Ascend International Advisory FZCO

Outdated Software, Nationwide Chaos: United Airlines Grounds Flights After System Meltdown United Airlines passengers across the country found themselves stranded, confused, and angry on Wednesday as a massive technology failure triggered a nationwide grounding of flights. The culprit: #Unimatic, a decades-old internal system so vital to United’s operations that when it failed, the airline had no choice but to bring the entire operation to a standstill. From major hubs in Chicago, Newark, Denver, Houston, to San Francisco, the outage rippled through the airline’s scheduling, flight tracking, and aircraft balancing systems. An alert on the Federal Aviation Administration’s website confirmed that all United flights destined for Chicago were halted at their departing airports. The FAA later expanded the notice to cover several other key airports. Read more: https://lnkd.in/g_DMc4gJ #airlines #technology #technologyrisk #cio #cto #riskmanagement

Worth the watch - https://lnkd.in/g8YTy7zK #AI #artificialintelligence #machinelearning #AgenticAI

"If we continue on the current path of building agentic systems," Yoshua Bengio, one of the AI's 'godfathers', says, "we are basically playing Russian roulette with humanity." Read more: https://lnkd.in/gU8mV47T #artificialintellihence #agenticai #ai #aitech #humanity

🚨 New 'Cuckoo' Persistent macOS Spyware Targeting Intel and Arm Macs 🚨 Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new information stealer targeting Apple macOS systems that's designed to set up persistence on the infected hosts and act as a spyware. Dubbed #Cuckoo by Kandji, the malware is a universal Mach-O binary that's capable of running on both Intel- and Arm-based Macs. The exact distribution vector is currently unclear, although there are indications that the binary is hosted on sites like dumpmedia[.]com, tunesolo[.]com, fonedog[.]com, tunesfun[.]com, and tunefab[.]com that claim to offer free and paid versions of applications dedicated to ripping music from streaming services and converting it into the MP3 format. Read more: https://lnkd.in/dUGh2r9K #Cybersecurity #apple #macOS #malware #spyware #Antivirus #CyberDefense #riskmanagement #ITSecurity

🚨 Google Gemini flaw hijacks email summaries for phishing #Google #Gemini for Workspace can be exploited to generate #email summaries that appear legitimate but include malicious instructions or warnings that direct users to #phishing sites without using attachments or direct links. Such an attack leverages indirect prompt injections that are hidden inside an email and obeyed by Gemini when generating the message summary. Despite similar prompt attacks being reported since 2024 and safeguards being implemented to block misleading responses, the technique remains successful. Read more - https://lnkd.in/ehM3aS6j #cybersecurity #infosec #ThreatManagement #CyberDefense #AI #artificialintelligence

🚨 ConnectWise breached in #cyberattack linked to nation-state hackers 🚨 “[…] ConnectWise recently learned of suspicious activity within our environment that we believe was tied to a sophisticated nation state actor, which affected a very small number of ScreenConnect customers. We have launched an investigation with one of the leading forensic experts, Mandiant. We have contacted all affected customers and are coordinating with law enforcement. As part of our work with Mandiant, we implemented enhanced monitoring and hardening measures across our environment. We have not observed any further suspicious activity in any customer instances. The security of our services is paramount to us, and we are closely monitoring the situation and will share additional information as we are able.[…]” Read more: https://lnkd.in/gUezZqwm #databreaches #itsecurity #ThreatManagement #threatintelligence #riskmanagement #CyberDefense #networksecurity #computerforensics #SecurityIncident #IncidentResponse

AI now threatens entry-level jobs: Big Tech hires 50% fewer college grads Entry-level hiring has now collapsed, and the ruthless advance of artificial intelligence (AI) is at least partly to blame, a new report says. According to SignalFire, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, the hiring of new graduates at big tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla has declined by more than 50% since 2022. The report, titled “State of Tech Talent: 2025,” plainly states that the reason for the collapse is closely related to the rise of AI. The latter, though, is part of a broader shift underway in the industry. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gN-EBfST

🚨 Adidas warns of data breach after customer service provider hack "[...] German sportswear giant Adidas disclosed a data breach after attackers hacked a customer service provider and stole some customers' data. "adidas recently became aware that an unauthorized external party obtained certain consumer data through a third-party customer service provider," the company said on Friday. "We immediately took steps to contain the incident and launched a comprehensive investigation, collaborating with leading information security experts."[...]" Read more: https://lnkd.in/eQftrX8n #databreach #sportswear #securityincident #threatmanagement #riskmanagement #ciso #cyberdefence #threatintel #dataprivacy #dataprotection

🚨 62 million iPhone users’ records leaked online, attackers claim The leaked Apple mobile iOS database includes tens of millions of records, such as names, IDs, mobile phone operators, and other personal identifiers, attackers claim on a data leak forum. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gMNv4XBX #Apple #dataleak #dataprotection #privacy

🚨 Major Facebook data leak reveals 1.2 billion user records, hacker claims 🚨 According to the information available, the dataset includes: 🎯 User IDs 🎯 Names 🎯 Email addresses 🎯 Usernames 🎯 Phone numbers 🎯 Locations 🎯 Birthdays 🎯 Genders Read more: https://lnkd.in/gKaarzUX