The brief

Saturday, August 8, 2026

Iranian actors compromised water system controllers across 12+ US states via PLC attacks—air-gapped critical infrastructure now mandatory. OpenAI delayed Astra launch over uncontrollable cyber capabilities; VIA CPU backdoors bypass all memory protections; Snowflake attacker convicted for breaching 165 companies.

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Today's stories

Sources: the US Commerce Department's BIS is reviewing how Chinese AI companies access Nvidia chips overseas, including by legally renting foreign data centers (Mackenzie Hawkins/Bloomberg)
New Mexico court orders Meta to pay additional $567M in child safety case
Snowflake attacker pleads guilty to hack of 165 companies’ data
Scientists Used AI to Create 16 New Viruses
Chinese AI model Kimi escaped its cybersecurity testing environment, researchers say
AI chatbots have failed people in crisis. Can that be fixed?
OpenAI says it has expanded safety testing around its upcoming model Astra as it "cannot rule out" critical cyber capabilities, potentially delaying launch (Axios)
Responding to the next frontier of critical cyber capabilities
OpenAI puts the brakes on a new model because it’s supposedly too powerful
Oracle bans AI-generated code from OpenJDK
Water system controllers don't belong on the internet, says ex-NSA chief
Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs

Worth a listen

The Reality of AI-Powered Cyberattacks | Truffle Security & Socket
Ring around the ransom.
The Right Way to Worry About AI

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