Security news weekly round-up - 21st August 2026

Cybersecurity is everyone's business as long as you use the internet in one form or the other. Your job might be to develop the next cutting-edge security tools, raise people's cybersecurity awareness, and so on. And, in some cases, resolve to physically damage your infrastructure to stop an intrusion or minimize the impact. The list can go on. The point is to do your best wherever you might find yourself. Windows 11’s strongest security defenses can be bypassed without a screwdriver The title got me laughing. Still, do not panic. The attack assumes some level of access to the Windows 11 device, and Microsoft shipped mitigations as part of this year—2026—updates back in April. All in all, you should be interested in what happened and how the attack worked. For that, read the excerpt below. ...the team demonstrated they could reach into parts of the system Windows is built to keep off-limits, including memory the operating system itself is not supposed to touch. By creating these memory aliases, the researchers showed an attacker could: Turn hundreds of blocklisted drivers with known vulnerabilities back on Kill antivirus and endpoint detection and response (EDR) software, How QR-code phishing can slip past corporate security measures If you're comfortable using something every day, don't rule out that it can't be turned against you. That's why you should never let your guard down. This is an example of such a scenario. Scan QR codes out of necessity alone, if it's in an email, use another medium to check with the sender if they actually sent it, and never stop learning how cyber criminals are innovating ways to steal from you. From the article: Most importantly, they take the victim from a relatively well-protected corporate environment to a potentially unmanaged mobile device, thus bypassing business-grade security. One important advantage for the attacker is concealment. The destination is encoded in a visual pattern, not displayed as readable text, which hides th