• South Korean government discloses ten‑month cyberattack on the National Diplomatic Academy’s online education system
• Data stolen included user IDs, names, emails, and encrypted passwords of at least 6,000 individuals
• MFA shut down IT systems, deployed enhanced security, and delayed disclosure due to diplomatic sensitivity

Current and former employees of the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), as well as other government personnel, may have had their data siphoned out by cybercriminals in an attack that lasted for ten months.

The South Korean government has disclosed an attack against the online education system of its National Diplomatic Academy. The system, set up in 2022 by the country’s premier institution for educating and training diplomats, apparently contained a security vulnerability that unnamed threat actors managed to exploit.

Samsung’s latest Galaxy Unpacked event wasn’t just about new hardware. Alongside the Galaxy Z Fold8, Galaxy Z Flip8 and new Galaxy Watch lineup, Google used the occasion to announce a series of updates aimed at Android developers, encouraging them to optimize apps for a growing range of foldable devices and wearable form factors.

The guidance focuses on one challenge that has become increasingly relevant as foldables evolve: building apps that work seamlessly across different screen sizes, aspect ratios and device postures. With the Galaxy Z Fold 8 adopting a wider, landscape-first display, Google says developers can no longer assume every Android phone follows the traditional portrait-first design philosophy.

The company has also introduced new tools for camera apps, adaptive layouts, AI-powered features and Wear OS 7 widgets, making this one of its broader developer updates around Android’s expanding device ecosystem.

Google expands adaptive app toolkit for foldables

The biggest change is Google’s renewed focus on adaptive app design. Instead of designing apps around fixed screen dimensions, Google is encouraging developers to build interfaces that automatically adjust based on the available window size. The company recommends using Window Size Classes through the Jetpack WindowManager library to detect how much screen space an app actually has, particularly when devices enter split-screen or multi-window modes.

Google is also highlighting the latest Jetpack Compose April 2026 release (Compose BOM version 2026.04.01), which introduces a new Grid API, FlexBox layout API, and MediaQuery API. Together, these tools allow developers to build layouts that can adapt to changing screen sizes, fold states, keyboard configurations, and device posture without relying on hardcoded interface rules.

The company is also asking developers to make apps “fold aware” by detecting hinges and fold lines through Jetpack WindowManager. That allows applications to avoid placing important controls across the fold while maintaining app state when users switch between folded and unfolded modes.

Camera apps are receiving attention as well. Google recommends migrating to CameraX, whose PreviewView automatically manages camera orientation, scaling, and display changes during folding transitions. Developers maintaining Camera2-based apps can instead use the CameraViewfinder library to simplify preview handling without rewriting their camera stack.

Wear OS 7 and Gemini Nano 4 open new opportunities

The updates extend beyond foldable phones. With Wear OS 7, Google is introducing Wear Widgets, allowing developers to build glanceable widgets using Jetpack Glance and RemoteCompose. These widgets can now appear inside multi-widget tiles, giving third-party developers access to functionality that was previously limited to Google’s own apps.

Google is also encouraging developers to build on-device AI experiences for Samsung’s latest devices. The new Galaxy foldables ship with Gemini Nano 4, which supports more than 140 languages and improved multimodal capabilities. Through ML Kit’s Prompt API, developers can integrate structured outputs and reasoning features into apps without relying entirely on cloud-based AI processing.

While these announcements don’t introduce new Android features for end users, they provide an early look at where Google’s software priorities are heading. As foldables become more diverse and wearables continue to evolve, Android developers are being encouraged to build apps that adapt to changing hardware rather than assuming every device looks and behaves like a conventional smartphone.

A nine-year-old race condition vulnerability in the Linux kernel’s XFS filesystem, tracked as CVE-2026-64600, allows local attackers to overwrite protected files and gain root privileges.

Dubbed RefluXFS by the Qualys Threat Research Unit (TRU), which found and reported it, the security flaw affects systems with an XFS filesystem with reflink enabled (a default configuration on major enterprise Linux distributions), running Linux kernel v4.11 or later, with a directory writable by an unprivileged local user, and a high-value target (a root-owned configuration file or SUID-root binary).

Also, standard defenses (including the Security-Enhanced Linux SELinux kernel security module, kernel lockdown, container isolation mechanisms, and memory-protection features like KASLR, SMEP, and SMAP) don’t block RefluXFS attacks because the flaw operates at the filesystem allocation layer, below where those protections apply.

According to Qualys, exploitation is highly reliable, leaves no kernel log output, and the on-disk modification survives a system reboot.

“The attacker reflink-clones a target file (for example /etc/passwd, or a SUID-root binary such as /usr/bin/su) into a scratch file they own, then races concurrent O_DIRECT writes on that scratch file,” the Qualys TRU team explains in a detailed technical write-up published on Wednesday.

“A lock-drop window in the kernel’s copy-on-write allocation path lets one of those writes land, not in the attacker’s own storage, but in the physical block that still backs the original file. The change is made directly on disk, persists across reboot, produces no kernel log output, and does not touch the target file’s inode — so a modified SUID-root binary keeps its SUID bit.”

RefluXFS has existed since kernel version 4.11, after being introduced in February 2017 by commit 3c68d44a2b49. It has been present in every mainline and stable kernel since and was patched on July 16 after commit 2f4acd0was merged into the Linux kernel source tree.

The list of impacted Linux distros includes Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Oracle Linux, Amazon Linux and Fedora, as well as CentOS Stream, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux and CloudLinux.

Qualys estimates that it potentially affects more than 16.4 million systems based on analysis using its Cybersecurity Asset Management software.

Saeed Abbasi, the head of Qualys’ Threat Research Unit, says the discovery emerged from a research initiative between Qualys and Anthropic, in which researchers integrated the AI model Claude Mythos Preview into their manual audit workflow.

The Claude Mythos Preview was tasked with hunting for a race condition resembling the “Dirty COW” vulnerability class, and after iterative refinement identified the flaw in XFS and generated a functional proof-of-concept. Abbasi added that the Qualys security researchers then reviewed the model’s reasoning, reproduced the exploit, and independently verified all technical claims before coordinating disclosure with kernel maintainers.

“Immediate kernel patching is recommended to neutralize this vulnerability. Exploitation succeeds consistently under standard hardening settings, and the on-disk modification survives a system reboot,” said Abbasi.

“Vendor-fixed kernels are now available and being backported to enterprise distributions. Organizations should prioritize patching exposed and multi-tenant systems and ensure a reboot to verify the update. As of now, there are no reliable or practical mitigations or temporary configuration changes available.”

RefluXFS is the latest in a long series of Linux privilege escalation vulnerabilities disclosed since the start of the year, including CIFSwitch, PinTheft, Copy Fail, Dirty Frag, Fragnesia, Pack2TheRoot, and DirtyDecrypt/DirtyCBC.

Security teams log 54% of successful attacks and alert on just 14%. The rest move through your environment unseen.

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SOFTWARE

Mozilla walls off your online identities as MZLA unleashes a bumper repair job

Mozilla released Firefox 153 on Tuesday, closely followed by MZLA with Thunderbird 153 – codenamed “Meadow” for reasons that remain obscure for now.

Firefox 153 is Mozilla’s new Extended Support Release (ESR), so it will receive security updates until some time after the next ESR in mid-2027. We covered the highlights of what’s new in this version last week.

Firefox 153 will be good news if you used the Multi-Account Containers extension: a preview version of the functionality is now built in. Firefox already has user profiles, which let you keep sets of settings and credentials separate. With some extra effort, you can even launch multiple separate instances of Firefox with different profiles. Containers make similar functionality much easier: each container has its own set of stored credentials. So, for instance, a “home” container could hold a set of tabs logged into various sites with your personal accounts, while a “work” container could log into the same sites with your day-job credentials.

There are also new features for users on mobile. Firefox 153 for Android gets tab groups, while Firefox for iOS users in the US get the new Quick Answers feature. Speech recognition happens on the device, although the transcribed question is sent online to generate an answer.

Thunderbird ‘Meadow’

MZLA’s Thunderbird messaging client also has a new version, itself an ESR: Thunderbird 153.

This version is codenamed “Meadow,” replacing the previous “Eclipse” release, but at the time of writing, info about what “Meadow” signifies is scant. The New in Thunderbird Desktop page hasn’t been updated since Thunderbird 150, which came out back in April. At least there’s some info there, even if it’s outdated. At the time of writing, following the What’s New in Thunderbird 153 link in the release notes gives this helpful info:

Since that final link is the only helpful thing there, we’ve done so. It might even be fixed by the time you read this.

Perhaps the team has been too busy fixing things instead, which seems like respectable prioritization to us. Under What’s New are 32 refinements, 15 entries under What’s Changed, and a whopping 181 bug fixes under What’s Fixed.

This many changes is good news for an ESR release, and it looks like the team has been busy fixing things. It does make us wonder if MZLA is struggling to keep up with Firefox’s monthly release schedule, as it’s been doing since Thunderbird 138 in April 2025. Since Mozilla decided to accelerate Firefox to fortnightly releases from September, perhaps MZLA should drop Thunderbird back down to annual releases.

Still, this ESR brings improvements to folder handling, notifications, OpenPGP encryption, OAuth login, address book export, PDF handling, and much more. There won’t be any more 32-bit Linux binaries – joining Firefox, which did that in September after Firefox 144. “Junk” mail is now called “Spam,” and the dedicated setup option for the Russian Odnoklassniki service has been dropped, with users directed to configure it through XMPP instead.

Thunderbird offers so many different views that we’ve seen some user confusion about this, but they are handy, and a few of the non-default ones are improved in this release. We sometimes use the “Unread Folders” view, and it’s now better at hiding folders with no unread messages. The other non-obvious view is “Unified Folders.” This categorizes and combines multiple inboxes into one tree: all your inboxes, followed by separate per-account trees of all subfolders. It sounds confusing, but we find it very helpful. This view now lets you color-code different accounts.

Several of Thunderbird’s new options around account handling concern Thundermail accounts. These are part of MZLA’s paid email service, Thunderbird Pro. This hasn’t been launched yet, but the new account type suggests it’s getting close. One of the most visible signs is in the Account Hub wizard for adding messaging accounts: it now has a “Sign in with Thundermail” button at the top.

This vulture is on the waiting list, and we will report back when we get to the front of the line. ®

Apple reportedly plans to launch a Klarna-backed financing program next week that will let you pay off an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch in monthly installments over two to three years. While Apple hasn’t shared any details about the rumored “Apple Upgrade” program yet, code spotted in an iOS 27 beta release suggests the company has already built a system to deal with customers who fall behind on payments.

A built-in switch lenders can flip to lock most apps

According to 9to5Mac, iOS 27 includes a new framework called App Managed Features, which hands an approved lending app the ability to monitor whether a customer has been keeping up with payments. If they miss enough installments, the lender can put their iPhone in Restricted Mode, which blocks access to all but nine apps.

Phone, Settings, Wallet, Clock, Health, Passwords, Magnifier, Accessibility Reader, and the App Store will reportedly continue to work. Subscriptions tied to any blocked apps will also keep running, since Restricted Mode doesn’t appear to touch App Store billing. That means someone locked out of an app will be charged even if they can’t use the subscriptions.

A second layer called Partner Finance Lock will close off the obvious workarounds, preventing users from disabling Restricted Mode with a factory reset, selling a restricted device, or stripping it for parts.

The lender sets the rules, not Apple

Messages, Home, and other apps that send critical alerts may stay available during a lockout. That call reportedly sits with the lender, so the exceptions a user gets could depend on who financed the phone.

The code also sets no threshold for how many missed payments trigger a lockout, suggesting that financing partners will decide those terms as well. If that’s the case, the agreement a customer signs will be the only place to learn how much wiggle room they get.

None of this is confirmed, and Apple could make further changes before the system rolls out with iOS 27 later this year. It’s also unclear whether the same system will reach financed iPads, Macs, or Apple Watches.

What just happened? Nvidia has released more information about its upcoming Vera data center CPU this week, including key details about the custom Olympus cores that are purpose-built for agentic AI workloads. The company also claimed that the new core architecture offers faster single-core performance than competing products.

Part of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform, the Arm-based Vera CPU is designed to perform complex reasoning, facilitate tool execution, generate code, and plan tasks for AI agents. Developed as a multi-purpose chip, it can also handle scientific data processing and reinforcement learning, which demand more CPU power than typical AI workloads.

Each Vera CPU incorporates 88 Olympus cores, 176 physical threads, a 64KB four-way L1 instruction cache, and 164MB of unified L3 cache on a monolithic compute die. It also features a 48-instruction decode queue. The mid-core incorporates a 96KB six-way L1 data cache and a 2MB eight-way L2 cache, alongside a hardware graph prefetcher for data-intensive graph and analytics workloads.

Each custom core comprise a wide front-end with optimized branch predictors, a mid-core with critical path acceleration, and an execution engine with complex vector optimization. They offer high-bandwidth instruction fetch supporting up to 16 instructions per cycle and include a 10-wide decode engine processing up to ten fused instructions per cycle.

Olympus’ branch prediction subsystem includes a neural branch predictor capable of reducing wrong-path execution on specific branch patterns. Combined with the wide decode path, it also helps improve front-end throughput for latency-sensitive workloads, such as agentic AI and reinforcement learning.

The Olympus core architecture integrates Nvidia’s Spatial Multithreading technology, enabling flexible resource partitioning. It also supports the Scalable Coherency Fabric for 3.4 TB/s of on-die core-to-core bandwidth, 1.2 TB/s of aggregate SOCAMM2 LPDDR5X memory bandwidth, and up to 1.5 TB of memory capacity.

Vera supports 1.8 TB/s connectivity on NVLink-C2C, PCIe 6.4, and CXL 3.1. It supports dual-socket scaling, too, with each socket providing 176 PCIe Gen 6 lanes. To improve latency in dual-socket systems, Vera uses a software-based solution where each socket presents itself as a single NUMA domain, avoiding fragmentation and creating a clean two-NUMA-node topology.

To back up its claims about Vera’s performance, Nvidia published its internal SPEC CPU 2026 test results from earlier this month. The data seems to show that Vera delivers up to 1.8 times the performance of AMD’s Epyc Turin 9755 systems in select agentic AI workloads, such as 714.cpython_r. However, the results have yet to be independently verified.

Sixteen million light-years away, in the constellation Canes Venatici, sits a spiral galaxy that refuses to look ordinary. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory recently delivered a composite view of Messier 94, also catalogued as NGC 4736, that layers high-energy X-rays over a ground-based optical photograph. The result shows a bright central region wrapped in a tight ring of intense star formation, with the whole structure set against a softer outer disk that stretches farther than early observers realized.

X-rays detected by Chandra illuminate the galaxy in all of its brilliance, with brilliant reds, oranges, and blues where heated gas cools to millions of degrees. Those electrifying colors appear on top of a more recognizable scene, constructed by amateur astronomers Brian Brennan and Remi Lacasse with a typical red, green, and blue color scheme. When combined, the galaxy’s inner ring is very striking. That ring is more than just an adornment; a chunk of gas swirling inward is directed along an oval-shaped path, where it accumulates and piles high before shattering into intense explosions of stars. These newborn stars are only a few million years old, and they are what cause the flash of activity we see today, known as a starburst ring, which is where the majority of the galaxy’s star formation occurs.

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Messier 94 is a monster of a galaxy, measuring almost 50,000 light-years wide in its main body, with fainter outlying portions stretching it out slightly. Its core shines brilliantly, a bit of an anomaly, as they’ve classified it as a LINER, which is basically a region where incredibly old stars produce a lot of light, and at the center of it all is a supermassive black hole with a mind-boggling 16 million times the mass of our Sun. That black hole in the center has an oval-shaped partner, similar to a cosmic pump, which drives material into the starburst ring and accelerates star formation. Beyond that, as you move outwards towards the edges, the light dims dramatically before picking up again in a flatter zone that was formerly assumed to be a second ring altogether. Later, when scientists looked at it in other wavelengths, they discovered that it was simply the outer spiral arms that appear to form a ring from our perspective.

Pierre Méchain first discovered this galaxy in March 1781, and two days later Charles Messier added it to his famous list. For centuries, this was just this dazzling tiny compact spiral, and it appeared to be any other spiral at the time, but as you go deeper, you can see the outer arms and the very surprising way that star formation is just happening on the outskirts. It gets even more interesting when you consider that a portion of the outer disk comprises a solid 23% of the galaxy’s total mass but still produces 10% of all new stars, and it does so at a significantly higher rate than the interior parts.

The Chaos ransomware gang is using a new backdoor dubbed msaRAT that hides command-and-control (C2) communication by routing it through the Chrome or Edge browsers.

The malware is written in Rust and uses the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) to control a headless browser session and establish a connection to the attacker’s server.

Since the malware routes all communication through the browser, it does not make any direct connection to the C2 infrastructure, significantly lowering the risk of detection.

The Chaos ransomware group emerged in early 2025, unrelated to the same-named ransomware family that existed since 2021.

Earlier this year, researchers at Rapid7 found that Chaos was leveraged by Iranian state-backed hackers ‘MuddyWater’ to disguise their cyber-espionage operations as financially motivated attacks.

More recent Chaos ransomware attacks observed by the Cisco Talos research team started through email or voice phishing and continued with the installation of remote management software to establish persistence.

Once inside the environment, the attacker downloaded an MSI installer posing as a Windows update, which loads msaRAT (lib.dll) directly in system memory.

Hijacking Chrome

Once launched, msaRAT searches for Chrome or Microsoft Edge and launches the browser in headless mode, where the process starts without any visible window.

Next, it enables the browser’s remote debugging interface and connects to it via CDP. After this step, it opens a new browser tab and injects JavaScript into it using CDP commands.

The injected JavaScript is responsible for building the communication channel, bypassing Chrome’s Content Security Policy (CSP), and registering several CDP bindings that enable communications.

Once the initial setup is complete, the browser contacts a Cloudflare Workers endpoint (is-01-ast[.]ols-img-12[.]workers[.]dev) to obtain WebRTC connection information and establish an encrypted channel.

Talos explains that there are two layers of encryption: the WebRTC DTLS, automatically provided by the browser, and ChaCha20-Poly1305 + ECDH key, implemented by msaRAT.

Communication is relayed through Twilio TURN (Traversal Using Relays around NAT) servers with a specific configuration to avoid direct peer-to-peer connections.

“By intentionally omitting the ICE candidates that are normally present in standard WebRTC communications, P2P connections are prevented from being established, resulting in a design where all communications are always routed through TURN,” explains Cisco.

“By routing traffic through Twilio’s legitimate service, the real IP address of the attacker’s server never appears in the network traffic, and the dual-layer infrastructure combining Twilio with Cloudflare Cisco Confidential Workers makes it significantly difficult to trace the attacker’s infrastructure.”

The researchers documented how the data exchange system works by breaking down messages into chunks called “frames,” which include key exchanges, channel opening/closing, session resets, and Windows command execution.

By using Cloudflare Workers as the signaling relay, the attacker ensures that their server remains protected as the destination IP address is assigned to Cloudflare’s infrastructure and will pass firewall and allowlist automatic verification.

Also, the “*workers.dev” free subdomain is assigned for developers and blocking it would disrupt legitimate Cloudflare Workers deployments, and affect benign services.

The researchers underline that the communication mechanism in msaRAT allows it to control the C2 exchanges without touching the network directly and bury it within normal web traffic.

The report from Cisco Talos shares a complete list of indicators of compromise (IoCs) associated with attacks using the msaRAT backdoor attacks.

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Sony has just unveiled its latest cinema camera that may foreshadow some long-awaited features in its consumer mirrorless lineup. The FX5 slots between the FX3 and FX6 in the company’s “Cinema Line” and comes with features previously missing on Sony cameras like RAW video and open gate recording. With other features like the 16.6-megapixel stacked sensor, five-axis stabilization and three base ISO settings, it should be an impressive cinema camera — for a price. 

The key to the FX5’s new feature set is the all-new 16.6MP fully stacked full-frame sensor that brings what Sony calls a balance between speed and resolution. 

For the 5K RAW recording, Sony is using its own proprietary X-OCN codec (short for “Extended tonal range original camera negative”). That delivers something new to creators: 16-bit linear RAW recording with 280 trillion colors, 1,000 times more color data than 12-bit ProRes RAW or Canon’s 12-bit C-RAW codecs. These are captured via the dual CFexpress type A card slots to Sony-validated cards. The FX5 can also capture 4K at 240 fps, 4.5K 120 fps and 5K 60 fps video, all firsts for FX cameras.

Sony

Open gate recording at a 3:2 aspect ratio uses the full sensor width and allows for easy cropping or vertical video creation in post. With a new de-squeeze function, it also allows easier use of anamorphic lenses. Sony is even thinking ahead, promising 4K 240p functionality in RAW and Open Gate 3:2 XAVC-I modes, along with an updated UI optimized for vertical shooting, expected by August 2027. 

Another new thing for Sony (and the first I’ve seen on any camera) is the three base ISO settings at 800, 4000 and 12800. This allows for improved dynamic range, along with cleaner shadows and improved sharpness compared to typical dual base ISO cameras. For night shoots, clean video at ISO 12800 will be a game-changer for indie filmmakers. For even better dynamic range (up to an incredible 16 stops), you can use the Dual Gain mode at the cost of increased rolling shutter.

Stabilization is often missing on cinema cameras but Sony has gone all-in on it with the FX5. The amount of compensation depends on the lens, but an updated electronic Dynamic Active mode is supposed to provide smooth video even when walking. Interestingly, Sony has a service for filmmakers who don’t want IBIS, allowing them to do an irreversible locked sensor conversion. 

Sony

The FX5 has a relatively lightweight (1.62 pounds) and compact body much like the FX3. Though covered with quarter-inch mount screws for cinema accessories, it has a big grip like its A7 models. It comes with a nice complement of manual controls, including numbered buttons à la Canon’s C50. 

The removable OLED EVF has 3.68 million dots and 2,500-nit brightness, along with a wide color gamut. The 3.5-inch 16:9 rear display is bigger, brighter and sharper (2.76 million dots) than most camera screens and uses Sony’s four-axis articulating design that’s great for vloggers. As with Sony’s higher-end mirrorless cameras, it includes two CFexpress and two SDXC UHS-II card slots, along with mic and headphone ports, a full-sized HDMI port, ethernet and tri-band Wi-Fi. The battery is Sony’s new NPSA100 from the A7R VI, which delivers up to 130 minutes of recording time. 

Sony’s FX5 is now on pre-order starting at $4,898 (body only) with availability planned for mid-August. You can also get it with a handle that allows XLR audio connectivity for $5,498, or buy the handle separately for $798. Hopefully, some of the features like RAW and Open Gate video will trickle down to its vlogging and mirrorless cameras. 

PUBLIC SECTOR

Health service told to ensure ministers don’t mistake before-and-after comparisons for cause and effect

The UK’s statistical regulator has told NHS England to ensure ministers are briefed accurately following a row over data used to promote the purported benefits of a Palantir-run platform.

The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) said the health quango had accepted that it needed to communicate more clearly about data purporting to measure the benefits of the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP), which is based on the US spy-tech firm’s technology under a £330 million contract.

“We expect NHS England to ensure that any figures cited by ministers or in official briefings about the FDP and its effectiveness are communicated in a clear, accurate manner,” the OSR said. 

Campaign group Foxglove called on health officials and ministers to correct the record with Parliament and the media on data used to illustrate the FDP’s success.

Earlier this month, the OSR, part of the UK Statistics Authority, said it was assessing how NHS England used data to make claims about the FDP’s performance, which sometimes made its way into ministerial statements.

The move followed a Freedom of Information request from Foxglove, which found that nearly a third of NHS trusts using Palantir’s health data platform were performing fewer patient procedures than before it went live.

Foxglove also said Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust accounted for 84 percent of the reported fall in outpatient waiting lists, while only 16 trusts were using the tool provided by Palantir.

The results sit uneasily alongside NHS England’s claim that, as of June, 139 trusts used the FDP, with 137 reporting benefits. Another commonly quoted data item found that an Inpatient Care Coordination Solution (CCS) tool based on the FDP had resulted in 111,589 additional patients undergoing procedures in operating theaters.

Writing to James Murray, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Foxglove noted that NHS England had said in documentation that it was inappropriate to “draw conclusions about cause and effect as other variables have not been controlled for” in its published FDP data.

Foxglove said: “The claim that Palantir’s FDP has delivered a large number of additional operations has been widely repeated.”

At the time, the OSR said it was assessing the information around NHS England’s claims about the FDP’s performance.

Publishing its response yesterday, the regulator said it had engaged NHS England statisticians and conducted its own desk research based on information provided by the NHS and others who raised concerns about data used to promote the FDP’s benefits.

It noted that on June 6, NHS England added a sentence to published data, which read: “We cannot therefore draw conclusions about cause and effect as other variables have not been controlled for.” It also updated the methods page.

“NHS England has told OSR that this was motivated, in part, by NHS England having received numerous Freedom of Information requests to provide more detail on how data provided by FDP was analysed,” the OSR said.

“While the addition of this sentence is welcome, we understand why many users took this to represent a significant change in how NHS England was communicating the benefits of FDP data in relation to NHS performance.”

The statement welcomed NHS England’s decision to acknowledge that there is “more that can be done to strengthen messaging around the FDP benefits data and its onward interpretation by users.”

NHS England agreed to add further caveats to the published data and ensure public communications clearly identify before-and-after comparisons and explain that they do not establish causality.

It has also commissioned Imperial College London to evaluate the FDP, looking at products including OPTICA “where the issue around causality is most evident.” OPTICA is designed to streamline the patient discharge process. It was based on Palantir’s technology built under a £60 million series of contracts awarded without competition and then transferred to the FDP. NHS England said it would publish the results.

The OSR said it wanted to be kept informed of progress against a series of other commitments by NHS England’s Head of Profession for Statistics.

An NHS England spokesperson said: “We welcome this review from the Office for Statistics Regulation into the presentation and communication of information about the Federated Data Platform, which found the updates we made to our website have helped to make information more explicitly clear. We are implementing the recommendations in full to provide further clarity about the patient benefits being achieved through the use of the technology.”

Donald Campbell, advocacy director at Foxglove, said: “This damning report makes it clearer than ever that the Government and Palantir must withdraw these dodgy marketing claims and correct the record.

“Even the head of NHS England has admitted personally raising doubts about the claims made on Palantir’s benefits to the NHS. This intervention by the stats watchdog should be the nail in the coffin for the fairy stories we’ve heard about the extra operations supposedly delivered by Palantir’s platform.

“With a new government, there’s a chance to draw a line under the previous administration’s shameful practice of running marketing for this Trump-aligned tech giant. The new health secretary must withdraw these figures, correct the record with Parliament and the media, and ensure that the debate about whether Palantir should have a place in our NHS is conducted based on reliable, verifiable evidence – not spin.” ®