IT Week — a critical flaw exploited in Cisco's email gateway, the pricier iPhone 18 makes refurbished worth it more than ever, and Windows 11 tightens camera and microphone permissions

📰 This week's news: a critical flaw in Cisco's email gateway, already under attack

On September 15, Cisco disclosed a critical vulnerability in its Secure Email Gateway (SEG) — the appliance, physical or virtual, that many companies and organizations use to filter unwanted mail and dangerous attachments before they reach employees' inboxes. CVE-2026-76461 stems from insufficient validation in the logic that parses incoming messages: a single crafted email, with SQL instructions hidden in the text, is enough to make the system run commands with root privileges — full control of the very machine meant to protect the mail, not just a single account.

The flaw affects every configuration, on physical and virtual appliances alike, and Cisco has confirmed attacks are already underway. The same day it disclosed the issue, the US agency CISA added the vulnerability to its catalog of actively exploited flaws, giving US federal agencies until September 17 to patch — a deadline that has already passed, a sign of how narrow the window of exposure now is for anyone who hasn't updated yet.

Anyone running a Cisco Secure Email Gateway should update to the fixed software right away, check mail logs for suspicious SQL instructions inside received messages, and review network logs for transfers to unknown external addresses. It's worth repeating to anyone who thinks spam filtering is "something the provider handles": a compromised security appliance is worse than no appliance at all, because no one expects the attack to come from exactly there.

♻️ Refurbished world: with a pricier iPhone 18 and memory chips still in crisis, refurbished is worth it more than ever

On September 18, the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max arrived in Italian stores — unveiled by Apple on September 9, with pre-orders open from the 12th — starting at €1,489 for the Pro and €1,639 for the Pro Max. Prices climb even higher with the foldable iPhone Duo, expected from late October: €2,369 for the 256GB version, up to €3,869 for the 2TB one.

This isn't an isolated price hike for a single product: behind it lies the memory chip crisis the industry now calls "RAMaggedon." AI data centers absorb up to 70% of the world's RAM production, and according to analyst firm TechInsights, DRAM and NAND prices have quadrupled over the past year. The effect already shows in the numbers: according to IDC, global PC shipments fell 4.9% in the second quarter of 2026 (to 68.2 million units), the first decline after more than two years of uninterrupted growth — and IDC itself forecasts the memory shortage won't ease before early 2028, with further price hikes on new devices through 2027.

For businesses that need to renew a few workstations, or for anyone who was waiting for the right moment to switch phones or PCs, the math changes: a refurbished device doesn't carry today's memory-chip markup, because its components were made — and paid for — years ago. With new-device prices set to keep climbing through 2027, the gap between buying refurbished and buying new, already wide today, is set to grow even further.

🪟 This week's Windows tip: camera, microphone and location, one switch per app

Microsoft is testing an important privacy change in Windows 11 Insider builds: today, camera, microphone and location access for traditional desktop apps (the ones not downloaded from the Microsoft Store) is governed by a single, general switch that applies to all of them at once. With the upcoming change — Insider build 26340.9233 — every app will get its own dedicated switch, exactly as Store apps have had for years.

The practical benefit is real: today, if a desktop app asks for webcam access and you grant it, that permission ends up applying to other programs too, ones you'd probably never use for a video call. With per-app permissions, you'll be able to deny camera access to one program while keeping it enabled only for the one that actually needs it.

In the meantime, here's a check you can already run today on any Windows 11 PC — worth doing on a refurbished machine that just arrived, since it had a previous owner — under Settings → Privacy & security → Camera (or Microphone, or Location): you'll immediately see which apps have active permission, and you can remove what you no longer need with one click. Two minutes well spent. See you next week! 🚀