TechRadar News

• Pilou Asbaek has outlined what fans can expect from his villain in Foundation season 3
• The Mule is an incredibly powerful antagonist who threatens Empire and The Foundation
• The series newcomer has also revealed why it's so fun to play villainous characters

Foundation season 3 will introduce the show's most terrifying villain yet in The Mule – and actor Pilou Asbaek has teased what viewers can expect from his take on the fan-favorite antagonist.

Speaking to TechRadar ahead of Foundation's return on July 11, Asbaek revealed that his version of the character will be something of a departure from how he's depicted in Isaac Asimov's original book series.

In Asimov's best-selling novels, The Mule is a weedy individual who proves looks can be deceiving. Indeed, The Mule is one of the most powerful Mentalics – humans who possess incredibly potent psychic abilities – to ever live in Asimov's fictional universe. Due to his weak appearance, he's constantly underestimated by his foes, which allows him to conquer vast swathes of the galaxy before The Imperium or The Foundation can muster a response to the growing threat he poses.

The Mule retains his telepathic superpowers in Apple's live-action adaptation. But, as Foundation season 3's official trailer revealed, he's a far more physically imposing character than in the books.

The Mule is the most dangerous antagonist we've seen in Foundation so far (Image credit: Apple TV+)

"He needs to be a big, immediate threat to Empire and The Foundation," Asbaek told me of the decision to make The Mule taller and more muscular in the Apple TV+ space opera. "So, he's physically different. He's a pretty big, wide guy who's also more roguish, brutish, and impolite than he's described in Asimov's brilliant books."

The Mule's altered build is less of a surprise when you think back to last season. As I covered in my Foundation season 2 ending explained piece, The Mule makes a brief cameo before the finale's end credits sequence rolls. The unhinged villain, who was played in that scene by Mikael Persbrandt before he was replaced by Asbaek as part of a season 3 cast shake-up, was similarly tall in stature. So, there's some continuity between Persbrandt and Asbaek's iterations of the character from a physical perspective.

Nevertheless, Asbaek is well aware that some long-time fans of Asimov's literary works might take exception to how The Mule is depicted in one of the best Apple TV+ shows. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he's already prepared himself for any potential backlash.

"I've done a few adaptations – Ghost in the Shell and Game of Thrones (GoT), for example – so I've been down that path," he mused. "I know that some people will like it [my take on The Mule] and some won't, but it's my job to make the best possible version in collaboration with the creative team.

"I didn't know Mikael had done it, but I knew of the show and what I wanted to bring to the character," he added. "It's the same thing as someone doing an adaptation of a Shakespearean play. We've seen a million different versions of Hamlet, so this is just my interpretation of The Mule."

As for how The Mule differs from GoT's Euron Greyjoy, the unlikeable and power-hungry character that Asbaek played in one of the best HBO Max shows, or any other villain he's played, Asbaek said: "He's probably the most human one I've ever played. He's got the biggest storyline I've had with playing a villain, but he's also the most chaotic, tortured soul of of them all. I'm not going to spoil it, but I can say you'll get a sense of why [that's the case].

"At the end of the day, he's just a little boy who wants to be loved," Asbaek continued. "I was very inspired by French novel 'The Little Prince'. That's also the reason why he [The Mule] wears a red coat, because I wanted to look like the Little Prince, who comes to our world because he wants to know what it is to be human and have emotions. That's the only thing that The Mule doesn't have. He's one of a kind and, throughout this season, you'll find out what happens when he doesn't get what he wants."

Are you excited to see Asbaek as The Mule? Let me know in the comments. And, before the sci-fi epic's next installment arrives, read my Foundation season 3 review to see if it's better than its predecessors.

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• Hunters International struck many private and public entities, including Tata and Telecom Namibia
• The group says it is disbanding "in light of recent events"
• It even released decryption keys for their victims

A major ransomware operation has announced a complete shutdown and the public release of decryption keys - however, some are skeptical that this is the last we’ve seen of this particular group.

The operators, known as Hunters International, published a short announcement on their dark web site, notifying their followers, affiliates, and the wider cybercriminal community, that they will no longer operate.

“After careful consideration and in light of recent developments, we have decided to close the Hunters International project,” the announcement reads. “This decision was not made lightly, and we recognize the impact it has on the organizations we have interacted with.”

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Callback phishing

While the group mentions “recent developments”, it doesn’t elaborate, so we don’t know if this means they were seized by law enforcement, or they simply extorted enough money to call it quits.

TechCrunch, on the other hand, believes there could be a third option - a smoke-and-mirrors effort to throw the police off. Discussing the matter with threat intelligence analyst from Recorded Future, Allan Liska, TechCrunch learned the group might be rebranding to World Leaks.

“I think this is more of a ‘cutting of ties’ with the old infrastructure,” Liska told the publication. This wouldn’t be the first group that rebranded to try and hide their tracks.

After the Colonial Pipeline attack, DarkSide, rebranded into BlackMatter, and later Alphv/BlackCat, and REvil (Sodinokibi) was preceded by GandCrab.

As for releasing decryption keys, while commendable, it doesn’t mean much for the attackers, Liska argues. These are mostly older victims who had no intention of paying anyway, so for the group - nothing was lost.

“As far as releasing decryption keys, at this point they aren’t likely to make any money from any Hunters’ victims who are still out there, so they probably see it as a gesture that doesn’t really cost them anything,” Liska concluded.

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• Samsung has accidentally revealed storage and RAM amounts for the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Galaxy Z Flip 7, and Z Flip 7 FE
• The Galaxy Z Fold 7 will seemingly come with more RAM than its predecessor in the top configuration
• A leak has also shown off some Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7 cases, some of which have magnets

Despite Samsung’s best efforts to stop them, phone leaks are inevitable, but usually, it’s leakers intentionally sharing details rather than the manufacturer accidentally doing so.

In the case of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, though, we’ve now encountered two accidental leaks from Samsung itself.

The first was the sharing of some colors on Samsung’s Irish website, and now leaker Roland Quandt has spotted a terms and conditions document on a Turkish Samsung site, which mentions RAM amounts and storage capacities for these upcoming phones.

The document states that the Galaxy Z Fold 7 comes with 12GB of RAM paired with either 256GB or 512GB of storage, and that there's also a 16GB version with 1TB of storage. Those storage capacities are the same as the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, but in all cases, that phone comes with 12GB of RAM, so at the top end, you should be able to get more with the Z Fold 7.

The Flip 7 and the Flip 7 FE

Next up, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 is listed as having 12GB of RAM and a choice of either 256GB or 512GB of storage. Those are the same specs as the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6.

There are also Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE specs listed here, with the phone said to have 8GB of RAM and come in a choice of 128GB or 256GB of storage.

Since this all comes directly from a Samsung site, these details are almost certainly accurate, but we still can’t be 100% certain until Samsung announces the specs on July 9 – and it’s possible, too, that some regions will have different configurations to others.

Magnetic charging could require a case

A Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 case with magnets built in (Image credit: Android Headlines)

In any case, we’ve also now seen leaked case renders for the Galaxy Z Flip 7 (shared by Android Headlines) and Galaxy Z Fold 7 (shared by NieuweMobiel).

These don’t reveal much about the phones that we haven’t already seen or heard, but it’s worth noting that some of the cases include magnets, which means that these phones will probably both have the same magnetic charging support as the Samsung Galaxy S25 series.

Specifically, you’ll probably be able to magnetically attach chargers and other accessories, much like with Apple’s MagSafe system, except the magnets won’t be built into the phones themselves, so you’ll need to equip them with a magnetic case first. If so, that would be disappointing but not surprising.

Samsung is expected to unveil all of these phones at the next Galaxy Unpacked on July 9, so we should find out exactly what they have to offer very soon.

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• Okta warns GenAI tool v0.dev is being exploited to build phishing sites
• The malicious sites are being hosted on Vercel infrastructure to appear more legitimate
• AI tools are also commonly citing false URLs, putting unsuspecting users at risk of attacks

New Okta research has revealed how threat actors are using Vercel's v0.dev to build realistic phishing sites which mimic legitimate sign-in pages, with researchers successful reproducing the alleged technique to prove its feasibility.

v0.dev allows users to create web interfaces from simple, natural language prompts, which researchers say is concerning because the technology has now been proven to lower the technical barrier for phishing attacks and other types of cybercrime.

Although Vercel and Okta have worked together to restrict access to known sites, many argue there's very little that can be done to prevent such attacks now AI tools have become so widespread.

GenAI is now creating phishing sites

Okta found the fake phishing sites to be impersonating company logos and other assets to reduce detection by unsuspecting victims, with the sites hosted on Vercel's infrastructure to appear more legitimate. Microsoft 365 and fake crypto sites were among the most popular.

The open source availability of v0.dev clones and guides on GitHub has also broadened access to these capabilities for less experienced developers and attackers.

Okta is recommending that all users set up multi-factor authentication on supported accounts, binding authenticators to original domains via tools like Okta FastPass to ensure that fake sites don't get access to your credentials.

"Organizations can no longer rely on teaching users how to identify suspicious phishing sites based on imperfect imitation of legitimate services," Okta's researchers noted.

Companies should also update their cybersecurity training programs to address risks from AI-generated phishing attacks and social engineering.

The news comes soon after another report revealed around one-third of GenAI chatbot responses containing login URLs were false, with attackers registering false domains that are cited by tools like ChatGPT to establish their own phishing campaigns.

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