Welcome to the October 17, 2025 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• CISA Says Hackers Using F5 Devices to Target Government Networks
• Paralyzed Man Feels Objects Through Another Person's Hand
• MIT's Amarasinghe Earns ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award
• Safety Advocates, Police Warn of Surge in Untraceable 3D-Printed Weapons
• Uber Launches Data Tasks as Option for Drivers to Earn Money
• Stapler Knows When You Need It
• Android 'Pixnapping' Attack Captures App Data Like 2FA Codes
• Social Media Must Warn Users of ‘Profound’ Health Risks Under New California Law
• Software Update Bricks Some Jeep 4xe Hybrids Over the Weekend
• Microsoft to Bring AI to Washington State Classrooms
• AI Drones Are America's Newest Cops
• Knowledge Trapped on Floppy Disks Rescued at Cambridge
• RMPocalypse Attack Let Hackers Break AMD SEV-SNP

CISA Says Hackers Using F5 Devices to Target Government Networks

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a statement and emergency directive that said hackers linked to a foreign government had breached cybersecurity provider F5 systems, stole source code, and uncovered software vulnerabilities. CISA called the threat “imminent” and urged federal agencies and other organizations using F5 products to update their systems immediately. CISA's Nick Andersen said there had been no evidence of any compromise at a U.S. civilian agency to date.
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Paralyzed Man Feels Objects Through Another Person's Hand

A "mind-body connection" was established between Keith Thomas, who is paralyzed, and two other individuals through electrode brain implants. In 2023, researchers used the brain implants and AI to decode Thomas’ neural signals, sending them to forearm electrodes to restore hand movement. In the latest study, Thomas was able to open and close the hand of a non-disabled individual wearing forearm electrodes and force sensors on the thumb and index finger by visualizing the movements.
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MIT's Amarasinghe Earns ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award

Saman Amarasinghe of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been named the recipient of the 2025 ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award in recognition of groundbreaking achievements in parallel and high-performance computing. Amarasinghe was cited for fundamental contributions pioneering high-performance domain-specific languages, exceptional mentorship, and service advancing the global computing community. He has produced language designs and sophisticated compiler algorithms that successfully bridge this gap between software and hardware to fully exploit the potential of modern hardware.
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Safety Advocates, Police Warn of Surge in Untraceable 3D-Printed Weapons

Safety advocates and law enforcement are raising alarms over a surge in 3D-printed firearms appearing at U.S. crime scenes. At a New York summit, advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety warned that these untraceable weapons—produced cheaply and shared easily online—could soon surpass the number of ghost guns, build-it-yourself weapons assembled from kits. Data from two dozen police departments show recoveries of 3D-printed firearms rose from 30 in 2020 to over 300 by 2024.
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Uber Launches Data Tasks as Option for Drivers to Earn Money

Uber is introducing a “digital tasks” feature in its driver app, allowing some U.S. drivers to earn money by completing simple, phone-based assignments like uploading restaurant menus or recording audio samples. The move is part of Uber’s effort to expand into data labeling and AI services through its Uber AI Solutions unit. These microtasks aim to provide additional income opportunities while drivers are away from their cars. Payouts will vary depending on the task’s complexity.
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Stapler Knows When You Need It

Carnegie Mellon University researchers are turning ordinary items like staplers and dining utensils into proactive, unobtrusive assistants that observe human behavior and intervene when needed. The system uses a ceiling-mounted camera to observe the environment and create text-based descriptions of the scene, which a large language model uses to infer the human's goals and actions that would assist them. The predicted actions are then sent to the item, which moves to help the person with the task at hand.
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Android 'Pixnapping' Attack Captures App Data Like 2FA Codes

University of California, Berkeley's Alan Wang and colleagues developed an attack that uses a malicious Android app to steal data on websites and other Android apps, as well as two-factor authentication codes from Google Authenticator. The malicious app sends pixel data through intra-app messaging mechanism Android Intents, overlaying semi-transparent interface panes or screens to read the pixels and leveraging the window blur API for graphical processing and VSync callbacks to measure rendering time. The attack has been demonstrated on devices running Android versions 13 to 16.
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Social Media Must Warn Users of ‘Profound’ Health Risks Under New California Law

A new California law requires social media platforms to warn users under 18 that online use “can have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents,” citing a 2023 Surgeon General report. Governor Gavin Newsom emphasized the need for guardrails to prevent exploitation and harm. Under the measure, platforms must display a 10-second skippable warning at daily login and an unskippable 30-second warning after three hours of use, repeating hourly thereafter.
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Software Update Bricks Some Jeep 4xe Hybrids Over the Weekend

Some Jeep Wrangler 4xe hybrids were left undriveable after the automaker pushed out an over-the-air software update to Stellantis' Uconnect infotainment system on Oct. 10. A problem with the software update caused the vehicles to lose power while driving, stranding drivers. Some drivers reported powertrain failures occurring at highway speeds. The software had been downloaded to many vehicles before Jeep pulled the update. The company has since released a fix.
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Microsoft to Bring AI to Washington State Classrooms

Microsoft will provide AI tools and training to all 295 public school districts and 34 community and technical colleges in Washington state starting next year. As part of its $4-billion national education initiative, Microsoft also plans to award $25,000 grants to select schools and colleges to develop AI-driven projects. The program, Elevate Washington, aims to close the technology gap between urban and rural areas while preparing students for an AI-driven workforce.
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AI Drones Are America's Newest Cops

Law enforcement agencies in major U.S. metropolitan areas are increasingly using drone systems for surveillance, search and rescue, incident documentation, and crime scene investigations. Some 1,500 police and sheriff's departments were using aerial drones in late 2024, a 150% increase from 2018, according to law enforcement news site Police1.com. Just this year, Miami, Cleveland, Columbus, Ohio, and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina have announced new drone programs, while other departments are expanding their fleets.
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Knowledge Trapped on Floppy Disks Rescued at Cambridge

Archivists at the U.K.'s Cambridge University Library are racing to preserve forgotten digital treasures trapped on aging floppy disks, including materials from Stephen Hawking’s office. The Future Nostalgia project, led by Leontien Talboom, is recovering data from obsolete formats to prevent a “digital dark age” in which modern records become unreadable. Using rare, decades-old drives and technical expertise, the team extracts letters, lectures, and software from fragile disks whose magnetic material is degrading.
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RMPocalypse Attack Let Hackers Break AMD SEV-SNP

Researchers from Switzerland's ETH Zurich identified a critical vulnerability in AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization with Secure Nested Paging (SEV-SNP) that exploits a flaw in the Reverse Map Table (RMP) initialization, allowing RMP entries to be corrupted by malicious hypervisors. The vulnerability enables hackers to exfiltrate confidential data. AMD's Zen 3, Zen 4, and Zen 5 processors, including EPYC server chips used in production environments, are affected by the vulnerability, which has not yet been patched.
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