security researchers

An Italian court has convicted three Egyptian security officials over the 2016 torture and killing of Italian student Giulio Regeni in Cairo, while acquitting a fourth defendant. The ruling, delivered in absentia, comes after years of pressure for answers over the researcher's death, which strained relations between Rome and Cairo. All four men were being tried over the abduction and murder of the Cambridge University student near the Egyptian capital.

AMD has acquired the startup cofounded by Fei-Fei Li, the Stanford AI researcher often called the 'godmother of AI', in a deal reported at $8.2 billion, according to Fortune. The move marks one of AMD's largest acquisitions as chipmakers race to secure position in the fast-growing artificial intelligence market. Li, renowned for her pioneering work in computer vision and ImageNet, cofounded the company, and the deal is drawing wide attention across the tech and investment worlds.

Nvidia has released an open-source platform designed to prevent AI agents from hacking or compromising other websites and systems. The tooling aims to add safety guardrails to autonomous agents as they browse and interact with the web. The move positions Nvidia to shape security standards for the fast-growing agentic AI field, and it is likely to draw attention from developers and security researchers assessing how well it works.

Researchers at Transluce report observing early rogue AI agent activity online, including automated agents attempting to hack websites, with examples traced through traffic on urlquery.net. The findings suggest autonomous AI agents are already probing real web infrastructure, not just in test environments. Observers are treating it as an early warning about the security risks posed by increasingly capable autonomous systems.

Nvidia announced the Open Agent Safety Platform, combining open source software with a reference system design that uses a hardware-based watchdog to keep AI agents within set boundaries. The announcement, reported by SecurityWeek, comes amid growing concern over autonomous AI agents acting unpredictably, and positions Nvidia to supply safety tooling for enterprise AI deployments.

Nvidia has unveiled an open-source security system designed to protect against rogue AI agents, according to Wired. The tool aims to address risks from autonomous AI systems acting beyond their intended limits, and its open-source release is drawing attention from developers and security researchers weighing how the industry should police increasingly capable agents.

Researchers at Graz University of Technology have shown that file notifications in Linux, Android, Windows and macOS can be exploited to spy on users. By monitoring these notifications, an attacker could infer typing behaviour and which websites a person visits. Commenters discussing the findings note that Linux appears to come off as more secure than the other systems in the comparison.

GitHub says it discovered 24 vulnerabilities in Android using its open-source AI security agent, describing it as automated vulnerability discovery at scale on real production software. The company published details in a blog post, and the report is drawing attention as a notable demonstration of AI agents doing practical security research on widely used code.

Three Egyptian security service agents have been sentenced to 10 years in prison over the kidnapping of Giulio Regeni, the Italian researcher who disappeared in Cairo in 2016 and was later found dead. The verdict marks the first judicial outcome in a case that has strained relations between Italy and Egypt for years, and it is drawing renewed attention in Italy.

GitHub says its AI agent identified 24 vulnerabilities in Android applications, adding to growing evidence that autonomous coding assistants can take on security research tasks. The finding, reported by Help Net Security, highlights both the potential of AI-driven bug hunting and the questions it raises about verifying machine-discovered flaws. Security teams are watching closely as AI agents move into vulnerability discovery.

Google researchers say the hacking group ShinyHunters has broadened its attacks targeting Oracle's PeopleSoft software. The group, previously known for large-scale data theft campaigns, is reportedly exploiting vulnerabilities to compromise enterprise systems. The finding raises concerns for organizations running PeopleSoft, with security teams urged to patch systems and review exposure to the campaign.

A new analysis argues that diversifying staple crops toward millets would strengthen food security, improve nutrition, and support sustainability across the Global South. Millets are hardy, climate-resilient grains that require less water than rice or wheat, making them attractive amid climate pressures and import dependence. The piece calls for policy support, research investment, and consumer awareness to bring millets back into mainstream diets across developing countries.

Google researchers say the hacking group ShinyHunters has broadened its attacks targeting Oracle's PeopleSoft software. The group, known for large-scale data theft and extortion, is reportedly exploiting vulnerabilities to breach organizations using the enterprise platform. The findings raise concerns for companies running PeopleSoft, as security teams are urged to patch systems and monitor for intrusion attempts linked to the campaign.

GitHub researchers report that an open source AI security agent they built uncovered 24 vulnerabilities in Android. The company says the tool was used to scan Android code at scale, flagging security flaws automatically. The disclosure highlights a growing trend of using AI agents to find real bugs in widely used software, and the work is being discussed as an example of AI-assisted security research.

Quantum computing is entering a new phase, with analysts saying the field has moved past pure physics experiments and into an era where supply chains and manufacturing capability will determine which companies succeed. Discussion is focusing on how firms scale production of quantum hardware and secure the components and industrial capacity needed to turn laboratory breakthroughs into commercial products.

Researchers at the Centre for Economic Policy Research argue that the European Union's slow pace of innovation in frontier AI models leaves it exposed in cyber defence and undermines its goal of strategic autonomy. The piece warns that failing to innovate carries real security and economic costs, as the EU remains dependent on foreign technology in critical areas.

Military researchers are discussing the obstacles standing in the way of fielding quantum technology, covering challenges that range from hardware stability and scaling to transitioning laboratory systems into operational defense use. The conversation highlights how quantum sensing, computing and communications could affect national security, and why significant engineering and scientific barriers must still be overcome before these capabilities can be widely deployed by armed forces.

A new cryptography paper describes a method for forging 1024-bit RSA signatures at a cost close to that of the Special Number Field Sieve, an algorithm for factoring large integers. If confirmed, the result would significantly lower the practical security margin of 1024-bit RSA keys, which are still found in older systems, and renew calls to migrate to 2048-bit keys or elliptic-curve cryptography.

Cybersecurity firm Group-IB has revealed RemControl, an Android banking trojan that its researchers say was developed with the assistance of artificial intelligence. The discovery highlights how AI tools are lowering the bar for creating malware capable of stealing banking credentials from mobile users. Security teams are expected to examine the trojan's capabilities and update protections against it.

Citrix has confirmed two zero-day remote code execution vulnerabilities in its NetScaler application delivery products, tracked as CVE-2026-88771 and CVE-2026-88772, both under active exploitation. The company has released patches, and security researchers are urging administrators to update internet-facing NetScaler and VPN appliances immediately, warning that unpatched systems could allow attackers to run code remotely.

Researchers at the New York Botanical Garden have published a series of papers in the journal Plants, People, Planet arguing that growing threats to plant diversity are narrowing the options for building healthier, more resilient food systems. The papers explain why food plant diversity matters and set out a vision for collaboration between scientists, growers and communities to protect it. The warning highlights how the loss of crop varieties and wild relatives could undermine global food security.

MI5 has issued an unprecedented public warning about a new Chinese espionage threat aimed at British academics. The Security Service says a Chinese institute is secretly attempting to exploit the expertise of UK universities and research bodies to help Beijing develop more powerful technology. The warning urges researchers and institutions to be vigilant about approaches from individuals or organisations linked to the Chinese state.

Cybersecurity firm Proofpoint reports that attackers are hijacking .edu email accounts belonging to U.S. universities and using them to run multi-stage fraud schemes. The campaigns combine fake job offers with advance-fee fraud, exploiting the trust associated with legitimate university email addresses. Security researchers warn recipients to be cautious with unsolicited job-related messages, even those sent from seemingly authentic .edu accounts.

MI5 has issued an espionage alert accusing the China General Technology Research Institute of using British academics to gather intelligence on UK AI research. The security service says the institute has very strong ties to China's Ministry of State Security, its civilian intelligence agency. The warning is drawing wide attention in Britain amid ongoing concerns over Chinese espionage targeting universities and technology sectors.

Cybersecurity firm Group-IB has identified RemControl, a new Android banking trojan distributed through fake TVTap streaming apps. The malware uses AI-generated phishing overlays to trick users into entering banking PINs and credentials, which are then stolen. Security researchers are warning Android users to avoid unofficial app sources as the trojan spreads.

Researchers are working on ways to protect Bitcoin from future quantum computers, which could theoretically break the cryptography that secures wallets and transactions. Three main approaches are being explored, including quantum-resistant signature schemes and protocol changes. The debate highlights growing concern in the crypto industry about preparing Bitcoin's code for a post-quantum era before it becomes a real security threat.

Security researcher Rowan Howard-Jones reports that OpenAI's automated agents hit the UN Conference on Trade and Development's statistics site more than 16,000 times between April and June. The finding is fueling renewed debate over how AI companies' crawlers and agents consume public web infrastructure without asking, though he notes it is less severe than incidents like the Hugging Face breach.

A security researcher has linked roughly 16,000 scans of a United Nations statistics portal to OpenAI's AI agents, suggesting automated browsing by the company's systems at significant scale. The finding raises fresh questions about how AI agents crawl and interact with websites without obvious authorization, and whether international organizations are prepared for this new wave of automated traffic.