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China, Iran, North Korea Hackers Exploit Gemini Across Attack Life Cycle
State-backed hackers weaponized Google's artificial intelligence model Gemini to accelerate cyberattacks, using the productivity tool as an offensive asset for reconnaissance, social engineering and malware development. Google said it has disabled accounts and strengthened defenses.

Plaintext Emails Trigger Police Probes Into Potential Leaks of State Secrets
A trove of documents connected to American financier Jeffrey Epstein published by the U.S. Department of Justice show that the rich and powerful who orbited the now-deceased convicted child sex offender practiced horrible operational security.

McKinsey Reveals How Top Performing Firms Are Redefining Tech Leadership
Before artificial intelligence dominated every technology conversation, the successful CIO focused on keeping business systems up and running while keeping costs in line. But in 2026, the picture is changing, according to McKinsey's Global Tech Agenda 2026.

Review Finds Access Control, Incident Response Gaps for 2 DHHS Data Repositories
A lack of access controls, poor record request handling, weak incident response plans and other security deficiencies related to two critical data repositories are potentially putting millions of Utahans sensitive personal and health information at risk, said a state audit report.

AI Agents Target Anti-Money Laundering at Major Global Banks, Cut Manual Probes
Bretton AI has raised $75 million in Series B funding led by Sapphire Ventures to scale AI agents for anti-money laundering sanctions and KYC compliance. CEO Will Lawrence says the company is targeting large banks with automation designed to reduce manual investigations and improve auditability.

Also: Spanish Hacker Granted Russian Asylum, Microsoft Patches Zero-Days
This week, a CISA warning, Nest footage in Nancy Guthrie case, Signal phishing. Spanish hacker, Russian asylum. Spanish ministry services offline. BYOVD ransomware. The Conduent breach hit Volvo. Microsoft patched zero-days. ZeroDayRAT targeted devices. The SmarterMail breach. Another Fortinet flaw.

Accel-Led Funding Round Fuels AI-Native Detection and Response
Vega raised $120 million led by Accel to expand its AI-native security operations platform. The funding will boost product development and global go-to-market efforts as enterprises seek faster threat detection, broader analytics and support for complex multi-cloud and on-premises environments.

Why Modern Threat Modeling Must Account for State Control of Infrastructure
CISOs for decades viewed governments as partners. That assumption is weakening. Today, state control over infrastructure needs be part of threat modeling and business continuity planning for global security leaders - and it's time for CISOs to reassess dependencies and trust boundaries.

UK Rollout to Link Arco's Cybersecurity Assurance With Sophos's Threat Intelligence
Sophos acquired Arco to expand into cybersecurity assurance and compliance, launching a new CISO Advantage capability. The company plans a phased rollout starting in the U.K., integrating Arco’s risk and regulatory mapping platform with Sophos Central and its global threat intelligence operations.

Singapore Signals Heightened Vigilance Against State-Linked Threat Actors
Singapore conducted a yearlong, multi-agency cyber defense operation to expel UNC3886 from all four major telecom providers after the advanced threat actor accessed segments of critical communications infrastructure and extracted limited technical data without disrupting services.

AI Is Transforming Economics But Enterprise IT Architecture Issues Are Still Here
While AI systems such as Claude lower the marginal cost of writing code and automating discrete tasks, especially when it comes to early-stage work including prototyping and front-end design, the idea that AI will lay waste to the industry is overblown, analysts say.

Acting Chief Tells Lawmakers Most Staff Would Be Furloughed Amid Partial Shutdown
More than half of the U.S. cyber defense agency's workforce would be furloughed under a DHS funding lapse, the agency's acting chief warned Wednesday, pausing incident reporting rulemaking, security assessments and proactive cyber programs while significantly limiting operations.

Attackers that want to use artificial intelligence tools to build ransomware or help run their cyber operations risk getting much less than they bargained for, said security expert Candid Wuest, in part because they'll still rely on known tactics that can be readily spotted and blocked.

2023 and 2024 Ransomware Breaches Affected More Than 2.5M
Michigan-based McLaren Health Care has agreed to pay $14 million to settle consolidated class action litigation involving two ransomware attacks - allegedly by Alphv/BlackCat in 2023 and by Inc Ransom in 2024 - that affected about 2.5 million patients and employees.

AI Elevates CDO Job From Gatekeeper to Data-Driven Change Agent
The chief data officer is being pushed out of the shadows and into the C-suite spotlight with the rise of AI. While the role emerged as one rooted in compliance and risk management, it has evolved to be a business driver, holding the keys to value creation and human-centered transformation.

Security Service Says China-Linked Actor Compromised Vulnerable Network Devices
Norway's security service confirmed it was targeted by the China-linked Salt Typhoon campaign, marking one of Europe’s clearest public acknowledgements that the cyberespionage operation extended beyond U.S. telecom and federal networks into allied infrastructure.

Shadow Aeza International Directed Traffic to Malicious Adtech
A financially motivated threat actor hacked dozens of domain name system resolvers, connecting them to the infrastructure of a Russian bulletproof hosting service sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Treasury for its criminal links, researchers found.

CEO Jay Chaudhry: SquareX Deal Targets Unmanaged Devices and Third-Party Access
Zscaler has acquired SquareX to deliver browser security through extensions rather than endpoint agents or stand-alone browsers. CEO Jay Chaudhry said the approach speeds deployment, improves security for unmanaged devices and accelerates time-to-market by up to a year.