From the cybersecurity policy and law enforcement front,

• NextGov/FCW lets us know,
  • “A cornerstone federal program that certifies the security architecture of private sector cloud services for government use is expected to announce a fundamental overhaul to its processes on Monday [March 24], according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
  • “The moves, in the long term, are expected to automate many of the certification process steps for the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, which is used to ensure cloud providers meet strict cybersecurity requirements before government agencies can use their services, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to be candid about the forthcoming changes.
  • “FedRAMP has been a mainstay in government procurement for the last decade but has faced repeated complaints about the slow pace of cloud service approvals. FedRAMP has different approval levels that vary based on the sensitivity of the data a cloud service can handle, with higher levels requiring stricter security controls and generally longer review processes.”
• and
  • “Despite goals set last year by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to process a backlog of unanalyzed cybersecurity vulnerabilities, the agency said it’s not expecting a slowdown anytime soon.
  • “The National Vulnerability Database — NIST’s cornerstone repository for researchers who use its contents and measuring tools to assess the dangers of cyber exploits — has been backed up with unanalyzed vulnerabilities since February last year. The scientific standards agency was projected to clear the logjam this month based on rates observed this past summer, Nextgov/FCW previously reported.
  • “But NIST said Wednesday that vulnerability submissions increased 32% in 2024 and prior processing rates from spring and early summer last year are no longer sufficient to keep up with incoming submissions. The backlog is still growing as a result.
  • “We anticipate that the rate of submissions will continue to increase in 2025. The fact that vulnerabilities are increasing means that the NVD is more important than ever in protecting our nation’s infrastructure. However, it also points to increasing challenges ahead,” an agency spokesperson said. “To address these challenges, we are working to increase efficiency by improving our internal processes, and we are exploring the use of machine learning to automate certain processing tasks.”

• Per a March 21, 2025, HHS news release,
  • “Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a settlement with Health Fitness Corporation (Health Fitness), located in Illinois, that provides wellness plans to clients across the country, resolving a potential violation under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Security Rule.” * * *
  • “The settlement resolves OCR’s investigation of Health Fitness, which OCR initiated after receiving four reports from Health Fitness, over a three-month period (October 15, 2018, to January 25, 2019), of breaches of unsecured protected health information.  Health Fitness filed the breach reports on behalf of multiple covered entities as their business associate.  Health Fitness reported that beginning approximately in August 2015, ePHI became discoverable on the internet and was exposed to automated search devices (web crawlers) resulting from a software misconfiguration on the server housing the ePHI. Health Fitness discovered the breach on June 27, 2018.  Health Fitness initially reported that approximately 4,304 individuals were affected and later estimated that the number of individuals affected may be lower.  OCR’s investigation determined that Health Fitness had failed to conduct an accurate and thorough risk analysis, until January 19, 2024, to determine the potential risks and vulnerabilities to the ePHI held by Health Fitness.
  • “Under the terms of the resolution agreement, Health Fitness agreed to implement a corrective action plan that OCR will monitor for two years and paid $227,816 to OCR.” * * *
  • The resolution agreement and corrective action plan may be found at:  https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/health-fitness-ra-cap.pdf [PDF, 202 KB].

From the cybersecurity breaches and vulnerabilities front,

• Cyberscoop tells us,
  • “Cybercriminals used information-stealing malware to a devastating effect last year, capturing sensitive data that fueled ransomware, breaches and attacks targeting supply chains and critical infrastructure, according to a new report.
  • “Infostealers were used to steal 2.1 billion credentials last year, accounting for nearly two-thirds of 3.2 billion credentials stolen from all organizations, Flashpoint said in a report released Tuesday. By targeting identity and access, cybercriminals stole 33% more credentials in 2024 compared to the previous year. More than 200 million credentials were already stolen in the first two months of this year.
  • “Infostealers are proving to be incredibly versatile, contributing to account takeover, increasing data breach totals, acting as initial access vectors to ransomware, as well as assisting in exploitation via vulnerabilities,” Ian Gray, vice president of intelligence at Flashpoint, said in an email.”

• Security Week informs us,
  • “Browser security cannot be ignored. It’s where people spend most of their working day, and it’s where attackers focus most of their attacks.
  • “Statistics come from Menlo Security’s analysis of 750,000 browser-based phishing attacks targeting more than 800 entities detected over the last 12 months. This analysis reveals a 140% increase in browser phishing, including a 130% increase in zero-hour phishing attacks (effectively, a zero-day attack applied to phishing).
  • “The reasons for the growth are multiple: our growing reliance on the browser for much of our daily work, the prevalence of zero-day vulnerabilities, the increasing sophistication of the cybercriminal underworld, and, worryingly, the growing influence of gen-AI. Gen-AI is particularly concerning, both for its use today and its potential use in the future.
  • “Threat actors have advanced in speed and skills. They are using the same tools and infrastructure as professional engineers,” comments Andrew Harding, VP of security strategy at Menlo Security. “We’re seeing a dangerous combination of zero-day attacks, advanced social engineering techniques, sophisticated phishing techniques, and readily available phishing-as-a-service kits, all designed to infiltrate systems and steal valuable data.”
  • “He adds, “This trend is only poised to escalate dramatically in 2025 as attackers adopt AI to increase both scale and effectiveness.”

• Dark Reading adds,
  • “A nearly decade-long malware campaign known as “DollyWay World Domination” has compromised more than 20,000 WordPress websites over the past eight years.
  • “GoDaddy published a report this week claiming multiple threat campaigns tracked by various security researchers since 2016 are actually one larger operation perpetrated by VexTrio, a massive cybercrime network that leverages traffic distribution systems (TDSs) and lookalike domains to deliver malware and scams.
  • “GoDaddy’s Denis Sinegubko wrote in the company’s research blog that the operation is tracked as DollyWay World Domination due to a string of code found in variations of the DollyWay malware: “define(‘DOLLY_WAY’, ‘World Domination’);”.
• and
  • “Mobile phone jailbreaks are thriving, exposing users to anywhere between three- and 3,000-times greater risk of cyber compromise.
  • “Organizations already face a significant risk in bring your own device (BYOD) attacks. More than 70% of infected devices are personal, and a good chunk of organizations have watched as malware entered their walls through unmanaged devices belonging to employees.
  • “The risk is supercharged, though, when those devices are cracked. New data from Zimperium shows that rooted and jailbroken Android phones and iPhones are 3.5 times more likely to be infected with malware and 250 times more likely to be totally compromised.
  • “What we’ve seen is that the amount of jailbreaks and roots has decreased slightly in recent years,” says Kern Smith, vice president of global solutions engineering at Zimperium. However, he warns, “The risk of those has increased significantly. These jailbreaks and roots expose these devices to a much, much higher risk profile. And mobile devices in general are being exposed to a much higher risk profile today. So it becomes a multiplier effect.”
    
• Per Fedscoop,
  • “The Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned federal employees that cybercriminals are attempting to steal their login credentials in connection to a widely used government financial services platform, according to a notice viewed by FedScoop. 
  • “Hackers are targeting the Employee Personal Page, or MyEPP page, which is operated by the National Finance Center (NFC), a financial and human resources shared service within the Agriculture Department used by 661,000 employees across the federal government for payroll. The site, which is used to manage salary and benefits information, is typically accessed through an online account or with Login.gov credentials. 
  • “According to the FBI, cybercriminals hope to trick federal employees by running advertisements on search engines that impersonate the NFC website. If they click on the ad, employees are brought to a “sophisticated phishing website” that looks similar to the actual MyEPP page that aims to capture their login credentials when users enter them.”

• Per Bleeping Computer,
  • “Veeam has patched a critical remote code execution vulnerability tracked as CVE-2025-23120 in its Backup & Replication software that impacts domain-joined installations.
  • “The flaw was disclosed yesterday and affects Veeam Backup & Replication version 12.3.0.310 and all earlier version 12 builds. The company fixed it in version 12.3.1 (build 12.3.1.1139), which was released yesterday.
  • “According to a technical writeup by watchTowr Labs, who discovered the bug, CVE-2025-23120 is a deserialization vulnerability in the Veeam.Backup.EsxManager.xmlFrameworkDs and Veeam.Backup.Core.BackupSummary .NET classes.”

• Cybersecurity Dive tells us,
  • At least 11 state-sponsored threat groups since 2017 have been actively exploiting a Microsoft zero-day flaw allowing for abuse of Windows shortcut files to steal data and commit cyber espionage against organizations in various industries.
  • Researchers from Trend Micro’s Trend Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) have identified nearly 1,000 malicious .lnk files abusing the flaw, tracked as ZDI-CAN-25373, which allows attackers to execute hidden malicious commands on a victim’s machine by leveraging crafted shortcut files.
  • “By exploiting this vulnerability, an attacker can prepare a malicious .lnk file for delivery to a victim,” according to a Trend Micro blog post on Tuesday. “Upon examining the file using the Windows-provided user interface, the victim will not be able to tell that the file contains any malicious content.”
  • “The malicious files delivered by attackers include various payloads, including the Lumma infostealer and Remco’s remote access Trojan (RAT), that expose organizations to risks of data theft and cyber espionage.”

• CISA added five known exploited vulnerabilities to its catalog this week.
  • March 18, 2025
    • CVE-2025-24472 Fortinet FortiOS and FortiProxy Authentication Bypass Vulnerability
    • CVE-2025-30066 tj-actions/changed-files GitHub Action Embedded Malicious Code Vulnerability
      • Dark Reading discusses the Fortinent KVE here, and Cybersecurity Dive discusses the Github KVE here.
  • March 19, 2025
    • CVE-2025-1316 Edimax IC-7100 IP Camera OS Command Injection Vulnerability
    • CVE-2024-48248 NAKIVO Backup and Replication Absolute Path Traversal Vulnerability
    • CVE-2017-12637 SAP NetWeaver Directory Traversal Vulnerability
      • Hacker News discusses the Edimax KVE here and the NAVIKO KVE here. Cybersecurity News discusses the SAP KVE here.

• Cybersecurity Dive adds,
  • Johannes Ullrich of the SANS Internet Storm Center reported exploitation attempts this week against two critical Cisco vulnerabilities that were initially disclosed in September. CVE-2024-20439 is a static credential vulnerability in the Cisco Smart Licensing Utility, and CVE-2024-20440 is an information disclosure flaw in the utility. 
  • It’s unclear if the exploitation was successful, but Ullrich noted the static credential for CVE-2024-20439 was previously published by a security researcher and could be used to remotely access affected devices.
  • Ullrich told Cybersecurity Dive the exploitation attempts likely originate from a smaller botnet, with activity spiking over the last week.

• Fierce Healthcare lets us know,
  • “A new report by Clearwater Security found that incident response and resilience was a major issue for private equity-owned healthcare companies, which need to improve consistency in cybersecurity governance in light of their high-growth business model.
  • “The assessment found systemic gaps in security preparedness, as healthcare organizations need more documented policies for cybersecurity practices from provider practices to digital health companies. Private equity firms need to consider the cybersecurity risk profiles of companies when deciding whether to acquire them or merge them with other businesses, Clearwater writes.
  • “Because private equity firms prioritize rapid growth of their portfolio companies, Clearwater found that health IT infrastructures and cybersecurity practices often fall behind. A cybersecurity incident can devalue a company overnight or rack up regulatory fines, a dangerous prospect for PE firms.
  • “The report looked at consumer health companies, healthcare data and analytics companies and physician practices owned by private equity firms. It also evaluated pharma, biosciences and dental services companies.”

From the ransomware front,

• Cybersecurity Dive reports,
  • “A Medusa ransomware campaign is using a malicious driver to disrupt and even delete endpoint detection and response (EDR) products on targeted organization networks.
  • “According to new research from Elastic Security Labs, the malicious driver, dubbed ABYSSWORKER, is deployed along with a packer-as-a-service called HeartCrypt to deliver Medusa ransomware. Elastic noted the driver was first documented in a ConnectWise post in January involving a different campaign of IT support scams using Microsoft Teams.
  • “In the Medusa ransomware attacks, Elastic discovered the malicious driver imitates a legitimate CrowdStrike Falcon driver and is using digital certificates from other companies to masquerade as a legitimate program. 
  • “All samples are signed using likely stolen, revoked certificates from Chinese companies,” Cyril François, senior research engineer at Elastic Security Labs, wrote in the blog post. “These certificates are widely known and shared across different malware samples and campaigns but are not specific to this driver.”

• Per Bleeping Computer,
  • “Two malicious VSCode Marketplace extensions were found deploying in-development ransomware, exposing critical gaps in Microsoft’s review process.
  • “The extensions, named “ahban.shiba” and “ahban.cychelloworld,” were downloaded seven and eight times, respectively, before they were eventually removed from the store.
  • “It is notable that the extensions were uploaded onto the VSCode Marketplace on October 27, 2024 (ahban.cychelloworld) and February 17, 2025 (ahban.shiba), bypassing safety review processes and remaining on Microsoft’s store for an extensive period of time.”

• Per Trend Research,
  • “Trend Research uncovered new versions of the Albabat ransomware. The development of these versions signifies the ransomware operators’ potential expansion of their targets from Windows to Linux and macOS. Research also reveals the group’s use of GitHub to streamline operations.
  • “Enterprises should remain vigilant against ransomware threats like Albabat as a successful attack can incur reputational damage, operational disruption, and financial losses once threat actors get a hold of and ransom critical data.
  • “To mitigate Albabat ransomware, organizations should have strong access controls for sensitive data, update and patch systems regularly and have proper backups.”

• Per TechSpot,
  • “Akira, one of the most dangerous ransomware strains floating around the internet, just met its match — an Indonesian programmer armed with cloud computing and sheer determination.
  • “As first reported by TechSpot, Yohanes Nugroho successfully cracked Akira, a multiplatform ransomware that has been wreaking havoc since 2023. Used by cyber criminals to target hundreds of businesses, government agencies, and industries, Akira has helped its developers earn millions.
  • “While this isn’t the first time someone has found a way to break Akira’s encryption, what makes this case remarkable is that Nugroho did it alone — and in just over 10 hours.”

From the cybersecurity business and defense front,

• NextGov/FCW reports,
  • “Google has moved to expand the security aspects of its cloud offering by agreeing to acquire Wiz in a $32 billion all-cash transaction, the global tech giant’s largest-ever.
  • “Wiz generates roughly $1 billion in annual revenue with FedRAMP-authorized cloud security products in areas such as prevention, active detection and response.
  • “Google sees the addition of Wiz as helping it support more agencies as they look to move their systems into multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments.
  • “At the same time, software and (artificial intelligence) platforms are becoming deeply embedded across products and operations, bringing new and evolving risks for private enterprises, governments, and other public sector organizations,” Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said in a release.”

• Dark Reading explains why “Cyber Quality Is the Key to Security. The time to secure foundations, empower teams, and make cyber resilience the standard is now — because the cost of waiting is far greater than the investment in proactive security.”

• TechTarget offers “13 API security best practices to protect your business. APIs are the backbone of most modern applications, and companies must build in API security from the start. Follow these guidelines to design, deploy and protect your APIs.”

• Here are links to
  • Dark Reading’s CISO Corner
  • A HelpNetSecurity video about “Pay, fight, or stall? The dilemma of ransomware negotiations”
  • A Cyberscoop podcast in which its editor in chief “Greg Otto talks with FTI Consulting’s Allie Bohan exploring the challenges organizations face in maintaining effective communication during cyberattacks.”
  • The FEHBlog watched the seven-minute-long video and listed to the podcast while drafting this post and he found them worthwhile.

From the cybersecurity policy and law enforcement front.

• Security Week informs us,
  • “The Federal Contractor Cybersecurity Vulnerability Reduction Act of 2025 [(HR 872)] instructs the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to consult with CISA, the Office of the National Cyber Director, NIST, and other relevant departments, and require federal contractors to have a [vulnerability disclosure program] VDP that is consistent with NIST guidelines. 
  • “The bill also instructs the Defense Department to require defense contractors to adopt similar policies. 
  • “The goal is to make it easier for individuals and companies who find vulnerabilities in contractors’ systems to responsibly disclose them. 
  • “Just days before the bill passed the House, several major cybersecurity and tech companies signed a letter urging the House and Senate to approve the legislation.” * * *
  • “The legislation is now in the Senate, where it has been referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.”
     
• Speaking of NIST, earlier this week, NIST finalized “Guidelines for Evaluating ‘Differential Privacy’ Guarantees to De-Identify Data.”
  • “Using differential privacy can help organizations glean useful insights from databases while protecting individuals’ data. 
  • “NIST has put the finishing touches on guidelines intended to help organizations evaluate differential privacy claims. 
  • “The finalized publication expands upon draft guidelines that NIST released last year.”
    
• Bleeping Computer lets us know,
  • “U.S. authorities have seized over $23 million in cryptocurrency linked to the theft of $150 million from a Ripple crypto wallet in January 2024. Investigators believe hackers who breached LastPass in 2022 were behind the attack.
  • “Despite the threat actors’ efforts, law enforcement agents traced $23,604,815.09 of the stolen digital assets between June 2024 and February 2025 to the following cryptocurrency exchanges: OKX, Payward Interactive, Inc. (dba Kraken), WhiteBIT, AscendEX Technology SRL, Ftrader Ltd (dba FixedFloat), SwapSpace LLC, and Rabbit Finance LLC (dba CoinRabbit).
  • “A forfeiture complaint unsealed by the U.S. Justice Department yesterday [March 6] and first spotted by crypto fraud investigator ZachXBT reveals that U.S. Secret Service agents who interviewed the victim believe the attackers could have only stolen the cryptocurrency using private keys extracted by cracking the victim’s password vault stolen in a 2022 breach of an online password manager.”

• Cyberscoop tells us,
  • The Justice Department on Wednesday [March 6] indicted 12 Chinese nationals for their alleged involvement in an extensive nation-state-backed espionage campaign that included a spree of attacks on U.S. federal and state agencies, including the late 2024 attack targeting the Treasury Department. 
  • Officials accused the Chinese individuals, including two officers of China’s Ministry of Public Security, eight i-Soon employees and two members of the Chinese state-backed threat group APT27 or Silk Typhoon, of breaching numerous networks globally to steal and sell data to China’s intelligence and security services. Some of the alleged attacks date back to 2011, officials said.
  • The indictments reveal China’s alleged well-coordinated effort to use a hacker-for-hire ecosystem to conduct espionage while obscuring the government’s direct involvement. The pool of victims impacted by the alleged co-conspirators is immense, including U.S.-based critics and dissidents of China, a large U.S.-based religious organization and foreign ministries of multiple governments in Asia.

• Per a U.S. Justice Department news release,
  • “A federal jury in Cleveland convicted a Texas man today for writing and deploying malicious code on his former employer’s network.
  • “According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Davis Lu, 55, of Houston, was employed as a software developer for the victim company headquartered in Beachwood, Ohio, from November 2007 to October 2019. Following a 2018 corporate realignment that reduced his responsibilities and system access, Lu began sabotaging his employer’s systems. By Aug. 4, 2019, he introduced malicious code that caused system crashes and prevented user logins. Specifically, he created “infinite loops” (in this case, code designed to exhaust Java threads by repeatedly creating new threads without proper termination and resulting in server crashes or hangs), deleted coworker profile files, and implemented a “kill switch” that would lock out all users if his credentials in the company’s active directory were disabled. The “kill switch” code — which Lu named “IsDLEnabledinAD”, abbreviating “Is Davis Lu enabled in Active Directory” — was automatically activated upon his termination on Sept. 9, 2019, and impacted thousands of company users globally.” 

From the cybersecurity vulnerabilities and breaches front,

• Cyberscoop relates,
  • “The Chinese state-backed threat group Silk Typhoon shifted tactics in late 2024 to broaden access and enable follow-on attacks against downstream customers of its initial targets, Microsoft Threat Intelligence said in a blog released Wednesday. 
  • “The Chinese espionage group, which is also known as APT27, has abused stolen API keys and credentials for privileged access management, cloud-based application providers and data management companies to intrude networks operated by state and local governments and organizations in the IT sector.
  • “After successfully compromising a victim, Silk Typhoon uses the stolen keys and credentials to infiltrate customer networks where they can then abuse a variety of deployed applications, including Microsoft services and others, to achieve their espionage objectives,” Ann Johnson, corporate vice president at Microsoft Security, said in a LinkedIn post.”

• Cybersecurity Dive reports,
  • “Cyberattacks targeting third-party vendors are causing more financial damage than ever before, cyber risk management firm Resilience said in a recent report.
  • “Nearly a quarter (23%) of cyber insurance claims filed with Resilience last year involved material losses resulting from a third-party breach, according to the analysis. It’s a first for the company, which hasn’t previously observed customer claims with material losses in the third-party risk category.
  • “Many of the vendor-related incidents from 2024 resulted in some sort of pause on our customers’ ability to conduct business and, as a result, had a much larger financial impact,” Ann Irvine, chief data and analytics officer at Resilience, said via email.”
• and
  • Broadcom on Tuesday disclosed three zero-day vulnerabilities that affect multiple VMware products, including ESXi, Workstation and Fusion. The vulnerabilities have been exploited in the wild.
  • More than 37,000 VMware ESXi instances remain vulnerable to CVE-2025-22224, a critical zero-day vulnerability, according to scanning data from the Shadowserver Foundation. 
  • Some customers with downgraded VMware licenses have been unable to download the patches because of an issue with the Broadcom Support Portal. The company said in an FAQ that the issue is “a high priority and will be fixed shortly.”

• The American Hospital Association News notes,
  • “A Microsoft report published March 5 identified recent tactics by Silk Typhoon, a Chinese state-sponsored cyberthreat group known for extensive espionage activities. The group has been recently targeting IT solutions such as remote management tools and cloud applications to gain access and potentially cause supply chain disruptions. Silk Typhoon is viewed as a significant threat to critical infrastructure, the Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center said.  
  • “Silk Typhoon is a highly skilled group, and it has shown the ability to move rapidly and exploit unpatched vulnerabilities in systems,” said Scott Gee, AHA deputy national advisor for cybersecurity and risk. “The best way for hospitals to defend themselves is focusing on the basics of cybersecurity like patch management.” 

• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (“CISA”) added nine known exploited vulnerabilities to its catalog this week.
  • March 3, 2025
    • CVE-2023-20118 Cisco Small Business RV Series Routers Command Injection Vulnerability (discussed here)
    • CVE-2022-43939 Hitachi Vantara Pentaho BA Server Authorization Bypass Vulnerability (discussed here)
    • CVE-2022-43769 Hitachi Vantara Pentaho BA Server Special Element Injection Vulnerability (discussed here)
    • CVE-2018-8639 Microsoft Windows Win32k Improper Resource Shutdown or Release Vulnerability (discussed here)
    • CVE-2024-4885 Progress WhatsUp Gold Path Traversal Vulnerability (discussed here)
  • March 4, 2025
    • CVE-2024-50302 Linux Kernel Use of Uninitialized Resource Vulnerability (discussed here)
    • CVE-2025-22225 VMware ESXi Arbitrary Write Vulnerability
    • CVE-2025-22224 VMware ESXi and Workstation TOCTOU Race Condition Vulnerability
    • CVE-2025-22226 VMware ESXi, Workstation, and Fusion Information Disclosure Vulnerability (all three VMware discussed here)

From the ransomware front,

• Per Cyberscoop,
  • “The FBI and threat researchers are warning executives to be on the lookout for physical letters in the mail threatening to leak sensitive corporate data. 
  • “The letters, which are stamped “time sensitive read immediately” and shipped directly to executives through the Postal Service, are part of a nationwide scamdesigned to extort victims into paying $250,000 to $500,000, the FBI said Thursday.
  • “The unidentified criminal or threat group behind the mail scam is masquerading as BianLian, a prolific ransomware and data extortion group that has attacked multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors since June 2022. 
  • “Cyber authorities and researchers have not confirmed BianLian’s involvement and believe the letters are an attempt to scam organizations into paying a ransom.” 

• Cybersecurity Dive lets us know,
  • “A zero-day vulnerability in a Microsoft-signed driver from Paragon Software is being exploited in ransomware attacks.
  • “CERT Coordination Center on Friday warned in a security advisory that five vulnerabilities were discovered in Paragon Partition Manager’s BioNTdrv.sys driver. Threat actors have already exploited one of the flaws in what are known as “bring your own vulnerable driver” (BYOVD) attacks, in which attackers use signed drivers to compromise systems and evade detection.
  • “According to the advisory, CVE-2025-0289 is an insecure kernel resource access vulnerability that can be used to either escalate privileges or execute DoS attacks on targeted devices. CERT warned the vulnerability can be executed on Windows devices even if Paragon Partition Manager, which partitions hard drives to optimize disk space and performance, is not installed.
  • “Microsoft has observed threat actors (TAs) exploiting this weakness in BYOVD ransomware attacks, specifically using CVE-2025-0289 to achieve privilege escalation to SYSTEM level, then execute further malicious code,” CERT said in the advisory. “These vulnerabilities have been patched by both Paragon Software, and vulnerable BioNTdrv.sys versions blocked by Microsoft’s Vulnerable Driver Blocklist.”
    
• Per Bleeping Computer,
  • “The Akira ransomware gang was spotted using an unsecured webcam to launch encryption attacks on a victim’s network, effectively circumventing Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), which was blocking the encryptor in Windows.
  • “Cybersecurity firm S-RM team discovered the unusual attack method during a recent incident response at one of their clients.
  • “Notably, Akira only pivoted to the webcam after attempting to deploy encryptors on Windows, which were blocked by the victim’s EDR solution.”

• Per Hacker News,
  • “The threat actors behind the Medusa ransomware have claimed nearly 400 victims since it first emerged in January 2023, with the financially motivated attacks witnessing a 42% increase between 2023 and 2024.
  • “In the first two months of 2025 alone, the group has claimed over 40 attacks, according to data from the Symantec Threat Hunter Team shared with The Hacker News. The cybersecurity company is tracking the cluster under the name Spearwing.
  • “Like the majority of ransomware operators, Spearwing and its affiliates carry out double extortion attacks, stealing victims’ data before encrypting networks in order to increase the pressure on victims to pay a ransom,” Symantec noted.
  • “If victims refuse to pay, the group threatens to publish the stolen data on their data leaks site.”
  • “While other ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) players like RansomHub (aka Greenbottle and Cyclops), Play (aka Balloonfly), and Qilin (aka Agenda, Stinkbug, and Water Galura) have benefited from the disruptions of LockBit and BlackCat, the spike in Medusa infections raises the possibility that the threat actor could also be rushing in to fill the gap left by the two prolific extortionists.
  • “The development comes as the ransomware landscape continues to be in a state of flux, with a steady stream of new RaaS operations, such as Anubis, CipherLocker, Core, Dange, LCRYX, Loches, Vgod, and Xelera, emerging in the wild in recent months.”

From the cybersecurity defenses front,

• Forbes discusses “How CISOs Will Navigate the Threat Landscape Differently In 2025.”
  
• Here’s a link to Dark Reading’s CISO Corner.

From the cybersecurity policy and law enforcement front,

• Next week, House of Representatives will fast track approval of H.R. 872 – Federal Contractor Cybersecurity Vulnerability Reduction Act of 2025, as amended. This bill which would apply known exploited vulnerability (KEV) remediation rules to certain federal contractors has not received Senate consideration yet.
• CISA explains “Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 22-01: Reducing the Significant Risk of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities established the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog as a living list of known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) that carry significant risk to the federal enterprise. BOD 22-01 requires Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to remediate [CISA] identified vulnerabilities by the due date to protect FCEB networks against active threats. See the BOD 22-01 Fact Sheet for more information.”
  

• Cyberscoop reports
  • “A push is gearing up to renew an expiring 10-year-old cybersecurity law that was viewed at its initial passage as the most significant cybersecurity legislation Congress had ever passed, and that advocates say now fosters several important threat-sharing initiatives.
  • “The 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act provides safeguards for companies that voluntarily share threat intelligence data with the government or each other, such as federal antitrust exemptions and shields against state and federal disclosure laws.
  • “Reauthorization of the law faces several hurdles, including uncertainty about who will take the lead on the bill in the House and Senate, potential privacy concerns, a tight timeline, and other competing priorities. There are also some who believe the law could use updates to fit today’s threats, potentially introducing further complications.
  • “But its renewal has some bipartisan support, including among leaders of committees important to its passage, and there is optimism among outside groups that it can win congressional approval. The push is in the very early stages, but there’s a “growing recognition” that it needs to be reauthorized, said Matthew Eggers, vice president of cybersecurity policy in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s cyber, intelligence and security division.
  • “We’re in a little bit of spring training in the sense that we haven’t advocated for this legislation for about 10-plus years,” he said. “A number of organizations, over the last 10 years, have probably taken for granted the work that’s been done to get the legislation passed.”
    
• Cybersecurity Dive tells us,
  • “The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency confirmed that Karen Evans was named executive assistant director for cybersecurity under the Department of Homeland Security. 
  • “Evans, who first joined CISA in January as a senior adviser, will be responsible for leading the agency’s cybersecurity efforts as the national coordinator for critical infrastructure security and resilience. 
  • “Starting in 2018, Evans served as assistant secretary for cybersecurity, energy security and emergency response at the Department of Energy. She was named chief information officer at DHS and served from March 2020 to January 2021. She also served as managing director of the Cyber Readiness Institute before joining CISA.”

• Cyberscoop adds,
  • “President Donald Trump hasn’t yet selected an overall leader for CISA, although Sean Plankey has reportedly been in line for the Senate-confirmed job. But Evans’ appointment is the latest key position to get a name attached to it among top cyber jobs in the administration.
  • “The administration recently named Sean Cairncross as its pick for the Senate-confirmed position of national cyber director. It also picked Alexei Bulazel as senior director for cyber at the National Security Council.”

• The National Institute of Standards and Technology is celebrating the first anniversary of its Cybersecurity Framework 2.0.

• Dark Reading lets us know,
  • “The US Army soldier arrested for unlawful transfer of confidential phone records told a federal judge he intends to plead guilty to the charges.
  • “Cameron John Wagenius, who went by the online alias “Kiberphant0m,” was involved in the Snowflake hacking campaign alongside Connor Riley Moucka, known as “Judische,” who was arrested in October 2024.
  • “Wagenius was arrested after infiltrating 15 telecommunications providers while on active military duty. He then reportedly published the stolen AT&T call logs of high-ranking officials like President Donald Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris on Dark Web forums.”

From the cybersecurity vulnerabilities and breaches front,

• Security Week informs us,
  • “CrowdStrike this week published its 2025 Global
Threat Report, which summarizes the latest adversary tactics and techniques, as well as important trends that defined 2024.
  • “The cybersecurity giant started tracking 26 new threat groups in 2024, which brought the total number of adversaries known by the company to 257. 
  • “CrowdStrike pointed out that China-linked activity surged, with a 150% increase seen across all sectors, and a rise of 200-300% in industries such as financial services, media, manufacturing, and industrials and engineering compared to 2023. 
  • “One interesting aspect that CrowdStrike has been tracking is breakout time, the time it takes threat actors to move from initial access to high-value assets. This breakout time is important because that is how much time defenders have to detect and respond to an attack before the hackers start establishing deeper control.
  • “In 2024, the average breakout time in the case of cybercrime intrusions dropped to 48 minutes, from 62 minutes in 2023, and the fastest breakout seen by CrowdStrike last year was just 51 seconds.
  • “Over half of the vulnerabilities seen by CrowdStrike last year were related to initial access, which the company says reinforces the need to secure exposed systems. It also noted that identity-based attacks are increasingly favored over traditional malware attacks.”  

• Cyberscoop lets us know,
  • “Cybercriminals intentionally disrupted operations at a growing rate last year, Palo Alto Networks’ threat intelligence firm Unit 42 said in an annual incident response report released Tuesday.
  • “Of the nearly 500 major cyberattacks Unit 42 responded to last year, 86% involved business disruption, including operational downtime, fraud-related losses, increased operating costs and negative reputational impacts. 
  • “Unit 42 called this trend the “third wave of extortion attacks,” another point of potential leverage for threat groups to impose on targets in addition to encryption and data theft. 
  • “These disruptive attacks stand out for the pain, impact and broader ripple effects they inflict on society and the economy at large, said Sam Rubin, senior vice president of consulting and threat intelligence at Unit 42.
  • “This is what organizations need to be worried about from a threat perspective and from a defensive strategy standpoint,” Rubin said.” 
    
• Cybersecurity Dive reports,
  • “Approximately 2,850 IP addresses are vulnerable to CVE-2025-22467, a critical stack buffer-overflow vulnerability that affects Ivanti Connect Secure VPNs, according to a post on X by the Shadowserver Foundation.
  • “Ivanti disclosed and patched CVE-2025-22467 on Feb. 11 and said it was not aware of any exploitation of the vulnerability prior to the public disclosure. Exploitation of the critical flaw can allow a remote authenticated attacker to achieve remote code execution.
  • ‘Shadowserver found the U.S. and Japan were the countries with the highest number of vulnerable IP addresses, with 852 and 384 instances, respectively.”

• CISA added four known exploited vulnerabilities to its catalog this week.
  • February 24, 2025
    • CVE-2017-3066 Adobe ColdFusion Deserialization Vulnerability
    • CVE-2024-20953 Oracle Agile Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Deserialization Vulnerability
    • Both KVEs are discussed here.
  • February 25, 2025
    • CVE-2024-49035 Microsoft Partner Center Improper Access Control Vulnerability
    • CVE-2023-34192 Synacor Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability
    • Both KVEs are discussed here.

From the ransomware front,

• CSO points out five things to know about ransomware threats in 2025.

• Per Security Week,
  • “Threat Intelligence firm Kela warns of a new ransomware group called Anubis operating as a RaaS service with an extensive array of options for affiliates.
  • “The group emerged as recently as late 2024, although the researchers believe that its members have experience in ransomware, both malware and operations. Information on Anubis comes from an analysis of the group’s dark web footprint rather than code analysis of the ransomware.
  • “As with most ransomware groups today, Anubis uses double extortion. The researchers suggest that “Anubis appears to be an emerging threat, highlighting different business models employed by modern extortion actors.”

• Dark Trace discusses “Lynx ransomware, emerging in 2024, targets finance, architecture, and manufacturing sectors with phishing and double extortion.” 

• Cybersecurity Dive lets us know,
  • “Researchers analyzed leaked chat logs from the infamous Black Basta ransomware gang and found references to 62 unique CVEs, 53 of which are known to have been exploited in the wild.
  • “Black Basta favored vulnerabilities in “widely adopted enterprise technologies” that included Microsoft products, Citrix Netscaler and Atlassian Confluence, as well as flaws in network edge devices from Fortinet, Cisco, F5 Networks and Palo Alto Networks, according to the findings by VulnCheck.
  • “VulnCheck’s research revealed that in many cases Black Basta members began discussing CVEs within days of security advisories being published, underscoring the importance of prompt patching and mitigations for critical flaws in widely used applications and devices.”

• Cyberscoop adds,
  • “Black Basta’s inner workings reveal a cybercrime group rife with internal conflicts. Yet, the notorious ransomware-as-a-service group’s affiliates have wreaked havoc on organizations globally.
  • “Over a two-year period, the ransomware variant was used to encrypt and steal data from at least 12 of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors, impacting more than 500 organizations, according to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. 
  • “The group pulled in at least $107 million in ransom payments by late 2023, research from Elliptic and Corvus Insurance found.
  • “The Black Basta leak followed a decrease in activities earlier this year, which was caused by key members defecting to other cybercriminal operations, like the Cactus ransomware group, according to Alptekin. “This exposure has further destabilized the group and impacted trust among its members,” he said.
  • “Rapid7 observed a resurgence of social engineering attacks linked to Black Basta operators in early October, but the group has been largely inactive this year.” 

From the cybersecurity defenses front,

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • “Every company needs a cybersecurity strategy but getting the money to enact it can be complicated. 
  • “Benchmarks that compare cyber spending across companies relative to their revenues, overall tech budget or head count can validate funding choices, but they aren’t useful in establishing the security needs of an organization, chief information security officers say. 
  • “That tactic never worked for me,” said Selim Aissi, a cybersecurity consultant who has held executive cyber roles at companies including Intel, Visa and Blackhawk Network Holdings, which sells gift cards.
  • “The CEO, the CFO will shut you down immediately and say, ‘Who cares? We’re not [company] XYZ.’”
  • “Cybersecurity is a necessary expense. Attackers exploit new vulnerabilities within days of discovery and malware multiplies by the day. It takes just 48 minutes, on average, for a hacker to move through a corporate network after getting in, according to cyber company ReliaQuest. International Business Machines found the average cost of a data breach in the U.S. was $4.9 million last year. But companies are wary of paying for more protection than they need, and it falls on CISOs to justify the expense.
  • “Understanding the costs of disruption is a useful way to allocate spending, said Mike Anderson, chief digital and information officer of cyber company Netskope. Some business functions are more critical than others or will take more resources to fix if they are disrupted, he said. 
  • “You can’t treat everything exactly the same,” Anderson said. “I align the investments to the criticality.”

• Here is a link to Dark Reading’s CISO Corner.

From the cybersecurity history, policy, and law enforcement fronts,

• American Hospital Association (AHA) News reminds us,
  • “Nearly one year after the cyberattack on Change Healthcare, the AHA released a report highlighting the continued need for health care organizations to strengthen cybersecurity efforts and mitigate risk.  
  • “The cyberattack on Change Healthcare in February 2024 disrupted health care operations on an unprecedented national scale, endangering patients’ access to care, disrupting critical clinical and eligibility operations, and threatening the solvency of the nation’s provider network,” the report said.  
  • “Among other areas, the report highlights lessons learned, including how third-party cyber risk is the most significant and disruptive cyber threat to health care; actions health care organizations can take to mitigate cyber risk; and resources from the AHA and federal government that can assist organizations with strengthening cybersecurity efforts.”

• Cyberscoop lets us know,
  • “Republican leaders on a key House committee are canvassing the public for input on how best to move forward in Congress’ longstanding quest to tackle national data privacy and security standards.
  • “House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and Vice Chair John Joyce, R-Pa., issued a Request for Information on Friday that seeks guidance on how to best develop legislation to protect the digital data of Americans across an ever-widening range of essential services.
  • “Leadership in digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, underpins U.S. economic and national security, provides American consumers with access to lower cost goods and services, and enables small businesses to reach markets around the world,” Guthrie and Joyce said in a statement. “However, the challenge of providing clear digital protections for Americans is compounded by the fast pace of technological advancement and the complex web of state and federal data privacy and security laws, which in some cases create conflicting legal requirements.”
  • “Both Guthrie and Joyce are part of a Republican committee working group on data privacy, and the request includes questions that could guide lawmakers as they eye potential legislation. They include how to account for different roles and services that collect personal data, when a company should disclose the collection, processing, or transfer of user data, and what lessons can be learned from existing privacy frameworks in other countries.”
• and
  • “One of the most notable elements of the monumental hack of major telecommunications companies is just how “indiscriminate” it was in its pursuit of data, a top FBI official said Wednesday.
  • “The FBI has been investigating the breach, which it has blamed on Chinese government hackers commonly known as Salt Typhoon.
  • “What we found particularly remarkable in our investigation is the gigantic and seemingly indiscriminate collection of call records and data about American people, like your friends, your family, people in your community,” Cynthia Kaiser, deputy assistant director in the bureau’s cyber division, said at the 2025 Zero Trust Summit, presented by CyberScoop.
  • “Kaiser characterized the breach as “a different level of insidiousness” from Beijing, one that reflects its “ambition and reckless aggression in cyberspace.”

• Cybersecurity Dive tells us,
  • “The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday unveiled a revamped anti-fraud unit to protect retail investors in emerging technologies, reflecting the Trump administration’s evolving approach to cryptocurrency and cybersecurity.
  • “The Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit, led by Laura D’Allaird, will have about 30 fraud specialists from across the agency and replaces the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit. The revised CETU will complement a crypto task force launched in January under the leadership of Commissioner Hester Peirce.
  • “The unit will not only protect investors, but will also facilitate capital formation and market efficiency by clearing the way for innovation to grow,” Acting SEC Chairman Mark Uyeda said in a statement. “It will root out those seeking to misuse innovation to harm investors and diminish confidence in new technologies.”

• Per a Justice Department news release,
  • Health Net Federal Services Inc. (HNFS) of Rancho Cordova, California and its corporate parent, St. Louis-based Centene Corporation, have agreed to pay $11,253,400 to resolve [government] claims [under the federal False Claims Act] that HNFS falsely certified compliance with cybersecurity requirements in a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to administer the Defense Health Agency’s (DHA) TRICARE health benefits program for servicemembers and their families. In 2016, Centene acquired all of the issued and outstanding shares of Health Net Inc., HNFS’s corporate parent, and assumed the liabilities of HNFS.

• Per an HHS news release,
  • “Today [February 20], the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a $1,500,000 civil money penalty against Warby Parker, Inc., a manufacturer and online retailer of prescription and non-prescription eyewear, concerning violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Security Rule, following the receipt of a breach report regarding the unauthorized access by one or more third parties to customer accounts.” * * *
  • “OCR’s investigation found evidence of three violations of the HIPAA Security Rule, including a failure to conduct an accurate and thorough risk analysis to identify the potential risks and vulnerabilities to ePHI in Warby Parker’s systems, a failure to implement security measures sufficient to reduce the risks and vulnerabilities to ePHI to a reasonable and appropriate level, and a failure to implement procedures to regularly review records of information system activity.” * * *
  • “The Notice of Proposed Determination may be found at: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/ocr-warby-parker-npd.pdf – PDF
  • “The Notice of Final Determination may be found at: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/ocr-warby-parker-nfd.pdf – PDF“

From the cybersecurity vulnerabilities and breaches front,

• Cyberscoop lets us know,
  • “Salt Typhoon gained initial access to Cisco devices as part of the Chinese nation-state threat group’s sweeping attacks on U.S. telecom networks, the company confirmed Thursday [February 20] in a threat intelligence report.
  • “Cisco Talos, the networking vendor’s threat intelligence unit, said it observed one instance where Salt Typhoon likely exploited a seven-year-old critical vulnerability in Cisco IOS XE (CVE-2018-0171). Yet, researchers asserted Salt Typhoon gained initial access to Cisco devices with legitimate login credentials in all other incidents it’s investigated to date.
  • “The report marks the first time Cisco acknowledged the role its equipment played in Salt Typhoon’s attack spree on telecom networks. Recorded Future last week said five additional telecom networks were hit by Salt Typhoon via a pair of other vulnerabilities in Cisco IOS XE (CVE-2023-20198 and CVE-2023-20273) between early December and late January.
  • “Cisco Talos said it hasn’t identified any evidence to confirm Salt Typhoon’s exploitation of other known Cisco vulnerabilities. The company declined to answer questions.” 

• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency added five known exploited vulnerabilities to its catalog this week.
  • February 18, 2025
    • CVE-2025-0108 Palo Alto PAN-OS Authentication Bypass Vulnerability
    • CVE-2024-53704 SonicWall SonicOS SSLVPN Improper Authentication Vulnerability
    • The Palo Alto KVE is discussed here, and the Sonicwall KVE is discussed here.
  • February 20, 2025
    • CVE-2025-23209 Craft CMS Code Injection Vulnerability
    • CVE-2025-0111 Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS File Read Vulnerability
    • The Craft KVE is discussed here, and the Palo Alto KVE is discussed here.
  • February 21, 2025
    • CVE-2025-24989 Microsoft Power Pages Improper Access Control Vulnerability
    • The Microsoft KVE is discussed here.

• Cybersecurity Dive informs us
  • “Horizon3.ai researchers on Wednesday released technical details and a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for four critical Ivanti vulnerabilities that were first disclosed and patched last month.
  • “The absolute patch-traversal flaws impact Ivanti Endpoint Manager and, according to Horizon3.ai, could allow unauthenticated attackers to manipulate the Ivanti EPM machine account credential into being deployed in relay attacks, potentially leading to server compromise.
  • “Ivanti products have become popular targets for attackers in recent years, as a wide range of cyber threat actors have exploited both zero-day and known vulnerabilities to compromise devices at the network edge and gain access to victim.”

• Security Week relates,
  • In a fresh report published Wednesday, Mandiant threat hunter Dan Black warns that several APT groups have perfected the abuse of Signal’s “linked devices” feature that enables the privacy-themed chat and voice messenger to be used on multiple devices concurrently.
  • By tricking users into scanning malicious QR codes embedded in phishing pages or disguised as group invite links, Mandiant says APT groups linked to the Kremlin are secretly adding their own device as a linked endpoint. 
  • Once this connection is established, every message sent by the user is duplicated to the attacker’s device in real time, effectively bypassing Signal’s heralded end-to-end encryption without having to break the underlying cryptography.

• Dark Reading offers an oddball article about state-of-the-art phishing software Darcula version 3 that can be purchased.

From the ransomware front,

• AHA News reports,
  • “A joint advisory released Feb. 19 by the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center warns of cybercriminal activity by the Ghost ransomware group. The agencies identified actions as recently as last month by the group, which originates from China. 
  • “Since 2021, Ghost actors have targeted victims with outdated software and firmware, compromising organizations in more than 70 countries. Their victims include critical infrastructure, health care, schools and technology companies, among other organizations. 
  • “Ghost actors exploit well-known vulnerabilities and target networks where available patches have not been applied,” said Scott Gee, AHA deputy national advisor for cybersecurity and risk. “They simply ‘hack before we patch.’ This group is also leveraging legitimate cybersecurity tools such as Cobalt Strike to enable access and other tools for privilege escalation. It is recommended that patching policies be reviewed to achieve maximum efficiency and speed. It is also recommended that network security tools be set to alert for activation of Cobalt Strike and privilege escalation applications.” 

• Bleeping Computer reports,
  • “An unknown leaker has released what they claim to be an archive of internal Matrix chat logs belonging to the Black Basta ransomware operation.
  • “ExploitWhispers, the individual who previously uploaded the stolen messages to the MEGA file-sharing platform, which are now removed, has uploaded it to a dedicated Telegram channel.
  • I”t’s not yet clear if ExploitWhispers is a security researcher who gained access to the gang’s internal chat server or a disgruntled member.
  • “While they never shared the reason behind this move, cyber threat intelligence company PRODAFT said today that the leak could directly result from the ransomware gang’s alleged attacks targeting Russian banks.
  • “As part of our continuous monitoring, we’ve observed that BLACKBASTA (Vengeful Mantis) has been mostly inactive since the start of the year due to internal conflicts. Some of its operators scammed victims by collecting ransom payments without providing functional decryptors,” PRODAFT said.”

From the cybersecurity defenses front,

• Security Week shares a conversation with Kevin Winter, Global CISO at Deloitte, and Richard Marcus, CISO at AuditBoard.

• Here’s a link to Dark Reading’s CISO Corner.

• HelpNet Security points out cyber hygiene habits that many still ignore.

From the cybersecurity policy and law enforcement front,

• Cyberscoop lets us know,
  • “Cybercrimes could be punished more harshly under a new bill from a pair of senators that seeks to amend U.S. criminal code on computer fraud.
  • “The Cyber Conspiracy Modernization Act from Sens. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., would modify the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) to establish a specific penalty for conspiracy and boost penalties for violators. 
  • “As cyber technologies continue to rapidly evolve, we need more people working to secure cyberspace as well as harsher penalties for those perpetrating these crimes,” Rounds said in a statement. “As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, I am committed to working on policies that strengthen the United States’ ability to respond quickly and decisively to cyberattacks which have been on the rise.”
  • “Under current law, the Department of Justice can only charge conspiracy to commit cybercrimes through a general statute unrelated to the CFAA. Individuals charged under the general conspiracy statute face a maximum five-year penalty.”

• Cybersecurity Dive informs us,
  • “President Donald Trump plans to nominate Sean Cairncross, a former official at the Republican National Committee, as the next national cyber director, according to a list of planned nominees obtained by Cybersecurity Dive. 
  • “Those nominees are expected to be sent imminently to the Senate to be considered for the confirmation process. 
  • “Cairncross would be the first major nominee for a top cybersecurity role since the Trump administration took office. 
  • “He is founder and president of the Cairncross Group, a strategic consultancy based in Washington, D.C.
  • “Cairncross previously worked as CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corp., an independent government agency that works to reduce poverty by promoting economic growth across the globe.”

• Federal News Network notes,
  • “A former cyber executive at the Department of Homeland Security and the Energy Department has joined the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
  • “Karen Evans is now “senior advisor for cybersecurity” at CISA, an agency spokesman confirmed to Federal News Network today. Evans posted about joining CISA on LinkedIn last night.
  • “A CISA spokesman did not confirm whether Evans would be elevated to a permanent role at the agency. But multiple sources said Evans is likely to either be named as executive assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA or move on to a top position at DHS headquarters.
  • “During the first Trump administration, Evans was DHS CIO between June 2020 and January 2021. She also served as assistant secretary for cybersecurity, energy security and emergency response at the Energy Department between 2018 and 2020.”

• NextGov/FCW offers background on OPM’s new Chief Information Officer, Greg Hogan.

• Per a Justice Department news release,
  • The Justice Department today [February 10] unsealed criminal charges against Roman Berezhnoy, 33, and Egor Nikolaevich Glebov, 39, both Russian nationals, who allegedly operated a cybercrime group using the Phobos ransomware that victimized more than 1,000 public and private entities in the United States and around the world and received over $16 million in ransom payments. Berezhnoy and Glebov were arrested this week as part of a coordinated international disruption of their organization, which includes additional arrests and the technical disruption of the group’s computer infrastructure.
  • From May 2019, through at least October 2024, Berezhnoy, Glebov, and others allegedly caused victims to suffer losses resulting from the loss of access to their data in addition to the financial losses associated with the ransomware payments. The victims included a children’s hospital, health care providers, and educational institutions.

From the cybersecurity vulnerabilities and breaches front,

• Cyberscoop reports,
  • Microsoft threat researchers discovered a series of what they are calling “device code” phishing attacks that allowed a suspected Russia-aligned threat group to gain access to and steal data from critical infrastructure organizations, the company said in research released Thursday.
  • The group, which Microsoft tracks as Storm-2372, has targeted governments, IT services and organizations operating in the telecom, health, higher education and energy sectors across Europe, North America, Africa and the Middle East.
  • Microsoft observed attackers generating a legitimate device code sign-in request and then duping targeted users to input the code into a login page for productivity apps. By exploiting the device code authentication flow, Storm-2372 has gained access to targeted systems, captured authentication tokens and used those valid tokens to achieve lateral movement and steal data.
  • “They’ve been successful in these attacks, though Microsoft itself is not affected,” Sherrod DeGrippo, director of threat intelligence strategy at Microsoft, said in a video summarizing the report’s findings.
• and
  • “Salt Typhoon, the Chinese nation-state threat group linked to a spree of attacks on U.S. and global telecom providers, remains active in its intrusion and has hit multiple additional networks worldwide, including two in the United States, Recorded Future said in a report released Thursday [February 13].
  • “Recorded Future’s Insikt Group observed seven compromised Cisco network devices communicating with Salt Typhoon infrastructure on five telecom networks between early December and late January. The compromised companies include an unnamed U.S. internet service provider and telecom company, a U.S.-based affiliate of a U.K. telecom provider, a large telecom provider in Thailand, an Italy-based ISP and a South Africa-based telecom provider.
  • “Salt Typhoon’s ongoing attack spree underscores the enduring challenge global cyber authorities and network defenders confront in trying to thwart the nation-state group’s activities. U.S. and White House officials in December warned they may never know if the group has been completely booted from networks.” 

• Cybersecurity Dive relates,
  • “The FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Wednesday [February 12] warned Ransomware gangs are adapting to stronger enterprise defenses and increased law enforcement pressure with more sophisticated tactics, according to Huntress’ 2025 Cyber Threat Report.
  • In 75% of the ransomware incidents Huntress observed in 2024, threat actors used remote access Trojans (RATs), while 17.3% of attacks featured abused of remote monitoring and management products like ConnectWise ScreenConnect, TeamViewer and LogMeIn.
  • In an effort to evade EDR protections, threat actors are shifting to data theft and extortion attacks instead of deploying ransomware and increasingly relying on “living off the land” techniques with legitimate system administrator tools. that hackers are abusing buffer overflow vulnerabilities to launch malicious attacks against organizations. 
  • “Buffer overflow vulnerabilities occur when a hacker gains access or writes information outside of the memory buffer, according to the advisory from the FBI and CISA. 
  • “Buffer overflow vulnerabilities are prevalent issues in memory-safety software design that can lead to data corruption, program crashes, exposure of sensitive data and remote code execution.

• Per Bleeping Computer,
  • “Attackers are now targeting an authentication bypass vulnerability affecting SonicWall firewalls shortly after the release of proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code.
  • “This security flaw (CVE-2024-53704), tagged by CISA as critical severity and found in the SSLVPN authentication mechanism, impacts SonicOS versions 7.1.x (up to 7.1.1-7058), 7.1.2-7019, and 8.0.0-8035, used by multiple models of Gen 6 and Gen 7 firewalls and SOHO series devices.
  • “Successful exploitation enables remote attackers to hijack active SSL VPN sessions without authentication, which grants them unauthorized access to targets’ networks.
  • “SonicWall urged customers to immediately upgrade their firewalls’ SonicOS firmware to prevent exploitation in an email sent before disclosing the vulnerability publicly and releasing security updates on January 7.”
    
• CISA added seven known exploited vulnerabilities to its catalog this week.
  • February 11, 2025
    • CVE-2024-40891 Zyxel DSL CPE OS Command Injection Vulnerability
    • CVE-2024-40890 Zyxel DSL CPE OS Command Injection Vulnerability
    • CVE-2025-21418 Microsoft Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Vulnerability
    • CVE-2025-21391 Microsoft Windows Storage Link Following Vulnerability
      • Zydek KVEs discussed here, and Microsoft KVEs discussed here.
  • February 12, 2025
    • CVE-2025-24200 Apple iOS and iPadOS Incorrect Authorization Vulnerability
    • CVE-2024-41710 Mitel SIP Phones Argument Injection Vulnerability
      • Apple KVE discussed here, and Mitel KEV discussed here.
  • February 13, 2025
    •  CVE-2024-57727 SimpleHelp Path Traversal Vulnerability
      • SimpleHelp KVE discussed here.

• The DC Health Link cybersecurity breach lawsuit settlement is explained here.

From the ransomware front,

• Cybersecurity Dive reports,
  • “Ransomware gangs are adapting to stronger enterprise defenses and increased law enforcement pressure with more sophisticated tactics, according to Huntress’ 2025 Cyber Threat Report.
  • “In 75% of the ransomware incidents Huntress observed in 2024, threat actors used remote access Trojans (RATs), while 17.3% of attacks featured abuses of remote monitoring and management products like ConnectWise ScreenConnect, TeamViewer and LogMeIn.
  • “In an effort to evade EDR protections, threat actors are shifting to data theft and extortion attacks instead of deploying ransomware and increasingly relying on “living off the land” techniques with legitimate system administrator tools.”

• Dark Reading tells us,
  • “A recent RA World ransomware attack utilized a tool set that took researchers by surprise, given that it has been associated with China-based espionage actors in the past.
  • “According to Symantec, the attack occurred in late 2024. The tool set includes a legitimate Toshiba executable named toshdpdb.exe that deploys on a victim’s device. It then connects to a malicious dynamic link library (DLL) that deploys a payload containing a PlugX backdoor.
  • “The threat actors in this case used the tool kit to ultimately deploy RA World ransomware inside an unnamed Asian software and services company, demanding a ransom of $2 million. No initial infection vector was found. However, the attacker claimed they compromised the victim’s network by exploiting a Palo Alto PAN-OS vulnerability (CVE-2024-0012), according to Symantec.”
  • “The attacker then said administrative credentials were obtained from the company’s intranet before stealing Amazon S3 cloud credentials from its Veeam server, using them to steal data from its S3 buckets before encrypting computers,” added the researchers, who hypothesized that based on tactics, techniques, and procedures, the attacker could be China-linked Emperor Dragonfly, aka Bronze Starlight, a group that has been known to deploy ransomware to obscure intellectual property theft in the past.”

• Reuters reports,
  • “The United States joined Australia and Britain in targeting Russia-based Zservers service provider for its role in supporting the Lockbit ransomware attacks, the U.S. Department of Treasury said on Tuesday [February 11], citing national security concerns.
  • “U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also designated two Russian nationals who they said were key administrators for Zservers, a bulletproof hosting services provider or BPH, it added.
  • “Ransomware actors and other cybercriminals rely on third-party network service providers like Zservers to enable their attacks on U.S. and international critical infrastructure,” wrote Bradley Smith, acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
  • “The action follows joint U.S., UK and Australia cyber sanctions last year targeting the Evil Corp ransomware group, Treasury added.”

From the cybersecurity defenses and business front,

• Per Cyberscoop,
  • “Identity security giant CyberArk has acquired Boston-based Zilla Security, a cloud-native identity governance and administration startup, in a deal worth up to $175 million.
  • “The acquisition, announced Thursday [February 13], includes $165 million in cash and a $10 million earn-out contingent on performance milestones. Zilla’s co-founders, CEO Deepak Taneja and Nitin Sonawane, along with their team, will join CyberArk. Zilla’s flagship products — Zilla Comply and Zilla Provisioning — will be integrated into CyberArk’s Identity Security Platform as standalone offerings.
  • Founded in 1999, CyberArk has traditionally built its reputation on securing privileged access across enterprise systems. In recent years, the company has bolstered its portfolio through a series of acquisitions, the most significant being the $1.54 billion purchase of machine identity firm Venafi last year. Together with this latest move, CyberArk seeks to expand its reach into modern identity security — an area increasingly critical as organizations shift toward hybrid and cloud-based environments.

• An ISACA expert discusses how to define a security incident.
  • “[W]hat is a good definition of a security incident? In my opinion, I believe the NIST definition from NISTIR 8183A Vol. 3 is an amazing definition for small and medium-sized organizations. It states, “An occurrence that actually or potentially jeopardizes the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of an information system or the information the system processes, stores, or transmits or that constitutes a violation or imminent threat of violation of security policies, security procedures, or acceptable use policies.” The “or potentially” does a lot of heavy lifting here but is still a much better definition than those that allow people to more easily wiggle their way out of filling out a ticket for a potential incident. A common occurrence is cherry-picking more vague definitions that don’t have the built-in safeguards and controls around the definition such as the NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 for a non-federal system. 
  • “Besides the fact that leveraging this definition means that occurrences such as false positives and security investigations properly follow the ticketing process instead of being undocumented events, there are other helpful points to this definition. The terms “Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability” being in the definition ensures that incidents such as DDOS attacks are not reported as simply “outages” or “infrastructure changes.” The phrase “Constitutes a violation or imminent threat of violation of” expands the scope of what should be monitored and have alerts in place as well as points more eyes inward on internal incidents, which is a wonderful steppingstone toward zero trust.”

• Here is a link to Dark Reading’s CISO Corner.

From the cybersecurity policy front,

• Cyberscoop lets us know,
  • “Bipartisan legislation to close a loophole in federal cybersecurity standards by requiring vulnerability disclosure policies for government contractors is getting another shot at passage in this Congress.
  • “The Federal Contractor Cybersecurity Vulnerability Reduction Act, a bicameral, bipartisan bill that stalled out last year in the Senate, was reintroduced Friday [January 31] in the House by Reps. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Shontel Brown, D-Ohio. 
  • “The bill, whose 2024 companion in the upper chamber came from Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and James Lankford, R-Okla., calls on the Office of Management and Budget and the Defense Department to update federal acquisition policies to require all federal contractors to institute vulnerability disclosure policies (VDPs).
  • “This is a matter of national security,” Mace said in a press release. “Federal contractors handle some of the most sensitive information and critical infrastructure in the country. Without basic vulnerability disclosure policies, we are leaving a gaping hole in our cybersecurity defenses. This bipartisan bill ensures contractors uphold the same cybersecurity standards as federal agencies, reducing risks before they turn into catastrophic breaches.”

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • “Lawmakers announced Thursday they planned to introduce a bill to ban DeepSeek’s chatbot application from government-owned devices, over new security concerns that the app could provide user information to the Chinese government. 
  • “The legislation written by Reps. Darin LaHood, an Illinois Republican, and Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, is echoing a strategy that Congress used to ban Chinese-controlled TikTok from government devices, which marked the beginning of the effort to block the company from operating in the U.S. 
  • “This should be a no-brainer in terms of actions we should take immediately to prevent our enemy from getting information from our government,” Gottheimer said.  

• SC Media tells us,
  • “A U.S. cybersecurity agency issued a fresh set of guidance for organizations regarding best practices in securing their networks and data storage.
  • “The U.S. Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) posted a set of guidelines aimed at helping companies better secure the commonly used devices that sit at the edges of most networks.
  • “This set of guidance, led by international cybersecurity authorities, is intended to help organizations protect their network edge devices and appliances, such as firewalls, routers, virtual private networks (VPN) gateways, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, internet-facing servers, and internet-facing operational technology (OT) systems,” CISA explained.
  • “It’s thought that American organizations will be motivated in the new year to brush up on security and install updates for commonly exploited security vulnerabilities in their edge devices.”

From the cybersecurity vulnerabilities and breaches front,

• CISA added eleven known exploited vulnerabilities to its catalog this week.
  • February 4, 2025
    • CVE-2024-45195 Apache OFBiz Forced Browsing Vulnerability
    • CVE-2024-29059 Microsoft .NET Framework Information Disclosure Vulnerability
    • CVE-2018-9276 Paessler PRTG Network Monitor OS Command Injection Vulnerability
    • CVE-2018-19410 Paessler PRTG Network Monitor Local File Inclusion Vulnerability
  • February 5, 2025
    • CVE-2024-53104 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Vulnerability
  • February 6, 2025
    • CVE-2025-0411 7-Zip Mark of the Web Bypass Vulnerability
    • CVE-2022-23748 Dante Discovery Process Control Vulnerability
    • CVE-2024-21413 Microsoft Outlook Improper Input Validation Vulnerability
    • CVE-2020-29574 CyberoamOS (CROS) SQL Injection Vulnerability
    • CVE-2020-15069 Sophos XG Firewall Buffer Overflow Vulnerability
  • February 7, 2025
    • CVE-2025-0994 Trimble Cityworks Deserialization Vulnerability
      
• Supplemental Information on the additional KEVs.
  • Bleeping Computer provides background on the February 4 additions.
  • This Linux Security article explains the February 5 addition.
  • ACA Global explains the 7-Zip (a file compression) tool addition on February 6.
  • WNE Security explains the Dante Discovery addition also on February 6.
  • Bleeping Computer discusses the Microsoft Outlook addition also on February 6.
  • Hacker News delves into the Trimble Cityworks addition on February 7.

• Cybersecurity Dive points out,
  • “Microsoft has identified more than 3,000 publicly exposed ASP.NET machine keys that could be used by threat actors in code injection attacks against enterprise servers.
  • “In a blog post Thursday, Microsoft Threat Intelligence said it observed “limited activity” in December, in which a threat actor used a publicly available ASP.NET machine key to inject malicious code and deploy the Godzilla post-exploitation framework. While Microsoft said the threat actor is “unattributed,” the U.S. government previously has tied the Godzilla framework, which creates malicious web shells that can be used as backdoors, to Chinese state-sponsored threat actor.
  • “In the course of investigating, remediating, and building protections against this activity, we observed an insecure practice whereby developers have incorporated various publicly disclosed ASP.NET machine keys from publicly accessible resources, such as code documentation and repositories, which threat actors have used to perform malicious actions on target servers,” Microsoft said in the blog post.”
• and
  • “Security researchers warned about a surge in web login brute force attacks against edge devices from a suspected botnet since mid-to-late January, according to a post on X from the Shadowserver Foundation. 
  • “The threat activity targeted devices from several major vendors, including Palo Alto Networks, SonicWall and Ivanti, with more than 2.8 million source IPs per day, according to Shadowserver. The observed threat activity goes well beyond scanning and involves actual login attempts, researchers said.
  • “We do not know who is being targeted in particular, we can only observe attacks against our own honeypots,” Piotr Kijewski, CEO of Shadowserver, said via email.

• Dark Reading reports
  • More than two weeks after China’s DeepSeek garnered worldwide attention with its low-cost AI model, threat actors have been busy capitalizing on the news by setting up phishing sites impersonating the company.
  • The fraudulent sites aim to deceive users into downloading malicious software or providing credentials and other sensitive information. Researchers at Israel-based Memcyco spotted at least 16 such sites actively impersonating DeepSeek earlier this week and believe the activity represents a coordinated attack campaign among threat actors.

• Per SC Media,
  • “Infostealers were identified as the largest group of new macOS malware, having increased by 101% in the last two quarters of 2024, according to the Palo Alto Networks Unit42 research group.
  • “The Unit42 research team pointed to three prevalent macOS infostealers in the wild: Poseidon, Atomic and Cthulhu.
  • “While infostealers are often seen as limited in capability compared with trojans, the researchers said in a Feb. 4 blog post that by exfiltrating sensitive credentials, financial records and intellectual property, infostealers often lead to data breaches, financial losses and reputational damage.
  • “Most infostealers are indiscriminate, aiming to maximize data collection for impact and monetization,” wrote the researchers. “This broad range of information stealing capabilities exposes organizations to significant risks, including data leaks and providing initial access for further attacks, such as ransomware deployment.”

From the ransomware front,

• Cyberscoop informs us,
  • “Ransomware payments saw a dramatic 35% drop last year compared to 2023, even as the overall frequency of ransomware attacks increased, according to a new report released by blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis. 
  • “The considerable decline in extortion payments is somewhat surprising, given that other cybersecurity firms have claimed that 2024 saw the most ransomware activity to date. Chainalysis itself warned in its mid-year report that 2024’s activity was on pace to reach new heights, but attacks in the second half of the year tailed off.
  • “The total amount in payments that Chainalysis tracked in 2024 was $812.55 million, down from 2023’s mark of $1.25 billion.
  • “Despite its small half-over-half (HoH) increase, we expected 2024 to surpass 2023’s totals by the end of the year,” the company wrote on its website. “Fortunately, however, payment activity slowed after July 2024 by approximately 34.9%. This slowdown is similar to the HoH decline in ransom payments since 2021 and the overall decline during H2 2024 in some types of crypto-related crime, such as stolen funds. Notably, the decline this year is more pronounced than in the last three years.”
  • “The disruption of major ransomware groups, such as LockBit and ALPHV/BlackCat, were key to the reduction in ransomware payments. Operations spearheaded by agencies like the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) caused significant declines in LockBit activity, while ALPHV/BlackCat essentially rug-pulled its affiliates and disappeared after its attack on Change Healthcare. 
  • “As the industry has seen in past years, ransomware groups often fill the market after the heads of the pack have been dismantled by law enforcement. However, when LockBit and BlackCat disappeared, a well-known ransomware group did not immediately take the mantle. Instead, smaller groups took advantage of the situation, focusing on small to medium-sized targets and asking for small ransoms, according to Chainalysis’ report. 
  • “Additionally, the company says more organizations have become stronger against attacks, with many choosing not to pay a ransom and instead using better cybersecurity practices and backups to recover from these incidents.”

• Hacker News identifies the Top 3 Ransomware Threats Active in 2025.

• Per Bleeping Computer
  • “The North Korean hacking group known as Kimsuky was observed in recent attacks using a custom-built RDP Wrapper and proxy tools to directly access infected machines.
  • “This is a sign of shifting tactics for Kimsuky, according to AhnLab SEcurity Intelligence Center (ASEC), who discovered the campaign.
  • “ASEC says the North Korean hackers now use a diverse set of customized remote access tools instead of relying solely on noisy backdoors like PebbleDash, which is still used.”

From the cybersecurity defenses and business / history front

• ISACA has released its 2025 State of Privacy Report.

• Here’s a link to Dark Reading’s CISO Corner.

• Cybersecurity Dive relates,
  • “Thoma Bravo-backed cybersecurity firm Sophos completed its acquisition of Secureworks Monday in an all-cash transaction valued at $859 million. 
  • “Sophos said the purchase of Secureworks positions Sophos as the largest pure-play provider of managed detection and response services, with a customer base of 28,000 organizations worldwide.
  • “The agreement also expands Sophos’s threat intelligence capabilities operating under the Sophos X-Ops name, with the addition of the Secureworks Counter Threat Unit and other security operations and advisory services.”
• and
  • “SolarWinds Corp. has agreed to a $4.4 billion deal with Turn/River Capital whereby the private equity firm buys the software firm in an all-cash transaction at $18.50 per share. 
  • “The observability and IT management software provider will become a privately held company and no longer trade on the New York Stock Exchange. 
  • “We have built a great track record of helping customers accelerate business transformations through simple, powerful, secure solutions designed for hybrid and multicloud environments,” Sudhakar Ramakrishna, president and CEO of SolarWinds said in a statement. 
  • “The Austin, Texas-based firm took center stage in one of the most consequential cyberattack campaigns in history when state-linked hackers infected its Orion platform. The attack, disclosed in late 2020, led to massive reforms in how the industry developed software and attempted to secure IT systems against increasingly sophisticated state actors.”
    

From the cybersecurity policy and law enforcement front,

• Cyberscoop reports,
  • “A bipartisan pair of House lawmakers are seeking to improve private-public coordination for financial institutions amid a surge of ransomware attacks on the sector.
  • “The Public and Private Sector Ransomware Response Coordination Act, introduced this week by Reps. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., would direct the Treasury secretary to deliver a report on existing collaboration between federal agencies and private financial companies, examining how those partnerships can be improved to better protect the industry from cyberattacks.
  • “The legislation from Nunn and Gottheimer, both members of the House Financial Services Committee, comes as global ransomware attacks jumped 67% from 2023 to 2024, according to the director of national intelligence. And according to Statista, approximately 65% of financial institutions globally reported experiencing a ransomware attack in 2024, up from 34% in 2021.”

• Per a House of Representatives announcement,
  • On Wednesday, February 5, 2025, the Committee on Homeland Security will hold a hearing entitled, “Preparing the Pipeline: Examining the State of America’s Cyber Workforce.”
  • The Committee will meet at 10:00 a.m. EST in 310 Cannon House Office Building. Witnesses will be by invitation only.
  • This event will be streamed live at homeland.house.gov and on YouTube.

• Cyberscoop adds
  • “The Federal Bureau of Investigation, along with several other international law enforcement departments, has seized control of several high-profile online platforms linked to cybercrime in a sweeping operation aimed at disrupting digital marketplaces for stolen credentials and hacking tools. The domains of forums Cracked[.]io and Nulled[.]to now redirect to FBI-controlled servers, signaling efforts to dismantle infrastructure that supports cybercriminal activity.
  • “As of Wednesday, visitors to the forums — long criticized as hubs for password theft, software piracy, and credential-stuffing attacks — encountered DNS error messages indicating federal intervention. Eagle-eyed cybersecurity researchers discovered Wednesday that the specialized servers that translate IP addresses into domain names redirected visitors to FBI-owned assets, effectively shutting down access. 
  • “Also seized were domains and services belonging to SellIX, which enabled users to create storefronts for illicit goods, and StarkRDP, a Windows remote desktop hosting service, which was allegedly leveraged by threat actors to anonymize attacks.
  • “According to the image on the Cracked and Nulled websites, law enforcement from Australia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Romania were also involved. Europol also played a role, according to the image. 

From the cybersecurity vulnerabilities and breaches front,

• Cyberscoop lets us know,
  • Cryptojacking, the tactic of breaking into a device to steal computing resources and mine crypto, is a pervasive, frustrating and expensive problem. But attacks like these can also raise cybersecurity concerns, especially when they happen to the federal government. 
  • Last fall, the U.S. Agency for International Development learned it was hit by a cryptojacking incident, according to documents viewed by Scoop News Group. The agency was notified by Microsoft that a global administrator account located in a test environment had been breached through a password spray attack — a brute force attempt to enter a system by guessing a series of passwords. 
  • That account was then used to create another account — and both were then deployed to begin crypto-mining processes through USAID’s Azure resources. The result was around half a million dollars in cloud service charges to the agency.
  • Using government resources to break into an agency’s resources for the purpose of mining crypto might sound strange, but it happens. 

• Per Cybersecurity Dive,
  • “The Food and Drug Administration has released a safety communication about the cybersecurity vulnerabilities of certain patient monitors from Contec and Epsimed.
  • “The notice, which the FDA published Thursday [January 30], describes three vulnerabilities that can allow people to gain access to remote monitoring technology and potentially manipulate the devices.
  • ‘The FDA is not aware of cybersecurity incidents, injuries or deaths linked to the vulnerabilities but is advising patients, healthcare providers and IT staff to take steps to mitigate the risks.”
• and
  • “Threat actors are exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Zyxel CPE Series devices months after the security flaw was originally reported to the company, researchers at GreyNoise disclosed in a blog post Tuesday.
  • “The critical command-injection vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-40891, allows an attacker to execute arbitrary commands on a CPE Series device, which can lead to exfiltration of data, infiltration of a computer network or total system compromise. 
  • “Due to GreyNoise’s first-hand, confirmed mass exploitation attempts for this vulnerability, we chose to disclose this to raise awareness among those who may be impacted,” a spokesperson for GreyNoise said via email. “All decisions to move forward were made in conjunction with VulnCheck and its policies.”

• Dark Reading informs us,
  • “Researchers have discovered two new ways to manipulate GitHub’s artificial intelligence (AI) coding assistant, Copilot, enabling the ability to bypass security restrictions and subscription fees, train malicious models, and more.
  • “The first trick involves embedding chat interactions inside of Copilot code, taking advantage of the AI’s instinct to be helpful in order to get it to produce malicious outputs. The second method focuses on rerouting Copilot through a proxy server in order to communicate directly with the OpenAI models it integrates with.
  • “Researchers from Apex deem these issues vulnerabilities. GitHub disagrees, characterizing them as “off-topic chat responses,” and an “abuse issue,” respectively. In response to an inquiry from Dark Reading, GitHub wrote, “We continue to improve on safety measures in place to prevent harmful and offensive outputs as part of our responsible AI development. Furthermore, we continue to invest in opportunities to prevent abuse, such as the one described in Issue 2, to ensure the intended use of our products.”

• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency added one known exploited vulnerability to its catalog this week.
  • January 29, 2025
  • CVE-2025-24085. Apple Multiple Products Use-After-Free Vulnerability’

• The CIS Center for Internet Security adds,
  • “Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in Apple products, the most severe of which could allow for arbitrary code execution. Successful exploitation of the most severe of these vulnerabilities could allow for arbitrary code execution in the context of the logged-on user. Depending on the privileges associated with the user, an attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than those who operate with administrative user rights.
  • “THREAT INTELLIGENCE:
    • Apple is aware of a report that CVE-2025-24085 may have been actively exploited against versions of iOS before iOS 17.2.”

From the ransomware front,

• Forbes reports,
  • “With LockBit already stating that Feb. 3 will see it restart operations, the threat is about as real as it gets. So, what do you need to do?
  • “The primary mitigations are:
    • Install updates for operating systems, software and firmware as soon as they are released.
    • Require phishing-resistant, non SMS-based multi-factor authentication.
  • “In the face of these challenges, businesses, governments, and individuals must stay vigilant and proactive,” Matt Hull, global head of threat intelligence at NCC Group, warned, and that’s good advice that you would be well-advised to action immediately before the ransomware threat becomes a reality for you.”

• Dark Reading points out,
  • “Two healthcare institutions, Frederick [Maryland] Health and New York Blood Center Enterprises (NYBCe), are grappling with disruptions from separate ransomware attacks they faced this past week.
  • “Frederick Health posted an update to its website on Jan. 27 noting that it “recently identified a ransomware event” and is working to contain it with third-party cybersecurity experts to get its systems back online.
  • “Though most of its facilities remain open and are still providing patient care, Frederick Health reported that its Village Laboratory is closed and that patients may experience some operational delays.
  • “New York Blood Center Enterprises, a nonprofit made up of a collection of independent blood centers, first identified suspicious activity affecting its IT systems on Jan. 26. On Jan. 29, it alerted the public that it took its systems offline in an effort to contain the threat, which was attributed to a ransomware attack. NYBCe is working to restore its systems; however, it remains unclear when it will be fully operational again. The organization expects processing times for blood donations at its centers and offsite blood drives may take longer than usual.”

• Bleeping Computer adds,
  • “Community Health Center (CHC), a leading Connecticut healthcare provider, is notifying over 1 million patients of a data breach that impacted their personal and health data.
  • “The non-profit organization provides primary medical, dental, and mental health services to more than 145,000 active patients.
  • “CHC said in a Thursday filing with Maine’s attorney general that unknown attackers gained access to its network in mid-October 2024, a breach discovered more than two months later, on January 2, 2025.
  • “While the threat actors stole files containing patients’ personal and health information belonging to 1,060,936 individuals, the healthcare organization says they didn’t encrypt any compromised systems and that the security breach didn’t impact its operations.”

• Hackers News explains how Interlock Ransomware infects healthcare organizations.

From the cybersecurity defenses front,

• Cyberscoop informs us
  • “Imagine, for a moment, that your network is hit with ransomware.
  • “One of your employees clicked on a malicious link and now your network is compromised, data is encrypted and most of the organization’s systems are locked or offline.
  • “Then imagine if instead of assembling an incident response team, notifying the board and contacting law enforcement, the forensic sensors in your device’s firmware spring to life. They begin healing your network, restoring locked files, and communicating with other systems to collect forensic data.
  • “The firmware then analyzes the data to identify how the attackers entered and exploited system weaknesses, then blocks those vulnerabilities to prevent future breaches through the same entry points. 
  • “While it sounds like science fiction, researchers at one of the Pentagon’s top cyber innovation hubs are attempting to prove the idea is more than a pipe dream.
  • “Red-C, a new project being rolled out by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, seeks to build new defenses into bus-based computer systems, which are firmware-level systems used in everything from personal computers to weapons systems to vehicles.”

• Cybersecurity Dive tells us,
  • “Organizations that have consolidated security spending into integrated platforms have experienced improved cyber resilience and stronger operational efficiencies, according to a study released Tuesday by IBM and Palo Alto Networks. 
  • “Managing security stacks has been a struggle for organizations, which juggle an average of 83 different security tools from 29 different vendors, according to the study.
  • “More importantly, the “platformization” model reduces the time it takes to identify and mitigate security incidents by an average of 74 days and 84 days, respectively, the study found.”

• Per Dark Reading,
  • “When automated pen-testing tools appeared a few years ago they prompted an interesting question: How close are they to replacing human pen testers? While the short answer was “not that close — yet,” they definitely had potential and were worth keeping an eye on.
  • “As I’ve just had the chance to review the latest iteration of these tools, it’s interesting to see how they’ve evolved and how close are they now are to replacing the human pen tester for offensive security work.” * * *
  • “Overall, it’s good to see these tools evolve. The rate of change is glacial, but they now understand cloud environments and can target Web applications, though they are still temperamental, costly, and miss a few things. One could argue humans are the same. For now, however, humans maintain the advantage — but they aren’t mutually exclusive. Just like crowdsourced security and traditional pen testing, automated pen testing is now another tool that can be layered onto your offensive security testing, where it can help you find the exploits that matter to your organization.”

• Here is a link to Dark Reading’s CISO Corner/

From the cybersecurity personnel front

• Saturday morning, two term South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem received Senate confirmation of the President’s nomination of her to be Secretary of Homeland Security, which is the home of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Administration (CISA). The Senate vote was 59-34 in her favor.

• In the meantime, Benjamine Huffman has been the acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary this week.

• Federal News Network reports in a January 24, article,
  • Greg Barbaccia seems to be the new federal chief information officer. Barbaccia updated his LinkedIn page just recently.
  • He replaces Clare Martorana, who was the federal CIO for the last three-plus years.
  • Emails to OMB and the White House seeking confirmation and comment was not immediately returned.
  • Barbaccia is a former Army intelligence sergeant and intelligence community analyst from 2003 to 2009. Since then, he’s worked in the private sector.

• FedScoop lets us know in a January 22, 2025, article,
  • The Office of Personnel Management again has a new chief information officer. 
  • Greg Hogan will serve as CIO, an agency spokesperson confirmed to FedScoop on Wednesday [January 22]. His appointment comes roughly a week after Melvin Brown II took over that role following former CIO Guy Cavallo’s retirement from federal service. 

From the cybersecurity vulnerabilities and breaches front,

• On January 16, 2025, HHS’s Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center issued its report on December 2024 vulnerabilities of concern to the health sector.

• MedCity News points out that “Cybersecurity Threats Continue to Rise for Healthcare Organizations, Research Shows. The vast majority of healthcare organizations have spotted a cyberattack and suffered financial consequences as a result in the past 12 months, according to new research. A separate report also found that overall cyberattacks on healthcare organizations have risen by 32% year-over-year.”

• Cybersecurity Dive tells us,
  • “Conduent, a New Jersey-based government contractor that provides technology platforms to multiple social service agencies and transit systems across the U.S., confirmed Wednesday it was impacted by a cyberattack.
  • “The incident first became public after Wisconsin officials reported delays in child support payments. Wisconsin was one of four states impacted by the outage.
  • “A spokesperson for Conduent confirmed the disruption was due to a cyber incident, but did not elaborate on the details. Conduent did not provide any details about how the incident was initially discovered or a specific timeline about the response.”
• and
  • “BeyondTrust determined 17 customers were impacted in a December attack spree related to the compromise of a Remote Support SaaS API key. 
  • “The attack, attributed to a state-linked threat actor, included the compromise of several offices of the U.S. Treasury Department, where hackers gained access to unclassified data. 
  • “BeyondTrust said it worked with its affected customers to support their respective investigations by providing them with artifacts, logs, indicators of compromise and other information.
• and
  • “Hewlett Packard Enterprise said it is investigating claims a threat group gained access to a trove of sensitive company data. 
  • “The threat group, IntelBroker, posted a claim on BreachForums that it had access to a large trove of HPE data, according to researchers from Arctic Wolf. 
  • “The allegedly stolen data includes private GitHub repositories, Docker builds, source code and other information, according to the posting. 
  • “Upon learning of the claim Thursday [January 23], the company immediately activated cyber response protocols, disabled related credentials and launched an investigation to determine whether the claims were valid, a spokesperson said Tuesday via email. 
  • “There is no operational impact to our business at this time, nor evidence that customer information is involved,” the spokesperson said.”

• The American Hospital Association informs us
  • “The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and FBI Jan. 22 released an advisory explaining how cyberthreat actors “chained” vulnerabilities — deploying multiple vulnerabilities in rapid succession — during attacks on certain versions of Ivanti Cloud Service Appliances in September. Threat actors used an administrative bypass, structured query language and remote code execution vulnerabilities during the attack. The agencies said the actors gained initial access, obtained credentials and implanted webshells on victim networks.
  • “These attacks serve as another reminder of the importance of patch management in defending networks,” said Scott Gee, AHA deputy national advisor of cybersecurity and risk. “Think of this as a thief using bolt cutters to get through a perimeter fence, using a pry bar to force the door to the building open, and then using a hammer to break the glass protecting the jewels they came to steal. The good news for network defenders in this instance regarding Ivanti is that each of these tools can be detected.”
  • “CISA and the FBI strongly encouraged network administrators to upgrade to the latest supported version of Ivanti CSA.
  • “Any hospitals still using outdated versions of Ivanti CSA should update their systems immediately,” Gee said. “If unable to remove the outdated version, network security teams should implement detections based on the indicators of compromise in the advisory and understand the risk posed by this vulnerable technology.”

• Cyberscoop notes,
  • “Researchers at Black Lotus Labs have uncovered an operation where a back door is dropped onto enterprise-grade Juniper Networks routers and listens for specific network signals, known as “magic packets,” to execute malicious commands. 
  • “The campaign, which researchers at the cybersecurity wing of Lumen Technologies refer to as “J-Magic,” was active between mid-2023 and mid-2024. The malware uses a custom variant of the open-source backdoor ‘cd00r,’ which operates invisibly to lay the groundwork for a reverse shell attack. The malware scans for five different predefined parameters before activating. If any of these parameters or “magic packets” are received, the malware sends a confirmation request. Once confirmed, J-Magic establishes a reverse shell on the local file system, allowing operators to control the device, steal data, or deploy further malware.
  • “Although the specific method of transmission into these routers remains unclear, many targeted devices are configured as virtual private network (VPN) gateways. Lumen’s analysis found that approximately half of the routers affected during the campaign functioned as VPN gateways.  
  • “The strategic focus of J-Magic on routers underscores a level of stealth, given that routers are rarely monitored with security software. The malware specifically targets JunoOS, Juniper’s FreeBSD-based operating system.” 

• Per Dark Reading,
  • Cisco has released a patch for a critical vulnerability found in its Cisco Meeting Management feature that could allow a remote, authenticated attacker to elevate themselves to administrator privileges on an affected device.
  • “Cisco Meeting Management is a management tool for Cisco’s on-premises meeting platform, Cisco Meeting Server. The management system allows users to monitor and manage meetings that are running on the platform through two user roles: the first is for administrators with full rein over the platform; and the second is for “video operators,” who only have access to the meetings and overview pages.
  • “The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-20156 (CVSS score of 9.9), is located in the REST API and exists because “proper authorization” is not enforced on REST API users. Should an attacker send specially crafted API requests to a specific endpoint, they could exploit the vulnerability and allow an attacker to gain administrator-level control over edge nodes managed by Cisco Meeting Management.
  • “This poses a risk to businesses, as a threat actor with video operator access on the platform could exploit this vulnerability to give themselves administrator privileges, allowing them the ability to change configurations, add users, and more, according to the advisory.”

• Per Bleeping Computer,
  • “SonicWall is warning about a pre-authentication deserialization vulnerability in SonicWall SMA1000 Appliance Management Console (AMC) and Central Management Console (CMC), with reports that it has been exploited as a zero-day in attacks.
  • “The flaw, tracked as CVE-2025-23006 and rated critical (CVSS v3 score: 9.8), could allow remote unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary OS commands under specific conditions.
  • “The vulnerability affects all firmware versions of the SMA100 appliance up to 12.4.3-02804 (platform-hotfix). * * *
  • “We strongly advise users of the SMA1000 product to upgrade to the hotfix release version to address the vulnerability.”
  • “Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center discovered the flaw, so more details about the exploitation activity and when it started might be shared by Microsoft at a later date.”

• CISA added two known exploited vulnerabilities to its catalog this week.
  • January 23, 2025
    • CVE-2020-11023 JQuery Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability
  • January 24, 2025
    • CVE-2025-23006 SonicWall SMA1000 Appliances Deserialization Vulnerability

• The Hacker News adds,
  • “The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday placed a now-patched security flaw impacting the popular jQuery JavaScript library to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation.
  • “The medium-severity vulnerability is CVE-2020-11023 (CVSS score: 6.1/6.9), a nearly five-year-old cross-site scripting (XSS) bug that could be exploited to achieve arbitrary code execution.
  • “Passing HTML containing <option> elements from untrusted sources – even after sanitizing them – to one of jQuery’s DOM manipulation methods (i.e. .html(), .append(), and others) may execute untrusted code,” according to a GitHub advisory released for the flaw.

• Plus we learn friom Cyberscoop,
  • A critical security flaw has been identified and potentially exploited in SonicWall’s Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 1000 series appliances, sparking significant concern among cybersecurity experts and users worldwide. 
  • The vulnerability, registered as CVE-2025-23006, allows remote, unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary operating system commands under certain conditions. The issue specifically impacts the Appliance Management Console (AMC) and Central Management Console (CMC) used widely in enterprise and government networks for administrative functions.
  • SonicWall issued a warning Wednesday [January 22, 2025] saying the flaw has a severity rating of 9.8 out of 10 by the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) and may have been exploited by malicious actors. Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center is credited with uncovering the flaw, although it remains unclear when the exploitation might have commenced. Despite this, SonicWall’s advisory urges all SMA1000 users to upgrade immediately to the patched software version to prevent potential security breaches.
  • SonicWall’s products provide secure remote access for a wide swath of organizations, often serving managed security service providers (MSSPs), enterprises, and government agencies.

• Bleeping Computer relates,
  • “The FBI warned today [January 23] that North Korean IT workers are abusing their access to steal source code and extort U.S. companies that have been tricked into hiring them.
  • “The security service alerted public and private sector organizations in the United States and worldwide that North Korea’s IT army will facilitate cyber-criminal activities and demand ransoms not to leak online exfiltrated sensitive data stolen from their employers’ networks.
  • “North Korean IT workers have copied company code repositories, such as GitHub, to their own user profiles and personal cloud accounts. While not uncommon among software developers, this activity represents a large-scale risk of theft of company code,” the FBI said.

From the ransomware front,

• Cyberscoop reports,
  • “Researchers at cybersecurity firm Sophos are tracking multiple clusters of hacking activity leveraging Microsoft 365 instances, Microsoft Teams and email bombing tactics to deliver ransomware.
  • “In new research released Tuesday [January 21], the company said it had identified at least two distinct clusters of hacking activity using the tactics to infect targets between November and December 2024.
  • “First, several individuals at an organization are inundated with emails — up to 3,000 in 45 minutes in some cases. The sheer volume of spam is designed to overwhelm the target’s inbox and “create a sense of urgency” that may push them to reach out to IT for assistance, the researchers said.
  • “Then, using an external account, the hackers will message one of the targets over Microsoft Teams, posing as the organization’s IT support or a “Help Desk Manager.” Under the guise of assistance, the actors push the victim to permit a remote screen control session through Teams or Microsoft Quick Assist, which is then used to create command shells, access an external Sharepoint file and deploy malware on the victim’s device.
  • “With a command-and-control channel established, the attackers then use the target’s credentials to disable multifactor authentication and antivirus protections, connect to other hosts on the network and move laterally to compromise other systems.”
    
• Cybersecurity News lets us know,
  • “New ransomware strains are quietly infiltrating VMware ESXi hosts by setting up SSH tunnels and concealing malicious traffic within legitimate activity.
  • “This stealth tactic allows attackers to access critical virtual machine environments without triggering many of the standard alarms or detection systems that monitor more conventional network paths.
  • “Because ESXi appliances often remain unmonitored, cybercriminals have seized the opportunity to hide in plain sight, exfiltrate data, and lock down virtual machines with minimal interference.
  • “Virtualized infrastructures are attractive targets for ransomware actors due to the high value of virtual machines and the rapid damage attackers can inflict if they seize control.
  • “Instead of compromising each guest system individually, criminals can focus on the ESXi host itself, enabling them to encrypt all virtual disks in one coordinated attack.”

• Per the SentinelOne blog,
  • “The previous six months have seen heightened activity around new and emerging ransomware operations. Across the tail-end of 2024 and into 2025, we have seen the rise of groups such as FunkSec, Nitrogen and Termite. In addition, we have seen the return of Cl0p and a new version of LockBit (aka LockBit 4.0).
  • “Within this period of accelerated activity, the Ransomware-as-a-Service offerings HellCat and Morpheus have gained additional momentum and notoriety. Operators behind HellCat, in particular, have been vocal in their efforts to establish the RaaS as a ‘reputable’ brand and service within the crimeware economy.
  • “As a result of this recent activity, we analyzed payloads from both HellCat and Morpheus ransomware operations. In this post, we discuss how affiliates across both operations are compiling payloads that contain almost identical code. We take a high-level look at two samples in particular and examine their characteristics and behavior.” Check it out.

From the cybersecurity defenses front,

• CISA advises,
  • “If you’re an IT defender or a vulnerability management pro, CISA’s Vulnrichment project can make your life easier. It enriches basic CVE data with actionable insights like Stakeholder-Specific Vulnerability Categorization (SSVC) decision points, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) IDs, and Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), all bundled into the CVE records you’re already pulling. Think of it as a turbocharged upgrade to the CVE data you’re already consuming. Best part? You don’t need to set up anything new—this enriched data is automatically baked into the CVE feeds you’re already using.
  • “You’re soaking in it! Today, all Vulnrichment data ends up in the Authorized Data Publisher (ADP) container for individual CVEs, so if you’re pulling CVE data from https://cve.org via the API, or from GitHub at https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5 ,  you’re already collecting Vulnrichment data. It’s just a matter of parsing it out.”

• Check out Dark Reading for an article about MITRE’s Latest ATT&CK Simulations Tackle Cloud Defenses. The MITRE framework’s applied exercise provides defenders with critical feedback about how to detect and defend against common, but sophisticated, attacks.”

• Security Week discusses attack surface management.
  • “The attack surface of an organization represents all of the assets (physical, virtual or human) that a malicious actor can potentially use to breach an organization,” says Alex Hoff, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Auvik Networks.
  • “Traditionally,” continues Raj Samani, SVP and chief scientist at Rapid7, “the focus of attack surface management has been on securing the broader attack surface – but the emphasis is now on preventing the exploitation of assets within increasingly complex environments.”
  • “While we have traditionally considered the Attack Surface to be a part of the overall IT infrastructure that can be treated and managed discretely, our view now is that the AS includes anything and everything a threat actor can target for exploitation.” 

• Per Beckers Health IT,
  • “Global IT spending is expected to grow 9.8% in 2025, to $5.6 trillion, with much of that increase going to price hikes, according to Gartner.
  • “And while CIOs’ expectations for generative AI are on the wane — what the IT consultant called a “trough of disillusionment” — their spending on the technology will continue to rise, Gartner predicted. Those hardware upgrades will drive double-digit growth in data center systems, devices and software this year.”

• Here is a link to Dark Reading’s CISO Corner.