The Digital Insider | Month: May 2024

The evolution of healthcare ransomware attacks – CyberTalk

By Zac Amos, Features Editor, Rehack.com.

In recent years, ransomware has emerged as a critical threat to the healthcare industry, with attacks growing in frequency, sophistication and impact. These cyber assaults disrupt hospital operations, compromise patient safety and undermine data integrity.

Understanding how ransomware tactics have evolved — from basic phishing schemes to complex, multi-faceted attacks — enables healthcare organizations to develop more robust defenses. Staying informed about the latest trends and techniques that cyber criminals use allows healthcare providers to safeguard their systems and ensure the continuity of care.

Initial ransomware attacks

Early ransomware tactics in healthcare were relatively rudimentary but still impactful. The first known ransomware attack — the PC Cyborg or AIDS Trojan — occurred in 1989 and targeted roughly 20,000 researchers and medical institutions. This attack involved distributing infected floppy disks that encrypted file names and paying a ransom to unlock them.

Although primitive by today’s standards, this attack highlighted the vulnerability of healthcare systems. Hospitals faced significant disruptions, affecting patient care and operations. This early incident underscored the potential havoc that ransomware could wreak on the healthcare sector. It set the stage for more sophisticated future threats.

Evolution of attack vectors

The evolution of ransomware in healthcare has seen a significant shift; from simple phishing attacks to sophisticated social engineering techniques. Initially, attackers used basic phishing emails to trick individuals into downloading malicious software.

However, as defenses improved, cyber criminals adapted by using more advanced social engineering tactics. These methods involve conducting detailed research on targets, the creation of personalized messages and placing phone calls, as to gain trust and infiltrate systems.

Alongside this, Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) exploits have surged. These exploits allow attackers to access healthcare networks remotely by exploiting weak passwords and unpatched systems.

The healthcare sector has also seen a rise in exploited vulnerabilities in medical devices and the IoT. Cyber criminals have increasingly targeted these interconnected systems — which often lack robust security measures — to launch attacks.

This trend was particularly evident in the fourth quarter of 2023. The healthcare industry accounted for 16% of all ransomware attacks, making it the second-most targeted sector during this period. Exploitation of vulnerabilities can disrupt medical services and poses significant risks to patient safety. In turn, this highlights the urgent need for enhanced cyber security measures in healthcare.

Advanced encryption and evasion techniques

As ransomware has evolved, attackers have developed more complex encryption methods to secure healthcare data more effectively. One notable tactic is double extortion, where cyber criminals encrypt data and threaten to release sensitive information if the victim doesn’t meet their demands. This dual threat has increased the pressure on targeted organizations.

Further, 74% of Chief Information Security Officers believe that AI-powered cyber threats, including advanced ransomware, significantly impact their organizations. Attackers are also implementing polymorphic malware, which constantly changes its code to avoid detection by traditional security systems. Techniques like this make it challenging to combat sophisticated threats.

Targeting larger and more critical institutions

Ransomware attackers have shifted from targeting small clinics to targeting large hospitals and extensive healthcare networks, resulting in more significant disruptions and higher ransom demands than previously. Larger institutions have substantial financial resources, which makes them attractive targets for cyber criminals seeking substantial payouts.

The financial impact of the attacks on larger healthcare organizations is profound. In 2023, experts reported data breaches costing an average of $10.93 million each. This cost increase underscores ransomware’s severe financial strain on healthcare providers. It affects their ability to deliver essential services and invest in further security measures.

Ransomware-as-a-service

The rise of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) platforms has contributed to the proliferation of ransomware attacks in the healthcare sector. These RaaS groups operate on various business models, including monthly subscriptions, one-time license fees, affiliate programs or pure profit-sharing arrangements.

Offering user-friendly interfaces and comprehensive support, RaaS has lowered the barrier to entry for cyber criminals. It even enables those with zero technical expertise to launch sophisticated attacks. This democratization of ransomware has led to an increase in the frequency and diversity of attacks. It poses a more significant threat to healthcare organizations that must now defend against an extremely broad range of adversaries.

Collaboration and sophistication of cyber criminals

The formation of ransomware syndicates and partnerships has further expanded the threat landscape in healthcare. Cyber criminal groups now share resources and intelligence, enhancing their capabilities and effectiveness. In fact, some RaaS operators provide ongoing technical support and grant access to private forums where hackers exchange tips and information, fostering a collaborative environment.

This collective effort allows more sophisticated attacks, as cyber criminals leverage advanced threat intelligence and surveillance to identify vulnerabilities and tailor their strategies. Consequently, healthcare organizations face increasingly coordinated and informed adversaries, making securing their systems even more challenging.

Countermeasures and mitigation strategies

In response to the evolution of advanced ransomware, healthcare organizations have had to enhance their defensive measures. Adopting multi-layered security approaches — involving a combination of firewalls, intrusion detection systems, regular software updates and employee training — has become paramount.

Additionally, AI and machine learning are crucial in detecting and preventing attacks. These technologies can analyze vast amounts of data in real time and identify unusual patterns more accurately than traditional methods. Leveraging AI-driven tools lets healthcare providers anticipate and mitigate ransomware attacks more effectively than otherwise. It also helps bolster their overall cyber security posture.

Adapting to an evolving threat

The need for continuous adaptation in cyber security strategies is critical as ransomware threats evolve and become more sophisticated. The future landscape of ransomware in healthcare will likely see more advanced tactics. This makes it essential for healthcare organizations to stay vigilant and proactive in their defense measures.

For more insights from Rehack Features Editor, Zac Amos, click here. Lastly, to receive practical cyber insights, groundbreaking research and emerging threat analyses each week, subscribe to the CyberTalk.org newsletter.

Scientists identify mechanism behind drug resistance in malaria parasite

Researchers from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), in collaboration with MIT, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (NTU Singapore), have discovered a new link between malaria parasites’ ability to develop resistance to the antimalarial artemisinin (ART) through a cellular process called transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNA) modification.

This process allows cells to respond rapidly to stress by altering RNA molecules within a cell. As such, this breakthrough discovery advances the understanding of how malaria parasites respond to drug-induced stress and develop resistance, and paves the way for the development of new drugs to combat resistance.

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease that afflicted 249 million people and caused 608,000 deaths globally in 2022. ART-based combination therapies, which combine ART derivatives with a partner drug, are first-line treatments for patients with uncomplicated malaria. The ART compound helps to reduce the number of parasites during the first three days of treatment, while the partner drug eliminates the remaining parasites. However, Plasmodium falciparum (P. falciparum), the deadliest species of Plasmodium that causes malaria in humans, is developing partial resistance to ART that is widespread across Southeast Asia and has now been detected in Africa.

In a paper titled “tRNA modification reprogramming contributes to artemisinin resistance in Plasmodium falciparum”, published in the journal Nature Microbiology, researchers from SMART’s Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) interdisciplinary research group documented their discovery: A change in a single tRNA, a small RNA molecule that is involved in translating genetic information from RNA to protein, provides the malaria parasite with the ability to overcome drug stress. The study describes how tRNA modification can alter the parasite’s response to ART and help it survive ART-induced stress by changing its protein expression profile, making the parasite more resistant to the drug. ART partial resistance causes a delay in the eradication of malaria parasites following treatment with ART-based combination therapies, making these therapies less effective and susceptible to treatment failure.

“Our research, the first of its kind, shows how tRNA modification directly influences the parasite’s resistance to ART, highlighting the potential impact of RNA modifications on both disease and health. While RNA modifications have been around for decades, their role in regulating cellular processes is an emerging field. Our findings highlight the importance of RNA modifications for the research community and the broader significance of tRNA modifications in regulating gene expression,” says Peter Dedon, co-lead principal investigator at SMART AMR, the Underwood-Prescott Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT, and one of the authors of the paper.

“Malaria’s growing drug resistance to artemisinin, the current last-line antimalarial drug, is a global crisis that demands new strategies and therapeutics. The mechanisms behind this resistance are complex and multifaceted, but our study reveals a critical link. We found that the parasite’s ability to survive a lethal dose of artemisinin is linked to the downregulation of a specific tRNA modification. This discovery paves the way for new strategies to combat this growing global threat,” adds Jennifer L. Small-Saunders, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at CUIMC and first author of the paper.

The researchers investigated the role of epitranscriptomics — the study of RNA modifications within a cell — in influencing drug resistance in malaria by leveraging the advanced technology and techniques for epitranscriptomic analysis developed at SMART. This involves isolating the RNA of interest, tRNA, and using mass spectrometry to identify the different modifications present. They isolated and compared the drug-sensitive and drug-resistant malaria parasites, some of which were treated with ART and others left untreated as controls. The analysis revealed changes in the tRNA modifications of drug-resistant parasites, and these modifications were linked to the increased or decreased translation of specific genes in the parasites. The altered translation process was found to be the underlying mechanism for the observed increase in drug resistance. This discovery also expands our understanding of how microbes and cancer cells exploit the normal function of RNA modifications to thwart the toxic effects of drugs and other therapeutics.

“At SMART AMR, we’re at the forefront of exploring epitranscriptomics in infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance. Epitranscriptomics is an emerging field in malaria research and plays a crucial role in how malaria parasites develop and respond to stress. This discovery reveals how drug-resistant parasites exploit epitranscriptomic stress response mechanisms for survival, which is particularly important for understanding parasite biology,” says Peter Preiser, co-lead principal investigator at SMART AMR, professor of molecular genetics and cell biology at NTU Singapore, and another author of the paper.

The research sets the foundation for the development of better tools to study RNA modifications and their role in resistance while simultaneously opening new avenues for drug development. RNA-modifying enzymes, especially those linked to resistance, are currently understudied, and they are attractive targets for the development of new and more effective drugs and therapies. By hindering the parasite’s ability to manipulate these modifications, drug resistance can be prevented from arising. Researchers at SMART AMR are actively pursuing the discovery and development of small molecule and biological therapeutics that target RNA modifications in viruses, bacteria, parasites, and cancer.

The research is carried out by SMART and supported by the National Research Foundation Singapore under its Campus for Research Excellence And Technological Enterprise program.

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Getting to systemic sustainability

Add up the commitments from the Paris Agreement, the Glasgow Climate Pact, and various commitments made by cities, countries, and businesses, and the world would be able to hold the global average temperature increase to 1.9 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, says Ani Dasgupta, the president and chief executive officer of the World Resources Institute (WRI).

While that is well above the 1.5 C threshold that many scientists agree would limit the most severe impacts of climate change, it is below the 2.0 degree threshold that could lead to even more catastrophic impacts, such as the collapse of ice sheets and a 30-foot rise in sea levels.

However, Dasgupta notes, actions have so far not matched up with commitments.

“There’s a huge gap between commitment and outcomes,” Dasgupta said during his talk, “Energizing the global transition,” at the 2024 Earth Day Colloquium co-hosted by the MIT Energy Initiative and MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, and sponsored by the Climate Nucleus.

Dasgupta noted that oil companies did $6 trillion worth of business across the world last year — $1 trillion more than they were planning. About 7 percent of the world’s remaining tropical forests were destroyed during that same time, he added, and global inequality grew even worse than before.

“None of these things were illegal, because the system we have today produces these outcomes,” he said. “My point is that it’s not one thing that needs to change. The whole system needs to change.”

People, climate, and nature

Dasgupta, who previously held positions in nonprofits in India and at the World Bank, is a recognized leader in sustainable cities, poverty alleviation, and building cultures of inclusion. Under his leadership, WRI, a global research nonprofit that studies sustainable practices with the goal of fundamentally transforming the world’s food, land and water, energy, and cities, adopted a new five-year strategy called “Getting the Transition Right for People, Nature, and Climate 2023-2027.” It focuses on creating new economic opportunities to meet people’s essential needs, restore nature, and rapidly lower emissions, while building resilient communities.

In fact, during his talk, Dasgupta said that his organization has moved away from talking about initiatives in terms of their impact on greenhouse gas emissions — instead taking a more holistic view of sustainability.

“There is no net zero without nature,” Dasgupta said. He showed a slide with a graphic illustrating potential progress toward net-zero goals. “If nature gets diminished, that chart becomes even steeper. It’s very steep right now, but natural systems absorb carbon dioxide. So, if the natural systems keep getting destroyed, that curve becomes harder and harder.”

A focus on people is necessary, Dasgupta said, in part because of the unequal climate impacts that the rich and the poor are likely to face in the coming years. “If you made it to this room, you will not be impacted by climate change,” he said. “You have resources to figure out what to do about it. The people who get impacted are people who don’t have resources. It is immensely unfair. Our belief is, if we don’t do climate policy that helps people directly, we won’t be able to make progress.”

Where to start?

Although Dasgupta stressed that systemic change is needed to bring carbon emissions in line with long-term climate goals, he made the case that it is unrealistic to implement this change around the globe all at once. “This transition will not happen in 196 countries at the same time,” he said. “The question is, how do we get to the tipping point so that it happens at scale? We’ve worked the past few years to ask the question, what is it you need to do to create this tipping point for change?”

Analysts at WRI looked for countries that are large producers of carbon, those with substantial tropical forest cover, and those with large quantities of people living in poverty. “We basically tried to draw a map of, where are the biggest challenges for climate change?” Dasgupta said.

That map features a relative handful of countries, including the United States, Mexico, China, Brazil, South Africa, India, and Indonesia. Dasgupta said, “Our argument is that, if we could figure out and focus all our efforts to help these countries transition, that will create a ripple effect — of understanding technology, understanding the market, understanding capacity, and understanding the politics of change that will unleash how the rest of these regions will bring change.”

Spotlight on the subcontinent

Dasgupta used one of these countries, his native India, to illustrate the nuanced challenges and opportunities presented by various markets around the globe. In India, he noted, there are around 3 million projected jobs tied to the country’s transition to renewable energy. However, that number is dwarfed by the 10 to 12 million jobs per year the Indian economy needs to create simply to keep up with population growth.

“Every developing country faces this question — how to keep growing in a way that reduces their carbon footprint,” Dasgupta said.

Five states in India worked with WRI to pool their buying power and procure 5,000 electric buses, saving 60 percent of the cost as a result. Over the next two decades, Dasgupta said, the fleet of electric buses in those five states is expected to increase to 800,000.

In the Indian state of Rajasthan, Dasgupta said, 59 percent of power already comes from solar energy. At times, Rajasthan produces more solar than it can use, and officials are exploring ways to either store the excess energy or sell it to other states. But in another state, Jharkhand, where much of the country’s coal is sourced, only 5 percent of power comes from solar. Officials in Jharkhand have reached out to WRI to discuss how to transition their energy economy, as they recognize that coal will fall out of favor in the future, Dasgupta said.

“The complexities of the transition are enormous in a country this big,” Dasgupta said. “This is true in most large countries.”

The road ahead

Despite the challenges ahead, the colloquium was also marked by notes of optimism. In his opening remarks, Robert Stoner, the founding director of the MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design, pointed out how much progress has been made on environmental cleanup since the first Earth Day in 1970. “The world was a very different, much dirtier, place in many ways,” Stoner said. “Our air was a mess, our waterways were a mess, and it was beginning to be noticeable. Since then, Earth Day has become an important part of the fabric of American and global society.”

While Dasgupta said that the world presently lacks the “orchestration” among various stakeholders needed to bring climate change under control, he expressed hope that collaboration in key countries could accelerate progress.

“I strongly believe that what we need is a very different way of collaborating radically — across organizations like yours, organizations like ours, businesses, and governments,” Dasgupta said. “Otherwise, this transition will not happen at the scale and speed we need.”

MIT Press releases Direct to Open impact report

The MIT Press announced the release of a report on its Direct to Open (D2O) program detailing the impact that it has had in its first three years. Launched in 2021, D2O is a sustainable framework for open-access monographs that shifts publishing from a solely market-based purchase model, where individuals and libraries buy single e-books, to a collaborative library-supported open-access model.

“Direct to Open is a game changer,” says Amy Brand, director and publisher at the MIT Press. “We’ve been shaking things up at the MIT Press for over 60 years, changing how knowledge flows between academics and the world. D2O has exceeded expectations in its first three years, and we’re thrilled to share the impact.”

To date, D2O has funded 240 books: 159 in the humanities and social sciences (HSS) and 81 in science, technology, engineering, art/design, and mathematics (STEAM). The data show that, on average, open-access HSS books in the program are used 3.75 times more and receive 21 percent more citations than their paywalled counterparts. Open-access books in STEAM fields are used 2.67 times more and receive 15 percent more citations than their non-open counterparts, on average. Regardless of their field, D2O books are making meaningful contributions to debates both within and beyond the academy.

“In my course, I used the software platform Perusall to let students comment and ask questions on our D2O book ‘Model Systems in Biology‘ in an online group setting,” says Georg Striedter, professor in the department of neurobiology and behavior at the University of California at Irvine. “This interactive approach made the readings more engaging for the students and allowed me to monitor their comprehension and interests effectively. This approach isn’t possible with high-cost textbooks that my students can’t easily afford. Thus, the D2O option has notably improved the book’s accessibility, benefiting both my teaching and the students’ learning experience. Thank you, MIT Press.”

“For the Indian market, MIT Press books are prohibitively expensive,” says Janaki Srinivasan, associate professor at the International Institute of Information Technology in Bangalore, India and author of “The Political Lives of Information: Information and the Production of Development in India.” “Bookstores are reluctant to stock them and they are also expensive for individual buyers. People are very interested in the book in India, where the book is based, so it’s been a blessing to have the open-access edition. Several people I met during my talks and at other events in India said they were able to access the book because it was open access.”

“Open access is very important in my field of anthropology,” says Elizabeth Carpenter-Song, research associate professor in the department of anthropology at Dartmouth College and author of “Families on the Edge: Experiences of Homelessness and Care in Rural New England.” “Our work often speaks to issues that are relevant to non-specialists and open access helps to build bridges to other fields and audiences. The D2O version of my book has enabled me to reach colleagues in anthropology, as well as clinical and social services and community stakeholders who have used the book to inform their understanding of regional housing issues. I firmly believe that the open-access option has allowed the book to be much more broadly disseminated and used.”

At a time when average print runs for academic monographs are often in the low hundreds, books in the D2O program are reaching larger audiences online than ever before — averaging 3,061 downloads per title and bringing important scholarship to international audiences.

“D2O is meeting the needs of academics, readers, and libraries alike, and our usage and citation stats demonstrate that readers around the world are embracing open-access scholarship across a wide range of fields and for many purposes — from the classroom to research projects to professional interest reading,” says Amy Harris, senior manager, library relations and sales at the MIT Press. “This further aligns the work of the MIT Press with the mission of MIT to advance knowledge in science, technology, the arts, and other areas of scholarship to best serve the nation and the world, and provides opportunities for expansion of the model in the forthcoming years.”

The MIT Press is now accepting commitments for Direct to Open in 2025 and invites libraries and library consortia to participate. For details, please visit mitpress.mit.edu/D2O or contact the MIT Press library relations team.

New MIT-LUMA Lab created to address climate challenges in the Mediterranean region

The MIT School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) and the LUMA Foundation announced today the establishment of the MIT-LUMA Lab to advance paradigm-shifting innovations at the nexus of art, science, technology, conservation, and design. The aim is to empower innovative thinkers to realize their ambitions, support local communities as they seek to address climate-related issues, and scale solutions to pressing challenges facing the Mediterranean region.

The main programmatic pillars of the lab will be collaborative scholarship and research around design, new materials, and sustainability; scholar exchange and education collaborations between the two organizations; innovation and entrepreneurship activities to transfer new ideas into practical applications; and co-production of exhibitions and events. The hope is that this engagement will create a novel model for other institutions to follow to craft innovative solutions to the leading challenge of our time.

The MIT-LUMA Lab draws on an establishing gift from the LUMA Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Zurich formed by Maja Hoffmann in 2004 to support contemporary artistic production. The foundation supports a range of multidisciplinary projects that increase understanding of the environment, human rights, education, and culture.

These themes are explored through programs organized by LUMA Arles, a project begun in 2013 and housed on a 27-acre interdisciplinary campus known as the Parc des Ateliers in Arles, France, an experimental site of exhibitions, artists’ residencies, research laboratories, and educational programs.

“The Luma Foundation is committed to finding ways to address the current climate emergencies we are facing, focusing on exploring the potentials that can be found in diversity and engagement in every possible form,” says Maja Hoffmann, founder and president of the LUMA Foundation. “Cultural diversity, pluralism, and biodiversity feature at the top of our mission and our work is informed by these concepts.”

A focus on the Mediterranean region

“The culturally rich area of the Mediterranean, which has produced some of the most remarkable civilizational paradigms across geographies and historical periods, plays an important role in our thinking. Focusing the efforts of the MIT-LUMA Lab on the Mediterranean means extending the possibilities for positive change throughout other global ecosystems,” says Hoffmann.

“Our projects of LUMA Arles and its research laboratory on materials and natural resources, the Atelier Luma, our position in one of Europe’s most important natural reserves, in conjunction with the expertise and forward-thinking approach of MIT, define the perfect framework that will allow us to explore new frontiers and devise novel ways to tackle our most significant civilizational risks,” she adds. “Supporting the production of new forms of knowledge and practices, and with locations in Cambridge and in Arles, our collaboration and partnership with MIT will generate solutions and models for the future, for the generations to come, in order to provide them the same and even better opportunities that what we have experienced.”

“We know we do not have all the answers at MIT, but we do know how to ask the right questions, how to design effective experiments, and how to build meaningful collaborations,” says Hashim Sarkis, dean of SA+P, which will host the lab.

“I am grateful to the LUMA Foundation for offering support for faculty research deployment designed to engage local communities and create jobs, for course development to empower our faculty to teach classes centered on these issues, and for students who seek to dedicate their lives and careers to sustainability. We also look forward to hosting fellows and researchers from the foundation to strengthen our collaboration,” he adds.

The Mediterranean region, the MIT-LUMA Lab’s focus, is one of the world’s most vital and fragile global commons. The future of climate relies on the sustainability of the region’s forests, oceans, and deserts that have for millennia created the environmental conditions and system-regulating functions necessary for life on Earth. Those who live in these areas are often the most severely affected by even relatively modest changes in the climate.

Climate research and action: A priority at MIT

To reverse negative trends and provide a new approach to addressing the climate crisis in these vast areas, SA+P is establishing international collaborations that bring know-how to the field, and in turn to learn from the communities and groups most challenged by climate impacts.

The MIT-LUMA Lab is the first in what is envisioned as a series of regionally focused labs at SA+P under the conceptual aegis of a collaborative platform called Our Global Commons. This project will support progress on today’s climate challenges by focusing on community empowerment, long-term local collaborations around research and education, and job creation. Faculty-led fieldwork, engagements with local stakeholders, and student involvement will be the key elements.

The creation of Our Global Commons comes as MIT works to dramatically expand its efforts to address climate change. In February 2024, President Sally Kornbluth announced the Climate Project at MIT, a major new initiative to mobilize the Institute’s resources and capabilities to research, develop, deploy, and scale-up new climate solutions. The Institute will hire its first-ever vice president for climate to oversee the new effort.

“With the Climate Project at MIT, we aim to help make a decisive difference, at scale, on crucial global climate challenges — and we can only do that by engaging with outstanding colleagues around the globe,” says Kornbluth. “By connecting us to creative thinkers steeped in the cultural and environmental history and emerging challenges of the Mediterranean region, the MIT-LUMA Lab promises to spark important new ideas and collaborations.”

“We are excited that the LUMA team will be joining in MIT’s engagement with climate issues, especially given their expertise in advancing vital work at the intersection of art and science, and their long-standing commitment to expanding the frontiers of sustainability and biodiversity,” says Sarkis. “With climate change upending many aspects of our society, the time is now for us to reaffirm and strengthen our SA+P tradition of on-the-ground work with and for communities around the world. Shared efforts among local communities, governments and corporations, and academia are necessary to bring about real change.”

Modeling the threat of nuclear war

It’s a question that occupies significant bandwidth in the world of nuclear arms security: Could hypersonic missiles, which fly at speeds of least five times the speed of sound, increase the likelihood of nuclear war?

Eli Sanchez, who recently completed his doctoral studies at MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE), explored these harrowing but necessary questions under the guidance of Scott Kemp, associate professor at NSE and director of the MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy.

A well-rounded interest in science

Growing up in the small railroad town of Smithville, Texas, Sanchez fell in love with basic science in high school. He can’t point to any one subject — calculus, anatomy, physiology — they were all endlessly fascinating. But physics was particularly appealing early on because you learned about abstract models and saw them play out in the real world, Sanchez says. “Even the smallest cellular functions playing out on a larger scale in your own body is cool,” he adds, explaining his love of physiology.

Attending college at the University of Texas in Dallas was even more rewarding, as he could soak in the sciences and feed an insatiable appetite. Electricity and magnetism drew Sanchez in, as did quantum mechanics. “The reality underlying quantum is so counterintuitive to what we expect that the subject was fascinating. It was really cool to learn these very new and sort of foreign rules,” Sanchez says.

Stoking his interest in science in his undergraduate years, Sanchez learned about nuclear engineering outside of the classroom, and was especially intrigued by its potential for mitigating climate change. A professor with a specialty in nuclear chemistry fueled this interest and it was through a class in radiation chemistry that Sanchez learned more about the field.

Graduating with a major in chemistry and a minor in physics, Sanchez married his love of science with another interest, computational modeling, when he pursued an internship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. At Oak Ridge, Sanchez worked on irradiation studies on humans by using computational models of the human body.

Work on nuclear weapons security at NSE

After Oak Ridge, Sanchez was pretty convinced he wanted to work on computational research in the nuclear field in some way. He appreciates that computational models, when done well, can yield accurate forecasts of the future. One can use models to predict failures in nuclear reactors, for example, and prevent them from happening.

After test-driving a couple of research options at NSE, Sanchez worked in the field of nuclear weapons security.

Experts in the field have long believed that the weapons or types of delivery systems like missiles and aircraft will affect the likelihood that states will feel compelled to start a nuclear war. The canonical example is a multiple independently-targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) system, which deploys multiple warheads on the same missile. If one missile can take out one warhead, it can destroy five or 10 warheads with just one MRV system. Such a weapons capability, Sanchez points out, is very destabilizing because there’s a strong incentive to attack first.

Similarly, experts in nuclear arms control have been suggesting that hypersonic weapons are destabilizing, but most of the reasons have been speculative, Sanchez says. “We’re putting these claims to technical scrutiny to see if they hold up.”

One way to test these claims is by focusing on flight paths. Hypersonic missiles have been considered destabilizing because it’s impossible to determine their trajectories. Hypersonic missiles can turn as they fly, so they have destination ambiguity. Unlike ballistic missiles, which have a fixed trajectory, it’s not always apparent where hypersonic missiles are going. When the final target of a missile is unclear it is easy to assume the worst: “They could be mistaken for attacks against nuclear weapons or nuclear command-and-control structures or against national capitals,” Sanchez says, “it could look much more serious than it is, so it could prompt the nation that’s being attacked to respond in a way that will escalate the situation.”

Sanchez’s doctoral work included modeling the flights of hypersonic weapons to quantify the ambiguities that could lead to escalation. The key was to evaluate the area of ambiguity for missiles with given sets of properties. Part of the work also involved making recommendations that prevent hypersonic weapons from being used in destabilizing ways. A couple of these suggestions included arming hypersonic missiles with conventional (rather than nuclear) warheads and to create no-fly zones around world capitals.

Helping underserved students

Sanchez’s work at NSE was not limited to his doctoral studies alone. Along with NSE postdoc Rachel Bielajew PhD ’24, he started the Graduate Application Assistance Program (GAAP), which helps mitigate some of the disadvantages that underrepresented students are likely to encounter.

The son of a Latino father and middle-class parents who were themselves the first in their families to graduate from college, Sanchez considers himself fortunate. But he admits that unlike many of his peers, he found graduate school difficult to navigate. “That gave me an appreciation for the position that a lot of people coming from different backgrounds where there’s less higher education in the family might face,” Sanchez says.

GAAP’s purpose is to lessen some of these barriers and to connect potential applicants to current NSE graduate students so they can ask questions whose answers might paint a clearer picture of the landscape. Sanchez stepped down after two years of co-chairing the initiative but he continues as mentor. Questions he fields range from finding a research/lab fit to funding opportunities.

As for opportunities Sanchez himself will follow: a postdoctoral fellowship in the Security Studies Program in the Department of Political Science at MIT.

XDefiant Review – Defying No Tradition – Game Informer

XDefiant’s core modes offer temporarily fun stabs at the competitive multiplayer arena shooter, but Ubisoft’s latest attempt at carving out a slice of the lucrative esports pie feels half-baked. Core modes like its practice mode and ranked queue are gated off by construction tape at the time of writing. This leaves a bland battle pass with head-scratching progression decisions and standard weapon-based leveling systems as the only tangible means of rewarding you for playing the game or doing well beyond an individual match. And with questionable netcode and missing mainstay features and modes, not even its interesting hero shooter-like abilities and small tweaks on the run-and-gun, low-time-to-kill formula coined by Call of Duty make me want to return to XDefiant.

Ubisoft’s crossover shooter couldn’t have picked less interesting properties to kit-bash together. Though each of the five factions currently available in the game adds a cool approach to gameplay, they’re not exactly the superstars you think of when you hear Ubisoft. Instead, players step into the arenas as unfamiliar characters from Ded Sec (Watch Dogs), The Cleaners (The Division), Libertad (Far Cry), Echelon (Splinter Cell), or The Phantoms (Ghost Recon); there’s no Sam Fisher or Dani Rojas for you to recognize or get excited about picking because you liked their game. Each faction has three playable characters (two or more of which you need to unlock in each faction) but they have no differentiating traits between them aside from some cosmetic stuff.

Combat is fast-paced, with a quick time-to-kill to make each shot count and almost nonexistent respawn timers constantly pushing you back out of the gate to chase down the objective and juice up that K/D ratio with its hyper-realistic arsenal of guns and devices. The standout here is XDefiant’s selection of 14 maps, each boasting plenty of cleverly laid out lanes and chokepoints, with open areas and tight corridors in different spots to encourage and reward different playstyles.

Getting enough kills in one life unlocks a cool ultra ability to help your team out in battle and stack up some extra kills or extra time on the objective. Here’s where things start to change from the familiar: Ultras, alongside a less powerful but still useful secondary ability and a helpful passive, vary based on the faction you choose. Each faction is based on an organization or group from another Ubisoft property and has its own set of specialties and abilities. You can switch between them anytime during a game, letting you adjust your strategy based on the task at hand.

Let’s say you’re playing Domination, but the other team has a sniper in a perfect sightline to pick you and your teammates off one by one, keeping you from capturing the point. Setting up one of the Phantoms’ Mag Barriers might help absorb some sniper fire long enough for your team to grab a reliable foothold and return fire. But as tactical as these abilities can be, XDefiant’s basic setup doesn’t do enough to encourage strategic play over simply rushing the objective and trying to beat the enemy team to the draw until the score limit is reached.

That game of quickdraw doesn’t always feel right, though. XDefiant’s netcode and hit detection are way off; I can’t tell you how many times my game has registered a shot on an opposing player as a hit, only for them to kill me and the game to tell me that they had full health after I’d been downed. Even with a wired connection and the best ping in my lobby, I’ve been shot through walls as I move and even been killed while hiding behind cover that should block my entire body.

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It’s barely been a week since I first installed XDefiant, but I don’t think I’d miss it from my hard drive. While the gameplay at its core is fun enough, the game is barren compared to most other shooters—including the free ones—with even bare-basic modes like team deathmatch and free-for-all or features like a ping system or skill-based matchmaking nowhere to be found. Its maps are well-made, sure, but with no rank to strive for, daily missions that ask me to commit to playing ten whole matches, and very little to look forward to in the battle pass, I don’t understand why this game would gain any traction over others beyond the fact that it’s free.