Attackers' modus operandi: cutting off victims' fingers to pressure payments
In brief: There has been a spate of kidnappings taking place across France and Western Europe in which victims are cryptocurrency investors. The most recent incident involved the owner of a crypto marketing firm having his finger cut off by attackers. Police say the man could have been mutilated further had he not been rescued.
Forward-looking: Visa plans to allow AI agents to conduct financial transactions on behalf of consumers, a move that could streamline and automate everyday purchases. The company is currently running pilot programs that connect its payment network to AI platforms developed by firms such as Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI, Perplexity, and Mistral, with broader adoption expected soon.
It's not a bug, but a feature, Microsoft confirmed to concerned researchers
WTF?! The proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft to facilitate remote connections to Windows machines contains an outstanding security flaw. However, Microsoft has stated that it has no plans to fix the issue, as doing so would break compatibility with many applications.
TL;DR: A new study analyzing more than 19 billion passwords from relatively recent data breaches between April 2024 and 2025 has found that the vast majority are weak. Alarmingly, only six percent of the leaked passwords were unique, leading researchers to describe a widespread epidemic of weak password reuse.
75% of all electronics are tested at labs located inside China
Cutting corners: Not content with banning sales of high-end AI chips to China and imposing 145% tariffs on many imports from the country, the US government is now trying to stop companies from using Chinese labs to test electronic devices available in the United States.
Greedy patching: Hot patching is a way to quickly install security updates without requiring an OS reboot. Microsoft has offered the feature for years through its Azure cloud platform, but it's soon coming to non-cloud versions of Windows Server. It won't be free, but Microsoft's target audience is enterprise customers.
Apple already issued patches, so be sure to update your systems immediately
In brief: Security researchers have uncovered a wide-ranging set of vulnerabilities in Apple's AirPlay protocol that could allow attackers to hijack Apple and third-party devices remotely without user interaction. The exploit chain, dubbed "AirBorne," includes 23 individual bugs – 17 with official CVEs – and enables zero-click remote code execution on vulnerable systems.