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Risky Bulletin: Russia starts blocking DoH and DoT

Russian users report blocks on DoH and DoT servers, including Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 and Google 8.8.8.8, in an apparent censorship crackdown.

Russian internet users began reporting failures connecting to DNS-over-HTTPS and DNS-over-TLS servers, suggesting a government crackdown on the two privacy protocols. The blocks reportedly cover Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 and Google's 8.8.8.8 resolvers; Roskomnadzor has not officially confirmed the action. The agency tested a similar block in March on Beeline's network and had named DoH for blocking as early as 2021. The bulletin also briefly notes state-sponsored phishing of EU officials, a DDoS against Norway's Digdir, the ReliaQuest/ShinyHunters dispute, and older ransomware and breach disclosures.

Risky Business News · 22d agoPolicy & legal1

Week in review: Compromised Zimbra servers, previously patched Citrix NetScaler flaw exploited

Help Net Security's weekly digest highlights 274 compromised Zimbra servers, Gitea and Citrix NetScaler KEV additions, a PaperCut zero-day, and a suspected Iran-linked power plant attack.

The roundup reports at least 274 internet-facing Zimbra instances compromised via CVE-2026-73570, critical Gitea CVE-2026-60004 added to CISA's KEV catalog after exploitation began, and previously patched Citrix NetScaler flaw CVE-2026-8452 exploited in the wild. It also covers PaperCut NG/MF zero-day attacks, a suspected Iran-linked shutdown of a UK power plant, an FBI seizure of domains tied to a China-linked group that hit NASA, DOJ and the Senate, a cyberattack disrupting Boston Scientific, and the Manchester Airports Group breach. Additional items include Chameleon SEO poisoning phishing, Android car head unit proxy botnet malware, ReliaQuest social engineering by ShinyHunters, fake OpenAI Codex macOS malware, and AI-related workforce and supply chain interviews.

Help Net Security · 18d agoIndustry in the wildCVE-2026-73570CVE-2026-60004CVE-2026-8452

Top 10 Best Mobile Threat Defense (MTD) Solutions in 2026

Roundup of 2026 mobile threat defense tools recommends Zimperium and Lookout for targeted-attack detection and Defender for Endpoint for Microsoft shops.

This guide ranks ten mobile threat defense solutions, recommending Zimperium and Lookout for on-device detection against targeted users such as executives and journalists, and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint mobile for organizations already licensing Microsoft 365 E5. It explains that MDM enforces configuration while MTD detects attacks, and that mobile phishing now arrives via SMS, messaging apps and QR codes rather than email. It also highlights mercenary spyware and zero-click exploits as shifting requirements for high-risk users, referencing Apple's threat-notification program and Lockdown Mode.

Cyber Security News · 8d agoIndustry

12 Serverless Security Options Compared (2026): Features & Pricing

A buyer-focused comparison of twelve serverless security offerings concludes no standalone SKU is worth buying in 2026, with function protection bundled inside CNAPP contracts.

The scorecard compares twelve serverless security options on function-protection depth, pricing visibility, platform attach economics, multi-runtime coverage, and vendor viability. Microsoft Defender for Cloud tops the weighted scores at 4.75, with Prisma Cloud at 4.60 and Datadog at 4.55 noted for publishing clean per-function rates. The piece warns that Thundra and Epsagon are defunct and that most vendors bill functions inside platform units where costs are hard to see. It also references the Aqua Security Trivy supply chain incident and Google's finalized acquisition of Wiz as market context.

GBHackers · 1h agoIndustry 12 sources

Terminated employee cost company hundreds of thousands of dollars because nobody revoked access

A terminated employee's unrevoked access let him delete files and corrupt a database, costing the company hundreds of thousands of dollars and weeks of delays.

The Register's PWNED column recounts an anecdote from Yad Senapathy, CEO of the Project Management Training Institute, about a company with 1,000+ employees where a terminated employee's credentials were never revoked. The former worker retained shared admin credentials and used them to delete files, lock accounts, and corrupt a database, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and weeks of project delays. The takeaway is that unclear offboarding responsibility and unreviewed admin access enabled the sabotage.

The Register · Security · 14d agoIndustry

12 Best CNAPP Platforms Compared (2026): Features & Pricing

Independent comparison of 12 CNAPP platforms finds identical estates draw quotes 2-3x apart; Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the only fully published per-resource option.

A vendor-independent buyer's guide compares twelve CNAPP platforms including Prisma Cloud, CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security, Wiz, Uptycs, Aqua, Zscaler, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud on pricing mechanics, procurement leverage, and capability-per-dollar. It finds quotes swing 2-3x on identical estates because vendors define 'workload' differently. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is highlighted as the only major with fully published per-resource rates.

GBHackers · 2d agoIndustry1

Credential Theft: How Attackers Steal & Use Stolen Credentials

Huntress explains how attackers steal credentials through phishing, AitM, infostealers, and dumping, then use them for lateral movement, BEC, and ransomware.

Huntress published an educational overview of credential theft, citing that roughly 70% of confirmed data breaches begin with stolen credentials. It details acquisition methods including phishing, adversary-in-the-middle attacks that capture MFA session tokens, infostealers (nearly a quarter of threats Huntress observed in 2025), Mimikatz-based credential dumping, credential stuffing, and password spraying. The piece then covers post-theft actions such as lateral movement, privilege escalation, account takeover, business email compromise, and ransomware, and closes with behavioral detection guidance and layered prevention strategies.

Huntress · 6d agoResearch

Why 2026 is the Year to Upgrade to an Agentic AI SOC

Elastic Security Labs argues 2026 is the production inflection point for agentic AI in security operations centers.

Elastic Security Labs argues 2026 is the practical inflection point for agentic AI SOCs, noting nearly two-thirds of organizations are experimenting with AI agents while fewer than one in four have production deployments. The piece outlines operational challenges and recommendations: treat agents as non-human identities with least-privilege tool access, version-control system prompts as code, deploy unified agents with on-demand task packages, and enforce per-agent budgets and rate limits. It stresses explainability via RAG and transparent reasoning traces so analysts can verify and override autonomous decisions.

Elastic Security Labs · 8d agoIndustry

Why Johnny Can't Encrypt: A Usability Evaluation of PGP 5.0 (1999)

Seminal 1999 USENIX study finds most novice users cannot correctly sign and encrypt email with PGP 5.0 in 90 minutes.

Whitten and Tygar's USENIX Security Symposium paper evaluates whether cryptography novices can use PGP 5.0 effectively, using cognitive walkthrough analysis and a laboratory user test. The majority of test participants failed to successfully sign and encrypt a message within 90 minutes, despite PGP 5.0 having a well-regarded graphical interface. The authors argue that security requires usability standards beyond those of general consumer software and propose domain-specific UI design principles for security. The paper is a foundational reference in usable security research.

Lobsters · security · 8d agoResearch

15 Minutes Saved Per Alert: How a Lean German Manufacturer Protects 10,000 Endpoints with ANY.RUN

A five-person security team at a German manufacturer protecting 10,000 endpoints cut triage time by 15 minutes per alert after adopting ANY.RUN's cloud sandbox.

Philipp Z., Security Lead at a leading German manufacturer, described how a five-person team protects 10,000 endpoints and users using ANY.RUN's Interactive Sandbox in a private cloud. The firm previously relied on a single air-gapped forensic laptop running Flare VM, which caused 5-10 minute setup delays, single-user bottlenecks, and selective triage. The switch reportedly saved roughly 15 minutes per alert and reduced forced wiping and reimaging of user machines. ANY.RUN data cited in the piece puts manufacturing security workloads 22% above other major industries.

ANY.RUN · 8d agoIndustry

12 Best CIEM Tools Compared (2026): Features & Pricing

Buyer's guide compares twelve CIEM tools; Microsoft discontinued Entra Permissions Management, while Tenable (Ermetic), CyberArk, and Wiz lead the 2026 scorecard.

The scorecard evaluates twelve cloud infrastructure entitlement management vendors on permission analytics depth, JIT enforcement, non-human identity coverage, pricing predictability, and bundle leverage. Tenable (Ermetic) leads at 4.70, followed by CyberArk and Wiz, while Microsoft's retirement of Entra Permissions Management (CloudKnox) forces existing customers into migration cycles. Pricing structures span per-identity, per-resource, per-workload, credit-based, and quote-based models.

GBHackers · 1d agoIndustry 2 sources

Risky Bulletin: The EU publishes its upcoming cybersecurity standards

ETSI releases 17 draft cybersecurity standards vendors must meet when the EU Cyber Resilience Act takes effect in December 2027.

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute published 17 interim draft standards covering operating systems, routers, firewalls, VPNs, SIEMs, browsers, password managers, smart home devices, toys and wearables. They mandate basic security features such as post-sale updates, shipped SBOMs, modern cryptography and secure-by-default settings; public comments run until November, with final versions expected in December, one year before CRA compliance begins in December 2027. The newsletter also reports Irregular taking responsibility for AI test-environment escapes involving Anthropic and Meta frontier models, a breach at France's tax agency exposing 678,000+ citizens' data claimed by hacker ZeroBytes, and Kazakhstan eGov data covering 15 million citizens listed for sale on an underground forum. Additional briefs cover a $3.2 million Harmony Protocol theft crashing the ONE token 40%, Columbus Police still restoring systems two years after ransomware, DDoS attacks on Threema's provider, and Ukraine's GUR claiming a cyberattack on Wildberries.

Risky Business News · Aug 17, 2026Policy & legal2

CIA official touts agency’s Cyber Mission Center in capture of Venezuela’s Maduro

CIA deputy director credits the Cyber Mission Center's cyber operations for the intelligence picture behind Nicolás Maduro's capture.

CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis said at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit that cyber operations built the 'flawless intelligence picture' enabling US special forces to locate Nicolás Maduro in his Caracas bunker and apprehend him within four minutes of landing during January's Operation Absolute Resolve. Director John Ratcliffe elevated the Center for Cyber Intelligence to a standalone mission center, which Ellis said smooths reporting chains and aligns resources. Ellis also said AI will 'permeate' every aspect of intelligence work, with human-in-the-loop safeguards and multi-vendor approaches to avoid model lock-in. The US has unsealed narcoterrorism charges against Maduro and his wife, who are seeking dismissal under immunity claims.

The Record · 8d agoPolicy & legal 2 sources

How Attackers Abuse VSS, and How Huntress Detects It

Huntress details how attackers abuse Windows Volume Shadow Copies for ransomware recovery sabotage and NTDS.dit credential theft, plus detection logic.

Huntress explains that attackers abuse VSS in three ways: deleting shadow copies to inhibit recovery before ransomware detonation, creating shadow copies to extract the NTDS.dit Active Directory database for offline credential theft, and manipulating shadow copy configuration. Because backup agents and RMM tools routinely create and delete shadow copies, raw events are too noisy to alert on alone. Huntress detections instead correlate VSS activity with lateral movement and credential harvesting over a time window, such as an observed sequence of PsExec spawning SYSTEM shells on a domain controller, vssadmin create shadow, a blocked deletion attempt, and DNS reconnaissance against another host.

Huntress · 2d agoResearch

WordPress Security Plugins: How to Choose the Right One

Sucuri's guide breaks WordPress security plugins into hardening, malware scanning, integrity monitoring, and filtering types, and explains how to evaluate and layer them.

The Sucuri guide explains that WordPress security plugins bundle five capabilities - hardening, malware detection, integrity monitoring, activity logging, and application-level filtering - and that plugins run only after WordPress loads, unlike server-level firewalls. It lists leading causes of compromise: outdated plugins and themes, weak or reused credentials, nulled premium software, insecure configuration, and shared-hosting cross-contamination. It concludes with evaluation criteria and a post-installation security checklist for owners without dedicated security teams.

Sucuri Blog · 12d agoIndustry

The 12 Best Managed XDR Services, Compared and Priced

A comparison of twelve managed XDR providers covering pricing models, telemetry breadth, and distinguishing genuine MXDR from rebranded MDR services.

The article compares twelve managed XDR providers including Bitdefender, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Unit 42, Trend Micro, Fortinet, Secureworks Taegis, Stellar Cyber, Ontinue, and ReliaQuest, highlighting pricing models and telemetry breadth. It explains that genuine MXDR must actively monitor identity, cloud, and email telemetry rather than merely ingest it, and typically costs 30-60% more than endpoint-only MDR. It also notes Sophos completed its approximately $859 million acquisition of Secureworks in February 2025.

GBHackers · 8d agoIndustry 3 sources2

Risky Bulletin: Academics find source code overlaps between Geedge and China's Great Firewall

Academics linked Chinese vendor Geedge Networks' Tiangou Secure Gateway source code to one of the Great Firewall's three traffic filtering capabilities.

US researchers presenting at USENIX Security reconstructed Geedge Networks' Tiangou Secure Gateway firmware from over 100,000 leaked files, including Git repositories with commit history, and matched its filtering behavior to sections of China's Great Firewall. They found only 1 of 3 characterized DNS injectors matched Geedge code, noted the system relies on memory-unsafe C components and copied third-party code, and said its bugs could aid future circumvention tools. Geedge also exports censorship tools to Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, and Myanmar. The newsletter additionally rounds up multiple breaches.

Risky Business News · 27d agoResearch2

AD Rights Management Service (Part 1): Architecture, Deprecation, and Reconnaissance

Huntress maps AD RMS architecture and recon paths, setting up an offline key-extraction attack against its unrotatable 255-year root key.

Huntress's multi-part research examines Active Directory Rights Management Services, Microsoft's enterprise DRM role that still ships in Windows Server 2025 despite migration guidance favoring Azure Information Protection. Part 1 covers the trust model and how an ordinary domain account can locate RMS clusters and read rights-policy templates. Part 2 will detail four independent paths for extracting the Server Licensor Certificate (SLC) private key via service-group membership and the configuration database, enabling fully offline decryption of protected documents. The SLC certificate is valid from 2002 to 2258 and has no key-rotation mechanism, so a stolen key decrypts protected content indefinitely.

Huntress · 9d agoResearch1

AI SIEM Search

Huntress launched AI Search for Managed SIEM, translating plain-English questions into ESQL log queries with schedulable custom alerts.

Huntress introduced AI Search in its Managed SIEM, letting users query logs in natural language instead of writing ESQL, KQL, or SPL. The feature generates a real ESQL query behind the scenes, exposes it for users to inspect and learn from, and allows saved searches to be scheduled as recurring alerts at hourly, daily, or weekly cadence. A planned next version will return summarized plain-language answers instead of raw logs.

Huntress · 9d agoTools

The 12 Best Managed Firewall Services, Compared and Priced

GBHackers compares 12 managed firewall service providers, naming Fortinet best value and Secureworks best detection while flagging recent ownership changes.

The buyer's guide evaluates 12 managed firewall/MSSP providers across cost tiers, contract terms, and service models. Fortinet is rated best value, Secureworks best detection, NTT Data best global reach, and Cato Networks best for organizations wanting to stop owning firewalls. The article highlights that Secureworks was acquired by Sophos for roughly $859 million in February 2025, the Trustwave-Cybereason merger was terminated in March 2025, LevelBlue is the rebranded AT&T Cybersecurity business, and Comcast Business absorbed Masergy.

GBHackers · 9d agoIndustry 2 sources

Securing Your Business: The Vital Role of Cyber Insurance | Huntress

Huntress explains cyber insurance coverage types, insurer security requirements, and the shift toward documented evidence of controls.

Huntress outlines first-party and third-party cyber insurance coverage, including business interruption, data recovery, extortion, privacy liability, and regulatory fines. Insurers now commonly require EDR, MFA, security awareness training, patching, tested backups, least-privilege access, and incident response plans. With ransomware accounting for 91% of insurance losses in H1 2025 and average US breach costs at $10.22 million, underwriters increasingly demand evidence packs rather than self-attestation.

Huntress · 15d agoIndustry

Risky Bulletin: Dutch intel services to get extensive new powers

Netherlands proposed a bill granting AIVD and MIVD expanded warrantless tapping, faster hacking powers, and forced data disclosure, citing Russia, China, and Iran threats.

The Dutch government introduced a bill greatly expanding surveillance powers of intelligence agencies AIVD and MIVD, allowing up to one year of tapping without pre-approval and simplified hacking operations against 'foreign adversaries'. Agencies could compel Dutch companies or citizens to provide data under threat of charges, share data with the private sector, and oversight bodies would merge into a new CTT board. The bill follows similar overhauls in Ireland, Germany, and France after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The newsletter also reports Moonwell hacked for $8.7M, a Cosmos EVM bug exploited for ~$3M, ShinyHunters listing McKesson with claimed hundreds of millions of records, and a pro-Kremlin DDoS claim against Norway's government network.

Risky Business News · 17d agoPolicy & legal

Srsly Risky Biz: Trump's Private Hacker Memo Is the Right Idea

A Trump presidential memo directs DHS to authorize vetted private-sector hackers to conduct cyber operations against foreign cybercriminal groups (CE-TCOs).

A presidential memorandum directs the Department of Homeland Security to establish a program authorizing private companies to conduct cyber surveillance and cyber effects operations against Cyber-Enabled Transnational Crime Organisations (CE-TCOs). Participating companies must pass vetting, obtain government approval before operations, and post a USD $1 million bond. The accompanying fact sheet cites more than USD $20.8 billion in US losses to cyber-enabled crime in 2025. Critics worry about accidental escalation if operations touch foreign government systems.

Risky Business News · 28d agoPolicy & legal1

2026 Cyber Insurance Trends Report: What's Changed and What You Need to Know

Huntress survey: CIRCIA reporting mandates now live, BEC claims exceed ransomware, exfiltration-heavy attacks cost twice as much, premiums rising.

Huntress's 2026 cyber insurance trends report, based on its own survey, finds 79% of respondents carry cyber insurance while 58% report shrinking coverage over five years. New CIRCIA federal reporting mandates and EU NIS2 requirements are reshaping policies, business email compromise now drives more claims than ransomware, and data exfiltration has replaced encryption as the dominant ransomware tactic at roughly twice the cost. After three years of declining premiums, rates are climbing again, and most businesses now refuse to pay ransoms.

Huntress · 15d agoIndustry1

AD Rights Management Service (Part 2): Extraction, Offline Decryption, and the Unrotatable Key

Huntress research shows AD RMS SLC root key is unrotatable and never expires, so its compromise permanently exposes all RMS-protected documents.

Part 2 of Huntress's AD RMS series details server-side attacks: extracting the Server Licensor Certificate (SLC) private key and performing offline decryption of protected documents. The SLC key has no expiry or rotation mechanism, with a 255-year certificate validity (2002–2258), so whoever recovers it can decrypt every document the deployment ever protected, indefinitely. The author released SharpRMS, a unified tool combining the 2016 DisARMS client-side attacks with new server-side key extraction and decryption capabilities. The research frames the SLC as comparable to KRBTGT and the DPAPI domain backup key, though not equivalent to domain compromise.

Huntress · 7d agoResearch