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Phil Venables of Ballistic Ventures on the Second-Order Consequences of AI
AI is not just transforming how organizations operate, it's fundamentally altering the cybersecurity landscape, said Phil Venables, partner at Ballistic Ventures. The consequences, he warned, are only beginning to emerge.

USC Study Finds Persona-Based Prompts Lower Factual Accuracy
A coder tells its chatbot: You're an expert. A full stack developer. It's machine massaging technique that's a cornerstone of persona-based artificial intelligence prompting - and it backfires, find academics in a studying showing the practice produces worst results, when the goal is accuracy.

Roadmap Focuses on OT Security, Grid Hardening and Incident Response
A new Department of Energy strategy defines its role as sector risk manager for grid security, prioritizing OT defense, resilience and response - but analysts say it faces execution challenges tied to reduced funding, workforce constraints and reliance on weakened federal partners.

IT Worker Scheme, Laptop Farm Siphon Funds Back to North Korea
A U.S. federal judge sentenced a now-former Army soldier to one year in prison Friday for renting his identity to North Korean IT workers who used it to collect more than $193,000 in salaries from American companies. Also sentenced were two California men who facilitated $1.28M in fraudulent salaries.

J.P. Morgan’s Brian Essex on Why Valuations Drop as Fundamentals Hold Steady
Investor anxiety over AI's long-term impact is dragging down stock valuations despite steady growth and profitability, while companies focus on long-term valuation assumptions and secure business models, said Brian Essex, executive director of U.S. software equity research at J.P. Morgan.

Visa CISO Subra Kumaraswamy on Securing Agents, Fighting Fraud, Protecting Commerce
AI is transforming trust in global payments as attackers scale faster and agents automate decisions. CISO Subra Kumaraswamy explains how Visa uses AI to combat fraud, secure transactions and build trust across consumers, merchants and a rapidly evolving digital ecosystem.

No Arrests, But Virtual Servers, IP Addresses Seized and Residencies Searched
U.S. authorities seized KimWolf - the attack infrastructure responsible for the largest distributed denial of service attack yet recorded in an international police operation that swept up servers underpinning four botnets.

Contec and Epsimed Monitors Containing 'Backdoors' Are at the Center of Order
Texas Gov. Abbott has ordered agencies to review foreign-made connected medical devices - especially those from Chinese manufacturers - used in state-owned facilities for cybersecurity issues that could pose security and privacy risks to patients and healthcare infrastructure.

Also: CISA Protocol Concerns, AI Agents Push Past Cybersecurity Controls
In this week's panel, four ISMG editors unpacked the cyber dimensions of the Stryker attack amid the escalating Iran-Israel-U.S. tensions, the growing controversy around CISA leadership and alleged protocol breaches, and a new set of concerns related to AI agents bypassing security controls.

New Handala Site Is Also Available
U.S. federal agents seized four web domains associated with Iranian hacking operations days after a threat actor going by Handala posted screenshots it said came from inside the IT systems of medical device manufacturer Stryker. The registrars used to create them are located in the United States.

Geopolitical Threats Now an Always-on Condition and Most CIOs Aren't Ready
Nearly 80% of IT decision-makers say their organization is prepared to handle a cyberwarfare attack, and 76% say they're confident they could combat AI-based attacks. But 54% of organizations say they have been hit by an AI-generated or AI-led attack in the past 12 months, according to Armis.

New Filing Frames Anthropic Dispute as Operational Control Issue - Not Free Speech
The Justice Department is arguing in a new court filing that Anthropic's ability to update guardrails and behavior post-deployment creates unacceptable supply-chain risks, warning that vendor access to AI systems could enable manipulation or failure in mission-critical defense operations.

Newly Minted Unicorn Says AI-Driven Attacks Force Shift to Continuous Pen Testing
Xbow has raised $120 million in Series C funding after proving its autonomous AI hacking platform can outperform human pen testers. CEO Oege de Moor says the rise of AI-driven cyberattacks is forcing enterprises to test systems continuously rather than periodically.

Also, Telus Breach, Microsoft Hotpatching, Interpol Malicious IP Takedown
This week, Russian hacker OpSec failure, Interpol helped disrupt 45,000 malicious IPs, the FBI is looking for an ATM jackpotting suspect and Telus disclosed a breach. Windows hotpatching, an FTP exploit, a foiled attack on a nuclear research center and China-linked espionage.

Medtech Maker Is Still Recovering While Iranian Hackers Threaten More Attack Victims
As medtech maker Stryker continues working to restore global IT systems brought offline by a cyberattack last week, class action lawsuits against the company are piling up in federal court and the Iranian hackers claiming credit for the attack are warning of more assaults to come on other victims.

White House Cyber Strategy Urges Deeper Industry Partnership Without Defining Roles
The administration's cyber strategy pushes deeper public-private coordination and expanded threat visibility across critical infrastructure, but lacks specifics on operational roles, incentives and legal protections needed for industry to actively disrupt malicious activity.

CEO Says Added OEM Context Can Sharpen Industrial Cybersecurity and New Use Cases
Nozomi Networks CEO Edgard Capdevielle said Mitsubishi Electric's purchase gives the industrial cybersecurity firm richer OEM context to improve OT and IoT security and pursue adjacent use cases such as asset visibility, maintenance support and operational efficiency across critical infrastructure.

Datos Insights' Serpil Hall on Using Predictive AML Tools to Support Compliance
Instant payments are reshaping financial crime controls as speed and the irreversibility of transactions strain anti-money laundering compliance programs. While many assume real-time AML means faster processing, this approach can increase risk, said Serpil Hall, strategic advisor at Datos Insights.

Cancer research and treatment innovation - and the tech that powers that - requires a great deal of collaboration and data sharing among multiple parties. But keeping that sensitive information secure and private is crucial - and requires adherence to standards, said Baxter Lee of Clearwater.