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Kojima Productions has announced a 10th anniversary celebration to be held in Japan, which promises guest appearances and “a glimpse into future projects”.

The studio unveiled the event today, on the 10th anniversary of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, which doesn’t seem coincidental.

The Kojima Productions Beyond The Strand event will take place on 23rd September at a cinema in Tokyo, but it doesn’t appear to be screened elsewhere. Hideo Kojima himself will host the event.

Still, keep that date in your diaries if you’re interested to know what’s coming next from the studio.

Perhaps we’ll see something on OD, Kojima’s Xbox horror game first announced back in 2023? In a recent interview, Kojima stated OD was “something totally different” and people will either “love it or hate it”.

Or perhaps we’ll see a first look at Physint, Kojima’s return to the action-espionage genre he popularised with the Metal Gear Solid games. Then again, he recently stated it’s early enough in development he’s still working on it by himself.

Just don’t expect Death Stranding 3 – Kojima confirmed he has a concept for a sequel, but won’t be making it himself.

If you’re in Japan, you can find details of the anniversary event on the Kojima Productions website.

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A newly detected cyber campaign is exploiting trusted but vulnerable Windows drivers to bypass security protections and install a remote access tool.

The operation, attributed by Check Point Research (CPR) to the Silver Fox APT group, highlights the risks of attackers exploiting Microsoft-signed drivers that were once considered safe.

Abusing Microsoft-Signed Drivers

At the center of the attack is the WatchDog Antimalware driver (amsdk.sys, version 1.0.600).

Although signed by Microsoft and not previously listed as vulnerable, the driver was abused to terminate processes linked to antivirus and EDR tools, clearing the way for the deployment of ValleyRAT – a modular backdoor capable of surveillance, command execution and data exfiltration.

Silver Fox also relied on an older Zemana-based driver (ZAM.exe) to maintain compatibility across systems ranging from Windows 7 to Windows 11.

Both drivers allowed arbitrary process termination, enabling the attackers to disable even protected processes.

Read more on Windows driver exploitation tactics: Vulnerability in Windows Driver Leads to System Crashes

Researchers found that the group packed all elements into self-contained loader binaries.

Each sample included:

The campaign quickly evolved, producing variants that used new drivers or altered versions of patched drivers to avoid detection.

Evasion and Attribution

One technique involved modifying a patched WatchDog driver (wamsdk.sys, version 1.1.100) by changing a single byte in its timestamp field. Because Microsoft’s digital signature does not cover this field, the driver signature remained valid yet appeared as a new file with a different hash.

Infrastructure used in the attacks was traced to servers in China, while malware configurations specifically targeted security products popular in East Asia. These details, combined with the ValleyRAT payload, led to attribution to the Silver Fox APT.

Although WatchDog released an update addressing local privilege escalation flaws, arbitrary process termination remains possible leaving systems vulnerable.

The CPR research stressed that signature and hash checks alone are insufficient. Security teams are advised to apply Microsoft’s latest driver blocklist, use YARA detection rules and implement behavior-based monitoring to catch abnormal driver activity.

“Our research reinforces the need for ongoing efforts of security vendors and users to stay vigilant against the emerging abuse of legitimate drivers,” CPR wrote.

“Proactive identification, reporting and patching of these vulnerabilities are critical to strengthening Windows systems against evolving threats leveraging Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) techniques.”

It was teased at High End Munich earlier this year, but we now have official details and prices for the Eversolo T8. This is Eversolo’s first streaming transport, i.e. a product with all the latest network streaming software and features but without a DAC built in; so you will need to plug it into an external DAC or into the digital inputs of your amplifier.

It’s a neat way to add modern streaming powers to a hi-fi system that already has a great DAC. It could also prove to be a smart route for the brand, considering how we have heaped praise on Eversolo’s excellent streaming software and its capability as a digital source in the DMP-A6 and DMP-A10 streamers that we have tested.

The T8 aims to deliver “clean, precise digital audio” and features carefully isolated digital outputs, an ultra-high precision clock, and all the bells and whistles that come with Eversolo’s proprietary software ecosystem.

The Eversolo T8 features a 6-inch touchscreen display that lets you select the numerous music apps and services available, control playback, adjust settings and more. This display screen dominates the front of a sleek, aluminium chassis that boasts shielding from its internal circuitry as well as from outside electromagnetic interference.

The visible effects of ageing on our body are in part linked to invisible changes in gene activity. The epigenetic process of DNA methylation — the addition or removal of tags called methyl groups — becomes less precise as we age. The result is changes to gene expression that are linked to reduced organ function and increased susceptibility to disease as people age.

Now, a meta-analysis of epigenetic changes in 17 types of human tissue throughout the entire adult lifespan provides the most comprehensive picture to date of how ageing modifies our genes.

The study assessed DNA methylation patterns in human tissue samples and revealed that some tissues seem to age faster than others. The retina and stomach, for example, accumulate more ageing-related DNA methylation changes than do the cervix or skin. The analysis also found universal epigenetic markers of ageing across different organs. This ‘epigenetic atlas’ might help researchers to study the link between DNA methylation and ageing and could aid the identification of molecular targets for anti-ageing treatments.

“I think this is a great resource” to understand ageing, says Joao Pedro Magalhaes, a molecular biologist at the University of Birmingham, UK. “This meta-analysis of methylation data across organs is, to my knowledge, the largest such resource assembled to date. I am sure that it will be valuable to researchers.”

The work is reported on the preprint server Research Square¹ and has not yet been peer reviewed.

Epigenetic atlas of ageing

Researchers can already analyse DNA methylation patterns in people’s genomes to create ageing clocks — tools that measure biological age. However, there are unresolved fundamental questions about whether these signatures of ageing are shared across tissue types.

To elucidate how methylation relates to ageing, Nir Eynon at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and his colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of more than 15,000 samples from 17 human tissues taken from adults of different ages. They mapped out methylation changes across 900,000 potential sites in the DNA, then created an open-access atlas. “We had examples from people from 18 years old till 100 or so,” says Eynon, so we can look at the epigenetic markers and how they change across the human lifespan.

What is ageing? Even the field’s researchers can’t agree

Overall, the researchers found that the mean amount of methylation varies greatly between tissues, ranging from 35% in the cervix, through to 48% in skin, 51% in muscle, 53% in the heart, 57% in the stomach and up to 63% in the retina.

Study co-author Macsue Jacques, also at Monash University, says almost all tissues have increased DNA methylation as they age. The exceptions are skeletal muscle and lung, “which has more of a loss of methylation with age”. Their analysis also found that different organs have distinct ageing patterns of DNA methylation. “Each tissue has a different shift that happens,” Jacques says.

Ageing methylation targets

As well as examining differences between tissues, the researchers screened individual gene sites throughout each tissue genome. “We wanted to find a common ageing mechanism that goes across all the tissue types,” says Jacques.

They found several genes that had methylation changes were strong biological markers of ageing across several tissues. These included the developmental regulators HDAC4 and HOX, which are related to senescence and age-related decline, and MEST, which has been associated with diabetes and obesity, two known accelerators of ageing².

The researchers identified high methylation of the protocadherin gamma (PCDHG) gene family as a driver of the ageing process in multiple different organs. Other studies have shown that hypermethylation in the PCDHG gene family is linked to reduced white matter in the brain, a marker of accelerated cognitive decline³.