Think Your Mac and Cloud Apps Are Safe? These Crypto Wallet and ChatGPT Hacks Prove Otherwise

Last week was the Black Hat security conference, and if you missed the fun, you can read all of the news and presentations that caught our attention here. Even though it’s over, the show threw us one last curveball as someone on an outbound Delta flight from Vegas decided to spoof the airline wi-fi while in the air, which predictably ruined it for everyone, as the flight crew turned off in-flight Wi-Fi entirely until the spoofed network was shut down. This is why we can’t have nice things. 

It might sound like a harmless prank, but the flight could easily have been diverted, delayed, or even canceled because of the stunt, and the old warning to never trust public, insecure Wi-Fi without using a VPN still stands. That advice is doubly true if you’re in Vegas for Black Hat or DEF CON, where many security pros bring burner devices just so they can communicate without putting any real data at risk. 

In other news, OpenAI announced this week that it’s pausing work on its next-generation model because of cybersecurity concerns. Whether that’s a real risk or just marketing hype to generate interest remains to be seen. Meanwhile, hackers aren’t waiting around: We reported this week that Chinese hackers used open-source, publicly available AI tools to create a near-autonomous attack capable of breaking into government systems to steal data.