Spill, with the IT Privacy and Security Weekly Update for the week ending Feb 17th., 2026

EP279. This week's update spills on a global scale.  We start with...A single misconfigured database just turned 8.7 billion Chinese records into a global reminder that at planetary scale, data protection failures stop being “incidents” and start looking like infrastructure risks.A new class action against Lenovo puts a spotlight on how invisible trackers and cross-border data flows can turn an ordinary website visit into a quiet export of American browsing habits to China.When Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Tiffany rack up multimillion-dollar privacy fines in South Korea, it sends a clear message: even the most glamorous brands pay dearly when customer data is treated carelessly.The Instagram dataset circulating on underground forums shows how a trove of “just usernames and contact details” can still supercharge scams, phishing, and harassment at massive scale.Dozens of AI-branded Chrome extensions masquerading as helpful assistants reveal how attackers now weaponize the GenAI buzz to sneak data exfiltration straight into your browser.Apple’s fix for a ten-year-old iOS and macOS zero-day pulls back the curtain on a long-running hole likely exploited by commercial spyware against some of the world’s most high-value targets.Metas planned facial recognition for Ray-Ban smart glasses pushes the privacy debate from your screen to the street, raising uncomfortable questions about who gets to be identified, by whom, and when.The rush to embed AI into every digital interaction is quietly reshaping advertising, turning your casual chats and searches into some of the richest targeting data the tech giants have ever seen.Grab a towel and let's check the spill.