Author: HackWatchit

New Batavia spyware targets Russian industrial enterprises Pierluigi Paganini July 07, 2025 Since March 2025, fake contract emails have been spreading Batavia spyware in targeted attacks on Russian organizations. Since March 2025, a targeted phishing campaign against Russian organizations has used fake contract-themed emails to spread the Batavia spyware, a new malware designed to steal internal documents. The attack, ongoing since July 2024, begins with links to malicious .vbe files disguised as contracts or attachments. The malware includes a VBA script and two executables, detected by Kaspersky as Trojan.Batavia variants. “Since early March 2025, our systems have recorded an increase…

as good as the context provided to them. Even the most advanced model won’t be very helpful if it doesn’t have access to the data or tools it needs to get more information. That’s why tools and resources are crucial for any AI agent. I’ve noticed that I keep repeating the same tasks over and over again: writing similar prompts or developing the same tools repeatedly. There’s a fundamental principle in software engineering called DRY, which stands for “Don’t Repeat Yourself”. So, I started wondering if there’s a way to avoid duplicating all this work. Fortunately, the GenAI industry already…

Executive Summary Attackers are increasingly exploiting Windows shortcut (LNK) files for malware delivery. Our telemetry revealed 21,098 malicious LNK samples in 2023, which surged to 68,392 in 2024. In this article, we present an in-depth investigation of LNK malware, based on analysis of 30,000 recent samples. Windows shortcut files use the .lnk file extension and function as a virtual link that allows people to easily access other files without having to navigate through multiple folders on a Windows host. The flexibility of LNK files makes them a powerful tool for attackers, as they can both execute malicious content and masquerade…

Securities regulators have reportedly sped up the timeline for financial institutions seeking to issue exchange-traded funds invested in the Solana blockchain platform. These firms have until July 31 to refile their applications, according to a CoinDesk report on Monday (July 7), which cited unidentified sources. The report said that the move by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) signals a speeding up of the timeline for potential approval of the funds. Regulators had previously given issuers until Oct. 10 to file final applications. The reported nudge, which is not captured in any formal SEC communications, may signal that regulators under the…

Generative AI (GenAI) is already deeply embedded in enterprises, whether managers realize it or not. Sales teams use it to craft emails, engineers run agents that generate and test code, and marketers rely on it for copywriting and campaign ideation. And much of this is happening without formal approval, oversight, or control. This is known.. The post Shadow AI Is Exploding, Governance Needs to Catch Up appeared first on Security Boulevard.

The Tony Blair Institute helped form a plan that proposed selling land in Gaza via blockchain tokens, the Financial Times reported Monday, after paying Palestinians to leave their land. The tokenization project would have also seen the region rebuilt with Dubai-style artificial islands and “blockchain-trade initiatives,” complete with Elon Musk and Donald Trump-themed areas.The report was met with major uproar from Palestinian activists—one of whom described the proposed plan to Decrypt as “not just grotesque,” but “evil.”A slide deck titled the “Great Trust” was developed by the Boston Consulting Group, or BCG, the FT reported on Sunday, with participation from…

Hackers stole nearly $140 million from six banks in Brazil by using an employee’s credentials from C&M, a company that offers financial connectivity solutions. The incident reportedly occurred on June 30, after the attackers bribed the employee to give them his account credentials and perform specific actions that would help their operations. Insider threat According to Brazilian media reports, the employee (João Nazareno Roque) sold his corporate credentials to the hackers for roughly $920, granting them access to a confidential system connected to Brazil’s Central Bank. Roque then executed commands into C&M systems as instructed by the hackers through the Notion collaboration. He…

This month could barely have started any worse for some financial institutions in Brazil.On 30 June 2025, C&M Software, a Brazilian company that provides a “bridge” helping the country’s central bank connect to local banks, revealed that it had been hacked.800 Brazilian reals (approximately US $140 million) was stolen from the reserve accounts of six financial institutions as a result of the security breach.In the wake of the attack, which made massive news headlines in Brazil, the country’s Banco Central suspended access to C&M Software’s platform for all local banks and institutions while it investigated what had gone wrong, and…

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has published a final action notice that approves proposed Reliability Standard CIP-015-1 (Cyber Security—Internal Network Security Monitoring), which the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) submitted in response to a Commission directive. In addition, the Commission directs NERC to develop certain modifications to proposed Reliability Standard CIP-015-1 to extend internal network security monitoring to include electronic access control or monitoring systems and physical access control systems outside of the electronic security perimeter.  The Commission also provides greater clarity about the term Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP)-networked environment as it is used in proposed Reliability Standard…