As the first week of February 2026 concludes, The Cyber Express weekly roundup examines the developments shaping today’s global cybersecurity landscape. Over the past several days, governments, technology companies, and digital platforms have confronted a wave of cyber incidents ranging from disruptive attacks on public infrastructure to large-scale data exposures and intensifying regulatory scrutiny of artificial intelligence systems.
This week’s cybersecurity reporting reflects a broader pattern: rapid digital expansion continues to outpace security maturity. High-profile breaches, misconfigured cloud environments, and powerful AI tools are creating both defensive opportunities and significant new risks.
The Cyber Express Weekly Roundup
Cyberattack Disrupts Spain’s Ministry of Science Operations
Spain’s Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities confirmed that a cyberattack forced a partial shutdown of its IT systems, disrupting digital services relied upon by researchers, universities, students, and businesses nationwide. Initially described as a technical incident, the disruption was later acknowledged as a cybersecurity event that required the temporary closure of the ministry’s electronic headquarters. Read more..
OpenAI Expands Controlled Access to Advanced Cyber Defense Models
OpenAI announced the launch of Trusted Access for Cyber, a new initiative designed to strengthen defensive cybersecurity capabilities while limiting the potential misuse of highly capable AI systems. The program provides vetted security professionals with controlled access to advanced models such as GPT-5.3-Codex, which OpenAI identifies as its most cyber-capable reasoning model to date. Read more..
French Authorities Escalate Investigations Into X and Grok AI
French police raided offices belonging to the social media platform X as European investigations expanded into alleged abuses involving its Grok AI chatbot. Authorities are examining claims that Grok generated nonconsensual sexual deepfakes, child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and content denying crimes against humanity, including Holocaust denial. Read more..
AI-Generated Platform Moltbook Exposes Millions of Credentials
Security researchers disclosed that Moltbook, a viral social network built entirely using AI-generated code, exposed 1.5 million API authentication tokens, 35,000 user email addresses, and thousands of private messages due to a database misconfiguration. Wiz Security identified the issue after discovering an exposed Supabase API key embedded in client-side JavaScript, which granted unrestricted access to the platform’s production database. Read more..
Substack Discloses Breach Months After Initial Compromise
Substack revealed that attackers accessed user email addresses, phone numbers, and internal metadata in October 2025, though the breach went undetected until February 3, 2026. CEO Chris Best notified affected users, stating, “I’m incredibly sorry this happened. We take our responsibility to protect your data and your privacy seriously, and we came up short here.” Read more..
Weekly Takeaway
This Cyber Express weekly roundup highlights a clear takeaway for the global cybersecurity community: digital expansion without equivalent security investment increases organizational and systemic risk. AI-built platforms, advanced security tooling, and large-scale public-sector systems are being deployed rapidly, often without adequate access controls, monitoring, or testing.
As recent incidents show, these gaps lead to data exposure, prolonged breach detection, and service disruption. To reduce risk, organizations must embed security controls, clear ownership, and continuous monitoring into system design and daily operations, rather than relying on post-incident fixes or policy statements.