Author: HackWatchit

Today marks another significant step forward in Cisco’s commitment to AI-powered cybersecurity. Following the recent release of Foundation-sec-8b, our foundational cybersecurity model, the Cisco Foundation AI team is excited to announce the private preview of Llama-3.1-FoundationAI-SecurityLLM-8B-Reasoning (Foundation-sec-8b-reasoning), an 8-billion parameter reasoning Large Language Model (LLM) purpose-built to bring enhanced analytical capabilities to complex security workflows. Foundation-sec-8b-reasoning enables the kind of sophisticated analysis and decision-making required in security workflows. This model outperforms state-of-the-art (SOA) models and will be made publicly available later this summer. Leveling Up Security Operations With Smarter AI In cybersecurity, effective analysis demands intricate, multi-layered reasoning. This includes…

Sally and I recently ventured to an on-site wireless engagement with a very security-mature customer. Long story short, the level of protection that WPA2 Enterprise with certificate validation provides is worth the investment. If your wireless is running just pre-shared keys and provides access to critical infrastructure, it is time to invest in full wireless PKI. The question Sally and I tried to answer before traveling was the obvious one before any engagement: “What should we bring?” Joff, being one of the almighty seers at BHIS recommended that “…if it can wireless, bring it.” After a couple of days spent on site,…

Sensata Technologies is warning former and current employees it suffered a data breach after concluding an investigation into an April ransomware attack. Sensata is a global industrial tech firm specializing in mission‑critical sensors, controls, and electrical protection systems. It serves the automotive, aerospace, and defense industries, among others, and has an annual revenue of over $4 billion. In April, the company filed an 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), disclosing that it suffered a ransomware attack on Sunday, April 6, which also included data theft. The cybersecurity incident impacted Sensata’s shipping, manufacturing, and other business operations. Although preliminary…

Researchers from Cisco Talos observed a destructive attack on a critical infrastructure entity within Ukraine, involving a previously unknown wiper identified as ‘PathWiper.’ The attack was instrumented via a legitimate endpoint administration framework, indicating that the attackers likely had access to the administrative console, which was then used to issue malicious commands and deploy PathWiper across connected endpoints.  Talos attributes this disruptive attack and the associated wiper to a Russia-nexus advanced persistent threat (APT) actor. “Our assessment is made with high confidence based on tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) and wiper capabilities overlapping with destructive malware previously seen targeting Ukrainian…

SentinelLABS uncovers widespread China-linked cyber espionage targeting over 70 global organizations and cybersecurity firms between July 2024 and March 2025. Learn about the “PurpleHaze (aka Vixen Panda)” and “ShadowPad” operations and the persistent threats. A new report from cybersecurity firm SentinelLABS has exposed a wide-reaching campaign of cyberattacks, strongly believed to originate from China. These activities, which took place from July 2024 to March 2025, were aimed at numerous organizations globally, including government agencies, media companies, and, notably, SentinelOne. While the scale of the attacks was significant, SentinelLABS has confirmed that its own infrastructure remained uncompromised. Reportedly, in October 2024,…

A cybersecurity researcher was able to figure out the phone number linked to any Google account, information that is usually not public and is often sensitive, according to the researcher, Google, and 404 Media’s own tests.The issue has since been fixed but at the time presented a privacy issue in which even hackers with relatively few resources could have brute forced their way to peoples’ personal information.“I think this exploit is pretty bad since it’s basically a gold mine for SIM swappers,” the independent security researcher who found the issue, who goes by the handle brutecat, wrote in an email.…

Topic: Cloud-Based Disaster Recovery: Latest Technologies & Strategies Watch Now Abstract:The risk of network failure—whether due to increasingly sophisticated cyberthreats or natural disasters—poses a significant threat to business continuity. An incident response and disaster recovery (DR) plan is essential for organizations to mitigate such risks. Traditionally, organizations preferred physical or on-premises infrastructure for backup and recovery, which was expensive and lacked scalability. However, with the advent of cloud storage, implementing a robust and scalable DR strategy has become more feasible, efficient, and cost-effective. This webinar will discuss the role of the cloud in enabling businesses to develop and implement robust…

Author: (1) Onder Gurcan, Universit´e Paris-Saclay, CEA, List, F-91120, Palaiseau, France, ([email protected]). On Using Agent-based Modeling and Simulation for Studying Blockchain Systems Bitcoin [1] is the core of decentralized cryptocurrency systems. The underlying data structure of Bitcoin is called the blockchain in which transactions of digital coins between accounts are batched in so-called blocks, where each block is appended to the last one in a cryptographic way to make the malicious/accidental change of blocks content very hard. Participants following this protocol can create together a distributed, economical, social and technical system where anyone can join/leave and perform transactions in-between without…

Contrast Security announced Northstar, a major release for the company that redefines how businesses see cyberattacks, stop breaches, and protect their applications and APIs. Contrast pairs runtime data and contextual analysis with AI-powered auto-remediation to cut response times and eliminate noise. The Contrast Graph: Live runtime insight that drives precision At the core of the platform is the Contrast Graph, which powers its most advanced capabilities, including optional agentic AI workflows that help teams respond faster and fix smarter. The Contrast Graph builds a real-time digital twin of an organization’s application and API environment, mapping live attack paths, correlating runtime…