Musk Releases AI Model Grok 3 And Claims It Outperforms Rivals - 1

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Musk Releases AI Model Grok 3 And Claims It Outperforms Rivals

  • Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
  • Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager

Elon Musk and team members of his artificial intelligence company, xAI, announced the release of Grok 3 this Tuesday, the newest and most advanced model of their chatbot. They claimed the new AI model can outperform frontier models like ChatGPT and DeepSeek.

In a Rush? Here are the Quick Facts!

  • Musk and xAI’s team announced the new AI model, Grok 3, and claimed it outperforms GPT-4o, DeepSeek V-3, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Gemini-Pro.
  • The new model is available to Premium X subscribers.
  • The team also announced a deep search tool for more complex tasks.

xAI’s team and Musk announced the new model during a livestream shared on the social media platform X.

https://t.co/HTK4u2aYRu — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 18, 2025

“We’re very excited to present Grok 3, which is, we think, an order of magnitude more capable than Grok 2 in a very short period of time,” said Musk.

The team explained a few of the challenges they faced—they had to delay the release due to multiple situations—and built a large data center in Memphis to train Grok 3, with 200,000 GPUs. According to TechCrunch , Grok 3 had been promised for 2024 but missed the deadline.

In January, xAI launched an iOS app for its chatbot Grok in the United States, India, and Australia.

Musk and his team showed how the new AI model outperformed GPT-4o, DeepSeek V-3, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Gemini-Pro in benchmarks such as AIME and GPQA.

They also announced a research feature “DeepSearch”—similar to OpenAI’s deep research feature to perform complex tasks and research online—considering data from the social media platform X as well.

A few experts have already shared thoughts and reviews of the new reasoning model. Andrej Karpathy, Perplexity’s CEO, said on X he tested the tool with multiple queries to analyze its potential.

“I was given early access to Grok 3 earlier today, making me I think one of the first few who could run a quick vibe check,” wrote Karpathy. “The impression overall I got here is that this is somewhere around o1-pro capability, and ahead of DeepSeek-R1, though of course we need actual, real evaluations to look at.”

New Cybersecurity Threat Targets Mac Users With Fake Updates - 2

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New Cybersecurity Threat Targets Mac Users With Fake Updates

  • Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
  • Fact-Checked by Justyn Newman Former Lead Cybersecurity Editor

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered two new cybercriminal groups, TA2726 and TA2727, responsible for launching a growing wave of online attacks, including fake update scams and malware targeting Mac, Windows, and Android devices.

In a Rush? Here are the Quick Facts!

  • TA2727 targets Mac users with new malware called FrigidStealer, alongside Windows and Android threats.
  • Web inject campaigns are harder to track due to multiple threat actors using similar methods.
  • Malicious fake updates remain a common technique for delivering malware, especially on compromised websites.

The attacks, which involve injecting malicious code into legitimate websites, trick users into downloading harmful software, are becoming more widespread.

Proofpoint, a cybersecurity research team, published today an update about the increased frequency of these “web inject” campaigns, which aim to infect users by redirecting them to compromised sites that seem trustworthy .

Web injects typically involve malicious scripts that run when a user visits a compromised website. These scripts can force the website to display fake update notifications, tricking the user into clicking on a fraudulent update that installs malware.

This type of attack has become increasingly difficult to track due to multiple actors using the same method and collaborating with one another.

Historically, the group TA569 was well-known for using fake updates as a way to infect users with malware, but in 2023, several groups, including TA2726 and TA2727, began using similar tactics, as explained by Proofpoint.

These actors distribute malware through compromised websites rather than email campaigns, which makes detecting the attacks more challenging.

TA2726, for example, functions as a “traffic distributor,” redirecting users to various malware campaigns. This group works with financially motivated actors like TA569 and TA2727, who take advantage of compromised websites to spread malware. Proofpoint’s investigation revealed that since September 2022, TA2726 has been a key player in these attacks.

On the other hand, TA2727 focuses on delivering various types of malware, including an information stealer called FrigidStealer, which targets Mac users.

Proofpoint notes that in early 2025, researchers observed this malware in campaigns aimed at both Windows and Mac computers. For Mac users, the attack redirects them to a fake update page, where clicking the “Update” button downloads malware disguised as a legitimate browser update.

FrigidStealer collects sensitive information like passwords, cookies, and files related to cryptocurrency. The malware then sends this data to the cybercriminals responsible for the attack, as explained by the researchers.

While Mac users are less common in corporate environments than Windows users, these attacks are growing in frequency .

Experts recommend strong cybersecurity practices to protect against these threats, including using endpoint protection, training employees to recognize suspicious activity, and avoiding clicking on untrusted update notifications.