A fake Cloudflare check ended with Vidar Stealer running inside a signed Microsoft process.

Researchers mapped 17,000+ infected URLs. About 3,000 still served ClickFix lures, while Polygon smart contracts let operators swap lure hosts without touching the compromised sites.

Microsoft plans $10 billion-plus Gulf investment through 2030

Microsoft plans to invest more than $10 billion across the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait between now and 2030, including spending on cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure, a senior executive said on Wednesday.

The US technology company is making 'digital resilience' a central part of its regional strategy during the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran. Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters that the investment reflects Microsoft's "ongoing build-out of infrastructure and also the expansion of operations in the region."

"We're sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we're in fact adding to them ... It's an aggressive spending schedule," Smith said.

Microsoft is also working with Gulf governments on preparedness and the protection of critical data through a digital resilience initiative.

The company also plans to invest more than $400 million in subsea and terrestrial connectivity infrastructure across West Asia by 2030. Microsoft is further expanding partnerships with national AI companies, including Abu Dhabi-based G42, in which it invested $1.5 billion for a minority stake in 2024, securing a board seat currently held by Smith. It is also working with Saudi Arabia's Humain and Qatar's Qai "in selected areas that are priorities for them," although Smith said Microsoft does not plan to make capital investments in those companies.

The US is again deploying large numbers of strategic tankers and C-17 transport aircraft to West Asia, with several flights tracked landing in Israel as a new US air bridge forms amid preparations for a potential large-scale attack on Iran, according to Flightradar24 data,

The buildup also includes increased activity by KC-135 and KC-46 tankers and MQ-4C surveillance drones around the Strait of Hormuz and Iran, mirroring deployments seen before previous US strikes.

Ed Sheeran has lost nearly 500,000 Instagram followers in the past week, according to Social Blade, amid backlash over Macklemore’s removal from his Loop Tour following pro-Palestine remarks and a performance of “Hind’s Hall.”

ICC launches measures to 'withstand' US attempts to dismantle institution

The precautions include replacing US technology.

Attackers are exploiting a Roundcube pre-auth SQL injection flaw patched in May.

CVE-2026-48842 can expose mail credentials and stored messages through the virtuser_query plugin.

Bill Gates warned that AI could become powerful enough to create catastrophic risks, saying it could “drive events that… cause a billion deaths.”

“Even though it's pretty hard to get to 100%, there's never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools.”

Iranian Official: Cyberspace Is Part of Netanyahu's Plan Against Iran — Government spokesman Bahadori Jahromi cited Netanyahu's UN display of a pager and Starlink gear as evidence of the cyber dimension of Israel's strategy.

US Court Upholds Pentagon Blacklisting of Anthropic — A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 to keep Anthropic on the "supply chain threat" list over its refusal to allow military use of Claude for autonomous weapons and mass surveillance.

Finland and Norway Lead Call for Stronger International AI Oversight — Backed by 22 leaders from 20 countries, the initiative urges independent model testing, transparency, and a possible international AI safety body.

Cisco Services Disrupted in Dubai — Cisco rerouted UAE user traffic through its Mumbai data center after an outage that began September 23, 2026; the cause remains under investigation.

US Intelligence: No Evidence Foreign Actor Changed 2024 Election Results — A classified assessment found Russia, Iran, and China conducted influence operations but did not alter votes or election infrastructure.

Critical Next.js Vulnerability (CVE-2026-94545) Allows Remote Code Execution — The flaw in the "next/og" ImageResponse feature affects versions 16.2.0 to before 16.3.6; users urged to update immediately.

Criticism Mounts Over New US Election Cybersecurity Plan Just 40 Days Before Vote — State officials say CISA's late plan and reduced services (after ~1,000 staff cuts) have forced some states to hire private firms.

Nvidia CEO: AI Companies Should Not Be Exempt from Antitrust Laws — Jensen Huang says AI firms seeking new regulations shouldn't simultaneously ask for exemptions from existing antitrust and product liability rules.

Israel is pushing propaganda through YouTube ads being served in Germany, carrying the State emblem and the line "Click to expose the UN's lies."

The ads follow "The UN's Lie Industry," a campaign Israel launched recently to influence the policies of US and European capitals toward Israel.

Google says it no longer serves political ads in the EU at all, yet here we are.

A former U.S. Army soldier who stole call and text metadata of over 100 million AT&T customers has been sentenced to 70 months in prison, after it was revealed that while awaiting sentencing he used other inmates' email accounts to have contacts prompt a commercial AI tool for working exploit code.

Cameron Wagenius, 22, known online as Kiberphant0m and arrested in December 2024, sought Windows privilege escalation scripts and code for the D-Link flaw CVE-2023-45208, and asked for help researching a prison escape, prosecutors say, though they know of no evidence he deployed any of it.

AT&T paid his group a $370,000 ransom, yet he made only around $1,500 selling stolen data.

Google says ShinyHunters is mass-exploiting an Oracle PeopleSoft flaw, using a trick that slips past the firewall rules companies relied on instead of patching, and has planted web shells on dozens of systems worldwide.