US clarifies mobile hotspots part of foreign router ban despite rarity of American made consumer kit

A batch of security stories from The Register highlights widespread, high-impact threats: CISA uncovered a previously unknown backdoor dubbed 'Firestarter' in a US federal network, while researchers disclosed FAST16, malware that appears to be an early cyber‑sabotage tool possibly predating Stuxnet. China-linked actors continue to abuse compromised routers and IoT devices worldwide as proxy infrastructure, and researchers demonstrated weak IoT/EV charger security enabling large-scale disruption. Multiple large data incidents surfaced (ShinyHunters claim ~7.5M Carnival emails; 500k UK Biobank ·