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Google has updated its privacy policy to spell out that using personalized artificial intelligence (AI) features in Search or Gemini could allow the company to serve targeted ads to users based on their activity on other connected Google services. "You may choose to allow certain Google services, including services like Search or Gemini Apps, to access data from other Google services you use, such as Google Photos and Workspace apps like Gmail and Drive, in order to provide you with a more personalized experience, subject to the policies and settings of the accessing service," reads a policy update effective October 16, 2026. "For example, Search may process some of the data that you allow Search to access to personalize content, including ads." Google also notes in its revised policy that "We don't show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Google Photos, unless you choose to make data from these services available to ...

Between November 2025 and March 2026, the Dutch security firm Eye Security pushed more than 2 million updates to computers it did not own to switch off a background updater that it said could have allowed an outsider to take over the machine. The updater belongs to Time4Popcorn , an abandoned copy of Popcorn Time, a free app that streamed pirated films and TV over BitTorrent. Popcorn Time was popular about a decade ago, and the original shut down in 2014, but several copies kept running under the same name. A separate, legal project that took the Popcorn Time name in early 2025 is unrelated to it. Eye Security, which monitors client networks for threats, found the updater during a routine threat hunt: a program called Updater.exe on one client's laptop kept trying to reach a web address that was no longer registered. The firm registered the address itself to see what would connect, and about 50 requests a second poured in. It later laid out the operation, which it named O...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday added two vulnerabilities impacting Collabora Online Built-in CODE Server and Arista VeloCloud Orchestrator (VCO) to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ), citing reports of active exploitation in the wild. The critical-severity vulnerabilities are listed below - CVE-2026-110447 (CVSS score: 9.2) - An operating system command injection vulnerability in Collabora Online – Built-in CODE Server (aka richdocumentscode) when used within the NextCloud platform that could allow remote code execution via "proxy.php" when the CODE local document server isn't running. (Fixed in September 2026 in version 26.4.303) CVE-2026-114625 (CVSS score: 9.9) - An SQL injection vulnerability in on-premise versions of Arista VeloCloud Orchestrator that could allow a remote attacker to access privileged internal functionality. (Fixed in October 2026  in versions 5.2.3.18, 6.1.3.10, and 6.4.2.12) As r...

Diplomatic organizations in Central Asia have been targeted by a sophisticated new Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) bootkit called BlackX . The activity, which singled out diplomatic entities in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan in early 2026, is suspected to be orchestrated by a China-linked state-sponsored hacking group known as APT41 , Kaspersky said in a technical report published this week. The primary objective behind deploying the malware is to undermine Microsoft Windows startup defenses, along with third-party security solutions, while maintaining long-term, covert access to compromised devices. Notably, BlackX is assessed to be an updated version of BlackLotus , a notorious bootkit that was first observed being advertised on cybercrime forums in late 2022, before its existence was officially confirmed by ESET in March 2023. BlackLotus is designed to exploit a now-patched Secure Boot bypass vulnerability tracked as CVE-2022-21894 (CVSS score: 4.4...

Ruby has released versions 4.0.9, 3.4.12, and 3.3.13 to fix three bugs in Onigmo, the regular expression engine built into the language. The bugs lie behind four critical security flaws that GitLab patched over the past month. GitLab found that a specially crafted pattern could corrupt memory while Ruby compiles it, potentially leading to code execution on its own servers. Ruby says any application that builds a regular expression from text an attacker controls is affected, not just GitLab. Which Applications Are Affected In  its advisory , Ruby said an application is affected only if it compiles a regular expression from a string an attacker controls. That happens when a program passes such a string to Regexp.new, Regexp.union or Regexp.compile, or places it inside a pattern through interpolation, as in /#{input}/. Applications that only use regular expressions written by their own developers are not affected. Ruby fixed the bugs in 4.0.9, 3.4.12, and 3.3.13. The...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven intrusion ecosystem run by affiliates of the INC and The Gentlemen ransomware groups. Central to the operation is an "Autonomous Red Team Kill Chain Framework" referred to as Phantom. The threat actor is assessed to be Russian-speaking and functions both as an intrusion and data-extortion operator, as well as an infrastructure provider supporting different partners across the ransomware ecosystem. "The operators exploited edge and remote-access systems at scale, including FortiClient EMS, SimpleHelp, cPanel, and VPN gateways," SOCRadar said . "They used AI-managed knowledge bases to track victims, stolen credentials, and campaign progress." A notable aspect that defines the campaign is its "AI-executed, human-approved operating structure" in which a human operator provides a victim-specific prompt and reviews every step, while the intrusions themselves are e...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a large-scale campaign that has targeted exposed network edge devices such as Fortinet FortiGate and Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect firewalls. "Artifacts from this investigation also indicate that operators in this campaign have obtained access to numerous organizations worldwide, and have attempted to further compromise some victims, resulting in persistent remote access and data exfiltration," according to a joint investigation published by Group-IB and NyxLab. The widespread exploitation activity has been attributed to a threat actor known as k0t, who also goes by the aliases CryptoFeel, Member19, and QazWsxShop. The cybercriminal actor was first seen in the wild on October 22, 2025. The threat actor is assessed to share connections with ransomware groups such as Qilin and The Gentlemen, likely operating as an initial access broker or an affiliate. Analysis of the threat actor's dark web activity reveals a k...

PHP has warned of another way an attacker could run code on a web server, two days after it shipped emergency fixes for the critical PHP2Shell flaws. The new issue, assigned CVE-2026-115560 , affects only web applications configured in an unusual way, and PHP considers it an unlikely risk. The project is not issuing an emergency fix for it. Instead, it recommends turning off a feature called session upload progress until a fix is available in the next routine release. The warning came in a short  informational advisory  published on October 23. It follows the October 21  emergency release  that fixed two critical PHP2Shell flaws, CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 , which let an attacker without an account run code on a server. Those were patched in PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, and 8.2.35. The new issue is separate and is not fixed by those releases. Only a narrow setup is at risk. PHP says the problem can occur when a web application does all of the followi...

The Russian state-sponsored hacking group Sandworm teamed up with another threat actor to carry out a destructive wiping attack targeting a Ukrainian logistics company last year. According to ESET , the attack involved UAC-0099 (aka Earth Sirrush) obtaining initial access to the target on July 16, 2025, via a spear-phishing email bearing a malware-laced attachment that led to the deployment of the MATCHWOK backdoor through a downloader called MATCHBOIL. The activity ultimately concluded with the threat actor handing off access to Sandworm, which then conducted a data-wiping attack on September 17, 2025, more than two months after it obtained a foothold. What makes the attack stand out is UAC-0099's use of a previously undocumented backdoor called MythicRatatoskr that communicates with a command-and-control (C2) server hosted inside the Yggdrasil mesh network. The backdoor was deployed a day after MATCHWOK was executed. There are indications that development on the back...