Category: Information Security Buzz

Ransomware Payments Fall 35%

Ransomware payments decreased by 35.82% year-over-year (YoY) in 2024, research from Chainalysis has revealed. The blockchain analytics company attributes much of this decrease to increased law enforcement actions, improved international collaboration, and a growing refusal of victims to pay.   While,…

UK and US refuse to sign international AI declaration

The UK and the US have opted not to sign an international agreement on artificial intelligence (AI) at a global summit held in Paris. The declaration—endorsed by multiple countries including France, China, and India—commits to an “open,” “inclusive,” and “ethical”…

Bad Actors Target DeepSeek in LLMJacking Attacks

Cybercriminals are rapidly evolving their tactics for exploiting large language models (LLMs), with recent evidence showing a surge in LLMjacking incidents. Since Sysdig TRT first discovered LLMjacking in May 2024,  it says attackers have continuously adapted, targeting new models such…

Black Duck Report: Inventory, Automation, and Endorsement

Organizations are increasingly prioritizing compliance due to recent regulatory requirements, such as those from the US Government regarding the sale of software to the US government and the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA).   This was one of the findings…

The RAT Pack Returns: ValleyRAT’s Devious Delivery Methods

Morphisec Threat Labs has uncovered cunning new delivery techniques used by ValleyRAT, a sophisticated multi-stage malware attributed to the Silver Fox APT.   The malware, which primarily targets key roles in finance, accounting, and sales, has evolved with updated tactics, techniques,…

Why Cybersecurity Is Everyone’s Responsibility

For long-time cybersecurity industry veterans, we’re in an age that once we never thought possible; cybersecurity has moved from a backroom, “IT-only” relegation to a top-of-mind business objective. Right where we always thought it should be. However, this new era…

Qualys Report Raises Red Flags in DeepSeek-RI Security

A recent security analysis conducted by Qualys, using its AualysTotalAI solution, has raised significant concerns about DeepSeek-RI’s risks, particularly in enterprise and regulatory settings.  The newly released large language model (LLM) has captured global attention with its promise of high…

Credential-stealing malware surges in 2024

Malware designed to steal credentials from password stores now accounts for 25% of all malware activity—a dramatic threefold increase in this type of threat.  This was one of the findings of Picus Security’s annual cybersecurity analysis, The Red Report 2025.…

2024: The Year Data Security Took a Beating

2024 was a brutal year for data security, with some of the world’s biggest companies suffering breaches that exposed millions of sensitive records.   The attacks were carried out by well-known cybercriminal groups, including Alphv/BlackCat, Qilin, and Rhysida, and shone a…

Upskilling the UK workforce for the AI revolution

As the UK government rolls out its ambitious AI Opportunity Action Plan to enable greater implementation of new technologies to boost economic growth, it faces a critical challenge: ensuring every industry is prepared for this seismic shift.  Interestingly, both UK…

Smiths Group Discloses Security Breach

Smiths Group, a multinational engineering business, has disclosed a data breach. The company, which is based in London but employees more than 15,000 people in over 50 countries, published a filing to the London Stock Exchange (LSE) on Tuesday saying…

What is Acceptable Risk?

CISOs today must decide what is an acceptable risk to their organization. It’s an impossible equation to solve as enterprise attack surfaces are rapidly expanding, necessitating the need for a modernized approach to risk assessment. The most forward-thinking CISOs use…

Criminals Increase Attack Speed by 22%

The average time it takes for an attacker to move laterally after gaining initial access – known as breakout time – has plummeted to just 48 minutes, new research from ReliaQuest has revealed.   These results represent a 2% increase in…

Cyberattack Crashes the Party Amid DeepSeek’s Meteoric Rise

Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek, which has taken the market by storm, has temporarily limited new user registrations following a large-scale cyberattack that disrupted its services.   According to Reuters, the attack coincided with the company’s AI assistant becoming the…

Attackers Exploit PDFs in Sophisticated Mishing Attack

In a newly discovered phishing campaign, malicious actors are using malicious PDF files to target mobile device users in potentially more than 50 countries.   Dubbed the “PDF Mishing Attack,” the campaign exploits the widespread trust in PDFs as a secure…

GoDaddy’s Cybersecurity Called into Question

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a complaint that GoDaddy has violated Section 5 of the FTC Act pertaining to “unfair methods of competition” through “unfair or deceptive acts or practices.” The complaint details how GoDaddy’s failure to implement…

A Strategic Approach to Container Security

Containerization technologies have transformed how applications are built, deployed, and managed. From speeding up production cycles to enabling seamless scalability, they have become the backbone of mission-critical enterprise applications. Gartner predicts that by 2027, 90% of global organizations will run…

The Unchanging Nature of Human Nature

At the conclusion of each calendar year, organizations and observers across all industries try to put forward predictions on what the new year might hold, and we at Thales were no exception. In the latest episode of our Thales Security…

Can’t Start a Fire Without a Spark

Code Intelligence has started 2025 with a bang and captured the interest of the cybersecurity community by announcing ‘Spark,’ their new AI Test Agent, ahead of a launch party later this month. Influential AI-automated software testing company Code Intelligence has…

Securing Health Data in 2025: The Rising Cybersecurity Challenges

Since 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has been the cornerstone of patient privacy. The act established standards for how healthcare organizations handle and share patient data, creating a framework for ensuring confidentiality.  But the healthcare landscape…

Sneaky 2FA Kit Exposes Vulnerabilities in 2FA Security

Cybersecurity researchers from Sekoia have discovered a new Adversary-in-the-Middle (AiTM) phishing kit named “Sneaky 2FA,” targeting Microsoft 365 accounts. First discovered in December last year, this phishing kit has been active since at least October 2024 and is distributed as…

Critical Infrastructure Embraces CISA CyHy Service

Critical infrastructure organization enrollment in CISA’s Cyber Hygiene (CyHy) service surged 201% between 1 August 2022, and 31 August 2024, a new report released by the US cybersecurity agency has revealed. The CISA CyHy service is a suite of free…

UK Government Seeking to ‘Turbocharge’ Growth Through AI

Earlier this week, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer released a statement and made a subsequent speech unveiling and endorsing his government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan (AOAP). He declared Artificial intelligence (AI) to be “the defining opportunity of our generation” foreshadowing…

AWS S3 Buckets Under Siege: New Ransomware Exploits SSE-C

Research from the Halcyon RISE Team has revealed that a ransomware actor dubbed “Codefinger” has launched a new campaign on Amazon S3 buckets, leveraging WS’s Server-Side Encryption with Customer Provided Keys (SSE-C) to encrypt data and render victims powerless to…

The Looming Crisis: Meta, Misinformation, and Public Trust

Meta’s jaw-dropping announcement that it is ending its third-party fact-checking program is likely to trigger increased activity from fake accounts and troll farms, which specialize in disseminating intentional falsehoods. The social media giant’s decision to end its fact-checking initiatives raises…

US Tightens AI Export Controls to Curb Adversarial Misuse

In a move to cement the US’s position as a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI), the Biden-Harris Administration has unveiled an Interim Final Rule on AI Diffusion. The policy hopes to improve national security and economic strength while ensuring…

NFL Giants Green Bay Have Their Online Defense Breached

Whilst the four-time Superbowl Champions, The Green Packers, have rightly been drawing praise this season for their on-field defensive performances, the Organization’s online defense has been called into question following the disclosure of a significant data breach affecting thousands of…

VIPRE Security Shares Cybersecurity Trends for 2025

Last year saw increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity threats as malicious actors leveraged all forms of AI to create difficult-to-detect phishing attacks, deepfakes, and ransomware incidents. To counter these, organizations adopted AI-driven security solutions, including threat detection, automated incident response, and intelligent vulnerability…

Almost 8500 People Affected by Casio Data Leak

Casio has said nearly 8500 people were affected by a ransomware attack that compromised its servers on 5 October last year. The attack led to data leaks, including internal documents and personal information, but no credit card information was included…

When is a RAT, not a RAT?

Have you heard the story about the RAT that pretended to be a RAT? If not, you’d better sit down for this one. There’s a RAT in my kitchen Last month, a malicious package, ethereumvulncontracthandler, was identified on the npm…

High-Severity Vulnerability Discovered in Nuclei: What You Need to Know

An engineering team from Wiz has discovered a critical vulnerability in Nuclei, a popular open-source security tool developed by ProjectDiscovery. The vulnerability, assigned as CVE-2024-43405, enables malicious actors to bypass the tool’s signature verification process, potentially enabling arbitrary code execution.…

Diving into Azure Lateral Movement with Pass-the-PRT

One of the most concerning attack methods I’ve come across recently is ‘Pass-the-PRT.’ It’s not the most likely of cyberattacks, but if successful – your organization’s security is in trouble. And that’s precisely what makes it dangerous—it leverages legitimate authentication…

2024 Year in Review (Part 2)

July AT&T announced (in a financial filing) the discovery of a data breach dating back to 2023 that affects almost every AT&T customer. “The stolen data also includes call records of customers with phone service from other cell carriers that…

2024 Year in Review (Part 1)

As 2023 came to a close, it was easy to predict that breaches would continue to dominate the cybersecurity news. However, the scale of the events, specifically the Change Healthcare breach eclipsed all others for the year.  The other event…

CISA and EPA Warn Water Facilities to Secure Exposed HMIs

The US government is imploring water and wastewater organizations to secure internet-exposed human-machine interfaces (HMIs) that provide access to industrial machines against cyberattacks. Unauthorized access to these HMIs can allow malicious actors to view sensitive information and disrupt operations. HMIs…

Nine Updated Security Measures for the Modern Smart Home

Modern smart homes offer unparalleled convenience, but there’s a catch. Security vulnerabilities can leave you open to cyberattacks, letting criminals “see” far more than they could glimpse through your window curtains—like your bank account number. Taking the following nine measures…

9 Updated Security Measures for the Modern Smart Home

Modern smart homes offer unparalleled convenience, but there’s a catch. Security vulnerabilities can leave you open to cyberattacks, letting criminals “see” far more than they could glimpse through your window curtains—like your bank account number. Taking the following nine measures…

Cybersecurity in 2025 – A New Era of Complexity

As the world steps into 2025, the cybersecurity landscape is set to evolve at an unprecedented pace, driven by the convergence of emerging technologies, sophisticated threats, and tightening regulations. The fourth edition of this report delves into the critical trends…

It’s Beginning to look a lot like Grinch bots

Almost three-quarters (71%) of UK consumers believe that nefariously named ‘Grinch bots’ are ruining Christmas by acquiring all the best presents. This was one of the findings of new research from Imperva, a Thales company. Grinch bots are automated programs…

SpartanWarriorz Phish Kits: Uncovered

Cybercriminals are using phish kits developed by authoring group SpartanWarriorz to target over 300 global brands, new research from Fortra has revealed. Attackers using the kits tend to target financial institutions in North America and Europe, retail, delivery services, and…

Glazed and Confused: Krispy Kreme Battles Cyberattack

Doughnut giant Krispy Kreme has disclosed a cyberattack that happened on 29 November and has led to significant operational disruptions, particularly affecting its online ordering system in parts of the United States. The doughnut chain disclosed the cyberattack in an 8-K…

Phishers Nabbed in International Sting

In a major international crackdown, Belgian and Dutch authorities, supported by Europol and Eurojust, have dismantled a phone phishing gang responsible for large-scale financial fraud across Europe. The operation resulted in eight arrests and significant seizures. Action Day Results Law…