Chicago IT Support & Cyber Security | Forward Technologies
Chicago-based Forward Technologies delivers IT support and cyber security to businesses in the Chicago area and nationwide.
OpenAI Faces Pressure to Store All ChatGPT Conversations
A recent court order threatens ChatGPT privacy by forcing OpenAI to keep every user chat. That includes messages deleted by users and data from businesses using OpenAI’s API. The case stems from a lawsuit brought by major publishers, including The New York Times, who claim OpenAI may be erasing evidence of copyright violations. [Read more…]
Hackers posing as IT support are targeting employees at large companies to sneak into their Salesforce systems and steal data. They start with a phone call, pretending to help with a routine issue. The real goal? To get the employee to connect to a fake version of Salesforce’s Data Loader tool. Once that happens, the attackers can quietly grab sensitive company data.
Google’s Threat Intelligence Group has been tracking the group behind this, known as UNC6040. Their method depends on trust—posing as helpful support staff and guiding employees through what feels like a normal setup process. Because the tool is something many employees already use, it doesn’t seem suspicious. [Read more…]
Gmail users on Android and iOS are about to see a lot more AI, whether they ask for it or not. Google has started rolling out a new update that automatically generates summaries for emails in the mobile app. The summaries, powered by Gemini, will show up at the top of the message view—no tapping required.
Previously, users had to opt in by pressing a “Summarize this email” button. That’s gone. Now, Gmail will decide when a summary might be useful and insert it without prompting. Google hasn’t said exactly what criteria it uses to trigger a summary, but the company hints it’s targeting long messages or email threads with multiple replies. In practice, it’s likely going to be a low bar. Google’s been eager to boost user engagement with its AI tools across its entire product line. [Read more…]
Researchers have uncovered a batch of malicious packages in the NPM repo that quietly racked up over 6,000 downloads before anyone noticed. These weren’t your typical cryptominers or info-stealers. They were designed to crash systems, wipe files, and corrupt data—sometimes all at once.
NPM is a massive public repository where developers share and download JavaScript packages. It’s used by millions, which makes it a prime target for attacks like this. [Read more…]
The crew behind the 3AM strain of ransomware has been hitting companies using a familiar playbook: flood the target with junk emails, follow up with a fake IT call, and convince someone to hand over remote access. It’s not new, but it still works. Probably more than it should.
This kind of attack was first seen with the Black Basta gang, then picked up by FIN7. Thanks to leaked chat logs and shared templates, it’s now being copied by others. Sophos tracked 55 attacks between November and January that used the same tactics, tied to two different threat actor groups. [Read more…]
