GitHub Copilot refuses harmful prompts if asked in chat - like, "how to fool a breathalyzer test" or "smuggle bulk cash out of the US" - but then will write them in code 100 percent of the time if the prompt is broken into smaller steps across multiple stages of a software development workflow.

EXCLUSIVE There's no honor among thieves as a new worm steals from other infectious software. It pilfers “multiple” victims’ credentials and mines for cryptocurrency while killing competitors’ processes, including similar secret-harvesting malware.

More on Huntress as CEO changes his tune from “firmly disagree” and don't “understand Ben's accusations” about a still-employed threat hunter passing along insider info the ransomware operator. Now he admits "questionable, long-term threat actor communications” and called this “poor judgment.”

Security firm Huntress allegedly has a turncoat insider leaking info to a ransomware operation, according to an ex-employee who took his grievances to social media after claiming the security shop tried to “silence” him with legal threats.

If you have a Fortinet firewall, it's time to stop and change your passwords. Intruders somehow gained access to around 75,000 Fortinet firewall devices and stole credentials belonging to major corporations across 194 countries, in some cases leading to full network compromise.

The “jailbreak” that prompted the Trump administration to block Anthropic’s most advanced models was a three-word prompt: “Fix this code.” That's according to Luta Security CEO @k8em0.bsky.social - the only outside expert to read the research paper on the guardrail bypass that prompted the ban.

Data theft and extortion group ShinyHunters exploited a critical Oracle PeopleSoft bug as a zero-day to compromise more than 100 organizations, including the University of Nottingham, across 300 vulnerable instances, beginning in May.

Nightmare Eclipse, the prolific bug hunter and possibly disgruntled ex-Microsoft employee, released another 0-day - this one is No. 7 - just hours after Microsoft's Patch Tuesday security updates. www.theregister.com/security/202...

An npm-slop package “mouse5212-super-formatter” targeting Claude users and acting as a stealer reached 676 downloads before being removed from the registry - and after making a major vibe coding blunder.

Turns out Gemini makes a perfect hacking partner.

"A national agency having 844 MB of production infrastructure material in a public GitHub repository for six months is as serious as a secrets leak gets," GitGuardian researcher Guillaume Valadon told me.

Thank you @jessicalyons.bsky.social & @theregister.com for letting me call ShinyHunters scumbags 😂

“At first, yes, this means more patches and thus more work for admins,” @dustinchilds.bsky.social told me. “The goal over time would be to eliminate as many as possible, and, over time, that monthly number goes down.”

"I'm concerned about what they are leaving behind: What type of C2 on a sleep cycle is still lingering in these environments?" TrendAI VP Tom Kellermann told me in an exclusive interview about the never-before-seen campaign.

Thanks to @jessicalyons.bsky.social for bringing more attention to this story. OSS security tools are getting hammered right now, and this piece captures why these incidents matter beyond any one vendor compromise.

"Felony murder law does not require that a defendant pull the trigger, only that they commit a dangerous felony that results in death," ex-FBI cyber chief/Halcyon SVP Cynthia Kaiser told lawmakers.

A design flaw – or expected behavior based on a bad design choice, depending on who is telling the story – baked into Anthropic's official Model Context Protocol (MCP) puts as many as 200,000 servers at risk of complete takeover, according to security researchers.

Anthropic surprised the world by declaring that its latest model, Mythos, is so good at bug hunting that it would create chaos if released. Now, with Project Glasswing, 50+ select orgs are testing the hyped up LLM to find holes in their own products. But just how many problems have they discovered?

EXCLUSIVE: Security researchers hijacked three popular AI agents that integrate with GitHub Actions by using a new type of prompt injection attack to steal API keys and access tokens, and the vendors who run agents didn’t disclose the problem.

An unknown malware slinger targeting open source software developers via Slack impersonated a real Linux Foundation official and used pages hosted on Google to steal developers' credentials and take over their systems.

Here's my latest: A tale of two supply-chain attacks. Different attackers, but they both targeted open source software and developer environments and shares similar end goals.

The struggle is real…

"Everybody's glorifying threat actors, and that's not helping our customers or organizations. These are just individuals, they just use computers, and they just want to steal your data and make money. They're not mythical. They don't have superpowers," Trellix VP John Fokker told me.

Tens of thousands of people eagerly downloaded the leaked Claude Code source code this week, and hundreds - if not more - of those downloads came with a side of credential-stealing malware.

We are seeing a dangerous convergence between supply chain attackers and high-profile extortion groups like Lapsus$," Ben Read, a lead researcher at Wiz, told me via @theregister.com on Tuesday.

“We can remove their navy. We can remove their air power. We can attack them across all instruments of power, diplomatic, information, military, and economic. And they'll still have the ability to hack," retired US Army Lt. Gen. Ross Coffman told me via @theregister.com

BREAKING: FBI, international cops take down SocksEscort, a residential proxy service used by criminals to compromise hundreds of thousands of routers worldwide. FBI Deputy Assistant Director Jason Bilnoski spoke exclusively to @theregister.com about the disruption.

It's good to be back with @theregister.com Kettle! Give us a listen and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, whatever podcast platform you like.

Researchers at red-team security startup CodeWall told us their AI agent hacked McKinsey's internal AI platform and gained full read and write access to the chatbot in just two hours. www.theregister.com/2026/03/09/m...

ShinyHunters told me via @theregister.com that the extorion crew has stolen data from about 100 high-profile companies in its latest Salesforce customer data heist, including Salesforce itself.

A developer says their company is on the hook for more than $82,000 in unauthorized charges after a stolen Google Gemini API key racked massive usage costs up in just 48 hours.

Thinking back to Ben Franklin, we saw society moving in the right direction for the last 500 years because of our commitment to science, human rights, etc., and that seems to be at the very least slowing down, if not reversing,” Jake Braun told me via The Register.

well this is bullshit

Two US residents have sued several Homeland Security agencies and officials, including Secretary Kristi Noem, for allegedly using surveillance tools to harass them, branding them as "domestic terrorists," and even showing up at their homes based on license-plate recognition.

BREAKING: Adidas has confirmed it is investigating a third-party breach at one of its partner companies after digital thieves claimed they stole information and technical data from the German sportswear giant.

CarGurus allegedly suffered a data breach with 1.7 million corporate records stolen, according to a notorious cybercrime crew that posted the online vehicle marketplace on its leak site on Wednesday.

Your supervisor may like using employee monitoring apps to keep tabs on you, but crims like the snooping software even more. Threat actors are now using legit bossware to blend into corporate networks and attempt ransomware deployment. HT: @huntress.com security operations analyst Michael Tigges

Don't be evil, Google

EXCLUSIVE: I spoke with Binary Defense lead threat hunter John Dwyer about a new type of payroll scam where attackers call the help desk, force an MFA token reset, and use the org's own VDI to access HR platforms and reroute paychecks. As John told me: "Every employee on earth becomes a target."

A digital intruder broke into an AWS cloud environment and in just under 10 minutes went from initial access to administrative privileges, thanks to an AI speed assist.

Best thing I've read all day.

Maybe everything is all about timing, like the time (this week) America's lead cyber-defense agency sounded the alarm on insider threats after it came to light that its senior official uploaded sensitive documents to ChatGPT. Or maybe it's about hypocrisy.

BREAKING Greg Bovino has been removed as Border Patrol "commander at large" and will return to El Centro Calif, where he is expected to retire soon. A stunning turnaround after Pretti killing. Bovino's traveling blue city crackdown is over www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

ShinyHunters has targeted around 100 organizations in its latest Okta single sign-on (SSO) credential stealing campaign, according to researchers and the criminal group itself.

For every person that was at the march today there was also someone tailing ICE vehicles or watching over a neighborhood business or doing mutual aid. This crowd is only part of us! I love this state, I love this city (and I'm including the whole metro in that).

More than 400 tech workers have urged their CEOs to "call the White House and demand ICE leave our cities" after masked federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti over the weekend and the world's richest and most powerful chief executives remained silent.

BREAKING: The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency won't attend the annual RSA Conference in March, an agency spokesperson confirmed to The Register.

ShinyHunters has claimed responsibility for an Okta voice-phishing campaign during which the extortionist crew allegedly gained access to Crunchbase and Betterment.

Now if ICE would just stop shooting people... www.theregister.com/2026/01/09/h...

I can now die a satisfied man. I've been quoted in the NYTimes before, but never in The Register (my absolute favorite IT tabloid). Today I was quoted in The Reg. Thank you @jessicalyons.bsky.social for letting me contribute to your article - www.theregister.com/2026/01/08/c...