Named "Volta-Autodoxer," the recently uncovered malware uses AI tools to collect troves of data about victims, from login credentials and credit card numbers to Discord sessions and UberEats receipts. Welcome to Kernel Panic, a weekly newsletter by Lily Hay Newman and Matt Burgess from inside the new world of privacy and digital security. To receive this newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up here. New research shared exclusively with Kernel Panic shows that hackers have started adding AI functionality into a new strain of infostealer malware, making it possible for the system to automatically profile victims and quickly surface the highest value targets and their information. Dubbed "Volta-Autodoxer" because of how the malware refers to itself internally, the finding by Cisco Talos researchers sheds light on the ways that commercial LLMs are being used to augment and enhance the capabilities of established types of malware.

Our gifting experts are obsessively searching for holiday gifts that are unique, thoughtful and suitable for any budget. A vulnerability in some Netgear routers could allow an attacker with access to your network to run malicious commands on the device. Lance Whitney is a technology journalist with an IT background. He's written for TechRepublic, PCMag, Macworld, and Time, among others, He also teaches classes in AI, cybersecurity, and social media. Certain Netgear routers are vulnerable to security exploits.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset . Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions . Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by LSEG . Is that campaign merch store official? Data brokers don't just collect facts. Why some people are falling for Meta's Muse AI Google's new AI shopping cart tracks deals across stores Your phone can alert you when prices drop; here's how Veteran electrician says data center boom is creating a'life-changing' path to six-figure pay'Gutfeld!': AI offers different answers to race preference question FBI is taking an'offensive and defensive approach' to cybercrime: Director Kash Patel'The Five': Would you read your partner's ChatGPT messages?

Illicit software on the computers of some of the world's best online poker players allowed the accused cheater to see what cards were in the victims' hands--and trounce them at the tables. In a fitting sign of the times, the hacker's carefully laid plans were foiled by an AI agent . It was September 25, 2026, and Alex, a professional online poker player, was using his Claude AI agent to review some play statistics. After Alex's SQL database crashed and needed to be reset, the Claude agent noticed something suspicious: A program called MeshAgent was operating in the background, where it seemed to be capable of capturing Alex's screen and even controlling his entire machine. Thanks to the Claude agent's report, Alex could see the program had been installed on April 24, and not by Alex himself. Alex says the agent identified 11 time-stamped events when the program had been capturing his screen based on graphic errors it caused during screen sharing instances.

Safety Net Say More Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Creator Playbook Trending Now Mashable Selects Getting Technical with Mashable Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Versus In My Bag Mashable @Home All Series Hackers find a way to turn users' own AI agents and Downloads folders against them Beware: Your Downloads folder could hold instructions for your AI assistant that you definitely didn't write. Olivia Tauber is the deputy editor of digital culture, covering creators, media, movies, beauty, and more. Based in New York, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Cut, Teen Vogue, Complex, and Interview Magazine. She holds a Master's degree in Journalism from NYU and a Bachelor's from the University of Michigan. She also runs Fan Mail, a weekly pop-culture newsletter.

PCWorld reports that critical security flaws in PHP, which powers nearly 70% of server-side websites including 40% running WordPress, are being actively exploited by attackers. AI tools like Gemini were used to discover these vulnerabilities, but the same technology allows cybercriminals to launch complex attacks in minutes rather than months. Website owners and server administrators should verify their PHP version is patched, check for signs of compromise since mid-October, and maintain regular data backups. If you're of a certain age, "PHP" may invoke memories of early web development in the 1990s. In the decades since, the scripting language has hummed along in the background, used by popular platforms like WordPress. But just this week, it suddenly got an enormous spotlight as the internet lit up with alarm over two high-risk vulnerabilities. If you're not a server administrator, you may be wondering what the danger really is. In fact, if the admins for the websites you use or run were quick enough, you may have not noticed a thing.

In a new series of interviews, we're meeting some of the PhD students that were selected to take part in the Doctoral Consortium at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the 29th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJACI-ECAI 2026) . This time, we meet Adeela Bashir to find out how she is contributing to the field of cybersecurity. Tell us a bit about your PhD - where are you studying, and what is the topic of your research? I am a PhD researcher at SCEDT, Teesside University in the UK, working at the intersection of Cybersecurity, Evolutionary Game Theory (EGT), and AI safety. My PhD asks a central question: How can we understand and mitigate cyber threats when the adversaries are adaptive?

South Korea bank hack suspect may be 26-year-old in China, U.S. firm says Authorities in Seoul are investigating cyberattacks that affected multiple financial institutions after banks, including Shinhan Bank and KB Kookmin Bank, reported data breaches. SEOUL - The suspect behind recent cyberattacks targeting South Korea's financial sector may be a 26-year-old based in China's Guangdong province, U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has said. In a report published on its website on Wednesday, CrowdStrike said it uncovered personal details linked to the suspected attacker while analyzing AI coding-tool sessions and infrastructure associated with a campaign targeting South Korean financial institutions from late September to early October. CrowdStrike said the attacker used ARTEX, a recently released Chinese-developed open-source penetration testing tool, alongside large language models and assessed with "moderate confidence" that the actor was a Chinese speaker and likely financially motivated. The firm said one Claude Code session contained a request to create a security researcher resume describing results from the hacking activity.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset . Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions . Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by LSEG . An AI-generated influencer entered Alabama'RushTok'; some fans didn't care that she was fake Make unknown callers explain why they're calling Is your personal data changing what you pay online?

The April 16 attack was claimed by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), commonly known as the Pakistan Taliban, and its fighters then opened fire from all sides of the Sarki Piyala police checkpost in Hangu district, about 30km (18 miles) from the border with Afghanistan and a hotbed of deadly attacks by armed groups, mainly the TTP. "There was a great deal of fear because we were in the middle of a battle. At that moment, we did not even know whether we would make it back home alive," Khan told Al Jazeera. To defend against such attacks, the police in Hangu came up with an unlikely, low-cost solution - fishing nets strung several metres overhead between the checkpost's rooftops and perimeter walls, forming a kind of aerial ceiling. Simple in construction and resembling what fishermen use for their work, the netting was first installed two months ago, according to the local police.