Tech News Roundup: Cybersecurity Breaches, AI Developments, and Customer Losses
A series of recent developments in the tech world have grabbed headlines, ranging from cybersecurity vulnerabilities to the increasing use of AI by government agencies and customer retention challenges faced by major internet providers.
In Iowa, two security professionals, Gary DeMercurio and Justin Wynn, received $600,000 to settle a lawsuit stemming from their 2019 arrest. The pair, employed by Coalfire Labs, were conducting an authorized security assessment of a county courthouse on behalf of the Iowa Judicial Branch. Their "red-team exercises," designed to mimic techniques used by criminal hackers, led to their wrongful arrest and subsequent defamation lawsuit, according to Ars Technica.
Meanwhile, a new AI agent called Clawdbot (later rebranded to Moltbot) has quickly become a target for infostealers. VentureBeat reported that commodity infostealers, including RedLine, Lumma, and Vidar, began exploiting the AI agent before most security teams were even aware of its presence in their environments. Shruti Gandhi, a general partner at Array VC, noted 7,922 attack attempts on her firm's Clawdbot instance. The AI agent's MCP implementation reportedly lacks mandatory authentication, allows prompt injection, and grants shell access by design, according to VentureBeat.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is also increasingly utilizing AI, including video generators from Google and Adobe, to create and edit content for public consumption, according to MIT Technology Review. A recently released document revealed that DHS is using Google's Veo 3 video generator and Adobe Firefly for tasks ranging from drafting documents to managing cybersecurity.
In other news, Comcast continues to struggle with customer retention despite efforts to improve its services. In April 2025, Comcast President Mike Cavanagh acknowledged that the company's cable broadband division was "not winning in the marketplace" due to competition from fiber and fixed wireless Internet service providers, according to Ars Technica. Comcast had attempted to address customer concerns by introducing a five-year price guarantee, one year of free Xfinity Mobile service for home Internet customers, and plans with unlimited data. Despite these measures, the company is still losing broadband customers, according to Ars Technica.
Finally, the Vitalism movement, described as a hardcore longevity movement, held a summit in Berkeley, California, last April. The three-day event, part of a longer residency, explored tools ranging from drug regulation to cryonics in the pursuit of extending life, according to MIT Technology Review. The movement, founded by Nathan Cheng and Adam Gries, advocates for a "sweeping mission" of longevity to which adherents devote themselves.
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