Security, FUD, and Windows TCO

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Feb 13, 2026

• OpenSSF (Linux Foundation) ☛ Fill Out All The Margins 📖: OpenSSF Releases Compiler Annotations Guide for C and C++

  OpenSSF’s new Compiler Annotations for C and C++ guide helps developers use compiler-specific annotations to communicate code intent to the compiler, improve diagnostics, improve optimizations, and provide stronger security and correctness guarantees.

• LWN ☛ Security updates for Thursday

  Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (brotli, git-lfs, image-builder, kernel, keylime, libsoup3, and pcs), Fedora (chromium, gnutls, osslsigncode, and p11-kit), Mageia (golang, libpng, thunderbird, and xrdp), Red Hat (git-lfs, go-toolset:rhel8, golang, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, osbuild-composer, and toolbox), Slackware (gnutls and libpng), SUSE (apptainer, cockpit, cockpit-packages, cockpit-subscriptions, freerdp2, gimp, glib2, go, go1.24, go1.25, gpg2, ImageMagick, java-1_8_0-openjdk, kernel, keylime-config, keylime-ima-policy, lemon, libp11-kit0, libsoup, libsoup-2_4-1, libxml2, libxml2-16, munge, nodejs20, nvidia-modprobe.cuda, nvidia-open-driver-G06-signed, nvidia-persistenced.cuda, openQA, orthanc, gdcm, orthanc-authorization,, python-brotlipy, python-Django, python-maturin, python-pyasn1, python-urllib3, python-wheel, python313-wheel, qemu, rust-keylime, sqlite3, uriparser, wicked2nm, and xrdp), and Ubuntu (libtasn1-6, libwebsockets, libxmltok, linux, linux-aws, linux-gcp, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.15, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux, linux-raspi, linux, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux-aws, linux-aws-6.8, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.8, linux-ibm,

  linux-ibm-6.8, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.8, linux-aws-5.15, linux-gcp-5.15, linux-nvidia-tegra-igx, linux-oracle-5.15,

  linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux-aws-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.8, linux-gcp-fips, linux-intel-iot-realtime, linux-realtime, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-nvidia-tegra-5.15, linux-realtime-6.8, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, and python-multipart).

• Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation

  • CSO ☛ SSHStalker botnet brute-forces its way onto 7,000 Linux machines [Ed: This relies on badly protected PCs or weak passwords]

    A newly discovered botnet is compromising poorly-protected Linux servers by brute-forcing weak SSH password login authentication.

• Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

  • Security Week ☛ Microsoft to Enable ‘Windows Baseline Security’ With New Runtime Integrity Safeguards [Ed: Fake security (back doors) and more Windows TCO]

    Windows will have runtime safeguards enabled by default, ensuring that only properly signed software runs.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Unofficial 7-zip.com website served up malware-laden downloads for over a week — infected PCs forced into a proxy botnet

    Always get your wares from reputable sources.