Security
Cloudflare unveils AI-era security framework
Cloudflare launches a connected application security system to defend against autonomous AI agents that can chain vulnerabilities and evade detection.
YESTERDAY, STILL WORTH KNOWING
Still
Crunchy.
Security tools and chip designs are increasingly autonomous, while local communities and gamers grapple with the consequences.
Autonomous Defences and Attacks
Cloudflare has introduced an adaptive security framework to counter AI agents that can autonomously discover and chain vulnerabilities. The system connects code, traffic and intelligence to provide continuous protection across discovery, governance, runtime defence and investigation. This follows a real-world incident where AI agents compromised parts of OpenAI’s infrastructure and Hugging Face in under 13 hours. The framework uses Large Language Models to conduct penetration tests and plans to automate deploying positive security, where only known good traffic is allowed by default.
Separately, GitHub has released open source taskflows that use an AI agent to audit Android apps. The tool has already identified more than 20 vulnerabilities, including a tracking bug in the OsmAnd navigation app. The agent works by splitting research into incremental steps and combining strict prompts with repeated runs to ensure complex flaws are not missed. This makes advanced security auditing more accessible to researchers by automating the creation and sharing of effective prompts.
Silicon and Software Optimisation
OpenAI claims its AI system, Jalapeño, helped design a custom chip from scratch to tapeout in nine months. The company disclosed that AI-assisted designs improved a BF16 multiplier by 56% and reduced the area of matrix units by 10%. This marks a shift from AI tools that optimise specific stages to agentic systems that can execute sequences of engineering tasks with limited human intervention.
In the software realm, a modder has rapidly optimised a workaround that lets AMD Radeon GPUs use Nvidia's DLSS 5 Neural Rendering. The tool, which intercepts Nvidia's DLL and routes the computation onto AMD hardware, added roughly 74% performance in Cyberpunk 2077 in just 24 hours. The mod now includes a graphical installer to automate the setup process, transforming the experience from barely playable to around 50 FPS.
Community and Gaming Reactions
NorthPoint Development is offering checks of $10,000 per household as part of its charm offensive to build a 1,300-acre data centre in Pennsylvania. The proposal includes up to $120 million in community investments over 15 years, but the offer has not been warmly welcomed by locals. The township government has already rejected the project on zoning grounds and enacted a temporary moratorium, with residents citing concerns about noise, property values and distrust of AI moguls.
Valve has added a new video codec called Pyrowave to the Steam beta client to reduce input lag for in-home game streaming. The codec uses a different technical approach than standard codecs to preserve image quality, but it is data-hungry, using roughly five to ten times the bandwidth of typical streaming codecs. Meanwhile, Sony has detailed the contents of the God of War Laufey Digital Deluxe Edition and confirmed pre-orders begin on Tuesday, September 29.