ASCII smuggling isn't just an AI security risk

The Register reports that ASCII smuggling, a technique that exploits Unicode control characters to hide malicious text, is not only an AI security risk but also affects other software, as demonstrated by a recent attack where AI agents executed a ransomware attack and left an 80-page security audit. The article highlights that such attacks are becoming more sophisticated and pose broader cybersecurity threats beyond AI systems.

AI https://beta.theregister.com/tag/ai - On-PREM AMD's Threadripper Halo is a local-AI workstation for researchers with deep pocketsAI workstation promises to put up to 576 GB of HBM3e and 16 TB/s of memory bandwidth on your desk - ai and ml Hugging Face is too important to fall into Nvidia's hands$12.9 billion deal will inevitably cement Nvidia's market dominance and harm competition in the process. Regulators should take note - ai and ml Zuck's Muse to Spark joy with open weights release 'soon'While you wait, Meta says it’s taught the model to stop wasting tokens and ask for help a bit more often - ai and ml With Gemini 3.8 Flash, Google reminds everyone it's still in the raceAI model scores well, runs fast, and doesn't cost too much yet - security AI agents carried out every step of this ransomware attack – then left the victim an 80-page security auditAdding insult to injury Infosec https://beta.theregister.com/security - Security Russians are posing as Signal support to launch phishing attacksPLUS: US takes down Iranian propaganda sites; Marketing company asks 'Why Do We Have Your Information?' And more - Security Microsoft patches failed to fix on-prem SharePoint, which is now under zero-day attackPLUS: China upgrades smartphone surveillance tools; Ring eases anti-snooping stance; and more - Black Hat and DEF CON DEF CON Franklin project enlists hackers to harden critical infrastructureVoting village reports have been so successful, says Jeff Moss, that the whole of DEF CON will now be included - Security EQT buys majority share in Swiss cybersecurity biz AcronisWent at equivalent of $3.5B+ valuation for entire firm, though portion sold not specified - Malware Month Ten years since the first corp ransomware, Mikko Hyppönen sees no end in sightOn the plus side, infosec's a good bet for a long, stable career FOSS https://beta.theregister.com/tag/FOSS - Canonical shuttering some of its legacy chat channelsThe Ubuntu Pastebin went in June, IRC gets demoted next - Audacity audio-editing app no longer looks like it's from the early 2000sThe FOSS tool for audio editing has a fresh coat of paint, and new features to boot - Haiku OS rises / Beta 6 sails open web / Virtual winds fly fastA real alternative to running some kind of FOSS Unix clone - Offshoots of cancelled TrueNAS Core upgrade to FreeBSD 15Exeunt zVault stage right; enter FreeCORE and BSDnas - Debian votes to let contributors code with AIDisclosure optional, quality mandatory - LibreOffice 26.8 is out – local first, and with no AIIt looks a bit clunky, but it does the job – and on your own computer