Author: HackWatchit

We work in an industry driven by Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE). Each security update released by myriad vendors addresses some flaw in software that could be exploited and those flaws that are publicly acknowledged are assigned a CVE designator and associated parameters. It’s these parameters, type, severity, publicly disclosed, known exploited, CVSS, etc. that are used to determine the risk to our network and computing assets, and ultimately the priority to apply the security update or patch. The CVE has become not only the designator around which we organize and rally, but also the resolution of the CVE is…

A new security vulnerability called ‘Model Namespace Reuse’ allows attackers to hijack AI models on Google, Microsoft, and open-source platforms. Discover how attackers can secretly replace trusted models and what can be done to stop it. A new security vulnerability has been discovered that could allow attackers to hijack popular AI models and infect systems on major platforms like Google’s Vertex AI and Microsoft’s Azure AI Foundry. The research, conducted by the Unit 42 team at Palo Alto Networks, revealed a critical flaw they call “Model Namespace Reuse.” For your information, AI models are often identified by a simple naming…

The reality of PCAPs (packet capture) are that they’re time consuming to create. Several laborious steps are involved: Finding a platform that’s in-path and capable of hosting a PCAP application (if there even is one) Executing the PCAP Moving the file to a system to analyze — and these files can be very large. This may involve the additional step of deploying SFTP or SCP capable applications on both sides of the transfer The net result of all this overhead is that typically I don’t use them unless there’s no other choice. It was transformative in the Black Hat USA…

Researchers at Palo Alto Networks have uncovered a new attack method that could pose a significant AI supply chain risk, and they demonstrated its impact against Microsoft and Google products, as well as the potential threat for open source projects. Named ‘Model Namespace Reuse’, the AI supply chain attack method involves threat actors registering names associated with deleted or transferred models that are fetched by developers from platforms such as Hugging Face.  A successful attack can enable threat actors to deploy malicious AI models and achieve arbitrary code execution, Palo Alto Networks said in a blog post describing Model Namespace…

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against education software company PowerSchool, which suffered a massive data breach in December that exposed the personal information of 62 million students, including over 880,000 Texans. PowerSchool is a cloud-based software solutions provider for K-12 schools and districts, with more than 18,000 customers and supporting over 60 million students worldwide. In January, the education software giant disclosed that its PowerSource customer support portal was breached on December 19, 2024, using a subcontractor’s stolen credentials. The attacker demanded a $2.85 million ransom in Bitcoin on December 28, 2024, after stealing the full names, physical…

In this Help Net Security video, Jill Knesek, CISO at BlackLine, shares practical strategies for CISOs navigating tighter budgets. From maximizing existing tools and vendor partnerships to leveraging AI and making smart investments, she offers actionable advice for maintaining strong security without overspending. Learn more:

The automotive landscape has evolved dramatically, from mechanical marvels to sophisticated platforms on wheels driven by intricate computer systems. Surprisingly, these vehicles are governed by over 100 million lines of code, running across 50 to over 100 independent processors known as electronic control units (ECUs). To put this into perspective, the Ford F-150 Lightning, a marvel of modern engineering, operates on 150 million lines of code, surpassing even the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which relies on a comparatively modest 6.5 million lines of code. This intricate code is the lifeblood of modern cars, responsible for tasks ranging from lane-keeping assistance to…

In my previous post I looked at the impact of different hyperparameters on decision trees, both their performance and how they appear visually. The natural next step, then, is random forests, using sklearn.ensemble.RandomForestRegressor. Again, I won’t go into how the random forests work, areas such as bootstrapping and feature selection and majority voting. Fundamentally, a random forest is a huge number of trees working together (hence a forest), and that’s all we care about. I’ll use the same data (California housing dataset via scikit-learn, CC-BY) and the same general process, so if you haven’t seen my previous post, I’d suggest reading that first,…

As federal agencies accelerate Zero Trust adoption, maintaining system integrity and meeting mandates like Comply-to-Connect (C2C) is more critical than ever.  This recent webinar focuses on how combining Zscaler’s Zero Trust Exchange with CimTrak’s real-time integrity monitoring delivers enhanced visibility, control, and continuous compliance across hybrid environments. Robert Johnson, III (CEO, Cimcor) and Patrick Perry (Public Sector Field CTO, Zscaler) explore how this joint approach supports C2C, aligns with DoD Zero Trust Architecture overlays, and defends against configuration drift, insider threats, and advanced cyberattacks. The webinar can be listened to in its entirety below.  The post CimTrak Enabling Comply-2-Connect & Continuous Compliance for…