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xAI's Grok Build coding CLI was uploading entire Git repositories, full commit history and all, to a Google Cloud Storage bucket run by xAI, not just the files a coding task needed. A researcher publishing as cereblab , testing version 0.2.93 , captured one of those uploads, cloned the git bundle out of the intercepted request, and pulled back a file the agent had been told in plain terms not to open. The upload rode a separate channel from the model itself, and the byte split is hard to argue with. On a 12 GB repo of files the model never read, model-turn traffic to /v1/responses came to about 192 KB while the storage channel to /v1/storage moved 5.10 GiB, a roughly 27,800x gap between what the model needed and what left the machine. That storage upload ran as 73 chunks of about 75 MB, every one returning HTTP 200, and across the researcher's size sweep the volume tracked total repo size. The destination bucket, grok-code-session-traces , is named in the binary and ...

The jscrambler npm package was compromised, and simply installing its 8.14.0 release runs an infostealer on your machine. Published on July 11, 2026, the malicious version carries a preinstall hook that drops and executes a native binary, one build each for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Socket flagged the release  six minutes after it was published . If you or one of your build systems pulled it in that window, the payload has already run with whatever access your install process had. None of this is in the prior release, 8.13.0.  The package diff  shows two new files under dist/: setup.js, a small loader, and intro.js. Despite the name, intro.js is not JavaScript but a roughly 7.8MB container packing three gzip-compressed native binaries, one each for Linux, Windows, and macOS. On install, setup.js picks the binary for the host operating system, writes it under a random name in the system temp directory...

Sophos looked at a week of its own endpoint data and found that AI coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor, and OpenAI Codex are setting off detection rules written to catch human intruders. The agents are not malicious. They just do a lot of things that, to a behavioral engine, look exactly like an attack. Decrypting browser credentials, listing what sits in Windows' credential store, pulling files down with built-in system tools, writing to the startup folder: these have long been high-signal to defenders. What has changed is who is generating it. On the machines Sophos watched, it was often a developer's AI assistant going about ordinary work. What set the alarms off The  analysis  draws on seven days of telemetry from June 2026, taken from Sophos's behavioral engine on Windows and counted by unique machines, not raw event volume. It is a narrow window on one vendor's fleet, not an industry census. Sophos's charts put credential access at 56.2 perc...

Today’s encrypted data, such as credentials, may no longer remain confidential in the future because the public-key cryptography protecting it will soon be broken by quantum computers. Although no machine today can break elliptic curve cryptography or RSA, quantum hardware is advancing rapidly and will inevitably change how organizations protect their data. Ciphertext and credentials captured by attackers can now be stored and decrypted as soon as quantum computing catches up. How urgent is quantum-resistant cryptography? The Global Risk Institute’s 2025 Quantum Threat Timeline report shows that surveyed security specialists believe a cryptographically relevant quantum computer is likely to be available within 15 years, with 51-70% indicating so. The threat dates back to 1994, when Peter Shor proved that a powerful quantum computer could efficiently factor large numbers and compute discrete logarithms. However, Shor’s algorithm applies to public-key cryptography, posing no meani...

Employee onboarding is a busy time for IT teams. New starters need devices, accounts, access permissions, and passwords, all delivered within a tight timeframe. That usually means sharing a temporary "first-day" password so employees can access systems for the first time. The issue is that these passwords don't always stay temporary. They may be sent over email or SMS, reused across accounts, or never changed at all, creating unnecessary risk during the onboarding process. For attackers, weak or poorly managed onboarding credentials can provide an easy route into corporate systems. To make the onboarding process more secure without slowing new employees down, it's important to understand why typical password-sharing methods introduce risk. When convenience overrides security The most common approach to sharing initial credentials with new employees is to send them in plain text over email or SMS. It's quick and convenient, especially during busy onboardin...

Privileged accounts are well-known gateways for potential security threats. However, many organizations focus solely on managing privileged access—rather than securing the accounts and users entrusted with it. This emphasis is perhaps due to the persistent challenges of Privileged Access Management (PAM) deployments. Yet, as the threat landscape evolves, so must organizational priorities. To prevent trust from becoming a liability, the next step in securing privileged access must become a critical focus. In this blog, we explore why managing privileged access alone is insufficient and provide actionable insights to help you craft a security-first strategy for privileged access. The Evolution of PAM Privileged Access Management (PAM) has long been a cornerstone of securing an organization’s privileged users and critical resources. PAM’s primary goal is to control, monitor, and safeguard privileged accounts, which often have elevated access to critical systems and data. These accou...