United States researchers uncover Windows firmware password bypass | JQJO

China’s Communist Party will convene a closed‑door plenum from Monday to Thursday, gathering about three hundred senior members to discuss tightening discipline. The session, the fifth since the current Central Committee was formed in 2022, is seen as a chance for President Xi Jinping to reinforce his authority and sustain the anti‑corruption campaign he launched in 2014. Analysts expect the meeting to signal system‑wide changes rather than personnel moves, as Xi’s purges have already investigated millions of officials and cleared hundreds of senior leaders. The plenum is likely the last major gathering before the 2027 leadership reshuffle, when many of Xi’s close associates are expected to retire.

Google Chrome now offers an Enhanced Protection mode that warns users when they visit sites resembling known scams. The new "suspicious site" alerts appear as smaller pop‑ups, offering options to mark a site as safe or return to safety. Unlike full‑page dangerous site warnings, these alerts indicate potential risk based on patterns similar to malicious sites. Users enable the feature in Chrome settings under Safe Browsing, which also uses AI analysis in real time. The feature requires sharing more browsing data with Google, linked to the user’s Google Account.

A security researcher demonstrated a software‑only jailbreak of the Switch 2, gaining userland access that allows running homebrew, backing up save files, and accessing most peripherals. The exploit relies on an integer overflow in the original Switch version of SmileBasic 4, a programming environment previously used in the 3DS smilehax hack. After about two weeks of testing, the researcher discovered a 32‑bit overflow that exposes an array pointer, enabling read/write access to system memory. From there, a buffer overflow in the FileSystem services module granted arbitrary read/write privileges, leading to native code execution. The proof‑of‑concept included modded characters in Mario Kart World, but the current userland exploit remains sandboxed and does not provide kernel‑level control.

Pop star Charli XCX will appear in a cameo in Martin Scorsese’s next psychological thriller, *What Happens at Night*, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence as a married couple traveling to a European small town to adopt a baby. The film, a co‑production between Apple and StudioCanal, has no release date announced yet. Scorsese and XCX previously collaborated on the *Music, Fashion, Film* project, which featured John Cale, Marc Jacobs and the director himself. XCX has also appeared in several films last year, including Gregg Araki’s *I Want Your Sex*, Pete Ohs’ *Erupja*, and Aidan Zamiri’s mockumentary *The Moment*. She also wrote the soundtrack for Emerald Fennell’s *Wuthering Heights* and co‑wrote music for A24’s *Mother Mary*.