AI Sec Watch

CVE-2026-50510 is a vulnerability in GitHub Copilot where improper file naming restrictions allow an unauthorized attacker to execute code on a user's local machine. The vulnerability is classified as CWE-641 (improper restriction of names for files and other resources), and details are being tracked by Microsoft and NIST.

A vulnerability in Symfony Mailer's Address class allowed attackers to inject email headers and SMTP commands (the protocol used to send emails) by embedding line break characters in email addresses. The constructor was supposed to validate addresses but failed to catch addresses with hidden `\r\n` bytes in the local-part (the text before the `@` symbol), which could be exploited to add unauthorized recipients or headers when the email was sent.

Major book publishers including Hachette, Cengage, and Elsevier have sued Google in federal court, claiming the company illegally used millions of copyrighted books to train its Gemini AI model (a large language model trained on text data) without permission. The publishers describe this as one of the largest copyright infringements in history.

Apple is in talks with PrismML, a startup that compresses large AI models (mathematical systems with billions of parameters that process information) so they can run directly on iPhones instead of requiring cloud servers. PrismML shrunk Alibaba's 54 GB Qwen model down to under 4 GB by drastically simplifying how the model stores information, allowing the compressed version to run on iPhone 15 and newer devices while using significantly less memory and energy, though with some loss in accuracy.

Researchers found that any browser extension able to run scripts on claude.ai can trigger Claude for Chrome to access your Gmail, Google Docs, and Calendar by forging a fake click, since the extension doesn't verify that clicks are from real users rather than scripts. The flaw is rated as high or critical severity depending on whether you have the "Act without asking" automation mode enabled, and while a simple one-line fix exists, Anthropic has not yet released it in the current version 1.0.80.

CVE-2026-48561 is a command injection vulnerability (a flaw where an attacker tricks software into running unintended commands by inserting special characters into input) in Microsoft Copilot that allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code over a network. The vulnerability stems from improper handling of special elements in commands. Details about the severity and available fixes are still being assessed.

GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code contain a vulnerability where credentials (login information and authentication tokens) are not properly protected, allowing an attacker to access sensitive information over a network. This is tracked as CVE-2026-47282 and has a CVSS score (a 0-10 rating of how severe a vulnerability is) of 4.0, meaning it has moderate severity.

AWS WAF Bot Control now includes Web Bot Authentication (WBA), a security feature that uses cryptographic signatures (mathematical verification codes created with public and private keys) to confirm that automated bot traffic comes from legitimate sources. Traditional methods like IP-based filtering fail in multi-tenant systems (shared environments where many different services use the same IP address) where attackers can easily fake their identity, but WBA solves this by having bot operators sign their requests with cryptographic keys that AWS WAF can verify at the edge.

The UK faces a dilemma in competing globally with AI technology, caught between wanting to invest heavily in AI and worrying about three simultaneous risks: putting too much money into AI company stocks, companies adopting AI more slowly than expected, and the extremely rapid pace of AI development making it hard to keep up. The article discusses broader concerns about the UK's position in the global AI competition alongside questions about major AI companies' future plans.