On October 27, Google issued a new Stable channel update for Chrome.

Most users are on Chrome’s Stable channel. The desktop update brings Chrome to versions 156.0.8078.73/.74 for Windows and Mac and 156.0.8078.73 for Linux. The update includes 52 security fixes, including four rated Critical.

On the same day, Mozilla issued Security Advisory 2026-118, which fixes 167 vulnerabilities. Firefox 159 also introduces several new features.

Both updates will roll out over the coming days and weeks.

How to update Chrome

The easiest option is to allow Chrome to update automatically. But you can end up lagging behind on updates if you never close your browser or if something goes wrong, such as an extension preventing the update.

If you don’t want to wait for the rollout to reach you, manually updating is easy. Open About Google Chrome from Chrome’s settings or Help menu. Chrome will check for updates. If one is available, click Relaunch to apply it.

You can find an explanation of the version numbering system and step-by-step instructions in our guide: How to update Chrome on every operating system.

How to update Firefox

To update Firefox, open the browser and click the menu button at the right side of the Firefox toolbar, then go to Help and select About Firefox. The About Mozilla Firefox window will open.

Firefox will automatically check for updates. If one is available, it will be downloaded. Once done, you’ll be prompted to click Relaunch. After Firefox restarts, it will be up to date.

Technical details

These Chrome and Firefox updates address a familiar problem: browser code mishandling memory while processing web content. Both releases fix use-after-free vulnerabilities, including flaws in page layout, JavaScript processing, and SVG graphics.

A use-after-free vulnerability occurs when a program attempts to access a memory location after it has been freed. That can cause crashes or, in some cases, allow an attacker to run their own code.

There’s another connection between these updates: both Google and Mozilla credit OpenAI Codex Security with finding bugs fixed in these releases. AI can help security teams examine browser code for weaknesses, alongside human code reviews and automated tests that check how software handles unexpected inputs.

Mozilla’s collaboration with Anthropic shows how AI-discovered findings can lead to fixes: researchers validated vulnerabilities before reporting them, giving Mozilla’s team reproducible bugs to investigate, repair, and deliver to users.

Browse like no one’s watching. 

Malwarebytes Privacy VPN encrypts your connection and never logs what you do, so the next story you read doesn’t have to feel personal. Try it free → 

A recently disclosed flaw in Signal’s calling software could allow another participant to keep hearing you after you hang up.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-113380 (CVSS score 9.3 out of 10), affects RingRTC versions earlier than 2.72.0. RingRTC is the open-source library behind Signal’s voice and video calling functionality, providing calling components for its mobile and desktop applications.

The flaw concerns how Signal’s calling library shuts down a call. It does not affect how it encrypts conversations. According to the published vulnerability description, another participant could overwhelm a call’s internal event queue and interfere with the steps that should disconnect it when you end the call.

The main concern is unwanted listening after someone believes a conversation has ended. If a malicious call participant successfully triggered the flaw, they could potentially continue hearing audio that the other person no longer intended to share. That might include an offhand remark, a conversation with someone nearby, or other private background sound.

The vulnerability description also mentions that video might remain active, but does not confirm that behavior or explain what affected users would see on screen. It also doesn’t specify how long any continued transmission might last.

There are no known reports of exploitation in the wild. The vulnerability concerns only how a call is shut down. It does not involve stolen passwords, compromised accounts, or exposed message histories that would call for a password reset.

What to do

The developers updated the code to make shutdown more resilient when a call’s internal queue is full or another termination step fails.

Install any available Signal updates on your devices. The fix is available in the underlying RingRTC library, but the affected and first-fixed Signal app versions have not yet been confirmed publicly in the sources reviewed.

Personally, I found an update in the Google Play Store which brought my Android app to version 8.32.2. I did not find one in the Apple App Store, although this might be because I have automatic updates enabled. The current version on my iPad is listed as 8.32 (1910). While I think that means it’s all patched, this is hard to confirm from Signal’s website.

I’ve emailed Signal for clarification and will update this article when I hear back.

Scammers know more about you than you think. 

Malwarebytes Mobile Security protects you from phishing, scam texts, malicious sites, and more. With real-time AI-powered Scam Guard built right in. 

OpenAI’s latest containment failure adds to a pattern that may force the company to make an unpopular decision.

The company has paused training, evaluation, and tool-enabled inference for its most capable models after an internal research agent found a way around an intended internet restriction. More alarming, the agent remained active for hours after OpenAI’s monitoring system raised the alarm.

OpenAI published an account of the incident, which occurred during a search-based training task on September 20. According to OpenAI, the agent could not get useful results through its supplied search tools, tried direct access to search engines, and eventually tested the limits of its environment. It found that although direct web access was blocked, the sandbox’s DNS resolver could still reach the public internet. By using DNS delegation and a public chatbot that could respond through DNS records, the agent sent questions outside the restricted environment and received answers back. It subsequently sent 18 additional queries along the same route.

OpenAI’s misalignment monitor generated a high-priority alert within 15 minutes, and a human reviewer acknowledged it 3 minutes later. But the run did not stop automatically as expected. It continued for roughly another two and a half hours before someone stopped it manually.

OpenAI has not reported any exposure of sensitive data or compromise of an outside system in this incident. But it follows other disclosed cases in which agents went beyond their assigned tasks or crossed the boundaries of testing environments.

The New York Times reports that OpenAI agents also interacted with US government websites this summer without the company’s knowledge:

“OpenAI’s artificial intelligence went rogue and meddled with the websites for the Education Department, the Commerce Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission this summer without the A.I. lab’s knowledge, according to security researchers and a person familiar with the episodes.”

No breaches have been confirmed in those instances. And while Australia described the Medicare incident as unauthorized access, could it really be called an attack?

The call for an industry-wide slowdown has even prompted a lawsuit from paying subscribers who fear they would get less “value for their money.” Others worry that slowing down would give China a chance to pull ahead of the US in an increasingly tight technology race.

Here’s a thought: Why not accelerate the development of truly isolated testing environments? Better containment would make these tests safer and their results more reliable.

When a child isn’t ready to handle a dangerous object, you keep it out of reach. Why give an AI agent access it isn’t ready to use safely?

How to use AI agents safely

Treat an agent like an enthusiastic but fallible junior employee with access to your computer. Do not give it unrestricted access to your email, files, cloud storage, developer credentials, financial accounts, or production systems merely because it promises to save time.

Use separate accounts with minimal permissions. Keep sensitive data out of its working context where possible, require human approval before it sends messages, spends money, changes settings, or publishes anything, and regularly review its activity.

An AI agent does not need malicious intent to cause harm. A misunderstood instruction, an overly broad permission, or an unexpected workaround can be enough.

From reporting threats to removing them.

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

This week on the Lock and Code podcast…

If you want AI to tell you a story, it will. If you want that story to sound like one of your favorite authors, it can. And if you’re one of the authors that AI can imitate, you might be a little upset at what feels like theft.

In 2024, the authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson sued Anthropic, the creator of Claude, alleging that the company had wrongfully digested millions of copyrighted works—including some of their very own—to train its AI models. The lawsuit grew to include more than 300,000 writers, and in September 2025, Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle the claims.

That headline-worthy payout, however, would eventually be paired with more startling news.

In January 2026, a district court judge unsealed thousands of documents related to the litigation. When The Washington Post investigated the documents, reporters found references to a secret project inside Anthropic called “Project Panama,” which Anthropic itself described as the company’s effort “to destructively scan all the books in the world.”

Anthropic is not alone in this.

On August 17, 404 Media co-founder and reporter Emanuel Maiberg revealed that Amazon is doing something similar inside a department it calls VGT3. By hiding an Apple AirTag in one book from a 1,000-book order, and then tracking the shipment across the country, 404 Media identified the book’s final destination to be a facility outside Las Vegas, where, according to employees, books are cut apart and scanned.

Today, on the Lock and Code podcast with host David Ruiz, we speak with Maiberg about Amazon’s VGT3 operation and the likely commonplace practice of AI companies purchasing, scanning, and destroying books in an effort to build “frontier” models.

“They’re buying a book, they’re scanning it, they’re mulching the book, and then the digital version of the book exists behind this wall where we don’t even know if they plan to sell it, right? It’s like they might keep it behind a wall, and the only way we see it come out again from behind that wall is in the form of an answer from a chatbot.”

Tune in today to listen to the full conversation.

Show notes and credits:

Intro Music: “Spellbound” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Outro Music: “Good God” by Wowa (unminus.com)

Listen up—Malwarebytes doesn’t just talk cybersecurity, we provide it.

Protect yourself from online attacks that threaten your identity, your files, your system, and your financial well-being with our exclusive offer for Malwarebytes Premium for Lock and Code listeners.

The tech journalists at 404 Media learned that OpenAI is hiring hundreds of contractors to read and review a massive stream of real users’ ChatGPT prompts and responses.

“Project Lily” is reportedly a program that asks contractors to score or critique ChatGPT’s answers to improve the chatbot’s quality and behavior.

The fact that prompts may sometimes be reviewed by humans should not come as a complete surprise. AI companies also monitor conversations for safety reasons. Anthropic, for example, says it has disrupted attempts to misuse AI for biological weapons research.

But there should be a meaningful distinction between reviewing conversations for safety or abuse and reviewing them for ordinary model improvement.

OpenAI says a limited number of authorized personnel and trusted service providers may access chats for several reasons, including investigating abuse, providing support, handling legal matters, and improving its models.

OpenAI told 404 Media that it uses a “Privacy Filter” model to remove personal information before prompts reach reviewers, while acknowledging that sensitive details can still get through.

The prompts are anonymized in the sense that reviewers do not see the username of the ChatGPT user who entered them. But reviewers may see personal details in the conversation alongside a “user memories summary,” which provides an overview of how that user has previously used the chatbot. Together, this information could still reveal a great deal about that user.

It’s sometimes easy to forget that you’re not having a private conversation when you’re going back and forth with an AI chatbot. This isn’t an alarmist warning against using AI, but a reminder to be mindful of what you disclose because it could be read and reviewed.

How to opt out of AI chatbot training

ChatGPT

OpenAI told 404 Media that users’ chats won’t be used to improve the company’s models if they turn off the “Improve the model for everyone” setting. This is turned on by default for Free, Plus, and Pro plans, so users need to turn it off themselves if they wish to opt out.

However, opting out does not prevent all human access. OpenAI says authorized personnel and trusted service providers may still access content when necessary to investigate abuse or security incidents, provide support, troubleshoot problems, or handle legal matters.

In ChatGPT, select your profile icon, then go to Settings > Data Controls and turn off Improve the model for everyone. On mobile, open the sidebar, select your profile icon, and then follow the same steps.

Perplexity

In Perplexity, go to Settings > Preferences > AI data retention and turn off the setting.

Perplexity says this prevents data collected after you opt out from being used to train AI models. It does not remove data collected previously, and your data may still be processed to operate and improve the service or comply with legal obligations.

Claude

In Claude, select your name and go to Settings > Privacy. Under Help Improve our AI Models, turn off the setting.

Anthropic says new chats and coding sessions will no longer be used for future model training. It will also stop using previously stored conversations in future training runs, although data already included in training can’t be removed.

Anthropic also notes one important exception:

If our safety classifiers flag your conversations, they may still be used to improve our internal trust and safety models, detect harmful content, enforce our policies, or advance our safety research.

If you use other AI tools, check their privacy policies and settings to find out whether your conversations can be reviewed or used for model improvement and whether you can opt out.

Browse like no one’s watching. 

Malwarebytes Privacy VPN encrypts your connection and never logs what you do, so the next story you read doesn’t have to feel personal. Try it free → 

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), together with Utah and California, has filed a lawsuit against telehealth provider Hims & Hers.

The FTC alleges that the company shared consumers’ sensitive health information with third‑party advertising platforms despite promising strong privacy protections.

Hims & Hers is a telehealth and digital health platform that connects users with licensed medical providers for online consultations, prescription medications, and personal care products.

The complaint also accuses Hims & Hers of deceptive billing and subscription practices that made it hard for users to avoid charges or cancel subscriptions.

According to the FTC’s complaint, filed in federal court in California, Hims & Hers:

• Shared sensitive health data, including details about medical conditions, with ad platforms such as Meta and Snap despite privacy promises.
• Charged before consultations. The company promised users they could consult a medical provider before being charged, but the FTC says many consumers were enrolled in recurring prescription subscriptions shortly after they submitted an intake form, often without first having a consultation.
• Made cancellation difficult. Before 2023, cancellation reportedly required contacting customer service by phone, email, or chat. Even after an online cancellation option appeared, the FTC alleges the button was hidden behind multiple steps and confusing options.

From a cybersecurity and privacy research perspective, this isn’t just about a single telehealth brand. It highlights three broader trends we see repeatedly in consumer programs:

Privacy policies versus reality. A company can market itself as privacy‑focused while still integrating third‑party advertising and analytics software development kits (SDKs) that leak sensitive information. This becomes especially concerning when health‑related events are linked to user accounts or tracking cookies.

Friction as a feature. Hard‑to‑find cancellation flows and unclear billing practices are examples of “dark patterns” that nudge users into paying for services they might not have chosen given all relevant information.

Regulatory pressure is growing. Health‑related services are under increasing scrutiny, especially when they handle sensitive data and combine it with advertising platforms.

The court will ultimately decide whether Hims & Hers violated the law, but the FTC’s action sends a clear signal: regulators are paying close attention to how health‑related services collect, use, and share sensitive data.

For anyone who values online privacy, the Hims & Hers case is a reminder that “health tech” does not automatically mean “privacy first.”

How to stay safe

More often than not, the privacy loopholes are hidden in the privacy policy somewhere.

Pro tip: one thing AI is good at is reading between the lines. Ask an AI chatbot to summarize a privacy policy and identify when your information may be shared with third parties. AI makes it much easier to understand lengthy privacy policies without reading every word yourself. If companies fail to follow their own privacy policies, regulators and consumers can hold them accountable.

Other than that:

• Don’t share sensitive information unless it’s genuinely needed to provide the service.
• Use strong, unique passwords and multifactor authentication (MFA). Even if a company is compliant, breaches happen. Unique passwords and two‑factor authentication limit the damage if your account details are exposed.
• Check your browser and app permissions. Disable unnecessary tracking features where possible, and consider privacy‑focused browser settings or extensions that limit third‑party cookies and trackers.

Your name, address, and phone number may already be for sale.  

Data brokers collect and sell your personal details to anyone willing to pay. Malwarebytes Personal Data Remover finds them and gets your information removed, then keeps watch so it stays that way.