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Scattered Spider

Scattered Spider: Impersonation, and Cybersecurity in the Age of Cloud Computing

By Skeeter Wesinger
June 29, 2025

In an era where companies have moved their infrastructure to the cloud and outsourced much of their IT, one old-fashioned tactic still defeats the most modern defenses: impersonation.
At the center of this threat is Scattered Spider, a cybercriminal collective that doesn’t exploit code—they exploit people. Their operations are quiet, persuasive, and dangerously effective. Instead of smashing through firewalls, they impersonate trusted employees—often convincingly enough to fool help desks, bypass multi-factor authentication, and gain access to critical systems without ever tripping an alarm.
This is the cybersecurity challenge of our time. Not ransomware. Not zero-days. But trust itself.
Who Is Scattered Spider?
Known to threat intelligence teams as UNC3944, Muddled Libra, or 0ktapus, Scattered Spider is an English-speaking group that has compromised some of the most security-aware companies in North America. Their breaches at MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment made headlines—not because they used sophisticated malware, but because they didn’t have to.
Their weapon of choice is the phone call. A help desk technician receives a request from someone claiming to be a senior executive who lost their device. The impersonator is articulate, knowledgeable, and urgent. They know internal jargon. They cite real names. Sometimes, they even use AI-generated voices.
And too often, it works. The attacker gets a password reset, reroutes MFA codes, and slips in undetected.
The Illusion of Familiarity
What makes these attackers so dangerous is their ability to sound familiar. They don’t just say the right things—they say them the right way. They mirror internal language. They speak with confidence. They understand hierarchy. They’re skilled impersonators, and they prey on a simple reflex: the desire to help.
In the past, we might have trusted our ears. “It sounded like them,” someone might say.
But in the age of AI, “sounding like them” is no longer proof of identity. It’s a liability.
When Cloud Isn’t the Cure
Many organizations have moved to cloud-based environments under the assumption that centralization and managed services will reduce their exposure. In some ways, they’re right: the cloud simplifies infrastructure and offloads security operations. But here’s the truth: you can’t outsource responsibility. The human layer remains—and that’s precisely where Scattered Spider operates.
They don’t need to breach Azure or AWS. They just need to impersonate someone with access to it.
It’s time we stop treating “trust but verify” as a cliché and start treating it as operational policy. Better yet: trust—but always verify. Every request. Every reset. Every exception.
Verification today means more than checking a box. It requires multi-channel authentication. It means never resetting MFA or passwords based solely on a phone call, no matter how credible the caller seems. It means locking down help desk protocols so impersonation doesn’t slip through the cracks.
Security teams must also monitor legitimate tools—like AnyDesk, TeamViewer, and ScreenConnect—that attackers often use once inside. These aren’t inherently malicious, but in the wrong hands, they’re devastating.
And above all, organizations must train their frontline personnel—especially support staff—to treat every identity request with healthy skepticism. If your instinct says something feels off, pause and verify through secure channels. Escalate. Slow down. Ask the questions attackers hope you won’t.
Scattered Spider doesn’t hack your servers. They hack your systems of trust. They bypass encryption by impersonating authority. And they exploit the one vulnerability no software can patch: assumption.
As we continue shifting toward remote work, outsourced IT, and cloud-based everything, the real threat isn’t technical—it’s personal. It’s the voice on the line. The urgent request. The person who “sounds right.”
In this world, cybersecurity isn’t just about what you build. It’s about what you believe—and what you’re willing to question.
Therefore, you have to train your teams. Harden your protocols. And remember in the age of the cloud, the most important firewall is still human.
Trust—but always verify!

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When the Dead Speak

When the Dead Speak: AI, Ethics, and the Voice of a Murder Victim
By Skeeter Wesinger
May 7, 2025

In a Phoenix courtroom not long ago, something happened that stopped time.

A voice echoed through the chamber—steady, direct, unmistakably human.

“To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me: it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances.”

It was the voice of Chris Pelkey, who had been dead for more than three years—killed in a road rage incident. What the judge, the defendant, and the grieving family were hearing was not a recording. It was a digital recreation of Chris, constructed using artificial intelligence from photos, voice samples, and memory fragments.

For the first time, a murder victim addressed their killer in court using AI.

Chris’s sister, Stacey Wales, had been collecting victim impact statements. Forty-nine in total. But one voice—the most important—was missing. So she turned to her husband Tim and a friend, Scott Yentzer, both experienced in emerging tech. Together, they undertook a painful and complicated process of stitching together an AI-generated likeness of Chris, complete with voice, expression, and tone.

There was no app. No packaged software. Just trial, error, and relentless care.

Stacey made a deliberate choice not to project her own grief into Chris’s words. “He said things that would never come out of my mouth,” she explained. “But I know would come out his.”

What came through wasn’t vengeance. It was grace.

“In another life, we probably could’ve been friends. I believe in forgiveness and in God who forgives. I always have and I still do.”

It left the courtroom stunned. Judge Todd Lang called it “genuine.” Chris’s brother John described it as waves of healing. “That was the man I knew,” he said.

I’ve written before about this phenomenon. In January, I covered the digital resurrection of John McAfee as a Web3 AI agent—an animated persona driven by blockchain and artificial intelligence. That project blurred the line between tribute and branding, sparking ethical questions about legacy, consent, and who has the right to speak for the dead.

But this—what happened in Phoenix—was different. No coin. No viral play. Just a family trying to give one man—a brother, a son, a victim—a voice in the only place it still mattered.

And that’s the line we need to watch.

AI is going to continue pushing into the past. We’ll see more digital likenesses, more synthesized voices, more synthetic presence. Some will be exploitative. Some will be powerful. But we owe it to the living—and the dead—to recognize the difference.

Sometimes, the most revolutionary thing AI can do isn’t about what’s next.

It’s about letting someone finally say goodbye.

Let’s talk:
➡ Should AI have a role in courtrooms?
➡ Who owns the voice of the deceased?
➡ Where should we draw the ethical boundary between tribute and manipulation?

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Beyond Euclidean Memory

Beyond Euclidean Memory: Quantum Storage Architectures Using 4D Hypercubes, Wormhole-Looped States, and Braided Qubit Paths

By Skeeter Wesinger
April 16, 2025

Abstract In the evolving landscape of quantum technology, traditional memory systems rooted in Euclidean geometry are hitting their limits. This post explores three radical constructs—4D hypercubes, wormhole-looped memory states, and braided qubit paths—that are redefining how information is stored, accessed, and preserved in quantum systems. Together, these approaches promise ultradense, energy-efficient, and fault-tolerant memory networks by moving beyond conventional spatial constraints.

  1. Introduction Classical memory architecture assumes linear addressability in a 2D or 3D layout—structures that struggle to scale in the face of today’s power, thermal, and quantum coherence constraints. Quantum memory design, on the other hand, opens the door to higher-dimensional and non-local models. This article outlines a new conceptual framework for memory as a dynamic, entangled fabric of computation, rather than a passive container of bits.
  2. The 4D Hypercube in Memory Design The tesseract, or 4D hypercube, expands traditional 3D memory lattices by adding a fourth spatial axis. This architecture allows non-linear adjacencies and exponential addressability.

2.1 Spatial Folding and Compression

  • Logical neighbors can occupy non-contiguous physical space
  • Memory density increases without amplifying thermal output
  • Redundant access paths collapse, reducing latency

2.2 Picobots and MCUs

  • Picobots manage navigation through hyperedges
  • Micro-Control Units (MCUs) translate 4D coordinates into executable memory requests
  1. Wormhole-Looped Memory States Quantum entanglement allows two distant memory nodes to behave as if adjacent, thanks to persistent tunneling paths—or wormhole-like bridges.

3.1 Topological Linking

  • Entangled nodes behave as spatially adjacent
  • Data can propagate with no traversal through intermediate nodes

3.2 Redundancy and Fault Recovery

  • Instant fallback routes minimize data loss during decoherence events
  • Eliminates thermal hotspots and failure zones
  1. Braided Qubit Paths Borrowed from topological quantum computing, braided qubit paths encode information not in particle states, but in the paths particles take.

4.1 Topological Encoding

  • Logical data is stored in the braid pattern
  • Immune to transient local noise and electromagnetic fluctuations

4.2 Persistent Logic Structures

  • Braids can be reconfigured without data corruption
  • Logical gates become pathways, not gates per se
  1. Non-Local 3D Topologies: The Execution Layer Memory in these architectures is not stored in a fixed location—it lives across a distributed, entangled field.

5.1 Flattening Physical Constraints

  • Logical proximity trumps physical distance
  • Reduces energy costs associated with moving data

5.2 Topological Meshes and Networked Tensors

  • MCUs dynamically reconfigure access paths based on context
  • Enables self-healing networks and true parallel data operations
  1. Conclusion Quantum systems built around 4D hypercubes, wormhole-bridged memory states, and braided qubit paths promise not just new efficiencies, but a reimagining of what memory is. These systems are not static repositories—they are active participants in computation itself. In escaping the confines of Euclidean layout, we may unlock memory architectures capable of evolving with the data they hold.

Welcome to memory without location.

Follow Skeeter Wesinger on Substack  For more deep dives into quantum systems, speculative computing, and post-classical architecture. Questions, insights, or counter-theories? Drop a comment below or reach me at skeeter@skeeter.com.

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In a classic phishing move

In a classic phishing move: spoofing a legit security company like VadeSecure to make the email look trustworthy. Irony at its finest—phishers pretending to be the anti-phishing experts.

Here’s what’s likely going on:

  • vadesecure.com is being spoofed—the return address is faked to show their domain, but the email didn’t actually come from Vade’s servers.

  • Or the phishers are using a lookalike domain (e.g., vadesecure-support.com or vadesecure-mail.com) to trick people not paying close attention.

If you still have the email:

  • You can check the email headers to see the real “from” server (look for Return-Path and Received lines).

  • If the SPF/DKIM/DMARC checks fail in the headers, that’s confirmation it’s spoofed.

  • You can also report it to VadeSecure directly at: abuse@vadesecure.com

By Skeeter Wesinger

March 26, 2025

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Schrödinger’s Cat Explained & Quantum Computing

Schrödinger’s Cat Explained & Quantum Computing

Schrödinger’s cat is a thought experiment proposed by physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 to illustrate the paradox of quantum superposition and observation in quantum mechanics.

Google’s Sycamore Processor EXPOSED What’s Next for Quantum Supremacy

The Setup:

Imagine a cat placed inside a sealed box along with:

  1. A radioactive atom that has a 50% chance of decaying within an hour.
  2. A Geiger counter that detects radiation.
  3. A relay mechanism that, if the counter detects radiation, triggers:
    • A hammer to break a vial of poison (e.g., hydrocyanic acid).
    • If the vial breaks, the cat dies; if not, the cat lives.

The Paradox:

Before opening the box, the quantum system of the atom is in a superposition—it has both decayed and not decayed. Since the cat’s fate depends on this, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time until observed. Once the box is opened, the wavefunction collapses into one state—either dead or alive.

This paradox highlights the odd implications of quantum mechanics, particularly the role of the observer in determining reality.

How Does Antimony Play into This?

Antimony (Sb) is relevant to Schrödinger’s cat in a few ways:

  1. Radioactive Isotopes of Antimony

Some isotopes of antimony, such as Antimony-124 and Antimony-125, undergo beta decay—which is similar to the radioactive decay process in Schrödinger’s experiment. This means that an antimony isotope could replace the radioactive atom in the setup, making it a more tangible example.

  1. Antimony’s Role in Detection
  • Antimony trioxide (Sb₂O₃) is used in radiation detectors.
  • In Schrödinger’s experiment, the Geiger counter detects radiation to trigger the poison release.
  • Some radiation detectors use antimony-doped materials to enhance sensitivity, making it potentially a critical component in the detection mechanism.
  1. Antimony and Quantum Mechanics Applications
  • Antimony-based semiconductors are used in quantum computing and superconducting qubits—which are crucial for studying quantum superposition, the core idea behind Schrödinger’s paradox.
  • Antimonides (like Indium Antimonide, InSb) are used in infrared detectors, which relate to advanced quantum experiments.

 

  1. Schrödinger’s Cat and Quantum Computing

The paradox of Schrödinger’s cat illustrates superposition, a key principle in quantum computing.

Superposition in Qubits

  • In classical computing, a bit is either 0 or 1.
  • In quantum computing, a qubit (quantum bit) can exist in a superposition of both 0 and 1 at the same time—just like Schrödinger’s cat is both alive and dead until observed.
  • When measured, the qubit “collapses” to either 0 or 1, similar to opening the box and determining the cat’s fate.

Entanglement and Measurement

  • In Schrödinger’s thought experiment, the cat’s fate is entangled with the state of the radioactive atom.
  • In quantum computing, entanglement links qubits so that the state of one affects another, even over long distances.
  • Measurement in both cases collapses the system, meaning observation forces the system into a definite state.
  1. How Antimony Plays into Quantum Computing

Antimony is significant in quantum computing for materials science, semiconductors, and superconductors.

  1. Antimony in Qubit Materials
  • Indium Antimonide (InSb) is a topological insulator with strong spin-orbit coupling, which is important for Majorana qubits—a type of qubit promising for error-resistant quantum computing.
  • Superconducting qubits often require materials like antimony-based semiconductors, which have been used in Josephson junctions for superconducting circuits in quantum processors.
  1. Antimony in Quantum Dots
  • Antimony-based quantum dots (tiny semiconductor particles) help create artificial atoms that can function as qubits.
  • These quantum dots can be controlled via electric and magnetic fields, helping develop solid-state qubits for scalable quantum computing.
  1. Antimony in Quantum Sensors
  • Antimony-doped detectors improve sensitivity in quantum experiments.
  • Quantum computers rely on precision measurements, and antimony-based materials contribute to high-accuracy quantum sensing.
  1. The Big Picture: Quantum Computing and Schrödinger’s Cat
  • Schrödinger’s cat = Superposition and measurement collapse.
  • Entanglement = Cat + radioactive decay connection.
  • Antimony = Key material for qubits and quantum detectors.

Schrödinger’s cat symbolizes the weirdness of quantum mechanics, while antimony-based materials provide the physical foundation to build real-world quantum computers.

 

  1. Topological Qubits: A Path to Error-Resistant Quantum Computing

Topological qubits are one of the most promising types of qubits because they are more stable and resistant to errors than traditional qubits.

  1. What is a Topological Qubit?
  • A topological qubit is a qubit where quantum information is stored in a way that is insensitive to small disturbances—this makes them highly robust.
  • The key idea is to use Majorana fermions—hypothetical quasi-particles that exist as their own antiparticles.
  • Unlike traditional qubits, where local noise can cause decoherence, topological qubits store information non-locally, making them more stable.
  1. How Antimony is Involved

Antimony-based materials, particularly Indium Antimonide (InSb) and Antimony Bismuth compounds, are crucial for creating these qubits.

  1. Indium Antimonide (InSb) in Topological Qubits
  • InSb is a topological insulator—a material that conducts electricity on its surface but acts as an insulator internally.
  • It exhibits strong spin-orbit coupling, which is necessary for the creation of Majorana fermions.
  • Researchers use InSb nanowires in superconducting circuits to create conditions for topological qubits.
  1. Antimony-Bismuth Compounds in Topological Computing
  • Bismuth-Antimony (BiSb) alloys are another class of topological insulators.
  • These materials help protect quantum states by preventing unwanted environmental interactions.
  • They are being explored for fault-tolerant quantum computing.
  1. Why Topological Qubits Matter
  • Error Correction: Traditional quantum computers need error-correction algorithms, which require many redundant qubits. Topological qubits naturally resist errors.
  • Scalability: Microsoft and other companies are investing heavily in Majorana-based quantum computing because it could scale up more efficiently than current quantum architectures.
  • Longer Coherence Time: A major problem with quantum computers is that qubits lose their quantum states quickly. Topological qubits could last thousands of times longer.
  1. Superconducting Circuits: The Heart of Modern Quantum Computers

While topological qubits are still in the research phase, superconducting circuits are the most widely used technology in quantum computers today.

  1. How Superconducting Circuits Work
  • Superconducting quantum computers rely on Josephson junctions, which are made of two superconductors separated by a thin insulating barrier.
  • These junctions allow Cooper pairs (pairs of electrons) to tunnel through, enabling quantum superposition and entanglement.
  • Quantum processors made by Google, IBM, and Rigetti use this technology.
  1. How Antimony Helps Superconducting Qubits
  • Some superconducting materials use antimony-based compounds to enhance performance.
  • Antimony-doped niobium (NbSb) and indium-antimonide (InSb) are being tested to reduce decoherence and improve qubit stability.
  • Antimony-based semiconductors are also used in the control electronics needed to manipulate qubits.
  1. Superconducting Qubit Applications
  • Google’s Sycamore Processor: In 2019, Google’s Sycamore quantum processor used superconducting qubits to perform a calculation that would take a classical supercomputer 10,000 years to complete in just 200 seconds.
  • IBM’s Eagle and Condor Processors: IBM is scaling its superconducting quantum processors, aiming for over 1,000 qubits.

By Skeeter Wesinger

February 21, 2025

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DeepSeek’s Mind-Blowing AI Solution Caught in a Cover-Up?

DeepSeek, a rising CCP AI company, was under siege. The company’s official statement, issued in careful, bureaucratic phrasing, spoke of an orchestrated “distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack” aimed at crippling its systems. A grave and urgent matter, to be sure. Yet, for those who had followed the firm’s meteoric rise, there was reason for skepticism

DeepSeek had, until this moment, presented itself as a leader in artificial intelligence, one of the few entities capable of standing alongside Western firms in the increasingly cutthroat race for dominance in machine learning. It was a firm backed, either openly or in whispered speculation, by the unseen hand of the Chinese state. The company’s servers, housed in mainland China, were reportedly fueled by NVIDIA H800 GPUs, their interconnections optimized through NVLink and InfiniBand. A formidable setup, at least on paper

But then came the curious measures. Whole swaths of IP addresses, particularly from the United States, were unceremoniously blocked. The platform’s registration doors were slammed shut. And in the vague, elliptical style of official Chinese pronouncements, the public was assured that these were emergency steps to preserve service stability. What the company did not say—what they could not say—was that these actions bore all the hallmarks of a hasty retreat, rather than a tactical defense

For a true DDoS attack—one launched by sophisticated adversaries—there were measures to mitigate it. Content delivery networks. Traffic filtering. Rate-limiting techniques refined over decades by those who had fought in the trenches of cybersecurity. Yet DeepSeek’s response was not one of resilience, but of restriction. They were not filtering the bad actors; they were sealing themselves off from the world

A theory began to take shape among industry watchers. If DeepSeek had overestimated its own technological prowess, if its infrastructure was ill-prepared for rapid growth, the sudden influx of new users might have looked, to their own internal systems, like an attack. And if the company was not merely a commercial enterprise but an entity with deeper ties—perhaps to sectors of the Chinese government—it would not do to admit such failings publicly. To confess that their AI could not scale, that their systems could not bear the weight of global interest, would be an unpardonable humiliation.

The consequences of such a revelation would be severe. The markets had already felt the tremors of cyberattacks; the global economy had bled $1.5 trillion due to disruptions of this nature. If DeepSeek, a firm hailed as the vanguard of China’s AI ambitions, was faltering under its own weight, the financial and political repercussions would extend far beyond the walls of its server farms. The illusion of invulnerability had to be maintained

Thus, the narrative of a “DDoS attack” was not merely convenient—it was necessary. It allowed DeepSeek to take drastic action while obscuring the truth. Blocking foreign IPs? A countermeasure against cyber threats. Suspending new users? A precaution against infiltration. A firm whose technological backbone was more fragile than its reputation suggested had suddenly found an excuse to withdraw from scrutiny under the guise of self-defense

It is in such moments that history leaves its telltale fingerprints. The annals of technological development are filled with entities that stumbled not due to sabotage, but due to their own shortcomings, concealed under layers of propaganda and misdirection. One wonders if, years from now, when the documents are unsealed and the real story emerges, historians will look back at DeepSeek’s so-called DDoS crisis not as an act of foreign aggression—but as a moment of revelation, when the cracks in the edifice became too great to hide

Also, the DeepSeek app has been removed from both Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store in Italy. This action occurred after Italy’s data protection authority, known as the Garante, requested information from DeepSeek regarding its handling of personal data. Users attempting to access the app in Italy received messages indicating that it was “currently not available in the country or area you are in” on Apple’s App Store and that the download “was not supported” on Google’s platform. As reported by REUTERS.CO

Regarding Ireland, the Irish Data Protection Commission has also reached out to DeepSeek, seeking details about how it processes data related to Irish users. However, as of now, there is no confirmation that the app has been removed from app stores in Ireland. As reported by THEGUARDIAN.COM

Currently there is no publicly available information indicating that DeepSeek has specifically blocked access from Apple, Google, or individual reporters’ servers. It’s possible that access issues could be related to the broader measures DeepSeek has implemented in response to recent events, but without specific details, it’s difficult to determine the exact cause.

For now, the truth remains elusive, hidden behind digital firewalls and the careful hand of censorship. But as in all such cases, history is patient. It waits for those who will dig deeper, who will look beyond the official statements and ask: Was it an attack? Or was it something else entirely?

Story By Skeeter Wesinger

January 30, 2025

 

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SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) Poised for Growth Amid Surging Stock Performance

SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) Poised for Growth Amid Surging Stock Performance

Soundhound AI

SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) has seen its shares skyrocket by nearly 160% over the past month, and analysts at Wedbush believe the artificial intelligence voice platform is primed for continued growth heading into 2025.

The company’s momentum has been driven by its aggressive and strategic M&A activity over the past 18 months. As SoundHound has acquired Amelia, SYNQ3, and Allset, a move that has significantly expanded its footprint and opened new opportunities in voice AI solutions across industries.

Focus on Execution Amid Stock Surge

While the recent surge in SoundHound’s stock price signals growing investor confidence, the company must balance this momentum with operational execution.

The focus for SoundHound remains focused on two key priorities:

  1. Growing its customer base by onboarding new enterprises and expanding existing partnerships.
  2. Product delivery: Ensuring voice AI solutions are not only provisioned effectively but also shipped and implemented on schedule.

As the stock’s rapid growth garners headlines, the company must remain focused on its core business goals, ensuring that market hype does not distract teams from fulfilling customer orders and driving product adoption.

Expanding Use Cases in Enterprise AI Spending

SoundHound is still in the early stages of capitalizing on enterprise AI spending, with its voice and chat AI solutions gaining traction in sectors like restaurants and automotive industries. The company is well-positioned to extend its presence into the growing voice AI e-commerce market in 2025.

Several key verticals demonstrate the vast opportunities for SoundHound’s voice AI technology:

  • Airline Industry: Automated ticket booking, real-time updates, and personalized voice-enabled systems are enhancing customer experiences.
  • Utility and Telecom Call Centers: Voice AI can streamline customer support processes, enabling payment management, usage tracking, and overcharge resolution.
  • Banking and Financial Services: Voice biometrics are being deployed to verify identities, reducing fraudulent activity during calls and improving transaction security.

Overcoming Industry Challenges

Despite its promising trajectory, SoundHound AI must address key industry challenges to ensure seamless adoption and scalability of its technology:

  • Accents and Dialects: AI systems must continually improve their ability to understand diverse speech patterns across global markets.
  • Human Escalation: Ensuring a seamless handover from AI-driven systems to human agents is essential for effectively handling complex customer interactions.

Partnerships Driving Technological Innovation

SoundHound continues strengthening its technological capabilities through partnerships, most notably with Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). By leveraging Nvidia’s advanced infrastructure, SoundHound is bringing voice-generative AI to the edge, enabling faster processing and more efficient deployment of AI-powered solutions.

Looking Ahead to 2025

With its robust strategy, growing market opportunities, and focus on execution, SoundHound AI is well-positioned to capitalize on the rapid adoption of voice AI technologies across industries. The company’s ability to scale its solutions, overcome technical challenges, and expand into new verticals will be critical to sustaining its growth trajectory into 2025 and beyond.

By Skeeter Wesinger

 

December 17, 2024

 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/soundhound-ai-nasdaq-soun-poised-growth-amid-surging-stock-wesinger-h7zpe

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Nvidia Beats the Street Record Growth Fueled by Hopper and Blackwell Innovations

Nvidia, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, has emerged as a beacon of technological innovation, much as the industrial giants of a bygone era reshaped their worlds. Its latest creations—the Hopper GPU and Blackwell systems—are not merely advancements in computing; they are the tools of a new industrial revolution, their influence stretching across industries and into the lives of millions. As measured by its astonishing financial results, the company’s trajectory reflects the unparalleled demand for these tools.

The latest quarter’s revenue, a staggering $35.08 billion, represents a 94% leap from the $18.12 billion of a year prior—a figure that would have seemed fantastical not long ago. Its net income soared to $19.31 billion, more than double last year’s third-quarter figure of $9.24 billion. Even after accounting for adjustments, earnings reached 81 cents per share, outpacing Wall Street’s expectations of 75 cents per share on projected revenues of $33.17 billion, according to FactSet.

This is no mere coincidence of market forces or transient trends. Nvidia’s success is rooted in the astonishing versatility of its Hopper GPU and Blackwell systems. Their applications span a broad spectrum—from artificial intelligence to cybersecurity—each deployment, which is a testament to their transformative power. These are not simply tools but harbingers of a future where the limits of what machines can do are redrawn with each passing quarter.

The Hopper and Blackwell systems are not isolated achievements; they are central to Nvidia’s rise as a leader in innovation, its vision ever fixed on the horizon. The technology reshapes industries as varied as medicine, entertainment, finance, and autonomous systems, weaving a thread of progress through all it touches. Like the significant advancements of earlier eras, these creations do not merely answer existing questions; they pose new ones, unlocking doors to realms previously unimagined.

Thus, Nvidia’s record-breaking quarter is a financial milestone and a marker of its place in history. As it shapes the future of computing, the company’s influence extends far beyond the confines of Silicon Valley. It is, in a sense, a reflection of our age—a testament to human ingenuity and the ceaseless drive to innovate, explore, and create.

By Skeeter Wesinger

November 20, 2024

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The New Frontline in Security Technology: Large Language Models in the Battle for Software Security

In the age of relentless digital transformation, software security remains both a bulwark and a vulnerability. The deployment of Large Language Models (LLMs) as tools to fortify this critical frontier marks a turning point, one that evokes the blend of promise and peril characteristic of technological revolutions. Like radar in the skies of the Second World War, these LLMs have the potential to detect threats unseen by the human eye, provided they are used judiciously and in concert with other defenses.

The power of LLMs lies in their unparalleled ability to analyze vast swaths of source code with a speed and thoroughness that human developers cannot match. From detecting the cracks in the foundation—buffer overflows, injection vulnerabilities, hardcoded credentials, and improper input validation—to recognizing subtle, non-obvious threats that arise from the interplay of complex systems, these models operate with an unrelenting vigilance. What might take a team of skilled engineers days or weeks to unearth, an LLM can flag in minutes, scouring line after line with mechanical precision.

This capability is most potent during the prerelease phase of development when the entire source code is laid bare. It is here, before a product sees the light of day, that LLMs can expose vulnerabilities lurking in the shadows, vulnerabilities that, if left unchecked, could later metastasize into full-blown breaches. The cost of such breaches is not merely financial but reputational, eroding the trust that underpins all digital enterprises.

Consider the subtle artistry of an LLM detecting insecure data handling in a function, not because the code itself appears flawed but because of the way it interacts with calls elsewhere in the codebase. This is no brute-force analysis; it is an exercise in pattern recognition, a demonstration of how machines are learning to see the forest as well as the trees.

Yet, as with radar, the promise of LLMs must be tempered by realism. They are not a standalone defense, nor do they obviate the need for more traditional measures. They complement fuzzing, which tests software by bombarding it with random inputs and identifying areas where such testing might be most fruitful. They serve as a first line of defense, flagging issues for human reviewers who can then apply their judgment and experience to resolve them.

Moreover, LLMs can act as vigilant assistants during development itself, offering real-time suggestions for secure coding practices. In doing so, they become not merely tools of analysis but instruments of prevention, guiding developers away from insecure practices before they become embedded in the code.

What sets LLMs apart is their scalability. Unlike manual reviews, which are labor-intensive and constrained by human resources, LLMs can analyze sprawling codebases or even multiple projects simultaneously. This scalability is nothing short of transformative for organizations tasked with securing complex software ecosystems.

Used in concert with fuzzing, manual reviews, and other security protocols, LLMs represent the new frontline in software security. They bring automation and scale to an arena that has long been constrained by the limitations of time and manpower. Their ability to access and analyze full source code during development ensures that the vulnerabilities they uncover are not only flagged but actionable.

The lessons of history remind us that no single technology, no matter how transformative, can operate in isolation. LLMs are tools of immense potential, but it is the interplay of man and machine, of automation and expertise, that will ultimately determine their success. In this emerging battle for the sanctity of our digital infrastructures, LLMs are an ally of immense promise, provided we deploy them wisely and with an understanding of their limitations.

By Skeeter Wesinger

November 18, 2024

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-frontline-security-technology-skeeter-wesinger-olzbe

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A New Front in Cybersecurity Exposed

In a move that has set the cybersecurity world on alert, Palo Alto Networks has sounded the alarm on a significant security flaw in their Expedition tool, a platform designed to streamline the migration of firewall configurations to their proprietary PAN-OS. This vulnerability, codified as CVE-2024-5910, underscores the critical importance of authentication protocols in safeguarding digital boundaries. The flaw itself—a missing authentication mechanism—permits attackers with mere network access the alarming ability to reset administrator credentials, effectively opening the gate to unauthorized access and potentially compromising configuration secrets, credentials, and sensitive data that lie at the heart of an organization’s digital defenses.

The gravity of this flaw is underscored by the immediate attention of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which has not only added the vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog but also issued a direct mandate: all federal agencies must address this vulnerability by November 28, 2024. The urgency of this deadline signifies more than just bureaucratic efficiency; it speaks to the alarming nature of a vulnerability that CISA reports is being exploited in the wild, thus shifting this issue from a theoretical risk to an active threat.

Palo Alto Networks has responded with characteristic clarity, outlining a series of robust security measures to mitigate this vulnerability. They emphasize restricting the PAN-OS management interface to trusted internal IP addresses, advising against exposure to the open internet. In addition, they recommend isolating the management interface within a dedicated VLAN, further securing communications through SSH and HTTPS. These measures, while straightforward, demand a high level of attention to detail in implementation—an effort that could very well mean the difference between a fortified system and a compromised one.

Meanwhile, in a strategic pivot, Palo Alto Networks has announced that the core functionalities of Expedition will soon be integrated into new offerings, marking the end of Expedition support as of January 2025. The shift signals a broader evolution within the company’s ecosystem, perhaps heralding more advanced, integrated solutions that can preemptively address vulnerabilities before they surface.

The directive to apply patches and adhere to the recommended security configurations is not just sound advice; it is, as security expert Wesinger noted, a necessary defensive measure in a rapidly shifting landscape where the stability of one’s systems rests on the relentless vigilance of their custodians. The events unfolding around CVE-2024-5910 are a reminder that in cybersecurity, as in any theater of conflict, complacency remains the greatest vulnerability.

By Skeeter Wesinger

November 14, 2024

 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-front-cybersecurity-exposed-skeeter-wesinger-rjypf

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