Bug bounties: The good, the bad, and the frankly ridiculous ways to do it
feature Thirty years ago, Netscape kicked off the first commercial bug bounty program. Since then, companies large and small have bought into the idea, with mixed results.…
Search-capable AI agents may cheat on benchmark tests
Researchers with Scale AI have found that search-based AI models may cheat on benchmark tests by fetching the answers directly from online sources rather than deriving those answers through a "reasoning" process.…
The Unix Epochalypse might be sooner than you think
A stark warning about the upcoming Epochalypse, also known as the "Year 2038 problem," has come from the past, as National Museum Of Computing system restorers have discovered an unsetting issue while working on ancient systems.…
US government snaps up 10% of Intel for $8.9B
Congratulations America, your government now owns 10 percent of troubled domestic chipmaker Intel.…
Short circuit: Electronics supplier to tech giants suffers ransomware shutdown
Data I/O, a major electronics manufacturer whose customers include Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft, notified federal regulators that it fell victim to a ransomware infection on August 16 that continues to disrupt its business operations.…
AI giants call for energy grid kumbaya
Researchers at Microsoft, Nvidia, and OpenAI have issued a call to designers of software, hardware, infrastructure, and utilities for help finding ways to normalize power demand during AI training.…
Thunderbird 142 lands with modest upgrades – plus talk of Pro service ahead
Mozilla-owned subsidiary MZLA has released a new version of the Thunderbird messaging client and shared details on the forthcoming paid Thunderbird Pro service.…
New Yorkers will soon be able to yell 'I'm walkin here!' to Waymo robotaxis
Waymo robotaxis are set to return to the streets of New York City after a four-year absence. But with a list of caveats longer than a Midtown bagel shop brunch line, Waymo's return isn't something for pedestrians to get nervous about yet. …
Kidney dialysis giant DaVita tells 2.4M people they were snared in ransomware data theft nightmare
Ransomware scum breached kidney dialysis firm Davita's labs database in April and stole about 2.4 million people's personal and health-related information.…
OneNote for Windows 10 support clock counts down
OneNote for Windows 10 is on the way out. On October 14, it will reach the end of the road support-wise, and anything left in it will become read-only.…
Interpol bags 1,209 suspects, $97M in cybercrime operation focused on Africa
Interpol's latest clampdown on cybercrime resulted in 1,209 arrests across the African continent, from ransomware crooks to business email compromise (BEC) scammers, the agency says.…
Trump's gold-plated smartphone can't seem to decide which design to copy
President Trump's personally branded wireless provider was supposed to have a "premium" Android smartphone – gold, of course – on the market by September, but it appears the mobile virtual network operator has yet to even settle on a design to steal.…
Viking 1 at 50: NASA's first raid on the red planet
It's been 50 years since NASA sent Viking 1 on a mission to Mars.…
Saved you a click: Firefox 142 offers AI summaries of links
Good news, everyone! The new version of Mozilla's browser now makes even more extensive use of AI, providing summaries of linked content and offering developers the ability to add LLM support to extensions.…
Tesla bid to become a UK electricity supplier gets politically 'charged'
The leader of the UK's Liberal Democrat party is opposing a Tesla subsidiary being granted a license to supply electricity in Britain, calling Elon Musk a threat to national security. …
UK patches air defense with 6 extra Land Ceptor missile launchers
Britain's threadbare defenses are getting a small boost. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) just announced that it's purchasing six new Land Ceptor anti-aircraft missile systems.…
Windows Security Update turns smooth NDI streams into jittery messes
Microsoft has admitted to yet another issue in the Windows 11 August 2025 Security Update: streaming apps might be disrupted by the changes.…
Criminal background checker APCS faces data breach
Exclusive A leading UK provider of criminal record checks for employers is handling a data breach stemming from a third-party development company.…
Chinese funding backs sale of British microLED specialist
The UK's Plessey Semiconductors has been acquired by Haylo Labs, using funding supplied by a Chinese company, Goertek Inc. The move was cleared by the British government.…
Fake CAPTCHA tests trick users into running malware
Microsoft's security team has published an in-depth report into ClickFix, the social engineering attack which tricks users into executing malicious commands in the guise of proving their humanity.…
