Disney Has Pulled Its Channels From YouTube TV

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Earlier this week, YouTube and Disney both warned YouTube TV subscribers that they might lose access to Disney-owned channels, including ESPN and FX, starting on Oct. 31. It's probably not the Halloween treat you were looking for, but now that the end of the month has come, that's exactly what's happened: Right now, more than 20 of Disney's channels have gone dark on YouTube TV.

Why did Disney pull its Channels from YouTube TV?

Not to be confused with YouTube Premium, YouTube TV is Google's Live TV service—kind of like cable without the cable box. As such, it needs to pay content providers like Disney fees to offer their channels, and that sometimes means disputes arise over how high those fees should be. While neither company has given insight into specific numbers, the gist seems to be that Disney wants to raise its fees, and Google doesn't want to pay up.

It's a tough tightrope to walk. On Disney's end, the company told Variety that it feels like it's charging "fair rates," and accused YouTube of potentially depriving its paying customers of channels they should rightfully be able to watch by not playing ball. On YouTube's side of things, the company argued that paying Disney's new rates would force it to "raise prices on YouTube TV."

Throw in that Disney has its own Live TV service, Hulu + Live TV, and there's also a potential anticompetitive angle at play, which Google was happy to point out, noting the proposed fee increase "directly harms our subscribers while benefiting their [Disney's] own live TV products."

Which Disney Channels Have Been Pulled From YouTube TV?

This isn't the first time YouTube TV has had to negotiate fees with content providers, and it's been able to avoid losing access to channels from the likes of Paramount, Fox Corp., and NBC Universal in the past. But with Disney negotiations falling through, this is one of the bigger losses of content YouTube TV subscribers have had to face in years. The full list of channels pulled from the service includes:

• ABC

• ESPN

• ESPN2

• ESPNU

• ESPNews

• Disney Channel

• Disney Junior

• DIsney XD

• Freeform

• FX

• FXX

• FXM

• SEC Network

• Nat Geo

• Nat Geo Wild

• ABC News Live

• ACC Network

• Localish

Additionally, if you're on the YouTube TV Spanish plan, you've also lost access to the following channels:

• ESPN Deportes

• Baby TV Español

• Nat Geo Mundo

When will Disney's channels come back to YouTube TV?

If there's a silver lining, it's that the loss of Disney channels on YouTube TV probably isn't permanent. A similar blackout happened in 2021, for similar reasons, and lasted less than a week.

That said, a direct timeline on restoring Disney's content to YouTube TV isn't yet available. In an update to its initial warning, YouTube said that Disney is "now following through on their threat," and that "we continue to urge Disney to work with us constructively to reach a fair agreement that restores their networks to YouTube TV." As before, the platform also promised subscribers a $20 credit if Disney content "remains off YouTube TV for an extended period of time," though it's currently unclear how long "an extended period of time" actually is. Notably, $20 is enough to subscribe to a month of the Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN bundle with ads.

On Disney's, end, a banner on the top of the Disney+ Help Center currently points users confused about losing access to the company's channels to a site called keepmynetworks.com, which suggests other ways of accessing Disney's TV content and urges disgruntled customers to reach out to YouTube directly, as well as post about the blackout on social media.

Other Live TV services that offer Disney Channels

While YouTube TV has lost access to Disney's content for now, other services continue to offer it, including Disney's own Hulu + Live TV. However, while Hulu + Live TV is cheaper than YouTube TV for the first three months ($64.99 vs. $72.99,) it is more expensive afterwards ($89.99 vs. $82.99).

Because the content blackout is likely to be temporary, a potential short-term fix might be the Sling Orange plan, which offers day passes for $5 a pop, and allows access to ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPN4K, Freeform, and Disney Channel.

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Unpatched Windows vulnerability continues to be exploited by APTs (CVE-2025-9491)

A Windows vulnerability (CVE-2025-9491, aka ZDI-CAN-25373) that state-sponsored threat actors and cybercrime groups have been quietly leveraging since at least 2017 continues to be exploited for attacks.

“Arctic Wolf Labs assesses with high confidence that [the campaign they detected] is attributable to UNC6384. This attribution is based on multiple converging lines of evidence including malware tooling, tactical procedures, targeting alignment, and infrastructure overlaps with previously documented UNC6384 operations,” the company’s threat researchers noted.

The attack campaign

The targets in this latest cyber espionage campaign were European diplomatic entities in Hungary, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands, as well as Serbian government’s aviation departments.

During September and October 2025, UNC6384 sent out spearphishing emails with an embedded URL, which ultimately lead to the delivery of malicious LNK files with themes related to European Commission meetings and NATO workshops.

“These files exploit [CVE-2025-9491, aka ZDI-CAN-25373] to execute obfuscated PowerShell commands that extract and deploy a multi-stage malware chain, culminating in PlugX remote access trojan (RAT) deployment through DLL side-loading of legitimate signed Canon printer assistant utilities,” the researchers explained.

CVE-2025-9491 exploited

ZDI-CAN-25373 was publicly disclosed in March 2025 by Peter Girnus, a threat hunter with Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative, and it’s an example of User Interface Misrepresentation of Critical Information (CWE-451).

The vulnerability allows attackers to create malicious LNK (Windows shortcut) files with command line arguments embedded in their Target field, but padded with whitespace (or other characters), thus making them unlikely to be seen by users who inspect the file via the Windows-provided user interface.

If the shortcut file is run by a user, these arguments are passed to target machines and result in code execution.

In conjunction with this trick, UNC6384 leveraged decoy PDF documents to hide the malicious payload being decrypted and executed in-memory via DLL side-loading.

The attackers’ execution chain (Source: Arctic Wolf)

“This three-stage execution flow completes the deployment of PlugX malware running stealthily within a legitimate signed process, significantly reducing the likelihood of detection by endpoint security solutions,” Arctic Wolf explained.

“Also observed in early September, Arctic Wolf identified UNC6384’s use of an HTA file configured to run invisibly in the background, which loads external JavaScript from a CloudFront URL. The JavaScript facilitated payload retrieval from the same CloudFront-based C2 and served as a delivery mechanism for three critical files: cnmpaui.exe, cnmpauix.exe, and cnmplog.dat.”

A fix may or may not be in the works

ZDI reported ZDI-CAN-25373 to Microsoft in September 2024 and shared their knowledge of it having been exploited many times in the past by various state-sponsored and cybercrime groups from North Korea, Iran, Russia, and China.

Microsoft acknowledged the report and the additional information provided, but ultimately decided that the vulnerability did not meet the bar for servicing.

At the time, Microsoft told Help Net Security that Microsoft Defender has detections in place to detect and block this threat activity, and the Smart App Control provides an extra layer of protection by blocking malicious files from the Internet. But, they added, they would consider addressing it in a future feature release.

We’ve reached out to Microsoft to ask whether they plan to fix the vulnerability soon (or at all), and we’ll update this article when we hear back from them.

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You Can Now Pay to Generate More Sora AI Videos, and I'm Concerned

Sora, OpenAI's short-form AI video generator, has been out for just about a month now, and already, it's helping to spread disinformation on social media. Accounts share Sora generations without any transparency, sometimes with the Sora watermark removed, and while shrewd observers see through the AI, many people scrolling by don't think twice and believe things happened that didn't. That could be as innocuous as Jake Paul putting on makeup, or as dangerous as a fake interview meant to manipulate viewers towards a political bias. It's getting scary out there.

So far, for the free model, Sora has capped video generations at 30 per day. If you pay for the Pro model, you get 100 generations a day. But if you're using Sora free of charge, once you produce your 30th video, you aren't able to make any more. I see that as a good thing, myself: 30 hyper-realistic AI videos a day per user is already way too high.

OpenAI, unfortunately, isn't consulting me—and Sora now allows users to pay for extra generations once they've reached the free limit. Bill Peebles, head of Sora, announced the change in a Thursday post on X. Peebles said the company has been "amazed" by the demand from "power users," but, as it stands, "the economics are currently completely unsustainable." According to Peebles, the Sora team thought 30 free generations per day would suffice, but that hasn't been the case. By offering users the chance to pay for additional generations, OpenAI plans to start pulling in extra revenue from its popular short-form AI video generator.

Peebles also believes that the company will generate future funds from a "new Sora economy." That would include two parts: rights holders charging users a fee to cameo their characters or real-life people, as well as creators earning money from the videos they post. If you don't plan on paying for Sora generations, though, there's some "bad" news: Peebles says the company will bring the number of free generations down as the platforms grows, as the company doesn't have enough GPUs to manage the demand.

As reported by The Verge, you'll be able to purchase 10 additional video generations for $4 a pop—though the actual credits each video takes may depend on many different factors. When you reach your limit, the app will let you buy more through the App Store (Sora is currently iOS-only). Those credits will expire after 12 months, which I imagine will be plenty of time for someone making Sora videos. You can also transfer them to use on Codex, OpenAI's coding platform.

I personally see Sora's exponential growth as a bad thing. I get the finances: OpenAI is now operating like a for-profit company, and needs to pull in revenue. But OpenAI, along with other AI companies, is blatantly ignoring the deepfake disinformation machine these products have become. The more the company pushes users to generate with Sora, the more realistic AI slop we'll encounter in our feeds.

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Canva Is Making Affinity Free and Launching a 'Creative Operating System'

Adobe just wrapped up its Max keynote, which means its time for its biggest free competitor to announce its own set of new features. While Adobe's done its best to keep up with Canva by adding its own free, web-based tools to its lineup, the simple browser-based editor has become a key part of my creative routine. Now, it's coming for more of Adobe's lunch by launching a "creative operating system," which while largely a rebrand of existing (but expanding) tools, smacks of the Photoshop makers' "creative cloud" branding. As part of the update, Canva's introducing a bunch of—say it with me—AI to its products, but is also taking a big swing by making popular Photoshop alternative Affinity free for everyone.

AI will hold your hand while designing

Credit: Canva

Adobe made its own AI promises during its Max keynote, with the biggest one being "AI Assistant in Adobe Express." The feature essentially lets you create or refine whole designs from an AI chat box, all in the company's Canva-like free web editor. Not to be outdone, Canva is also bringing an AI assistant to its browser-based designer, but it's promising finer control than Adobe's version.

AI Assistant in Adobe Express is a bit odd, in that toggling it on takes away your toolbar. The idea is to simplify things, but it also adds a bit of a barrier to asking for help. Meanwhile, Canva's trying to naturally integrate AI into its entire workflow by upgrading its existing Ask Canva chatbot.

Right now, Ask Canva simply sits in one spot on your screen, where you can ask it to generate text or images for you. Now, Canva says you can summon it anywhere in your design, and it'll be able to give you feedback, make suggestions, or make edits for you, all related to specific design elements.

Alongside an updated AI model, the idea is to make it a "true creative partner," but personally, I'm just glad that accidentally bringing it up won't dismiss my tools.

Canva Video 2.0

Credit: Canva

Keeping with the AI theme, Canva's also redesigning its video editor with a new mobile-friendly interface and an expanded ability to instantly create a publishable video with a single prompt.

You'll still be able to manually edit a timeline if you like, and you can still generate AI footage as separate clips to put alongside or layered over your other footage, but the new system aims to make it easy to go right from raw footage to posting a video on your timeline.

Called Magic Video, it works like the existing Magic Design feature, but Canva says it's a bit more powerful. You'll upload clips and tell the AI what type of video you want, just like with Magic Design, but you'll also be to select a tone for your video and an editing style from dropdown menus, then navigate through a "new library of on-trend templates" to get your final result. That should mean more control, but also more transition effects and title cards.

It's all free, and it reminds me of Adobe's upcoming YouTube Shorts feature for Premiere, which is getting added to the free Premiere iPhone app as well as directly into YouTube. That's not set to release for a while yet, but Adobe says it'll come with "exclusive" effects, transitions, stickers, and templates, although no AI to put it all together for you. It will, though, let you publish directly to YouTube without having to leave the app. Canva can do this with a few platforms, like Instagram, but doesn't have direct integration with YouTube yet.

Whether you prefer having an AI assistant and a more platform-agnostic approach, or an editor with a direct pipeline to publishing, is up to you.

Affinity is now free for everyone, "forever"

Credit: Canva

Moving away from AI and browser-based editors, Canva's also got some news regarding the popular standalone Photoshop alternative, Affinity. As a downloadable tool, this offers finer control than Canva's web-based editor, including tools like vector editing, and that makes sense—it wasn't always part of Canva's family. Canva actually bought Affinity in March of last year, and while an acquisition of a beloved tool isn't always good news for existing users, Canva's latest announcement should go a long way towards earning some good will.

Part of what made Affinity stand out was its buy-it-once-and-keep-it-forever pricing, which made it highly competitive next to Photoshop's subscription model. Now, Canva says it's making Affinity free for everyone, "forever."

That's an improvement over the app's prior free models, which were limited to iPad spinoffs and Education accounts. It's also a shot across the bow at the competition. While Adobe has been making free light versions of its core apps for mobile and web over the past few years, it has yet to take the plunge with a fully-featured free desktop editor.

Aside from pricing, Canva also says it's combining all of Affinity's various functions into one program, so you'll no longer need to swap between Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Publisher based on your needs.

Improvements for businesses

Credit: Canva

While many of Canva's users are individuals using the free versions of its editors, the company does have an enterprise plan for businesses, and a few of today's updates are tailor-made for them.

That includes Canva Grow, a new product aimed at marketers for launching ads, as well as a "brand system" that will help teams stay consistent with which apps they're using.

On a smaller scale, though, you can also now finally use Canva to design HTML elements for email, which could be useful to large and small businesses and individuals. Additionally, Canva is getting its own survey system called "Forms," which can be added to websites or other designs and will flow responses into your Canva Sheets.

Speaking of Canva Sheets, it can now interact with Canva Code, meaning you can use data from Sheets to power interactive widgets like live dashboards or calculators.

All of that's a bit more intensive than what I use Canva for, but I'm sure some folks are raising their hands up in relief right now.

When is all of this going live?

Compared to Adobe, where most of the features announced at Max are either still in beta or development, Canva's newest updates will start rolling out in their live versions today, as part of its Creative Operating System launch.

Personally, I'm not big on using AI in design, but free Affinity could carry the launch for me in and of itself. Add in those quality-of-life features for businesses, and it's clear Adobe will have to keep experimenting with its low-cost and browser-based editors to keep up.

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WhatsApp Is Rolling Out Passkey Support for Encrypted Backups

In the beginning, WhatsApp users could not protect their chat backups with encryption—while all communications were encrypted end-to-end, backups weren't afforded the same protection. Since 2021, however, WhatsApp has offered two ways for users to encrypt these backups: a standard password, or a 64-digit encryption key.

There are security issues with both of these methods. Passwords can be secure, but let's be real, many of us use very simple passwords that are easy to remember, and, in some cases, we even repeat passwords from account to account to make things easier on our brains. If your password for WhatsApp backups is the same password you use for your email, and the latter gets leaked, hackers can easily break into your WhatsApp backups. Not good. (Side note: Please use a strong and unique password for all of your accounts.)

The 64-digit encryption key, on the other hand, is extremely secure. It would take a computer a long time to crack (perhaps a few lifetimes) and would be essentially impossible for a human to guess. But it's 64 characters long. You're not going to remember it, and if you don't store it somewhere safe and secure, you could lose track of it—and with it, access to your encrypted chat backups. Again, not good.

On Thursday, however, WhatsApp announced it is adding a new authentication method to protect your encrypted backups, and a big improvement over the existing two options: passkeys. If you choose to encrypt your chat backups with a passkey, you'll be able to decrypt them the same way you unlock your device, such as with your fingerprint, face scan, or device passcode.

Passkeys offer the best of both passwords and two-factor authentication (2FA). The "key" is stored on-device or associated with your account, so there's no passphrase to remember, write down, or store in a password manager. That means you don't need to worry about it landing in a hacker's hands due to a data leak. The only way to access the passkey is to authenticate yourself with a connected and trusted device, such as your smartphone. Without your fingerprint, face scan, or passcode, no one is getting into your encrypted backups.

How to check if you have passkey support

WhatsApp says it is gradually rolling out this passkey support "over the coming weeks and months." To check if your account supports it, head to Settings > Chats > Chat backup > End-to-end encrypted backup.

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The Best OLED TV of 2025 Is $500 Off Right Now

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

It's impressive when new flagship TVs that came out this year drop in price months after their release, but when they also happen to be the best OLED TV your money can buy, it becomes a bargain (well, if you can afford it). The 65-inch LG G5 OLED TV is $1,996.99 (originally $2,496.99), the lowest price it has been since its recent release, according to price-tracking tools. The bigger 77-inch and 83-inch series are also at their lowest prices right now.

LG 65-Inch Evo G5 OLED TV (OLED65G5WUA)

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LG 77-Inch Evo G5 OLED TV (OLED77G5WUA)

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LG 83-Inch Evo G5 OLED TV (OLED83G5WUA)

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$4,996.99 at Amazon

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OLED TVs offer the best colors and contrast ratio that money can buy. They don't come cheap, though (but you can still shop for budget options). Two of the biggest downsides of OLED TVs, though, are that they can suffer from the notorious burn-in effect and that they don't get as bright as QLED or LED TVs, so they're better suited for dimmer or theater rooms. But when LG upgraded the G4 in 2025, they made sure to address one of these issues. For an OLED, the Evo G5 gets bright, at 1,608 nits (average for an LED). That means you can actually use this OLED TV in a bright room without getting the quality washed away.

The color accuracy is on point out of the box, and it comes with a 165Hz VRR, 12.9 ms of input lag in Game Mode, and a 120Hz native refresh rate, making it great for gaming, according to PCMag's "outstanding" review. They also deemed it the best OLED TV of 2025. Like all LGs, you'll get HDR-10 and Dolby Vision, but not HDR10+.

If you're searching for the best OLED TV of 2025 at its best price, you're looking at it.

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Google’s Homepage Has a Halloween-Themed PAC-MAN Game Right Now

Even in 2025, Google.com still knows how to have fun. If you tend to rely on your browser's address bar for Google Search, you might miss the company's latest "Doodle." But today, Oct. 30, if you head to the Google homepage, you'll find a Halloween-themed surprise: a fully playable PAC-MAN game, outfitted with spooky mazes and characters.

The Halloween part makes sense, seeing as the holiday is tomorrow. But why PAC-MAN? As it happens, this year marks the game's 45th anniversary. For this Doodle, Google says it partnered with PAC-MAN's parent company, Bandi Namco Entertainment, to feature a celebratory PAC-MAN game on the homepage.

If you're familiar with PAC-MAN, you won't have any trouble getting into Google's version. This is the core PAC-MAN experience players have navigated since 1980: You control PAC-MAN through a maze, eating all the dots along the way. If you crash into one of the four ghosts floating around the maze (Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Clyde), you die, unless you eat an "Power Pellet," in which case you're free to eat the ghosts. According to Google, this game has eight levels, with four haunted-house mazes.

I do appreciate the effort that went into this experience. Sure, the PAC-MAN gameplay is the same as ever, but the Halloween-themed mazes are fun. I also love the attention to detail with the graphics: The visuals have scan-lines, which sells the retro look. You won't be getting 4K crispy pixels in this game, and that only makes it feel like you're back at your local arcade.

Google says the game is only available today (Oct. 30) and tomorrow (Oct. 31) from the homepage, though I would hope it will be made available elsewhere (Google Doodle games are typically archived). But if you want to give it a shot, try it out now just in case.

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Commvault introduces Data Rooms to securely connect backup data with AI platforms

Commvault introduced Data Rooms, a secure environment that enables enterprises to safely connect their trusted backup data to the AI platforms they rely on, or to their own AI initiatives, such as internal data lakes.

By combining governed, self-service access with built-in classification and compliance controls, Data Rooms bridges the gap between data protection and data activation, helping organizations transform backup data into AI-ready assets without adding new risk or complexity.

As enterprises accelerate AI adoption, many still struggle to make their data both accessible and trustworthy. In fact, nearly three quarters of IT leaders say using AI makes their organizations more vulnerable to cyberattacks. Trust is at the core of responsible AI, trust that sensitive data remains confidential, governed, and compliant as it’s ready for use. Yet, the process of identifying, preparing, and exporting data from multiple sources into a single source through the traditional extract, transform, and load (“ETL”) workflow, remains time-consuming and can introduce compliance risks when not properly governed.

Turning data protection into data activation

With the new Data Rooms offering, authorized users can locate and prepare data directly from backup repositories across on-premises and cloud environments. Built-in governance helps maintain control so that approved, access policy-compliant datasets can be safely shared and exported, with classification, sensitivity tagging, and audit trails automatically applied.

Additionally, Data Rooms operate within Commvault Cloud’s zero-trust architecture, leveraging role-based access controls (RBAC) and encryption at rest and in transit. These safety measures can give organizations confidence that their data remains protected, governed, and traceable from backup to activation.

“AI initiatives often stall because organizations can’t safely access or prepare the data they already have,” said Jonathan Brown, Lead Analyst at Omdia. “Commvault’s Data Rooms connect resilience and analytics in a controlled, auditable way, helping enterprises operationalize AI faster without increasing risk.”

By integrating directly with Commvault Cloud, Data Rooms gives authorized users governed access to files, emails, and objects across environments. It automates data discovery, and classification, simplifying the creation of curated, AI-ready datasets. As enterprises move from data protection to data utilization, Commvault preserves data trust, and supports compliance and readiness throughout the activation process.

Key benefits for enterprises:

• Accelerate insights: Bridge the gap between backup and analytics. Discover and export historical data in open-standard, AI-ready formats such as Apache Iceberg or Parquet to fuel model training and business intelligence.
• Support compliance: Advance governance across the data lifecycle with AI-enabled classification, policy-based redaction, and audit-ready controls that help protect sensitive data even as it’s activated for AI and analytics.
• Simplify operations: Reduce manual ETL processes with automated data discovery, curation, and delivery to analytics platforms like Snowflake and Microsoft Azure.

“Organizations are beginning to realize that their historical data is more than just insurance, it’s a powerful, untapped strategic asset,” said Pranay Ahlawat, Chief Technology and AI Officer at Commvault. “With Commvault Data Rooms, enterprises can confidently export their secondary data and harness it with the AI platform of their choice to unlock new opportunities for intelligence, innovation, and business growth.”

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Sweet Security brings Runtime CNAPP visibility and protection to Windows environments

Sweet Security announced an extension of its Runtime CNAPP sensor to include Windows environments. With this launch, organizations can secure Windows workloads and applications in the cloud. The new capability brings the same visibility, real-time detection, risk prioritization, and automated investigation that power Sweet’s Runtime CNAPP for Linux to one of the most complex and widely used operating systems in the enterprise cloud.

Protecting cloud workloads running on the Windows operating system has long been a challenge due to the complexity and the wide range of attack vectors that adversaries can exploit. Many existing solutions rely on an EDR agent that’s been repurposed for the cloud, but was ultimately designed for totally different attack scenarios than the ones present in the cloud.

Sweet’s Windows sensor was developed specifically for the cloud using Rust, which allows for minimal resource footprint. Sweet’s Windows sensor covers all the usual attack vectors, such as DLL injection, registry manipulation, PowerShell scripting, etc., in addition to covering application-level requests and responses (Layer 7 data), peering into applications’ behavior.

Like all of Sweet’s runtime signals, the Windows sensor relies on Sweet’s renowned behavioral baselining technology, which allows it to detect not just known attack techniques or binary signatures, but also the abuse of legitimate tools for malicious purposes. The signals are also cross-correlated with cloud audit logs and cloud identities (CDR and ITDR) for maximum context and observability.

In a recent customer evaluation, Sweet’s Windows sensor identified a credential-dumping attempt within seconds. The sensor correlated PowerShell execution, registry export, and file creation anomalies that traditional sensors failed to detect. From detection to full investigation, the entire process took under two minutes, demonstrating how Sweet’s behavioral and AI-powered detection capabilities accelerate response times and reduce investigation noise.

The Fortune 500 company said, “With Sweet’s Windows runtime sensor, we now have a clear view of activity across all our workloads. We can now detect and address potential threats faster and with greater confidence, helping us protect critical workloads and maintain business continuity.”

With the extension to Windows, Sweet Security now leverages its patented LLM-powered correlation and investigation, behavioral baseline, and L7 capabilities to provide full-stack protection for the cloud with its runtime CNAPP, including:

• Cloud Application Detection and Response (CADR)
• Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
• Kubernetes Security Posture Management (KSPM)
• Cloud Infrastructure Entitlements Management (CIEM)
• Compliance & governance
• Vulnerability management
• CI/CD pipeline hardening
• Identities security (ITDR)
• API security
• Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)
• Data security (DSPM)

“This launch marks a major step forward for the entire cloud security industry,” said Orel Ben Ishay, VP of R&D, Sweet Security.

“Windows has historically been a blind spot for runtime protection. By bringing the same depth of behavioral insight, AI-powered detection, and real-time investigation that we deliver for Linux to Windows environments, we are eliminating one of the most significant visibility gaps in cloud security. Detection and full investigation can now take less than two minutes, providing teams with actionable insights faster than ever. This is a foundational step toward our vision of universal runtime protection across all cloud workloads,” he concluded.

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Rapid7 strengthens security with AI-powered risk and vulnerability insights

Rapid7 announced AI-generated risk intelligence as part of the Rapid7 Command Platform. Delivered through Remediation Hub, the new capability accelerates remediation by giving security teams a contextual, and actionable view of each exposure, transforming vulnerability data into risk intelligence informed decisions that help teams to prioritize remediation, and communicate and collaborate with internal teams to drive measurable risk reduction.

In addition, Rapid7 added new vulnerability intelligence capabilities to Intelligence Hub, the company’s integrated threat intelligence solution designed to provide security teams with meaningful context and actionable insights for accelerated detection and response.

The gap between detection and action continues to widen. According to Forrester, “lack of comprehensive vulnerability and exposure remediation prioritization strategy is among the biggest IT/security challenges for 22% of enterprise security decision-makers’ organizations.”

As threat actors exploit vulnerabilities within days and security teams face mounting pressure to show measurable risk reduction, organizations need faster, more intelligent ways to decide what to fix first. Rapid7’s latest innovations directly address this need, empowering teams to cut through noise, focus on impact, and remediate exposures with precision and confidence.

“Exposures are growing faster than teams can respond,” said Craig Adams, CPO at Rapid7. “Organizations rely on their security partners to give them the context they need to prioritize. Our latest innovations around AI-generated risk and vulnerability intelligence provide important insights into exploitability, asset criticality, and potential risk. The result: shared context, fewer debates, and faster mean time to remediate (MTTR).”

AI-generated risk summaries in Remediation Hub

With these new risk summaries, organizations can immediately see which systems are affected, the real-world activity surrounding each risk, and recommend next steps, from patching to applying compensating controls.

By embedding AI-driven context directly into these summaries, Rapid7 enables faster decision-making and stronger alignment between security and IT teams. Within seconds, Rapid7’s AI-generated summaries fuse exploit signals, asset criticality, and vulnerability data from multiple sources into a concise, plain-language brief that enables teams to quickly prioritize risks.

Each summary provides:

• Prioritization clarity based on exploitation likelihood and business impact
• IT-ready context for tickets and change windows
• Fact-based urgency using CISA KEV, EPSS, and threat intelligence data
• Effort estimates for patch coverage and blockers

Vulnerability intelligence in Intelligence Hub

With its latest vulnerability intelligence capabilities, Intelligence Hub delivers curated, real-world threat context to exploited CVEs, allowing security teams to effectively prioritize remediation efforts based on their organization’s specific risk.

Rapid7’s vulnerability intelligence, available within Intelligence Hub, cuts through the noise and alert storms to identify and surface the vulnerabilities that actually matter, rather than leaving security teams to rely on generic security ratings to decipher what is a true risk for their organization.

Curated CVE profiles, powered by a combination of Rapid7 Labs vulnerability and threat research, real-world vulnerability assessments from AttackerKB, and public metadata, enable actionable, adversary-aware prioritization and mitigation of exploited CVEs for security teams. These insights will also be integrated into Remediation Hub, providing customers with threat actor context to support their vulnerability prioritization process.

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Trellix unveils Helix integration with Hyperautomation to streamline SOC operations

Trellix announced Trellix Helix is now integrated with Trellix Hyperautomation, a no-code, drag-and-drop workflow builder that automates security processes. Trellix Helix provides customers with AI-powered context across all threat vectors and security tools in their environment for increased visibility, faster threat response, and faster remediation. The integration between Helix and Hyperautomation enables SOC teams to automate investigation and response workflows, driving operational efficiency for security teams.

The increasing adoption of AI by threat actors is upskilling cybercriminals, enabling novice actors to generate exploits and automate attacks at scale. Security teams need to reduce the exposure window between threat detection and response to address the volume and complexity of attack methods, and over one-third of CISOs are asking for increased automation to help them perform their responsibilities more effectively.

“While AI is lowering the barriers for cybercriminals to conduct reconnaissance and attacks, it’s also improving security operations for the defenders,” said Rohit Unnikrishnan, SVP, Product, Trellix. “Trellix Helix with Hyperautomation creates automated security workflows with a true no-code workflow builder, upskilling analysts at every level and strengthening threat defense for our customers.”

Trellix Hyperautomation benefits include:

• Improving operational efficiency: Automated cybersecurity tasks and responses reduce the manual effort and time required for threat hunting, incident response, and compliance.
• Upskilling analysts: No-code, application-agnostic workflows empower analysts to build automated workflows without coding or development experience and to continue applying them across other tools and vendors if they decide to make a change.
• Accelerating vulnerability remediation: Automatic deployment of patches, software updates, and security policies to endpoints enables analysts to promptly address and mitigate vulnerabilities.

In addition to the integration with Trellix Hyperautomation, several enhancements to the Helix analyst experience are also now available that provide increased visibility across an organization’s environment, including:

• More detailed alerts: Grouped alerts with enhanced details help analysts prioritize critical issues and cut through the noise with a unified view of related threats.
• Faster investigation pivots: Alert details provide actions for every field, and a new enhanced timeline view helps analysts focus on what matters most by filtering by severity or source. Contextual insights enable them to decide whether to dive deeper or bypass an alert without losing context.
• Actionable threat intelligence: Integrated threat intelligence insights within alerts provide analysts with detailed intelligence and recommendations to help narrow exposure gaps.

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Zillow Now Has DMs, and They Might Actually Be Useful

I'll say it: There are too many messaging apps out there. There's WhatsApp, Messenger, Snapchat, Discord, Signal, Telegram, and iMessage (if you're on iPhone), and that's just the dedicated chat apps. You might have to keep up with new messages on Instagram, TikTok, Threads, even Spotify. If I install one more app with a messaging feature, I'm going off the grid.

As it happens, another non-chat app is joining this list. On Tuesday, Zillow—yes, Zillow—announced its app will also now support messaging. Starting today, you can send people messages in the app you use to look at houses you will most likely never actually buy. We live in interesting times, indeed.

Of course, Zillow's goal here isn't to become the next WhatsApp. In fact, you can only choose to chat with one other person on Zillow—at least, that's the case for now. The idea of Zillow messaging is strictly to chat about listings you find through the app, without needing to leave Zillow to do so. The goal for most app developers is to keep users on the platform for as long as possible, so there's a cynical case to make here for Zillow trapping its users within the app. If you don't move to another chat app to talk about a listing, you're more likely to interact with additional houses on the app.

But I actually see the logic here: If you're in a housing market with a lot of listings, you're probably firing off a number of them every day to interested parties—namely, whoever you're buying the house with. Keeping those conversations in the same app as those listings could be a smart way to keep track of all those houses, instead of the usual routine of "wait, which house was that? I can't find the text you sent me." And the fact that Zillow is limiting this experience to one chat partner at this time means you're not going to be DMing a number of people about houses in your area. This does seem designed for people who are trying to buy a house together to do so with a bit more convenience.

How to try Zillow messaging

This feature is live as of this article. To get started, open Zillow on your smartphone or in your web browser. On the app, tap "Inbox;" on the web, click your profile in the top-right, then choose "Inbox."

In order to start a chat, you need to invite the other person to join you. To do so, choose "Invite now," which will pull up a pop-up about the feature. This screen explains the invite link is good for 24 hours, and that you can only invite one person for now.

Credit: Lifehacker

Choose "Share invitation," and Zillow will let you share it wherever you'd like. You can copy the link, and paste it in another chat app, or choose a destination for Zillow to share the link to directly.

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Nozomi Networks enhances OT security with latest Arc release

Nozomi Networks announced a cybersecurity solution designed to safely automate threat response in operational environments. With the latest release of Nozomi Arc, users gain automated threat prevention capabilities for OT endpoints.

First launched in 2023, Nozomi Arc is the endpoint security and network monitoring solution specifically designed to meet both the cybersecurity and operational requirements of OT and IoT environments. Arc is a key component of the Nozomi platform, and extends Nozomi’s defenses to Windows, Mac and Linux endpoints in the operational environment.

Now available, with Nozomi Networks’ active threat prevention, the latest version of Arc moves beyond passive detection to deliver active defense, enabling industrial organizations to better protect mission-critical assets without compromising operational uptime.

“Industrial networks are under escalating attack, and traditional IT cybersecurity automation tools aren’t safe or viable in OT environments,” said Andrea Carcano, Nozomi Networks CPO. “With Nozomi Arc threat prevention, we are empowering customers to – at their discretion – safely and automatically block and contain threats directly at the endpoint. And we intent to extend automated threat prevention capabilities across the Nozomi Platform in the future.”

New features – available in Nozomi Arc:

Flexible automated threat prevention: Nozomi Arc can now operate in three modes depending on the organization’s environment and risk tolerance:

• Detection mode – non‑disruptive monitoring for audits and compliance
• Quarantine mode – blocks malicious files while preserving them for forensic analysis
• Delete mode – instantly removes malicious files to prevent further damage

OT-tailored threat intelligence integration: Nozomi Arc’s prevention engine is fueled by Nozomi Networks Threat Intelligence and further enhanced by Nozomi’s Threat Intelligence Expansion Pack, powered by Mandiant Threat Intelligence. Indicators of compromise are delivered in YARA, STIX, and SIGMA formats, enabling effective local behavioral analysis.

Seamless platform integration: Unlike standalone endpoint agents, Nozomi Arc is natively integrated into the Nozomi Networks platform for OT, IoT and CPS Protection. This allows organizations to unify detection, response, and orchestration workflows from endpoint activities to wireless communications.

OT networks face heightened threat vectors as attackers increasingly target control servers, operator workstations, HMIs, and other OT assets. According to MITRE ATT&CK for ICS, 72% of ICS techniques directly target control servers, operator workstations, HMIs, and other OT assets, overlapping with enterprise-level attack paths. The inability to safely deploy conventional IT agents leaves critical devices exposed.

With automated endpoint protection, security teams can accelerate mean time to response (MTTR), gain unified visibility across network and endpoints, and strengthen compliance posture. Meanwhile, operations teams benefit from rapid containment of threats with minimal disruption to production.

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My Favorite Amazon Deal of the Day: The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

Samsung announced the latest Galaxy S25 Series back in January, and later that same month, teased a fourth, thinner phone, the Galaxy S25 Edge. In May we learned more about the device Samsung is calling the "slimmest Galaxy S Series ever." The phone came out at the end of that month, and surprisingly, it's already 40% off, matching the lowest price it has ever reached according to price tracking tools.

Yes, right now you can get the 512GB Galaxy S25 Edge for $729.99 (originally $1,219.99). It's a great price for a lightweight yet powerful phone.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge 512GB Unlocked AI Phone (Titanium JetBlack)

$729.99 at Amazon

$1,219.99 Save $490.00

$729.99 at Amazon

$1,219.99 Save $490.00

The Galaxy S25 Edge has impressed since its release, with excellent reviews from many tech sites, including PCMag. The reviews praise its thin design (around 5.84mm), which doesn't come at the expense of battery life or performance. You can expect over 16 hours of use on a single charge (tests conducted with YouTube videos playing at full brightness), which is the longest of all the latest S Series phones. It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip, comes with 12GB of RAM, and starts with 128GB of storage, although this deal is for the 512GB model.

It also has a dual camera setup with a 200 MP wide lens and 12 MP ultra-wide and front lenses, but no telephoto camera. The AI features are what you'd expect from Samsung: enhanced multitasking tools, a desktop mode (Dex), and Galaxy AI. A big plus is Samsung's promise to give this phone seven generations of OS updates and seven years of security fixes (through May 31, 2032).

If you're looking for a deal on a thin and lightweight Android phone that excels in battery life, performance, and will be around for many years, consider the Galaxy S25 Edge for $729.99.

Our Best Editor-Vetted Early Black Friday Deals Right Now

Apple AirPods Pro 2 Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds — $169.99 (List Price $249.00)

Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $299.00 (List Price $349.00)

Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus — $29.99 (List Price $49.99)

Shark AV2501AE AI XL Hepa- Safe Self-Emptying Base Robot Vacuum — $299.99 (List Price $649.99)

Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam, White with Ring Indoor Cam (2nd Gen), White — $59.99 (List Price $99.99)

Blink Video Doorbell Wireless (Newest Model) + Sync Module Core — $29.99 (List Price $69.99)

Blink Mini 2 1080p Indoor Security Camera (2-Pack, White) — $27.99 (List Price $69.99)

Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 with Ring Chime Pro — $149.99 (List Price $259.99)

Introducing Amazon Fire TV 55" Omni Mini-LED Series, QLED 4K UHD smart TV, Dolby Vision IQ, 144hz gaming mode, Ambient Experience, hands-free with Alexa, 2024 release — $699.99 (List Price $819.99)

Blink Outdoor 4 1080p 2-Camera Kit With Sync Module Core — $51.99 (List Price $129.99)

Deals are selected by our commerce team

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Zumigo enhances fraud prevention with low-code tools and passwordless authentication

Zumigo has upgraded its solutions designed to help businesses fortify their defenses against rising sophisticated consumer fraud with an identity-first security approach.

Recognizing that consumer and user access points are often exploited for fraud and attacks, Zumigo has evolved its technology to boost accessibility, simplicity, and accuracy to facilitate widespread adoption of seamless verification and authentication workflows. Businesses can thus prevent fraud, improve conversion and retain legitimate customers at the same time.

1. Accessibility: In addition to traditional API integration, Zumigo is rolling out a low-code/no-code platform that allows businesses to visually create and customize their own verification and authentication workflows. This visual interface uses a menu of services, giving non-developers instant control over their identity logic. The platform includes a centralized dashboard featuring key verification metrics, event logs, device fingerprinting intelligence, support, and billing—putting all necessary tools at the user’s fingertips.

2. Simplicity: Following its mission to simplify the consumer journey and reduce friction, Zumigo is debuting new passwordless authentication methods. These options include sign-in via social credentials and leveraging SIM-based authentication from major U.S. mobile network operators (MNOs) including T-Mobile. SIM-based authentication offers a superior, ubiquitous, consumer-centric solution that can easily integrate with existing tools and effectively replace vulnerable one-time passcodes (OTPs). This technology also amplifies the mobile form pre-fill solution so that businesses can improve conversion and increase verified leads in their onboarding or pre-approval workflows.

3. Accuracy: Zumigo is adding additional layers of multi-dimensional risk assessment across various identity artifacts to increase the precision of digital identity risk assessment, including device fingerprinting; and augmented phone trust score with risk indicators for spoofing, known fraud, blacklisting, phone activity across networks, and other signals. These enhancements integrate more robust data signals and predictive models to significantly improve the accuracy of the identity risk scoring, helping businesses better identify and stop complex threats like synthetic identity fraud.

“Today, cybercriminals no longer need to hack networks—they hack people and their credentials instead,” said Chirag Bakshi, Zumigo CEO. “Every day, millions of vulnerabilities arise through compromised emails, stolen accounts, and synthetic identity schemes that traditional security tools simply cannot detect. Our mission is to strengthen the digital identity perimeter together with our partners, making our solution easier to deploy and use, while drastically increasing the accuracy of our risk assessments to close those critical vulnerabilities.”

“API-based authentication can give users and businesses real-time identity verification, which makes the entire process seamless,” said Dan Thygesen, SVP T-Mobile Product, Partnerships & Growth and Head of Wholesale & Innovation. “By shifting to a passwordless approach to authentication, T-Mobile is giving aggregators like Zumigo the ability to deliver stronger security and higher trust.”

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Albireo PCS delivers secure, managed cloud alternative to on-premise servers

Albireo Energy launched Private Cloud Services (PCS), a secure, fully managed cloud service designed to host and protect Building Automation System (BAS) and Energy Power Management Systems (EPMS) data without the capital expense, complexity, or risk of traditional on-premise servers.

PCS separates operational technology (OT) from core information technology (IT) by transferring BAS and EPMS data and applications to a SOC 2 Type 2–certified, cybersecure cloud platform that Albireo Energy hosts and maintains.

The service provides 99% data accessibility and visibility through a fully managed environment that includes hardware installation, secure data transfer via a clientless VPN, and continuous updates and cybersecurity monitoring to ensure the platform remains current, stable, and compliant.

“PCS removes the tension between IT and building management by safeguarding building systems from enterprise network vulnerabilities while maintaining seamless connectivity for facility managers,” said Kevin Baxter, President of Albireo Energy. “It delivers what both have been asking for — a fully managed alternative to on-premise, capital intensive servers with end-to-end protection and performance unmatched in the BAS industry.”

Unlike generic IT cloud offerings, Albireo Energy PCS is technology-flexible, integrating with all major BAS and EPMS technologies. It also works seamlessly with other Albireo Energy Intelligent Services, including Critical Alarm Messenger (CALM) and Simple Building Analytics (fault detection and diagnostics), giving customers a unified, cybersecure environment to monitor, analyze, and act on building performance data.

Private Cloud Services can be added to new or existing Albireo Energy service agreements. Implementation includes site assessment, configuration, testing, and training, with most migrations completed in just weeks.

PCS is managed by the Albireo Energy Managed Services Center (MSC), which maintains technical expertise across major OEM products and Albireo’s intelligent services. The MSC provides 24×7 monitoring, engineering support, and system optimization to ensure reliability, compliance, and operational uptime.

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Jumio introduces selfie.DONE to simplify digital identity verification

Jumio announced the launch of selfie.DONE, a new solution that delivers on the company’s vision for true reusable identity. selfie.DONE empowers trusted users to be instantly recognized and reverified with just a selfie, eliminating the need to rescan their ID for every onboarding or authentication. The solution is initially launching in Brazil, followed by a global rollout.

selfie.DONE has been developed to harness the intelligence and global scale of the Jumio Identity Graph, proprietary technology based on tens of millions of cross-customer, cross-industry identities from both legitimate and fraudulent transactions. It provides a clear advantage against local or siloed identity systems that rely on a single customer’s data rather than leveraging intelligence from a global network like Jumio’s.

Jumio’s approach ensures that every reuse decision is risk-aware, powered by a combination of biometric matching, liveness detection, fraud pattern recognition, and connection risk analysis – all in real time.

selfie.DONE determines when a returning user has already been verified and can safely skip the most friction-filled step of the journey which most often causes drop-off for users: finding and rescanning physical IDs. By skipping this step when trust has already been established, organizations can dramatically increase completion rates, shorten onboarding time, and reduce operational costs.

The solution also advances Jumio’s privacy and security leadership. It operates within Jumio’s centralized, audited security framework – including ISO/IEC 30107-3 Level 2, ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and LGPD – ensuring that every identity is governed, encrypted, and reused responsibly.

“While the market has been exploring reusable identity, most solutions still depend on revalidating stored credentials limited to an individual customer’s silo, which dramatically limits their effectiveness,” said Bala Kumar, chief product and technology officer at Jumio. “selfie.DONE changes that. By drawing on the continually growing volume of real identity intelligence across the Jumio Identity Graph, we can instantly recognize and re-verify legitimate users globally – reducing friction for trusted customers without compromising security or privacy.”

selfie.DONE will launch first in Brazil, where users can be verified instantly using a selfie and their Cadastro de Pessoas Físicas (CPF) number. This approach delivers faster response times and higher precision, while maintaining a seamless user experience.

“The Brazilian market has been asking for a solution like selfie.DONE, which makes it the ideal location for its launch,” said Samer Atassi, VP of Latin America at Jumio. “Demand for lower-friction onboarding is especially strong in Brazil’s gaming and fintech sectors, and our strong footprint in these industries will enable us to quickly deploy the solution to millions of users across the country. On top of this, Brazilian consumers have become accustomed to using their CPF for identity verification, which will minimize the need for end-user education.”

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