Black October Asked One Question: Are We Affected?

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First published on my newsletter, Cyber Governance in the AI Era, 4 November 2026.

Black October asked one question: are we affected? In the week of 21 October, New York's financial regulator told every institution it supervises to determine whether it used the vulnerable PHP software at all, and Britain's National Cyber Security Centre advised every organisation using it to assess its exposure. The month brought critical flaws found with the help of AI, AI-assisted intrusions, security incidents at platforms developers use to build AI products, and the theft of about 6.4 billion dollars from Binance, which Elliptic calls "almost certainly the largest single theft of any kind in history." The tools were new. The failures were not: exposed interfaces, unlisted components, misplaced credentials, unchecked signatures.

The edition measures the month against four clocks any board can ask management to time. Time to know: are we affected? Time to decide: who has the authority to act? Time to fix: how quickly can we patch or isolate? Time to tell: when do regulators, customers and counterparties hear from us? It also looks at what Jamaica and the Cayman Islands got right in the same week, and closes with five questions for the next board meeting.

Read the full piece: https://www.inshanmeahjohn.com/insights/black-october-asked-one-question-are-we-affected

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