Britain will lead development of three new sensor and effects packages for underwater drones under the AUKUS security partnership with the United States and Australia, with the systems due to be available across all three nations’ uncrewed underwater fleets from 2027, the UK Ministry of Defence said on Oct. 27. The three payloads are a […]

Singapore-based BeeX used its ALPHA underwater drone to place explosive charges on a moored sea mine and a swinging steel target and then destroy both during a closed-door mine countermeasures demonstration in the United Kingdom, the company said on Oct. 27. The one-day event, held on Sept. 17 and hosted by British defense consultancy Copper […]

The UK Ministry of Defence has hired Astroscale UK as prime contractor for LEDA, a new £15 million (about $20 million) military space program under which the company will build, launch and operate a spacecraft to study how satellites maneuvering close to other spacecraft could be used in orbital warfare, and how to counter them. […]

Saronic Technologies’ Corsair drone boats, the same type the U.S. military used to strike an Iranian naval base in July, have operated alongside forces from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia at Maritime Big Play Pacific, the AUKUS partners’ largest demonstration of uncrewed and autonomous technology, held in San Diego this October. The […]

NATO commanders spent 10 days in October rehearsing how they would fight a war against an enemy army of one million soldiers, running the alliance’s Avenger Triad 26 computer-assisted exercise from a command center in Wiesbaden, Germany, where about 150 officers from several countries tracked a simulated attack on alliance territory around the clock on […]

The U.S. Navy attack submarine USS Colorado (SSN 788) arrived at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia on Oct. 27 to begin a scheduled monthlong maintenance period. For the first time, Australian civilian technicians will carry out routine maintenance on a Virginia-class submarine in Western Australia, working alongside American shipyard specialists, with the U.K. Royal Navy […]

Britain’s Royal Navy could be left with just one frigate available for operations at any given time next year, as two more of its five remaining Type 23 frigates are expected to be declared unseaworthy within months, leaving three ships in service in 2027 with one at sea, one in training and one in maintenance, […]

Britain’s Ministry of Defence has opened a tender to buy Skydio X10D small drones, the American-made reconnaissance quadcopter already ordered by the thousands by the U.S. Army, with an estimated budget of £120,000 (about $160,700) excluding VAT, according to a notice on the Defence Sourcing Portal. The tender was issued by Navy Commercial, the Royal […]

British defense technology company Stratonex Defence Technologies is developing a range of unmanned ground vehicles, tactical drones, counter-drone systems and military mobility platforms, with a focus on reducing the exposure of personnel to battlefield threats. The company’s VARAN unmanned ground vehicle is among its central projects. The platform has undergone initial mobility and remote-control testing, […]

A heavy-lift cargo drone built by BAE Systems subsidiary Malloy Aeronautics has shot down several one-way attack drones with laser-guided rockets during a Pentagon experiment in Florida, firing one rocket after another without having to land and reload. The modified aircraft, known as the TRV-150, carried a three-pod launcher loaded with BAE Systems’ APKWS rockets […]

Britain has now received seven Challenger 3 prototype tanks for trials, with an eighth in the final stages of build, as the British Army works to prove the design of its next main battle tank before full production begins, UK Defence Journal reported. Defence minister Luke Pollard gave the figures in a written answer in […]

Britain will send Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets to Saudi Arabia to shoot down Houthi missiles and drones aimed at Saudi cities and critical infrastructure, the UK Defense Ministry said on Oct. 20. CNN reported that the jets will fly defensive counter-air missions over the kingdom, and a spokesperson for the prime minister’s office […]

British aircraft maker Skyfly Technologies has raised $10 million to turn its two-seat electric vertical takeoff aircraft into Longbow, a hybrid-electric cargo drone designed to carry 200 kg (440 pounds) more than 640 km (400 miles) and take off from ships, fields or forward bases without a runway. The seed round, announced on Oct. 20, […]

July: Nvidia-backed Nscale is building a £2bn data centre at Loughton in Essex, with Microsoft signed up as its anchor tenant. But it can't get the electricity to switch on, reported The Next Web: Nscale's problem is not really Nscale's. It is Britain's. Grid-connection times have become the single biggest brake on new data centres. Some UK projects face waits stretching close to a decade for enough power. One estimate found more than a quarter of data-centre capacity slipped in 2025 alone. "The data centre was due to receive its power supply at the end of the year," reports the BBC. "But as first reported by the Telegraph on Sunday, Nscale has been told this will not happen until the 2030s." (Though Nscale and Microsoft are still working together on other projects in Norway, Portugal and America.) But now anchor-tenant Microsoft has pulled out of the Essex deal, reports the Telegraph, adding that Microsoft's move "leaves the site in apparent limbo. The company was its only announced customer, having agreed to rent 23,000 Nvidia AI chips at the facility..." Microsoft's decision threatens to undermine Nscale's attempts to push ahead with a Wall Street flotation worth up to $35bn (£26bn), despite a brutal sell-off in AI computing stocks. Rival data centre developers have seen their share prices plunge over the last week on concerns that they will struggle to repay their debts as interest rates and inflation continue to rise.... Tech analyst Gartner said last week that $3.5 trillion could be written off by 2030 if the AI boom fails to deliver on its promises. And "our research indicates that enterprise and consumer AI revenue will be insufficient to support profitable returns on all planned AI capital expenditures during this period," Gartner wrote: "In 2026, AI providers are expected to spend nearly $1 trillion on AI infrastructure, and are forecast to invest an additional $6 trillion between 2027 and 2030," said Will Sommer, Sr Director Analyst at Gartner.... Failure to achieve sustainable return on investment capital (ROIC) on rapidly depreciating assets would almost certainly necessitate write-downs. Based on Gartner projections, a continued AI infrastructure investment trajectory could leave more than $4 trillion in asset value exposed to write-down risk through 2032. In this scenario, Gartner does not expect the 12% ROIC to be achieved until the end of 2032 at earliest... Gartner estimates AI-optimized IaaS spending will grow from $66 billion in 2027 to $174 billion in 2030. "The growth in spending on AI-optimized IaaS will be too low for most AI compute providers to recover their AI investments before the current generation of AI semiconductors is replaced," said Sommer. By 2030, Gartner predicts that cost pressure and a lack of a differentiating business model will force over 80% of neocloud [AI-specialized infrastructure] providers to cease independent operations.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

British defense technology company Stratonex Defence Technologies has unveiled VARAN, a modular unmanned ground vehicle concept designed to accompany and support forward units on the battlefield, with swappable mission equipment and the ability to navigate without satellite positioning. The company introduced the vehicle on social media and on its website, describing VARAN as a payload-agnostic […]

The British Army’s new Challenger 3 tank has now driven 2,000 km (1,240 miles) and fired more than 200 main gun rounds in testing, and it is set to start a tougher phase of trials in November, according to its builder, Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land. RBSL, the British-German joint venture building the tank, shared the […]

The British Army is looking for new ways to power its troops in the field, offering £2.45 million ($3.26 million) to companies that can develop better batteries, faster chargers and quieter alternatives to the diesel generators units rely on today. UK Defence Innovation, the Ministry of Defence’s innovation arm, launched the Tactical Power Challenge on […]

The British Army has dropped plans for armored mortar, repair and recovery, and anti-tank overwatch versions of its Boxer wheeled armored vehicle, and has ruled out using Boxer in the armored cavalry role, Defence Minister Luke Pollard told Parliament. Pollard, the minister for defence readiness and industry, gave the answers in response to written questions […]

Most of the data is related to applications, claims, and payments submitted between 2007 and 2025.

The post UK Legal Aid Agency Hack Scope Widens After Forensic Review appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Bitcoin Magazine

South Korean Lender Jeonbuk Bank to Offer Bitcoin-Backed Loans

Jeonbuk Bank has become the first bank in South Korea to offer won-denominated loans backed by bitcoin, according to reports. 

The subsidiary of JB Financial Group has started offering the loans, according to exclusive Monday reporting by the country’s Edaily paper. 

For now, the product is limited to corporate customers raising working capital, and bitcoin is the only eligible collateral. The bank said it may expand the service depending on regulatory changes and market demand, the report added. 

JUST IN: South Korea's Jeonbuk Bank will offer the first ever bitcoin-backed won loans for clients pic.twitter.com/jXbIPsejWU

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) October 12, 2026

Jeonbuk Bank won’t own or control the bitcoin itself. The collateral is held by a specialized custodian, limited to virtual asset service providers registered under Korea’s Act on the Reporting of Specific Financial Information, it further noted. 

If a borrower defaults, the bank won’t take the coins but will rather liquidate them through enforcement procedures such as a court-ordered sale and recover the loan from the proceeds.

The bank said it chose bitcoin for its market capitalization and trading volume, the largest of any digital asset, and that its own stress tests showed bitcoin held up as collateral even during sharp price declines. To value the collateral, it uses an index based on a weighted average of prices across multiple global exchanges.

Similar products already exist abroad. JPMorgan Chase debuted bitcoin-backed loans for institutional clients in March, and Switzerland’s Sygnum Bank offers comparable credit.

The loan is the first concrete result of the “Crypto Bank” vision put forward by Jeonbuk Bank President Park Chun-won. The lender is the only regional bank to provide real-name verified accounts to crypto exchanges, and it is preparing an “all-in-one wallet” that combines fiat accounts and digital asset wallets.

“This loan is an example of designing a risk management and recovery structure that allows us to utilize existing bank lending and collateral management systems without directly holding virtual assets,” said Jeong Sang-hoon, executive vice president of the bank’s digital division.

This post South Korean Lender Jeonbuk Bank to Offer Bitcoin-Backed Loans first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.