A critical flaw in the Linux kernel is forcing virtualization hosts to patch and reboot, after a researcher showed that code inside a guest virtual machine can read memory belonging to the host itself. Tracked as CVE-2026-99999 and nicknamed PwnEscape, the vulnerability is rated critical, with a CVSS score of 9.3. It breaks one of the basic promises of cloud and sandbox platforms: that an untrusted guest stays inside its own machine.

A critical flaw in BeyondTrust Remote Support was exploited as a zero-day for weeks before a fix shipped, according to disclosures released this week by BeyondTrust and by Google Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant. Investigators attribute the activity to Armory Castle, a suspected China-nexus espionage actor also tracked as UNC5221 and Warp Panda.

Proofpoint has agreed to acquire Varonis Systems in an all-cash transaction valued at about 6.3 billion dollars, the companies announced on October 15, 2026. The definitive agreement brings together Proofpoint, a specialist in protecting people and AI agents against cyber threats, with Varonis, a Miami-based firm focused on data and AI security. Proofpoint is a portfolio company of private equity firm Thoma Bravo.

U.S. semiconductor stocks were set to lose about $2 trillion in market value on Thursday, extending a steep selloff that had already erased $1.64 trillion over the previous six trading sessions, according to Reuters.

GlobalFoundries has been selected as the technology provider and operator for two new semiconductor manufacturing facilities at its Malta, New York, site under a U.S.-Japan initiative providing up to 21 billion dollars in funding. The company announced the plan on October 14, saying Japan will provide the investment while GlobalFoundries contributes its manufacturing technology and operational expertise. The fabs are intended to expand trusted U.S. production of foundational semiconductors and strengthen supply chains for automotive, industrial and connected infrastructure markets.

Oxford-based Salience Labs has closed an oversubscribed $125 million Series B funding round to scale its photonic networking chips for AI data center infrastructure. The round was led by Bullhound Capital, whose principal Callum Stewart is joining the company's board. New and returning backers include AMD Ventures, Intel Capital, SBI Group, Hudson River Trading and the British Business Bank, along with existing shareholders Applied Ventures, Oxford Science Enterprises, Cambridge Innovation Capital and Silicon Catalyst Ventures.

ASML gave the clearest signal yet on Wednesday that the artificial intelligence buildout is still accelerating upstream, in the factories that make the chips themselves. The Dutch lithography giant reported third-quarter net sales of 11.662 billion euros and net income of 4.960 billion euros, with a gross margin of 57.5 percent and basic earnings per share of 12.95 euros.

Enterprise VPN appliances are supposed to guard the edge of the network. This week, one of the most widely used of them became the way in.

Marvell Technology, Microsoft and Oracle have formed a new working group under the Open Compute Project to standardize a piece of security hardware that has traditionally lived outside the server. The group, organized under the OCP Security Track, will define open specifications for an integrated hardware security module designed for cloud and hyperscale data centers.

Microsoft's October Patch Tuesday, released on October 13, 2026, is the largest in the company's history. Cisco Talos counted 1,415 vulnerabilities addressed across Microsoft products, including 85 rated critical, 67 of them remote code execution flaws. Computer Weekly noted that the total exceeds the number Microsoft fixed in all of 2023, and that it shatters the previous record of roughly 1,000 flaws set just last month, which itself had passed a mark of a little over 600 set in July. By comparison, the October 2025 release addressed about 175 flaws.