• Article

If you were concerned about your Instagram account over the weekend, you were certainly not alone. Many Instagram users received an email telling them that they needed to reset their account password, and this was quickly linked to a data breach from 2024 affecting 17.5 million accounts.

While the emails about resetting passwords really did come from Instagram, there was in fact no danger, and no need to boost account security. So far, so unclear. So, what is going on?

There are many concerns about how younger people use the internet in general, but certainly in relation to social media. There have been pushes around the world to limit – or even ban – access to the likes of Facebook, but WhatsApp is looking at a different approach.

With a messaging app, it can be difficult to keep an eye on who a child is contacting, so Meta has come up with the idea of introducing parental controls. The system is currently under development, and involves linking two accounts together – one belonging to a child, the other to a parent or guardian.

New research from internet service provider Beaming shows UK businesses were targeted more than 791,600 times last year and attackers are focused on systems that facilitate remote work and data storage, turning them into high-risk entry points.

Remote desktop and VPN services saw sustained, automated probing throughout 2025. These are the primary targets for ransomware groups who use stolen credentials to infiltrate and encrypt corporate networks to cause total business lockout.

A shortage of skilled developers is leading to many companies failing to meet their product roadmap targets, according to research from Full Scale.

As a result the software development lifecycle (SDLC) is undergoing a fundamental shift, that includes using artificial intelligence to cut out repetitive tasks and allow developers to concentrate on their core role.

Microsoft has announced changes to the way in which hyperlinks are added to Word documents. The company says that it wants to make working with hyperlinks as easy as working with text, and is therefore simplifying link creation across Word for Windows, macOS and the web.

While it could be argued that the previous method of converting a word or portion of text into a hyperlink was not exactly an arduous task, the change Microsoft has come up with makes it even faster and easier. So, how does it work?

Google has announced changes to the search functionality of YouTube, adding new filters and renaming some options for the sake of clarity.

One of the biggest changes is the new option to choose the type of content which should be included in results. For anyone who is more interested in seeking out long-form videos, this is extremely significant as it provides a way to avoid YouTube Shorts by opting to exclude them.

WhatsApp moving towards usernames has been much-requested, but progress remains slow – or perhaps slow and steady is a better way of thinking of it. While the timeline for the eventual rollout of usernames in the app remains unclear, there are new tests underway.

The latest version of the Android beta app sees WhatsApp testing switching from phone numbers to usernames. There are many reasons for the switch, not least of which is privacy.

Music is connective, and this is something that Spotify is trying to use to its advantage. Aware that people love to talk about their musical tastes, the company has come up with Listening Activity, a new way to share what you are listening to with the people you are connected to.

Spotify itself already lets you share your listening stream, and there are various apps that can plug into Spotify to share the data as well. The new Listening Activity, as well as the new Request to Jam, are the latest addition to Messages.

It should surprise no one that Google is filling up just about all of its apps and services with a dose of AI. Now the company says that it is “bringing Gmail into the Gemini era” with new AI-powered features.

The aim is to transform Gmail into “your personal, proactive inbox assistant”, and Google has a smattering of new features that it believes will kickstart this process. Borrowing an idea from Google Search, Gmail’s new AI Overviews is very much what you would expect, but it is also just the start of the story.

Satechi has announced a new range of wireless input devices at CES 2026, adding two keyboards and a mouse to its Slim EX Wireless Series.

Designed for cross platform use, the new devices support macOS, Windows, Android, and iPadOS, letting users move between systems without swapping peripherals or adjusting to different shortcut layouts.

The Kodi Foundation has announced that scheduled maintenance will temporarily take its mirror servers offline, limiting access to official downloads for a set period. During the maintenance window, users won’t be able to download Kodi or official add-ons directly from mirrors hosted by the project.

The interruption only affects Kodi’s own mirror infrastructure. Copies of Kodi hosted via third-party repositories, such as app stores, will remain available while the maintenance is underway.

New research from StrongestLayer highlights a fundamental shift in attacker behavior, where adversaries increasingly hide behind business-critical platforms such as DocuSign, Microsoft, and Google Calendar -- services organizations can’t block without disrupting operations.

The research analyzed analyzing 2,042 advanced email attacks that successfully bypassed Microsoft Defender E3/E5 and market-leading secure email gateways before being detected by StrongestLayer.

Ashampoo has released Burning Studio 2026 for Windows. While most new PCs no longer include optical drives, many people still rely on discs for cars, stereos, DVD players, and older hardware that can’t use USB storage or cloud services.

The new program can burn, copy, rip, or back up data to CD, DVD, and Blu-ray, including higher-capacity formats like BDXL. While Burning Studio 2026 is priced at $30, you can grab it for free.

NordPass Authenticator is a feature that generates one-time passwords directly in a NordPass vault. It gives all the security of two-factor authentication without an extra app. However, until now it’s only been available to business users.

Today the company is also making Authenticator available for personal accounts. It uses time-based one-time password (TOTP) support which enables users to add an extra layer of security to their accounts with two-factor authentication, without the need to download or install additional applications.

AI is predicted to generate two-thirds of code by 2027, but 96 percent of developers do not trust that it’s functionally correct according to a new study from Sonar.

This lack of confidence means that developers are forced to spend more time on reviewing code. Developer work remains fixed at 10 hours per week, regardless of AI use, but there’s a significant shift to reviewing AI-generated code to ensure it is secure, reliable, and maintainable.