Author: HackWatchit

A new mobile crypto-stealing malware called SparkKitty was found in apps on Google Play and the Apple App Store, targeting Android and iOS devices. The malware is a possible evolution of SparkCat, which Kaspersky discovered in January. SparkCat used optical character recognition (OCR) to steal cryptocurrency wallet recovery phrases from images saved on infected devices. When installing crypto wallets, the installation process tells users to write down the wallet’s recovery phrase and store it in a secure, offline location. Access to this seed phrase can be used to restore a crypto wallet and its stored assets on another device, making…

A newly released advisory from the FBI and Canada’s Cyber Centre warns of an ongoing cyber espionage campaign by a China-linked group that is targeting telecom networks worldwide. The report, issued June 20, 2025, points to “Salt Typhoon,” a notorious Chinese APT group using known vulnerabilities in routers and other edge network devices to steal sensitive data. The activity, tracked since at least February, involves exploiting devices at the network perimeter to gain hidden access, siphon off communications data, and maintain long-term control. In one documented incident, three network devices at a Canadian telecom were compromised, allowing attackers to intercept…

In this Help Net Security interview, Stacy Wallace, CISO at Arizona Department of Revenue, talks about the realities of work-life balance in cybersecurity leadership. She shares how her team handles constant pressure, sets boundaries, and deals with stress. Wallace also gives practical advice for those looking to build a lasting career in cybersecurity. Let’s start with your perspective. How would you describe the current state of work-life balance in cybersecurity leadership? Work-life balance is challenging in the cybersecurity world; this career field is demanding overall. Many cyber roles require irregular hours and some roles are still not clearly defined in…

ADVISORY: The techniques and tools referenced within this blog post may be outdated and do not apply to current situations. However, there is still potential for this blog entry to be used as an opportunity to learn and to possibly update or integrate into modern tools and techniques. Answer: Enough to make it worth it! Penetration testers love to perform password spraying attacks against publicly available email portals as described here in this great post by Beau Bullock. Recently I performed a password spray against an Outlook Web App portal that had multi-factor authentication enabled using Microsoft MFA. The login page looked…

Recorded Future warns that Russian hybrid threats, including sabotage of critical infrastructure, vandalism, weaponized migration, and military intimidation, are highly likely to intensify around the 2025 NATO Summit. These activities are expected to particularly target European countries, especially if the summit produces decisive outcomes on Ukraine. The Baltic states, Poland, and Germany face the highest risk.  In its research report titled ‘Threats to the 2025 NATO Summit,’ Recorded Future observed that the complex geopolitical environment surrounding the summit also makes it an attractive target for various threat actors, including state-backed influence operations, cybercriminals, hacktivists, and advanced cyber threat groups. Researchers…

The financial impact of Marks & Spencer and Co-op cyberattacks could reach £440M Pierluigi Paganini June 23, 2025 UK’s Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC) labels Marks & Spencer and Co-op cyberattacks a Category 2 event, estimating financial impact at £270M–£440M. The Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC) has labeled the recent cyberattacks on Marks & Spencer and Co-op as a Category 2 systemic event, estimating losses between £270M and £440M. In early May, the attackers behind the Co-op cyberattack, who go online with the name DragonForce, told the BBC that they had stolen data from the British retail and provided proof of the…

Stablecoins represent an important opportunity for a subset of use cases, including in emerging markets, Visa Chief Product and Strategy Officer Jack Forestell wrote in a Sunday (June 22) blog post. Problems stablecoins may solve include use cases in which users want to hold U.S. dollars but don’t have access to them, when local fiat currency is highly volatile, or for certain cross-border money movement like remittances and B2B payments, according to the post. “We see these use cases as new flows that we do not currently fully address today, providing a way for us to grow our business,” Forestell said in…

The appearance of ChatGPT in 2022 completely changed how the world started perceiving artificial intelligence. The incredible performance of ChatGPT led to the rapid development of other powerful LLMs. We could roughly say that ChatGPT is an upgraded version of GPT-3. But in comparison to the previous GPT versions, this time OpenAI developers not only used more data or just complex model architectures. Instead, they designed an incredible technique that allowed a breakthrough. In this article, we will talk about RLHF — a fundamental algorithm implemented at the core of ChatGPT that surpasses the limits of human annotations for LLMs. Though the…

Logan Lembke // ADVISORY: The techniques and tools referenced within this blog post may be outdated and do not apply to current situations. However, there is still potential for this blog entry to be used as an opportunity to learn and to possibly update or integrate into modern tools and techniques. Antivirus has been a key component in defending computer systems since the 1990s. Over the years, antivirus began to dominate the discussion of PC security with other means falling to the wayside. Brand names such as Symantec and McAfee have continually jockeyed for business, each claiming that they alone…