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Meta Failed to Catch Hundreds of AI Child Abuse Ads. Some Included Images of Real Kids

Meta's AI ad-detection failed to catch 350+ CSAM video ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, some depicting images of real children.

The Tech Transparency Project found over 250 additional ads containing child sexual abuse material on Meta platforms since August, on top of ~53 previously removed, exceeding 350 total since late last year. Some ads used images of real children, including a European royal family minor and teen influencers, morphed into graphic sexual videos via AI face-swapping. Ads linked to nudification apps from Chinese developers and reached over 29,000 EU accounts plus thousands in the US, UK, Australia, and India.

WIRED · Security · 8d agoAI safety & security

AgenticGen: Reward-Guided Agentic Video Generation for Advertising

AgenticGen applies DPO and GRPO reward-guided reasoning to ad video generation, improving TikTok CTR 2.72%, CVR 2.63%, and Advv 9.61%.

AgenticGen decomposes advertising video generation into two trainable reasoning stages, strategy selection and draft generation, supervised by online business feedback. It learns a performance-based reward from accumulated online feedback plus a rubric-based reward aligned with human quality standards, then optimizes policies with DPO followed by GRPO using process and outcome rewards. Online A/B experiments in the TikTok advertising system show CTR up 2.72%, CVR up 2.63%, and Advv up 9.61% over an SFT baseline.

Hugging Face daily papers · 17d agoAI research

Can We Stop The Ads? Taxonomy and Characterization of Smartphone Splash Ads and Existing Countermeasures

Study of 108 ad-defense implementations finds only one tool blocked splash-ad navigation across ten popular apps, and it required Accessibility permission.

The paper taxonomizes smartphone splash ads — full-screen ads at app launch that trick users into trigger mechanisms such as moving the phone — and analyzes 108 documented advertising defenses for deployment barriers. Many defenses require device rooting, jailbreaking, runtime code injection, or application modification; others need extra permissions, rule maintenance, compilation, or payment. In evaluating 13 configurations of 11 tools across 10 popular apps, only one prevented ad-triggered navigation across all ten apps, requiring Accessibility permission and leaving ads visible roughly one second before dismissal. Documented harms include delayed emergency response, driver distraction, and degraded accessibility for vision-impaired users.

arXiv cs.CR · 1d agoResearch

The Coding-Agent Trap: When a "Free" LLM Endpoint Is the Adversary, (Mon, Aug 31st)

A SANS honeypot caught a real coding-agent session routed to a rogue "free" LLM endpoint, exposing a Windows user's transcript and tool outputs.

A SANS analyst describes how an internet-exposed inference honeypot was discovered, relabeled with sought-after model names like DeepSeek, and enrolled in infrastructure serving "free" LLM backends. On 2026-08-30 an opencode terminal coding agent sent an 88-message, 224 KB transcript 210 times in 91 seconds via a China Unicom relay, exposing directory listings, tool outputs and read file portions. The analyst frames tool-enabled agents treating model endpoints as trusted control planes as a novel risk — a "rogue model endpoint" that could request tool executions on the user's machine.

SANS Internet Storm Center · 16d agoAI safety & security1

Reimagining advertising with AI

OpenAI launches ChatGPT advertising features including Sponsored Agents, AI ad creation in Ads Manager, and integrations with HubSpot and Shopify.

OpenAI is testing Sponsored Agents in the United States, letting users converse with clearly labeled business-sponsored agents after clicking ads in ChatGPT. Advertisers can create, update, and analyze campaigns via natural-language prompts in ChatGPT with an Ads Manager plugin, plus AI-suggested copy and imagery in Ads Manager. HubSpot becomes the first CRM partner and Shopify the first ecommerce partner, with the Shopify app expanding internationally on September 23.

OpenAI News · 14h agoAI industry

IDScan Confirms Data Breach Following 153 Million Driver’s Licenses Leaked on the Dark Web

IDScan.net confirms a breach after a marketplace advertised over 153 million US and Canadian driver's licenses, possibly exfiltrated continuously for over a year.

The Louisiana identity-verification firm detected unauthorized access on or around September 1, 2026, after the 'Nexus' identity theft service on the Exploit forum began advertising 170M+ people's records, including 153M+ driver's licenses, 10M+ ID cards, 3M+ travel documents, and 579,000 medical cards. Canadian records exceed 1.1 million, and the trove includes commercial licenses, Common Access Cards, and dispensary IDs, with a record for US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly included. Nexus operators claim continuous exfiltration for over a year, with the license count growing by nearly 400,000 in 24 hours, suggesting the intrusion may be active. The FBI's New Orleans field office has opened a formal inquiry, and IDScan.net is offering free credit monitoring.

Cyber Security News · 5d agoData breach in the wild 4 sources

“This is the AI men actually use”: Meta ads pushed apps nudifying real teens

TTP found Meta ran ads for AI nudify apps using real photos of minors, including a CSAM ad, drawing scrutiny from US and Australian regulators.

The Tech Transparency Project reported that Meta served ads for AI nudify apps using photos of real teens, which collectively reached over 29,000 people in the EU and 6,800 in the UK, with about 80% of ads shown in the US. A Facebook page posing as representing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ran a CSAM ad that Meta only disabled after TTP flagged it. Michigan and Florida attorneys general are investigating, Senator Mark Warner has demanded action, and Australia's eSafety regulator requested information from Meta at a senior level. Meta said flagged ads averaged fewer than 200 impressions with total spend under $5,000.

Ars Technica · AI · 8d agoAI safety & security

Malicious Ads Infostealer League

Malicious advertisements delivered an infostealer in a widespread malvertising campaign.

The report describes malicious advertisements that distribute an information-stealer to users who click or interact with the ads. Infostealers typically harvest saved browser passwords, session cookies, and cryptocurrency wallet data from infected machines. The specific malware family, ad networks abused, and victim counts are not stated in the headline.

Infosecurity Magazine · Aug 16, 2026Malware in the wild

Evolve your marketing with new AI tools

Google announced new AI and agentic features across Google Ads and Google Analytics to simplify marketing workflows.

Google published a product announcement introducing AI and agentic experiences across Google Ads and Google Analytics. The features are aimed at simplifying marketing workflows. No technical details, benchmarks, or security-relevant content were included.

Google · AI · Aug 10, 2026AI industry

Risky Bulletin: Slovakia finds Russian backdoor in traffic speed cameras

Slovakia's NBU found an SMS-triggered backdoor in Russian-made NERO R-ONE traffic cameras, pausing a 279-unit deployment.

Slovakia's national security service NBU issued an alert against NERO R-ONE high-speed traffic cameras after finding a backdoor that grants shell and network access via SMS from hardcoded Russian phone numbers. The cameras are a rebranded version of the Russian CORDON PRO.M model by St. Petersburg firm Semicon, purchased via a Cyprus shell company under a €30 million EU-funded project. The report also found SecureBoot disabled, vulnerable web management, and unauthenticated live streams; the Interior Ministry paused deployment of 279 cameras pending independent assessment.

Risky Business News · 28d agoThreat actor in the wild1

ChatGPT Ads expands across Europe

OpenAI is expanding ChatGPT Ads to 31 European markets, letting advertisers reach users as they explore, compare, and decide.

OpenAI announced that ChatGPT Ads is expanding to 31 European markets. The move extends OpenAI's advertising monetization, allowing advertisers to reach users during exploration, comparison of options, and purchase decisions. The announcement has no direct security relevance and carries no risk beyond competitive AI industry impact.

OpenAI News · 29d agoAI industry

Class action lawsuit accuses Anthropic of overselling Claude subscriptions with deceptive usage multipliers

Class action lawsuit alleges Anthropic's Claude Max plan misrepresents usage multipliers via five-hour and weekly caps.

A class action filed by the same law firm over the summer claims Anthropic's $100 five-times and $200 twenty-times Max plan multipliers apply only within five-hour windows and are capped weekly, delivering less usage than advertised. Anthropic moved to dismiss, saying details were available via hyperlinks during purchase. Plaintiffs argue consumers cannot verify AI service delivery and must rely on honest advertising.

The Decoder · 5d agoAI industry2

Scareware ads keep running on Google's transparency tool, even after they're reported

NYU and Radboud researchers built AdLens, which found 238 scareware and 3,346 false-claim ads in Google's ad archive; reported ads often stayed live.

The AdLens tool, built by NYU and Radboud University researchers, mined Google's Ads Transparency Center and screened 188,000 software ad creatives using similarity search plus a panel of open-source language models, finding 238 scareware ads, 3,346 false-claim ads, and 258 anonymity-avoiding ads with over 100 million impressions in Europe. Reporting ads through Google's standard flow produced inconsistent removals: some ads acknowledged as violations stayed live, and after one takedown tied to the TamperedChef malware domain, 41 other ads pointing to the same domain kept running. The pipeline runs entirely on open-weight models at low cost (a $96 DigitalOcean VM plus $1.57/hour L40S inference) and is designed to extend to Meta and Amazon ad libraries.

Help Net Security · 15d agoResearch

U.S. CISA adds a Ray-Project Ray flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

CISA added actively exploited Ray RCE flaw CVE-2025-62593 (CVSS 9.4) to its KEV catalog, ordering federal agencies to patch by August 20, 2026.

CISA added CVE-2025-62593 (CVSS 9.4), a critical remote code execution flaw in the Ray AI compute engine, to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog with a due date of August 20, 2026. Versions before 2.52.0 relied on a User-Agent header check to guard the dashboard/API, which combined with DNS rebinding allows arbitrary code execution on developers' machines via malicious websites or ads. Aviatrix's analysis describes privilege escalation, lateral movement, command and control, and data exfiltration following exploitation. Federal civilian agencies must remediate under BOD 22-01; the flaw affects Firefox and Safari.

Security Affairs · 29d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2025-62593

This Tool Unmasks the Shadowy World of Ads that Track Your Location

404 Media covers DecryptAds, a new tool offering a massive queryable dataset for investigating location-tracking advertising.

404 Media reports on DecryptAds, a new tool paired with a large queryable dataset designed to make investigating the advertising industry's location-tracking practices much easier. The article is paywalled, so further technical details about the dataset are limited.

404 Media · Aug 12, 2026Tools

Grand Theft Auto VI hype leads to malware

Fake GTA6 ISO downloads spread via SEO poisoning, torrents, and forums deliver NJRAT, DCRAT, an infostealer, and wiper ransomware.

Huntress analyzed a malicious ISO masquerading as a leaked Grand Theft Auto VI build; there is no official GTA6 demo or leaked playable copy. The fake gta6installer.exe shows a Russian 'license' message asking victims to email the attacker if the crack fails, then drops GTA6-branded files into %TEMP%. It installs multiple repurposed NJRAT copies (2023-era files) connecting to AWS-hosted IPs 35.157.111.131, 3.68.56.232, 3.67.15.169 and an ngrok tunnel, plus DCRAT communicating with a0700877.xsph.ru (141.8.197.42). The bundle also includes an infostealer and ransomware used as a wiper, in what appears to be an opportunistic, everything-at-once campaign.

Huntress · 7d agoMalware in the wild

Meta Patents AI Glasses to Use Facial Recognition to Identify People, Make Highlight Reels of Your Dinner Party

Meta filed a patent for AI glasses that identify people via facial recognition and auto-generate highlight reels of events like dinner parties.

A newly published Meta patent describes smartglasses that use facial recognition to detect people in frame, capture video clips of their actions, and compile highlight reels. The filing signals Meta's continued, controversial push to combine facial recognition with its AI glasses line. The patent was published Thursday and offers granular detail on Meta's product plans, though it does not confirm a shipping feature.

404 Media · Aug 14, 2026AI industry

Testing ads in ChatGPT

OpenAI begins testing ads in ChatGPT, promising clear labeling, answer independence, privacy protections, and user control.

OpenAI is starting to test advertisements in ChatGPT to support free access to the chatbot. The company states ads will carry clear labeling, remain independent of answers, include strong privacy protections, and offer user control options.

OpenAI News · Aug 11, 2026AI industry

A milestone in expanding access to AI

OpenAI announced ChatGPT Ads reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate and expanded availability globally to fund free and affordable AI access.

OpenAI stated that ChatGPT Ads, its advertising product, has reached $1 billion in annualized revenue run rate. The company framed this as a milestone that expands global availability of the ads product and supports broader access to AI through free and lower-cost options. No technical, model, or security details were included in the announcement.

OpenAI News · 16d agoAI industry

Chinese Hackers Exploit Critical Tencent Software Flaw for One-Click Code Execution

China-linked UNC3569 actively exploited critical Sogou Input Method flaw CVE-2026-51990 for one-click system-level code execution, deploying the GrayRabbit backdoor.

Gen Threat Labs reports that China-linked threat actor UNC3569, possibly tied to contractor i-SOON, exploited critical CVE-2026-51990 in Tencent's Sogou Input Method, a Windows IME used by hundreds of millions, via crafted sgbiz URLs. The chain combines unvalidated command-line argument injection, unrestricted URL navigation, and an un-sandboxed Chromium 80 engine missing roughly six years of security patches. The exploit gives system-level code execution and was used to deploy the GrayRabbit backdoor, which provides a reverse shell, plugin loading, file upload to C2, and system info collection, and has appeared in UNC3569 intrusions since at least 2021. Tencent patched the issue in version 16.3.0.3498 via automatic update, but the outdated Chromium configuration reportedly remained unchanged as of September 10.

SecurityWeek · 2d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 2 sourcesCVE-2026-519901· 1 read

San Francisco Orders Meta to Stop ‘Allowing’ AI Child Abuse Ads

San Francisco's city attorney sent Meta a cease-and-desist over 350+ ads containing AI-generated child sexual abuse content, demanding remediation within 28 days.

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu issued a cease-and-desist ordering Meta to stop 'allowing' paid ads with AI-generated child sexual abuse content and demanding answers within 28 days about moderation failures. Tech Transparency Project researchers found more than 350 ads that turned images of minors, some of real people including a European royal family member, into videos depicting sexual acts, directing users to AI nudify apps; the ads reached over 29,000 accounts across the EU, US, Australia and India. Meta says all ads have been removed, most had fewer than 200 impressions and total ad spend was under $5,000, and argues the ads ran outside the city attorney's jurisdiction.

WIRED · Security · 7d agoAI safety & security

DoppelCart fraud network uses 119,000 fake shops to steal credit cards

DoppelCart, the largest documented fake-shop network, runs 119,000 domains impersonating 44,182 brands to steal payment card details via WebSocket-connected checkout pages.

German cybersecurity startup Nebty discovered DoppelCart, a network of more than 119,000 fake e-commerce domains, mostly in the .SHOP TLD, that harvest payment card details through fraudulent checkout pages. Over 105,000 shops remain active, impersonating 44,182 brands with discounts of up to 65%, and 96% of confirmed shops share identical build files resolving to 27 commerce backends. Checkout code exfiltrates card numbers, expiration dates, CVVs, cardholder names, contact details, and even bank one-time codes to attacker C2 over WebSockets in real time, potentially bypassing bank security controls. The network surpasses BogusBazaar, the previously largest documented fake-shop cluster with 75,000 sites and an estimated 850,000 fraudulent transactions.

BleepingComputer · 8d agoPhishing & fraud

Your Website Now Has Two Audiences: Humans and AI

Akamai argues websites now serve two audiences — humans and AI agents — reshaping web traffic, content delivery, and site design considerations.

Akamai published a blog post examining how websites now face traffic from both human visitors and AI systems such as crawlers and agents. The piece frames this dual audience as a trend affecting how sites are built, measured, and managed. No further article text was available, so specific findings are not known.

Akamai Blog · Aug 17, 2026AI industry

In Other News: InjectEave Attack, SIM Swapper Sentenced, Glasswing Findings Review

SecurityWeek weekly roundup covers exploited WordPress Super Forms flaw CVE-2026-14894, a $10M bounty on an Iranian cyber official, InjectEave attacks, and more.

SecurityWeek's weekly roundup aggregates short items across the threat landscape, including Microsoft's report of invisible Unicode tag characters used in financial phishing lures at up to 2.37 million messages per day, and active exploitation of critical WordPress Super Forms plugin flaw CVE-2026-14894 to deploy PHP webshells. Policy items include a $10 million US bounty for IRGC-CEC Cyber Operations Command lead Amir Yaryab, a 16-month prison sentence for ex-AT&T employee Kenneth Carter over SIM swaps with nearly $600,000 in intended losses, and the US arraignment of Russian Sergei Anatolyevich Filimonov over credential harvesting. Technical items include InjectEave electromagnetic side-channel attacks tested on 11 devices, an FBI warning on OAuth consent phishing, and VulnCheck's finding that only 202 of 26,153 Anthropic Project Glasswing findings were fixed.

SecurityWeek · 5d agoIndustry in the wildCVE-2026-148942

ApateWeb: An Evasive Large-Scale Scareware and PUP Delivery Campaign

Unit 42 uncovers ApateWeb, a campaign using over 130,000 domains and multilayered redirects to deliver scareware, adware and PUPs to millions of users.

Unit 42 discovered ApateWeb, a large-scale campaign using a network of more than 130,000 domains to deliver scareware, potentially unwanted programs, adware including a rogue browser and browser extensions, and scam pages. The campaign uses a three-layer structure with deceptive emails as the entry point, centralized victim tracking via UUIDs, intermediate adware or anti-bot redirections, and evasion tactics such as cloaking, bot detection error pages, and wildcard DNS abuse. Activity spiked since August 2022, with several hundred attacker-controlled sites remaining in Tranco's top 1 million rankings and millions of monthly hits; Unit 42 blocked an estimated 3.5 million sessions across 74,711 devices in November 2023.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Phishing & fraud in the wild

AI for Societal Impact

Google publishes a collection page showcasing partnerships applying AI to health, disaster prediction, learning, and economic opportunity.

Google's 'AI for Societal Impact' page curates examples of experts and local leaders applying AI to disease detection and prevention, natural disaster prediction, education, and economic opportunity. It is a marketing-oriented collection page with no new technical details.

Google · AI · 1d agoAI industry

Industry that built the problem offers to sell you the solution

More than 100 tech giants warn AI-enabled cyber attacks are coming while promoting the paid security solutions they sell.

Over 100 technology companies have warned that AI-enabled cyber attacks are an imminent threat and are urging collective action to protect critical public services. The Register frames the warning as self-serving, noting the same firms that built the AI risk also sell the defenses. The piece is an opinion-style take on the industry coalition's messaging.

The Register · Security · 19d agoIndustry

4.1 Million Impacted by AdaptHealth Data Breach

AdaptHealth disclosed a breach affecting 4,115,802 people after a socially engineered attacker stole health and insurance data from cloud-based patient systems.

A threat actor used social engineering to hijack a user session at a third-party contractor and gained access to AdaptHealth cloud applications, including patient management and document storage systems, in early June. Names, contact and demographic information, and health and health insurance data were exfiltrated; Social Security numbers and financial information were not affected. AdaptHealth reported 4,115,802 affected individuals to HHS, whose breach portal listed the incident this week; Baylor Genetics separately reported 2,810,878 individuals affected in a related June healthcare breach.

SecurityWeek · 6d agoData breach

What the AI Warning Letter Completely Missed

Opinion piece argues the recent AI warning letter identifies a risk window but omits which actors pose risks and who can mitigate.

This Dark Reading commentary critiques a recent AI warning letter for correctly identifying an approaching risk window while failing to name who is coming through it or who will close it. The piece is brief opinion commentary on AI risk discourse rather than a technical report.

Dark Reading · 13d agoAI safety & security

When the Whole Company Adopts AI: What It Does to Your SOC

Analysis of 16.9 million SOC alerts finds AI-related alerts at 0.43%, growing 685% since February, with 94.1% noise and 0.02% real attacks.

A review of roughly 16.9 million SOC alerts found about 73,000 (0.43%) were AI-related, a share that grew 685% between February and June 2026. Of AI-related alerts, 94.1% were noise, 5.8% genuine risks, and 0.02% real attacks; 79.8% received benign verdicts, 81.7% were automatically suppressed, and only 5.4% reached a human analyst. The only confirmed attacks were phishing campaigns that weaponized AI brand names as lures, while developer coding agents spawning shells and reading credential stores routinely tripped detections written before AI agents existed.

The Hacker News · 4d agoResearch1

Free ChatGPT users get ads picked from whatever they just asked about

OpenAI will serve ads to ChatGPT Free and Go users based on conversation topics, location and device, with personalized targeting behind opt-in.

OpenAI will begin showing ads in ChatGPT for Free and Go plan users, selected from the current conversation topic plus general location and device type. Personalized ad targeting using in-product activity and conversation context will only start after an explicit opt-in, with a setting to manage the choice afterward. Plus, Pro, Enterprise, Business and Education subscribers remain ad-free, and OpenAI states that chats, chat history, memories and personal details are not shared with advertisers. A privacy policy update will document the ad labels, controls and performance reporting.

Help Net Security · 17d agoAI industry

The New Face of Financial Fraud: AI-Powered Brand Abuse

Akamai reports AI-powered brand abuse is driving financial fraud against banks and promotes its Brand Guardian defense.

Akamai describes AI-powered brand abuse as a growing driver of financial fraud against banks. The post outlines the threats and the business impact for financial institutions. It also promotes Akamai Brand Guardian as a mitigation for financial institutions.

Akamai Blog · 22d agoPhishing & fraud

A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya is a startup from a former Spotify leader for making music apps

Former Spotify innovation head raises $5.5M pre-seed for A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya, a startup building playful music-creation apps with selective generative AI features.

A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya, founded by former Spotify head of innovation Máuhan M Zonoozy, raised a $5.5M pre-seed round from Mantis VC, SV Angel, Boxgroup, Quiet Capital and others. The startup ships small music-play apps including Speed Surfer, Usersound, Stacks, Drops, Sampler, and the iOS mixer app bop, plus a new prompt-based sound creation feature. Zonoozy says the company deliberately avoids infusing AI into every product, arguing human taste and participation become more valuable as AI-generated content grows abundant.

TechCrunch · AI · 2d agoAI industry 2 sources

Diffusion TV: Experiencing Diffusion Models through Tangible, Embodied Interaction

Researchers present Diffusion TV, a CRT-based installation where antenna manipulation lets audiences physically experience diffusion model denoising.

Diffusion TV is an interactive installation built around a modified CRT television where turning the antenna controls the clarity of AI-generated images and sounds, mirroring the denoising process of diffusion models. Three channels present AI-generated animals from the past, present, and future within a temporal and ecological narrative. The authors frame the work as an embodied, non-verbal alternative to explainable AI that highlights intermediate generative states rather than final outputs.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 12d agoAI research

Ukrainian Conti Ransomware Developer Sentenced to 4 Years in US Prison

A US court sentenced Ukrainian Oleksii Lytvynenko to four years in prison for developing malware loaders and handling stolen data for the Conti ransomware operation.

Oleksii Oleksiyovych Lytvynenko, 44, was arrested in Ireland in 2023, extradited to the US in late 2025, and pleaded guilty to wire fraud in June 2026. He admitted joining the Conti gang in September 2021 and helping develop a malware loader, and investigators found victim data in his possession suggesting participation in actual attacks. The Conti operation is estimated to have received at least $150 million in ransoms from victims in more than 30 countries. The sentencing follows recent terms for Karakurt negotiator Deniss Zolotarjovs (8.5 years) and the Ransom Cartel administrator (16 years).

SecurityWeekupdated · 5d agofirst · 5d agoPolicy & legal 7 sources1