Author: HackWatchit

The Evolving Cybercrime Landscape  Cybercrime is projected to cost the global economy $10 trillion by 2025, driven by escalating geopolitical tensions, the rapid adoption of emerging technologies and a widening cybersecurity skills gap. Ransomware attacks are becoming more frequent, sophisticated and disruptive. In 2024 alone, global ransomware incidents reached  4,414 – an 11% increase from the previous year – demonstrating that the threat is only growing. Critical infrastructure is estimated to be the target of over half of attacks, according to the European Repository of Cyber Incidents. Yet there is an even great cyber threat on the horizon – quantum.…

House lawmakers are investigating the Department of Homeland Security’s response to China-linked cyber intrusions into U.S. critical infrastructure, while also looking into DHS’s plans to reconstitute a review board that was investigating one of those cyber campaigns. In a March 17 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-N.C.) asks for more information on the DHS response to the cyber campaigns known as “Volt Typhoon” and “Salt Typhoon.” The letter was also signed by House Homeland Security cybersecurity subcommittee Chairman Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) and oversight, investigations and accountability subcommittee Chairman Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.). “Despite…

93% of organizations made policy changes over the preceding 12 months to address concerns about increased personal liability for CISOs, according to Fastly. This includes two in five organizations (41%) increasing CISO participation in strategic decisions at the board level. CISO liability under the spotlight In late 2023, newly adopted regulations such as the SEC rules on Cybersecurity Risk Management, Strategy, Governance, and Incident Disclosure by Public Companies as well as other headlines have put an increased focus on corporate accountability for data breaches, raising an increased concern of CISO liability. To reduce this risk, 38% of Fastly research respondents…

Cato Networks, a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution provider, has released its 2025 Cato CTRL Threat Report, revealing an important development. According to researchers, they have successfully designed a technique that allows individuals with no prior coding experience to create malware using readily available generative AI (GenAI) tools. LLM Jailbreak Created Functioning Chrome Infostealer via “Immersive World” The core of their research is a novel Large Language Model (LLM) jailbreak technique, dubbed “Immersive World,” developed by a Cato CTRL threat intelligence researcher. The technique involves creating a detailed fictional narrative where GenAI tools, including popular platforms like DeepSeek, Microsoft…

Imagine this: you finally land an interview for a role you’re excited about. You do your best, but in the end, the job offer goes to someone else. You might blame it on not having enough experience. Or maybe you’ve been unemployed for a while and need to get back in the swing of things. But the truth is, most times, the person who landed the job wasn’t more qualified than you — they just knew how to sell themselves. And today, you will learn how to do it, too. After reading this article, you’ll be able to: Identify your…

Securing the Nation’s Most Critical Systems: CrowdStrike Achieves FedRAMP High Authorization The evolving landscape of state-sponsored threats demands the highest levels of security for federal systems and critical infrastructure. As part of our longstanding commitment to protecting federal agencies and critical infrastructure, the AI-native CrowdStrike Falcon® platform has achieved Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) High Authorization — the U.S. government’s most stringent cloud security standard.  This milestone arrives at a critical juncture, as the CrowdStrike 2025 Global Threat Report reveals adversaries can now move laterally across networks in just 48 minutes on average, with the fastest recorded breakout…

AI is reshaping software development. The advent of sophisticated AI models such as DeepSeek and Ghost GPT has democratized access to powerful AI-assisted coding tools, pushing the boundaries of innovation – a staggering 76% of developers are either already leveraging AI coding tools or planning to do so in the near future – while simultaneously lowering the barrier to entry for developers. However, this growth in AI also presents a double-edged sword as while it promises unprecedented efficiency and accuracy for developers, at the same time it also lowers the barrier to entry for less skilled hackers, amplifying the urgency for robust…

Kyle Avery // Introduction This post compliments a presentation I gave at DEF CON 30 – “Avoiding Memory Scanners: Customizing Malware to Evade YARA, PE-sieve, and More,” which included the public release of a new tool called AceLdr. The slides for this presentation are available on the conference website. As open-source tools and commercial security products improve their ability to scan process memory for malware on Windows, red teams are forced to improve their tradecraft to evade them consistently. Typically, beaconing C2 implants follow a common paradigm in which the malware executes an instruction and then sleeps for a period.…

Check Point researchers have uncovered a sophisticated credential harvesting attack that leverages Firebase, a popular web application hosting service. This attack involves the creation of highly convincing and professionally designed phishing web pages that impersonate well-known services. Example 1 The attackers also utilize a compromised vendor to send phishing links within existing email correspondences, making the scam even more deceptive. Example 2 How it Works: The attackers leverage Firebase to host phishing web pages that mimic legitimate services. By compromising a vendor’s email account, cyber criminals then insert phishing links into ongoing email threads. This tactic increases the likelihood of…