Welcome to today’s edition of the Spiceworks Snap!
It’s your daily dose of security and tech news, in brief, along with a mix of other odd or interesting things that might come up. We’re glad you came.
Now, let’s jump right in…
Image by Suzanne from Spiceworks (AI-generated)
Flashback: July 16, 1906: Reynold Johnson was born, the inventor of the disk drive and videocassette tape (Read more HERE.)
Security News:
• Urgent: Google Releases Critical Chrome Update for CVE-2025-6558 Exploit Active in the Wild (Read more HERE.)
• Education Sector is Most Exposed to Remote Attacks (Read more HERE.)
• Cloudflare says 1.1.1.1 outage not caused by attack or BGP hijack (Read more HERE.)
• Co-op Aims to Divert More Young Hackers into Cyber Careers (Read more HERE.)
• SonicWall SMA Appliances Targeted With New Malware (Read more HERE.)
Something Spacy
Tianzhou-9 Launches to Tiangong With New Food, EVA Suits
According to ExtremeTech:
"China launched a new cargo haul to its Tiangong space station this week, delivering a range of additional supplies for the Taikonauts aboard the station. The haul includes new, longer-lasting EVA suits, as well as a core-targeting exercise tool and a variety of foods.
Although the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) hasn’t published a launch cadence plan for 2025, it’s on track to exceed last year’s record. With 37 launches so far this year and 68 total in 2024, the agency looks set to get more into space in 2025 than any year before. The latest of those launches is bringing some enticing new pieces of equipment to the Tiangong station, including additional experiments and quality of life improvements for the Taikonauts currently onboard. . . .
More than two tons of the cargo comprise equipment for 23 ongoing scientific experiments, with the remaining weight being taken up by replacement propellant for the Tiangong station. It’s currently made up of three modules, but China has plans to expand it to six modules in the coming years and will maintain its 250-mile orbit for at least another decade."
Learn more HERE.
Something Odd
Robot metabolism could help machines repair themselves without human intervention
According to Interesting Engineering:
"Researchers at Columbia University have unveiled an interesting concept: “Robot Metabolism.” It’s exactly what it sounds like – robots that can physically “grow,” “heal,” and improve themselves. . . .
Human bodies are constantly absorbing, integrating, and repairing. If we get sick, we heal. If we eat, we grow. This new robotic process mimics that fundamental biological principle. As per the study, these robots could “absorb and reuse parts,” not from a factory, but from their environment or even from other robots.
*“True autonomy means robots must not only think for themselves but also physically sustain themselves,” explained Philippe Martin Wyder, lead author and researcher at Columbia Engineering and the University of Washington. *
The team has demonstrated this incredible idea with something called the Truss Link. It is like a simple magnetic stick, acting like a futuristic building block. These Truss Links can expand, contract, and snap together at various angles, forming increasingly complex structures. . . .
This new research hopes that one day robots will be able to independently maintain themselves, grow, and adapt to new situations, much like living organisms. . . . “Ultimately, it opens up the potential for a world where AI can build physical structures or robots just as it today writes or rearranges the words in your email,” the author added."
Learn more HERE.
Something Interesting
Seagate’s massive, 30TB hard drives are now available for anyone to buy
According to Ars Technica:
"For more than two decades, hard drive manufacturer Seagate has been experimenting with heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology for increasing hard drive density—drives that use tiny lasers to heat up and expand parts of the drive platter, write data, and then shut off to allow the platter to cool and contract, all within less than a nanosecond.
After decades of overly rosy availability predictions, Seagate announced in late 2024 that it was finally delivering HAMR-based drives with capacities of up to 36TB to some datacenter customers. Today, the drives are finally available for end users and individual IT administrators to buy, albeit only in smaller capacities for now. Seagate and other retailers will sell you massive 30TB IronWolf Pro and Exos M hard drives for $600, and 28TB drives for $570. Both drives use conventional magnetic recording (CMR) technology, which performs better than the shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology sometimes used to increase disk density. . . .
Seagate’s press release is focused mostly on the large drives’ suitability for AI-related data storage—“AI” is mentioned in the body text 21 times, and it’s not a long release. But obviously, they’ll be useful for any kind of storage where you need as many TB as possible to fit into as small a space as possible.
Although most consumer PCs have moved away from hard drives with spinning platters, they still provide the best storage-per-gigabyte for huge data centers where ultra-fast performance isn’t necessary. Huge data center SSDs are also available but at much higher prices."
Learn more HERE.
Did You Know?
Some people are calling the 2020s (our current decade) the “Age of Artificial Intelligence.”
(Read more HERE.)
IT Zodiac Sign of the Day
Sign of the Introvert
(Read more HERE.)
What was the most interesting story today? Vote in our poll below.
- Flashback 1906: Reynold Johnson was born, the inventor of the disk drive
- Urgent: Google Releases Chrome Update for CVE-2025-6558 Exploit
- Education Sector is Most Exposed to Remote Attacks
- Cloudflare says 1.1.1.1 outage not caused by attack or BGP hijack
- Co-op Aims to Divert More Young Hackers into Cyber Careers
- SonicWall SMA Appliances Targeted With New Malware
- Tianzhou-9 Launches to Tiangong With New Food, EVA Suits
- Robot metabolism could help machines repair themselves
- Seagate’s massive, 30TB hard drives are now available for anyone
- Did You Know? It’s the “Age of Artificial Intelligence.”
- IT Zodiac: Sign of the Introvert
- None: leave suggestions below
Missed a day? If so, check out previous editions of Snap! HERE.
