Author: HackWatchit

Every year, March 31st marks another World Backup Day—a timely reminder to check if our data protection strategies are truly ready for today’s volatile cyber landscape. It is an illusion to think that cyber attacks on any industry can be avoided. In fact Check Point’s 2025 State of Cyber Security Report shows that the average number of weekly attacks per organization are up 44% year-over-year. Such attacks come from many sources – from ransomware, hacktivism, third party supply chain attacks, phishing, network intrusions and even data breaches. But in 2025, simply asking “Have you backed up your data?” no longer…

Artificial intelligence company OpenAI has announced a fivefold increase in the maximum bug bounty rewards for “exceptional and differentiated” critical security vulnerabilities from $20,000 to $100,000. OpenAI says its services and platforms are used by 400 million users across businesses, enterprises, and governments worldwide every week. “We are significantly increasing the maximum bounty payout for exceptional and differentiated critical findings to $100,000 (previously $20,000),” the company said. “This increase reflects our commitment to rewarding meaningful, high-impact security research that helps us protect users and maintain trust in our systems.” As part of ongoing efforts to expand its bounty program and reward…

Kent Ickler // Background Over four years ago now, I wrote a blog post on fixing missing Content-Security-Policy by updating configuration on webservers: https://www.blackhillsinfosec.com/fix-missing-content-security-policy-website/. Content-Security-Policies instruct a user’s web browser how it should behave on certain security considerations. Oh, how times have changed. Here at Black Hills Information Security (BHIS), we’ve actually migrated webservers, hosting companies, security platforms — that list goes on and on. The “best practices” for Content-Security-Policies have changed in the last four years too. On our new hosting platform, we need to set up appropriate content security headers again. Since we now use Cloudflare for our…

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) 4.0.1 kicks in on March 31, and with it comes stricter security requirements – especially around Non-Human Identities (NHIs). These include system and application accounts such as service accounts, service principals, and roles, as well as their associated authentication factors, including storage access keys, applications, and database users. Despite their critical role in modern IT environments, NHIs are often overlooked in security strategies. The new requirements emphasize the need for NHIs to be strictly managed. As the deadline nears, how should organizations prepare? Let’s dive in.  The New Requirements The first step…

89% of healthcare organizations have the top 1% of riskiest Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices – which contain known exploitable vulnerabilities (KEVs) linked to active ransomware campaigns as well as an insecure connection to the internet – on their networks, according to Claroty. These figures represent a highly targeted, critical area where most security teams should prioritize their remediation efforts. The report is based on an analysis of over 2.25 million IoMT and 647,000 operational technology (OT) devices across 351 healthcare organizations. Security flaws in IoMT devices threaten healthcare organizations The cyberattacks landing on healthcare delivery organizations (HDOs) and…

Russian authorities arrest three suspects behind Mamont Android banking trojan Pierluigi Paganini March 28, 2025 Russian authorities arrested three suspects for developing Mamont, a newly identified Android banking trojan. Russian authorities arrested three suspects in Saratov for developing Mamont (Russian for mammoth), a recently discovered Android banking trojan. “Three Saratov residents are suspected of fraud and unauthorized access to computer information. Officers from the fraud prevention department of PJSC Sberbank assisted in the investigation.” reads the announcement published on Telegram by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). “Preliminary findings indicate that the suspects developed malware called “Mamont,” which they…

Lululemon Athletica is focusing on new products and community events to draw customers at a time when many are concerned about inflation and the economy. The athletic apparel, footwear and accessories company has seen that these concerns have led consumers to spend less and visiting stores less frequently, Lululemon CEO Calvin McDonald said Thursday (March 27) during the company’s quarterly earnings call. “We are operating within a dynamic macro environment that has really contributed to a cautious consumer, where we’ve seen material impact to traffic across the industry,” McDonald said. “While we’ve experienced some of these traffic trends, the guest who…

Palo Alto, USA, March 28th, 2025, CyberNewsWire From WannaCry to the MGM Resorts Hack, ransomware remains one of the most damaging cyberthreats to plague enterprises. Chainalysis estimates that corporations spend nearly $1 billion dollars on ransom each year, but the greater cost often comes from the reputational damage and operational disruption caused by the attack. Ransomware attacks typically involve tricking victims into downloading and installing the ransomware, which copies, encrypts, and/or deletes critical data on the device, only to be restored upon the ransom payment. Traditionally, the primary target of ransomware has been the victim’s device. However, thanks to the…

Ray Felch // This write-up is the first of a multi-part series, providing an introduction to LoRa wireless technology and the LoRaWAN, low-power wide-area network (LPWAN). Interestingly, I came across this technology while researching a GPS tracking project that I was working on and quickly determined that this technology might be a viable alternative to using the GPS module. The deeper my research into LoRa went, I found the technology and the concept of sensor networks to be fascinating. From what I can tell from my initial research, LoRa appears to be a fairly new technology (less than 6 years)…