Windows XP Dapat Update Baru dari Microsoft, Ada Virus Baru?

Kompas.com - Microsoft telah menghentikan dukungan terhadap Windows XP sejak 8 April 2014 lalu. Artinya, sistem operasi lawas tersebut tidak akan lagi mendapatkan penambal celah keamanan baru dari raksasa software tersebut.

Sudah Distop, Windows XP Diperbarui Lagi Gara-gara Virus WannaCry

Kompas.com - Microsoft mengambil langkah tidak biasa dalam menghadapi ancaman ransomware WannaCry. Raksasa software tersebut memutuskan merilis patch atau penambal celah keamanan untuk Windows XP, sistem operasi lawas yang telah dihentikan dukungannya, bagi semua konsumen.

Virus Israel Serang Iran

Kompas.com - Sumber-sumber intelijen membenarkan, virus komputer Stuxnet, yang pernah beredar pada tahun 2009, adalah virus yang dirancang khusus oleh Israel dan AS untuk menyerang fasilitas pengayaan uranium Iran guna menghambat kemajuan program nuklir negara itu.

Harian The New York Times, yang mengutip berbagai sumber intelijen dan pakar komputer di AS dan Eropa, menurunkan laporan, Sabtu (15/1), bahwa AS dan Israel telah bekerja sama mengembangkan virus komputer ini di fasilitas nuklir rahasia Dimona di gurun Negev, Israel.

Di fasilitas tersebut, Israel diyakini memiliki tiruan perangkat centrifuge yang persis sama dengan yang digunakan Iran untuk memperkaya uraniumnya guna menguji coba virus canggih dari jenis ”cacing” (worm) tersebut. ”Untuk mengetes worm itu, Anda harus tahu mesinnya (yang akan menjadi sasaran). Virus itu menjadi begitu efektif karena Israel sudah mencobanya lebih dahulu,” tutur seorang sumber intelijen bidang nuklir dari AS.

Virus Stuxnet tersebut mulai terdeteksi dalam jaringan komputer dunia pada pertengahan 2009. Sejumlah negara, termasuk India dan Indonesia, melaporkan serangan virus tersebut, tetapi serangan paling intensif dilaporkan terjadi di Iran.

Anehnya, virus itu tak menyebabkan gangguan signifikan, seperti memperlambat jaringan komputer atau menyebabkan kerusakan, seperti lazimnya sebuah program jahat (malware).

Ralph Langner, pakar keamanan komputer independen dari Hamburg, Jerman, menemukan, virus itu baru aktif setelah mendeteksi konfigurasi spesifik sistem pengendali, yang hanya ada di sebuah fasilitas centrifuge pengaya uranium.

Menurut Langner, Stuxnet terdiri atas dua bagian dengan fungsi berbeda. Bagian pertama bertugas mengacaukan putaran centrifuge sehingga menjadi tak terkendali dan rusak.

Sementara bagian kedua berfungsi merekam berbagai indikator centrifuge saat berfungsi normal, kemudian menampilkan itu di layar monitor. Dengan demikian, petugas operator tak melihat ada gangguan.

Merusak

Virus komputer tersebut diduga kuat menjadi penyebab kerusakan centrifuge kelima milik Iran, November 2010, dan berhasil menunda kemajuan teknologi nuklir Iran, yang dibutuhkan apabila negara itu ingin membuat bom nuklir.

Meir Dagan, mantan kepala dinas intelijen Israel, Mossad, mengatakan, serangan itu akan menunda kemampuan Iran membuat bom nuklir, setidaknya sampai 2015.

Ketua program nuklir dan pejabat Menteri Luar Negeri Iran Ali Akbar Salehi mengatakan, isu serangan Stuxnet tersebut sudah beredar sejak satu setengah tahun silam.

”Saat memulai (serangan) ini, mereka kira kami sedang tidur. Jika (serangan) ini efektif, IAEA, yang menginspeksi (fasilitas nuklir Iran) secara rutin, pasti akan melaporkan perlambatan (produksi uranium) ini,” tutur Salehi, yang menegaskan, program nuklir Iran masih terus berjalan.

Scientists Find New 'Ebola' Like Virus in Africa

Scientists have identified a lethal new virus in Africa that causes bleeding like the dreaded Ebola virus.

The so-called "Lujo" virus infected five people in Zambia and South Africa last fall. Four of them died, but a fifth survived, perhaps helped by a medicine recommended by the scientists.

It's not clear how the first person became infected, but the bug comes from a family of viruses found in rodents, said Dr. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University epidemiologist involved in the discovery.

"This one is really, really aggressive" he said of the virus.

A paper on the virus by Lipkin and his collaborators was published online Thursday on in PLoS Pathogens.

The outbreak started in September, when a female travel agent who lives on the outskirts of Lusaka, Zambia, became ill with a fever-like illness that quickly grew much worse.

She was airlifted to Johannesburg, South Africa, where she died.

A paramedic in Lusaka who treated her also became sick, was transported to Johannesburg and died. The three others infected were health care workers in Johannesburg.

Investigators believe the virus spread from person to person through contact with infected body fluids.

"It's not a kind of virus like the flu that can spread widely," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which helped fund the research.

The name given to the virus — "Lujo" — stems from Lusaka and Johannesburg, the cities where it was first identified.

Investigators in Africa thought the illness might be Ebola, because some of the patients had bleeding in the gums and around needle injection sites, said Stuart Nichol, chief of the molecular biology lab in the CDC's Special Pathogens Branch. Other symptoms include include fever, shock, coma and organ failure.

Genetic extracts of blood and liver from the victims were tested at Columbia University in New York, and additional testing was done at CDC in Atlanta. Tests determined it belonged to the arenavirus family, and that it is distantly related to Lassa fever, another disease found in Africa.

The drug ribavirin, which is given to Lassa victims, was given to the fifth Lujo virus patient — a Johannesburg nurse. It's not clear if the medicine made a difference or if she just had a milder case of the disease, but she fully recovered, Nichol said.

The research is a startling example of how quickly scientists can now identify new viruses, Fauci said. Using genetic sequencing techniques, the virus was identified in a matter of a few days — a process that used to take weeks or longer.

Along with Fauci's institute, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and Google also helped fund the research.

Scientists Use Laser Beams and Engineered Algae Viruses to Control Your Mind

That's right: Scientists will achieve mind control. By shining laser beams. Directly at cells in your brain. Which have been intentionally infected. By a blue-light sensitive virus. That they made in a lab. From algae.

According to Wired, you can really do some fancy stuff inside the mind by injecting an engineered virus into cells then shining a blue laser beam at them. The point is to pinpoint neurons that aren't doing what they should, and using this very pinpointy process to kick start them without playing havoc on the rest of the brain.

To what end? We're not at Cybermen just yet, but one of the proposed uses is actually prosthesis controlled by optics instead of electrodes as they are now. If this isn't at all scaring you yet, check this bit of Wired's story out:

Crucial to the technique is that the virus is only injected into a very small part of the brain, and only a certain class of neurons, once infected, actually turn the channel on.

Or what? Please tell us, or what?

Turns out, it's... Or else the treatment would resemble the kind of clumsier brain teasers, like drugs and electrodes. MIT neuroscientists Ed Boyden and Xue Han have already done it with primates, which, as everyone but Mike Huckabee knows, are close relatives to the human. Prior to that, fish, flies and rodents were all lasered up, with successful mind-control results. We are so happy we live in the present day, and not some quaint, almost cute past where all we had to worry about were influenza viruses and low-flying aeroplanes.