What if your engineering calculations secretly sabotaged your nation's best efforts? This week, we reveal how a newly uncovered 21-year-old NSA rootkit quietly corrupted scientific research in hostile states and why it changes everything you think you know about cyberwarfare.

• Bitwarden's CLI hit with a supply-chain attack.
• Commercial routers in Iran fail shortly before the war.
• Meta logging all employee activity to train replacement AI.
• GRC's DNS Benchmark Release 5.
• Two miscellaneous AI thoughts.
• A bunch of terrific listener feedback.
• Unraveling the diabolical history of "fast16.sys"

Show Notes - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1076-Notes.pdf

Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte

Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now.

You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page.

For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6.

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Security leaders warn the era of AI-driven bug hunting has arrived, with Mythos uncovering hundreds of overlooked vulnerabilities in code bases as trusted as Firefox. Are defenders ready for the avalanche of exploits and the frantic race to patch?

• A disgruntled developer discloses multiple Windows 0-days.
• Microsoft purchases its own bugs in massive campaign.
• VeraCrypt & Wireshark suddenly lost their dev accounts.
• A serious problem with re-captured domain names.
• How might AI help to secure open source repositories.
• A listener wonders what we thought of Project Hail Mary.
• Cyber security professionals tell us What Mythos Means

Show Notes - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1075-Notes.pdf

Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte

Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now.

You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page.

For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6.

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The FCC has banned all new consumer routers made outside the US, leaving networks stuck with aging, insecure hardware while blocking innovation. Find out why this sweeping move is raising eyebrows and lawsuits—and why it makes zero sense for cybersecurity.

• Apple's 26.4 age queries catches many by surprise.
• LinkedIn's 2.7 MB of privacy-invading javascript.
• Microsoft starts forcing Win11 24H2 to 25H2.
• Cisco loses source code to the Trivy supply-chain mess.
• Proton introduces privacy-first voice and video "Meet."
• GitHub to fix lagging security of its Actions feature.
• Cloudflare reaffirms the privacy of its 1.1.1.1 DNS.
• Cloudflare uses AI to re-code better secure Wordpress.
• The FCC drops a ban on all new consumer-grade routers.

Show Notes - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1073-Notes.pdf

Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte

Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now.

You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page.

For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6.

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We may already be living through the most consequential hundred days in cyber history, and the arrival of AI that can autonomously chain zero-day vulnerabilities into working exploits means the software industry's long-standing "ship it and patch it later" era is officially over.

Show Notes - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1074-Notes.pdf

Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte

Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now.

You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page.

For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6.

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An explosive supply chain hack in Light LLM nearly unleashed catastrophic malware across millions of AI systems, and it took a coder's quick thinking to catch it before it snowballed into disaster.

• Will California require Linux to verify its user's age.
• Apple's iOS 26.4 requires UK users to prove their age.
• Russia chooses to use home grown 5G mobile encryption.
• Ukraine knew the webcam was installed by Russian spies.
• Google moves quantum computing "Q Day" to 2029.
• At RSA, UK's NCSC CEO warns of vibe-coded SaaS replacements.
• More information about nasty ClickFix campaigns.
• More than one in seven Reddit postings are an AI-bot.
• The story behind the LiteLLM disaster that was averted.

Show Notes - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1072-Notes.pdf

Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte

Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now.

You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page.

For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6.

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When convenience trumps caution, disaster waits in the wings. Join Steve Gibson and Mikah Sargent as they break down the jaw-dropping oversights lurking in mission-critical tax and cloud tools, and examine how a single unchecked decision can upend internet security for years.

• H&R Block's tax software does something SO WRONG.
• The Intoxalock breathalyzer calibration cyber attack.
• Firefox now offers a 100% free built-in VPN.
• TikTok and Meta's tracking pixels are so much more.
• Russians beg for the return of Telegram, WhatsApps and others.
• Never connect your crypto-wallet to an unknown service.
• What would a week be without a Cisco CVSS of 10.0.
• Ubiquiti patches a 10.0 critical flaw.
• Listener feedback and...
• What's "Bucketsquatting" and what can be done to prevent it

Show Notes - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1071-Notes.pdf

Hosts: Steve Gibson and Mikah Sargent

Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now.

You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page.

For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6.

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Meta quietly ditches encryption for Instagram chats while TikTok also backpedals on privacy, shaking up assumptions about how much big tech really values your secrets. Meanwhile, Steve Gibson reveals why CISA's free government security scans are an absolute must for businesses—plus what he learned when GRC took the plunge.

• The Security Now "Caption That Photo" contest.
• A mega social media company says "no" to strong encryption.
• WhatsApp to give parents more control,
• Consumer bandwidth proxying is becoming a big deal.
• Meta buys the Moltbook duo.
• The EU gives up and settles upon the status quo.
• When a ransomware negotiation is not what it seems.
• CISA compels federal agencies to submit their logs.
• Is that a VPN in your pocket or something more malicious.
• Be careful what you download, thinking it's AI.
• A super-clever and super-simple A/V scanner bypass.
• Will AI write code for me?
• Another listener discovers the Joy of AI.
• Steve's CISA Internet scanning experience

Show Notes - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1070-Notes.pdf

Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte

Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now.

You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page.

For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6.

Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts!
Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Sponsors:

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Think your online alias keeps you safe? This episode reveals how advanced language models are making it trivial to de-anonymize users at scale, challenging everything we thought we knew about internet privacy.

• Anthropic & Mozilla improve Firefox's security.
• Apple & Google begin testing cross-platform RCS encryption.
• Ubuntu's SUDO starts echoing asterisks.
• Inviting a web proxy into your home.
• Apple devices cleared by Germany for NATO's use.
• A serious remote takeover of OpenClaw.
• TokTok won't encrypt messaging for visibility.
• Microsoft bans the term "Microslop" on Discord.
• Lot's of great listener feedback.
• LLMs could make Orwell's 1984 seem optimistic.

Show Notes - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1069-Notes.pdf

Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte

Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now.

You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page.

For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6.

Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts!
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