Updated: 21:15 Fri, Feb 20 2026. (Last checked: 19 mins ago) |
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AI coding assistant Cline compromised to create more OpenClaw chaos - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 20:05:10 GMT)4K unintended installs in very odd supply chain attackSomeone compromised open source AI coding assistant Cline CLI's npm package earlier this week in an odd supply chain attack that secretly installed OpenClaw on developers' machines without their knowledge. … |
SpaceX's faulty Falcon spewed massive lithium plume over Europe, say scientists - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 19:55:33 GMT)Good news: Team shows re-entry pollution can be measured. Bad news: There may be more of it comingThe SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that burned up over Europe last year left a massive lithium plume in its wake, say a group of scientists. They warn the disaster is likely a sign of things to come as Earth's atmosphere continues to become a heavily trafficked superhighway to space. … |
Cerebras plans humongous AI supercomputer in India backed by UAE - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 19:32:16 GMT)Up to 8 exaFLOPS of super sparse AI computeNvidia rival Cerebras Systems' dinner plate-sized accelerators will power a new supercomputing cluster in India capable of 8 exaFLOPS of AI compute.… |
ShinyHunters demands $1.5M not to leak Vegas casino and resort chain data - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 18:27:23 GMT)What happens in Vegas…Las Vegas hotel and casino giant Wynn Resorts appears to be the latest victim of data-grabbing and extortion gang ShinyHunters.… |
Amazon's vibe-coding tool Kiro reportedly vibed too hard and brought down AWS - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 17:52:41 GMT)Bezos-corp blames user error for outage, 'specifically misconfigured access controls'In a cautionary tale of agentic AI, AWS reportedly suffered service outages caused by its own AI coding tools in December - though the company insists the downtime was ultimately due to human error.… |
Quebec vehicles agency spent C$245M over budget on SAP ERP it wasn't sure it needed - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 15:43:16 GMT)Probe says SAAQ misled government and botched rollout caused province-wide disruptionA judge-led commission in Quebec has found that the state agency responsible for driver's licenses and license plates misled the Canadian government about a troubled SAP ERP project that ran more than C$245 million ($179 million/£132.6 million) over budget.… |
Ukrainian gets five years for helping North Koreans secure US tech jobs - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 14:30:20 GMT)Polish arrest leads to extradition and federal prison sentenceUkrainian national Oleksandr Didenko will spend the next five years behind bars in the US for his involvement in helping North Korean IT workers secure fraudulent employment.… |
Accenture tells staffers: If you want a promotion, use AI at work - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 14:15:07 GMT)Consultancy to monitor usage by meatbags with corporate aspirationsAccenture staff must demonstrate they have fully bought into the consultancy's AI vision if they want to get on.… |
Founder ditches AWS for Euro stack, finds sovereignty isn't plug-and-play - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 14:06:08 GMT)Attempt to go 'Made in EU' offers big tech escapees a reality check where lower cloud bills come with higher effortBuilding a startup entirely on European infrastructure sounds like a nice sovereignty flex right up until you actually try it and realize the real price gets paid in time, tinkering, and slowly unlearning a decade of GitHub muscle memory.… |
Hard drives already sold out for this year – AI to blame - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 14:00:19 GMT)Oh snap! The hyperscalers bought all the HDDsHard drive manufacturers have already sold all the units they will make this year, and it looks like the AI infrastructure boom is to blame, with hyperscalers soaking up all the high-capacity storage.… |
EFF policy says bots can code but humans must write the docs - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 12:55:56 GMT)'Just trust us' – Big Tech's hackneyed catchphrase makes an unwelcome returnThe Electronic Frontier Foundation says it will accept LLM generated code from contributors to its open source projects but will draw the line at non-human generated comments and documentation.… |
CISA gives federal agencies three days to patch actively exploited Dell bug - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 12:13:10 GMT)Hardcoded credential flaw in RecoverPoint already abused in espionage campaignUncle Sam's cyber defenders have given federal agencies just three days to patch a maximum-severity Dell bug that's been under active exploitation since at least mid-2024.… |
From Agile to AI: Anniversary workshop says test-driven development ideal for AI coding - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 11:11:09 GMT)Security is 'dangerously behind' though, as devs 'treat it as something to solve later'25 years after the Agile Manifesto, a group of experts hosted by one its signatories met to consider the impact of AI on software development, concluding among other things that test-driven development has never been more important.… |
Ex-Google engineers accused of helping themselves to chip security secrets - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 10:45:49 GMT)Feds say trio conspired to siphon processor and cryptography IP, allegedly routing some data overseasTwo former Google engineers and a third alleged accomplice are facing federal charges after prosecutors accused them of swiping sensitive chip and security technology secrets and then trying to cover their tracks when the scheme began to unravel.… |
Attackers have 16-digit card numbers, expiry dates, but not names. Now org gets £500k fine - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 10:25:24 GMT)Appeals judge overrules lower tribunal in latest battle of ICO against a breached retail giantThe UK's data protection watchdog has scored a small win in a lengthy legal battle against a British retail group that lost millions of data records during a 2017 breach.… |
HMRC spares 661 from Making Tax Digital as rollout nears - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 09:30:09 GMT)About half of exemption requests approved as 780,000 prepare for quarterly reporting in AprilThe UK tax collector has exempted 661 people from moving to quarterly software-based reporting under its Making Tax Digital (MTD) scheme, about half the number who have applied.… |
Desktop tech sent to prison for an education on strange places to put tattoos - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 07:30:12 GMT)And a very awkward introduction to workplace cultureOn Call By the end of the working week, it's natural to feel the walls closing in a little, which is why every Friday morning The Register frees things up a little by publishing a new installment of On Call – the reader-contributed column that shares your tech support stories.… |
Snyk CEO bails, wants someone with more AI experience to replace him - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 05:07:25 GMT)Skill at buzzword bingo also required as company seeks innovative and disruptive visionaryThe CEO of code review platform provider Snyk has announced he will stand down so the company can find someone better-equipped to steer the company into the age of AI.… |
India’s top telco tackles AI with $110 billion build plan and proven fast market dominance playbook - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 03:11:08 GMT)Reliance Jio used super-cheap plans and own-brand phones to conquerIndia’s top telco, Reliance Jio, has announced plans to spend $110 billion on datacenters to run AI workloads and says it will use them to deliver services with the same “extreme affordability” it brought to the mobile communications market.… |
AI agents abound, unbound by rules or safety disclosures - (pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 01:01:15 GMT)MIT CSAIL's 2025 AI Agent Index puts opaque automated systems under the microscopeAI agents are becoming more common and more capable, without consensus or standards on how they should behave, say academic researchers.… |
Crims create fake remote management vendor that actually sells a RAT - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 23:46:21 GMT)$300 a month buys you a backdoor that looks like legit softwareResearchers at Proofpoint late last month uncovered what they describe as a "weird twist" on the growing trend of criminals abusing remote monitoring and management software (RMM) as their preferred attack tools.… |
NASA points fingers at Boeing and chaotic culture for Starliner debacle - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 21:01:59 GMT)Plenty of blame to go around, says IsaacmanNASA has released the findings from its investigation of the ill-fated crewed Boeing Starliner mission of 2024, and while it still isn't sure of the root technical causes, it's admitted that trusting Boeing to do a thorough job appears to have been a mistake. … |
Google germinates Gemini 3.1 Pro in ongoing AI model race - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 19:57:48 GMT)AI model said to show improved reasoning capabilitiesIf you want an even better AI model, there could be reason to celebrate. Google, on Thursday, announced the release of Gemini 3.1 Pro, characterizing the model's arrival as "a step forward in core reasoning."… |
Spending watchdog tells National Science Foundation CIO to up game on tech procurement - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 19:07:14 GMT)Wants SLAs, revamped contracts for cloud opsThe US Congress’ spending watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, has pressed the National Science Foundation’s CIO to improve how the agency plans, manages, and procures technology.… |
Crims hit a $20M jackpot via malware-stuffed ATMs - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 18:39:04 GMT)FBI warns these cyber-physical attacks are on the riseThieves stole more than $20 million from compromised ATMs last year using a malware-assisted technique that the FBI says is on the uptick across the United States.… |
Don't believe the hyperscalers! AI can't cure the climate crisis - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 18:23:34 GMT)From AI conflation to thin evidence, a new report calls many climate claims greenwashingSome AI advocates claim that bots hold the secret to mitigating climate change. But research shows that the reality is far different, as new datacenters cause power utilities to burn even more fossil fuels to meet their insatiable demand for energy.… |
Palantir spent $25M on CEO flights so Alex Karp could do all the talking - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 16:46:48 GMT)A hundred days a year in the air doesn't come cheapOpinion Palantir CEO Alex Karp has a singular mission to stand out among tech CEOs. Big talk on sales, profits, and tech potential is not enough. His gift for edgy one-liners takes him to places where execs of the past would have scarcely dared to go. Say hello to allusions to goose-stepping and innate Western superiority that we assume have audiences rolling in the aisles.… |
Android malware taps Gemini to navigate infected devices - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 16:04:52 GMT)For now, it might not function outside of a labCybersecurity researchers say they've spotted the first Android malware strain that uses generative AI to improve performance once installed. But it may be only a proof of concept.… |
DOGE bites taxman - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 14:29:55 GMT)IRS lost 40% of IT staff, 80% of tech leaders in 'efficiency' shakeupJob cuts at the IRS's tech arm have gone faster and farther than expected, with 40 percent of IT staff and four-fifths of tech leaders gone, the agency's CIO revealed yesterday.… |
US tech giants open their wallets for AI-friendly politicians - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 13:59:31 GMT)Rush is on to push forward sympathetic candidates from both parties ahead of midtermsMeta is among tech giants reportedly funding US politicians friendly to the AI industry, as concerns mount over a huge expansion in datacenter building and the effects of AI on everyday life.… |
DEF CON bans three Epstein-linked men from future events - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 13:23:08 GMT)Emails show all discussed networking and biz interests with the sex offender throughout the 2010sCybersecurity conference DEF CON has added three men named in the Epstein files to its list of banned individuals. They are not accused of any criminal wrongdoing.… |
AI agents can't teach themselves new tricks – only people can - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 12:07:05 GMT)Self-generated skills don't do much for AI agents, study finds, but human-curated skills doTeach an AI agent how to fish for information and it can feed itself with data. Tell an AI agent to figure things out on its own and it may make things worse.… |
UK to demand social platforms take down abusive intimate images within 48 hours - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 11:32:02 GMT)'Why not 12?' says lawyerThe UK is bracketing "intimate images shared without a victim's consent" along with terror and child sexual abuse material, and demanding that online platforms remove them within two days.… |
Healthcare security: Write login details on whiteboard, hope for the best - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 11:14:14 GMT)You told me not to write it on a Post-it...Bork!Bork!Bork! Today's bork is entirely human-generated and will send a shiver down the spine of security pros. No matter how secure a system is, a user's ability to undo an administrator's best efforts should not be underestimated.… |
AI chatbots waffle on GOV.UK queries, then get facts wrong when told to zip it - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 10:16:27 GMT)Study of 11 LLMs shows they rarely refuse to answer, even when they probably shouldArtificial intelligence chatbots can be too chatty when answering questions on government services, swamping accurate information and making mistakes if told to be more concise, according to research.… |
Agile Manifesto turns 25 – just in time for vibe coding to test it - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 09:30:15 GMT)Co-author Jon Kern says AI coding tools amplify strengths and expose weaknessesInterview Twenty-five years after 17 software developers gathered at a Utah ski resort to draft the Agile Manifesto, artificial intelligence is once again reshaping how code gets written.… |
OpenClaw is the most fun I've had with a computer in 50 years - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 07:34:09 GMT)The DECwriter got me hooked in 1975. 'Clawdine' feels like a wonderful new beginningOpinion Fifty years ago this month, I touched a computer for the first time. It was an experience that pegged the meter for me like no other – until last week.… |
Poland bans camera-packing cars made in China from military bases - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 05:55:25 GMT)Dell, however, is welcome to help build a local-language LLMPoland’s Ministry of Defence has banned Chinese cars – and any others include tech to record position, images, or sound – from entering protected military facilities.… |
Indian think tank finds strong hiring for the kind of jobs AI puts at risk - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 01:49:15 GMT)IT services companies are largely immune to AIpocalypse, although the outlook is not good for entry-level jobsIndian think tank the Council for Research on International Economic Relations has found AI is not an immediate threat to the nation’s IT services sector.… |
Microsoft boffins cook up archival storage using Pyrex glass they say can last over 10,000 years - (pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:28:38 GMT)It may have half the capacity of fused silica glass, but is faster and much cheaperMicrosoft this week detailed new research aimed at preserving data in borosilicate glass plates for thousands of years longer than conventional media like hard drives or magnetic tape, without needing to worry about bit rot.… |
Adidas investigates third-party data breach after criminals claim they pwned the sportswear giant - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 23:57:30 GMT)'Potential data protection incident' at an 'independent licensing partner,' we're toldAdidas has confirmed it is investigating a third-party breach at one of its partner companies after digital thieves claimed they stole information and technical data from the German sportswear giant.… |
As memory shortage persists, vendor price quotes are not long remembered - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 22:50:27 GMT)HPE and Cisco are adjusting terms and conditionsIf you like the price of that server, PC, or storage array, you'd better act fast.… |
Google presses play on 30-second Gemini musical slop generator - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 21:24:50 GMT)Who needs to express themselves through music when a bot will do it for you with nothing but a prompt?If you've ever wanted to make music but have neither the talent nor the inspiration, Google has the AI tool for you. Gemini will now generate a 30-second song for you directly from a text prompt, photo, or video. … |
ShinyHunters claims it drove off with 1.7M CarGurus records - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 20:40:44 GMT)Latest in a rash of grab-and-leak data incidentsupdated CarGurus purportedly suffered a data breach with 1.7 million corporate records stolen, according to a notorious cybercrime crew that posted the online vehicle marketplace on its leak site on Wednesday.… |
Google digs deep to power AI expansion with 150 MW geothermal deal - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 19:41:33 GMT)Plants expected to begin operations as early as 2028 pending approval by state governmentDatacenter power consumption has surged amid the AI boom, forcing builders to get creative in order to prevent their capex-heavy bit barns from running out of steam. But at least in some parts of the world, the answer to abundant clean energy may be hiding just a few thousand feet below the surface of the earth.… |
Copilot spills the beans, summarizing emails it's not supposed to read - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 19:32:26 GMT)Data Loss Prevention? Yeah, about that...The bot couldn't keep its prying eyes away. Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat has been summarizing emails labeled “confidential” even when data loss prevention policies were configured to prevent it.… |
DARPA's autonomous missile-firing missile advances toward flight tests - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 19:07:07 GMT)Yo dawg, we heard you like missiles, so we put some missiles in your missile so you can boom while you zoomIt's taken about five years, but DARPA's missile-launching missile has become the government's latest experimental X-plane and is advancing toward flight testing.… |
Fraudster hacked hotel system, paid 1 cent for luxury rooms, Spanish cops say - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 18:31:14 GMT)'First time we have detected a crime using this method,' cops saySpanish police arrested a hacker who allegedly manipulated a hotel booking website, allowing him to pay one cent for luxury hotel stays. He also raided the mini-bars and didn't settle some of those tabs, police say.… |
Windows 11 finally hits right note: MIDI 2.0 support arrives - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 17:36:23 GMT)Musical instrument digital interface protocol leaves preview for bright lights of General AvailabilityMicrosoft has finally ushered in the era of MIDI 2.0 for Windows 11, more than a year after first teasing the functionality for Windows Insiders.… |
Texas sues TP-Link over China links and security vulnerabilities - (pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 17:29:41 GMT)State disputes the company's claim that its routers are made in VietnamTP-Link is facing legal action from the state of Texas for allegedly misleading consumers with "Made in Vietnam" claims despite China-dominated manufacturing and supply chains, and for marketing its devices as secure despite reported firmware vulnerabilities exploited by Chinese state-sponsored actors.… |
