Information released by Distributed Denial of Secrets is the third such government data disclosure in the last month

Data identifying more than 41,000 employees and contractors for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was released on Wednesday in an unprecedented leak that reveals how the agency is organized. The records, which were made public by the transparency non-profit Distributed Denial of Secrets, reference operation names, surveillance programs and information on undercover initiatives.

The DHS did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

The current US administration is an obstacle, but public demand for protection will ultimately prevail

Organisations around the world scrambled on Thursday to fix critical flaws in PHP, the software that powers much of the web. The vulnerabilities could allow attackers to take control of affected servers. Some websites were taken offline as a precaution while fixes were installed. The paradox is that while AI helped researchers uncover the flaw, it also threatens to accelerate the ability to exploit it. Amazon said that it had detected an attempt before the public disclosure of the PHP flaws.

What the episode highlights is AI’s central role in security – and not always for the right reasons. OpenAI’s models have also been responsible for two alarming hacks this year – a security breach of an Australian health department website and a raid by a swarm of AI bots on Hugging Face, an AI services platform. Citing those incidents, the AI minister, Kanishka Narayan, warned that a similar cyber-attack on the UK is “likely, if not inevitable”.

Appointment or renewal reminder appears in victims’ calendar to lure them into logging in to fake Google, Microsoft or PayPal page

You’re preparing for the week ahead and take a look at your Google calendar. There’s an entry for a meeting that you must have completely forgotten. The note that pops up when you click on it says you’ll be reviewing a project and includes a link to more details. Confused, you follow it to find out more; the website you land on asks for logon details, and you provide them.

Unfortunately, this was not a failure of your memory but a calendar phishing scam. You have handed your name and password to fraudsters who will sell it on in a batch with other people’s details, use it to break into your work email, or to persuade you that they are contacting you from your bank, or another institution.

US cybersecurity researchers who conducted hack say ‘scope of what we could theoretically access was huge’

Cybersecurity researchers have hacked into OpenAI with the help of Anthropic’s Claude chatbot, in the latest example of security issues at the company.

A team at a US-based startup compromised a number of OpenAI employees’ ChatGPT accounts, starting a process that enabled them to access their target’s software cache – and potentially more.

US government adviser Paul Christiano warns of risks to AI industry as he joins OpenAI’s non-profit foundation

OpenAI is not on track to reduce the risk of “catastrophic” loss of control to an acceptable level, a member of its non-profit board has said, amid spreading public and political concern that super-advanced AIs could one day wipe out humanity.

Paul Christiano, a US government technology adviser, said: “There is a meaningful risk that rapid acceleration in AI capabilities leads to catastrophic and irreversible loss of control in the very near term.”

Signal agencies in Australia, the US, the UK, New Zealand and Canada sound alarm after Trump blocks foreign nationals from Anthropic’s Fable AI model

Powerful AI models capable of devastating new cyber attacks on governments and businesses are mere months away, intelligence agencies for the Five Eyes have warned in a rare joint statement, urging leaders to “act now”.

The surprising public intervention by signals agencies for Australia, the US, the UK, New Zealand and Canada comes after the Trump administration earlier this month decided to block “foreign nationals” from using a much-hyped AI model built by tech company Anthropic, called Fable.

Tech company says it ‘caught and disrupted’ NSO Group’s attempts to access accounts in Jordan and Lebanon

A spyware firm has been targeting WhatsApp users with malicious links in contravention of a US court order forbidding it from doing so, Meta has said.

In a post, Meta said WhatsApp had “caught and disrupted spear phishing attempts” by NSO Group, which a spokesperson said targeted a handful of users in Jordan and Lebanon. It had also caught the group creating “test accounts and groups” on WhatsApp.

Banks, governments and tech providers urged to upgrade security because current systems will soon be obsolete

Banks, governments and technology providers need to be prepared for quantum computer hackers capable of breaking most existing encryption systems by 2029, Google has warned.

The tech company said in a blogpost that quantum computers would pose a “significant threat to current cryptographic standards” before the end of the decade and urged other companies to follow its lead.

Exclusive: Lab tests discover ‘new form of insider risk’ with artificial intelligence agents engaging in autonomous, even ‘aggressive’ behaviours

Robert Booth UK technology editor

Rogue artificial intelligence agents have worked together to smuggle sensitive information out of supposedly secure systems, in the latest sign cyber-defences may be overwhelmed by unforeseen scheming by AIs.

With companies increasingly asking AI agents to carry out complex tasks in internal systems, the behaviour has sparked concerns that supposedly helpful technology could pose a serious inside threat.