FBI Unable to Access Journalist's iPhone Due to Apple's Lockdown Mode
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been unable to access data from a Washington Post reporter's iPhone after seizing the device from her home, according to a U.S. government court filing. The phone was protected by Apple's Lockdown Mode.
The seizure occurred during a January 14 search at the Virginia home of reporter Hannah Natanson, according to Ars Technica. The search warrant was part of an investigation into a Pentagon contractor accused of illegally leaking classified information.
While the FBI was unable to access Natanson's iPhone, agents were able to access her work laptop by instructing her to place her index finger on the MacBook Pro's fingerprint reader, Ars Technica reported.
Notepad++ Users Potentially Hacked by China
In other news, users of Notepad++, a widely used text editor for Windows, may have been hacked by suspected China-state hackers. According to a post on the official notepad-plus-plus.org site, the infrastructure delivering updates for the software was compromised for six months.
The attack began last June with an infrastructure-level compromise that allowed malicious actors to intercept and redirect update traffic destined for notepad-plus-plus.org, Wired reported. The attackers then selectively redirected certain targeted users to malicious update servers, delivering backdoored versions of the app. "I deeply apologize to all users affected by this hijacking," the author of the post wrote. Multiple investigators have tied the attackers to the Chinese government.
Judge Denies Musk's Request to Block SEC Lawsuit
A U.S. district judge has stated that Donald Trump has not intervened to block a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against Elon Musk over his 2022 Twitter takeover, Ars Technica reported this week.
The lawsuit, filed by the SEC in the final days of Joe Biden's administration, seeks $150 million in disgorgement, plus interest, as well as civil penalties and an injunction blocking Musk from future wrongdoing. The complaint alleges that Musk quietly acquired a 9 percent stake in Twitter without filing necessary timely disclosures to alert other investors of a potential change in company control. This allowed Musk to acquire over 70 million shares at an artificially low price, according to the SEC.
AI Strategies Sabotaged by "Franken-stacks"
The initial excitement surrounding Generative and Agentic AI has given way to a more pragmatic, and often frustrated, reality, according to VentureBeat. CIOs and technical leaders are questioning why their pilot programs, even those designed to automate simple workflows, are not delivering the promised results.
Raju Malhotra of Certinia suggests that the blame for AI failures is often misplaced. "AI doesnt struggle because it lacks intelligence. It struggles because it lacks context," Malhotra stated. In the modern enterprise, context is often trapped in a "Franken-stack" of disconnected point solutions, brittle APIs, and latency-ridden integrations.
Securing Agentic Systems: A CEO's Guide
MIT Technology Review reports that companies are increasingly focused on securing agentic systems. In a sponsored article, Protegrity suggests that the question every CEO is now getting from their board is some version of: "What do we do about agent risk?"
The article advocates treating agents like powerful, semi-autonomous users and enforcing rules at the boundaries where they touch identity, tools, data, and outputs. The article outlines an eight-step plan for governing agentic systems at the boundary, focusing on controls and pillars.
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