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Following the aftermath of the Manchester Airports Group cyberattack - where hackers made off with the data of 8.7 million people - the hackers have now posted the entire database for sale on the dark web.
The group behind the attack, FulcrumSec, attempted to get Manchester Airports Group (MAG) to pay for the security of the database, promising that it wouldn’t be released if the company paid a settlement. But as all companies should do when faced with extortion, MAG didn’t play ball.
Now FulcrumSec wants to try and maximise the damage of the cyberattack, and has listed the database containing email addresses, phone numbers, vehicle registrations and postcodes online in the hopes a fellow hacking group will find value in the data.
What happens when extortion fails, and why didn’t MAG pay?In the past, when companies faced ransomware attacks or data breaches, they would sometimes quietly pay the hackers for their silence.
Companies feared serious reputational harm and loss of business would cost more in the long run than the perpetrators were asking for. But this created an incentive for hackers to carry out more attacks.
After all, if companies aren’t kicking up a fuss about being hacked or reporting the attack to the authorities, hacking groups can launch more attacks on other companies that are completely unaware of their tactics.
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In order to counter this, authorities and cyber experts from around the world issued guidance that under no circumstances should companies pay for the safe return of their data. By removing the incentive from ransomware attacks and data breaches, the hope is that hackers will get bored or not see enough ROI, and therefore stop.
But the 500GB database of data on over 8.7 million people is ripe pickings for other cybercriminals looking to launch highly specific phishing attacks or scam campaigns. While FulcrumSec may not make any money from the attack, they can seriously enhance the damage of the attack by offering the data for free for others to use.
A successful scam or phishing attack can steal banking and financial details, allowing other groups to steal even more money off the back of the attack.
Expert perspectives on MAG extortion and customer data- Dray Agha, senior manager of security operations at Huntress:
While Manchester Airports Group followed official guidance by refusing to pay the ransom, the release of 8.7 million records creates an immediate risk for passengers.
The release of 8.7 million records creates an immediate risk for passengers
We expect other criminals to use this freely available database of vehicle registrations, postcodes and contact details to craft highly convincing phishing attacks.
Anyone who has used parking, lounges or Wi-Fi at these airports must treat unexpected messages about their travel with extreme caution.
- Muhammad Yahya Patel, vCISO and cybersecurity advisor for EMEA at Huntress
The "free release" model is deliberately designed to maximise harm and reputational damage as a warning to the next target.
It's a marketing campaign aimed at every other organisation watching
Publishing almost nine million records for free isn't just punishment for MAG it's a marketing campaign aimed at every other organisation watching.
Pay up, or your customers' data gets handed to every fraudster and scammer on the internet at no cost. Refusing to pay a ransom is the right call. But nearly nine million people are now paying a different price for a decision that was never theirs to make.
- Danny Jenkins, Co Founder & CEO at ThreatLocker
Unfortunately, once data is made public, it can’t be hidden again. The most important thing consumers can do is focus on basic cyber hygiene. Use a unique password for every website, learn how to identify phishing scams, and monitor your credit report.
Be highly suspicious of emails that create a sense of urgency, offer something that seems too good to be true, or ask you to reset your password.
Be highly suspicious of emails that create a sense of urgency, offer something that seems too good to be true, or ask you to reset your password.
When in doubt, look up the phone number for the alleged sender yourself, rather than using a number provided in the email, and call to confirm whether the communication is genuine.
- Brian Higgins, security specialist at Comparitech:
Whilst the airports breached in this attack don't appear to have had any financial data compromised the risk to affected or associated customers is very real. With so much other information freely available in the wild it is vital that airport users stay highly vigilant for some time to come.
Research advice from trusted sources like the NCA or Information Commissioner and share it with your family and friends.
Any and all unsolicited contact; whether online, by telephone or even home visit approaches, should be viewed as suspicious. Never engage until you've taken time to check credentials/veracity etc.
Research advice from trusted sources like the NCA or Information Commissioner and share it with your family and friends. Look for ways to increase digital and physical security like two factor authentication on Apps and devices or Smart Home tech.
When this breach was first reported by the Manchester Evening News the comments were quite telling. Affected parties were quick to identify potential vulnerabilities over and above the breach of financial and banking details.
Home addresses, vehicle registrations and time spent away from home all add up to some excellent opportunities for criminal exploitation, not to mention the usual follow-up phishing campaigns common in this type of incident.
As AI makes data aggregation swift and easy consumers are waking up to the fact that criminals can monetise successful breaches in increasingly inventive ways. It’s no longer enough for data owning organisations to advise post-attack vigilance and turn to their backups.
Victim communities rightly expect better protected networks and systems over and above established norms. As the marketplace grows less fearful and more angry when breaches are made public we may see more emphasis on cyber crime prevention which can only be a good thing.
- Denis Calderone, CTO at Suzu Labs:
The 8.7 million number is attention-grabbing, but it deserves some context. MAG has confirmed that the vast majority of those records are email addresses collected through airport WiFi sign-ups.
A much smaller subset includes phone numbers, vehicle registrations, and postcodes from customers who actually completed parking or lounge bookings.
What remains unclear is whether the data was exfiltrated directly from that third-party environment or whether it was pulled back through MAG's network first.
No payment data, no passwords, no passport information. So despite this affecting airports, which is obviously a sensitive subject, the actual data sensitivity for most affected individuals is relatively low.
What's more interesting to us from a technical standpoint is the attack path. MAG told The Register that attackers compromised one of their internal systems and then went on to steal files from a database hosted by a third party. That's a pivot upstream into a data provider, not downstream into operational systems.
What remains unclear is whether the data was exfiltrated directly from that third-party environment or whether it was pulled back through MAG's network first. That distinction matters for understanding where detection controls failed and who was responsible for monitoring the egress.
The UK's Civil Aviation Authority has a Cyber Assessment Framework for Aviation, developed with the NCSC, that mandates strict separation between IT systems and operational technology.
We don't know whether MAG was formally operating under that framework at the time of this incident, but I would be very interested to find out. Because the segmentation appears to have held here. Flight operations, baggage handling, terminal systems, etc., all were unaffected.
The lateral movement went upstream toward a data provider, not downstream toward the systems that keep planes in the air.
- Seemant Sehgal, CEO and Founder at BreachLock:
This data was initially collected because passengers needed a login, and somewhere along the way, the sensitivity of what was accumulating in that database stopped getting the same scrutiny as the network itself.
Whoever held it for ransom understood its value better than the organization storing it did
Vehicle registration details, postcodes, and contact information across three major airports are a profiling dataset, and whoever held it for ransom understood its value better than the organization storing it did.
How do I submit my own perspective on emerging news?If you have an expert perspective you would like to share on an emerging story or particular topic, please get in contact here: benedict.collins@futurenet.com
- Lenovo showed Project Swan at IFA 2026, a concept notebook whose 14-inch display rolls out horizontally to a 17-inch 16:9 panel, at 17.9mm and 1.6kg
- It is 90g lighter and 2mm thinner than the vertical ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable that Lenovo already sells, pointing to a maturing lineup from the computer giant
- It has a compelling business case for people who currently carry a portable monitor for work, but given the current model's pricing, it may come at a significant premium versus the solution it competes with
Lenovo showcased Project Swan at Innovation World during IFA 2026, a proof-of-concept notebook that functions as a 14-inch machine in its compact form and expands into a larger 17-inch 16:9 display when more space is needed.
The laptop measures 17.9mm thick and weighs 1.6kg, and targets customers who do a lot of multitasking, side-by-side document review, presentations, dashboards, and creative workflows.
The model currently has no price tag, no ship date, and no named processor, beyond the company's statement that both concepts, including the fanless AeroBlade, will be powered by Intel at launch this year.
Pitched at users leveraging a portable monitor with a large budget in tow?Lenovo's Project Swan isn't exactly a new product offering, but an improvement on something the same company already offers. Lenovo already sells its sibling, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable, which went on sale in June 2025 and does the same trick vertically by expanding a 14-inch panel to 16.7 inches, costing at least $3,300 at launch.
Comparing that relatively astronomical price tag to a traditional 14-inch laptop that could cost as little as $1000 from the same company and a portable monitor starting at $200 makes for a very daunting comparison, especially for business buyers, where it could make the difference between a fleet purchase and a niche buy for executives.
It does have some upgrades in thickness and weight over the Gen 6, however: the Gen 6 Rollable is 1.69kg in a chassis 19.9mm thick, while Project Swan is 1.6kg at 17.9mm, shaving off both 90 grams of weight and 2mm of thickness, signaling a maturing technology versus an actual ground-breaking product.
The larger screen and the mechanism to roll it does come with a penalty, however; the ThinkBook 14 Gen 9 announced in parallel with it is 1.3kg at 17.7mm of thickness, beating it soundly in the former and slightly in the latter metric. Against Project Aeroblade, which clocks in at 830g, the weight difference is nearly twice that of the fanless design that Lenovo can currently produce.
The people who benefit are those who need two documents open simultaneously and cannot rely on a second screen being where they are going: contract reviewers, auditors on client sites, translators, analysts comparing a model against its source, consultants presenting across a table without a projector.
For that target audience, the alternative today is carrying a portable USB-C monitor, and the weight calculus favors Project Swan tremendously: A 15-inch portable monitor typically runs 700 to 900 grams, and a comparable 1.3kg ThinkBook plus a screen is around 2.1kg in the bag against the Swan's 1.6kg, with no secondary cable to manage.
Whether Project Swan arrives at an acceptable price point determines whether the rollable laptop becomes more than a pricey proof of concept or a viable solution for many users who need a large screen with portability and weight constraints in tow. For now, Lenovo's impressive offering points to an evolution, not a revolution, in a segment that has drawn a lot of interest but little corporate purchase intent because of concerns about price, durability, and repairability, making it a fringe purchase at best for most.
Sonos recently announced that it's launching a new soundbar to fill the gap between the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) and the Sonos Arc Ultra — it's called (perhaps predictably) the Sonos Beam Ultra. It's launching on September 29th 2026, and it costs $699 / £699 / AU$1,099.
It's small, like the regular Beam, but it features nine drivers to deliver 7.1.2 channels of Dolby Atmos, including upfiring drivers (which the Beam doesn't have).
Sonos' promise is that it's a bigger, more expansive, and meatier home theater experience than the regular Beam, and I got a chance to listen to a demo — though we'll have a full and in-depth review later when we can test more thoroughly.
(Image credit: Future)But my time with the Beam Ultra was enough to really impress me. We started by listening to some music in Dolby Atmos, and the soundbar was extremely good at separating the sound from the hardware — the audio felt spaced across the whole room in front of me, rather than feeling like it was emitting from a compact soundbar.
Bass dispersion was really impressive, as was a feeling of 'airiness', in a good way, to vocals and positional instrument effects. Every element felt like it was able to float in the room very naturally and individually.
Switching to something bass-heavy, which is an area Sonos says it specifically wanted to improve, what stood out to me was the weight of the mid-bass. Often, in smaller speakers, this is where things fall off — they might be tuned to give good punch at their lowest point, but can't always maintain good strength as they move towards the mid-range.
There was no problem with that here: bass felt really solid throughout the range. Being a small soundbar, it's not like it can hit hard on really low-end frequencies, but there's loads of presence across the bass, so it feels satisfying.
(Image credit: Future)Switching to movies and TV, we watched a clip from the Apple TV+ show Widow's Bay, emphasizing the improvement to the clarity of the center channel — dialogue came through clear over background noise.
But the real test was watching Sinners, in the big music scene of I Lied to You, which has become a common demo scene for companies to use. I was so impressed by the positional Dolby Atmos effects of elements that were way off to the side — the width was far better than other small soundbars, and was better than most big soundbars I've tested.
There's a real sense of instruments being positioned right in the far forward corners of the room, a good six feet beyond the edges of the TV we were watching, let alone beyond the edges of the small soundbar.
However, when we get it in to review, I want to test the height channels more deliberately. I wasn't feeling a lot of height effect from the demo — which might have been for a few reasons, so I can't cast judgment against the Beam Ultra for it yet. We'll be keeping an ear out for it, though.
I also got to try the same scene using the Sonos system's new ability to add some portable speakers as rear satellite speakers for surround sound. Two Sonos Play speakers were brought in and placed just behind me, and they instantly connected to the soundbar without needing the app at all.
A little tone emitted from the Beam Ultra to indicate that the Plays had connected themselves, but all the detection and connection is done invisibly by the system, and it seemed really slick.
The Plays made for a really good set of rear speakers in the demo, too — I got really clear positional effects from them, and they have a great dynamic range for movies.
Sonos confirmed that with the Plays (or a pair of Sonos Move 2 speakers, or static rear options such as the Sonos Era 100) connected, it can describe the system as a 7.1.4-channel setup, though the extra two height channels will be virtualized.
I was surprised that Sonos went with the small size of the Beam for a soundbar to sit below the Arc Ultra in its range, because I assumed that would mean a compromise on how expansive it would be — that's definitely not a concern for me anymore, and I'm really looking forward to hearing how it handles our movie library in our test rooms.
The pantheon of US crime dramas is peppered with ruthless, hyperreal villains who have risked it all for a shot at the American Dream. Michael Corleone, Tony Montana, Keyser Söze, Tony Soprano, and Marsellus Wallace are but five of the fictional strongmen now synonymous with getting things done by hook or by crook.
In the 30 years since the inception of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, Rockstar Games has evolved cinematic storytelling in video games to the point that you could, quite feasibly, add Tommy Vercetti, Toni Cipriani, Carl ‘CJ’ Johnson, Niko Bellic, and Michael De Santa to that list.
In the slipstream of Grand Theft Auto 6’s Extended Look, multiple questions emerge about what has become the most-anticipated video game of the 21st century. Most notably, will we soon be able to add Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos to this scurrilous list of ill-gotten individuals intoxicated by life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
As a former developer at Rockstar Games and seasoned industry pro, Mike York is well positioned to explain what the condensed 26-minute slice of gameplay reveals about the lead characters and the title itself.
Miami twice(Image credit: Rcokstar Games)“I see a heavier tone and a slower pace,” York says of the follow-up to 2013’s GTA 5, which was set in San Andreas, a fictionalised version of California. This time, Rockstar has returned to Vice City, their neon-hued take on the sun-blasted, Floridian playground of Leonida, to bring the couple to life in a Bonnie-and-Clyde-style misadventure befitting the studio’s wild and vivid creative vision.
“Jason moves around very slow and methodical. That's the first thing I noticed. He seemed like a robot — a Terminator —walking through every scene and mowing people down with no emotion,” suggests York of the US military veteran, mirroring some of the observations – and criticisms – that have accompanied the exclusive Netflix promo since it launched last week.
Will the male lead stand up against the aforementioned icons, who have helped cement Rockstar’s brand as pixelated pioneers in these imagined, open-world environments?
York continues: “I want to see that. Niko Belic, for example, is a great character. He was witty and had some great lines, which is why GTA 4 became one of my favourites in the series. I hope we see more of that because right now, Jason seems quite deadpan and monotone.
“Rockstar usually gives us a bunch of neat characters who are funny and have their own flair. I don't know if we're going to see that with Jason, but I hope we do,” he comments. Certainly, if you rewatch the Extended Look, Jason’s demeanour – he warns Lucia to stay cool in the opening seconds as they become embroiled in a meth lab shootout and then scolds her for being late when the pair drive to meet aged accomplice Brian Heder – is of a more self-contained, uptight and introspective personality than his vivacious, chameleonic, and combustible counterpart.
Perhaps that’s the point. As switchable characters, will Lucia provide the Yin to Jason’s Yang? “I think that's what they're going to do,” continues York, pinpointing the passage where the duo emerges at the Effluvia rooftop bar.
“There's that moment in the trailer where they get in an elevator, and he says: ‘Sometimes I'm just more comfortable when I have to use a gun’. She replies: ‘Just be charming!’ Lucia's got this attitude where you can tell she's trying to break him out of his shell. She's the one that probably goes into missions gung-ho, all guns blazing.”
Wired for sound(Image credit: Rcokstar Games)Indeed, there are further clues about the duo’s depiction in the fluorescent, 80s-colored Extended Look soundtrack. When the focus is on Jason, People Are People by Depeche Mode (featuring the line “I can't understand. What makes a man hate another man? Help me understand”) is used for context. Meanwhile, Lucia’s section of the clip, which sees her marching into Zeke’s Gadgets store to shoot up the place and flipping the bird at a swarm of cops when they make their escape from a second robbery, aptly uses global chart-smashing Devil Woman as the musical backdrop.
“With evil on her mind… She’s gonna get you!” warns the enduringly improbable British pop star Cliff Richard, in a phase that could be seen as Rockstar’s opportunity to showcase a central theme of female empowerment and mutual respect between sexes that has been almost entirely absent from the GTA series. In the toxic shadow of an era defined and divided by the manosphere, could this be an attempt to reset this predominant tone against countless accusations of misogyny that have stalked each title?
“A lot of their games have been viewed in that light. It'd be cool for them to shake that up and flip it on its head,” confirms York. Currently working on Six Days in Fallujah for Highwire Games in Seattle, Washington, he joined Rockstar New England – a studio based in Andover, Massachusetts – in 2012, leaving three years later after playing an active role in the development of GTA 5 and its online incarnation.
Red Dead detention(Image credit: Rcokstar Games)York’s induction into the much-mythologised studio’s work culture would prove to be prophetic. On his first day, he was instructed to play Red Dead Redemption in full – for the first time, in fact – to prepare for what was coming down the track: extensive animations on its Western-themed successor, where he was charged with designing multiple animal models intended to maraud across the North American frontier at the turn of the 20th century.
Elsewhere, his portfolio – including trailers for Dead Island: Riptide, Fortnite, The Walking Dead, Borderlands 3 and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines – suggests York could illuminate the top-secret processes that underpin the massively hyped Extended Look, which is only the third official piece of formal storytelling to accompany GTA 6 and pulled in more than 30m views on Netflix in four days.
“We weren’t told anything about trailers, and then, all of a sudden, my animations would end up in one. It’d be like: ‘There's one of my shots!’ I only found out once they were completely released, and we were all watching it.” He says this level of secrecy is baked into the studio’s DNA. “They try to instill in all their employees that you don't say anything anywhere. If you look up most of the people at Rockstar, they don't have any social media presence because they're scared to. I was. When I worked there, I didn't say anything ever.”
Across the industry, how does the decision-making play out for this type of media content? “You don't want to spoil it or give too much away. You want to hint and leave things to the imagination, get people to want to find out what the story is. But things are changing. More and more studios and companies are releasing big deep dives, reveals, and whole chunks of gameplay. We're getting to see a lot of stuff that we never used to back in the day.”
Face off(Image credit: Rcokstar Games)York was impressed by many components of Rockstar’s mega preview, in particular the visual clarity, use of lighting, and the lifelike physics deployed in specific graphical elements, such as the movement of individual characters’ hair.
However, he also admits being disappointed by some of the “rough” facial animations. He explains: “It doesn't seem like they're using MetaHuman capture technology. It looks like they're still doing it the old-school way, like in GTA 5. It's very similar to that. That might be because of the limitations and what's important.
“I’ve worked with Unreal Engine 5. The high-fidelity facial animation has hundreds of bones in the face. When you add those to the character, it slows everything down. This is the type of stuff you put in cutscenes for The Last of Us Part 2, for example. You want it to look super realistic. On GTA 4, they're not doing that. Everything they show is in-game footage. It's the cinematic version of the character, which still needs to be low-resolution enough so it can do all these things without bogging down the rest of the game.”
York pinpoints other features – citing the weapon wheel and mini map – that also look “a bit outdated and weird”. “The whole UI doesn't really match the style of game and what we're used to,” he comments. “Rockstar has a big and very talented team. If they wanted, they could go in and change those elements before a final release. Will they do that? That's another question because there’s probably a lot of other stuff they're sweating about.”
(Image credit: Rockstar Games)That said, he praises the overarching LOD (Level of Detail), suggesting that – to date – only the CD Projekt Red team behind the once maligned but now widely celebrated Cyberpunk 2077 has been able to match it. “There are levels to this shit,” he states. “Rockstar are the kings of that.”
Despite any minor quibbles, the Extended Look has reassured York – who runs York Street Gaming on YouTube – that GTA 6 will set a new high bar stretching years into the future. “People will still say it's one of the best games of all time,” he says. “It will perform really well and become something we'll be able to play for a decade later like GTA 5. Online will come out and probably be an ever-evolving metaverse which will carry the franchise forever.”
Grand Theft Auto 6 will be released for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S on November 19, 2026.
In the packed halls of Gamescom with so many games to see, it's easy to get tetchy if a session goes on for too long when there's another appointment you have to rush off to see. Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve was a rare exception where I wished I had more to go on than I was given.
On one hand, the Ace Combat series' appeal is a straightforward one. It captures the thrill of flying a fighter jet locked in aerial dogfights without the intimidating knowledge of actually operating an aircraft like Microsoft Flight Simulator, but with more control than a rail shooter like Star Fox.
A new instalment coming just a few years after a new Top Gun movie is even more tantalising for anyone eager to take to the skies like Tom Cruise.
Back to Strangereal(Image credit: Bandai Namco Entertainment)That the series also takes place in an alternate world called Strangereal, which nonetheless looks like our own, means you can enjoy the immersive realism without being drawn into the awkward politics of any real-world conflicts.
For the mission I got to play, titled 'The Fall of the Numbered Fleets', there's already a sense of a meaty narrative to get into, as my squadron, Joker Flight of the Federation of Central Usea (FCU), is tasked with launching an offensive to strike fleets belonging to the invading forces from the Republic of Sotoa.
An added wrinkle is that you also have to contend with a once-friendly squadron nicknamed the Sharks, who have recently defected.
(Image credit: Bandai Namco Entertainment)This drama plays out during the mission; banter zips between your fellow wingmen Baxter and Tasha over the radio as you approach the targets on Newfield Island before being interrupted by enemy Sotoan chatter when you manage to deal damage to their fleet and supplies. And of course, it's only a matter of time before the Sharks turn up as sparks fly between factions that wouldn't be out of place in an anime if it wasn't for the game's realistic aesthetic.
Although you have targets to destroy, there are also different approaches you can take to tackle an objective, such as customising your loadout at the beginning. While there's a lot of information on the UI that can feel intimidating, it felt readable when a missile is definitely locked onto a target, while an outline below makes it clear where your bomb will drop when trying to sink ships.
There's a simple satisfaction to see the green display change from 'Hit' to 'Destroyed,' but if you really want to showboat, you can even switch to the camera looking back to enjoy the explosion in your wake.
Cloud control(Image credit: Bandai Namco Entertainment)If 2019's Ace Combat 7: Unknown Skies had already set a new bar for the series' realistic visuals and combat aircraft, then Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve raises it again, not just with Unreal Engine 5 but also with Bandai Namco Aces' own upgraded Cloudly tech.
That said, I spent most of my time a little too close to the ground (a prompt repeatedly telling me to pull up) when trying to aim for targets on land and sea to properly experience getting into the clouds. Yet that showcased another visual leap too, as all the objects you see are rendered at a 1:1 scale. So instead of flying over flat textures or miniatures, you really do feel immersed in the world. That also allows for setpieces such as a moment when you can fly your aircraft through a tunnel to reach an airbase stationed on the other side.
But for anyone who enjoyed the sheer action spectacle of Top Gun: Maverick, it wasn't the action alone that made it a great watch; it was all the other human drama unfolding in between the training, so that you become invested in the characters you want to succeed. Even though I'm not sure any of the characters in Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve are likely to have the same star power and charisma as Tom Cruise, that is something I still wish I could have seen more of in this relatively brief Gamescom demo.
(Image credit: Bandai Namco Entertainment)As the first entry to have its story play out through a first-person perspective, it's surely meant to provide a more immersive way to spend time in the company of your wingmen, not just during mission briefings but also when catching up in the canteen or other bouts of R&R.
Having the in-mission banter is nonetheless also a key element, as are the small narrative choices you can make, such as in the demo where Baxter wants one of the Sharks pilots captured alive and asks that you only shoot around his cockpit, to which you can agree, or not.
But with the game's launch not far away, and arriving in time for the series' 30th anniversary, it's looking like Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is going to soar to a whole new plane.
Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve releases on October 2, 2026, for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S. Advance access is available from September 28 for those who pre-order the deluxe edition.