Google pays $250K for Linux vulnerability allowing guest VM escapes

A Linux vulnerability that allows untrusted virtual machines to gain root access to host machines is one of two high-severity flaws to surface this week in the open source operating system. The vulnerability resides in KVM, which is, in essence, a virtual machine app included in the kernel of many Linux distributions. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-53359, allows guest virtual machines—such as those used in cloud platforms to isolate one…

July 8, 2026
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Aussie gov’t tells volunteers to throw out thousands of functioning test routers

Last week, thousands of SamKnows routers were bricked after a government program ran its course. In 2020, as part of a program conducted by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), the Australian government’s chief competition regulator, thousands of volunteers received routers to help test and report on the typical speed and performance of broadband plans in Australia. (More specifically, the Measuring Broadband Australia (MBA) program targeted fixed-line broadband services provided…

July 8, 2026
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Google’s Pixel 11 launch event is set for August 12, with possible price increases

Google has announced its next Made By Google event, taking place on August 12 in New York City. Google’s invite doesn’t name names, but the imagery clearly shows a new Pixel phone that looks a whole lot like last year’s phone. Some new rumors, however, suggest the updated phones will come with inflated price tags courtesy of the AI-driven component shortage. The sleek lines of the phone in the teaser…

July 7, 2026
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The Weather Channel increases streaming subscription prices by up to $20

People who pay for a subscription to livestream The Weather Channel via its dedicated smart TV app are seeing a 66.7 percent price hike. The TV app, available via Android TV, Fire TV, Roku, and Samsung TVs, used to cost $3 per month, or $30 per year. According to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, those prices were valid as recently as April 2026. Now, a subscription to the streaming app…

July 7, 2026
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Kremlin suspected of flying drones over Europe using Russian shadow fleet

Mysterious drone flights that disrupted major European airports and flew over NATO member military bases hosting US nuclear weapons may be the work of a coordinated Kremlin campaign launched from Russian-linked commercial ships. That recent assessment from the UK-based International Institute for Strategic Studies used automatic identification system (AIS) maritime tracking data and other publicly available data to show how Russian-linked ships and “shadow fleet” vessels that transport sanctioned Russian…

July 6, 2026
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Newly discovered PamStealer isn’t your typical macOS malware

Researchers have found a never-before-seen piece of macOS malware that combines a series of clever tradecraft to infect Macs with stealthy, custom-developed credential-stealing code. The malware is delivered in two stages. The first is distributed in a disk image that masquerades as Maccy, a clipboard manager for Macs. It’s compiled as AppleScript that is notable for the way it delivers the second stage. The malware is named PamStealer because the…

July 2, 2026
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FAA proposal: Supersonic airliners can fly over US cities if they’re quiet

A long-standing ban on commercial supersonic flights over the United States would be overturned in a new rule proposed by the US Federal Aviation Administration. That could pave the way for the possible return of commercial supersonic airliners—as long as such aircraft can reduce the ground-level impacts of their sonic booms. The FAA originally banned overland supersonic flights by civil aircraft in 1973, following US military tests involving supersonic flights…

July 2, 2026
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Plex debuts 5-year membership pass for $250

When Plex launched in 2012, it sold lifetime access to its media server software for $75. In 2014, Plex raised the price to be more sustainable for the company, it said, and for years, Lifetime Plex Passes cost $120. Even the pricier $250 rate, which Plex offered from March 2025 until yesterday, was a steal compared to what $250 buys you at Plex now: a five-year subscription. As first spotted…

July 2, 2026
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T-Mobile moving tens of thousands of virtual machines off VMware amid lawsuit

T-Mobile is asking a New York court to rule that Broadcom was contractually obligated to continue supporting its VMware perpetual licenses. In its complaint, T-Mobile said it has tens of thousands of virtual machines using VMware software across approximately 303,140 CPU cores. It also said that it was migrating off VMware but noted the time-consuming and technical challenges involved in migrating over 1,000 applications. It filed its lawsuit, which was…

July 1, 2026
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Sony announces end of PlayStation discs, parts of digital store in the same day

Some gamers are concerned about the future of game ownership after Sony’s announcement today that it won’t produce physical discs for PlayStation games as of January 2028. On that date, “new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only,” Sony said in a blog post. Ditching discs is “a natural direction” for Sony “to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital…

July 1, 2026
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