Controls – OfdmFORUM

Building automation giant Johnson Controls hit by ransomware attack

October 18, 2023 Audrey

Johnson Controls International has suffered what is described as a huge ransomware attack that encrypted lots of of the corporation devices, including VMware ESXi servers, impacting the company’s and its subsidiaries’ functions.

Johnson Controls is a multinational conglomerate that develops and manufactures industrial manage techniques, safety tools, air conditioners, and hearth safety equipment.

The company employs 100,000 people today by means of its corporate operations and subsidiaries, like York, Tyco, Luxaire, Coleman, Ruskin, Grinnel, and Simplex.

A weekend cyberattack

Yesterday, a source explained to BleepingComputer that Johnson Controls endured a ransomware attack soon after initially staying breached at its Asia offices.

BleepingComputer has since learned that the corporation endured a cyberattack around the weekend that brought about the firm to shut down portions of its IT programs.

Due to the fact then, many of its subsidiaries, such as York, Simplex, and Ruskin, have started to display specialized outage messages on website login internet pages and shopper portals.

“We are presently dealing with IT outages that might limit some buyer programs these kinds of as the Simplex Buyer Portal,” reads a message on the Simplex web site.

“We are actively mitigating any potential impacts to our products and services and will continue to be in conversation with clients as these outages are resolved.”

Johnson Controls technical outage message on York website — **Johnson Controls technological outage information on York web site**
*Supply: BleepingComputer*

If you have any facts on this attack or other attacks, you can get hold of us confidentially via Signal at 646-961-3731

Clients of York, one more Johnson Controls subsidiary, report that they are getting explained to the company’s units are down, with some stating they have been told it was owing to a cyberattack.

“Their computer system process crashed about the weekend. Manufacturing and all the things is down,” a York customer posted to Reddit.

“I talked to our rep and he explained somebody hacked them,” posted another buyer.

This morning, Nextron Units risk researcher Gameel Ali tweeted a sample of a Dark Angels VMware ESXi encryptor that contains a ransom take note stating it was utilized from Johnson Controls.

Dark Angels ransom note — **Dim Angels ransom take note**
*Source: BleepingComputer*

BleepingComputer has been instructed that the ransom note back links to a negotiation chat wherever the ransomware gang needs $51 million to give a decryptor and to delete stolen data.

The menace actors also claim to have stolen above 27 TB of corporate knowledge and encrypted the company’s VMWare ESXi virtual machines through the assault.

BleepingComputer has contacted Johnson Controls with thoughts regarding the assault but has not received a response.

Following publication of our tale, Johnson Controls verified the cybersecurity incident in a Form 8-K submitting with the SEC, stating that they are functioning with external cybersecurity experts to examine the incident and coordinating with insurers.

“Johnson Controls International plc (the “Company”) has experienced disruptions in portions of its interior info technologies infrastructure and programs ensuing from a cybersecurity incident. Promptly following detecting the difficulty, the Firm began an investigation with guidance from leading external cybersecurity professionals

The Guy Who Controls Computer systems With His Mind

May 15, 2022 Audrey

In an additional groundbreaking review published very last calendar year, Jaimie Henderson and numerous colleagues, including Francis Willett, a biomedical engineer, and Krishna Shenoy, an electrical engineer, reported an similarly extraordinary yet completely different approach to communication by neural interface. The researchers recorded neurons firing in Dennis DeGray’s brain as he visualized himself producing text with a pen on a notepad, attempting to recreate the unique hand actions expected for each individual letter. He mentally wrote countless numbers of words in get for the method to reliably realize the exclusive designs of neural action precise to just about every letter and output terms on a monitor. “You actually discover to dislike M’s soon after a though,” he informed me with characteristic great humor. Finally, the strategy was incredibly effective. DeGray was equipped to variety up to 90 figures or 18 phrases a minute — much more than 2 times the velocity of his former efforts with a cursor and digital keyboard. He is the world’s swiftest mental typist. “Sometimes I get likely so rapid it is just just one major blur,” he stated. “My focus will get to a point where it is not uncommon for them to remind me to breathe.”

Achievements in brain-laptop or computer interfaces to day have relied on a combine of invasive and noninvasive systems. Several researchers in the area, like those people who do the job with DeGray, count on a surgically embedded array of spiky electrodes produced by a Utah-based mostly corporation, Blackrock Neurotech. The Utah Array, as it is identified, can differentiate the signals of individual neurons, delivering much more refined command of linked units, but the operation it necessitates can outcome in an infection, swelling and scarring, which could add to eventual degradation of sign energy. Interfaces that reside outdoors the cranium, like headsets that depend on EEG, are now restricted to eavesdropping on the collective firing of groups of neurons, sacrificing power and precision for safety. More complicating the condition, most neural interfaces examined in labs demand cumbersome hardware, cables and an entourage of desktops, while most commercially available interfaces are fundamentally remote controls for rudimentary movie online games, toys and apps. These business headsets do not remedy any serious-earth troubles, and the more strong units in scientific reports are far too impractical for daily use.

With this dilemma in intellect, Elon Musk’s organization Neuralink has developed an array of versatile polymer threads studded with more than 3,000 tiny electrodes linked to a bottlecap-size wireless radio and sign processor, as effectively as a robot that can surgically implant the threads in the mind, keeping away from blood vessels to lessen inflammation. Neuralink has tested its system in animals and has claimed it would begin human trials this year.

Synchron, which is based mostly in New York, has developed a product known as a Stentrode that doesn’t involve open up-brain medical procedures. It is a four-centimeter, self-growing tubular lattice of electrodes, which is inserted into one particular of the brain’s main

Sensor-Packed ‘Electronic Skin’ Controls Robots With Haptic Responses

January 25, 2022 Audrey

Staying ready to beam yourself into a robotic overall body has all forms of purposes, from the functional to the fanciful. Present interfaces that could make this attainable are likely to be bulky, but a wireless electronic skin manufactured by Chinese researchers guarantees much additional all-natural control.

Although intelligent robots may perhaps a person day be equipped to match humans’ dexterity and adaptability, they nevertheless battle to carry out several of the tasks we’d like them to be able to do. In the meantime, many believe that that developing ways for individuals to teleoperate robotic bodies could be a practical halfway dwelling.

The method could be specifically practical for eventualities that are hazardous for human beings nonetheless still past the abilities of autonomous robots. For instance, bomb disposal or radioactive waste cleanup, or much more topically, healthcare specialists managing very infectious sufferers.

While remote-controlled robots currently exist, staying able to handle them as a result of pure system actions could make the expertise much far more intuitive. It could also be very important for developing realistic robotic exoskeletons and much better prosthetics, and even make it achievable to make immersive entertainment ordeals where by buyers consider command of a robotic body.

Though methods exist for translating human motion into alerts for robots, it ordinarily consists of the use of cumbersome devices that the person has to put on or complicated computer system eyesight systems.

Now, a group of scientists from China has designed a versatile digital skin packed with sensors, wireless transmitters, and very small vibrating magnets that can supply haptic comments to the consumer. By attaching these patches to various parts of the entire body like the hand, forearm, or knee, the program can report the user’s actions and transmit them to robotic equipment.

The investigation, explained in a paper printed in Science Developments, builds on speedy developments in adaptable electronics in recent a long time, but its major contribution is packing several factors into a compact, strong, and user-helpful package deal.

The system’s sensors depend on piezoresistive components, whose electrical resistance changes when subjected to mechanical pressure. This lets them to act as bending sensors, so when the patches are hooked up to a user’s joint the transform in resistance corresponds to the angle at which it is bent.

These sensors are connected to a central microcontroller by using wiggly copper wires that wave up and down in a snake-like trend. This zigzag pattern permits the wires to easily broaden when stretched or bent, stopping them from breaking beneath tension. The voltage indicators from the sensors are then processed and transmitted through Bluetooth, both straight to a nearby robotic machine or a pc, which can then pass them on through a regional network or the online.

Crucially, the scientists have also developed in a feedback system. The exact same piezoresistive sensors can be attached to pieces of the robotic gadget, for occasion on the fingertips where by they can act as stress sensors.

Signals from these sensors