The human harms of cyberattacks piled up this year, and violence expected to increaseThe knock-on, and often unintentional, impacts of a cyberattack are so rarely discussed. As an industry, the focus is almost always placed on the economic damage: the ransom payment; the cost of business downtime; and goodness, don’t forget those poor shareholders.But, in recent years, the toll on human life has become increasingly apparent.We know the poor sods working in the security operations center give up their weekends every time a phish slips through the net, and we know how hard corporate spin doctors have to work on controlling post-attack narratives. However, there is a sense that the real harms affecting real people, most of whom don’t realize how their lives could change because of a cybercriminal’s thirst for chaos, or cash, are increasingly central to the telling of a modern cybercrime story.Attacks over the past year were not the first to affect human life, but the sheer volume of them makes 2025 worth a revisit, starting with the most tragic of all.

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New data suggests that nearly a billion active Android devices are running outdated software, making them attractive targets for security attacks. While upgrading phones frequently isn’t necessary, using a device that no longer receives updates can expose users to serious risks.Honestly, we get it. Not everyone can afford or sees the need to upgrade their phones every year or every couple of years. But if you plan to keep your phone around for an extended period of time, you might want to consider upgrading. This is because according to the latest data, there are about a billion or so active Android devices out there that are targets of potential attacks.

Staying up to date…

Wired [no paywall]: “Privacy may be dead, but civilians are turning conventional wisdom on its head by surveilling the cops as much as the cops surveil them. The Department of Homeland Security secretary has spent 2025 trying to convince the American public that identifying roving bands of masked federal agents is “doxing”—and that revealing these public servants’ identities is “violence.” Noem is wrong on both fronts, legal experts say, but her claims of doxing highlight a central conflict in the current era: Surveillance now goes both ways….

Apps for tracking immigration enforcement activity have popped up on (then disappeared from) Apple and Google app stores. Social media feeds are awash in videos of unidentified agents tackling men in parking lots, throwing women to the ground, and ripping families apart. From Los Angeles to Chicago to Raleigh, North Carolina, neighbors and passersby have pulled out their phones to document members of their communities being arrested and vanishing into the Trump administration’s machinery…”

Ringing in 2026 by ringing a doorbell instead of a phone may be in store for millions of Russians. A senior lawmaker warned on Wednesday that mobile internet could be shut off in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other regions on New Year’s Eve for “security” purposes, prompting a wave of backlash online, reports the Washington Post. Andrey Svintsov, deputy chair of the State Duma’s information committee, told state news agency Tass that mobile data “may be disabled” to protect citizens and argued people would “finally get a break” from watching “unnecessary videos.” His suggested alternative for sending holiday wishes: Show up in person and knock…

President Donald Trump signed into law this month a measure that prohibits anyone based in China and other adversarial countries from accessing the Pentagon’s cloud computing systems.

The ban, which is tucked inside the $900 billion defense policy law, was enacted in response to a ProPublica investigation this year that exposed how Microsoft used China-based engineers to service the Defense Department’s computer systems for nearly a decade — a practice that left some of the country’s most sensitive data vulnerable to hacking from its leading cyber adversary.

U.S.-based supervisors, known as “digital escorts,” were supposed to serve as a check on these foreign employees, but we found they often lacked the expertise needed to effectively supervise engineers with far more advanced technical skills.

This summer, Hegseth announced that the department had opened an investigation into whether any of Microsoft’s China-based engineers had compromised national security. He also ordered a new third-party audit of the company’s digital-escort program. The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on the status of those inquiries.