RondoDox Botnet Exploits Critical React2Shell Flaw to Hijack IoT Devices and Web Servers

Jan 01, 2026Ravie LakshmananNetwork Security / Vulnerability Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a persistent nine-month-long campaign that has targeted Internet of Things (IoT) devices and web applications to enroll them into a botnet known as RondoDox. As of December 2025, the activity has been observed leveraging the recently disclosed React2Shell (CVE-2025-55182, CVSS score: 10.0) […]

2 mins read

The Simple Validation System That Saved Our AI Project

We were three weeks from launch when we discovered our AI wasn’t actually intelligent—it was just confidently wrong. The marketing site promised “AI-powered document analysis that understands context and delivers accurate insights.” Our demos looked flawless. The investors were excited. The sales team had already started taking pre-orders. Then a customer uploaded a standard employment […]

11 mins read

2025: The year in LLMs

2025: The year in LLMs 31st December 2025 This is the third in my annual series reviewing everything that happened in the LLM space over the past 12 months. For previous years see Stuff we figured out about AI in 2023 and Things we learned about LLMs in 2024. It’s been a year filled with […]

46 mins read

‘College dropout’ has become the most coveted startup founder credential

Although iconic founders like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg famously didn’t finish college, multiple studies show that the vast majority of successful startups had founders with bachelor’s or graduate degrees. Despite this data, the appeal of a dropout founder persists, though VC enthusiasm for the ‘un-degreed’ is far from constant. It is a phenomenon that […]

3 mins read

The Allure And Danger Of Pure Vibe Coding In Enterprise UX (Part 1) — Smashing Magazine

Yegor Gilyov examines the problem of over-reliance on static high-fidelity mockups, which often leave the conceptual model and user flows dangerously underdeveloped. He then explores whether AI-powered prototyping is the answer, questioning whether the path forward is the popular “vibe coding” approach or a more structured, intent-driven approach. There is a spectrum of opinions on […]

18 mins read

Huawei’s Ascend and Kunpeng progress shows how China is rebuilding an AI compute stack under sanctions

Huawei used its New Year message to highlight progress across its Ascend AI and Kunpeng CPU ecosystems, pointing to the rollout of Atlas 900 supernodes and rapid growth in domestic developer adoption as “a solid foundation for computing.” The message arrives as China continues to accelerate efforts to replace Western hardware in critical AI workloads, […]

6 mins read