The Interlock ransomware gang has been exploiting a maximum severity remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in Cisco’s Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) software in zero-day attacks since late January.

The Interlock ransomware operation surfaced in September 2024 and has been linked to ClickFix and to malware attacks in which they deployed a remote access trojan called NodeSnake on the networks of multiple U.K. universities.

Interlock has also claimed responsibility for attacks on DaVita, Kettering Health, the Texas Tech University System, and the city of Saint Paul, Minnesota. More recently, IBM X-Force researchers reported that Interlock operators have deployed a new malware strain dubbed Slopoly, likely created using generative AI tools.

Cisco patched the security flaw (CVE-2026-20131) on March 4, warning that it could allow unauthenticated attackers to remotely execute arbitrary Java code as root on unpatched devices.

The Amazon threat intelligence team reported on Wednesday that the Interlock ransomware operation had been exploiting the Secure FMC flaw in attacks targeting enterprise firewalls for more than a month before it was patched.

“While looking for any current or past exploits of this vulnerability, our research found that Interlock was exploiting this vulnerability 36 days before its public disclosure, beginning January 26, 2026,” said CJ Moses, CISO of Amazon Integrated Security. 

“This wasn’t just another vulnerability exploit, Interlock had a zero-day in their hands, giving them a week’s head start to compromise organizations before defenders even knew to look.”

“On March 4, 2026, Cisco issued a security advisory disclosing a vulnerability in the web interface of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Software,” Cisco told BleepingComputer on Wednesday in an email statement after publishing. “We appreciate Amazon’s partnership on this, and we have updated our security advisory with the latest information. We strongly urge customers to upgrade as soon as possible and reference our security advisory for more details and guidance.”

Since the start of the year, Cisco has addressed several other security vulnerabilities that have been exploited in the wild as zero-days. For instance, in January, it fixed a maximum-severity Cisco AsyncOS zero-day that had been exploited to breach secure email appliances since November and patched a critical Unified Communications RCE that was also abused in zero-day attacks.

Last month, Cisco addressed another maximum-severity flaw that was abused as a zero-day to bypass Catalyst SD-WAN authentication, allowing attackers to compromise controllers and add malicious rogue peers to targeted networks.

Update March 18, 12:55 EDT: Added Cisco statement.

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When high school students step into a cybersecurity internship, they enter a field where the stakes are real. The tools, threats and responsibilities extend well beyond the classroom. In rural communities, such opportunities can be transformative — for both learners and the regions working to build a future-ready workforce.

In eastern Alabama, cybersecurity pathways are creating new opportunities for collaboration between educators and employers, reflecting a broader lesson: Workforce development is more impactful when industry helps shape learning early. As cybersecurity threats grow more complex, many employers say preparing future talent does not begin at the point of hiring — it starts earlier, through partnerships connecting classrooms, credentials and real-world experience.

For district leaders and career and technical education (CTE) directors designing career-connected learning, these partnerships can help align instruction with workforce realities while expanding students’ access to high-demand careers.

Industry as a Co-Designer

Cybersecurity is a field that depends on industry insights. The tools and threats defining the work often evolve faster than traditional curriculum cycles, and employers see firsthand how quickly skill requirements change.

Scott Ross, director of information technology at HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, has seen how quickly the field changes throughout his career. While professional credentials such as Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) can signal readiness, Ross points to internships and applied experience as equally critical.

“Credentials matter, but they only tell part of the story,” Ross said. “What really prepares students for cybersecurity work is exposure — seeing how systems operate in the real world and understanding the responsibility that comes with protecting them.”

That perspective shapes HudsonAlpha’s engagement with regional education partners. As cybersecurity roles expand across sectors, from defense and healthcare to biotechnology and agriculture, employers are increasingly invested in helping students understand the range of opportunities available and the expectations that come with them.

A Regional Effort Takes Shape

In eastern Alabama, those connections are coordinated through the East Alabama Regional Cybersecurity Alliance (EARCA), a collaboration among K-12 districts, postsecondary institutions and industry partners focused on growing local cybersecurity talent. Rather than operating in isolation, schools and employers are aligning around shared goals: relevant curriculum, meaningful credentials and work-based learning opportunities tied to workforce needs.

Ross sees this regional approach as essential. “Cybersecurity isn’t limited to one industry,” he said. “When education and employers collaborate across sectors, students gain a clearer picture of where these skills apply, and regions build stronger, more adaptable talent pipelines.”

With thousands of unfilled cybersecurity roles in the state, that alignment helps keep learning connected to opportunity.

How Industry Partnerships Shape Learning

For educators, industry engagement can change what is possible inside schools. Tanner Gamble, the computer science and cybersecurity teacher at Childersburg High School in Talladega County, has seen how employer involvement reshapes student motivation and confidence.

“When students know their learning connects directly to real jobs, it changes how they approach the work,” Gamble said. “They’re not just completing assignments; they’re preparing for environments they know they’ll encounter.”

Preparing teachers for industry-aligned instruction is also central to the effort, said Ira Lacy, who trains educators and connects them with employers to support cybersecurity pathways across Alabama.

“When you train teachers using industry practices and give students access to authentic experiences, you start building a pipeline that lasts,” Lacy said. “We’ve seen graduates in North Alabama come back to mentor younger students and invest in their hometowns, and now we’re applying the same approach in eastern Alabama.”

Internships and industry-aligned credentials help validate pathways at the school level by demonstrating clear connections between classroom instruction and real workforce needs.

“Internships and credentials act as the ‘proof of work’ for school cybersecurity programs,” said Hillary Rogers, principal of Childersburg High School. “They bridge the gap between theory and real-world practice, ensuring students aren’t just learning about the digital front lines — they’re equipped to operate in them.”

Learning That Changes Trajectories

That impact is evident in Gavin’s experience, a junior at Childersburg High School who participated in a summer internship with the IT department at Heritage South Credit Union. During the internship, Gavin worked alongside IT staff, troubleshooting real systems, building and maintaining network infrastructure, and learning how access and risk are managed in real-world settings.

The experience opened the door to continued applied learning. Gavin now supports the IT department at Childersburg High School and earned his CompTIA Tech+ certification, an early milestone in a pathway focused on technical skill development and professional responsibility.

“The internship allowed me to start dreaming for myself and what I want my future to look like,” Gavin said. “I’ve always been interested in space, and now I can see different paths, like working in aerospace or eventually leading an IT department near Huntsville.”

For employers and educators, helping students see concrete future pathways is a powerful outcome of early work-based learning.

Why Employers Invest

While not every employer is positioned to host interns, those who engage early gain clearer insight into student readiness and stronger workforce alignment. Early exposure helps employers identify motivated learners and reduce uncertainty in later hiring decisions.

“If we wait until graduation to connect with talent, we’ve missed an opportunity,” Ross said. “Early exposure helps students prepare, and it helps employers build a workforce that understands their needs.”

At a regional level, these investments can contribute to rural economic stability by increasing the likelihood that students will pursue and remain in local careers.

A Blueprint for Other Regions

EARCA is part of broader efforts led by Digital Promise’s Center for Learner Pathway Innovations to develop statewide cybersecurity pathways that connect education and workforce systems. Pathways are strongest when learning, work and community are connected early. For students like Gavin, that collaboration opens doors. For employers, it helps ensure the next generation is ready to meet that demand.

Carl Pei, co-founder and CEO of Nothing, is imagining a future beyond the iPhone — and it’s a device powered by AI agents, not running apps.

“In terms of AI in software, I think people should understand that apps are going to disappear,” said Pei, whose consumer electronics brand makes unique smartphones and other accessories. “So, if you’re a founder or a startup and your app is like where the core value lies, that will be disrupted whether you like it or not.”

Pei made these comments during an interview at the SXSW conference in Austin on Wednesday.

The founder has talked about an AI-first device before, as this vision helped the company close its $200 million Series C funding round last year. At the time, Nothing was pitching the idea of a new kind of smartphone using AI and personalization technology that’s accurate enough for its users to not feel they had to go behind the AI and double-check its output.

At SXSW, Pei expanded on his vision for the AI-first device and the steps needed to get there.

The initial step, which is being tested by some companies today, is an AI feature that can execute a command on the users’ behalf, like booking flights or hotels. Pei, however, dismissed this step as being “super boring.”

The next step is where things could get more interesting, as the AI begins to learn a user’s intentions long-term. For instance, if you wanted to be healthier, the device could give you nudges to help you accomplish your goals.

“I think it gets even more powerful when it starts surfacing suggestions for you; you don’t have to manually come up with an idea…when the system knows us so well, it will come up with things that we don’t even [know] we wanted,” Pei explained, comparing this concept to something like ChatGPT’s memory feature.

In describing how he pictured an AI-first smartphone, Pei said it would be a device that would do things for you without needing to be commanded to.

“The current way we use phones is very old-school. It’s pre-iPhone…there used to be Palm Pilots and PDAs back in the day. And if you think about the user experience, it’s still very similar,” Pei said. “You have lock screens, home screens, apps. You browse different apps. Each app is like a full-screen thing. There’s some kind of app store that allows you to download more apps. So it hasn’t really changed for like, 20 years.”

This frustrated him because the technology consumers are using has evolved quite a bit, but the products we use have not. Even simple tasks have us jumping through multiple steps, he explained.

“It’s very hard to get things done on a phone,” Pei said. “Let’s say we want to grab coffee. That’s an intention. But to execute that intention, we have to go through so many different steps and so many different apps. It’s probably like four apps to grab coffee with somebody — some messaging app, some kind of maps, Uber, calendar.”

He continued: “I think the future of smartphones or operating systems should just be: ‘I know you very well, and if I know your intention, I just do it for you,’ instead of having to go through all the apps manually.”

“It should just do it through AI,” he said.

This also means devices would have an interface that’s not focused on apps for humans to navigate, but would instead feature an interface designed for the AI agent to use.

That doesn’t mean apps are going away in the near-term, Pei cautioned. Nothing’s own operating system even allows users to vibe code their own mini apps today. But eventually, the AI will need to be able to use the “app” in a frictionless way, not trying to mimic human touch on the smartphones by moving through menus and tapping options.

“That’s not the future. The future is not the agent using a human interface. You need to create an interface for the agent to use. I think that’s the more future-proof way of doing it,” Pei said.

If you need a cathartic release from the news that Amazon laid off 16,000 workers, Block chopped nearly half its workforce, Atlassian pared back 10% of staffers, and Meta is reportedly considering another massive round of layoffs, all in the name of AI, then we invite you to browse the responses to a recent Sam Altman post on X.

Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, shared this on Tuesday:

“I have so much gratitude to people who wrote extremely complex software character-by-character. It already feels difficult to remember how much effort it really took. Thank you for getting us to this point.”

The problem with that sweet sentiment is that Altman’s company ushered in the AI now being used as an excuse for developer layoffs and fewer junior developer jobs. And it did so by training on massive volumes of code written the old-fashioned way — by the very people he’s now thanking.

His post implies that developers’ genuinely difficult-to-master craft is now like a rotary telephone: outdated and unnecessary.

Naturally, Altman’s comments attracted memes and responses richer than his post. While some were straight-up angry, (“You’re welcome. Nice to know that our reward is our jobs being taken away”), much of the internet did what it always does: cracked jokes.

There are thousands of comments. Some of our favorites:

“Sam’s eulogy for software engineers”

“It’s times like this when I really miss the Sam Altman parody account”

“Dear devs You will lose your jobs forever and be forced to work in the coal mines But you can rest easy knowing sam Altman is grateful. ❤️ 🙏”

“Billion dollar app idea: AI that reads billionaire tweets before they post them and says ‘this is going to make you sound incredibly out of touch, are you sure?’”

“I have gratitude to OpenAI for doing all the AI work so I can have free Chinese open source AI models to use 🙏”

“This reads like something the Mayans would say right before the ceremony starts.”

And finally, another reason to trot out this meme: