Holiday gift ideas from Nikon Canada

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 28, 2026 by itnerd

Nikon Z5IIC – Everything you love about the simplicity and connectivity of smartphone photography, elevated with the spectacular image quality and creative freedom of a mirrorless camera

Available in silver and black, the Nikon Z5IIC is a compact, everyday-carry mirrorless camera designed to make the move to full-frame photography feel natural and approachable. Built on the proven performance of the award-winning Z5II, the Z5IIC combines a sleek, flat-top design with intuitive features such as Scene Modes, helping those beginning their photography journey achieve satisfying results without first mastering complex settings. Users can stay present and confidently capture spontaneous everyday moments with rich colour, natural depth and sharp detail, even in low light or motion-filled situations where smartphones may struggle.

Its 24.5-megapixel full-frame sensor, EXPEED 7 image-processing engine and advanced shooting capabilities deliver the impressive image quality and responsiveness users expect from a more advanced camera. Yet the “C” stands for casual: intuitive controls and automated features help first-time mirrorless users achieve satisfying photos and videos quickly, without first mastering complex camera settings.

More information: https://en.nikon.ca/p/z5iic/2082/overview

Pricing: MSRP: $1,899.95 for the body only, or $2,339.95 with the NIKKOR Z 24-50mm f/4-6.3 lens

Nikon Z5II: The most feature-packed camera in its class

The Nikon Z5II manages to fit the latest high-end features into a lightweight camera body that will help kickstart any creative spark. It is the easiest way to level up a user’s captures with full-frame image quality, incredibly fast and intelligent autofocus (AF), excellent low-light performance, one-touch film. The Nikon Z5II uses the same high-power EXPEED 7 image processing engine as Nikon’s highest calibre professional models, the Z8 and Z9. The benefits of this processor are immediately apparent, affording incredible levels of performance and extremely fast AF with subject detection powered by deep learning (AI) technology. In addition, the camera utilizes a highly sensitive back-illuminated (BSI) CMOS sensor for beautiful rendering of textures and details, even in dimly lit situations such as indoors or nighttime landscapes, with minimal noise. The Z5II has dedicated Picture Control button and innovative tools like Imaging Recipes and Flexible Colour Picture Controls, all of which help users create a truly distinctive look with unparalleled creative control of colours.

More information: https://en.nikon.ca/p/z5ii/1680/overview

Pricing: MSRP: $2,399 (body only)

Promotional Pricing: $2,249 (body only)

Nikon Z fc: Combining a classic design with functionality

Z fc is a DX-format camera that combines the latest mirrorless technology with classic design and functionality. It’s the compact and lightweight everyday companion that evokes the urge to create, and to take the time to embrace the moment.  Featuring a heritage-inspired design, satisfying analogue controls and craftsmanship that’s both unique and functional, the Z fc is built to be a thoroughly modern camera that’s simply a joy to use for everything from stunning street snaps, self-portraits, vlogging or 4K UHD video content.

More information: https://en.nikon.ca/p/z-fc/1671/overview

Pricing: MSRP: $1,399 (body only)

Promotional Pricing: $1,249 (body only)

Nikon Z 30: User friendly and lightweight

Nikon’s Z 30 mirrorless camera is designed specifically for video content creators, vloggers and streamers. This small, lightweight, feature packed camera applies Nikon’s expertise in all things imaging, giving creators the ability to easily produce the kind of video content that gets noticed.  With the Nikon Z 30, it’s simple to consistently create professional-looking 4K UHD video to get the look you want, with sharp focus, beautiful blurred backgrounds and appealing audio- all on the first take.

More information: https://en.nikon.ca/p/z-30/1737/overview

Pricing: MSRP: $879 (body only)

Promotional Pricing: $779 (body only)

Nikon Z6III: A mirrorless camera in a class of its own

Z6III is a 24.5MP full-frame mirrorless camera that stands in a class of its own with an unmatched suite of powerful features that bring exceptional performance to both photographers and filmmakers. The Z6III is the world’s first camera with a partially-stacked CMOS sensor, delivering ultra-fast readout that unlocks blistering speeds and high frame rates in both photo and video modes. Other benefits include a truly immersive viewfinder experience with the brightest EVF of any mirrorless camera, and a wide range of pro-level features inherited from Nikon’s acclaimed Z8 and Z9 flagship cameras.

More information: https://en.nikon.ca/p/z6iii/1890/overview

Pricing: MSRP: $3,499 (body only)

Promotional Pricing: $2,499

Nikon Z 8: A dream camera for videos and stills with powerful performance

Nikon Z 8 is a full frame mirrorless camera made to meet the needs of imaging professionals, serious photographers, videographers and advanced creators. The Z 8 defines the concept of versatile agility, featuring the latest innovations and speed inherited from the flagship mirrorless Z 9, in a lighter, more compact form-factor that’s ready for action in the field, the studio, the street, at a ceremony or on-set. The Z 8 packs in massive technology and user-focused features, providing impressive high-resolution images and video up to 8K 60p with overwhelming detail, sharpness, and precise colour. The Z 8 gives professionals the confidence to capture without boundaries while yielding stellar files and uncompromising Nikon colour science that can minimize time needed for post-production or editing.

More information: https://en.nikon.ca/p/z-8/1695/overview

Pricing: MSRP: $5,499 (body only)

Promotional Pricing: $4,399 (body only)

PROSTAFF P3 8×42 and PROSTAFF P3 10×42: Binoculars perfect for backpacking, birding and locating wildlife

Full-size 42mm front objectives gather maximum light for a brighter, clearer view, even as daylight is fading. 8x or 10X magnification provides a wide field of view that shows more of the scene and is also easier to hold steady—great for locating wildlife or using the binoculars on the go. A waterproof, fogproof and drop-resistant design means you can take them everywhere, and renowned Nikon optics make every view spectacular. Whether you’re backpacking, birding or watching your favourite team, PROSTAFF P3 binoculars deliver more performance for less.

More information on PROSTAFF P3 8×42: https://en.nikon.ca/p/prostaff-p3-8×42/16776/overview

Pricing: MSRP: $179.95

Promotional Pricing: $129.95

More information on PROSTAFF P3 10×42: https://en.nikon.ca/p/prostaff-p3-10×42/16777/overview

Pricing: MSRP: $189.95
Promotional Pricing: $139.95

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Digitate Advances Agentic AIOps with ignio™ Hummingbird, Bringing Autonomous Action to IT Operations

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 28, 2026 by itnerd

Digitate today announced ignio™ Hummingbird, the latest release of its agentic AIOps platform. Hummingbird introduces AI agents that bring operational expertise to specific IT tasks, move from diagnosis through approved action and verification, and operate within enterprise change, approval and audit controls.

The release also enables enterprises to build their own IT operations agents and includes built-in Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Agent2Agent (A2A) servers, allowing ignio capabilities to work with the agents, assistants and collaboration tools enterprises already use. Enhanced Business Observability gives these actions business context by connecting the health of processes such as order-to-cash, procure-to-pay and record-to-report to the IT events affecting them. Hummingbird further adds closed-loop security and compliance capabilities, self-service for the digital workplace and advances in end-to-end autonomous IT operations.

From AI That Recommends to AI Agents That Act

Many AI tools in IT operations stop at recommendations, leaving engineers to investigate, decide and execute. ignio Hummingbird is designed to carry work further: its AI agents can diagnose an issue, propose or take an approved action and verify the outcome. Every automated fix remains subject to the governance enterprises require, including approval, change-management and audit workflows.

As enterprises adopt a growing range of AI agents and assistants, Hummingbird also makes ignio’s operational capabilities available through open standards. This allows ignio to provide operational context, expertise and execution without requiring teams to abandon the interfaces and tools in which they already work.

Who Benefits and Availability

The ignio Hummingbird release is designed for IT operations leaders, SRE teams and service desk organizations that need AI agents to resolve operational issues rather than simply flag them. Security and risk leaders can use its closed-loop capabilities to demonstrate that remediation is occurring and risk is being reduced. Business process owners and business IT leaders gain a shared view of whether critical processes are on track, which technology dependencies are affecting them and where action is needed. Hummingbird builds on earlier ignio releases, advancing the platform from autonomous foundations to expert AI agents that work together across IT operations.

1. Expert AI Agents for IT Operations

Hummingbird introduces three AI agents that apply operational knowledge to defined areas of IT work:

  • SAP IDoc management: Diagnoses failed IDocs using built-in knowledge of SAP errors and proposes resolution options, reprocesses them following approval and verifies the result.
  • Service desk support: Diagnoses device issues across the enterprise estate and proposes resolution options, including the advantages and trade-offs of each approach.
  • Patch planning: Recommends risk-aware patch schedules based on factors including vulnerability risk, downtime, operational scope and change windows.

2. Custom Agents Built for the Enterprise

With Make Your Own Agent, enterprises can create custom IT operations agents in a few simple steps. These agents can be tailored to an organization’s environment, operating procedures and governance requirements, extending agentic automation beyond prebuilt use cases.

3. Open Agentic Integration

Built-in MCP and A2A servers expose ignio tools and operational capabilities to other agents and interfaces, including Microsoft Teams, Claude and Gemini. This enables enterprises to use ignio’s operational expertise and governed execution from the environments where their teams already collaborate and make decisions.

4. Smarter, Governed Resolution

Hummingbird mines past resolution notes and enterprise knowledge articles, uses LLMs to fill gaps, and generates implementation code with validation and recovery safeguards, learning from expert feedback. AI agents now support conversational actions, adapt experiences to user roles and preferences, and apply AI-powered log triage to identify probable causes. Collaborative triage in Microsoft Teams helps bring the right teams together around a shared operational context.

5. Business Observability That Connects Business Outcomes to IT

AI agents are more effective when they understand not only what is happening in the technology estate, but also what matters to the business. Hummingbird enhances Business Observability to connect critical business processes with the applications, middleware and infrastructure on which they depend.

  • Shared business and IT visibility: ignio maps business processes such as order-to-cash to their IT dependencies. Process Watch provides a live view with one-click drill-down into application, middleware and infrastructure health. Teams can connect stuck orders, delayed invoices and at-risk service levels to their likely technical causes.
  • Business observations instead of more alert queues: Teams see delayed, stuck or SLA-at-risk process activity alongside correlated technical events. Rules, cases and models can recognize recurring critical-failure patterns earlier.

6. Closed-Loop Security Posture Management

Hummingbird extends autonomous operations into operational risk and security remediation, helping enterprises move from measuring risk to reducing it through governed, verifiable action.

  • Operational Risk Management Solution (ORMS): Consolidates vulnerability findings from leading security scanners and prioritizes them by business impact, helping teams address the risks that matter most.
  • Automated fixes with proof: Automated patching and more than 3,300 ready-to-use hardening fixes help close vulnerabilities safely, with each action verified and documented for audit purposes.
  • Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM): Enhanced certificate discovery and automated renewal through the ACME protocol help reduce outages caused by expired certificates.
  • Continuous compliance: Expanded technology coverage and closed-loop remediation, with built-in approvals, help organizations identify and address policy gaps on an ongoing basis.

ignio Hummingbird will be available in November 2026. To learn more or request a demonstration, visit: https://digitate.com/ignio-hummingbird-release-notes/

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Fake PS5 emulators on GitHub infect gamers with password-stealing malware

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 28, 2026 by itnerd

NordVPN’s Threat Intelligence research team has identified an active fraudulent campaign promoted through malicious GitHub repositories, spreading malware disguised as legitimate PlayStation 5 emulation and porting software for PC.

The campaign fraudulently exploits the names of two well-known projects in the emulation community. AnyPS5 is a portability layer designed to convert and run PS5 games as native executables on Windows and Linux, which gained significant visibility for reverse engineering 100% of the console’s GPU shaders and around 90% of its system libraries.

Kyttyps5 is a PS5 emulator targeted at PCs. Both projects have attracted strong interest from gamers eager to play PS5 titles without owning the console.

Users who visit the malicious repositories are directed to download a zip file containing a Windows executable. The campaign is distributed through rapidly rotating GitHub repositories and is likely extended to other code-hosting sites.

Malware that checks if anyone is watching

The downloaded file is a portable installer that unpacks a hidden application and launches a multi-stage loader. Before doing anything malicious, it checks whether it is running on a real victim’s machine or in a security researcher’s sandbox. It exits silently if the computer has less than 2 GB of RAM, runs on a virtual machine, uses a cloud server, or lacks a physical graphics card.

If the checks pass, the malware quietly adds exclusion rules to Microsoft Defender so the antivirus will never scan the folders where it operates. It then decrypts and runs its final payload, an executable protected by a commercial packer that NordVPN’s analysts believe is an infostealer, a type of malware designed to steal passwords and other sensitive data. The payload is not yet documented in any public source.

Both analyzed samples were signed with self-signed certificates using fake company names, issued on the same day the malware was built. This points to automated, campaign-driven generation of the files. Two minutes after infection, the malware runs a cleanup script that deletes its own files, leaving almost no evidence behind.

How to stay safe

NordVPN advises gamers and emulation enthusiasts to keep these rules in mind:

  • Verify you’re on the real project’s page. Scammers copy the names and reputations of legitimate tools like AnyPS5 and Kyttyps5. Check that the repository belongs to the official project team, and be wary of lookalike repos with few stars, recent creation dates, or download links leading elsewhere.
  • Do not disable your antivirus or ignore its warnings. If a file requires you to exclude it from Windows Defender to run, it is almost certainly malicious.
  • Watch for red flags after installation. Real emulators have a visible interface. Software that runs with no window and no sign of activity is a warning sign.
  • If you have run a suspicious file, disconnect from the internet, change your passwords from a different device, and run a full antivirus scan.

Methodology

NordVPN’s Threat Intelligence team analyzed two samples of the malicious installer, built a day apart starting from October 10th. Analysts examined the malware’s multi-stage infection chain and documented its anti-analysis checks, Windows Defender evasion techniques, and self-deletion behavior. The team also mapped the attack infrastructure behind the campaign, including email accounts and services used by the operators.

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Democrats targeted by nearly twice as many negative political deepfakes as Republicans

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 28, 2026 by itnerd

With the US midterm elections approaching, a new Cybernews study reveals that Democrats are portrayed negatively in political deepfakes far more frequently than Republicans, while President Donald Trump and Republican-linked sources are responsible for over 40% of the analyzed deepfakes.

Cybernews researchers analyzed 104 unique political deepfakes reported in the Resemble AI database from early 2025 to October 13th, 2026, examining how Democrats and Republicans were portrayed and who shared the AI-generated content.

Key findings:

  • Democrats were depicted negatively in 49 deepfakes, compared to 28 targeting Republicans. Only 3 Democratic-related deepfakes were positive, compared to 13 Republican-related ones.
  • Trump posted 20 of the 104 analyzed deepfakes. Republican candidates, officials, and party groups shared another 22, compared to 7 linked to Democrats.
  • 60% of deepfakes posted by Republicans portrayed Democrats negatively.
  • Seven deepfakes were traced to foreign state actors, including Russia, Iran, and China.

For more information and specific examples of the deepfakes, read the full study here: https://cybernews.com/ai-news/political-deepfakes-2026-midterms/

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Global Botnet Operation Compromises Thousands of Routers and Network Devices, Targets Enterprise Servers Worldwide

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 28, 2026 by itnerd

Thousands of internet-connected routers and network devices have been caught up in a global hacking operation designed to turn vulnerable infrastructure into a network of compromised systems.

The attackers targeted home and business routers, surveillance cameras, internet service provider (ISP) infrastructure and enterprise servers, using automated tools to identify vulnerable systems, gain access and deploy malicious software.

The operation, known as Doorway, came to light after cybersecurity firm CloudSEK identified two exposed attacker workspaces in October 2026. An investigation of approximately 41 GB of operational data revealed the source code, malware payloads, credential records, victim logs and internal instructions used to run the campaign.

The findings offer a detailed look at how the attackers built and managed their operation, from scanning internet-connected devices and testing passwords to deploying malicious software and monitoring compromised systems.

Thousands of routers and network devices affected

The scale of the operation becomes clear from the records left behind by the attackers.

CloudSEK researchers identified 7,369 successful MikroTik/RouterOS authentications across 4,923 device identities, along with 4,671 device-recruitment records involving 4,217 distinct IP addresses.

The targeted infrastructure included home routers, business networking equipment, surveillance cameras, digital video recorders, fibre-optic network terminals and internet-facing enterprise services.

Researchers also identified 1,772 victim-device IP addresses with associated geographic locations, providing evidence of the campaign’s international reach.

In one instance, the recovered records contained 1,060 PPPoE subscriber entries associated with a single internet service provider. The attackers also configured SOCKS proxy capabilities on MikroTik devices, indicating an effort to use compromised network infrastructure to relay traffic.

This creates a broader security concern. A compromised router is not necessarily the final target of an attack. It can become part of the infrastructure attackers use to route traffic and support further malicious activity.

Attackers also targeted enterprise servers

The operation was not limited to home routers and other internet-connected devices.

CloudSEK’s investigation identified 20 Jenkins servers with confirmed remote code execution and 16 Openfire plugin uploads across non-laboratory targets.

Jenkins is widely used to automate software development processes, while Openfire provides real-time messaging services. Their inclusion shows how the attackers expanded their activities beyond consumer and ISP infrastructure to systems used by businesses.

The recovered toolkit contained 59 exploitation modules targeting different devices and services. Its central scanning and delivery engine, written in Rust, consisted of approximately 21,870 lines of code.

The engine could identify a device, match it against known weaknesses, test credentials and attempt to deliver a suitable malicious payload. It also recorded successful and unsuccessful authentication attempts, allowing operators to improve their choice of credentials.

Rather than relying on one attack technique, the operators built a system capable of handling multiple devices, architectures and delivery methods.

The operation was managed like a technology project, with AI-linked tools

Among the recovered files was an internal document titled WATCHER-BRIEF.md, which described how the operators monitored performance, assigned tasks and changed their approach when attacks stopped producing results.

The document outlined five concurrent agent sessions with different responsibilities. Some focused on maintaining existing operations, while others searched for vulnerable Java servers, Windows systems and additional targets.

The recovered material also contained references to large language model tools, but the AI model/tool used by the attacker remains unknown. The workspace contains concrete, program-level evidence that the actor’s scripts were driven by an AI model and the model’s decisions were carried out. The workspace contains session transcript-style logs that show tool calls and their resulting actions. Also, the watcher model, the doorway-rs engine and the log activity collectively demonstrate that the actors’ script was executed, commands were issued and outcomes were recorded. These logs are the evidence beyond the intended-behaviour description.

The workflow tracked successful exploitation, monitored activity and directed attention towards new targets when existing methods became less effective.

This indicates that the operators were using automation and LLM-linked tooling to help manage a complex hacking operation. The available evidence, however, does not establish that AI independently carried out every attack or operational decision.

An operation designed to find, exploit and recruit devices at scale

The attackers developed a multi-stage process to move from discovering a vulnerable system to deploying malicious software.

First, the scanning engine identified internet-facing devices and checked their responses against known characteristics. It then selected relevant exploitation modules and attempted to gain access using vulnerabilities or credentials.

Once access was obtained, lightweight loaders could identify the device’s operating system and processor architecture before retrieving a suitable payload.

The operators supported several delivery methods, including wget, curl, FTP, TFTP and netcat, to account for differences in device capabilities and network restrictions.

The recovered code also included mechanisms to verify whether malicious components had executed, rather than counting every download attempt as a successful compromise.

An internal ledger maintained by the operators reported 11,363 device joins and 58,920 payload fetches in a 60-minute period. These figures are based on attacker-maintained records and were not independently verified.

CloudSEK also identified the infrastructure supporting the campaign, including scanning addresses, payload servers and systems used to receive signals from compromised devices.

Why the operation matters

The Doorway investigation shows how exposed internet infrastructure can be exploited through a combination of known vulnerabilities, weak credentials and automated attack tools.

For individuals and businesses, a poorly secured router or network device can become part of a larger malicious network without the owner necessarily recognising the compromise.

For internet service providers, compromised customer equipment and network infrastructure can create additional security risks. For enterprises, vulnerable internet-facing services such as Jenkins and Openfire present another route for attackers to gain access.

The operation also demonstrates how attackers can organise exploitation as a continuous process, measuring results, refining techniques and shifting to new targets as opportunities change.

CloudSEK recommends that organisations update internet-facing devices and services, replace default or weak passwords, restrict unnecessary remote management access and monitor unusual authentication attempts, proxy configurations and outbound network connections.

The investigation establishes substantial exploitation activity and evidence of proxy infrastructure development. However, the full command-and-control capabilities of the operation, its downstream use of compromised devices and the extent of any commercial activity remain unconfirmed.

For More Information, Read The Full Report

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Guest Post: Users risk money and data for $8.53 discount on Netflix, Spotify, and similar plans from unauthorized resellers

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 28, 2026 by itnerd

Despite Netflix’s slowing growth, unauthorized resellers aren’t slowing down. According to the latest Surfshark analysis, reseller subscription prices for Netflix, YouTube Premium, or Duolingo, and other popular platforms average $4.60 per month, compared with $13.13 for official plans. Buying through a reseller costs consumers about 65% less, an average saving of $8.53 a month, or more than $100 a year. However, these deals carry real risks, such as an invalid subscription, lost money, and exposed personal data.

Many reseller offers also require customers to commit for a full year. The analysis found that the shortest available subscription period was 12 months for eight of the 10 services, while the remaining two had a minimum term of six months. These long-term offers create an attractive monthly price, but also expose customers to greater upfront risk. If access to the account is terminated before the subscription ends, customers may have to rely on the reseller to restore the service or issue a refund.

“These pie-in-the-sky offers very often involve trade-offs such as upfront annual payments, shared accounts, reduced access control, and reliance on an intermediary for customer support. Yet nothing guarantees that the promised $100 in yearly savings won’t turn into a $50 loss the next day,” says Tomas Stamulis, Chief Security Officer at Surfshark.

As a rule, shady online offers peak during the shopping season. Tomas Stamulis says the same applies to unverified resellers offering cheap subscriptions. In October, Surfshark customer care recorded a growing number of cases in which people who subscribed to the Surfshark VPN and cybersecurity app through unauthorized resellers lost their accounts and money.

“When users buy subscriptions through unlicensed resellers, they very often end up in a trap. Surfshark itself investigates cases where customers buy too-good-to-be-true deals. Within a day or two, it turns out the subscription has already been used by someone else, and the account is no longer valid. The only way to protect yourself and your money is to buy services directly through official websites or through authorized creators who still redirect you to the official company website to make a purchase,” says Stamulis.

He warns that illegitimate reseller subscriptions often violate the service’s terms or involve fraud. This puts consumers’ money, accounts, and personal data at risk, while also taking revenue away from the official platforms and creators behind the content.

Besides, the checkout process on some reseller platforms requires excessive amounts of user data. One analyzed reseller platform requested customers’ full name, physical address, ZIP code, and email address, while another asked for full name, country, and WhatsApp number. Sharing personal data and payment information with a reseller company may increase consumers’ exposure to data breaches, spam, phishing, and targeted scams.

As the holiday shopping season begins, Surfshark’s CSO warns that consumers will encounter subscription offers of all kinds, and that deals priced far below official plans often mean a shared or stolen account that can be terminated at any moment.

Cybersecurity expert recommends:

  • Buy only from official websites. Subscribe directly on the platform’s website or app, or through authorized partners who redirect you to the official website to pay.
  • Avoid long upfront commitments with unknown sellers. Many reseller offers require you to pay for 12 or at least six months in advance. If the account is canceled, you lose the whole amount.
  • General rule when purchasing online: share as little personal data as possible. A digital subscription does not need your physical address or WhatsApp number. Email masking and a disposable payment card keep your inbox and money safer.

Please find the full research material

here.

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Park Place Technologies Holds “Halloween Funeral” for Three Retiring Data Center Devices

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 28, 2026 by itnerd

Park Place Technologies today launched “Rack in Peace,” a three-part Halloween video series that stages a mock funeral for three widely deployed pieces of IT infrastructure reaching end of service life (EOSL) on Oct. 31, 2026: the Cisco Meraki MX84 security appliance, the Veritas NetBackup 5340 appliance, and the Cisco Catalyst 3650 switch.

Each video follows a grieving procession of mourners delivering tearful eulogies for a device whose OEM support is ending. Each time the grief peaks, a Park Place field engineer steps in with a calm, practical reminder: the hardware is still running, and Park Place still supports it.

The videos debut one per day on Park Place’s social media channels from Oct. 28 through Oct. 30, ending the day before all three devices pass their OEM end-of-support date.

THE SCHEDULE

• Oct. 28 – Cisco Meraki MX84. The branch security appliance, sold by Cisco until 2021, reaches its end-of-support date on Oct. 31, 2026.

• Oct. 29 – Veritas NetBackup 5340. The backup appliance, which Veritas stopped selling in September 2021, leaves vendor support on Oct. 31, 2026.

• Oct. 30 – Cisco Catalyst 3650. The access switch found in wiring closets across many enterprise campuses reaches its last date of Cisco support on Oct. 31, 2026.

WHY IT MATTERS

When OEM support ends, many organizations feel pressure to replace hardware that still meets their needs, often on the OEM’s timeline rather than their own. Third-party maintenance gives IT teams a way to keep stable, proven equipment in service while they plan upgrades around budget and business priorities.

Organizations running any of the three devices can find EOSL details and coverage information in Park Place’s EOSL library at parkplacetechnologies.com/eosl, or contact Park Place to discuss support for hardware past its OEM end-of-support date.

The “Rack in Peace” video series is available on Park Place Technologies’ LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and X channels using #RackInPeace.

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iPhone Duo Hinge Supplier Denies Responsibility For “Crackgate” And Vows Legal Action

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 28, 2026 by itnerd

This is getting spicy.

Usually I never hear or almost never hear from individual component suppliers of iPhones as I am sure that they would rather be in the background. But Fine M-Tec who makes the hinge for the iPhone Duo actually said something. Which is rare. Why is this important? The hinge has been fingered as a cause for what is now known as “Crackgate” as the screens seem to have issues in more or less the same place. And this has been called out by a lot of people including YouTuber JerryRigEverything.

From AppleInsider:

A statement from Fine M-Tec released on October 26 denies that its components cause the screen damage, reports The Elec. It also urges everyone to avoid a witch hunt for someone to blame until the real cause has been uncovered.

“The quality issues recently reported in certain products were not caused by defects in components supplied by our company,” Fine M-Tec insists, without directly mentioning Apple. The supplier adds that it is also considering legal action against anyone making claims about its components without the issue being validated.

Fine M-Tec is a manufacturer of internal hinges and metal plates that are used to support foldable OLED displays. The intention of the plates are to help protect the panel from the stress of folding and unfolding.

The company is known as a supplier of components in that field to Samsung Display, and therefore is part of the foldable smartphone supply chain.

So, this supplier is a known quantity when it comes to being a supplier of hinges for foldable phones. And they threatened to sue people who make claims against it. Interesting. I have to wonder if this is a defensive move to keep people from fingering the hinge, or if they will actually sue. And if they sue, is JerryRigEverything on the list? Time will tell as this could easily be a nothing burger. Let’s watch and see as if there is a pattern to whatever number of screens are cracking, Apple isn’t going to want to take the blame.

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Zoho brings trusted business intelligence to AI agents in Zoho Analytics platform evolution, connecting data, business context, insights and action

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 28, 2026 by itnerd

Zoho Corporation, a global technology company, today announced a major evolution of Zoho Analytics into an Agentic Analytics platform, extending its established analytics and reporting capabilities with a trusted intelligence layer for business insights and AI-driven action. By bringing together data, business context, analytics, and AI agents, the platform enables businesses to move from analyzing data to understanding what it means and to act on those insights. Native semantic and ontology layers provide the business context that powers a multi-agent version of Ask Zia and enables intelligence to extend across business analytics, agents, apps, and workflows.

Zoho Analytics finely tunes its data intelligence by modeling its structure on an organization’s data. The semantic layer serves as a business glossary for AI, defining key terms, metrics and their meaning, helping AI interpret data in the context of an organization’s operations. The ontology layer models business entities, their relationships, and how they connect across the organization, helping AI generate insights and recommendations that are relevant to the real business needs. With strict governance and clear oversight into each step of its process, Zoho Analytics helps businesses manage data access, cost, reduce errors and maintain control over how information is used by agents, in this nascent AI regulatory landscape.

The intelligence layer delivers trusted, repeatable and pervasive intelligence, enabling agentic AI to ask, understand, decide, and act based on highly informed data, tailored to each unique business. Ask Zia, a conversational super-agent for Business Intelligence is built with a multi-agent architecture across data analysis, data modeling, visualization, data preparation, coding and SQL generation. A central agent plans and orchestrates takes specialized sub-agents, all working off the same semantic layer, ontology and conversation context. This enables users to move naturally between tasks — for example, starting with an analysis and then creating a data pipeline to prepare data for further use — without losing the context of the conversation. For specific functions, users can build custom agents that are grounded with the same data, semantic model and knowledge base as Ask Zia. With support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP), these agents can connect with external tools and systems, in addition to built-in tools from Zoho Analytics.

With this evolution, Zoho Analytics brings data analysis, business context, AI-powered insights, and agent-driven workflows together in one platform, helping businesses move from data to decisions and action with greater confidence.

Business Context for Trusted Intelligence

Zoho Analytics calibrates itself to the way a business operates using three distinct tools:

  • The Ontology Layer
    By leveraging provided tools to model their canonical business units and describing how those entities relate to one another, organizations can provide AI with a structured understanding of the business—helping AI generate insights and recommendations that are relevant and reliable, addressing real business needs and ensuring results are tailored precisely to achievable outcomes and tied directly to process.
  • The Semantic Layer
    Users can produce a business glossary for AI that standardizes descriptions, synonyms, instructions, and metrics. This ensures AI is fluent in the language of an organization and can properly interpret its findings. Zoho Analytics includes support for multiple semantic models for different contexts.
  • More Connectors Than Ever
    Zoho Analytics adds more than 30 new data connectors to the 500-plus already available. New connectors expand Zoho integrations by adding support for Zoho ERP, Zoho Spend, Zoho FSM, Zoho Shifts and Zoho Voice; other connectors expand interoperability to include SAP, PayPal, Adobe Commerce, Twilio, Notion, Intercom, Supabase, Amazon DocumentDB, and AlloyDB, bringing relevant data into Zoho Analytics for analysis and insights.

Unlike competitors, the semantic and ontology layers are native to Zoho Analytics, and arrive in the box, not requiring a separate data platform or cloud data warehouse. Users can create multiple semantic models for different contexts, so finance and operations departments each get the definitions that fit their work. Apache Ossie compatibility means that a company’s definitions are portable, and not locked inside of Zoho. Businesses can build and edit semantic models without code.

Flexible Super Agents, Finely Attuned

  • Ask Zia
    Zoho’s conversational agent for business intelligence, natively integrated into Zoho products, has adopted a multi-agent architecture with six pre-built specialized sub-agents for data analysis, visualization, data preparation, modeling, coding, and SQL generation. Ask Zia works within an organization’s ontology and semantic layer, retains conversation history and agent memory, and allows organizations to choose Zia’s own large language model or bring their own frontier model.
  • Custom agents
    Teams can build their own data agents that remain grounded in an organization’s data, semantic model, and knowledge base. These agents connect to Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, web search, and other tools inside or outside Zoho Analytics, and can be distributed with governance and observability controls.
  • Agentic actions
    Agents can trigger actions and workflows directly. Powerful workflows can be designed with a workflow builder in Zoho Analytics.

Portable Intelligence for Agents, Apps, and Workflows

Zoho Analytics extends its intelligence beyond its own interface, enabling developers and organizations to use its analytics capabilities and business context across external agents, applications, and workflows.

  • Headless BI
    Developers and agents can build agentic solutions over the Zoho Analytics MCP server, available in remote and local options, with tools for data analysis, data preparation, and visualization. A new command-line interface (CLI) is included, and users can work with Zoho Analytics from inside Claude through a Claude plug-in.
  • Embedded AI
    Organizations can embed agents in their own apps, portals, and products with white labeling. Permissions and governance remain intact wherever the agents run.

Built-In Governance and Oversight

Zoho Analytics gives administrators visibility into, and control over, how agents operate across the organization:

  • Data Catalog
    A unified catalog of data, metrics, analytics assets, and models offers lineage and impact analysis, broad search options, and management of data and access policies.
  • AI Observability
    Administrators can see which agents ran, who used them, what they accessed, and how they answered queries. AI usage and cost tracking across teams, along with administrative controls for Ask Zia, helps organizations monitor and manager AI adoption.
  • Sandbox and Deployment Management
    Teams can develop and test analytics artifacts and agents in a sandbox, publish to production when ready, and roll back to previous versions if necessary.

Additional Capabilities

Zoho Analytics includes more than 50 new capabilities beyond its agentic features. These include more than 10 new visualizations, custom visuals, and pixel-perfect reports; predictive tools such as scenario analysis, a correlation matrix, and a VARX forecasting model; a data science studio with Jupyter notebooks, PMML import, and expanded analysis types; and Ask Zia in mobile with an upgraded interface.

Zoho Analytics is used by 100,000 businesses worldwide daily and is available on Zoho Cloud, on-premises; on public cloud infrastructure including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud; and in hybrid deployments.

For a complete description of what’s new to Zoho Analytics, visit https://www.zoho.com/analytics/whats-new.html.


What’s Next

Today’s updates lays the foundation for the next iteration of Zoho Analytics, with more to come. Future enhancements include:

  • From designed to dynamic business context: the “designed context” from the semantic and ontological layers will expand into “dynamic business context,” continually observing how business data changes over time, providing even more trusted outcomes.
  • Decision intelligence: As Zoho Analytics observes actions triggered through agents, the outcomes observed will provide deep Decision Intelligence, further serving as another context for Agentic AI.
  • Greater openness and interoperability: Zoho Analytics will continue to invest in open standards, following the Apache Ossie specification as it matures, integrating with Semantic Models defined in other third party platforms, and bringing more of the Analytics platform to outside agents via MCP.
  • Becoming a full Unified Data Platform: Zoho Analytics will serve as the foundation for the upcoming Data platform that brings together a data lakehouse (supporting both structured and unstructured data), data integration, data preparation, business context, analytics, data science, packaged business models (Cx360, CMDP), and agent building. Deeper integration across the Zoho ecosystem with help establish the upcoming Data Platform as a common data and intelligence infrastructure for agentic AI.

Pricing and Availability
Despite extensive updates, pricing for Zoho Analytics remains unchanged. Now included in each plan are Zoho LLM credits. A Basic plan begins at $30 per month, billed annually, which covers 2 users, 0.5 million rows, and 10K Zoho LLM credits.

For full pricing, visit www.zoho.com/analytics/pricing.html.

Updates to the cloud version of Zoho Analytics are available now, with preview versions of pixel-perfect reporting, ontology and the semantic model to be rolled out globally in the next four to eight weeks.

Updates to the on-premise version of Zoho Analytics will be available in Q1 2027.

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Lessons from the latest Anthropic security incident involving security researchers

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 27, 2026 by itnerd

There are recent reports about security researchers using AI agents to access Anthropic’s internal systems. And they have sparked an important conversation about third-party software risk and the security gaps that can emerge even in sophisticated technology environments. Like this one: https://cybersecuritynews.com/anthropic-internal-system-breach/#google_vignette

Darin Fredde, Sr. Director of Technical Marketing Engineering, Ridge Security

“There’s a certain irony in building some of the most advanced AI systems in the world and having researchers find a way in through ordinary enterprise software. It’s a reminder that even the smartest technology is only as secure as the architecture surrounding it.

“What makes this research interesting isn’t simply the reported speed of the AI agents. It’s their ability to identify potential attack paths across the trust relationships that connect enterprise systems. A vulnerability by itself tells us very little about the actual business risk. The important question is what an attacker can reach, what they can access, and how far they can go.

“Anthropic deserves credit for reporting that its monitoring detected some of the activity and for taking containment measures. But the real measure of remediation is independent verification that those attack paths are closed.

“We need to stop confusing a successful patch with a verified security outcome. Otherwise, we’re just closing the front door and hoping nobody discovered the spare key.”

Jacob Krell, Sr. Dir: Secure AI Solutions & Cybersecurity, Suzu Labs

“Cathedral’s agents got into Anthropic the same way attackers get into everyone else, through the vendors. By Anthropic’s account, days of direct attacks on its own software failed. The breach came when the agents pivoted to the commercial software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools running Anthropic’s sales, human resources, and IT operations, and Cathedral says its agents found exploitable weaknesses there in under 12 hours.

“Anthropic is about as well-defended as a company gets, and its crown jewels never moved, no model weights, no source code, no customer conversations with Claude. What got hit was the layer it bought instead of built, third-party software that tracks customers and manages staff, the kind of layer wired together with integration permissions nobody re-reviews. Security maturity is capped by the weakest vendor you integrate with, and no amount of in-house engineering changes that.”

John Strand, Owner, Black Hills Information Security (www.blackhillsinfosec.com)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-strand-a1b4b62

“This is one of those stories that highlights the dark side of bug bounty programs. A well-executed bug bounty program can work incredibly well because it establishes clear rules of engagement, scope, expectations, and communication. This one sounds like an absolute disaster. Now we’re getting into a he-said, she-said argument over the severity of the vulnerabilities and how they were handled.

“What is particularly frustrating is seeing vulnerability research used as a marketing opportunity. When that happens, it starts to look less like the goal was finding vulnerabilities and getting them fixed, and more like the goal was being as sensational as possible in the claims being made against Anthropic.

“But I don’t want the controversy around Cathedral to distract from the vulnerabilities themselves, because there is a much bigger security lesson here. This shows the risk created by heavily interconnected software-as-a-service applications that are tied into multiple critical parts of an organization.

“That becomes exceedingly difficult for any CISO. At some point, you are outsourcing a portion of your security risk. You can get letters of attestation. You can review compliance reports. You can ask vendors about their security practices. But ultimately, you are trusting those vendors to properly secure infrastructure that may have significant access to your organization.

“It’s a very interesting story, and I’m disappointed in how some of this was released and communicated. But there are important lessons here. One is about what happens when bug bounty programs are poorly run or the relationship between researchers and vendors breaks down. The other is about the enormous amount of risk organizations inherit from SaaS applications and the vendors they trust with access to critical parts of their infrastructure.”

While it is nice to see companies like Anthropic get a taste of their own medicine, it shows what an arms race that AI has become. And I am afraid that this is an arms race that we’ll lose.

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