Mastercard has introduced a new service designed to help financial institutions detect and prevent payment fraud before it happens. Mastercard Threat Intelligence will combine the company’s global fraud data with cyber threat intelligence from Recorded Future, resulting in a deeper level of visibility to how fraud originates and spreads across the payments ecosystem.

Fraud doesn’t always start when someone tries to buy something with a stolen card. In fact, it often begins much earlier -- when criminals hack a website to steal card details, run automated tests on stolen cards, or plant malware to skim payment data, for example. Mastercard’s new system helps banks’ fraud teams and cybersecurity teams spot these early warning signs together, instead of waiting until fraudulent transactions happen.

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PayPal has announced that it plans to adopt the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) to expand payments and shopping inside ChatGPT. The move will let millions of ChatGPT users pay with PayPal directly in conversations, while merchants gain access to OpenAI Instant Checkout and PayPal’s global payment network.

The integration links PayPal’s vast base of merchants with OpenAI’s emerging commerce platform. It also makes PayPal the first major payments company to implement ACP, a new framework designed to let AI systems handle shopping and checkout tasks on behalf of users.

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New research from business risk specialist Panaseer shows that major breaches are being caused by toxic combinations -- overlapping risks that compound and amplify each other, until they form a critical vulnerability.

The company analyzed 20 major breaches that have occurred over the past five years. In 14 of the 20 cases, it found clear evidence of compounding risks forming toxic combinations that magnified the overall impact.

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Software company IObit has released Malware Fighter 13, adding new scanning capabilities and expanding its threat-detection methods. The company says the update is designed to improve protection against a wider range of cyber threats, including spyware, ransomware, and so-called fileless attacks.

The update introduces a pre-boot analysis module that scans the system during startup. This will allow the software to detect and remove malicious items before Windows loads, preventing them from reappearing after a reboot. The company says this may help systems start faster and run more reliably, but it hasn't released independent performance data to support that claim and your mileage may vary.

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Many people worry that AI and automation will lead to people losing their jobs and that this could be true even at senior levels.

We spoke to Alex Walsh, CEO and co-founder of agentic AI platform Oraion, who believes that, instead of destroying jobs, AI can actually enhance them.

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Instagram is borrowing an idea from TikTok, introducing a Watch History section that will be welcomed by many users.

While undeniably useful, pretty much the only thing that is surprising about this particular feature is that it has taken so long to appear in the app. It solves the problem of viewing a Reel within the app – and then never being able to find it again.

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In the most recent Windows Insider builds of Windows 11, Microsoft is testing a new feature that will make it quicker and easier to perform search based on text copied from other documents. The new Copy & Search feature is currently available in the new Dev and Beta channels, and it could be a real time-saver.

While it may not seem like much, Copy & Search reduced a three-step process to a two-step process. In the big scheme of things, it is not much, but it is something that feel significantly faster, even if the difference is quite small in reality. But this is not just a change that is about speed.

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When Microsoft released PowerToys 0.95.0 recently there was excitement that it included a new module – Light Switch. But the excitement quickly turned to disappointed and confusion because of a bug that has managed to slip through the net.

Microsoft was fairly quick to acknowledge that when it added the new Light Switch module to PowerToys, it should not have been enabled by default. But as it was enabled by default, many people wondered what on Earth was happening when their computer started randomly changing between Light and Dark Mode.

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Trellix has published its latest CyberThreat Report: October 2025, highlighting a clear rise in the use of AI-powered tools and malware by cybercriminals.

Drawing on global threat intelligence gathered between April and September 2025, the report explores how automation, geopolitics, and AI are reshaping modern attack methods.

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Android users have a message range of keyboards to choose from, Gboard among them. The beauty of the level of choice is the selection of options and degree of personalization that is made possible.

And it is with personalization in mind that Google has updated Gboard, introducing the option to hide the period and comma keys.

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A new study from OpenText of nearly 1,800 global IT and security leaders shows a false sense of confidence in ransomware readiness.

The report shows that 95 percent of respondents say they’re confident in their ransomware recovery -- yet only 15 percent of those attacked have fully recovered their data.

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Having someone sliding into your DMs on Instagram could be about to look a little different. The social media platform is rolling out the ability to adorn direct messages with stickers as well as freehand drawing.

As this has been in testing for a reasonable amount of time already, these options may already be familiar to subsets of Instagram users – but now they are rolling out to everyone. If you are yet to experience these new messaging tools, they may not be quite what you expect them to be.

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You may have tried to forget Clippy, but Microsoft is still hanging doggedly on to the idea of character-based assistants. Having thrown everything at its AI assistant Copilot, the company is now giving it a friendly face – Mico.

As part of what it refers to as the Copilot Fall Release, Microsoft is trying to soften its artificial intelligence powered digital assistant and, by extension, people’s attitudes to it. This is the company moving towards making AI more personal, useful, and human-centered, and there is a lot of attention given to relationship.

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With hyperscalers better able to attract the best talent and headcount tight across the board, most enterprises are leaning heavily on generalist IT teams to manage their environments.

But in many cases the tools they’re expected to use were designed for specialists. Legacy tools like ConnectWise, Device42, or ServiceNow often require deep expertise, complex integrations, or expensive customization making them unsuitable for generalist teams.

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Cybersecurity and privacy firm Surfshark has launched a new web content blocker aimed at home users who want to filter online material without the tracking aspect often found in parental control software.

The new feature lets users choose the content categories they want to restrict and then lock them with two-factor authentication. The same settings can be applied across all devices tied to the same account.

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