Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Breakfast, where we cover the top news for investors every morning.

Thanks so much for joining us on this Monday, October 20th. I'm Julie Morgan.

Wall Street's waking up on the right side of the bed. Hackers turned F5's own code against it,

and your favorite app, website, or game may not be working this morning.

Stock index futures are in the green on this Monday. Traders are gearing up for a big earnings week in the retail inflation report.

S&P futures are up 0.4%. NasdaQ 100 futures are up 0.3% and Dow futures are up 0.2%.

Deutsche Banks Henry Allen said this week will get the postponed CPI release for September,

which is coming out on Friday just in time for the FOMC meeting the week after.

Allen said economists are expecting headline CPI to come in at a 0.42% monthly gain,

which would push the annual rate up to 3.1% and be the strongest monthly print since January.

We've entered day 20 of the government shutdown.

State-sponsored hackers believed to be linked to China infiltrated systems at cybersecurity firm

F5. The hackers got in in late 2023 and remained undetected for months until their discovery

in August of 2025.

According to Bloomberg News, the attackers reportedly exploited a flaw in F5's own software

that had been left exposed online after company's staff failed to follow internal security guidelines.

Once inside, they gained long-term access to the network, downloading files from

F5's Big IP application suite, including portions of source code and data on unpatch vulnerabilities.

F5 disclosed the breach in a regulatory filing, describing it as a persistent intrusion. The company's

shares fell more than 10% following the

announcement. Security officials said the hackers deployed Brickstorm, a type of malware

associated with a Chinese threat group known for stealthy long-term access to technology and legal

...