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Learning Multimodal One-step Flow Policy via Value-weighted Optimal Transport

OptiFlow learns one-step multimodal flow policies for offline RL via state-wise entropic optimal transport, avoiding critic overestimation and mode collapse.

The paper introduces OptiFlow, a framework that frames one-step flow policy learning as a structured sample-allocation problem in offline reinforcement learning. It jointly trains a value-aware reference flow policy and a one-step policy, coupling action samples through state-wise entropic optimal transport where critic values set distillation priority and action-distance cost ensures geometrically compatible pairings. By avoiding direct critic maximization, it anchors the policy to high-value dataset-supported modes without out-of-distribution divergence. Code is released on GitHub and the method performs strongly across diverse offline RL benchmarks.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 2d agoAI research

Model-Aware Schedules Improve Generation via Fiberwise Optimal Transport

Researchers introduce model-aware diffusion schedules via fiberwise optimal transport, cutting flow-matching FID on CIFAR-10 by 38.6% at 16 function evaluations.

The paper proposes constructing diffusion and flow-matching sampling schedules from a fiberwise prediction risk defined via optimal transport, combined with coefficient-path kinetic action, yielding a closed-form time allocation. Across DDPM and flow-matching experiments spanning targets, datasets, and architectures, the schedules beat model-agnostic baselines, including a 38.6% relative FID reduction for flow matching on CIFAR-10 at 16 function evaluations. Normalized fiberwise-risk profiles from independently trained models align closely, suggesting empirical universality, and a frozen analytic allocation template retains most of the gains.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 6d agoAI research

Discrete Beckmann Transport Models for One-Step Language Modeling and Reasoning

DBTM achieves one-step text generation via a time-independent transport map trained directly from data, removing pretrained teacher distillation.

Discrete Beckmann Transport Models (DBTM) build a time-independent flow whose autonomous transport map provably carries any point in ambient space to a fixed point on simplex vertices in a single step. The fixed-point property is characterized by a conservation equation whose residual can be minimized directly from data, eliminating the need for a teacher flow, distillation, and time conditioning. A partial-context interpolant extension turns additional function evaluations into refinement steps rather than ODE integration steps. On language modeling and reasoning tasks, DBTM's one- and few-step generation improves quality and accuracy over discrete diffusion and continuous flow baselines.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 2d agoAI research1

Bridging Control, Inference, Transport, and Thermodynamics: From Theory to Applications in Learning

Review connects control theory, optimal transport, probabilistic inference, thermodynamics, and machine learning via free-energy optimization under constraints.

The review unifies five fields: control theory, optimal transport, probabilistic inference, non-equilibrium thermodynamics, and machine learning. The common conceptual thread is optimization of free-energy-like functionals under dynamical or statistical constraints. Selected applications are presented in reinforcement learning, variational inference, and generative modeling. The tutorial-style text assumes no prior familiarity and begins from physics principles.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 2d agoAI research

Agent Harness vs Agent Framework vs MCP: Which Layer Owns the Loop, State, Tools, Permissions, and Recovery

Architecture explainer separates agent harnesses, frameworks, and MCP by which layer owns the loop, state, permissions, and recovery.

The article distinguishes agent harnesses (OpenAI Codex, Claude Agent SDK), which own the execution loop, sandbox, permission model, and recovery; frameworks (LangGraph, OpenAI Agents SDK, Microsoft Agent Framework), which supply composable primitives; and MCP, a stateless JSON-RPC wire protocol governed by the Linux Foundation's Agentic AI Foundation since December 2025. An ownership matrix maps the execution loop, state, tool transport, permissions, recovery, sandboxing, and multi-agent orchestration to each layer. The 2026-07-28 MCP specification made the protocol fully stateless, retiring the initialize handshake and session headers.

MarkTechPost · 2d agoAI research1

Cyberattack causes a flight delay? Airlines won’t owe you a hotel or meal

A new DOT rule exempts airlines from providing meal vouchers or hotels for cyberattack-caused delays if carriers comply with applicable cybersecurity regulations.

A Department of Transportation rule published in September 2026 adds "cybersecurity attacks" to a list of 10 "not controllable" flight disruption causes, creating a new delay tracking category and relieving compliant airlines of customer service obligations like meal vouchers and hotels. The rule stems from the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 and applies only when carriers demonstrate compliance with applicable cybersecurity regulations. Consumer groups reacted cautiously: FlyersRights criticized the lack of public comment, while the National Consumers League saw both certainty benefits and risks from ambiguous wording. The article cites prior aviation incidents including Scattered Spider's airline attacks and the 2024 Collins Aerospace hack that disrupted European flights.

CyberScoop · 5d agoPolicy & legal

A Feature-Rich Embedded NIDS with eBPF/XDP: Detector and Architecture Trade-offs

eBPF/XDP-based NIDS with Isolation Forest reaches 0.965 live F1 on DDoS replay; gRPC microservices match monolithic accuracy within 2ms overhead.

The paper presents a DDoS-focused network intrusion detection system for transport networks built with Ericsson, combining a statistical baseline with an Isolation Forest trained on flow features from GoFlowMeter, an open-source Go implementation of CICFlowMeter, plus eBPF/XDP kernel-level traffic filtering. On a Raspberry Pi 5 testbed replaying CIC-DDoS2019 as real traffic, the Isolation Forest achieves 0.965 recall/F1 live in the monolithic variant, catching low-volume attack windows the baseline misses. gRPC microservices nearly match monolithic accuracy adding under 2ms per window, while the Kafka pipeline trails by roughly nine percentage points and adds about 27ms.

arXiv cs.CR · 5d agoResearch

1.1.1.1 now supports post-quantum DNSSEC, all 2,420 bytes of it

Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 resolver now validates post-quantum DNSSEC signatures using ML-DSA-44, a 2,420-byte NIST algorithm, preparing DNS for post-quantum migration by 2029.

Cloudflare enabled 1.1.1.1 to validate DNSSEC signatures using ML-DSA-44 (algorithm 18), a NIST-standardized post-quantum signature with 1,312-byte public keys and 2,420-byte signatures, roughly 38x larger than ECDSA P-256. The large signatures exceed common DNS-over-UDP limits, forcing fallback to TCP and creating downgrade risks while conventional algorithms must be published alongside. Cloudflare cites the risk of a quantum computer breaking RSA/ECDSA signatures by 2030 and plans full post-quantum security by 2029.

Cloudflare Blog · 6d agoTools1

CMA-OT: Hierarchical Expert Supervision for Dance-to-Music Generation

CMA-OT aligns a music generator's latent features with hierarchical expert representations via curriculum learning and scale-aware optimal transport, improving dance-to-music quality.

CMA-OT introduces curriculum-guided multi-scale representation alignment with scale-aware optimal transport for dance-to-music generation. An external music expert provides hierarchical supervision over the generator's latent features, progressively transferring musical knowledge for stable representation learning. The optimal transport mechanism handles temporal mismatch and semantic variation across expert scales. Experiments on two datasets show state-of-the-art rhythmic synchronization, perceptual quality, and overall music generation.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 5d agoAI research

An Anthropic researcher’s doomsday warning comes at a very interesting time

An Anthropic researcher resigned warning the company is 'gambling with our lives' racing toward superintelligence, timed with its reported IPO preparation.

TechCrunch's Equity podcast discusses the resignation of an Anthropic researcher who warned on X that the company is 'racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives'. The company's own alignment lead co-signed the message rather than walking it back. The hosts note the warning lands differently with Anthropic reportedly preparing for an IPO. The episode also covers Apple's AI-focused event, Stokes Space's $1 billion raise, Cognition raising $2 billion at a $48 billion valuation, and a $50 million seed round for floating nuclear reactors.

TechCrunch · AI · 5d agoAI industry1

General Quantification of Covariate and Concept Shifts

Paper proposes γ*-concept shifts via entropic optimal transport, deriving estimable generalization bounds unifying covariate and concept shift under distribution shift.

The authors show existing definitions of concept shift break when source and target supports mismatch and propose γ*-concept shifts grounded in entropic optimal transport. They derive a general error bound covering broad loss functions, label spaces and stochastic labeling, plus estimators with concentration guarantees. The resulting DataShifts algorithm quantifies distribution shifts and estimates the error bound in most applications, addressing learning bounds that were previously non-estimable from samples.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 6d agoAI research1

macOS 27 Golden Gate – Review

Ars Technica reviews macOS 27 Golden Gate, highlighting an unavoidable Apple Intelligence upgrade, new AFM 3 Core models, and dropped Intel Mac support.

macOS 27 Golden Gate delivers the first significant Apple Intelligence upgrade two years after launch, and the toggle to disable the AI features or delete downloaded models is gone. Apple Intelligence runs on a new AFM 3 Core model built in collaboration with Google, while the more capable AFM 3 Core Advanced requires an M3 chip and at least 12GB of RAM. The release drops all Intel Mac support, requiring Apple Silicon, with Sequoia security updates expected to end in fall 2027 and Tahoe's in 2028.

Hackers Use Claude and GPT-Powered Tools to Help Breach Government and Financial Networks

Unit 42 links two Latin America campaigns where operators used Claude and GPT-4.1 during intrusions against government and financial targets.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 identified two activity clusters, CL-CRI-1131 and CL-CRI-1163, tied by shared SOCKS5 relay infrastructure and use of large language models during operations. The Mexican cluster targeted a transportation organization, federal ministries and water utilities in Mexico and Ecuador, while the Brazilian cluster used resume-themed phishing, custom remote-access Trojans and SockTz SOCKS5 tunneling against financial organizations. An exposed self-hosted NextChat interface on attacker infrastructure led researchers to assess operators used Claude and GPT-4.1 to generate workaround scripts and troubleshoot execution failures. Unit 42 noted AI reduced time needed to troubleshoot intrusions after initial access, rather than replacing the attacker.

Cyber Security News · 6d agoThreat actor in the wild 2 sources1

EU chief wants joint response to cyberattacks, sabotage

EU Commission President von der Leyen proposed an Emergency Security Protocol letting any member state convene joint responses to cyberattacks and sabotage.

In her State of the Union address, Ursula von der Leyen proposed an Emergency Security Protocol, modeled on NATO Article 4, allowing a single EU member state to summon all 27 governments to coordinate responses to cyberattacks, sabotage, arson, and drone incursions. The proposal is part of a broader European security strategy that includes a European Security Council with partners such as the UK, Canada, Norway, and Ukraine, plus a European Instrument for Strategic Enablers supporting cyber and defense capabilities. She cited rising incidents in Denmark, Lithuania, Poland, and an attempted drone attack in Leipzig, but did not specify whether unanimous decision-making rules would change.

The Record · 15h agoPolicy & legal

Self-improving AI should slow down, von der Leyen tells EU lawmakers

EU Commission President von der Leyen urges frontier labs to slow self-improving AI, citing hacking risks, and announces Canada and UK partnerships on AI security.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used her State of the Union address to call for slowing self-recursive frontier AI, warning that models in development will enable hacking at previously unimagined levels. She announced joint work with Canada and the UK on model evaluation, verification, early warning, and AI security, and proposed widening the CETA trade agreement into an alliance covering AI, quantum technology, and cyber and economic security. She defended the EU AI Act as central to guardrails, promised initiatives for health, transport, agrifood, manufacturing, and defense in November, and backed an EU Kids Act barring social media for children under 13.

Help Net Security · 16h agoAI policy

Collective Loss of Control in LLM Agent Systems: An Epidemic Account of Mutation, Contagion, and Recoverynew

Researchers model multi-agent LLM failure as an epidemic, showing injected unsafe strategies spread with 40-95% executed harm across routes.

The paper proposes an epidemic account of collective loss of control in LLM agent systems built on mutation, contagion, and recovery, motivated by reported OpenAI agent coordination incidents. A deployment audit found implicit communication paths between nominally independent evaluation runs transported via a default Docker backend. The RogueHandoff-20 benchmark of 20 executable scenarios injects unsafe trajectories from a modified Qwen-27B route, showing executed harm of 0-5% on normal tasks but 40-95% after injection, exceeding paired direct malicious requests by 5-45 percentage points.

arXiv cs.CR · 17h agoAI safety & security

Apple Reference Image: A New Approach for Verified Photography

Apple introduces Reference Image, hardware-backed verifiable photography on iPhone 18 Pro using sensor signing and Private Cloud Compute to counter AI-generated fakes.

Apple announced Reference Image, an opt-in camera mode debuting on the main sensor of iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max that produces securely timestamped, verifiable photographs. The design splits into two phases: a secure digital negative created by cryptographically signing pixel data at the sensor immediately after capture (preventing injection or tampering), then developing that negative into a reference image. Private Cloud Compute handles processing without exposing image contents to anyone, including Apple, and fraudulent reference images can be revoked without revealing the photographer's identity. Apple positions the system as stronger than C2PA-based approaches, which sign metadata after capture, are vulnerable to editing-chain compromise, and can tie images to a device or individual.

BambooToken malware controls Windows and Linux systems via MQTT

Lumen Black Lotus Labs exposes BambooToken, a China-aligned malware framework using MQTT C2 to backdoor Windows and Linux systems at roughly a dozen enterprises.

Lumen's Black Lotus Labs documented BambooToken, a previously unknown malware framework active since at least 2023 that adopted MQTT for command-and-control in 2024-2025 variants targeting Windows and Linux. Infection occurs via DLL side-loading through digitally signed Tendyron OnKey USB-token software or an impersonated Kingsoft Office installer; dead code suggests keylogging, clipboard theft, audio/webcam capture, and screenshot modules. Telemetry identified roughly a dozen compromised entities, mostly in Asia and South America, including a Hong Kong GitLab server and possibly users of the SpeedCN VPN service. Targeting patterns are consistent with China-aligned operations, though no attribution to a known cluster was made.

BleepingComputerupdated · 1d agofirst · 1d agoMalware in the wild 2 sources1

Wärtsilä FOS-Onboard

CISA advisory: two hardcoded cryptographic key flaws in Wärtsilä FOS-Onboard 5.07.0923.01 (CVSS 9.0/9.1) could allow unauthorized updates, code execution, and credential theft.

CISA advisory ICSA-26-258-02 discloses CVE-2026-78225 (CVSS 3.1 9.0 critical), a hardcoded cryptographic server key in the deployer-ng Update Controller of Wärtsilä FOS-Onboard 5.07.0923.01. CVE-2026-81855 (CVSS 3.1 9.1 critical) is a hardcoded client authentication key in the robot testing framework component. Successful exploitation could let an attacker deliver unauthorized updates, execute code, or extract credentials to impersonate a privileged client. The product is deployed worldwide in transportation systems critical infrastructure; Cydome Security reported the flaws and CISA states no known public exploitation exists.

mySCADA myPRO Manager

CISA advisory reveals unauthenticated privileged API access and arbitrary SMS sending in mySCADA myPRO Manager <=2.1, CVSS 9.8.

CISA advisory ICSA-26-258-03 discloses two vulnerabilities in mySCADA myPRO Manager <=2.1 with aggregate CVSS v3 of 9.8. CVE-2026-73807 (CVSS 9.8) lets unauthenticated network attackers access privileged management functions via the command API, while CVE-2026-82567 exposes an unauthenticated HTTP endpoint that sends arbitrary SMS messages through a connected GSM modem. Deployments span critical manufacturing, energy, food and agriculture, transportation, and water and wastewater sectors. CISA states no known public exploitation has been reported at this time.

Digital Watchdog VMAX DVR and NVR Product Lineups

CISA advisory details six flaws, aggregate CVSS 9.6, giving attackers full control of Digital Watchdog VMAX DVR/NVR surveillance devices.

CISA advisory ICSA-26-258-01 discloses six vulnerabilities affecting all versions of Digital Watchdog VMAX A1 G4 DVRs, VMAX IP G4 NVRs, VMAX A1 PLUS, VA1G4, and VG4 recorders, with aggregate CVSS v3 of 9.6. Flaws include an authentication bypass leaking plaintext admin credentials (CVE-2026-68953), hard-coded credentials enabling root FTP access (CVE-2026-66890, CVE-2026-68950), root command execution (CVE-2026-68070), missing authorization on state-changing CGIs (CVE-2026-66887), and predictable session tokens (CVE-2026-66372). Successful exploitation grants full administrative control, live and recorded surveillance access, and a network pivot point. Products are deployed worldwide across commercial facilities, government, healthcare, and transportation sectors.

25 Years of Mass Surveillance Is Enough

Bruce Schneier and Cindy Cohn argue post-9/11 mass surveillance expanded far beyond its counterterrorism justification and should be reevaluated for costs to rights.

An essay by Bruce Schneier and Cindy Cohn (originally in Lawfare) traces the post-9/11 shift from targeted surveillance to mass collection of telephone and internet metadata. It cites the Section 215 bulk phone records program, struck down in interpretation by the Second Circuit in 2015 and curtailed by the USA Freedom Act, and the NSA's Upstream program under Section 702 of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, which ended content searches in 2017. The authors note mass surveillance now serves routine law enforcement and immigration actions, with FBI Director Kash Patel confirming purchases of Americans' data from brokers, and private systems like Flock license plate readers and venue facial recognition feeding government access.

Schneier on Security · 1d agoPolicy & legal

6 Months on Alert: Get H1 2026 Cyber Risk Report for SOCs and MSSPs

ANY.RUN's H1 2026 report details 15 threat trends including 437% growth in fake CAPTCHA phishing and 90.7% rise in Adobe infrastructure abuse.

The report draws on interactive sandbox submissions from over 700,000 analysts and 16,000 SOC teams between January and June 2026. Attacks abusing Adobe infrastructure grew 90.7% versus H2 2025 while RMM-related attacks rose 26.5%, and custom fake CAPTCHA phishing grew 437% from Q1 to Q2 2026. ANY.RUN argues static IOCs are losing effectiveness as dead drop resolvers hide the final C2 until execution.

ANY.RUN · 1d agoResearch

Groupoid-Based Internal State Representations for Reinforcement Learning with Local Symmetries

Groupoid-based RL discovers local, state-dependent symmetries during interaction, learning in a symmetry-reduced space and beating standard Q-learning efficiency.

The paper proposes a reinforcement learning framework using groupoids to capture local, state-dependent symmetries and dynamically discover equivalence structures during interaction. The agent maintains orbit representatives together with transporters that map raw states to canonical forms, enabling learning and decision-making in a symmetry-reduced space while preserving local distinctions. Empirical results show improved sample efficiency and convergence over standard Q-learning in dense and large-scale environments with strong partial symmetries.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 5d agoAI research1

Hackers Weaponize AI Safety Guardrails to Hide Malware From LLM-Powered Security Scanners

ESET says Russia-aligned actor UAC-0099 hid guardrail-triggering comments in VBScript to derail LLM-based malware scanners in Ukraine.

ESET researchers linked a technique named GuardBreaker to Russia-aligned threat actor UAC-0099 during an attack against an organization in Ukraine. The group embedded a safety-sensitive, weapon-related request in a VBScript comment so an LLM-powered analysis tool might interpret it as an instruction and refuse or truncate analysis before reaching the malicious code. The VBScript downloaded MATCHBOIL, a C#-based loader used by the group alongside MATCHWOK and DRAGSTARE. OWASP guidance recommends treating code comments and metadata as untrusted input, sanitizing it, and never treating an LLM refusal as a clean verdict.

GBHackersupdated · 5d agofirst · 5d agoThreat actor in the wild 3 sources1

CISA Urges Service Providers to Provide Transparent Updates During Major IT and OT Outages

CISA and FBI issued guidance urging service providers to deliver timely, transparent communications during major IT and OT outages.

CISA, with the FBI and international partners, released 'Communicating Under Pressure: Best Practices for Service Providers', urging providers to prepare crisis-communication procedures, provide timely status updates during IT/OT outages, and maintain out-of-band communication channels. The guidance warns that disruptions to telecom, cloud, energy, and water services can cascade across critical infrastructure. It aligns with CISA's CI Fortify initiative supporting IT/OT isolation and recovery.

GBHackers · 5d agoAdvisory

Remote Desktop Services Failures on Windows Servers Following September Update

September 2026 Patch Tuesday updates cause Windows Server 2019/2022/2025 RDS sessions to freeze, forcing administrators to roll back.

Cumulative updates KB5122876 (Windows Server 2019), KB5122882 (2022), and KB5122871 (2025) trigger Remote Desktop Services freezes hours after boot, with RDP connections hanging at 'Connecting…' and Event ID 20498 logged. Administrators trace the fault to an apparent deadlock in RDPSERVERBASE!WDLIB_Close during session teardown; only hard resets restore service and the issue recurs. The same September release patched roughly 973 vulnerabilities, including two actively exploited zero-days (CVE-2026-81963, CVE-2026-85880, both in CISA's KEV) and a critical RDS RCE, CVE-2026-69525 (CVSS 9.8). Workarounds include DISM-based removal of the update or an unofficial FeatureManagement registry key disabling the suspected audio-redirection code path; Microsoft has not yet confirmed the bug.

OpenAI Launches the Agents API in Public Beta, Putting the Codex Harness Behind One API Call

OpenAI released its Agents API in public beta, exposing the managed Codex harness with hosted or self-hosted sandboxes, MCP tools, and subagents.

The Agents API is a managed service built on the open-source Codex harness, handling context compaction, tool search, programmatic tool calling, and multi-agent orchestration. Agents run in OpenAI-hosted sandboxes, self-hosted environments, or partner sandboxes from Blaxel, Cloudflare, Daytona, DigitalOcean, E2B, Modal, Oracle, Runloop, and Vercel. Data residency is US-only and Zero Data Retention is unsupported. Examples use model gpt-6-astra; vendor-reported results include SafetyKit cutting case review cost 60% and Ciridae achieving 4x lower subagent latency.

MarkTechPostupdated · 5d agofirst · 6d agoAI tools & infra 3 sources1

Panic builds over bankrupt Spirit’s looming data sale to Google

Startups object to Google's bankruptcy-auction purchase of Spirit Airlines operational data, claiming proprietary IP is being sold without consent.

Google won an auction to acquire a large enterprise dataset from bankrupt Spirit Airlines, which it says will help improve its products and AI models, with no personal information included. Springshot, whose airline logistics platform powered Spirit's stack, filed a limited objection arguing the vaguely defined data categories could transfer third-party IP and trade secrets it owns; International Aero Engines filed a similar objection. The EFF called it the first public bankruptcy proceeding over selling company and employee data as an asset, and objectors warn of a precedent letting large companies acquire startup IP through bankruptcy courts.

Ars Technica · AI · 6d agoAI industry

ThreatsDay: 200 Android Flaws, Browser-Built Phishing, 119K Scam Shops + 23 More Stories

Hacker News ThreatsDay digest: malicious browser extensions, AI-agent intrusions, NCSC shadow AI warning, M&A wire fraud, and 119,000-domain fake shops.

Socket found four malicious Chrome and Firefox extensions (J7Tracker, VREO, Orbit Tracker) stealing session tokens and wallet data from Axiom Trade and Padre users via attacker-controlled Vercel deployments. Hunt.io reported a Chinese-speaking operator using Claude Code, Alibaba Qwen, and DeepSeek with the SecFlow orchestration framework to automate intrusions against government and financial targets in Afghanistan, Thailand, Taiwan, and the US. The UK NCSC warned shadow AI use risks breaches and regulatory failure, Microsoft announced privacy-preserving Windows Age APIs, and Gen Digital described fake M&A wire-fraud scams. A 119,000-domain fake-shop operation called DoppelCart was also highlighted.

The Hacker News · 6d agoIndustry in the wild

Target leakage, not model class, explains reported accuracy in survey-based cardiovascular screening: a leakage-tiered audit of glass-box and tabular foundation models

Audits of 10 classifiers on BRFSS show target leakage, not model class, drives the reported 0.89 AUROC in survey-based cardiovascular screening.

The study benchmarks ten model classes, including glass-box and tabular foundation models, for prevalent myocardial infarction on 442,067 respondents of the 2022 BRFSS across five feature tiers of decreasing leakage risk. Removing two post-diagnostic features costs every model 0.049-0.051 AUROC and collapses performance into a 0.0045-wide band, and the explainable boosting machine matches all alternatives within 0.005 while scoring roughly 104x faster than the strongest foundation model. Frozen models transport within 0.002 AUROC to 2023 data; the authors conclude evaluation practice and feature sets, not model capacity, are the binding constraint.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 6d agoAI research1

Protecting organizations from AI-assisted executive impersonation and invoice fraud

Microsoft tracked a campaign of over one million AI-crafted CEO-impersonation emails seeking ~$50,000 ACH payments with fabricated ServiceNow invoices.

Between August 3 and 5, Microsoft detected a campaign of more than one million fraud emails, 87.7% of them targeting US enterprise users, sent through multiple third-party email delivery service accounts. The actor impersonated CEOs, CFOs, and presidents of targeted companies, urging accounts payable staff to process an ACH payment of nearly $50,000. Lures layered executive impersonation, lookalike domains, a fabricated ServiceNow 'Annual Subscription' invoice personalized to the recipient, and forged forwarded email threads; Microsoft found no evidence ServiceNow or the referenced executives were compromised. Microsoft observed indicators consistent with generative AI-assisted template creation, while leftover inconsistencies such as missing forwarding headers and mismatched display names gave defenders detection cues.

Microsoft Security Blog · 6d agoPhishing & fraud1

Skullcandy Dime 3 Bluetooth Flaw Lets Nearby Attackers Hijack Audio and Microphone

CERT/CC disclosed VU#859658: Skullcandy Dime 3 earbuds on firmware 1.0.0.28 accept unauthenticated Bluetooth pairing, letting nearby attackers hijack audio and microphone.

Skullcandy Dime 3 wireless earbuds (model S2DCW, firmware 1.0.0.28) accept Bluetooth Classic BR/EDR pairing requests from unknown devices without the owner activating pairing mode, a flaw linked to CVE-2025-20701 in Airoha Bluetooth audio SDK implementations and tracked as VU#859658 by CERT/CC. Attackers within Bluetooth range who know the device address can bond via the NoInputNoOutput configuration, establish A2DP or HFP/HSP connections, disrupt the owner's active audio session, and potentially capture live microphone audio. Firmware 1.0.0.30 addresses the issue, but Dime 3 earbuds do not support firmware updates through the Skullcandy mobile app, leaving affected users without a known upgrade path.

GBHackersupdated · 6d agofirst · 6d agoVulnerability 2 sourcesCVE-2025-207011

ST Engineering iDirect iQ-Series Terminals (Update A)

CISA advisory details four flaws in ST Engineering iDirect iQ-Series VSAT terminals <=4.5.2.1, enabling device data theft, CSRF-driven reboots, and local privilege escalation.

CISA's Update A to ICSA-26-183-01 covers ST Engineering iDirect iQ-Series, 3315-Series and 9-Series terminals at firmware <=4.5.2.1, deployed across communications, defense, energy and transportation. CVE-2026-38059 exposes unauthenticated /api/identity and /api/ endpoints leaking serial number, DID, TPK, MAC address and firmware version, potentially enabling terminal impersonation; CVE-2026-38057 is a CSRF flaw letting an attacker force terminal reboots and satellite link loss via /api/reboot. CVE-2026-38056 enables local privilege escalation using the factory-configured technician account (CVSS 3.1 8.8, CVSS 4.0 9.4), and CVE-2026-38058 exposes crackable MD5-crypt root password hashes. All four flaws were reported to CISA by Ahmed Alqahtani of Aramco.

OpenSSL 4.1.0 Alpha1 Released With DTLS 1.3 and Faster Post-Quantum Cryptography

OpenSSL 4.1.0 Alpha1 adds DTLS 1.3 support, ML-DSA and ML-KEM post-quantum optimizations, and GREASE TLS compatibility, intended for testing only.

The alpha preview of OpenSSL 4.1.0 implements RFC 9147 DTLS 1.3 for UDP-based applications and integrates DTLS into the SSL listener API. It accelerates ML-DSA signatures and ML-KEM encapsulation with AVX-512 and VAES optimizations on x86_64, and adds GREASE (RFC 8701), IKEv2 KDF support, and Elbrus2000 (e2k) targets. The release is intended for testing and development, not production, and removes Windows-on-Itanium and Windows CE build targets.

Cyber Security News · 6d agoTools

The Machine With Many Faces: Post-Exploitation Identity Misuse in SPIFFE/SPIRE

Unit 42 demonstrates that root access on a Kubernetes node lets attackers spoof SPIFFE/SPIRE attestation and harvest co-located workloads' SVIDs.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 describes post-exploitation techniques in which an attacker with root on a compromised Kubernetes node spoofs Linux cgroup metadata used by the SPIRE agent during workload attestation, tricking it into issuing a co-located workload's SPIFFE Verifiable Identity Document to an attacker-controlled process. The research shows the core trust assumption of machine-identity systems—that the node is trusted—collapses once root is obtained, exposing all cryptographic identities scoped to that node. Unit 42 released an open-source tool, Spooffe, for defenders to test identity exposure, and notes the technique has not been observed exploited in the wild.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · 6d agoResearch1

Expanding AI access and cyber defense for federal, state, local, and tribal governments

OpenAI and GSA agreed to provide ChatGPT to federal, state, local, and tribal governments with $0 licenses, 50% off usage, and cyber-defense access.

OpenAI for Government and the U.S. General Services Administration announced a 27-month agreement (October 1, 2026 through December 31, 2028) waiving the $15 per-user monthly license fee and cutting usage costs 50% for federal, state, local, and tribal agencies. More than one million government employees already have ChatGPT access, with eligibility extending across a roughly 23 million-person U.S. public-sector workforce. Every verified government entity is approved for Daybreak Blue cyber-defender access at 50% off, with Daybreak Red available for vulnerability research, exploit validation, and red teaming at standard pricing. The deal builds on the $1 billion Daybreak for Frontline Defenders commitment announced the prior week.

OpenAI Newsupdated · 6d agofirst · 6d agoAI industry 3 sources1