Technology

Seismic completed its merger with Highspot on August 18, 2026, creating a combined sales enablement platform with 2,500 customers and 3.5 million users. The DOJ closed its investigation the following day, citing evidence that AI-native competitors are rapidly growing and increasing pressure on established providers, making the competitive concern insufficient to block the deal. The DOJ used a targeted Second Request process focused specifically on AI entry, which it completed in three months rather than pursuing full document compliance.

A joint FBI, CISA, and HHS advisory updated August 18, 2026, documents more than 500 victims of the Medusa ransomware-as-a-service variant across sectors including healthcare, defense, financial services, and government, with actors exploiting four specific unpatched vulnerabilities in ConnectWise, Fortinet, Fortra, and BeyondTrust products. Medusa operators use a double-extortion model, encrypt victim data, and have been observed exploiting newly announced vulnerabilities within 24 hours of disclosure. The advisory provides indicators of compromise, four named CVEs already listed in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, and recommended mitigations including phishing-resistant multifactor authentication, network segmentation, and prioritized patching of internet-facing systems.

On August 19, 2026, Chinese private launch company LandSpace recovered the first stage of its Zhuque-3 Y2 rocket via a vertical, leg-based landing in Minqin County, Gansu — the first such land recovery by a Chinese private launcher and only the third entity globally to achieve it after SpaceX and Blue Origin. The second stage successfully delivered the Honghu-03 satellite to orbit. The recovered booster has not yet been confirmed as flight-ready, and no updated reuse timeline has been provided, meaning operational reusability remains to be demonstrated.