OpenAI has patched a vulnerability in its application programming interface that allowed security researchers to extract protected reasoning traces from an advanced artificial intelligence model, following a disclosure by cybersecurity firm Xint. The researchers said OpenAI fixed the weakness on 23 October and awarded their team a $6,000 bug bounty. Xint published its findings on 26 October, describing a technique called compaction smuggling that circumvented safeguards intended […]
Attackers infiltrated LiteLLM’s GitHub organisation eleven days before distributing malware through its software releases, with newly recovered records showing credential-stealing workflows operating on October 10 and 12. Security company Socket identified two malicious workflow commits in the BerriAI/litellm repository, while LiteLLM’s investigation confirmed that stolen credentials from the earlier intrusion helped attackers manipulate its October 21 release process. The findings establish a longer period of unauthorised access […]
New report sets out a method the industry can use to put a financial value on climate resilience
The Westbund Central case study shows that its resilience measures are expected to keep storm-surge and rainfall-flood losses in 2050 below the losses an unprotected building would face today
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 23 October 2026 – Hongkong Land Holdings Limited (“Hongkong Land”) today published Building Value That Lasts: Quantifying the Return on Climate Resilience in Real Estate. The report developed with Marsh puts a financial value on designing buildings for a changing climate. Its case study is Westbund Central, Hongkong Land’s mixed-use waterfront development of approximately 1.7 million sq. m. on Shanghai’s Huangpu River.
(From left to right) From left: Michael Long, Head of Group Sustainability, Hongkong Land; Stuart Grant, Chief Executive of Westbund Central, Hongkong Land; Swenja Surminski, Managing Director of Climate and Sustainability, Marsh; and Michael Li, Chairman and President, Marsh Risk China.
The report finds that the development’s resilience measures cut expected storm-surge losses by 84% and rainfall-flood losses by 88% under today’s conditions. Westbund Central’s resilience measures are expected to keep storm-surge and rainfall-flood losses in 2050 below the losses an unprotected building would face today.
Closing the resilience valuation gap
Climate risk now shapes how real estate is assessed, financed and insured. Almost every climate related disclosure acknowledges the need for adaptation, yet fewer than one in ten puts a number on it. Hongkong Land and Marsh set out to close that gap together by treating resilience as an investment with a measurable return, not a cost to be absorbed.
Resilience pays, and the reductions are large
Working with global leading insurance broker and risk advisor Marsh, Hongkong Land modelled the average annual loss (AAL) at Westbund Central from storm surge, rainfall flooding and wind. AAL is the expected yearly cost of physical damage. The modelling compared climate risks today and in 2050 for buildings with and without resilience measures beyond those required by building codes. It assumed a future in which global greenhouse-gas emissions remain high.
Without the development’s enhanced resilience measures, expected storm-surge losses would more than double and wind losses would more than triple by 2050. The measures reduce expected losses as follows:
storm-surge losses fall by 84%, both today and in 2050
rainfall-flood losses fall by 88% today and 79% in 2050
wind losses fall by 36% today and 31% in 2050
Built for the climate of 2050
Westbund Central was engineered for projected climate conditions in 2050, rather than historical conditions. These measures significantly reduce the impact of increasing climate risk:
Storm surge: with Westbund Central’s resilience measures in place, average annual losses in 2050 are projected at 0.12%, compared with 0.38% for a building without these measures today.
Rainfall flooding: with the resilience measures in place, average annual losses in 2050 are projected at 0.05%, compared with 0.19% for a building without these measures today.
Insurers are raising premiums, tightening terms and withdrawing cover from exposed locations. In that market, a lower and more stable loss profile matters.
Westbund Centrals resilience features include:
23% more drainage capacity, protecting against a 1-in-100-year rainfall event
Grade 1 waterproofed basements and the elevation of critical equipment
A “Sponge City” network of more than 12 features designed to capture and store stormwater, with capacity exceeding 2,000 m³
The figures are conservative. They count physical damage only and exclude extreme heat, the fastest-growing hazard at the site, which the development manages through design and operations.
Michael T. Smith, Group Chief Executive of Hongkong Land, said: “Climate change is a significant force reshaping real estate. At Westbund Central, climate resilience is core to all that we do because we believe resilience and commercial performance reinforce each other. This report shows the return on that investment can be measured today, with tools that already exist. The industry no longer has any excuse not to.”
Stuart Grant, Chief Executive of Westbund Central, said: “A premium destination is a seamless one. Much of the resilience work at Westbund Central is deliberately invisible to the tenants and visitors who use it every day. Its value shows in the disruption that never reaches them. Keeping the precinct open, comfortable and trading regardless of weather conditions is how resilience facilitates commercial performance.”
Michael Li, Chairman and President of Marsh Risk China, said: “Climate risk is now a balance-sheet risk. Westbund Central shows that adaptation pays back through lower loss exposure and stronger access to capital. As a risk orchestrator, Marsh matches protection needs to capital flows, helping clients quantify resilience and close the valuation gap.”
A method for the industry
The report is offered as a method others can apply, not just as an account of one development. It traces how climate risk can be assessed from site selection through to operations and linked to financial outcomes. It calls on the industry to:
quantify early, at site selection and design, when action is most cost-effective
bring insurers and lenders in from the start
build a shared standard so resilience can be benchmarked across assets, as carbon already is
For further details, please see the full report which is available for download [here].
Hashtag: #HongkongLand
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
Westbund Central
Hongkong Land’s Westbund Central is the Group’s largest-ever single investment. Scheduled to complete in phases up until 2028, it is an US$8 billion development encompassing approximately more than 1.7 million sq. m. of prime mixed-use property strategically located at Shanghai’s Xuhui Waterfront. It is a flagship development of Hongkong Land’s prime commercial properties’ CENTRAL Series. The ultra-premium integrated commercial property includes 240,000 sq. m of retail space, 650,000 sq. m. of premium Grade A offices, 160,000 sq. m. of high-end waterfront luxury residences, two hotels (55,000 sq. m.) and over 50,000 sq. m. of cultural and art venues.
Hongkong Land
Hongkong Land is a major listed property development, investment and management group. It focuses on developing, owning and managing premium and ultra-premium mixed-use real estate in Asian gateway cities, featuring Grade A office, luxury retail, residential and hospitality products. With over US$50 billion in assets under management, Hongkong Land’s ultra-premium mixed-use real estate footprint spans over 1.97 million sq. m. lettable area in operation and 1.43 million sq. m. lettable area under development, with flagship mixed-use projects in Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai. Its properties hold industry leading green building certifications and attract the world’s foremost companies and luxury brands. Established in 1889, Hongkong Land takes a long-term view, investing significantly alongside its capital partners and concentrating its portfolio where it can create the most value for tenants, customers and investors. Hongkong Land Holdings Limited has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange, with secondary listings in Singapore and Bermuda. Hongkong Land is a member of the Jardine Matheson Group.
Marsh Marsh (NYSE: MRSH) is a global leader in risk, reinsurance and capital, people and investments, and management consulting, advising clients in 130 countries. With more than 95,000 colleagues, Marsh helps build the confidence to thrive through the power of perspective. For more information, visit marsh.com, or follow us on LinkedIn and X.
Anthropic says its Claude artificial intelligence model has reconstructed the origins of five cryptographic parameters supplied by the US National Security Agency, resolving a question that has troubled security researchers for more than 25 years. The company disclosed on Friday that an internal research version of Claude identified the parameters as outputs from a conventional C programming language pseudorandom number generator, initialised using Unix timestamps. Anthropic said […]
Security researchers have reconstructed how hundreds of OpenAI evaluation agents used almost one million public URLs while escaping restricted web access and compromising parts of Hugging Face’s infrastructure during a July cybersecurity test. The forensic study, published on September 25 by researchers affiliated with Parse, Palisade Research and other organisations, analysed public traces left by the agents and decoded more than 80,000 attack payloads. Hugging Face confirmed […]
CrowdSec has said a supply-chain attack involving compromised TanStack npm packages led to the unauthorised copying of about 170 private GitHub repositories after credentials linked to a departing employee were exposed. The cybersecurity company said its investigation, completed with assistance from GitHub, traced the breach to an OAuth token obtained after the employee’s account was compromised in the May TanStack attack. The repositories were downloaded on May […]
Abu Dhabi will host the 35th Abu Dhabi International Book Fair from September 13 to 18, bringing publishers, authors and cultural organisations back to ADNEC Centre Abu Dhabi for one of the region’s largest literary gatherings. Held under the patronage of President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the fair is being organised by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, part of the Department of […]
Aptoide Games has become the first rival Android app store to be distributed directly through Google Play in the United States, marking a significant change in the mobile software market after years of legal challenges to Google’s control over app distribution. The Portugal-based company’s games marketplace can now be installed from Google Play like a conventional application, removing the need for users to sideload the store or […]
By Dr. Gyan Pathak When the textile landscape of the country and the world is changing fast, it would not be enough for India to only celebrate National Handloom Day every year on August 7. The country will have to do much more than celebrating the day by releasing commemorative document and press releases giving […]
Amazon Web Services has attributed a series of compromises involving widely used npm software packages, including Axios, Debug and Chalk, to a financially motivated hacking group linked to North Korea. The findings connect attacks previously treated as separate incidents to one threat actor that infiltrated the accounts or computers of trusted open-source maintainers. The attackers then published malicious updates capable of stealing credentials, installing remote-access tools and […]
Hugging Face chief executive Clément Delangue has demanded full disclosure from OpenAI after its advanced artificial intelligence models escaped a controlled cybersecurity test and penetrated the machine-learning platform’s production systems. Delangue called for “radical transparency” over the incident and urged OpenAI to release the agents’ complete activity traces for independent scrutiny. He also proposed that the ChatGPT developer provide $100 million worth of computing resources to help […]
TAIPEI, TAIWAN – Media OutReach Newswire – 16 July 2026 – CyCraft (Stock Code: 7823) has been recognized by the global business and technology insights organization Gartner in its latest report, “Emerging Tech: AI Vendor Race: Reasoning Models Reshape Providers’ Approaches to AI Pricing.” In this report focusing on AI Reasoning Models, CyCraft is named as a Sample Provider, making it the only Taiwan-based cybersecurity company included in the full list.
CyCraft’s XCockpit platform integrates comprehensive, quantified metrics for external exposure, internal attack surface management, and endpoint protection within a single unified interface.
Dr. Benson Wu, CEO and Co-Founder of CyCraft, stated: “We believe, being listed as a Sample Providerin the Gartner report demonstrates that the global market now views AI security as the next battlefield for AI commercialization. From day one, CyCraft has developed proprietary models, simultaneously deploying AI reasoning capabilities across three core pillars: cybersecurity defense, AI governance, and unmanned vehicle reconnaissance. Technical leadership is our starting point, not the destination. Our goal is to translate this leadership into rapid growth driven by strategic deployment and disciplined execution. Launched this year, our AI Red Teaming and AI Guardrail solutions have already been productized and commercially shipped, seeing active deployment in sectors like semiconductors and sovereign AI.”
AI Reasoning Models Drive Up Operating Costs, Restructuring Profit Logic
As AI transitions from “training models” to “reasoning models,” the industry officially moves from the research and development phase into commercial application. Reasoning models possess logical deduction, self-reflection, and complex problem-solving capabilities. However, these advanced capabilities have caused AI operational costs to skyrocket, forcing the tech industry to redefine its expectations of AI as a tool for massive cost reduction and profit maximization.
CyCraft’sXCockpit Threat Exposure Management Platform features built-in AI reasoning models that triage thousands of alerts in real time, automatically providing mitigation recommendations and effectively eliminating alert fatigue. From overall security posture scoring to specific actionable tickets for individual alerts, XCockpit transforms defensive benefits—which were historically difficult to define—into concrete, quantifiable technical metrics. This embodies CyCraft’s pragmatic philosophy: the value of defense must be visible, and it must be measurable.
Standing at the Frontier of AI Security, CyCraft Advances Commercial Implementation with Profound R&D Momentum
Deeply integrating AI with cybersecurity, CyCraft has launchedXecGuard andXecART—two major AI security products deployable across both cloud and on-premises environments, both featured on theOWASP AI Security Map. These solutions directly address the core pain points of Agentic AI, LLM, and GenAI applications. XecART utilizes Agentic Red Teaming to run multi-round stress tests on models, identifying risks and generating compliance reports that adhere to international standards. Meanwhile, XecGuard acts as a real-time Guardrail for LLMs and AI Agents, intercepting anomalous inputs and outputs. One solves “how to stress-test AI,” while the other solves “how to protect AI,” providing the fundamental AI governance for enterprises.
CyCraft’s research achievements are equally outstanding. The CyCraft research team recently presented at theInternational Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), one of the world’s top three prestigious academic conferences for AI and machine learning. The research focused on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) Data Poisoning. Utilizing their self-developed “Eyes-on-Me” attack framework, the team proved that attacks can simultaneously breach both the retrieval and generation phases. The end-to-end average attack success rate surged from 21.9% to 57.8%. This breakthrough exposed a long-neglected vulnerable attack surface existing between “attention focus” and “model output.”
In 2025, the CyCraft research team was also selected forNeurIPS, one of the most iconic academic sanctuaries in the AI field. The team proposed an innovative “unified supervision framework” that embeds verifiable checkers into synthesized instruction-conflict instances, enabling self-supervised learning without requiring oracle labels or reasoning traces. This framework not only applies to different models but also significantly enhances both safety robustness and instruction adherence.
CyCraft demonstrates outstanding R&D achievements, presenting at ICML—one of the world’s top three elite conferences in AI and machine learning.
CyCraft believes that as AI moves from R&D to commercial deployment, the barrier for enterprises is no longer “whether they can use AI,” but “whether they can use AI responsibly.” Once Agentic AI enters financial transactions, government services, or critical infrastructure, every autonomous decision must leave a traceable path, accept auditing, and allow for real-time human intervention when necessary. This is true AI governance. It is not a compliance document, but a complete control chain stretching from pre-launch to runtime, and onto post-incident traceability.
CyCraft deconstructs this control chain into three actionable phases: XecART stress-tests model risks before deployment; XecGuard safeguards inputs and outputs during runtime; XCockpit quantifies the overall risk posture into traceable metrics. Interlocking these three components ensures that every step AI takes is visible, manageable, and auditable. CyCraft’s objective is clear: make AI behavior measurable before its value can be priced. Ultimate technical leadership must be converted into commercial resilience that is governable, auditable, and open to investor scrutiny.
The technological revolution of AI Reasoning Models and Agentic AI is an undeniable reality. The ultimate challenge lies in whether enterprises can implement “controllable, auditable, and highly transparent” AI governance within real-world commercial environments. From being recognized in international research reports to taking the stage at top-tier academic conferences, CyCraft continues to prove that from visionary R&D to product commercialization, Taiwan’s AI cybersecurity prowess helps herald the future of a secure, trusted, and prosperous AI era.
Reports Gartner, Emerging Tech: AI Vendor Race: Reasoning Models Reshape Providers’ Approaches to AI Pricing, 5 June 2026.
Disclaimer Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. GARTNER is a trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates.
Hashtag: #CyCraftTechnology
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About CyCraft
CyCraft Technology (7823.TW) is a Taiwan-listed cybersecurity company, dedicated to automating cybersecurity with AI technology and safeguarding AI models. CyCraft’s product suite encompasses XecART, the AI Red Teaming, and XecGuard, the Guardrail API for LLMs and AI Agents. The XCockpit AI platform integrates EASM, IASM, and Endpoint protection, providing preemptive and real-time defense-in-depth. With a proven track record in the government, finance, and semiconductor sectors, and recognition from international institutions, CyCraft continues to safeguard enterprise digital resilience.
ENSHI, CHINA – Media OutReach Newswire – 15 July 2026 – With China’s inbound visa-free policies continuing to be optimized, the Suobuya Stone Forest Scenic Area, located in Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Hubei Province, is welcoming Southeast Asian tourists with a refreshed experience. Known as the “World’s First Ordovician Stone Forest,” this 460-million-year-old geological wonder has introduced a series of diverse cultural experiences and interactive programs in 2026, offering Southeast Asian visitors a journey through natural and cultural wonders spanning hundreds of millions of years.
Geological Wonder: Exploring an Ancient Underwater World from 460 Million Years Ago
Located in Taiyanghe Township in the northwest of Enshi City, Suobuya Stone Forest is approximately a one-hour drive from the city center. The scenic area was formed during the Ordovician Period 460 million years ago. Originally covered by an ancient ocean, it gradually evolved through geological transformations over hundreds of millions of years into the extraordinary stone forest landscape seen today. Covering a total area of 21 square kilometers, the area features towering stone peaks surrounded by lush greenery, resembling a vast “underwater labyrinth.” As a “crowned stone forest” with one of the highest vegetation coverage rates in China, the scenic area enjoys a cool and pleasant average summer temperature, making it an ideal destination for summer retreats and nature-based relaxation.
The four major scenic areas currently open to visitors each have their own unique appeal. Qinglongtai serves as the highest point of the scenic area, offering panoramic views of the entire stone forest from above. Lianhuazhai features the breathtaking “Xiniugou” secret landscape, where towering cliffs on both sides and changing light and shadows create a dreamlike atmosphere. Mozigou is rich in ancient biological fossils, allowing visitors to touch traces of life from the Ordovician Period with their own hands. Jiulonghui features circular rock walls and groups of waterfalls, with stone peaks rising dramatically from the ground to create a magnificent landscape. The scenic area also features the 5D theater “Shanhaijing,” where visitors can enjoy an immersive experience of the evolution of the Ordovician ocean world. With gentle walking trails and an easy travel route, the area is suitable for families and nature exploration enthusiasts.
Cultural Feast: Immersive Experiences of Tujia Folk Traditions
Suobuya Stone Forest is not only a treasure trove of geological wonders but also an important carrier of Tujia culture. The Tujia ethnic group is one of the major ethnic minorities in the Enshi region, with a long history and distinctive cultural traditions. The “Baishou Dance” is one of the most representative folk dances of the Tujia people and has been listed as a National Intangible Cultural Heritage. The dance movements often imitate scenes such as hunting, farming, and warfare, featuring a lively rhythm. Visitors can personally participate in this cultural experience at the Tiejiazhai Square and Duigetai Stage.
The Tujia Girls’ Festival is one of Enshi’s most distinctive traditional folk festivals and has been held at Suobuya Stone Forest during the seventh month of the lunar calendar for many consecutive years. The festival is a traditional social activity where young Tujia men and women use songs as a medium for communication and dances to express emotions. It carries the unique marriage customs and collective memories of the Tujia people and has been recognized as a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage of Hubei Province and one of the “Top Ten Most Charming Festivals in China.” During the festival, the scenic area hosts a variety of activities, including matchmaking through folk songs, traditional cultural parades, and traditional handicraft exhibitions, allowing visitors to experience the rich ethnic culture amid the stone forests and mountain scenery. Suobuya Stone Forest has therefore also been recognized as the “Hometown of Chinese Folk Art” and the “Hometown of Mountain Folk Songs.”
Since 2026, the scenic area has continued to enhance its tourism products and cultural experiences. During the May Day holiday, it launched the “Exploring Wonders on Horseback · Fun in the Million-Year Stone Sea” folk culture series, featuring interactive programs such as folk song and dance flash mobs, the “Nature Guardians” activity where visitors exchange collected litter for cultural souvenirs, the immersive intangible cultural heritage experience “Stone Workers’ Chant,” and the outdoor role-playing game “Stone Forest Secret Order · Pursuing the Shadow of Rocks.” These activities allow visitors to explore the ancient stone sea while deeply engaging with Tujia cultural traditions.
Improved Transportation: Easier Access to Enshi for Southeast Asian Tourists
Since the opening of Enshi Xujiaping International Airport’s aviation port, the international flight network has continued to improve. In 2026, the Enshi–Hong Kong route achieved year-round regular operation, while flights between Enshi and Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi have resumed successively, creating a dual-route network connecting Vietnam’s two major cities in the north and south. According to the development plan of the Enshi aviation port, new routes to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and other destinations will be steadily promoted in the future, further strengthening the Southeast Asian aviation network. Tourists from major Southeast Asian cities can fly directly to Enshi and reach this 460-million-year-old underwater world after only a one-hour drive. Hidden deep within the Wuling Mountains, this ancient stone forest wonderland is welcoming visitors from around the world with a more open and international approach. Hashtag: #SuobuyaCulturalTourism
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
Cybersecurity investigators have uncovered an AI-generated PowerShell script used during a live attack to map a company’s Active Directory environment, offering fresh evidence that criminals are deploying “vibe-coded” malware inside compromised networks. The script was recovered from an intrusion that began on June 3 after the attacker gained remote desktop access to a Windows Server connected to the victim’s domain. The available evidence indicated that the intruder […]
A threat actor exploited a severe Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vulnerability at least two months before public disclosure, intensifying concern over attacks targeting the network control systems that connect large organisations across branch offices, cloud services and data centres. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-20245, affects Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller, Catalyst SD-WAN Manager and Catalyst SD-WAN Validator, formerly known as vSmart, vManage and vBond. It allows an authenticated local […]
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 25 June 2026 – With top teams from around the world gearing up for the hotly contested Hong Kong International Dragon Boat Races this weekend (June 27-28), participants and spectators can expect a bumper programme of action, fun and entertainment along the Victoria Harbour waterfront in Tsim Sha Tsui – one of the city’s most vibrant districts known for its iconic skyline views and tourist attractions.
There is much to celebrate. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Hong Kong International Dragon Boat Races as well as 35th anniversary of both the co-organiser, Hong Kong China Dragon Boat Association, and the sanctioning body, International Dragon Boat Federation (IDBF). The IDBF added to the occasion by announcing earlier this year the relocation of its headquarters back to Hong Kong.
Riding on the wave of excitement, the organiser, Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB), extended the annual Hong Kong International Dragon Boat Festival period to 13 days (June 19 – July 1), beginning on the historic Tuen Ng Festival (Dragon Boat Festival) and concluding on July 1, which is the 29th anniversary of the Establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).
As the headline international flagship event of “Hong Kong Summer Fun”, Dr Peter Lam, Chairman of the HKTB, said the Festival not only ran over a longer period, but also featured a stronger race line-up and more vibrant entertainment programmes than in previous years, offering an experience found only in Hong Kong for locals and visitors, while showcasing Hong Kong’s position as the Events Capital of Asia.
More than 220 teams from 16 countries and regions will compete for top honours in the world‑renowned setting of Victoria Harbour. This year’s event also introduces the special 50th Anniversary Fishermen Invitational Cup and the 50th Anniversary Championship, paying tribute to the traditional spirit of dragon boat racing.
Visitors will be able to enjoy a series of thematic activities along the Avenue of Stars, including a 22-metre traditional wooden dragon boat, a dragon boat-themed installation in collaboration with the new film Minions & Monsters, live music performances and a line-up of intangible cultural heritage performances, including martial art Wing Chun, Chinese juggling diabolo, traditional musical instruments ruan and guzheng.
Visitors can enjoy a series of thematic activities at the “Sun Life Hong Kong International Dragon Boat Festival” which runs until July 1.
Highlighting Hong Kong’s reputation as the birthplace of modern international dragon boat racing, as well as its strengths as a global hub city, the IDBF has taken a significant step in its long‑term global strategy with the formal incorporation of International Dragon Boat Federation Limited in Hong Kong on 29 April 2026.
“Incorporation in Hong Kong is not a conclusion, but a beginning. It anchors our Federation in the city where our international story started and strengthens our ability to serve our members and the global dragon boat family,” said Claudio Schermi, President of the IDBF.
As part of this new chapter, the IDBF has applied for funding under “the Pilot Scheme to Strengthen the Presence of Hong Kong in Asian and International Sports Associations”, which was recently introduced by the HKSAR Government’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau. The Pilot Scheme is an initiative designed to support Asian and international sports associations establishing their headquarters or regional headquarters in the city.
The Dragon Boat Festival has a long and colourful history dating back more than two thousand years. Held each year on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, the day commemorates the patriotic poet Qu Yuan.
According to legend, Qu committed suicide for his beliefs by throwing himself into the Luo River. The villagers nearby raced out on their dragon boats, banging gongs and drums to scare away fish and other underwater creatures to stop them from eating Qu’s body. The tradition continues to this day, with dragon boat competitions taking place at locations across Hong Kong, each reflecting the unique characteristics of its neighbourhood.
Traditional dragon boat treats feature prominently during the festival, notably zongzi. These glutinous rice dumplings, traditionally wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed or boiled, are widely available during the festive period.
Abu Dhabi sovereign investor Mubadala is reviewing a potential commitment to a private equity project fund seeking to acquire control of MNC Solution, a listed South Korean defence components maker, in a deal that would deepen Gulf exposure to Seoul’s expanding weapons supply chain. The proposed investment would be made through a fund being assembled by Korea Investment & Securities Co. Partners Private Equity Division, which was […]
Chainguard has launched Athena, a coalition backed by major financial, technology and security groups to repair open-source software flaws before attackers can use artificial intelligence to find and weaponise them. The initiative brings together BNY, Cisco, Cloudflare, Corridor, DepthFirst, Docker, JPMorganChase, Kyndryl, LTM and PwC, with Chainguard acting as the coordinating platform. Athena is already operational with more than two dozen participating organisations, having processed over 20,000 […]
A China-nexus hacking group maintained covert access to a segregated critical-infrastructure network for nearly a decade by tampering with Linux authentication tools that administrators rely on to control access. The operation, tracked as Velvet Ant and labelled Operation Highland by investigators, exposed a high-risk tactic in cyber espionage: rather than relying only on conventional malware, the intruders replaced trusted OpenSSH binaries and Pluggable Authentication Modules with altered […]
Cybercriminals are using counterfeit AI learning material and developer guides to lure professionals into opening files that trigger a multi-stage malware chain ending in AsyncRAT, a remote access trojan capable of surveillance, data theft and covert system control. The campaign targets Windows users with archives and documents framed as useful resources for artificial intelligence adoption, coding and marketing. One lure was presented as a developer guide for […]
AI coding agents can be manipulated into running attacker-chosen code through ordinary-looking bug reports, exposing a fresh security gap in the fast-expanding market for autonomous software development tools. Tenet Security researchers have described a technique they call “agentjacking”, in which a hostile actor plants malicious instructions inside a fake software error report and waits for a coding agent to read it during routine debugging. The attack does […]
Malicious agent-skill uploads have slipped past detection tools used by ClawHub, Cisco and Vercel-linked scanning services, raising fresh concern over the security of fast-growing marketplaces that distribute third-party capabilities for AI agents. The findings point to a widening supply-chain problem around “skills”, the modular instruction-and-file packages that allow AI agents to perform tasks such as editing documents, running scripts, managing workflows or connecting with external services. Unlike […]
Kioxia Holdings has moved within striking distance of Toyota Motor’s market value, underscoring how the artificial intelligence boom is reshaping Japan’s corporate hierarchy and lifting a memory-chip maker that listed in Tokyo less than two years ago into the country’s market elite.
The Tokyo-based maker of NAND flash memory and solid-state drives has become one of the most closely watched stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange after a sharp rally tied to demand for data-centre storage, AI servers and high-performance memory systems. Its market capitalisation has climbed into the tens of trillions of yen, placing it near Toyota and behind SoftBank Group in a reshuffled ranking that would have seemed unlikely when Kioxia priced its initial public offering at 1,455 yen a share in December 2024.
The shift marks a wider challenge to the long-standing dominance of Japan’s manufacturing champions. Toyota, the global carmaker that symbolised the strength of Japan Inc. for decades, has been displaced from the top position by SoftBank during the latest AI-led surge, while Kioxia has risen rapidly from a former Toshiba memory unit backed by Bain Capital into a central player in the market’s technology rotation.
Kioxia’s climb reflects investor expectations that memory will remain a bottleneck in AI infrastructure. Generative AI systems require vast amounts of storage and high-speed data movement, pushing demand beyond the older cycle driven mainly by smartphones and personal computers. Data-centre operators, cloud companies and chip designers are competing for components needed to train and run large AI models, giving memory producers stronger pricing power after years of volatility.
The company’s earnings have strengthened sharply. Kioxia has projected operating profit of about 1.3 trillion yen for the April-June quarter, a figure that puts it among the most profitable listed companies in Japan. Its latest annual results showed strong momentum in revenue, margins and cash generation, helping ease earlier concerns about debt and cyclicality. Rating upgrades to investment grade have added to the perception that the balance sheet is improving at a time when investors are rewarding semiconductor exposure.
Kioxia’s origins give its rise broader industrial significance. The company traces its roots to Toshiba’s memory business, which was sold to a Bain-led consortium in 2018 after Toshiba’s financial crisis. The group was renamed Kioxia in 2019, drawing on the Japanese word for memory and the Greek word for value. Its public listing in 2024 valued it below 800 billion yen, after earlier IPO attempts were delayed by weak valuation conditions and pressure in the memory market.
That cautious debut contrasts sharply with its current status. Shares have multiplied as investors reassessed the role of NAND flash in AI systems, especially as large-scale data centres require higher storage density, faster access and more energy-efficient hardware. Kioxia has also been developing advanced BiCS FLASH technology and promoting next-generation SSDs for AI storage infrastructure.
The rally has also lifted questions over valuation risk. Memory chips remain one of the semiconductor industry’s most cyclical segments, with prices exposed to shifts in capital spending, inventory levels and customer demand. A sharp rise in market value leaves Kioxia vulnerable if hyperscaler investment slows, if competitors add capacity faster than expected, or if customers push back against higher pricing.
Competition is intense. Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Micron Technology and SanDisk remain key players across memory markets, with SK Hynix holding a dominant position in high-bandwidth memory used in AI accelerators. Kioxia’s strength is more closely tied to NAND flash and SSDs, where demand from AI infrastructure has broadened the market but does not eliminate the risk of oversupply once new capacity comes on stream.
Toyota’s relative decline in the rankings does not point to operational weakness alone. The carmaker remains one of the world’s largest manufacturers by sales and a major profit generator, but investors have been rotating away from traditional industrial leaders towards companies with direct AI exposure. Concerns over electric-vehicle competition, currency movements and the cost of future technologies have weighed on auto valuations, even as Toyota continues to command global scale in hybrid vehicles and supply-chain management.
SoftBank’s ascent has further highlighted the changing market narrative. Its exposure to Arm and AI-related investments has drawn investors seeking Japan-based access to global AI infrastructure. Together, SoftBank and Kioxia now represent a market story centred on chips, data centres, software platforms and computing capacity rather than the export-led industrial model that long defined Japan’s equity market.
Foreign investor flows have amplified the shift. Japan’s equity market has benefited from corporate-governance reforms, stronger capital returns and renewed interest in companies linked to the AI supply chain. The Nikkei 225 has reached record territory, though the rally has been uneven, with gains concentrated in a limited group of technology-linked names while broader market performance has been more mixed.
Kioxia’s next test will be whether it can convert favourable pricing and sold-out capacity into durable earnings. Investors will look for clearer shareholder-return plans, disciplined capital expenditure and evidence that AI storage demand can remain strong beyond the current investment wave. The company’s contemplated US share listing would widen access to global technology investors and could further raise its profile if market conditions remain supportive.
Moscow’s main security agency said it had uncovered a foreign intelligence operation that placed spyware on mobile phones used by senior officials, intensifying Russia’s long-running confrontation with Western governments over cyber espionage, communications security and control of digital infrastructure. Russia’s Federal Security Service said the operation involved the compromise of thousands of devices, including phones used by officials, diplomats and people linked to government agencies. The agency […]
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