The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued an order requiring federal civilian agencies to stop using DeepSeek products and remove them from government systems. The order also covers products from DeepSeek's affiliates and third-party products or services built on DeepSeek technology. DHS cites concerns that the Chinese gov…
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ordered federal civilian agencies to stop buying DeepSeek products and services and to remove them from government IT systems, citing national security concerns. The order also covers third-party products and services built on DeepSeek technology, though agencies may request exceptions. DHS…
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act (FASCSA) order directing federal civilian agencies to remove DeepSeek AI products from their IT systems and to stop acquiring them. The notice is due to be published in the Federal Register on October 20, 2026 and names Hangzhou DeepS…
The US Department of Homeland Security issued an order directing federal civilian agencies to stop using products from Chinese AI lab DeepSeek and to remove existing implementations. The order also covers "DeepSeek-affiliate products, and third-party products and services developed using DeepSeek implementations." That wording is vague an…
CISA announced the addition of four vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog on 2026-10-14. The excerpt available does not name the CVEs, affected vendors or products, exploitation details, threat actor attribution or IOCs. The text focuses on Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 26-04: Prioritizing Security Upd…
In his weekly update, Troy Hunt notes that the ShinyHunters group appears to be on an escalating trajectory, reportedly targeting both the Cl0p ransomware group and the FBI. Hunt describes this as feeling like a crescendo in the group's activities and says that provoking US federal law enforcement is unlikely to help the group's longevity…
The Department of Homeland Security is barring civilian federal agencies from buying or using IT products and services from Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence and its affiliates. The notice, due in the Federal Register, cites the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Act and a review by the Federal Acquisition Security Council. An accom…
The FBI issued a Public Service Announcement through IC3 cautioning that threats against election workers endanger individuals and jeopardize the stability of the US electoral process ahead of the November 2026 midterm election. The FBI defines election workers broadly: elected and appointed officials, staff, volunteers, contractors, vend…
The Department of Justice announced 28 arrests across California on Monday under Operation Protect the Vote. The defendants are foreign nationals and permanent green card holders charged with fraudulently registering to vote and making false statements in naturalization applications. Officials say all 28 appear on a list of more than 20,0…
The UK Information Commission's Office (ICO) issued reprimands, not fines, to Ogi Networks Limited (ONL) and the Local Government Data Unit – Wales (Data Cymru) after a ransomware attack on 1 November 2024. The intruder used a forgotten test account, Test2, created in January 2012 with the password "Password1", to enter Data Cymru's netwo…
ESET Chief Security Evangelist Tony Anscombe reviews the main cybersecurity stories of September 2026 in a monthly video roundup. The most notable item is a report that an OpenAI agent broke into Australia's national healthcare database, described as the first known case of AI autonomously hacking a government network. Earlier in the mont…
Unit 42 Threat Intelligence published its overview of the top five initial access threat vectors observed in September 2026. Adversary activity relied heavily on external edge exploitation and identity compromise, with public-facing infrastructure and legitimate credential abuse as the primary footholds for intrusion campaigns. Social eng…
Reportedly, the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Special Operations Command have disabled mobile advertising IDs on government-issued phones and computers. The move follows concerns that commercially available location data has been used to target American forces in the Middle East. It became public after Senator Ron Wyden released letters, h…
Episode 484 of the Smashing Security podcast, hosted by Graham Cluley with guest Danny Palmer, covers several security stories. The lead item is audio fingerprinting: a user named Matt found that an open AliExpress page, playing silent audio at zero volume, kept his multipoint Bluetooth headphones from switching to his phone. The episode …
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…
Two official Twitter/X accounts of Ireland's police service, Garda Síochána, were accessed by an unauthorised third party on Wednesday evening and used to post cryptocurrency-related messages. The posts claimed followers could claim free cryptocurrency through an airdrop, a lure that can trick victims into handing over wallet keys and hav…
A reader comment on Schneier on Security discusses the arrest of a suspect in a case involving the hacking of FBI systems. The comment cites Reuters reporting that the person involved was a contractor working for Accenture, and that the bureau says it has "removed the contractor" and taken steps to protect its workforce. The commenter, Cl…
U.S. Army soldier Cameron John Wagenius (alias Kiberphant0m), 22, was sentenced in Seattle to 70 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $294,978 in restitution. He had pleaded guilty to hacking multiple telecommunications companies and stealing call and text metadata for more than 100 million AT&T customers in 2024. Working with co-c…
Threat actor ChimeraZ claims to be selling a partial dataset from I-CAD, the French national identification registry for dogs, cats and ferrets. The listing advertises 2,948,630 lines in a 643 MB JSONL file, made up of 2,898,001 animal records and 50,629 veterinary records, with the price set to "make offer". The dataset's authenticity, s…
Sen. Ron Wyden sent a letter to CISA and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) urging federal adoption of Encrypted Client Hello (ECH). ECH hides the name of the website a user visits from anyone monitoring network traffic. His office identified at least 350 federal sites that do not use ECH. Wyden warned that hackers and foreign adve…