10 years after disrupting the Ukrainian power grid, the APT targeted Poland with data-wiping malware.
The post Russian Sandworm Hackers Blamed for Cyberattack on Polish Power Grid appeared first on SecurityWeek.
Robots don’t have to be large and imposing to be impressive. As this tiny quadruped from [Dorian Todd] demonstrates, some simple electronics and a few servos can create something altogether charming on their own.
This little fellow is named Sesame. A quadruped robot, it’s built out of 3D-printed components. Each leg features a pair of MG90S hobby servos, one of which rotates the leg around the vertical axis, while the other moves the foot. The ESP32 microcontroller controls all eight servos, enabling remote control of Sesame via its built-in wireless connectivity. Sesame also gets a 128×64 OLED display, which it uses to display a range of emotions.
Mechanically, the Sesame design isn’t particularly sophisticated. Where it shines is that even with such a limited range of motion, between its four legs and its little screen, this robot can display a great deal of emotion. [Dorian] shows this off in the project video, in which Sesame scampers around a desktop with all the joy and verve of a new puppy. It’s also very cheap; [Dorian] estimates you can build your own Sesame for about $60. Files are on GitHub for the curious.
If you prefer your quadrupeds built for performance over charm, you might consider an alternative build. Video after the break.
Russia used Tu-22M3 Backfire-C bombers to launch a salvo of heavy Kh-22/Kh-32 cruise missiles toward the Kyiv region on January 24, marking the first recorded use of these weapons against targets near the Ukrainian capital. Ukrainian air defense forces reported that Russia fired 12 Kh-22 or Kh-32 missiles toward a target on the outskirts of […]Daily use of AI chatbots is linked to a higher likelihood of moderate depressive symptoms, a new JAMA Network Open study finds.
The post Talk to AI every day? New research says it might signal depression appeared first on Digital Trends.
Tesla is ending Autopilot and steering customers toward higher-priced FSD subscriptions, signalling a major shift in its driver-assistance strategy.
The post Tesla kills Autopilot for good and Musk warns of FSD price hikes appeared first on Digital Trends.
Love it or hate it, Tesla has been responsible for helping to shape the tastes of automotive consumers over the past decade-plus. Over-the-air updates that add more features, an all-touchscreen human-machine interface, large castings, and hands-free driver assists were all introduced or popularized by Tesla's electric vehicles, prompting other automakers to copy them, mostly in the hopes of seeing the same stratospheric gains in their stock prices. But starting on Valentine's Day, if you want your new Tesla to steer itself, you'll have to pay a $99 monthly subscription fee.
Tesla currently offers a pair of so-called "level 2" partially automated driver assist systems. Autopilot is the older of these, combining Tesla's adaptive cruise control (Tesla calls this TACC) and lane-keeping assist (Tesla calls this Autosteer). FSD is the newer system, meant to be more capable and for use on surface streets and divided-lane highways. Although the company and Tesla CEO Elon Musk regularly tout these systems' capabilities, both still require the human driver to provide situational awareness.
But Autopilot has been under fire from regulators and the courts. Multiple wrongful death lawsuits are in the works, and after a high-profile loss resulting in a $329 million judgment against Tesla, expect many of these suits to be settled. Both the federal government and California have investigated whether Tesla misled customers, and in December, an administrative law judge ruled that Tesla indeed engaged in deceptive marketing by implying that its cars could drive themselves. The judge suspended Tesla's license to sell cars in California, a decision that the California Department of Motor Vehicles stayed for 60 days.
© Getty Images
Other noteworthy stories that might have slipped under the radar: Cloudflare WAF bypass, Canonical Snap Store abused for malware delivery, Curl terminating bug bounty program
The post In Other News: €1.2B GDPR Fines, Net-NTLMv1 Rainbow Tables, Rockwell Security Notice appeared first on SecurityWeek.
These tricks show how AI tools, new import formulas, and classic features improve productivity.
The post 10 Clever Microsoft Excel Tricks to Use in 2026 appeared first on TechRepublic.
These tricks show how AI tools, new import formulas, and classic features improve productivity.
The post 10 Clever Microsoft Excel Tricks to Use in 2026 appeared first on TechRepublic.
Fable’s extended preview outlines a bigger, more reactive Albion, with open-world freedom, reputation-driven consequences, and flexible “style-weaving” combat, all heading to PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC in autumn 2026.
The post Your Fable reboot preview is here, open world Albion looks gloriously chaotic appeared first on Digital Trends.
AI coding work is rising fast, but the biggest payoff isn’t evenly shared. A Science analysis suggests seasoned developers get stronger gains than newcomers, which could reshape how you learn, interview, and prove value.
The post AI coding work is shifting fast, and your career path may split appeared first on Digital Trends.
Journalists and advocates have been trying to grasp how many victims in total were harmed by Grok's nudifying scandal after xAI delayed restricting outputs and app stores refused to cut off access for days.
The latest estimates show that perhaps millions were harmed in the days immediately after Elon Musk promoted Grok's undressing feature on his own X feed by posting a pic of himself in a bikini.
Over just 11 days after Musk's post, Grok sexualized more than 3 million images, of which 23,000 were of children, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) estimated in research published Thursday.
© Leon Neal / Staff | Getty Images News
Apple plans a two-stage Siri overhaul, culminating in a chatbot-style assistant in September powered by a custom Google Gemini model, Bloomberg reports.
The post Apple Prepares Major Siri Upgrade to Add AI Chatbot Capabilities appeared first on TechRepublic.
To all those who are fighting the good fight in the world of cyber, keep collaborating to ensure our world never succumbs to the chaos of the Upside Down.
The post The Upside Down is Real: What Stranger Things Teaches Us About Modern Cybersecurity appeared first on SecurityWeek.
Liquid staking has become a foundational primitive in Proof-of-Stake ecosystems. It allows users to stake assets while retaining liquidity through derivative tokens, removing the need to choose between yield and flexibility. However, most liquid staking systems are still single-chain by design. While users receive a liquid representation of their staked assets, using that liquidity elsewhere often requires manual bridging, fragmented liquidity, and additional trust assumptions.
In a multi-chain ecosystem, this creates friction. Liquidity becomes siloed, and users are forced to actively manage cross-chain exposure rather than letting capital move naturally.
This is the problem space where vUSD on Bifrost is designed to operate.
In this article, we will cover:
Bifrost is designed as a Polkadot parachain, which fundamentally changes how liquid staking assets are issued and utilised.
Instead of creating liquid staking derivatives confined to a single chain, Bifrost introduces voucher tokens (vTokens) as cross-chain financial primitives.
When a user stakes through Bifrost:
Because Bifrost operates as a parachain, these vTokens are designed to move across the Polkadot ecosystem, benefiting from shared security and native cross-chain messaging. Rather than being isolated receipts, vTokens act as portable, yield-bearing collateral. Which naturally leads to the question of how value continues to accumulate once these tokens are in circulation.
Voucher tokens are yield-bearing by design. Staking rewards are continuously reflected in the value of the vToken relative to the underlying asset. Over time:
This embedded yield is a critical property. It ensures that vTokens remain economically active even when they are no longer held in a passive staking position. Because yield continues to accrue, vTokens can safely be reused within DeFi without sacrificing their core purpose.
Once yield-bearing assets become composable, the next requirement is a stable unit of account to unlock more advanced financial use cases.
As DeFi activity grows around voucher tokens, a stable unit of account becomes essential. Stablecoins enable:
Using voucher tokens as collateral for stablecoins allows users to:
Using voucher tokens as collateral for stablecoins allows users to unlock liquidity without exiting staking positions, avoid unnecessary bridging or asset sales, and keep collateral productive while borrowing. This makes over-collateralised stablecoins a natural extension of liquid staking rather than an unrelated financial primitive.
At this point, the design question becomes how borrowing should be structured to preserve safety while leveraging yield-bearing collateral.
Over-collateralised borrowing protocols typically follow one of two models: Maker-style vaults or Liquity-style positions.
Liquity’s design emphasises:
This approach minimises ambiguity and avoids hidden debt dynamics. It is particularly well-suited for yield-bearing collateral, where predictability and transparency are critical. These principles directly inform how vUSD is structured.
vUSD is an over-collateralised stablecoin designed specifically for the Bifrost ecosystem.
Users lock vTokens (such as vDOT) as collateral and mint vUSD based on a predefined collateralization ratio. For example, at a 150% collateral ratio:
Once minted, vUSD can be used across DeFi, swapped, held, or integrated into other protocols while the underlying collateral continues to earn staking rewards. To understand this more concretely, it helps to walk through a simple lifecycle example.
Because minting and burning are explicit actions, the vUSD supply expands and contracts strictly through borrowing and repayment. There is no reflexive supply adjustment or algorithmic minting outside user-driven actions.
This lifecycle also sets the stage for how yield is distributed across the system.
vUSD is yield-backed, not interest-bearing.
Staking yield generated by excess collateral value is shared between:
At the minimum collateralization ratio of 150%:
The yield share for vUSD is defined as:
Yield(vUSD) = vUSD value ÷ (vUSD value + vDOT collateral value)
At minimum collateralization, this results in a 40% yield share.
If collateral prices fall, vUSD’s share is reduced to preserve safety, ensuring yield extraction never weakens collateral backing.
Yield is distributed via rebasing, which increases all vUSD balances proportionally without requiring explicit transfers.
Bifrost’s parachain-native voucher token model enables cross-chain, yield-bearing collateral that remains productive beyond simple staking. vUSD builds on this foundation by introducing a conservative, Liquity-inspired stablecoin designed to unlock stable liquidity while preserving safety and composability.
The current implementation represents a minimal first iteration focused on the core building blocks of the system: voucher-token-backed collateral, explicit borrowing and repayment flows, and a clear over-collateralization model. More advanced components — such as staking yield distribution, liquidation mechanisms, and system-level risk controls — are intentionally not included yet and will be introduced in subsequent iterations.
The full codebase, including the initial contracts, mock voucher tokens, and documented design assumptions, is open-source and available here:
https://github.com/yehia67/vUSD
As the protocol evolves, each major iteration will be accompanied by a follow-up article that documents the new components, design decisions, and trade-offs introduced at that stage. This approach ensures that both the code and the system design evolve transparently, with clear context provided at every step.
vUSD on Bifrost: Building a Stablecoin on Cross-Chain Liquid Staking was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Apple plans a two-stage Siri overhaul, culminating in a chatbot-style assistant in September powered by a custom Google Gemini model, Bloomberg reports.
The post Apple Prepares Major Siri Upgrade to Add AI Chatbot Capabilities appeared first on TechRepublic.
Claroty has raised a total of roughly $900 million and its valuation has reportedly reached $3 billion.
The post Claroty Raises $150 Million in Series F Funding appeared first on SecurityWeek.
Vietnam has launched a pilot program to license cryptocurrency exchanges, aiming to bring the rapidly growing market into a formal legal framework after years of regulatory uncertainty.
On Tuesday, Vietnam began its pilot licensing regime to officially regulate crypto trading platforms in the country for the first time, in an effort to gradually move the sector from the shadows into a properly supervised framework under the local financial authorities.
According to local reports, the Ministry of Finance issued Decision No. 96/QD-BTC on January 20, introducing procedures necessary for the implementation of Government Resolution No. 05/2025/NQ-CP.
The three new administrative procedures cover the issuance, modification, and revocation of licenses for entities operating crypto asset trading platforms. The Ministry announced that it began accepting applications from businesses seeking to offer crypto asset trading services.
For context, the country’s cryptocurrency market lacked a clear legal framework, existing in an unsupervised, “gray area.” Last year, the National Assembly passed the “Law on Digital Technology Industry,” which took effect on January 1, 2026, to create a foundation for authorities to develop suitable management policies.
In September, Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc signed Government Resolution No. 05/2025/NQ-CP, allowing a five-year pilot program for the issuance and trading of crypto assets.
As reported by Bitcoinist, under Resolution No. 05, organizations seeking to provide services for crypto trading markets must be registered with the financial authorities and fully comply with a strict set of rules, including a minimum contributed charter capital of VND10 trillion, worth around $380.66 million.
Notably, at least 65% of the charter capital must be held by institutional investors, with more than 35% contributed by at least two institutions such as commercial banks, securities companies, fund management companies, insurance companies, or technology enterprises.
The general director must have at least two years of experience in finance, while the CTO must have at least five years of experience in information technology. Moreover, firms must hire at least 10 technology staff with cybersecurity certificates and at least 10 staff with securities practice certificates working in other departments.
Following the issuance of Resolution No. 05, major financial players, including securities companies and banking institutions, have announced their intention to participate in the pilot and enter the sector, noted the report.
In June, two SSI’s subsidiaries, SSI Digital Technology JSC and SSI Asset Management Company Limited, signed Memorandums of Understanding with Tether, U2U Network, and Amazon Web Services to develop a digital financial ecosystem in Vietnam based on blockchain and cloud computing platforms.
In addition, VIX Securities contributed capital to establish the VIX Crypto Asset Exchange and partnered with tech giant FPT Corp. to prepare its technology infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the banking sector saw MBBank enter a technical cooperation agreement with Dunamu, the operator of the Korean exchange Upbit, to establish a crypto exchange in Vietnam while jointly developing the legal framework and investor protection mechanisms.
Techcombank also established the Techcom Crypto Asset Exchange with a charter capital of several hundred billion VND. Similarly, VPBank stated it is fully prepared to begin operations as soon as it receives regulatory approval.
The Embedded Systems Threat Matrix (ESTM) aims to help organizations protect critical embedded systems.
The post MITRE Launches New Security Framework for Embedded Systems appeared first on SecurityWeek.
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