Riot Games has announced that it will begin officially sanctioning sports-betting sponsorships for esports teams in its Tier 1 League of Legends and Valorant leagues. While the company states that it still won't allow advertisements in its official broadcasts, teams themselves will be able to take money from sports-betting companies for advertising through their own channels.In a blog post, President of Publishing and Esports John Needham writes that the move is designed to take advantage of the rapidly growing sports-betting industry and to make esports-related betting more regulated. Seemingly to address concerns and head off potential criticism, Needham explains that the company is authorizing sports-betting sponsorships under a "guardrails first" strategy.These "guardrails," Needham states, are essentially the rules by which any sponsorship must be executed. First, sports-betting companies need to be vetted and approved by Riot itself, although the company has not shared the criteria on which this vetting is done. Second, to ensure that sports-betting companies are on a level playing field, Riot is mandating that official partners all use GRID, the officially sanctioned data platform for League of Legends and Valorant. Third, esports teams must launch and maintain internal integrity programs to protect against violations of league rules due to the influence of sports betting. Fourth and last, Riot will use some of the revenue from these sponsorships to support its Tier 2 (lower division) esports leagues.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Guided by visual effects supervisor John Knoll, ILM embraced continually evolving methodologies to craft breathtaking visual effects for the iconic space battles in First Contact and Rogue One. By Jay Stobie Visual effects supervisor John Knoll (right) confers with modelmakers Kim Smith and John Goodson with the miniature of the U.S.S. Enterprise-E during production of Star Trek: First Contact (Credit: ILM). Bolstered by visual effects from Industrial Light & Magic, Star Trek: First Contact (1996) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) propelled their respective franchises to new heights. While Star Trek Generations (1994) welcomed Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s (Patrick Stewart) crew to the big screen, First Contact stood as the first Star Trek feature that did not focus on its original captain, the legendary James T. Kirk (William Shatner). Similarly, though Rogue One immediately preceded the events of Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), it was set apart from the episodic Star Wars films and launched an era of storytelling outside of the main Skywalker saga that has gone on to include Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), The Mandalorian (2019-23), Andor (2022-25), Ahsoka (2023), The Acolyte (2024), and more. The two films also shared a key ILM contributor, John Knoll, who served as visual effects supervisor on both projects, as well as an executive producer on Rogue One. Currently, ILM’s executive creative director and senior visual effects supervisor, Knoll – who also conceived the initial framework for Rogue One’s story – guided ILM as it brought its talents to bear on these sci-fi and fantasy epics. The work involved crafting two spectacular starship-packed space clashes – First Contact’s Battle of Sector 001 and Rogue One’s Battle of Scarif. Although these iconic installments were released roughly two decades apart, they represent a captivating case study of how ILM’s approach to visual effects has evolved over time. With this in mind, let’s examine the films’ unforgettable space battles through the lens of fascinating in-universe parallels and the ILM-produced fleets that face off near Earth and Scarif. A final frame from the Battle of Scarif in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm). A Context for Conflict In First Contact, the United Federation of Planets – a 200-year-old interstellar government consisting of more than 150 member worlds – braces itself for an invasion by the Borg – an overwhelmingly powerful collective composed of cybernetic beings who devastate entire planets by assimilating their biological populations and technological innovations. The Borg only send a single vessel, a massive cube containing thousands of hive-minded drones and their queen, pushing the Federation’s Starfleet defenders to Earth’s doorstep. Conversely, in Rogue One, the Rebel Alliance – a fledgling coalition of freedom fighters – seeks to undermine and overthrow the stalwart Galactic Empire – a totalitarian regime preparing to tighten its grip on the galaxy by revealing a horrifying superweapon. A rebel team infiltrates a top-secret vault on Scarif in a bid to steal plans to that battle station, the dreaded Death Star, with hopes of exploiting a vulnerability in its design. On the surface, the situations could not seem to be more disparate, particularly in terms of the Federation’s well-established prestige and the Rebel Alliance’s haphazardly organized factions. Yet, upon closer inspection, the spaceborne conflicts at Earth and Scarif are linked by a vital commonality. The threat posed by the Borg is well-known to the Federation, but the sudden intrusion upon their space takes its defenses by surprise. Starfleet assembles any vessel within range – including antiquated Oberth-class science ships – to intercept the Borg cube in the Typhon Sector, only to be forced back to Earth on the edge of defeat. The unsanctioned mission to Scarif with Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) and Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and the sudden need to take down the planet’s shield gate propels the Rebel Alliance fleet into rushing to their rescue with everything from their flagship Profundity to GR-75 medium transports. Whether Federation or Rebel Alliance, these fleets gather in last-ditch efforts to oppose enemies who would embrace their eradication – the Battles of Sector 001 and Scarif are fights for survival. From Physical to Digital By the time Jonathan Frakes was selected to direct First Contact, Star Trek’s reliance on constructing traditional physical models (many of which were built by ILM) for its features was gradually giving way to innovative computer graphics (CG) models, resulting in the film’s use of both techniques. “If one of the ships was to be seen full-screen and at length,” associate visual effects supervisor George Murphy told Cinefex’s Kevin H. Martin, “we knew it would be done as a stage model. Ships that would be doing a lot of elaborate maneuvers in space battle scenes would be created digitally.” In fact, physical and CG versions of the U.S.S. Enterprise-E appear in the film, with the latter being harnessed in shots involving the vessel’s entry into a temporal vortex at the conclusion of the Battle of Sector 001. Despite the technological leaps that ILM pioneered in the decades between First Contact and Rogue One, they considered filming physical miniatures for certain ship-related shots in the latter film. ILM considered filming physical miniatures for certain ship-related shots in Rogue One. The feature’s fleets were ultimately created digitally to allow for changes throughout post-production. “If it’s a photographed miniature element, it’s not possible to go back and make adjustments. So it’s the additional flexibility that comes with the computer graphics models that’s very attractive to many people,” John Knoll relayed to writer Jon Witmer at American Cinematographer’s TheASC.com. However, Knoll aimed to develop computer graphics that retained the same high-quality details as their physical counterparts, leading ILM to employ a modern approach to a time-honored modelmaking tactic. “I also wanted to emulate the kit-bashing aesthetic that had been part of Star Wars from the very beginning, where a lot of mechanical detail had been added onto the ships by using little pieces from plastic model kits,” explained Knoll in his chat with TheASC.com. For Rogue One, ILM replicated the process by obtaining such kits, scanning their parts, building a computer graphics library, and applying the CG parts to digitally modeled ships. “I’m very happy to say it was super-successful,” concluded Knoll. “I think a lot of our digital models look like they are motion-control models.” John Knoll (second from left) confers with Kim Smith and John Goodson with the miniature of the U.S.S. Enterprise-E during production of Star Trek: First Contact (Credit: ILM). Legendary Lineages In First Contact, Captain Picard commanded a brand-new vessel, the Sovereign-class U.S.S. Enterprise-E, continuing the celebrated starship’s legacy in terms of its famous name and design aesthetic. Designed by John Eaves and developed into blueprints by Rick Sternbach, the Enterprise-E was built into a 10-foot physical model by ILM model project supervisor John Goodson and his shop’s talented team. ILM infused the ship with extraordinary detail, including viewports equipped with backlit set images from the craft’s predecessor, the U.S.S. Enterprise-D. For the vessel’s larger windows, namely those associated with the observation lounge and arboretum, ILM took a painstakingly practical approach to match the interiors shown with the real-world set pieces. “We filled that area of the model with tiny, micro-scale furniture,” Goodson informed Cinefex, “including tables and chairs.” Rogue One’s rebel team initially traversed the galaxy in a U-wing transport/gunship, which, much like the Enterprise-E, was a unique vessel that nonetheless channeled a certain degree of inspiration from a classic design. Lucasfilm’s Doug Chiang, a co-production designer for Rogue One, referred to the U-wing as the film’s “Huey helicopter version of an X-wing” in the Designing Rogue One bonus featurette on Disney+ before revealing that, “Towards the end of the design cycle, we actually decided that maybe we should put in more X-wing features. And so we took the X-wing engines and literally mounted them onto the configuration that we had going.” Modeled by ILM digital artist Colie Wertz, the U-wing’s final computer graphics design subtly incorporated these X-wing influences to give the transport a distinctive feel without making the craft seem out of place within the rebel fleet. While ILM’s work on the Enterprise-E’s viewports offered a compelling view toward the ship’s interior, a breakthrough LED setup for Rogue One permitted ILM to obtain realistic lighting on actors as they looked out from their ships and into the space around them. “All of our major spaceship cockpit scenes were done that way, with the gimbal in this giant horseshoe of LED panels we got from [equipment vendor] VER, and we prepared graphics that went on the screens,” John Knoll shared with American Cinematographer’s Benjamin B and Jon D. Witmer. Furthermore, in Disney+’s Rogue One: Digital Storytelling bonus featurette, visual effects producer Janet Lewin noted, “For the actors, I think, in the space battle cockpits, for them to be able to see what was happening in the battle brought a higher level of accuracy to their performance.” The U.S.S. Enterprise-E in Star Trek: First Contact (Credit: Paramount). Familiar Foes To transport First Contact’s Borg invaders, John Goodson’s team at ILM resurrected the Borg cube design previously seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993), creating a nearly three-foot physical model to replace the one from the series. Art consultant and ILM veteran Bill George proposed that the cube’s seemingly straightforward layout be augmented with a complex network of photo-etched brass, a suggestion which produced a jagged surface and offered a visual that was both intricate and menacing. ILM also developed a two-foot motion-control model for a Borg sphere, a brand-new auxiliary vessel that emerged from the cube. “We vacuformed about 15 different patterns that conformed to this spherical curve and covered those with a lot of molded and cast pieces. Then we added tons of acid-etched brass over it, just like we had on the cube,” Goodson outlined to Cinefex’s Kevin H. Martin. As for Rogue One’s villainous fleet, reproducing the original trilogy’s Death Star and Imperial Star Destroyers centered upon translating physical models into digital assets. Although ILM no longer possessed A New Hope’s three-foot Death Star shooting model, John Knoll recreated the station’s surface paneling by gathering archival images, and as he spelled out to writer Joe Fordham in Cinefex, “I pieced all the images together. I unwrapped them into texture space and projected them onto a sphere with a trench. By doing that with enough pictures, I got pretty complete coverage of the original model, and that became a template upon which to redraw very high-resolution texture maps. Every panel, every vertical striped line, I matched from a photograph. It was as accurate as it was possible to be as a reproduction of the original model.” Knoll’s investigative eye continued to pay dividends when analyzing the three-foot and eight-foot Star Destroyer motion-control models, which had been built for A New Hope and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), respectively. “Our general mantra was, ‘Match your memory of it more than the reality,’ because sometimes you go look at the actual prop in the archive building or you look back at the actual shot from the movie, and you go, ‘Oh, I remember it being a little better than that,’” Knoll conveyed to TheASC.com. This philosophy motivated ILM to combine elements from those two physical models into a single digital design. “Generally, we copied the three-footer for details like the superstructure on the top of the bridge, but then we copied the internal lighting plan from the eight-footer,” Knoll explained. “And then the upper surface of the three-footer was relatively undetailed because there were no shots that saw it closely, so we took a lot of the high-detail upper surface from the eight-footer. So it’s this amalgam of the two models, but the goal was to try to make it look like you remember it from A New Hope.” A final frame from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm). Forming Up the Fleets In addition to the U.S.S. Enterprise-E, the Battle of Sector 001 debuted numerous vessels representing four new Starfleet ship classes – the Akira, Steamrunner, Saber, and Norway – all designed by ILM visual effects art director Alex Jaeger. “Since we figured a lot of the background action in the space battle would be done with computer graphics ships that needed to be built from scratch anyway, I realized that there was no reason not to do some new designs,” John Knoll told American Cinematographer writer Ron Magid. Used in previous Star Trek projects, older physical models for the Oberth and Nebula classes were mixed into the fleet for good measure, though the vast majority of the armada originated as computer graphics. Over at Scarif, ILM portrayed the Rebel Alliance forces with computer graphics models of fresh designs (the MC75 cruiser Profundity and U-wings), live-action versions of Star Wars Rebels’ VCX-100 light freighter Ghost and Hammerhead corvettes, and Star Wars staples (Nebulon-B frigates, X-wings, Y-wings, and more). These ships face off against two Imperial Star Destroyers and squadrons of TIE fighters, and – upon their late arrival to the battle – Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer and the Death Star. The Tantive IV, a CR90 corvette more popularly referred to as a blockade runner, made its own special cameo at the tail end of the fight. As Princess Leia Organa’s (Carrie Fisher and Ingvild Deila) personal ship, the Tantive IV received the Death Star plans and fled the scene, destined to be captured by Vader’s Star Destroyer at the beginning of A New Hope. And, while we’re on the subject of intricate starship maneuvers and space-based choreography… Although the First Contact team could plan visual effects shots with animated storyboards, ILM supplied Gareth Edwards with a next-level virtual viewfinder that allowed the director to select his shots by immersing himself among Rogue One’s ships in real time. “What we wanted to do is give Gareth the opportunity to shoot his space battles and other all-digital scenes the same way he shoots his live-action. Then he could go in with this sort of virtual viewfinder and view the space battle going on, and figure out what the best angle was to shoot those ships from,” senior animation supervisor Hal Hickel described in the Rogue One: Digital Storytelling featurette. Hickel divulged that the sequence involving the dish array docking with the Death Star was an example of the “spontaneous discovery of great angles,” as the scene was never storyboarded or previsualized. Visual effects supervisor John Knoll with director Gareth Edwards during production of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm). Tough Little Ships The Federation and Rebel Alliance each deployed “tough little ships” (an endearing description Commander William T. Riker [Jonathan Frakes] bestowed upon the U.S.S. Defiant in First Contact) in their respective conflicts, namely the U.S.S. Defiant from Deep Space Nine and the Tantive IV from A New Hope. VisionArt had already built a CG Defiant for the Deep Space Nine series, but ILM upgraded the model with images gathered from the ship’s three-foot physical model. A similar tactic was taken to bring the Tantive IV into the digital realm for Rogue One. “This was the Blockade Runner. This was the most accurate 1:1 reproduction we could possibly have made,” model supervisor Russell Paul declared to Cinefex’s Joe Fordham. “We did an extensive photo reference shoot and photogrammetry re-creation of the miniature. From there, we built it out as accurately as possible.” Speaking of sturdy ships, if you look very closely, you can spot a model of the Millennium Falcon flashing across the background as the U.S.S. Defiant makes an attack run on the Borg cube at the Battle of Sector 001! Exploration and Hope The in-universe ramifications that materialize from the Battles of Sector 001 and Scarif are monumental. The destruction of the Borg cube compels the Borg Queen to travel back in time in an attempt to vanquish Earth before the Federation can even be formed, but Captain Picard and the Enterprise-E foil the plot and end up helping their 21st century ancestors make “first contact” with another species, the logic-revering Vulcans. The post-Scarif benefits take longer to play out for the Rebel Alliance, but the theft of the Death Star plans eventually leads to the superweapon’s destruction. The Galactic Civil War is far from over, but Scarif is a significant step in the Alliance’s effort to overthrow the Empire. The visual effects ILM provided for First Contact and Rogue One contributed significantly to the critical and commercial acclaim both pictures enjoyed, a victory reflecting the relentless dedication, tireless work ethic, and innovative spirit embodied by visual effects supervisor John Knoll and ILM’s entire staff. While being interviewed for The Making of Star Trek: First Contact, actor Patrick Stewart praised ILM’s invaluable influence, emphasizing, “ILM was with us, on this movie, almost every day on set. There is so much that they are involved in.” And, regardless of your personal preferences – phasers or lasers, photon torpedoes or proton torpedoes, warp speed or hyperspace – perhaps Industrial Light & Magic’s ability to infuse excitement into both franchises demonstrates that Star Trek and Star Wars encompass themes that are not competitive, but compatible. After all, what goes together better than exploration and hope? – Jay Stobie (he/him) is a writer, author, and consultant who has contributed articles to ILM.com, Skysound.com, Star Wars Insider, StarWars.com, Star Trek Explorer, Star Trek Magazine, and StarTrek.com. Jay loves sci-fi, fantasy, and film, and you can learn more about him by visiting JayStobie.com or finding him on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms at @StobiesGalaxy.

IT Pros ‘Extremely Worried’ About Shadow AI: Report By John P. Mello Jr. June 4, 2025 5:00 AM PT ADVERTISEMENT Enterprise IT Lead Generation Services Fuel Your Pipeline. Close More Deals. Our full-service marketing programs deliver sales-ready leads. 100% Satisfaction Guarantee! Learn more. Shadow AI — the use of AI tools under the radar of IT departments — has information technology directors and executives worried, according to a report released Tuesday. The report, based on a survey of 200 IT directors and executives at U.S. enterprise organizations of 1,000 employees or more, found nearly half the IT pros (46%) were “extremely worried” about shadow AI, and almost all of them (90%) were concerned about it from a privacy and security viewpoint. “As our survey found, shadow AI is resulting in palpable, concerning outcomes, with nearly 80% of IT leaders saying it has resulted in negative incidents such as sensitive data leakage to Gen AI tools, false or inaccurate results, and legal risks of using copyrighted information,” said Krishna Subramanian, co-founder of Campbell, Calif.-based Komprise, the unstructured data management company that produced the report. “Alarmingly, 13% say that shadow AI has caused financial or reputational harm to their organizations,” she told TechNewsWorld. Subramanian added that shadow AI poses a much greater problem than shadow IT, which primarily focuses on departmental power users purchasing cloud instances or SaaS tools without obtaining IT approval. “Now we’ve got an unlimited number of employees using tools like ChatGPT or Claude AI to get work done, but not understanding the potential risk they are putting their organizations at by inadvertently submitting company secrets or customer data into the chat prompt,” she explained. “The data risk is large and growing in still unforeseen ways because of the pace of AI development and adoption and the fact that there is a lot we don’t know about how AI works,” she continued. “It is becoming more humanistic all the time and capable of making decisions independently.” Shadow AI Introduces Security Blind Spots Shadow AI is the next step after shadow IT and is a growing risk, noted James McQuiggan, security awareness advocate at KnowBe4, a security awareness training provider in Clearwater, Fla. “Users use AI tools for content, images, or applications and to process sensitive data or company information without proper security checks,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Most organizations will have privacy, compliance, and data protection policies, and shadow AI introduces blind spots in the organization’s data loss prevention.” “The biggest risk with shadow AI is that the AI application has not passed through a security analysis as approved AI tools may have been,” explained Melissa Ruzzi, director of AI at AppOmni, a SaaS security management software company, in San Mateo, Calif. “Some AI applications may be training models using your data, may not adhere to relevant regulations that your company is required to follow, and may not even have the data storage security level you deem necessary to keep your data from being exposed,” she told TechNewsWorld. “Those risks are blind spots of potential security vulnerabilities in shadow AI.” Krishna Vishnubhotla, vice president of product strategy at Zimperium, a mobile security company based in Dallas, noted that shadow AI extends beyond unapproved applications and involves embedded AI components that can process and disseminate sensitive data in unpredictable ways. “Unlike traditional shadow IT, which may be limited to unauthorized software or hardware, shadow AI can run on employee mobile devices outside the organization’s perimeter and control,” he told TechNewsWorld. “This creates new security and compliance risks that are harder to track and mitigate.” Vishnubhotla added that the financial impact of shadow AI varies, but unauthorized AI tools can lead to significant regulatory fines, data breaches, and loss of intellectual property. “Depending on the scale of the agency and the sensitivity of the data exposed, the costs could range from millions to potentially billions in damages due to compliance violations, remediation efforts, and reputational harm,” he said. “Federal agencies handling vast amounts of sensitive or classified information, financial institutions, and health care organizations are particularly vulnerable,” he said. “These sectors collect and analyze vast amounts of high-value data, making AI tools attractive. But without proper vetting, these tools could be easily exploited.” Shadow AI Everywhere and Easy To Use Nicole Carignan, SVP for security and AI strategy at Darktrace, a global cybersecurity AI company, predicts an explosion of tools that utilize AI and generative AI within enterprises and on devices used by employees. “In addition to managing AI tools that are built in-house, security teams will see a surge in the volume of existing tools that have new AI features and capabilities embedded, as well as a rise in shadow AI,” she told TechNewsWorld. “If the surge remains unchecked, this raises serious questions and concerns about data loss prevention, as well as compliance concerns as new regulations start to take effect.” “That will drive an increasing need for AI asset discovery — the ability for companies to identify and track the use of AI systems throughout the enterprise,” she said. “It is imperative that CIOs and CISOs dig deep into new AI security solutions, asking comprehensive questions about data access and visibility.” Shadow AI has become so rampant because it is everywhere and easy to access through free tools, maintained Komprise’s Subramanian. “All you need is a web browser,” she said. “Enterprise users can inadvertently share company code snippets or corporate data when using these Gen AI tools, which could create data leakage.” “These tools are growing and changing exponentially,” she continued. “It’s really hard to keep up. As the IT leader, how do you track this and determine the risk? Managers might be looking the other way because their teams are getting more done. You may need fewer contractors and full-time employees. But I think the risk of the tools is not well understood.” “The low, or in some cases non-existent, learning curve associated with using Gen AI services has led to rapid adoption, regardless of prior experience with these services,” added Satyam Sinha, CEO and co-founder of Acuvity, a provider of runtime Gen AI security and governance solutions, in Sunnyvale, Calif. “Whereas shadow IT focused on addressing a specific challenge for particular employees or departments, shadow AI addresses multiple challenges for multiple employees and departments. Hence, the greater appeal,” he said. “The abundance and rapid development of Gen AI services also means employees can find the right solution [instantly]. Of course, all these traits have direct security implications.” Banning AI Tools Backfires To support innovation while minimizing the threat of shadow AI, enterprises must take a three-pronged approach, asserted Kris Bondi, CEO and co-founder of Mimoto, a threat detection and response company in San Francisco. They must educate employees on the dangers of unsupported, unmonitored AI tools, create company protocols for what is not acceptable use of unauthorized AI tools, and, most importantly, provide AI tools that are sanctioned. “Explaining why one tool is sanctioned and another isn’t greatly increases compliance,” she told TechNewsWorld. “It does not work for a company to have a zero-use mandate. In fact, this results in an increase in stealth use of shadow AI.” In the very near future, more and more applications will be leveraging AI in different forms, so the reality of shadow AI will be present more than ever, added AppOmni’s Ruzzi. “The best strategy here is employee training and AI usage monitoring,” she said. “It will become crucial to have in place a powerful SaaS security tool that can go beyond detecting direct AI usage of chatbots to detect AI usage connected to other applications,” she continued, “allowing for early discovery, proper risk assessment, and containment to minimize possible negative consequences.” “Shadow AI is just the beginning,” KnowBe4’s McQuiggan added. “As more teams use AI, the risks grow.” He recommended that companies start small, identify what’s being used, and build from there. They should also get legal, HR, and compliance involved. “Make AI governance part of your broader security program,” he said. “The sooner you start, the better you can manage what comes next.” John P. Mello Jr. has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, IT issues, privacy, e-commerce, social media, artificial intelligence, big data and consumer electronics. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including the Boston Business Journal, the Boston Phoenix, Megapixel.Net and Government Security News. Email John. Leave a Comment Click here to cancel reply. Please sign in to post or reply to a comment. New users create a free account. Related Stories More by John P. Mello Jr. view all More in IT Leadership

The Utah court of appeals has sanctioned a lawyer after he was discovered to have used ChatGPT for a filing he made in which he referenced a nonexistent court case.Earlier this week, the Utah court of appeals made the decision to sanction Richard Bednar over claims that he filed a brief which included false citations.According to court documents reviewed by ABC4, Bednar and Douglas Durbano, another Utah-based lawyer who was serving as the petitioner’s counsel, filed a “timely petition for interlocutory appeal”.Upon reviewing the brief which was written by a law clerk, the respondent’s counsel found several false citations of cases.“It appears that at least some portions of the Petition may be AI-generated, including citations and even quotations to at least one case that does not appear to exist in any legal database (and could only be found in ChatGPT and references to cases that are wholly unrelated to the referenced subject matter,” the respondent’s counsel said in documents reviewed by ABC4.The outlet reports that the brief referenced a case titled “Royer v Nelson”, which did not exist in any legal database.Following the discovery of the false citations, Bednar “acknowledged ‘the errors contained in the petition’ and apologized”, according to a document from the Utah court of appeals, ABC4 reports. It went on to add that during a hearing in April, Bednar and his attorney “acknowledged that the petition contained fabricated legal authority, which was obtained from ChatGPT, and they accepted responsibility for the contents of the petition”.According to Bednar and his attorney, an “unlicensed law clerk” wrote up the brief and Bednar did not “independently check the accuracy” before he made the filing. ABC4 further reports that Durbano was not involved in the creation of the petition and the law clerk responsible for the filing was a law school graduate who was terminated from the law firm.The outlet added that Bednar offered to pay any related attorney fees to “make amends”.In a statement reported by ABC4, the Utah court of appeals said: “We agree that the use of AI in the preparation of pleadings is a legal research tool that will continue to evolve with advances in technology. However, we emphasize that every attorney has an ongoing duty to review and ensure the accuracy of their court filings. In the present case, petitioner’s counsel fell short of their gatekeeping responsibilities as members of the Utah State Bar when they submitted a petition that contained fake precedent generated by ChatGPT.”As a result of the false citations, ABC4 reports that Bednar was ordered to pay the respondent’s attorney fees for the petition and hearing, refund fees to their client for the time used to prepare the filing and attend the hearing, as well as donate $1,000 to the Utah-based legal non-profit And Justice for All.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.Purchasing a full set of individual dumbbell pairs between five and 60 pounds can cost well over $1,500, not to mention how much space you'd have to dedicate to storing them. That's why I'm a huge fan of adjustable dumbbells like the REP QuickDraws or Nüobells, which I reviewed here and here, respectively. If you know you want to be able to up to 60 pounds at five-pound increments, effectively combining 30 weights into one compact set, then adjustables like the REP QuickDraws are how you can save significant money and space in your home gym equipment setup. But let's say your strength progresses beyond your adjustable dumbbells' capacity. First of all: Nice work. Secondly: What do you do now? I've seen users on Reddit directly asking "what's stopping me from adding more plates to keep going heavier?" Adding extra weight plates seems like a logical solution, as opposed to spending all that money on an entirely new set for just a few pounds beyond the recommended capacity. So, let's take a look at what is stopping you—and what's not. Here's what you should know about using add-on weights to your adjustable dumbbells, from what is officially considered unsafe to why it gets impractical even aside from that. How to add weight to your adjustable dumbbellsFirst off, not all adjustable dumbbells allow for this type of modification. Selector pin systems (like PowerBlocks) generally don't allow for unofficial weight additions due to their enclosed design. Dial systems (like my favorite, the Nüobells) have security features specifically preventing modifications outside the cradle. Then you have spin-lock dumbbells, like the QuickDraws, which allow for customization and additional weight outside the cradle. For this reason, I'll be speaking to the REP QuickDraws specifically, as opposed to Nüobells or Powerblocks.Still, adding weight beyond the manufacturer's specifications will almost certainly void your warranty. REP Fitness designed these dumbbells for specific weight ranges and cannot guarantee safety beyond those limits. I spoke with a REP representative (REP-resentative?) who informed me, "internal testing was not conducted beyond the 60 pound maximum, so REP cannot guarantee the safety of additional weight beyond that."Outside of your warranty, there are safety concerns. The handles, locking mechanisms, and materials are engineered for specific maximum loads. Exceeding these limits risks equipment failure and potential injury. Even if the dumbbells can technically handle the additional plates, the result might be bulky and awkward, affecting your form and increasing injury risk.All that being said, it still is entirely feasible to bend the rules and take your 60-pound dumbbells up to 70 pounds. Assuming you play it safe and only add a few plates to each side, here's what you should know:Only add compatible plates: The QuickDraw system uses standard plate dimensions that can be supplemented with additional compatible plates.Manual addition required: You'll need to add these plates manually outside the cradle system, as the selection mechanism only works within the advertised weight range. This pretty much negates the whole "quick draw" appeal.Secure them properly: Ensure the additional plates are secured with the locking mechanism to prevent dangerous slippage during exercises.Manual tracking required: The dial indicator becomes inaccurate once you exceed the designed range. You'll need to manually calculate and track the added weight.Can you (and should you) add more weight to REP QuickDraw Dumbbells?The short answer: Yes, technically you can add additional weight plates to REP QuickDraw dumbbells beyond their advertised maximum. The long answer: Just because something is possible doesn't mean you should make a habit of it. Sure, it's fully above-board to order add-on weights in five-pound increments (which, side-note, I love so much more than a 10-pound jump). However, going beyond 60 pounds isn't sanctioned by REP. For this reason, I naturally had my boyfriend test my DIY super-QuickDraws creation. In the image below, you can see how I manually added weights outside of the cradle. With the spin-locks, you can keep adding weights outside the cradle without any resistance. Just slide the weights on and flip the lock switch.I snapped a picture of it in its lopsided form, so you can see just how far outside the cradle the five-pound add-ons will go—and how precarious it starts to look right off the bat. Behold, my DIY super-QuickDraws creation. Credit: Meredith Dietz As we steadily increased the weight from 65, to 70, to 85 pounds, he noted growing concerns with how much the dumbbells could handle while still feeling safe. The all-steel design gives these guys a premium feel during standard use. But when you go beyond the sanctioned weight capacity, there's a sense that the dumbbells wouldn't bend or snag, but simply snap. And again, you'll need to manually keep track of how much weight you're adding, since the individual plates are not labeled, and you're exceeding the labels of the cradle. That mental math might not be a deterrent for you, but it's something to note.The bottom lineIn most cases, the hassle and safety concerns outweigh the benefits. The primary advantage of the QuickDraws—quick, convenient weight changes—is totally undermined when manually adding plates.Investing in a higher-capacity adjustable dumbbell set (like 80- to 90-pound models) or supplementing with specific heavier fixed dumbbells for certain exercises might be safer and more practical. For serious lifters approaching the upper limits of their adjustable dumbbells, I'd recommend supplementing with individual heavier dumbbells.

Every few weeks, it seems like there’s a new headline about a lawyer getting in trouble for submitting filings containing, in the words of one judge, “bogus AI-generated research.” The details vary, but the throughline is the same: an attorney turns to a large language model (LLM) like ChatGPT to help them with legal research (or worse, writing), the LLM hallucinates cases that don’t exist, and the lawyer is none the wiser until the judge or opposing counsel points out their mistake. In some cases, including an aviation lawsuit from 2023, attorneys have had to pay fines for submitting filings with AI-generated hallucinations. So why haven’t they stopped?The answer mostly comes down to time crunches, and the way AI has crept into nearly every profession. Legal research databases like LexisNexis and Westlaw have AI integrations now. For lawyers juggling big caseloads, AI can seem like an incredibly efficient assistant. Most lawyers aren’t necessarily using ChatGPT to write their filings, but they are increasingly using it and other LLMs for research. Yet many of these lawyers, like much of the public, don’t understand exactly what LLMs are or how they work. One attorney who was sanctioned in 2023 said he thought ChatGPT was a “super search engine.” It took submitting a filing with fake citations to reveal that it’s more like a random-phrase generator — one that could give you either correct information or convincingly phrased nonsense.Andrew Perlman, the dean of Suffolk University Law School, argues many lawyers are using AI tools without incident, and the ones who get caught with fake citations are outliers. “I think that what we’re seeing now — although these problems of hallucination are real, and lawyers have to take it very seriously and be careful about it — doesn’t mean that these tools don’t have enormous possible benefits and use cases for the delivery of legal services,” Perlman said. Legal databases and research systems like Westlaw are incorporating AI services.In fact, 63 percent of lawyers surveyed by Thomson Reuters in 2024 said they’ve used AI in the past, and 12 percent said they use it regularly. Respondents said they use AI to write summaries of case law and to research “case law, statutes, forms or sample language for orders.” The attorneys surveyed by Thomson Reuters see it as a time-saving tool, and half of those surveyed said “exploring the potential for implementing AI” at work is their highest priority. “The role of a good lawyer is as a ‘trusted advisor’ not as a producer of documents,” one respondent said. But as plenty of recent examples have shown, the documents produced by AI aren’t always accurate, and in some cases aren’t real at all.RelatedIn one recent high-profile case, lawyers for journalist Tim Burke, who was arrested for publishing unaired Fox News footage in 2024, submitted a motion to dismiss the case against him on First Amendment grounds. After discovering that the filing included “significant misrepresentations and misquotations of supposedly pertinent case law and history,” Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, of Florida’s middle district, ordered the motion to be stricken from the case record. Mizelle found nine hallucinations in the document, according to the Tampa Bay Times.Mizelle ultimately let Burke’s lawyers, Mark Rasch and Michael Maddux, submit a new motion. In a separate filing explaining the mistakes, Rasch wrote that he “assumes sole and exclusive responsibility for these errors.” Rasch said he used the “deep research” feature on ChatGPT pro, which The Verge has previously tested with mixed results, as well as Westlaw’s AI feature.Rasch isn’t alone. Lawyers representing Anthropic recently admitted to using the company’s Claude AI to help write an expert witness declaration submitted as part of the copyright infringement lawsuit brought against Anthropic by music publishers. That filing included a citation with an “inaccurate title and inaccurate authors.” Last December, misinformation expert Jeff Hancock admitted he used ChatGPT to help organize citations in a declaration he submitted in support of a Minnesota law regulating deepfake use. Hancock’s filing included “two citation errors, popularly referred to as ‘hallucinations,’” and incorrectly listed authors for another citation. These documents do, in fact, matter — at least in the eyes of judges. In a recent case, a California judge presiding over a case against State Farm was initially swayed by arguments in a brief, only to find that the case law cited was completely made up. “I read their brief, was persuaded (or at least intrigued) by the authorities that they cited, and looked up the decisions to learn more about them – only to find that they didn’t exist,” Judge Michael Wilner wrote.Perlman said there are several less risky ways lawyers use generative AI in their work, including finding information in large tranches of discovery documents, reviewing briefs or filings, and brainstorming possible arguments or possible opposing views. “I think in almost every task, there are ways in which generative AI can be useful — not a substitute for lawyers’ judgment, not a substitute for the expertise that lawyers bring to the table, but in order to supplement what lawyers do and enable them to do their work better, faster, and cheaper,” Perlman said.But like anyone using AI tools, lawyers who rely on them to help with legal research and writing need to be careful to check the work they produce, Perlman said. Part of the problem is that attorneys often find themselves short on time — an issue he says existed before LLMs came into the picture. “Even before the emergence of generative AI, lawyers would file documents with citations that didn’t really address the issue that they claimed to be addressing,” Perlman said. “It was just a different kind of problem. Sometimes when lawyers are rushed, they insert citations, they don’t properly check them; they don’t really see if the case has been overturned or overruled.” (That said, the cases do at least typically exist.)Another, more insidious problem is the fact that attorneys — like others who use LLMs to help with research and writing — are too trusting of what AI produces. “I think many people are lulled into a sense of comfort with the output, because it appears at first glance to be so well crafted,” Perlman said.Alexander Kolodin, an election lawyer and Republican state representative in Arizona, said he treats ChatGPT as a junior-level associate. He’s also used ChatGPT to help write legislation. In 2024, he included AI text in part of a bill on deepfakes, having the LLM provide the “baseline definition” of what deepfakes are and then “I, the human, added in the protections for human rights, things like that it excludes comedy, satire, criticism, artistic expression, that kind of stuff,” Kolodin told The Guardian at the time. Kolodin said he “may have” discussed his use of ChatGPT with the bill’s main Democratic cosponsor but otherwise wanted it to be “an Easter egg” in the bill. The bill passed into law. Kolodin — who was sanctioned by the Arizona State Bar in 2020 for his involvement in lawsuits challenging the result of the 2020 election — has also used ChatGPT to write first drafts of amendments, and told The Verge he uses it for legal research as well. To avoid the hallucination problem, he said, he just checks the citations to make sure they’re real.“You don’t just typically send out a junior associate’s work product without checking the citations,” said Kolodin. “It’s not just machines that hallucinate; a junior associate could read the case wrong, it doesn’t really stand for the proposition cited anyway, whatever. You still have to cite-check it, but you have to do that with an associate anyway, unless they were pretty experienced.”Kolodin said he uses both ChatGPT’s pro “deep research” tool and the LexisNexis AI tool. Like Westlaw, LexisNexis is a legal research tool primarily used by attorneys. Kolodin said that in his experience, it has a higher hallucination rate than ChatGPT, which he says has “gone down substantially over the past year.” AI use among lawyers has become so prevalent that in 2024, the American Bar Association issued its first guidance on attorneys’ use of LLMs and other AI tools. Lawyers who use AI tools “have a duty of competence, including maintaining relevant technological competence, which requires an understanding of the evolving nature” of generative AI, the opinion reads. The guidance advises lawyers to “acquire a general understanding of the benefits and risks of the GAI tools” they use — or, in other words, to not assume that an LLM is a “super search engine.” Attorneys should also weigh the confidentiality risks of inputting information relating to their cases into LLMs and consider whether to tell their clients about their use of LLMs and other AI tools, it states.Perlman is bullish on lawyers’ use of AI. “I do think that generative AI is going to be the most impactful technology the legal profession has ever seen and that lawyers will be expected to use these tools in the future,” he said. “I think that at some point, we will stop worrying about the competence of lawyers who use these tools and start worrying about the competence of lawyers who don’t.”Others, including one of the judges who sanctioned lawyers for submitting a filing full of AI-generated hallucinations, are more skeptical. “Even with recent advances,” Wilner wrote, “no reasonably competent attorney should out-source research and writing to this technology — particularly without any attempt to verify the accuracy of that material.”See More:

Cyber threats don't show up one at a time anymore. They're layered, planned, and often stay hidden until it's too late. For cybersecurity teams, the key isn't just reacting to alerts—it's spotting early signs of trouble before they become real threats. This update is designed to deliver clear, accurate insights based on real patterns and changes we can verify. With today's complex systems, we need focused analysis—not noise. What you'll see here isn't just a list of incidents, but a clear look at where control is being gained, lost, or quietly tested. ⚡ Threat of the Week Lumma Stealer, DanaBot Operations Disrupted — A coalition of private sector companies and law enforcement agencies have taken down the infrastructure associated with Lumma Stealer and DanaBot. Charges have also been unsealed against 16 individuals for their alleged involvement in the development and deployment of DanaBot. The malware is equipped to siphon data from victim computers, hijack banking sessions, and steal device information. More uniquely, though, DanaBot has also been used for hacking campaigns that appear to be linked to Russian state-sponsored interests. All of that makes DanaBot a particularly clear example of how commodity malware has been repurposed by Russian state hackers for their own goals. In tandem, about 2,300 domains that acted as the command-and-control (C2) backbone for the Lumma information stealer have been seized, alongside taking down 300 servers and neutralizing 650 domains that were used to launch ransomware attacks. The actions against international cybercrime in the past few days constituted the latest phase of Operation Endgame. Get the Guide ➝ 🔔 Top News Threat Actors Use TikTok Videos to Distribute Stealers — While ClickFix has become a popular social engineering tactic to deliver malware, threat actors have been observed using artificial intelligence (AI)-generated videos uploaded to TikTok to deceive users into running malicious commands on their systems and deploy malware like Vidar and StealC under the guise of activating pirated version of Windows, Microsoft Office, CapCut, and Spotify. "This campaign highlights how attackers are ready to weaponize whichever social media platforms are currently popular to distribute malware," Trend Micro said. APT28 Hackers Target Western Logistics and Tech Firms — Several cybersecurity and intelligence agencies from Australia, Europe, and the United States issued a joint alert warning of a state-sponsored campaign orchestrated by the Russian state-sponsored threat actor APT28 targeting Western logistics entities and technology companies since 2022. "This cyber espionage-oriented campaign targeting logistics entities and technology companies uses a mix of previously disclosed TTPs and is likely connected to these actors' wide scale targeting of IP cameras in Ukraine and bordering NATO nations," the agencies said. The attacks are designed to steal sensitive information and maintain long-term persistence on compromised hosts. Chinese Threat Actors Exploit Ivanti EPMM Flaws — The China-nexus cyber espionage group tracked as UNC5221 has been attributed to the exploitation of a pair of security flaws affecting Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM) software (CVE-2025-4427 and CVE-2025-4428) to target a wide range of sectors across Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific region. The intrusions leverage the vulnerabilities to obtain a reverse shell and drop malicious payloads like KrustyLoader, which is known to deliver the Sliver command-and-control (C2) framework. "UNC5221 demonstrates a deep understanding of EPMM's internal architecture, repurposing legitimate system components for covert data exfiltration," EclecticIQ said. "Given EPMM's role in managing and pushing configurations to enterprise mobile devices, a successful exploitation could allow threat actors to remotely access, manipulate, or compromise thousands of managed devices across an organization." Over 100 Google Chrome Extensions Mimic Popular Tools — An unknown threat actor has been attributed to creating several malicious Chrome Browser extensions since February 2024 that masquerade as seemingly benign utilities such as DeepSeek, Manus, DeBank, FortiVPN, and Site Stats but incorporate covert functionality to exfiltrate data, receive commands, and execute arbitrary code. Links to these browser add-ons are hosted on specially crafted sites to which users are likely redirected to via phishing and social media posts. While the extensions appear to offer the advertised features, they also stealthily facilitate credential and cookie theft, session hijacking, ad injection, malicious redirects, traffic manipulation, and phishing via DOM manipulation. Several of these extensions have been taken down by Google. CISA Warns of SaaS Providers of Attacks Targeting Cloud Environments — The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned that SaaS companies are under threat from bad actors who are on the prowl for cloud applications with default configurations and elevated permissions. While the agency did not attribute the activity to a specific group, the advisory said enterprise backup platform Commvault is monitoring cyber threat activity targeting applications hosted in their Microsoft Azure cloud environment. "Threat actors may have accessed client secrets for Commvault's (Metallic) Microsoft 365 (M365) backup software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, hosted in Azure," CISA said. "This provided the threat actors with unauthorized access to Commvault's customers' M365 environments that have application secrets stored by Commvault." GitLab AI Coding Assistant Flaws Could Be Used to Inject Malicious Code — Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an indirect prompt injection flaw in GitLab's artificial intelligence (AI) assistant Duo that could have allowed attackers to steal source code and inject untrusted HTML into its responses, which could then be used to direct victims to malicious websites. The attack could also leak confidential issue data, such as zero-day vulnerability details. All that's required is for the attacker to instruct the chatbot to interact with a merge request (or commit, issue, or source code) by taking advantage of the fact that GitLab Duo has extensive access to the platform. "By embedding hidden instructions in seemingly harmless project content, we were able to manipulate Duo's behavior, exfiltrate private source code, and demonstrate how AI responses can be leveraged for unintended and harmful outcomes," Legit Security said. One variation of the attack involved hiding a malicious instruction in an otherwise legitimate piece of source code, while another exploited Duo's parsing of markdown responses in real-time asynchronously. An attacker could leverage this behavior – that Duo begins rendering the output line by line rather than waiting until the entire response is generated and sending it all at once – to introduce malicious HTML code that can access sensitive data and exfiltrate the information to a remote server. The issues have been patched by GitLab following responsible disclosure. ‎️‍🔥 Trending CVEs Software vulnerabilities remain one of the simplest—and most effective—entry points for attackers. Each week uncovers new flaws, and even small delays in patching can escalate into serious security incidents. Staying ahead means acting fast. Below is this week's list of high-risk vulnerabilities that demand attention. Review them carefully, apply updates without delay, and close the doors before they're forced open. This week's list includes — CVE-2025-34025, CVE-2025-34026, CVE-2025-34027 (Versa Concerto), CVE-2025-30911 (RomethemeKit For Elementor WordPress plugin), CVE-2024-57273, CVE-2024-54780, and CVE-2024-54779 (pfSense), CVE-2025-41229 (VMware Cloud Foundation), CVE-2025-4322 (Motors WordPress theme), CVE-2025-47934 (OpenPGP.js), CVE-2025-30193 (PowerDNS), CVE-2025-0993 (GitLab), CVE-2025-36535 (AutomationDirect MB-Gateway), CVE-2025-47949 (Samlify), CVE-2025-40775 (BIND DNS), CVE-2025-20152 (Cisco Identity Services Engine), CVE-2025-4123 (Grafana), CVE-2025-5063 (Google Chrome), CVE-2025-37899 (Linux Kernel), CVE-2025-26817 (Netwrix Password Secure), CVE-2025-47947 (ModSecurity), CVE-2025-3078, CVE-2025-3079 (Canon Printers), and CVE-2025-4978 (NETGEAR). 📰 Around the Cyber World Sandworm Drops New Wiper in Ukraine — The Russia-aligned Sandworm group intensified destructive operations against Ukrainian energy companies, deploying a new wiper named ZEROLOT. "The infamous Sandworm group concentrated heavily on compromising Ukrainian energy infrastructure. In recent cases, it deployed the ZEROLOT wiper in Ukraine. For this, the attackers abused Active Directory Group Policy in the affected organizations," ESET Director of Threat Research, Jean-Ian Boutin, said. Another Russian hacking group, Gamaredon, remained the most prolific actor targeting the East European nation, enhancing malware obfuscation and introducing PteroBox, a file stealer leveraging Dropbox. Signal Says No to Recall — Signal has released a new version of its messaging app for Windows that, by default, blocks the ability of Windows to use Recall to periodically take screenshots of the app. "Although Microsoft made several adjustments over the past twelve months in response to critical feedback, the revamped version of Recall still places any content that's displayed within privacy-preserving apps like Signal at risk," Signal said. "As a result, we are enabling an extra layer of protection by default on Windows 11 in order to help maintain the security of Signal Desktop on that platform even though it introduces some usability trade-offs. Microsoft has simply given us no other option." Microsoft began officially rolling out Recall last month. Russia Introduces New Law to Track Foreigners Using Their Smartphones — The Russian government has introduced a new law that makes installing a tracking app mandatory for all foreign nationals in the Moscow region. This includes gathering their real-time locations, fingerprint, face photograph, and residential information. "The adopted mechanism will allow, using modern technologies, to strengthen control in the field of migration and will also contribute to reducing the number of violations and crimes in this area," Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the State Duma, said. "If migrants change their actual place of residence, they will be required to inform the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) within three working days." A proposed four-year trial period begins on September 1, 2025, and runs until September 1, 2029. Dutch Government Passes Law to Criminalize Cyber Espionage — The Dutch government has approved a law criminalizing a wide range of espionage activities, including digital espionage, in an effort to protect national security, critical infrastructure, and high-quality technologies. Under the amended law, leaking sensitive information that is not classified as a state secret or engaging in activities on behalf of a foreign government that harm Dutch interests can also result in criminal charges. "Foreign governments are also interested in non-state-secret, sensitive information about a particular economic sector or about political decision-making," the government said. "Such information can be used to influence political processes, weaken the Dutch economy or play allies against each other. Espionage can also involve actions other than sharing information." Microsoft Announces Availability of Quantum-Resistant Algorithms to SymCrypt — Microsoft has revealed that it's making post-quantum cryptography (PQC) capabilities, including ML-KEM and ML-DSA, available for Windows Insiders, Canary Channel Build 27852 and higher, and Linux, SymCrypt-OpenSSL version 1.9.0. "This advancement will enable customers to commence their exploration and experimentation of PQC within their operational environments," Microsoft said. "By obtaining early access to PQC capabilities, organizations can proactively assess the compatibility, performance, and integration of these novel algorithms alongside their existing security infrastructure." New Malware DOUBLELOADER Uses ALCATRAZ for Obfuscation — The open-source obfuscator ALCATRAZ has been seen within a new generic loader dubbed DOUBLELOADER, which has been deployed alongside Rhadamanthys Stealer infections starting December 2024. The malware collects host information, requests an updated version of itself, and starts beaconing to a hardcoded IP address (185.147.125[.]81) stored within the binary. "Obfuscators such as ALCATRAZ end up increasing the complexity when triaging malware," Elastic Security Labs said. "Its main goal is to hinder binary analysis tools and increase the time of the reverse engineering process through different techniques; such as hiding the control flow or making decompilation hard to follow." New Formjacking Campaign Targets WooCommerce Sites — Cybersecurity researchers have detected a sophisticated formjacking campaign targeting WooCommerce sites. The malware, per Wordfence, injects a fake but professional-looking payment form into legitimate checkout processes and exfiltrates sensitive customer data to an external server. Further analysis has revealed that the infection likely originated from a compromised WordPress admin account, which was used to inject malicious JavaScript via a Simple Custom CSS and JS plugin (or something similar) that allows administrators to add custom code. "Unlike traditional card skimmers that simply overlay existing forms, this variant carefully integrates with the WooCommerce site's design and payment workflow, making it particularly difficult for site owners and users to detect," the WordPress security company said. "The malware author repurposed the browser's localStorage mechanism – typically used by websites to remember user preferences – to silently store stolen data and maintain access even after page reloads or when navigating away from the checkout page." E.U. Sanctions Stark Industries — The European Union (E.U.) has announced sanctions against 21 individuals and six entities in Russia over its "destabilising actions" in the region. One of the sanctioned entities is Stark Industries, a bulletproof hosting provider that has been accused of acting as "enablers of various Russian state-sponsored and affiliated actors to conduct destabilising activities including, information manipulation interference and cyber attacks against the Union and third countries." The sanctions also target its CEO Iurie Neculiti and owner Ivan Neculiti. Stark Industries was previously spotlighted by independent cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs, detailing its use in DDoS attacks in Ukraine and across Europe. In August 2024, Team Cymru said it discovered 25 Stark-assigned IP addresses used to host domains associated with FIN7 activities and that it had been working with Stark Industries for several months to identify and reduce abuse of their systems. The sanctions have also targeted Kremlin-backed manufacturers of drones and radio communication equipment used by the Russian military, as well as those involved in GPS signal jamming in Baltic states and disrupting civil aviation. The Mask APT Unmasked as Tied to the Spanish Government — The mysterious threat actor known as The Mask (aka Careto) has been identified as run by the Spanish government, according to a report published by TechCrunch, citing people who worked at Kaspersky at the time and had knowledge of the investigation. The Russian cybersecurity company first exposed the hacking group in 2014, linking it to highly sophisticated attacks since at least 2007 targeting high-profile organizations, such as governments, diplomatic entities, and research institutions. A majority of the group's attacks have targeted Cuba, followed by hundreds of victims in Brazil, Morocco, Spain, and Gibraltar. While Kaspersky has not publicly attributed it to a specific country, the latest revelation makes The Mask one of the few Western government hacking groups that has ever been discussed in public. This includes the Equation Group, the Lamberts (the U.S.), and Animal Farm (France). Social Engineering Scams Target Coinbase Users — Earlier this month, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase revealed that it was the victim of a malicious attack perpetrated by unknown threat actors to breach its systems by bribing customer support agents in India and siphon funds from nearly 70,000 customers. According to Blockchain security firm SlowMist, Coinbase users have been the target of social engineering scams since the start of the year, bombarding with SMS messages claiming to be fake withdrawal requests and seeking their confirmation as part of a "sustained and organized scam campaign." The goal is to induce a false sense of urgency and trick them into calling a number, eventually convincing them to transfer the funds to a secure wallet with a seed phrase pre-generated by the attackers and ultimately drain the assets. It's assessed that the activities are primarily carried out by two groups: low-level skid attackers from the Com community and organized cybercrime groups based in India. "Using spoofed PBX phone systems, scammers impersonate Coinbase support and claim there's been 'unauthorized access' or 'suspicious withdrawals' on the user's account," SlowMist said. "They create a sense of urgency, then follow up with phishing emails or texts containing fake ticket numbers or 'recovery links.'" Delta Can Sue CrowdStrike Over July 2024 Mega Outage — Delta Air Lines, which had its systems crippled and almost 7,000 flights canceled in the wake of a massive outage caused by a faulty update issued by CrowdStrike in mid-July 2024, has been given the green light to pursue to its lawsuit against the cybersecurity company. A judge in the U.S. state of Georgia stating Delta can try to prove that CrowdStrike was grossly negligent by pushing a defective update to its Falcon software to customers. The update crashed 8.5 million Windows devices across the world. Crowdstrike previously claimed that the airline had rejected technical support offers both from itself and Microsoft. In a statement shared with Reuters, lawyers representing CrowdStrike said they were "confident the judge will find Delta's case has no merit, or will limit damages to the 'single-digit millions of dollars' under Georgia law." The development comes months after MGM Resorts International agreed to pay $45 million to settle multiple class-action lawsuits related to a data breach in 2019 and a ransomware attack the company experienced in 2023. Storm-1516 Uses AI-Generated Media to Spread Disinformation — The Russian influence operation known as Storm-1516 (aka CopyCop) sought to spread narratives that undermined the European support for Ukraine by amplifying fabricated stories on X about European leaders using drugs while traveling by train to Kyiv for peace talks. One of the posts was subsequently shared by Russian state media and Maria Zakharova, a senior official in Russia's foreign ministry, as part of what has been described as a coordinated disinformation campaign by EclecticIQ. The activity is also notable for the use of synthetic content depicting French President Emmanuel Macron, U.K. Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, and German chancellor Friedrich Merz of drug possession during their return from Ukraine. "By attacking the reputation of these leaders, the campaign likely aimed to turn their own voters against them, using influence operations (IO) to reduce public support for Ukraine by discrediting the politicians who back it," the Dutch threat intelligence firm said. Turkish Users Targeted by DBatLoader — AhnLab has disclosed details of a malware campaign that's distributing a malware loader called DBatLoader (aka ModiLoader) via banking-themed banking emails, which then acts as a conduit to deliver SnakeKeylogger, an information stealer developed in .NET. "The DBatLoader malware distributed through phishing emails has the cunning behavior of exploiting normal processes (easinvoker.exe, loader.exe) through techniques such as DLL side-loading and injection for most of its behaviors, and it also utilizes normal processes (cmd.exe, powershell.exe, esentutl.exe, extrac32.exe) for behaviors such as file copying and changing policies," the company said. SEC SIM-Swapper Sentenced to 14 Months for SEC X Account Hack — A 26-year-old Alabama man, Eric Council Jr., has been sentenced to 14 months in prison and three years of supervised release for using SIM swapping attacks to breach the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) official X account in January 2024 and falsely announced that the SEC approved Bitcoin (BTC) Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Council Jr. (aka Ronin, Agiantschnauzer, and @EasyMunny) was arrested in October 2024 and pleaded guilty to the crime earlier this February. He has also been ordered to forfeit $50,000. According to court documents, Council used his personal computer to search incriminating phrases such as "SECGOV hack," "telegram sim swap," "how can I know for sure if I am being investigated by the FBI," "What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them," "what are some signs that the FBI is after you," "Verizon store list," "federal identity theft statute," and "how long does it take to delete telegram account." FBI Warns of Malicious Campaign Impersonating Government Officials — The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning of a new campaign that involves malicious actors impersonating senior U.S. federal or state government officials and their contacts to target individuals since April 2025. "The malicious actors have sent text messages and AI-generated voice messages — techniques known as smishing and vishing, respectively — that claim to come from a senior US official in an effort to establish rapport before gaining access to personal accounts," the FBI said. "One way the actors gain such access is by sending targeted individuals a malicious link under the guise of transitioning to a separate messaging platform." From there, the actor may present malware or introduce hyperlinks that lead intended targets to an actor-controlled site that steals login information. DICOM Flaw Enables Attackers to Embed Malicious Code Within Medical Image Files — Praetorian has released a proof-of-concept (PoC) for a high-severity security flaw in Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM), predominant file format for medical images, that enables attackers to embed malicious code within legitimate medical image files. CVE-2019-11687 (CVSS score: 7.8), originally disclosed in 2019 by Markel Picado Ortiz, stems from a design decision that allows arbitrary content at the start of the file, otherwise called the Preamble, which enables the creation of malicious polyglots. Codenamed ELFDICOM, the PoC extends the attack surface to Linux environments, making it a much more potent threat. As mitigations, it's advised to implement a DICOM preamble whitelist. "DICOM's file structure inherently allows arbitrary bytes at the beginning of the file, where Linux and most operating systems will look for magic bytes," Praetorian researcher Ryan Hennessee said. "[The whitelist] would check a DICOM file's preamble before it is imported into the system. This would allow known good patterns, such as 'TIFF' magic bytes, or '\x00' null bytes, while files with the ELF magic bytes would be blocked." Cookie-Bite Attack Uses Chrome Extension to Steal Session Tokens — Cybersecurity researchers have demonstrated a new attack technique called Cookie-Bite that employs custom-made malicious browser extensions to steal "ESTAUTH" and "ESTSAUTHPERSISTNT" cookies in Microsoft Azure Entra ID and bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA). The attack has multiple moving parts to it: A custom Chrome extension that monitors authentication events and captures cookies; a PowerShell script that automates the extension deployment and ensures persistence; an exfiltration mechanism to send the cookies to a remote collection point; and a complementary extension to inject the captured cookies into the attacker's browser. "Threat actors often use infostealers to extract authentication tokens directly from a victim's machine or buy them directly through darkness markets, allowing adversaries to hijack active cloud sessions without triggering MFA," Varonis said. "By injecting these cookies while mimicking the victim's OS, browser, and network, attackers can evade Conditional Access Policies (CAPs) and maintain persistent access." Authentication cookies can also be stolen using adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) phishing kits in real-time, or using rogue browser extensions that request excessive permissions to interact with web sessions, modify page content, and extract stored authentication data. Once installed, the extension can access the browser's storage API, intercept network requests, or inject malicious JavaScript into active sessions to harvest real-time session cookies. "By leveraging stolen session cookies, an adversary can bypass authentication mechanisms, gaining seamless entry into cloud environments without requiring user credentials," Varonis said. "Beyond initial access, session hijacking can facilitate lateral movement across the tenant, allowing attackers to explore additional resources, access sensitive data, and escalate privileges by abusing existing permissions or misconfigured roles." 🎥 Cybersecurity Webinars Non-Human Identities: The AI Backdoor You're Not Watching → AI agents rely on Non-Human Identities (like service accounts and API keys) to function—but these are often left untracked and unsecured. As attackers shift focus to this hidden layer, the risk is growing fast. In this session, you'll learn how to find, secure, and monitor these identities before they're exploited. Join the webinar to understand the real risks behind AI adoption—and how to stay ahead. Inside the LOTS Playbook: How Hackers Stay Undetected → Attackers are using trusted sites to stay hidden. In this webinar, Zscaler experts share how they detect these stealthy LOTS attacks using insights from the world's largest security cloud. Join to learn how to spot hidden threats and improve your defense. 🔧 Cybersecurity Tools ScriptSentry → It is a free tool that scans your environment for dangerous logon script misconfigurations—like plaintext credentials, insecure file/share permissions, and references to non-existent servers. These overlooked issues can enable lateral movement, privilege escalation, or even credential theft. ScriptSentry helps you quickly identify and fix them across large Active Directory environments. Aftermath → It is a Swift-based, open-source tool for macOS incident response. It collects forensic data—like logs, browser activity, and process info—from compromised systems, then analyzes it to build timelines and track infection paths. Deploy via MDM or run manually. Fast, lightweight, and ideal for post-incident investigation. AI Red Teaming Playground Labs → It is an open-source training suite with hands-on challenges designed to teach security professionals how to red team AI systems. Originally developed for Black Hat USA 2024, the labs cover prompt injections, safety bypasses, indirect attacks, and Responsible AI failures. Built on Chat Copilot and deployable via Docker, it's a practical resource for testing and understanding real-world AI vulnerabilities. 🔒 Tip of the Week Review and Revoke Old OAuth App Permissions — They're Silent Backdoor → You've likely logged into apps using "Continue with Google," "Sign in with Microsoft," or GitHub/Twitter/Facebook logins. That's OAuth. But did you know many of those apps still have access to your data long after you stop using them? Why it matters: Even if you delete the app or forget it existed, it might still have ongoing access to your calendar, email, cloud files, or contact list — no password needed. If that third-party gets breached, your data is at risk. What to do: Go through your connected apps here: Google: myaccount.google.com/permissions Microsoft: account.live.com/consent/Manage GitHub: github.com/settings/applications Facebook: facebook.com/settings?tab=applications Revoke anything you don't actively use. It's a fast, silent cleanup — and it closes doors you didn't know were open. Conclusion Looking ahead, it's not just about tracking threats—it's about understanding what they reveal. Every tactic used, every system tested, points to deeper issues in how trust, access, and visibility are managed. As attackers adapt quickly, defenders need sharper awareness and faster response loops. The takeaways from this week aren't just technical—they speak to how teams prioritize risk, design safeguards, and make choices under pressure. Use these insights not just to react, but to rethink what "secure" really needs to mean in today's environment. Found this article interesting? 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Peter David, the highly regarded novelist and writer of comics like The Incredible Hulk, Young Justice, and X-Factor, has died at 68. The news was confirmed by David's friend and colleague Keith R.A. DeCandido via Facebook.David enjoyed a long and prolific career at Marvel and DC over several decades. He may be best remembered for his 12-year run on Marvel's The Incredible Hulk series, a sprawling saga that redefined the relationship between Bruce Banner and his alter ego and earned David and artist Dale Keown an Eisner Award in 1992. As much as Frank Miller is viewed as the definitive Daredevil writer/artist and Chris Claremont the definitive X-Men writer, David is widely regarded as the most important and influential Hulk writer of all time. Art by George Perez. (Image Credit: Marvel)David is also well known for co-creating Spider-Man 2099 and for his two runs on X-Factor. David's original X-Factor run saw the team, which was originally a reunion of the original five X-Men, remade into a government-sanctioned mutant strike force. His second X-Factor run again reinvented the team, this time as a detective agency led by Madrox the Multiple Man. At DC, David enjoyed successful and influential stints on books like Aquaman, Supergirl, and Young Justice. David also regularly worked on the Star Trek franchise in both comic book and prose form, with his best-known Trek work being the 1994 novel Q-Squared. Outside of books and comics, David worked on television shows like Babylon 5, Young Justice, and Ben 10: Alien Force and wrote video games like Shadow Complex and Spider-Man: Edge of Time.A Visual History of HulkDavid suffered from poor health in recent years, beginning with a stroke in 2012. His health issues prompted family friend Graham Murphy to organize a GoFundMe campaign in 2022 and again in 2025. David is survived by his wife, Kathleen O'Shea David, and his four children.Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket byfollowing @jschedeen on BlueSky.

Hard as it is to believe, there was a time when using any personal technology at work was such a radical concept that most people wouldn’t even consider it an option. IT departments went to great lengths to prevent workers from using their own devices, computers, apps/subscriptions, email, and cloud services. The release of the iPhone in 2007 began to change that. Suddenly people were discovering that the smartphone they bought for their personal use could make them more efficient and productive at work as well. But it was Apple’s launch of its mobile device management framework in 2010 that truly created the bring your own device movement. MDM meant that users could bring their personal devices to work, and IT departments could secure those devices as needed. Almost instantly, BYOD was something that companies began to support in industries across the board. Fifteen years later, BYOD is fully mainstream, and a majority of businesses actively support it. But advances in technology, changing user expectations, and the fallout from Covid’s remote work mandates (and subsequent return to office mandates) have shifted the landscape, sometimes without being overtly visible. With that in mind, I decided to reexamine the assumptions and realities of BYOD and see what has and hasn’t changed in the past decade and a half. BYOD is everywhere but device management isn’t The exact numbers on BYOD adoption vary depending on the source you look to and how it’s being measured. A 2022 paper from HPE claims that 90% of employees use a mix of work and personal devices on the job, while Cybersecurity Insiders says that 82% of organizations have a BYOD program. However you look at it, BYOD is now massively entrenched in our work culture and extends beyond just employees and managers. According to data from Samsung (cited by JumpCloud), 61% of organizations support BYOD for non-employees including contractors, partners, and suppliers to varying degrees. But overtly or tacitly accepting BYOD doesn’t mean that companies actively manage BYOD devices. Cybersecurity Insiders data (also via JumpCloud) also indicates that as many as 70% of BYOD devices used in the workplace aren’t managed — a number that may seem shocking, but that figure includes personal devices used by non-employees such as contractors. About those cost savings… In the early days, there was an assumption that BYOD would lower hardware and service costs, but that wasn’t certain. Today there’s data. In the early 2010s, Cisco estimated a $900+ annual savings per employee, though more recent data from Samsung (cited by JumpCloud) pegs the savings as significantly lower at $341. Despite that disparity, it’s obvious that there are savings to be had, and with significantly climbing smartphone prices, those savings are is poised to grow rather than shrink. Of course, the cost of managing devices needs to be factored in. That cost can vary widely depending on the vendor, specific products, and adopted features, but some MDM vendors charge as little as $1 per user per month (not including staff resources). The cost of providing employees company-purchased apps is also worth noting, though that falls more in line with traditional software procurement. Productivity gains are real, but so are distractions The data is clear that there can be significant gains in productivity attached to BYOD. Samsung estimates that workers using their own devices can gain about an hour of productive worktime per day and Cybersecurity Insiders says that 68% of businesses see some degree of productivity increases. Although the gains are significant, personal devices can also distract workers more than company-owned devices, with personal notifications, social media accounts, news, and games being the major time-sink culprits. This has the potential to be a real issue, as these apps can become addictive and their use compulsive. Tools of the trade When I think back to the first five to ten years after Apple introduced MDM, it reminds me of the later stages of the birth of the solar system, with dozens of companies offering discrete tools that solved part of the mobility and BYOD puzzle, many colliding into each other or being flung out of existence. Some focused on just supporting the MDM server spec sheet, others on cloud storage, securing and managing access to corporate content, corporate app purchasing and management, secure connectivity, user and identity management, Office alternatives (Microsoft waited nearly five years releasing an iOS version of Office), and more. Along the way, major enterprise vendors began dominating the market, some by acquisition and others by building out existing capabilities, although there were also businesses that came out of mergers of some of the new players as well. As the market matured, it became easy to pick a single vendor to provide all enterprise mobility and BYOD needs rather than relying on multiple companies focusing on one particular requirement. Multiplatform support has morphed into something very different The iPhone was the clear early standard for supporting personal devices at work, in part because the hardware, operating system, and MDM mechanics were all created by a single vendor. Going multiplatform was typically assumed to mean iOS and Android — and Android was a fragmented mess of different hardware makers with sometimes widely varying devices and customized Android variants (built to spec by the manufacturers and the demands of wireless carriers) that resulted in no coherent OS update strategy. The gap in management capabilities has narrowed significantly since then, with Google taking a much more active role in courting and supporting enterprise customers and providing a clear and coherent enterprise strategy across a wide swath of major Android phone makers and other vendors. But that isn’t the only massive shift in what it means to be multiplatform. Today the personal devices used in the workplace (and able to be managed using MDM) include non-phone entries including Macs, Apple TVs, Chromebooks, and Windows PCs — with Macs and PCs making up a significant number of BYOD devices. Most MDM suites support this full range of devices to one degree or another, but support costs can rise as more and more platforms (and thus complexity) are implemented — and those costs vary by platform, with general agreement that Apple devices provide the greatest savings when it comes to technical support. How Covid changed the BYOD equation I’m pretty sure that in 2010, not one person on the planet was predicting a global pandemic that would lead to the vast majority of knowledge workers working from home within a decade. Yet, as we all remember, that’s exactly what happened. The need to work from home encouraged broader adoption of personal devices as well as ancillary technologies ranging from peripherals/accessories to connectivity. Despite a litany of return-to-office mandates in recent years, remote work is here to stay, whether that’s full-time, hybrid, or just working outside traditional office hours or location. Samsung notes that 61% of businesses expect employees to work remotely to some degree, while Robert Half reports that only 61% of new job postings in 2024 had full in-office requirements. And data from WFH Research shows that at the start of 2025, employees are working remotely 28% of the time. Passing support to new generations One challenge for BYOD has always been user support and education. With two generations of digital natives now comprsing more than half the workforce, support and education needs have changed. Both millennials and Gen Z have grown up with the internet and mobile devices, which makes them more comfortable making technology decisions and troubleshooting problems than baby boomers and Gen X. This doesn’t mean that they don’t need tech support, but they do tend to need less hand-holding and don’t instinctively reach for the phone to access that support. Thus, there’s an ongoing shift to self-support resources and other, less time-intensive, models with text chat being the most common — be it with a person or a bot. They also have different expectations in areas like privacy, processes and policies, and work-life balance. Those expectations make it more important for companies to delineate their BYOD and other tech policies as well as to explain the rationale for them. This means that user education remains important, particularly in a rapidly changing landscape. It also means that policies should be communicated in more concise and easily digestible forms than large monolithic pages of legalese. Users actually want to update (and repair or replace) their devices Twenty years ago, the idea of updating workplace technology was typically met with a groan from users who didn’t appreciate downtime or changes in the way things looked and worked. Even as BYOD gained traction, getting users to update their devices wasn’t always easy and required a certain amount of prompting or policing. While resistance to change will never truly die out, most smartphone (and other device) users actively update on their own because of the new features that come with OS updates and new hardware. Upgrades are something to get excited about. BYOD users also tend to be more careful with their devices just because they are their own devices. Likewise, they’re more on point with repairs or replacements and are keen to handle those issues on their own. Security is ever evolving Security has always been (and always will be) a major concern when it comes to BYOD, and the threats will always be evolving. The biggest concerns stem from user behavior, with users losing devices being one big concern. Verizon reports that more than 90% of security incidents involving lost or stolen devices resulted in an unauthorized data breach, and 42% involved the leaking of internal data. Another big concern is users falling prey to malicious actors: falling for phishing schemes, downloading malware, allowing corporate data to be placed in public spaces, or letting others use their devices. Devices themselves can be major targets, with attacks coming from different directions like public Wi-Fi, malicious apps or apps that are not designed to safeguard data properly, OS and network vulnerabilities, and so on. Supporting infrastructure can also be a weak point. These threats are real. Research by JumpCloud indicates that 20% of businesses have seen malware as a result of unmanaged devices, and nearly half aren’t able to tell if unmanaged devices have compromised their security. Cybersecurity Insiders research shows a similar statistic of 22%, while also noting that 22% of BYOD devices have connected to malicious wireless networks. Shadow IT will always exist Shadow IT is a phenomenon that has existed for decades but grew rapidly alongside BYOD, when users began leveraging their personal devices, apps, and services for work without IT’s involvement, knowledge, or consent. Almost every company has some degree of shadow IT, and thus unmanaged devices or other technologies. Organizations need to educate users (even digital natives) about security and keeping their devices safe. They also need to engage users involved in shadow IT and make allies out of them, because shadow IT often stems from unmet technological needs. Then there’s the trust component. Many users remain uncomfortable letting IT manage their devices, because they don’t understand what IT will be able to see on them. This is a user education problem that all companies need to address clearly and unequivocally. Still the same goals Although much has changed about BYOD, the basic goal remains the same: allowing workers to use the devices and other tools they are comfortable with and already own… and are likely to use whether sanctioned to or not.

The Russian government reported that chip imports from Intel and AMD have dropped massively only in 2024, despite the country having been sanctioned since 2022.