Daily Brief
2026-10-25
Top Story
A drone sank the cargo ship Khoryv 13 nautical miles off the Romanian port of Constanta, killing at least one sailor and leaving three missing; Romania's president blamed Russia
At least seven cargo ships have been hit off Romania and Bulgaria in the past two weeks, with about 30 sailors dead or missing.
United States
The FBI and CISA warned that the SafePay ransomware group has struck more than 600 critical infrastructure providers since 2024
SafePay, the ransomware group, gets in through compromised logins and known flaws in internet-facing devices, often through VPN connections, according to an advisory the FBI and CISA, the US cyber defense agency, issued jointly with European authorities. They recommend patching known exploited flaws and requiring multifactor authentication, especially on VPN accounts. They also advise keeping encrypted offline backups that can't be altered and segmenting networks.
Canadian police services including Winnipeg's, Ottawa's and Toronto's suspended their use of Crime Stoppers after CBC found more than 1.5 million tips stolen from Navigate360's P3 platform, which holds them
The tips were taken last March by a hacktivist group, and CBC found the data included identifiable personal information, in some cases enough to contact a tipster.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright designated helium a critical material under the Energy Act of 2020, citing its role in American manufacturing, chipmaking especially
The Energy Department says helium has no viable substitute in many critical applications, and that global demand is growing faster than production, raising supply risk for US manufacturers. Limited refining capacity and long permitting timelines hold back US output despite large domestic deposits.
Around the World
A Chinese-speaking hacker used AI agents to break into the websites of more than 100 companies, including Deere and SharkNinja, at an estimated $5,000 in AI costs, Reuters reports
A researcher at the security firm NorForge, Snorre Fagerland, found the operation while scanning the internet for exposed installations of Cairn, an open-source AI platform.
Steamship Mutual, a ship insurer, reissued its Black Sea war-risk zone on October 1st, and shipowners with vessels in or entering it are told to contact underwriters for terms
Its directors issued notice canceling all of their hull war policies, which cover ships against war, piracy and terrorism, then reinstated them with the new zone written in. The zone is the Black Sea including Russian and Ukrainian territorial waters, but not those of the other countries bordering it.
Brazil's presidential runoff on October 25th is a technical tie in the final Futura poll, which has Flavio Bolsonaro at 50.1 percent of valid votes and Lula at 49.9, inside a 2.2-point margin of error
Futura Inteligencia surveyed 2,000 voters by telephone on October 23rd and 24th.
Senegal's National Assembly law committee rejected the government's own revised 2026 budget bill, with the full chamber, where the governing Pastef party holds a large majority, due to take it up on October 27th
The committee rejected the bill on October 24th, with Pastef citing several of the five conditions it had set that the government did not meet, among them sharing the government's World Bank agreements with lawmakers, trimming the cost of the state and controlling special funds.
Clashes between Ethiopia's Somali and Oromia regional forces killed at least five people and pushed more than 10,000 across the border into Kenya
The monitoring group ACLED counted at least five dead in several days of fighting over a disputed border area around Moyale, the French public broadcaster RFI reports.
Iran's planning and budget chief says part of the country's war-damaged gas facilities is back in production, while urging households to cut gas use by 10 percent this winter
Shana, the Iranian oil ministry's own news service, quotes Hamid Pourmohammadi, head of the Plan and Budget Organization, saying the ministry's work has repaired part of the damage and returned it to production.
FATF, the global money-laundering watchdog, meets in Paris from October 28th to 30th for its first full session under a UK presidency, and will review the progress of countries on its increased-monitoring list
FATF Week starts on October 26th, and the watchdog's main decision-making body meets from October 28th to 30th under its new president, Giles Thomson.