Author: HackWatchit

In a decisive move underscoring the evolving nature of cyber threats, the U.K.’s NHS England has issued an open letter to current and prospective suppliers across its digital ecosystem, calling for immediate and concerted action to enhance cybersecurity standards. The letter marks a critical juncture in the nation’s health system’s battle against increasingly sophisticated ransomware attacks and signals a more unified stance on securing vital healthcare infrastructure. Co-signed by Phil Huggins, national chief information security officer for health and care at the Department of Health and Social Care, Mike Fell, director of cyber operations at the NHS England, and Vin…

The beginning of Pwn2Own Berlin 2025, hosted at the OffensiveCon conference, has concluded its first two days with notable achievements in cybersecurity research. A total of $695,000 has been awarded for 39 unique zero-day vulnerabilities, with the final day scheduled for Saturday, May 17. Day One: Major Exploits and AI Category Debut On May 15, the competition commenced with 11 exploit attempts, including the first-ever AI category. Researchers earned $260,000 for successful demonstrations across various platforms. Key Highlights: Windows 11: Chen Le Qi of STAR Labs SG combined a use-after-free and integer overflow to escalate privileges to SYSTEM, earning $30,000…

The Department of Homeland Security has announced that it awarded over $86 million in financial assistance to Tennessee, Texas, and California to support relief and recovery efforts following a series of natural disasters in a press release on May 12. “Our job is to get federal disaster management back on track after years of mismanagement. Disaster relief has been so inadequate there are still open applications that were submitted after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Under President Trump’s leadership, Secretary Noem is fixing that. These grants are a direct product of the Secretary’s efforts to ensure that states are getting the…

Kent Ickler // Link-Local Multicast Name Resolution (LLMNR) This one is a biggie, and you’ve probably heard Jordan, John, me, and all the others say it many many times. LLMNR was (is) a protocol used that allowed name resolution without the requirement of a DNS server. It was (is) able to provide a hostname-to-IP based off a multicast packet sent across the network asking all listening Network-Interfaces to reply if they are authoritatively known as the hostname in the query.  It does this by sending a network packet to port UDP 5355 to the multicast network address (all layer 2).…

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) skewered the Trump family’s crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, on Friday—for what he called its “seriously inadequate” response to a Senate inquiry into the company’s business practices. “This seriously inadequate response conveniently avoids the fact that foreign governments and others can enrich and compromise the President through World Liberty Financial,” Blumenthal said Friday in a statement shared with Decrypt, referencing a letter sent to him by the company earlier this week.“WLFI’s refusal to answer even the most basic questions about President Trump’s financial entanglements with the company raises serious concerns,” the senator continued. “And I will continue…

will share how to build an AI journal with the LlamaIndex. We will cover one essential function of this AI journal: asking for advice. We will start with the most basic implementation and iterate from there. We can see significant improvements for this function when we apply design patterns like Agentic Rag and multi-agent workflow.You can find the source code of this AI Journal in my GitHub repo here. And about who I am. Overview of AI Journal I want to build my principles by following Ray Dalio’s practice. An AI journal will help me to self-reflect, track my improvement,…

New botnet HTTPBot targets gaming and tech industries with surgical attacks Pierluigi Paganini May 16, 2025 New botnet HTTPBot is targeting China’s gaming, tech, and education sectors, cybersecurity researchers warn. NSFOCUS  cybersecurity discovered a new botnet called HTTPBot that has been used to target the gaming industry, technology firms, and educational institutions in China. HTTPBot is a Go-based botnet first detected in August 2024, however, its activity surged by April 2025. The botnet was employed in highly targeted attacks, using a periodic, multi-stage strategy to launch continuous assaults on specific victims. HTTPBot uses an “attack ID” for precise control and employs advanced…

  This is how you handle cybercrime digital extortion! Coinbase was compromised by trusted 3rd party partners, which exposed customer data — but customer keys to their assets were still safe. The cyber criminals then attempted to extort $20 million from Coinbase, to keep the attack secret. Coinbase’s answer: NO! Instead, they are creating a $20 million fund to help catch the attackers — thereby turning the tables on the extortionists! This is AWESOME! Welcome to the big leagues! This sends a huge message: 1. Coinbase takes security seriously and knows never to pay ransomware or other digital extortion. They are following common sense,…

As AI rapidly evolves from a novelty to a necessity, businesses across every industry are feeling the pressure to integrate it into their operations, products, and services. What was once a forward-looking initiative has now become a critical component of staying competitive in a fast-changing market. AI experimentation is no longer driven by enthusiastic technologists or curious stakeholders—it’s now a strategic imperative. A significant component of this transformation is the use of AI agents: intelligent systems designed to autonomously perform tasks, make decisions, and adapt to changes in information. Here, we’ll define what AI agents are, introduce MCP (Model Context Protocol),…