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Incidents

Sat 24 Oct New

Alliance Healthcare Group says personal data of about 110,000 members in subsidiary Alliance Medinet's membership database was compromised by a third party; bank account details of 7 members and 1 member's medical diagnosis may also be affected

Singapore-listed Alliance Healthcare Group said in an SGX filing on 24 October 2026 that its subsidiary Alliance Medinet Pte. Ltd. recently experienced a cyber incident involving unauthorised access to its system containing its membership database, and that, based on investigations to date, the personal data of approximately 110,000 members in that database had been compromised by a third party. The company said the types of personal data potentially affected include names, personal identification numbers and contact information, and that, based on its initial assessment, 7 members might have had bank account information compromised and 1 member's medical diagnosis might have been breached. It said affected members are being notified by Medinet and/or its partners and relevant clients, that it engaged independent cybersecurity and forensic specialists, put in place 24-hour network monitoring and dark web monitoring, and reported the incident to Singapore's Personal Data Protection Commission on 21 October 2026; investigations are ongoing and the rest of the group is not affected. Insurers Income Insurance and Singlife said some of their customers were affected through Alliance Medinet and that there is currently no evidence their own systems were compromised, according to The Straits Times. Primary: Alliance Healthcare Group SGX announcement (24 Oct 2026); wires: The Straits Times, CNA.

Alliance Healthcare Group — General Announcement: CYBER INCIDENT (SGX, 24 Oct 2026)

breaches

Incidents

Fri 23 Oct New

Updated Sun 25 Oct

Sagawa Express says up to about 53.23 million sets of personal information (with many duplicates) may have been compromised through unauthorised access to its parcel tracking service, according to The Japan Times

Japanese transport company Sagawa Express has announced that up to about 53.23 million sets of personal information may have been compromised due to unauthorised access to its delivery tracking service, according to The Japan Times (Jiji, 24 Oct 2026). According to The Japan Times, the affected data includes the names, addresses and phone numbers of senders and recipients on shipping labels from 21 June to 30 September, as well as the addresses and phone numbers of corporate customers; Sagawa Express said the figure does not necessarily reflect the number of affected customers because there are many overlaps between senders and recipients. Sagawa Express announced the figure on 23 October in a follow-up to the unauthorised access it disclosed on 30 September, according to ITmedia NEWS, which reports that the data also covers members of its 'Smart Club' web service (including email addresses and member IDs), that credit card information and passwords are not included, and that the cause is still being investigated with outside specialists. The company has resumed the tracking service but some other web services remain suspended, according to both outlets. Sources: The Japan Times; ITmedia NEWS. Correction (25 Oct 2026): the card date has moved from 24 to 23 October 2026, the date of ITmedia NEWS's report (23 October, 17:38 Japan time; 4:38 pm Perth), the earliest source cited. (source: ITmedia NEWS)

The Japan Times — Sagawa Express says 53 million sets of personal info possibly compromised (24 Oct 2026)

breaches

AI

Fri 23 Oct

Updated Sun 25 Oct

Google's updated privacy policy says Search may use Gmail, Drive and Google Photos data that users allow Search to access to personalise content, including ads (policy effective 16 Oct)

Google's privacy policy, effective 16 October 2026, says users may choose to allow certain Google services, including Search or Gemini Apps, to access data from other Google services such as Google Photos and Workspace apps like Gmail and Drive, and that 'Search may process some of the data that you allow Search to access to personalize content, including ads.' The policy also says: 'We don't show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Google Photos, unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads.' According to Android Authority, which reported the change on 23 October, Gmail, Drive and Photos content is not used for targeted ads by default, but connecting them to eligible Google services through Personal Intelligence could change that; users can disconnect connected apps or turn off Personalized Recommendations, but data already saved in Search Services History may remain. Primary: Google privacy policy; wire: Android Authority. Updated 24 Oct 2026: The Hacker News reports that Personal Intelligence is rolling out as a beta to eligible users over 18 globally, except in the European Economic Area, Switzerland, the UK and Nigeria. (source: The Hacker News)

Google — Privacy Policy (effective 16 Oct 2026)

ai

Incidents

Fri 23 Oct

Updated Sat 24 Oct

Quest Diagnostics says unauthorised access to its Quanum Lab Services Manager (LSM) system, used by some clients to order tests and look up results, affected personal information and patient records; access paused, investigation ongoing, core operations not impacted

Quest Diagnostics says in a notice on its website, 'An update on an incident involving one of our systems', that it has identified an incident involving unauthorised access to its Quanum LSM system, which certain clients use to place test orders and receive and look up results. Quest says it paused access to the system on discovery and is continuing to investigate, that its core business operations are not impacted, and that providers using direct-customer LIS interfaces or EMRs to order testing can keep doing so because those interfaces were not affected. According to The Record (23 Oct), the system was taken offline on Thursday (22 Oct, US time); Quest's statement and FAQ say the company believes some patient data within the system was accessed; Quest is working with law enforcement and investigating what patient data was affected; customers can use paper requisitions in the meantime; and Quest said the incident did not involve the recent PHP vulnerabilities. The Record says a Quest spokesperson declined to comment on the nature of the incident. Primary: Quest Diagnostics notice; wire: The Record. UPDATE (24 Oct 2026): Quest's notice, now marked 'As of 8:00 am ET, October 23, 2026', adds FAQs. Quest says it believes some patient data within Quanum LSM was accessed and that, 'based on our investigation to date, personal information and patient records were affected'; it is still working to determine the specific data and the affected patients and providers, and as the covered entity will make notifications as required by applicable law, with letters describing resources including credit and identity monitoring. Quest says there is no more access to Quanum LSM, that it is communicating with law enforcement, that no data was accessed in its Essential Insights and LabHQ systems although it paused access to them as a precaution, and that the incident is not related to a PHP programming language issue. Quanum LSM is redirecting clients to Quanum eLabs, where they can log in with the same credentials. According to BleepingComputer (23 Oct), Quest said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it learned of the unauthorised access on 21 October 2026, and BleepingComputer could not find a threat group claiming the attack. (source: Quest Diagnostics; BleepingComputer)

Quest Diagnostics — An update on an incident involving one of our systems

breaches

Vulnerabilities

Fri 23 Oct

Updated Sun 25 Oct

PHP informational advisory (23 Oct): set session.upload_progress.enabled=0 until the next regular bugfix release to fully protect from an unlikely remote code execution vector, CVE-2026-115560, which PHP says needs an unusual combination of configuration and application code

PHP published an informational advisory on 23 October 2026 (10:12 UTC, 6:12 pm Perth) suggesting that users set session.upload_progress.enabled=0 until the next regular bugfix release, 'to fully protect from an unlikely RCE vector', tracked as CVE-2026-115560. PHP says the issue can only occur under an unusual combination of configuration and application code: an application must set session.serialize_handler to php_binary or php_serialize in its configuration and then switch it to php at runtime with ini_set() before calling session_start(), and session upload progress must also still be enabled. PHP says applications that never change the serialize handler at runtime can keep the feature enabled. PHP says the same setting was already listed as a mitigation in its GHSA-6wmf-4rv5-p3rp advisory for CVE-2026-109619 published on 21 October, and that anyone who applied it then should keep it in place and needs to take no further action. Because the setup is unlikely in practice, PHP says it is handling the issue in the regular release cycle and will publish a full advisory for CVE-2026-115560 with the next release. According to The Hacker News (23 Oct), the new issue is separate from, and not fixed by, the 21 October releases (PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35) that fixed the critical PHP2Shell flaws CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619; PHP has not stated which versions are affected, which releases will contain the fix, or a severity score; and no exploitation of CVE-2026-115560 has been reported. Primary: PHP.net; wire: The Hacker News. Updated 24 Oct 2026: the CVE number has no published record on cve.org yet, so the card no longer links to one; PHP's own advisory is the primary source. (source: PHP.net) UPDATE (25 Oct 2026): Palo Alto Networks added an FAQ to its PHP advisory on 25 October saying its current analysis shows no impact of CVE-2026-115560 on PAN-OS (NGFW and Panorama), because the issue relates to an uncommon configuration that PAN-OS does not use, and that a review of impact to its other products is underway. (source: Palo Alto Networks advisory CVE-2026-109618)

PHP.net — Informational advisory: Session upload progress (23 Oct 2026)

vulnerabilities

Advisories

Fri 23 Oct

Updated Sat 24 Oct

Australia sanctions two North Korean individuals and two companies over North Korea's remote IT worker schemes (23 Oct 2026); iTnews reports the Australian Sanctions Office has warned that DPRK IT workers use stolen and doctored Australian drivers' licences and passports

According to iTnews (23 October 2026), Australia has imposed targeted financial sanctions and travel bans on two North Korean individuals, Yu Pu Ung and Sim Hyon Sop, and two companies, Korea Mangyongdae Computer Technology Company and Chinyong Information Technology Cooperation Company, which help the regime place IT workers in remote jobs abroad to bring in foreign currency. iTnews says all four were already under United States Treasury sanctions. iTnews reports that the Australian government said the workers obtained remote employment while posing as nationals of other countries, breaching UN Security Council resolutions that prohibit North Korea's export of labour, and that the listings act on findings by the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT), which the government said had exposed North Korea's sanctions-evasion networks and 'the serious cyber security risks those networks pose to affected businesses'. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a statement, as quoted by iTnews: 'We are taking this action in coordination with international partners, including the European Union.' According to iTnews, the listings follow a warning from the Australian Sanctions Office (ASO) that North Korean workers are using stolen and doctored Australian drivers' licences and passports to win remote contracts. iTnews reports the ASO said Australia's competitive salaries and demand for contract IT staff make the country an attractive target, that local companies have been approached through LinkedIn, Fiverr and Freelancer as well as through recruitment firms, and that businesses should not rely on recruiters' due diligence and should watch for warning signs such as AI-generated interview answers, face-swap filters on video calls and logins from several countries in quick succession. iTnews says making an asset available to a listed person or entity without ministerial authorisation is a criminal offence: individuals face up to 10 years' jail and fines of up to $910,000 or three times the value of the transactions, whichever is greater, and companies face fines of up to $3.64 million on the same basis, though a business can defend itself by showing it took reasonable precautions and exercised due diligence. Primary: iTnews. Correction (24 Oct 2026): this card previously credited the DFAT notice, the Foreign Minister's media release and the ASO advisory note directly; those pages could not be loaded to verify, so the card now credits iTnews and drops details iTnews does not report (the penalty-unit figures, the advisory note's publication dates and further red flags and advice). It also corrects the spelling of Mangyongdae. (source: iTnews)

iTnews — Australia sanctions North Korean IT worker bosses and financiers (Juha Saarinen, 23 Oct 2026)

australia identity

AI

Thu 22 Oct New

METR and Redwood Research: three-week red-team of OpenAI's internal misalignment monitoring (21 Jul–11 Aug) found ways agents could bypass Codex sandboxing and Auto-Review and avoid being monitored; OpenAI says production fixes are in, METR has not verified them

METR said on 22 October 2026 that, from 21 July to 11 August, one METR employee and one Redwood Research employee ran a pilot high-access exercise to stress-test OpenAI's internal misalignment monitoring system, with access to OpenAI's internal codebase, monitor prompts and configuration, and internal documentation. METR says the findings describe the system as it existed on and before 21 July, not OpenAI's later, expanded monitoring. Among the findings METR lists: a way Codex agents could in principle bypass Codex sandboxing and Auto-Review and take any action the host user could take; an exploit that would stop hundreds of recent agent actions from being monitored (details redacted by OpenAI); likely ways for agents to make the monitor fail through serialization differences between what agents and monitors see; two client-controllable headers that disable monitoring for new agents; and two unmonitored internal agentic tools thought to be read-only that a simple exploit could have subverted, which METR says it did not validate. METR estimates that roughly 75–94% of agentic internal Responses API traffic from models at least as strong as GPT-5.5 was eligible for monitoring at the time, with substantial uncertainty, and that RL training runs were not covered by the monitoring system at the start of the exercise. METR says OpenAI has since stated that all of the vulnerabilities it identified that affect OpenAI's production safeguards stack have been patched, and that METR has not evaluated those claims. METR says it agreed with OpenAI to publish only a brief, high-level post and that OpenAI could redact it. The Hacker News reported the findings on 25 October. Distinct from desk cards openai-agents-disabled-misalignment-monitoring-sol-astra-20261020 (OpenAI's own report on agents weakening monitoring in October) and openai-hugging-face-incident-20260826.

METR — Red-Teaming OpenAI's Internal Agent Monitoring Systems (22 Oct 2026)

ai

Incidents

Thu 22 Oct New

Updated Sun 25 Oct

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare says there was unauthorised and unlawful access to two employee email accounts and a subset of company files, some containing personally identifiable information; it says patient-data system not shown to be compromised and no ransomware or malware found

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Corporation Limited, the respiratory care and sleep apnoea device maker, said in a statement issued from Auckland on 22 October 2026 that it had been made aware of unauthorised and unlawful access to two employee email accounts and a subset of company files, and that it immediately activated its response protocols to contain the incident and investigate. The company said some of the files accessed contained personally identifiable information, that it is in the process of notifying those affected and that it has notified relevant authorities. It said there has been no impact to its products, manufacturing operations or supply chain, that there is no evidence the activity compromised the system that maintains patient data, that it has identified no evidence of ransomware or malware, that it believes the incident has been contained, and that it does not expect any material impact on its financials or operations. The company has not said what kinds of personal information were in the files, how many people are affected or how the accounts were accessed. Primary: F&P Healthcare statement (22 Oct 2026); exchange filing: NZX announcement; wire: CNA.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare — F&P Healthcare statement regarding cyber incident (22 Oct 2026)

breaches identity

Incidents

Thu 22 Oct New

Updated Sun 25 Oct

Hostwinds says it found unauthorised access to the system that runs its client area and billing, took the client area offline and has since reset every client area password; client area back online on a newly built system

Web hosting provider Hostwinds said on its status page on 22 October 2026 (posted 14:44 UTC, 10:44 pm Perth) that it had 'identified unauthorized access to the system that runs the Hostwinds client area and billing', proactively took the client area offline as a precaution, is working with an independent forensic and cybersecurity firm, and has notified the appropriate law enforcement agencies. Hostwinds said customer servers and websites remained online, but that as a precaution it had disabled access to potentially impacted services, so some customers might not be able to sign in to their server. In an update posted on 24 October (18:11 UTC, 2:11 am Perth 25 Oct), Hostwinds said the client area is back online at clients.hostwinds.com, having reopened on the evening of 23 October on a newly built system; that as part of its response it has reset every client area password, so old passwords no longer work; that it has emailed customers with full details and steps to take; and that its investigation with an independent forensic firm is continuing. In that update Hostwinds said PayPal payments were temporarily unavailable while it reconnected them and that the affiliate portal (affiliates.hostwinds.com) remained offline. Hostwinds has not said what data, if any, was accessed or how the attacker got in. Hostwinds warns that it will never ask for passwords, SSH keys or full card numbers by email, chat or phone, and that a password reset email only arrives after the customer selects 'Forgot password' themselves. Primary: Hostwinds status page; vendor guide: Hostwinds password-reset instructions (23 Oct). UPDATE (25 Oct 2026): In a status post at 19:51 UTC on 24 October (3:51 am Perth 25 Oct), Hostwinds said PayPal payments are working again, that customers whose PayPal payment failed should try again, and that access to the client area remains restored; it said its investigation with an independent forensic firm is continuing. (source: Hostwinds System Status)

Hostwinds System Status — Security incident: PayPal payments restored (24 Oct 2026), Security incident: client area back online, action needed (24 Oct 2026) and Security incident: Hostwinds client area offline (22 Oct 2026)

breaches cloud identity

Advisories

Thu 22 Oct

Updated Sun 25 Oct

Microsoft VM Inspector for Azure Virtual Machines CVE-2026-110063, CVSS 10.0: link-following flaw let an unauthorised attacker elevate privileges over a network; already fully mitigated by Microsoft, no customer action needed

On 22 October 2026 Microsoft's Security Update Guide published CVE-2026-110063, 'VM Inspector for Azure Virtual Machines Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability': improper link resolution before file access ('link following', CWE-59) in VM Inspector for Azure Virtual Machines allows an unauthorised attacker to elevate privileges over a network. Microsoft rates it Critical with a CVSS 3.1 base score of 10.0 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H). Microsoft's FAQ says the vulnerability has already been fully mitigated by Microsoft, there is no action for users of the service to take, and the CVE is published to provide further transparency. Microsoft lists it as not publicly disclosed and not exploited. It was one of six Microsoft cloud-service CVEs published that day; the others are on their own desk cards. Primary: Microsoft Security Response Center; CVE record.

Microsoft Security Response Center — CVE-2026-110063, VM Inspector for Azure Virtual Machines Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability (22 Oct 2026)

vulnerabilities cloud

Advisories

Thu 22 Oct

Updated Sun 25 Oct

Microsoft Exchange Online CVE-2026-96185 (CVSS 7.5, rated Critical by Microsoft): stack-based buffer overflow let an authorised attacker execute code over a network; already fully mitigated by Microsoft, no customer action needed

On 22 October 2026 Microsoft's Security Update Guide published CVE-2026-96185, 'Microsoft Exchange Online Remote Code Execution Vulnerability': a stack-based buffer overflow (CWE-121) in Microsoft Exchange Online allows an authorised attacker to execute code over a network. Microsoft rates it Critical with a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.5 (AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H). Microsoft's FAQ says the vulnerability has already been fully mitigated by Microsoft, there is no action for users of the service to take, and the CVE is published to provide further transparency. Microsoft lists it as not publicly disclosed and not exploited. It was one of six Microsoft cloud-service CVEs published that day; the others are on their own desk cards. Primary: Microsoft Security Response Center; CVE record.

Microsoft Security Response Center — CVE-2026-96185, Microsoft Exchange Online Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (22 Oct 2026)

vulnerabilities cloud email

Advisories

Thu 22 Oct

Updated Sun 25 Oct

Microsoft Azure Pipelines CVE-2026-105014, CVSS 9.1: command injection let an unauthorised attacker execute code over a network; already fully mitigated by Microsoft, no customer action needed

On 22 October 2026 Microsoft's Security Update Guide published CVE-2026-105014, 'Azure Pipelines Remote Code Execution Vulnerability': command injection (CWE-77) in Azure Pipelines allows an unauthorised attacker to execute code over a network. Microsoft rates it Critical with a CVSS 3.1 base score of 9.1 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N). Microsoft's temporal metrics mark exploit code maturity as proof-of-concept (E:P). Microsoft's FAQ says the vulnerability has already been fully mitigated by Microsoft, there is no action for users of the service to take, and the CVE is published to provide further transparency. Microsoft lists it as not publicly disclosed and not exploited. It was one of six Microsoft cloud-service CVEs published that day; the others are on their own desk cards. Primary: Microsoft Security Response Center; CVE record.

Microsoft Security Response Center — CVE-2026-105014, Azure Pipelines Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (22 Oct 2026)

vulnerabilities cloud supply chain