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Category: security – Page 3

Engineers shrink powerful terahertz systems onto a single semiconductor chip

High-frequency waves classified as terahertz occupy a relatively underused region of the electromagnetic spectrum between infrared light and microwaves. Researchers have long recognized their unique potential for applications including ultrafast wireless communication, security screening, remote sensing and medical imaging.

As technologies push toward higher operating frequencies and data rates, photonics-based terahertz systems, which use light at high speed to generate and process terahertz signals, have emerged as a promising alternative to conventional electronic technologies because of their superior bandwidth and power efficiency. However, today’s terahertz optoelectronic systems, which are electronic systems that control light, remain bulky, complex and difficult to scale for widespread use. They typically rely on multiple separate components—including lasers, amplifiers, modulators, sources and detectors—that must be individually made, aligned and interconnected, limiting their use outside specialized laboratory settings.

Now, a UCLA–led research team has demonstrated a way to integrate these functions onto a single semiconductor chip compatible with modern photonic technologies. The breakthrough, published in Nature Communications, paves the way for compact, scalable terahertz systems for next-generation communication, imaging and sensing applications.

Cursor Flaw Lets Malicious Cloned Repositories Trigger Windows Code Execution

Whatever that binary does, it does as you, with your source, your SSH keys and your cloud tokens. Cursor keeps re-running it for as long as the project stays open.

No prompt injection, no agent, no model in the loop, and no prior access to the machine: opening the folder is the entire exploit, and the result is arbitrary code execution as the logged-in user.

AI security firm Mindgard reported the flaw to Cursor on December 15, 2025 and published full technical details on Tuesday, seven months later. There is still no patch, and Cursor has published no advisory for the issue.

Zoom warns of critical account takeover vulnerability

Zoom is warning of a critical vulnerability in its desktop client and software development kit for Windows that could be exploited by an unauthenticated party to hijack accounts.

Discovered internally, the security issue is tracked as CVE-2026–53412 and received a severity score of 9.8 out of 10.

In an advisory this week, the messaging platform says that the flaw affects Zoom Workplace for Windows before version 7.0.0, the Windows VDI Client before versions 7.0.10, 6.6.15, and 6.5.18, and the Meeting SDK for Windows before version 7.0.0.

Exclusive Backlash Has Tech Executives Fearing for Their Lives

1st comment below.

The executive was “going to be killed,” he told the guard, and he needed to warn someone, according to records of the April 15 incident viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The encounter, which took place five days after an attempted firebombing of OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman’s house, ended without violence or an arrest. But for executives at Anthropic—and across the artificial-intelligence industry—the threat was far from over.

In recent months, mounting opposition to AI has given rise to a surge of violent rhetoric, threats against people and property, and a serious attempt at harm. The phenomenon has executives at tech companies large and small reconsidering their personal security arrangements and how they talk about their products to a public that is increasingly wary of the technology and the societal changes it is ushering in.

SonicWall warns of SMA1000 flaws exploited in zero-day attacks, patch now

SonicWall warns that threat actors have been exploiting two SMA1000 vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2026–15409 and CVE-2026–15410, in zero-day attacks and urges customers to install the newly released security updates.

CVE-2026–15409 is a critical (CVSS 10.0) server-side request forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in the SMA1000 Appliance Work Place interface that allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to force an appliance to make requests to unintended locations.

CVE-2026–15410 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.2) post-authentication code injection flaw in the SMA1000 Appliance Management Console that could allow a remote authenticated administrator to execute arbitrary operating system commands.

Microsoft releases Windows 10 KB5099539 extended security update

Microsoft has released the Windows 10 KB5099539 extended security update, which includes the July 2026 Patch Tuesday security updates for 570 vulnerabilities, along with additional security fixes.

Initially, Microsoft only offered consumers one year of extended security updates. However, last month, Microsoft quietly extended its free Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for consumers by an additional year, allowing enrolled devices to receives security updates until October 12, 2027.

If you are running Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC or are enrolled in the ESU program, you can install this update like normal by going into Settings, clicking on Windows Update, and manually performing a ‘Check for Updates.’

DNA origami turns secret messages into nano–Morse code that acts as multiplayer molecular encryption

Mathematics has always been at the core of securing information. From online banking to government communications, modern society relies on cryptography, in which complex mathematical algorithms transform readable information into an unreadable form to keep it secure. But as computing power grows and quantum technology advances, these mathematical safeguards are increasingly vulnerable to being broken. That’s where biology stepped in.

Choosing DNA as their information protector, researchers from China developed a multilayer encryption device that takes advantage of the double-helix molecule’s programmable nature to create an origami structure that can store information with high security.

This new system used tiny, custom-built rectangular structures made of DNA, in which researchers stored the message as dots and dashes, creating a nanoscale version of Morse code. To hide the message further, they turned the flat DNA origami surfaces into tubes, physically blocking the patterns from being read or imaged. With the help of a matching unlocking key, the recipient can trigger a reaction that unrolls the DNA back to its flat form, allowing them to read and verify the message.

Testing the limits of what’s possible (and what isn’t) with AI

When can we trust the results we get from AI, and when is learning impossible? Researchers have shown that there are some problems that even the most powerful AI cannot reliably solve, no matter how much data it is given.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and the University of California, Santa Barbara, designed “adversarial” mathematical systems to fool any AI algorithm. Like ethical hackers stress-testing a network’s security, these adversarial systems were designed to map out exactly where and why AI prediction breaks down.

Many real-world systems—like those in the oceans, the human brain or robotics—are too complex to describe neatly with equations, so researchers often learn how they behave by using machine learning. But these AI methods don’t always work well, returning unreliable results or poor predictions.

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