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Although numerous gadgets are deemed must-haves, you can’t forget about the humble microwave – no kitchen is complete without one partially due to their impressive versatility. 

Traditionally, microwaves were just used to quickly heat and reheat food but recently they’ve taken on a whole new status, boasting even more additional features for hassle-free cooking, defrosting and even grilling. 

As some microwaves can go well past the £100 mark, it’s worth assessing your needs before making an investment. If you know you’ll solely use your microwave to reheat leftovers, then you probably don’t need a more premium pick with multiple mod-cons. 

If, however, you’re looking for an appliance that can do a bit more, then a combination microwave would be a better investment for you. A combi microwave can boast features including individual cooking programmes for different foods, convection ovens and even grill modes, so you can truly do everything with just one appliance. 

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You should also consider power levels, program settings and the size of the physical microwave to make sure it’ll fit comfortably in your space. You also should ensure that the internal capacity of your microwave is big enough to fit your widest plates and tallest containers. 

To help you decide, we’ve tested multiple microwaves, from the budget-friendly to more premium models, and compiled the highest-rated options into this handy list. 

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All microwaves we review are rigorously tested by our experts. We inspect every aspect from the design and capacity to the cooking functions, performance and power. We then ensure that each microwave is built for purpose, putting them through real-world tests such as defrosting bread, reheating cooked rice and cooking jacket potatoes. 

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If you want to add more to your kitchen beyond a new microwave, you might be interested in our other numerous review guides including best air fryer guide, best toastersbest kettles and best coffee machine.

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Learn more about how we test microwaves

We test microwaves to see how good they are at their main job. For that, we start with tests designed for the microwave mode only. These include reheating rice and toasting bread, using a thermal camera to see exactly how well (and how evenly) the microwave heats.

We also cook a baked potato, using a microwave-only mode if that’s available, but we’ll use a combi mode, adding convection oven or grill, to see how this works.

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Where microwaves have a grill, we test them with bread and see how even the grilling is across as many slices as we can fit into a product.

We’ll also test convection oven settings by heating a baking tray full of ceramic cooking beads, and then using a thermal camera to view how evenly the oven heats.

If there are other key functions, such as air frying, steaming or crisping, we try these out following suggestions in the manual.

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  • Easy to use

  • Versatile

  • Powerful and fast

Much more than just a basic microwave, the Sage Combi Wave 3-in-1 also works as an oven, air fryer and even sports a grilling feature too.

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Although its height and width are typical of a microwave, with its whopping 32-litre capacity, the depth is excessive at 490mm – and that’s without factoring in the handle which adds another 23mm.

On the front of the appliance is a generous viewing window which allows you to keep an eye on your food, alongside six clearly labelled function buttons and two dials.

The six function buttons include Fast Combi, From Frozen, Air Fry, Oven, Microwave and Food Menu with the latter acting as a selection of smart cook options for various ingredients such as meat and vegetables.

Although Food Menu is useful, there are notable limitations specifically regarding weight limits, so just be sure to check the manual before cooking.

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Open the soft-close door and you’ll see a series of labelled shortcut buttons which allow you to quickly select the optimum time and power levels for tasks such as softening butter, melting chocolate or to enable the grill function.

Although the latter is undoubtedly a useful addition, it’s worth noting that the grill is quite gentle and therefore requires ingredients to be propped up closer to the heating element at the top.

During our testing, we found that the Sage Combi Wave performed admirably across the majority of its functions, from defrosting bread to cooking a jacket potato impressively quickly at under seven minutes.

We also found that not only does air fry mode result in evenly browned and crispy chips but the Combi Wave conveniently alerts half-way through cooking to remind you to stir the contents for the best possible results.

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The Sage Combi even took cooking a 1.6kg chicken in its stride, as it made use of the microwave, oven and grill functions for a perfectly cooked roast.

Even so, if you’re looking for a microwave that can double as an air fryer and oven then you’d be hard pressed to find a better option than the Sage Combi Wave 3-in-1.

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  • Modern, seamless design

  • Consistent cooking

  • Extra-large capacity

  • Only basic functionality

  • Quite expensive

With a 32-litre capacity, sleek design and impressive performance, the Samsung MS32DG4504ATE3 is perfect for larger households with lots of mouths to feed.

Keep in mind though that with such a large capacity, which Samsung claims is enough to cook 5kg of potatoes, comes mammoth dimensions. Measuring at 517 x 423 x 295 MM, ensure you have enough counter space to house this comfortably.

Although it’s undeniably huge, the Samsung MS32DG4504ATE3 has a stylish design thanks to its brushed metal finish which integrates nicely into a modern kitchen space. While the glossy finish on the door can attract fingerprints and grime, the cleverly placed handle on the top side of the door helps to minimise this.

Its control panel is easy-to-use and equipped with a digital display which allows you to see what function you’re selecting and provides readouts for time, weight and more.

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The MS32DG4504ATE3 is also fitted with multiple functions alongside its conventional microwave mode, including Auto Cook, Home Dessert and Keep Warm. There’s even a useful Deodorisation programme which removes any lingering cooking smells from the appliance.

We were seriously impressed by the MS32DG4504ATE3’s results, both as a conventional microwave and for more difficult tasks like defrosting and cooking. We found defrosting chicken took around 10 minutes, while defrosting salmon took just seven and a half minutes.

We then used the Auto Cook function for the defrosted chicken and found it cooked perfectly, although it did take slightly longer than the manual suggested.

Of course, the main function of a microwave is to warm foods up and, fortunately, we were very pleased with the results. Cooked bacon took just 45 seconds to become piping hot while day-old bread only took 70 seconds.

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If you need a larger microwave that looks stylish, is easy-to-use and performs consistently well throughout all its functions then the Samsung MS32DG4504ATE3 Solo Microwave Oven is one for you.


  • Versatile

  • Spacious

  • Self cleaning

  • Expensive

  • Not very intuitive

  • Some uneven results

With its drop-down door, the spacious Panasonic NN-CS89LBBPQ looks more like an oven than a microwave, but its real shining point are the plentiful auto programmes, covering defrosting, steaming, grilling, roasting and baking.

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The oven space is the most generous we’ve seen thanks to the flatbed design and the three tray slots, which allow several items to be cooked at the same time on different levels, further emphasised by the auto programmes’ ability to cook as much as 2kg of meat.

The accessories include a wire shelf, enamel and glass trays as well as a plastic trivet meant specifically for steaming tasks.

One highlight is a humidity-measuring auto sensor combi programme that adjusts the power level and cooking time accordingly and delivers a jacket potato with crispy skin and fluffy texture.

For the steam function, a water tank and a drip tray are located at the bottom of the appliance. The drip tray handily stops water from running onto your worktop when the oven door is opened.

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Very conveniently, the NN-CS89LBBPQ is also self-cleaning, with four steam function-based cleaning settings, including deodorisation and cavity cleaning to remove grease build-up inside the oven.

While navigating its touch-sensitive controls and deciphering the various programmes isn’t always intuitive, a thick instruction manual is provided, also featuring some 40 pages of recipes.

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  • Very easy to use

  • Automated cooking programmes work brilliantly

  • Can do many jobs that an oven can do

  • Need space for all the accessories

If there’s one problem with microwaves, it’s trying to work out how to choose the right setting for the right dish. The Samsung Easy View Convection Oven with HotBlast Technology MC28M6075CS makes this easier, with some very clever automated programmes.

The smartest mode is the Sensor cooking. In this mode, the microwave can cook a range of different ingredients, including jacket potatoes, cauliflower and chilled soup. Measuring the gasses released from foods, the microwave can stop cooking at the optimal point: I found it made my jacket potato perfect: fluffy on the inside, cooked all the way through and not shrivelled up.

HotBlast modes can be used with the baking tray to cook common foods, such as oven chips, using the convection oven feature and blasting air down from the top element. Here, we found the results good, although we did find that an air fryer will give crispier results.

We love the automatic defrost programmes: select the food type and weight, and the microwave handles the rest. Our test bread slices were cool to the touch but not frozen, and leaving them for just a couple of minutes had them ready for sandwiches.

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More than just a microwave, the Samsung Easy View Convection Oven with HotBlast Technology MC28M6075CS is a handy convection oven, too. With its very smart automated programmes, it can cook food beautifully with virtually no hassle.


  • Auto-cook programmes

  • Affordable

  • Good cooking results

  • Fits smaller plates only

  • Not the most intuitive

The Russell Hobbs Scandi Digital Microwave stands out among its affordable peer group due to the addition of a couple of simple auto-cook programmes that calculate the cooking time according to the food’s weight. It’s also not as small as a 17-litre capacity may lead you to believe. However, with a 245mm turntable, it doesn’t fit larger dinner plates.

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While the combination of shiny glass, plastic and metal with walnut-imitation wood is a very particular look, likely to have a Marmite effect, the Scandi Digital is available in black, grey, and white to suit different colour schemes.

Its auto-cook menu has eight programmes, for reheating food and microwaving popcorn, beverages, pizza, sliced potatoes, vegetables, meat, and fish. Using the reheat programme, cold, cooked rice came out evenly heated. And a raw jacket potato had a decent texture after just 8mins of microwaving.

This is a handy appliance for anyone looking for some microwaving shortcuts.

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  • Flatbed design

  • Excellent value

  • Wide range of cooking options

  • Fiddly to use

  • Grill wasn’t that even

Fed up with wrestling larger and odd-sized dishes into your microwave? A flatbed model like the CASO MCG 25 Ceramic Chef might just be one for you.

With a 25-litre capacity, the MCG 25 Ceramic Chef is the average size for a countertop microwave and sports familiar controls on its front, like the door eject button. However, it also doubles as a working grill and a convection oven too, and comes equipped with useful accessories such as a wire shelf and a round baking tray.

Operating the MCG 25 Ceramic Chef is a bit confusing at first, so make sure you keep the manual handy when you’re getting started. While it’s undoubtedly a feature packed device, with preset programmes for certain foods, grilling options and multi-stage cooking, actually selecting the modes isn’t particularly straightforward. Although the user interface isn’t terrible, we did find ourselves pressing the wrong buttons and hearing error beeps while we got used to it.

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Even so, we found the MCG 25 Ceramic Chef to be a solid performer during our tests. At our most simple tests of heating food up, we found the microwave offered event results with no cold spots.

Things are a bit more hit and miss when it comes to using the more advanced modes. For example, we were a bit disappointed with the grill option and found the overall result wasn’t particularly even. Having said that, it’s worth remembering you should keep turning food during this to ensure even results.

We also found that although some of the preset programmes weren’t too convincing, using the combination grill and microwave mode worked much better. Not only that, but the convection oven setting worked brilliantly too. While it may not rival the best air fryers, it still performed admirably.

Although it might take some getting used to, if you want a flatbed microwave that doubles as a decent enough grill and convection oven, then the MCG 25 Ceramic Chef is a great choice.

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FAQs

Do I need additional features in a microwave?

The answer depends on whether you’d use them or not. A grill or convection oven combined with a microwave can give you additional cooking space, or the ability to combine programmes, say grilling and microwaving at the same time, to speed up cooking.

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Is there any point in buying higher power microwaves?

The more power, the faster the microwave will cook, but that can be a double-edged sword. Warming up your dinner with the 1000W setting may be overkill and leave you with burnt bits. However, heating water in a jar to sterilize it may benefit from higher settings.

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Should I buy a flatbed or turntable microwave?

Flatbed microwaves often need food to be turned manually to get even results but you get more space in them and can use irregular-sized pots and containers; turntable microwaves cook more evenly but you’ve got less room and are restricted in the size of container you can use.

How much attention should I pay to internal size?
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Measured in litres, the internal size tells you how big the cavity is. The bigger the household, the larger the microwave you’ll want. Also consider use; if you occasionally heat some pasta sauce or reheat the occasional left-overs, then a smaller microwave will do you.

Integrated or freestanding, which is better?

Neither’s better, but integrated models are neater as they’re permanently installed and often have larger capacities. They’re a good choice if you’re having a new kitchen and have place to permanently put a microwave, although seriously consider a combi model that can act as a second oven, as this gives you more cooking options.

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Freestanding models are generally cheaper and come in a wider range of sizes. As they just plug in, they’re easier to change if something goes wrong, and you can take them with you if you move house. Freestanding models are a good upgrade if you’ve got all of your integrated appliances already, or only have room for a single integrated oven.

Test Data

  Sage Combi Wave 3 in 1 Samsung MS32DG4504ATE3 Large Capacity Solo Microwave Oven Panasonic NN-CS89LBBPQ Combination Microwave Oven Samsung Easy View Convection Oven with HotBlast Technology MC28M6075CS Russell Hobbs Scandi Digital Microwave Caso MCG 25 Ceramic Chef Microwave

Full Specs

  Sage Combi Wave 3 in 1 Review Samsung MS32DG4504ATE3 Large Capacity Solo Microwave Oven Review Panasonic NN-CS89LBBPQ Combination Microwave Oven Review Samsung Easy View Convection Oven with HotBlast Technology MC28M6075CS Review Russell Hobbs Scandi Digital Microwave Review Caso MCG 25 Ceramic Chef Microwave Review
UK RRP £399.95 £168 £519.99 £219 £84.99
Manufacturer Sage Samsung Panasonic Samsung Russell Hobbs
Size (Dimensions) 519 x 513 x 316 MM 517 x 423 x 295 MM 500 x 480 x 541 MM 517 x 463 x 310 MM 451 x 353 x 256 MM 490 x 285 x 480 MM
Weight 14.6 KG 24.5 KG -1 G 10.7 G 16.65 KG
ASIN B079T8NPBV B07YF69D9Q
Release Date 2021 2024 2021 2023 2021 2025
First Reviewed Date 05/01/2022 20/08/2024 05/01/2022 04/04/2023 18/02/2022 22/07/2025
Model Number Sage Combi Wave 3 in 1 Panasonic NN-CS89LBBPQ Combination Microwave Oven Samsung Easy View Convection Oven with HotBlast Technology MC28M6075CS Russell Hobbs Scandi Digital Microwave CASO MCG 25 Ceramic Chef Microwave
Model Variants White or grey
Stated Power 1550 W 1000 W 1300 W 1400 W 700 W 2050 W
Special features Smart Cook, Smart Defrost, Smart Reheat, Fast Combi, Cook From Frozen, Air Fry, Oven, Microwave, Grill, A Bit More, Child Lock,+30 Instant Start, Turntable Off, Shortcuts Panel 12 combi cooking options and 36 auto programmes Automatic cooking Eight auto-cook programmes Grill, convection oven
Oven type Combi Microwave Combi Combi Microwave Combi
Appliance type Freestanding Freestanding Freestanding Freestanding Freestanding Freestanding
Number of ovens 1 1 1 1 1 1
Oven description Combi microwave, grill, convection oven and air fryer 4-in-1 combination steam oven (microwave, oven, steam and grill) Combination microwave convection oven Freestanding microwave Freestanding microwave, oven and grill
Oven grill Yes Yes Yes
Oven microwave Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Oven steam Yes
Microwave bed type Rotating Rotating Flat Rotating Rotating Flat
Microwave max power 1100 W 1000 W 1000 W 900 W 699 W 900 W
Oven capcity 32 litres 32 litres 31 litres 27 litres 17 litres 25 litres

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N-GEN Gaming Chair Delivers Serious Comfort Without the Hefty Price Tag, Complete with Footrest

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N-GEN Gaming Chair
Spending too much time in front of a screen, whether you’re grinding raids or simply trying to get through the day, will cause your body to scream in protest. A good chair can make all the difference; one that keeps your back straight, relieves strain on your spine, and allows you to sit for hours without having to adjust or wincing in discomfort every five minutes. The N-GEN Gaming Chair, priced at $90 (was $140), stands out because it has everything you need in a package that is far less expensive than high-end solutions.



Most people are presented with a simple decision: spend a lot of money on a name brand with all the bells and whistles, or locate something that simply does the job without breaking the bank. This chair falls solidly into the second camp, and it does an excellent job of arguing why it is the best option. The seat and back are made of high-density foam, which is hard but also yielding, ensuring that it retains its shape over time. The PU leather on top is more breathable than you might anticipate for this price, and it wipes clean with a cloth after a long gaming session or a bad spill. A removable headrest pillow relieves strain on your neck, while the lumbar pillow targets the most painful areas of your lower back. All of these small details make a significant difference in how long you can remain there without feeling like you’re being tormented.

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N-GEN GAMING Video Gaming Chair with Footrest Lumbar Support for Home Office High Back Recliner Height…
  • Racing Style for Long Sessions – High-back gaming chair with ergonomic racing design, ideal for long hours at your gaming desk or home office.
  • Ergonomic Support – Comes with a removable headrest, lower back pillow, and pull-out footrest to reduce pressure and support healthy posture during…
  • Quality Materials – Supportive high-density foam cushions, breathable PU leather, and a vibrant finish combine for lasting comfort and a refined look.

N-GEN Gaming Chair
You can recline the chair all the way back, from sitting up straight to a very relaxed posture, and there’s also a footrest that springs out gently when you need a break. The armrests move with the back, staying in place whether you’re sitting upright or slouching, and the height can be readily adjusted with a gas lift that can support up to 300 pounds.

N-GEN Gaming Chair
When it comes down to it, this chair is all about value, since you get the ergonomic necessities without spending a lot of money on fancy branding or features you’ll most likely never use. As for the target audience, this is an excellent choice for anyone needing a chair that can withstand both marathon gaming sessions and extended stretches of focused work.

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Wynn Resorts confirms employee data breach after extortion threat

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Wynn Resorts

Wynn Resorts has confirmed that a hacker stole employee data from its systems after the company was listed on the ShinyHunters extortion gang’s data leak site.

In a statement shared today, the company said it activated its incident response procedures and launched an investigation, with assistance from external cybersecurity experts, after discovering the breach.

“We have learned that an unauthorized third party acquired certain employee data,” reads a statement shared with BleepingComputer.

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“Upon discovery, we immediately activated our incident response protocols and launched a thorough investigation with the help of external cybersecurity experts.”

While Wynn has not stated whether it paid a ransom to prevent the data leak, the company said the attackers confirmed the stolen data had been deleted. In past extortion cases, threat actors have typically only claimed data was deleted after reaching an agreement with a victim.

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“The unauthorized third party has stated that the stolen data has been deleted. We are monitoring and to date have not seen any evidence that the data has been published or otherwise misused,” the statement continued.

The company added that the incident did not impact guest operations or its physical properties, which remain fully operational, and that it is offering complimentary credit monitoring and identity protection services to employees.

ShinyHunters leak site listing

This statement comes after Wynn Resorts appeared on the ShinyHunters data leak site on Thursday.

In the threat actors’ post, the group claimed it had stolen “PII (SSNs, etc) and employee data” and warned the company to make contact before February 23, 2026, or the data would be published.

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“Over 800k records containing PII(SSNs, etc) and employee data have been compromised,” reads the now-deleted post on ShinyHunters data leak site.

“This is a final warning to reach out by 23 Feb 2026 before we leak along with several annoying (digital) problems that’ll come your way. Make the right decision, don’t be the next headling.”

Wynn Resorts listing on the ShinyHunters data leak site
Wynn Resorts listing on the ShinyHunters data leak site

Shortly after, the Wynn entry was removed from the site, a move that often occurs when negotiations are underway or claims are disputed.

Wynn Resorts did not answer questions about whether a ransom was paid or how many people were affected. Similarly, ShinyHunters told BleepingComputer that they had no comment on whether they received a payment.

However, the threat actors did previously claim to have stolen the data from the company’s Oracle PeopleSoft environment.

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ShinyHunters is a data extortion group known for breaching organizations and threatening to publish stolen data unless a ransom is paid.

The group has previously claimed responsibility for multiple high-profile data theft incidents and has operated across various underground forums and extortion portals over the years.

Last year, ShinyHunters conducted a widespread campaign to steal Salesforce data, targeting numerous companies through social engineering and stolen third-party OAuth tokens.

In recent weeks, ShinyHunters has claimed responsibility for a wave of other security breaches, including Panera BreadBettermentSoundCloudCanada GoosePornHub, and online dating giant Match Group.

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Some of the victims were compromised through voice phishing (vishing) attacks targeting single sign-on (SSO) accounts at Google, Microsoft, and Okta, where the threat actors posed as IT support staff to trick employees into entering credentials and multi-factor authentication (MFA) codes on phishing sites.

As BleepingComputer first reported, the ShinyHunters group more recently adopted device code vishing to obtain Microsoft Entra authentication tokens.

After stealing their targets’ credentials and auth codes, the threat actors hijack the victims’ SSO accounts to steal data from connected SaaS applications such as Salesforce, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, SAP, Slack, Adobe, Atlassian, Zendesk, Dropbox, and many others.

Modern IT infrastructure moves faster than manual workflows can handle.

In this new Tines guide, learn how your team can reduce hidden manual delays, improve reliability through automated response, and build and scale intelligent workflows on top of tools you already use.

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CrowdStrike Says Attackers Are Moving Through Networks in Under 30 Minutes

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Cyberattacks reached victims faster and came from a wider range of threat groups than ever last year, CrowdStrike said in its annual global threat report released Tuesday, adding that cybercriminals and nation-states increasingly relied on predictable tactics to evade detection by exploiting trusted systems.

The average breakout time — how long it took financially-motivated attackers to move from initial intrusion to other network systems — dropped to 29 minutes in 2025, a 65% increase in speed from the year prior. “The fastest breakout time a year ago was 51 seconds. This year it’s 27 seconds,” Adam Meyers, head of counter adversary operations at CrowdStrike, told CyberScoop. Defenders are falling behind because attackers are refining their techniques, using social engineering to access high-privilege systems faster and move through victims’ cloud infrastructure undetected.

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The world's first transatlantic fiber cable is being pulled off the ocean floor

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TAT-8 was the eighth Trans-Atlantic Telephone system and the first to replace copper transmission with single-mode optical fiber between the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. The system used 1.3-micrometer single-mode fiber and optoelectronic repeaters operating at roughly 280 Mbit/s.
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Phishing campaign targets freight and logistics orgs in the US, Europe

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Phishing campaign targets freight and logistics orgs in the US, Europe

A financially motivated threat group dubbed “Diesel Vortex” is stealing credentials from freight and logistics operators in the U.S. and Europe in phishing attacks using 52 domains.

In a campaign that has been running since September 2025, the threat actor has stolen 1,649 unique credentials from platforms and service providers critical in the freight industry.

Some of the Diesel Vortex victims include DAT Truckstop, TIMOCOM, Teleroute, Penske Logistics, Girteka, and Electronic Funds Source (EFS).

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Researchers at the typosquatting monitoring platform Have I Been Squatted uncovered the campaign after finding an exposed repository containing an SQL database from a phishing project that the threat actor called Global Profit and marketed it to other cybercriminals under the name MC Profit Always.

The repository also included a file with Telegram webhook logs that revealed communications between the phishing service operators. Based on the language used, the researchers believe that Diesel Vortex is an Armenian-speaking actor connected to Russian infrastructure.

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Have I Been Squatted’s analysis efforts were joined by tokenization infrastructure provider Ctrl-Alt-Intel, which connected the dots between operators, infrastructure, and connections to various companies using open-source intelligence.

In a lengthy technical report, the typosquatting protection provider states that it uncovered nearly 3,500 stolen credential pairs, with 1,649 of them being unique.

Volume of Diesel Vortex credential theft
Volume of Diesel Vortex credential theft
Source: Have I Been Squatted

The researchers say that they also found a link to a mind map created by a member of the group, which describes a “highly organised operation” complete with a call-centre, mail support, programmer rols, and staff responsible for finding drivers, carriers, and logistics contacts.

Furthermore, the map provided details about acquisition channels that included the DAT One marketplace, email campaigns, rate confirmation fraud, and revenue for various operational tiers.

“The [Diesel Vortex] group built dedicated phishing infrastructure for platforms used daily by freight brokers, trucking companies, and supply chain operators. Load boards, fleet management portals, fuel card systems, and freight exchanges were all in scope,” Have I Been Squatted researchers say.

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“These platforms sit at the intersection of high transaction volumes and the targeted workforce isn’t typically the primary focus of enterprise security programs, and the operators clearly knew it.”

The attacks involve sending phishing emails to targets via a phishing kit’s mailer, using Zoho SMTP and Zeptomail, and combining Cyrilic homoglyph tricks in the sender and subject fields to evade security filters.

Voice phishing and infiltration into Telegram channels frequented by trucking and logistics personnel were also used in the attacks.

When a victim clicks a phishing link, they land on a minimal HTML page on a ‘.com’ domain with a full-screen iframe that loads the phishing content, followed by a 9-stage cloaking process on the system domain (.top/.icu).

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The phishing pages are pixel-level clones of the targeted logistics platforms. Depending on the target, they may capture credentials, permit data, MC/DOT numbers, RMIS login details, PINs, two-factor authentication codes, security tokens, payment amounts, payee names, and check numbers.

Two phishing pages used in the same attack string
Two phishing pages used in the same attack
Source: Have I Been Squatted

The phishing process is under the operator’s direct control, who decides when to approve steps and activate the next phases via Telegram bots.

Possible actions include requesting a password for Google, Microsoft Office 365, and Yahoo, 2FA methods, redirecting the victim, or even blocking them mid-session.

Overview of the attack
Overview of the attack
Source: Have I Been Squatted

The researchers state that the Diesel Vortex operation, including panel and phishing domains and GitLab repositories, was disrupted following a coordinated action involving GitLab, Cloudflare, Google Threat Intelligence, CrowdStrike, and Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center.

For its part, Ctrl-Alt-Intel conducted an OSINT investigation starting from operators’ Telegram chats in Armenian about stealing cargo or funds, and an email address.

Along with a domain name found in the phishing panel’s source code, the researchers revealed connections to individuals and companies in Russia involved in wholesale trade, transportation, and warehousing.

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The researchers noted that “the same email identified used to register phishing infrastructure appears in [Russian] corporate filings for logistics companies operating in the same vertical targeted by Diesel Vortex.”

Based on the uncovered evidence, the researchers determined that Diesel Vortex stole credentials and also coordinated activities related to freight impersonation, mailbox compromise, and double-brokering or cargo diversion.

Double brokering refers to the use of stolen carrier identities to book loads and then reassigning or diverting freight cargo, which allows sending the goods to fraudulent pickup points so they can be stolen.

The full indicators of compromise (IoCs), including network, Telegram, infrastructure, email, and cryptocurrency addresses, are available at the bottom of the Have I Been Squatted report.

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Modern IT infrastructure moves faster than manual workflows can handle.

In this new Tines guide, learn how your team can reduce hidden manual delays, improve reliability through automated response, and build and scale intelligent workflows on top of tools you already use.

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New Datacentres Risk Doubling Great Britain’s Electricity Use, Regulator Says

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The amount of power being sought by new datacentre projects in Great Britain would exceed the national current peak electricity consumption, according to an industry watchdog. From a report: Ofgem said about 140 proposed datacentre schemes, driven by use of artificial intelligence, could require 50 gigawatts of electricity — 5GW more than the country’s current peak demand.

The figure was revealed in an Ofgem consultation on demand for new connections to the power grid. It pointed to a “surge in demand” for connection applications between November 2024 and June last year, with a significant number coming from datacentres. This has exceeded even the most ambitious forecasts.

Meanwhile, new renewable energy projects are not being connected to the grid at the pace they are being built to help meet the government’s clean energy targets by the end of the decade. Ofgem said the work required to connect surging numbers of datacentres could mean delays for other projects that are “critical for decarbonisation and economic growth.” Datacentres are the central nervous system of AI tools such as chatbots and image generators, playing a vital role in training and operating products such as ChatGPT and Gemini.

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LG’s massive 52-inch ultra-wide gaming monitor costs $2,000

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LG kicked off the year by unveiling a new lineup of gaming monitors, and today the company has priced out the biggest of the bunch. The UltraGear evo G9 (52G930B) is now available for pre-order, and the massive screen will cost just $2,000.

Yes, you can buy a perfectly excellent gaming monitor for much less, but $2,000 is a surprisingly low price tag for this 52-inch ultrawide monitor with a 1000R curve, which LG is billing as “the world’s largest 5K2K gaming monitor.” In addition to its huge size, the G9 can run at a 240Hz refresh rate and offers a 1 millisecond gray-to-gray response rate. Visuals are supported by VESA DisplayHDR 600 and up to 95% DCI-P3 color gamut coverage.

LG has long done solid work on gaming monitors, and the G9 seems like a good choice for anyone who wants to be seriously immersed in their gameplay. Whether that’s for a high-fidelity experience like Microsoft Flight Simulator or for having the maximum coziness in Stardew Valley is up to you.

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Column: Public trust is becoming AI’s real bottleneck

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Jesse Collins.

The two towers near Aberdeen weren’t supposed to be monuments. They were supposed to be engines.

Drive west from Olympia and you’ll see the unfinished nuclear plant rising from the evergreen canopy. The project promised clean energy, jobs, and technological prestige. Instead, it became a cautionary tale of cost overruns and evaporating public confidence.

Nuclear engineering remained sound. Public confidence did not.

Industries rarely stall because they hit a technical ceiling. They slow when political and social permission erodes.

Artificial intelligence now sits in a similar moment. Public trust in major institutions is fragile, and trust in large technology companies is even lower. Concerns about job displacement, wealth concentration, and infrastructure strain are no longer fringe anxieties. They are mainstream political energy. Across multiple states, lawmakers have introduced proposals to pause or restrict data center expansion. That momentum did not emerge overnight.

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Tech executives and investors are no longer background actors. Their statements travel faster than their products. As taxes, oversight, and regulation come under debate, tech’s most visible voices often frame them as hostility toward innovation. It may feel like a necessary defense, but it can reinforce the perception that the industry is unwilling to adapt to broader political realities.
In Washington state, that energy is visible in the debate around new capital gains and high-income tax proposals. Some startup leaders have framed tax proposals as existential threats to Seattle’s innovation economy and warn that Washington risks becoming “the next Cleveland.”

Incremental taxes on high incomes are unlikely to determine whether Seattle remains a technology hub. But public panic about those taxes can shape how the industry is perceived. To an average voter worried about job displacement or rising costs, highly visible opposition to millionaire tax proposals can feel disconnected from broader economic anxieties. That contrast hardens the sense that tech operates in a separate lane from everyone else. Perception like that carries consequences.

The site of Satsop Nuclear Power Plant in Elma, Wash., where only one of five units were actually built following public pushback. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

When distrust hardens into political momentum, policy seldom arrives as a narrow correction. It tends to be broad and reactive. 

What makes legitimacy risk particularly dangerous is that it rarely begins with statute. It begins with friction. Hiring becomes harder in communities that feel antagonistic toward the industry. Government partnerships face louder opposition. Enterprise buyers extend diligence cycles. Distribution slows in subtle ways that don’t show up in quarterly dashboards but compound over time. These costs compound even if they are difficult to measure.

Industries under suspicion move differently. Telecommunications once represented the frontier of American innovation. As power consolidated and public suspicion grew, the response included structural control and heavy supervision. Innovation did not end, but it moved under tighter constraints and at a slower pace. The center of gravity shifted from experimentation to permission.

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As a founder building risk and regulatory infrastructure for financial institutions, I think about these dynamics constantly. I expect guardrails. Thoughtful regulation is not the enemy. In many cases, it creates highly functional markets.

What concerns me is overcorrection. Sweeping licensing regimes, expansive liability standards for model outputs, escalating compliance overhead, infrastructure caps written in frustration rather than precision. Those burdens fall hardest on young companies without large compliance teams.

We are careful about pricing market and technical risk. We are far less disciplined about legitimacy risk, the moment an industry loses its social license to operate.

Over the next decade, legitimacy may be the binding constraint. Durability matters more than short-term velocity, and durability is built on public trust.

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Seattle became a technology hub because it was broadly trusted to build. That trust gave companies room to experiment and scale. It was a form of oxygen. You rarely notice it until it thins. By then, the towers are already standing.

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Apple’s touch-screen MacBook Pro will get the iPhone’s pill-shaped Dynamic Island

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Apple is expected to launch redesigned MacBook Pro laptops later this year, and these are expected to bring a massive overhaul in terms of looks and innards. The biggest change is going to be a touch-sensitive panel, one with OLED tech underneath instead of mini-LED panels that you get on the current crop of Pro laptops by Apple. But it seems the pill-shaped cutout from the iPhones — officially known as the Dynamic Island — will also appear on these laptops, as per Bloomberg.

What’s the big shift?

“The company’s initial touch Macs, due this fall, will have the Dynamic Island at the center top of the display, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public,” reports Bloomberg. Ever since Apple put a notch on the MacBook — both Air and Pro models — fans have complained about the lost screen real estate and how it has remained untouched in terms of functionalities.

The open-source community, on the other hand, has developed plenty of apps that make the best use of the notch, turning it into a file container, clipboard manager, camera preview engine, mini-calendar, and more. But the aesthetic trade-off is still very much there. On the upcoming MacBook Pro overhaul, Apple is apparently solving two problems in one go viz., get rid of the notch, and put a Dynamic Island in its place that can serve as a hub of activities, similar to what we get on the iPhone.

At last, some good news

Currently in development under the codenames code-named K114 and K116, the upcoming 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro will feature a UI that is designed around interactions. And if the user interaction with the Dynamic Island on iPhones is anything to go by, its counterpart on the MacBook Pro will do a lot more, from tracking ongoing activities to serving as a progress timer and more. But Apple is not going all-in with a touch-friendly design of macOS.

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“The idea is to let customers use the touch input as much or as little as they’d like, and blend it with the familiar point-and-click approach,” adds the Bloomberg report. As far as the Dynamic Island itself is concerned, it will be smaller than what you currently see on iPhones. Either way, it’s an exciting turn of events. But it would still take some time getting used to. “There are other questions — how dynamic would this Dynamic Island be? If it frequently changes size like the iPhone version, that might mess with your muscle memory, as buttons are no longer where you expect them to be,” says our previous reporting on the possibility.

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The era of human web search is over: Nimble launches Agentic Search Platform for enterprises boasting 99% accuracy

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Web Search has already been disrupted by AI — just take a look at how readily Google is presenting users with AI Overviews (summaries of search results) at the top of their results pages, how Bing early on integrated OpenAI’s GPT models, and how Perplexity continues to build on its own AI-driven web search platform and browsers.

Nimble announced the launch of its Agentic Search Platform, a system designed to transform the public web into trusted, decision-grade data for AI systems and business workflows.

The launch is supported by $47 million in Series B financing led by Norwest, with participation from Databricks Ventures and others, bringing the company’s total funding to $75 million.

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The initiative addresses a fundamental bottleneck in the current AI era: while large language models (LLMs) are becoming more sophisticated, they often reason over incomplete or unverifiable external information. Nimble’s platform aims to eliminate this “guesswork gap” by providing a governed data layer that searches, navigates, and validates live internet data in real time.

In an exclusive interview with VentureBeat, Nimble co-founder and CEO Uri Knorovich reflected on the early skepticism regarding his vision of a machine-centric internet.

“Whenever we started this company, and the first time I went to investors, I told them the web is built for humans, but machines are going to be the first citizens of the web,” Knorovich recalled. He noted that while initial reactions labeled him as “too visionary,” the current reality of AI adoption has validated his thesis.

Technology: Coordinated multi-agent architecture

The core of Nimble’s solution is a proprietary distributed architecture that orchestrates specialized agents to perform tasks traditionally handled by human researchers or brittle web scrapers. According to the company’s infrastructure documentation, the process is broken down into five distinct layers:

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  • Headless browser and browsing agents: These layers manage the initial interaction with a target domain, navigating complex site structures as a human would.

  • Parsing agents: These agents interpret the page content, identifying relevant data elements across various formats.

  • Data processing agents: This layer aggregates, filters, and cleans noisy internet data to produce specific, structured answers.

  • Validation agents: The final step involves verifying the results to ensure accuracy and completeness before delivery.

Unlike standard search engines designed for consumer link-clicking, this architecture uses multimodal and reasoning capabilities from frontier models—including those from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta—to control real browsers. This allows Nimble to navigate dynamic layouts and cross-check results, producing auditable data outputs rather than simple text summaries.

A new paradigm: ‘The web is built for humans, but machines are the first citizens’

Knorovich points out that the scale of AI interaction with the web is fundamentally different from human behavior. “We, as humans, search for maybe three or five options before we making decisions… but every day, Nimble perform more than 3.2 million interactions in the web,” he explained. This sheer volume of billions of monthly searches represents a programmatic shift that requires a new type of infrastructure.

The bottleneck for enterprises today, according to Knorovich, isn’t the intelligence of the models, but the quality of the data they can access. “Agents are the headlines, and accurate and reliable web search is the bottleneck,” he stated.

Nimble vs. consumer search: Precision over speed

Knorovich explicitly differentiates Nimble from general-purpose tools like Google or consumer AI search assistants.

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While Google has built a search experience for consumers that is optimized for speed and finding a local restaurant, enterprises require high-scale, high-accuracy results to make multi-million dollar decisions.

“General purpose web search tool are great to have a general answers, such as who is the wife Leo missing,” Knorovich remarked during the interview. “But enterprises need deep, granular data, and they need to have the ability to control the search filters, to control the regulation, to control what is a trusted source”. Unlike consumer AI modes that may summarize a Reddit post or high-level news, Nimble provides “street-level” information that can be stored directly in an enterprise system of record.

Product: Bridging the no-code and developer divide

The Agentic Search Platform is delivered through two primary interfaces designed for enterprise scalability:

  1. Web search agents: A no-code AI workflow builder that enables business teams to describe the data they need and receive structured data streams without writing a line of code.

  2. Web tools SDK: A suite of APIs for builders to search, extract, and crawl the web directly from their code. This includes specialized tools like the /crawl API for mapping entire domains and the /map API for creating domain trees.

The platform is built to deliver data with greater than 99% accuracy — meaning fewer than 1% inaccurate or hallucinated data for the total contents of each search result returned — and a latency of 1-2 milliseconds per request.

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It integrates natively with major data environments, allowing users to stream clean data directly into Databricks, Snowflake, S3, or Microsoft Fabric.

During the interview, Knorovich emphasized that Nimble is designed to be model-agnostic, working seamlessly with state-of-the-art models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google’s Gemini. This flexibility allows companies to use Nimble alongside their existing tech stack, whether they are running models in the cloud or on-premise for high-security environments like healthcare or banking.

Case studies: Accuracy in action

Knorovich provided several real-world examples of how this “street-level” data impacts professional workflows. For instance, a real estate broker looking to expand into a new territory doesn’t need a high-level summary from a general-purpose AI.

“If you want to know what’s happening in the commercial real estate in Atlanta… you’re not looking for search that’s optimized for the millisecond,” Knorovich explained. “You’re looking for street-level, neighborhood-level information… data that you can actually see on a table or download to Excel”.

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Another use case involves major financial institutions utilizing Nimble for “know your customer” (KYC) processes. By deploying an autonomous search agent, banks can cross-reference multiple public reports, criminal records, and address verifications to build a complete profile of a client before they even enter the building. The goal, Knorovich noted, is to provide the “external truth” that exists outside an organization’s internal firewalls.

Enterprise licensing and compliance

Nimble differentiates itself from legacy scraping tools through a rigorous focus on governance and trust. The platform is “compliant-by-design,” holding certifications for SOC2 Type II, GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA.

Pricing is structured to support both experimental startups and high-scale enterprise operations, aligned with the volume and depth of data retrieved.

“Pricing should be aligned with the value that the user is getting… therefore, we are pricing by the amount of searches that you’re running,” Knorovich said.

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  • Search and answer APIs: Standard search inputs cost $1 per 1,000, while the “Answer” function—which provides reasoning based on search results—costs $4 per 1,000.

  • Managed services: For larger organizations, managed tiers start at $2,000 per month (Startup) and scale to $15,000 per month (Professional) for unlimited agents and priority support.

  • Proxy access: A network of over 1 million residential proxies is available starting at $7.50 per GB

Community and user reactions

The transition to agentic search has already been operationalized by several Fortune 500 companies and AI-native startups:

  • Julie Averill, former CIO at Lululemon, stated that pricing intelligence which once took weeks to review can now be responded to in minutes by putting control in the hands of an agent.

  • Itamar Fridman, CEO and Co-founder of Qodo, noted that the platform’s scalability was “crucial in developing more robust and reliable AI systems” by feeding LLMs with high-quality data.

  • Dennis Irorere, Data Engineer at TripAdvisor, highlighted that the platform simplifies the extraction of structured data from complex sources, which he described as “transformative” for his role.

  • Grips Intelligence reported scaling to over 45,000 e-commerce sites using Nimble’s Web API to deliver real-time pricing and product data.

  • Alta utilizes the platform to power millions of AI-driven go-to-market workflows daily, reporting 3–4× deeper context and >99% reliability

Series B to accelerate multi-agent web search and data governance

The $47 million Series B funding announced alongside the platform will be used to accelerate research in multi-agent web search and further develop the governed data layer.

The round saw participation from a wide ecosystem of investors, including Target Global, Square Peg, Hetz Ventures, Slow Ventures, R-Squared Ventures, J-Ventures, and InvestInData.

Andrew Ferguson, VP of Databricks Ventures, noted that Nimble complements their Data Intelligence Platform by providing a “real-time web data layer” that extends workflows beyond internal sources. This strategic investment signals a shift in the industry toward prioritizing “external truth” to ground mission-critical AI applications.

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For Knorovich, the future of the web belongs to programmatic interaction. “Programmatic web search is where we are building towards,” he concluded. By moving away from legacy data vendors and brittle scrapers, Nimble aims to provide the real-time structure needed for AI to act with confidence in the real world.

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