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Cisco finally confirms attackers exploiting Unified CM flaw

Cisco confirmed that attackers are now exploiting a Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM) vulnerability patched in early June.

Unified CM (formerly known as Cisco CallManager) is the central control system for Cisco IP telephony systems, handling call routing, device management, and telephony features.

Threat actors without privileges can exploit the vulnerability (CVE-2026–20230) remotely in low-complexity server-side request forgery (SSRF) attacks by sending a crafted HTTP request.

Opera rolls out Paste Protect feature to fight ClickFix attacks

Opera has introduced Paste Protect, a security feature designed to block ClickFix-style attacks that trick users into executing malicious commands through social engineering.

ClickFix is a widely used technique where victims are deceived into copying dangerous code or commands to the clipboard and then executing them in the command-line interface.

Typically, the ruse is a verification process or some form of problem-fixing instructions. However, they are only designed to trick the target into performing dangerous actions.

Unlocking the ‘black box’ of carbon materials: Study reveals origins of defect peaks

Carbon materials, such as carbon fibers and activated carbons, are essential across a wide variety of fields, encompassing everything from aerospace engineering to fuel cells and thermal insulation. For decades, Raman, infrared and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) have been the primary tools used to analyze carbon materials. However, because of their diverse structural conditions and inconsistencies in their interpretation, researchers have found it challenging to assign specific spectral peaks to exact, localized chemical structures.

The detailed origin and nature of these peaks, and their exact effect on important material characteristics, have often remained unclear.

To tackle this issue, a research team led by Associate Professor Yasuhiro Yamada from the Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University, Japan, used isotropic pitch-based carbon fiber—a cost-effective material widely used for high-temperature thermal insulation—as a general model to analyze carbon materials prepared at high temperatures of 1,473 K (1,200 °C) or higher.

Network-driven discovery of repurposable drugs targeting hallmarks of aging

The authors introduce a network medicine framework showing that the hallmarks of aging form interconnected molecular modules in the human interactome. This new approach can help to identify existing drugs that might influence aging-associated transcriptional changes.

Safety and efficacy of mRNA vaccines: a mechanistic and public health perspective

MRNA vaccines represent a transformative advance in vaccinology, combining rapid development timelines, scalable manufacturing, and strong immunogenicity with a favourable safety profile. Global deployment of mRNA vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic provided an unprecedented real-world evaluation of this platform, with billions of doses administered across diverse populations. In this Review, we critically examine the safety and efficacy of mRNA vaccines from mechanistic, preclinical, clinical, and public health perspectives.

Cliff Pickover (@pickover) on X

We aren’t the authors of our thoughts. We’re just the user interface. We look at the universe and see a solid reality. The universe looks at us and sees a line of code. We spend our lives trying to leave a mark on the surface of reality. Oblivious to the fact that our existence is being computed from beneath. We aren’t separate individuals. We’re just the localized tips of a single, massive mathematical architecture.👇

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