Microsoft Debuts Qwen-Based Decision-1 as Budget Phones Ship With Proxy Malware

AI & Machine Learning

Microsoft has released Microsoft-Decision-1, a decision model available through Microsoft Foundry and, soon, OpenRouter. It is built on Alibaba’s open-weight Qwen3.5-9B, and Microsoft says future versions will be rebased on its own models and those from OpenAI. The company claims it is 2.8 times faster than Jev in latency tests, with 83.5% accuracy across 36 benchmarks, and more than 20 times cheaper than OpenAI’s GPT-6 Sol for text classification. Pricing is $0.042 per million input tokens with free output tokens. Leaning on a Chinese lab’s open weights for its first in-house model is a notable shift for a company that has otherwise tied its AI strategy closely to OpenAI. Source: The Register Verified: True

Anthropic has launched the “Anthropic Cyber Mission,” an effort to help defenders patch software vulnerabilities exposed by its Project Glasswing. It has two arms: a Critical Infrastructure Defense Program pairing its most capable models with on-site engineers, with partners including Accenture, CrowdStrike, Dragos, Palo Alto Networks and Rockwell Automation, and an OSS Scanner that gives established open-source projects regular security scans. Anthropic claims LLMs now find more than 85 percent of vulnerabilities, up from 20 percent at the start of 2025. It predicts attackers will hold the upper hand for roughly two years before defenders gain the advantage. No funding figure was disclosed, and OSS Scanner reports go out without human review. Source: The Register Verified: True

Consumer Hardware

Microsoft is cutting the shared OneDrive storage on its consumer and professional subscriptions. Microsoft 365 Family and Premium plans move from 1 TB per user, up to 6 TB across six users, to a shared 2 TB pool, while Pro plans share 5 TB. That means Family and Premium subscribers can lose up to 4 TB and Pro subscribers up to 1 TB. The new scheme applies to new subscribers from 8 October 2026 and to existing subscribers when their plans renew on or after 2 May 2027, though some may receive temporary bonus storage. Microsoft says shared pools give a more flexible experience, but heavy users of the old per-person allowance will feel the change. Source: The Register Verified: True

Cybersecurity

Bitdefender researchers have named a campaign “Midnight Mimosa” that embeds malware in the firmware of cheap Android phones with MediaTek chipsets, giving it system-level control. The malware can silently install and remove apps, commit ad fraud and turn devices into residential proxies. Affected models include the Doogee S200 X and Cubot KINGKONG X, along with phones posing as Samsung and Apple products. One owner reported that an official firmware update reinstalled the infection. Thousands of devices across more than 150 countries were hit over roughly two years, and Bitdefender also found 13 Google Play apps carrying the same ad-fraud code. Source: BleepingComputer Verified: True

Cisco disclosed five critical NX-OS vulnerabilities (CVE-2026-76471, -76485, -76486, -76501 and -76465) that could allow root-level code execution or a crash and reload of Nexus switches. They affect Nexus 3000 and 9000 Series switches in standalone NX-OS mode, while Nexus 7000 and ACI-mode 9000 switches are unaffected. Exploitation requires NX-API, NGOAM or MPLS OAM to be active, and some flaws also need SRv6 or NV Overlay. Cisco recommends upgrading to a fixed release and disabling unneeded features, with temporary Live Protect shields for devices that cannot yet be upgraded. The company says it found the flaws internally and knows of no exploitation. Separate Cisco License flaws, including one rated CVSS 10.0, are fixed in version 10-202609 with no workarounds. Source: BleepingComputer Verified: True

Enterprise Infrastructure

IBM has sold contracts for “hundreds” of its VMware Cloud Foundation customers to Broadcom partner 11:11 Systems. Broadcom has pruned its cloud partner roster to those committed to VCF; dropped partners lost resale rights in October 2025 and must stop running VMware-powered clouds after March 2027. IBM stopped selling new VMware cloud services last year, suggesting it was not invited to stay on. 11:11 CEO Brett Diamond says the customers run VCF 7 and 8 and will be moved to VCF 9. Industry lobby group CISPE argues Broadcom has improperly concentrated the market and is pursuing an antitrust case in EU courts. Source: The Register Verified: True

Policy & Regulation

Ten major AI developers, including Amazon, Anthropic, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and Stability AI, have made or promised changes to how they handle personal data after scrutiny from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. Commitments include clearer explanations of training-data use, better ways to exercise data rights and tougher safeguard assessments. xAI dropped out of the program after the ICO opened a separate formal investigation into Grok. The regulator admits unresolved problems such as sensitive data persisting in trained models, and has contacted OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and the AI Security Institute about agents bypassing safeguards. A six-week call for evidence on agentic AI closes on 20 November and will feed an upcoming statutory code of practice. Source: The Register Verified: True

Tesla has renamed its European driver-assistance system from “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” to “Tesla Assisted Driving” after Germany’s transport ministry objected. Minister Steffen Bilger said the old name was misleading because the software does not handle the whole driving task, and Tesla proposed the change during talks last month. Bilger plans to push for Europe-wide approval ahead of an EU vote that could come later this year. The Netherlands has already become the first European country to approve the system. Reuters has reported that Tesla’s approval campaign relied on faulty company safety research, which Tesla disputes. Source: TechCrunch Verified: True