France’s tax agency lost data on 678,000 people to a stolen login
France’s tax agency lost data on 678,000 people to a stolen login

The French tax agency says an attacker took data belonging to 678,000 individuals and businesses. The intrusions happened in June and July. The agency did not establish that anything had left its systems until the attacker said so in August. The Direct…

Instagram blocked the search terms. Its algorithm serves the videos anyway
Instagram blocked the search terms. Its algorithm serves the videos anyway

The genre is simple enough to describe. A man wearing camera glasses walks up to a woman in the street. He delivers a line and films her reaction without asking. The clip goes to Instagram, tagged as shot on Meta glasses. The woman is now content. Some…

The Supreme Court will not help Verizon recover $47mn over location data
The Supreme Court will not help Verizon recover $47mn over location data

The US Supreme Court has refused Verizon’s request to amend a June ruling so it could pursue a refund of the $47mn it paid over selling access to customer location data. AT&T, whose case is procedurally different, can still seek reimbursement of it…

SafePal breach leaks the addresses but not the crypto, which may be the bigger problem
SafePal breach leaks the addresses but not the crypto, which may be the bigger problem

SafePal, the Binance-backed maker of hardware and software crypto wallets, has disclosed a data breach affecting roughly 39,798 customers, all of whom placed orders between 2 March 2025 and 11 April 2026. The exposed records cover order information, na…

OpenAI’s new ChatGPT feature logs your keystrokes and stores them in plain text
OpenAI’s new ChatGPT feature logs your keystrokes and stores them in plain text

OpenAI has launched Computer History, a ChatGPT feature that records clicks, keystrokes, keyboard shortcuts and app switches on macOS to build a searchable memory. The memory files are stored locally as unencrypted plain text, and the feature is not av…

Anthropic ran 133 million contractor chats with its bioweapon filters off
Anthropic ran 133 million contractor chats with its bioweapon filters off

Anthropic published the Risk Report on 14 August, covering the period to 15 July. Axios got the company on the record and led on the misalignment rating, as did most of the coverage. Anthropic raised its estimate of catastrophic harm from misalignment …

A phone company just lost 1.6 million records to a phone call
A phone company just lost 1.6 million records to a phone call

Have I Been Pwned logged the leaked records, and The Register reported the dump on 14 August. Jessica Lyons, its cybersecurity editor, wrote it. A ShinyHunters spokesperson told her the group broke in by voice-phishing a member of staff. There was no e…

Flock Safety cuts data retention to seven days after dozens of police abuse cases
Flock Safety cuts data retention to seven days after dozens of police abuse cases

Garrett Langley, the company’s chief executive, set out the package in a post on Flock’s own blog on 13 August. It covers six areas. Privacy, accountability, data ownership, data security, data accuracy and transparency. Most of the Flock Safety privac…

Private US companies can now run cyber operations abroad. State-backed hackers are excluded
Private US companies can now run cyber operations abroad. State-backed hackers are excluded

Donald Trump signed the memorandum on 12 August and the White House published it that night. It runs to five sections. A National Coordination Center creates and manages the programme. Two Program Executive Directors oversee it. The Attorney General de…

Europe’s ‘Made in EU’ rules start at 5%, and they do not mention software
Europe’s ‘Made in EU’ rules start at 5%, and they do not mention software

The Industrial Accelerator Act arrived on 4 March 2026 as COM(2026)100, alongside an impact assessment and three staff working documents, per the European Commission. Its formal title says what it is for. It establishes a framework for accelerating ind…