Azure at Hyperscale, AI Powered PLC Attacks, and America's New Cyber Privateers

David opens this fortnight with a theme that runs underneath everything else discussed: when we remove operational complexity, do we actually solve the underlying problem, or just move responsibility for it somewhere else. He brings two Azure stories to back that up. The Virtual Network routing appliance has gone GA, giving hub and spoke networks a managed, hardware backed forwarding layer instead of another stack of NVAs to size and patch. And the Azure Logic Apps team has quietly finished a two year migration of 60,000 Functions apps from the end of life V1 and V2 runtime to V4, achieved by running the new runtime as shadow traffic against 100 percent of production requests before ever routing a customer to it. Richard follows with the story behind his second place finish in IBM's internal hackathon, out of twelve thousand entrants. Not the submission itself, but the repeatable process behind it: a chain of agents built on Markdown that challenges an idea, drafts a design, decomposes it into user stories, and hands the result to a coding assistant, with a feedback loop that regenerates the spec as testing throws up problems. He is now experimenting with XML as the next step in that pipeline. David also brings two security stories that deserve attention regardless of platform. Security researcher Michael Grafnetter's Black Hat research shows how a Windows event log could leak a full passkey assertion, letting an attacker replay it and sign in as the victim within a ten minute window, no password and no phishing link required. And a proof of concept exploit chain against Microsoft Configuration Manager shows how a low privileged domain user could reach SYSTEM level access on a primary site server. Cyrus closes the episode with three stories that all point the same direction. US agencies have confirmed that AI generated scripts are actively scanning for and probing internet exposed Siemens programmable logic controllers at water, energy and manufacturing sites. France's tax authority has confirmed that two individuals bought compromised admin credentials cheaply and walked out with tax and property data on 678,000 people, while the national cybersecurity agency was left finding out from the hackers themselves. And the White House has authorised vetted private companies to conduct offensive cyber operations against foreign criminal groups for the first time, a policy Richard compares to Elizabethan privateering. Cyrus wraps with a look at Microsoft's fix for one of the more absurd gaps in passwordless onboarding. Chapters: 00:00 Intro and this week's agenda 02:32 Azure Virtual Network routing appliance goes GA 10:28 Markdown as the interface between humans and AI agents 19:12 Migrating 60,000 Azure Functions apps without downtime 25:36 Passkey theft and a Configuration Manager privilege escalation flaw 30:16 Richard's IBM hackathon and his multi agent Markdown pipeline 38:28 Cyrus takes over 45:23 AI powered attacks on industrial control systems 52:28 France's DGFiP tax data breach 54:48 The US legalises private offensive cyber operations 1:00:59 Microsoft fixes a broken passwordless onboarding flow in Entra 1:03:20 Wrap up Links Azure Virtual Network routing appliance, general availability announcement: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/b... Changing the engine while the plane is flying, the Logic Apps migration writeup: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/b... Pass the passkey research summary, Entra Chat: https://entra.news/p/pass-the-passkey... Configuration Manager exploit chain writeup, XM Cyber: https://xmcyber.com/blog/potential-fo... CISA advisory on AI generated attacks against Siemens S7 PLCs: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybe... DGFiP data breach coverage, Bleeping Computer: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news... White House National Security Presidential Memorandum on private offensive cyber operations: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2026/... Microsoft Entra passkey as first MFA method, Message Center summary: https://mc.merill.net/message/MC1450133 Socials X/Twitter: https://x.com/richardihogan Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/richardihoga... LinkedIn:   / richardhogan   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?... Threads: https://www.threads.com/@richardhogan323 Music Null Invocation, Monochrome Pulse https://is.gd/b1kNU9