Category Archives: Progress

The fight against ransomware is happening on many different fronts and while some ransomware gangs are making rather large piles of money, law enforcement and security researchers have had their successes, as well. The takedowns of some ransomware-adjacent botnets and arrests of some ransomware operators have forced criminals to adjust their tactics and techniques, which in turn has made life more difficult for the researchers and investigators who track them.

The most disruptive change that ransomware gangs have made recently is the shift away from vertical integration and to specialization and diversification. In the early days of the ransomware epidemic, the people who developed ransomware were usually the same one who gained access to victim networks and then deployed the ransomware. That model works pretty well for criminals who have a broad skill set, but for those who just want to make some easy money without actually learning how to do the thing that produces that money, its a little daunting. Enter the ransomware-as-a-service model, a model that divides the various tasks in the ransomware creation, infection, deployment, and payment ecosystem among people with the specific skills necessary to accomplish them. In this system, ransomware developers write the malware and them farm it out to affiliates who then deploy it and split any resultant profits with the developers.

RaaS is now the dominant model among ransomware gangs and it has proven to be extremely profitable for many of them. It has also had the effect of giving law enforcement fits.

Specialization has made investigation more difficult because you're not just looking at one criminal group, youre looking for several. It has made investigations more complex, said Marijn Schuurbiers, deputy head of the Dutch High Tech Crime Unit, during a panel discussion on ransomware Monday sponsored by the No More Ransom initiative.

The market has gotten more efficient. People specialize in coding one thing really good and leave the rest to other people.

Perhaps the most prominent example of RaaS is the Russia-based REvil group, which is responsible for some of the nastier and more notorious ransomware infections in recent memory. The most recent ugliness attributed to REvil is the mass infection of more than 1,500 companies that use the Kaseya VSA platform earlier this month, an event that led President Joe Biden to tell Russian President Vladimir Putin that the United States will take any necessary action to defend its people and its critical infrastructure in the face of this continuing challenge.

Soon after the Kaseya incident, the REvil operation essentially dropped offline. But there are plenty of other RaaS operations still going strong and making considerable amounts of money.

The groups that are still operating, they did separate duties very well. They all use what works best, like exploit kits, phishing campaigns. Everybodys doing the thing theyre very good at, said Catalin Cosoi, senior security strategist at BitDefender.

Its unfortunately a very successful criminal business model. I dont think well see this disappear in the near future."

Disrupting RaaS operations has proven to be challenging, thanks to their decentralized nature and the ability these groups have shown to shift their infrastructure whenever necessary. One of the key methods that researchers have used to defeat RaaS operations is finding mistakes or weaknesses in the encryption schemes the ransomware employs. That works in some cases, but its by no means a panacea.

We constantly have to find the Achilles heel of criminals. They will improve and evolve but there will always be an Achilles heel. Is it the encryption algorithm? Thats always a great one but there will be others, said Schuurbiers.

On the defensive side, maintaining current, offsite backups of all key enterprise systems can be the key to recovering from a ransomware infection. But stopping the infection in the first place is just as important, and Schuurbiers said implementing two-factor authentication on high-value systems and services is quite valuable.

We have seen incidents where as soon as they hit 2FA, they drop it and go on to the next victim. They have so many potential victims, if they see 2FA they leave. Implement 2FA on your most important data, he said.

Ransomware began as a nuisance, evolved into an enterprise threat, and has now reached the point of being a national security concern. Given the amount of money to be made and volume of potential victims available, its unlikely that ransomware will drop off the map anytime soon.

Its unfortunately a very successful criminal business model. I dont think well see this disappear in the near future. It goes way beyond the financial damage. Theres a real risk to our lives, said Philipp Amann, head of strategy at Europols EC3 cybercrime unit.

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Officials Cite Progress on Ransomware, But Say Much More Work Ahead - Decipher

Jul. 26Columbia Metropolitan Airport is starting to look different.

Visitors have noticed the changes to the airport in Lexington County, about 7 miles outside of downtown Columbia.

Starting at the front of the building, visitors will see that the sliding doors at the entrance are being replaced, paving the way for a larger entrance area.

"The center vestibule will be expanded in height creating more of a grand entrance and helpful access point for any large format displays that we might have in the main lobby in the future," said marketing director Kim Jamieson.

In the coming weeks, the airport will begin installing a new in-line baggage system. Instead of passengers dropping their bags at the large screening machines near the ticket counters, the whole process will be moved behind the ticket desks. Flyers will no longer have to drop their checked luggage at the screens; instead, the agent will take passengers' checked luggage and all the screening will be done behind the scenes, Jamieson said. The new setup will also allow all the ticket desks to be replaced.

New escalators also have been installed throughout the terminal and the parking garage.

The latest expansion comes on top of a new parking guidance system the airport installed at the end of last year, which helps drivers find parking spaces with red or green light displays over each space in the garage. Flyers can also pre-book their parking and secure a space ahead of their flight.

The renovations are being funded locally, with the cost being recouped from operating revenue and charges. The Transportation Security Administration will partly fund the new baggage system, and the Federal Aviation Administration is partly funding the new ticket area.

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What's Going on at the Columbia Airport? Construction, Growth in Progress - AviationPros.com

With the closed beta for Amazons New World hitting insane heights of popularity, players are clamoring for the full release. That will involve waiting until August 31, but there are some concerns that we can deal with before them.

Many players are wondering if their beta progress will carry over to the finished game, and the answer is no. Just like when the players from the alpha moved into the beta, you cant bring it with you. No matter how far you make it into the beta, or what kind of wealth you may amass, Amazon will be performing a complete wipe of the game as they move into the full release.

This means that on launch day, every player will be starting on the same footing, although a lot of beta experience will certainly aid players when the game releases fully. All weapons, armor, wealth, and quest progress will be deleted, and you will also need to set up new characters.

This leads to players wondering about the best way to use the beta, and the answer there is by testing out as many classes, builds, and weapons as possible. Knowing which style you prefer playing when you start the full release will certainly allow you to build the perfect character right off the bat.

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Will New World beta progress carry over to the main game? - Gamepur

State officials announced Monday they have let a $46 million road project in St. Tammany Parish for the first segment of work voters approved 32 years ago.

The construction, in three phases, will erect a four-lane highway between La. 40/41 in Bush and Interstate 12.

The project was one of 16 voters approved in 1989 that were supposed to be paid for with a four-cent per gallon hike in the state gas tax.

Financial problems have kept this and one other project voters approved from being completed.

The list is known as TIMED, which stands for Transportation Infrastructure Model for Economic Development.

The winning bidder for the first phase is Brown Industrial Construction, LLC.

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It will consist of a four-lane highway between La. 40/41 and La. 435 in St. Tammany Parish.

The second section, set to be let later this year, and the third segment, set to be let in 2023, is fully funded.

"To finally move this long-awaited project is a momentous occasion for the people of St. Tammany Parish," Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a statement.

Shawn Wilson, secretary for the state Department of Transportation and Development, said the new corridor will provide better access between I-12 and the northeastern section of Louisiana and offer another hurricane evacuation route from New Orleans and the Northshore.

When the work is set to be done is unclear.

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More than three decades later, officials announce progress on road plan - The Advocate

Safe and effective vaccines offer hope for an end to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the possible emergence of vaccine-resistant SARS-CoV-2 variants, as well as novel coronaviruses, make finding treatments that work against all coronaviruses as important as ever. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Journal of Proteome Research have analyzed viral proteins across 27 coronavirus species and thousands of samples from COVID-19 patients, identifying highly conserved sequences that could make the best drug targets.

Drugs often bind inside pockets on proteins that hold the drug snugly, causing it to interfere with the proteins function. Scientists can identify potential drug-binding pockets from the 3D structures of viral proteins. Over time, however, viruses can mutate their protein pockets so that drugs no longer fit. But some drug-binding pockets are so essential to the proteins function that they cant be mutated, and these sequences are generally conserved over time in the same and related viruses. Matthieu Schapira and colleagues wanted to find the most highly conserved drug-binding pockets in viral proteins from COVID-19 patient samples and from other coronaviruses, revealing the most promising targets for pan-coronavirus drugs.

The team used a computer algorithm to identify drug-binding pockets in the 3D structures of 15 SARS-CoV-2 proteins. The researchers then found corresponding proteins in 27 coronavirus species and compared their sequences in the drug-binding pockets. The two most conserved druggable sites were a pocket overlapping the RNA binding site of the helicase nsp13, and a binding pocket containing the catalytic site of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase nsp12. Both of these proteins are involved in viral RNA replication and transcription. The drug-binding pocket on nsp13 was also the most highly conserved across thousands of SARS-CoV-2 samples taken from COVID-19 patients, with not a single mutation.

The researchers say that novel antiviral drugs targeting the catalytic site of nsp12 are currently in phase II and III clinical trials for COVID-19, and that the RNA binding site of nsp13 is a previously underexplored target that should be a high priority for drug development.

Reference: Genetic Variability of the SARS-CoV-2 Pocketome by Setayesh Yazdani, Nicola De Maio, Yining Ding, Vijay Shahani, Nick Goldman and Matthieu Schapira, 28 June 2021, Journal of Proteome Research.DOI: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.1c00206

The authors acknowledge funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and the Structural Genomics Consortium.

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Ending the COVID-19 Pandemic: Progress Toward One Drug To Treat All Coronaviruses - SciTechDaily

I last wrote about Deepminds efforts to predict protein folding and structure here, with their AlphaFold software. AlphaFold really performed very strongly in the 2020 protein folding challenge, and that got a lot of attention. Well, theyve recently published a great deal of detail on how they did this, released their source code, andtheyve announced that theyre going to be releasing their computed structures of 350,000 proteins, to be followed in the coming months by up to 100 million more. Heres the database. And a group at the University of Washington has just published on their own similar approach (RosettaFold) and has also made this code freely available.

So its clear that the world of computational protein structure prediction is in a very different place than it was a couple of years ago. But Im already on record as (1) cheering this sort of thing on while (2) saying that it doesnt make as much difference to drug discovery as many stories and press releases have had it. Do the latest developments change my mind? What does this all mean? Ive been talking with colleagues and seeing comments from people in the field, so heres my attempt.

Well, for one thing, it means that a lot of people in academia are going to have to rewrite their research grants. If you have been working on computational protein folding yourself, odds are that you have had your doors blown off by these recent developments and will need to rethink. That doesnt mean theres nothing left to do (far from it read on) but anyone who was trying to do similar stuff to DeepMind was already in the position of the RosettaFold people, at best, and if you were trying to do similar work to RosettaFold, well. . .youd better target things carefully.

Another thing that were all going to have to get used to is that for years (decades) people have considered computational error to be the most likely source of error when a predicted structure and an experimental one dont match, and quite rightly so. Were getting to the point now where the ball is in the experimentalists court, and thats something new. Right now, if you have a big mismatch between the two, it is frankly more likely to be an experimental error, because the folding predictions are getting so solid. This is disorienting, to say the least.

Theres also the synergy with the experimental data. For the many, many of us who are not cystallographers, X-ray data can seem like its being delivered on golden tablets to the sound of trumpets. But protein X-ray structures depend on model-building as well; you try to see which structures best fit the experimental electron density data. And those data can very often be interpreted in different ways, especially when it comes to subtle details of conformation. I say subtle, but sometimes those small structural things can make huge differences in protein function just look at the prolyl isomerase enzymes, whose job it is to make proline residues sit in the cis or trans fashion in the overall chain, and at the number of proteins whose downstream activities depend on such state-switching. Having access to such well-attested structural models changes the way that X-ray data are handled, and for the better. There are also differences in protein structures depending on the method used to determine them, and these computations could help to resolve those, too.

But what this leads to is what I keep pointing out when I give my various talks on the effects of AI and ML methods on chemistry and drug discovery. These things redefine grunt work: they make larger and larger areas that were formerly the site of human labor into machine labor instead, which is faster, more tireless, and getting more accurate all the time. What does that do to us humans? It pushes us towards higher-level problems that are not yet subject to computational or automated solutions. In the case of protein folding and structure, it means that we now will spend more of our time on the harder stuff: protein complexes, the classification and function of protein surfaces in general, the effects of all the wide variety of post-translational modifications, the dynamics of protein conformation changes in real cell-biology time, the subtleties of how small-molecule ligands work their way in and out of binding sites, and the related question of how allosteric sites and cofactors modify these things from afar.

Its important to realize that the new protein computational tools do not make all these into solved problems. Not even close. They clear out a lot of obstacles so that we can get to these problems more easily and more productively, for sure, but they do not solve them once we get up to the actual rock faces in our particular gold mines. To pick an immediate example of this, Ive seen a comment from a structural biologist pointing out that when you ask AlphaFold for the structures of various key kinase enzymes, it gives you a very accurate one of what we already know to be the inactive form of the protein. Kinases have several regions that flop and scoot into different and easily accessible conformational states, and (at present, anyway) these structure prediction suites will not necessarily capture all of these, and they most certainly will not tell you which ones are associated with the active enzyme or would be more relevant to a proteins different functions in vivo.

Consider those prolines I just mentioned above: AlphaFold might give you a cis proline in one protein structure or it might give you atrans one at some particular residue in a particular protein, but it will not be able to tell you that both of these are found in a living cell, that they are interconverted by yet another enzyme, and that the two forms will have totally different functions. Meanwhile, other prolines in the same protein will never interconvert at all, and you wont know that, either. These details are up to us humans to work through. Similarly, many enzymes need cofactor molecules bound to them to do some of their work, and AlphaFold structures have no way to consider these nor the presence of things like zinc or calcium ions that can also have a profound effect on protein structure and function. These are the tougher problems that will be ironed out by humans (literally, in the case of iron-associated proteins), with machine help.

And thats why I talk the way I do about protein structure prediction and its effects on drug discovery. Drug discovery is all about those biological effects what else could it be concerned with? And these are higher-order things than just the naked protein structure, as valuable as that can be. Remember, our failure rate in the clinic is around 90% overall, and none of those failures were due to lack of a good protein structure. They were caused by much harder problems: what those proteins actually do in a living cell, how those functions differ in health and disease, how they differ between different sorts of human patients and between humans in general and the animal models that were used to develop the compounds, what other protein targets the drug candidate might have hit and the downstream effects (usually undesirable) that those kicked off, and on and on.

So structural biology has been greatly advanced by these new tools. But it has not been outmoded, replaced, or rendered irrelevant. Its more relevant than ever, and now we can get down to even bigger questions with it.

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More Protein Folding Progress What's It Mean? | In the Pipeline - Science Magazine

Even if Sale hits those targets in a rehab start late next week, the team will monitor his recovery from his increased workload before making a decision about whether to continue his build-up or activate him in the first week of August.

We want to get him up in that 80-pitch range and then make sure he can come back and do it again five days after that, said pitching coach Dave Bush. When you activate guys after a long injury, its not just that hes ready to pitch. You want him to pitch consistently.

You have to make sure the guys can recover, they can do it effectively, come back, throw a side in a couple days, and be on the mound again in five or so days. Each of those things is part of the equation right now.

Though its premature to circle a definitive date for Sales return, the Sox are excited both about what his potential impact and the opportunity hell have to be a difference-maker in a playoff push.

We know hes going to contribute. This is not a guy thats just going to come here and get innings to get ready for next year, said Cora. Hes on a mission. He loves the fact that these guys have put this team in a situation to compete the rest of the season.

As the rotation turns

Eduardo Rodriguez, who left Fridays game in the second inning due to a migraine, showed up briefly at Fenway Park on Saturday and reported improvement before being sent home to rest. The Sox are hopeful that the lefthander can avoid the injured list and start on Thursday in their fourth and final contest against the Blue Jays.

Well see how he feels, said Cora. Hopefully everything goes well tomorrow. Thats our goal and then from there we can map [his schedule] out for the week.

Tanner Houck, who was initially slated to be available out of the bullpen against Toronto, will instead start the third game of the series to give everyone in the rotation a fifth day of rest.

Houck and Sale arent the only ones adding to the teams rotation depth down the stretch. On Friday, righthander Connor Seabold almost exactly 11 months after the trade that landed him and Nick Pivetta from the Phillies made his first appearance for a Red Sox affiliate.

On the surface, it did not go particularly well. Pitching for Triple-A Worcester against many of his former minor league teammates with Philadelphias Triple-A affiliate in Lehigh Valley, Seabold allowed six runs (three earned) on three hits and four walks in 3 innings. But he threw all four of his pitches (four-seamer, changeup, slider, curve) and emerged healthy.

It was a huge step in the right direction for us, said Red Sox farm director Brian Abraham.

Draftees signed

The Red Sox announced the signings of 11 draftees, most notably righthander Elmer Rodriguez, a fourth-rounder taken out of high school in Puerto Rico. The team also announced the signings of pitchers Wyatt Olds (7th round), Hunter Dobbins (8th), Matt Litwicki (10th), Christopher Troye (12th), Jacob Webb (14th), and Tyler Uberstine (19th); utility player Daniel McElveny (6th); third baseman Tyler Miller (9th); second baseman B.J. Vela (16th); and outfielder Phillip Sikes (18th). That group joins first-rounder Marcelo Mayer and third-rounder Tyler McDonough as Sox signees . . . The most prominent unsigned player is second-rounder Jud Fabian. Fabian, 20, entered the year expected to go in the early- to mid-first round but slid due to early-season struggles. However, he had a strong finish to the year and is expected to seek a bonus above the MLB-recommended slot value of $1.856 million for the No. 40 overall pick in order to sign . . . The team also announced the signings of undrafted free agents Kier Meredith (Clemson) and righthander Jhonny Felix (Western Oklahoma State College). Felix attended Brighton High School . . . Rehabbing Yankees righthander Luis Severino threw a simulated game against Yankees teammates on Saturday afternoon. Among them: Gio Urshela, who could be activated from the COVID-19-related injured list on Sunday.

Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @alexspeier.

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Chris Sale continues to make progress, but the Red Sox still taking a cautious approach - The Boston Globe

BruinsWith eight goals and six assists in 16 games, Taylor Hall has had a lot to get excited about since joining the Bruins.

By Kevin Paul Dupont, The Boston Globe

Don Sweeney, who generally plays his cards so close to his vest that even his jokers wear frowns, said Thursday morning that significant progress has been made in re-signing left wing Taylor Hall.

So I hope that we will find a finish line, the Bruins general manager said during a 15-minute Zoom session ahead of this weekends NHL Draft (Round 1 Friday night). Looking forward to hopefully having him back as a big part of what were trying to do this year and moving forward made significant progress there.

A number of media outlets reported Wednesday, amid the buzz of the Seattle expansion draft, that Hall, an unrestricted free agent, was close to agreeing with the Bruins on a four-year contract extension carrying a $6 million cap hit.

Sweeneys optimistic characterization of negotiations all but makes it a lock that Hall, approaching his 30th birthday, will return. The cap figure would slot him behind fellow forwards Patrice Bergeron ($6.875 million), David Pastrnak (6.667 million), and Brad Marchand ($6.125 million).

Hall, who last offseason signed a one-year UFA deal with Buffalo for $8 million, in 2012 signed a seven-year, $42 million deal in Edmonton that carried the same $6 million-a-year cap hit. He has since played for the Devils, Sabres, and Bruins, joining the Black and Gold in April at the trading deadline and fitting in nicely at David Krejcis left wing on the clubs No. 2 line.

Meanwhile, Sweeney had his cards tucked tightly regarding Krejci, believed to be weighing a decision whether to continue his NHL career or pack up his family for a return to his native Czech Republic.

There remains a third option for Krejci, to test the free agent market when it opens Wednesday (noon Eastern time), but Krejci, 35, weeks ago did not sound inclined to play anywhere but in Boston if he chooses to continue his NHL career.

There is no reason to doubt Krejcis sentiments, but with the free agency period soon at hand, he could be enticed at least to hear what the leagues 31 other potential bidders might offer him. Their bids, if any, could influence what he would ask to return for his 15th season as a Bruin.

The Kraken, who called Bruins defenseman Jeremy Lauzons name first in the Wednesday night draft, came up notably shallow at center in the selection process. They could just be one of the bidders if Krejci remains unsigned.

At this point in time, he has not given firm indication as he referenced before, hes got some things that he wants to address, said Sweeney. Then hell let us know. But I have been in regular communication with David and there is no timeline to make decisions.

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Bruins have made significant progress in re-signing Taylor Hall, according to GM Don Sweeney - Boston.com

Progress Software Corp. shares were hobbled in the extended session Thursday after the business software company provided a disappointing quarterly outlook while otherwise topping expectations.

Progress PRGS, +1.16% shares slipped 1% after hours, following a 1.2% rise in the regular session to close at $46.06.

For the third fiscal quarter, the company expects earnings of 81 cents to 83 cents a share on revenue of $129 million to $132 million. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expect revenue of 85 cents a share on revenue of $132 million.

The company reported fiscal second-quarter net income of $13.6 million, or 30 cents a share, compared with $17 million, or 37 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted earnings, which exclude stock-based compensation expenses and other items, were 82 cents a share, compared with 63 cents a share in the year-ago period. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast 75 cents a share.

Revenue rose to $122.5 million from $100.4 million in the year-ago quarter, but analysts estimates include deferred revenue from its acquisition of Chef Software, which cannot be included in unadjusted results. That revenue came in at $129.2 million, while analysts had forecast $122 million.

Additionally, Progress raised its sales outlook for the year to a range of $529 million to $535 million, up from a previous estimate of $519 million to $527 million, with analysts estimating $525 million.

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Progress Software stock slips as quarterly outlook weighs on earnings beat - MarketWatch

As Pride month continues, a Castro-based organization is looking to make a massive addition to an already iconic Castro landmark in San Francisco: A second flag to ensure there is inclusion and representation in the LGBTQ community.

The Castro Merchants in a letter to the city released Wednesday revealed that the Board of the Castro Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Cultural District, or CQCD, held a vote opting to replace the iconic Gilbert Baker-designed Rainbow Pride Flag with the Progress Flag.

The Progress Flag has grown in popularity recently and features a different shape and additional colors, with baby blue, pink and white representing the transgender community and black and brown representing people of color.

The Castro Merchants, who say they maintain the pole and the replacement of the flag, are now asking for community support for a second flagpole at a separate location so both flags can be seen.

In the letter from the Board of Directors of Castro Merchants the organization explained their reasoning saying in part, "We propose to leave the internationally recognized, beloved, and historic symbol where it is and explore locations in the Castro to install a new flagpole. We believe the creation of an alternative space would best reflect our two sincere beliefs: symbols can change over time yet queer history matters."

There does not appear to be a timeline on the project

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Second Flag May Soon Fly in SF's Castro to Mark Progress in LGBTQ Inclusion - NBC Bay Area