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Updated 2025-12-19 19:30
Sneaky Mermaid attack in Microsoft 365 Copilot steals data
Redmond says it's fixed this particular indirect prompt injection vuln updated Microsoft fixed a security hole in Microsoft 365 Copilot that allowed attackers to trick the AI assistant into stealing sensitive tenant data - like emails - via indirect prompt injection attacks....
Sora makes slurfect deepfakes of celebs spewing racial epithets
If you listen closely, you'll realize Sam Altman and the others are only saying sound-alike words Guardrails? What guardrails? Naughty netizens found a way to trick the Sora 2 video generator into producing deepfakes of public figures, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and billionaire Mark Cuban, that make it sound as though they're spewing racial slurs. The trick works despite Sora's built-in filters meant to block hateful language....
Uncle Sam's new power plan will plug AI farms into the grid faster
Proposal would fast-track hookups for the megawatt-hungry datacenters driving US electricity demand The US Energy Secretary wants to see datacenters connected to the grid faster, and has directed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to implement new rules that speed the process....
OpenAI goes after Microsoft 365 Copilot's lunch with 'company knowledge' feature
ChatGPT can now rummage through corporate files via connectors, though Redmond still has the deeper hooks OpenAI is chalenging Microsoft 365 Copilot with "company knowledge," a new ChatGPT feature that connects to organizational data to generate business-specific answers....
Apple faces £1.5B payout after losing UK App Store case
iPhone maker overcharged devs and users, says competition court Apple could face claims estimated at around 1.5 billion after it lost a collective case in the UK arguing that its closed systems for apps resulted in overcharging businesses and consumers....
AI investment is the only thing keeping the US out of recession
Datacenter infrastructure and model development spending offset high borrowing costs AI spending is keeping the US economy out of recession, with datacenter infrastructure and model development providing the only significant growth amid trade turmoil, tariff shocks, and high borrowing costs....
Microsoft drops surprise Windows Server patch before weekend downtime
You didn't have plans, did you? Microsoft has released an out-of-band update to patch a critical vulnerability in Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)....
Alaska Airlines grounded by mystery IT meltdown
Failure at primary datacenter leaves planes parked and passengers angry, second incident since July Updated Timing is everything - except when it isn't. US carrier Alaska Airlines has grounded its fleet once again due to a mystery IT issue....
Digital ID is now less about illegal working, more about rummaging through drawers
Starmer rebrands unpopular scheme as convenience tool after backlash UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has relaunched his digital ID scheme as something that will make people's lives easier, less than four weeks after announcing it as a measure to tackle illegal working....
Windows Insiders get special anniversary desktop wallpaper
11 years of filing feedback and all we got was a bloody... not even a T-shirt? Microsoft is celebrating 11 years of the Windows Insider Program with custom desktops and maybe a secret hint for users wondering which operating system to consider....
BBC probe finds AI chatbots mangle nearly half of news summaries
Google Gemini worst offender with 76% error rate Four of the most popular AI chatbots routinely serve up inaccurate or misleading news content to users, according to a wide-reaching investigation....
How do you solve a problem like Discovery?
Request For Ideas: How would you move a retired orbiter across the US? The White House's Office of Management and Budget is grappling with how to transport Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian Museum in Virginia to Space Center Houston. How would you do it?...
Shield AI shows off not-at-all-terrifying autonomous VTOL combat drone
Runways? Where we're going, we don't need runways US defense technology biz Shield AI claims it can build a jet-powered vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) autonomous fighter drone that doesn't need a runway to operate....
Britain's Ministry of Justice just signed up to ChatGPT Enterprise
OpenAI sweetens the deal with data residency OpenAI has signed up the UK's Ministry of Justice as the latest public sector customer for ChatGPT Enterprise....
New boss took charge of project code and sent two billion unwanted emails
Techie summoned at 02:00 AM to sort things out sent another 2 billion trying to fix it On Call Welcome to another instalment of On Call, The Register's weekly wander through your tales of tech support....
Iran's MuddyWater wades into 100+ government networks in latest spying spree
Group-IB says Tehran-linked crew used hijacked mailbox and VPN to sling phishing emails across Middle East Iran's favorite muddy-footed cyberespionage crew is at it again, this time breaching more than 100 government entities across the Middle East and North Africa, according to researchers at Group-IB....
Supermicro warns it will miss revenue forecast by a lazy billion bucks or more
Mystery customer wants an upgrade that will take some time Supermicro has revised its revenue forecast downwards by a couple of billion dollars, but insisted it's nothing to worry about....
Intel says server CPUs will be hot again – in a good way, to power AI workloads – any year now
Chipzilla returns to profit and suggests customers are primed to sign for foundry services once it nails 18A process Intel has returned to profitability, grown revenue, and suggested demand for AI will ensure its struggling foundry business wins customers and boosts its datacenter CPU business....
Cyber exec with lavish lifestyle charged with selling secrets to Russia
The 0-days have left the building Federal prosecutors have charged a former general manager of US government defense contractor L3Harris's cyber arm Trenchant with selling secrets to an unidentified Russian buyer for $1.3 million....
Clippy rises from the dead in major update to Copilot and its voice interface
The new Microsoft assistant is a blob named Mico, but you can turn it into everyone's favorite paper clip. Hands On Microsoft's Clippy was an anthropomorphic assistant ahead of his time, offering to help you with your Office 97 tasks when all you could do was type and click in response. Today, as part of a massive Copilot Fall Release, Redmond is bringing Clippy back - at least as an avatar for its new AI helper named Mico"....
Google and Anthropic wave hands about mega TPU deal worth 'tens of billions'
But AWS is still the AI upstart's primary partner Google and Anthropic have struck a deal that will see the AI upstart gain access to up to a million of the web giant's tensor processing units (TPUs) and involve tens of billions of dollars."...
Don't take AI to Thanksgiving: Bots have hidden biases
It's not a bug, it's a feature Large language models, or LLMs, are biased in one way or another - often many. And there may be no way around that....
Playtime’s over: Crooks swipe Toys R Us Canada customer data and dump it online
What?! No complimentary credit monitoring? The Canadian outpost of retailer Toys R Us on Thursday notified customers that attackers accessed a database, stole some of their personal information, then posted the data online....
Excel is three sheets to the window on iOS as update borks everything
iPhone and iPad users vexed by denial of spreadsheets Microsoft Excel for the past week has been hanging or crashing on iOS and iPadOS devices, to customers' great annoyance....
Norks droning on about your dream job while pwning your PC
Social engineering? Check. Trojanized open source? Check. Lazarus' pet RAT? Also check North Korea's Lazarus Group has successfully compromised Europe's unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) sector with its Operation DreamJob campaign, which promises job seekers lucrative employment opportunities - but then delivers a malware-laced offer and a compromised computer....
Give Europe some space! 3 companies join forces to reach for the stars
Airbus, Leonardo and Thales seek to 'strengthen Europe's strategic autonomy in space' Three European aerospace giants plan to combine their space units into a single heavyweight, hoping to boost the continent's space autonomy....
Blinded by the light: Tesla fixes glaringly bright Cybertruck headlights
Plus: Model 3/Y recall over battery-pack contactors that can cut drive power Feeling a bit blinded by the light when a Cybertruck rolls by? It's not just you - Tesla's recalling most built to date because the boxy pickup's front parking lights are too bright....
Trump's workforce cuts blamed as America's cyber edge dulls
The Cyberspace Solarium Commission says years of progress are being undone amid current administration's cuts America's once-ambitious cyber defences are starting to rust, according to the latest annual report from the US Cyberspace Solarium Commission (CSC), which warns that policy momentum has slowed and even slipped backwards thanks to Trump-era workforce and budget cuts....
Microsoft suggests temporary registry hack for stricken smart card users
When is an issue not an issue? When it's intentional Microsoft accidentally broke several things in the October 2025 Windows Update, but smart card authentication was not one of them. That was intentionally broken, and the temporary workaround requires a registry hack....
Apple's ultra-thin iPhone flops as foldable iPad hits a crease
Weak demand for iPhone Air and delays to a costly foldable tablet suggest Cupertino's hardware experiments are struggling Apple's run of hardware experiments appears to be hitting some turbulence: The company's ultra-thin iPhone Air has reportedly failed to catch on with buyers, while its long-awaited foldable iPad is slipping further down the calendar amid engineering snags and soaring costs....
Fedora council approves policy allowing AI-assisted contributions
Intense discussion approves AI - but subject to full responsibility and disclosure The Fedora Council has approved AI-assisted contributions to its Linux distribution, following intense debate and subject to strict conditions....
Google nukes 3,000 YouTube videos that sowed malware disguised as cracked software
Check Point helps exorcise vast 'Ghost Network' that used fake tutorials to push infostealers Google has taken down thousands of YouTube videos that were quietly spreading password-stealing malware disguised as cracked software and game cheats....
A single DNS race condition brought Amazon's cloud empire to its knees
Fault in DynamoDB system cascaded through AWS services, knocking major sites offline for hours Amazon has published a detailed postmortem explaining how a critical fault in DynamoDB's DNS management system cascaded into a day-long outage that disrupted major websites and services across multiple brands - with damage estimates potentially reaching hundreds of billions of dollars....
SAP says some customers are dragging their feet on contract sign-offs
Share price dips as cloud sales outlook disappoints amid slow US public sector bookings SAP disappointed investors today after reporting full-year cloud revenue at the bottom end of its guidance range, with execs saying customers in manufacturing and the public sector are taking longer to sign contracts....
Senators accuse Smithsonian of 'illegal lobbying' over Discovery squabbles
Cornyn & co ask DoJ to probe respected research institution for trying to 'influence' public The saga of the Great Space Shuttle Relocation has taken another turn after US lawmakers asked the Department of Justice to look into alleged lobbying by the Smithsonian museum to prevent a possible transfer of Discovery to Houston, Texas....
Amazon's AI specs aim to stop delivery drivers getting lost between van and porch
Why monitor staff through phones or cameras when Bezos' boxshifter can strap surveillance to their heads? Amazon is testing AI-powered smart glasses to help its drivers get from their vans to customers' doorsteps....
Microsoft threatens to ram Copilot into Exchange Server on-prem
Survey probes interest in AI assistance for locally hosted email setups Microsoft's mission to "Copilot all the things" has reached Exchange Server, with a survey asking if admins want the AI assistant on-prem....
SpaceX pulls plug on 2,500 Starlink terminals tied to Myanmar fraud farms
Criminal outfits had been using Musk's broadband beacons to run cyber-slavery scams across Southeast Asia SpaceX says it has shut down thousands of Starlink terminals that were powering Myanmar's notorious scam compounds after its satellite network was found to be keeping human trafficking and cyber-fraud operations online in the country's lawless border zones....
Microsoft finance slang defines the eternal optimist: The 'hockey stick on wheels'
The wheels on Copilot's hockey stick must be giving off smoke by now Microsoft's finance division has a term for an overly optimistic projection that seems to march backward year after year: the hockey stick on wheels....
OpenBSD 7.8 out now, and you're not seeing double, 9front releases 'Release'
New version includes multithreaded TCP/IP and Raspberry Pi 5 support The 59th version of the OpenBSD operating system is here, six months after 7.7, with multiple improvements in various areas....
UK.gov vows to hack through regulation to get benefit from AI
Meanwhile, civil services claims 75,000 days could be saved by the tech each year Ignoring the skeptics and threat of an AI bubble, the UK government is pushing ahead with AI "sandboxing" and backing a raft of projects it claims could benefit from red-tape cutting....
Apple’s AirDrop makes weird latency spikes for Wi-Fi wonks, researcher finds
Cupertino wants you on certain channels, and pushes back if you have your own preferences Networking researcher Christoff Visser has found that Apple devices cause Wi-Fi networks to jitter" due to traffic generated by the Apple Wireless Direct Link (AWDL) tech that powers the peer-to-peer AirDrop filesharing tool....
With impeccable timing, AWS debuts automated cloud incident report generator
We could really have used this a couple of days ago, guys In the same week that a massive outage of its own cloud inconvenienced millions of customers, AWS has delivered an improved interactive incident reporting service to help its customers explain what happened when their cloud-hosted resources strike trouble....
IBM is just not into the 'spend megabucks on cloudy GPUs' thing, rents them instead
Infra revenue soars and AI helps everything ... except the share price If IBM reveals improved profit margins or a fresh round of redundancies, AI may be the reason, because Big Blue today revealed that its own Project Bob" developer assistance tools have improved productivity among its coders by 45 percent....
OpenAI's Atlas shrugs off security concerns over prompt injection
'Trust no AI' says one researcher OpenAI's brand new Atlas browser is more than willing to follow commands maliciously embedded in a web page, an attack type known as indirect prompt injection....
Ex-Uber CSO is gellin' like a felon with teen cyber crims, explains why they do it
Meanwhile Sullivan's legal battle continues interview Two convicted felons walk into a room at the request of a federal judge who wanted one of them - Joe Sullivan, the former Uber chief security officer found guilty of attempting to cover up a 2016 breach at the rideshare company - to help rehabilitate the other, whom the feds accused of hacking into corporate networks as a teen and participating in a "significant" digital heist....
NextSilicon Maverick-2 promises to blow away the HPC market Nvidia left behind
The one chip startup building accelerators for something other than AI boasts performance up 10x that of modern GPUs using a fraction the power Researchers and engineers working in particle physics, materials analysis, or drug discovery haven't exactly been spoiled for choice when it comes to chips capable of the highly precise double-precision calculations that these workloads depend. NextSilicon aims to change that with Maverick-2, a chip aimed not at AI but the high-performance computing (HPC) community....
Reddit to Perplexity: Get your filthy hands off our forums
Social media site continues legal campaign against those who take its content without a license Reddit on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Perplexity AI and three of its alleged data dealers for trafficking in unlawfully scraped information....
Salt Typhoon hit governments on three continents with SharePoint attacks
Plus spy helping spy: Typhoons teaming up Security researchers now say more Chinese crews - likely including Salt Typhoon - than previously believed exploited a critical Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability, and used the flaw to target government agencies, telecommunications providers, a university, and a finance company across multiple continents....
TI CEO says some customers still wary of Trump's import tax roulette
Company shares lost value on slow-than-expected sales The global semiconductor market is recovering, albeit at a slower pace than in previous cycles due to macroeconomic dynamics and ongoing uncertainty caused by US trade policy and tariffs, according to Texas Instruments....
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