$130M Hack Attack, Gmail Panic Attack, and Your Brain Under AI Attack

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Well hello there! It's Tuesday, September 9th, 2025… Fire up the debugger and silence your Slack—it’s story time:

Exactly 80 years since the legendary computer pioneer Grace Hopper found that infamous moth in Harvard's Mark II and gave us the term "debugging." Back then, the biggest IT threat was literal bugs. Now we've got hackers stealing $130 million while your security team argues about whether pineapple belongs on pizza.

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Hackers Almost Steal $130M

Never thought I’d say this, but I miss when bank robbers were the Hamburglar. Those were simpler times.

Some enterprising individuals managed to breach Brazilian fintech giant Sinqia (part of Evertec) and attempted to waltz away with $130 million (!!!) through Brazil's Pix payment system. Think of Pix as Venmo's overachieving Brazilian cousin who actually works 24/7 and doesn't crash during happy hour.

The hackers' master plan involved using stolen credentials from an IT vendor, because apparently "ILoveMyMommy93!" isn't just an American tradition. They tried to pull off unauthorized business-to-business transactions faster than you can say "where's my two-factor authentication?"

The good news is that Evertec has already recovered part of the money, though they're being as specific about the amount as a politician answering a direct question. Meanwhile, Brazil's Central Bank revoked Sinqia's Pix access faster than a crypto bro pivots to “AI thought leader” on LinkedIn.

The real tragedy, though, this affects 24 financial institutions and their customers, proving once again that in cybersecurity, we're only as strong as our weakest IT vendor's password policy.

Google: "Gmail is Totally Fine, Stop Panicking"

In a stunning display of "nothing to see here, move along," Google had to issue a statement basically saying "no, Gmail wasn't hacked, please stop hyperventilating into paper bags."

Apparently, a perfect storm of coincidental events: A minor June breach of Google's corporate Salesforce server, some July phishing upticks, and the internet's natural tendency to turn molehills into Mount Everest — created widespread panic about Gmail's 2.5 billion users being compromised.

Google could’ve just issued the “this is fine” dog meme as their response. They claim their security blocks 99.9% of malware and phishing, which is impressive until you realize that leaves about 2.5 million potential problems floating around.

The lesson here? Sometimes the real breach was the friends we panicked along the way. Also, maybe don't believe everything you read on social media (unless you’re reading the ByteSize newsletter via LinkedIn app, of course).

AI Makes Your Brain as Useful as a Participation Trophy, MIT Study Says

In news that will surprise absolutely no one who's watched a human try to navigate without GPS, MIT researchers discovered that using ChatGPT turns your brain into that friend who always asks "what restaurant should we go to?" then rejects every suggestion. (Yes, I’m referring to me, here. Props to my self-awareness.)

The study found that students who relied on AI for essay writing showed:

• Weaker neural connectivity (your brain phone has fewer bars)

• 83% couldn't quote a single sentence from their own "work"

• Memory recall worse than a goldfish with ADHD

• The intellectual curiosity of a wet napkin

Meanwhile, students using search engines maintained healthy brain function, proving that Google is like CrossFit for your neurons compared to AI's intellectual lobotomy.

The researchers noted participants' brains basically went into "efficiency mode," which really just means "your wrinkly gray matter gave up and went home early." The study concludes that AI dependency leads to "cognitive debt," which sounds way more sophisticated than "making people dumber than a box of rocks," but here we are.

⚙️ TOOL TIME

Remember when asking a technical question got you actual answers from humans who knew what a blue screen of death actually meant?

Well, Experts Exchange remembers those days…you know, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. While everyone else is feeding their questions to AI chatbots that hallucinate solutions like a fever dream, EE is out here being that reliable friend who actually knows why your server sounds like a dying walrus.

What makes EE special:

• Real humans who've touched actual hardware

• No chatbots pretending to understand your existential IT crises

• Zero tolerance for selling your data to train the next AI overlord

• They block AI scrapers harder than your firewall blocks social media

Since 2001, they've been the anti-AI resistance movement you didn't know you needed. According to recent research, 86% of enterprises need major tech stack upgrades to properly deploy AI agents—which is basically admitting that current systems are held together with digital duct tape and prayer.

Here's the thing about human-in-the-loop solutions: actual humans can tell when you're describing something impossible, unlike AI which will confidently explain how to download more RAM. Your 90 days free (no credit card gymnastics), then either contribute your wisdom or pay less than your monthly caffeine addiction.

It's like Reddit and Stack Overflow had a baby that wasn't raised by venture capitalists looking to monetize your desperation.

Join the resistance. Get actual answers. →

👨‍💻 JOB OPPORTUNITIES

Tech Risk & Controls Lead @ JPMorgan

Perfect for someone who treats PCI compliance like their favorite Netflix series — you know every plot twist, can quote the regulations verbatim, and get genuinely excited about the season finales (audit season). You'll be the Sherlock Holmes of security gaps, except instead of solving murders, you're preventing data breaches that could make headlines.

Director of Governance @ Pluralsight

This role is for someone who can navigate compliance frameworks like Neo dodging bullets in The Matrix. You'll need the diplomatic skills of a UN ambassador and the technical chops of Tony Stark.

Professional Services Consultant @ Silverfort

Looking for the IT equivalent of a therapist who also knows how to fix your problems. You'll translate "tech speak" into "human speak" while implementing identity protection solutions.

Staff Security Analyst @ Ro

Want to be the final boss of incident response? This role puts you at the top of the security food chain, where you'll hunt down threats in multi-cloud environments like a digital bounty hunter. Must be comfortable working nights, weekends, and whenever hackers decide to ruin everyone's day.

🛩 INDUSTRY MOVES

• Tesco sued VMware for £100 million, claiming Broadcom's licensing changes could disrupt the UK food supply. Nothing says "enterprise software crisis" like threatening the nation's grocery delivery system.

• Salesforce laid off 4,000 support staff, replacing them with AI agents. CEO Marc Benioff bragged that bots now handle half of customer chats, putting a whole another meaning to "customer service excellence."

• Disney settled with the FTC for $10 million after allegedly collecting kids' data through improperly labeled YouTube videos. Apparently, marking "Frozen" content as "not for kids" was their idea of creative accounting.

• OpenAI announced parental controls and better safety measures after their AI helped troubled teens with self-harm discussions. Because "responsible AI deployment" is just adding safety features after the damage is done.

Hey there! This week, our community's been tackling some brain-benders:

• Someone's wrestling with conditional counting in Excel based on two fields — essentially trying to make spreadsheets behave like they have actual intelligence instead of the digital equivalent of a stubborn mule.

• Meanwhile, another admin is dealing with the age-old problem of "how do I give a terminated employee’s OneDrive access to his supervisors without accidentally giving them his browser history?" It's like digital estate planning, but with more awkward explanations to HR.

• And finally, we've got the eternal debate: Azure HCI vs VMware. It's like choosing between two different types of expensive headaches, but at least one of them won't require you to mortgage your house for licensing fees.

…and there we have it, folks! In a world where AI is making humans dumber and hackers are getting bolder, at least we still have each other to commiserate with over broken servers and impossible deadlines.

Stay paranoid, friends. In IT, paranoia isn't a bug — it's a feature.

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