Today is Microsoft’s February 2026 Patch Tuesday with security updates for 58 flaws, including 6 actively exploited and three publicly disclosed zero-day vulnerabilities.
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Microsoft 365 outage takes down admin center in North America
Microsoft is investigating an outage that blocks some administrators with business or enterprise subscriptions from accessing the Microsoft 365 admin center.
While the company has yet to disclose which regions are affected by this ongoing service degradation, it is tracking it on its official service health status page to provide impacted organizations with up-to-date information.
“Some users in the North America region may be unable to access the Microsoft 365 admin center. We’re reviewing service monitoring telemetry to isolate the root cause and develop a remediation plan,” Microsoft said when it acknowledged the issue.
New Linux botnet SSHStalker uses old-school IRC for C2 comms
A newly documented Linux botnet named SSHStalker is using the IRC (Internet Relay Chat) communication protocol for command-and-control (C2) operations.
The protocol was invented in 1988, and its adoption peaked during the 1990s, becoming the main text-based instant messaging solution for group and private communication.
Technical communities still appreciate it for its implementation simplicity, interoperability, low bandwidth requirements, and no need for a GUI.
Malicious 7-Zip site distributes installer laced with proxy tool
A fake 7-Zip website is distributing a trojanized installer of the popular archiving tool that turns the user’s computer into a residential proxy node.
Residential proxy networks use home user devices to route traffic with the goal of evading blocks and performing various malicious activities such as credential stuffing, phishing, and malware distribution.
The new campaign became better known after a user reported that they downloaded a malicious installer from a website impersonating the 7-Zip project while following instructions in a YouTube tutorial on building a PC system. BleepingComputer can confirm that the malicious website, 7zip[.]com, is still live.
How close are we to video-recording our dreams?
Efforts to unlock one of the mind’s greatest mysteries may get a boost from technology allowing us to capture dreams.
Why the next 25 years could surpass anything in modern memory | Peter Leyden: Full Interview
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“Old systems of the past are collapsing, and new systems of the future are still to be born. I call this moment the great progression.”
Up next, We are living through a slowdown in human progress | Jason Crawford ► • We are living through a slowdown in human…
We are at a tipping point. In the next 25 years, technologies like AI, clean energy, and bioengineering are poised to reshape society on a scale few can imagine.
Peter Leyden draws on decades of observing technological revolutions and historical patterns to show how old systems collapse, new ones rise, and humanity faces both extraordinary risk and unprecedented opportunity.
0:00 We’re on the cusp of an era of progress.
Scientists Have Discovered a Protein That Reverses Brain Aging in The Lab
Our brains age along with the rest of our bodies, and as they do, they produce fewer new brain cells. Now, researchers have found a key mechanism through which the typical age-related decline in neuron production might be slowed.
In later life, the neural stem cells (NSCs) that turn into fully fledged neurons become more dormant – almost as if they’re going into retirement after a long lifetime of service. As that happens, cognitive decline creeps in.
A major reason why NSC activity fades with age is the wear and tear on telomeres, the protective caps on the ends of DNA. Telomeres fray a little more each time a cell divides, and over time, this impairs cells’ ability to grow and divide, leading to increasing cell death.
New sun-powered device extracts lithium while desalinating seawater
The world needs lithium at higher rates than ever before. But our current methods of getting it are breaking the planet.
The answer to the lithium crisis might just be a high-tech, “solar-powered seesaw” extractor.
According to the researchers at Zhejiang University in China, this new device maximizes lithium yield from seawater while simultaneously desalinating water.
