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Not all bad news for Redmond as Australian agency also found strong ROI and some unexpected upsides Australia's Department of the Treasury has found that Microsoft's Copilot can easily deliver return on investment, but staff exposed to the AI assistant came away from the experience less confident it will help them at work....

Don't relax just yet: Redmond has made some certificate-handling changes that could trip unprepared admins Patch Tuesday Microsoft's February patch collection is mercifully smaller than January's mega-dump. But don't get too relaxed - some deserve close attention, and other vendors have stepped in with plenty more fixes....

You gotta fight ... for your Reuters ... to party Thomson Reuters has won a partial summary judgment in a copyright case against shuttered AI firm Ross Intelligence, a decision that disallows fair use as a defense for training models on proprietary data without permission....

Will the Pentagon get Luckey with a new IVAS vendor? Microsoft plans to quit developing augmented-reality headsets for the US Army and have Oculus founder Palmer Luckey's Anduril Industries take over the gig....

Numerous systemic vulnerabilities could scuttle $5.4T industry Despite the escalating cyber threats targeting America's maritime transportation system, the US Coast Guard still lacks a comprehensive strategy to secure this critical infrastructure - nor does it have reliable access to data on cybersecurity vulnerabilities and past attacks, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warns....

Which is why Cisco is adding these Pensando DPUs to more switches Cisco is cramming into more of its switches Pensando data processing units (DPUs) from AMD, which will be dedicated to handling security, storage, and other tasks....

Rustaceans could just wait for unwelcoming C coders to slowly SIGQUIT... The Rust for Linux project is alive and well, despite suggestions to the contrary, even if not every Linux kernel maintainer is an ally....

These crooks have no chill A previously unknown gang dubbed Triplestrength poses a triple threat to organizations: It infects victims' computers with ransomware, then hijacks their cloud accounts to illegally mine for cryptocurrency....

Huge if true: Brit Foreign Sec says Putin running a 'corrupt mafia state' One of the bulletproof hosting (BPH) providers used by the LockBit ransomware operation has been hit with sanctions in the US, UK, and Australia (AUKUS), along with six of its key allies....

End of the road in sight for venerable server Administrators rejoice! The 2025 H1 Cumulative Update (aka CU15) for Exchange Server 2019 has finally arrived, marking the end of an era for the server application....

More than a decade on, waste experts say the odds of finding those coins are next to nil Denied permission to excavate a landfill in search of his missing Bitcoin, Newport, Wales resident James Howells has a new plan: buy the soon-to-be-capped dumping site outright from the city council....

Said to have asked search engine 'What are some signs that the FBI is after you?' An Alabama man is pleading guilty after being charged with SIM swapping the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) X account in January last year....

GDPR-compliant pitched for public sector orgs who can't pipe data offsite Oracle is launching a Fusion Cloud Applications Suite (FCAS) on its Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud in a move designed to offer app users greater assurance in compliance with the region's data law....

Remote position, webcam not working, then glitchy AI face ... Red alert! Twice, over the past two months, Dawid Moczado has interviewed purported job seekers only to discover that these "software developers" were scammers using AI-based tools - likely to get hired at a security company also using artificial intelligence, and then steal source code or other sensitive IP....

So now everyone's happy Google has changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico on Google Maps to comply with a Donald Trump whim - but only for American users....

But will it set a real standard for MongoDB alternatives? Analysis When Microsoft rolled out an open source extension stack for PostgreSQL to handle document-style data, it wasn't just taking aim at MongoDB - the dominant NoSQL player - but also blurring the lines between relational and non-relational databases, according to one expert....

Alternate process could be a game changer if they can make it practicable Is distributed training the future of AI? As the shock of the DeepSeek release fades, its legacy may be an awareness that alternative approaches to model training are worth exploring, and DeepMind researchers say they've come up with a way of making distributed training much more efficient....

Project to swap out Oracle E-Business Suite gets another red rating from projects watchdog The UK's largest NHS management body has postponed the replacement of its aging Oracle finance system again following more than three years of delays....

Overseas pals urge US tech giant to 'rapidly' work on Azure Local project to make things right - sans licenses Microsoft is not on track to meet technical commitments that form the basis of a settlement agreement intended to resolve a legal dispute over software licensing with a gaggle of cloud providers in Europe....

Who tests the testers? The UK's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has produced a list showing how the country uses AI technologies to perform tasks ranging from speeding up the planning process to prioritizing the inspection of MOT testing centers....

Engineer was behind the HEC series and more Obit Raymond Bird, who developed the UK's first mass-produced business computer, the Hollerith Electronic Computer (HEC), has died at the digitally apropos age of 101....

Mid-salary knowledge jobs in tech, media, and education are changing. Folk in physical jobs have less to sweat about Workers in just four percent of occupations use AI for three quarters of their tasks, according to research from Anthropic that explores how its Claude model is used....

'RadPC' flew on Firefly's Ghost Riders in the Sky mission, which has left Earth Orbit and is headed for the Moon NASA has revealed its experimental Radiation Tolerant Computer has made it through the famously and furiously radiating Van Allen belts in one piece....

Promises production schedule will get back on track Taiwanese chipmaking champion TSMC has revealed that a January earthquake will cost it millions....

Cupertino mostly uses bland language when talking security, so this sounds nasty Apple has warned that some iPhones and iPads may have been targeted by an extremely sophisticated attack" and has posted patches that hopefully prevent it....

Dammit, that was our job here at The Reg. Now if you get a task you don't understand, you may assume AI has the answers Some knowledge workers risk becoming over-reliant on generative AI and their problem-solving skills may decline as a result, according to a study penned by researchers from Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University....

Dark web site seized, four cuffed in Thailand An international police operation spanning the US, Europe, and Asia has shuttered the 8Base ransomware crew's dark web presence and resulted in the arrest of four European suspects accused of stealing $16 million from more than 1,000 victims worldwide....

Justin Hotard tapped to replace Pekka Lundmark at the Finnish telco Intel is going to need more than a new CEO after its Datacenter and AI (DCAI) chief on Monday announced he's leaving to run Nokia as its next chief executive....

IT hiring ticks up in January, but unemployment climbs to 5.7% The latest job numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics make IT hiring look like it's in freefall, but that's not the case at all, says consultancy firm Janco....

'Intense year' ahead, warned Zuck. Got to spend billions on AI and work to stay out of Trump's bad books Meta has confirmed to The Register that today marks the start of a mass redundancy process with thousands of workers getting the chop....

Free text messages for users of its own and rival networks during test period T-Mobile US has started a public beta of its Direct-to-Cell service using Starlink satellites, offering just text messages for now, with data and voice calls coming later. Access will be free until July - after which it will cost $15 per month....

Overdue, over budget and now... perhaps just over? Boeing has notified staff that hundreds of jobs could be eliminated if the Artemis program is canceled or heavily revised....

When your state machines are vulnerable, all bets are off Opinion All malicious attacks on digital systems have one common aim: taking control. Mostly, that means getting a CPU somewhere to turn traitor, running code that silently steals or scrambles your data. That code can ride into the system in a whole spectrum of ways, but usually it has to be in memory somewhere at some time, making it amenable to counter-attack....

Simian saboteur or a grid screaming for modernization? Sri Lanka's electricity grid was brought down nationwide on Sunday after monkey business struck a power station south of the capital of Colombo....

Publications across 25 states either producing smaller issues or very delayed ones US newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises is one week into tackling a nondescript "cybersecurity event," saying the related investigation may take "weeks or longer" to complete....

OKD project also has its own immutable CentOS image, which could be fun FOSDEM 2025 CentOS Connect, the FOSDEM-adjacent meetup, delivered a few notable updates: Firefox is returning as a native package on CentOS, an immutable Stream variant is being explored, and AlmaLinux is doing things its own way....

Costs for fixing them and keeping them working up by 390%, NAO report reveals Costs associated with the remediation of the UK tax collector's legacy systems have risen by up to 390 percent, according to a new report from government auditors....

And up to 70% of stalled energy generation projects are unlikely to be approved, claims regulator Ofgem While the UK government wants to turbocharge datacenter construction, a newly published report says there are already 400 GW worth of outstanding requests for connection to the power grid around London, and regulator Ofgem estimates 60-70 percent of these will never happen....

High starting salaries promised after public sector infosec pay criticized The UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) is fast-tracking cybersecurity specialists in a bid to fortify its protection against increasing attacks....

That's not even the worst part of this story, which features a flood, broken promises, and plenty of panic Who, Me? The working week has rolled around again, bringing with it the promise of new achievements - and the chance to mess things up in ways that we cover here in "Who, Me?" The Register's reader-contributed column in which you admit to your failures....

Also claims it's found DeepSeek-eque optimizations that reduce AI infrastructure requirements Cloudflare has declared it's found optimizations that reduce the amount of hardware needed for inferencing workloads, and is in early talks to re-invent the World Wide Web for the age of AI...

Order requires destruction of departmental data accessed by Musky men Trump administration policies that allowed Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to access systems and data at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS) have left the org more vulnerable to hacking" according to Paul A. Engelmayer, Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York....

With over 2,000 banks in operation, a domain only they can use has potential to make life harder for fraudsters India's Reserve Bank last week announced a plan to use adopt dedicated second-level domains - bank.in and fin.in - in the hope it improves trust in the financial services sector....

PLUS: Spanish cops think they've bagged NATO hacker; HPE warns staff of data breach; Lazy Facebook phishing, and more! Infosec In Brief DeepSeek's iOS app is a security nightmare that you should delete ASAP, according to researchers at mobile app infosec platform vendor NowSecure....

PLUS: Japan shifts to pre-emptive cyber-defense; Thailand cuts cords connecting scam camps; China to launch 'moon hopper' in 2026; and more! Asia In Brief Huawei chair Liang Hua last week told a conference in China that the company expects to meet its revenue targets for 2024, meaning it earned around 860 billion ($118.25 billion) - 22 percent growth compared to its 2023 result....

Tesla's DIY ERP legend meets the messy reality of entrenched federal contracts Comment Tesla reportedly decided not to upgrade its SAP's enterprise software a decade ago, opting to build its own system instead. Now, with Elon Musk heading up the Trump-blessed US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), his cost-cutting mindset could have major implications for federal IT spending - and the big tech vendors cashing in on government contracts....

Oh look, a mini Stargate, how quaint The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and France this week announced plans for a one-gigawatt AI datacenter campus dedicated to advancing development of artificial intelligence....

Vladimir Putin opens airlock after just three years Roscosmos boss Yury Borisov has been fired from the Russian space agency by executive order of the country's president, Vladimir Putin....

And US government adverts at that, say senators Updated US Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) on Friday sent letters to the CEOs of Amazon and Google asking why their ad businesses fund websites hosting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and allow government ads to appear on sites with illegal imagery....

Funding freeze while Feds review priorities If you were hoping the Biden administration's $5 billion investment in building a cross-country network of EV chargers would soon have you road-tripping in an electric car without range anxiety, think again: The Trump-led US Dept of Transport has put the plan under review and halted new funding....