AI Platforms Expand With New Controls; Chrome Zero‑Day, VPN Fixes

Inside Fairwater: Microsoft's New Frontier AI Datacenter

🚀 Microsoft unveiled Fairwater, a purpose-built AI datacenter in Wisconsin and sister sites in Norway and the UK, designed to operate as a single, global-scale supercomputer. The facility deploys interconnected racks of NVIDIA GB200 servers (72 GPUs per rack) and claims 10× the performance of the world’s fastest supercomputer. It combines closed-loop liquid cooling, exabyte-scale storage and an AI WAN to enable distributed training and large-scale inference across Azure.

Amazon Bedrock Adds Four Qwen3 Open-Weight Models Now

🤖 Amazon Web Services added four Qwen3 open-weight foundation models to Amazon Bedrock as fully managed, serverless offerings. The lineup—Qwen3-Coder-480B-A35B-Instruct, Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507, and Qwen3-32B—covers both dense and Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architectures. The coder variants specialize in agentic coding, function calling, and tool use, while the 235B and 32B models provide general reasoning and efficient dense computation. These models are available now across multiple AWS regions, enabling developers to build advanced AI applications without managing infrastructure.

Gemini in Chrome: Secure AI for Enterprise Productivity

🤖 Gemini in Chrome brings AI assistance directly into the browser to help employees summarize reports, extract video insights, recall and navigate tabs, and take actions via integrations with Google Calendar, Docs, and Drive. Rolling out in the U.S. on Mac and Windows with Android availability and iOS coming soon, these features are configurable through Chrome Enterprise Core policies so IT retains control. AI Mode in the omnibox and enhanced Safe Browsing add context-aware responses and proactive protection against AI-driven scams.

Achieve Agentic Productivity with Vertex AI Agent Builder

🛠️ Vertex AI Agent Builder is a unified platform for building, grounding, and deploying production-grade AI agents, designed to move organizations from prototype to scalable, secure services. It centers development on five pillars: Agent frameworks, Model choice, Tools for taking actions, Scalability and performance, and Built-in trust and security, and supports the Agent Development Kit (ADK) and third-party models including Gemini 2.5 Flash Pro. The platform offers managed runtime features such as sandboxed code execution, Agent-to-Agent collaboration, Bidirectional Streaming, and a streamlined one-line path from ADK prototype to Agent Engine deployment, while enterprise controls like VPC-SC and CMEK address compliance and data protection.

CrowdStrike Enhances GenAI Data Protection Across Platforms

🔒 CrowdStrike announces four new innovations in Falcon Data Protection to help organizations prevent GenAI-driven data leaks across endpoints, cloud, SaaS and AI tools. The updates include real-time GenAI protections that span browsers, local apps and shadow AI services, unified out-of-the-box detections, AI-powered classifications, and a consolidated Insider Risk dashboard. Beta and general availability windows span late 2025 through mid-2026, with cloud features prioritized earlier.

Google patches sixth Chrome zero-day exploited in 2025

🔒Google has released emergency security updates to address a high-severity Chrome zero-day, CVE-2025-10585, which a public exploit indicates is being used in the wild. The vulnerability is a type confusion weakness in Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine and was reported by Google's Threat Analysis Group. Google issued emergency Stable Desktop releases — Chrome 140.0.7339.185/.186 for Windows and macOS and 140.0.7339.185 for Linux — and recommends users update immediately via Chrome menu > Help > About Google Chrome and click 'Relaunch' once the update finishes. The company also said it may withhold technical details until a majority of users have applied the fix.

AWS Outposts expand to Canada (Central) and N California

📢 Second-generation AWS Outposts racks are now supported in the AWS Canada (Central) and US West (N. California) Regions. Outposts racks extend AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools to on-premises data centers or colocation spaces, providing a consistent hybrid experience. Customers can order racks connected to these Regions to optimize for latency and data residency, run low-latency workloads locally, and maintain centralized management in their home Region.

Stability AI Image Services Now Available in Amazon Bedrock

🖼️ Amazon Bedrock now includes Stability AI Image Services, a suite of nine specialized image-editing tools available via the Bedrock API. The offering splits into Edit tools (Remove Background, Erase Object, Search and Replace, Search and Recolor, Inpaint) and Control tools (Structure, Sketch, Style Guide, Style Transfer). It is currently supported in US West (Oregon), US East (N. Virginia), and US East (Ohio), and is intended to accelerate professional creative workflows with granular edit control.

OpenAI Open-Weight Models Now in Eight More AWS Regions

🚀 AWS has expanded availability of OpenAI open weight models on Amazon Bedrock to eight additional regions. The update adds US East (N. Virginia), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Europe (Stockholm), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Europe (Ireland), South America (São Paulo), Europe (London), and Europe (Milan) to the previously supported US West (Oregon). This broader regional coverage reduces network latency, helps meet data residency preferences, and makes it easier for customers to deploy AI-powered applications closer to their users. Customers can access the models through the Amazon Bedrock console and supporting documentation to get started.

DeepSeek-V3.1 Available as Fully Managed in Bedrock

🔍 DeepSeek-V3.1 is now available as a fully managed foundation model in Amazon Bedrock, offering an open-weight option designed for enterprise deployment. The model supports a selectable 'thinking' mode for step-by-step analysis and a faster non-thinking mode for quicker replies, with improved multilingual accuracy and reduced hallucinations. Enhanced tool-calling, transparent reasoning, and strong coding and analytical performance make it well suited for building AI agents, automating workflows, and tackling complex technical tasks. DeepSeek-V3.1 is available in US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Tokyo, Mumbai), and Europe (London, Stockholm).

Google Cloud's Differentiated AI Stack Fuels Startups

🚀 Google Cloud highlights how its differentiated AI tech stack is accelerating startup innovation worldwide, with nine of the top ten AI labs, most AI unicorns, and more than 60% of generative AI startups using its platform. Startups are leveraging Vertex AI, TPUs, multimodal models like Veo 3 and Gemini, plus services such as AI Studio and GKE to build agents, generative media, medical tools, and developer platforms. Programs like the Google for Startups Cloud Program provide credits, mentorship, and engineering support to help founders scale.

CrowdStrike Advances Next-Gen Identity Security Innovations

🔐 CrowdStrike announced three enhancements to Falcon Next‑Gen Identity Security: FalconID, expanded privileged access controls, and identity‑driven case management. FalconID delivers FIDO2-based, phishing-resistant passwordless MFA via the Falcon for Mobile app, combining Bluetooth proximity checks with contextual telemetry to block credential phishing, MFA fatigue, and session hijacking. Privileged access updates add just-in-time workflows, Microsoft Teams request/revoke, Fusion SOAR automation, and hybrid coverage including local systems (early access). Identity-driven case management integrates identity detections into Falcon Next‑Gen SIEM and automates analyst response (generally available).

Route Cloudflare Tunnel Traffic by Hostname, Not IP

🔒 Cloudflare now lets administrators route traffic to a Cloudflare Tunnel by hostname or domain, removing the need to track changing IP addresses. By binding hostnames or wildcard domains to tunnels and writing Access or Gateway policies, teams can enforce per-resource zero-trust rules and secure egress without touching IP lists. Gateway uses synthetic initial IPs to tag hostname intent at Layer 4, map traffic back to private IPs, and forward it through the correct tunnel.

Amazon OpenSearch Serverless Adds Disk-Optimized Vectors

🔍 Amazon has added disk-optimized vector storage to OpenSearch Serverless, offering a lower-cost alternative to memory-optimized vectors while maintaining equivalent accuracy and recall. The disk-optimized option may introduce slightly higher latency, so it is best suited for semantic search, recommendation systems, and other AI search scenarios that do not require sub-millisecond responses. As a fully managed service, OpenSearch Serverless continues to automatically scale compute capacity (measured in OCUs) to match workload demands.

Google Issues Chrome Security Update for V8 Zero-Day

⚠️ Google released security updates for Chrome to address four vulnerabilities, including a zero-day (CVE-2025-10585) in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine that is reported to be exploited in the wild. The issue is a type confusion bug discovered and reported by Google's Threat Analysis Group on September 16, 2025, and can enable arbitrary code execution or crashes. Users should update to Chrome 140.0.7339.185/.186 (Windows/macOS) or 140.0.7339.185 (Linux) and apply vendor patches for other Chromium-based browsers when available.

US and UK Charge Two Suspects in Scattered Spider Attacks

🔒 US and UK authorities have charged two UK-based teenagers linked to the Scattered Spider cybercrime group in connection with multiple high-profile intrusions. Thalha Jubair, 19, and Owen Flowers, 18, face US and UK charges including conspiracy to commit computer fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and offences under the UK Computer Misuse Act. Authorities allege extensive social engineering, ransomware extortion and transfers of victim cryptocurrency, with investigators attributing at least $115m in ransom payments to the group. The arrests follow a multinational probe and earlier detentions of other alleged members.

Microsoft Takedown Disrupts RaccoonO365 Phishing Service

🛡️ Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit has seized 338 domains to dismantle the Phishing‑as‑a‑Service platform RaccoonO365, which enabled low‑skilled actors to deploy convincing Microsoft login pages. The DCU reports the service compromised more than 5,000 accounts across 94 countries since July 2024 and could bypass MFA to maintain persistent access. Operators marketed AI enhancements to scale attacks and collected at least $100,000 in cryptocurrency, prompting legal action to disrupt the infrastructure and seize control of the platform.

New Phoenix Rowhammer Bypass Elevates DDR5 Privilege Risk

⚠ The new Phoenix Rowhammer technique reverse-engineers TRR in SK Hynix DDR5 DIMMs to induce controlled bit flips previously believed mitigated. Researchers from ETH Zurich and Google report Phoenix reliably triggers flips across all 15 tested modules, enabling practical exploits such as forged Page Table Entries, RSA-2048 key leakage from co-located VMs, and a sudo-based root escalation. The issue is tracked as CVE-2025-6202.

WatchGuard patches critical IKEv2 VPN flaw in Fireboxes

🔒 WatchGuard has patched a critical IKEv2 "iked out of bounds write" vulnerability (CVE-2025-9242) that affects nearly three dozen current and legacy Firebox models. The flaw can enable remote code execution and authentication bypass via VPN ports UDP 500 and UDP 4500 and carries a CVSS score of 9.3, making prompt updates essential. Administrators should update to the vendor-supplied Fireware releases or apply the provided mitigations for environments that cannot upgrade immediately.

UK Arrests Teens Linked to Scattered Spider TfL Hack

🚨 Two teenagers have been arrested in the UK on suspicion of involvement in the August 2024 cyberattack against Transport for London; authorities say the suspects are believed to be members of the Scattered Spider collective. The National Crime Agency is prosecuting both on computer misuse and fraud-related charges, while U.S. prosecutors also filed charges against one suspect tied to multiple intrusions and extortion schemes. TfL reported that the breach disrupted internal systems and later confirmed customer data, including names and contact details, was compromised, causing operational disruption and financial losses.

Dover ProGauge MagLink LX Vulnerabilities and Fixes

⚠️ Dover Fueling Solutions disclosed critical vulnerabilities in its ProGauge MagLink LX4, LX4 Plus, and LX4 Ultimate tank monitors that may be exploited remotely. Identified issues include an integer overflow (CVE-2025-55068), a hard-coded cryptographic signing key (CVE-2025-54807), and non‑changeable weak default root credentials (CVE-2025-30519), with ratings up to CVSS v4 9.3. Affected firmware must be updated to 4.20.3 for LX4/LX4 Plus or 5.20.3 for LX4 Ultimate; operators are urged to minimize network exposure and place devices behind firewalls.

Cognex In-Sight Firmware: Multiple High-Risk Flaws

🔒 Cognex disclosed multiple high-severity vulnerabilities in In-Sight Explorer and firmware for the In-Sight 2000/7000/8000/9000 series (versions 5.x through 6.5.1). Identified issues include hard-coded credentials, cleartext management protocols (including telnet and a proprietary TCP 1069 service), weak default permissions, authentication bypass via capture-replay, and insufficient server-side enforcement. CISA assigns high CVSS scores (up to 8.8 v3.1 and 8.6 v4), warns of credential disclosure, configuration manipulation, and potential denial-of-service, and recommends migration to newer In-Sight Vision Suite systems and network isolation.

Hitachi Energy Service Suite Deserialization Vulnerability

⚠️ Hitachi Energy disclosed a critical deserialization-of-untrusted-data vulnerability affecting Service Suite (versions prior to 9.6.0.4 EP4) that permits unauthenticated remote access via IIOP or T3 to compromise Oracle WebLogic Server. The issue is tracked as CVE-2020-2883 with a CVSS v4 base score of 9.3 and is characterized as remotely exploitable with low attack complexity. Hitachi Energy advises updating affected instances to version 9.8.2 or the latest release and applying vendor mitigation guidance immediately. CISA additionally recommends minimizing network exposure, isolating control networks behind firewalls, using up-to-date VPNs for remote access, and performing risk and impact assessments prior to deploying defensive changes.

Malware Analysis: Ivanti EPMM Exploitation and Loaders

🔍 CISA analyzed malicious artifacts deployed after threat actors exploited CVE-2025-4427 and CVE-2025-4428 in Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM). The report details two distinct loader/listener sets written to /tmp that enable arbitrary code execution through crafted HTTP requests. CISA provides IOCs, YARA and SIGMA detection rules, and recommends immediate patching and treating MDM systems as high-value assets.

ShadowLeak: AI agents can exfiltrate data undetected

⚠️Researchers at Radware disclosed a vulnerability called ShadowLeak in the Deep Research module of ChatGPT that lets hidden, attacker-crafted instructions embedded in emails coerce an AI agent to exfiltrate sensitive data. The indirect prompt-injection technique hides commands using tiny fonts, white-on-white text or metadata and instructs the agent to encode and transmit results (for example, Base64-encoded lists of names and credit cards) to an attacker-controlled URL. Radware says the key risk is that exfiltration can occur from the model’s cloud backend, making detection by the affected organization very difficult; OpenAI was notified and implemented a fix, and Radware found the patch effective in subsequent tests.

New York Blood Center Breach Exposes 194,000 Records

🔒 The New York Blood Center (NYBCe) confirmed that an unauthorized party accessed internal systems between January 20 and January 26, 2025, and copied files containing personal and health information for nearly 194,000 individuals. Compromised data includes names, Social Security numbers, driver's license or state ID numbers, bank account details for direct deposit, and health/test records. NYBCe says it moved quickly to contain the incident, is offering free identity protection through Experian, and has set up a call line for potentially affected people.

SystemBC Turns Compromised VPS into High-Capacity Proxy

🔎 Researchers at Lumen Technology’s Black Lotus Labs say the SystemBC proxy botnet actively targets commercial VPS instances worldwide to build a high-capacity proxy network. The operation averages about 1,500 bots daily, relies on more than 80 C2 servers, and primarily exploits unpatched systems that often contain dozens of vulnerabilities. Customers and operators exhibit poor operational security, and the service is used by ransomware groups and third-party proxy resellers.

PyPI Invalidates Tokens Stolen in GhostAction Attack

🔐 The Python Software Foundation has invalidated PyPI publishing tokens that were exfiltrated during the early-September GhostAction supply chain attack. GitGuardian first reported malicious GitHub Actions workflows attempting to steal secrets, and PyPI found no evidence that the stolen tokens were used to publish malware. Affected maintainers were contacted and advised to rotate credentials and adopt short-lived Trusted Publishers tokens for GitHub Actions. PyPI also recommended reviewing account security history for suspicious activity.

CountLoader Expands Use by Russian Ransomware Groups

🔒 Researchers have identified CountLoader, a multi‑language malware loader used by Russian ransomware affiliates and initial access brokers to deploy post‑exploit tools such as Cobalt Strike, AdaptixC2 and the commercial PureHVNC RAT. Appearing in .NET, PowerShell and JavaScript flavors, the loader has been observed in PDF phishing campaigns targeting Ukraine and employs LOLBins and multiple download/execution methods to evade detection. The JavaScript variant is most feature‑complete, offering diverse downloaders, execution paths and persistence via a Google‑update‑named scheduled task.

Westermo WeOS 5 IPSec Denial-of-Service Fix Released

🔔 A vulnerability in Westermo WeOS 5 when IPSec is enabled can allow a specially crafted ESP packet to trigger an immediate device reboot. Westermo reported the flaw and released WeOS 5 version 5.24.0 to address the issue. CISA rates the vulnerability as remotely exploitable with a CVSS v4 score of 8.2 and notes high attack complexity.

CISA Malware Analysis: Malicious Listener for Ivanti EPMM

🛡️ CISA released a Malware Analysis Report analyzing two malware families recovered from an organization compromised via CVE-2025-4427 and CVE-2025-4428 in Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile. The report, titled Malicious Listener for Ivanti EPMM Systems, provides indicators of compromise and detection content including YARA and SIGMA rules to support hunting and response. Recommended mitigations stress upgrading Ivanti EPMM to the latest versions and treating mobile device management systems as high-value assets with enhanced monitoring, access controls, and restrictions.

Hitachi Energy Asset Suite: Multiple High-Risk Flaws

⚠️ Hitachi Energy has disclosed multiple high-severity vulnerabilities in Asset Suite, affecting versions 9.6.4.5 and earlier. The issues include SSRF, deserialization of untrusted data, cleartext password exposure, uncontrolled resource consumption, open redirect, and improper authentication that can lead to remote code execution. Customers should apply vendor-provided mitigations and upgrades immediately to reduce exposure.

WatchGuard warns of critical Firebox RCE in IKEv2 VPN

🔒 WatchGuard has released security updates to address a remote code execution vulnerability affecting its Firebox firewalls. Tracked as CVE-2025-9242, the flaw stems from an out-of-bounds write in the iked process and can be exploited remotely when devices are configured to use IKEv2 VPN. Patches are available for Fireware OS 12.x, 2025.1, and select 11.x builds, and WatchGuard offers a temporary workaround for environments using branch office VPNs to static peers.

OpenAI enhances ChatGPT Search to rival Google AI results

🔎 OpenAI has rolled out an update to ChatGPT Search that improves accuracy, reliability, and link summarization to reduce hallucinations and make answers easier to verify. The search now better detects shopping intent, surfacing products when appropriate while keeping results focused for other queries, and it improves link summaries so users can follow back to sources. Answers are reformatted for quicker comprehension without sacrificing detail. OpenAI also added an GPT-5 Thinking toggle with adjustable 'juice' effort levels; the changes are rolling out gradually.

AWS Step Functions Adds IPv6 Dual-Stack Endpoint Support

🌐 AWS Step Functions now supports IPv6 via new dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 endpoints, enabling customers to send IPv6 traffic directly to the service. The enhancement preserves backwards compatibility with existing IPv4 endpoints and enables PrivateLink interface VPC endpoint connectivity so workloads can access Step Functions privately without traversing the public internet. IPv6 support is generally available in several US commercial and GovCloud regions.

SonicWall: Cloud Backup Compromise Impacts 5% of Base

🔒 SonicWall has disclosed a security incident affecting its cloud backup service for firewalls, reporting that threat actors accessed stored preference files for roughly 5% of its install base. While credentials inside those files are encrypted, exposed metadata such as serial numbers could enable future targeting. SonicWall said this was not a ransomware event but a series of brute-force attempts. Impacted customers are asked to check MySonicWall, restrict WAN access, follow the vendor's remediation checklist, and import a supplied preferences file that randomizes local passwords and IPSec keys.

Westermo WeOS 5 OS Command Injection Vulnerability

⚠️ Westermo disclosed an OS command injection vulnerability in WeOS 5 (CVE-2025-46418) affecting versions 5.24 and later. The flaw arises from unsafe handling of media definitions and can allow an authenticated administrator to inject OS commands and potentially exceed intended privileges. CVSS scores include 7.6 (v3.1) and 8.7 (v4). Vendor and CISA recommend restricting admin access, segmenting networks, and using secure remote access practices as mitigations.

Malware Distributed Through Trusted Gaming Resources

🎮 Several incidents show attackers distributing malware via trusted gaming channels, including a compromised Endgame Gear OP1w utility, infected early-access Steam titles, and malicious skins on the official Minecraft site. The Endgame Gear installer likely contained the XRed backdoor, while Steam cases involved infostealers such as Trojan.Win32.Lazzzy.gen that harvested cookies and credentials. Users suffered account takeovers and data loss; recommended defenses include up-to-date antivirus, cautious vetting of downloads, and using gaming security modes that minimize disruption.

Insight Partners Discloses 2024 Ransomware Breach Impacting

🔒 Insight Partners disclosed a ransomware attack that occurred around 25 October 2024 but was first detected on 16 January 2025. The firm says a sophisticated social engineering attack enabled a threat actor to exfiltrate data and encrypt servers before being expelled the same day. About 12,657 individuals may be affected; the firm offers free identity-theft protection and urges password resets and MFA.

Partnering with Google Cloud MSSPs to Modernize SecOps

🔒 Google Cloud presents its certified MSSP ecosystem as a way to modernize security operations by combining partner expertise with Google Cloud Security products. Partners accelerate deployments and migrations, shorten time to value, and augment limited internal teams with specialized talent and AI-enabled tooling such as Google Security Operations and Mandiant. By providing scalable, 24/7 managed detection and response, MSSPs can reduce manual alerts, lower operational costs, and protect workloads across on-premises and multicloud environments.

AWS Bedrock Adds OpenAI Open‑Weight Models in Eight Regions

🚀 AWS has expanded availability of OpenAI open weight models on AWS Bedrock to eight additional AWS Regions worldwide. The update brings the models to US East (N. Virginia), Asia Pacific (Tokyo, Mumbai), Europe (Stockholm, Ireland, London, Milan) and South America (São Paulo), alongside existing US West (Oregon) support. This broader footprint aims to lower latency, improve model performance and help customers meet data residency requirements. To get started, use the Amazon Bedrock console or consult the documentation.

Zscaler ThreatLabz: Global Ransomware Surge 2024–2025

🔒 Zscaler's annual ThreatLabz Ransomware Report (April 2024–April 2025) warns of a marked rise in extortion-focused attacks: incidents increased 146% year-over-year while exfiltrated data grew 92%. The vendor attributes this to a strategic shift from pure encryption to data theft and public shaming, with criminals using stolen files as leverage. Researchers also report that generative AI is increasingly incorporated into attackers' playbooks to enable more targeted and efficient campaigns. The U.S. accounted for half of all recorded attacks, Germany saw a nearly 75% rise and is the EU's most affected country, and the most-targeted sectors were manufacturing, technology and healthcare.

Where CISOs Should See Splunk Go Next: AI & Resilience

🔍 At .Conf in Boston, Splunk and parent company Cisco positioned machine data as central to next‑generation AI incident response, arguing telemetry represents roughly 55% of global data growth. They stressed tighter integration of security and observability, a federated data model with new support for Snowflake, and standards work such as OpenTelemetry and the Open Cybersecurity Framework (OCSF). Splunk also previewed enhanced security operations capabilities — a premier Enterprise Security bundle, Detection Studio, and agentic AI features — while acknowledging customer concerns about costs, legacy positioning, and support.

OpenAI adds user control over GPT-5 Thinking model options

⚙️ OpenAI is rolling out a toggle that lets Plus, Pro, and Business subscribers choose how much "thinking" the GPT-5 Thinking model performs, trading off speed, cost, and depth. The simpler toggle UI replaces a tested slider and exposes internal "juice" effort levels — for example, Standard (juice=18) and Extended (64). Pro users also get Light (5) for very fast replies and Heavy (200) for the model's maximum reasoning depth.

AWS Kinesis Data Streams Adds IPv6 and FIPS in GovCloud

🌐 Amazon Web Services announced that Kinesis Data Streams now supports API requests over IPv6 in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions, with optional dual-stack (IPv4/IPv6) public and VPC endpoints. The new endpoints have been validated under FIPS 140-3, enabling FIPS-compliant encryption for customers contracting with the US federal government. IPv6 support reduces address overlap and simplifies connectivity for devices and networks already using IPv6. This capability is available in all Regions where Kinesis Data Streams operates, including GovCloud and China Regions.

Amazon Q Developer CLI Adds Remote MCP Server Support

🔒 Amazon Q Developer CLI now supports remote MCP servers to centralize tool integrations and OAuth-based authentication, enhancing scalability and security in development workflows. Administrators specify HTTP transport, the authentication URL, and optional headers in agent configuration or mcp.json. Upon successful OAuth authentication, the CLI enumerates tools on the MCP server and exposes them to the agent. This capability is available in both the CLI and the Amazon Q Developer IDE plugins.

Step Functions: Data Sources and Metrics for Distributed Map

⚙️ AWS Step Functions now expands Distributed Map input sources and adds visibility metrics. Distributed Map can now iterate S3 objects via S3ListObjectsV2, read AWS Athena data manifests and Parquet files directly, and extract arrays from JSON stored in S3 or passed as state input. New observability metrics — Approximate Open Map Runs Count, Open Map Run Limit, and Approximate Map Runs Backlog Size — provide operational insight. These features are available in all commercial AWS Regions; enable Distributed Map mode in the Step Functions console and consult the developer guide for examples.

Palo Alto Acknowledges Browser-Malware Risks, Validates LMR

🔍 SquareX’s Last Mile Reassembly (LMR) research, disclosed at DEF CON 32, shows how attackers split and reassemble malware inside the browser to evade Secure Web Gateways (SWGs). Palo Alto Networks has become the first major SASE vendor to publicly acknowledge this class of browser-assembled evasive attacks and announced enhancements to Prisma Browser. SquareX says LMR and related Data Splicing techniques exploit channels like WebRTC and gRPC, bypassing traditional SWG and DLP controls and underscoring the need for browser-native security.

Amazon SageMaker HyperPod Adds Managed Karpenter Autoscaling

🛠️ Amazon SageMaker HyperPod now supports managed node autoscaling using Karpenter, enabling automated cluster scaling for both inference and training workloads. This managed capability removes the operational burden of installing and maintaining autoscaling infrastructure while providing integrated resilience and fault tolerance. Customers gain just-in-time GPU provisioning, scale-to-zero during low demand, workload-aware instance selection, and cost reductions through intelligent consolidation.

Mr. Cooper and Google Cloud Build Multi-Agent AI Team

🤖 Mr. Cooper partnered with Google Cloud to develop CIERA, a modular agentic AI framework that assembles specialized agents to support mortgage servicing representatives and customers. The design assigns distinct roles — orchestration, task execution, data retrieval, memory, and evaluation — while keeping humans in the loop for verification and personalization. Built on Vertex AI, CIERA aims to reduce research time, lower average handling time, and preserve trust and compliance in regulated workflows.

SonicWall Urges Password Resets After Backup Files Exposure

🔒 SonicWall is urging customers to reset credentials after detecting suspicious activity that exposed firewall configuration backup files stored in MySonicWall cloud for under 5% of users. Although stored credentials were encrypted, the preference files contained information that could help attackers exploit related firewalls; the company says this was a series of brute-force accesses, not a ransomware event. Customers should verify backups, disable remote management and VPN access, reset passwords and TOTPs, review logs, and import the provided randomized preferences file that resets local passwords, TOTP bindings, and IPSec keys.

One in Three Android Apps Expose Sensitive Data to Attackers

🔒 The 2025 Zimperium Global Mobile Threat Report finds that one in three Android apps and more than half of iOS apps leak sensitive information through insecure APIs, and nearly half of apps contain hardcoded secrets such as API keys. Client-side weaknesses let attackers tamper with apps, intercept traffic and bypass perimeter defences. The report recommends API hardening and app attestation to ensure API calls originate from genuine, untampered apps.

Schneider Electric Saitel RTU OS Command Injection

⚠️ Schneider Electric disclosed OS command injection vulnerabilities in Saitel DR and Saitel DP RTUs that could allow execution of arbitrary shell commands when BLMon is invoked in an SSH session. Two issues (CVE-2025-9996, CVE-2025-9997) carry a CVSS v4 base score of 5.8 (v3.1 6.6). Affected firmware versions are Saitel DR <= 11.06.29 and Saitel DP <= 11.06.33; fixed firmware releases are available and require a reboot. Schneider recommends restricting BLMon access, firewalling SSH, and following standard patching and ICS best practices.

CISA Issues Nine New ICS Advisories on Sep 18, 2025

🛡️ CISA released nine Industrial Control Systems (ICS) advisories on September 18, 2025, detailing vulnerabilities, exploits, and mitigations affecting multiple vendors and products. The advisories cover Westermo WeOS, Schneider Electric Saitel RTUs, Hitachi Energy Asset and Service Suites, Cognex In‑Sight devices, Dover Fueling Solutions ProGauge MagLink LX4 devices, plus updates for rail linking protocols and Mitsubishi FA engineering tools. Administrators and operators are urged to review the technical details and apply recommended mitigations promptly to reduce operational and safety risk.

Protecting SMBs From Ransomware: Trends and Defenses

🔒 Small and medium-sized businesses are increasingly targeted by ransomware gangs that exploit weak defenses, offer Ransomware-as-a-Service, and adapt tactics with AI-driven tools. RaaS industrialization and discoveries like ESET's PromptLock demonstrate how attackers can scale reconnaissance, exploitation and social engineering. SMBs face double-extortion, DDoS and coercive pressures while repeat payments remain an issue despite a decline in aggregate crypto payouts. Practical defenses—Zero Trust, timely patching, reliable backups, EDR/MDR and tested incident response—can materially reduce risk.

Pompompurin Resentenced: BreachForums Creator Jailed

🔒 Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, known online as "Pompompurin", has been resentenced to three years in prison after a U.S. appeals court overturned his earlier lenient term. He created and administered the notorious BreachForums, a marketplace for stolen data and hacking tools, and was arrested after the Department of Justice disrupted the site. Fitzpatrick had violated pretrial release conditions and pleaded guilty to hacking charges and possession of child sexual abuse material; the forum remains active under a new domain.

Brute-force Attacks Target SonicWall Cloud Backups

🔒 SonicWall warned that brute-force attacks against its firewall API used for cloud backups may have exposed preference files stored in customers' MySonicWall.com portals. The vendor has disabled the cloud backup capability and is urging admins to restrict or disable SSLVPN and Web/SSH management over the WAN, then reset passwords, keys, and secrets. Less than 5% of the install base had backups in the cloud, but that could still affect thousands of organizations. SonicWall has provided remediation guidance and will notify customers if their accounts show impacted serial numbers.

Amazon VPC Reachability and Network Access Analyzer Expand

🛰️ Amazon has expanded VPC Reachability Analyzer and VPC Network Access Analyzer to seven additional regions — New Zealand, Hyderabad, Melbourne, Taipei, Calgary, Tel Aviv, and Mexico Central. Reachability Analyzer diagnoses network reachability between source and destination resources, while Network Access Analyzer identifies unintended access paths that may bypass security controls. This regional launch improves troubleshooting, compliance checks, and multi-account network visibility; pricing and documentation are available through AWS resources.

Seattle Children’s Uses AI to Accelerate Pediatric Care

🤖 Seattle Children’s partnered with Google Cloud to build Pathway Assistant, a multimodal AI chatbot that turns thousands of pediatric clinical pathway PDFs into conversational, searchable guidance. Using Vertex AI and Gemini, the assistant extracts JSON metadata, parses diagrams and flowcharts, and returns cited answers in seconds. The tool logs clinician feedback to BigQuery and stores source documents in Cloud Storage, enabling continuous improvement of documentation and metadata.

Notepad Adds Free AI Writing Tools on Copilot+ Windows 11

📝 Microsoft is adding free AI-powered text features to Notepad on Copilot+ PCs running Windows 11, rolling out now to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels on Notepad version 11.2508.28.0. The new Summarize, Write, and Rewrite tools were previously part of Microsoft 365 subscriptions but are available without an extra subscription on Copilot+ devices. Features support English only; subscribers can switch between local and cloud models while unsigned users use the local model. Users may disable the AI options in settings or uninstall the updated Notepad to use classic notepad.exe. Paint and Snipping Tool also received recent updates.

Source-of-Truth Authorization for RAG Knowledge Bases

🔒 This post presents an architecture to enforce strong, source-of-truth authorization for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) knowledge bases using Amazon S3 Access Grants with Amazon Bedrock. It explains why vector DB metadata filtering is insufficient—permission changes can be delayed and complex identity memberships are hard to represent—and recommends validating permissions at the data source before returning chunks to an LLM. The blog includes a practical Python walkthrough for exchanging identity tokens, retrieving caller grant scopes, filtering returned chunks, and logging withheld items to reduce the risk of sensitive data leaking into LLM prompts.

Malicious PyPI Packages Deliver SilentSync Remote RAT

⚠️ Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers discovered two malicious Python packages, sisaws and secmeasure, that were designed to deliver the SilentSync remote access trojan to Windows hosts. Both packages, uploaded by a user identified as 'CondeTGAPIS' and since removed from PyPI, contained downloader logic that retrieved a second-stage Python payload (via Pastebin) and executed code in memory. SilentSync can execute commands, harvest browser credentials and cookies, capture screenshots, and exfiltrate files, while offering persistence mechanisms across Windows, Linux and macOS.

NCA to Lead Five Eyes Effort Against 'The Com' Networks

🔒 The UK's National Crime Agency will chair the Five Eyes Law Enforcement Group (FELEG) and concentrate on disrupting cybercrime, money laundering and online sexual abuse of children over the next two years. The NCA singled out loosely affiliated native-English networks known as 'The Com', which operate across messaging apps, gaming platforms and forums and share violent and child-abuse material. It also linked these groups to data-theft and extortion campaigns involving actors such as Scattered Spider, ShinyHunters and Lapsus$, citing incidents affecting retailers and luxury brands. FELEG has promoted the UK's Counter Terrorism Policing to full member status to strengthen responses to hybrid threats.

Amazon Lex: confirmation and currency slots in 10 languages

🤖 Amazon Lex now supports built-in confirmation and currency slot types in 10 additional languages: Portuguese, Catalan, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, and Korean. These built-in slots normalize varied user phrasing—mapping acknowledgements to 'Yes', 'No', 'Don't know', or 'Maybe' and converting currency expressions into structured formats such as 'USD 1.00'—to simplify multi-lingual conversational flows. The feature is available in all commercial AWS Regions where Amazon Lex operates and can improve chatbots and contact-center interactions.

Unit 42 Earns NCSC Enhanced Level Incident Response

🔒 Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 has been added to the UK's NCSC Cyber Incident Response scheme at the Enhanced Level, demonstrating certified capability to manage the most complex and impactful cyber incidents. The assurance verifies structured, government-benchmarked processes, strong investigative expertise, and a customer-focused retainer model tailored to regulatory and operational needs. This recognition underscores Unit 42's role in helping organisations reduce dwell time, contain threats faster, and strengthen long-term resilience.

Microsoft Named Leader in 2025 Gartner IIoT Report

🔷 Microsoft was named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Global Industrial IIoT Platforms, highlighting its industrial cloud portfolio. Azure’s adaptive cloud—anchored by Azure IoT, Azure Arc, Azure Digital Twins, and Microsoft Fabric—is positioned to unify cloud-to-edge data, enable real‑time intelligence, and scale AI-driven operations. The platform emphasizes security with Microsoft Defender for IoT, Microsoft Sentinel, and Microsoft Entra, while enabling brownfield integration and partner-led solutions to accelerate industrial modernization.

Microsoft 365: Why Its Dominance Creates Major Risk

🔒 Microsoft 365 has become the central nervous system of modern business, and its market dominance has turned the platform into a lucrative target for attackers. With over 400 million paid seats and tightly integrated apps like Outlook, SharePoint, Teams and OneDrive, a single compromise can cascade across services. Organizations must close backup gaps, adopt zero trust, enforce MFA and deploy cross-application threat detection to reduce catastrophic exposure.

Mind the Gap: TOCTOU Vulnerabilities in LLM-Enabled Agents

⚠️A new study, “Mind the Gap,” examines time-of-check to time-of-use (TOCTOU) flaws in LLM-enabled agents and introduces TOCTOU-Bench, a 66-task benchmark. The authors demonstrate practical attacks such as malicious configuration swaps and payload injection and evaluate defenses adapted from systems security. Their mitigations—prompt rewriting, state integrity monitoring, and tool-fusing—achieve up to 25% automated detection and materially reduce the attack window and executed vulnerabilities.

AI Shifts Entry-Level Cyber Hiring Toward Soft Skills

🔍Teamwork, problem-solving and analytical thinking now outrank core technical skills in entry-level cybersecurity hiring, according to an ISC2 study of 929 hiring managers across the US, UK, Canada, Germany, India and Japan. The report finds AI is reshaping priorities: managers favour human strengths that AI can't duplicate while routine monitoring is increasingly automated. Experts warn that overreliance on certifications and broken entry pipelines exclude capable candidates, prompting vendors and employers to broaden recruitment through apprenticeships, neurodiverse hiring and outreach to career changers.

Amazon EVS Adds HCX Migration Over Public Internet

🌐 Amazon EVS now supports VMware HCX migrations over the public internet using Elastic IP Addresses (EIPs) to provide stable endpoints and faster setup. This option supplements existing private connectivity methods such as AWS Direct Connect and VPN, enabling secure layer‑2 network stretch and workload migration when private links are unavailable. Public HCX connectivity is available in all AWS Regions where EVS is offered and can be a cost‑effective alternative for workloads that do not require private connection performance.

Network Performance Whitepapers: Retransmits, MTU, and PPS

🔍 This post introduces the third installment in Google Cloud’s Network Performance Decoded series, summarizing three whitepapers that examine TCP retransmission tuning, the effects of headers and MTU on effective throughput, and techniques to measure packets-per-second with netperf. The guidance highlights practical kernel tuning (for example, rto_min and thin linear timeouts), how protocol and cloud-specific headers reduce payload efficiency, and rigorous netperf methodologies for sizing tests and correcting skew when measuring PPS. While examples reference Google Cloud features such as Protective ReRoute, the recommendations are broadly applicable to cloud deployments seeking improved responsiveness and accurate benchmarking.

IR Playbooks and Mental Health After Major Incidents

🛡️ Joe Marshall uses the VPN Filter investigation to illuminate the often-hidden personal cost of incident response. He recounts months of high-pressure analysis into a modular SOHO botnet attributed to APT28 that featured persistence and a potentially destructive kill switch, and describes how prolonged stress produced burnout, fractured relationships, and career impact. Marshall offers four practical mitigations — boundaries, peer support, unplugged self-care, and mandatory decompression — and underscores how a Cisco Talos Incident Response (IR) Retainer can ensure organizations respond decisively while protecting staff wellbeing.

Forrester: Microsoft Defender Delivers 242% ROI Over 3 Years

🔒 Microsoft’s latest Forrester TEI study found a 242% return on investment over three years for organizations using Microsoft Defender. The analysis attributes $17.8 million in total benefits and reports an average payback period of less than six months for a composite organization. Integrated with Microsoft Sentinel, Defender streamlines SecOps by consolidating tooling, lowering false positives, and accelerating response through automation and KQL-enabled detections. Customers cite improved visibility across hybrid and multicloud environments and reduced operational overhead.

How CISOs Can Build Effective AI Governance Programs

🛡️ AI's rapid enterprise adoption requires CISOs to replace inflexible bans with living governance that both protects data and accelerates innovation. The article outlines three practical components: gaining ground truth visibility with AI inventories, AIBOMs and model registries; aligning policies to the organization's speed so governance is executable; and making governance sustainable by provisioning secure tools and rewarding compliant behavior. It highlights SANS guidance and training to help operationalize these approaches.

Check Point Honors Top Asia Pacific Partners in 2025

🤝 Check Point Software Technologies recognised top-performing partners across Asia Pacific at its 2025 Partner Conference held 8-11 September at the JW Marriott Hanoi. Nearly 200 regional partners gathered to address rising AI-driven cyber threats, share best practices and strengthen go-to-market strategies. As a 100% partner-led organisation, Check Point celebrated channel excellence with awards that honoured innovation, collaboration and outstanding adoption of its unified security portfolio. The event reinforced the ecosystem’s central role in securing organizations across the region.

Alex Ryan: From Zero Chill to Quiet Confidence at Talos

🔒 In this Humans of Talos interview, Alex Ryan, an Incident Commander with Cisco Talos Incident Response, reflects on her unconventional path from liberal arts degrees to a career in cybersecurity and threat intelligence. She describes the technical and emotional realities of incident response—triaging IOCs, conducting forensic analysis, and quickly building customer trust—while managing high stress and business risk. Ryan also discusses recovering from burnout after parenthood, learning to set boundaries, and how a supportive team helps sustain long-term performance.