Cloud security and operations leaned toward prevention today. An updated AWS blog laid out when to adopt managed login versus a custom UI in Amazon Cognito, including new managed capabilities and a reminder about the risks of open self‑registration. In parallel, CSO Online detailed Salesforce’s new Agentforce security and privacy agents designed to surface anomalies, assemble context, and guide remediation. Still, defenders also faced disruptions and exploitation, from a Microsoft 365 outage to active attacks against vulnerable WordPress sites.
Identity and AI operations evolve
AWS expanded guidance on Amazon Cognito’s two primary approaches. Managed login now offers a modern branding editor, passkeys and OTPs, curated user flows, localization, SSO across clients, and integration with CloudTrail, AWS WAF (including CAPTCHA), and Cognito threat protection. Hosted UI (classic) remains available for simpler customization. Teams that need bespoke UX, Lambda‑based challenges, trusted‑device features, custom endpoints, or tighter session controls can opt for a fully custom UI using the SDK. The post reiterates a security note: enabling self‑registration opens sign‑up to anyone on the internet and should only be enabled deliberately.
Salesforce introduced Agentforce agents for Security Center and Privacy Center that monitor activity, detect anomalies, assemble investigation context, and can take authorized actions such as freezing accounts or initiating data erasure. The report recommends a measured path—start with surfaced findings, validate proposed steps, then automate specific tasks as confidence grows—and notes Salesforce patched a disclosed prompt‑injection issue affecting agent workflows.
Fortinet added AI assistance to its cloud‑native application protection platform. FortiCNAPP correlates disparate telemetry into composite alerts and an observation timeline, while an AI assistant answers natural‑language questions, maps relationships, and proposes prioritized remediation—aiming to reduce noise and accelerate triage for cloud incidents.
Cost governance also received attention. AWS What's New announced pricing and workload cost estimation in Amazon Q Developer, pulling authoritative figures from the AWS Price List APIs so architects and finance teams can compare options and forecast spend directly in the console chat panel.
Compute choices broaden with Graviton
AWS expanded the reach of its Arm‑based instances featuring local NVMe storage. R8gd and M8gd are now available in additional regions, offering Graviton4 performance gains over Graviton3, up to 11.4 TB of local NVMe, up to 50 Gbps networking and 40 Gbps EBS bandwidth, and EFA support on larger sizes. The expansions target I/O‑intensive databases, analytics engines, caching layers, and other stateful services that benefit from low‑latency local storage and enhanced networking.
Exploited bugs and social engineering kits
Researchers reported active abuse of the Service Finder WordPress theme. BleepingComputer notes CVE‑2025‑5947 (CVSS 9.8) allows authentication bypass via improper validation of an original_user_id cookie, enabling logins as any user, including administrators. Attacks have surged since disclosure, and administrators are urged to update to version 6.1 or later immediately and review systems for unexpected accounts or uploads given the potential for full site takeover.
Unit 42 exposed a configurable ClickFix phishing kit that automates deceptive “verification” pages prompting users to copy and run attacker commands—lowering the bar for affiliates and evading some automated detections by relying on human action. In a separate campaign observed by Huntress, reported by The Hacker News, actors likely tied to China weaponized open‑source tools via exposed phpMyAdmin panels and log poisoning to plant a PHP web shell, then deployed the Nezha agent and Gh0st RAT for persistent access across more than 100 systems. The common thread is attacker reuse of legitimate frameworks to blend in and scale operations.
Incidents and service disruptions
Microsoft 365 experienced an ongoing outage impacting Teams, Exchange Online, and the admin center. BleepingComputer reports users encountered sign‑in failures tied to Entra SSO and delayed MFA prompts as engineers worked to rebalance dependent infrastructure. The disruption limited some tenants’ ability to access the admin portal for troubleshooting.
Crypto‑related cybercrime continued to escalate. Infosecurity cites Elliptic’s finding that North Korea‑aligned actors have surpassed $2 billion in stolen cryptocurrency this year, driven by the Bybit incident, and are employing layered laundering techniques to obscure flows. Separately, BleepingComputer reports Salesforce is refusing to negotiate with threat actors behind multiple 2025 data‑theft campaigns, which included social‑engineering and token‑based pivots into customer environments. The stance underscores the limited leverage victims may gain from capitulating to extortion.