Google uncovers ‘LOSTKEYS' malware linked to Russian-backed Cold River hackers
According to a blog post published on Wednesday by Google's Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG), the newly identified malware represents a significant advancement in Cold River's cyber capabilities. LOSTKEYS is designed to steal files and transmit system data back to its operators, expanding the group's known toolkit for espionage.
Wesley Shields, a researcher at GTIG, stated that the malware signals 'a new development in the toolset' used by the group, which has a history of targeting sensitive political and strategic entities.
Cold River, also known under various aliases, has been linked to previous cyber operations aimed at high-profile Western individuals and institutions. The group's primary mission, experts say, is the collection of intelligence that furthers Russian geopolitical interests.
Recent surveillance by Google's researchers shows that, between January and April 2025, Cold River targeted advisers—both current and former—to Western governments and military institutions. Other victims reportedly included journalists, international think tanks, non-governmental organisations, and individuals associated with Ukraine.
The Russian embassy in Washington has yet to respond to requests for comment on the allegations.
Cold River has previously drawn attention for its audacious operations. In mid-2022, the group was accused of targeting three nuclear research facilities in the United States. Later that year, it was implicated in the leaking of private emails belonging to former British intelligence chief Sir Richard Dearlove, alongside other individuals associated with pro-Brexit activities.
Cybersecurity analysts warn that the emergence of LOSTKEYS underscores a broader escalation in cyber espionage tactics being employed by state-linked actors. Google has urged targeted organisations and individuals to remain vigilant and adopt updated security measures to mitigate potential risks.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
14 minutes ago
- Time of India
How Apple's iOS 26 and Google's Android 16 will change our phones
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Generate a grocery list for guacamole in their notes app. Look up how long it takes to walk to a local movie theater. Generate a list of ingredients from a cooking video they are watching on YouTube. For nearly two decades, smartphones have all worked pretty much the same, whether you bought an Apple iPhone or a smartphone running Google 's Android system: You have a grid of colorful apps that you tap on. But this year, Apple and Google are finally taking separate next phone operating system arriving this fall, iOS 26, includes a transparent aesthetic mimicking the look of glass and making apps and buttons blend in with content on the screen. Google is doing the opposite with its newly released operating system, Android 16, which emphasizes brighter, punchier are just cosmetic changes that may represent the beginning of a greater split between iOS and Android. Google is also leaning heavily into integrating Gemini , its AI chatbot, to automate tasks like writing emails, editing photos and creating shopping lists. In contrast, Apple has released a small set of AI features and has postponed the debut of a revamped version of Siri because of technical challenges, so the company is focusing on making its software interface look this means for you, the consumer, is that your technology experience may differ drastically depending on which type of phone you buy in the coming years. With Google diving into the deep end of AI, Android users will soon have phones that dig into their data to do lots of tasks for them -- but whether they will appreciate this remains an open question. Apple phone users will get some nice-looking software with extra polish, which is more of the are the highlights of what's changing in our smartphones with the imminent arrival of iOS 26 and Android Apple unveiled iOS 26 -- giving its software a new numbering scheme based on the fiscal year when it becomes available -- at a software conference last month, it announced a new software interface that it calls Liquid Glass, referring to a translucent aesthetic that mimics the look of glass. For instance, an app icon or a button could change its appearance to adapt to the lighting and colors of the photograph behind it. Apple is applying the glasslike aesthetic to its other devices, including iPads and Macs, to make the experience more consistent across its contrast, at Google's software conference in May, the company unveiled the new design for Android 16, called Material 3 Expressive, which makes your phone screen look more like pop art. You can choose a color theme to change the overall look of the software interface -- a purple theme includes pink app windows, plum text and dark-violet buttons, for instance. Google said its goal was to give users a more emotional connection with both of these design overhauls feel like a distraction from the real transformation happening to our phones, which is being driven by its predecessor, Android 16 features Gemini, which users can interact with through voice or text to streamline tasks on their the past few years, Google has expanded Gemini to control various pieces of software, including its note-taking app, Google Maps and YouTube. The chatbot is based on generative artificial intelligence, the technology that uses complex language models to predict which words belong lets Android users hold down the power button on their phone to summon Gemini and speak into the microphone to ask it to do things like:To put it another way, even though the flashiest new part of Android 16 is its colorful interface, the true force driving Android is shaping up to be iOS 26, Apple is expanding on its AI, Apple Intelligence , which debuted last year, with new features including automatic language translation and the ability to do a web search using data from a screenshot -- tools that Android users have had for a real-time translations can work inside some of Apple's communications apps, including messages and FaceTime. On a FaceTime call with a relative speaking his or her native tongue, you can see a translated caption in a bubble on the screen, for example. (Google released a similar tool in 2021.)The new iPhone software also uses AI to streamline tasks using information in a screenshot. For example, if you take a screenshot of a website with the date and time for a concert event, a suggestion to add the concert to your calendar will appear. Or if you take a screenshot of a handbag you are shopping for, you can tap a button to do a web search for similar-looking handbags. (That's similar to Google's Circle to Search tool, which lets Android users draw circles around objects to do image-based searches. Many users have called the feature a gimmick because it is seldom useful.)As for Siri, Apple was supposed to release an overhauled version of its virtual assistant with AI to rival Google's Gemini this spring, but those plans have been postponed indefinitely after internal testing found that it was inaccurate on nearly a third of its requests. For now, users can talk to the old-school Siri and redirect some requests to OpenAI's popular chatbot, ChatGPT.(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft , claiming copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems. The two companies have denied the suit's claims.)Every major consumer tech company is redesigning its products to include new AI technology in the software we use every day, and all the tools still make plenty of other words, there's no rush to jump on this bandwagon. But at this rate, Android users will get to experience before iPhone owners what it's like to have an AI phone -- a device that uses your apps for you.
News18
16 minutes ago
- News18
India rejects NATO chiefs warning on secondary sanctions
Agency: PTI Last Updated: New Delhi, Jul 17 (PTI) In a firm response to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte's threat of secondary sanctions over New Delhi's ties with Moscow, India on Thursday cautioned against 'double standards" on the matter and asserted that its energy procurement from Russia is based on national interests and market dynamics. Rutt had warned India, China and Brazil that they could be hit hard by secondary sanctions if they continue to do business with Russia. 'We have seen reports on the subject and are closely following the developments. Let me reiterate that securing energy needs of our people is understandably an overriding priority for us," external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at his weekly media briefing. 'In this endeavour, we are guided by what is on offer in the markets, and by the prevailing global circumstances. We would particularly caution against any double standards on the matter," he said. Asked about US President Donald Trump threatening 100 per cent tariff on Russian exports and 'secondary tariffs" on any country that has trade links with Moscow, Jaiswal said: 'We are closely following developments that are in this regard, and the articulations that are being made." India, China and Brazil have been the major buyers of Russian crude oil notwithstanding the Western sanctions on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. 'My encouragement to these three countries, particularly is, if you live now in Beijing, or in Delhi, or you are the president of Brazil, you might want to take a look into this, because this might hit you very hard," Rutte told reporters in Washington DC. 'So please make the phone call to Vladimir Putin and tell him that he has to get serious about peace talks, because otherwise this will slam back on Brazil, on India and on China in a massive way," he said. The NATO chief's remarks coincided with Trump's warning to Russia of major significant trade restrictions if it does not reach a peace deal with Ukraine within 50 days. 'We're going to be doing very severe tariffs (on Russia) if we don't have a deal in 50 days," Trump said on Tuesday. India, China and Brazil are members of the BRICS and Trump has been critical of the grouping as well. Earlier this month, Trump had threatened BRICS member nations of 10 per cent additional tariffs on exports to the US apart from reciprocal tariffs. Any country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS will face those duties, he said. On the proposed trade deal between India and the US, Jaiswal said negotiations between the two sides are underway. 'Both sides are in touch with each other. They are trying to iron out issues," he said. On India's negotiations with the European Union for the long-pending free trade pact, Jaiswal said talks are 'progressing very well". 'The last round, that is the 12th round, happened in Brussels from July 7th to 11th. And the next round of talks are scheduled to be held in September in New Delhi. 'It (talks) is progressing well. There is good momentum. And that is how, and we would like to see a positive outcome of it," he added. PTI MPB ZMN view comments First Published: July 17, 2025, 21:15 IST Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Time of India
16 minutes ago
- Time of India
ChatGPT helps write this mayor's speeches, now he wants a thousand city workers using AI
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Before the mayor of San Jose, California, arrives at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new business, his aides ask ChatGPT to help draft some talking points."Elected officials do a tremendous amount of public speaking," said Mayor Matt Mahan , whose recent itinerary has taken him from new restaurant and semiconductor startup openings to a festival of lowriding car politicians might be skittish admitting a chatbot co-wrote their speech or that it helped draft a $5.6 billion budget for the new fiscal year, but Mahan is trying to lead by example, pushing a growing number of the nearly 7,000 government workers running Silicon Valley 's biggest city to embrace artificial intelligence said adopting AI tools will eliminate drudge work and help the city better serve its roughly 1 million hardly the only public or private sector executive directing an AI-or-bust strategy, though in some cases, workers have found that the costly technology can add hassles or mistakes."The idea is to try things, be really transparent, look for problems, flag them, share them across different government agencies, and then work with vendors and internal teams to problem solve," Mahan said in an interview. "It's always bumpy with new technologies."By next year, the city intends to have 1,000, or about 15%, of its workers trained to use AI tools for a variety of tasks, including pothole complaint response, bus routing and using vehicle-tracking surveillance cameras to solve of San Jose's early adopters was Andrea Arjona Amador , who leads electric mobility programs at the city's transportation department. She has already used ChatGPT to secure a $12 million grant for electric vehicle Amador set up a customized "AI agent" to review the correspondence she was receiving about various grant proposals and asked it to help organize the incoming information, including due dates. Then, she had it help draft the 20-page far, San Jose has spent more than $35,000 to purchase 89 ChatGPT licenses -- at $400 per account -- for city workers to use."The way it used to work, before I started using this, we spent a lot of evenings and weekends trying to get grants to the finish line," she said. The Trump administration later rescinded the funding, so she pitched a similar proposal to a regional funder not tied to the federal Amador, who learned Spanish and French before she learned English, also created another customized chatbot to edit the tone and language of her professional close relationships to some of the tech industry's biggest players, including San Francisco-based OpenAI and Mountain View-based Google , the mayors of the Bay Area's biggest cities are helping to promote the type of AI adoption that the tech industry is striving for, while also promising guidelines and standards to avoid the technology's Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announced a plan Monday to give nearly 30,000 city workers, including nurses and social workers, access to Microsoft 's Copilot chatbot, which is based on the same technology that powers ChatGPT. San Francisco's plan says it comes with "robust privacy and bias safeguards, and clear guidelines to ensure technology enhances - not replaces - human judgment."San Jose has similar guidelines and hasn't yet reported any major mishaps with its pilot projects. Such problems have attracted attention elsewhere because of the technology's propensity to spew false information, known as digital fingerprints were found on an error-filled document published in May by U.S. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.'s "Make America Healthy Again" Fresno, California, a school official was forced to resign after saying she was too trusting of an AI chatbot that fabricated information in a some government agencies have been secretive about when they turn to chatbots for help, Mahan is open about his ChatGPT-written background memos that he turns to when making speeches."Historically, that would have taken hours of phone calls and reading, and you just never would have been able to get those insights," he said. "You can knock out these tasks at a similar or better level of quality in a lot less time."He added, however, that "you still need a human being in the loop. You can't just kind of press a couple of buttons and trust the output. You still have to do some independent verification. You have to have logic and common sense and ask questions."Earlier this year, when OpenAI introduced a new pilot product called Operator, it promised a new kind of tool that went beyond a chatbot's capabilities. Instead of just analyzing documents and producing passages of text, it could also access a computer system and schedule calendars or perform tasks on a person's behalf. Developing and selling such "AI agents" is now a key focus for the tech than an hour's drive east of Silicon Valley, where the Bay Area merges into Central Valley farm country, Jamil Niazi, director of information technology at the city of Stockton, had big visions for what he could do with such an the parks and recreation department could let an AI agent help residents book a public park or swimming pool for a birthday party. Or residents could find out how crowded the pool was before packing their swim months later, however, after completing a proof-of-concept phase, the city didn't buy a full license for the technology due to the market research group Gartner recently predicted that over 40% of "agentic AI" projects will be canceled before the end of 2027, "due to escalating costs, unclear business value or inadequate risk controls."San Jose's mayor remains bullish about the potential for these AI tools to help workers "in the bowels of bureaucracy" to rapidly speed up their digital paperwork."There's just an amazing amount of bureaucracy that large organizations have to have," Mahan said. "Whether it's finance, accounting, HR or grant writing, those are the kinds of roles where we think our employees can be 20 (to) 50% more productive -- quickly."
