The UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has reprimanded the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and issued an enforcement notice. Between March 2023 and September 2024, officers registered about 500 free accounts on the retail crime platform Auror without formal procurement, a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) or data-sharing …
The UK Electoral Commission is developing an AI-powered system to alert candidates and parties to significant deepfakes within three hours of first posting. Chief executive Vijay Rangarajan announced the plan at the Conservative Party conference and cited a deepfake of Irish presidential candidate Catherine Connolly during Ireland's 2025 …
G7 finance ministers agreed to hold simulation exercises to test responses to cyberattacks enabled by artificial intelligence. Japan's Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama announced the decision after a G7 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting held alongside the IMF annual meeting in Bangkok. The move follows an IMF warning th…
Canada's proposed C-22 bill, first put forward in 2025 and since partly revised, would require tech companies, including foreign ones, to introduce "technical capabilities" for law enforcement data access. It would also require retention of user metadata. Signal has said it would exit the Canadian market, and Psiphon VPN says it will leav…
A joint StopRansomware advisory (AA26-293A) from the FBI, CISA, USSS, Germany's Landeskriminalamt Rheinland-Pfalz, the UK's National Crime Agency and the North West Regional Organised Crime Unit details SafePay ransomware activity observed through August 2026. SafePay has been highly active since August 2024 and was among the most active …
Bullhorn, a US-based recruitment software provider serving more than 10,000 customers, disabled access to its platform after detecting a cyber incident on October 16-17, 2026. The company engaged CrowdStrike to investigate and restore services. Systems are back online in the UK, US and Australia, but as of October 20 some users still had …
This ESET WeLiveSecurity blog post argues that small and midsize businesses (SMBs) want advanced protection that is simple, guided and manageable. It cites ESET data showing 75% of SMBs are concerned about global conflicts and cyber warfare, nearly half had at least one cyber incident in the past year, and 58% believe they are more vulner…
Episode 488 of the Smashing Security podcast, hosted by Graham Cluley with guest Paul Ducklin, covers several recent security stories. The lead item is the arrest by the FBI of an executive at a ransomware negotiation firm, reportedly at a cybersecurity conference, in connection with the investigation into the ShinyHunters gang. The hosts…
On October 8, the U.K. imposed economic sanctions on Cryptomus (formerly Certa Payments and Xeltox Enterprises, rebranded as Heleket) for processing payments that benefit the Russian government and its financial institutions. The sanctions also cover the virtual payment platforms VexPay, TokenSpot and Tsunami Payments. Experts describe Cr…
Unknown attackers compromised thousands of internet-exposed refrigeration controllers late on Sunday, raising temperatures to as high as 122°F (50°C), spoiling food and causing fires at nearly 700 French supermarkets. France's ANSSI warned of widespread compromises of Danfoss controllers and a day later added Copeland and its Dixell brand…
The fourth weekly Security Affairs AI-cybersecurity newsletter, by Pierluigi Paganini, is a curated list of headlines on the intersection of AI and security. It contains no original analysis or technical detail. Items include CyberXero, described as an AI-augmented initial access broker targeting Ukrainian critical infrastructure, and a C…
Flashpoint joined the UK National Crime Agency (NCA), the DOJ, FBI, U.S. Secret Service, Homeland Security Investigations and private-sector partners in "Joint Disruption Week", held in London the week beginning October 6, 2026. The operation targeted West African scam networks running cryptocurrency investment scams, impersonation scheme…
A 28-year-old Russian man, identified by German media only as "Vladimir K", has been arrested in Germany on suspicion of being a key member of the Qilin ransomware gang. He was first detained in Japan in May while on holiday and was extradited to Germany earlier this month. German investigators are examining possible links between him and…
ESET Chief Security Evangelist Tony Anscombe reviews the main cybersecurity stories of August 2026 in a monthly video roundup. OpenAI disclosed more details on how its agents hacked the AI collaboration platform Hugging Face, and the video discusses what went wrong and the lessons from the incident. Iran-linked hackers are believed to hav…
A still-unknown actor hacked thousands of remote-controlled refrigeration systems across hundreds of French grocery stores, spiking temperatures, spoiling food and sparking fires. The incident fits a broader trend of extortionists and other attackers going after physical systems to maximise real-world pressure on victims. Earlier examples…
GreyNoise reports that 21 IP addresses in AS213438 (registered to ColocaTel Inc., Mahe, Seychelles) produced 1,856,167 of 2,753,274 global RDP Crawler sessions on April 7, 2026, or 67.4% of the worldwide total. Over April 5-7 the same fleet accounted for 49.7% of global RDP Crawler activity. All 21 IPs are geolocated to the Netherlands, w…
Trend Micro published its Holidays, Scams, and AI survey of 6,536 consumers across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan (2,100 in the U.S.), conducted 31 October to 10 November 2025. It shows a gap between scam-spotting confidence and actual exposure: 56% of Americans are very or extremely confid…
F5 Labs honeynet telemetry shows overall hostile activity rising 55.5% month over month in June 2026, a return to the levels of the earlier-year spike. Highlighted is CVE-2024-44000, an unauthenticated account takeover flaw (CVSS 9.8, CWE-522) in the LiteSpeed Cache WordPress plugin, which rose by 1,128 to 2,603 attacks (8). Scanning is i…
A Chainguard survey released at its Assemble London event on October 14 found that 66% of security leaders at companies with $1bn or more in revenue admit leaving high or critical vulnerabilities unpatched "at least sometimes". Among companies with under $250m in revenue, the figure was 27%. Larger firms cite business trade-offs: disrupti…
Flashpoint's weekly Middle East brief for October 9-15 describes sustained kinetic escalation alongside cyber and information operations. Ansarallah (Houthis) ran a multi-day missile, drone and cruise-missile campaign against King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. It killed at least 14 people and closed the airport through at least …