Cyber Defense Advisors

Month: April 2024

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  • April 11, 2024

When a breach goes from 25 documents to 1.3 terabytes…

Ouch. On 7 March 2024, the UK’s Leicester City Council had its systems disrupted by a devastating cyber attack, forcing it to shut down its IT systems and phone lines. Among those affected were care home workers and the homeless. Sign up to our free newsletter.Security news, advice, and tips. By the end of March, […]

Cyber News
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  • April 11, 2024

Python’s PyPI Reveals Its Secrets

GitGuardian is famous for its annual State of Secrets Sprawl report. In their 2023 report, they found over 10 million exposed passwords, API keys, and other credentials exposed in public GitHub commits. The takeaways in their 2024 report did not just highlight 12.8 million new exposed secrets in GitHub, but a number in the popular […]

Cyber News
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  • April 11, 2024

TA547 Phishing Attack Hits German Firms with Rhadamanthys Stealer

A threat actor tracked as TA547 has targeted dozens of German organizations with an information stealer called Rhadamanthys as part of an invoice-themed phishing campaign. “This is the first time researchers observed TA547 use Rhadamanthys, an information stealer that is used by multiple cybercriminal threat actors,” Proofpoint said. “Additionally, the actor appeared to use a […]

Cyber News
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  • April 11, 2024

Python’s PyPI Reveals Its Secrets

GitGuardian is famous for its annual State of Secrets Sprawl report. In their 2023 report, they found over 10 million exposed passwords, API keys, and other credentials exposed in public GitHub commits. The takeaways in their 2024 report did not just highlight 12.8 million new exposed secrets in GitHub, but a number in the popular […]

Cyber News
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  • April 11, 2024

Backdoor in XZ Utils That Almost Happened

Last week, the Internet dodged a major nation-state attack that would have had catastrophic cybersecurity repercussions worldwide. It’s a catastrophe that didn’t happen, so it won’t get much attention—but it should. There’s an important moral to the story of the attack and its discovery: The security of the global Internet depends on countless obscure pieces […]

Cyber News
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  • April 11, 2024

Apple Updates Spyware Alert System to Warn Victims of Mercenary Attacks

Apple on Wednesday revised its documentation pertaining to its mercenary spyware threat notification system to mention that it alerts users when they may have been individually targeted by such attacks. It also specifically called out companies like NSO Group for developing commercial surveillance tools such as Pegasus that are used by state actors to pull […]

Cyber News
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  • April 11, 2024

Fortinet Rolls Out Critical Security Patches for FortiClientLinux Vulnerability

Fortinet has released patches to address a critical security flaw impacting FortiClientLinux that could be exploited to achieve arbitrary code execution. Tracked as CVE-2023-45590, the vulnerability carries a CVSS score of 9.4 out of a maximum of 10. “An Improper Control of Generation of Code (‘Code Injection’) vulnerability [CWE-94] in FortiClientLinux may allow an unauthenticated […]

Cyber News
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  • April 10, 2024

Smashing Security podcast #367: WhatsApp at Westminster, unhealthy AI, and Drew Barrymore

MPs aren’t just getting excited about an upcoming election, but also the fruity WhatsApp messages they’re receiving, can we trust AI with our health, and who on earth is pretending to be a producer for the Drew Barrymore TV show? All this and much much more is discussed in the latest edition of the “Smashing […]

Cyber News

AI: The New Sword & Shield in the Cyber Wars

AI: The New Ally & Adversary in the Cyber War Are You Fully Leveraging Its Power? Just like in “The Terminator,” AI has risen as a powerhouse in cybersecurity—both a guardian and a looming threat. Is Judgment Day closer than we think? Technology is changing fast. Traditional defenses (like firewalls, MDR/XDR, and antivirus software) are […]

Cyber Thoughts