Hyperscalers Advance Agentic Platforms Amid Exploits and Breaches

Google Introduces Gemini Enterprise for the Workplace

🚀 Gemini Enterprise is presented as Google’s unified, enterprise-grade AI front door that integrates advanced models, a no-code workbench, pre-built and customizable agents, secure data connectors, centralized governance, and an open partner ecosystem. The chat-first interface works across Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 and adds multimodal agents for text, image, video, and speech. Google highlights developer tooling, open agent protocols, agent monetization, and customer deployments to accelerate end-to-end workflow automation and auditable governance.

Cloudflare Launches REACT: Unified Incident Response

🔒 Cloudflare today introduces REACT, a new incident response and advisory service from Cloudforce One designed to bridge the gap between edge defenses and in‑network remediation. REACT combines proactive advisory work—threat hunting, tabletop exercises, and readiness assessments—with emergency incident response and retainer options for guaranteed availability. As a network‑native, vendor‑agnostic service, REACT can deploy mitigations at the Cloudflare edge and coordinate investigations across on‑premise, cloud, and hybrid environments.

Microsoft Azure Debuts Large-Scale NVIDIA GB300 Cluster

🚀 Microsoft Azure announced the first production-scale cluster using more than 4,600 NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 (Blackwell Ultra) GPUs, co-engineered with NVIDIA to support OpenAI and other frontier AI workloads. The new ND GB300 v6 VMs are optimized for reasoning models, agentic systems, and multimodal generative AI, delivered on rack-scale systems with 72 GPUs per rack and 36 NVIDIA Grace CPUs. Microsoft says this infrastructure will shorten training from months to weeks and will scale to hundreds of thousands of Blackwell Ultra GPUs globally.

Amazon EC2 C6in network-optimized instances in Mexico

🚀 AWS announced general availability of Amazon EC2 C6in instances in the Mexico (Central) Region. These sixth-generation, network-optimized instances run on 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors and the AWS Nitro System, delivering up to 200 Gbps of network bandwidth and improved EBS throughput and IOPS. C6in offers up to 128 vCPUs across 10 sizes (including bare metal) and provides Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) support on 32xlarge and metal sizes. Targeted use cases include network virtual appliances, Telco 5G UPF, data analytics, HPC, and CPU-based AI/ML workloads.

Partners Powering the Gemini Enterprise Agent Ecosystem

🚀 Gemini Enterprise launches a curated ecosystem of partner-built AI agents that integrate with Google Cloud to deliver validated, secure solutions for enterprise workflows. The platform supports Agent2Agent (A2A) communication and includes a Gemini-powered AI agent finder for natural language discovery and filtering by industry, use case, and validation status. A broad set of technology and consulting partners — from Box and Salesforce to ServiceNow, Workday, and Accenture — are bringing agents and services to the Google Cloud Marketplace to accelerate deployment and adoption.

Amazon Quick Suite: Agentic AI Workspace for Business

🤖 Amazon Quick Suite is now generally available as an agentic, AI-powered workspace that retrieves insights across the public internet and your enterprise data stores — including Slack, Salesforce, Snowflake, databases, and other documents — and moves instantly from answers to actions. Quick Suite can execute or trigger tasks in popular applications like Salesforce, Jira, and ServiceNow, and automate workflows from RFP responses to invoice processing and account reconciliation. AWS highlights customer privacy — queries and data are not used to train models — and administrators can enable and tailor the experience quickly; new customers receive a 30-day trial for up to 25 users.

Google Skills: Centralized AI and Cloud Learning Hub

🚀 Google today launched Google Skills, a unified learning platform consolidating nearly 3,000 courses and labs from Google Cloud, Google DeepMind, Grow with Google and Google for Education. The rollout, timed with the release of Gemini Enterprise, integrates Gemini Code Assist into hands-on labs, introduces new skill badges, and adds gamified features and admin tools for organizations. A new GEAR sprint will target one million developers for agent development, and a partnership with Jack Henry creates a direct hiring pathway for U.S. certificate holders.

Microsoft Expands Azure Datacenters and AI in Asia

☁️ Microsoft is expanding its Azure footprint across Asia, launching new datacenter regions in Malaysia and Indonesia in 2025 and announcing planned expansions in India and Taiwan for 2026. The company is investing billions to deliver AI-ready hyperscale infrastructure, next‑generation networking, scalable storage, and multi‑zone availability to support low-latency, compliant services. Microsoft also plans a second Malaysia region (Southeast Asia 3) and recommends multi-region architectures along with the Cloud Adoption and Well‑Architected Frameworks to improve resilience, performance, and cost optimization.

Amazon EC2 I7i Storage-Optimized Instances Available in Spain

🖥️ Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched Amazon EC2 I7i storage-optimized instances in the AWS Europe (Spain) region, powered by 5th-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors and 3rd-generation AWS Nitro SSDs. Compared with prior I4i instances, I7i delivers up to 23% better compute performance, improved price performance, and up to 45 TB of NVMe storage with notable reductions in storage I/O latency and variability. Offered in eleven sizes (including bare-metal), I7i targets I/O-intensive, latency-sensitive workloads requiring very high random IOPS and real-time access to multi-TB datasets.

Oracle EBS Zero-Day Exploitation and Extortion Campaign

⚠️ GTIG and Mandiant tracked a large-scale extortion campaign beginning Sept. 29, 2025, in which actors claiming affiliation with the CL0P brand alleged theft from Oracle E‑Business Suite (EBS) environments. Analysis indicates exploitation of a zero-day (CVE-2025-61882) as early as Aug. 9, 2025, with suspicious activity dating back to July 10. Attackers abused UiServlet and SyncServlet flows, embedding Java payloads via XSL templates to achieve unauthenticated RCE and deploy in-memory implants. Organizations are urged to apply Oracle emergency patches, hunt for malicious templates in XDO_TEMPLATES_B/XDO_LOBS, and restrict outbound traffic to disrupt C2.

ThreatsDay: Teams Abuse, MFA Hijack, $2B Crypto Heist

🛡️ Microsoft and researchers report threat actors abusing Microsoft Teams for extortion, social engineering, and financial theft after hijacking MFA with social engineering resets. Separate campaigns use malicious .LNK files to deliver PowerShell droppers and DLL implants that establish persistent command-and-control. Analysts also link over $2 billion in 2025 crypto thefts to North Korean‑linked groups and identify AI-driven disinformation, IoT flaws, and cloud misconfigurations as multiplying risk. Defenders are urged to harden identity, secure endpoints and apps, patch exposed services, and limit long-lived cloud credentials.

SonicWall Cloud Backups Accessed in Firewall Breach

🔒 SonicWall has confirmed that an unauthorized actor accessed firewall configuration backup files stored in its cloud backup service for customers. The files include encrypted credentials and device configuration data; while encryption remains in place, SonicWall warned that possession of these backups could increase the risk of targeted attacks. The vendor says access was achieved via brute-force attacks and that suspicious activity was first detected in early September 2025. Working with Mandiant, SonicWall has issued remediation tools, published impacted device lists in the MySonicWall portal, and is notifying affected partners and customers.

Critical Service Finder Bug Lets Attackers Hijack Sites

🔒 A critical authentication bypass in the Service Finder Bookings plugin (CVE-2025-5947, CVSS 9.8) allows unauthenticated attackers to sign in as any user, including administrators. The root cause is improper cookie validation in the account-switching function service_finder_switch_back(), which enables privilege escalation. Maintainers released Service Finder version 6.1 on July 17, 2025 to address the issue, and exploitation attempts have been observed since August 1, 2025. Administrators should upgrade immediately and audit sites for unauthorized accounts or unexpected changes.

Threat actors abusing Velociraptor in ransomware attacks

⚠️Researchers have observed threat actors leveraging the open-source DFIR tool Velociraptor to maintain persistent remote access and deploy ransomware families including LockBit and Babuk. Cisco Talos links the campaigns to a China-based group tracked as Storm-2603 and notes use of an outdated Velociraptor build vulnerable to CVE-2025-6264. Attackers synchronized local admin accounts to Entra ID, accessed vSphere consoles, disabled Defender via AD GPOs, and used fileless PowerShell encryptors with per-run AES keys and staged exfiltration prior to encryption.

LockBit, DragonForce and Qilin Form Ransomware Cartel

🚨 Three major ransomware-as-a-service operators — LockBit, DragonForce, and Qilin — announced a coalition in early September aimed at coordinating attacks and stabilizing market conditions after recent law enforcement disruptions. The groups signaled intentions to reduce intra-group conflicts, share resources, and protect affiliate revenue, and LockBit explicitly authorized targeting certain critical infrastructure sectors. ReliaQuest researchers reviewed forum posts and communications but have not yet observed joint operations or a combined leak site.

Hotel Booking Software Vulnerability Exposed Millions' Data

🔓 Security researchers from Zerforschung discovered a vulnerability in the Gubse AG hotel booking system that exposed customer data including names, addresses, identity documents and credit card details. Investigators estimate more than 35.5 million reservations and 48.5 million guest records were retrievable, with Motel One especially affected. A number of hostel and hotel groups, including DJH state hostels, AWO SANO and the DeHoGa campus, were named. Vendors report the gaps have been closed and say there is no confirmed misuse or public leak so far.

Velociraptor Abused in Ransomware Attacks by Storm-2603

🔐 Cisco Talos confirmed ransomware operators abused Velociraptor, an open-source DFIR endpoint tool, to gain arbitrary command execution in August 2025 by deploying an outdated agent vulnerable to CVE-2025-6264. Talos links the activity with moderate confidence to Storm-2603 based on overlapping tooling and TTPs. Operators used the tool to stage lateral movement, deploy fileless PowerShell encryptors, and deliver multiple ransomware families, severely disrupting VMware ESXi and Windows servers.

AI-Powered Cyberattacks Escalate Against Ukraine in 2025

🔍 Ukraine's SSSCIP reported a sharp rise in AI-enabled cyber operations in H1 2025, documenting 3,018 incidents versus 2,575 in H2 2024. Analysts found evidence that attackers used AI not only to craft phishing lures but also to generate malware samples, including a PowerShell stealer identified as WRECKSTEEL. Multiple UAC clusters—such as UAC-0219, UAC-0218, and UAC-0226—deployed stealers and backdoors via booby-trapped archives, SVG attachments, and ClickFix-style tactics. The report also details zero-click exploitation of Roundcube and Zimbra flaws and widespread abuse of legitimate cloud and collaboration services for hosting and data exfiltration.

Kantsu’s Ransomware Crisis: Recovery, Costs, and Lessons

🔒 Kantsu, a midsize Japanese logistics firm, was hit by ransomware on Sept. 12, 2024 that encrypted servers, cut communications, and halted shipping operations for hundreds of clients. The company refused to pay a ransom, shut down networks, replaced PCs, and rebuilt its cloud WMS Cloud Thomas on AWS while using analog processes to maintain critical shipments. Executives prioritized speed, cash availability, and employee welfare during an expensive recovery process that exposed gaps in cyber insurance.

Hackers Claim Discord Zendesk Breach Exposed 5.5M Users

🛡️ Discord says it will not pay extortionists who claim to have stolen data from a third‑party customer support service and disputes claims that 2.1 million ID photos were exposed. Attackers allege they obtained 1.6 TB of data from the company's Zendesk instance, impacting 5.5 million users and including partial payment and MFA‑related information. Discord says roughly 70,000 ID photos may have been exposed and characterizes the larger figures as part of an extortion attempt.

ClayRat Android spyware mimics popular apps to spread

📱 A new Android spyware campaign called ClayRat is tricking users by posing as well-known apps and services such as WhatsApp, Google Photos, TikTok, and YouTube and distributing APKs via Telegram channels and fraudulent websites. Researchers at Zimperium say they documented over 600 samples and 50 distinct droppers in three months, noting that some use a session-based installation and encrypted payloads to bypass Android defenses. Once installed, ClayRat can assume the default SMS handler, exfiltrate SMS and call logs, capture notifications and front-camera photos, make calls, send mass SMS for propagation, and communicate with C2 servers (recent versions use AES-GCM); Play Protect now blocks known variants.

Universities Targeted in 'Payroll Pirate' Workday Hijacks

🔐 Microsoft says the Storm-2657 gang has been targeting U.S. university HR employees since March 2025 in “payroll pirate” attacks that aim to hijack salary payments by compromising Workday accounts and Exchange Online mailboxes. Attackers use tailored phishing themes—campus illness, faculty misconduct, executive impersonation—and adversary‑in‑the‑middle (AITM) links to steal MFA codes and gain access. They then set inbox rules to hide warnings, adjust payroll SSO settings, and sometimes enroll attacker phone numbers as MFA devices; Microsoft urges deployment of phishing‑resistant MFA and offers investigative guidance.

From HealthKick to GOVERSHELL: UTA0388's Malware Evolution

🔎 Volexity attributes a series of tailored spear‑phishing campaigns to a China‑aligned actor tracked as UTA0388, which delivers a Go-based implant named GOVERSHELL. The waves used multilingual, persona-driven lures and legitimate cloud hosting (Netlify, Sync, OneDrive) to stage ZIP/RAR archives that deploy DLL side‑loading and a persistent backdoor. As many as five GOVERSHELL variants emerged between April and September 2025, succeeding an earlier C++ family called HealthKick. Volexity also observed the actor abusing LLMs such as ChatGPT to craft phishing content and automate workflows.

RondoDox botnet rapidly exploits 56 n-day flaws worldwide

⚠️ RondoDox is a large-scale botnet actively exploiting 56 n-day vulnerabilities across more than 30 device types, including DVRs, NVRs, CCTV systems, routers, and web servers. Trend Micro researchers describe the campaign as using an exploit shotgun strategy, firing numerous exploits simultaneously to maximize infection despite generating noisy activity. The actor has weaponized flaws disclosed at events such as Pwn2Own and continues to expand its arsenal, including both recent CVEs and older end-of-life vulnerabilities. Recommended defenses include applying firmware updates, replacing EoL devices, segmenting networks, and removing default credentials.

Investigating Payroll Pirate Attacks on US Universities

🔍 Microsoft Threat Intelligence observed a financially motivated actor tracked as Storm-2657 conducting targeted 'payroll pirate' intrusions against US universities to divert salary payments. The actor used realistic phishing and adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) links to harvest credentials and MFA codes, gained access to Exchange Online, abused SSO to reach Workday profiles, and created inbox rules to hide payroll notifications. Microsoft recommends adopting phishing-resistant, passwordless MFA and provides detections and remediation guidance.

SonicWall: Cloud backup breach exposed all firewall configs

🔒 SonicWall confirmed that unauthorized actors accessed firewall configuration backup files stored in its cloud backup portal, impacting all customers who used the service. The exposed .EXP files contain AES-256-encrypted credentials and other configuration data. Customers should log into MySonicWall to check impacted devices and follow the vendor's Essential Credential Reset checklist, prioritizing internet-facing firewalls.

ClayRat Android Spyware Turns Phones Into SMS Hubs

🔔 A fast-evolving Android spyware campaign dubbed ClayRat has produced over 600 samples and 50 droppers in three months, researchers say. The malware is distributed via phishing sites and Telegram channels that impersonate popular apps like TikTok, YouTube and Google Photos to trick users into sideloading infected APKs. Once granted SMS privileges, ClayRat can read and send messages, harvest contacts and call logs, take front-camera photos, exfiltrate data to C2 servers, and automatically text malicious links to all contacts, turning each compromised device into a propagation hub.

Azure Front Door Outage Disrupts Microsoft 365 Access

⚠️ Microsoft is addressing an outage in its Azure Front Door CDN that is blocking access to some Microsoft 365 services and admin portals across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The incident began around 07:40 UTC and produced delays and timeouts when connecting to the Azure and Entra portals. Engineering teams have been restarting Kubernetes instances that caused capacity loss across AFD instances and have initiated failover for the Microsoft 365 Portal while monitoring telemetry to confirm full recovery.

CISA Adds Grafana Path Traversal to KEV Catalog Notice

📢 CISA has added CVE-2021-43798 — a Grafana path traversal vulnerability — to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog following evidence of active exploitation. The agency notes that path traversal is a frequent attack vector that poses significant risk to the federal enterprise. Under BOD 22-01, Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies must remediate KEV entries by required due dates. CISA strongly urges all organizations to prioritize remediation and will continue updating the KEV Catalog.

Indirect Prompt Injection Poisons Agents' Long-Term Memory

⚠️This Unit 42 proof-of-concept shows how an attacker can use indirect prompt injection to silently poison an AI agent’s long-term memory, demonstrated against a travel assistant built on Amazon Bedrock. The attack manipulates the agent’s session summarization process so malicious instructions become stored memory and persist across sessions. When the compromised memory is later injected into orchestration prompts, the agent can be coerced into unauthorized actions such as stealthy exfiltration. Unit 42 outlines layered mitigations including pre-processing prompts, Bedrock Guardrails, content filtering, URL allowlisting, and logging to reduce risk.

ClayRat Android Spyware Uses Fake Apps to Spread in Russia

📱 A new Android spyware campaign known as ClayRat has been observed targeting users in Russia through fake app installers and Telegram channels. Operators impersonate popular apps such as WhatsApp, TikTok, Google Photos, and YouTube to trick victims into sideloading APKs or running lightweight droppers that reveal hidden encrypted payloads. Once active, the malware requests default SMS status and can exfiltrate SMS, call logs, notifications, device details, take photos, and even send messages or place calls while automatically propagating to contacts. Zimperium reports roughly 600 samples and 50 droppers detected in the last 90 days, with continuous obfuscation to evade defenses.

SonicWall Cloud Firewall Backups Accessed, Urgent Checks

🔐 SonicWall disclosed that an unauthorized party accessed cloud-stored firewall configuration backups for customers using the Cloud Backup service. While the files contain encrypted credentials and configuration data, SonicWall warns that possession of these files could increase the risk of targeted attacks. The company is notifying customers, providing assessment and remediation tools, and urging users to log in and verify their devices immediately.

Reassignment of CISA Staff Raises National Cyber Risks

🔔 The US Department of Homeland Security has reassigned hundreds of cybersecurity personnel from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to non-cyber roles supporting immigration and border enforcement, reports say. This shift has most impacted CISA’s Capacity Building team, which writes emergency directives and oversees protections for the government’s highest-value assets; refusal to accept new roles reportedly risks termination. Analysts warn that reductions in specialized threat hunting, vulnerability scanning, and coordinated advisories will slow response times and create exploitable gaps. Enterprises are urged to tighten patch cycles, adopt phishing-resistant MFA, review privileges, and rely on sector ISACs and private intel sharing while federal capacity is strained.

Rockwell Automation Lifecycle Services SNMP Overflow

⚠️ Rockwell Automation reports a stack-based buffer overflow in its Lifecycle Services with Cisco offerings related to the Cisco IOS XE SNMP subsystem (CVE-2025-20352). An authenticated remote actor with low privileges can trigger a denial-of-service, and an actor with higher privileges and administrative access may achieve arbitrary code execution as root. A CVSS v4 score of 6.3 and a CVSS v3 score of 7.7 are provided. Rockwell and Cisco publish updates and mitigations; CISA advises minimizing network exposure and applying vendor fixes or recommended workarounds.

AWS launches M6in and M6idn EC2 instances in Seoul

🚀 Amazon Web Services has made M6in and M6idn EC2 instances available in the Asia Pacific (Seoul) region. These sixth‑generation, network‑optimized instances are powered by 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors and the AWS Nitro System, delivering up to 200 Gbps of network bandwidth — double comparable fifth‑generation capacity. Offered in 10 sizes including metal, they provide up to 128 vCPUs, 512 GiB memory, 100 Gbps EBS bandwidth, and up to 400K IOPS, with EFA support on select sizes and up to 7.6 TB local storage on M6idn.

ClayRat Android Spyware Campaign Targets Russian Users

🛡️Researchers at Zimperium zLabs have identified a rapidly evolving Android spyware campaign, dubbed ClayRat, targeting users in Russia via Telegram channels and phishing sites. The malware is distributed inside fake apps impersonating services such as WhatsApp, TikTok, Google Photos and YouTube, and operators are using fake reviews, download counts and step-by-step guides to trick victims. Once granted privileges, ClayRat can exfiltrate SMS, call logs and notifications, take front-camera photos, and even send messages or place calls while abusing Android's SMS handler role. Security firms report over 600 samples and coordinated disclosure to Google resulted in Play Protect protections.

From Infostealer to PureRAT: Dissecting an Escalating Attack

🔍 Huntress Labs analyzed a multi-stage intrusion that began with a phishing ZIP and DLL sideloading and escalated to deployment of the commercial PureRAT backdoor. The operator combined bespoke Python loaders and a Python-based infostealer with compiled .NET loaders, process hollowing, AMSI/ETW tampering, and reflective DLL injection to evade detection. Final-stage configuration revealed a Vietnam-hosted C2 (157.66.26.209) and Telegram infrastructure linked to PXA Stealer, underscoring a shift from custom theft to a professional RAT.

Rockwell Stratix Devices Vulnerable to SNMP Stack Overflow

⚠️ Rockwell Automation has published an advisory for Stratix switches informing operators of a stack-based buffer overflow in the SNMP subsystem derived from Cisco IOS XE (CVE-2025-20352). A remote, authenticated attacker with knowledge of SNMPv2c read-only community strings or valid SNMPv3 credentials could cause a denial-of-service, while administrative (privilege 15) credentials may permit arbitrary code execution as root. Affected models include Stratix 5700, 5400, 5410, 5200, and 5800; Rockwell and CISA recommend applying Cisco workarounds, implementing network isolation, using secure remote access, and following Rockwell advisory SD1749.

Many Users Still on Windows 10 Ahead of End‑of‑Life

⚠️ A significant proportion of users and organisations remain on Windows 10 just days before Microsoft ends support on October 14, meaning no more security or feature updates. Remote-access vendor TeamViewer reports over 40% of endpoints it recently supported still run the OS, while a Which? survey found 26% of UK users do not plan to upgrade and 11% are undecided. Experts warn this creates a cybersecurity and compliance 'cliff edge' that could expose systems to unpatched vulnerabilities and increased attacker activity.

AWS Direct Connect Adds 10G/100G with MACsec in KC

🔒 AWS expanded 10 Gbps and 100 Gbps dedicated Direct Connect links with MACsec encryption at the Netrality KC1 facility near Kansas City, MO. Customers at this location can now establish private, direct network access to all public AWS Regions (except China), AWS GovCloud Regions, and AWS Local Zones. Direct Connect delivers a private, physical connection that can provide more consistent performance and lower latency than the public internet. AWS also notes there are over 146 Direct Connect locations worldwide.

Microsoft Releases Enterprise Windows Backup for Orgs

🔒 Microsoft has made Windows Backup for Organizations generally available, offering an enterprise-grade, opt-in solution to preserve Windows settings, user preferences, and Microsoft Store-installed apps. The capability is available after installing the September 2025 Windows Monthly Cumulative Update on Entra-joined devices and must be enabled by administrators through Intune or backup and restore policy settings. Backups are stored in Exchange Online in the tenant's selected Country/Region, are protected by encryption, and are accessible to Microsoft personnel only under strict oversight for troubleshooting or legal compliance, helping streamline migrations to Windows 11 during device setup.

Amazon DynamoDB Now Supports IPv6 for VPC Endpoints

🌐 Amazon DynamoDB now allows customers to use IPv6 addresses within their Amazon VPC to access tables, streams, and DAX, including via PrivateLink Gateway and Interface endpoints. The feature simplifies network stacks, helps avoid overlapping address spaces, and supports compliance with IPv6-ready policies. It is available today across US commercial and GovCloud Regions and will roll out to remaining global Regions over the coming weeks. See the DynamoDB and DAX guides to check regional availability and connection steps.

Amazon SageMaker Notebooks Now Support Amazon Linux 2023

🆕 Amazon SageMaker notebook instances now support Amazon Linux 2023, giving data scientists and developers access to an updated, rpm-based runtime for managed Jupyter notebooks. AL2023 is the successor to AL2, offering a predictable two-year major release cadence and five years of long-term support. Enhanced security features include SELinux and FIPS 140-3 validated cryptographic modules. New notebook instances can be launched with either AL2023 or AL2.

Closing the Cloud Security Gap: Key Findings 2025 Report

🔒 The 2025 Unit 42 Global Incident Response Report shows that nearly a third of incidents investigated in 2024 were cloud-related, with 21% of cases directly impacting cloud assets. The article stresses the importance of the shared responsibility model and full, dynamic visibility to manage resource sprawl, misconfigurations and complex cloud-native architectures. It highlights identity misuse and overpermissioned accounts as frequent attack vectors and urges least privilege, credential rotation and robust logging. Palo Alto Networks recommends unified posture and response through Cortex Cloud and integration with Cortex XSIAM to reduce noise and automate remediation.

September 2025 Cyber Threats: Ransomware and GenAI Rise

🔍 In September 2025, global cyber-attack volumes eased modestly, with organizations facing an average of 1,900 attacks per organization per week — a 4% decline from August but a 1% increase year-over-year. Beneath this apparent stabilization, ransomware activity jumped sharply (up 46%), while emerging GenAI-related data risks expanded rapidly, changing attacker tactics. The report warns that evolving techniques and heightened data exposure are creating a more complex and consequential threat environment for organizations worldwide.

CISA Publishes Four ICS Advisories on October 9, 2025

🔔 CISA released four Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Advisories on October 9, 2025, covering vulnerabilities in Hitachi Energy Asset Suite, Rockwell Automation Lifecycle Services with Cisco, Rockwell Automation Stratix, and an update to Mitsubishi Electric Multiple FA Products. Each advisory provides technical details, risk ratings, and recommended mitigations. Administrators and asset owners should review the advisories promptly and apply mitigations or vendor patches to reduce exposure. CISA emphasizes timely review and implementation to protect operational environments.

Token Theft Fuels SaaS Breaches — Security Teams Must Act

🔐 Token theft is now a primary vector for SaaS breaches, with stolen OAuth, API keys, and session tokens enabling attackers to bypass MFA and access integrated services. High-profile incidents from 2023 to 2025 show how a single unrotated token can compromise code, secrets, or customer data across platforms. Teams should prioritize discovery, continuous monitoring, and strict token hygiene—rotation, least-privilege scopes, approval workflows, and prompt revocation.

Hacktivist Group TwoNet Targets Critical Infrastructure

🔍 Forescout observed pro‑Russian hacktivist group TwoNet compromise a realistic water‑treatment honeypot in September, moving from initial access to disruptive actions in roughly 26 hours. The attackers used default credentials and SQL enumeration, then exploited a stored XSS (CVE-2021-26829) to display the message "Hacked by Barlati," altered HMI PLC setpoints and disabled real‑time updates and logs. Researchers urge strong authentication, network segmentation, IP-based ACLs for admin interfaces, and protocol-aware detection to spot exploitation and HMI changes.

UK Upper Tribunal Upholds ICO Claim Against Clearview

🔍 The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) won an Upper Tribunal ruling that bolsters its authority to enforce the UK GDPR against Clearview AI and increases the likelihood of a previously issued £7.5m penalty being upheld. The tribunal found that Clearview’s scraping and global database usage involved monitoring the behavior of UK residents and is not beyond the reach of UK law even when services are provided to foreign law‑enforcement customers. The UT has directed the First‑Tier Tribunal to reconsider its earlier decision in light of this jurisdictional clarity, though Clearview may still appeal.

Amazon SageMaker Notebooks Now Support Amazon Linux 2023

🚀 Amazon SageMaker notebook instances now offer Amazon Linux 2023 as a launch option alongside Amazon Linux 2. The update provides a modern rpm-based runtime with a predictable two-year release cycle and five years of long-term support. Enhanced security features include SELinux support and FIPS 140-3 validated cryptographic modules. Use AL2023 to benefit from updated packages and continued OS maintenance.

Protecting Your Car from Hacking: Practical Guidance 2025

🚗 Modern vehicles increasingly rely on interconnected electronics and external services, creating multiple remote attack vectors — from CAN, LIN and OBD ports to Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth and cellular links. The article notes that attackers now often target manufacturer servers (e.g., Toyota’s 2024 data loss) and references UN R155/R156 and ISO/SAE 21434. It describes vehicle risk categories, practical buyer and setup checks, and step‑by‑step advice if you suspect a compromise.

Researchers Identify Architectural Flaws in AI Browsers

🔒 A new SquareX Labs report warns that integrating AI assistants into browsers—exemplified by Perplexity’s Comet—introduces architectural security gaps that can enable phishing, prompt injection, malicious downloads and misuse of trusted apps. The researchers flag risks from autonomous agent behavior and limited visibility in SASE and EDR tools. They recommend agentic identity, in-browser DLP, client-side file scanning and extension risk assessments, and urge collaboration among browser vendors, enterprises and security vendors to build protections into these platforms.

NCSC urges better observability, threat hunting in UK

🔍 The NCSC, led by CTO Ollie Whitehouse, has urged UK organisations to strengthen observability and threat-hunting capabilities to improve national cyber resilience. It warns many lack comprehensive visibility across accounts, devices, networks, applications and cloud services, and often cannot apply advanced analytics. The centre advises maximising cross-asset visibility, pressing vendors to build monitorable systems, and moving beyond simple IOCs to detect TTPs. It also recommends the NCSC Assured incident response list and CyAS for validation.

Hidden Text Salting in Emails and Strategic Cyber Decisions

🧯 Cisco Talos warns of extensive abuse of CSS to insert hidden “salt” — extraneous characters, comments and markup — into email preheaders, headers, attachments and bodies to evade detection. This hidden text salting technique is significantly more common in spam and malicious mail than in legitimate messages, undermining both signature and ML-based defenses. Talos advises detecting concealed content and, crucially, stripping or normalising that salt before passing messages to downstream engines, while also urging attention to longer-term strategic decision-making in cyber defense.

CISOs Seek Greater Data Visibility Across Hybrid Clouds

🔍 A majority of CISOs want full visibility into data flows across hybrid cloud environments but often lack suitable tooling. The Gigamon study CISO Insights: Recalibrating Risk in the Age of AI, surveying 1,021 security and IT leaders including 200 CISOs in early 2025, reports that network data volumes have nearly doubled due to AI and that 86% favor combining packet and metadata. However, 97% admit they must compromise on transparency, and many distrust public cloud security.

Hitachi Energy Asset Suite Log Injection Vulnerability

⚠️A vulnerability in Hitachi Energy Asset Suite (versions 9.7 and prior) permits an authenticated user to manipulate or inject performance log entries (CWE-117). Tracked as CVE-2025-10217, it has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 6.5 and CVSS v4 base score of 6.0; exploitation could enable further malicious actions by corrupting logs. Hitachi Energy recommends disabling performance logging and applying updates when available, while CISA advises network segmentation, firewall protections, and secure remote access to minimize exposure.

Microsoft Defender Mislabels SQL Server as End-of-Life

⚠️Microsoft is addressing a bug in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint that incorrectly tags SQL Server 2017 and SQL Server 2019 as end-of-life. The company says a recent code change introduced the issue and it has begun deploying a fix to reverse that change. Support timelines remain unchanged: 2019 is supported until January 2030 and 2017 until October 2027. The incident is being tracked as an advisory while remediation continues.

Securing Agentic AI: Microsoft Ignite Security Guide

🔒 Microsoft Ignite 2025 highlights security-focused sessions and hands-on labs tailored for practitioners and leaders. Join in San Francisco Nov 17–21 (or online Nov 18–20) for briefings, demos, and instructor-led labs covering Microsoft Security Copilot, Sentinel, Defender, Entra, and Purview. A Security Forum (Nov 17) and keynote segments led by senior security executives will explore designing, governing, and protecting agentic AI across the lifecycle.

Fortinet Named Gartner Customers’ Choice for WAAP 2025

🔒 Fortinet has been named a Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Cloud WAAP in 2025, reflecting verified customer satisfaction with a 4.8/5 rating and a 99% recommendation rate across 79 reviews. The accolade highlights FortiAppSec Cloud, a unified WAAP platform that integrates WAF, API protection, bot management, DDoS mitigation, CDN acceleration, and AI-driven automation. Customers emphasize rapid onboarding, reliable performance, and strong vendor support.

Aligning Security Architecture with Cyber Risk Governance

🔐 The author contends that cyber risk failures are often architectural and cultural, not purely technological, and argues for an ongoing cyber risk management process integrated with information security governance. He outlines a practical, strategic recipe—stakeholder mapping, framework selection (e.g., NIST CSF, ISO 27001), KPIs/KRIs, asset and threat assessments, and guardrails for cloud and generative AI workloads. The piece stresses building a mature risk culture, aligning GRC with the CISO role, enforcing technical controls and secure development practices (SAST/DAST/SCA), and running tabletop exercises to improve resilience and compliance with laws such as GDPR, CCPA and LGPD.

Transitioning to Passwordless Authentication with PKI

🔐 Organizations facing rising phishing and ransomware threats are moving from passwords to PKI-based authentication to close gaps in traditional MFA. Certificates issued by a trusted CA and backed by asymmetric cryptography replace passwords and vulnerable SMS codes, improving both security and usability. Automated lifecycle management and user self-service reduce administrative overhead, while crypto-agility preserves long-term resilience.

How Uber Appears to Know Your Location on iOS Devices

📍 iPhone users have reported receiving airport pickup prompts from Uber even when the app’s location permission is set to Only While Using. The notifications are generated locally by iOS using Apple’s UNLocationNotificationTrigger, which fires preconfigured alerts when a device enters or exits a geofenced area. Uber does not receive location data until you open the app, but the notification’s wording can misleadingly suggest active tracking.