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Category: security

Apple Expands iOS 18.7.7 Update to More Devices to Block DarkSword Exploit

Apple on Wednesday expanded the availability of iOS 18.7.7 and iPadOS 18.7.7 to a broader range of devices to protect users from the risk posed by a recently disclosed exploit kit known as DarkSword.

“We enabled the availability of iOS 18.7.7 for more devices on April 1, 2026, so users with Automatic Updates turned on can automatically receive important security protections from web attacks called DarkSword,” the company said. “The fixes associated with the DarkSword exploit first shipped in 2025.”

Routine Access Is Powering Modern Intrusions, a New Threat Report Finds

Remote access and trusted administrative tools play a central role in how organizations operate today. According to Blackpoint Cyber’s 2026 Annual Threat Report, they are also increasingly central to how intrusions begin.

Informed by analysis of thousands of security investigations conducted during the reporting period, the report highlights a shift in attacker behavior. Rather than relying primarily on vulnerability exploitation, threat actors frequently gained access by using valid credentials, legitimate tools, and routine user-driven actions.

The report examines these patterns, documents where intrusion activity was disrupted, and presents defensive priorities derived from analyzed incident response outcomes observed throughout 2025.

Microsoft pulls KB5079391 Windows update over install issues

Microsoft has pulled a buggy Windows 11 non-security preview update to investigate a known issue that triggers 0×80073712 errors during installation.

KB5079391, the problematic optional cumulative update, started rolling out on Thursday to Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 systems with 29 changes, including Smart App Control and Display improvements.

This preview update also improved Windows Hello Fingerprint reliability on some devices and Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) stability when running x64 apps on ARM64 devices.

Apple adds macOS Terminal warning to block ClickFix attacks

Apple has introduced a security feature in macOS Tahoe 26.4 that blocks pasting and executing potentially harmful commands in Terminal and alerts users to possible risks.

The new mechanism appears to be aimed primarily at blocking ClickFix attacks and has been reported by macOS users since the release candidate version of the operating system. Apple didn’t specifically mention it in macOS Tahoe 26.4 release notes.

ClickFix is a social engineering technique that tricks users into pasting malicious commands into the command line interface under the pretense of fixing a problem or a verification process.

Next-generation optical sensor can read photon spin across UV-to-infrared wavelengths

A research team led by Professor Jiwoong Yang of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering at DGIST has developed next-generation optical sensor technology capable of precisely detecting not only the intensity and wavelength of light but also its rotational direction—the spin information of photons. The team successfully implemented a quantum-dot-based optical sensor that can detect circularly polarized light (CPL) across an ultra-wide spectral range—from ultraviolet to short-wave infrared—demonstrating photodetection performance comparable to that of commercial silicon optical sensors. The paper is published in Advanced Materials.

CPL refers to light in which the electric field rotates helically as it propagates. This is directly linked to the spin information of photons—the fundamental particles of light. This polarization information serves as a crucial signal in next-generation security and communication technologies, such as quantum communication, quantum cryptography, and photonic quantum information processing, which is why related optical sensor technologies are attracting significant worldwide attention.

Conventional circularly polarized light sensors typically require the light-absorbing material itself to possess a specific helical orientation, known as a chiral structure. This approach not only limits the range of usable materials but also confines detection to narrow spectral regions, such as ultraviolet or visible light. Extending this technology into the infrared region, which is essential for quantum communication and optical sensing, has previously posed a major technical challenge.

Individual-Level Factors Associated With 10-Year Incidence of Alzheimer Disease and Related Dementias in the VA Million Veteran Program

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[Webinar] Stop Guessing. Learn to Validate Your Defenses Against Real Attacks

That’s where things get shaky. A control exists, so it’s assumed to work. A detection rule is active, so it’s expected to catch something. But very few teams are consistently testing how all of this holds up when someone is actively trying to break through, step by step.

This is exactly the gap this webinar focuses on.

Exposure-Driven Resilience: Automate Testing to Validate & Improve Your Security Posture is a practical session built around one idea: stop guessing, start proving. Instead of relying on occasional testing or assumptions, it shows how to validate your security posture continuously using real attacker behavior.

EBV Dysregulation Is Associated With Immune Imbalance in Multiple SclerosisEvidence From Integrated Viral and Host Analyses

EBV dysregulation is associated with immune imbalance in multiple sclerosis: evidence from integrated viral and host analyses.

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Thousands of websites are accidentally broadcasting sensitive data, study finds

Researchers have discovered a major security leak hiding in plain sight on the internet that could expose the personal data and financial records of millions of people. In a paper published on the arXiv preprint server, Nurullah Demir of Stanford University and colleagues analyzed 10 million websites to see how often API (application programming interfaces) credentials are exposed. These are digital keys or tokens that enable different software programs to communicate and are often used to process bank payments and access cloud storage.

The team used a huge database called the HTTP Archive, which tracks how millions of real websites work. They looked at live, running versions of sites to monitor how data is processed as pages load.

By examining the websites while they were active, the researchers identified API credentials that appear only when a user visits a site. These credentials are specific strings of text that a website uses to identify itself to services like banks or cloud providers.

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