IDA chairperson Feargal O’Rourke said results indicate that the agency’s strategy is working despite an ‘increasingly turbulent world’.

Qualcomm, Apple and Monzo are among the 190 global businesses that made Irish investments in the first half of this year. Collectively, these deals are expected to create nearly 10,500 jobs, according to data from IDA Ireland.

Agency chairperson Feargal O’Rourke said that this quarter’s “very positive results” and last year’s “record performance” indicate that the agency’s five-year strategy ‘Adapt Intelligently’ is “fit for purpose” in an “increasingly turbulent world”.

The agency, which facilitates foreign investments in Ireland, reported that investment activity over H1 pointed to a “strong concentration” of next-generation technology projects.

During that time, companies including Trading 212 and Block selected Ireland as their European launchpad and a base for regional headquarters.

Among the 190 investors, 54 are first-timers, while nearly 40 companies expanded their existing operations, IDA said.

Several hundreds of millions of euros were invested regionally so far this year, including Novo Nordisk’s €432m spend to expand its manufacturing capacity in Athlone and Qualcomm’s €125m investment to further develop its Cork site. 52pc of the total investments made by IDA client companies consist of regional projects.

AI makes an unsurprising appearance in the data, with major investments from Anthropic, which announced 200 jobs as part of its Dublin expansion, and Rippling, which opened a new Dublin office to create 150 jobs to meet demand for AI-native workforce intelligence across EMEA.

Marketing automation company Klaviyo announced in April that it was building out its engineering team in Dublin, after previously announcing 100 jobs. US software company MongoDB also announced 200 jobs in the same month amid a multimillion-dollar push towards agentic AI applications.

Fintech was particularly active in the first half of this year, with investments from Currenxie, Monzo, CoinJar and Qashio. IDA Ireland said that the activity indicated the country’s “clear strength” in fintech and digital finance.

Canadian enterprise data management company OpenText committed €105m to its Cork and Galway sites last month to create 400 new jobs, marking the single largest investment into Ireland by a technology company headquartered in Canada.

Investment activity during H1 2026 was at a faster pace than overall numbers for 2025, when IDA supported 323 investments into Ireland with commitments for more than 15,000 jobs.

“IDA Ireland’s 2025 results and the investment pipeline secured in the first half of 2026 demonstrate the continued strength of Ireland’s FDI proposition and the confidence global companies have in Ireland as a location to establish, scale and transform,” said IDA CEO Michael Lohan.

“The breadth of investment across technology, life sciences, engineering and financial services sectors, alongside strong regional performance and significant transformational undertakings, reflects the depth of Ireland’s talent, capability and enterprise ecosystem.

“Our focus remains on competing strongly for the next generation of investment and ensuring FDI continues to deliver impact across all regions for the Irish economy.”

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Security

Fortunately, they were professional red teamers. Unfortunately, they pwned the network

PWNED Welcome back to PWNED, the column where we document serious security failures in hopes we can all learn from others’ mistakes. This week, we’ll talk about how a lack of physical security can allow threat actors to take control of your network.

Have a story about someone leaving a gaping hole in their network? Share it with us at pwned@sitpub.com. Anonymity is available upon request.

Our story comes to us from two professional red teamers, who get paid to break into offices and networks in order to find holes in the security system. Kristopher Johnson was working as an offensive security consultant at Echelon Risk + Cyber in 2023 and his manager was Dahvid Schloss. We spoke to both.

Johnson and another employee named Michael were called upon to challenge the security at a client’s office while Schloss supervised remotely. It was winter and the maintenance crew had the maintenance door open. They walked through it and into the mail room, where a woman confronted them and asked what they were doing there.

The two intrepid testers talked to the company maintenance crew and told them that they were new IT employees without working badges. They said that they had almost slipped on the ice and offered to help shovel, an offer the maintenance team was happy to take them up on.

While Michael kindly helped the maintenance crew shovel snow, Johnson asked if the maintenance folks could let him in so he could go upstairs and start setting up Michael’s laptop for work. They let him in where he was free to explore the building as his partner brushed away a large section of ice and snow.

Inside the building, Johnson looked for a place to plug in his Raspberry Pi. The idea was to connect this single-board computer to the network, where they could access it remotely and use it to attack the network from afar. He tried plugging his Raspberry Pi into an Ethernet port in the AV closet, but the company had network access control enabled, which prevented it from connecting. The Raspberry Pi had an LTE radio, but it couldn’t connect from the closet either.

So Johnson instead moved his Raspberry Pi into the middle of the conference room and found an active network port that didn’t have network access control enabled on it. However, he realized the Pi would be visible to anyone who entered the conference room, and they might find it suspicious. So he took some trash cans and used them to hide the device.

Johnson had a hard time getting out of the building after that. He tried to go out the front door, but it required him to swipe a badge he didn’t have and strangers would not swipe their badges for him. But when he went back through the maintenance entrance, they were more than happy to swipe him out. He waited in the car while Michael finished his shoveling assignment.

The next day, Johnson found out that his security breach had been detected. When he and Michael came in to meet with their contact at the company, the head of security confronted them. They had been “caught” because someone from maintenance went up to the IT department and wanted to thank the IT team for Michael’s help with the shoveling.  However, the IT team had no record of new employees named Michael or Kristopher, so that raised suspicion.

Before learning that they were professional red teamers, the building security had been suspicious and had looked at camera footage tracking their movements. They had even tried to get information on the license plate from Johnson’s rental car. However, they never did find the Raspberry Pi, which remained plugged into the Ethernet port in the conference room for two weeks.

During that time, Johnson’s team was able to connect to the company’s Active Directory, find where the domain controllers were, and start password spraying accounts to see if they could gain access. They tried using the password “winter2023!” and got 50 or 60 hits among the employees.

“So we used those credentials to kind of map out the rest of the network,” Johnson told The Register. “Network shares and things like that and then, towards the end of the test, we enumerated the certificate services – ADCS (Active Directory Certificate Services).”

The red teamers found eight templates that were open to ESC1 and ESC4 vulns. They also found that the certificate authority was vulnerable to ESC8. They were then able to exploit those holes to gain domain administrative access. The janitor found the Raspberry Pi two weeks after they broke in, but by then it was too late.

There are a lot of lessons here, but they start with training every member of the team to be suspicious of people coming from the outside, without badges, no matter what they say or do. Schloss noted that, if someone looks and acts like they belong in a space, most people will treat them that way.

“First and foremost, what most people believe is crime is not crime. It’s a Hollywood myth of what crime looks like,” Schloss told us. “I call it the ski mask bias. Everyone assumes you’re not getting robbed until a person comes in with a ski mask and a gun yelling.”

The maintenance team at this company should have been more suspicious of people calling themselves new employees and asking for a swipe in, even if they were willing to help shovel snow.

The company also should have restricted network access to the port in the conference room so that an unknown device like a Raspberry Pi could not make an Ethernet connection from that spot. 

Finally, the company should have enforced a strong password policy that would have prevented our heroes from finding dozens of accounts with “winter2023!” as the password. And they should have enforced multi-factor authentication on those accounts as well. ®

Like other online travel agencies, Booking .com helps you find discount rates for airline tickets, cruises, hotel stays, car rentals, and packages. We at WIRED regularly post updates with the newest Booking .com promo codes for discounts on car rentals, last-minute hotel bookings, and other travel-related expenses, including a deal for 50% off stays and free cancellation when you sign up at Booking .com. Whether you want to grab an apartment in a walkable neighborhood or be bad and bougie in a villa, Booking .com has tons of options for every type of traveler—and we have a Booking .com coupon code to help you save.

Get 15% off Your Next Stay Using a Booking.com Promo Code

Checking out Booking’s deals page is one of the best ways to snag great discounts on rotating and limited-time deals on things like flights and stays. Right now, you can get at least 15% off your next stay with Early 2026 Deals.

Booking.com Promo Code: Up to 20% With the Genius Loyalty Program

Save more by signing up for Booking .com’s loyalty program, Genius, which offers tons of discounts and rewards on pretty much everything travel-related. Loyalty program members can even get up to 20% off stays and up to 15% off car rentals. The program works in tiers: level 1 gets you a 10% discount on select stays and rental cars; level 2 gets you up to 15% off (once you complete 5 bookings in two years); and level 3 gets you up to20% off stays and up to 15% off rental cars (once you complete 15 bookings in two years). Once you sign up for the Genius loyalty program, make sure you’re signed in while you browse to get discounts of up to 50% off stays and free cancellations, along with bonus secret deals from Booking .com.

Earn $150 in Travel Credits on Stays With Booking.com

If you’re someone who travels frequently, it may be a good idea to get a Booking.com Genius Rewards Visa Signature Credit Card so you can get even more rewards on purchases you were already going to make. With this card, you’ll have no fee, and get 6% in travel credits on stays booked in the Booking.com app, and 5% on other travel on Booking.com when you use your card. Plus, you’ll get $150 in travel credits when you spend $1,500 using your card in the first 90 days. The more you use, the more perks you’ll get—when you get to Genius Level 3, you’ll receive rewards like 10-20% off select stays, and 10-15% off select rental cars and priority support.

Deals Around the World Starting at $18 per Night

Glory be! Winter is starting to fade and sunshine is on its way. Make the most of springtime with spring travel deals at outrageously low prices, including stays in Istanbul starting at $18 per night, Paris from $67 per night, Cancun from $32 per night, and Las Vegas from $128 per night. Go ahead, check it out, you deserve a nice vacay from enduring the winter.

Sail Towards Warmer Waters (Even While on a Budget)

A cruise is one of the cheapest ways to have an all-inclusive vacation, while staying on the mainland and partying at sea. If you’ve ever been curious about taking a cruise (or are a returning sailor), now’s a great time to book for so much less. If you book a qualifying sailing departing on or before December 31, 2027, you’ll get up to $1,000 to spend onboard, which counts toward almost anything, like cocktails, specialty dining, spa treatments, and other onboard purchases.

The actual amount you’ll get to spend vary based on total cruise price, and don’t include travel protection, port charges, port expenses, and taxes, and are generally as follows: $25 per $1-$999 booking, $50 per $1,000-$1,499 booking, $75 per $1,500-$1,999 booking, $100 per $2,000-$2,999 booking, $125 per $3,000-$3,999 booking, $175 per $4,000-$5,999 booking, $250 per $6,000-$7,999 booking, $350 per $8,000-$9,999 booking, $500 per $10,000-$14,999 booking, $750 per $15,000-$19,999 booking, and $1,000 per $20,000 or more booking.

Plus, if you don’t have the entirety of the money owed for a cruise now, you can still lock in now for just $25. As long as you pay a small non-refundable $25 fee, Booking will advance your cruise line deposit (up to $500). Your deposit will be automatically charged 10 days before your final payment is due, giving you peace of mind and more time to plan (and save!).

Don’t Miss Booking.com Deals and Booking Sales

If you have the time off for your next vacation, but don’t know where to go, I’d check out Booking’s seasonal and holiday deals webpage, where there are rotating and flash deals depending on time, seasonality, and location. There are time-specific destinations like Lunar New Year deals, spring holiday deals focused on warm-weather travel destinations, and Carnival deals for places that celebrate in style, like the Big Easy.

Booking.com Coupon: 10% Off Car Rental

If you’re looking to book travel to a destination that requires a car, I’d highly recommend also renting a car through Booking. Booking has access to the most popular rental car companies, like Avis, Budget, Hertz, Enterprise, and more, so that you can book with peace of mind. And when you travel more, you’ll spend less—all you need to do is sign in, peruse car rental options, and look for the blue ‘Genius’ label to save 10% on car rentals. Plus, if you spend using your Genius Rewards Visa you can earn 5% in travel credits on car rentals.

Book a Cruise for Under $399

It’s surprising, but one of the most cost effective vacations you can embark on is a cruise. These all-inclusive packages combine travel to new destinations with a non-stop party at sea. Be sure to check out Booking.com’s cruising page for rotating cruise deals and offers, with many under $399 for an all-inclusive package. One of the best ways to score the biggest deals at sea is by signing up for their email newsletter, which will send you the latest and greatest cruise offers. Plus, you can even combine cruise line offers with Booking.com’s cruise exclusives, like up to $1,000 to spend on board, bookings at just $25 per room, and more.

A newly surfaced Steve Jobs-signed check is up for auction, linking the nation’s milestone anniversary with the earliest days of the personal computer revolution.

RR Auction is currently running a Fine Autographs and Artifacts auction, full of signatures from American presidents, political figures, authors, kings, queens, scientists, engineers, innovators, and everyone in between. Among the famous names is Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and former CEO.

It’s hardly the first time Jobs-signed item has made it to the auction block, but this one comes with remarkable timing. The $10 payment to the People’s Computer Company (PCC) is dated July 4, 1976, America’s Bicentennial, just months after Apple was founded.

That date also means that the check was filled out just three months after Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple in Jobs’s family garage. At the time, Jobs and Wozniak would have been building their first product, the Apple-1.

The check bears the letters DDJ, which suggests that it was payment for a one-year subscription to Dr. Dobb’s Journal, a programming magazine spun off from PCC’s newsletter.

At the time of publication, the check has 14 bids and is currently priced at $21,962. RR Auction expects the check to sell for $25,000.

The auction will run until July 15. Interested buyers must place an initial bid by July 15 at 6:00 pm, with final bidding to take place shortly after.

This year, America celebrates its 250th birthday. Apple celebrated a milestone birthday of its own, its 50th, on April 1.

In January, Apple’s 1976 formation papers landed on the auction block. While it was suggested that the papers could fetch up to $4 million, they eventually sold for $2.51 million.

Alibaba and its US digital payment processor have agreed to pay 600 million dollars to resolve a federal investigation into whether they failed to prevent the sale and importation of illegal pharmaceuticals and controlled substances, the Justice Department said on Wednesday. Alibaba entered into a non-prosecution agreement to end a probe of alleged violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act between 2016 and 2024. The investigation was led by the DOJ and the US Attorney’s Office in Rhode Island.

Alibaba admitted that overseas customers used its platforms to make roughly 80,000 purchases of products that lacked approvals under US drug, device, or importation laws, with a combined value of more than 200 million dollars. The agreement did not specify the products by name, but the DOJ said they involved pharmaceuticals, regulated chemicals, and drug counterfeiting equipment. US agents conducted more than 40 undercover purchases of drugs and equipment that were illegal for import.

The company acknowledged that it “failed to prevent some third-party sellers from circumventing controls and measures” on its platform and using it to sell and import goods into the US in violation of federal law. Alibaba employees had raised concerns internally about compliance measures and filtering systems that were not catching the illegal sales, the company admitted.

The settlement also involves AUS Merchant Services, a unit of Ant International that operates Alipay. AUS admitted that its anti-money laundering programme “failed to prevent some Alibaba merchants from using its payment processing and settlement services to facilitate the sale and importation of prohibited products into the United States,” the DOJ said.

The deal comes at a difficult moment for Alibaba in Washington. Anthropic accused Alibaba last month of using roughly 25,000 fake accounts and nearly 29 million exchanges to extract capabilities from its Claude AI model, the largest distillation campaign it has disclosed. Alibaba has also sued the Pentagon to remove itself from a roster of Chinese military companies, a designation that has already prompted several lobbying firms to cut ties with the company.

Alibaba said in a statement that the settlement will bring “stricter compliance to the sale of products in the United States by third-party merchants on its e-commerce platforms.” The 600 million dollar penalty is among the largest the DOJ has secured against a Chinese technology company for platform compliance failures, and it adds another front to the regulatory pressure Alibaba faces as it tries to maintain its US business relationships.

Kirsty Lindsay of Northumbria University explores the various ways students can work towards a career in the space industry.

In 2024, I flew on a microgravity, or zero G, parabolic flight with the European Space Agency (ESA). The aeroplane flew big arcs up and down in the sky. At the top of the arc I experienced 22 seconds of weightlessness, just like an astronaut.

On the flight were some of ESA’s newest astronauts, training on the Microgravity Science Glovebox: a see-through box for doing science experiments in space, with gloves to let astronauts use their hands while the box stops the experiment from flying around. I was carrying out research on how to keep astronauts healthy in space.

Piloting us was ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who made floating around look easy: he hung serenely in the cabin while the scientists and trainees crashed about.

My career path to those moments in microgravity looks more like a maze than a straight line. I did an engineering apprenticeship, then an undergraduate degree in physiotherapy, then a master’s degree in space physiology and health. Finally, a PhD on how to keep astronauts’ backs healthy combined all three.

There is no one way to be an astronaut – you can’t go to astronaut school. You need to pick up skills along the way before applying to be an astronaut candidate. The good news is there are many pathways to becoming an astronaut, or to be floating alongside them, like me.

The STEM and pilot routes

The most obvious and well-known routes are to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects, while also becoming a pilot – these paths often intertwine. Exactly which STEM subject, and which kind of flying, counts depends on the space agency or private company you apply to, and on your nationality.

But most of the world’s current astronaut corps took this STEM pathway. Thomas Pesquet is one example: he qualified as an aerospace engineer and a transport pilot before becoming an astronaut candidate in the 2009 class.

The multidisciplinary route

The second, and increasingly common option, is the multidisciplinary route. It includes astronauts who have studied two or more fields that might not seem obviously related to each other, or to spaceflight. Combinations of life sciences and physics are popular, as with Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques. He trained as a biomedical engineer, astrophysicist and then as a medical doctor before becoming an astronaut.

ESA’s John McFall, who was with me on the 2024 parabolic flight, was a Paralympic sprinter and an NHS orthopaedic surgeon before he became an astronaut in 2022. Some combinations are more unusual still: Jessica Meir brought together marine biology and extreme-environment physiology before joining NASA.

Each of these astronauts offers a unique mix of skills, valued in the complex, problem-solving world of spaceflight. That mix will matter even more on future planetary missions, where one person may need to fill several roles depending on which phase of the mission they are in.

The super-specialist route

The third path is the exact opposite. Instead of going broad, you dive deeply into one topic and become a world-leading expert. For example, ESA’s Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski earned two master’s degrees and a doctorate in radiation-tolerant electronics. He then worked at CERN, where he became responsible for the day-to-day running of the Large Hadron Collider, before being selected by ESA in 2022. Sometimes being a specialist and being really, really good at what you do is itself a pathway to space.

It is worth saying that you don’t always have to decide young. Canadian Jenni Sidey-Gibbons was a combustion engineer and university lecturer before she was selected. Japan’s Makoto Suwa was an Earth scientist and senior disaster risk management specialist at the World Bank before he was chosen by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in his 40s.

There is no expiry date on the dream, and no single moment when you must decide. It is even fine to stumble along the way. Astronaut Scott Kelly had poor grades at school and failed at least one US Navy exam before becoming an astronaut. He never gave up.

The career path that doesn’t exist yet

Then there is one final route, which none of us knows, because it doesn’t exist yet. When it comes to who they might choose to go into space, commercial spaceflight companies are writing their own rulebooks as they go and are deliberately widening who qualifies as astronauts. We genuinely do not know who the career astronauts of the 2040s will be, or what they will have studied.

However, a strong grounding in mathematics, science, English and another language is a great start. You will train and live alongside international crews as well as solve problems in space. Whatever you study, your hobbies are the final ingredient. Hobbies make you a rounder, happier, more capable person – the kind of person who makes an interesting crew member.

Get that foundation, do it brilliantly and the rest of what you study is up to you.

By Kirsty Lindsay

Kirsty Lindsay is an assistant professor in physiotherapy at Northumbria University, in Newcastle. She studied space physiology and health at King’s College London in 2013 and completed a BHSc (Hons) in physiotherapy from York St John in 2010. She also spent two years at the European Space Agency working with ground-based facilities and human spaceflight as a young graduate trainee, before returning to the UK to undertake her current research. Kirsty’s research interests include using physiology and physiotherapy to help maintain astronaut health and improve clinical care for back pain patients on Earth.

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As I expand my writing career, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that I need to make a business website to showcase my talent and present my past projects. The problem is, although I love testing gadgets for WIRED, I’m definitely not a coder. Figuring out where to begin when building a website is daunting. How do I know the host is legit? How can I ensure my site is user-friendly? How much are annual costs, really? All of these questions and more have stopped me from taking the plunge and building my own website. That’s where Hostinger steps in to help.

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Amazon Prime Day starts in Australia on July 7, 2026, and runs to July 13. But just like last year, there are already early Apple deals available.

So we’re already checking prices every day across AirPods, iPad, Apple Watch, iPhone, Apple accessories and MacBook, and we’ll keep updating this page as new deals appear or prices drop.

Of course, not every Apple discount is worth buying, especially if a deal only applies to one colour, one size or a product that has been cheaper before. So we’re focusing on the Apple deals that are genuinely good after comparing to Apple’s official pricing and what else is available at Amazon or elsewhere.

Want discounts on more than just Apple? Check out our full Prime Day deals page for the latest discounts across all brands.

Quick links to the best Apple deals on Amazon

Best early Amazon Prime Day Apple deals

Best AirPods Prime Day deals

Best iPhone Prime Day deals

Best Apple accessories Prime Day deals

MacBook deals are hard to find at Amazon right now. We’re still doing our best to rustle up any discounts because MacBooks are one of the Apple products we are all excited about during Prime Day. Especially after the recent Apple price hikes that bumped up the base cost by as much as 17%.

There’s not much worth recommending yet but check back as we’ll be adding more deals as soon as the prices drop.

Start with the current price on the Apple website. That gives you a clean comparison point before you look at Amazon’s claimed discount. It matters more than usual this year because Apple recently raised Australian prices on a number of products, including Macs and iPads.

2. Look at price history, not just the discount badge

It’s easy to get pulled in by a big percentage saving, but the current price is what matters. For Amazon deals, camelcamelcamel.com can show whether today’s price is actually low or just lower than an old list price.

It is also worth searching OzBargain.com.au to see whether the same product has been cheaper before and how other shoppers rated past discounts. If the deal still looks good after those checks, you can buy with confidence.

3. Figure out what features you actually need

A discount on an iPad Pro or MacBook Pro can look tempting, but the best Prime Day deal is not always the product with the largest saving. If you mainly want a tablet for streaming, browsing, note-taking and video calls, a standard iPad or iPad Air may be the better-value buy.

The same logic applies across Apple’s range. If you’re buying a laptop, think about whether you really need a MacBook Pro or whether a MacBook Air is the better choice. If you’re buying a phone, decide whether camera quality, storage, battery life or price matters most before jumping on a deal just because it has a big discount.

4. Be flexible on colour, storage and case size

Apple deals at Amazon often apply to one specific version of a product. That might mean one AirPods model, one iPad storage size, one Apple Watch case size or one iPhone colour. Check the exact model before you buy, and make sure the cheaper version is actually the one you want.

5. Check whether the price needs Prime

Many Prime Day deals need an active Amazon Prime membership. Some early deals are available to everyone, but others only show the lowest price once you’re signed in with Prime. Also check the delivery estimate, especially if the product is coming from overseas or has limited stock.

6. Don’t assume MacBooks will be the best category

AirPods, Apple Watch, iPad and Apple accessories are usually easier to find discounted at Amazon. MacBook deals can happen, but they are hard to find right now, and some listings have long delivery dates or limited stock. If you see a MacBook discount, compare it with Apple’s current price and check whether the saving is enough to justify buying now.

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