 on average for every attack.

Experts found that it is easier to cheat people via mobile messages associated with links that people click on. This type of phishing has become favored by hackers.

Response

Ngo Tran Vu, CEO of NTS Security, said the Covid-19 pandemic has forcef SMEs to run a remote working regime, which is a high risk for businesses’ information safety.

“Officers working from a distance tend to be (careless) when accessing enterprises’ secret information. They may access businesses’ accounts from public wifi networks which can be hacked easily,” he said.

The devices they use, such as computers and smartphones, also cannot be protected well like devices at office which are protected by professional IT officers. Therefore, businesses need to set principles for information access to protect data.

“A plan for safe remote work and scenarios to respond to emergency cases are necessary for SMEs,” Vu said.

He went on to say that backup, both offline and online, on clouds will help reduce risks from ransomware.

Trong Dat

Earlier this month, Ngo Minh Hieu published a long article on his personal page, sharing information about a cyber-safety software that took him “three nights to complete.”

Hieu doing such good, useful work is the stuff of Hollywood or Bollywood scripts about redemption of erstwhile criminals and/or convicts.

As a teen and a youth, from 2007 until 2013, Hieu stole personal data, including names, birth dates, social security numbers, and bank account information from online marketplaces, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. He sold the information for nearly $2 million, the department said.

On his release, Hieu said he regretted his action and hoped that he would land a cybersecurity job to make amends.

His hope has been realized. He returned to Vietnam in August and works currently for Vietnam’s National Cybersecurity Center (NCSC).

Hieu’s new initiative, “Chong Lua Dao” (Fighting scam), can be installed on Chrome, Coc Coc, Brave and Kiwi browsers. It will rate the safety level of websites and social media accounts. For instance, if a page is flagged as a phishing or otherwise unsuitable site, the software add-on will block the computer from accessing it. The software had more than 3,500 downloads a day after it was launched.

For real?

The anti-phishing article on Hieu’s personal account has received tens of thousands of comments and interactions, mostly of encouragement. But there were some who expressed doubts about an information security tool built by someone who used to be a hacker.

“I know that people won’t stop talking about at my past,” said Hieu. However, he has moved on and does not care about his history, Hieu said, he is focused on creating benefits for the community at large.

The idea of creating a software to protect users from phishing sites crossed his mind when he was serving his sentence in the U.S. and deployed after he returned to Vietnam.

He said that he has learned his lessons from past mistakes and now considers them “assets” that help him build a project against phishing.

“I understand the nature of the matter since I once was a hacker going around deceiving people and spreading malicious codes. So I want to contribute my understanding to help the community.”

In the anti-phishing development team, Hieu is responsible for evaluating the safety of a website. His previous experience helps him tell at just a glance if a site is a scam or not.

The anti-phishing tool is built on the idea of MyWOT – a tool that evaluates the reputation of websites with more than 6 million users around the world, sharing a similar working mechanism. The add-on evaluates the security of a website based on technical analysis, such as IP, URL length and SSL certificate, combined with user ratings, which are combined to create an overall rating on a 1 to 5 scale for each site.

However, the development team must review each report to avoid errors in their judgment, since there are safe websites getting bad reviews from competitors or malicious websites that get good reviews from people “with bad intentions.”

Thanks to Hieu’s experience as well as the contribution of two other security experts, the tool has added 1,000 websites to the “blacklist” after reviewing 1,400 reports from users just one day after its launch. Once it is blacklisted, a website will be “locked,” preventing users from accessing it. The browser displays warnings when certain users want to access such phishing websites.

‘Bamboo curtain’

The “Chong Lua Dao” add-on has been launched in the context of increasing instances of fraud in Vietnam’s internet environment.

Hieu said a phishing website is one that mimics a reputable page in order to attract traffic and takes advantage of the users’ personal information, spreads malicious codes or carries out direct scams for money.

With the rapid rise in internet and mobile users in Vietnam, cybercriminals are also using increasingly sophisticated tricks. For example, a hacker buys a domain name that is similar to that of an airline in order to impersonate it. For this, a professional interface is built and money spent on pushing the website up in the Google search results.

Recently, cybercriminals invested hundreds of millions of dong in equipment to fake a mobile broadcasting station and use the “brand message” to urge people to click on fraudulent websites.

“Cybercriminals in Vietnam are investing more and more money on upgrading their scamming tactics,” Hieu said.

The former hacker said new internet users with little knowledge about information technology are most likely to become victims of these scams.

“Even my parents regularly visit such websites,” Hieu said, adding that this motivates him and his team further in completing their projects.

“In the past, bamboo forests helped protect rural people from enemy attacks and natural disasters, now I want to build an anti-phishing barrier to protect everyone from internet fraud.”

The logo of the new software add-on has the image of a bamboo cluster forming a fence, protecting the “green” sides on the internet. Hieu’s nine member team want to see the small green bamboo icon on as many users’ browsers as possible.

Hieu admitted that the project was not perfect because, as a non-profit initiative, it faces human resource limitations. The team is advocating the application of artificial intelligence for faster and more accurate identification, incorporating the open source code of a tool specialized in phishing websites detection to give the best results for the Vietnamese market.

The larger the number of users, the more fake websites will be reported and the more accurate the tool becomes, thus reducing the amount of people needed to moderate internet traffic.

The Chong Lua Dao project plans to develop more applications on smartphones, adding the ability to prevent malicious YouTube and Facebook pages.

Hieu said he also plans to organize small competitions on using the tool in order to help users access security knowledge in newer ways.

He added: “This project is for the community and also develops through the community.”

OTTAWA — China poses a serious strategic threat to Canada, both through attempts to steal secrets and a campaign to intimidate the Chinese community, the head of Canada’s spy agency said on Tuesday in a rare public appearance.

The remarks by Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Director David Vigneault mark the second time in a few months that Ottawa – mired in a broad diplomatic and trade dispute with Beijing – has identified China as a problem actor.

Vigneault told an online forum that hostile activity by state actors seeking among other things to purloin business secrets and sensitive data “represents a significant danger to Canada’s prosperity and sovereignty” and singled out China.

“The government of China … is pursuing a strategy for geopolitical advantage on all fronts – economic, technological, political, and military – and using all elements of state power to carry out activities that are a direct threat to our national security and sovereignty,” he said.

The biopharmaceutical and health, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, ocean technology and aerospace sectors were most at risk from state-sponsored hackers, he said.

China regularly denies it is trying to steal secrets.

Vigneault also said China had used its Operation Fox Hunt – a search for what Beijing says are corrupt officials and executives who have fled abroad with their assets – to routinely threaten and intimidate political opponents in Canada.

“These activities … cross the line by attempting to undermine our democratic processes or threaten our citizens in a covert and clandestine manner,” he said.

Last November, the Communications Security Establishment signals intelligence agency identified state-sponsored programs in China, Russia, Iran and North Korea as major cyber crime threats for the first time.

The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa was not immediately available for comment.

By Lam Tien