Cyber, in brief

Someone copied files about California's public school pupils from a file-sharing site run by ETS, a non-profit that runs the state's school tests. [1][2]

ETS used the site to send test data to the California Department of Education, the state body that runs public schools. [1]

The intruder signed in with one real login that had fallen into the wrong hands, again and again from 22 May to 18 September. [1]

ETS only spotted the activity on 25 September, a week after the last known visit. [1]

The files cover every pupil enrolled in the last three school years, and some who left as far back as 2006. [1][2]

No count has been given, but California's public schools had more than 5.7 million pupils in 2025-26. [1]

The records hold names, birth dates, home addresses, schools, grades, ethnicity and first language. [1][2]

Some also show a child's disability, the extra help they get in tests, and their test results. [1][2]

The files held no Social Security numbers, passwords or bank details, and nothing about parents. [1]

ETS closed the account, took the site offline and is building a new one with stronger protection. [1]

Letters to families began on 16 October and will go out into early November, with two years of free identity protection, a service that warns people when their details are misused. [1]

Neither ETS nor the department has said how the login was stolen or who used it. [1]

Why it matters. Watch whether the copied files appear online; ETS says its web monitoring has found no sign of that so far. [1]

Ahold Delhaize, a Dutch company that owns supermarket chains in Europe and the US, said on Monday that 'malicious actions of others' caused the trouble it reported on 12 October. [3][4] It had taken websites, apps and other systems offline across most of its brands, including Stop & Shop and Food Lion in the US. [4] Its shops stayed open, but some struggled with supplies. [5] It reported the attack to Dutch police on Monday and says it has no evidence that customer data was taken. [3][5]

Why it matters. Online orders are about a tenth of sales at Albert Heijn, the biggest Dutch supermarket chain, and it will not deliver them before Thursday, at least 11 days after the outage began. [5] Ahold Delhaize has not said what kind of attack it was or whether a ransom was demanded. [3]

ConnectWise, which sells software that IT firms use to look after their clients' computers, still had its backup and management services switched off on Monday, with no date to restart. [24] Huntress, a security company, now says the attackers' internet address tried to sign in to nearly 1,000 companies' Microsoft 365 accounts. [23] More than 300 of those sign-ins worked, though not all of them reached any data. [23] A second wave aimed at groups working on policy, national security, trade and vital minerals mostly failed. [24]

Why it matters. ConnectWise says it cannot see inside its customers' systems, so each one has to check its own accounts. [24] While the services are off, backups do not run and saved copies cannot be restored. [23]

OpenCode, a free AI tool that helps people write software, says attackers got into an old system it was in the middle of shutting down. [7] The system held keys that some users had saved to pay for AI from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. [7] About 1.4% of users of its Console service were hit, from 17 October. [6] OpenCode called it part of a 'distillation attack', where someone sends huge numbers of questions to an AI to copy its answers into a cheaper one. [6]

Why it matters. Some users reported more than $1,700 of charges they did not make, run up overnight on their own keys. [6] OpenCode has told the three AI firms, and says users who did not get its email were not affected. [6][7]

A researcher at NorForge, a security company, watched one hacker set AI programs loose on websites with fewer than 100 characters of instructions. [14] The programs tried more than 1,200 sites and broke into more than 100, including sites linked to Deere, SharkNinja and Cummins. [14][15] A typical break-in took about 23 hours of trial and error. [14] The researcher puts the cost at about $5,000 of AI use, or about $50 a break-in. [14]

Why it matters. Deere says it has no sign that sensitive data was reached, and SharkNinja says only a product-help site was hit. [14] The researcher could watch because the hackers left Cairn, a free AI tool they were using, open to the internet. [14][15]

Citizen Lab, a University of Toronto lab that studies spyware, confirmed on Monday that Pegasus was on the phone of Vladan Dokic, head of the University of Belgrade. [17][18] Pegasus is spyware made by NSO Group, an Israeli company, and this infection needed no click at all. [18] Dokic backs the student protests against Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia's former president, who is running to be prime minister on 25 October. [17] A prosecutor in a corruption case against government officials, Rade Bajic, got an Apple spyware warning in August. [17][18]

Why it matters. SHARE Foundation, a Serbian digital-rights group, says at least 15 people in Serbia have been targeted with such spyware this year. [17] NSO did not answer questions, and it has long said it does not work with governments that abuse its tools. [17]

A US federal judge in California refused on Friday to hold NSO Group, the maker of Pegasus, in contempt of court. [16] WhatsApp, Meta's messaging app, said NSO had broken a 2025 court order banning it from using WhatsApp to attack people. [16] It pointed to 23 new accounts it linked to NSO, but would not say exactly how it found them. [16] The judge said that left too little evidence to prove it. [16]

Why it matters. WhatsApp said showing its methods would help spyware makers hide in future. [16] Access Now, a digital-rights group, said forcing that choice would let spyware makers escape punishment. [16]

Bullhorn, a US company whose software recruitment agencies use to track job candidates, sign up new staff and run payroll, switched its platform off after a cyberattack. [8] Customers first had trouble posting jobs on Friday, and on Saturday it confirmed an attack. [8] It says it has more than 10,000 customers worldwide. [8] It has not yet found out whether data was taken and has given no date for the return of most services. [8]

Why it matters. Job seekers' details pass through this software as well as the agencies' own. [8] Users who do not sign in through their employer's system must reset their passwords. [8]

FirstVDS, one of Russia's oldest companies renting out servers, says hackers stole data from some of its customers' servers. [22] They used a flaw in VMmanager, software from a firm called ISPsystem that runs many servers at once. [22] Their tool copied passwords, cloud logins, settings files and crypto wallets without changing anything, so the servers show no trace. [22] The flaw is not fully fixed yet. [22]

Why it matters. FirstVDS told affected customers to assume their data is gone and to change every password. [22] It has not said how many customers were hit or who did it. [22]

Rank Math PRO is a paid add-on for WordPress, the software behind many websites, that helps sites show up in search results. [10] For 11 hours on 15 and 16 October, some copies downloaded from Rank Math's own website carried hidden code that let attackers take over a site. [10][11] The company removed the files and released a clean version, 3.0.124. [10] The free version, used on more than 4 million sites, was not affected. [10]

Why it matters. Updating does not remove the hidden code, so owners who switched the bad copy on must restore the site from a backup or clean it by hand. [10][11] The code could also reach passwords and keys stored on the web server. [10]

Plex Media Server is software people run at home to stream their own films and music. [13] On 16 October a researcher published four flaws that, used together, let a stranger run programs on an exposed server without a password. [12] The next day another researcher's decoy server caught real attacks using that code. [12] Plex had already shipped fixes by 1 September. [12]

Why it matters. Infected servers were set to mine cryptocurrency and to pass strangers' internet traffic through the owner's home connection. [13] Criminals want home connections so they can reach company email from an ordinary-looking address, the second researcher wrote. [12]

Nikkei, the Japanese business news group that owns the Financial Times, has reported its third data breach in about a month. [9] Attackers used stolen logins on 7 October to reach a system the company uses to build software. [9] It held 1.83 million records, of which about 150,000 had names, emails, addresses, phone numbers or birth dates. [9] Nikkei says it has no sign the data was misused. [9]

Why it matters. The two earlier breaches also began with one staff account taken over, one in Google's office software and one in Microsoft's. [9] People in the 150,000 records are to be told one by one. [9]

The US Department of Homeland Security has banned civilian government agencies from using DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, and anything built with its models. [19][21] Agencies must also remove what they already run. [19] The order says data typed into DeepSeek is stored in China, where China's law lets its government demand it. [19] It does not cover the Department of Defense. [21]

Why it matters. Services such as OpenRouter can pass a request to DeepSeek's models without the user picking it, so agencies may be using it without knowing, The Register notes. [20] The reports differ on when the ban began: a letter dated 26 June, or the end of July. [19][21]

Conduent, a company that runs back-office work for US government health programmes and toll roads, agreed to pay $80 million to settle a lawsuit. [33] The case is about a 2024 hack that exposed personal and health data of about 62 million people. [33] People with documented losses from fraud can claim up to $3,500 each. [33] A court must still approve the deal. [33]

Why it matters. Conduent denies fault, and says it has cyber insurance and does not expect the deal to hurt its finances. [33] It took almost three months to find the 2024 break-in. [33]

KrebsOnSecurity, a security news site, reports that the FBI believes an executive at a large US consulting firm helped run Shinywire. [34] Shinywire was a website ShinyHunters, a hacking group, used to pressure nearly 100 victims into paying, from May until 16 October. [34] The FBI says the group took more than $70 million from victims this year. [34] Nobody at the firm has been charged, and Krebs does not name it. [34]

Why it matters. Victims hire negotiators to deal with hackers for them, often on their insurer's advice. [34] The FBI arrested Edward Dubrovsky, a Canadian negotiator, earlier this month in the same investigation. [34]

Siemens, the German industrial company, said on Monday that attackers used a flaw in Siemens Software Center, its program for installing customers' software. [26] They bundled a genuine, signed copy with their own files, which the program loaded without checking. [26] The attacks are part of Romulus, a scheme that tricks people into pasting commands into their own computer behind fake 'I am not a robot' checks. [26] Version 4.0.9.8 fixes the flaw. [26]

Why it matters. Because the Siemens file is genuine, Siemens tells defenders to look for odd behaviour and folders, not for a known bad file. [26] It says none of its own systems or update channels were broken into. [26]

F5, a US company that sells web and network software to more than 23,000 customers, released urgent fixes outside its normal schedule. [27] They close several flaws in NGINX, its web server software, three of them critical, that could crash a server or, in some setups, let an attacker run code. [27] Only servers using settings that are not the default are at risk. [27] F5 has not reported any attacks. [27]

Why it matters. CISA, the US cyber-defence agency, has listed eight F5 flaws as used in real attacks since 2021, four of them by ransomware gangs. [27]

Microsoft says its October security update for Windows Server can stop some company email servers running Exchange from working. [28] Staff may be unable to sign in to Outlook on the web, and emails can stay stuck in the outbox. [28] The update set a new limit on a part of Windows that busy mail servers lean on, and Microsoft has published a manual workaround. [28] Separately, it fixed game and app crashes caused by a September update. [29]

Why it matters. Microsoft says the fault is in Windows, and tells customers not to remove their Exchange security updates. [28] Busy servers are hit hardest, and some may never see a problem. [28]

A Ukrainian drone strike on the night of 18 October hit a data centre near St Petersburg run by VK, which runs Russia's biggest social network. [25] On Sunday, Downdetector, a site that collects outage reports, logged about 6,600 complaints about VK. [25] NetBlocks, which tracks internet connections, said VK's traffic fell to 56% of normal. [25] VK says its services kept working and has not said how much was damaged. [25]

Why it matters. Ukraine has struck Russian data centres several times this month, and Russia has struck Ukrainian ones in recent weeks. [25] Datagroup, a Ukrainian telecoms firm, said on Monday that a Russian missile destroyed equipment at one of its sites in Kyiv. [25]

Terra Security, a company that tests systems with AI, checked public records of software fixes back to 2019. [30] Until 2025, about 0.2% of fixes listed on GitHub, a site where code is shared, needed a second warning within 90 days because the fix did not work. [30] In 2026 that rose to 2.3%. [30] The Register links the jump to the boom this year in AI tools that find flaws. [30]

Why it matters. Flaws whose fixes were later got round were about four times as likely to end up on CISA's list of flaws used in real attacks. [30] Many failed fixes worked by banning certain inputs, and an attacker only needs one the list missed. [30]

Moody's, a firm that rates how likely companies are to repay their debts, says flaws already used in attacks take a median of 87 days to fix. [31] So half are still open three months after they are made public. [31] Flaws with no known attacks take 107 days. [31] The report uses February 2026 data from Bitsight, a company that measures firms' security from outside. [31]

Why it matters. Moody's says firms that fix slowly carry the most risk for lenders. [31] It adds that cheaper AI attacks could make small and mid-sized firms worth targeting. [31]

Ron Wyden, a US senator, asked CISA, the US cyber-defence agency, to switch on a protection called Encrypted Client Hello across government websites. [35] Ordinary web encryption does not always hide the name of the site a person visits. [35] His office found at least 350 government sites without the protection, including an FBI tip line and a suicide-prevention line for veterans. [35]

Why it matters. Without it, someone watching an internet connection could see who visits a whistleblower or crisis page, Wyden wrote. [35] CISA did not immediately reply. [35]

ICANN, the body that coordinates the internet's web addresses, is testing a way for police to ask urgently who owns a website. [36] Privacy laws now often keep owners' details out of WHOIS, the public register of who holds each address. [36] Requests would be allowed only for threats to life, to vital services, or of child abuse. [36] It is testing the system with the FBI and Interpol. [36]

Why it matters. The company that sold the address would have 24 hours to answer, or 72 for hard cases, and could refuse. [36] ICANN wants each police force to name the few staff allowed to ask. [36]

MITRE, a US non-profit whose ATT&CK list names the methods attackers use, released version 20 last week. [32] It adds entries on tricking AI programs with hidden instructions, on using a company's own AI helpers to steal data, and on getting round login codes and 'I am not a robot' tests. [32] It also records attacks on control boxes at more than 30 water utilities in Minnesota. [32]

Why it matters. Security teams use the list to check which attacks their tools can spot. [32] Version 20 adds 15 new ways of spotting them. [32]

About 80 WhatsApp help pages carried, hidden in their code, the instructions Meta gives its support chatbot, says Redact, a privacy company. [37] One told the bot not to suggest contacting a data protection regulator. [37] Others told it not to mention privacy laws such as Europe's GDPR, even when a user raised them. [37] Meta removed the text after Wired asked and called it a bug. [37]

Why it matters. The text shows what a company told its chatbot to avoid when people ask about their rights. [37] WhatsApp says the bot is meant to help with the app, not give legal advice. [37]

MapQuest, the online map service, has added a layer showing known cameras that read car number plates. [39] It covers cameras from Flock Safety, Motorola, Axon and others, and shows which way each one faces. [39] MapQuest has not said where the locations come from; ZDNet's reviewer thinks users gathered them. [39]

Why it matters. The reviewer counted more than 30 such cameras in a town of 80,000 people. [39] Flock is fighting maps of its cameras made by members of the public. [39]

Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI, has bought Opaque Systems for an undisclosed sum. [38] Opaque built ways to use private data in AI while the computer's own chips keep it sealed off. [38] Its team is joining Anthropic, and Opaque is closing down. [38]

Why it matters. Opaque has not said what happens to its customers, which included ServiceNow and Accenture. [38]