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Researchers at the University of Toronto have demonstrated a computer worm that reasons its way across a network, working out a different attack for each machine it lands on, with no humans involved.

Much of the coverage has called this a breakthrough in demonstrating how the AI worm can target any online device, but that capability has been visible on the horizon for anyone watching the criminal underground.

What the paper does is settle the argument about whether it is buildable and, in doing so, reopens three issues most internet security teams would rather not confront directly.

The first of these is cost, and this is the story that matters. Building attacks aimed at specific systems used to be slow and expensive, requiring skilled operators.

That expense is one reason many mid-sized organizations were largely ignored - they were not worth the engineering effort. The Toronto worm removes that constraint by running an open-weight model on the GPUs of machines it has already compromised.

Devices too weak to host a model send their reasoning upstream to an infected node elsewhere on the network. The attacker’s compute bill is paid by the victims, and each captured machine extends the worm’s own infrastructure .

Once tailored attacks cost almost nothing, being uninteresting stops protecting you. Being reachable starts to matter far more than being interesting.

Patching complications

The next issue, patch management , is where things become a little more complicated. Traditionally, when a conventional worm would ride a specific vulnerability, the conventional response would be to patch it, and the worm would die. WannaCry spread across more than 150 countries in 2017 on a single flaw, reinforcing the lesson that rapid patching limits damage.

This worm, however, does not give defenders a single flaw to patch. It reasons out a different route per host, and in one experiment, when copies repeatedly failed on older systems because of a detection bug, the parent process identified the failing check, removed it, and tried again. You cannot rely on closing a single door against something that rewrites its approach as it goes.

And finally, and more worryingly, the worm was able to consume newly published security advisories during execution and generate attacks against vulnerabilities that did not exist when the underlying model was trained. That challenges the assumption that knowledge cutoffs meaningfully constrain offensive AI.

If the model can read today’s advisory and reason from it, the training date matters far less than many assume.

Working, with limitations

However, its limitations deserve to be stated plainly. Exploitation attempts succeeded 44 percent of the time, and the researchers noted that most failures were malformed payloads rather than flawed reasoning.

It was also slow. Yet according to the researchers, across fifteen experiments the worm obtained elevated access on about 74 percent of hosts, replicated onto roughly 62 percent, and reached seven generations of self-replication within a week.

A 44 percent success rate that continually retries is not a wall the threat runs into. It is a baseline, and that baseline tracks what open-weight models can do today, a capability that has so far moved in one direction.

Another underappreciated point is that the model runs inside an environment the attacker controls. That makes many of the safety mechanisms discussed by AI vendors (refusals, filters, and rate limits), largely irrelevant. There is nothing to rate-limit when inference is occurring on infrastructure the attacker already owns.

If your AI risk model assumes a platform provider will enforce guardrails, this is a scenario that will bypass them entirely.

Plan around the attacker

What to do about it is less dramatic than the threat itself. Keep patching. The problem is that patching was already a treadmill against capable adversaries, and this only makes the treadmill faster.

The more effective solution is to plan around an attacker that eventually gets in and adapts once inside. Segmentation and containment, for instance, should take priority over chasing individual vulnerabilities. If the entry point can be almost anything, then the critical question becomes how far an intrusion can spread.

There is also the issue of exposure. A worm like this will seek the easiest foothold first, just as human operators do. These can include leaked credentials, forgotten infrastructure, internet-facing services, or access already circulating in criminal markets.

Monitoring external exposure is primarily about buying time, rather than preventing compromise entirely, which is precisely what an autonomous attacker is designed to take away.

The worm remained in the lab, and the code is gated for defensive researchers, which was the right decision. But academic containment is not quite the same as reassurance.

The economics that once shielded many organizations are weakening, the patch-it-and-move-on model is losing effectiveness, and some researchers and practitioners are placing operationally relevant autonomous attacks within roughly twelve to eighteen months.

Therefore, the question we should be asking is whether to take this seriously now, on your terms, or later, on an attacker's.

We've reviewed and ranked the best endpoint protection software suites .

This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives , our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.

The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit

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There’s a reason why some of the most effective exercises tend to mirror movements in real life. It’s not because personal trainers and coaches lack imagination, but because the body doesn't care how creative your programming is — it cares whether you can climb a flight of stairs without grabbing the banister, for example, or if you can catch yourself from a stumble.

These are just a few of the benchmarks that matter in later life, and for elite performance coach David Higgins — who has trained everyone from Margot Robbie and Scarlett Johansson to Samuel L. Jackson, David Harbour, Game of Thrones' Richard Madden and the entire cast of The Batman , among many others — one exercise sits at the top of the list for anyone over 50: the step-up. Here’s why.

Lower-body power matters so much after 50

Most people understand that strength declines with age. What they underestimate, however, is how quickly it begins to matter in practical terms, despite not being able to be measured on the best smartwatches ' fitness age metrics.

“Lower body power becomes critical after 50 because we naturally lose muscle mass, reaction speed and balance as we age,” says Higgins. “The glutes, quads and calves are what keep you upright, stable and independent.”

If you can't generate force through the floor, he says, “everyday movements like climbing stairs, getting out of a chair or catching yourself from a fall become harder.” The step-up addresses all of this in a single movement: “it trains strength, balance and coordination all at once and mirrors real life better than most gym exercises.” It's slightly similar to the farmer's carry , an application of a real-life movement.

It’s also the reason Higgins places it above more popular alternatives. Walking is excellent, of course, but doesn't load the body enough to preserve muscle. Squats are bilateral — they share the work equally between both legs, which means they don't expose or address the kind of side-to-side imbalances that tend to develop quietly over decades. Step-ups, however, are unilateral, as each leg works independently, building the stability and gait mechanics that bilateral training misses.

“If I could only choose one lower-body movement after 50,” says Higgins, “step-ups would be near the top because they combine strength, stability, balance, gait mechanics and unilateral control in one movement; they bridge the gap between rehab and performance.”

Watch the tutorial video below for advice on how to do a step up:

The mistake most older adults make

Before thinking about adding height, load or additional reps, Higgins is more concerned with something more fundamental: the quality of the movement itself. “The biggest mistake older adults make is chasing fatigue instead of quality movement,” he says. “Rushing through reps, leaning through the hips, or pushing through the stronger side of the body.” Your nervous system, he says, “has to trust the movement before your body can own it.”

Rushing through step-ups doesn't just reduce the benefit — it reinforces the compensations you're trying to correct. If you're relying on the trailing leg to push you up, or leaning forward as you step, you're not actually building the unilateral strength and hip control the exercise is there to develop.

Instead, Higgins’ coaching cue is worth memorising: “push the floor away and finish tall through the glutes.” Most people pull themselves up through the knee, instead of driving through the hip. It's a subtle distinction, but makes an enormous difference to where the effort is actually made.

How to get started — and when to progress

(Image credit: Getty Images / Ildar Abulkhanov) To perform the step-up, stand facing a sturdy bench, box, or step. Place one foot fully on the platform, then drive through that heel to lift your body up until both feet are on the step. Step back down with control and repeat for the desired reps before switching legs. Keep your chest up and avoid pushing off excessively with the trailing leg.

For step height, beginners should start with a low box, roughly ankle to mid-shin height. "You want control, not compensation," he says. Fitter adults with solid mobility, balance and hip control can work up to knee height.

As for volume, Higgins prescribes 2–3 sets of 8–12 controlled reps per leg. "Tempo matters more than volume," he says. Drive through the whole foot, stand tall at the top and lower slowly under control.

Higgins confirms that just your bodyweight is sufficient resistance to begin with and, for many people over 50, it's exactly where they should stay — probably for longer than they'd expect. “Most people over 50 need to relearn movement patterns before adding load,” he says. “Once control, balance and posture improve, adding dumbbells or a weighted vest is a brilliant progression.” The dumbbells can wait. As for frequency? Two to three sessions a week is enough to see real benefit, Higgins says. “Consistency beats intensity every time.”

Precautions

Step-ups are accessible to most people, but Higgins flags a few situations worth considering. Anyone with severe knee osteoarthritis, significant balance issues or acute hip pain should approach the exercise carefully and ideally with professional guidance. “Often it's not that the exercise is wrong,” he says, “it's that the height is too ambitious or the body isn't controlling the movement properly yet.” Low and slow is always the right answer.

What leg-day moves are your go-tos in the gym? Have you tried the step-up yet? Let us know below.

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Screenshots on the Analogue 3D are finally a thing thanks to update version 1.4.0, and it's been a long time coming. I've been waiting for the ability to snap 4K photos in some of my favorite N64 outings since the FPGA remake landed last year, but the feature is actually more advanced than I was expecting.

According to the Analogue 3D version 1.4.0 patch notes , the update will help you "capture, preserve, and share your favorite gameplay moments exactly as Analogue 3D renders it with Original Display Modes." Just like with modern systems, the retro console can now instantly snap a shot either using the star button on the 8Bitdo N64 controller or pressing Z + Start + R on a real pad, which can then be reminisced over in a dedicated gallery.

I was expecting the Analogue 3D's 4K N64 screenshots to be a basic screen grab, but now that I've finally got to grips with the virtual camera, it's actually way more impressive. Taking a snap actually works a bit like the Memories save state feature that debuted last month, only rather than sending you to a specific moment, it retains an in-game frame that you can then tweak just like you would with live game visuals.

Phil Hayton Phil Hayton That means you can freeze a moment in an N64 game, mess around with all the CRT filters and effects normally available when running a game, then export an image file to the SD card when you're done. Effectively, you're not simply slapping effects on top of a screenshot; you're instead putting it through the same post-processing as the gameplay itself, which theoretically results in more authentic-looking screen grabs.

I spend a lot of time experimenting with how to connect retro consoles to modern TVs and monitors , and screen capturing can be a pain. Active gameplay can look one way on a display, while looking different entirely once you've used something to snap a frame, then uploaded it to other places where effects might not look like you intended.

By that, I mean that an N64 screenshot might look fantastic with Sony Trinitron aperture grille effects while playing, but various factors mean a screengrab could be portrayed differently when exported to other devices or subjected to online compression. It's for that reason that being able to switch between filter styles and toggle different effects like HDR after the fact is pretty neat, as it'll mean you don't have to start from scratch to get something that looks universally "right".

(Image credit: Phil Hayton) For a while now, I've been itching to start a retro gaming snap book filled with "memories" of my classic capers. The basic idea is that every time I complete a game, I'll print off a bunch of screenshots highlighting the journey and iconic moments, then stick them onto a page alongside some field notes and scribbles.

Yes, the project ties to my longing desire to disconnect from the internet, and the Analogue 3D will partially help with that. Getting the screenshots off of the 4K N64 still requires accessing the SD card using a modern device, sure, but I could technically turn the ritual of sharing gameplay with friends into a purely analogue experience that doesn't involve logging into accounts or uploading JPEGs to social media.

That said, I would welcome more Analogue 3D Wi-Fi features should they be in the pipeline for the future. As of yet, the console maker hasn't enabled the device's internet connectivity, but it could be used to wirelessly grab saved screenshots or even directly upload them online. Now that we have the screenshots and gallery feature, the stage is absolutely set for that functionality, and I'm looking forward to seeing more Nintendo 64 photo albums pop up across the net.

(Image credit: Phil Hayton) If you need more of a reason to fetch Analogue 3D update version 1.4.0, just know that it also adds some visual polish to the OS, improves thumbnail load times, and applies fixes to quirks with d-pad navigation and multiple Controller Paks in San Francisco Rush.

Swing by the best retro controllers if you're on the hunt for the perfect N64 pad.