Внутренний конфликт вышел далеко за пределы обычной перепалки.

Разрыв с США и Китаем затрагивает уже не только модели, но и энергию, инвестиции, дата-центры и рынок труда.

Виртуальный межсетевой экран теперь может использоваться в АСУ ТП и других регулируемых технологических инфраструктурах.

Уязвимости прятались в ядре до 21 года, а одна допускает даже удалённый сценарий атаки.

OpenAI увидела угрозу ребёнку и подняла тревогу.

ZRON превращала похищенные правительственные документы в готовые разведывательные отчёты.

Кремниевая гонка получила финансовый механизм, который раньше казался экзотикой.

Блокчейн Solana стал адресной книгой для вредоносного ПО.

Инцидент вновь показал, чем опасно промышленное оборудование, напрямую доступное из интернета.

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».

Реализуем вайб-пентестинг на практикеКак и в других подобных задачах, в первую очередь нужны три вещи:ИИ-модель,обвязка (harness),набор инструментов.

Пусть агент работает не с самой инфраструктурой, а с её копией (т. н. disposable clone), например.

Как и человек, ИИ должен знать, какие пароли, ключи доступа и прочие подобные данные ему разрешено применять.. Как и человек, ИИ должен знать, какие пароли, ключи доступа и прочие подобные данные ему разрешено применять.

При этом всё опять же делается непрерывно и в автоматическом режиме, с возможностью задать ограничения или потребовать запроса подтверждений.

Однако самое интересное здесь — вовсе не то, сможет ли ИИ полностью заменить пентестера…

Эксперты в студии AM Live обсудили, как меняются требования к платформам хранения, на что обращать внимание при выборе и как будет развиваться рынок.

Главная задача — определить, какая в компании структура данных и какие требования к хранилищу, и под это подбирать решение.

Вопрос не в объёме данных, а в том, как решать такие задачи.

Это большая отрасль и в мире, и в России.

ВыводыРынок платформ хранения данных в 2026 году переживает трансформацию.

Эксперты в студии AM Live обсудили, как меняются атаки, почему человек остаётся слабым звеном и как выстроить эффективное обучение.

При этом вопрос уже не в том, как научить человека никогда не ошибаться, а в том, как минимизировать цену этой ошибки.

Сотрудник не успевает понять, что это комплексная атака, потому что не готов к такому сценарию.

В третьем опросе выяснилось, что, по мнению зрителей, важно поменять в планах Security Awareness в 2026 году (мультивыбор):Настроить обучение по ролям — 53%.

Про офлайн-безопасность не нужно забывать — на закрытых предприятиях и в организациях другой вид угроз, и это отдельное направление обучающих материалов».

Решение позволяет оценивать кибербезопасность контрагентов, подрядчиков и дочерних организаций, поставляется по модели SaaS и входит в экосистему CICADA8, к которой также относятся CICADA8 ETM, CICADA8 VM и CICADA8 Dependency Firewall.

Лицензирование CICADA8 Cyber Rating 26.3.1Лицензирование CICADA8 Cyber Rating построено по подписочной модели со сроком от одного года.

Добавление организации в избранное в CICADA8 Cyber Rating 26.3.1Такой сценарий используется при первичной оценке нового поставщика, подрядчика или дочерней организации.

Шкала оценки в CICADA8 Cyber Rating 26.3.1По результату оценки платформа формирует рекомендации относительно возможных рисков при сотрудничестве с этим контра…

Согласно представленной статистике, рынок измеряется в миллиардах рублей и, по мнению аналитиков, будет расти очень динамично в ближайшие годы.

Проблемы сетевой безопасности в KubernetesПавел Коростелёв объяснил, что в Kubernetes происходит смешение защиты приложений и инфраструктуры.

Теперь объектом защиты становится не сетевой хост и не среда виртуализации, а среда контейнеризации.

Всё это вместе создаёт весьма интересную картину: нужно очень внимательно следить за сегментацией и в традиционной сети, и в среде виртуализации, и в среде контейнеризации.

Финальный опрос показал, как, по мнению зрителей, должна строиться сетевая безопасность контейнерной инфраструктуры:Подход зависит от архит…

Архитектура SafeERP Extension Module (Комплексная защита 1С)SafeERP Extension Module имеет модульную структуру и предназначен для комплексной защиты информационно-управляющих систем (ИУС), построенных на базе платформы 1С.

Архитектура компонента SafeERP для анализа кодаЯдром компонента SafeERP CS EM является сервер управления.

Архитектура компонента SafeERP для контроля настроек и защиты платформы 1СЯдром компонента SafeERP PS EM также является сервер управления.

Каталог проектов контроля настроек платформы 1С в SafeERP PS EMРисунок 26.

Для компонентов SafeERP CS EM и SafeERP PS EM установлены одинаковые требования к аппаратному и программному обеспечению.

Обычно в SBOM входят:название и версия компонента;поставщик;идентификаторы Package URL (purl) и CPE;зависимости между компонентами;хеш-суммы и сведения о лицензиях.

Если проблема ещё не зарегистрирована в базе уязвимостей или компонент был скомпрометирован, наличие его в SBOM не покажет угрозу.

SBOM анализа (Analyzed SBOM или Binary SBOM) создаётся при анализе готового артефакта: пакета, исполняемого файла или контейнера.

SBOM не описывает происхождение артефакта и не защищает CI/CDSBOM показывает, из каких компонентов состоит программный артефакт.

SBOM нужно проверять на подлинность и целостностьДаже полный SBOM с правильно идентифицированными компонентами не гарантирует, что сам документ …

Именно для этого используются решения класса «управление внешней поверхностью атаки» (External Attack Surface Management, EASM), позволяющие контролировать внешнюю поверхность атаки.

Что такое EASM и для чего используетсяСистема класса «управление внешней поверхностью атаки» (External Attack Surface Management, EASM) — это не разовый пентест и не сетевой сканер.

Также следует упомянуть ASM (Attack Surface Management) как более широкий подход, охватывающий и внешнюю, и внутреннюю поверхность атаки, и CAASM (Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management) — технологический подход, представляющий собой подмножество ASM и обеспечивающий единую актуальную видимость всех киберактивов организации.

Место EA…

Корпоративные мессенджеры перестали быть просто чатами для переписки — сегодня они превращаются в супераппы и становятся ядром взаимодействия людей и ИИ-агентов внутри компаний.

Антон Анпилов добавил, что почта и мессенджеры — это разные паттерны потребления: в мессенджеры пишут быстрое, в почте закрепляют официальное.

Потом запускаются пилотные группы, пользователи оценивают мессенджеры, и в конце наступает этап компромиссов — компания определяет, какие требования действительно критичны, а от каких можно отказаться.

«Slack и Telegram — это очень крутые мессенджеры, это большие продукты, мы все ими пользуемся.

Иван Дьяконов назвал причиной ситуацию, когда компания не выбрала ни одного решен…

Где ИИ применяют и считают эффективнымПо данным исследования, чаще всего ИИ применяют в контакт-центрах и службах поддержки — об этом сообщили 75% опрошенных компаний.

«В страховых компаниях, — поясняет он, — инвестиционный анализ раньше требовал дорогих специалистов, которые умели и разбираться в ситуации, и доходчиво объяснять происходящее.

По его словам, проблема не только в процессах и данных, но и в том, как измерить сам результат.

Поэтому основная сложность заключается не только в запуске пилота, но и в его доведении до промышленной эксплуатации.

Полностью автономные решения (без участия человека) внедряют 25% компаний — но в проде они задействованы только у 8%.

В любом случае российское решение отличается от западного — есть небольшие отличия в инфраструктуре и в подходах.

Виталий Беличко добавил, что в прошлом году все вендоры бурно наращивали функциональность, но следующим этапом стала проработка деталей.

Это и тренд, и много маркетинга в это вкладывается».

Мы обрабатываем эти данные в KSN и передаём их во все продукты, которые к нему подключены, в том числе и в NGFW.

ВыводыРынок российских NGFW в 2026 году прошёл этап становления и вступает в фазу зрелой конкуренции.

Обсудили как региональные компании выходят на федеральный рынок, где искать специалистов и что меняется в ИБ с развитием ИИ.

Чтобы посмотреть, как сегодня устроена кибербезопасность за пределами столицы, команда AM Live также отправилась в Томск и посетила пятый юбилейный форум по кибербезопасности «КиберV».

Юбилейный форум «КиберV» собрал команды и компании, которые в обычной работе могут решать совершенно разные задачи, но в вопросах кибербезопасности оказываются по одну сторону.

Представитель ФСТЭК ответил на вопросы участников и отдельно подчеркнул, что не стоит заранее пугать себя новыми требованиями.

Мы пересматриваем информационные потоки, подходы к созданию новых информационных сист…

Когда компания меняет SIEM или хочет переиспользовать накопленный набор правил, быстро выясняется, что правило — это не только поисковый запрос.

Слева находятся исходные данные и настройки, справа — состояние задачи, получившееся .ro -правило и замечания.

Если передано нормализованное событие, исполняемая часть результата должна опираться прежде всего на его поля и на подтвержденные сопоставления из дополнительных файлов.

При этом валидатор не компилирует и не исполняет VRL, не запускает блок tests в движке R-Vision SIEM и не доказывает семантическую эквивалентность исходного и целевого правила.

Кроме того, Detection Drift не может компенсировать недостаток телеметрии: если нужный признак н…

Доступа к нашим обращениям мы тому боту не давали: дело в нашей сборке, а не в OpenAI.

Если решение пишут в переписке, а в заявку падает “сделано”, брать подсказку агенту неоткуда.

Компромисс очевиден: секрет в пути аутентификацию не заменяет, он оседает в логах прокси и в истории запросов.

Секунды выставлены под нашу нагрузку, за норму их брать не стоит; переносимо правило: висящий вызов обрывается, а не копится.

Агенту нельзя отвечать по памяти и общим знаниям: перед ответом обязателен поиск в корпоративных источниках и в самой заявке.

После атак на датацентры в Объединенных Арабских Эмиратах и ​​Бахрейне, компания Amazon Web Services (AWS) официально подтвердила безвозвратную потерю части данных клиентов размещенных в локальных центрах обработки данных.

Кажется, мир вступает в новую фазу, когда данные становятся уязвимы не только в результате сетевых атак, но и атак в физическом мире.

Атаки начались 1 марта и продолжались в апреле и июле.

Инцидент повредил масштабный проект дата-центров в ОАЭ, занимающихся разработкой искусственного интеллекта, после которого договор аренды с OpenAI был приостановлен.

По заявлению AWS Health Dashboard:mec1-az1 : Не пострадал физически и работает в штатном режиме, но испытывает проблемы и…

У атакующего - файл с растворёнными персональными данными: телефон, email, паспорт, адрес, ИНН, СНИЛС.

Чтобы упростить задачу атакующему, мы передаём почти всё: в сообщении 361 символ, 317 без пробелов, 45 слов.

Мы даже передаём PIN и порядок слов.

И вот в чём дело: без этого всё остальное бесполезно.

Перебор астрономически невозможен, а в результате появятся миллионы семантически валидных вариантов - но у атакующего архитектурно нет способа доказать, какой из них верный.

Это не недоработка, это условие работы сети.

Видеть и хранить - тоже разные вещи, и это разделение важно: часть сервисов не сохраняет почти ничего из того, что видит.

Метаданные - это не облегчённая версия содержимогоОбычная реакция: пусть видят, кто с кем, - главное, что не читают.

График «кто с кем и когда» - это структура организации: кто с кем работает, кто чей руководитель, какие отделы взаимодействуют перед выпуском.

Настройка эта есть, но включена не везде и не по умолчанию.

Что такое платный вызов OTAPIПлатный вызов OTAPI — это не «соединение с сервером» и не просто любой HTTP-запрос.

То есть происходит цепочка:Бот → site-address.ru → движок OT Box → OTAPI → OT Box формирует страницу → ответ ботуВажно понимать: запрос бота к сайту и запрос сайта к OTAPI — это два разных HTTP-запроса.

Для индексации сайта с помощью специальных правил сделан пропуск для поисковых краулеров и необходимых для сайта сервисов.

Поддержка хостинга отдельно поясняла, что продукт не является специализированным средством против парсинга и не гарантирует решение именно такой задачи.

Смотреть не только на количество IP-адресов, но и на то, какие страницы и функции вызываются.

И это не помогло!

Приказов не было: никто не программировал атаку и не направлял её.

В любом случае модель пишет это для самой себя, а не для нас человеков.

И с каждой новой версией модели, её разработчики хвастаются у кого лучше общие знания, лучше математика, лучше логика, лучше написание кода.

И еще два раза по два дня представителей METR вызывали в OpenAI и указывали, что стереть из их финального отчета.

Если самой модели запрещена запись, означает ли это, что вся AI-система действительно не может изменить CRM?

Но для такого решения важнее другое: какой компонент всей execution chain реально способен вызвать внешнее последствие — и что ограничивает его непосредственно перед действием?

DeepSeek не имел учётных данных HubSpot и не мог выполнить write напрямую.

Но возможность изменить CRM принадлежала не модели, а downstream-оркестратору.

Архитектура B и C: полномочия модели и системыАрхитектура B и архитектура C. Ограничение полномочий модели само по себе не устраняет write-capability всей системы.

Бумажная серия ежеквартальных номеров «Хакера» за 2026 год уже добралась до третьего выпуска.

#3: роутеры, LLM и веб-пентестСовсем недавно третий ежеквартальный выпуск покинул типографию и уже готов к отправке.

#2: выпуск с бонусным журналом о StandoffВторой ежеквартальный выпуск — еще одна часть бумажной серии «Хакера» за 2026 год, отпечатанной ограниченным тиражом.

Если планируешь собрать полную бумажную серию «Хакера» за 2026 год, без него никак не обойтись.

Четыре выпуска сразуЕсли собирать номера по одному не хочется, можно сразу заказать комплект всех четырех ежеквартальных выпусков «Хакера» за 2026 год.

С августа 2026 года злоумышленники снова атакуют бухгалтеров российских компаний, однако теперь используют новый троян — FMVT RAT.

Именно сходство рассылок с предыдущими кампаниями группировки позволило исследователям связать новую активность с Hive0117.

Отмечается, что в одной из изученных атак через FMVT RAT также загрузили LOBSHOT — RAT с поддержкой HVNC, который позволяет незаметно управлять отдельным виртуальным рабочим столом зараженной машины.

При этом разработка FMVT RAT продолжается: за время наблюдений злоумышленники успели обновить троян с версии 1.8 до 1.9.

По данным исследователей, тогда успешными оказались около 400 атак, а ущерб составлял от 3 до 10 млн рублей.

Полицейские в ОАЭ и Швеции задержали семь человек по подозрению в участии в международной ОПГ, занимавшейся отмыванием денег.

По данным властей, сеть за десять месяцев провела через себя около 70 млн шведских крон (примерно $7,1 млн), а расследование выявило финансовые связи с организованной преступностью и заказными убийствами.

Как сообщили в Министерстве внутренних дел ОАЭ, предполагаемого лидера группировки задержали в Эмиратах, а еще шестерых подозреваемых участников сети — в Швеции.

Власти ОАЭ установили его местонахождение благодаря продолжительным оперативно-разыскным мероприятиям, следственным действиям и наблюдению, а также тесному обмену разведданными со шведской полицией.

По данн…

Как объясняет Давид Перес (David Perez), один из руководителей команды WordPress, отвечающей за официальный репозиторий плагинов, сейчас новые плагины проверяют только перед добавлением в каталог, а дальнейшие обновления выходят уже без проверки.

«Плагин может быть безопасным сегодня, но в следующем релизе появится уязвимость или вредоносный код», — пишет Перес.

Кроме того, на этот подозрительный релиз независимо обратили внимание специалисты Wordfence и сообщили о нем команде WordPress.

Cooldown действует для всех плагинов и тем WordPress с 5 июня 2026 года в рамках инициативы Protect The Shire.

Разработчикам рекомендуют проверять код, сверяясь с WordPress Coding Standards и правилами PHP_…

Разработчики Google выпустили сентябрьские патчи для смартфонов Pixel, исправляющие 110 уязвимостей.

Причем в компании предупредили, что эта проблема уже используется хакерами в целевых атаках.

Подчеркивается, что для эксплуатации уязвимости от владельца Pixel не потребуется никаких действий: ему не нужно переходить по ссылкам, открывать файлы или устанавливать приложения.

Помимо 0-day-уязвимости, сентябрьские патчи исправляют еще 109 проблем в устройствах Pixel.

И еще 46 критических проблем затрагивают различные компоненты Pixel, включая BigOcean, Bootloader, IP Multimedia Subsystem и Trusted Execution Environment.

17 сентября Министерство финансов США ввело санкции против иранской криптовалютной биржи BitBank.

В список вошли названия BitBank и BitBank3, а также домены bitbank3.com и bitbank.com.

Санкции также коснулись трех физических лиц: Хоссейна Али Закера Хоссейна, Мохаммада Махди Закера Хоссейна и Сейеда Аделя Хейдари.

Ранее, вводя санкции против самой Hormuz Safe, власти также не публиковали адреса кошельков и суммы платежей.

Теперь же Минфин впервые напрямую связал эту схему с BitBank, но подробного разбора транзакций по-прежнему не предоставил.

Исследователи из Elastic Security Labs изучили банковскую малварь KREMLIN, которая может без ведома пользователя устанавливать на зараженную машину вредоносные расширения для Chrome и Edge.

Для этого вредонос обходит механизмы контроля целостности Chromium, а затем похищает пароли, файлы cookie, сессионные токены и другие данные.

Одной из главных особенностей KREMLIN является установка расширения AVSync в браузеры Chrome и Edge без участия жертвы.

Для этого малварь дожидается закрытия браузера или завершает его процесс во время простоя, копирует расширение в профиль и включает режим разработчика.

Исследователи пишут, что в отдельных кампаниях злоумышленники дополнительно распространяли Puls…

Специалисты «Лаборатории Касперского» обнаружили ранее неизвестную модульную малварь MovieReaper, которая распространяется под видом популярных фильмов, включая «Одиссею».

Вредоносная кампания активна как минимум с середины августа 2026 года и уже затронула несколько сотен пользователей и организаций в разных странах.

Как правило, малварь маскируется под популярные фильмы с помощью длинных имен файлов и иконок известных приложений, например VLC.

Один из вариантов распространялся под именем the odyssey (2026) [1080p] [webrip] [5.1].exe, и специалисты подчеркивают, что длинное название помогает скрыть расширение .exe.

Затем MovieReaper загружает дополнительные модули, обходит контроль учетных…

Напомним, что об атаке на Revolut стало известно ранее на этой неделе.

На выплату выкупа хакеры отвели компании 24 часа и пригрозили в противном случае продать украденные данные другим преступным группировкам.

При этом 16 сентября представители Revolut сообщили Reuters, что компания не имела прямых контактов со злоумышленниками и не получала от них требований выкупа.

Ранее в Revolut подчеркивали, что внутренние системы компании не были взломаны, а средства клиентов остаются в безопасности.

Теперь в компании снова подтвердили эту информацию и заявили, что атакующие злоупотребили официальным каналом связи, который используется итальянскими госорганами для юридически значимой переписки.

Хакеры скомпрометировали официальный аккаунт HBO Max на Reddit и использовали его для распространения вредоносной рекламы.

Примерно за 48 часов атакующие опубликовали 108 объявлений, которые вели на ClickFix-страницы и заражали устройства под управлением Windows и macOS стилерами и другой малварью.

Специалисты пишут, что одной из основных приманок, которую использовали злоумышленники, стало якобы нативное приложение HBO Max для macOS, которого на самом деле не существует.

В macOS атакующие использовали команды curl | zsh и распространяли сразу несколько пейлоадов, включая стилер MacSync, похищавший учетные данные из браузеров, профили Firefox, данные из Telegram и Apple Notes, пароли macOS …

Имен­но так я и пос­тупил.

Поэто­му он может при­нять мое устрой­ство за кла­виату­ру и счи­тывать с него дан­ные, хотя на самом деле это не она.

Сегод­ня соберем такое устрой­ство и наделим его обратной сов­мести­мостью со скрип­тами для Flipper Zero и USB Rubber Ducky.

Спо­соб, конеч­но, инте­рес­ный, но, на мой взгляд, силь­но уста­рел: при таком под­ходе каж­дый раз при­дет­ся менять пей­лоад через про­шив­ку.

Ты спро­сишь: «А на фига не ори­гинал?» Отве­чу: ори­гинал дороже, а памяти в нем мень­ше — 2 Мбайт про­тив 16 Мбайт.

Jade Sleet, also tracked under the monikers PUKCHONG, Slow Pisces, TraderTraitor, and UNC4899, has a history of targeting the Web3 sector for cryptocurrency heists.

"Jade Sleet mostly targets users associated with cryptocurrency and other blockchain-related organizations, but also targets vendors used by those firms," Microsoft-owned GitHub noted in July 2023.

]com") that causes the platform to download attacker-controlled modules when the "terraform init" command is run by the unsuspecting developer.

Evidence indicates that ROOFDECK is deployed as a follow-up tool on compromised hosts following the establishment of initial foothold and control.

The new variant, besides removing the existin…

Understanding identity visibility in IAM: core conceptsVerification, not assumption, is the organizing principle behind identity visibility in IAM.

Cloud identity visibility and the multicloud identity visibility challengeContext fragments the moment identity data crosses provider boundaries.

Multicloud identity visibility is the practice of normalizing those vocabularies so a single identity can be traced across every environment it touches.

Identity visibility platforms and their primary approachesThe list is illustrative rather than exhaustive, and it is not ordered by performance.

How identity visibility and intelligence fits the identity fabricIdentity visibility and intelligence is no…

Three researchers at the security firm Hacktron used Anthropic's Claude Opus 5 to chain two flaws and take over the ChatGPT and Codex accounts of several OpenAI employees, then reach an internal OpenAI code repository.

When one employee's Codex link to OpenAI's code on GitHub was opened, it triggered a single pull request in the internal repository.

Why a Forum Bug Reached Staff AccountsThe reason a bug in a public forum could reach staff accounts lies in OpenAI's login system, not in the forum software.

OpenAI's forum offers a "Sign in with OpenAI" option, the same single sign-on (SSO) that staff uses elsewhere.

How the Researchers Used AIThe researchers used AI to do the hard part.

SolarWinds has released security updates to address a high-severity flaw in Access Rights Manager (ARM) that, if successfully exploited, could lead to an unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability.

The issue affects all versions of Access Rights Manager 2026.2 and prior.

"SolarWinds Access Rights Manager was reported to be affected by an unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability," SolarWinds said in an advisory released on September 17, 2026.

The company credited Armadin security researcher Kai Huang with discovering and reporting the flaw, which has been patched in ARM 2026.2.1.

SolarWinds has also released fixes for 16 flaws impacting Serv-U (CVE-2026-28302, from CVE-20…

A critical vulnerability impacting Orkes Conductor is being actively exploited in the wild, according to Fortinet.

The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-58138 (CVSS v3.1 score: 9.8/CVSS v4 score: 9.3), which relates to a case of unauthenticated remote code execution.

In an outbreak alert issued this week, Fortinet said it has observed attackers actively targeting Orkes Conductor servers susceptible to CVE-2026-58138 by submitting crafted workflow definitions containing JavaScript or Python expressions to the Conductor workflow API.

Organizations using affected versions are advised to upgrade to Conductor 3.30.2 or later, which addresses the vulnerability.

If immediate patching is not an…

Google's Gemini model has become the latest artificial intelligence (AI) system to access the internet and break into other companies during a cybersecurity evaluation.

The incidents occurred in May 2026 as part of a test run conducted by Israeli company Irregular.

According to the Journal, the model gained access to a protected system after repeatedly guessing its password.

Two other cases related to the model finding credentials in a public repository, allowing it to obtain unauthorized access to protected systems.

However, unlike other incidents observed in the case of Anthropic and OpenAI, the Gemini model ended the intrusion after finding that it had breached a real company's system.

An attacker copied about 170 of CrowdSec's private GitHub repositories on May 22 using the account of an employee who had just left, CrowdSec said on September 18.

CrowdSec says his laptop was compromised in May's supply chain attack on TanStack, in which malicious versions of TanStack's npm packages stole credentials from developers' machines.

CrowdSec says the account was used only to copy code, that its infrastructure and databases were not accessed, and that no code was changed.

The company says the copy was made 11 days later with a GitHub OAuth token from the former employee's account.

CrowdSec removed his account from its GitHub organization on May 25, three days after the copy and m…

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday added three security flaws impacting the Linux kernel to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation.

The vulnerabilities are listed below -CVE-2025-39682 (CVSS score: 9.8) - An improper check for unusual or exceptional conditions vulnerability in the TLS receive path that could allow local authenticated users to trigger memory disclosure or denial-of-service (DoS).

(CVSS score: 9.8) - An improper check for unusual or exceptional conditions vulnerability in the TLS receive path that could allow local authenticated users to trigger memory disclosure or denial-of-service (D…

A security researcher has released working exploit code for four Linux kernel flaws that each let a local user gain root, the highest level of access on a machine.

Researcher Asim Manizada found them and reported them to the Linux kernel security team in mid-July.

What's AffectedThree of the four flaws can be reached by an ordinary user only when unprivileged user namespaces are enabled.

The first stable kernel releases with the complete set are:5.10.2705.15.2216.1.1886.6.1576.12.1096.18.507.2.4These are the version numbers from the main Linux kernel project.

One of the new exploits also reuses a technique from Dirty Frag, another Linux kernel root flaw disclosed in May by a different resea…

Reaching code execution needed a second, separate flaw in the theme that was installed.

Updating WordPress core closes the demonstrated attack whatever theme a site runs.

Click2Shell is not the firm's first WordPress core flaw in recent weeks.

In August, WordPress fixed a similar flaw pwn.ai found in the login screen and also chained to code execution, and there too WordPress described the risk more narrowly than the researchers did.

A different WordPress core flaw disclosed in July, called wp2shell, is not connected to pwn.ai's work.

The attacks, per Zscaler ThreatLabz, involve the use of previously undocumented tools called RUSTYSHADE, RUSTYMOVE, PSNATCH, and BASHNATCH.

A notable aspect of the campaign is the threat actor's use of private GitHub repositories for command-and-control (C2) and the registration of typosquatted domains impersonating popular Indian news organizations like The Print and India Today to host malicious PowerShell scripts and payloads -theprints[.

RUSTYSHADE, as the name implies, is a Rust-based backdoor that makes use of attacker-controlled private GitHub repositories for encrypted C2 communications.

Specifically, the malware parses and writes certain files in the private GitHub repository for b…

Microsoft has released fixes for a maximum-severity security flaw in Azure AI Foundry that could be exploited to achieve privilege escalation.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-85889, carries a CVSS score of 10.0.

"Missing authentication for critical function in Azure AI Foundry allows an unauthorized attacker to elevate privileges over a network," Microsoft said in a Thursday advisory.

Azure AI Foundry, also called Microsoft Foundry, is an enterprise platform designed to build, deploy, and manage generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications and agents.

(CVSS score: 7.8) - An insufficient granularity of access control in Windows User-Mode Power Service (UMPS) that could allow a…

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 accelerated discovery of previously unknown software vulnerabilities has been making headlines for months.

It’s an issue that has even led the US government to create a vulnerability clearing house named Gold Eagle to coordinate research efforts in vulnerability discovery, mitigation and fixes.

A keynote at Black Hat USA 2026 detailed research by associate professor Yan Shoshitaishvili and his undergraduate students at Arizona State University on the expanding use of AI models for vulnerability discovery.

The team then trained the GPTs using the properties of previously known vulnerabilities and discovered approximately 1,000 vulnerabilities.

If this logic prevails, we may reach the cal…

Hugging Face disclosed that it had been attacked by AI; OpenAI came clean and declared that it was two of their AI models that had caused the breach.

A very late addition to the Black Hat agenda was a presentation by OpenAI’s team providing the details of the Hugging Face incident as they saw it and, importantly, the timeline.

The agents concluded that their task set could be completed by breaking out their sandbox and accessing external (Hugging Face) systems.

The target was Hugging Face: this is where the agents wanted to get, and they did.

On July 16th, Hugging Face disclosed an incident in which swarms of autonomous AI agents had breached its infrastructure.

The conference opened with keynotes followed by a fireside chat and a panel featuring mainly senior US government officials.

The second part of the opening keynote included Nick Andersen, Acting Director, CISA; Katherine Sutton, Assistant Secretary of War for Cyber Policy; and Brett Leatherman Assistant Director, Cyber Division, FBI.

I do agree with the ruthless approach, but without some form of regulation the boundaries on the use of AI remain blurred.

The Assistant Secretary of War for Cyber Policy made a fabulous analogy when pressed on the struggles regarding resourcing in the cybersecurity industry: you don’t want a pediatrician performing heart surgery.

We talk about autonomous AI at…

The AI tutor market is growing fastThe market for AI tutoring tools is booming.

Today, you can find various types of AI tutor tools to buy and use.

This happens when AI tools are tricked into ignoring their safety guardrails and display untrusted content.

If you’re keen to get your kids in front of an AI tool to help with private tutoring, first understand the difference between a simple co-pilot and a dedicated ITS.

So if you’re keen to try AI tutors, be sure to stay updated on what’s available out there.

Researchers at Sysdig have documented what they assess to be the first case of an end-to-end ransomware operation executed by an agentic threat actor.

What can organizations do to stop phantom squatting from harming their brands, and what other lessons do these incidents hold for defenders?

Watch Tony's video to find out and be sure to check out the June 2026 edition of his monthly security news roundup for more insights.

Before you go, learn about the first AI-powered ransomware, named PromptLock and discovered by ESET researchers last year.

To learn more about cutting-edge AI defense layers, read the AI at ESET white paper.

The screenshot may look convincing, but it doesn’t necessarily prove that the payment, booking or conversation is genuineSomeone sends you a screenshot showing that a payment has gone through.

Why screenshot aren’t proof on their ownA screenshot is ultimately just an image of what appeared on a screen.

Reassured, you send the item off, only to find out the screenshot was a fake and you’re not getting your money.

You receive a password reset code, then get a text message (maybe impersonating a friend) asking you to screenshot and send it.

This screenshot is fake (source: Reddit)Challenges for businessesFrom a business perspective, internal and customer-facing teams are often provided with sc…

For big companies, the extra support fee is small next to the cost of the migration project itself, and they would rather protect the sequence of the rollout than compress everything to hit a date.

Teams are afraid of the day the system goes live and something breaks inside a window they cannot reschedule.

What does the first ninety days of a phased migration look like at a mid-size company, task by task?

What happens to the people who know the old ECC system inside and out once the migration is done?

For companies in that situation, it takes the single biggest variable in a migration and makes it far more predictable.

Helmit is a parental control app that combines AI-powered social media monitoring with screen time management, web filtering, location tracking, and safety alerts.

Social media protection and alertsHelmit analyzes activity on connected services every few minutes and looks at context and tone for signs associated with grooming, cyberbullying, hate speech, self-harm, sextortion, drugs, and scams.

Helmit can also use Device Admin access to help prevent a child from simply uninstalling the protection app.

The child app also includes an SOS button.

The proposed EU Kids Act would introduce age-based restrictions on social media and place greater responsibility on platforms to protect young users.

Gopass is a free, open-source password manager that stores credentials in an encrypted store and runs from the command line.

Its maintainers built it as a drop-in replacement for pass, the standard Unix password manager.

Users who want different tools can switch encryption to age, switch storage to fossil, or drop versioning with the --storage=fs flag.

The maintainers point users to Homebrew, MacPorts, Fedora, Arch Linux, Alpine Linux, WinGet, Chocolatey, Scoop, and the FreeBSD and OpenBSD ports.

The tool runs on Linux, macOS, Windows and the BSDs, and the maintainers aim for the same user experience on each.

Threat model−Malicious intent injection through vulnerable API (Source: Research paper)The authors call that threat adversarial intent injection: hiding malicious instructions among legitimate ones.

To model ambiguity, the authors relabeled 40 malicious intents as benign and 90 benign intents as malicious.

Across the full dataset it caught about 10% of malicious intents, although 96% of the intents it flagged carried a malicious label.

To test that, they built four versions of their data, with malicious intents arriving at a fixed average pace, scattered at random, speeding up over time, or slowing down.

The first detector caught between three-quarters and 96% of the runs containing malicio…

Forty percent of large companies had an AI-related compliance or governance issue in the past 12 months, according to 1,000 senior IT, operations, and transformation leaders surveyed by Sapio Research.

That means adoption figures on a leadership dashboard can overstate how much real work AI is doing.

Redesign is stalledMost leaders say their companies need to rebuild workflows around AI to stay competitive.

The money mostly goes to infrastructure, licenses, and models, and process redesign gets a small share.

Leaders put the average cost of AI projects that failed because of process problems at $1.55 million per organization.

What happens when AI agent governance is missing at scaleIn this interview with Help Net Security, Gourab Basu, Global Head of Engineering at meshIQ, discusses governance in AI agent systems.

The AI security question leaders should be asking insteadIn this Help Net Security interview, Frederic Bull, Security Officer at Gremlin, talks about what AI means for security teams.

Cisco patches actively exploited email gateway zero-day (CVE-2026-76461)Attackers have leveraged a zero-day SQL injection vulnerability (CVE-2026-76461) to compromise Cisco Secure Email Gateway appliances, Cisco confirmed on Monday.

The stable Security State v1.1.0 and Security State Provider v1.0.0 libraries allow develo…

The company analyzed 1,722 participants worldwide, testing their ability to separate human comments from AI-generated ones in a social media setting.

“On social media, everyone notices the angry trolls.

In the simulated social media environment, participants flagged half (50.2%) of negative AI-generated bots,” said Luís Costa, Research and Insights Lead at Surfshark.

Negative bots were still easiest to catch there, but positive bots were the hardest of all four topics to spot.

People on social media “almost all the time” caught close to half the bots they saw, while people who don’t use social media at all caught roughly a third.

Arcjet has launched agent runtime security, a new product that helps engineering teams secure the AI agents they are building while giving security teams the governance and compliance evidence they need.

Arcjet connects those steps and gives teams policy controls to detect them.”Arcjet’s agent runtime security centers on three parts of securing agents in production, observe, enforce, and audit.

Observe: Discover all your agentsArcjet supports ingesting agent activity without application code changes or deploying another agent.

Platform and security teams can use existing OpenTelemetry observability tooling to send activity directly to Arcjet for real-time visualization and analysis.

Powered…

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...

Last week, Anthropic released a long and detailed document describing current misuses of their Claude models. I’m still reading it, but I wanted to flag this:

We identified a cell of threat actors based in northern Yemen running three weapons development programs: a guided rocket that used a commodity phone-class flight computer with final-phase homing guidance; a multi-stage ballistic missile with a stated range goal above 2,000 km; and a multi-variant missile (referred to as the “R2000” set) that included a hypersonic glide vehicle variant...

Once a month, Microsoft pushes a security update to all Windows users. Tomorrow’s is a new record:

Microsoft’s patch for September is a doozy, with a record number of roughly 972 vulnerabilities fixed and 112 of them meeting the high critical-severity threshold.

It was only two months ago that Microsoft patched a then-record 570 vulnerabilities. Then, last month, Microsoft patched some 620 of them. Google and other companies have also published record numbers of vulnerabilities in recent months. Two weeks ago, OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, and 100 companies and organizations published an ...

Smells awful: But an estimated 30 to 50 tons of dead squid remain inside the boat’s catch tank, where they have been decomposing for days. “That is nasty. I wouldn’t want to do that,” said commercial fisherman Dick Ogg of the Bodega Bay Fishermen’s Marketing Association.

Ogg said anyone familiar with the fishing industry understands what happens when a large catch sits for an extended period.

“If you think about what happens after four or five days, it’s a gooey mess,” he said.

The odor has become a defining feature of the operation, and the beach remains closed to the public while crews work on a removal plan...

Last month, I gave a talk at DEF CON on AI hacking: what happens when AIs become hackers. It’s a combination of the potentialities I raised in my 2022 book A Hacker’s Mind and the lessons we’re learning from current AI models engaging in hacking behavior. I’m really proud of the talk, and the fact that it gained over 100K views on YouTube in just a few days.

Also online is an interview with me in the AI Village.

In August, Cliff Stoll gave a talk at DEF CON, remembering the wily hacker he stalked forty years ago.

Great fun.

Give an AI agent a mere rumor of an exploit, and it’s enough for them to find it.

What’s worse, I found I could use my own agents to find the exploit just by knowing roughly what it was about and so could have been exploiting it well before the public patch was available! Given that just the rumour of a security issue seems enough to give attackers enough info to find new exploits, we’re going to need to change the way we deal with security responses in open source.

Simon Willison comments:

Anil points out that this rate of discovery appears incompatible with existing open source embargo practices for new issues. If an issue can become an exploit this fast, we need to figure out new process…

A database of 153 million drivers licenses is for sale on the dark web. Brian Krebs has more detail.

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…

The duo were key members of a prolific cybercrime group known as Scattered Spider, and their guilty pleas came on the first day of what was expected to be a six-week trial.

In April 2026, 24-year-old British national and Scattered Spider member Tyler “Tylerb” Buchanan pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft for participating in the group’s SMS phishing spree in the summer of 2022.

The government said Buchanan, Jubair and others used the credentials harvested in that phishing campaign to steal at least $8 million in cryptocurrency from victims throughout the United States.

The U.S. Department of Justice says three alleged Scattered Spider defendants indicted alo…

This week, researchers from multiple security firms concluded that the Popa botnet is linked to NetNut, a “residential proxy” provider operated by the publicly-traded Israeli firm Alarum Technologies Ltd [NASDAQ: ALAR].

Qurium said that immediately after that disruption, several dozen new domains were registered to serve as controllers for the Popa botnet, but that one of those control domains was not new: ninjatech[.]io.

Jérôme Meyer, a security researcher at Nokia Deepfield, said the total population of devices participating in the Popa botnet may be far higher than Lumen’s estimates.

“Over 90% of our pharmaceutical and food & beverage customers have queried residential proxy indicators.

…

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.

Security researchers at Socket have identified scores of malicious linked Firefox add-ons designed to steal cryptocurrency wallet seed phrases or password details.

The malicious extension - which the developers boldly claim collects "no data" - looks like a wallet app, but the truth is that there is no wallet code inside it.

Because the switch lives in the database rather than the extension code, criminals never need to push an update through the Firefox Add-ons store to activate it.

Although the researchers did not find that these extensions presently contained malicious code, the fact that they shared code and infrastructure with the info-stealing Firefox extensions raises alarm.

More rec…

The ransomware gang Gunra has been creating havoc - exploiting unpatched VPNs and firewalls to steal data, encrypt systems, and extort victims across healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and more. Read more in my article on the Fortra blog.

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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…

The Power of FedRAMP HighWhile FedRAMP Certified Class C (Moderate) is the standard for many civilian agencies, FedRAMP Certified Class D (High) is designed for systems where a breach could have catastrophic effects.

Cisco Security Cloud for GovernmentCisco Security Cloud for Government is a unified authorization boundary that integrates various Cisco security services, ensuring that organizations can protect their users, devices, and applications regardless of where they reside.

The Cisco Security Cloud for Government ecosystem is designed to meet the rigorous security requirements of the public sector and highly regulated industries.

Cisco Security Cloud Control (SCC)Cisco Security Cloud …

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…

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.

Microsoft introduces the cloud web applications threat matrix, a MITRE ATT&CK-aligned framework that helps defenders understand, prioritize, and mitigate threats to cloud-hosted web apps and serverless platforms.

Microsoft developed the Cloud web applications threat matrix to organize relevant techniques using MITRE ATT&CK tactics.

Cloud web applications threat matrix organized by MITRE ATT&CK tactics.

Valid cloud accountsAdversaries may gain access to cloud web applications and serverless environments by leveraging compromised valid cloud accounts.

The cloud web applications threat matrix is intended to support this by mapping techniques to attack stages, helping defenders identify where v…

Observed attack sequence showing identity compromise through social engineering, MFA persistence, Microsoft Graph reconnaissance, and cloud data collection/exfiltration.

In device code phishing, the user is persuaded to enter a code on the legitimate Microsoft authentication page.

The attack underscores a critical detection challenge: Microsoft Graph abuse rarely appears suspicious when viewed through a single API call.

Investigate high-volume or programmatic Microsoft Graph activity involving directory enumeration, role discovery, service principal discovery, SharePoint, OneDrive, or sensitivity-label discovery.

Discovery Graph API reconnaissance activity Microsoft Defender for Identity– S…

Edge AI changes the trust model for AI systemsIn Cloud AI, separate companies own and attest the hardware, platform, and model weights.

Edge AI deployments often place customers in control of more of the AI stack.

Why Edge AI increases exposureAn Edge AI deployment may include models, prompts, agents, retrieval data, policies, local data stores, and update mechanisms running on infrastructure outside the provider’s cloud environment.

Next stepsBottom line: Edge AI changes the trust model for AI systems.

Edge AI pushes security controls into devices, gateways, vehicles, factories, hospitals, retail spaces, and other customer environments.

Edge AI changes the trust model for AI systemsIn Cloud AI, separate companies own and attest the hardware, platform, and model weights.

Edge AI deployments often place customers in control of more of the AI stack.

Why Edge AI increases exposureAn Edge AI deployment may include models, prompts, agents, retrieval data, policies, local data stores, and update mechanisms running on infrastructure outside the provider’s cloud environment.

Next stepsBottom line: Edge AI changes the trust model for AI systems.

Edge AI pushes security controls into devices, gateways, vehicles, factories, hospitals, retail spaces, and other customer environments.

Microsoft researchers observed a high-volume phishing campaign using invisible Unicode tag characters, a technique popularized in AI prompt injection research as ASCII Smuggling.

“ASCII smuggling” refers to the use of invisible or non-rendering Unicode characters to hide content inside text that looks normal.

Each is encoded as a sequence of invisible Unicode tag characters (U+E0000-U+E007F).

Invisible Unicode tag characters in the range U+E0000-U+E007F – specifically U+E0020 – spliced inside keywords.

The potential gap for mail-defense pipelines is whether Unicode tag characters are normalized or flagged before content detections run.

Microsoft researchers observed a high-volume phishing campaign using invisible Unicode tag characters, a technique popularized in AI prompt injection research as ASCII Smuggling.

“ASCII smuggling” refers to the use of invisible or non-rendering Unicode characters to hide content inside text that looks normal.

Each is encoded as a sequence of invisible Unicode tag characters (U+E0000-U+E007F).

Invisible Unicode tag characters in the range U+E0000-U+E007F – specifically U+E0020 – spliced inside keywords.

The potential gap for mail-defense pipelines is whether Unicode tag characters are normalized or flagged before content detections run.

Stage 2: Remote session and malicious MSI deliveryImmediately after establishing control, the threat actor uses PowerShell within the remote session to download a malicious MSI package from threat actor-controlled cloud storage and installs it silently.

Microsoft Teams: Apply the Security best practices for Microsoft Teams, revisit your external collaboration policies, and make sure users see clear external sender notifications when engaging with cross-tenant contacts.

Some promptbooks require access to Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Sentinel, or related Microsoft security plugins.

File indicatorsIndicator (SHA-256) Description 4cfdcae6dd1d6d98b870c8f0654d504f2bf10479a117dc297de789c249dc…

Stage 2: Remote session and malicious MSI deliveryImmediately after establishing control, the threat actor uses PowerShell within the remote session to download a malicious MSI package from threat actor-controlled cloud storage and installs it silently.

Microsoft Teams: Apply the Security best practices for Microsoft Teams, revisit your external collaboration policies, and make sure users see clear external sender notifications when engaging with cross-tenant contacts.

Some promptbooks require access to Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Sentinel, or related Microsoft security plugins.

File indicatorsIndicator (SHA-256) Description 4cfdcae6dd1d6d98b870c8f0654d504f2bf10479a117dc297de789c249dc…

Microsoft Defender Experts is tracking an active malware campaign that uses counterfeit software-download websites to impersonate trusted vendors and distribute malicious installers.

Diagram showing the campaign attack chain from spoofed download page to archive delivery, execution, persistence, defense evasion, and command-and-control.

Note that some promptbooks require access to plugins for Microsoft products such as Microsoft Defender XDR or Microsoft Sentinel.

Microsoft Defender exclusion tampering Detects the SYSTEM scheduled-task and PowerShell routines that write sweeping Microsoft Defender path exclusions.

Malicious delivery domains and download endpoints Identifies connections to t…

Microsoft Defender Experts is tracking an active malware campaign that uses counterfeit software-download websites to impersonate trusted vendors and distribute malicious installers.

Diagram showing the campaign attack chain from spoofed download page to archive delivery, execution, persistence, defense evasion, and command-and-control.

Note that some promptbooks require access to plugins for Microsoft products such as Microsoft Defender XDR or Microsoft Sentinel.

Microsoft Defender exclusion tampering Detects the SYSTEM scheduled-task and PowerShell routines that write sweeping Microsoft Defender path exclusions.

Malicious delivery domains and download endpoints Identifies connections to t…

That’s exactly what the Cybersecurity Incident Response Readiness Workshop is designed to do.

What is the Cybersecurity Incident Response Readiness Workshop?

The Cybersecurity Incident Response Workshop is a collaborative, scenario driven workshop designed to evaluate your organization’s incident response (IR) plan against realistic, real-world security events, guided by DART researchers.

Instead of reviewing a plan as a static document, the Cybersecurity Incident Response Workshop exercises how people, processes, and technology work together under pressure.

A summary of findings and prioritized recommendations to help strengthen incident response readiness and guide next steps.

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…

Android uses the best of Google AI and our advanced security expertise to tackle mobile scams from every angle.

Over the last few years, we’ve launched industry-leading features to detect scams and protect users across phone calls, text messages and messaging app chat notifications.

To help combat these types of financial scams, we launched a pilot earlier this year in the UK focused on in-call protections for financial apps.

The UK pilot of Android’s in-call scam protections has already helped thousands of users end calls that could have cost them a significant amount of money.

We’ve also started to pilot this protection with more app types, including peer-to-peer (P2P) payment apps.