Governance, Regulation, Legislation, Geostrategies

Greece proposes stricter data centre rules for grid access and renewables – Greece has opened a public consultation on proposed Greek data centre rules that would introduce new financial, energy and grid-connection requirements for developers. The Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy opened the consultation on 10 October and will accept comments until 24 October. The measures form part of a broader electricity-market bill and have not yet become law. Under the proposal, investors pursuing new data-centre development would have to cover the full cost of connecting their facilities to the electricity system, including reinforcement works caused exclusively by the connection. New data centres would also be required to source at least 60% of their annual electricity consumption from renewable energy sources. – https://dig.watch/updates/greek-data-centre-rules-grid-renewables

 

EU Council backs crypto supervision reforms and expanded blockchain testing – The Council of the EU has agreed on the key elements of its negotiating position on the market integration and supervision package (MISP), a central component of the bloc’s savings and investments union. The measures aim to reduce fragmentation across European capital markets, lower compliance costs for cross-border financial firms and channel more private savings into business investment. Under the proposed framework, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) would directly supervise the most significant cross-border trading venues, post-trading entities and crypto-asset service providers (CASPs). Unlike the European Commission’s original proposal, the Council’s approach would limit immediate direct supervision of CASPs to the most significant cross-border operators. The package would also reform ESMA’s governance structure while preserving a role for national authorities in regulatory decisions and supervisory cooperation. – https://dig.watch/updates/eu-crypto-supervision-reforms-and-blockchain

 

India and ITU advance cooperation on AI deployment and capacity building – India has joined a group of ten pilot countries participating in the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) AI for Good Lab initiative, which aims to help countries translate AI strategies into practical applications. The country’s participation was highlighted during a workshop jointly organised by India’s Department of Telecommunications and the ITU at India Mobile Congress 2026 in New Delhi on 9 October. The initiative focuses on three areas: assessing national AI readiness and policy gaps, strengthening AI skills and institutional capacity, and developing public AI infrastructure. Its framework includes standards-based, interoperable AI sandboxes designed to allow countries to test, validate and adapt locally relevant applications before deploying them more widely. The approach seeks to address barriers such as limited technical expertise, fragmented innovation ecosystems and insufficient infrastructure. – https://dig.watch/updates/india-itu-pilot-ai-strategies-practice

 

China announces employment initiative to address AI-driven changes – China has announced a new initiative to promote employment as artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes the labour market. Speaking at a press conference on 10 October 2026, Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security Li Zhong said the government would address the employment implications of AI and other emerging technologies while promoting responsible technological development and higher-quality employment. The announcement builds on China’s existing employment policies, including its 2026 government work report and a five-year employment strategy that identifies AI-related labour market changes as a priority. The government aims to create employment opportunities through AI applications and emerging industries while supporting job creation in traditional sectors. However, the newly announced initiative has not yet been accompanied by detailed implementation measures, a dedicated budget or a specific timetable. – https://dig.watch/updates/china-employment-initiative-ai-changes

Security, Surveillance

Bill Gates alerts that AI could enable new cyberattacks within 1 year, amid warnings from top tech executives – Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has warned that malicious actors could exploit advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models to intensify cyberattacks over the next year, highlighting concerns about the availability of powerful systems without effective safeguards. Speaking to CNN anchor Jake Tapper in an interview broadcast on 11 October 2026, Gates identified cyberattacks as one of the most immediate risks associated with AI misuse, predicting “a lot of negative surprises” if attackers gain access to the latest models without restrictions. – https://dig.watch/updates/bill-gates-warns-ai-new-cyberattacks-a-year

Luna Moth Leaks Shed Light on Ransomware Group’s Inner Workings – Leaked files have disclosed the inner workings a major ransomware group, which demonstrates a multi-layered, businesslike approach to its operations. The analysis by Check Point researchers has revealed information on the instructions the Luna Moth group provides to ‘staff’ on how to best emotionally manipulate their victims into providing remote access to their enterprise machines and how the work is divided up between a social engineer and the hands-on keyboard attacker. The documents were leaked to an anonymous onion site called “The Luna Moth Files” in early October 2026 and claim to contain internal files and chat logs of Luna Moth, commonly also known as Silent Ransom Group (SIG). The group is also tracked by cybersecurity analysts as Chatty Spider UNC3753. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/luna-moth-leaks-ransomware-playbook/

Major French Supermarket Chains Hit by Cyber-Attack, Food Stock Impacted – Several chains of supermarkets in France have reportedly been hit by a cyber-attack targeting the refrigeration facilities of several stores across the country. Affected companies include Coopérative U, a retail cooperative encompassing supermarkets branded as Hyper U, Super U, U Express and Utile, Groupement Mousquetaire’s Intermarché and Carrefour. In a post on X published on October 12, Dominique Schelcher, CEO of Cooperative U, confirmed the cyber-attack affected several stores in the network from October 11. “Our teams are fully mobilized, in coordination with refrigeration specialists, to restore the situation as quickly as possible. An investigation will be needed to shed full light on this attack,” he said. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/french-supermarket-chains/

Months-Old Palo Alto VPN Vulnerability Remains a Target for Ransomware Groups – Ransomware groups continue to target a high-severity vulnerability in Palo Alto Networks products, despite a security patch being released five months ago, according to ReliaQuest. The cyber threat detection provider warned in a social media advisories posted on October 9 that multiple groups, including the Qilin and Settra ransomware operations, are actively targeting CVE-2026-0257 to establish unauthorized VPN sessions and gain initial access to internal networks. CVE-2026-0257 is an authentication bypass vulnerability in PAN-OS GlobalProtect and Prisma Access that affects several Palo Alto Networks products, including PAN-OS versions 10.2.0, 11.1.0, 11.2.0 and 12.1.0 and two versions of Prisma Access (10.2.0 and 11.2.0). – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/palo-alto-vpn-vulnerability-target/

Karaoke Giant Reveals Data Breach Impacting Eight Million – One of Japan’s biggest karaoke box operators has revealed a data breach at a supplier which it claims may have exposed personal information of over eight million customers. Daiichi Kosho has several popular brands including Big Echo, one of the country’s largest karaoke box chains, and also manufactures karaoke entertainment systems. It published a statement on October 8 claiming an incident at Nippon Columbia Group (NCG), a Japanese entertainment group which handles customer information for the firm. “According to NCG, between October 1 and October 2, 2026, a malware infection was discovered on one of their employees’ devices (a PC), and the device was isolated from the network on October 2. Following an investigation into the scope of the impact by NCG, we received a report from NCG on October 5,” it explained. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/karaoke-giant-data-breach-eight/

ShinyHunters arrest number three: a Canadian ransomware negotiator – ShinyHunters is the focus of a global FBI investigation, and the crackdown has led to the October 8 arrest of a Canadian ransomware negotiator who now faces extortion charges. Reuters reported the arrest, citing court documents, prison records and a person familiar with the case. The group has also stolen information about FBI employees. Court documents filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which includes Philadelphia, accuse the defendant of conspiring to threaten the confidentiality of information to extort money and of interfering with commerce. “A Canadian ransomware negotiator was arrested Thursday and faces unspecified extortion charges, according to court documents, prison records and ​a person familiar with the matter, as the FBI cracks down ‌on a hacking group that stole information about its employees.” Reuters states. “Edward Dubrovsky faces charges of conspiracy to “threaten to impair the confidentiality of information with intent to extort money” and “interference with commerce,” according ​to court documents, opens new tab filed with the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which covers Philadelphia.” – https://securityaffairs.com/200847/cyber-crime/shinyhunters-arrest-number-three-a-canadian-ransomware-negotiator.html

Canonical Hit by Second DDoS Attack in 2026, Public Websites Disrupted – Ubuntu’s parent company Canonical spent part of last week fighting off a sustained distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, the second one to hit its infrastructure this year. The company revealed the attack on October 8 through a post on the Ubuntu Discourse forum. “Canonical’s websites are under a sustained distributed denial of service attack. Our team is working diligently to resolve the incident. Please refer to our status page for up-to-date information. Some services may be intermittently unavailable.” the company states. At this time, no cybercrime or hacktivist group has claimed responsibility. – https://securityaffairs.com/200832/security/canonical-hit-by-second-ddos-attack-in-2026.html

 

CyberXero Used 51 AI Agents to Steal 628,000 Ukrainian Records – CyberXero is an operation that combines traditional hacking tools with AI agents to carry out cyberattacks. According to SOCRadar researchers, the attackers use the same infrastructure for two different campaigns: one targets WordPress websites and e-commerce platforms worldwide, while the other focuses on Ukrainian energy and critical infrastructure. The actor behind CyberXero is a Russian-speaking, financially motivated threat actor. This type of attacker, known as an initial access broker, breaks into networks and sells access to other criminals instead of using it directly. One campaign focuses on attacking as many targets as possible, while the other involves carefully selected targets in Ukraine. “SOCRadar’s Threat Research Unit (STRU) has documented CyberXero, a Russian-speaking, financially motivated Initial Access Broker that pairs commodity offensive tooling with an AI orchestration layer running on its own infrastructure.” reads the report published by SOCRadar. “The operation runs two pipelines at once: a global, automated campaign against WordPress and e-commerce platforms, and a curated, manual campaign against Ukrainian energy and critical infrastructure. More than 628,000 Ukrainian individuals have confirmed data in the actor’s possession, including residents of Kharkiv, a city on an active war front”. The investigation only happened because the threat actor made one classic mistake, an open directory with zero access control sitting on a server. That single misconfiguration exposed the actor’s entire working directory, more than 90,000 files, including AI session logs, scripts with plaintext tokens, and already-stolen victim data. The exposed server was found at “46.21.250[.]135,” hosting a live Linux workstation’s complete contents. – https://securityaffairs.com/200803/cyber-crime/cyberxero-used-51-ai-agents-to-steal-628000-ukrainian-records.html

 

GTA 6 Leaker Demands $30M Meme Coin Market Cap to Release Full Game – CyberLeek, the anonymous figure behind this summer’s wave of GTA 6 leaks, just raised the stakes considerably. After dropping 25 minutes of gameplay footage earlier last week, including nudity and dev menu access, they’re now threatening to release a complete, playable build of the game, start to finish. “A GTA 6 leaker has reportedly threatened to put out a complete, playable build of the game, start to finish.” reads Eurogamer.net. “The threat was posted on CyberLeek’s website after the leaker shared 25 minutes of footage from the game earlier this week”. CyberLeek posted the threat on its own website. The demand is simple: if its cryptocurrency reaches a $30 million market value, the leaker will release the playable build of GTA 6, including the full story mode, from start to finish, with the ending credits. CyberLeek says Take-Two can avoid the leak only by providing physical copies of the game and issuing a public apology. This sounds more like a challenge than a serious negotiation. – https://securityaffairs.com/200780/cyber-crime/gta-6-leaker-demands-30m-meme-coin-market-cap-to-release-full-game.html

SonicWall Patches CVSS 10.0 SSRF Flaw as Attacks Begin – Attackers have begun exploiting a critical flaw in SonicWall SMA 1000 appliances, tracked as CVE-2026-102255 (CVSS score of 10.0), just days after public disclosure. The vulnerability is a server-side request forgery (SSRF) flaw that requires no login. Attackers could abuse it to make the appliance send requests and access internal functions, allowing unauthorized actions. “A Pre-authentication SSRF vulnerability exists in the SMA1000 Appliance Work Place interface due to an unintended alternate access path.” reads the advisory. “By abusing this path, a remote unauthenticated attacker could potentially exploit this vulnerability to direct the appliance to issue requests on their behalf and reach internal functionality and perform unauthorized operations.” – https://securityaffairs.com/200816/hacking/sonicwall-patches-cvss-10-0-ssrf-flaw-as-attacks-begin.html