We didn’t quite make it to the World Cup final but congrats England on a well-deserved bronze medal. The sun is STILL shining, and we have a new prime minister, so H2 2026 will likely be a busy one. This month we look at the OpenAI “rogue” agent story as well as some Windows 10 housekeeping.
Skynet?
In late July, OpenAI admitted that its AI models broke out of a (supposedly) secure test environment during a trial and launched a cyber attack on Hugging Face, a technology start up. This sparked a flurry of articles speculating on both how this had happened and whether the machines were already taking over! However, both this Wired article and one from the BBC are very much worth reading. The former highlights how the models exploited a “zero-day vulnerability” allowing access to the internet and then focused on Hugging Face as a source of what they needed to solve the problem set. The latter provides some rather alarming statistics – 17,000 attacks on Hugging Face’s network in “very short time” – but the company’s co-founder also stresses the need for companies to strengthen their cybersecurity defences.
Skynet might not yet be taking over but there are valuable lessons to be learned:
- Always execute software updates ASAP – software vulnerabilities are a fact of life which is why vendors release patches
- Be AI-mindful – AI can be enormously helpful in the day-to-day life of your office so be sure you know where it is being used and what for – clear policies will help your team to comply
- Make and maintain cyber security as a priority – we already know the human hackers have become ever more creative but AI can help them with both speed and capacity
Windows 10 – time to update
In October 2025, Microsoft stopped releasing Windows 10 security updates and, whilst computers will still work, every new flaw found now stays unpatched. This makes it much easier for those machines to be attacked, potentially causing problems with both compliance and your cyber insurance. Here’s what needs to be done:
- Create a list of every computer still running Windows 10
- Use Microsoft’s free PC Health Check app to see which ones can upgrade to Windows 11 – if the hardware qualifies this should be free
- Upgrade the ones that qualify which will keep your files and programs in place
- For those that don’t qualify for a free upgrade look at either paying for Extended Security Updates as a short-term solution or, ideally, replace the PC
