Ericsson and Mastercard enhance global digital money movement and accelerate digital financial inclusion

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 18, 2026 by itnerd

Ericsson and Mastercard today announce a collaboration to reshape how money moves across the world. By integrating the Ericsson Fintech Platform (Mobile Financial Services) with Mastercard Move – Mastercard’s portfolio of money movement solutions – the collaboration will empower telecom service providers, banks, and fintechs to expand digital wallet capabilities, launch new payment services, and reach unbanked or underbanked communities.

Ericsson’s pre-integrated application programming interfaces (APIs), cloud-native deployment and compliance-ready infrastructure simplifies fintech connectivity to Mastercard Move.

These capabilities reduce technology complexity, lower operational barriers (by simplifying integration, deployment and compliance) and accelerate time to market for new payment services – all aimed at catalyzing innovation and growth in the sector.

The Ericsson-Mastercard collaboration transforms how financial services are built, delivered and scaled. It creates new revenue streams and strengthens digital ecosystems across emerging and developed markets.

Financial inclusion and accessibility are key focuses of the collaboration. Mastercard Move enables money movement across 200 countries and territories, connecting more than ten billion endpoints, and supporting transactions in 150 currencies.

Ericsson’s fintech platform operates in 22 countries, serving more than 120 million active users and processing more than four billion transactions every month across digital wallets, payments, remittances, lending, and loyalty services – all backed by enterprise-grade security.

Mastercard Move‘s integration into Ericsson’s Fintech Platform aims to accelerate the adoption of digital payments and expand participation in the digital economy. The global rollout will begin in the Middle East and Africa, where demand for mobile money, remittances and interoperable payment services is particularly strong.

Related link: Ericsson Mobile Financial Services

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Safe Software Launches FME Flow Availability in AWS Marketplace

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 18, 2026 by itnerd

Today, Safe Software announced that FME Flow is now available in AWS Marketplace, which helps organizations easily discover, try, test, buy, deploy and manage thousands of software solutions, including pre-built AI agents and ready-to-integrate tools, all in one convenient destination. Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers can now purchase FME Flow directly within AWS Marketplace, simplifying billing and procurement and providing faster access to Safe Software’s enterprise-grade data automation capabilities.

Safe Software’s FME connects all data across data velocities, locations, and types. FME Flow delivers many data workflow services to enterprise users. Availability in AWS Marketplace allows organizations to streamline the purchase and management of FME Flow directly within their AWS Marketplace account.

Leveraging FME Flow, users can operationalize, automate, and scale data workflows and deploy them as scheduled or create event-driven automations, real-time data streams, or shareable no-code web applications. Through AWS Marketplace, it is now easier than ever to launch FME Flow into existing AWS environments. Within AWS environments, FME Flow connects natively to AWS services such as Amazon Redshift, Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), Amazon Aurora, and Amazon Athena, enabling direct data access and orchestration across AWS services.

As an AWS Partner Network (APN) member, Safe Software joins a global network of 100,000 Partners from more than 150 countries working with AWS to provide innovative solutions, solve technical challenges, win deals, and deliver value to mutual customers.

For more information, please visit: https://fme.safe.com/platform/aws-marketplace/.

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Wagepoint Launches Timesheets and My Wagepoint Mobile App

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 18, 2026 by itnerd

Wagepoint today announced the launch of Timesheets, a built-in time entry feature, and My Wagepoint, its next-generation mobile app for employees. The launches represent a significant step forward to provide small businesses, accountants, and bookkeepers with a unifying and accessible mobile-first solution for people on the go.

As business models increasingly prioritize AI usage and mobile-first structures, these products reflect a demand for payroll efficiency, automation, and unity. My Wagepoint marks critical progress toward end-to-end mobile payroll workflows in small business operations.

Timesheets
Built directly into Wagepoint, Timesheets allows employees, contractors, and administrators to submit time entries for approval, replacing the need to chase down hours or rely on separate tools. Once approved, hours flow straight into payroll for faster, simpler pay runs.

Key benefits include:

  • Spend less time on payroll: Built-in time tracking eliminates manual hour collection, so business owners can spend less time on admin and more time running their business.
  • Overtime done right, automatically: Wagepoint automatically calculates and applies overtime rates based on the standard daily and weekly rules for the employee’s province or territory.
  • Technology that grows with you: One solution for time and pay that scales with your team, without unnecessary tech overhead or added complexity.

My Wagepoint
My Wagepoint marks Wagepoint’s next-generation mobile experience, purpose-built as part of the company’s core payroll platform. Available on the App Store and Google Play, the app gives employees and contractors seamless, on-the-go access to payroll — allowing them to manage time entries, access paystubs, and update profile information directly from their mobile device. This launch marks an important step toward a mobile-first payroll experience, supporting more businesses that operate on the go.

Since 2012, more than 30,000 small businesses, and over 1,800 accountants and bookkeepers have relied on Wagepoint for accurate, compliant payroll built specifically for Canadian businesses. Purpose-built for Canada, the platform features auto-calculated pay runs, automatic tax remittances to the CRA, an employee self-service portal, and integrations with QuickBooks Online, Xero, and FreshBooks.

To learn more, visit www.wagepoint.com.

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Chinese hackers exploiting Dell zero-day flaw that has been around since mid-2024

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 18, 2026 by itnerd

Dell users will want to pay attention to the news that a suspected Chinese state-backed hacking group has been quietly exploiting a critical Dell security flaw in zero-day attacks that started in mid-2024.

Martin Jartelius, AI Product Director at Outpost24has provided the following commentary: 

“‘Speak friend and enter’ as Tolkien wrote in 1954, where Gandalf is amused by the ancient riddle, reflecting a level of security from a more trusting time. Hardcoded credentials have accounted for roughly 0.4% of all vulnerabilities indexed, following the trend of an increasing number of reported vulnerabilities, and only just above 1% of those make it onto the CISA KEVs list. This vulnerability is not a unicorn, but it is massively hard to detect in logs and monitoring, which contributes to the extremely low reporting frequency, given it is a published set of master keys to any of those systems. Patching must be urgently prioritized.”

If you use Dell gear in your organization, I’d strongly suggest having a look at this and taking action if required. Given how long that it has been around, there’s a possibility that the threat actors behind this have set up shop in a lot of places.

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Forward Edge-AI and Angkasa-X Announce Strategic Collaboration

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 18, 2026 by itnerd

Forward Edge-AI today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate on business opportunities that expand space-enabled connectivity and accelerate new space infrastructure initiatives across the Indo-Pacific and ASEAN region.

Under the MOU, Forward Edge-AI will provide services including: turnkey satellite design, manufacturing, post quantum cybersecurity, and launch services. They will also include support to secure permitting for ground- or sea-based facilities for spacecraft assembly, launch, and landing. Angkasa-X will focus on regulatory authorization, funding, provisioning, constellation management, space situational awareness, orbital adjustments, and deorbiting. They will also lead marketing and promotion of satellite-enabled internet access, positioning, tracking, and IoT services delivered via a LEO satellite internet constellation.

The collaboration aligns with Angkasa-X’s stated mission to establish an ASEAN space economy through its A-SEANLINK satellite constellation and improve rural connectivity using LEO satellite technology. It also builds upon Angkasa-X’s public ITU-R space filing activity associated with “AX_A-SEANLINK” materials. 

In addition, the parties intend to jointly promote access to the Palau Space Port for the aerospace industry and pursue additional projects (including opportunities such as “Golden Dome”) that advance space technologies and economic partnerships.

Separately, Forward Edge-AI and Angkasa-X also executed a Teaming Agreement to jointly respond to agency task orders under the SHIELD contract vehicle, with Forward Edge-AI serving as prime and Angkasa-X as a proposed subcontractor.

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Volvo Cars’ multi-adaptive safety belt is debuting in the upcoming EX60

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 17, 2026 by itnerd

The world-first multi-adaptive safety belt, set to debut in Volvo Cars’ soon-to-be-revealed fully electric EX60 SUV, has been recognized as one of the Best Inventions of 2025 by TIME.

TIME has revealed its annual list of the Best Inventions, which features 300 extraordinary innovations changing our lives. For the second year in a row, Volvo Cars is honoured to be included on the list for its latest safety innovation.



The new multi-adaptive safety belt is designed to even better protect occupants by adapting to the traffic conditions and the person wearing it.

Leveraging real-time data from the car’s advanced interior and exterior sensors, the system can customize protection by adjusting to the current situation and the unique personal profile of drivers and passengers, such as their height, weight, body shape and seating position.

For example, a larger occupant in a severe crash will receive a higher belt load setting to help reduce the risk of head injury, while a smaller occupant in a milder crash will receive a lower belt load setting to reduce the risk of rib fractures.

The capabilities of the new multi-adaptive safety belt are designed to continuously improve via over-the-air software updates. As Volvo Cars gathers more insights, the car can improve its understanding of the occupants, new scenarios and response strategies.

This invention demonstrates how Volvo Cars continues leading in safety innovation to better protect people by leveraging insight from real-world data.

Last year, another Volvo Cars safety feature was named one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2024. The pioneering Driver Understanding System, available in the Volvo EX90 and ES90, uses real-time sensing technology to help detect if a driver is impaired, tired or distracted, so the car can step in to provide support if needed.

The new safety belt will be introduced in the upcoming Volvo EX60, which will be shipping to dealerships shortly. Volvo Cars will also be showcasing the brand’s new multi-adaptive safety belt at the Canadian International Auto Show which runs until Sunday in Toronto.

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New 2026 Global Incident Response Report from Unit 42

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 17, 2026 by itnerd

Unit 42 has published its annual Global Incident Response Report (full report available here).The report spotlights key trends from over 750 major cyber incidents managed by Unit 42 across 50 countries, and provides actionable guidance to defend against emerging and notable attack techniques.

Key data from this year’s report: 

  • AI has become a force multiplier for threat actors – Attackers moved from AI experimentation to operationalization. Unit 42 saw that with AI, exfiltration speeds for the fastest attacks increased from nearly 5 hours to just 72 minutes (a 4x increase).
  • Identity drives initial access –Identity weaknesses played a material role in nearly 90% of our investigations. Agentic identity management makes this challenge even more complex as non-human identities are often over-privileged and inconsistently monitored.  65% of initial access is driven by identity-based techniques such as social engineering, while vulnerabilities account for 22% of initial access in all attacks. 
  • Software supply chain risk has expanded to include the misuse of trusted connectivity. Attacks involving third-party SaaS applications have surged 3.8x since 2022, accounting for 23% of all attacks, as threat actors abuse OAuth tokens and API keys for lateral movement.
  • Attack complexity is increasing – 87% of intrusions span multiple attack surfaces, with as many as 10 in some complex investigations. Threats are rarely confined to a single environment, and attackers often coordinate actions across endpoints, networks, cloud services, SaaS platforms, and identity systems. This creates complexity by forcing defenders to keep visibility across all of these areas simultaneously.
  • The browser is a primary battleground – Nearly 48% of incidents included browser-based activity. That reflects how often modern attacks intersect with routine workflows like email, web access, and day-to-day SaaS use, turning normal user behavior into an attack vector.
  • Extortion is moving beyond encryption – Encryption-based extortion declined to 78% of incidents, down from 92% the year before, as more attackers skip encryption and move straight to data theft and disruption. From the attacker’s perspective, it’s faster, quieter, and creates immediate pressure without the signals defenders once relied on to detect ransomware attacks.

Additionally, Palo Alto Networks announced Managed XSIAM 2.0 (MSIAM) the managed evolution of Cortex XSIAM SOC transformation platform. As the Incident Response Report highlights, attacks can now unfold in under an hour, and MSIAM delivers 24/7 AI-driven SOC operations with continuous and high-speed threat hunting, response, and remediation.

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Elasticsearch Instances Expose 43M+ Records Including Credentials, Credit Cards, and Customer Data

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 17, 2026 by itnerd

SOCRadar researchers announced the identification of three publicly accessible and misconfigured Elasticsearch instances leaking highly sensitive data, including infostealer logs, credit card information, and millions of personal identity records.

The exposed databases contained more than 43 million records, including over 5 million valid credentials, thousands of credit cards, and large-scale PII and commercial transaction data. All three cases demonstrate how misconfigured Elasticsearch services continue to create immediate and exploitation-ready risks for organizations and individuals.

Key findings include: 

  1. Incident 1: 7.2 million infostealer logs and 24, 000 credit cards exposed
  2. Incident 2: 35 million Italian PII records publicly accessible
  3. Incident 3: 1.5 million customer records and commercial data exposed

The security team analyzed the exposed instances, notified relevant parties, and assessed the potential impact. The full details of this can be read here: https://socradar.io/blog/elasticsearch-instances-43m-records-data/

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Microsoft and Ericsson bring enterprise-grade 5G laptop management to Windows 11

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 17, 2026 by itnerd

Ericsson has announced a major joint Microsoft-Ericsson development in enterprise mobility – the integration of advanced 5G capabilities directly into Windows 11. The transformative results mean enterprises worldwide – and their workforces – stand to benefit from secure, policy-driven laptop connectivity, simplifying how IT departments manage, protect and scale mobile PC fleets.

The joint solution combines Microsoft Intune device management with Ericsson Enterprise 5G Connect (formerly Ericsson Enterprise Virtual Cellular Network – EVCN) – an AI- and cloud-analytics-powered platform that continuously monitors network quality and automatically adjusts connectivity for best performance and security.

The embedding of AI-based 5G management into Windows 11 enables IT teams to automate how devices connect, seamlessly switch between communications service providers’ (CSPs) networks, and apply in-house enterprise policies.

Through Microsoft Intune and Ericsson Enterprise 5G Connect, IT teams can automatically enforce secure connectivity profiles and enterprise policies across every 5G-connected device, minimizing manual setup while ensuring consistent, compliant user experiences everywhere employees work.

Such automation capabilities remove long-standing challenges in adopting cellular-connected laptops – minimizing manual setup and ensuring consistent user experience across locations and service providers.  The new capabilities also reduce IT overheads and provide enterprises with a predictable, secure pathway to tap modern mobility capabilities – powered by the most secure and cloud‑integrated version of Windows.

Building on Microsoft and Ericsson’s long-standing collaboration to bring managed 5G connectivity to the enterprise workspace, today’s announcement follows several successful multi-market pilots. In collaboration with CSPs and other global partners, Microsoft and Ericsson will deliver enterprise 5G bundles, starting with Surface Copilot+ PCs, Microsoft 365 and Intune, Ericsson Enterprise 5G Connect.

In addition to demonstrating solution capabilities, Microsoft and Ericsson will give attendees at MWC Barcelona 2026 – the world’s largest mobile connectivity expo – exclusive insights to future solution capabilities that are set to become part of the solution.

Experts will showcase the joint solution and its new features: to remotely set network policies for 5G as priority; the automatic switching of eSIMs; and the local AI agent running on a Surface 5G laptop to make intelligent, context-aware decisions in real time. This will show connectivity performance is optimized to ensure consistently smooth, reliable performance for high-value business workflows.

The joint solution is now available to enterprises in key markets: in the United States with T-Mobile; in Sweden with Telenor; in Singapore with Singtel; and in Japan with SoftBank Corp. Similar launches will follow during 2026 in other markets, including in Spain with MasOrange; in Germany with O2 Telefónica Germany; and in Finland with Elisa.

Related link: Ericsson Portfolio: Ericsson Enterprise 5G Connect

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DryRun Security Appoints Andrew Peterson to Board of Directors

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 17, 2026 by itnerd

DryRun Security today announced the appointment of Andrew Peterson as the newest addition to its Board of Directors, effective immediately. 

Andrew Peterson is a distinguished cybersecurity entrepreneur, technologist and investor with a proven track record of building category-defining security companies. As co-founder of Signal Sciences, Peterson helped pioneer a modern approach to web application and API security, guiding the company through rapid growth, deep enterprise adoption and its successful acquisition by Fastly in 2020. Most recently, Peterson founded Aviso Ventures, an early-stage fund focused on enterprise and infrastructure software,  where Fund I has emerged as  a top performer. His portfolio includes near unicorn AI security companies such as Protect AI, acquired by Palo Alto Networks in 2024, and SGNL.ai, acquired by CrowdStrike earlier this year. Across roles, Peterson brings an invaluable operator’s perspective, helping technically ambitious teams translate security innovation into durable, category-defining businesses. 

Since emerging from stealth, DryRun Security has quickly established itself as a leader in AI-native code security intelligence through breakthrough product innovation, original research, and accelerating customer adoption. DryRun Security also helps teams defend against shadow AI coding by providing policy-driven visibility into agentic code changes and sources. With enterprise and mid-market customers now executing more than 250,000 code reviews per month, DryRun is setting a new standard for securing modern, AI-driven software development.

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