https://techxplore.com/rss-feed/security-news/ en-us The latest news on cyber security, network security, software vulnerabilities, data leaks, malware, and viruses Physical access to an aircraft has not typically been considered a cybersecurity risk—but it should be, according to a team of computer scientists at the University of California San Diego. In a paper presented Aug. 13 at the USENIX Security Symposium in Baltimore, Maryland, former UC San Diego Ph.D. student Sam Crow showed that physical access to an aircraft, even for a brief period, would allow an attacker equipped with a custom-made hardware device to take over communications between two key onboard computers. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-physical-access-boeing-flight.html Security Thu, 13 Aug 2026 12:06:25 EDT news705841556 Large language models (LLMs), the models that underpin platforms such as ChatGPT and Gemini, are now used daily by more than a billion people worldwide. Some computer scientists have also been combining several of these models to create multi-agent systems (MAS), in which many LLM-based agents work together to tackle complex problems. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-peering-llm-based-multi-agent.html Security Mon, 10 Aug 2026 13:20:02 EDT news705585057 Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs), secure elements used to connect devices to a mobile network, can pose severe security risks when compromised. A malicious SIM could allow attackers to gather information about a device, interfere with its connectivity and serve as an entry point for further cyberattacks. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-malicious-sim-cards-hijack-smartphones.html Hardware Mon, 10 Aug 2026 03:00:02 EDT news705321541 URL scanning services are now a common component of modern security workflows. They help detect phishing websites or malware early and warn users before they visit a URL. However, the practice of some of these services—publishing scanned URLs—can inadvertently expose sensitive user data. CISPA researcher Ali Mustafa, together with colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy and Ca' Foscari University of Venice, conducted the first systematic investigation of the risks arising from this practice. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-factor-privacy-url-scanning.html Software Fri, 07 Aug 2026 12:40:09 EDT news705323885 In a nondescript Idaho Falls warehouse, a nuclear nonproliferation researcher at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) picks up a small plastic bottle and pours tiny bits of rounded black glass across a worktable. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-vacuum-nuclear-fallout.html Engineering Thu, 30 Jul 2026 17:00:03 EDT news704648401 One year after unveiling a first-of-its-kind "microwave brain" microchip capable of computing on ultrafast data and wireless signals, researchers from the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering have shown how the chip can encode information into its own language. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-microwave-neural-network-method-compress.html Telecom Thu, 30 Jul 2026 15:20:07 EDT news704643121 University of Wisconsin–Madison and Princeton University nuclear engineers have identified a major blind spot in nuclear accounting with global nuclear security implications. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-massive-quantities-undeclared-uranium-exported.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 30 Jul 2026 05:00:07 EDT news704536228 KAIST researchers have developed a safety verification technology that uncovers roughly seven times more hidden vulnerabilities in AI than existing methods. The technology is expected to serve as a foundation for developing safer, more trustworthy AI. The work is published on the arXiv preprint server. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-stable-gflownet-uncovers-hidden-weaknesses.html Security Wed, 29 Jul 2026 17:40:05 EDT news704552567 AI company Anthropic has announced that its unreleased model, Claude Mythos Preview, has discovered previously unknown mathematical weaknesses in cryptographic algorithms that human researchers had missed for years. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-claude-ai-cryptography-weaknesses-human.html Security Wed, 29 Jul 2026 14:10:05 EDT news704550454 ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has revealed that an autonomous artificial intelligence agent that hacked a popular platform for computer programmers also attempted to breach four other companies during the incident. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-openai-rogue-ai-agent-companies.html Security Wed, 29 Jul 2026 10:43:37 EDT news704540592 Protecting sensitive, precision-timed computing systems requires understanding the nature of cyberthreats. So researchers from Washington State University teamed up with experts at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs and Metro State University to design an attack—dubbed NosyNeighbor—that lurks on the sidelines of time- and safety-critical computer systems, "infers" what's happening inside and adapts its malicious approach. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-scientists-cyberattack-cyberattacks.html Security Tue, 28 Jul 2026 10:00:28 EDT news704451489 In an increasingly competitive job market, some applicants are quietly trying to outsmart AI hiring tools. Now, new research focused on rooting out the practice of "prompt injection" shows how widespread this tactic is. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-thwarting-hidden-resume-hacks-ai.html Business Wed, 22 Jul 2026 14:20:07 EDT news703947962 At least 2.2 million cars on the road today are vulnerable to an attack that allows thieves to lock and unlock doors and immobilize vehicle engines remotely via a Bluetooth connection, computer scientists at the University of California San Diego have found. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-million-cars-anti-theft-dealers.html Security Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:00:05 EDT news703864561 Large language models (LLMs), the computational algorithms underpinning ChatGPT, Gemini and other artificial intelligence (AI)-powered conversational platforms, are now widely used worldwide. These models can rapidly answer questions, source information online, assist users with specific tasks and produce text tailored for specific purposes. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-hidden-prompts-false-memories-ai.html Security Sun, 19 Jul 2026 10:20:01 EDT news703427290 So-called deepfakes, that is, images and videos generated with the help of artificial intelligence, are becoming increasingly difficult to detect. An international research team from the University of Tokyo and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken, Germany, has developed a method that identifies manipulated videos more reliably than previous approaches—not by searching for visual artifacts, but by analyzing the naturalness of facial expressions. In tests on established benchmark datasets, the approach achieved an average detection accuracy of more than 95 percent and successfully identified manipulations that caused many existing detectors to fail. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-facial-movement-analysis-deepfake-videos.html Security Thu, 16 Jul 2026 11:20:09 EDT news703417834 While security systems based on pseudo-random number generators (PRNGs) have been developed to secure information use, they produce sequences that are not truly random and suffer from inherent vulnerabilities and security breaches. To overcome these limitations, a true random number generator (TRNG) that exploits diverse sources of physical entropy has emerged as an alternative technology. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-driven-random-generator-image.html Hi Tech & Innovation Mon, 13 Jul 2026 08:00:01 EDT news703144518 Many digital users rely on Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to combat security threats, allowing the application to view, intercept and handle all user traffic in return for hiding identifying information from third parties. Yet a new mobile VPN security testing framework—MVPNalyzer—found many popular VPNs breach user trust, according to a University of Michigan Engineering study. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-mobile-vpn-strong-advertised.html Internet Tue, 07 Jul 2026 13:07:10 EDT news702648411 An AI flaw that can be found today in one model could be quietly replicated across dozens of products and services built on the same underlying technology. Until now, the AI community has lacked a formal pathway to report those flaws, alert affected vendors and coordinate a response. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute (SEI), alongside collaborators from academia and industry, helped build one. Flaw Reporting for AI (FLARE-AI) is a new open-source platform that lets anyone report an AI vulnerability and route it to developers, vendors and government agencies equipped to act. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-critical-gap-ai-platforms.html Security Mon, 06 Jul 2026 13:40:06 EDT news702562762 In the last year or so, artificial intelligence companies have rolled out a spate of web browsers equipped with AI agents. A user might ask one of these agents to plan a vacation, and it will open browser tabs to research routes and restaurants, then make reservations and add events to the user's calendar. How well it does any of this varies. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-agentic-ai-browsers-major-cybersecurity.html Internet Fri, 03 Jul 2026 10:00:01 EDT news702053575 Researchers from North Carolina State University and Rice University have created a nontoxic, stretchable battery that operates by extracting moisture from the ambient environment—even in climates as dry as the desert. The batteries could be useful in Internet of Things (IoT) applications ranging from wearables to advanced surveillance monitors with built-in kill switches. The study is published in the journal Science Advances. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-moisture-driven-tech-power-green.html Energy & Green Tech Wed, 01 Jul 2026 14:00:05 EDT news702053590 Artificial intelligence doesn't just learn how humans talk. It may also be learning who gets listened to. A new study from researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that large language models, the technology behind popular AI chatbots, change the way they communicate depending on the social role they're assigned in a conversation. When cast as a "boss," they adopt different language patterns. When positioned as a subordinate, they become more accommodating, sometimes in ways that could undermine safety. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-ai-behavior-authority-risky.html Security Wed, 01 Jul 2026 13:40:12 EDT news702131461 Today's antipersonnel land mines are small and often have plastic casings that standard metal detectors cannot register. Geophysical techniques such as ground-penetrating radar, magnetometry and electromagnetic induction are significantly less effective with plastic mines than with those made of metal. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-drone-mounted-camera-plastic-landmines.html Engineering Tue, 30 Jun 2026 12:00:12 EDT news702038641 Humans have been successfully trained to spot AI-generated faces in a study led by researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) Emotions and Faces Lab. The study, "Training Humans to Detect AI-generated Faces," is published in PNAS. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-short-people-ai-deepfake-fraud.html Security Mon, 29 Jun 2026 15:00:12 EDT news701945794 Preventing adversaries from interfering with communications is crucial to national security. Tactical satellite communications (SATCOM) focus on securing reliable communications channels against adversaries in contested environments. In support of this mission, a team from MIT Lincoln Laboratory is building a prototype antenna characterized by low size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C). https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-antenna-array-tactical-satellite-communications.html Telecom Mon, 29 Jun 2026 09:40:03 EDT news701944083 AI shopping assistants are popping up all over the internet, changing how we browse, compare and discover products. However, these helpful tools appear to have a serious security flaw. According to a paper published on the arXiv preprint server, a single manipulated web page can trick an AI assistant into promoting a fake product to unsuspecting customers. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-fake-web-page-ai-bots.html Consumer & Gadgets Thu, 25 Jun 2026 13:00:02 EDT news701609352 It may look like a picture of a panda bear to you, but to your business's AI agent, it can act like a skeleton key, bypassing safety safeguards and potentially causing the model to generate harmful, misleading or policy-violating outputs. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-microscopic-image-bypass-ai-guardrails.html Security Mon, 22 Jun 2026 16:20:05 EDT news701363462 The information exchanged by modern devices is typically protected by cryptographic techniques, approaches that convert readable data into scrambled, unreadable code that can only be deciphered by authorized parties or devices. To descramble encrypted data, devices or accounts need access to randomly generated cryptographic keys, unique, randomly generated sequences of binary code, letters or numbers that are essential for encrypting or decrypting data. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-orbit-torque-hardware-random-keys.html Hardware Thu, 18 Jun 2026 11:40:01 EDT news700999720 Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have created a new paradigm for identifying online phishing campaigns. Their new system, PhishLumos, is triggered when links show signs of concealing information and looks for clues in the "infrastructure" of the website to uncover the whole campaign of which the site is only a tiny part. Real-world testing showed detection that was eight days faster than an expert's, with 190,000 URLs detected over six months. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-phishlumos-phishing-infrastructure-urls-months.html Security Sat, 13 Jun 2026 05:29:42 EDT news700547363 A new kernel (core program) within an operating system gives researchers a cleaner view of what's happening inside a processor. Called Fractal and developed at MIT, the kernel has already surfaced previously unknown behavior in Apple's M1. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-os-kernel-uncovers-hidden-apple.html Hardware Wed, 10 Jun 2026 17:00:02 EDT news700329422 Since 2019, GPS signals across Europe, Greenland and Canada have experienced a huge spike in sudden, widespread signal blackouts. These have resulted in disruptions and degraded performance in navigation systems that airplanes and ships rely on to travel safely. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-russian-satellites-linked-mysterious-gps.html Telecom Wed, 10 Jun 2026 13:30:01 EDT news700314890