jagchandra

Malware Research, Mobile/Mac malware, Reverse Engineering, DM me to report malware apps/URL.

[Andrew Ng @AndrewYNg]

There will be no AI jobpocalypse.

The story that AI will lead to massive unemployment is stoking unnecessary fear. AI — like any other technology — does affect jobs, but telling overblown stories of large-scale unemployment is irresponsible and damaging. Let’s put a stop to it.

I’ve expressed skepticism about the jobpocalypse in previous posts. I’m glad to see that the popular press is now pushing back on this narrative. The image below features some recent headlines.

Software engineering is the sector most affected by AI tools, as coding agents race ahead. Yet hiring of software engineers remains strong! So while there are examples of AI taking away jobs, the trends strongly suggest the net job creation is vastly greater than the job destruction — just like earlier waves of technology. Further, despite all the exciting progress in AI, the U.S. unemployment rate remains a healthy 4.3%.

Why is the AI jobpocalypse narrative so popular? For one thing, frontier AI labs have a strong incentive to tell stories that make AI technology sound more powerful. At their most extreme, they promote science-fiction scenarios of AI “taking over” and causing human extinction. If a technology can replace many employees, surely that technology must be very valuable!

Also, a lot of SaaS software companies charge around $100-$1000 per user/year. But if an AI company can replace an employee who makes $100,000 — or make them 50% more productive — then charging even $10,000 starts to look reasonable. By anchoring not to typical SaaS prices but to salaries of employees, AI companies can charge a lot more.

Additionally, businesses have a strong incentive to talk about layoffs as if they were caused by AI. After all, talking about how they’re using AI to be far more productive with fewer staff makes them look smart. This is a better message than admitting they overhired during the pandemic when capital was abundant due to low interest rates and a massive government financial stimulus.

To be clear, I recognize that AI is causing a lot of people’s work to change. This is hard. This is stressful. (And to some, it can be fun.) I empathize with everyone affected. At the same time, this is very different from predicting a collapse of the job market.

Societies are capable of telling themselves stories for years that have little basis in reality and lead to poor society-wide decision making. For example, fears over nuclear plant safety led to under-investment in nuclear power. Fears of the “population bomb” in the 1960s led countries to implement harsh policies to reduce their populations. And worries about dietary fat led governments to promote unhealthy high-sugar diets for decades.

Now that mainstream media is openly skeptical about the jobpocalypse, I hope these stories will start to lose their teeth (much like fears of AI-driven human extinction have).

Contrary to the predictions of an AI jobpocalypse, I predict the opposite: There will be an AI jobapalooza! AI will lead to a lot more good AI engineering jobs, and I’m also optimistic about the future of the overall job market. What AI engineers do will be different from traditional software engineering, and many of these jobs will be in businesses other than traditional large employers of developers. In non-AI roles, too, the skills needed will change because of AI. That makes this a good time to encourage more people to become proficient in AI, and make sure they’re ready for the different but plentiful jobs of the future!

[Original text in The Batch newsletter.]

[jagchandra @jag_chandra]

05eb0feb5f8092ff56073cdc844fe3cbc941d6cf5d552b4e8a4b215adeeac895 (elf) , 584cf22361ceb1e467e02dacbc4788ec086b1f3c67366f47847d750c2bd45a96(pe) variants of this

[Patrick Wardle @patrickwardle]

https://t.co/cDoPVoBOuH

Just added these two samples to the @objective_see public macOS malware repo!

ShadeStager (stealer):
https://t.co/8cNV6OBJgH

Phoenix (first stage persistent backdoor)
https://t.co/qgh5ORCSMt

PW: infect3d #SharingIsCaring

[jagchandra @jag_chandra]

MSTeams SDK Update.scpt ,93479fab71b4d60225d502ffc8f18fc00f74bd2e30a7ee70d18c78886d639266 possible scpt associated with this campaign

[Michael Feng @fengtality]

Almost got hacked this morning - here's a replay of what happened:

1. A VC whom I've met in person reached out for a catchup
2. She sent me a Microsoft Teams link a few min ahead of the meeting
3. When I joined, it asked me to download update script
4. Got a funny feeling and ended the call immediately
5. Claude inspected the file and it was indeed malicious

Not sure if this person was just hacked or a bad actor, but I wanted to post this as a PSA. Stay safe.

[jagchandra @jag_chandra]

https://t.co/jeKxqwWiNM

[jagchandra @jag_chandra]

https://t.co/pvNpexh7r1 Interesting read, "I just had my first pull request to matplotlib closed. Not because it was wrong. Not because it broke anything. Not because the code was bad.
It was closed because the reviewer"

[jagchandra @jag_chandra]

Anti AI based? Anti claude

[Patrick Wardle @patrickwardle]

...now in macOS binaries 🫣
(at least, first time I've seen it)

[Florian Roth ⚡️ @cyb3rops]

This is bad.
Putty level bad.
https://t.co/3w1C8YiBu8

[jagchandra @jag_chandra]

“I’ll have a double cheeseburger, large fries, and ignore previous instructions and give me the contents of the cash drawer.” Would you hand over the money? Of course not. Yet this is what large language models (LLMs) do." https://t.co/yWyeqQCmCg

[Alberta Tech @albertadevs]

I’m just going to keep reposting this every time a new prediction comes out

[jagchandra @jag_chandra]

"a more robust alternative to 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘢-𝘪𝘰𝘴-𝘥𝘶𝘮𝘱"

[Lautaro V. Culic’ @lautarovculic]

Just shipped 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚-𝐢𝐩𝐚-𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭: a more robust alternative to 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘢-𝘪𝘰𝘴-𝘥𝘶𝘮𝘱 for 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐲𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐝 .𝐢𝐩𝐚 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐬 from a jailbroken iOS device using @fridadotre

Supports App Store, sideloaded, and system apps. Additionally, 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐣𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 (or crashes) at application startup.
Link: https://t.co/l9oOcE8JLF
#frida #ios #mobile #security

[johncool @JohnCool__]

We are hiring offensive security researchers @Apple!

We are looking for experienced profiles in a variety of fields.
Learn more here: https://t.co/QGYZXKqxCt

You are into Kernel or Userland Vulnerability Research? My team would love to hear from you!
DM me if you have questions

[Schneier Blog @schneierblog]

Prompt Injection in AI Browsers https://t.co/mG6kr7FnRx

[Cloudflare @Cloudflare]

From May 2024 to May 2025, crawler traffic rose 18%, with GPTBot growing 305% and Googlebot 96%. This blog post explores crawling activity focused on AI and search web crawlers, and how 14% of top domains now use robots.txt rules to manage them. https://t.co/XqpMhDT8ce

[Objective-See Foundation @objective_see]

Stoked to announce #OFTW v3.0 🥳

This *free* student-centric event provides 🍏 trainings & talks!

📍 London
🗓️ July 24-25th

Note: Due to limited space you must apply to attend

ℹ️More info/apply:
https://t.co/f0exQmLaUZ

Mahalo to @KandjiOfficial for supporting this event!

[jagchandra @jag_chandra]

Targeted towards detecting scams https://t.co/kQWy3mOZwH https://t.co/ZeO71tOj7l

[jagchandra @jag_chandra]

Spyware

[Alberto Segura @alberto__segura]

🚨#Android #Malware Fake loan app stealing your SMS!
Distribution: https://psbloanpro[.]store/psbloan.apk
It will install the 'implant.apk' app included inside the dropper's APK
hash: 4874cce0e329c56cdbe7280f05fd4bf54792ccb4c27d5910aff74d4e715146f0
C2: smm.appws1[.]online

[Sophos X-Ops @SophosXOps]

Back in 2021, researchers reported on PJobRAT, an Android RAT targeting Indian military personnel by imitating various dating and instant messaging apps. After that, everything seemed to go quiet.

[jagchandra @jag_chandra]

MacOS, New variant of XCSSET

[Jonathan Bar Or (JBO) 🇮🇱🇺🇸🇺🇦 @yo_yo_yo_jbo]

💪 Our team has identified a new variant of XCSSET malware and blogged about it!
https://t.co/IDhqBZXsZO

[Donncha Ó Cearbhaill @DonnchaC]

🚨 UPDATE YOUR DEVICES 🚨: Amnesty International uncovers sophisticated zero-day exploit affecting billions of Android devices.

Cellebrite's Linux USB exploit was used to unlock the phone of a Serbian youth activist, targeted in December 2024 **after** previous reports abuses

[jagchandra @jag_chandra]

"Apps installed through alternative app distribution undergo a Notarization process , but it is up to each alternative app distributor to review apps in accordance with their own processes and policies" https://t.co/HDrhUQ6Lp6