A researcher has explained how an attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to target industrial organizations.

The post Rockwell Patches Code Execution Flaws in Arena Simulation Software appeared first on SecurityWeek.

We are doing security drills diligently for the wrong catastrophe. Here is what actually duck and cover for cyber threat looks like. By Dr. Arun Lakhotia In the tense years of...

The post SBOM/CVE: The Duck and Cover of Cyber War appeared first on Cyber Defense Magazine.

A security researcher writing under the name tokay0 disclosed a flaw that could allow an attacker to access and control more than 600,000 deployed Shark model robot vacuums.

The post Robot Vacuum Flaw Could Give Hackers Control Over Millions of Home Devices appeared first on The Security Ledger with Paul F. Roberts.

Noteworthy stories that might have slipped under the radar: Siemens ROX II industrial switch vulnerabilities, Russian Zimbra webmail espionage campaign, Stadler Rail ransomware extortion attempt.

The post In Other News: Dolphin X AI-Powered Malware, Car Anti-Theft Device Hack, 400 Linux Kernel Flaws appeared first on SecurityWeek.

An AI agent has run a ransomware intrusion on its own for the first time, from break-in to data destruction. The autonomous attacks TrendAI™ Research predicted are beginning to arrive, and defending against them shifts from blocking known indicators to detecting behavior.

Tel Aviv, Israel, 24th July 2026, CyberNewswire

The post Tego AI Discloses Second Claude Flaw in a Week: Hidden Link Silently Sends Files to Attackers appeared first on The Security Ledger with Paul F. Roberts.

The 25th July 2026 marks one year since the Online Safety Act’s landmark child safety duties came into force, making it a natural moment to assess what’s changed, what’s worked and what challenges remain. Although the Act itself received Royal Assent in October 2023, its requirements were introduced in phases, with 25th July 2025 being the date many of the most visible obligations on platforms took effect.

The child safety duties require platforms likely to be accessed by children to introduce stronger protections, including effective age assurance, child risk assessments and measures to reduce exposure to harmful content. 

One year on, has the Online Safety Act fundamentally changed the internet for UK users, or has it simply shifted the challenges elsewhere? We spoke to cybersecurity experts for a short series of reports to find out more.  

Today, we’re examining the unintended consequences of the Act… 

Professor George Loukas, Head of Centre for Sustainable Cyber Security, University of Greenwich, said: “Ofcom has moved from consultation to enforcement. Naturally, the larger adult sector platforms have been the most visible early targets, and there have been lots of discussions on whether that led to a shift to more VPN usage as well as to non-compliant adult websites. These were all predictable though.”

Uptick in VPN Usage 

For many, the enforcement date signalled a natural (if not predictable) shift towards VPN usage to get around age verification tests. The evidence backs up this hypothesis: Proton VPN’s 2025 end of year report revealed that one of the biggest spikes in VPN sign-ups globally was seen in the UK from the 25th July. 

Konstantin Levinzon, co-founder of Planet VPN, noted that the real issue is people seeking out ‘free’ or not reputable VPNs, posing a significant security risk: “The biggest unintended consequence has been pushing people towards less secure tools, not more careful online behaviour. Age verification requirements have driven a significant increase in VPN adoption, but many users don’t seek out reputable providers – they simply download the first free VPN they find. Those services are often the ones leaking DNS requests, harvesting telemetry or relying on weak security practices, creating a worse privacy outcome than the legislation was designed to prevent.”

Sanjeev Malhotra, chief information security officer at TSG, emphasised the security risk: “People engaging with unvetted VPNs are potentially opening themselves up to serious risks, including malware infections, phishing attempts and personal data harvesting. At the end of the day, it’s still going through a server somewhere, and most people don’t stop to think about who’s operating it, where that data is going or what safeguards are actually in place. In some cases, people may be trading one privacy concern for another without realising it.”

A Lack of Measurable Outcomes? 

But is the ban on children accessing adult sites actually working? Some experts argue that there’s no hard evidence to back it up.

Elle Todd, Partner and Co-chair of the Entertainment & Media Industry Group at Reed Smith LLP, said:  “Ofcom’s recent age assurance report found that the proportion of children encountering harmful content online has not substantially improved despite widespread implementation efforts. The uncomfortable truth is that, based on this report, significant investment in compliance and technologies has not yet translated into measurable improvements in safety outcomes.”

Brian Higgins, Security Specialist at Comparitech, noted that, despite some non-compliance fines being handed out, there are still notable enforcement gaps: “Stats from Ofcom summarising their activities during the first twelve months of the Online Safety Act include the launch of 30 investigations, and fines for statutory violations in the region of £4 million GBP. Unfortunately they have also identified ‘enforcement gaps’ where AI and algorithmic content are concerned.”

“This item, in particular, could be a precursor to more widespread enforcement action in the future but a brief investigation into the facts reveals that their twelve-month fine collection figure only stands at £55,000. Couple that with their fairly embarrassing skirmish with the American platform 4chan, where their interjurisdictional service of a £520,000 financial penalty notice was rather infamous met with a picture of a hamster and a heavy dose of internet ridicule and it becomes rather obvious that they aren’t performing particularly well.”

Examining Data Storage and Verification System Security

Boris Cipot, principal security engineer, Black Duck, argues that we should be looking beyond whether checks are working and to whether the software behind the systems doing those checks is actually secure: “For many organisations, the focus has been on whether age checks are working. But an equally important question is whether the software behind those systems is secure and properly maintained. If a vulnerability, misconfiguration or compromised third-party component allows age checks to be bypassed, then this is not just a cybersecurity problem anymore but can quickly become a regulatory one as well.”

Sarah Bone, Co-Founder of YEO Messaging, notes the growing number of specialist identity providers: “The biggest unintended consequence has been a shift in where trust actually sits. Before the Online Safety Act, platforms largely carried the responsibility for verifying users themselves. Now we’ve got a growing ecosystem of specialist identity providers, each holding highly sensitive personal information. That’s strengthened online safety, but it’s also concentrated trust into fewer organisations, which makes them increasingly attractive targets for attackers.”

So what should age verification providers be doing?

Martin Wegrostek, Cyber Security Portfolio Manager at cybersecurity specialist OryxAlign, said: “Businesses should work on the assumption that breaches are a matter of when, not if. The question is whether providers have built their services with security and privacy by design. That means collecting the minimum amount of information needed to verify age, encrypting data both in transit and at rest, enforcing strong access controls, continuously monitoring for suspicious activity and having a well-rehearsed incident response plan. Organisations relying on third-party age-assurance services should also carry out regular security assessments and review the resilience of their supply chain, rather than assuming a compliant provider is automatically a secure one.”

On Trust and Risk

The conversation should also focus on human risk, said Tim Ward, CEO and co-founder, Redflags: “Content moderators, trust and safety teams, and customer support staff at in-scope platforms are, for the first time, routinely processing government ID documents, facial scans, and other highly sensitive data belonging to minors as part of their everyday work. That’s a substantial new category of human risk, from simple mishandling to targeted social engineering aimed at staff with access to this data, and it’s had almost no public discussion compared to the technical side of compliance.”

“Organisations that have spent the past year focused on the verification system itself should be asking whether the humans downstream of it have had the same level of scrutiny and support,” Ward noted. 

 

The post Examining the Unintended Consequences of the Online Safety Act appeared first on IT Security Guru.

A hacker claims to have stolen the information of 2 million Origin Energy customers and is threatening to leak it. 

The post Data Breach Confirmed After Australian Energy Giant Origin Is Hacked appeared first on SecurityWeek.

We analyzed a sustained tech support scam campaign that sent more than 13 million emails to Japanese addresses, with workplace-themed lures suggesting a possible expansion toward enterprise targets.

OpenAI’s own models broke out of a test sandbox and into Hugging Face’s servers to solve an evaluation, with no human attacker involved. The incident showed how keeping agentic AI safe now depends on how it’s contained, not just on how it’s trained.

TrendAI™ Research breaks down what changed in CISA’s updated advisory on an ongoing PLC exploitation, why this activity might be more dangerous than a similar campaign in 2023, and how organizations can take action now to protect themselves.

You cannot out-patch a machine that writes a working exploit from a vulnerability description in twenty hours. Stop trying to optimize a game you cannot win.

The post Is Patching Dead? Vulnerability Management in the Post-Mythos Era appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Threat actors used credentials obtained from other companies to hack into Chick-fil-A One accounts.

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Hackers recently obtained non-sensitive customer information and other documents from the company.

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The vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-16232 has been exploited against customers with certain configurations.

The post New Check Point Zero-Day Vulnerability Exploited in the Wild appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Device code phishing abuses a legitimate authentication feature designed for devices with limited input capabilities. This article breaks down how the technique works, examines a recent observed case, and outlines the layered security measures organizations can implement.

Targeted Crackdown on Piracy  The US Department of Justice declared on July 20, 2026, that over 1,000 internet domains that were being utilized for illegal live streaming of 2026 FIFA...

The post Red Card for Piracy: Feds Seize Over 1,000 Illegal World Cup Streams appeared first on Cyber Defense Magazine.

Hackers leaked names, email addresses, phone numbers, passwords, and financial information stolen from the two platforms. 

The post Suno, Paidwork Data Breaches Affect Tens of Millions of Accounts appeared first on SecurityWeek.

An attacker only needed to convince the targeted user to visit a malicious website to exfiltrate WhatsApp messages and contacts.

The post Flaw in Adobe Extension With 300M Installs Enabled WhatsApp Data Theft appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Analysis found 434 exploitable flaws in AI-generated apps, with denial-of-service, authorization and secrets exposure risks among the most common issues.

The post Vibe-Coded Apps Riddled With Exploitable Security Flaws appeared first on SecurityWeek.