Europol has flagged 4,340 URLs for removal during a multi-week operation targeting online content linked to “The Com,” a loosely organized network of nihilistic violent extremist groups.

Investigators from nine countries (i.e., Belgium, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden) took part in what Europol called “Referral Action Days” between June and July 2026.

The joint action, which ties into the European Commission’s ProtectEU counterterrorism agenda and was organized by Europol’s EU Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU) and Spain’s Intelligence Centre against Terrorism and Organised Crime (CITCO), aimed to disrupt The Com’s online ecosystem, limit nihilistic violent extremism content disseminated online by The Com groups, and generate new investigative leads.

“The Com’s content is laced with coded language and emojis that adults may struggle to decipher, conveying sinister messages that encourage self-harm and the sexual exploitation of minors. [..] The content referenced in this operation includes violent videos and images depicting self-harm, suicide, child sexual abuse material (CSAM), animal cruelty, and violent attacks,” Europol said. “

“Other types of content include videos of violent street attacks, a practice known as ‘manhunt,’ or arson. Additionally, The Com produces manuals or guides covering topics such as grooming, murder, improvised explosives, or ideological viewpoints. These manuals are created by groups to instruct members on methods for committing violent attacks, grooming and (s)extorting vulnerable minors, or conducting doxing and swatting.”

This builds on Project Compass, a yearlong operation launched in January 2025 and led by Europol’s European Counter Terrorism Centre, which has brought together law enforcement from 28 countries.

As BleepingComputer previously reported in February, that broader effort has resulted in 30 arrests and identified 179 suspects tied to The Com, along with 62 victims.

In January 2025, Europol also published a notification on the rise of online cult communities specifically targeting young people.

What is The Com?

Europol describes The Com (short for Community) as a decentralized network lacking unified ideology, where some factions pursue violent right-wing extremist and accelerationist beliefs.

The Com-affiliated groups recruit and groom victims through social media, messaging apps and gaming platforms, coercing them into self-harm, violence and the production of child sexual abuse material, often through extortion.

“They distribute propaganda on accessible platforms to attract young individuals, funnelling potential members and victims into private forums and chat rooms where radicalisation and victimisation occur. Victims are typically coerced into remaining under the perpetrators’ influence through (s)extortion,” Europol added on Friday.

According to Europol’s February announcement, The Com is organized into multiple subgroups, including:

• Offline Com, which promotes property damage, harming others, and committing acts of terrorism,
• Cyber Com, which orchestrates network intrusions and ransomware attacks,
• (S)extortion Com, which coerces minors into sex crimes and encourages self-harm and suicide,
• 764, another subgroup that surfaced in 2021 and is especially notorious for grooming young people into producing explicit content that is later used for blackmail or shared among members.

Two alleged 764 leaders (20-year-old Prasan Nepal and 21-year-old Leonidas Varagiannis) were arrested in April 2025and are now facing life in prison for operating an international child exploitation ring.

The Com has previously been linked to high-profile ransomware attacks against Las Vegas casino breaches in September 2023 and Marks & Spencer, Co-op, and Harrods in April 2025.

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By testing kids’ physical and mental limits, these toys help children learn where the boundaries of their knowledge lie, and how to transcend them. Take a look at some of our favorite ways to color outside the lines.

Orbita MIDI Color Sequencer

Photograph: Antosh Sergiew

This spinning sequencer is like musical roulette for budding ravers. Place the colored magnets anywhere on the four gray concentric rings, each of which controls a MIDI loop. Then plug the sequencer into a smartphone or computer, connect your favorite music software, and get creative. All four loops run simultaneously, with each magnet representing a different note or sound. You can adjust the pitch and mute individual loops too. Refreshingly mechanical, the Orbita makes visualizing music production child’s play. $458, playtronica.com

Lego Smart Play System Pokémon Sets

Photograph: Antosh Sergiew

By combining a new smart brick with programmable NFC tags and minifigures, kids of all ages can now design and interact with Lego creations like never before. The 2- by 4-stud rechargeable smart brick is packed with a synthesizer, speaker, accelerometer, gyroscope, light and sound sensors, and LEDs. A positioning system can sense orientation between multiple smart bricks. A big bonus: Lego’s Smart Play System works entirely without attention-sucking screens.

Lego’s first Pokémon collab almost crashed the website, so surely the Danes had IT on standby when 12 new Smart Play kits came online. There are two all-in-one kits: Pikachu’s 400-piece Training House and the 751-piece Charizard-Jolteon battle, which include rechargeable smart bricks and NFC tags that can trigger lights, sounds, motion and sensing.

Already got some Smart Play? The 10 other compatible kits, including Mewtwo’s Lab Break and Cubone and Gengar’s Spooky Showdown, have the tags but not the Smart Bricks. $70 and up, lego.com

Stapelstein Rainbow Set

Courtesy of Stapelstein

Interactive adventure play done with style, the Rainbow kit features six stacking stools, a balance board, plus a host of nesting pieces that can combine to be whatever their imagination demands. Stepping-stones, wobble course, color-sorting game, toddler throne, snack tray, spinner, fort barricades or floor-is-lava upgrade. The lightweight toxin-free, 100 percent recyclable EPP pieces are waterproof, wipe clean and strong enough for adults (396 pounds limit), so don’t forget to include grandma. $299, stapelstein.com

KidzLane Electronic Dance Mat

Courtesy of Kidzlane

We can’t promise it will turn Jnr. into Fred Astaire overnight, but this impossibly good value dance mat will get your kids moving and (hopefully) tuckered out. Suitable for ages 6 to 12, it features a built-in speaker, Bluetooth and AUX so you can connect your own favorite songs, four built-in games with five difficulty levels, including a great “Simon Says” mode that gets them thinking as well as boogying. And before you ask, yes, the volume is adjustable, and batteries removable. $19, walmart.com

Takway Sweekar

Courtesy of Takway.AI

Oh good, it’s a reimagined Tamagotchi, but instead of a few beepy-bleeps and button presses to keep it alive, Sweekar has loaded it with generative AI and given it a long-term memory, evolving dialog and “personality.” We’re sure it’ll be fine, and neglect won’t result in a lawsuit when the Robots finally take over, but for now we suggest erring on the side of caution and make sure the kids care for it carefully through Egg, Baby, Teen, and Adult stages. The 89-gram pocket pet also simulates body warmth and breathing, which isn’t creepy at all. $149, takway.ai

Looi Robot

Courtesy of TangibleFuture

LOOI turns your smartphone into a chirpy little tank-like desk robot, using the screen as its face and the camera, mic and processor as its brain. Snap on your phone (minimum iOS 17+, or Android 12+), open the app and, powered by ChatGPT, it can chat, remember preferences, react to touch and gestures, play motion games, avoid desk edges and make funny faces. It also doubles as a 10-watt wireless charger and adjustable phone stand, which makes it marginally more helpful than your last assistant—although it can’t, as yet, make the coffee. $239, looirobot.com

Crocs Super Mario Core Classic Clog

Courtesy of Crocs

As hyped as a Supreme x Louis Vuitton collaboration, just a whole lot more fun, the Crocs Mushroom Kingdom takeover is a joyous celebration of polyethylene vinyl acetate footwear. The Core Classic Clog, available in adult and kids’ sizes features a detailed graphic print with classic in-game items like coins, Super Stars, and Green Shells, while the sole is wrapped in dimensional detailing resembling the green pipes and grassy terrain. And, naturally, each pair comes with Super Mushroom outer rivets, a “?” Block badge on the backstrap, and eight Jibbitz charms featuring Mario and Luigi. $70, crocs.com

Gibson x Loog Les Paul

Courtesy of Loog

Loog has been making fine learn-to-play guitars for more than 10 years, and its intuitive three-string axes make it easier for anyone to learn the basics before transitioning up to a full fretboard. After a successful partnership with Fender, they’ve now teamed up with Gibson to produce a mini electric guitar in either classic SG—putting the young in AC-DC’s Angus Young’s favorite axe—or with the iconic Les Paul curves shown here. And before you ask, these are proper instruments, with a solid poplar body, Canadian neck, rosewood fingerboard, single coil pick-up and 19 finger-friendly 1.8 mm frets. $229, loogguitars.com

Woom Wow Balance Bike

Courtesy of Woom

The perfect buy if your bambino has nailed the art of sitting and standing independently, and you want more chaotic fun and adventure in your life. This self-centering, self-balancing bike is designed for kids as young as 9 months (from 28 to 40 inches in height). It gives them a chance to become the next big name on Red Bull’s MotoGP roster before they’ve even realized that broccoli isn’t actually fun little trees. $199, woom.com

Kibu Headphones

Courtesy of Kibu

Turn kids’ headphones into a brilliant STEM project, with snap-together parts they build before they listen. Kibu’s wired cans are 3D printed from recycled and plant-based materials, use a standard 3.5-mm jack, limit volume to 85 dB, and have a second aux port for daisy-chaining with friends. Every part can be customized, repaired, replaced and eventually recycled, an attention to detail far too rare in adult, let alone kid’s tech. WIRED wishes more grown-up gear followed the same sustainable approach, with gear designed to be understood, and to last. $73, kibu.family

Marvin’s Miniblocks

Courtesy of The Little Marvin

By selling 35 million copies for the Gameboy alone, Tetris proved that a handful of simple shapes could become one of gaming’s most enduring obsessions. Marvin’s Miniblocks gives that idea a preschool-friendly, screen-free reboot with a wooden board, 42 chunky shapes and 10 pattern cards for building, matching, rotating and inventing. It is part puzzle, part construction set, and made from eco-friendly wood with non-toxic paint. There is one important detail missing though. $55, the-littlemarvin.com

HoverAir Aqua

Courtesy of HoverAir

This 34 mph follow-me drone has 10 flight modes, 4K, 100 FPS motion camera and floating waterproof housing making it also the first design capable of take of and landing on water. It weighs under 250 grams, meaning you wont need FAA registration to fly one. The battery has enough for 23 minutes of flying time, and there’s 128 GB built-in storage. Plus, with a level 7 wind resistance, it’s happy to fly in gusts of up to 38 mph, making it the ideal companion for capturing solo foiling, windsurfing and sailing follow-me footage. $1,299, hoverair.com

Modu Balance Track

Courtesy of MODU

Think of this as a jumbo-sized Meccano set, with 17-pieces including four FSC-certified birch wood balance beams (27.6 inches long), four chunky blocks (7.9 x 7.9 x 3.9 inches) made from recycled EPP foam, eight pegs and an idea booklet. Designed for ages from 3 to 8, it’s great for imaginative play, coordination, construction, and problem solving. It’s also surprisingly good value for a kit of this scale. And when the kids finally get bored of balancing, they can be repurposed into a shelving unit. $203, modutoy.com

Timex Time Machines 29mm Dinosaur Watch

Courtesy of Timex

Tells time in any era, not just the Jurassic. Made just for kids, Timex’s 29mm dinosaur-themed watch boasts an easy-to-read dial, minute markers and adjustable elastic band. The quartz movement means accuracy is assured, while the front glass is actually polymer, so it’s not just got good impact resistance, it can be easily polished to remove scuffs should playtime get rowdy. One last boon: all of Timex’s kids’ watches come with a 100-percent worry-free replacement plan, so don’t fret about lost or broken watches. $49, timex.com

UNO Canvas x MoMA Card Game

Courtesy of Mattel

This is the latest in a series of creative collaborations from Mattel Toys, bringing together the world’s best-selling card game and a selection of the most iconic artists from MoMa’s permanent collection. Featuring Sonia Delaunay, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Claude Monet, Liubov Popova and Vincent van Gogh, it’s a great limited-edition update to the 52-year-old game. And before you ask, sadly the Dutch post-impressionist painter still stacks the +4. $25, mattel.com

Blipblox After Dark

Courtesy of Blipblox

Are you frustrated that your kids don’t ask you enough about your love for The Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, and why Talk Talk’s The Party’s Over is the seminal synth album of 1982? Maybe you can Sparks their imagination with this brilliantly inclusive designed-for-all-ages synth. It comes pre-loaded with 300 built-in melodies and 100 drum sounds, meaning you (sorry, they) can get modulating, pitch-shifting and oscillating straight out the box. The built-in speaker and AA battery power make it easy to use anywhere, but the MIDI input and a quarter-inch output mean it can plug into “proper” gear later. $219, blipblox.com

Dex Camera

Courtesy of Dex

Take a photo and Dex identifies what’s in the frame, then teaches the word in one of 16 languages. It can turn pictures into flash cards and use spoken stories to, you know, make learning fun. $249, dex.camera

Travelers know the routine all too well. A laptop brick that eats half a bag, a phone charger that never quite keeps up, and a tablet adapter that somehow always gets left behind. Anker’s 715 Charger, priced at $19.99 (was $30), also called the Nano II 65W, collapses that pile into one small cube that still delivers serious speed.

This compact charger, measuring 1.65 inches by 1.42 inches by 1.74 inches and weighing just shy of 4 ounces, fits nicely in the palm of your hand or easily slides inside a pair of pants without causing any bulge. The foldable prongs keep the item very flat when you’re packing it away, so you don’t have to worry about it grabbing cords or scratching up any other gear you’ve brought along. Compared to a conventional 61-watt laptop charger, this one packs a punch in a considerably smaller compact, taking up approximately 58% less space while still providing enough power for most people’s on-the-go demands.

Anker Nano USB C Charger,65W GaN II PPS Fast Compact Foldable Charger for MacBook Pro, Galaxy, Dell…

• The Charger You Need: Say goodbye to your old power bricks. Anker 715 Charger (Nano II 65W) has the power you need to fast charge your phone, tablet…
• Rapid and Effective Power Delivery: Experience the thrill of speed with the Anker 715 Charger. It boasts the ability to power a 2020 MacBook Air in…
• Petite and Travel-ready Design: The Anker Nano II charger outshines traditional 61W USB-C chargers by being 58% smaller. Its foldable plug is a…

A single USB-C port delivers the full 65 watts. That’s more than enough to charge a MacBook Air from empty to full in under 2 hours, or a 13-inch MacBook Pro up to its maximum supported speed. It will charge tablets and phones juast as fast. When you charge an iPhone 17e, it will charge to 50% in about one-third the time it would take using Apple’s stock 5-watt charger. And if you’re using a recent Samsung flagship, you’ll enjoy Super Fast Charging as long as you have the proper cable. Android phones with a built-in Programmable Power Supply (PPS) provide more precise voltage management, allowing them to charge at the fastest possible rate.

Inside this small package is Anker’s GaN II technology. Gallium nitride components can switch far faster than conventional silicon components, allowing Anker to reduce the number of transformers and capacitors while still keeping things cool even when they’re being utilized hard. The end result is a thick, efficient package that remains calm even when pushed hard over an extended period of time.

It’ll work with all of the usual suspects: MacBook Air and Pro 13-inch models, Dell XPS 13 machines, ThinkPads, Microsoft Surface Book 2, recent iPads, iPhones from the 8 model onwards, Galaxy S and Note series, Google Pixels, and even the occasional Nintendo Switch, and with universal voltage input, you won’t have to buy a separate charger for international trips; simply get the right plug adapter and you’re good to go.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of the company that just became the number one Fortune 500 business, says the cure for anxiety is not rest or meditation but action. Speaking at the Museum of Flight in Seattle in 2017, Bezos told an audience of students that stress is a signal from the body that something is being neglected, and that the feeling disappears the moment he starts working on whatever is causing it. “I find that the stress goes away the second I take the first step,” he said.

The comments, resurfaced by Fortune this week, offer a window into how the world’s fourth-richest person thinks about pressure. Bezos said he treats anxiety as diagnostic information rather than an emotional state to manage, and that the worst thing he can do is sit with a problem without acting on it. His preferred remedy is to recruit allies and turn the source of stress into a group exercise in invention.

“There’s nothing more fun than getting in a room with a group of inventors and saying: here’s the problem, let’s invent a solution to it,” Bezos said. “As soon as you start doing that, I find that it turns from something that might create stress into something that creates fun.” The philosophy is consistent with the leadership principles Bezos embedded at Amazon, where CEO Andy Jassy has described the company’s 16 codified principles as something employees must constantly work at.

The advice lands in a complicated context. Amazon has cut more than 57,000 corporate jobs since 2022, and employees who survived the rounds of layoffs have reported rising workloads and deteriorating work-life balance as fewer people cover the same ground. The idea that stress is solved by working harder reads differently when the people hearing it are already stretched thin, and when the company’s own workforce has described burnout as a structural problem rather than a mindset one.

Bezos built Amazon from a rented garage in the mid-1990s, famously taking 60 meetings to raise the first million dollars in seed capital at a time when most investors had never heard of online retail. The company he founded now generates more than $700 billion in annual revenue and is investing tens of billions in AI infrastructure. Whether the same advice that helped a founder push through rejection in 1995 translates to a workforce navigating layoffs and AI displacement in 2026 is a question Bezos did not address.

Hackers are changing the DNS settings on Wi-Fi devices at hotels and conference centers to redirect users to fake Microsoft 365 login pages.

The campaign has been ongoing since at least June and impacts organizations in various sectors, including financial services, professional services, legal, health care, energy, and retail.

Cybersecurity company ReliaQuest identified compromised Wi-Fi gateways in multiple U.S. cities as well as other regions of the world, such as India and Saudi Arabia.

Since the devices serve corporate events, hijacking the Microsoft 365 accounts could give attackers access to sensitive business information,  communications, and private documents.

“We observed traffic to these compromised gateways from organizations in a range of industries, including financial services, professional services, legal, health care, energy, and retail- confirming this isn’t sector-specific targeting, but a campaign that highly likely goes after traveling employees wherever they connect,” ReliaQuest says.

The researchers believe this activity is similar to the FrostArmada router-based campaigns attributed to the Russian espionage group APT28 (a.k.a. Fancy Bear, Forest Blizzard).

Attack chain

It is unclear how initial access to the Wi-Fi appliances was gained, but ReliaQuest says the threat actor could have exploited weakly protected, exposed management interfaces (e.g., SSH, SNMP, web admin dashboards) or vulnerabilities.

Once the attacker gains administrator access, they can modify the gateway’s DNS settings to redirect connections to legitimate domains to infrastructure under the attacker’s control.

ReliaQuest says that the attacker registered at least four domains for setting up fake Microsoft login portals: m365-owa[.]com, owa-ms365[.]com, ms365-device[.]com, and ms365-live[.]com.

With DNS settings changed, users trying to access legitimate Microsoft login portals would land on the hacker’s phishing pages and enter their credentials.

In some cases, the researchers observed a device-code authentication flow in which targets were redirected to a fake Microsoft page with a prompt.

“What the user can’t see is that approving the prompt authorizes a session initiated by the attacker,” ReliaQuest says. The researchers note that authorizing the attacker-initiated request causes a legitimate OAuth token to be issued to the attacker’s client.

This bypasses the multi-factor authentication (MFA) protection without stealing any credentials or intercepting access tokens.

In roughly one-third of the investigated cases, the attackers also attempted to abuse Web Proxy Auto-Discovery (WPAD) by responding to Windows’ automatic WPAD lookup with a malicious proxy auto-configuration (PAC) file.

This theoretically would route traffic from Windows apps, including Chrome, through an attacker-controlled proxy, but ReliaQuest couldn’t confirm that these attacks were successful.

The researchers also emphasized that using public DNS servers such as Google’s 8.8.8.8 does not prevent this attack, as the gateway forges the plain-text requests before they reach the intended resolver.

ReliaQuest recommends using an always-on, full-tunnel VPN and encrypted DNS in strict mode as solid protection measures against these attacks.

Additionally, the cybersecurity company recommends disabling WPAD, reviewing logs for suspicious activity, and disabling Device Code authentication flow in Microsoft Entra ID when not needed.

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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