The Register - Anti-Virus

Let the espionage and access resale campaigns begin (again)

A cyberspy crew or individual with ties to China's Ministry of State Security has infected global organizations with a remote access trojan (RAT) that's "even better" than Cobalt Strike, using this stealthy backdoor to enable its espionage and access resale campaigns.…

Stopping users shooting themselves in the foot with last century's tech

Microsoft has twisted the knife into ActiveX once again, setting Microsoft 365 to disable all controls without so much as a prompt.…

Car hire biz takes your privacy seriously, though

Car hire giant Hertz has confirmed that customer information was stolen during the zero-day data raids on Cleo file transfer products last year.…

That would put America on the same level as China for espionage

The European Commission is giving staffers visiting the US on official business burner laptops and phones to avoid espionage attempts, according to the Financial Times.…

Copilot vibe coding for OS development? Why not

Canny Windows users who've spotted a mysterious folder on hard drives after applying last week's security patches for the operating system can rest assured – it's perfectly benign. In fact, it's recommended you leave the directory there.…

IT admins, get ready to grumble

CA/Browser Forum – a central body of web browser makers, security certificate issuers, and friends – has voted to cut the maximum lifespan of new SSL/TLS certs to just 47 days by March 15, 2029.…

What's the goal here, Homeland Insecurity or something?

As drastic cuts to the US govt's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency loom, Rep Eric Swalwell (D-CA), the ranking member of the House's cybersecurity subcommittee, has demanded that CISA brief the subcommittee "prior to any significant changes to CISA's workforce or organizational structure."…

UK holds onto oversight by a whisker, but it's utterly barefaced on the other side of the pond

Opinion  The UK government's attempts to worm into Apple's core end-to-end encryption were set back last week when the country's Home Office failed in its bid to keep them secret on national security grounds.…

Brit retailer says troubled breakup with tech platform of former US owner nearing conclusion

Exclusive  Two of the top team behind Asda's £1 billion ($1.31 billion) tech divorce from US retail giant Walmart — which has seen a number of setbacks — are departing the company.…

PLUS: Chinese robodogs include backdoor; OpenAI helps spammer; A Dutch data disaster; And more!

Infosec In Brief  Fortinet last week admitted that attackers have found new ways to exploit three flaws it thought it had fixed last year.…

PLUS: India's new electronics subsidies; Philippines unplugs a mobile carrier; Alibaba Cloud expands

Asia In Brief  Chinese officials admitted to directing cyberattacks on US infrastructure at a meeting with their American counterparts, according to The Wall Street Journal.…

Military units, government nerds appear to join the fray, with physical infra in sights

Feature  From triggering a water tank overflow in Texas to shutting down Russian state news services on Vladimir Putin's birthday, self-styled hacktivists have been making headlines.…

Hallucinated package names fuel 'slopsquatting'

The rise of LLM-powered code generation tools is reshaping how developers write software - and introducing new risks to the software supply chain in the process.…

Redmond hopes you’ve forgotten or got over why everyone hated it the first time

After temporarily shelving its controversial Windows Recall feature amid a wave of backlash, Microsoft is back at it - now quietly slipping the screenshotting app into the Windows 11 Release Preview channel for Copilot+ PCs, signaling its near-readiness for general availability.…