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How I Found a $90,000 Remote Code Execution Vulnerability in Google
Simon Koeck explains how a Flask session cookie on developers.google.com carried the secret used to sign it, letting him forge sessions and chain that into remote code execution across seven Google DevSite domains, a bug Google rewarded with $90,000.
4 min · 915 words
Alin Tomescu surveys concerning attacks on trusted execution environments such as Intel SGX and AMD SEV, and argues that teams should reconsider how, and whether, they deploy TEE-based applications given how hard hardware security claims are to verify.
5 min · 1,057 words
Someone on Torrent Sites Kept Fucking With My SonarrPLEASE stop putting skid malware on torrent sites as South Park episodes
A homelab owner traces a South Park episode stuck in Sonarr's queue to a .exe on public trackers with thousands of seeders, then reverse-engineers it: a 118 KB stealer padded with 886 MB of junk to dodge scanners, using encrypted strings and ChaCha20 config to grab browser passwords, crypto wallets, password managers, dev credentials and more, plus practical qBittorrent, Sonarr and Prowlarr defenses.
5 min · 1,237 words
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of VEX in NixOS
Faced with a flood of new CVEs, the author explains why SBOM-based scanning and reachability analysis break down for whole operating systems, and how NixOS's reproducible package graph makes it practical to generate VEX (Vulnerability Exploitability eXchange) statements, demonstrated with the experimental nixos-vex project.
6 min · 1,296 words
Fetching AMD SEV Reports (With Zig)
A walkthrough of AMD SEV-SNP attestation: what confidential VMs protect against, how to retrieve a signed attestation report on Linux and through Coconut SVSM and OpenHCL, and how to verify its certificate chain and validate it against expected policy using a Zig library.
4 min · 969 words
Passkeys are a trap. Do not use them.
An opinion piece for non-technical web users arguing that passkeys, while potentially more secure than passwords, can tie people to platforms through non-copyable, non-transferable and attested credentials, and recommending hardware security keys such as a YubiKey instead.
20 min · 4,646 words
Wanted to download an ISO, ended up writing a kernel exploit
deafbeef bought a TP-Link EAP770 Wi-Fi 7 AP that corrupts large downloads; with the device already EOL, TP-Link's shell blocked the sysfs fix, so he wrote a kernel exploit against his own access point to flip two zeros and make transfers reliable.
13 min · 3,102 words
11 of 23 Core Open Source Projects Run on 1 or 2 People
Linux Stans walks through a sheets.works analysis of 23 projects that phones, browsers and servers depend on, finding 11 had only one or two regular contributors in the past year, covering maintainers of tzdata, xz, sudo and SQLite, the funding that does or does not reach them, and r/linux pushback.
13 min · 3,007 words
1-click MMI execution in Android
Karan Saini shows that Android apps holding CALL_PHONE can run carrier MMI/USSD codes without user confirmation, demonstrates one-tap call-forwarding registration from a Chrome link through the ACR Phone dialer's browsable intent, and notes how Android 17 masks the calling app's identity, with a disclosure timeline for the vendor and Google.
14 min · 3,239 words
Frank Denis shows that LLVM compiles a plain 128-bit addition into conditional branches on 32-bit RISC-V, explains why that breaks constant-time assumptions in cryptographic code, compares GCC and the Zicond extension, and discusses how hard portable side-channel-safe code really is.
5 min · 1,208 words
A statement on the Tor Project's relationship with Mullvad
The Tor Project explains why it is continuing its technical collaboration with Mullvad after concerns over a political donation by a Mullvad co-founder, while pausing proactive co-branding and revising how Mullvad Browser is described on Tor's channels to avoid implied endorsement.
2 min · 538 words
Benchmarking Bot Detection Systems Against Modern AI Agents in 2026
Proof of Human researchers revisit their bot detection benchmark, testing Proof of Human, Google reCAPTCHA v3, hCaptcha, Cloudflare Turnstile and Cloudflare Bot Management against scripted browsers, stealth browsers and AI browsing agents completing a five-question survey. Detection rates ranged from 9% to 99%; they discuss where each system failed, limitations, and why behavioural signals matter more.
6 min · 1,293 words
It took me nine years to hack my Xbox 360
Kennedn recounts buying a Matrix CoolRunner glitcher in 2017 and finally RGH-modding an Xbox 360 in 2026 with a Raspberry Pi Pico. The essay explains Xbox 360 boot security, reset-glitch fault injection, and how cheap microcontrollers made DIY glitching far easier than a decade ago.
5 min · 1,163 words
The people holding up the internet
A sheets.works data story that counts who actually maintains 23 pieces of software every phone, browser and server depends on. It finds 11 of 23 projects rely on one or two regular contributors, and tells the stories of maintainers such as Paul Eggert (time zone database), Lasse Collin (xz), Denis Pushkarev (core-js), Todd Miller (sudo) and the SQLite, zlib, bash and curl teams.
11 min · 2,571 words
Microsoft Execution Containers: Policy-driven containment for AI agents
Microsoft announces general availability of Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC), a Windows containment layer that lets developers and IT define which files and network destinations an AI agent may use and enforces those policies at runtime, alongside upcoming agent identity via Microsoft Entra and manageability tooling.
8 min · 1,940 words
64-Day Certificate Lifetimes Coming Feb 2027
Let's Encrypt will move all subscribers to 64-day certificates by default on February 10, 2027 (with 45- and 6-day profiles available), staging first, as part of the industry shift to shorter lifetimes that reduce key-compromise and mis-issuance risk.
2 min · 416 words
ShinyHunters Extorted Boeing Spin-off Prior to Arrests
KrebsOnSecurity reports that a Jordanian teenager suspected of leading the ShinyHunters data theft and extortion group, known as Rey, was detained while the group was extorting Jeppesen ForeFlight, a business unit divested by Boeing. The piece covers the related arrests, the group's mass exploitation of an Oracle PeopleSoft vulnerability, its harassment tactics, and its feud with the FBI.
9 min · 2,084 words
Twenty-two pending curl vulnerabilities
Daniel Stenberg announces that curl 8.23.0 will ship early, on October 14 2026, fixing twenty-two security vulnerabilities including CVE-2026-92392, only the third HIGH severity curl CVE since 2021. Details stay embargoed until release, with distros and support customers alerted ahead of time and a follow-up post promised.
1 min · 333 words
Introducing the Personal Agent Consent & Trust Protocol (PACT)
Decagon open-sources PACT, co-developed with Instinct, so businesses can verify which personal AI agent is acting for a customer and what that customer authorized — built on Agent2Agent and OAuth 2.0 — and joins the Personal Agent Protocol working group around Meta’s Muse.
4 min · 910 words
Chrome's Response to Recent ccTLD Registry Hijacks
Google's Chrome security and networking team explains how attackers hijacked the .gh, .sl and .as country-code TLD registries to obtain unauthorized HTTPS certificates, how Chrome blocked them via CRLSets and worked with CAs on revocation, and why domain owners should monitor Certificate Transparency and publish restrictive CAA records.
2 min · 574 words