CyberWire Daily

The FBI lays out its new Cyber Strategy. CISA plans a federal cyber overhaul. Anthropic discloses another unauthorized AI intrusion. Treasury sanctions a Chinese-language cybercrime marketplace. Another Microsoft Defender zero-day emerges. Gigabud banking malware gets stealthier. Chinese espionage groups deploy the BlueMoon exploit kit. Lawmakers target hack-for-hire firms. A U.S. designation forces an Italian technology collective to shut down. Ben Yelin discusses how private AI chatbot conversations are increasingly being used as evidence in court cases. When proofs meet prompts.

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CyberWire Guest

Dave Bittner sits down with Caveat cohost and University of Maryland Center for Cyber, Health, and Hazard Strategies expert Ben Yelin to discuss how private AI chatbot conversations are increasingly being used as evidence in criminal and civil court cases, raising new questions about privacy, legal protections, and what users should expect from their supposedly private AI interactions.

Want to hear the full conversation? Be sure to check out Caveat for the full discussion and more on the latest issues in privacy, surveillance, cybersecurity law, and policy.

Selected Reading

FBI Publishes First-Ever Cyber Strategy, With Focus on Disrupting Threat Actors (Infosecurity Magazine)

CISA Unveils Plan for Follow-On Integrated Cyber Assessment Support Contract (GovCon Wire)

Widened Scan Turns Up Fourth Rogue Claude Cyber Incident (SecurityWeek)

US sanctions Xinbi Guarantee over cyber scams and money laundering (Metacurity)

New 'ShieldCrash' Zero-Day Exploit Targets Microsoft Defender (SecurityWeek)

Gigabud banking trojan uses app cloning to evade fraud detection (SC Media)

Novel Blue Moon kit targeting Chrome and Windows reflects new reality of AI-driven exploits (The Register)

Group of bipartisan lawmakers ask US government to ban several hack-for-hire firms (TechCrunch)

Italian tech collective Autistici/Inventati shuts down after US terrorist designation (The Record)

OpenAI Navier-Stokes Proof: $1 Million AI Math Controversy Explained (The CyberSec Guru)

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Patch Tuesday is a doozy. The Feds warn China-based AI companies are distilling U.S. AI models. A new ClickFix campaign goes straight for the browser. Smart TVs get nosy. Hackers gift themselves a $47 million bug bounty. An Ohio man gets 15 years in federal prison for cyberstalking and sextortion. Andy Hornegold, Chief Security Technologist from Intruder, discusses what makes up a reliable AI pentests and the benefits and risks that come with AI-enabled security. Putting AI at the head of the class.

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CyberWire Guest

Today we are joined by Andy Hornegold, Chief Security Technologist from Intruder, discussing what makes up a reliable AI pentests and the benefits and risks that come with AI-enabled security.

Selected Reading

Microsoft Patch Tuesday Fixes 966 Vulnerabilities, Including 2 Exploited 0-Days (Hackread)

Ivanti Patches Critical Flaws Across Enterprise Security Products (SecurityWeek)

Chrome 153 Patches Seventh Zero-Day of 2026 (SecurityWeek)

Adobe Patches Over 170 Vulnerabilities, Including Commerce Zero-Day (SecurityWeek)

ICS Patch Tuesday: Schneider Electric, Siemens Fix Critical Flaws (SecurityWeek)

CISA, NSA and FBI Warn Chinese AI Firms Are Targeting U.S. AI Models at Industrial Scale (HSToday)

Europe's push for space sovereignty. (N2K Networks)

History for European spaceflight: Isar Aerospace reaches orbit and deploys payloads on second flight (Isar Aerospace)

ClickFix moves into the browser: Cryptocurrency theft with Google-hosted C2 (Talos Intelligence)

LG TVs caught spying even when offline or on standby (The Verge)

'White hat' hackers take $47 million bounty after $320 million crypto theft (The Record)

Man gets 15 years for extorting women with AI-generated porn videos (Bleeping Computer)

Alpha School’s AI teaching model is expanding. Does it work? (Scientific American)

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The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc.

Researchers build a self-propagating attack against WeChat. Threat actors move toward multi-agent AI frameworks. N-able issues an emergency patch for a maximum-severity bug under active exploitation. MikroTik patches multiple RouterOS vulnerabilities. China accesses restricted American technology through subsidiaries and overseas partners. An active phishing campaign abuses legitimate Google services to make malicious links appear trustworthy. Australians may soon be able to disable the algorithm. Monday business briefing. Jason Lancaster, Chief Investigations Officer at SpyCloud, discusses how AI is affecting shifting cybercrime from traditional investigations to agentic AI at scale. Electromagnetic eavesdropping gets personal.

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Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you’ll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn.

CyberWire Guest

Today we are joined by Jason Lancaster, Chief Investigations Officer at SpyCloud, discussing how AI is affecting shifting cybercrime from traditional investigations to agentic AI at scale.

Selected Reading

A.I. Models Built a Computer Worm That Could Rapidly Hack WeChat Accounts (The New York Times)

Hackers build AI frameworks for widescale credential theft (Bleeping Computer)

N-able Issues Emergency Hotfix for Maximum-Severity Unauthenticated RCE in N-central (Beyond Machines)

MikroTik Patches Critical Flaws Chained to Hack Routers (SecurityWeek)

How a Blacklisted Chinese Tech Giant Kept Buying America’s Best A.I. Chips (The New York Times)

Bypassing the Gatekeepers: How a Global Phishing Campaign Turns Google's Infrastructure into a Trust Proxy (KnowBe4)

‘Global reckoning for big tech’: Australia to force social media platforms to allow users to opt out of algorithms (The Guardian)

Socure raises $156 million and acquires agentic AI platform Fravity. (N2K Pro Business Briefing)

New attack eavesdrops on headphone audio from 30 meters away (CyberInsider)

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The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc.

In this Special Episode, Maria Varmazis and Dave Bittner are joined by friend of the show, Brandon Karpf, to unpack a new bipartisan congressional investigation into the lingering presence of Chinese state-owned telecommunications companies inside U.S. internet infrastructure.

The House Select Committee on China says China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom remain deeply embedded in American networks even after federal regulators denied or revoked their authority to provide certain telecommunications services over national security concerns. The investigation found that restrictions imposed by the FCC limited what the companies could sell, but did not necessarily remove their equipment, network connections, or commercial relationships from the U.S. internet ecosystem.

Links to stories:

Stranger Pings: Chinese Telecom Companies Infiltrate U.S. Infrastructure

The accurate timing data from spacecraft has become an invaluable tool for nearly every critical infrastructure sector and a greater target for malicious actors.

Host Maria Varmazis and ⁠Andy Davis⁠, Global Research Director at the NCC Group, discuss the importance of timing in space. The two look at how timing systems have continued to grow more important in everyday life and why attackers have begun to increasingly exploit these critical services.

Key sources:

GPS: A backbone for critical infrastructure.

Spoofing ships, jamming drones: how GPS manipulation confuses and compromises.

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