Google patches multiple browser bugs including one that was under active exploitation — so update now

• Google released Chrome 152.0.7977.82/.83 for Windows, Mac, and Linux
• Patch fixes 12 flaws, including zero‑day CVE‑2026‑85046 (type confusion in V8)
• Sixth Chrome zero‑day this year; Chromium browsers also affected, update urged immediately

Google has released a new version of its Chrome browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux, fixing a dozen of vulnerabilities. Among them is a high-severity flaw that is being actively exploited in the wild.

In a security advisory published on the Google blog on September 3, the search engine company said Chrome’s newest version is now 152.0.7977.82/.83 for Windows and Mac, and 152.0.7977.82 for Linux.

Rollout is expected to be gradual, so make sure to check if you already received it. Most of the time the update is automatic and instant and if you’re not certain, tap the three vertical dots in the top-right corner of the browser and choose Help. Navigate to About Google Chrome and there you will find the version number.

Running malicious code remotely

This patch fixes a total of 12 vulnerabilities, most of which are graded as high severity. Among them is a “type confusion in V8” bug, discovered by security researcher Salvatore Gulizia.

For his effort, Gulizia was awarded $1,000. Apparently, this bug is being actively leveraged in real-life attacks, although Google (as usual) decided not to share the juicy details until the majority of browsers are protected.

The vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2026-85046. On the National Vulnerability Database (NVD), it is described as a “type confusion in V8 in Google Chrome [that allows] a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code inside the sandbox via a crafted HTML page.”

V8 is Chrome’s JavaScript engine which allows web apps and interactive websites to run in the browser. Those interested in the technical breakdown of the vulnerability can find it on Guzlia’s blog.

You can find the full list of fixed vulnerabilities on this link.

This is the sixth zero-day Google fixed in Chrome since the start of the year. It also affects other browsers built on Chromium, so if you’re running Edge, Brave, Opera, or Vivaldi, make sure to update to the latest version as soon as possible.

Via The Hacker News

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OpenAI warns about how good Astra model is at cracking cybersecurity, releases it anyway because it took 'years of research and big bets'

• OpenAI rolled out GPT‑6 Astra, its most advanced AI, with “critical” cyber capabilities
• Astra can autonomously find and exploit unknown flaws; release limited to vetted Daybreak participants
• Staggered rollout sparked user frustration; Altman apologized, promising broader access soon

OpenAI has begun rolling out GPT-6 Astra, its latest and most capable artificial intelligence model.

In an announcement published on its website, OpenAI said Astra represents a “significant step up in cyber capabilities”, meeting the company’s “Critical” threshold.

This threshold, the company explained, means that under the right circumstances, the tool can find “previously unknown security flaws and develop new ways to exploit them across many well-protected systems without a person guiding each step.”

Apologies for a messy rollout

OpenAI also said Astra improves on functions such as computer use, software engineering, and science, and that it should be better at staying oriented, compared to previous versions.

Just like many of the previous models, Astra’s release has been marred with controversy. Roughly a month ago, OpenAI said the model’s “critical” cybersecurity capabilities prompted it to pause some internal development and trigger safety protocols.

In response to early findings, the company scaled up certain security controls and even paused activities that do not meet its newly established security requirements.

It now decided it was time to release the model, but still not to the general public. Instead, it opted for a staggered release, giving it first to a limited group of companies participating in the Daybreak program, a cybersecurity initiative that gives vetted organizations (cybersecurity and otherwise) specialized AI tools for vulnerability research and threat detection.

This did not sit well with many ChatGPT users, especially those paying a monthly subscription. As The Verge reported, CEO Sam Altman was apologizing, mere hours after launch, for the “messy rollout” of Astra.

Initially, all Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise users were supposed to gain access to Astra, as well as those accessing through OpenAI API, Microsoft Azure, and AWS Bedrock.

“We are working towards getting Astra in everyone’s hands as quickly as we can,” Altman said on X. “I know it is frustrating and I appreciate the patience. It should be quick.”

Via CNBC

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Tandem OLED is the way to go for gaming monitors, and Alienware is introducing yet another option for fans — I'm just curious about its pricing

• Alienware introduces two new monitors to expand its QD-OLED lineup
• The AW3226Q is a new 4K tandem OLED RGB stripe gaming monitor available this fall
• Alienware also has a new esports QD-OLED monitor with a 560Hz refresh rate

The gaming monitor market is heating up with new competition from Alienware, specifically via the new AW3926QW 5K2K ultrawide. However, it's not resting on its laurels.

As reported by Wccftech, Alienware has announced two new gaming monitors, further expanding its QD-OLED lineup: the AW3226Q is a new 32-inch 4K RGB stripe tandem OLED monitor that uses the same technology found in Alienware's flagship 5K2K display. For esports players, the AW2527HX is a 560Hz QD-OLED with great motion clarity and response time.

The highlight among both is clearly the AW3226Q 4K display, which is effectively the closest gamers can get to Alienware's flagship display. The new 4K display also uses the same RGB stripe layout, significantly improving text readability. The only major difference is 5K2K resolution on the AW3926QW, with 33% more pixels than 4K due to its ultrawide aspect ratio.

The AW3226Q will also feature 1,000 nits of peak brightness, alongside DisplayHDR True Black 400 and Dolby Vision. Having used the latter on the Alienware AW3426DW I reviewed, it's one of the standout benefits for consistent brightness levels and minimizing the brightness dimming issues that occur on OLED displays (which is also addressed by the tandem OLED layers).

It's increasingly clear that tandem OLED is quickly becoming the new standard for high-quality OLED displays, and using a four-stack tandem OLED layer should help boost and maintain high brightness levels.

Will it have an affordable price point?

Alienware surprised most consumers by announcing that its flagship 5K2K AW3926QW monitor would retail at $1,099 / £999 / AU$1,999.80. The competition from LG — two 5K2K displays — is significantly pricier, leaving many turning their attention to Alienware to experience higher-quality gaming via sharper images.

If Alienware's flagship monitor is anything to go by, the newly announced AW3226Q should be another affordable option for OLED hunters, and that's great news since OLED is arguably still the best display type for gaming.

There's no release date for the AW3226Q just yet — it's worth noting that Alienware's flagship monitor hasn't launched in all regions. However, gamers can expect this to hit the market in the coming months, with availability scheduled for this fall.

The AW2527HX QD-OLED, designed for esports, is set to launch in the first quarter of 2027, but there is no price confirmation.

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OpenAI puts its money where its mouth is, offers $1 billion in AI credits to cyber defenders

• OpenAI launched Daybreak for Frontline Defenders, offering $1B in credits for resource‑constrained security orgs
• Priority goes to essential services, governments, banks, nonprofits, and open‑source maintainers
• Initiative includes training, partnerships, and a water‑sector pilot with MS‑ISCA for local defenders

OpenAI is offering a billion dollars in credits to security organizations who want to use its Daybreak initiative but cannot afford it.

Daybreak is a cybersecurity program that provides vetted defenders with specialized AI tools and models. It was introduced in May this year, and later expanded into two tiers - Blue, and Red. Blue is the entry-level tier, providing a general-purpose model with custom-tailored safeguards. Red, on the other hand, offers a more purpose-trained cybersecurity model and almost no safeguards.

According to OpenAI, “thousands of defenders across 2,000 approved organizations and workspaces” already use Daybreak, including cybersecurity companies, defense organizations, and law enforcement agencies.

Who gets priority?

But these models cost money, and to make sure more businesses can access them, OpenAI announced, “Daybreak for Frontline Defenders”, a project where defenders can apply and receive credits for AI tokens. Even though the company announced it as a global initiative, it seems that US businesses will be the first to take advantage of it:

“OpenAI is committing $1 billion in subsidized Daybreak access to help resource-constrained cyber defenders, starting with the United States, put frontier AI to work, targeting it to be consumed over the next six months,” the company said in an announcement blog.

Businesses operating essential services such as water and wastewater systems, and electric grid operators, will get priority, OpenAI said. Then come state and local governments, community and regional banks, nonprofits, open-source maintainers, and then “other organizations with limited security resources.”

The subsidy is not just about using the models, though. OpenAI also said it will be increasing hands-on support for frontline defenders, training, and new partnerships.

On top of all that, OpenAI also announced a public sector, water-focused pilot with the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISCA) to train and support local, tribal, and territorial defenders.

“The pilot will pair Daybreak access with guided training and hands-on assistance for an initial group of public sector and water system defenders, helping them validate and prioritize findings, coordinate remediation, and develop a repeatable approach that can be expanded over time,” the announcement concluded.

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Anker's 'personal fabric printer' will let you print customs designs on t-shirts and bags — new 'Direct-to-Garment' printing looks perfect for your side hustles

• Anker has announced a new eufyMake fabric printer
• It can print straight on to fabrics or on to film surfaces
• We're still waiting on pricing and an exact on-sale date

The product announcements out of IFA 2026 continue apace, and we're very taken by the new eufyMake printer that was just unveiled by Anker. Described as a "personal fabric printer", it's capable of putting designs on a wide variety of materials.

It doesn't have a name or a price yet, and it's not arriving until the first quarter of next year (so either January, February, or March), but we are getting a 'first look' at IFA. It works with both light and dark fabrics, Anker says, with consistent results every time.

There's support for Direct-to-Garment (DTG) and Direct-to-Film (DTF) printing standards, so ink can be pushed right on the fabric itself or a film that's then placed on the fabric. The printer will work with a variety of special-effect films on top of materials too.

"Professional garment customization used to be locked inside expensive industrial machines," explains Anker in its marketing blurb. "Now, we're bringing that magic right to your desk with a printer designed specifically for fabric printing."

More updates

The fabric printer goes on sale next year (Image credit: Anker)

Anker is clearly targeting creators and those with small businesses or side hustles with this: it means you could get some branded goods up for sale without having to take your designs to a third-party printing service.

It doesn't look like you'll need a whole lot of space for it either: the press shots show it fitting comfortably on a table, and it's roughly in the range of a consumer 3D printer. There's a large dashboard on top too, for handling print settings.

More information should emerge soon, including how much this will set you back. At the same time, Anker says it's retiring the eufyMake branding alongside other sub-brands — everything will just be Anker from now on.

Anker has also announced updates for its UV Printer E1 model, the ultraviolet texture printer that was a crowdfunding hit last year. The E1 is getting bidirectional printing and faster print speeds via an over-the-air update, at no extra cost.

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2.8 million people affected by data breach at Baylor Genetics testing and diagnostic firm

• Baylor Genetics confirmed a June cyberattack affecting 2.8M patients and employees
• Stolen data includes medical test results, insurance info, and some SSNs/financial details
• Operations continued; no misuse seen yet, but no group has claimed responsibility

Baylor Genetics, a US-based clinical diagnostic laboratory, suffered a cyberattack in which it lost sensitive data on 2.8 million people - both patients and employees.

In a security update posted on its website earlier this week, the company said it spotted the intrusion in a “limited portion” of its IT environment on or around June 15. Subsequent investigation determined that both patients and employees have had their data stolen, including those who are not working at Baylor anymore.

For patients, crooks stole names, dates of birth, medical testing information, laboratory test results, and “potentially health insurance information, as well as Social Security number”. SSNs, Baylor Genetics stressed, were taken from a “very limited subset of patients”.

No attribution yet

Regardless, fraudsters who know the details about medical testing and lab results have more than enough information to launch highly sophisticated, personalized phishing attacks that can lead to ransomware infections, business email compromise, and more.

For certain current and former employees, the attackers nabbed Social Security numbers, government-issued identification numbers, and financial account information, ideal for wire fraud.

In the security update, the company did not discuss the identity of the attackers, or the number of affected individuals. However, in a separate report filed with the US Department of Health and Human Services, Baylor reported the number of victims as 2,810,878. It added that at the time of publication, there was no evidence of confirmed identity theft, fraud, or misuse of personal information stolen in the attack.

It also said the incident did not impact its everyday operations which continued as usual.

Usually, data theft incidents like this one are followed by public disclosure from the perpetrators, who name-and-shame their victims in an attempt to get them to pay a ransom demand. So far, no threat actors claimed responsibility for this incident.

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Lords call for a 'kill switch' on powerful AI systems used in the United Kingdom

• UK legislators propose “kill switch” laws to halt runaway AI, citing critical infrastructure risks
• Lord Clement‑Jones and MP Alex Sobel push amendments and new bills, backed by ControlAI advocacy group
• Similar efforts emerging in US

Sam Altman’s fear-based marketing for AI seems to have backfired, as now multiple legislators in the UK and elsewhere are calling for a “kill switch” law to be introduced.

According to the BBC, Liberal Democrats’ Lord Tim Clement-Jones proposed an amendment to the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill which would see the UK create a “vital safety net” to provide a “democratically accountable means to ‘halt a runaway system before it can compromise our critical national infrastructure’.” The capability would only be used as a last resort, Clement-Jones stressed.

The bill is currently being worked through in the UK Parliament, the BBC said.

Is there reason to worry?

But that’s not the only effort in the UK to put some reigns on AI. Apparently, Labour MP Alex Sobel plans to introduce an AI Security Bill later this month which, according to the BBC, would “effectively halt the development of superintelligent AI” and make the UK the first G7 country to do so.

The bill is supported by a campaign group called ControlAI, a UK-based nonprofit and advocacy organization focused on the risks posed by advanced AI. Its founder and CEO is Andrea Miotti, who previously worked at the AI safety company called Conjecture. Across the pond, US legislators are currently considering an AI Kill Switch Act as well, but the bill is still in very early stages of development.

Ever since the first ChatGPT model that was introduced in 2021, a debate has been raging whether or not AI will be net positive, or net negative, for humanity. While some argue that the discovery rivals the steam machine and that it will transform our lives beyond our wildest dreams, others are fearful of losing jobs, a collapsing economy, and a dystopian future devoid of humanity and emotion.

Marketing campaigns for ChatGPT and, in some measure, Claude, are not helping, either. Both companies have built models focused on cybersecurity which were advertised as “too dangerous” for the general public and instead were only given to a handful of organizations. Despite partial skepticism, many are worried that these models might severely disrupt the security of banking, critical infrastructure, and communications.

Via BBC

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The new Acer Swift Blade 14 is the world's lightest laptop to be launched globally

• Acer has revealed two interesting new laptops at IFA 2026
• The Swift Blade 14 is a super-light notebook at just 799g, and it's the lightest mainstream laptop yet
• The Vero 16 is designed to be easily repaired, with a replaceable SSD, battery, USB ports — even the CPU can be upgraded

Acer has revealed a couple of smart new laptops over at IFA 2026, one of which is notable for its repair-friendly credentials and upgrade possibilities, while the other is remarkable because it's the lightest laptop we've seen to date.

That lightweight champ — which is Acer's Swift Blade 14 — requires a caveat, though, as technically there's a lighter notebook model which already exists. However, the Fujitsu LifeBook laptops out there are niche products targeted at the Japanese market (or other parts of Asia in some cases), so in terms of the global consumer market, the new Blade 14 takes the crown, weighing just 799 grams or 1.76lb (which isn't much more than the mentioned LifeBooks).

The Blade 14 has a chassis that's fashioned from a combination of carbon fiber and a magnesium-aluminum alloy, which Acer says means it's durable as well as incredibly light.

(Image credit: Acer)

The premium trappings continue with a 14-inch OLED screen that has a 3K resolution (and a 16:10 aspect ratio).

The Swift Blade 14 is built around an Intel Core Series 3 CPU — Wildcat Lake models which are power-efficient and easier to keep cool in a super-trim laptop — backed with 12GB of RAM. So, the spec here is slightly pulled back, with that notable compromise of not going for 16GB of system memory to keep the price down.

As for that price, we don't have it yet, and we don't have a launch date either. However, even with a more affordable CPU and 12GB of RAM, I expect this super-slim machine will extract quite a toll on the wallet.

From lightweight hero to Vero

(Image credit: Acer)

Also at IFA, Acer took the wraps off the new Vero 16, a notebook that majors in repairability and is backed by some substantial eco-friendly credentials.

As Acer makes clear, this is a 16-inch notebook that benefits from a "more serviceable design [that] makes key components easier to access, repair, and replace", with the aim of extending the usable life of the device. In short, avoiding obsolescence (rather than planning for it, as the accusations often run with some notebooks).

To that end, you're given tool-free access to the innards of the Vero 16, and the SSD is replaceable along with the battery. The RAM is soldered to the motherboard, so that can't be upgraded — the one fly in the ointment here — but the ports aren't, so they're removable. That means if a USB connector is broken, you can switch it out, and the hinge between the body and screen is designed so it can be replaced as well.

On top of that, the Vero 16 allows for the processor to be upgraded, as Notebookcheck.net points out, although it isn't clear how this works yet (likely via a motherboard swap, which would also allow for a RAM upgrade at the same time). This is very unusual for a laptop, and we're told upgrades will be good for at least two generations of CPU silicon.

(Image credit: Acer)

Speaking of the CPU, the Vero 16 is built around Panther Lake, offering up to an Intel Core Ultra X9 388H chip with Arc B390 integrated graphics. When it comes to the display, there's the choice of a 3K OLED or a 2K OLED touchscreen.

In terms of its green-friendly nature, Acer says the Vero's aluminum chassis is made from a "blend of 50% post-industrial recycled aluminum and 50% low-carbon aluminum". The packaging is 100% recyclable, too.

We don't yet have a price for this laptop either, but hopefully we'll get more info on pricing, and the release dates, for both of these notebooks before long. I'm keen to see both models arrive later this year, and to learn the details of how upgrading the Vero's CPU will work.

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AI is getting closer to being able to exploit OT, and that's very bad news for critical infrastructure

• Forescout researchers showed AI can port RCE exploits to PLCs, achieving DoS and shellcode execution
• Effort required heavy researcher input and $500+ in API usage, making attacks impractical for criminals
• Nation‑state actors remain a concern, as seen in Sandworm’s 2025 attack on Poland’s power grid

If you are worried cybercriminals will use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to automate the discovery and exploitation of zero-day vulnerabilities in Operational Technology (OT) such as Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) you can sleep peacefully, at least for a little longer.

Recently, security researchers from Forescout set off on a simple mission - to understand if crooks can use AI to target the ever-increasing population of exposed industrial devices. The short answer is “yes, but it’s not yet worth the trouble”.

In their mission, they launched an experiment - to port a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability from one PLC to another. These devices were built on closed-source software and thus were not that easy to manipulate, yet the experiment was a success.

Yes, but...

Not only did they manage to trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) state that crashed the device but ended up with a working RCE capable of executing attacker-supplied ARM shellcode.

It is indeed a worrying development, but one that comes with a huge “but”:

“It required significant researcher input. The final RCE development stage consumed more than $500 in API usage. An attempt to extend the exploit beyond the initial RCE ultimately bricked the PLC,” the researchers said in the report.

“These limitations taught us valuable lessons about AI-assisted exploitation in OT. It can be done, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. For now, the difficulty, cost, and specialist expertise required are likely to make this kind of attack less attractive than easier alternatives.”

In other words, cybercriminals still have easier avenues to explore, and as long as that is the case, OT is relatively safe. What the report, unfortunately, does not discuss, is nation-state attackers with significant resources. For such attackers, industrial devices are a prime target, and spending $500+ in API usage is a drop in a bucket. We’ve already seen it back in 2025 when Sandworm struck Poland’s electricity suppliers.

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'That's how you actually end a live service' — this developer just shut down a free-to-play game by releasing an offline version with no microtransactions for fans to keep playing

• Free-to-play live service game Let it Die shut down earlier this week
• It's not the end, though, as players will still be able to play the game in a new offline state
• The new offline version costs just $19.99 / £16.99 / AU$28.50 and has all microtransactions removed

It feels like a live service game is shutting down every few weeks, and I'm no stranger to the crushing disappointment of learning that one of your favorite games is going offline.

Under the Radar

Under the Radar is our way of highlighting great games that might have passed you by. Through a regular mix of news stories and features, we'll cover great experiences that we feel haven't found the audience they deserve. Read the full series here.

Normally, the news means you lose access to the game for good — with all your progress, achievements, and in-game items vanishing along with it. Just look at Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt, Anthem, or Hawked: three offline titles that died in the last few weeks alone and are now completely inaccessible by official means.

Although the reasons for such shutdowns are often understandable, it still seems like a massive waste of resources, development time, and sometimes some genuinely good game mechanics or ideas.

With Let it Die, however, developer Grasshopper Manufacture is defiantly bucking that trend. The free-to-play game shut down earlier this week after nine whole years on the market, but that doesn't mean it's now unplayable.

The company put in the work to create an offline version, which you can buy on PC or PlayStation 4 for $19.99 / £16.99 / AU$28.50. You lose some of the original's offline features, but all microtransactions are removed so you can experience the full game without having to open your wallet more than once.

You can even bring over your progress from the online game if you played it before.

A positive example

If you're not familiar with Let it Die, it's a roguelike hack-and-slash with a challenging, almost soulslike combat loop that has you battling your way through a massive enemy-filled tower.

Players loved its wacky writing (with iconic characters like its skateboarding rendition of the Grim Reaper) when it first released back in 2016, but microtransactions were pretty pervasive. In short, it was designed to make you part with real money to keep reviving your characters when you died, which, given the high level of difficulty, was pretty often for most.

With these mechanics now removed, I'm already seeing long-time fans call this new release the definitive version.

"Great to see this game won't ever die due to its servers being shut down now," wrote one Steam reviewer. "Plus all the crappy monetization which held the game back a ton is gone."

Others praise the decision to keep the game alive in some form: "Shutdown the servers but made sure the game was still playable afterwards. That's how you actually end a live service."

Of course, the irony of a game called Let it Die carrying on forever is not lost. "Can't say the devs don't have a sense of humor," quipped one player.

It goes to show that the end of a live-service title doesn't have to screw over gamers, and I hope other developers take note of the positive reception.

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Multiple healthcare giants hit by data breaches affecting patient records, social security numbers, and even implanted cardiac devices

• McKesson confirmed ShinyHunters breached its Snowflake and Salesforce, stealing 284M patient records
• Data includes names, contact info, SSNs, and health details; ransom demand was $55.2M
• Boston Scientific removed attackers but faces CRM device activation issues; attribution not confirmed

Last week, two major healthcare organizations suffered highly disruptive cyberattacks: Boston Scientific, and McKesson. We now have more details about both those attacks, and it seems at least one is the work of the infamous ShinyHunters extortion group.

McKesson confirmed having been struck by ShinyHunters, just a few days after the threat actor claimed responsibility. The group told The Register they broke into the company’s Snowflake and Salesforce instances and stole “millions of patients’ data”.

The company later issued a statement, saying the stolen data belonged to its Oncology & Multispecialty and Medical-Surgical business units. A spokesperson told The Register multiple employees were targeted with a vishing attack.

Boston Scientific works on restoring systems

The group told the publication it stole more than 284 million records of patient data and demanded $55.2 million from the victims. They are saying the stolen batch includes patient tames, postal and email addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers (SSN), and details regarding their health condition. Whether the claims are true, and to what extent, remains to be seen after the investigation.

Boston Scientific, on the other hand, said it successfully removed the attackers from its infrastructure, but added that the investigation into the attack remains ongoing. It also said that new Cardiac Rhythm Management (CRM) devices, implanted after August 25, cannot be activated, and the data they generate will not automatically be transmitted to remote patient management systems.

“Newly implanted ICMs (insertable cardiac monitors) must be activated using the Boston Scientific Clinic Assistant app to enable the ICM to properly record episodes,” it explained. “New ICMs are unable to pair to the patient remote monitoring mobile phone, therefore available episode data recorded by the ICM will NOT be transmitted to the remote monitoring system until the ICM can be paired to the patient mobile app. Episodes will continue to be recorded by the ICM and can be transmitted to the remote monitoring system via an in-person interrogation with the Clinic Assistant app by selecting the “Interrogate” button.”

Boston Scientific is yet to name ShinyHunters as the perpetrators, and the group has not yet publicly claimed responsibility for the attack.

Via The Register

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'It's been particularly bad since Blackwell': Nvidia's new GPU driver has another nasty bug — and gamers are rapidly losing patience

• Nvidia's latest graphics driver has a frustrating bug
• Version 616.56 is causing distracting screen flickers and color corruption
• A patch is coming, and there are potential workarounds — but gamers are getting fed up with the prevalence of bugs in GeForce drivers

Nvidia's latest graphics driver is causing chaos for some GeForce GPU owners in the form of a glitch that makes the screen flicker.

Wccftech spotted the bug with Nvidia's Game Ready Driver version 616.56, and as flagged by Renan Maniero on X, Team Green has said it's testing a fix for the issue (as revealed on the GeForce forums).

The screen is reportedly flickering white or black and exhibiting other brief flashes of color corruption, and this is happening in certain games (The Last of Us and Minecraft are mentioned, among others) or on the Windows desktop. It's also occurring in web browser sessions and while playing YouTube videos, based on Reddit reports — of which there are plenty.

There's no shortage of gamers losing their temper with Nvidia, too, and blasting Team Green for the quality of its graphics drivers. Many are venting with an observation that GeForce drivers just haven't been the same since the launch of the RTX 5000 series.

For example, this Redditor says: "It's been particularly bad since Blackwell [RTX 5000] release. Just on Blackwell alone, between the whole DisplayPort 2.1 not working with HDR, screen flickering, and black screens on the initial release, it's been a complete mess."

Another gamer complains: "It is pretty shocking seeing this from a trillionaire company on a stable build. Nothing about this driver is stable."

Yet another Redditor grumbles: "It's crazy how things are now. You used to be able to update each time or be one driver behind at worst. Now I'm half a year outdated and thinking I'll just leave it."

Analysis: more drivers, more problems? There are possible workarounds though

Even older GeForce graphics cards are affected here (Image credit: Future)

This seems like quite a widespread issue and one that affects modern Nvidia graphics cards all the way back to RTX 2000 models.

If you're getting frustrated by this bug — random screen flickering gets pretty old, pretty fast, if it's happening regularly — Maniero also shared an apparent potential workaround on X that you can try while waiting for the official fix.

Seemingly, this is a bug that mostly affects monitors in 8-bit mode, and if you switch to 10-bit color (assuming your display supports this), the problem may disappear. Maniero also suggests that you try turning on Windows Auto Color Management (ACM).

Other folks on Reddit have shared various possible remedies, including switching from DisplayPort to an HDMI connector instead, and disabling Multi-Plane Overlay (MPO) in Windows 11, as one Redditor suggested. Nvidia provides a Registry file for turning off MPO (and enabling it again), but as ever with anything in this area of Windows, proceed at your own risk. (Although this method should be much safer than trying to edit the Registry directly yourself).

Your other choice is simply to roll back driver 616.56 to an earlier version, and there's no shortage of gamers who've done exactly that and report that the problem vanishes.

Hopefully Nvidia's official flicker-begone patch will be coming soon enough in the form of a hotfix, because this is an unduly annoying gremlin in the GeForce works that needs to be sorted out promptly.

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Cisco routers are being turned into surveillance vantage points to hoover up data on trusted networks — and it's all thanks to this new malware

• Sygnia reports China‑linked Fire Ant expanding beyond virtualization to routers, TACACS, and Linux hosts
• Compromised routers act as operational platforms
• Campaign aims at “target behind the target,” leveraging trust relationships for broader espionage reach

Fire Ant, a China-nexus cyberespionage group, is no longer targeting just virtualization platforms, it’s also going for routers, authentication systems, and Linux management hosts. This is according to cybersecurity researchers Sygnia, who recently saw the group target Cisco IOS XR Routers.

Once they compromise a router, they don’t just use it to move around the network, the researchers explained. Instead, they turn them into full-blown operational platforms, collecting traffic, establishing connections, manipulating command output, and even suppressing logging so that they fly under the defenders’ radars.

For authentication systems, Fire Ant was seen taking aim at TACACS servers. Admins use them to authenticate when accessing network hardware, and crooks use them to harvest valuable credentials and weaken the reliability of audit logs, as well. Finally, Sygnia says Fire Ant also targets Linux management hosts. The researchers saw multiple persistent implants and backdoors, including a custom SSH backdoor and a piece of malware spoofing legitimate software.

Target behind the target

The goal of the campaign seems to be to establish a foothold that allows crooks to reach other environments. Sygnia describes it as a “target behind the target” scenario:

“This reinforces the “target behind the target” concept introduced earlier in this report. Fire Ant’s interest in the compromised organization should be understood not only as an attempt to compromise a single environment, but as an effort to control infrastructure that may enable visibility, collection, and potential access beyond the immediate victim. The strategic value lies in the trust relationships the organization maintains with connected environments,” Sygnia explained.

Very little is known about Fire Ant, besides the fact that it was first observed in 2025. Some researchers claim it has significant overlaps with a threat actor tracked as UNC3886, a Chinese espionage group previously observed by Google. However, there are also significant differences which make attribution inconclusive.

Via BleepingComputer

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