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It was a triple trap designed by North Korean hackers

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A Spanish blockchain developer was almost a victim of one of the cyber espionage operations more sophisticated ones circulating right now. The bait they used was something as innocent as a job offer sent via LinkedIn. Which It seemed like a professional opportunity. It was actually a trap designed by one of the hacker groups most dangerous north koreans and best financed in the world. The case was analyzed by Claudio Chifafounder of cybersecurity company DLTCodeand coincides with another attack documented a few weeks before vs. Chris PapathanasiouCEO of security firm AllSecure. Two almost identical attacks, two different countries, the same perpetrator: the Lazarus groupthe unit of government digital operations from North Korea. The job offer had a cat in the bag In the Spanish case, the contact came in the form of something as common in the LinkedIn environment as a job offer as a strategic advisor in a decentralized video game project with 100% remote work and flexible hours. After a brief conversation, the supposed recruiter sent a link to advance the hiring process by calling the candidate for a 45-minute video call. After that initial conversation, the bait that would have completed the trap came into play: downloading a repository and opening it in Visual Studio Code to review it. In the case of Papathanasiou, the modus operandi was virtually identical: A LinkedIn profile offered him a job at a company it described as “a rapidly growing team developing the first decentralized AI operating system,” also with a Calendly link (a meeting scheduling tool) to schedule the call. During the video call, the supposed selection manager briefly used the camerashowing a face that matched the LinkedIn profile which he was using as a cover, although the voice did not fit with public videos of that person that Papathanasiou later found. “I started recording mid-conversation once I became suspicious,” said Papathanasiou, who suspects the attackers used surveillance technology. deepfake for impersonate the identity of your interlocutor. Claudio Chifa, on the other hand, became suspicious due to the sum of small details that did not quite fit with the project they were offering him: “The interlocutor’s accent had nothing to do with Portugal, the instructions in the GitHub repository were clearly generated with some AI, which also made me doubt the quality of the project. But, above all, it was the insistence on releasing the code on my machine for an advisory position,” the cybersecurity expert stressed. Three traps in one shot Both the repository analyzed by Chifa and DLTCode and the one investigated by AllSecure hid three independent infection mechanismsdesigned to be activated simultaneously when the folder was opened, so that, if one failed, the other two acted as a backup, completing the job. The first took advantage of a feature in Visual Studio Code that allows you to configure automatic tasks when opening a project. The malicious command was executed in a hidden window, leaving no trace visible to the user, and could adapt to the victim’s operating system (Mac, Linux or Windows). The second mechanism operated during the usual project installation process using npm (the package manager or component installation tool used by JavaScript programmers). At that time, the attacker’s server automatically received all the credentials stored in the system, including keys from services such as AWS, Stripe or OpenAI, and took full control of the computer. The third front of attack was linked to the previous two, so that it was enough to open the folder for all three will be fired at the same time and take their respective positions. “The smartest thing about this attack is that it does not depend on the victim do anything extraordinary. They don’t ask you to run an .exe, they don’t ask you to deactivate the antivirus, they don’t ask you to do anything that activates your alarms. They ask you to open a folder in your code editor. Something that a developer does fifty times a day,” highlights Chifa. Designed to leave no trace The history of the repository analyzed by DLTCode reveals that the operation has been active since September 2025, with eleven control servers from which the attackers manage malware remotely rotated throughout that period. When AllSecure attempted to analyze its attack from AWS servers, Lazarus operators detected that the source IP belonged to a data center and immediately severed the connection. That doesn’t give you an idea of ​​the level of active surveillance this group has over its own infrastructure. The final objective of both attacks was the same: steal cryptocurrency walletsbrowser passwords, SSH keys (remote server access codes) and any stored credentials in the system that may be useful to them in the future. The FBI esteem that the Lazarus group has accumulated more than $1.5 billion stolen in cryptocurrencies through campaigns of this type. How to defend yourself against these types of attacks What saved Chifa from falling into Lazarus’s trap was stop to analyze the code before executing it. Something about the meeting didn’t add up to him and he decided to investigate first. Papathanasiou did the same and, under suspicion, created an isolated virtual environment and analyzed the repository from there instead of opening it directly on his computer. For programmers and software engineers, who have become the main target of these cybercriminals, experts recommend disabling automatic task execution in Visual Studio Code, always inspect the configuration and installation files of any project received externally, and never run code of unknown origin outside of an isolated environment. “The most important precaution is to distrust any selection process that asks you to run code during the first contacts. No legitimate company needs you to open a local repository on the first call. If someone contacts you on LinkedIn with an extraordinary project and a few days later they are asking you to download code, that is the time to stop,” warns the founder of DLTCode. If you suspect an attempt to attack in Spainboth the National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE) … Read more

In 1953, North Korea and South Korea spoke the same language. In 2026, they begin to be two different

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The abrupt political changes, the traumatic measures imposed by force of military mandate on a people, can have unexpected effects visible in the short term and leave wounds that do not heal until long after the end of the discord. We saw it very clearly in the two “Germanies” that the Cold War left us and we see it clearly today in another country: Korea. Traveling to the present, and although we know the mark that the battle between the capitalist and communist blocs is leaving on the Korean population, there is a dimension of cultural inequality that may have gone more unnoticed: idiomatic. As a recent study showed, and after just over seven decades of separation, Korean is no longer the same between the north and the south. 45% of the population surveyed He had problems understanding the dialogues of Koreans from the opposite area, and in 1% of the cases the North Koreans did not understand at all what the South Koreans were telling them. In conclusion, and as linguists dedicated to this company have stated, at least a third of everyday vocabulary is no longer the same, especially that referring to professional and business topics. This is how their vocabularies have varied The main difference between both territories is that in North Korea the language has remained purer, with slight grammatical incursions from Chinese and Russian, while South Korean has embraced many neologisms from English without hesitation. While over time in South Korea companies have created various terms to say “paper”adapting to new and different formats and materials, in the north the original term is maintained exclusively, which they must use for all variants. In the south, and to speak of football terminology, penalty goals are scored with a “penalty kick”expressed literally in English, while in the north the Koreans triumph by making an “11 meter punishment.” Southerners, when they want to have a juice, ask for a “juice”, while northerners talk about “sweet fruit water”. to wish you “good luck” to someone, those from the south have adopted an English-speaking expression in colloquial speech, “hi-team”something that those from the north do not understand at all. North Koreans “have a headache,” while those in the south, who in recent decades have discovered the concept of stress, talk much more about the pain of “suturese”stress in the corrupt slang konglish. The new lexicons also show the ideological transformation between the two nations, between their political systems and their social structures. Since the separation, the word “dongmu”which meant friend, fell out of use in the north in favor of the Soviet term товарищ, “comrade.” “Sun-mul”, a term that means “the action of introducing your friend”, is now prohibited from being used among the general population, and its privileged use was reserved for Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong il. The problematic oral life of deserters These changes have already had recognizable consequences and it is logical that it becomes a more pressing problem every day. During the 2018 Olympic Games, for example, the two countries decided to launch a reconciliation message to the world by allowing its women’s hockey teams to compete in the same group head to head. As the athletes from the south commented later, there was quite a few communication problems that harmed their final strategy: apparently, the coach, from South Korea, used technical words in English, something that is most common in sports disciplines anywhere in the world, but the players from the north were not able to follow her lessons because of this vocabulary that, for them, was indecipherable. Something more serious than the lack of coordination for a sporting event is what many of them have had to experience. the 28,000 deserters who traveled from north to south in recent years. Their language unintentionally betrays them in their new country of residence. In the best of cases the locals They laugh at their outdated dialect. That they do not know how to adapt to the jargon of a post-war and globalized reality. At worst, they can have many problems getting into schools or getting jobs and live a second life as sacrificed as the one they tried to leave behind. Language preservation: a national trauma Because, in addition, Korean has great emotional and identity relevance for the 75 million citizens that both fronts have together. After the dramatic occupation of the peninsula by Japanese forces between 1910 and 1945, the locals were subjected to Japanese linguistic norms as a strategy to control the population and eradicate their culture. They imposed themselves “scientific” speeches that they defended their language was little more than a dialect descended from Japanese (a controversial claim for any linguist with a neutral vision), and that therefore it was not worth preserving a perverted use of a language superior in its purity. T After the Pacific War, teaching in Korean was strictly prohibited, its vocabulary was extinguished, people who spoke it daily were reprimanded, and intellectuals who tried to preserve its legacy were executed. With the end of the Second World War, the two resulting nations partly had to re-empower their language. There are attempts to reunify the language Both governments have been working bidirectionally for several years on a unified glossary project. It is known as the Gyeoremal-kunsajeon, or the Dictionary for People’s Understanding of Korean, and is the plan under which future generations will be educated. These 70 years of linguistic change They have gone much further than the transformation of some terms. There is even conversational structures that have been modified. It would be a change as abrupt as uniting people of a language with those who use one of its dialects. It is not just the fact that neither of the two States want to give in, it is that any modification of the linguistic structures that are not careful could cement syntactic inconsistencies or phonetics in the future. The company’s objectives, furthermore, are achieved at irregular rates, since relations between both nations have cooled … Read more

While everyone was looking at the Middle East, North Korea has had time to do what Iran has not been able to: go nuclear.

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It happened a few years ago, when in the midst of increasing tensions with North Korea, the Japanese government came to send alerts to millions of mobile phones through the J-Alert system when it detected the overflight of a missile, causing unusual scenes in which trains stopped and citizens took refuge in stations without knowing exactly what was happening. That reaction, almost automatic and difficult to imagine in peacetime, left a clear image of the extent to which certain global balances can be strained without warning. The regime that did not fall. I told a few days ago in an extensive special report the wall street journal the story of the surprising source of North Korea’s enduring power, a nation that has survived the demise of the Soviet Union and the transformation of China because it ceased to be just a communist state and became something more resilient: a closed ideological structurehereditary and almost religious. There it is impossible not to start with the Kim dynasty that managed to consolidate a system in which power is not only exercised, but also believed, internalized and transmitted as a faith. That model, built from Kim Il Sung and perfected by his successors, has made it possible to maintain extraordinary internal cohesion even in conditions of extreme isolation. While other regimes eroded as they opened up to the world or collapsed under external pressure, Pyongyang consolidated a base of control much deeperdifficult to dismantle from the outside. From ideology to state religion. I remembered the Journal that the core of that system is not only political, but also symbolic and emotional, with elements that clearly recall an organized religion. The Juche ideology It progressively replaced classical Marxism, incorporating rituals, symbols and an almost messianic narrative around the leader. The omnipresence of Kim Il Sung, his conversion in “eternal president” and dynastic continuity have generated a structure of loyalty that goes beyond political obedience. This model, influenced indirectly through Christianity that once dominated Pyongyang, allowed the construction of a system where loyalty to the leader is perceived as an absolute truth, something that largely explains its stability and capacity for resistance. The silent military leap. On that internal basis, North Korea has developed a pretty clear strategy: to arm oneself militarily until one becomes practically untouchablealthough no one knows exactly how much of it is true. Today it is recognized that it has intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reach US territory and has reinforced its arsenal with increasingly sophisticated systems. Not only that. The recent tests, just a few days ago from their new destroyer, with high-precision cruise and anti-ship missiles, they clearly show that it is no longer just a matter of accumulating weapons, but of integrating them into a modern military architecture, with rapid response capacity and systems resistant to interference. In fact, accelerated construction of new warships It aims at a transition from isolated platforms towards a structured naval force, which expands its projection capacity and complicates any containment scenario. Nuclear expansion in full noise. I told it this week Guardian through internal analyzes held by the UN nuclear watchdog. While much of the international attention was focused on the conflicts in the Middle EastNorth Korea has been taking advantage of this context to advance its nuclear program without restraint. As? Activity at key facilities such as Yongbyon has intensifiedwith new reactors, reprocessing plants and possible undeclared facilities to enrich uranium. The agency’s estimates point to dozens of warheads already operational and a growing capacity to produce enough material to between ten and twenty weapons additional each year. In other words, this rhythm, sustained over time, indicates that the objective is not only basic deterrence, but rather reaching a volume that guarantees the survival of the regime in the face of any attempt at forced change. The power that Iran has not consolidated. The key difference here is that North Korea has achieved what other countries in similar situations have achieved (call it Iran) have not been able to: convert their nuclear program into a fully integrated tool in their survival strategy. While other powers under international pressure have seen limited or braked its development, Pyongyang has moved closer to a point of no returnone where its capacity is broad enough to deter any intervention. In this context, it is possible that the real change is no longer just quantitative, but strategic: because when it reaches a surplus of nuclear capacity, the risk will cease to be solely regional and will have global implications, opening the door, at the very least, to new proliferation dynamics. Image | DPRK In Xataka | The US has activated plan B before Iran knocks down its last radar: disarm South Korea against the North’s new nuclear “toy” In Xataka | If the question is what has North Korea achieved in the last four years, the answer is simple: an unimaginable arsenal

Mercadona is growing more than ever and still has the capacity to grow more. The game is played in the north

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He who leads always leads, even if he does not always lead the same way. It sounds like a tacky tongue twister, I know; but that phrase sums up well the place that Mercadona occupies in the national distribution sector. We have been repeating for years that the Valencian chain is the one that takes largest portion of the “pie” of the sector, with a business quota 27% at the state level, but that reality is not equally forceful throughout Spain. For example, in Levante its footprint skyrockets to almost 34% while in the northwest it remains at 18.2%, only three points above its most direct competitor in that region, Eroski. What does that mean? That there is a part of Spain in which the company has ample room for growth. And in a way the Duero marks it. The general photo. Whether or not you are satisfied with your commercial offer or corporate strategythere is something that cannot be denied: Mercadona has known how to play its cards well. The company led by Juan Roig has managed to gain a share in its sector that is close to 30%. And that the distribution is not un simple business in Spain, where the super regional and ultra low-cost. NielsenIQ estimates that by the end of 2025 that footprint was 29.5%0.3% more than in 2024. Worldpanel by Numerator lowers it slightly until it is in 27%. In any case, the reading is the same: the Valencian company clearly dominates, comfortably ahead of its most direct competitors, Carrefour and Lidl. It has even made a more than respectable place for itself in the portuguese marketwhere it has carved out a 7% distribution share in just a decade. Paying attention to the map. The above will surprise few. What is striking is that just revealed Expansion based on data from Worldpanel by Numerator: Mercadona may be the sector leader in value share, but that dominance is not equally solid throughout Spain. Its great fiefdom is in what the consultancy calls ‘Levante’, an area made up of the Valencian Community, Murcia and Albacete. There its share reaches 33.6%. Not only is it the highest percentage in the entire Spanish geography and it is seven percentage points above the chain’s national share. It also doubles the mark of its main competitor, Consum, which remains at 16.8%. The ‘photo’ It is completed by Carrefour, with 7.9% of the pie, Lidl (5.2%) and Family Cash (2.9%). Are there more cases? Of course. The other region in which Mercadona has gained the largest share in value is the Canary Islands, with 31.9%, ten points above the next chain on the list, Dinosol (21.1%). In the ‘South’ territory (Andalusia and Badajoz) the firm’s footprint also exceeds 30% (31.5%). The results of Mercadona are equally strong in the ‘Central’ region (Madrid, Cáceres and part of Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León and Aragón), where it reaches 27.5%, and ‘Northwest’ (Catalonia and the rest of Aragón), with 26.2%. In all cases the same photograph is repeated, replicated in the areas of Madrid and Barcelona: Mercadona far surpasses its main territorial rival. The northern redoubt. The really interesting thing is, however, in the northern Atlantic and Cantabrian seas. The Worldpanel data by Numerator They show that Mercadona is still a leader there, but in a much less emphatic way. First because its quota is much lower than that held in Levante or the Canary Islands. Second, because it does not maintain much of an advantage over its competitors. The most revealing case is the ‘North-Central’ (Cantabria, Navarra, Palencia, Burgos, La Rioja and the Basque Country), a territory in which Mercadona’s footprint is 19.1%. It is enough to be dominant, but it is only one percentage point behind Eroski (18.1%). In third place is Carrefour (9.8%). It is a scenario similar to what we find in Galicia, Asturias and León, what the consultancy calls ‘Northwest’. Mercadona registers its lowest share in that region, 18.22%. Second place is once again occupied by Eroski (15.1%), followed by Gadisa (10.1%), Carrefour (6.8%) and Alimerka (5.8%). Click on the image to go to the tweet. Why is it important? Beyond the fact that these percentages help us better understand how the company is distributed and how it has managed to dominate the market at a national level, the regional results from Worldpanel by Numerator leave an interesting reading about Mercadona: its future largely passes through the north of the peninsula, where it has greater room for growth. When we decide where to make the purchase, we not only evaluate the prices and variety of the assortment, we also take into account factors such as proximity or more subjective values ​​such as taste or loyalty to a brand. Together they form a ‘barrier’ that determines how far a company’s share can go. At the moment Mercadona has managed to extend its footprint nationwide to 27%. It is not unreasonable to think that even has not hit the ceilingbut the fact that in the northwest area it is only 18.2% and in the Cantabrian Sea it is around 19% suggests that in those territories the margin for growth is much broader and clearer. Not everything is advantages. No, of course. The data published by Expansion They also reveal that the leadership of the Valencian chain is much weaker in the northwest and the area made up of the Basque Country, Navarra, La Rioja and the north of Castilla y León, where it is only one point ahead of its regional rival, Eroski. This makes it easier for them to be overtaken and to see their position threatened. After all, Mercadona has not been established throughout the country for the same amount of time. In Vigo, without going any further, I only had two stores in mid-2013. And that is a city of almost 300,000 inhabitants, the largest in the entire northwest of the peninsula. If it wants to establish itself, Roig’s company will have to erode the share of … Read more

drones attacking North Dakota nuclear bases

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The United States’ nuclear strategy has long been based on the so-called “triad”a system that combines submarines, land-based missiles and bombers to ensure responsiveness even in the worst possible scenario. The model, designed in the middle of the Cold War, assumed that the continental territory was practically inaccessible to direct threats, which allowed the defense to be concentrated abroad and not so much on protecting each installation within the country. Until the drones have arrived. An unprecedented attack on the nuclear heart. What happened, according to what they said several analystsis that while the United States bombs Iran in its large-scale operation, something completely unexpected is happening within its own territory. Drone waves They have flown over key bases linked to the US nuclear arsenal. Apparently, these were not isolated incidents or improvised devices. They were coordinated incursions, repeated attacks for days that have forced stop critical operations and activate emergency protocols. For the first time, in the middle of a war, strategic installations on American soil were directly affected by a persistent aerial threat. Barksdale, the critical point. The most striking case occurred in the Barksdale Air Force Baseone of the pillars of the United States nuclear system. Strategic bombers operate there and long-range missiles are stored, making the facility a key node within the country’s deterrence capacity. For several days, the swarms of drones They have flown over the base in organized waves, forcing interrupt bomber sorties who participated in the attacks on Iran. The scene, more typical of a movie, has been difficult to ignore: while the B-52s prepared to project force thousands of kilometers, the airspace above their own runways was committed. Advanced drones. The most worrying thing was not only the presence of these drones, but its technological level. They counted on ABCNews that the devices showed a remarkable resistance to electronic interference, used variable entry and exit routes and operated in dispersed patterns that made them difficult to track. In fact, countermeasures designed to neutralize these types of threats they didn’t work as expected. This suggests that these are not tailored trading systems, but rather platforms much more sophisticatedcapable of operating with partial or total autonomy and collecting information in highly protected environments. More than a physical threat. There is no doubt, these drones not only represent a risk for Washington due to their potential attack capacity, but also due to the type of information that they can get. When flying over critical facilities, they can map electronic emissionsidentify operating patterns and photograph sensitive infrastructure. In other words, they can build a detailed portrait of how a strategic base works from within. And this opens the door to much more precise and effective future attacks, as it turns each raid into a highly valuable reconnaissance mission. Structural vulnerability in national territory. They remembered on TWZ that the raids are not limited to a single point or a specific moment. They have registered similar episodes at other key bases, including strategic bomber-related facilities and advanced technology development centers. In many cases, these infrastructures they lack systems adequate air defense systems against drones, which forces us to rely on improvised or developing solutions. What’s more, even with new tools deployed, the ability to neutralize these threats remains limited and uneven. The strategic paradox. The contrast is more than evident. The United States maintains an unprecedented global military capability and can project force virtually anywhere on the planet. However, at the same time, shows difficulties to fully protect sour own facilities against relatively small, but technologically advanced threats. This paradox reveals a mismatch that already we saw in Ukraine and now in Iranone between traditional defense architecture and new forms of warfare, where cheap and difficult to detect systems can generate disproportionate effects. Paradigm shift underway. In short, what happened, for unpublishedpoints to a deeper transformation in the way military security is understood. Not even the bases, silos and strategic infrastructures of a superpower like the United States can considered safe spaces by the mere fact of being in national territory. Because the combination of advanced drones, sensors and electronic warfare is taking the conflict directly to the heart of powers. And that implies, or opens the disturbing possibility, that the next great battle will not only be fought abroad, but also in the ability to protect what until now was taken for granted. Image | USAF, Airman 1st Class Benjamin Gonsier In Xataka | Iran has turned Hormuz into the entrance to a VIP nightclub. And Spain enters the guest list and the US stays at the door In Xataka | Iran and Russia had been silently exchanging drones and material in the Caspian Sea for months: Israel has just revealed it

Something that happened 30 km from the North Pole six weeks ago is about to ruin Palm Sunday. The culprit has a name and surname

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There is a line that connects something that happened 30 kilometers from the North Pole six weeks ago with the foremen looking at the weather report on the afternoon of Palm Sunday. And that line has a name: a cold episode as real as it is unusual. -35 degrees at 5,500 meters. This meteorological indicator is a perfect summary: they are thermal values ​​typical of the harshest part of winter at the end of March. However, we should not overstate the issue as has been done in recent days. So what’s going on? The configuration is simple: a powerful blocking anticyclone is establishing itself between the south of the British Isles and the north of the Peninsula. That will channel a polar mass over the continent. Spain in particular will be under the influence of a slightly warmer branch, but (still) very cold for the time. Palm Sunday (i.e. March 29) will be the ‘climax’ of the onset of cold: The two main weather models in the world indicate -35 degrees. A good part of the eastern third of the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands will be in full “climate January” during the first half of Easter. The good side. According to AEMETthe anticyclone will block the rains during most of the festivals. It cannot be ruled out that “someday something will sneak in”, but scant rainfall is expected in most of the west and south of the peninsula. What can we expect? That’s the most complicated part of all this. The context is complex: an exceptional winter (the wettest in at least 47 years), a historic number of high-impact storms (at least 19) and reservoirs at 83.2% of their capacity. But the underlying mechanism complicates everything even more. In early February, sudden stratospheric warming occurred at the north pole, fragmenting the polar vortex. What we are seeing now is a coherent scenario with that. Holy Week, in this context, acts as a media amplifier. What’s going to happen. Because make no mistake, the snow level below 600 in the north is going to collapse many roads (just when more people are moving), the uncertainty in the northwest is going to complicate life for processions and agriculture can affect many plants in full bloom. Now, all of this falls within the typical Easter ‘playbook’. So no, it won’t be a perfect week: but we certainly shouldn’t expect a “universal flood” either. Image | Tropical Tidbits In Xataka | The rain has transformed the driest desert on the planet into a sea of ​​flowers. It’s a sight to behold and a problem for experts

behind is North Korea

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A European company publishes an offer for a remote technological position and, after several filters, hires a candidate who perfectly fits the profile. The resume is solid, the interviews are carried out without problems and, on paper, this incorporation becomes integrated into the team as one more. But there is a possibility that until recently many companies did not even consider: that this worker is not who they say they are. Cybersecurity experts maintain that this phenomenon comes almost exclusively from North Korea, a practice documented in the United States and whose first signs are also beginning to be seen in Europe. The problem of fake employees in Europe. To understand why it is now starting to cause concern in this part of the world, it is worth first looking at what has already happened in the North American country. There, authorities and cybersecurity specialists have been investigating a very specific pattern for years: supposed technology professionals who were actually part of networks linked to Pyongyang. According to data from the Department of Justice, these operations managed to infiltrate more than 300 companies between 2020 and 2024, generating at least $6.8 million in income for the North Korean country. How deception works. The process usually begins with building a compelling professional identity. According to the Financial Timesoperatives can take over inactive LinkedIn accounts or even pay their owners to use them, and from there create apparently legitimate profiles with falsified resumes and recommendations generated by other members of the network. Language models also help them create culturally appropriate names, plausible email addresses, and messages that reduce linguistic or cultural cues that could previously give them away. In the interview phase, technology plays an increasingly important role: these networks can resort to digital masks, avatars or video filters, and when some companies tighten controls, they also go so far as to pay real intermediaries to appear on video calls in their place. The success of this scheme is not explained only by the technological tools used by false candidates. It also has to do with a structural weakness within many organizations. According to cybersecurity experts cited by the aforementioned newspaper, the hiring process has rarely been considered a corporate security front. For years it has been managed mainly from human resources, with controls designed to evaluate talent, not to detect infiltration operations. That approach has left a vulnerability that these networks are exploiting. Once inside the company. Getting through the hiring process is only the first phase of the operation. Some of these schemes include intercepting the laptops that companies send to their new employees to work remotely. After accessing the equipment, operatives can connect from other locations and carry out their work activity using tools based on language models and chatbots. This system allows them to fulfill the tasks assigned by the company and, in some cases, manage several technological jobs at the same time. Furthermore, the risk is not limited to collecting salaries; some also steal information or infect systems with malware. For threat analysts, the first signs of expansion towards Europe are already visible. According to information collected by the Financial Times, researchers have identified signs that networks linked to North Korea are trying to reproduce in the region the same model that was previously observed in the North American country. One of the elements that has attracted attention is the appearance in the United Kingdom of the so-called laptop farmsspaces where remotely connected laptops are concentrated so that operatives can work as if they were physically in the country. This type of infrastructure suggests that the scheme could also be beginning to be replicated in Europe. Images | Xataka with Nano Banana In Xataka | We knew that North Korea has been infiltrating workers into Western companies for years. Now we know how they do it

Data centers have run out of “plugs” in central Europe, so they are migrating north and south

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The insatiable appetite of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is redrawing the map of Europe. Historically, the European data center market has been dominated by a handful of metropolitan areas known in the industry as the “FLAP-D” markets: Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin. The main attraction of these cities was their proximity to large demand centers, which allowed extraordinarily fast data transmission. However, current forecasts indicate that this historical dominance is beginning to crumble. Technology developers are packing their bags and the reason is purely physical: there is not enough energy. The collapse of the giants. The driving force behind this technological exodus is the sheer congestion of the electrical grid in the traditional epicenters. Unlike a conventional factory, data centers present a brutal challenge for any infrastructure: they are huge, hyper-localized loads that operate tirelessly and have the ability to skyrocket their consumption faster than almost any other industry. The local impact of these installations is astonishing. According to Greenpeacein 2023 data centers consumed between 33% and 42% of all electricity in cities such as Amsterdam, London and Frankfurt. The most extreme case is that of Dublin, where they accounted for almost 80% of electricity consumption. The situation became so critical that Ireland was forced to impose a moratorium de facto to new data centers in its capital until 2028. The exodus to the North and South. As a direct consequence of this bottleneck, the proportion of installed capacity in FLAP-D markets will fall from the current 62% to just 51% by 2035. according to a report by Ember. This drop marks the beginning of a new era in which developers flee from bottlenecks. The new map would look like this: The big winners: The Nordic countries top the expansion list. They offer some of the least congested networks in Europe, low electricity prices, minimal carbon intensity and cold climates that reduce the need for cooling. Demand is expected to increase 4 or 5 times in this region. The awakening of the South: On the other side of the continent, countries such as Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain also project explosive growth, driven by their potential in renewable energy. The laggards: There are nations that, despite having strong economies and plenty of IT talent, are falling behind. Poland and Czechia are the best example. As detailed by Paweł CzyżakDirector of the Europe Program at the analysis center Embertheir electrical systems are still tied to coal and gas (Poland emits about 600 gCO2/kWh and the Czech Republic about 400 gCO2/kWh). With no clean energy to offer, investors prefer to look to their greener neighbors. Don’t underestimate the south. While the north squeezes the Scandinavian cold, Spain faces this exodus from a privileged position, breaking daily renewable generation records. However, its electrical network suffers a serious administrative “thrombosis”: There is plenty of clean energy, but there is a lack of cables to transport it, leaving 130 GW trapped in a bottleneck. Faced with the avalanche of data centers that threatened to collapse the system, the Government and the CNMC They have applied emergency surgery. The solution involves pioneering “flexible access permits” – which allow these plants to use residual capacity by accepting outages in emergencies – and the non-negotiable requirement that they withstand “voltage gaps” to shield the electrical stability of the entire peninsula. Planning and more planning. None of this happens by chance. In places where the network flows smoothly, there are years of work behind it. The Norwegian operator, Statnett, has been preparing the ground for some time to assume three times the electricity demand from data centers by 2030. In Denmark, Energinet began building high-voltage substations in 2017 in anticipation of precisely this scenario. Beyond the cables, the internal technology dictates the sentence. The key indicator is the PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness), which measures the technical efficiency of each installation. Paweł Czyżak points out in your newsletter that the difference is abysmal: the leading centers consume 24% less electricity and emit four times less CO2 than an average plant. Google has the best student in the class in Fredericia (Denmark): it averages a spectacular PUE of 1.07 and runs on 91% clean energy. The technological paradox. There is, however, a fascinating irony in the background: the same Artificial Intelligence that today saturates the cables could be the salvation of the electrical system. According to calculations by the consulting firm Deloittethe efficiency improvements that this technology will bring will save more than 3,700 TWh globally by 2030. Put into perspective, the deployment of these algorithms will save almost 4 times the energy consumed by all the data centers on the planet combined. Examples from other latitudes support this theory: in Southeast Asia (ASEAN), It is estimated that integrating AI in the management of its electrical systems it will save more than 67 billion dollars and avoid the emission of almost 400 million tons of CO2 between now and 2035. Infrastructure decides the future. At the bottom of this complex puzzle of cables and algorithms, what is at stake is pure and simple economic competitiveness. They are not minor figures. In the Netherlands, the data and cloud sector already attracts 20% of all foreign direct investment. In Germany, estimates calculate that the contribution of these centers to GDP will jump from the current 10.4 billion euros to more than 23 billion in 2029. The warning for legislators and regulators is clear: the technology giants have no patience to wait for new cables to be buried. They will move their billions to where the network already has space. As Czyżak saysthe country that wants to seduce the industry must guarantee clean energy in abundance and plugs ready to use. In the frenetic race to dominate the technological future, having a ready electrical grid is no longer an advantage; It is the only entry ticket. Image | İsmail Enes Ayhan on Unsplash and IRENA Xataka | Iran is directing its attacks where it knows it hurts the West: energy and data centers

All the lighthouses that illuminate the coasts of the North Atlantic, gathered in an impressive interactive map

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The figure of the solitary lighthouse keeper in charge of the thankless task of keeping his tower operational and in good condition at the service of the boats has long been a rare sight: they are in danger of extinction in front of the automated towers, both in terms of lighting and other auxiliary tasks within of the DGPS differential system. There are (almost) no lighthouse keepers, but the lighthouses look like never before. Only Europe’s 90,000 kilometers of coastline They are a veritable garden of lighthousesbut one thing are lighthouses (that iconic tall tower with a light on top) and another is lights for maritime signaling, where large lights, small lights, beacons or buoys enter. The reference technical standard is IALA Recommendation E-110, as collects and translates into Spanish Puertos del Estado. If we talk about maritime signage, things change there and the figures increase: there are 23,217 lights in the northern seas alone, according to OpenStreetMaps. It must be considered that this is open data, provided by the community, with areas very well mapped and others not so well. The lighthouses of the North Seas, as we have never seen them If we stick to the northern seas, the lighthouses drop to around 2,500 units. Although his thing is teaching and business, Wharton University professor Ethan Mollick has condensed all this information into an interactive map using vibe coding: Lighthouse Atlas. Lighthouse Atlas This map of the northern seas is more than a mere cartography of that maritime signage: it is interactive, making it a tool as visual as it is impressive for the possibility of playing with zoom, filtering or the information it shows. If you also hover over the lights, you can see more data such as their name, color range or frequency. In addition to being able to filter to see only the headlights (‘Major lights only’), as Mollick explainseach light has the correct color, each flashes with the appropriate frequency, and its brightness has been scaled according to OSM data. You can also see how far away they are visible. How far are the light signals seen in the Atlantic, between the Spanish and French states Thus, the size of the points serves to get an idea of ​​how close or far the vessels can be to view the signals. For example, on these lines you can see how much the signals of the muga between the Spanish and French states illuminate. Especially striking because of how congested the Norwegian coast is, as can be seen numerically. in the database from Norsk Fyrhistorisk Forening, the company that compiles a detailed map of locations along the entire Scandinavian coast. However, of the historical 212, it has about 150 operational. It is not the only one: Scotland and the Isle of Man, the coasts of Denmark and the Adriatic Sea, on the coasts of Greece and Türkiye are also well nourished. In Xataka | A man bought a desert island in 1962: he planted 16,000 trees and turned it into an anti-rich sanctuary In Xataka | All the lighthouses of Europe, with their different patterns and colors, gathered in this fantastic map Cover | Lighthouse Atlas

North Korea believed the threat was miles from its border. A video has revealed that it is a few meters away with a huge warhead

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For years, North Korea has built your security on the idea that the most dangerous thing came from afar and could be seen coming in time. But on the peninsula, threats do not always come from the other side of the world: sometimes they develop much closer than anyone imagined. A “monster” missile. a video has revealed that South Korea has begun to operationally deploy the Hyunmoo-5its largest ballistic missile to date and one of the most peculiar in the world due to the combination of size and mission. Although it remains shrouded in secrecy and there are no publicly confirmed test launches, its input in units indicates that Seoul already considers it a real instrument of deterrence. A weapon designed for an extreme scenario on the peninsula, where the problem is not just attacking, but hitting what is buried, protected and designed to survive. The key: the head. What it places to Hyunmoo-5 In a category of its own is its warhead gigantic penetrationmuch heavier than that of usual conventional missiles. Where it is normal to carry loads of less than a ton, here we are talking about a block that can be around several tons, with an important part dedicated to dense metal and structure to pierce before detonating. The logic is simple and we have seen it before in the United States MOP: enter the ground at enormous speed, break through like a kinetic hammer and then explode once inside, attacking bunkers, command centers, warehouses and shelters designed to withstand traditional attacks. Ballistic bunker-buster. In terms of effect, it is reminiscent of bunker buster bombs launched from a planebut with a decisive difference: here it is not falling from a bomber at subsonic speed, but rather hits like a ballistic projectile at speeds close to hypersonic or directly hypersonic. This multiplies the penetration capacity by pure impact energyeven before counting the explosion. It does not make the weapon “nuclear,” because the type of destruction is different, but it does create a conventional tool with the power of entry and demolition that seeks to get closer to what a regime fears most: losing its underground shelters. Ceremony celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Korea The mystery of scope. The huge warhead penalizes the range, and that is why many estimates They place their radius of action around about 600 kilometersmore typical of a short-range missile despite the size of the set. For South Korea that is not a problem, because the priority objective is close and it’s concrete: Hardened facilities in North Korea. Still, if the load were lightened, it could reach much greater distances, even entering intermediate-range missile parameters, opening the door to broader regional readouts. Total design freedom. For decades, Seoul developed missiles under agreed limits with Washington, first very strict and then increasingly relaxeduntil those guidelines disappeared completely in 2021. That change was not symbolic: it came at the pace of North Korea’s advance in missiles and nuclear weapons, and left South Korea with room to create heavier, more capable systems with greater range options. Hyunmoo-4 had already raised the bar with a powerful charge, but Hyunmoo-5 represents the definitive jump to the idea of ​​“demolition power” as a main feature. The three-way strategy. Plus: the Hyunmoo-5 is integrated into the South Korean scheme designed to avoid or respond to a North Korean nuclear attack, with three pillars that complement each other: a preemptive strike plan on nuclear and missile capabilities if deemed inevitable, an air and missile defense to intercept launches, and massive conventional retaliation against leadership and strategic infrastructure if the North strikes first. On that board, the missile serves both to punish and to decapitate capabilities, because its specialty is attacking what the adversary hides underground to guarantee its continuity. Deterrence and escalation. They counted the TWZ analysts that the South Korean bet aims to maintain a “balance of terror” with increasingly forceful conventional means, but it also fuels an uncomfortable debate about the future. If Seoul one day decided to pursue a nuclear arsenal of its own, a missile from this family would be a natural candidateand a nuclear charge would also be much lighter than the current conventional one, which would expand range and flexibility. Meanwhile, the mere existence of Hyunmoo-5 already serves as an unmistakable message: even without crossing the nuclear threshold, South Korea wants the ability to open any relevant bunker and force Pyongyang to assume that his depth no longer guarantees security. Beyond Pyongyang. In public, South Korea frames these weapons as an answer to North Korea, but the regional background weighs more and more. Have a missile potentially adaptable in range and with a devastating payload add margin facing scenarios where the threat is not only from North Korea, but also from nearby powers such as China or Russia. The idea of ​​​​increasing their survival and employment options with future naval platforms is even contemplated, following the trend global from “arsenal ships”because in deterrence it is not enough to have the weapon: we must also guarantee that it will remain alive when the time comes to use it. Image | Lightrocket, 촬영 – 이헌구 기자 In Xataka | “It’s a level 10 Godzilla, but they only see a tiger”: South Korea’s surprising response to North Korea’s rearmament In Xataka | If the question is what has North Korea achieved in the last four years, the answer is simple: an unimaginable arsenal

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