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Malware posing as a Solana starter kit is built to infect AI coding agents

Security firm Air Security found a GitHub repository posing as a Solana starter kit that is built to catch AI coding agents. Its only setup step is a command that downloads a program from an outside domain. Air Security says the repository is the top result when an agent searches for such a kit, and that the program is a legitimate remote-control tool set up to give an attacker control of the machine, including crypto wallets. The download address was offline when checked, and Air Security does not report any agent or victim actually infected. The reporting does not say how an affected agent would be approved to run the command.

Alan's takeA coding agent that blindly follows any README is the same as an unvetted download button. Any junior developer would pause. We keep handing agents work that assumes basic judgment they don’t reliably have.

Disney reportedly weighs cutting thousands of jobs, AI among the pressures

20% cost savings asked of some managers

Disney could cut thousands of jobs, and some managers were asked to find annual cost savings of 20%, according to a BeInCrypto rewrite of a Bloomberg report that cites people familiar with the matter. Reuters is quoted listing AI among the pressures on Disney, alongside weaker box office, streaming competition and slower park attendance. Disney has not commented, the article says, and it does not give an exact number of jobs, the affected divisions or whether AI is a stated reason. Earlier rounds this year included about 1,000 jobs in April.

Alan's takeDisney’s pressures include weaker box office, streaming competition, and slower park attendance. But AI now shows up on the list as well, which raises a harder question than cost cutting. If competitors can use AI to make content, run marketing, or serve customers at a fraction of our cost, what happens to the advantages we’ve spent decades building? For business leaders, the question isn’t how AI lets us cut. It’s how AI will disrupt our industry.

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Gartner forecasts 30% of AI-driven layoffs will be rehired by 2029, at higher cost

30% of AI-replaced employees Gartner expects rehired by 2029

Gartner predicts that by 2029, 30% of employees laid off because AI replaced their work will need to be rehired, often at a significantly higher cost. The forecast is in Gartner's September 2026 future-of-work release, and IT Pro covered it on November 2. Gartner analyst Caitlyn McDonough told IT Pro that organizations often decide how many people to let go before they understand what it will take to get work done. IT Pro reports that only 19% of firms say they have practices for aligning talent strategy with how work is changing. Gartner gives no sample or method for the forecast.

Alan's takeMost layoffs start with a number: how deep do we need to cut to make the quarter work? Then AI gets named as the reason, because it can theoretically pick up the slack for those who remain. Gartner’s 30% rehire forecast is the result of this approach. It is better to starts with the work, not the headcount. Which tasks can AI perform with low risk to the organization, and which tasks depend on the judgment and institutional knowledge that we can’t easily buy back?

A Claude Code extension on Cursor's marketplace reportedly had a backdoor

12 hours the extension was reportedly compromised

According to a security newsletter roundup citing Ars Technica and WIRED, Anthropic's official Claude Code extension on the Cursor Marketplace was compromised for nearly 12 hours, with a persistent backdoor planted on installs and auto-updates. The reports are said to describe a supply-chain compromise of the extension, not an AI agent acting on its own.

Alan's takeWhich extensions can your people install, and who is told the same day if one is pulled?

Apple's chief executive says the company will not ship AI for its own sake

Apple chief executive John Ternus, who took over from Tim Cook on September 1, told Wired in an interview published October 30 that Apple does not want to ship AI for AI's sake, and that when it is done right people should not have to think about whether AI or traditional software made something happen. Startup Fortune, which reported the remarks, set them against a sell-off in AI stocks.

Alan's takeRefusing to ship AI for AI’s sake is good advice for any business. It's also exactly what you'd say if your AI story wasn't ready. Ternus has been saying it since April, while Siri still runs on Google's models. Of course we can't count Apple out, but is Apple disciplined or falling further behind? For the rest of us, the test is the same: can we name the specific experience AI makes better, or are we still trying to find one?

Chainalysis says an outsider used AI attack tools on its systems

Chainalysis told customers on October 30 that an outside actor used what it calls offensive agentic techniques, meaning AI-driven attack tooling, to get unauthorized access to undisclosed internal systems and tools. According to Chainalysis, some non-sensitive customer data was accessed: user IDs, full names, email addresses and role labels. The company says it has no evidence that investigation content, passwords, multifactor secrets or session tokens were accessed. It has not said how many customers are affected or who the actor is, and is still working out which records belong to each organization.

Alan's takeIf an attacker uses an agent against you, what can it reach with one stolen login, and who is told the same day?

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Nine of ten models raised their own wallet cap with an emailed code

9 of 10 tested models raised their own spending cap at least once

Researchers at Cornell Tech and Yale gave AI agents a crypto wallet with a daily spending cap and an email tool. Raising the cap required a one-time code sent to the owner's email, but the agent could read that same inbox. In their preprint, nine of ten models used the code to raise their own cap in at least one run, and five paid a simulated attacker who emailed them while pretending to be the owner. The test used small amounts of real money. Circle, the wallet provider, says its documentation tells users never to give an agent that inbox, and has added a warning.

Alan's takeOuch. This feels like a generalizable problem worth watching. If you tell the agent to ask for approval but grant the agent access to the approval credentials--What could go wrong?

AI saves time and costs time, at the same time

76% of AI users say it saves them an hour or more per week

Hubstaff, a time tracking company, surveyed 1,068 full-time US workers in computer-based roles in October. It reports that 79% use AI at work, 76% of those who could estimate say it saves at least an hour a week, and 46% say their expected workload has increased since adopting it. Asked what they do with saved time, 39% of AI users say they finish earlier and 26% take on more work. Hubstaff says 45% spend an hour or more a week correcting colleagues' AI-generated work. The survey is commissioned by the vendor and unweighted.

Alan's takeIf 45% of workers spend an hour a week fixing colleagues’ AI output, whose time are we saving? Not the people doing the fixing. People can only correct AI work if they know what right looks like, which means the cleanup lands on our most experienced people. Widespread AI use may help our least experienced people, but it quietly turns our experts into editors of everyone else’s work. We need to amplify our experts, not bury them.

A shared ChatGPT link could run code in the viewer's session

8 days from report to fix, according to Parameter

Security firm Parameter reported that a specially prepared ChatGPT shared conversation could run code with the permissions of the recipient's signed-in session and read their private chats. In a controlled proof of concept, the researchers listed conversations and sent a small piece of data to their own server; in one version, opening the shared link was the only action needed. Parameter says it reported the flaw on October 18 and OpenAI fixed it on October 26. No exploitation in the wild is reported, and no AI agent action is described.

Alan's takeWhat can a link you forward do with the recipient's tools and credentials?

Nearly one in five surveyed US workers cut for AI say they were asked back.

1 in 5 US workers replaced by AI later asked to return

SHL, a talent management company, reports that nearly one in five US workers it surveyed said they were laid off or replaced by AI and were later asked to return to their previous employer. The research, fielded by Propeller Insights in June and July among more than 1,000 workers each in the US and UK, also found nearly half would need a significant pay rise to go back and 43% would want written job security guarantees. SHL's Lucy Beaumont says companies "pulled the plug too quickly". The article does not say which roles or employers were involved.

Alan's takeAI typically disrupts tasks, not entire roles. Full replacement requires role distillation.