Google notes that Apple patched vulnerabilities used by Coruna in the latest versions of its mobile operating system, iOS 26, so its exploitation techniques are only confirmed to work against iOS 13 through 17.2.1. It targets vulnerabilities in Apple’s Webkit framework for browsers, so Safari users on those older versions of iOS would be vulnerable, but there’s no confirmed techniques in the toolkit for targeting Chrome users. Google also notes that Coruna checks if an iOS devices has Apple’s most stringent security setting, known as Lockdown Mode, enabled, and doesn’t attempt to hack it if so.

Despite those limitations, iVerify says Coruna likely infected tens of thousands of phones. The company consulted with a partner that has access to network traffic and counted visits to a command-and-control server for the cybercriminal version of Coruna infecting Chinese-language websites. The volume of those connections suggest, iVerify says, that roughly 42,000 devices may have already been hacked with the toolkit in the for-profit campaign alone.

Just how many other victims Coruna may have hit, including Ukrainians who visited websites infected with the code by the suspected Russian espionage operation, remains unclear. Google declined to comment beyond its published report. Apple did not immediately provide comment on Google or iVerify’s findings.

A Single, Very Professional Author

In iVerify’s analysis of the cybercriminal version of Coruna—it didn’t have access to any of the earlier versions—the company found that the code appeared to have been altered to plant malware on target devices designed to drain cryptocurrency from crypto wallets as well as steal photos and, in some cases, emails. Those additions, however, were “poorly written” compared to the underlying Coruna toolkit, according to iVerify chief product officer Spencer Parker, which he found to be impressively polished and modular.

“My God, these things are very professionally written,” Parker says of the exploits included in Coruna, suggesting that the cruder malware was added by the cybercriminals who later obtained that code.

As for the code modules that suggest Coruna’s origins as a US government toolkit, iVerify’s Cole notes one alternative explanation: It’s possible that Coruna’s code overlaps with the Operation Triangulation malware that Russia pinned on US hackers could be based on Triangulation’s components being picked up and repurposed after they were discovered. But Cole argues that’s unlikely. Many components of Coruna have never been seen before, he points out, and the whole toolkit appears to have been created by a “single author,” as he puts it.

“The framework holds together very well,” says Cole, who previously worked at the NSA, but notes that he’s been out of the government for more than a decade and isn’t basing any findings on his own outdated knowledge of US hacking tools. “It looks like it was written as a whole. It doesn’t look like it was pieced together.”

If Coruna is, in fact, a US hacking toolkit gone rogue, just how it got into foreign and criminal hands remains a mystery. But Cole points to the industry of brokers that may pay tens of millions of dollars for zero-day hacking techniques that they can resell for espionage, cybercrime, or cyberwar. Notably, Peter Williams, an executive of US government contractor Trenchant, was sentenced this month to seven years in prison for selling hacking tools to the Russian zero-day broker Operation Zero from 2022 to 2025. Williams’ sentencing memo notes that Trenchant sold hacking tools to the US intelligence community as well as others in the “Five Eyes” group of English-speaking governments—the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand—though it’s not clear what specific tools he sold or what devices they targeted.

“These zero-day and exploit brokers tend to be unscrupulous,” says Cole. “They sell to the highest bidder and they double dip. Many don’t have exclusivity arrangements. That’s very likely what happened here.”

“One of these tools ended up in the hands of a non-Western exploit broker, and they sold it to whoever was willing to pay,” Cole concludes. “The genie is out of the bottle.”

A 77-inch OLED under $1,500 is the kind of TV deal that doesn’t need much explanation. It’s just a legitimately big discount on a TV people actually want. The LG 77-inch B5 Series OLED (2025) is down to $1,499.99, which is $1,500 off its $2,999.99 list price. That’s a major cut on a current-model OLED, not some random old stock set that only looks good because the sticker dropped.

And at this size, OLED really starts to feel worth it. You’re not just getting a nicer panel. You’re getting the kind of screen that can anchor a room, whether you care more about movies, sports, or gaming.

What you’re getting

The LG OLED77B5PUA is a 77-inch 4K OLED smart TV running webOS. It comes with LG’s Alpha 8 AI Processor Gen 2, plus support for Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG, and Dolby Atmos.

It’s also better set up for gaming than a lot of TVs in this price range. The B5 has a native 120Hz refresh rate, VRR, NVIDIA G-Sync compatibility, AMD FreeSync Premium, and four HDMI 2.1 ports. That’s the kind of spec sheet that makes it easy to pair with a PS5, Xbox, and a gaming PC without compromise.

Why it’s worth it

The main reason this deal works is pretty simple: 77-inch OLED TVs still aren’t cheap, and this one just dropped into a price range where it feels much more reasonable.

The B-series has always made sense for buyers who want the core OLED experience without paying extra for a higher-tier model. You’re still getting the deep black levels, the strong contrast, the wide viewing angles, and the smooth gaming features that make OLED stand out. What you’re not doing is paying a lot more just to move up the lineup.

At $1,499.99, this is the kind of TV that makes a real upgrade feel obvious. If you’re coming from a smaller LED set, the jump in both size and picture quality is going to be immediately noticeable.

The bottom line

If you’ve been waiting for a big OLED to hit a more reasonable price, this is it. The LG 77-inch B5 Series OLED gives you the stuff that actually matters: 4K OLED picture quality, Dolby Vision, a native 120Hz panel, and four HDMI 2.1 ports. The current discount makes it one of the better 77-inch TV deals out there right now.

The alert came around 7 p.m.

Brittani Phillips checked her phone. A middle school counselor in Putnam County, Florida, Phillips receives messages from an artificial intelligence-enabled therapy platform that students use during nonschool hours. It flags when a student may be at risk for harming themself or others based on what the student types into a chat.

Phillips saw that this was a “severe” alert for an eighth grader.

So, Phillips spent her evening on the phone with the student’s mom, probing her to figure out what was going on and how vulnerable the student was. Phillips also called the police, she says, noting that she tells students that the chats are confidential until they can’t be.

That was last school year, in the spring.

“He’s alive and well. He’s in ninth grade this year,” Phillips says. She believes that the interaction built trust between her and the family. When the student passes her in the hall now, he makes a point to greet her, she adds.

Navigating budget shortfalls and limited mental health staff, Interlachen Jr.-Sr. High School, where Phillips works, is using an AI platform to vet students’ mental health needs.

Phillips’ district has used Alongside, an automated student monitoring system, for three years. It’s an example of the growing category of tools that are marketed to K-12 schools for similar purposes, with at least 9 companies getting funding deals since 2022.

Alongside says its tool is used by more than 200 schools around the US and argues that its platform offers better services than typical telehealth options because it has a social and emotional skill-building chat tool — where students yak about their life-problems with a llama called Kiwi that tries to teach them to build up resilience — and its AI-generated content is monitored by clinicians. The system offers resource-tapped schools, especially in rural areas, access to critical mental health resources, company representatives say.

AI is a major component of the Trump administration’s national education agenda. Yet, some parents, educators and, increasingly, lawmakers, are wary of increasing teens’ time in front of screens. States have also started restricting the use of AI in telehealth.

Many experts and families also worry that students attach to AI too strongly. Even as a recent national survey found that 20 percent of high schoolers have used AI romantically or know someone who has, there’s significant interest in keeping students from emotionally connecting with bots. That even includes a proposed federal law that would force AI companies to remind students that chatbots aren’t real people.

Still, in her job, Phillips says the tool her school uses is exceptional at putting out the “small fires.” With around 360 middle schoolers to support, having this tool to hand-hold them through the breakups and other routine problems they face allows her to focus her time with students nearing crisis. Plus, students sometimes find it easier to turn to AI for dealing with emotional problems, she says.

On the Digital Couch

Student nervousness plays into why they are comfortable confiding in these technologies, school counselors say.

Speaking with a mental health professional can be intimidating, especially for adolescents, says Sarah Caliboso-Soto, a licensed clinical social worker who serves as the assistant director of clinical programs at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work and the clinical director for the Trauma Recovery Center and Telebehavioral Health at USC.

There’s a generational component as well. For students who’ve grown up encountering chat interfaces through social media and websites, AI interfaces can feel familiar. And kids today find that it’s easier to text than call someone on the phone, says Linda Charmaraman, director of the Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab at Wellesley Centers for Women.

Using AI to work through emotions also allows students to avoid watching facial expressions, which they may worry will carry judgment, she adds. Also, chatbots are available at times when a human might not be, without the hassle of having to make an appointment, Charmaraman says.

“It’s almost more natural than interacting with another human being,” Caliboso-Soto says.

In her work with a telehealth clinic, Caliboso-Soto has seen a rise in crisis text lines and chat lines. The clinic doesn’t use AI of any kind, she says, but it often gets approached by companies looking to get AI into the therapy sessions as notetakers.

It’s not necessarily bad in Caliboso-Soto’s opinion. For resource-strapped schools, AI can be used “as a first line of defense,” regularly checking in with students and pointing them in the right direction when they need more help, she says.

The starting price for a school to use Alongside’s services is about $10 per student per year, according to the company. Larger districts usually receive volume-based discounts.

But Caliboso-Soto worries about using AI as a substitute counselor. It lacks the discernment that clinicians provide when interacting with students, she notes. While large language models can be trained to notice symptoms in text, they cannot see or hear what a human clinician can when interacting with a student, the inflections of the voice and the movements of the body, nor can it reliably catch subtle observations or behaviors. “You can’t replace human connection, human judgment,” she adds.

While AI can speed up the diagnostic process or free up time for school counselors, it’s crucial not to overly rely on it for mental health, says Charmaraman. The technology can miss some of the nuances that a human counselor would catch, and it can give students unrealistic positive reinforcement. Schools need to adopt a holistic approach that includes families and caregivers, she argues.

Plus, if a school is increasingly using AI intervention to filter serious cases, it’s worth paying attention to whether students are having less frequent contact with clinically-trained humans, Caliboso-Soto says.

For its part, Alongside representatives say that the platform is not meant as a replacement for human therapy. The app is a stepping stone to seeking help from adults, says Ava Shropshire, a junior at Washington University who serves as a youth adviser for Alongside. She argues that the app makes mental health and social-emotional learning feel more normal for students and can lead them to seek out human help.

Still, some students think it’s at best a Band-Aid.

Social Accountability

“Can you think of another time in history when people have been so lonely, when our communities have been so weak?” asks Sam Hiner, executive director of The Young People’s Alliance, a North Carolina-based organization that lobbies for more youth participation in politics and policymaking.

During a time of economic upheaval, technology and social media have manipulated and isolated students from one another, and that’s led to a deep yearning for community and belonging, Hiner says.

Students will get it wherever they can, even if that’s through ChatGPT, he adds.

The Young People’s Alliance released a framework for regulating AI that allows for some therapeutic uses of the technology.

But in general, the organization is striving to rebuild the human community and is set against use of AI when it threatens to replace human companionship, Hiner says. “That’s a critical aspect of therapy and of living a fulfilled life and having social connection and having mental well-being,” he adds.

So for Hiner, the main concern is what’s called a “parasocial relationship,” when students develop a one-sided emotional attachment, especially when the technology enters schools for therapeutic purposes. It might be valuable to have an AI that can provide feedback or conduct analysis, even to mental health, but Hiner says that the AI should not hint or convey that it has its own emotional state — for instance, saying “I’m proud of you” to a student user — because that encourages attachment.

Even though platforms often claim to decrease loneliness, they don’t really measure whether people are more connected and are more set up to live fulfilled, connected, happy lives in the long term, says Hiner: “All [tech platforms are] measuring is whether this bot is serving as an effective crutch for the immediate feelings of loneliness that they’re experiencing.”

What advocates want to prevent is these bots fueling the loss of social skills because they pull people away from relationships with other people, where they have social accountability, Hiner says.

Pushing Boundaries

Privacy experts note that these chatbots do not generally carry the same privacy protections of conversations with a licensed therapist. And when concerns about student privacy and encounters with the police are high, use of these tools raise “messy” privacy concerns, even when supervised by people with clinical training, a privacy law expert says.

Both the company and Phillips, the counselor in Putnam County, stress that, to work, these systems need human oversight. Phillips feels like this tool is an improvement over other monitoring tools the district has used, which point students toward in-school discipline rather than mental health help.

This school year, Phillips noted 19 “severe” alerts from the AI health tool as of February (from a total of 393 active users). The company doesn’t separate the incidents by which students caused them. So some of the same students are causing multiple of those 19 “severe alerts,” Phillips notes.

Phillips has learned, in using the tool, that it takes a human to perceive teenage humor, too.

That’s because some alerts aren’t genuine. On occasion, middle school students — usually boys — will test the boundaries of this technology, Phillips says. They type “my uncle touches me” or “my mom beat me with a pole” into the chat to test whether Phillips will follow up on it.

These boys are just trying to see if anyone is listening, to test whether anyone cares, she says. Sometimes, they just find it funny.

When she pulls them aside to discuss it, she can observe their body language, and whether it changes, which might suggest that the comment was real. If it was a joke, they often become apologetic. When a student doesn’t seem remorseful, Phillips will call and let the parents know what happened. But even in these cases, Phillips feels she has more options than provided by other monitoring systems, which would refer the student to in-school suspension.

Because Phillips is keeping her eye on the interactions, the students also learn to trust that she’s actually monitoring the system, she adds.

And, she says, the number of boys who do test the system in that way goes down every year.

It’s getting harder to deny the fact that gaming tablets are on the rise. These aren’t the best tablets ever, but they offer lots of processing power in a portable form, without all the bells and whistles of a standard slate. Think a gaming phone, but bigger. And I’ve just found a new love.

I’m on the ground at MWC 2026, a mobile tech conference which has seen a few gaming gadgets exhibited. I’ve seen the pint-sized Lenovo Legion Tab (Gen 5), and Nubia Neo 5 GT gaming phone, and both seemed great. I’ve also seen plenty of other powerful devices like the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and the understated Honor Magic 8 Pro. But what’s really drawn my eyes is the Red Magic Astra.