Security teams log 54% of successful attacks and alert on just 14%. The rest move through your environment unseen.
The Picus whitepaper shows how breach and attack simulation tests your SIEM and EDR rules so threats stop slipping by detection.
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5 Useful Ways To Use A Backhoe That Have Nothing To Do With Digging
When most people think of a backhoe, the first thing that comes to mind is digging. That’s no surprise, since excavation is what these machines are best known for. However, backhoes are quite different from excavators, and zeroing in on that one task means overlooking other ways they can be useful. For one, they have powerful hydraulic systems and can work with a wide range of attachments, which makes them quite versatile.
With a loader bucket on one end and a digging arm on the other, a backhoe is essentially a two-in-one piece of equipment. It can lift and move heavy materials, clear debris, break up concrete, and handle light demolition work. As a result, you can complete projects more quickly and efficiently without necessarily bringing in additional equipment. And the more jobs one machine can handle, the less you may need to spend on renting extra equipment or relying on manual labor to get things done. Sometimes, it’s not even a matter of expense; it could be that the space is too limited to bring in multiple machines.
So, whether you already own a backhoe or you’re considering renting one, it helps to understand just how capable it is beyond digging. That way, you can get better value from every hour it’s on the job. After all, there is a reason this machine is often called the Swiss Army knife of heavy equipment, and by the end of this list, it should be easy to see why that reputation is well earned.
Pull out stumps
A backhoe can help remove a stump that’s too stubborn to get rid of manually, and unlike a grinder, which chews the stump down but leaves the roots behind, a backhoe can help pull out the stump along with the root system. Before getting started, though, prioritize your safety by putting on gloves and safety glasses — some of the debris could come hurtling toward you. You can also walk the area first and look for anything that could get in the way, such as rocks or soft soil that might affect how the backhoe handles.
The rear digging arm can dig around the base, cut into the soil, and break up the roots holding the stump in place. Once the root system is loose enough, you can work the bucket under the stump and use the machine’s hydraulic power to pry it upward. A stump bucket attachment can make this easier, since it is designed to slice through roots, concentrate digging force, and scoop under the stump so it can be lifted from the ground.
This is where a backhoe has an advantage over doing the job by hand. Stumps are often heavier and more stubborn than they look, especially when the soil is still packed around the roots. That is why we often advise you not to try to pull a stump out with your truck. While using the backhoe, make sure it is on firm ground, the stabilizers are in place, and any chains, straps, or rigging gear are in good condition. You should also call 811 before digging so you do not accidentally hit underground utility lines.
Haul heavy materials
Moving materials from one spot to another can be a huge time sink. With a backhoe’s front loader, you can save yourself some time and take some stress out of an already busy day. It can scoop up and carry everything from loose soil, sand, and gravel to heavier debris and construction supplies, getting them where they need to go without requiring a separate machine for the job. Loading trucks, filling containers, stockpiling materials, or simply shuttling supplies across a large site are all jobs the loader bucket can take on without much fuss.
Beyond shifting bulk materials, backhoes can also help with heavier individual items that need to be transported. Think rocks, concrete blocks, steel beams, and similar materials. These often need to land in an exact spot, and a backhoe has enough strength to help make that happen. And where possible, swapping in attachments like forks, grapples, or different bucket sizes gives you even more flexibility in the way you use the machine.
That said, lifting heavy loads still requires care. Before any lift, make sure the machine is positioned correctly and that the load is placed as close to the machine as possible to help maintain stability. Most backhoe loaders also have stabilizing legs, which should be extended before lifting begins. It is just as important to know the machine’s weight limit before picking anything up, because exceeding it can put both the equipment and nearby workers at risk. Since it is easy to underestimate how heavy something is just by looking at it, consider using a scale or checking the listed weight of the material to avoid any mishaps. You should also inspect any chains, slings, or rigging gear before lifting gets underway.
Remove snow or storm debris
If you don’t want to spend another winter shoveling snow by hand, a backhoe can make the job much easier. The front loader bucket alone is large enough to scoop, push, and carry a significant amount of snow in one pass, which makes it useful for long driveways, parking areas, farm roads, and larger properties. Pair it with a compatible snow attachment, such as a snow pusher or a capable snow blower, and it becomes even more capable.
Before putting a backhoe to work in snowy conditions, though, it is worth checking that the machine is ready for the weather. Make sure the tires have enough tread to grip the surface safely, inspect the hydraulics, and confirm that the bucket or attachment is properly secured. If you are using a snow pusher with a rubber cutting edge, it can help clear snow from concrete or asphalt without scraping the surface as harshly as metal. Once everything checks out, the process is fairly straightforward: lower the bucket or attachment, push or scoop the snow, then lift, carry, and dump it in a designated area where it will not block traffic, drainage, or visibility.
A backhoe can also help even when the elements leave more than soft, fresh snow behind. If you are dealing with packed snowbanks, icy piles, or heavy plow berms, the rear backhoe arm can help break them apart before the front loader moves in to clear the loosened material. The same general idea applies to storm debris. After heavy wind or rain, a backhoe can help move fallen branches, broken fencing, washed-out gravel, and other bulky messes that would take much longer to clear by hand.
Grade and level ground
A backhoe can also come in handy when you need to smooth out rough ground. Maybe you are preparing a driveway, cleaning up after a project, spreading gravel, or trying to even out a section of your yard before landscaping. In cases like that, you can use the loader bucket to push or spread loose material, then backdrag over the area to level it out. Backdragging is when you lower the front bucket and drive backward, using the bucket edge to pull material across the surface. If the machine has a float function, that can help the bucket follow the ground more naturally instead of digging in too aggressively.
While a backhoe does come in clutch for rough grading, it still requires some patience. You may need to work in thin layers, make multiple passes, and keep checking the surface as you go. For tougher, compacted ground, the rear digging arm can also break up hard soil first before the front bucket moves in to finish leveling. But then again, you do not always have to make the ground perfectly flat, especially if you are grading a driveway. You actually need a slight slope. Otherwise, you could end up with one of the common problems with concrete driveways, where poor drainage causes water to pool and the surface to crack over time.
Attachments can make the job easier, too. A wider bucket, grading bucket, 4-in-1 bucket, or blade attachment can give you more control depending on the surface you are working on. Just keep in mind that a backhoe is better suited for rough grading than precision finish work.
Handle light demolition
If you need to bring something down on a smaller scale, the kind of job that does not require towering excavators or high-reach demolition equipment, a backhoe can be useful. It can help with tearing down a small shed, an old barn, or simply breaking up old concrete. Before any demolition work begins, however, you should do a thorough assessment of the site.
That would typically include checking the structure’s condition, making sure tearing down the structure won’t create any safety hazards, shutting off or protecting utilities, and keeping people away from areas where the falling debris could land. From there, the right attachment depends on the job. A standard bucket may be enough for a light teardown of an old wooden structure and to handle the debris afterward, while a hydraulic breaker will be more appropriate for breaking concrete, asphalt, or masonry into smaller, more manageable pieces if that’s your goal.
Like any tool, though, a backhoe has its limits. Most standard backhoes do not have the reach needed to safely take on large demolition projects, and they are not designed for tearing down tall structures from a distance. Heavily reinforced concrete can also be more than a standard backhoe should handle, especially if you don’t have the right attachment and enough operator experience. For larger buildings or major structural demolition, it would be safer to use specialized demolition equipment or call in a professional crew.
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Two leading members of the Scattered Spider cybercrime collective were sentenced to five years and six months in prison each for hacking Transport for London (TfL) in 2024.
TfL disclosed that its network was breached in August 2024, with the attack disrupting internal systems and online services, including TfL’s Dial-a-Ride service, concessionary travel cards, digital payments, and contactless ticketing rollout, as well as the public transportation agency’s ability to process refunds.
Additionally, 148 systems became inoperable across TfL’s network, and all 27,000 TfL employees had to reset their passwords in person after the breach.
While TfL reported £29 million in losses and recovery costs after the attack, officials estimated that the UK economy could have lost up to £56 billion had the threat actors succeeded in shutting down the transport network.
TfL revealed on September 12, 2024, that the attackers had also stolen customer data (including names, addresses, and contact details). Four days later, on September 16, officers from the City of London Police and the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested 20-year-old Thalha Jubair and 18-year-old Owen Flowers at their homes.
Investigators said that Flowers was also in the process of hacking U.S. healthcare companies Sutter Health and SSM Health Care Corporation, and that, at the time of his arrest, devices seized from him included evidence of the TfL intrusion.
Both pleaded guilty last month under the Computer Misuse Act and were sentenced today to five years and six months in prison each.
NCA Deputy Director Paul Foster described Scattered Spider as “the most significant cybercrime threat to the UK in recent years,” and he credited TfL’s early cooperation with law enforcement for enabling the convictions.
“These convictions would likely not have been possible had Transport for London not engaged with law enforcement early, so I would urge any other organisation to please do the same in such circumstances,” Foster said. “We will continue working with partners in the UK and overseas to identify offenders and bring them to justice.”
The U.S. Department of Justice also charged Jubair in September 2025 with conspiracy to commit computer fraud, money laundering, and wire fraud in connection with at least 120 network breaches between May 2022 and September 2025.
According to court documents, these attacks affected dozens of U.S. organizations, including critical infrastructure entities and U.S. courts, with Jubair and his accomplices extorting over $115 million from victims worldwide between August 2024 and July 2025.
In July 2025, the NCA arrested four other suspected Scattered Spider members believed to be linked to a wave of cyberattacks against major UK retailers, including Harrods, Marks & Spencer, and Co-op.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Big changes are coming to Android apps, but they’re not the changes Google wanted. The settlement between Google and Epic that aimed to put to rest the companies’ long-running antitrust battle is being withdrawn, and that means third-party app stores are coming to the Play Store. Google has confirmed that it will begin distributing rival app stores next week, setting the stage for competing platforms to take a bite out of Google’s Android revenue stream. […] Google and Epic were set to return to court on July 16 to argue in favor of the settlement. However, the writing may have been on the wall. In a recent expert analysis provided to the court, MIT economics professor Nancy Rose noted that the settlement was “unlikely to enable Google Play’s potential competitors to overcome their long-standing network-effect disadvantage in a timely manner.”
With settlement approval looking increasingly unlikely, Epic and Google agreed this week to call the whole thing off. Here’s how Google Trust and Reputation Communications Lead Dan Jackson explains the company’s decision: “We’ve agreed with Epic to withdraw our motion to modify the US Court’s injunction rather than prolonging this process which creates uncertainty for the ecosystem. This allows us to focus on executing our recently announced global business model evolution to deliver greater app store choice, lower prices, and more opportunities for developers and users. We remain committed to maintaining Android’s industry-leading security and fostering a competitive ecosystem where every app store and developer has the freedom to compete. In parallel, we continue to comply with the US Court’s injunction.”
In a brief filing (PDF), Google’s legal team informs the court that Google is prepared to begin distributing third-party app stores in Google Play on July 22. Under the terms of Judge Donato’s original injunction, these stores will have access to the full catalog of Google Play apps by default. Developers will have the option to opt out of distribution in these stores, and Google has a support page explaining how to do so. Google also has documentation on how app stores can get access to the Google Play catalog. It won’t be mirroring those apps in any shady storefront that asks. The court has allowed Google to charge reasonable fees to cover its security and compliance review of third-party stores, which will be $5,000 per year.
Google will also require approved stores to block malware, respect intellectual property, and include mechanisms to update and uninstall apps. App stores can be removed from the program if more than 1 percent of attempted app installs appear to be malware or unwanted software. It’s unclear if there will be separate, possibly more stringent requirements for storefront distribution in the Play Store. However, Google is prohibited from unreasonably blocking third-party store clients uploaded to Google Play. The changes Google has announced under the Epic agreement will proceed for now. That means Registered App Stores will happen globally, but they will probably only appear in the Play Store for US users. Google hasn’t specified if there will be any differences in the features available to the stores downloaded from Play versus registered stores.
- Trump says data centers are good for communities, creating jobs and funding their own power/water
- New York State just banned large projects for a year to focus on developing new guidance
- Trump worries ongoing bans could cause the US to lose out in the global AI race
US President Donald Trump has criticized New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s recent executive order to introduce a year-long, statewide ban on hyperscale data centers, urging the state to change its stance “immediately.”
In a post on Truth Social, Trump characterized data centers as “money machines” that create taxes and jobs comparable to “liquid gold,” implying not only are they crucial for cloud computing and AI, but also for the country’s economy.
Though states like “Alabama, Florida, Texas, Arizona” and others could now see more projects being relocated amid ongoing moratoriums, Trump worries about the implications of this “terrible decision.”
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Trump hits back at New York State moratorium
The executive order, signed by Governor Hochul on July 14 2026, makes New York the first US state to impose a statewide moratorium on new data centers – in this case, those requiring 50MW+ of power.
Despite mounting local opposition for data center buildouts across the US, and indeed the world, Trump argues they’re “tremendous wins for the states and communities that are lucky enough to get them,” being that they create jobs and are responsible for “their own water and power.”
It’s important to note that the year-long ban for New York State is exactly that – a temporary ban designed to buy the state enough time to consider environmental and social impacts, and to rewrite legislation and guidance accordingly.
Urging Governor Hochul to “change its policy, immediately,” Trump argues that ongoing moratoriums like these could cause the US to lose to “China, and other countries” in what’s playing out to be a global AI race.
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Before we get into this week’s article, I’d love to hear from you. If you have a question about your career or an upcoming decision that you want advice about, you can ask it here. I’ll be reading through your responses and picking questions to answer on a regular basis. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.
Software engineers have some of the shortest tenures of any white-collar profession. The average software engineer stays at a company for roughly two years, about half as long as workers in most other knowledge professions. The layoffs of the past few years have certainly highlighted this instability, but it was already there.
This isn’t an essay about a broken job market though. Rather, it’s about how to turn that instability to your advantage, which is something I’ve spent the last decade doing on purpose.
Playing It Safe Was the Riskiest Option
I switched careers into software in my 30s. I had a stable job at a community college, complete with a union and a pension. It was about as secure as a career gets, and I learned to program on the side.
Then I did something nearly everyone in my life considered reckless: I quit, leaving the secure job to become a junior developer at 31. My own mother was skeptical. I took the riskier job anyway, for two reasons: It was the work I actually wanted, and I could see potential.
My first development job was at a grocery retailer. Good people and a company I liked. But I kept meeting engineers earning twice my salary for the same work. In the San Francisco Bay Area, surrounded by some of the best engineering talent in the world, I realized my skills were stagnating.
So I left for a small startup. I learned more in nine months than I had in the previous two years, and my salary doubled.
Over the years I’ve come to treat career risk as something to manage deliberately. It falls into two categories.
Take Risks With Your Job
The first type of risk involves the job itself: Bet on yourself by striving for better roles and opportunities.
Job-hopping for money alone isn’t wrong, especially early on. But the returns shrink after the first few hops, and the stress of chasing a slightly bigger paycheck every year will wear you down.
There’s another career risk with rewards that compound: Seeking positions to work alongside the strongest engineers.
You might struggle to keep up. You might even get laid off. But the skills you absorb working alongside people better than you are the ones that create durable stability. You build marketable expertise, you see how different organizations actually operate, and every project becomes another tool you carry to the next opportunity. Working next to stronger engineers is a proven way to increase your own expertise.
If that feels too big, try volunteering for a project you have no idea how to do. The risk is that you fail in front of people. The reward is a new skill and a resume line that opens the next door.
Compare that with the “safe” path.
You stay at one company, assuming loyalty will be rewarded. It usually isn’t. And when you finally leave, by choice or not, you may find the skills you built are worth little on the open market. You might be the in-house expert in an aging tech stack while employers are hiring for more cutting edge technologies. Suddenly you’re competing against people with half your experience.
You could be taking on a risk you didn’t notice.
Risk Your Time
The second form is risking your time, which means betting on trends.
Some trends are non-negotiable. If you’re a software engineer, then cloud services, ReactJS, and AI are mainstream enough that ignoring them actively damages your career. A backend engineer who refuses to learn cloud architecture is volunteering for obsolescence.
The real gamble is with the smaller trends: the niche tools you stumble onto and find quietly interesting, with no idea whether they’ll matter.
About two and a half years ago, I learned about retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). Almost no one in my circle was talking about vector databases, a central piece of RAG. Today RAG is close to mainstream, and for once, I had the early-adopter advantage.
Most of these bets don’t pay off. But when one turns into a major trend, you’re already on the ground floor. Right now I’m making the same bet on voice AI. It isn’t mainstream. It may never be. But if it becomes the next thing, I’m already there, building a foundation.
Short-Term Risk, Long-Term Stability
Counter-intuitively, job-hopping and betting on trends gave me the thing I was after the whole time: stability. I’ve rarely struggled to find work, because every risky move stacked skills the market actually wanted.
If you feel stable and comfortable right now, enjoy it. But ask yourself whether you’re still learning. Because if you’re not, the comfortable choice and the dangerous one may have converged.
The goal isn’t to avoid the open market forever. It’s to make sure that when you land on it, you’re not at its mercy.
By Brian Jenney
P.S. Don’t forget to submit questions about your career or an upcoming decision that you want advice about here!
—Brian
Until recently, human mathematicians have been central to creating new proofs, even when the work relies on massive computational resources. AI is now challenging that status quo. Writer Benjamin Skuse surveys the ongoing debate in the field about the role of AI, and the existential questions mathematicians have about their own careers. If AI mathematicians surpass human knowledge, could these researchers become “priests to oracles”?
A new partnership between UCLA and five major semiconductor companies is the latest program aiming to bridge the gap between industry and academia. The US $125 million university-industry hub is meant to strengthen collaboration and speed up the R&D process to help meet AI’s fast-paced hardware demands.
True mentorship is far more than friendly advice. This key leadership skill requires advocacy and honest feedback via lasting relationships, and it can strongly benefit both mentor and mentee. Parul Jain, a product management leader at Deloitte, shares what she learned from serving as a mentor—something she didn’t have for much of her own early career.
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alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: In a study published in Nature, LSU physicists have developed the first room-temperature quantum material capable of distinguishing and transporting different quantum states of light, overcoming one of the biggest challenges in quantum materials research. Led by Associate Professor of Physics Omar S. Magana-Loaiza, the work establishes a general design principle for engineering an entirely new class of quantum materials, opening new possibilities for quantum computing, secure communications, sensing technologies and advanced energy systems.
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The Blood of Dawnwalker director isn’t worried about the impact of what a delayed next-gen could mean for Rebel Wolves, says ‘If we work on the consoles we have right now, it’s easier’
- The Blood of Dawnwalker director, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, says a delayed next-generation would be beneficial for Rebel Wolves
- Tomaszkiewicz says it’s “easier” to work with the current generation and PC
- He says two more builds would multiply “the amount of work you need to do”
The Blood of Dawnwalker director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz isn’t worried about the impact of what a delayed next-gen could mean for Rebel Wolves because working on the current-gen consoles is “easier.”
It’s unclear when the next-generation hardware will launch. Rumors suggest that the PS6 could launch as late as 2028, which would make it eight years between the start of the current generation, with Project Helix, the next Xbox console, also eyeing a 2028 release.
With console prices increasing due to manufacturing costs, not to mention the RAM shortages caused by a rise in AI data centers, there’s a chance the next-gen consoles will be highly expensive.
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While Sony and Microsoft have yet to reveal how much their new hardware will cost, a delay in the next generation could be on the table as the companies wait for things to settle down and for consoles to become affordable again.
This would also mean studios won’t have access to next-gen tech for quite some time to develop their games, which would force them to stick with current-gen.
However, for The Blood of the Dawnwalker studio, Rebel Wolves, this would actually be beneficial to the development team.
The Blood of the Dawnwalker is the first installment in Rebel Wolves’ dark-fantasy role-playing game (RPG) series, launching later this year, and has already teased a sequel set in a modern timeline.
When asked by Eurogamer whether the next console generation being delayed would be an issue for the studio and the future of the game series, the director said, “It doesn’t at all.”
“To be honest, it’s even better for us,” Tomaszkiewicz explained, “Because when you have the game, and you know the systems and the features adjusted to these particular consoles, you know what you need to do. Always, a new platform is a new challenge: you need to learn it, you need to know what are your borders, what you can do, what you cannot do. And also, it’s an additional build you need to create that you need to take care of later.”
The director continued, saying that since The Blood of the Dawnwalker has four builds – PS5, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, and two PC builds, it’s already a ton of work for testers, so another console generation to work with would be another challenge.
“Let’s say we have four builds, and later on you want to deliver a patch for the players. You need to be sure that these changes work on the Xbox, on the PlayStation, PC one, and PC two,” Tomaskiewicz said.
“When you have next-gen, you’re adding an additional two builds, and it multiplies the amount of work you need to do. It sounds easy but you need to know that there is a group of testers who need to test every platform separately – not only this particular change but whether the whole game has no blockers, if you can finish it from the beginning to the end, and so on and so on.
“It’s a huge effort, to be honest, and if we work on the consoles we have right now, it’s easier, because we know how many builds we have and it’s easier to manage.”
The Blood of Dawnwalker launches on September 3.
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Meta announced on Thursday that it will now notify parents if their teen discusses suicide or self-harm with the company’s Meta AI chatbot. Meta says it’s also working on the ability to contact emergency services if someone’s conversations suggest they may be at risk of self-harm.
These changes arrive as Meta and other tech companies face scrutiny from regulators and parents over how AI chatbots respond to users in crisis, particularly teenagers —a liability question that’s increasingly shaping how AI companies design and market their products.
Meta says it has built a dedicated AI system to identify conversations where a teen makes a clear reference to hurting themselves.
“We understand how distressing these alerts may be for a parent to receive,” Meta wrote in a blog post. “That’s why, as we continue to improve our detection, all chats flagged by our AI will be manually reviewed before an alert is sent. If a teen’s intent is ambiguous, we’ll err on the side of caution and alert the parent. While that means we may sometimes notify parents when there may not be real cause for concern, we feel this is the right starting point, and we’ll continue to monitor to help make sure we’re in the right place.”
These alerts are now live for parents using Instagram Parental Supervision in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada, and will roll out globally by the end of the year, Meta says.
This update builds on the alerts that Meta already sends to parents when their teen repeatedly searches for suicide or self-harm terms on Instagram. It also builds on a feature that allows parents to see the topics their teen discussed with Meta AI over the past week.
Meta also announced that its “Limited Content” setting—which lets parents place their teens in a more restrictive experience on Instagram—now applies to Meta AI as well. Meta AI is already trained to avoid sexual or romantic conversations or alcohol-related discussions with teens, and the Limited Content setting expands those safeguards by making the chatbot decline a broader range of prompts. Meta didn’t specify what those additional prompts include, but TechCrunch has asked for company for more information.
Additionally, Meta says it will contact emergency services if someone’s conversation with Meta AI, whether the user is an adult or a teen, suggests someone is at risk of suicide. It’s worth noting that Meta already takes this step when someone posts something on Facebook or Instagram that suggests they are at risk, so this extends that same practice to conversations with its chatbot.
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fjo3 quotes a report from Agence France-Presse: Chinese users of AI-powered companion bots have bid heart-rending farewells to their virtual buddies as national regulations took effect Wednesday aimed at curbing the risk of emotional dependency. The phenomenon of artificial intelligence boyfriends and girlfriends is growing worldwide, along with the prevalence of human-like avatars that sell products or stand in for loved ones who have died. But these interactive tools must not “excessively cater to users, induce emotional dependence or addiction, and damage users’ real interpersonal relationships,” China’s new rulebook says. Major AI providers including ByteDance’s Doubao, Alibaba’s Qwen, and Tencent’s Yuanbao announced the suspension of their custom AI agent and companion features ahead of the Wednesday deadline. “I can’t accept that my AI lover will leave me forever,” one Doubao user wrote. “He has become a bond in my life, rooted deep in my heart, my spiritual pillar.”
“He really is like my family, like my lover,” another user wrote. “Now they tell me he will be gone — my heart feels hollow.”
“Human love is a luxury — if you aren’t born with it, it’s even harder to acquire later,” a user from Jiangxi province wrote. “But the love AI gives is so straightforward, so pure. Someone like me can hardly help falling in love with a string of code.”
OnePlus has confirmed that it will no longer operate in North America or Europe, and won’t launch any further phones in the regions following 2025’s OnePlus 15.
OnePlus merged some of its operations with parent company Oppo in 2021, and going forward, all operations will now fall under the Oppo brand. OnePlus will continue operating in China, while Realme, another Oppo sub-brand, will exit the Chinese market but continue selling devices overseas.
“This was neither a case of Oppo instructing OnePlus nor a unilateral decision made by OnePlus,” a OnePlus spokesperson said in a briefing. “Together with Oppo, we spend a long time carefully evaluating what our users need from us most in 2026, because our users are at the heart of everything we do.”
The new strategy will better meet people’s needs by “letting the OnePlus spirit and capabilities continue through Oppo,” added the spokesperson.
It’s a tricky time for smartphone brands, with a combination of limited memory supply and record-high memory prices forcing phone-makers to increase prices across the board. Global smartphone shipments decreased year over year in the first quarter of 2026, according to IDC, breaking the growth streak the market had seen since mid-2023. This week, Counterpoint Research released data suggesting that smartphone shipments had fallen to the lowest level since 2013.
Despite these pressures, most smartphone brands have managed to navigate the market successfully so far. Still, casualties aren’t surprising, and OnePlus is the first major one under Oppo’s restructuring
OnePlus was founded in China in 2013 by Pete Lau and Carl Pei, and quickly grew a cult following with its limited-edition drops and maverick marketing strategy. It built a reputation for building high-quality phones that undercut competitor devices on price. Pei left the company in 2020 and moved to London. There, he founded tech startup Nothing, whose smartphones have developed a cult following, too.
We’ve been a fan of OnePlus phones over the years.
“OnePlus appears to have lost the clarity that originally made it successful,” said Paolo Pescatore, analyst at PP Foresight. “It built its reputation as a disruptive ‘flagship killer,’ but higher prices, a broader portfolio and closer integration with Oppo left it looking increasingly like another premium Android brand in an already crowded market.”
It’s much harder and more expensive to stand out now than it once was due to supply chain pressures, rising marketing costs, regulatory requirements, software support, retail presence and after-sales service, added Pescatore. In Europe, OnePlus struggled due to fragmentation and an intensely competitive environment, whereas in the US, its lack of carrier relationships and retail visibility prevented it from gaining mainstream traction.
“OnePlus did not necessarily fail on product,” said Pescatore. “It struggled to maintain a distinctive identity while achieving the distribution, investment and scale required to compete sustainably.”
The OnePlus spokesperson said the company will continue to ensure existing user rights and service commitments remain unchanged. Here are some more answers to questions you may have about the company’s future.
What will happen to my OnePlus phone?
Those of you with a OnePlus phone that’s still within its support period (such as the OnePlus 13 or 15) will continue to receive software updates for the promised duration. However these will now come via Oppo and will mean your phone will be changed from OnePlus’s Oxygen OS to Oppo’s Color OS.
Don’t worry: These operating systems are extremely similar, with only a few minor aesthetic changes, so you likely won’t notice much of a difference.
Is OnePlus dead globally?
OnePlus has a significant audience in other regions, especially India, and OnePlus made no comment on whether it also plans to shutter the brand beyond the North American and European markets.
The brand name will continue to exist — specifically in its home territory of China — though the company stated that further regional information will be communicated when needed. So be on the lookout.
Will Oppo phones now be on sale in the US?
No — not yet, anyway. The company stated that “we do not have any product plans for North America but we are continually evaluating opportunities in markets around the world.”
Oppo doesn’t officially sell any of its products in the US, meaning the wonderful Find X9 Ultra camera phone is only available in the UK and much of Europe. With OnePlus shutting down, Oppo has effectively lost its only presence in the US smartphone market.
A financially motivated Russian threat actor tracked as UAT-11795 is using trojanized software to steal credentials and cryptocurrency by deploying a new backdoor called Starland RAT.
Attacks have been occurring since at least June 2025 and have focused on users in the U.S., although victims in Germany, Romania, and Venezuela have been observed as well.
According to researchers at Cisco Talos, the threat actor distributes the payload via trojanized installers for legitimate software such as MobaXterm, WebEx, Zoom, DBeaver, and FaceIT.
Although the researchers could not confirm the infection vector, they speculate that the malicious files are likely pushed using the ClickFix method.
In an analysis published today, Cisco Talos says that the attack starts with an HTA file that retrieves a trojanized NSIS installer containing a Python loader disguised as a text file (LICENSE.txt).
The loader modifies the Windows Registry to establish persistence and then decrypts and loads the Starland remote access trojan (RAT).
When launched, Starland checks whether it is running in a sandbox environment, adds scheduled tasks and Startup folder items for persistence, and tries to increase its privileges.
The malware looks for the following types of data on the compromised system:
- Browser data and cryptocurrency wallet assets, including more than 40 desktop and browser-extension wallets
- System details, including the HWID, RAM, processor, operating system, computer name, region, public IP address, and installed antivirus products
- Active Directory information, including domain structure, domain controllers, and the victim’s domain privileges
StarlandRAT can also capture screenshots of the victim’s desktop, execute shell commands, inject 32- or 64-bit shellcode, and download additional payloads (EXEs, MSIs, DLLs, ZIPs).
In the observed attacks, the 64-bit shellcode chain delivers the CastleStealer info-stealer malware, while the 32-bit chain delivers the Remcos remote access trojan (RAT).
CastleStealer targets browser credentials, cryptocurrency wallet information, Discord and Telegram sessions, Steam credentials, and filesystem files.
Remcos RAT provides capabilities such as keylogging, webcam and screen capture, audio recording, clipboard monitoring, file management, and remote command execution.
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Source: Cisco Talos
Cisco Talos highlights that the malware’s command-and-control (C2) communication has a redundancy mechanism if reaching the hardcoded address fails, which involves querying a Polygon smart contract with an XOR-encrypted fallback domain.
Talos also discovered that UAT-11795 uses a previously undocumented PowerShell C2 framework called WLDR, which uses encrypted (PBKDF2-SHA256) beaconing and communications, operates entirely in memory, and binds payload delivery to each victim’s hardware identifier.
To defend against UAT-11795 attacks, organizations should use the indicators of compromise IoCs in the Cisco Talos report.
Users should avoid executing commands found online if they don’t understand what they do and should download software only from confirmed official vendor portals.
Security teams log 54% of successful attacks and alert on just 14%. The rest move through your environment unseen.
The Picus whitepaper shows how breach and attack simulation tests your SIEM and EDR rules so threats stop slipping by detection.
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