A newly disclosed privilege-escalation flaw in Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) is a timely reminder that identity infrastructure continues to be one of the most consequential attack surfaces in any enterprise. CVE-2026-25177, rated HIGH with a CVSS score of 8.8, allows an authenticated domain user to escalate their privileges over the network without any elevated starting point or user interaction.

AI tools are moving faster than the security controls meant to govern them.In this episode of Defender Fridays, Cisco's Cybersecurity Technical Solutions Architect Katherine McNamara walks through changes in the threat landscape as organizations rush to integrate AI without applying basic security discipline. When Katherine meets with customers to discuss AI security, the conversation almost always starts and ends in the same place: data leakage. Someone might upload sensitive files to a public LLM.

It usually starts the same way. The CISO comes back from a board meeting having signed off on agentic AI for production. The SOC lead is told, in roughly that many words, to build detection for the agents. And the security stack she has — CNAPP for posture, EDR on the nodes, container runtime sensors, a SIEM ingesting everything — was architected before AI agents existed as a workload class.

Modern security environments generate enormous volumes of telemetry. Authentication events from identity platforms, API activity from cloud services, endpoint security logs, email interactions, and network traffic can all flow into centralized systems. For most organizations, the challenge is no longer data collection. The real problem is extracting meaningful insight from that data without overwhelming analysts or introducing operational friction.

Researchers at Bitdefender are tracking 40 separate SMS phishing (smishing) campaigns impersonating transport authorities, toll operators, and parking services around the world. The researchers have observed more than 79,000 scam text messages with over 29,000 unique variants. The attacks are targeting users in multiple languages. “These scam messages are designed to create a sense of urgency and pressure drivers into acting quickly,” the researchers write.

OpenAI recently introduced Daybreak, a cybersecurity initiative designed to apply frontier AI models to vulnerability discovery, secure code analysis, and earlier remediation across the software lifecycle. By combining advanced reasoning and planning capabilities, Daybreak aims to help organizations identify and address weaknesses before they reach production. This is a meaningful step forward, but it is also a continuation of a long-standing approach.

Passwords have been the foundation of authentication for decades. But they have also become one of the biggest weaknesses in modern security. Users reuse them, attackers steal them, and organizations spend significant time managing them. As systems grow more complex and threats become more advanced, relying on passwords alone is no longer practical. This is where passwordless authentication comes in.

The launch of platforms like Moltbook, OpenClaw, and RentAHuman in early 2026 has provided an unsettling glimpse into the future. We are entering a phase of the digital workplace where AI agents no longer just assist us, they interact with one another, act autonomously in the physical world, and even hire humans for manual labor. In this environment, the traditional lines of control and agency are being redrawn.

In the ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape, managing access and mitigating risk across complex enterprise environments has never been more critical. The latest KuppingerCole Leadership Compass for Business Application Risk Management has officially recognized One Identity as an Overall Leader. This distinction underscores the One Identity commitment to providing robust, scalable solutions for today’s diverse and difficult IT security infrastructures.

Shopify is deprecating Legacy Customer Accounts, and if your store relies on custom login flows, B2B approvals, or third-party integrations, the impact goes further than a login page redesign. While the platform move is mandatory, the priority for any merchant is maintaining continuity across logins, onboarding, and the connected systems that keep the business running. This guide walks you through the transition in a structured way.