BENGALURU: The changes the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is making in the proposed Chandrayaan-3 mission are indicative of the things that may have gone wrong with Chandrayaan-2 that failed to soft-land a probe on Moon in September 2019. From a new guidance algorithm to improved communication systems on the lander, the overview committee that met last Tuesday (November 12) has pointed to multiple recommendations made by the failure analysis committee (FAC) looking into Chandrayaan-2 failure. As part of the final discussions at the meeting the committee accepted the “Propulsion+Landing Module” configuration for Chandrayaan-3, and said: “Guidance algorithm to be finalised considering all recommendations of FAC and also after detailed simulations.” The TOI was the first to report that Chandrayaan-3 mission is likely to have this — lander & rover (landing module) and propulsion module— configuration on November 14.

According to the researchers, including those from Texas A&M University in the U.S., liquid water on Mars may have become unsustainable and evaporated as the planet’s atmosphere became thinner Mars once had salt lakes that went through wet and dry phases similar to those on the Earth, according to a study which indicates that the red planet’s climate ‘dried out’ over a long time. According to the researchers, including those from Texas A&M University in the U.S., liquid water on Mars may have become unsustainable and evaporated as the planet’s atmosphere became thinner, and the pressure at the surface became lesser. The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, noted that over 3 billion years ago the lake that was present in Gale Crater— an immense 95-mile-wide rocky basin that is being explored with the NASA Curiosity rover since 2012— underwent a drying episode possibly linked to the global drying of Mars. The Gale Crater formed about 3.6 billion years ago when a meteor hit Mars, the study noted. “Since then, its geological terrains have recorded the history of Mars, and studies have shown Gale Crater reveals signs that liquid water was present over its history, which is a key ingredient of microbial life as we know it,” said co-author of the study Marion Nachon from Texas A&M University. According to Ms. Nachon, the salt ponds eventually formed during these drying periods. “It is difficult to say exactly how large these ponds were, but the lake in Gale Crater was present for long periods of time - from at least hundreds of years to perhaps tens of thousands of years,” Ms. Nachon said. The researchers said that the salt ponds on Mars are similar to some found on the Earth such as those in a region called Altiplano near the Bolivia-Peru border. Ms. Nachon added that the Altiplano is an arid, high-altitude plateau where rivers and streams from mountain ranges “do not flow to the sea but lead to closed basins, similar to what used to happen at Gale Crater on Mars.” “This hydrology creates lakes with water levels heavily influenced by climate. During the arid periods Altiplano lakes become shallow due to evaporation, and some even dry up entirely,” she said. According to the researchers, the climate on Mars may have similarly fluctuated between wetter and drier periods. The study also noted the types of chemical elements present in the liquid water that was present at the red planet’s surface at the time, and the type of environmental changes any potential life forms on Mars may have had to cope with, had they existed.

Last Seen In 1986, Halley’s Comet Will Make Its Presence Known This Week With Shooting Star Show Jamie CarterContributor Science I write about science and nature, stargazing and eclipses. Halley's Comet in 1986 (Photo by F. Carter Smith/Sygma via Getty Images) Halley’s Comet in 1986 (Photo by F. Carter[+] SYGMA VIA GETTY IMAGES Will you be alive in 2061? If not, your only chance to see something of Halley’s Comet comes in both early May and late October each year when Earth moves through streams of particles the great comet deposited in the solar system in 1986.

Malicious Tor Browser Steals Cryptocurrency from Darknet Market Users By Ionut Ilascu October 18, 2019 06:18 AM 0 A trojanized version of the Tor Browser is targeting dark web market shoppers to steal their cryptocurrency and tracks the websites they visit. More than 860 transactions are registered to three of the attackers' wallets, which received about $40,000 in Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Careful impersonation The malicious Tor Browser is actively promoted as the Russian version of the original product through posts on Pastebin that are have been optimized to rank high in queries for drugs, cryptocurrency, censorship bypass, and Russian politicians. TOP ARTICLES 2/5 Maze Ransomware Now Delivered by Spelevo Exploit Kit Spam messages also help the actor(s) distribute the trojanized variant, which is delivered from two domains claiming to provide the official Russian version of the software. Cybercriminals were careful with selecting the two domain names (created in 2014) since to a Russian user they appear to be the real deal: tor-browser[.]org torproect[.]org - for Russian-speaking visitors, the missing "j" may be seen as a transliteration from Cyrillic Furthermore, the design of the pages mimic, to some extent, the official site of the project. Landing on one of these pages shows the visitor a warning that their browser is updated, regardless of the version they run. Translated into English, the message reads: "Your anonymity is in danger! WARNING: Your Tor Browser is outdated. Click the button “Update" In Pastebin messages, the cybercriminals advertise that users would benefit from anti-captcha feature allowing them to get faster to the destination. This is not true, though. Underneath this Tor Browser impersonator is version 7.5 of the official project, released in January 2018. Getting the cryptocurrency The downloaded script can modify the page by stealing content in forms, hiding original content, showing fake messages, or add its own content. These capabilities allow the script to replace in real-time the destination wallet for cryptocurrency transactions. The JavaScript observed by ESET does exactly this. The targets are users of the three largest Russian-speaking darknet markets, the researchers say. For the payload they observed (image above), the script also alters the details for the Qiwi payment service provider. When victims add Bitcoin funds to their account, the script jumps in and changes the wallet address with one belonging to the attackers. Since cryptocurrency wallets are a large string of random characters, users are likely to miss the swap. Darknet profile with altered Bitcoin address At the moment of publishing, the three cryptocurency wallets controlled by the attackers recorded 863 transactions. These are small transfers, supporting the theory that the funds came via the trojanized Tor Browser. One of them received more than $20,000 from over 370 transactions. The largest balance, though, is currently around $50 in one wallet and less than $2 in the other two. The three wallets have been used for this purpose since 2017, the researchers found. Although the amount of Bitcoins that passed through these wallets is 4.8, the total proceedings for the attackers is likely higher because Qiwi payment details are also altered.

Malicious Tor Browser Steals Cryptocurrency from Darknet Market Users By Ionut Ilascu October 18, 2019 06:18 AM 0 A trojanized version of the Tor Browser is targeting dark web market shoppers to steal their cryptocurrency and tracks the websites they visit. More than 860 transactions are registered to three of the attackers' wallets, which received about $40,000 in Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Careful impersonation The malicious Tor Browser is actively promoted as the Russian version of the original product through posts on Pastebin that are have been optimized to rank high in queries for drugs, cryptocurrency, censorship bypass, and Russian politicians. TOP ARTICLES 2/5 Maze Ransomware Now Delivered by Spelevo Exploit Kit Spam messages also help the actor(s) distribute the trojanized variant, which is delivered from two domains claiming to provide the official Russian version of the software. Cybercriminals were careful with selecting the two domain names (created in 2014) since to a Russian user they appear to be the real deal: tor-browser[.]org torproect[.]org - for Russian-speaking visitors, the missing "j" may be seen as a transliteration from Cyrillic Furthermore, the design of the pages mimic, to some extent, the official site of the project. Landing on one of these pages shows the visitor a warning that their browser is updated, regardless of the version they run. Translated into English, the message reads: "Your anonymity is in danger! WARNING: Your Tor Browser is outdated. Click the button “Update" In Pastebin messages, the cybercriminals advertise that users would benefit from anti-captcha feature allowing them to get faster to the destination. This is not true, though. Underneath this Tor Browser impersonator is version 7.5 of the official project, released in January 2018. Getting the cryptocurrency The downloaded script can modify the page by stealing content in forms, hiding original content, showing fake messages, or add its own content. These capabilities allow the script to replace in real-time the destination wallet for cryptocurrency transactions. The JavaScript observed by ESET does exactly this. The targets are users of the three largest Russian-speaking darknet markets, the researchers say. For the payload they observed (image above), the script also alters the details for the Qiwi payment service provider. When victims add Bitcoin funds to their account, the script jumps in and changes the wallet address with one belonging to the attackers. Since cryptocurrency wallets are a large string of random characters, users are likely to miss the swap. Darknet profile with altered Bitcoin address At the moment of publishing, the three cryptocurency wallets controlled by the attackers recorded 863 transactions. These are small transfers, supporting the theory that the funds came via the trojanized Tor Browser. One of them received more than $20,000 from over 370 transactions. The largest balance, though, is currently around $50 in one wallet and less than $2 in the other two. The three wallets have been used for this purpose since 2017, the researchers found. Although the amount of Bitcoins that passed through these wallets is 4.8, the total proceedings for the attackers is likely higher because Qiwi payment details are also altered.