Aliyu Isah

According to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), emails from multiple governmental agencies in the United States were pilfered by Russian hackers facilitated by the Russian government as a consequence of a continuous Microsoft cyberattack. The U.S. cyber agency said in a statement released on Thursday that the incident, which Microsoft first made public in January, gave the hackers access to federal government communications “through a successful compromise of Microsoft corporate email accounts.” The hackers, who go by the name APT29 and whom Microsoft refers to as “Midnight Blizzard,” are generally thought to be employed by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR. “A serious and intolerable risk to agencies is posed by Midnight Blizzard’s successful infiltration of Microsoft corporate email accounts and the exfiltration of correspondence between agencies and Microsoft,” the CISA stated. Based on fresh evidence that Russian hackers were stepping up their attacks, the federal cyber agency said it issued a new emergency directive on April 2 directing civilian government agencies to take steps to secure their email accounts. On Thursday, CISA released the emergency directive’s contents, giving the government agencies involved a week to secure the compromised systems and change their passwords. When TechCrunch contacted a CISA representative, they did not immediately respond. CISA did not identify the federal departments whose emails were compromised. Cyberscoop broke a report on the emergency decree last week. The emergency decision is issued as Microsoft’s security procedures come under closer examination following a wave of hacks by hostile nations’s hackers. The software behemoth is mostly relied upon by the US government to host official email accounts. After discovering that the Russian hacker organization had compromised several company email systems, including the email accounts of “senior leadership team and employees in our cybersecurity, legal, and other functions,” Microsoft made the announcement public in January. According to Microsoft, the Russian hackers were looking for information regarding what Microsoft’s security teams and Microsoft itself knew about the hackers. The IT behemoth then claimed that the hackers had not only targeted Microsoft but other companies as well. It is now discovered that US government entities were among the impacted organizations. Microsoft declared in March that it was still working to remove the Russian hackers from its networks, referring to the operation as an “ongoing attack.” The business stated in a blog post that the hackers were trying to get access to further internal Microsoft systems and steal more data, including source code, by using the “secrets” they had originally taken. When TechCrunch questioned Microsoft on Thursday about the steps the firm has taken to address the assault since March, the company did not respond right away. The U.S. Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) wrapped up its investigation into an earlier 2023 breach of emails belonging to the U.S. government that was ascribed to hackers with support from the Chinese government earlier this month. An independent panel of government representatives and commercial sector cyber specialists, the CSRB, placed the blame on a “cascade of security failures at Microsoft.” These made it possible for the hackers supported by China to steal a private email key that gave them wide access to both official and private emails. Twenty thousand people were told in February by the U.S. Department of Defense that their personal information had been compromised online after a cloud email server housed by Microsoft in 2023 became unlocked for many weeks.

TAMPA, Florida: Eutelsat 36D most recent geostationary satellite was launched by SpaceX on March 30. The journey to a geostationary orbit slot over Africa and Eurasia is expected to take around six months.  Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, saw the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the approximately 5,000-kg Eutelsat 36D, which was deployed into a geostationary transfer orbit 34 minutes later. The launch occurred at 5:52 p.m. Eastern time. Equipped with seventy physical Ku-band transponders, Eutelsat 36D is built on the all-electric Airbus Eurostar Neo platform and provides TV and government communication services from 36 degrees East. The outdated Eutelsat 36B satellite operated by French fleet operator Eutelsat will be replaced by the steerable antennaed spacecraft. Following positioning and the successful completion of health checks, Eutelsat CEO Eva Berneke stated that the company plans to launch commercial services for Eutelsat 36D in the second half of 2024. The spacecraft would share space with Russia’s RSCC-operated Ekspress-AMU1, popularly referred to as Eutelsat 36C. One of the satellites Eutelsat rents capacity from, Ekspress-AMU1, has been affected by sanctions as a result of Russia’s conflict in Ukraine. Reuse anniversary After launch, the rocket’s first stage made a safe landing on a droneship in the Atlantic Ocean, making SpaceX the company that has returned a Falcon 9 booster for reuse 273 times. On March 30, 2017, SpaceX launched the first Falcon 9 rocket that was reused for a customer seven years ago on a mission for SES of Luxembourg. This year, SpaceX has launched 30 missions, the most recent being Eutelsat 36D. However, a little over four hours later, SpaceX launched a number of satellites from a nearby pad at the Cape for its Starlink low Earth orbit (LEO) broadband constellation. Due to bad weather, SpaceX had canceled its scheduled launch of an additional set of Starlink satellites from Vandenberg, California, on March 30. After acquiring OneWeb last year, Eutelsat now runs a network of over 600 low-Earth orbit satellites in addition to 35 geostationary satellites. By the end of June, the business anticipates having finished 90% of the ground network OneWeb requires for fully worldwide services. Multi-orbit capabilities, according to Eutelsat, will provide it with an advantage over Starlink and other single-orbit constellations by providing more network redundancy and flexibility to commercial and government customers. 

Elon Musk, the owner of xAI, announced on Tuesday that the company formerly known as Twitter will soon make the Grok chatbot available to additional paying members, in response to the company’s decision earlier in March to make its Grok big language model open source. Musk said in a post on X that Grok will now be accessible to all Premium users this week, not only those on the more expensive Premium+ plan. The change may indicate an intention to take on more direct competition from other well-known chatbots, such as Claude from Anthropic or ChatGPT from OpenAI. However, it can also mean that X is attempting to increase its subscriber base. The news comes at a time when research shows that the X platform is struggling to keep its user base and that fewer people are utilizing it. X usage in the United States was down 23% since Musk’s acquisition and down 18% year over year as of February, according to new data from Sensor Tower that was revealed by NBC News. Sensor Tower discovered that 75 out of the top 100 U.S. advertisers on X as of October 2022 no longer spent ad budgets on the platform, suggesting that Musk’s battle with advertisers may have also affected the company’s income prospects. Providing X users with access to an AI chatbot may deter them from switching to other platforms, such as Instagram’s Threads or the decentralized platforms Mastodon and Bluesky, which grew quickly to reach over 130 million monthly users as of the fourth quarter of 2023 thanks to Meta’s resources. Musk just stated that Grok “would be enabled” for all Premium subscribers “later this week,” without specifying when it would be made available to X users. The company’s mid-tier subscription, X Premium, costs $8 a month (via the internet) or $84 annually. Grok was previously exclusively available to Premium+ members, costing a substantial $168 annually or $16 per month. Given that it can answer queries regarding subjects that other AI chatbots usually avoid, such as conspiracies or more divisive political concepts, Grok’s chatbot would be of interest to Musk’s supporters and avid X users. It will also respond to inquiries with what Musk has called “a rebellious streak.” Most importantly, compared to competitors, Grok has access to real-time X data. Naturally, if X is losing users, the value of that data under Musk’s control might be declining.

Now, SpaceX has two launch pads in Texas and two in Florida, totaling at least four Starship launch platforms. Following the last launch of the United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy rocket later this year, one of the main launch pads at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station will be unoccupied. The huge complex is intended to serve as the new home for SpaceX’s Starship launch vehicle. According to a new website describing the plan, the environmental review for SpaceX’s proposal to take over Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral is getting started now. Three public in-person meetings and one virtual meeting are planned for March to gather feedback from locals. Subsequently, an environmental impact statement will be produced by federal agencies, spearheaded by the Department of the Air Force, to assess the potential effects of starship launch and landing operations on the surrounding land, air, and water of SLC-37, located on Space Force property along the Atlantic coastline. Converting SLC-37 for starship launches won’t happen anytime soon because environmental evaluations for rocket launch facilities usually take more than a year. In this instance, federal representatives plan to release a preliminary report by October 2025, followed by a final environmental impact statement by December. More immediately, ULA still has one more Delta IV Heavy rocket scheduled to launch in March from SLC-37 carrying a National Reconnaissance Office-class surveillance satellite. Following the successful launch, ULA will shut down operations at SLC-37 and eventually return the building to the Space Force, which will then seek a new occupant. Industry insiders have been pointing to SpaceX as the front-runner to take over SLC-37 once ULA completes the launch pad for a number of months. However, it’s not completely finalized yet. A top ULA official revealed to Ars last year that the business was considering keeping a presence at SLC-37. Launched last month, the Vulcan rocket from ULA will supersede the Delta IV and Atlas V spacecraft. Its new launch pad is located several miles up the coast from SLC-37. In order to increase the frequency of Vulcan launches, ULA is modernizing and growing its ground facilities at Cape Canaveral. An official from ULA informed Ars that the firm might wish to keep storing and horizontally processing Vulcan rockets at a hangar located immediately south of the Delta IV launch pad. Although specifics of SpaceX’s plans for SLC-37 are lacking, the company stated on the website for environmental reviews that it will “modify, reuse, or demolish the existing SLC-37 infrastructure to support Starship-Super Heavy launch and landing operations.” SLC-37’s history began in the 1960s, when NASA utilized the location for eight Saturn I and Saturn IB rocket flights to train for the Apollo mission. After 30 years of inactivity, Boeing came into the site to prepare SLC-37 for the Delta IV rocket, which has now taken 34 flights from SLC-37. Currently, the launch pad has a permanent umbilical tower, a 330-foot-tall (100-meter) mobile gantry, a flame trench for Delta IV flights, and a fixed erector. All of that infrastructure would not be needed for Starship, the largest rocket in the world, so if SpaceX takes over the pad, there will probably be a lot of construction and demolition work done. Should SpaceX not receive authorization to utilize SLC-37, the business may construct a completely new launch pad called Space Launch Complex 50. If SpaceX follows this course, SLC-50 would be constructed on undeveloped territory to the north of SLC-37 and to the south of SpaceX’s main Falcon 9 rocket launch pad at Space Launch Complex 40. Goodbye to LC-49, hello to SLC-37 SpaceX is becoming serious about building a second base for Starship on Florida’s Space Coast, as seen by their interest in relocating to SLC-37. At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), SpaceX built a launch tower and launch mount for Starship in 2022. However, the corporation didn’t make much headway in that area last year as crews concentrated on Starship test flights out of South Texas. The CEO and founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, claims that Starship is the rocket that would enable him to realize his goal of establishing a colony on Mars. Additionally, he has promoted Starship as a means of point-to-point transportation on Earth. The Super Heavy booster and the upper stage of Starship are intended to be completely and quickly reusable, with both stages making propulsive landings back on Earth. Landing platforms will be converted into starship launch pads. Prior to achieving any of those aspirations, the ship must enter orbit. Although SpaceX came very close to success on its second launch in November of last year, the first two full-scale Starship test flights didn’t go very far. Possibly as early as March, SpaceX plans to use the third Starship test flight to accomplish a near-orbital mission. Musk eventually sees Starship launching several times a day on a range of tasks, including refilling tankers and transporting people, cargo, and satellites into orbit. SpaceX will require a large number of launch and landing pads to accomplish this. Although it has considered it, SpaceX has shelved plans to float offshore launch and landing sites. SpaceX intends to construct a second Starship launch tower at its Starbase test site in Cameron County, Texas, in the near future. In addition, there is the half-constructed launch tower located at LC-39A. Recently, SpaceX has focused on SLC-37. Previously, SpaceX considered constructing a second Starship launch pad from the ground up on NASA land at the Kennedy Space Center. Launch Complex 49 is the site of NASA’s environmental investigations, which began in 2021. NASA has stopped operations on Launch Complex 49, a spokesman for the agency told Ars on Friday. The person is Patti Bielling. “At this time, there are no activities involving LC-49 on Kennedy,” Bielling stated. “Any previous activities regarding LC-49 were suspended, and no actions were taken.” Starship will be used as a human-rated lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis program as one of its initial operational uses. In