Author: HackWatchit

SecurityScorecard’s STRIKE team has uncovered a network of compromised small office and home office (SOHO) devices they’re calling LapDogs. The threat is part of a broader shift in how China-Nexus threat actors are using Operational Relay Box (ORB) networks to hide their operations. Targeted hardware and firmware vendors Unlike traditional botnets, which are often noisy and scattershot, ORBs are more targeted. They repurpose everyday devices such as routers, IP cameras, and old smart tech to move through networks, collect data, or bounce traffic without raising alarms. What stands out about LapDogs is its focus on Linux-based SOHO gear, especially in…

Sam Carroll // When I started at BHIS I was surprised at the sensitivity of personal data, such as my birthday. I was soon reminded of a data mining class I took last year where Dr. Karlsson (South Dakota School of Mines & Technology) started with an ethics portion. Specifically the ethics he warned us about was anonymization of users’ data and re-identification of personal data. Sensitive information that has been poorly obfuscated can be reversed to discover very specific information about individuals. This has been such a big concern for individuals and corporations since 1998, when GeoCities had told customers information…

Oxford City Council warns it suffered a data breach where attackers accessed personally identifiable information from legacy systems. The incident has also caused an ICT service disruption, as announced on the website, and although most of the impacted systems have been brought back online, the remaining backlogs may continue to cause delays. Oxford City Council is the local government authority responsible for managing critical public services, such as housing, planning, waste collection, environmental health, and elections, in Oxford, England. The authority serves a population of around 155,000 residents, but its influence extends further due to the city’s international prominence through…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to authorize strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities has significantly escalated tensions across the Middle East, placing the region in a state of heightened uncertainty as global actors closely monitor Tehran’s potential response. On June 13, 2025, Israel intensified the conflict by targeting key figures associated with Iran’s nuclear program and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), further aggravating an already volatile situation. The ongoing tit-for-tat exchanges between Israel and Iran have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Iranian civilians and dozens of Israeli civilians, deepening regional instability. While questions persisted regarding the extent of…

In this Help Net Security interview, John Verry, Managing Director at CBIZ, discusses how insurers and financial risk professionals evaluate cybersecurity maturity through different lenses. He also shows how framing cyber risk in business terms can strengthen investment cases and elevate cybersecurity as a strategic driver. What should CISOs know about how insurers and financial risk professionals are evaluating cybersecurity maturity? Cybersecurity maturity is viewed differently depending on the stakeholder, and effective programs must account for these varying perspectives. Financial risk professionals approach it through an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) lens, evaluating how well cyber risks are identified, mitigated, and…

Security Affairs newsletter Round 529 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION Pierluigi Paganini June 22, 2025 A new round of the weekly Security Affairs newsletter has arrived! Every week, the best security articles from Security Affairs are free in your email box. Enjoy a new round of the weekly SecurityAffairs newsletter, including the international press. International Press – Newsletter Cybercrime WestJet probes cybersecurity incident affecting app and internal systems   Europe-wide takedown hits longest-standing dark web drug market Zoomcar Says Hackers Accessed Data of 8.4 Million Users  Understanding SCATTERED SPIDER: Tactics, Targets, and Defence Strategies by Daniel Collyer June 4, 2025 …

Welcome to Slate Sundays, CryptoSlate’s weekly feature showcasing in-depth interviews, expert analysis, and thought-provoking op-eds that go beyond the headlines to explore the ideas and voices shaping the future of crypto.Gracy Chen leaves quite an impression. As the only female CEO among the top 10 crypto exchanges, she’s well aware of the challenges facing women leaders, and she’s determined to use her feminine wiles to her advantage. Yet, unlike some of her counterparts who yank up the step ladder on their way up, Gracy lifts as she climbs—half of Bitget’s management team is female. As she jokes:“That’s like finding a Bitcoin…

During exercises at CognectCon2025 a number of cyberattack scenarios were discussed that highlighted the risks of cyber attackers leveraging cognitive vulnerabilities to cause major impacts to nation critical infrastructures. This video is a short report-out on one such possible scenario, before we began discussing how to prevent, detect, and respond to such an event. In hindsight, the scenario seems pretty timely and relevant. The premise of this scenario was if Iran found itself outmatched militarily by Israel and the US, how it could conduct a strategic cyberattack against its enemies by leveraging useful idiots to launch a distributed attacks with…

A C2, or command-and-control, is used by attackers to control compromised systems. Most of these C2s are in control of large botnets, yet some are simply used by an attacker to have access to a system so they can pivot to another device or to steal credentials and gain “legitimate” access to the system. I have seen and heard of many types of C2s out there, such as IRC, p2p, DNS, Twitter, Gmail, ICMP, and etc.  This list keeps getting bigger, and the ways C2 are implemented get more inventive everyday. I am rarely ever surprised by any new C2…