News

Exposed UN Database Left Sensitive Data Vulnerable Online

The unsecured files contained the data of organizations combating violence against women, posing a severe risk for vulnerable groups.

Published

2 years ago

October 25, 2024

Nour Nasir

exposed un database left sensitive data vulnerable online

A United Nations Trust Fund database designed to combat violence against women was recently found openly accessible online, revealing over 115,000 files. The exposed documents included sensitive personal and organizational information from groups that partner with or receive support from UN Women and included staffing, contracts, letters, and even financial audits.

Security researcher Jeremiah Fowler discovered the unsecured database, which lacked password protection or other access controls, and promptly notified the UN, who swiftly secured the database. Fowler notes that these types of data exposures are common, but stresses the importance of maintaining awareness about such vulnerabilities:

“They’re doing incredible work, helping real people in challenging situations, but cybersecurity remains a critical issue,” Fowler explained. “I’ve found numerous examples of exposed data before, but in this case, it’s about organizations aiding people at risk simply for existing in certain regions”.

UN Women acknowledged the incident in a statement, expressing gratitude for the collaboration with cybersecurity experts and that it had launched an investigation.

The exposed data presents multiple security concerns. Financial audits in the database included bank account details, and the disclosures revealed how organizations receive and allocate their funding. Additionally, the information provided insights into staffing and internal operations, which could be exploited to trace connections between civil society organizations.

Also Read: The Top 10 Worst Cyberattacks In The Middle East Revealed

“You’ve got details on organizations, their staff, and projects with budgets in the millions,” Fowler explained. “If this information landed in the wrong hands, it could be used by scammers or even authoritarian regimes to identify which organizations are working where and who they’re collaborating with”.

Fowler expressed particular concern for the people mentioned in the database, many of whom had shared deeply personal experiences, including stories of abuse, kidnapping, and other traumatic events, likely under the assumption that their identities would remain protected.

If this incident spurs a broader review of the UN’s data security infrastructure, it could help prevent future breaches and mitigate risks for the vulnerable populations UN Women and other UN organizations serve.

News

ESET Bets On Specialized Security AI At 0.5% The Training Cost

ESET says NeoCortex can estimate an attacker’s next move, with a kill switch and human oversight built in to keep it from going rogue.

Published

5 days ago

November 4, 2026

Dana Saadeh

eset bets on specialized security ai at 0.5% the training cost

A sign-in anomaly, a suspicious process launch and an unusual connection may look harmless alone. Together, they can describe an intrusion that is hard for security to teams to piece together.

To solve that problem, ESET announced ESET NeoCortex on November 4, 2026: a specialized foundational AI model for cybersecurity. It powers ESET LiveCortex, available within the ESET PROTECT Platform, which connects fragmented security signals and turns them into actionable incidents.

Filtering is the main selling point, with LiveCortex processing billions of raw telemetry events daily, and just 0.00111% of them contributing to incidents presented to customers. The aim is less alert fatigue and more analyst time spent on threats that matter.

NeoCortex is built on world-model architecture, learning how digital environments behave and how events relate. ESET says that lets it reconstruct missing incident context, recognize similar past cases and estimate an attacker’s likely next step – what the company calls “minus-one-day defense,” a chance to intervene before the next stage unfolds. ESET points to Black October, the week leading up to October 25, 2026, when critical security issues affecting PHP, Linux, GitLab and other key systems demanded rapid, prioritized responses, as the kind of moment where that context matters.

ESET’s internal research also suggests a specialized model like NeoCortex can be trained at up to 200 times lower cost than a large general reasoning model, while delivering more accurate, defense-focused results. The company credits optimized training, a focus on cybersecurity vocabulary, lower computing requirements and privately owned hardware.

Also Read: Dubai Says Its Deepfake Detector Needs Just 7 Seconds Of Video

“AI is accelerating both cyberattacks and cyberdefenses. With ESET NeoCortex, we are applying our AI investment to develop specialized foundational cybersecurity intelligence that remains under our control and strengthens, rather than replaces, human expertise,” said Juraj Malcho, Chief Technology Officer at ESET.

As part of the design, NeoCortex forms part of a layered architecture combining specialized models, deterministic controls, correlation logic, validation, auditability and expert human oversight. Safeguards include restricted sandboxes, read-only tools, continuous monitoring, defined usage and token limits, a kill switch and human oversight of critical response decisions. The model is also developed and self-hosted on ESET’s own infrastructure, which the company says reduces exposure to shifts among third-party AI providers, including commercial and geopolitical ones.