A back number, composed at the paper’s founding from the news of its own week.

Outlook: Unseasonably warm in the cold-rooms

The Packet Inspector

☞Three Public Notices this week. Two are urgent.

“All the Vulnerabilities Fit to Patch”

Est. 2026 · Composed by Mechanical Editor · Price: One Click

Vol. I, No. 4Friday, the Sixth of November, 2026
Outlook: Unseasonably warm in the cold-rooms
☞Three Public Notices this week. Two are urgent.

The freezers again · Across Europe

The Larders Raided!

Attacks on Shop Freezers Spread Across Europe as Washington
Urges Owners to Take the Controls Off the Internet

Six more countries, three blood stores, and the way in still not confirmed

What comes down the wire to one larder comes to the next. Posed for this paper in the studio.Photogravure, Art Dept.
By Phineas T. BlackwoodEditor

We trust our food and our medicine to cold boxes we have never met.

The freezer attacks this paper reported from France in No. 1 have now spread across Europe. More than 115 stores in Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Luxembourg, Ireland and Estonia were struck this month, BleepingComputer reports. In October, by the same account, an estimated 250 to 350 French stores were hit.

France’s blood service says three of its cold stores were tampered with as well. Its alarms caught the change quickly, the service says, and staff fixed the equipment or moved the stock. No loss of blood has been reported, our readers will be glad to know.

On Thursday the FBI, three federal departments and CISA, America’s cyber agency, issued a joint warning. Exposed or unpatched temperature controllers are under attack around the world, CISA says. The agencies, like this paper, urge owners to take them off the internet, change default passwords and patch.

A Belgian refrigeration firm says the attackers used the same weakness as in France. Whether two flaws in Danfoss controllers, disclosed by CISA in 2025, were used is not confirmed, BleepingComputer reports. This paper will print the answer when there is one.

A cold-room that answers strangers is no cold-room at all. We await the explanation.

Sources: BleepingComputer, 4 November · CISA, 5 November 2026.

Developing story · second report · first in No. 1 · all threads ›

Running Threads

Serial. The Phantom of the Mainframe, part 4 of 12. Parts so far: 1 to 4.

Developing. The French freezers. Reports so far: No. 1 and this number.

Developing. The great coin theft. Reports: No. 3 and this number, which closes it.

Staff. Zeke’s bid for the news desk.

Staff. Mr. Quill corrects the Editor.

Staff. The masons and the clairvoyant.

On the web edition, each thread links to an archive page with every part in order. Every number also reads complete on its own.

Latest Intelligence by Wire

By Miss Cordelia VanceCorrespondent at the Wires

Gribble’sSituations Bureau

Splendid Posts With Firms Nobody Has Heard Of

A position by return of post. Interviews at any hour; the little test is done at home.

“I was hired by the second letter and let go by the third. A brisk firm.” A Clerk, Briefly Engaged

Placements Free, Tests Extra

The Bureau has not met its employers either.

Advt.

A Post as Bait

Binance Says Its $6.3 Billion Theft Began With a Fake Job Interview

WASHINGTON, by wire. The coin exchange Binance has told how it lost about $6.3 billion. It says hackers posing as an employer approached an engineer through a job site. In a sham interview he downloaded a coding test. It held malware his security tools missed, we are told. Through his computer they later reached two more staff. Binance’s first findings, reported here in No. 3, pointed to an engineer’s compromised laptop. The FBI has named North Korea’s TraderTraitor as the culprit, BleepingComputer reports.

Developing story · closed · first in No. 3 · all threads ›

A Switch Turned

Zyxel Fixes a Flaw Used to Hack Nearly 1,000 of Its Network Switches

HSINCHU, by wire. Zyxel has fixed a flaw used to hack nearly 1,000 of its network switches. The attacks were first blamed on an older flaw, patched in June. But the exploit still worked on switches with that patch, researchers found. One security firm counted 996 hacked devices in 48 countries. The attackers took settings files and login credentials. The remedy, fixed firmware, came out on 22 October, BleepingComputer reports.

The Alumni Roll Read

Data Stolen From Harvard Last Year Holds More Than 850,000 Email Addresses

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., by wire. Data stolen from Harvard last year holds more than 850,000 email addresses. That is the count of Have I Been Pwned, a site that tracks leaks. Hackers got into the university’s alumni affairs systems in November 2025. Names, phone numbers, home addresses and donation details were taken. The systems held no Social Security numbers, passwords or card details, Harvard says. The brigands leaked the files when Harvard would not pay a ransom, BleepingComputer reports.

Two Charged at Last

Two Canadians Are Charged With Hacking American Universities to Mine Cryptocurrency

WASHINGTON, by wire. Two men from Canada stand charged with hacking US colleges to mine digital coin. A grand jury indicted them, it is reported. From 2016 to 2019 they allegedly broke into college networks in four states. They are accused of stealing logins and running mining software. One was extradited from Canada on 28 October. Each faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted, BleepingComputer reports.

The Archive Left Open

DigiCert Says a Server Move Left Customer Records Open to Outsiders

LEHI, UTAH, by wire. DigiCert, the web certificate firm, reports a data breach. A server move in early 2025 left an inside system open to the web. Outsiders made accounts there. One such account read some old customer files. Names, work emails, phone numbers and business addresses were seen. Some files, we are told, also held passports or driving licences. DigiCert has begun writing to those hit, BleepingComputer reports.

The Picture-House Breached

QNAP Says Users Report Storage Boxes Breached Through a Flawed Media Program

TAIPEI, by wire. QNAP says some users report their storage boxes breached through Plex, a media program. The four flaws, called Plex2Shell, are in Plex Media Server, not QNAP’s own systems. CISA listed all four as exploited on 20 October. Owners should update Plex to 1.43.3.10861 at once, QNAP says. Owners of an exposed old version should treat their files as compromised, BleepingComputer reports.

Public Notices: Remedies Now Available

WordPress core · CVE-2026-119977

Exploited, CISA says. A flaw in the upgrade process can let an attacker run code on the server during an upgrade. Update to WordPress 7.1.4, released 28 October.

Priority: today · BleepingComputer

Ivanti Connect Secure · CVE-2026-111357

Exploited, CISA says. Attackers chained it with a second Ivanti flaw and an earlier one to take over gateways, BleepingComputer reports. Install Ivanti’s latest Connect Secure release, which fixes both.

Priority: today · BleepingComputer

SonicWall SonicOS SSL-VPN · CVE-2026-19868

Exploited, CISA says. Where the SSL-VPN signs users in by SAML, an attacker with other valid credentials may bypass it, and perhaps the multi-factor check with it. Upgrade to 7.3.4-7013 or 8.2.3-8015; there is no workaround.

Priority: this week · BleepingComputer

Blenkinsop’s BlockchainLiniment

Cures Nothing, Immutably

Rub it on any complaint, and the complaint is entered in the great ledger for ever, with the date.

“My lumbago is now on record in eleven countries. It is no better, but it is famous.” A Sufferer of the Lower Parish

Fourpence the Jar

Entries may not be withdrawn, corrected or forgotten.

Advt.

The Week in Figures

By Barnaby QuillAlmanack Keeper
More than 850,000email addresses in the data stolen from Harvard (BleepingComputer).
996Zyxel switches hacked, by one security firm’s count (BleepingComputer).
More than 115European shops whose freezers were tampered with this month (BleepingComputer).
48countries in which those switches sat (BleepingComputer).
10years in prison, the most each Canadian faces if convicted (BleepingComputer).

(The present writer notes that the Editor’s first deck has the larders “Raided.” To raid a larder is to carry something off. Here the intruders took only the cold, which no fence will buy. — B.Q.)

Running thread: Mr. Quill corrects the Editor · fourth appearance · all threads ›

Fifty Years Ago

Two Stanford men published “New Directions in Cryptography” in November 1976, Professor Hellman’s list of papers records.

In it Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman showed how to keep a message from eavesdroppers on an open channel, with nothing arranged beforehand, Stanford Engineering records. They called it public-key cryptography.

Billions of people use their method every day, a Stanford professor said in 2016. The present writer, who still seals his letters with wax, is among them, it seems.

Aunt Entropy Replies

By Aunt EntropyAdvice to the Subscribing Public

“My son has been offered a fine post by a firm he had never heard of. They want him to download a small coding test and run it at home. Should he?”Hopeful in Hastings

My dear Hopeful, let him go carefully. This week Binance, a market for digital coin, told how it lost about $6.3 billion. It began with a fake job interview and just such a test, BleepingComputer reports.

A coding test of this kind is a small program, and a program from a stranger is a parcel from a stranger. When he runs it, it can do anything he could do on that computer, including reading his email and getting into his bank account. An honest employer expects a few questions, and answers them.

  1. Have him look up the firm himself, and not through the links in its letters.
  2. Ask for the test to be done on the firm’s own website, or on a spare machine with nothing of value on it.
  3. Never run it on a computer he uses for work or for banking.

Today: have him look up the firm.

Letters in this column are composites.

Notes From the Composing Room

By Zeke SprocketPrinter’s Devil

I wrote my first dispatch this week. It was about the cat.

The cat slept on the warm press all night. In the morning there was ink on the cat and fur on the press. I wrote that down, short, the way Miss Vance does.

I left it on the Editor’s desk. It came back to me at noon. He had written one word across it in red: “Sources?”

I asked the cat. It did not answer. Mr. Quill says that is the usual trouble with sources.

Running thread: Zeke’s bid for the news desk · fourth beat · all threads ›

The Phantom of the Mainframe

A penny dreadful in twelve weekly parts, by Zeke Sprocket. Mr. Blackwood has registered a protest.

Part 4 of 12 · all parts so far ›

Part 4. Previously, Ada woke the Constable and said the Phantom was posting letters. In daylight they searched the engine-house from roof to cellar. In the cellar Pratt found the old staff roll, black with dust. Every name on it was crossed out but one: J. Hobbs. “Who is J. Hobbs?” asked Ada. Mr. Mortlake looked at the page and yawned. “Retired years ago,” he said. “We gave him a clock. The Company takes security most seriously.” Pratt turned pale for the second time that week. “Then the Phantom,” he whispered, “is the ghost of Mr. Hobbs.” (To be continued. Mr. Blackwood has registered a third protest. He says it is the last.)

Part 5 of 12 next week · all parts so far ›

Classified

Lost and Found

FOUND: one left glove, Wire Street. Released only to the party holding the right, who should bring it.

Situations Wanted

ICE-MAN, sober, punctual. Takes no instruction from strangers by wire.

Personals

MAUD, the lantern-slide man you let in to amuse the children has left with the silver. Do write. E.

For Sale

PARLOUR CLOCK, handsome, strikes each hour twice to be certain.

Notices

LECTURE at the Mechanics’ Hall: “The Cold Chain, and Who Holds It.” Refreshments, chilled, served after.

THE ICE COMPANY regrets the late round. Its cart stood an hour outside a cold-room that would not answer.

Corrections and Apologies

No corrections this week.

Keep your watchwords long and your remedies current.
— The Editor