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UK, US urge Cisco users to ditch end-of-life security appliances | Computer Weekly

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UK, US urge Cisco users to ditch end-of-life security appliances | Computer Weekly


An ongoing campaign of cyber attacks orchestrated through vulnerabilities found in the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) family of unified threat management (UTM) kit has prompted warnings from both the British and American authorities for users to unplug and discard outdated, out-of-support equipment.

Cisco ASA is a multipurpose line of security appliances that, on introduction in the 2000s, succeeded various functions that Cisco previously offered in standalone form, including firewalls, intrusion prevention and virtual private networking. It remains well in use to this day, particularly among small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The alert stems from two distinct flaws in the technology – CVE-2025-20333, enabling remote code execution (RCE), and CVE-2025-20362, enabling elevation of privileges (EoP). A third arbitrary code execution vulnerability, CVE-2025-20363, has also been identified but is not in the scope of this specific alert.

Cisco said the issues impact Cisco ASA 5500-X Series models running Cisco ASA Software Release 9.12 or 9.14 with VPN web services enabled. The specific models involved are 5512-X, 5515-X, 5525-X, 5545-X, 5555-X and 5585-X, some of which reached end-of-life status in 2017. Two of them, 5512-X and 5515-X have been out of support since 2022.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) strongly recommended, where practicable, that ASA models falling out of support over the next 12 months should be replaced, noting the significant risks that obsolete, end-of-life hardware can pose.

“It is critical for organisations to take note of the recommended actions highlighted … particularly on detection and remediation,” said NCSC chief technology officer Ollie Whitehouse.

“We strongly encourage network defenders to follow vendor best practices and engage with the NCSC’s malware analysis report to assist with their investigations.

“End-of-life technology presents a significant risk for organisations. Systems and devices should be promptly migrated to modern versions to address vulnerabilities and strengthen resilience,” he said.

In an emergency directive issued prior to the weekend of 27-28 September, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) directed all users within the American government to account for and update Cisco ASA devices, and Cisco Firepower devices, which are also affected.

CISA supported the NCSC’s warning, saying that if ASA hardware models with an end-of-support date falling on or before Tuesday 30 September 2025 are found, these should be permanently disconnected immediately.

“These legacy platforms [and/or] releases cannot meet current vendor support and update requirements,” said CISA.

What’s the problem?

According to Cisco, the latest vulnerabilities are being exploited by the threat actor behind the ArcaneDoor campaign, which first came to light in April 2024 and is thought to have been the work of a nation state-backed threat actor.

This activity is thought to date back a few months prior to that, with Cisco’s Talos threat intel unit having identified attacker-controlled infrastructure active in November 2023, and possible test and development activity for previous exploits in July of that year.

Cisco said it had been working with multiple affected customers, including government agencies, on investigating the latest series of attacks for some time. It described the attacks as complex and sophisticated, requiring an extensive response, and added that the threat actor was still actively scanning for targets of interest.

The campaign has been linked to two different malwares, named Line Dancer and Line Runner, which were the subject of alerts in 2024.

Line Dancer, a shellcode loader, and Line Runner, a Lua webshell, work in tandem to enable the threat actors to achieve their objectives on ASA devices.



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Lenovo’s Latest Wacky Concepts Include a Laptop With a Built-In Portable Monitor

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Lenovo’s Latest Wacky Concepts Include a Laptop With a Built-In Portable Monitor


Do you like having a second screen with your computer setup? What if your laptop could carry a second screen for you? That’s the idea behind Lenovo’s latest proof of concept, the ThinkBook Modular AI PC, announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Lenovo is never shy to show off wacky, weird concept laptops. We’ve seen a PC with a transparent screen, one with a rollable OLED screen, a swiveling screen, and another with a flippy screen. At CES earlier this year, the company showed off a gaming laptop with a display that expands at the push of a button. Sometimes, these concepts turn into real products that go on sale (often in limited quantities).

At MWC 2026, Lenovo trotted out three concepts. While it’s unclear whether any of them will become real, purchasable products, there’s some unique utility here, and a peek at how computing experiences could change in the future.

A Laptop With a Built-In Portable Screen

The ThinkBook Modular AI PC has a second screen hanging magnetically off the back of the laptop, and it can show content to people sitting in front of you.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

Image may contain Computer Electronics Laptop Pc Computer Hardware Computer Keyboard Hardware Monitor and Screen

This is with the second screen removed from the back and placed in front of the main display. The keyboard is removable and works via Bluetooth.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

As someone with a multi-screen setup at home and a fondness for portable monitors, the ThinkBook Modular AI PC appeals to me the most. At first glance, it looks like a normal laptop. Take a look behind, and you’ll notice there’s a second screen magnetically hanging off the back of the laptop, like a koala carrying a baby on its back.

The screen is connected to the laptop using pogo-pin connectors, so you can use it in this state to display content to people in front of you, say, if you were making a presentation during a meeting. Alternatively, you can pop this second screen off, remove a hidden kickstand resting under the laptop, and magnetically attach it to the 14-inch screen so that you have a traditional portable monitor experience. (You’ll need to connect this to the laptop via a USB-C cable in this orientation.)

If you don’t have the desk space for that orientation, you can always remove the keyboard from the base and pop the second screen there—it’ll auto-connect to the laptop via the pogo pins, and you’ll be able to use the Bluetooth keyboard to type on a dual-screen setup that resembles the Asus ZenBook Duo. The whole system is a fantastically portable method of improving productivity on the go, and the laptop isn’t too thick or cumbersome.



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The 5 Big ‘Known Unknowns’ of Donald Trump’s New War With Iran

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The 5 Big ‘Known Unknowns’ of Donald Trump’s New War With Iran


More recently, Iran has been a regular adversary in cyberspace—and while it hasn’t demonstrated quite the acuity of Russia or China, Iran is “good at finding ways to maximize the impact of their capabilities,” says Jeff Greene, the former executive assistant director of cybersecurity at CISA. Iran, in particular, famously was responsible for a series of distributed-denial-of-service attacks on Wall Street institutions that worried financial markets, and its 2012 attack on Saudi Aramco and Qatar’s Rasgas marked some of the earliest destructive infrastructure cyberattacks.

Today, surely, Iran is weighing which of these tools, networks, and operatives it might press into a response—and where, exactly, that response might come. Given its history of terror campaigns and cyberattacks, there’s no reason to think that Iran’s retaliatory options are limited to missiles alone—or even to the Middle East at all.

Which leads to the biggest known unknown of all:

5. How does this end? There’s an apocryphal story about a 1970s conversation between Henry Kissinger and a Chinese leader—it’s told variously as either Mao-Tse Tung or Zhou Enlai. Asked about the legacy of the French revolution, the Chinese leader quipped, “Too soon to tell.” The story almost surely didn’t happen, but it’s useful in speaking to a larger truth particularly in societies as old as the 2,500-year-old Persian empire: History has a long tail.

As much as Trump (and the world) might hope that democracy breaks out in Iran this spring, the CIA’s official assessment in February was that if Khamenei was killed, he would be likely replaced with hardline figures from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. And indeed, the fact that Iran’s retaliatory strikes against other targets in the Middle East continued throughout Saturday, even after the death of many senior regime officials—including, purportedly, the defense minister—belied the hope that the government was close to collapse.

The post-World War II history of Iran has surely hinged on three moments and its intersections with American foreign policy—the 1953 CIA coup, the 1979 revolution that removed the shah, and now the 2026 US attacks that have killed its supreme leader. In his recent bestselling book King of Kings, on the fall of the shah, longtime foreign correspondent Scott Anderson writes of 1979, “If one were to make a list of that small handful of revolutions that spurred change on a truly global scale in the modern era, that caused a paradigm shift in the way the world works, to the American, French, and Russian Revolutions might be added the Iranian.”

It is hard not to think today that we are living through a moment equally important in ways that we cannot yet fathom or imagine—and that we should be especially wary of any premature celebration or declarations of success given just how far-reaching Iran’s past turmoils have been.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly bragged about how he sees the military and Trump administration’s foreign policy as sending a message to America’s adversaries: “F-A-F-O,” playing off the vulgar colloquialism. Now, though, it’s the US doing the “F-A” portion in the skies over Iran—and the long arc of Iran’s history tells us that we’re a long, long way from the “F-O” part where we understand the consequences.


Let us know what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor at mail@wired.com.



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This Backyard Smoker Delivers Results Even a Pitmaster Would Approve Of

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This Backyard Smoker Delivers Results Even a Pitmaster Would Approve Of


While my love of smoked meats is well-documented, my own journey into actually tending the fire started just last spring when I jumped at the opportunity to review the Traeger Woodridge Pro. When Recteq came calling with a similar offer to check out the Flagship 1600, I figured it would be a good way to stay warm all winter.

While the two smokers have a lot in common, the Recteq definitely feels like an upgrade from the Traeger I’ve been using. Not only does it have nearly twice the cooking space, but the huge pellet hopper, rounded barrel, and proper smokestack help me feel like a real pitmaster.

The trade-off is losing some of the usability features that make the Woodridge Pro a great first smoker. The setup isn’t as quite as simple, and the larger footprint and less ergonomic conditions require a little more experience or patience. With both options, excellent smoked meat is just a few button presses away, but speaking as someone with both in their backyard, I’ve been firing up the Recteq more often.

Getting Settled

Photograph: Brad Bourque

Setting up the Recteq wasn’t as time-consuming as the Woodridge, but it was more difficult to manage on my own. Some of the steps, like attaching the bull horns to the lid, or flipping the barrel onto its stand, would really benefit from a patient friend or loved one. Like most smokers, you’ll need to run a burn-in cycle at 400 degrees Fahrenheit to make sure there’s nothing left over from manufacturing or shipping. Given the amount of setup time and need to cool down the smoker after, I would recommend setting this up Friday afternoon if you want to smoke on a Saturday.



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