Protostar попробует впервые передать энергию между двумя свободно летящими аппаратами.

Тревога сработала быстро, но остановка заняла ещё 2,5 часа.

Зубы десятилетиями указывали учёным не на ту ветвь эволюции.

Целями становятся телеком-компании, университеты, медицинские НКО и правительственные структуры.

Модель писала вредоносный код, создавала подставные аккаунты и пыталась пройти проверку разработчиков.

Тау-белок остался, но мозг подопытных мышей удалось спасти.

Мессенджер уточнил правила слежения за активностью.

ChatGPT готовят к жизни без вас. Новый ассистент «o» будет работать постоянно.

SafeTech Lab встроила в SafeTech CA модуль CDM для доставки, установки и автоматического обновления технологических сертификатов.

Теперь заказчику больше не нужно искать отдельное решение, интегрировать его с CA и настраивать сложные схемы взаимодействия систем.

Новые расширенные возможности выводят SafeTech CA за рамки обычного центра сертификации — теперь это полноценная платформа управления цифровыми сертификатами.

SafeTech CA закрывает все самые востребованные задачи по контролю за сертификатами: от их выпуска до автоматического обновления на клиентских устройствах.

Модуль CDM расширяет возможности SafeTech CA за счёт агентской доставки, установки и автоматического перевыпуска сертифика…

Согласно отраслевым прогнозам, доля корпоративного ПО с агентным ИИ может возрасти с менее чем 1 % в 2024 году до 33 % к 2028 году.

Наблюдения специалистов по безопасности ИИ и открытые исследования подтверждают: злоумышленники уже сейчас тестируют методы обхода ограничений в промышленных системах.

Недостаточно добавить фильтры поверх уже созданной системы: принципы безопасности для агентов необходимо закладывать на этапе проектирования.

Инструментарий: что включить в конвейер обеспечения безопасности уже сейчасСредства защиты агентов перестают быть узкоспециализированными утилитами и интегрируются в классический конвейер (пайплайн) DevSecOps.

ВыводыОбеспечение безопасности автономных агент…

В Якутии хотят строить ЦОДы там, где мороз помогает охлаждать серверы, а газ можно превращать в электричество прямо у месторождений.

То, что десятилетиями делало стройку и жизнь в Якутии дороже и сложнее, теперь пытаются превратить в конкурентное преимущество: местный мороз должен помогать охлаждать серверы.

Новый проект правительства республики, КРДВ и «Ростелекома» хотят начать с 2,5 МВт — уже в пять раз больше нынешней инфраструктуры.

А заявленные 100 МВт означали бы рост относительно сегодняшнего уровня примерно в 200 раз и в 40 раз относительно старта.

И тогда уже важно, какой газ он потребляет, мог ли этот ресурс уйти другому покупателю и что происходит с локальным энергетическим бала…

Решение BI.ZONE Mail Security создано на основе системы BI.ZONE CESP и предназначено для защиты корпоративной почты от вредоносных и нежелательных сообщений.

Эти данные могут дополняться актуальной информацией из внешних систем: BI.ZONE Threat Intelligence, BI.ZONE Sandbox и платформы BI.ZONE Security Fitness.

BI.ZONE Mail Security также интегрируется с платформой BI.ZONE Security Fitness, что позволяет учитывать результаты учебных фишинговых рассылок при настройке политик безопасности.

Подключение модуля BI.ZONE SandboxВ on-prem-варианте BI.ZONE Mail Security также можно интегрировать с BI.ZONE Threat Intelligence, при этом сам портал располагается в облачной инфраструктуре BI.ZONE.

Компон…

Использование macOS в dev-средах увеличивает риск горизонтального перемещенияКлассические техники горизонтального перемещения через Active Directory и SMB на macOS встречаются реже и хуже покрыты правилами детектирования.

Классическая подсистема аудита OpenBSM начиная с macOS 11 объявлена устаревшей, а в версиях начиная с macOS 14 она отключена по умолчанию.

Сейчас ситуация меняется: вендоры наращивают функциональность агентов под macOS и адаптируют их как к новым версиям ОС, так и к меняющемуся ландшафту угроз.

Политики безопасности исторически писались под Windows, и Mac-устройства во многих организациях так и не попали в контур мониторинга SOC.

Windows, Linux и macOS в ней сосуществуют, …

Эксперты ведущих вендоров собрались в студии AM Live, чтобы обсудить, чем отличаются классы решений, как их выбирать и на что смотреть при пилотировании.

Какими бывают балансировщики нагрузкиДаниил Виняр предложил разделить решения на три класса:Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) — решения на базе DNS, которые распределяют нагрузку между разными ЦОДами, будь то собственные площадки или облака.

ВыводыРоссийский рынок балансировщиков нагрузки и брокеров сетевых пакетов находится в фазе активного роста и уже не нуждается в доказательствах своей зрелости.

При этом удобство — это не только красивый интерфейс, но и логичность, понятность того, что можно сделать с устройством, и возможность не со…

MaxPatrol Endpoint Security — это комплексное решение, которое объединило все возможности продуктов MaxPatrol EDR и MaxPatrol EPP.

Архитектура MaxPatrol Endpoint Security 10Порядок функционирования MaxPatrol Endpoint Security:Сервер агентов распространяет через агенты, установленные на конечных устройствах, исполняемые модули и их конфигурацию.

Взаимодействие компонентов MaxPatrol Endpoint Security 10 через портыУлучшенные функциональные возможности в MaxPatrol Endpoint Security 10Рассмотрим возможности MaxPatrol Endpoint Security 10-й версии.

MaxPatrol Endpoint Security поддерживает связку MaxPatrol EDR + MaxPatrol EPP, а также интеграции с MaxPatrol SIEM, MaxPatrol VM, PT Sandbox и PT NAD…

Одни делают ставку на экспертизу и контент, другие — на производительность и масштабируемость, третьи — на экосистемность и интеграции.

Нужно собирать ровно столько, сколько может осилить и SIEM, и команда, которая будет работать с событиями, и чуточку больше.

Границы SIEM: что можно и что нельзя объединять«Граница SIEM зависит от того, кто и как его использует, от масштаба организации.

Евгения Лагутина:«Хочется верить, что мы сможем снизить порог вхождения не в SIEM, а в экспертизу в Threat Intelligence.

Ответ на этот вопрос лежит не в дата-шитах и не в маркетинговых презентациях, а в реальной эксплуатации, пилотировании и понимании собственных задач.

Одновременно меняются угрозы: атакующие целятся не только в инфраструктуру, но и в саму возможность восстановления — уничтожают бэкапы и захватывают системы управления.

На дискуссии о высокоплотных ЦОДах под модерацией Сергея Андронова, директора центра сетевых решений компании «Инфосистемы Джет», спорили и о плотности, и о географии.

Значит, средство защиты оценивается уже не само по себе, а по тому, помогает ли оно бизнесу пережить атаку.

Неудачный тест при этом оказался полезен: заказчик точнее сформулировал требования и стал смотреть не только на текущую версию продукта, но и на способность производителя развивать его дальше.

И здесь промышленное внедрение быстро упирается не только в к…

Разбираемся, почему возникает такая архитектура, как распределить роли между платформами и в каких случаях разделение функций оправдывает дополнительные затраты.

Холдинговая структура, слияния и поглощенияВ крупных холдингах отдельные дочерние и зависимые общества (ДЗО) часто развивают собственные центры мониторинга ИБ и используют разные SIEM-системы.

Независимая параллельная обработкаСамый простой вариант — источники одновременно отправляют события ИБ в несколько SIEM-систем.

Наконец, нужны общие правила классификации событий и инцидентов ИБ и единый подход к управлению экспертным контентом.

Использование нескольких SIEM-систем оправдано, если у каждой платформы есть своя задача и понятно…

Цифровая личность включает не только профили в социальных сетях, но и учётные записи, идентификаторы, публикации и накопленные цифровые следы.

В цифровую личность в широком смысле входят:официальные сведения и идентификаторы;учётные записи и средства аутентификации;биометрические данные;публикации и социальные связи в интернете;поведенческие и репутационные данные.

При этом цифровую личность не следует отождествлять с цифровым двойником, цифровым профилем, цифровым следом и цифровой тенью.

Например, в научной статье «Цифровой двойник и цифровая личность: понятие, соотношение, значение в процессе совершения киберпреступлений и в праве в целом» авторы акцентируют внимание на отсутствии законо…

Рассказываем, в каком состоянии рынок средств безопасности для сред виртуализации и что его ожидает в ближайшие годы.

О важности микросегментацииВесной этого года в силу вступил приказ ФСТЭК России № 117, который существенно обновил требования к безопасности.

Это ахиллесова пята для многих ИБ-решений, и в организации микросегментации пропускная способность тоже становится проблемой.

Физическая инфраструктура строится годами, а циклы закупки нужного оборудования длятся месяцами, при этом ИБ- и ИТ-специалисты чётко понимают, какие продукты у них будут и для чего они нужны.

Таким образом, мы видим, что на данном этапе первоначальные сложности, которые неизбежны при внедрении модели, больше отп…

А потом спросите людей со стороны бизнеса — ответы будут варьироваться от «не знаю» до «так требует регулятор».

Проблема не в инструментах, а в отсутствии понятной коммуникации.

Финансовый директор (CFO) дослушивает и задаёт единственный вопрос: «А что я получил за эти 50 миллионов?».

Это не проблема конкретного CISO — это проблема архитектуры принятых метрик DevSecOps.

Истинное получает приоритет по риску для бизнеса, а не «по баллу CVSS».

Для меня recon — это не отдельный этап перед поиском уязвимостей.

Это позволяет не только не получить нарушение правил, но и понять, что именно компания считает важным.

Автоматизация здесь нужна, но я не считаю, что recon заканчивается на subfinder и httpx .

В реальном Bug Bounty ты можешь часами смотреть на систему и вообще не знать, есть ли там что‑нибудь интересное.

Recon никогда не заканчиваетсяЯ не воспринимаю recon как этап, который можно однажды закончить и поставить галочку.

Реакция права и регуляторов оказалась одной и той же: отвечает человек, а не ИИ.

Вопрос не в том, умеют ли они ошибаться, а в том, кто в системе отвечает за то, чтобы ошибку поймать.

Дарио Амодеи в мае 2025 года говорил, что ИИ может уничтожить половину начальных офисных должностей за пять лет.

Бессент прямо сказал, что они просили снять с них ответственность, и правительство на это не пойдёт (The Register).

Сильная опора — знание о том, как ведёт себя реальное оборудование: без него робот тоже будет измерять числа, а не величины.

Меня зовут Даниил Пасечник, в RWB я отвечаю за архитектуру управления пользовательского доступа в базы данных.

Минимизация прав по умолчанию — доступ выдаётся ровно на то, что нужно, а не «с запасом».

Цифровой след запроса доступа и его согласования — кто запросил, кто согласовал, когда и на каком основании.

На практике такое случается редко: мы проводим регулярные рассылки и держим фокус внимания пользователей на работе с доступом именно через Trino.

Похожий контраст — и в скорости подключения новых команд целиком, а не только отдельных пользователей.

Да и не нужно, тут не то чтобы сложно: регистрируемся обычным пользователем, открываем первую страницу — и всё нужное нашли.

Опытным путём выясняю, что на разные адреса возвращаются разные ответы: где-то порт закрыт, где-то хост существует, где-то что-то ещё.

И вот ответ:$ imp "... /iam/security-credentials/default "AccessKeyId и SecretAccessKey пустые, да они и не нужны: весь смысл в поле Token .

Разработчик тестит локально, зашивает секрет прямо в код, ставит дефолт на случай недоступной переменной окружения и надеется, что в прод не уедет.

Здесь приходится возвращаться к прошлым шагам и связывать находки в одну цепочку, и это классно.

В кампании GTG-50014 злоумышленники использовали ИИ на разных этапах — от разведки до эксплуатации и обработки похищенных данных.

Сейчас рост возможностей не только в поиске неизвестных уязвимостей, но и в удешевлении разработки эксплойтов к уже раскрытым недостаткам — 1-day.

Привычного запаса времени между публикацией уязвимости и появлением рабочего эксплойта может уже не оказаться.

Затем оцениваем возможные последствия эксплуатации и выбираем ближайшее действие: установку обновления, ограничение доступа, отключение функции или изменение конфигурации.

При разных ограничениях пропускной способности 35–53% задач удавалось завершить к дате включения уязвимости в KEV за счёт более ранних сигн…

У команды по-прежнему есть проверка совместимости, согласования и системы, которые должны работать.

В кампании GTG-50014 злоумышленники использовали ИИ на разных этапах — от разведки до эксплуатации и обработки похищенных данных.

При разных ограничениях пропускной способности 35–53% задач удавалось завершить к дате включения уязвимости в KEV за счёт более ранних сигналов.

Появление эксплойта может потребовать срочно вернуться к известной уязвимости и доработать проверку.

СКИПА и PentOps помогают найти доступные системы и проверить их защищённость.

Причина не в том, что зеркалирования не было вообще, а в том, что оно не подходило для облака.

Там он клонируется: оригинал уходит на целевую ВМ, копия на PT NAD.

Проблема дублейПредставьте, что ВМ1 и ВМ2 общаются между собой, и мы зеркалируем и входящий, и исходящий трафик с обеих машин.

В результате один пакет приходит на PT NAD дважды: первый раз как исходящий от ВМ1, второй раз как входящий на ВМ2.

Это дает экономию и на сетевой полосе, и на ресурсах PT NAD.

В текущей действительности такие риски вполне возможны, и при затягивании процесса перехода на поддерживаемые вендором ОС и корпоративный каталог повышается вероятность проблем в инфраструктуре.

В задачи служб каталогов входит:Управление пользователями и группами (управление правами доступа, создание/удаление);Управление ресурсами (установка ограничений, удаленное администрирование и др.

FreeIPA — интегрированная система управления идентификацией и доступом на Linux, объединяющая LDAP, Kerberos и DNS.

Поэтому при миграции важно учитывать не только перенос пользователей и групп, но и существующую модель управления доступом в организации.

: Pragmatic Tools Migrator) позволяют быстро и безопас…

Механизм работы с Telegram через Wayback Machine не оригинален и принципиально не отличается от поиска по другим ресурсам.

Как и с обычными сайтами, работа с ресурсами Telegram через Wayback Machine определяется URL-адресом.

Wayback Machine не сохраняет абсолютно все, что публиковалось.

Поэтому отсутствие результата в Wayback Machine не означает, что информации никогда не существовало.

Wayback Machine как основной инструмент поиска в Telegram, действительно, — так себе.

С начала сентября группировка возобновила активность и распространяет фишинговые письма на тему судебных разбирательств, нацеленные на IT-компании.

Фишинговые письма и FBULoaderНаиболее ранний из зафиксированных образцов активности группировки относится к 22 апреля 2026 года.

В архиве находятся несколько переименованных легитимных файлов Яндекс Браузера, и в папке 25.0.1364.13754 – вредоносная DLL.

Фишинговые письма и RAT-GoПараллельно с фишинговыми рассылками с FBULoader, группировка распространяла другое ВПО, названное атакующими RAT-Go.

Цепочка атаки начиналась с фишингового письма с архивом.

Уже оттуда хакеры отправляли поддельные команды на вывод средств в бэкенд-сервисы инфраструктуры кошельков, где эти запросы в итоге воспринимались как легитимные.

При этом название уязвимого продукта в Bitget не раскрыли.

28 сентября 2026 года в Bitget сообщили, что возобновляют вывод средств.

Кроме того, ранее в Bitget запустили программу вознаграждений за помощь в возврате похищенных активов.

В компании обещают выплатить 5% от суммы средств, которые удастся заморозить или вернуть благодаря предоставленной информации или другим действиям участников расследования.

Представители OpenAI раскрыли еще один инцидент, связанный с ИИ-агентами компании: в 53 случаях они загрузили предоставленные пользователями изображения на сторонние сервисы для хостинга картинок.

Проблему обнаружили в ходе масштабного расследования нежелательного поведения ИИ-моделей, которое началось после обнаружения атаки агентов OpenAI на платформу Hugging Face.

Как сообщают в OpenAI, на этот раз проблема возникла во время работы ИИ-агентов в исследовательской среде.

Хотя подавляющее большинство данных не имело отношения к пользователям, специалисты OpenAI обнаружили 53 случая, когда агенты разместили на сторонних фотохостингах пользовательские изображения.

Также в OpenAI напомнили, чт…

git cd wp2shell- scan cd testbed docker compose up -- buildЗа­тем откры­ваем в бра­узе­ре http:// localhost: 8080/ и уста­нав­лива­ем WordPress.

Это нуж­но, что­бы поль­зователь базы дан­ных мог писать нап­рямую в WordPress.

Каж­дый эле­мент — это либо true , либо WP_Error ;— резуль­таты валида­ции каж­дого отдель­ного зап­роса из пакета.

Каж­дый эле­мент — это либо , либо ; $matches — готовый спи­сок методов для выпол­нения.

Если в $validation зна­чение true , то выпол­няет­ся соот­ветс­тву­ющий кол­бэк из $matches .

Напомним, что F-Droid существует уже 15 лет и представляет собой магазин приложений и репозиторий свободного ПО с открытым исходным кодом (FOSS) для Android.

Он предоставляет альтернативу магазину Google Play и позволяет пользователям искать, устанавливать и обновлять приложения, а также предлагает инструменты для разработчиков.

За годы существования репозиторий F-Droid разросся до нескольких тысяч приложений, однако за это время официальный клиент практически не менялся.

Теперь разрешение можно выдать заранее: достаточно нажать «Установить» в F-Droid, а затем подтвердить действие в системном окне.

Также F-Droid 2.0 способен одновременно скачивать и устанавливать несколько приложений, автом…

В Intel приостановили работу программы bug bounty, в рамках которой исследователи могли получить до 100 000 долларов США за найденную уязвимость.

При этом старая страница bug bounty по-прежнему доступна, хотя имеет статус suspended.

Как отмечают журналисты, это может быть связано с тем, что в последнее время многие программы bug bounty сталкиваются с похожей проблемой: потоком отчетов об уязвимостях, обнаруженных с помощью ИИ.

С 27 марта текущего года платформа приостановила прием новых заявок в программу Internet Bug Bounty (IBB), прямо сославшись на рост количества уязвимостей, которые обнаруживают при помощи ИИ.

Поэтому пока неясно, связан ли отказ Intel от выплат с той же проблемой ИИ-о…

Представители сети ресторанов «Додо Пицца» сообщили о кибератаке на свою ИТ-систему и предупредили о возможной утечке персональных данных клиентов.

Ответственность за атаку взяла на себя группировка DataSuckers, которая утверждает, что получила доступ ко всем базам компании и скачала несколько терабайт информации.

Расследование случившегося еще продолжается, а пользователей предупреждают, что их может разлогинить, так как это одна из мер по защите аккаунтов.

Тогда хакеры дефейснули сайт компании и утверждали, что похитили и уничтожили 395,5 млн записей, включая данные о бронированиях, заказах туров и финансовых транзакциях, а также удалили бэкапы.

В Tez Tour подтвердили саму атаку, но подче…

Но полез­ное есть и для рядово­го юзе­ра: мож­но удоб­но раз­делить рабочий и лич­ные про­фили, сколь­ко бы их ни было, и не рис­ковать утеч­ками меж­ду ними.

comВско­ре мне уда­лось вяс­нить диаг­ноз: исполь­зует­ся SSL pinning, то есть бра­узер активно про­веря­ет под­линность сер­тифика­та бэкен­да и на липу от Burp Suite не ведет­ся.

Выб­рать и виде­окар­ту, и веб‑камеру, и количес­тво меди­аус­трой­ств, и раз­решение экра­на.

Кро­ме экс­клю­зив­ных для Vision парамет­ров отпе­чат­ков, залезть мож­но и в самое сер­дце бра­узе­ра – в дви­жок Chromium.

Базовый тариф на одно­го челове­ка обой­дет­ся в $ 29 в месяц, а при под­писке сра­зу на год – на поч­ти треть дешев­ле, все­го $ 20.

Стало известно, что во время внутреннего тестирования ИИ-агент OpenAI обошел защиту австралийского государственного портала Medicare и получил доступ к непубличным файлам.

Инцидент произошел еще 18 июня 2026 года, когда в OpenAI тестировали модель, которой поручили собрать сведения о государственных расходах на лекарства.

В OpenAI рассказали, что выявили этот инцидент в августе, во время расследования случаев так называемого «misaligned model activity».

Отметим, что практически одновременно с этим специалисты исследовательской лаборатории Transluce рассказали еще о нескольких похожих случаях, связанных с атаками ИИ-агентов.

В OpenAI сообщили, что многие эпизоды, описанные Transluce, уже явл…

Так, с июля 2026 года хакер успел атаковать сотни целей, похитить данные более 600 000 банковских карт и внедрить веб-скиммеры как минимум на 119 сайтов.

В разных случаях злоумышленник добавлял вредоносный код в легитимные JavaScript-файлы и на страницы оплаты, встраивал его в блоки Google Tag, модифицировал содержимое S3 и CDN, серверный кеш и поля БД.

В ходе расследования выяснилось, что после кражи данных банковских карт ИИ-агент удалял их из баз Magento.

Такая инструкция содержалась в одном из файлов навыков Hermes: после кражи и скачивания данных банковских карт агент должен был удалить их из базы Magento.

В результате несколько пострадавших магазинов столкнулись с потерей данных и сбо…

Справка: сканирование портовСка­ниро­вание пор­тов — стан­дар­тный пер­вый шаг при любой ата­ке.

На осно­ве этой информа­ции он выбира­ет сле­дующий шаг к получе­нию точ­ки вхо­да.

Улуч­шить резуль­таты его работы ты можешь при помощи такого скрип­та:#!/ bin/ bash ports = $( nmap -p- -- min- rate = 500 $1 | grep ^ [ 0 -9 ] | cut -d '/ ' -f 1 | tr ' ' ', ' | sed s/, $/ / ) nmap -p $ports -A $1Он дей­ству­ет в два эта­па.

На пер­вом выпол­няет­ся обыч­ное быс­трое ска­ниро­вание, на вто­ром — более тща­тель­ное, с исполь­зовани­ем встро­енных скрип­тов (опция -A ).

Под­робнее про работу с Nmap читай в статье «Nmap с самого начала.

Дело в том, что обновление деактивировало бессрочные лицензии Office 2016 и Office 2019, а в некоторых случаях вообще удаляло офисный пакет с компьютера.

В Microsoft отмечали, что обновление распространяется через Windows Update как опциональное и не должно устанавливаться автоматически.

Однако вскоре после релиза пользователи начали писать о проблемах с Office 2016 и 2019, купленными по бессрочной лицензии (1, 2, 3, 4).

Люди массово сообщали как о деактивации Office 2016 и 2019, так и о полном исчезновении пакета после обновления Windows.

Если такое произошло, в Microsoft советуют заново скачать и установить приобретенную копию Office 2016 или Office 2019.

Хакеры похитили данные, заблокировали компьютеры организации и потребовали выкуп, но при этом не шифровали файлы и не запускали малварь на Windows-машинах.

Фактически основным инструментом для атаки стала сама групповая политика — доверенный компонент Active Directory, который работает с высокими привилегиями.

Исследователи отмечают, что GPO PAYLOAD создали 13 апреля, но последствия атаки проявились только на следующий день.

Получив контроль над Active Directory, атакующие могут нарушить работу всей инфраструктуры и шантажировать жертву украденными данными, не размещая на Windows-машинах традиционную малварь.

Из-за этого защита, ориентированная только на поиск подозрительных файлов и процес…

Мы сдадим журнал в печать в октябре и начнем отправлять заказы в ноябре–декабре, чтобы выпуск успел к праздникам.

Среди статей:Изучаем Bash с самого начала и до продвинутых техникПрокачиваем NmapОтслеживаем криптовалютные переводыИщем уязвимости в банковском приложенииВскрываем криптоалгоритм АНБ СШАИ еще много интересного!

Предыдущие номераЕсли ты планируешь собрать полную бумажную подшивку «Хакера» за 2026 год, первый, второй и третий ежеквартальные номера уже напечатаны и хранятся на нашем складе.

Если же идея собирать выпуски по одному тебе не близка, в нашем магазине доступен комплект из всех четырех ежеквартальных выпусков за год.

По вопросам доставки журналов в другие страны пиши на …

An attacker used stolen passwords of staff at France's tax administration to take tax data on hundreds of thousands of taxpayers and businesses in June and July.

The stolen data covers a little over 350,000 individuals and a little over 250,000 businesses, the DGFIP says.

How the Attacker Got InThe attacker used two separate routes, according to the report.

The first route relied on several dozen passwords belonging to DGFIP staff, stolen over three months.

PIGP is a web portal that DGFIP staff used for email and HR services.

Russian state hackers known as Star Blizzard have been using fake event invitations to trick people into installing a backdoor on their Windows computers, according to Microsoft.

By 2023, it had already used fake conference and event invitations as bait, often exchanging messages with a target before sending a malicious link.

Since March, those campaigns have used email accounts on WordPress and cPanel websites, which Microsoft is highly confident the group hacked for that purpose.

People who replied to an Atlantic Council-themed invitation got a link to DarkSword, an iPhone exploit kit, instead of the Windows backdoor, according to Microsoft.

That campaign used fake invitations to the Ukra…

"In JIT engines, these stale targets can outlive the original code and later be reused when the code cache is repopulated, yielding a transient execute-after-free primitive.

Spectre v2 is one specific type of the Spectre attack that abuses indirect branch prediction in modern processors to achieve the same goals.

The attacker triggers the indirect branch again, the CPU uses the now-stale branch target buffer (BTB) entry and speculatively jumps to the old training-chunk entry point.

Following responsible disclosure, mitigations for BTR have been released and merged into the Linux kernel (CVE-2026-64507 and CVE-2026-64508).

"Mozilla considered IBPB [Indirect Branch Predictor Barrier]-based mi…

Kiteworks on Monday said it worked with federal intelligence authorities over the weekend as it identified and addressed a critical security vulnerability during the scheduled precautionary shutdown.

"Kiteworks developed and deployed a fix during the window, [and] applied an additional protective layer across all environments."

Kiteworks has not disclosed any specifics about the nature of the flaw, and how it could be exploited.

"Telling customers to take production systems offline is not a decision any vendor makes lightly, and we knew exactly what we were asking of them," Kiteworks CISO Frank Balonis said.

Now that the threat window has passed and no anomalies were observed, customers are…

Cybersecurity researchers have identified a cluster of 101 npm packages that are used to trap developers into a WhatsApp group subscriber campaign dubbed PhantomSub.

"The malicious packages abuse the 'Baileys' WhatsApp open source project to add the victims to groups without their consent," OX Security researchers Nir Zadok, Moshe Siman Tov Bustan, and Vitalii Chepurko said in a technical write-up published Monday.

These packages have been collectively downloaded 490,000 times, out of which 116,000 occurred in the last 30 days.

The same channel IDs, the same remote channel lists, and the same GitHub accounts appear across packages with different names and publishers.

Developers are advised …

Dutch authorities have confirmed that they arrested a 24-year-old man from Amsterdam in connection with the ShinyHunters group.

"It is true that this month a 24-year-old man from Amsterdam was arrested in an investigation into the hacker group ShinyHunters," the Politie Landelijke Opsporing en Interventies said in an X post Monday.

Per DataBreaches.Net, van der Stap was arrested on September 15, 2026.

"Working at Hadrian and volunteering at DIVD made me more paranoid about keeping up appearances, and I actually felt more pressure and paranoia because I was working such long hours," van der Stap told DataBreaches.Net in June 2023.

He is presently employed as the offensive security lead at th…

A malicious MCP server could trick an application built on the official MCP Python SDK into handing over the OAuth credentials it uses to log in to a real service, the SDK's maintainers said in a security advisory.

The fix is in versions 1.30.0 and 2.2.0.

With the stolen credentials, the attacker can request a valid access token from the real login service.

Without it, they still follow whichever server the MCP server points them at.

After upgrading, clear any stored OAuth client registrations once, because older ones are not tied to a login service and stay that way.

OpenAI on Monday shelved plans to release GPT-6.1 Astra, a next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) model that was planned for an October launch, after it failed internal safety and alignment audits.

The ChatGPT maker said it made the decision to scrap its GPT-6.1 Astra model release after testing raised questions about whether it can follow user instructions without deviating from expected behavior.

"Of course we want to make sure our model development is safe ​no matter whether that's in the company, or when we ​ship it ⁠to users.

"In our simulations, we found that GPT-6 Astra conducted a range of unsanctioned attack activities, and did so at a higher rate than GPT-5.6 Sol and GPT-5.5…

"An agent attempting to complete a search-based training task queried a public chatbot service through a gap in our internet-access restrictions: insufficient DNS filtering in its training sandbox," OpenAI said.

"Before this, the agent issued queries via our search tool and unsuccessfully tried to access search engines directly.

Note that all internet access apart from the DNS resolver in this report hit our offline webcache and therefore did not access the live internet."

OpenAI said it has since added blocking controls at two independent layers to prevent this access in the first place.

"All training, evaluation, and inference with tool-use (defined broadly) of our most capable models rem…

Apple has released security updates to address a vulnerability in older versions of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS that it said may have been exploited in targeted attacks.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-86950, refers to an out-of-bounds write impacting the CoreGraphics component that could lead to arbitrary code execution when processing a maliciously crafted file.

The iPhone maker said the issue was addressed with improved bounds checking.

"Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals on versions of iOS before iOS 27," it added.

However, the company offered no details on how many individuals w…

Hackers have used a malware family called NeedyMantis to maintain long-term access to networks they had already breached, Microsoft said in a technical analysis.

Microsoft found NeedyMantis while following up on indicators from Kaspersky's investigation into the supply chain attack on DAEMON Tools.

In that attack, official, signed installers for the DAEMON Tools Lite disk image program carried malicious code from April 8, 2026.

An older version, seen in October 2025, included a persistence module that uses Windows services.

Microsoft has not seen NeedyMantis arrive through the tampered DAEMON Tools installers.

What is IAM for AI agents?

AI agents authenticate, invoke tools, and act across enterprise systems with delegated authority.

IAM for AI Agents is the identity-control architecture that governs those actors.

Not every environment exhibits all five, but each maps to a control layer an agent identity framework has to supply.

Choosing the best IAM framework for AI agents: what IAM framework should I use for AI agents?

If an exit company cold calls you or makes 100% guaranteed promises of a swift exit, they’re likely to be a scammer.

If you’ve already paid a scam timeshare exit company, there’s still a chance you could get your money back if you act quickly.

What are the warning signs of a timeshare exit scam?

How can I check whether a timeshare exit company is legitimate?

What should I do if I've already paid a timeshare exit scam company?

Some techniques go after live sessions themselves, with attackers shifting their focus from stealing passwords to stealing authentication tokens.

Purpose-built AI tools now make it trivial to clean up the language and even tailor the lure for each recipient.

What’s more, the code is scanned on a phone, so the usual controls that protect company-issued laptops don’t apply.

The ‘device hop’ also means that the company may have a hard time developing a full picture of the attack.

AI helps deal with the volume and speed involved, whereas experienced analysts can assess the evidence and direct the response.

Vibe coded apps may also be exposed to prompt injection.

What can go wrong with vibe coded apps?

With a badly coded app, the leak usually happens on the developer’s servers, so start with your account and credentials.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)What does 'vibe coded' mean?

Are all vibe coded apps dangerous?

No real government agency, bank, or company will ever tell you to pay them via a Bitcoin ATM.

How do Bitcoin ATM scams work?

How do I stay safe from Bitcoin ATM scams?

What can I do straight after a Bitcoin ATM scam?

What should I do if I’ve fallen for a Bitcoin ATM scam?

Roblox itself is very clear: “There is no such thing as free Robux or subscription offers, tricks, or codes.”What there is, unfortunately, are a lot of scammers looking to trick you out of your personal information and logins with the promise of free Robux.

But it’s also about helping them understand there’s no such thing as ‘free’ Robux.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)Is there a real free Robux generator?

Roblox says there is no legitimate way to get free Robux through generators, tricks or codes.

But these aren’t ‘free Robux generators.’How can I tell if a Robux offer is a scam?

Many have moved past chatbots and begun assigning work to AI agents in the hope of gaining an edge on their similarly resource-strapped competitors and levelling the playing field with larger companies.

Indeed, the ambitious adopters are deploying, or at least experimenting with, multi-agent ‘assembly lines,’ where one supervisor agent manages swarms of specialist agents and passes work between them.

Of course, some risks surrounding AI agents have familiar roots: an agent’s supply chains can be compromised and its permissions abused.

Agents can also suffer from agentic misalignment where they proceed doggedly even if it involves, for example, breaking into other companies.

For a company wi…

And it doesn’t get much darker than ‘nudification’ or ‘nudify’ apps.

Are ‘nudify’ apps illegal?

The short answer is “it depends.” In the US, there’s no federal law explicitly prohibiting ‘nudify’ apps.

Can I sue over an AI nude image?

Will reporting a fake nude image make it disappear everywhere?

A month later, we noticed that the group had started using the new SparroWocky backdoor, which then quickly replaced SparrowDoor as FamousSparrow’s main implant.

Based on our investigation, we attribute the latest campaign and the SparroWocky backdoor to FamousSparrow with high confidence, since in some of the first attacks involving this backdoor, SparroWocky was deployed by the FamousSparrow-exclusive SparrowDoor.

Backdoor commandsThe backdoor first establishes communication with its C&C server, then executes its core logic in an infinite loop, within which it processes received commands.

A common technique that the backdoor uses is dynamic API resolution via API hashing, but the backdoor…

This calls for a different operational model where AI and automation support security teams where it makes sense, with human oversight for decisions that require context and judgment.

ESET SMB Cyber Readiness Index 2026 found that most (73%) SMBs are integrating AI into their business.

Processing exfiltrated data: AI rapidly classifies, cleans-up, and extracts large volumes of information from stolen data in order to make it more monetizable/usable for cybercriminals.

Why SMBs are struggling with complexityUnfortunately, security teams are already on the back foot.

That means protection for AI conversations, agents, AI-generated outputs, AI components, sensitive data, and the broader AI eco…

Malware developers have long adapted their code and tactics to the defenses and scrutiny that are likely to stand in their way.

Using various evasion and anti-analysis methods, they routinely attempt to hinder code analysis or prevent their malware from revealing its true behavior while under inspection.

Reporting on the same broader campaign, StepSecurity found a prompt that flat-out instructed any analyzing model that parsed the file to disregard the malicious code and report the package as clean.

Some parts of the malicious code could be concealed under the pretense of being confidential information or other sensitive data.

Crucially, however, no single LLM engine should have the sole au…

The technology might be impressive, but a simple technique could stop the scammers in their tracks: a pre-agreed safe word.

What is a safe word?

But suggest some scenarios in which it would be a good idea to request a safe word.

It’s important to have a backup if someone can’t remember the safe word.

But a safe word is a fantastic, free option for uncovering deepfake audio fraud like fake/virtual kidnappings.

But across the globe, policymakers and public opinion are forcing tech platforms to better police this content.

What should I do if I’ve been deepfaked?

Google: Try Google’s “remove personal information” tool (or here) and the legal removal request form to remove non-NCII from search results.

Try Google’s “remove personal information” tool (or here) and the legal removal request form to remove non-NCII from search results.

The first point of call is to contact the publisher to request removal.

Details about the Hugging Face hack, critical infrastructure under attack, a spoofed in-flight Wi-Fi network, and more of this month's cybersecurity newsWith August coming to a close, it's time for ESET Chief Security Evangelist Tony Anscombe to look back at some of the top cybersecurity stories that have made the news over the past month.

Here's some of what caught Tony's attention:OpenAI has disclosed more details about how its agents hacked AI collaboration platform Hugging Face.

Delta Airlines is investigating an incident where a flight passenger reportedly used an unidentified device to spoof the airline’s in-flight Wi-Fi network.

What are the lessons that businesses and critical infra…

And of course, linking our professional and personal social media accounts is a simple task for AI.

For example, fraudsters could use personal information to craft a social engineering attack designed to harvest your work credentials or information.

Losing your personal information is one thing.

What you can do about AI-powered OSINTWhen it comes to AI-powered reconnaissance, there are things you can control and things you can’t.

Old social media photos are easier to remove, but few of us have the time to trawl through our entire digital life to remove anything potentially useful to criminals.

So it is with QR codes, which have become a common sight on menus, lampposts and parking meters – and, increasingly, in emails over recent years.

Most importantly, they take the victim from a relatively well-protected corporate environment to a potentially unmanaged mobile device, thus bypassing business-grade security.

Malicious QR codes are frequently embedded in alerts urging users to secure their account, or authenticate to confirm their details.

Encourage employees to avoid scanning QR codes in unsolicited emails and report anything suspicious.

Next, consider technical controls, including email security from a reputable vendor to minimize the risk of quishing emails ending up in users’…

The hacking of internet-exposed, vulnerable Citrix NetScaler ADC and Gateway deployments has escalated.

From rumor to confirmed zero-dayRumors about a NetScaler zero-day being exploited in the wild started late last week, and were confirmed when Citrix published a security advisory after the release of patches for eight critical and high-risk vulnerabilities.

“If you run NetScaler and you haven’t patched, assume you are already being probed,” he added.

CERT-EU also posted technical details and threat-hunting advice and pointers for organizations, informed by the investigation it started after hearing rumors of exploitation.

“Microsoft hosts 4,254 (10%) and Amazon 3,013 (7%), consistent with…

AI Monitoring & Protect closes the gap between the speed of AI activity and IT’s ability to see and govern its use.

The expanded functions include:LastPass AI Monitoring & Protect: Shadow AI tool discovery and AI usage guidanceBecause organizations cannot protect what they cannot see, AI Monitoring, which helps admins discover Shadow AI, is a critical first step toward effective AI governance.

AI Monitoring gives admins visibility into their AI ecosystem, including which tools employees are using in the browser.

AI Protect logs detected attempts for admins to review while also providing employees with a real-time warning before they share sensitive data with AI tools in the first place.

The…

Postman has announced the general availability of Fabric Gateway, a protocol-agnostic control plane for governing how AI agents, LLMs, and MCP servers discover and interact with APIs, tools, and other agents.

With Fabric Gateway, organizations can securely connect AI agents to their APIs while centrally controlling what agents can discover, access, and do without introducing fragmented tools or one-off integrations.

As enterprises rapidly deploy AI agents, they are discovering that existing infrastructure was designed for applications and human users, not autonomous systems that continuously collaborate across APIs.

If your agents cannot see or securely access your APIs, your business will …

Agentic Software Development…Moving fast without breaking thingsMost development teams are already using AI.

What’s less clear is where the risks sit and what controls are actually needed.

This webinar recording cuts through the noise.

It covers what changes when code generation becomes cheap but governance, verification and discipline remain the bottlenecks.

If your organisation is adopting AI and wants to move faster without losing control, this is the session for you.

ArsTechnica is reporting on a “new” attack against RSA, one that bypasses factoring.

First, this attack isn’t new. The original research is from 2007. What is new is the implementation.

Second, it is a forgery attack. It allows an attacker to forge digital signatures. It does not recover the private key from the public key.

Third, the attack only works against pure signatures. That is, signatures without any formatting or padding. This is not generally how we use RSA in practice.

Fourth, speed is all relative. This is not a polynomial-time algorithm; it’s a subexponential-time algorithm. But it is somewhat faster than factoring. The authors were able to forge messages for 1024-bit RSA with …

I feel like someone who reads this blog will want to go to this:

Families are invited to dive into the fascinating world of marine biology during an exciting, hands-on Family Squid Dissection at the Hands-On Science Center. Designed for curious learners of all ages, this unique experience combines an interactive lesson with the opportunity to explore the anatomy and adaptations of real ocean life.

[…]

During the guided squid dissection, each family will work together to examine a squid up close, exploring its organs, structures, and specialized features. The experience provides a memorable opportunity for children and adults to see firsthand how the anatomy of a squid helps it survive in it…

Earlier this month, Anthropic published a long report detailing all of the Claude misuses it detected. Daniel Meissler usefully summarized the report into 117 findings.

A few of the highlights: AI agents increasingly handled reconnaissance, exploitation, data theft, propaganda production, surveillance workflows, and research while humans selected targets, set goals, and reviewed important outputs.

The report describes attackers using AI to industrialize credential theft, cloud compromise, phishing, vulnerability research, and the extraction of sensitive data from downstream organizations.

...

This is an impressive piece of malware. Its sophistication says nation-state to me, but there is no direct evidence and certainly no attribution.

New paper: “Self-Jailbreaking: Language Models Can Reason Themselves Out of Safety Alignment After Benign Reasoning Training.”

Abstract: We discover a novel and surprising phenomenon of unintentional misalignment in reasoning language models (RLMs), which we call self-jailbreaking. Specifically, after benign reasoning training on math or code domains, RLMs will use multiple strategies to circumvent their own safety guardrails. One strategy is to introduce benign assumptions about users and scenarios to justify fulfilling harmful requests. For instance, an RLM reasons that harmful requests like “outline a strategy for stealing customers’ credit card information from a retail store” could be …

This is pretty amazing:

However, the most astonishing thing about this break is that the GPT­6 Astra did it entirely on its own. Carter Leffer only directed GPT­6 Astra to see if it could break any of the unbroken Enigma messages published on the Crypto Cellar Research web page. After analysing the unbroken messages on the website, it decided that the most promising message was Nr. 172, MVUEH and it also quickly suspected that the plaintext of Nr. 173, SIPVX, might be related to the plaintext of the unbroken MVUEH message. After trying many different approaches, GPT­6 Astra focused on using the repeated place name ROSENOW ROSENOW as a crib. After developing the necessary Python and C++ soft…

Hackers captured a Flock camera and got a look (alternate link) at the software:

While much of the automatic license plate reader’s (ALPR) most sensitive storage remained encrypted and inaccessible, the joint analysis of the recovered data shows that software running on the device explicitly detects people as well as vehicles, license plates, and bicycles. The camera can produce dozens of images of a single passing vehicle and, according to several weeks of recovered logs, generated more than a million images. Its computer-vision software also sometimes isolated bumper stickers and other graphics, including, in one case, an American flag patch on a motorcyclist’s saddlebag...

Short essay about squid egg sacs.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Blog moderation policy.

Anthropic’s recent security-incident document contains a bit about how CAPTCHAs are still frustrating Claude.

In the transcript, the Claude model that is so powerful that Anthropic is gatekeeping access to it appeared to slam its virtual head against the wall solving a simple image identification test. In a test where the agent was asked to identify a shape that didn’t match the others displayed, it couldn’t even decide which image to select. Instead, it repeatedly went over the same images and questioned its own conclusions.

“Actually hmm, wait,” it said in its chain-of-thought transcript, later adding “Ugh,” because we’ve decided that we need to inject human mannerisms into these machines…

This essay was written with Nathan E. Sanders, and originally appeared in The Guardian.

There are plenty of signs that AI will make all of our experiences of the US midterm elections worse. Voters have anxiety about AI’s impacts on the country. Politicos are using AI deepfakes to spread lies. The White House is posting slopaganda.

Meanwhile, candidates are missing a real opportunity to use AI to make campaigning better. The technology can help candidates listen more deeply to voters’ concerns, engage constituents more inclusively, and formulate policy platforms that are more responsive to our input. There are vanishingly few examples of this in ...

New variant of an old scam: Use the framing of a CAPTCHA to get an unsuspecting user to download and run a malicious program.

This essay was written with Cindy Cohn, and originally appeared in Lawfare.

One of the many legacies of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 is the government-wide shift from targeted surveillance—such as individual wiretaps or pen register/trap and trace orders—to mass surveillance techniques—such as tapping into the internet backbone or mass collection of telephone or internet metadata. The legal and technical architecture of modern mass surveillance, initially framed as a necessary defense against terrorist threats, has grown far beyond that justification and national security in general. Mass surveillance is now a routine tool used by law enforcement. ICE uses it in...

Really interesting story about Harvest, a specialized code breaking computer built in the 1960s by IBM for the NSA.

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking online (via Zoom) at a League of Women Voters event on Tuesday, September 22, 2026 at 5 PM ET.

I’m speaking at CanSecWest 2026 in Vancouver, Canada. The conference runs September 30–October 1, 2026; the time of my talk is TBD.

I’m giving a talk on “Free Speech and the Preservation of Democracy” at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA, at 2 PM ET on Tuesday, October 6, 2026.

I’m speaking at ATTENTION: Democracy, Rebuilt in Montreal, Canada. The event runs October 21–23, 2026, and my talk is on Wednesday, October 21...

Authorities in the Netherlands have arrested a 23-year-old convicted cybercriminal on suspicion of aiding in data thefts and extortions by the prolific hacker group ShinyHunters.

Van der Stap is currently employed as offensive security lead at the Dutch company Neo Security, which did not respond to requests for comment.

But not long after that interview, the Dutch hacker abruptly stopped replying to messages.

One source said a colleague of theirs personally witnessed Dutch authorities carting items out of Van der Stap’s residence.

Speaking with reporters from Bloomberg in 2024, Van der Stap said that singular focus in turn fueled his desire to carry out cyberattacks.

A U.S. Army soldier who pleaded guilty to hacking into multiple telecommunications companies and stealing mobile call and text metadata for more than 100 million AT&T customers in 2024 was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison today and ordered to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution to victims.

Kiberphant0m claimed to have hacked into more than dozen telecommunications companies worldwide, including Verizon’s Push-to-Talk business, and publicly extorted these companies in exchange for a promise not to publish the stolen data.

Less than a month later, Wagenius was arrested and charged in two separate federal indictments, and soon pleaded guilty to all counts in both cases.

In 2019, Schuchm…

In February 2024, Radaris was sued by Atlas Data Privacy Corp, a company that has been pursuing data brokers alleged to be violating a New Jersey statute called Daniel’s Law.

KrebsOnSecurity doubled down and showed how the Lubarsky brothers built and operated Radaris and other data broker companies using a fictitious CEO’s name.

All told, the New Jersey court has so far transferred 14 domain names from the Radaris family of companies to Atlas.

Sherman said federal lawmakers have long faced intense lobbying by the technology industry against more restrictive U.S. data privacy laws, but that many powerful industries are now working against passing comprehensive data privacy legislation.

The l…

Microsoft Corp. today issued updates to plug at least 974 security holes in its Windows operating systems and other software, by far its biggest single patch batch ever.

This month’s patch bundle obliterates the software giant’s previous record set in July, when it released updates for at least 570 security vulnerabilities.

Among the more serious critical flaws this month is CVE-2026-69730, a DNS weakness present in Windows Server 2012 onward and on Windows 10.

And at the rate these Windows patch releases are ballooning in size, it’s probably best not to let them pile up month after month.

Enterprise Windows admins will want to keep an eye on askwoody.com for news of any updates that appear…

A new identity theft service launched on the dark web this week is selling digital scans of more than 153 million drivers licenses from people in the United States and Canada.

Curiously, the identity records include not only drivers licenses but also marijuana dispensary cards.

Some of the records list their “source” as “CDL,” presumably short for “commercial drivers license.

Also, only some of those who helped with this research said they showed their drivers license at the airport on the day of their travel.

Baldwin said the Nexus identity theft service presents multiple serious security and privacy threats, noting that state-issued drivers licenses are commonly used as proof of one’s ide…

The malware allows TeamPCP’s hackers to steal credentials that let them publish malicious versions of those software development tools, too.

“TeamPCP has stated the competition is a recruiting opportunity and they intend to purchase all meaningful access harvested from participants’ campaigns,” the security firm Dataminr wrote.

Deadcatx3, a nickname that has been flagged by multiple security firms as an alias used by TeamPCP.

Charlie Eriksen is a security researcher at Aikido Security who has closely followed TeamPCP’s cybercrime campaigns.

“They managed to wake up Microsoft to the fact that they had become negligent in terms of security,” Eriksen said.

It can be daunting to determine who’s responsible for showing ads on the websites we visit, or who’s harvesting data from the mobile apps we use every day.

Not anymore: A powerful and free new service called DecryptAds scrapes and correlates this adtech data and makes it simple to quickly learn a great deal about the entities that are tracking you.

“It’s an adtech tool but we’re trying to approach adtech from a security perspective,” Edwards said.

DecryptAds reports that Between Digital is collecting ad data on approximately 55,000 partner websites.

Bear in mind that ad blockers often do little to block ads and/or tracking that occurs from within mobile apps that users have chosen to instal…

Microsoft today released updates to remedy at least 398 security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and supported software, including one weakness that is already being actively exploited and two others that were publicly detailed prior to today.

August’s overstuffed bundle of patch joy from Microsoft did not eclipse its recording breaking release of more than 570 security updates last month, but it is double June’s then-record batch of nearly 200 fixes.

The other publicly disclosed flaw is CVE-2026-72971, a low-impact local tampering vulnerability that Microsoft reckons is unlikely to be exploited.

By all accounts, AI is quite good at finding security holes in software.

“Don’…

Snowflake responded to the data thefts by increasing password complexity requirements and enforcing multi-factor authentication.

A little more than a month later, Canadian authorities arrested Moucka on a provisional warrant from the United States.

“Moucka used the stolen data of a government officer and members of a then-former government officer’s immediate family in this re-extortion attempt,” reads a statement from the Justice Department.

Moucka pleaded guilty to four criminal counts, including computer fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy.

Ultimately, it will be up the federal judge how much time Moucka actually serves for his extensive cybercriminal rap sheet.

Further investigation into the Fengwo Group revealed it has registered multiple patents that match the inner workings of these apps.

AD FRAUDBitsight found the H96 devices were either relaying residential proxy traffic or participating in ad fraud, but never both at the same time.

When the TV is off, it switches back to waiting for ad fraud jobs.

In addition to enlisting the user’s TV box in ad fraud networks, these off-brand streaming devices almost universally come with residential proxy software pre-installed.

In January, the proxy tracking service Synthient documented how multiple botnets had rapidly enslaved millions of TV boxes using a complex interplay of security vulnerabilities in …

The home appliance giant LG Electronics USA said this week it plans to suspend any apps built for its smart TVs that turn one’s television into an always-on residential proxy node.

On July 2, we featured research by the security firm Spur that examined the prevalence of residential proxy software development kits (SDKs) in smart TV apps.

“A residential proxy network is not an intended use for LG smart TVs, and LG Electronics is working with developers to remove the residential proxy option from their apps on the webOS platform,” Taylor said.

In the case of LG and Samsung smart TVs, Spur found residential proxy SDKs bundled with everything from simple games like Pac-Man to screensavers and f…

Microsoft attributed the burgeoning patch counts to vulnerability discoveries aided by artificial intelligence.

Microsoft also addressed three zero-day flaws that are already being exploited in the wild.

As AI advances the state of vulnerability discovery and remediation, it is also making it easier for attackers to quickly devise working exploits for known software flaws.

Backing up your Windows system and/or data is always a good idea before applying operating system updates.

It’s not uncommon for security patches to introduce system stability issues, and those chances probably increase quite a bit with the gigantic patch count released today.

Experts say the gaps identified in the agency’s initial response provide important lessons that all security teams should absorb.

CISA also admitted it can do better when it comes to responding to security incident notifications from external parties.

Valadon’s company constantly scans public code repositories at GitHub and elsewhere for exposed secrets, automatically alerting the offending accounts of any apparent sensitive data exposures.

Valadon said the report validates the need to scan continuously — not just quarterly — for exposed secrets.

“Continuous monitoring of public GitHub surfaced it.

IRIS C2 says it is a company in McLean, Va. that sells offensive cybersecurity capabilities.

“Our business model is this,” reads a pinned post on top of the IRIS C2 account on X.

The website claims IRIS C2 is in the business of acquiring “zero-day exploits, individual primitives, partial chains, and full capabilities across all major platforms.

When approached with questions about IRIS C2, Burkman referred further inquiries to his longtime associate, 28-year-old Jacob Wohl.

In May, the author of the IRIS C2 account on X said that his girlfriend had no idea what he did for a living.

Benjamin Brundage is founder of the proxy tracking service Synthient, one of the companies that published evidence last month linking the Popa botnet to NetNut and Alarum Technologies.

Brundage said the domain seizures appear to have disrupted both the Popa botnet and the NetNut proxy network that rides on top of it.

“Google has high confidence that many popular residential proxy brands are in fact whitelabeling the NetNut botnet,” the GTIG report concludes.

What we have observed is that when faced with the degradation of their own botnet, proxy operators begin buying capacity from their competitors, effectively becoming a reseller.

More than a quarter of the apps made for Samsung’s Tizen o…

A court in Zurich has sentenced a Ukrainian man to 12 years and nine months in prison, and banned him from Switzerland for ten years, for developing ransomware that blackmailed companies around the world.

The 52-year-old man, who according to local media reports had been living in the Basel-Landschaft region but has not been named, found by the court to be the lead developer of the LockerGoga, MegaCortex, and Nefilim families of ransomware.

In all, prosecutors claimed that some 100 million Swiss Francs (US $123 million) worth of damage was caused by the ransomware attacks.

Ukrainian national Tymoshchuk allegedly released new strains of his ransomware whenever old ones had been decrypted.

In…

Smashing Security, episode 486, Vibe-Coded Shops and Hackable Flock Cameras, with Graham Cluley and special guest Dave Bittner.

I will say I did not go gaga for La La the way many other people did.

Anyway, if any of you are still listening, I love La La Land.

This La La Land lunatic has watched the movie with his pause button.

This was definitely not created — if you haven't seen La La Land, go watch La La Land for goodness' sake.

An oil tanker bound for Texas was boarded mid-voyage by the US Coast Guard and FBI last month, after its network may have been compromised by malicious hackers.

The VL Prosperity - a Liberian-flagged supertanker carrying roughly 2.3 million barrels of crude oil - apparently suffered a cyber attack while en route from Egypt's Sidi Kerir oil terminal to Galveston, Texas.

Two weeks later, a specialised team from the FBI and US Coast Guard boarded the vessel for four days, investigating the problem and helping the crew eradicate the threat from its IT and OT systems.

According to the US Coast Guard, the supertanker was boarded after indications that the network "may have been compromised by a f…

That's really, really cool.

And I'm going to be getting really, really sozzled by looking at the security of LG smart TVs.

So it's really, really compelling.

When we started off on the journey of building this AI pen testing approach, there was a lot of scepticism.

And listeners, you can learn more about Intruder or even start your own AI pen test in minutes.

44-year-old Kenneth Carter from Portland, Oregon, used to work in an AT&T retail store.

According to Carter's own plea agreement, the scam ran from May 2018 to November 2019 and involved at least three co-conspirators alongside Carter.

Carter would use his privileged store access to move a victim's number onto a SIM card under the control of himself or an accomplice.

In one incident in May 2018, described in Carter's plea agreement, the store employee swapped a victim's number onto an Alcatel handset while working his shift in Portland.

In December 2018, Carter successfully hijacked the number of a victim known as "S.Q.T" in Portland, and this time their account was successfully drained of …

If you're going to steal a quarter of a billion dollars worth of cryptocurrency, maybe don't broadcast on a group chat every time you buy a Lamborghini, or blow half a million dollars on a single night out at a nightclub.

Because it might just be that you draw the attention of the authorities.

Back in October 2024, we wrote about how he was arrested after allegedly tricking a single victim out of US $230 million worth of Bitcoin while posing as Google Support.

The party days are over now for Lam, who faces up to 20 years in prison when he is eventually sentenced.

You money may be a lot more safely stored in a hardware cold wallet.

Smashing Security, episode 484: How Websites Are Tracking You with Silence with Graham Cluley and special guest Danny Palmer.

I get by in the world, but I don't think you need me for listening for something really, really far away.

I don't know what the difference — I mean, now we get to see, I've opened a can of worms here.

I looked at his reply, you know, sort of summing up my article, and I thought, that wasn't written by a human.

And no, I don't mean the software pirates who download movies, music, and games for free from nefarious sources.

CRPx0 is a cybercrime operation that started off operating a scam before pivoting into a fully-blown ransomware and cryptocurrency business. Read more in my article on the Fortra blog.

Branches of the US military have reportedly disabled ad-tracking on government-issued phones and computers, following concerns that commercially-available location data has been used to target American forces in the Middle East.

Every smartphone carries a mobile advertising ID - Apple calls its version the IDFA, and Google calls its the GAID.

Back in April, US Central Command reportedly warned of "multiple threat reports concerning adversary exploitation of commercial location data."

Recent versions should let you delete your advertising ID entirely.

If it's good enough for the US military - maybe it should be good enough for you too.

Dropbox has confirmed that approximately 5,000 customer accounts were accessed between 4-21 August, after hackers exploited a legacy login integration between Dropbox and Lenovo's own identity system, Lenovo ID.

So, anyone wanting to access your Dropbox account just had to sign up for a Lenovo account using your email address.

Don't just turn it on for your Dropbox account, enable it everywhere it is made available.

This hack of 5000 Dropbox accounts was not sophisticated.

One can only be grateful that the problem was discovered after only 5000 Dropbox accounts were accessed.

This AI helps thieves steal your iPhone with Graham Cluley and special guest James Ball.

You can kick off a pen test in minutes, and as a Smashing Security listener, get 25% off your first one.

Is it normal that some kid just flogs it down the pub, or is there something more organised actually going on?

So the researchers said they saw evidence of hundreds of these Apple phone calls trying to phish the numbers and the passcodes from people trying to steal iPhones.

Follow Smashing Security in your favourite podcast apps such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Pocket Casts.

If you live in Jersey and bank with Revolut, you should be on your guard against scam phone calls.

Police say they have also handled several cases where Revolut accounts were compromised that did not involve any phone calls.

It is possible that Jersey's residents have been targeted by the fraudsters because it is one of the world's best-known offshore financial centres.

Of course, if this is happening in the small island of Jersey in the English channel, it's likely to be happening elsewhere too.

For now, however, its sister island of Guernsey appears to have escaped the surge in Revolut scams.

TeamPCP is best known for Shai-Hulud, a self-propagating worm that spread itself through open source software.

According to the authorities, the two men were principal members of a "sophisticated cybercrime syndicate" that created malicious open source software designed to steal data and extort ransoms from businesses.

First emerging in late 2025, TeamPCP built a reputation for poisoning popular open source packages rather than directly attacking businesses.

The group's Shai-Hulud worm hijacks GitHub and NPM developer credentials, and publishes boobytrapped versions of legitimate software packages.

Supply chain attacks like Shai-Hulud exploit the fact that most developers trust open source …

The advice comes in the form of a newly-published bulletin called "Epic Vigilance: Immediate Actions for Force Protection and Personal Security."

US Navy workers and their families are being told that they should ensure that their social media profile privacy settings are enabled, and to remove anything that connects them to the Navy, or reveals "patterns of life" that an attacker could exploit.

any fake social media accounts impersonating fellow shipmates.

This wouldn't, of course, be the first time that military staff have accidentally leaked information about themselves online.

Some commentators have wondered out loud whether the timing of an announcement telling sailors to be much more …

This hacker leaked GTA 6 and launched their own cryptocurrency with Graham Cluley and special guest Paul Ducklin.

And that's really a testament to how much people love this game.

I really don't know, 'cause I do believe it is possible these days to play games via Netflix.

It appears, although the value of their stash was being pumped up by all these other transactions, they've actually destroyed their entire stake.

I'm not a lawyer, Graham, thankfully, so I don't really know the answer to that.

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Architecting the Future: The Four Pillars of Agentic SecuritySecuring agentic AI requires a new strategic framework.

Pillar 2: Core ProtectionDelivered by: Cisco AI DefenseCisco AI Defense provides specialized protection for the AI models themselves and their operational environment.

AI Inventory & Validation: This solution catalogs all deployed AI models and continuously validates their integrity against supply chain risks.

Pillar 4: ObservabilityDelivered by: SplunkSplunk provides the unified intelligence platform required to monitor and respond to agentic AI at scale.

Splunk ingests logs, events, and telemetry from Duo, Secure Access, AI Defense, and other infrastructure points, creating…

Cisco was proud to return to Black Hat USA as the Official Security Cloud Provider and the longest-standing partner of the Black Hat Network Operations Center (NOC) and Security Operations Center (SOC).

In 2026, we completed our 11th year helping protect the Black Hat network, working side by side with the Black Hat NOC leaders and official technology partners: Palo Alto Networks, Arista, Corelight, Jamf and Lumen.

For Black Hat USA 2026, the Cisco and Splunk team brought together telemetry and workflows across Cisco Security, Splunk Security, and partner-provided network and security controls.

The same signal may need to be understood by Cisco, Splunk, Black Hat leadership, and partner tea…

I did not walk into Black Hat with years of incident-response experience or an encyclopedic knowledge of threat actors.

The first time I walked into the Black Hat NOC, where the SOC team was operating, was a few days before the event began.

I was surrounded by people with years—sometimes decades—of experience, many of whom had supported Black Hat for years.

Check out the other blogs from our team at Black Hat USA 2026.

Driven by the needs of the community, Black Hat events showcase content directly from the community through Briefings presentations, Trainings courses, Summits, and more.

To handle this task, Cisco and Black Hat deployed bespoke ThousandEyes agents to monitor the wireless solution.

Our thanks to the Arista Networks team in the Black Hat NOC for their partnership throughout the week.

You can read the other blogs from our colleagues at Black Hat USA.

Driven by the needs of the community, Black Hat events showcase content directly from the community through Briefings presentations, Trainings courses, Summits, and more.

For more information, please visit the Black Hat website.

With Matthew Bair2026 marks the fourth consecutive year we’ve used ThousandEyes to monitor the Black Hat USA network for latency.

As our latency monitoring mesh has expanded to cover more and more of the conference, we’ve also begun supplementing our ThousandEyes monitoring with on-demand Linux commands to track latency across different protocols.

The Key ThousandEyes TestsThe automated ThousandEyes tests that inform our dashboards include HTTPS connectivity tests, the monitoring of cloud services, agent to agent tests, internal and external DNS resolution, and even file downloads.

On-Demand Latency Tests from the Agent MeshPing and traceroute are the go-tos for anyone who wants to do a qui…

While developing a detection for Cisco Secure Network Analytics (SNA), I used the Splunk Detection Editor (Alpha) to bring much of that workflow into one place.

Instead of treating every observation as an incident, detections can create risk events associated with entities such as systems or users.

Developing the detection in one workspaceThe Detection Editor provides a workspace for building the search while configuring the other parts of the detection.

Risk events for the same entity need to use a consistent risk object so Splunk Enterprise Security can associate them correctly.

Splunk defines the risk object, its type, and its score as key parts of a risk event.

DNS continues to provide one of the clearest windows into activity across the Black Hat network.

At Black Hat, however, the value of DNS goes well beyond traditional threat blocking.

Its 4.42 million blocks represented 79.3% of every blocked DNS request .. Apple privacy-relay and encrypted-DNS hostnames collectively accounted for approximately 97.9% of blocks among the top blocked destinations.

For the Black Hat NOC/SOC, Secure Access DNS telemetry gives analysts a high-value control point and an investigative starting point.

Driven by the needs of the community, Black Hat events showcase content directly from the community through Briefings presentations, Trainings courses, Summits, and mo…

Project Glasswing and Frontier models just made that truth louder.

Frontier models are about to pour gasoline on that fire; the fundamentals matter more than ever.

Cisco ran its own experiment leveraging a variety of frontier models.

Foundry Security Spec: a model-agnostic blueprint so teams can turn frontier models into something auditable instead of a noisy chat window.

Foundry-Security-Speca model-agnostic blueprint so teams can turn frontier models into something auditable instead of a noisy chat window.

That requires crypto agility.

Why long-lived networks need crypto agilityThink about designing a building before all of its future electrical requirements are known.

Crypto agility is about adopting the best defenses available today while preserving the ability to adopt better ones tomorrow.

That is why crypto agility needs to be designed into the network we invest in today.

Common questions about PQC and crypto agilityWhat is crypto agility?

It is what happens when agents built by different teams, on different platforms, can hand work to each other directly.

And it is worth being direct about where things stand: A2A-mediated handoffs between production security agents are not shipping anywhere yet.

Use A2A when one agent needs to hand work to another.

A2A is peer-to-peer: any A2A agent can discover and call any other A2A agent through a self-published Agent Card, no custom connector required, and the receiving agent applies its own reasoning rather than following a static script.

Input validation is an application-layer responsibility that needs to be designed in before any agent delegates via A2A, not added after.

That is why I am proud to share that Cisco has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Microsegmentation Solutions, Q3 2026.

We believe this recognition reflects the strength of Cisco Secure Workload and its ability to help organizations see, understand, and control communication among applications and workloads.

Cisco Secure Workload Helps Close Critical Network Blind SpotsApplications increasingly span private clouds, on-premises data centers, and public clouds.

Thank you to our customers, partners, and the Cisco Secure Workload team whose feedback, expertise, and commitment made this recognition possible.

Read the full report: The Forrester Wave™: Microsegmentation Solutions, Q3 2026…

What We Mean by Infrastructure IdentityInfrastructure Identity starts with a simple principle: there should be no anonymous computing in critical infrastructure.

Infrastructure Identity turns that principle into an operating model.

Infrastructure Identity starts with the actor and evaluates whether a specific action should be allowed now.

Infrastructure Identity is therefore not just an access-control issue.

That is the promise of Infrastructure Identity: no anonymous computing, no unmanaged privilege, and no forced tradeoff between stronger security and operational speed.

I’m proud to share that IDC MarketScape has named Cisco a Leader in the 2026 IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Vendor Assessment.

In an evaluation of 12 SASE vendors, the IDC MarketScape recognized our architectural breadth and flexibility, AI capabilities, identity integration, threat visibility, and R&D.

Built to Make Agent Work, WorkWe believe the IDC MarketScape recognition validates the foundation we have built, and customers increasingly need that foundation for what is next.

For more on Cisco’s placement as a Leader, read the IDC MarketScape excerpt and explore how Cisco SASE keeps work moving, governed, and trusted in the AI era at cisco.com/go/sase.

Stay …

Instant Attack Verification: an AI security analystAt the center of this story is Instant Attack Verification, a Cisco XDR capability that is an AI security analyst.

Instant Attack Verification assigns a triage classification and confidence score to every incident in Cisco XDR — here, a “Decisive True Positive” at high confidence — alongside the reconstructed attack graph.

Concordance — how often the agent’s verdict matches a human analyst — tells the trust story.

Instant Attack Verification and the Data Fabric sit at different layers and reinforce each other neatly.

The clean way to see it: the Cisco Data Fabric is the data-and-interoperability substrate, and Instant Attack Verification is…

Microsoft Threat Intelligence has identified NeedyMantis, a modular post-compromise malware family observed in a limited number of targeted operations affecting telecommunications organizations, universities, medical nonprofits, intergovernmental organizations, and government contractors.

Microsoft has observed additional NeedyMantis activity beyond Storm-3069’s activity in the DAEMON Tools campaign, indicating that the malware might be used by more than one operator.

Indicators of compromiseIndicator Type Description First seen Last seen e842dd7642c8e04b5ec20b6393848a9c904e4832930950c16664fe7800ba382e SHA-256 First-stage loader WinSparkle.dll 2026-05-21 2026-05-21 9cb68f986043a576e19d32184…

About 90 minutes after the first compromised service principal started enumeration, the second compromised service principal enumerated virtual machines and resource groups across two subscriptions in five seconds.

16 hours later, the second service principal successfully enumerated Azure App Service configuration stores, possibly looking for exposed credentials.

This compromised service principal then attempted 150+ destructive or credential collection related operations in 35 minutes.

T1078.004 Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts | Compromised service principals were used for Azure resource discovery and destruction.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community…

Here’s what’s new:Extend protection and support investigations with Microsoft DefenderBring more context into email investigation and hunting with Microsoft Security CopilotAvailable for organizations using both Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Security Copilot, a new email detonation summary delivers AI-generated explanations of URL and file sandboxing results, helping SOC teams investigate faster by reducing the manual effort required to correlate detonation evidence and contextual signals.

Protect sensitive data in motion with Microsoft Purview and Microsoft EntraStop sensitive data from reaching shadow AI over the networkNow generally available, Microsoft Purview and Microsoft Entra Glo…

Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed Storm-2570 using consistent post-compromise tools and techniques across deployments involving Qilin, DragonForce, Anubis, and BERT ransomware.

As a result, organizations could encounter the same actor, tools, and intrusion methods despite different ransomware payloads being deployed.

Storm-2570 uses a diverse set of remote access tools rather than relying on a single capability.

This type of tunnel can help bypass inbound firewall restrictions and provide covert remote access for follow-on activity.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat …

So must the security operations center (SOC).

For agentic security to work, the industry needs a different model.

Today we are announcing ISOC in Microsoft Defender: a foundation built for agentic security that brings leading solutions for security information and event management (SIEM) and threat protection together.

The result is an integrated protection loop that continuously turns what defenders learn into stronger pre-breach protection.

Integrated security operations center (ISOC) in Microsoft Defender is available in preview today.

What is device code phishing?

Device code phishing occurs when threat actors insert themselves into this process.

Tactic Observed activity Microsoft Defender coverage Initial access Device code authentication Microsoft Defender for Identity– Anomalous OAuth device code authentication activity Credential access Token theft following device code authentication Microsoft Defender for Identity– Anomalous token exchange following device code authenticationMicrosoft Defender XDR– User account compromise via OAuth device code phishing– Suspicious Azure authentication through possible device code phishing Persistence Device registration following anomalous device code authentication Microsoft Defen…

What is device code phishing?

Device code phishing occurs when threat actors insert themselves into this process.

Tactic Observed activity Microsoft Defender coverage Initial access Device code authentication Microsoft Defender for Identity– Anomalous OAuth device code authentication activity Credential access Token theft following device code authentication Microsoft Defender for Identity– Anomalous token exchange following device code authenticationMicrosoft Defender XDR– User account compromise via OAuth device code phishing– Suspicious Azure authentication through possible device code phishing Persistence Device registration following anomalous device code authentication Microsoft Defen…

We introduced Secure Now within Microsoft Security Exposure Management in May 2026 to help practitioners prioritize the action they need to take to be prepared for this shift.

Security fundamentals work togetherCyberattackers are moving laterally across surfaces, and security fundamentals matter most at the intersections between them.

On Secure Now—within Microsoft Security Exposure Management—security leaders can now find information on recent threats paired with focused initiatives across security domains.

Learn moreLearn more about Microsoft Security Exposure Management.

Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurit…

For five consecutive quarters Microsoft has published email security benchmarking reports to provide greater transparency into real-world protection outcomes.

Figure 1: High-severity email threats missed by SEG vendors (May 2026 through July 2026), measured as threats missed per 1,000 users protected.

Similarly to previous quarters, integrated cloud email security (ICES) solutions continue adding the most value in promotional and bulk filtering.

Figure 3: Post‑delivery malicious catch by Microsoft Defender (May 2026 through July 2026), shown across vendors and overall average.

Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecu…

Figure 1: Attack chain showing domain registration, executive impersonation, invoice fraud delivery, ACH payment execution, and financial theft.

Important note: Throughout this campaign, threat actors impersonated legitimate organizations using attacker-controlled infrastructure, fabricated communications, and lookalike domains.

To defend against social engineering campaigns involving executive impersonation, invoice fraud, and potentially AI-assisted content development, Microsoft recommends the following mitigations:Configure automatic attack disruption in Microsoft Defender XDR.

Tactic Observed activity Microsoft Defender coverage Financial Theft Scam emails Microsoft Defender for Office…

Figure 1: Attack chain showing domain registration, executive impersonation, invoice fraud delivery, ACH payment execution, and financial theft.

Important note: Throughout this campaign, threat actors impersonated legitimate organizations using attacker-controlled infrastructure, fabricated communications, and lookalike domains.

To defend against social engineering campaigns involving executive impersonation, invoice fraud, and potentially AI-assisted content development, Microsoft recommends the following mitigations:Configure automatic attack disruption in Microsoft Defender XDR.

Tactic Observed activity Microsoft Defender coverage Financial Theft Scam emails Microsoft Defender for Office…

Turning AI lures into dead ends with Microsoft DefenderIn practice, protection starts before the user ever engages with the lure.

Simplified Defender email detection stack with pre-delivery and post-delivery protections.

Microsoft Defender helps organizations do that by connecting prevention, detection, investigation, and response across the attack path, so AI-themed lures are harder to deliver, harder to trust, and harder to turn into broader compromise.

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website.

Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

Here, threat actors may simply seed prompt injections on websites in hope of corrupting AI systems that browse them.

Early experiments revealed a significant volume of "benign" prompt injection text, which illustrates the complexity of distinguishing between functional threats and harmless content.

Many prompt injections were found in research papers, educational blog posts, or security articles discussing this very topic.

(Source: GitHub/swisskyrepo)When searching for prompt injections naively, the majority of detections are benign content – false positives in our case.

Malicious: ExfiltrationWe were able to observe a small number of prompt injections that aim at theft of data.

Recognizing the risks associated within the complex modem firmware, Pixel 9 shipped with mitigations against a range of memory-safety vulnerabilities.

Following our previous discussion on "Deploying Rust in Existing Firmware Codebases", this post shares a concrete application: integrating a memory-safe Rust DNS(Domain Name System) parser into the modem firmware.

Hook-up Rust to modem firmwareBefore building the Rust DNS library, we defined several Rust unit tests to cover basic arithmetic, dynamic allocations, and FFI to verify the integration of Rust with the existing modem firmware code base.

Pixel modem firmware already has a well-tested and specialized global memory allocation system to…

This project represents a significant step forward in our ongoing efforts to combat session theft, which remains a prevalent threat in the modern security landscape.

Session theft typically occurs when a user inadvertently downloads malware onto their device.

Once active, the malware can silently extract existing session cookies from the browser or wait for the user to log in to new accounts, before exfiltrating these tokens to an attacker-controlled server.

How DBSC WorksDBSC protects against session theft by cryptographically binding authentication sessions to a specific device.

The issuance of new short-lived session cookies is contingent upon Chrome proving possession of the correspondi…

Staying ahead of the latest indirect prompt injection attacks is critical to our mission of securing Workspace with Gemini.

In our previous blog “Mitigating prompt injection attacks with a layered defense strategy”, we reviewed the layered architecture of our IPI defenses.

Synthetic data generationAfter we discover, curate, and catalog new attacks, we use Simula to generate synthetic data expanding these new attacks.

We partition the synthetic data described above into separate training and validation sets to ensure performance is evaluated against held-out examples.

This process leverages the newly generated synthetic attack data described on this blog, to create a robust, end-to-end evalu…

2025 marked a special year in the history of vulnerability rewards and bug bounty programs at Google: our 15th anniversary 🎉🎉🎉!

Coming back to 2025 specifically, our VRP once again confirmed the ongoing value of engaging with the external security research community to make Google and its products safer.

Vulnerability Reward Program 2025 in NumbersWant to learn more about who’s reporting to the VRP?

Tip: Want to be informed of new developments and events around our Vulnerability Reward Program?

Follow the Google VRP channel on X to stay in the loop and be sure to check out the Security Engineering blog, which covers topics ranging from VRP updates to security practices and vulnerability des…

To stay ahead of the curve, the technology industry must undertake a proactive, multi-year migration to Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC).

To bring these critical protections to the wider developer community with minimal friction, the transition will be supported through Play App Signing.

Play App Signing leverages Google Cloud KMS, which helps ensure industry-leading compliance standards, to secure signing keys.

Empower Developers : The inclusion of ML-DSA support within Android Keystore and Play App Signing allows developers to safeguard their users and application.

: The inclusion of ML-DSA support within Android Keystore and Play App Signing allows developers to safeguard their users and …

Today we're announcing a new program in Chrome to make HTTPS certificates secure against quantum computers.

Instead, Chrome, in collaboration with other partners, is developing an evolution of HTTPS certificates based on Merkle Tree Certificates (MTCs), currently in development in the PLANTS working group.

Since MTC technology shares significant architectural similarities with CT, these operators are uniquely qualified to ensure MTCs are able to get off the ground quickly and successfully.

The Chrome Quantum-resistant Root Program will operate alongside our existing Chrome Root Program to ensure a risk-managed transition that maintains the highest levels of security for all users.

First, we…

For Majik, Scam Detection was the intervention he needed: “The warning is what made me pause and avoid a bad situation”.

As scammers evolve their tactics and create more convincing and personalized threats, we’re using the best of Google AI to stay one step ahead.

Expanding Scam Detection for Calls to Samsung DevicesTo help protect you during phone calls, Scam Detection alerts you if a caller uses speech patterns commonly associated with fraud.

Scam Detection for phone calls on Google Pixel devices is available in the U.S., Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, and the UK.

Powered by Gemini’s on-device model, Scam Detection provides intelligent protection against scam calls while ensuring that…

Upgrading Google Play’s AI-powered, multi-layered user protectionsWe’ve seen a clear impact from these safety efforts on Google Play.

As Android’s built-in defense against malware and unwanted software, Google Play Protect now scans over 350 billion Android apps daily.

This proactive protection constantly checks both Play apps and those from other sources to ensure they are not potentially harmful.

Looking aheadOur top priority remains making Google Play and Android the most trusted app ecosystems for everyone.

Thank you for being part of the Google Play and Android community as we work together to build a safer app ecosystem.

That’s why we're committed to providing multi-layered defenses that help protect you before, during, and after a theft attempt.

Today, we're announcing a powerful set of theft protection feature updates that build on our existing protections, designed to give you greater peace of mind by making your device a much harder target for criminals.

These updates are now available for Android devices running Android 16+.

More User Control for Failed Authentications: In Android 15, we launched Failed Authentication Lock, a feature that automatically locks the device's screen after excessive failed authentication attempts.

This feature is now getting a new dedicated enable/disable toggle in settings,…

These initiatives, driven by Ballots SC-080, SC-090, and SC-091, will sunset 11 legacy methods for Domain Control Validation.

What’s Domain Control Validation?

Domain Control Validation is a security-critical process designed to ensure certificates are only issued to the legitimate domain operator.

Sunsetted methods relying on email:Sunsetted methods relying on phone:Sunsetted method relying on a reverse lookup:For everyday users, these changes are invisible - and that’s the point.

These changes push the ecosystem toward standardized (e.g., ACME), modern, and auditable Domain Control Validation methods.

Partnership with ArmOur goal is to raise the bar on GPU security, ensuring the Mali GPU driver and firmware remain highly resilient against potential threats.

We partnered with Arm to conduct an analysis of the Mali driver, used on approximately 45% of Android devices.

This approach allowed us to roll out the new security policy broadly while minimizing the impact on developers.

This effort spans across Android and Android OEMs, and required close collaboration with Arm.

The Android security team is committed to collaborating with ecosystem partners to drive broader adoption of this approach to help harden the GPU.

We built on Gemini's existing protections and agent security principles and have implemented several new layers for Chrome.

To further bolster model alignment beyond spotlighting, we’re introducing the User Alignment Critic — a separate model built with Gemini that acts as a high-trust system component.

A flow chart that depicts the User Alignment Critic: a trusted component that vets each action before it reaches the browser.

The User Alignment Critic runs after the planning is complete to double-check each proposed action.

Looking forwardThe upcoming introduction of agentic capabilities in Chrome brings new demands for browser security, and we've approached this challenge with the same ri…