Hello. Kevin Mandia, founder of Mandiant—which was acquired by Alphabet's Google for $5.4 billion—has formed a new company called Armadin that aims to take on the imminent threat from AI hacking.

Armadin wants to use AI to boost red-teaming. “Offense is going to be all-AI in under two years,” Mandia said. “You can’t have a human in the loop or it’s going to be too slow.” Read the full WSJ story.

More news: 

• Trump pitches new candidate for head of NSA and U.S. Cyber Command
• Corporate cyber teams are aggressive adopters of AI, survey says
• Suspected Iran-linked hackers make cyber strikes against Israel
• Denmark blames Russia for critical infrastructure cyberattacks
• And more

• The group also put out a 141-page contact list that included several world leaders.
• Bennett said his Telegram account had been hacked and contents from his contact list, photos and chats “both authentic and forged” were released. He denied that his phone itself had been hacked. (WSJ)

French police arrested a Latvian man on suspicion of plans to hack an Italian ferry's computer system to take over the vessel, called the Fantastic. (Bleeping Computer)

Denmark officials on Thursday blamed two Russian hacker groups for attacking a Danish local election systems in November and a Danish water-treatment facility in 2024. Denmark's military intelligence unit said the incidents were evidence of Russia's ongoing “hybrid war against the West.” (Barron's) 

Corporate cybersecurity teams are early and aggressive adopters of AI, according to a study from the Cloud Security Alliance, a nonprofit cyber education group. Of 300 tech and security professionals surveyed globally, 48% said they have tested AI for cyber functions and another 44% said they plan to in the next year. Agentic AI, in particular, is of interest with 19% of respondents saying they already use the tech and 47% plan to adopt the tools in the coming year. 

• Organizations use an average of 2.6 AI platforms, with the three most popular from OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, in that order, the survey found.

New operational technology bugs: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released advisories about nine vulnerabilities in industrial control systems. They include problems in products from Mitsubishi Electric, National Instruments, Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric, Siemens and other companies. 

• Related: Edge devices are prime targets of hackers looking to break into OT systems, according to new research from Forescout Technologies. In an analysis of attacks on a honeypot set up for study, 67% of attempts were made on industrial routers and firewalls and 33% against OT devices, Forescout said. (IT Security Guru)

New funding: Rome, Italy-based Exein raised €100 million, or about $117 million, in a new funding round led by Blue Cloud Ventures. The startup makes embedded security software for connected devices.

The WSJ Pro Cybersecurity team is Deputy Bureau Chief Kim S. Nash and reporters Angus Loten and James Rundle. Follow us on X @WSJCyber. Reach the team by replying to any newsletter you receive or by emailing Kim at kim.nash@wsj.com.