Spill, with the IT Privacy and Security Weekly Update for the week ending Feb 17th., 2026
EP 279. This week's update spills on a global scale. We start with... A single misconfigured database just turned 8.7 billion Chinese records into a global reminder that at planetary scale, data protection failures stop being “incidents” and start looking like infrastructure risks. A new class action against Lenovo puts a spotlight on how invisible trackers and cross-border data flows can turn an ordinary website visit into a quiet export of American browsing habits to China. When Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Tiffany rack up multimillion-dollar privacy fines in South Korea, it sends a clear message: even the most glamorous brands pay dearly when customer data is treated carelessly. The Instagram dataset circulating on underground forums shows how a trove of “just usernames and contact details” can still supercharge scams, phishing, and harassment at massive scale. Dozens of AI-branded Chrome extensions masquerading as helpful assistants reveal how attackers now weaponize the Gen...
