All news with #news tag

🤖 Japan’s recent election highlighted Team Mirai, a new political party that used AI-driven engagement tools to deepen civic participation and shape policy. Its AI Interviewer walked voters through issues, while the gamified Action Board mobilized volunteers and the open-source Gikai portal summarized legislation. Mirai collected tens of thousands of public inputs and converted them into a manifesto focused on democratic reform rather than traditional left‑right politics.

🚨 The head of the UK's National Crime Agency, Graeme Biggar, warned at the launch of the NCA's National Strategic Assessment that online platforms and algorithms are 'radicalizing' teenagers into cybercrime, alongside other harms. He said technology is reshaping crime and that tech companies must take responsibility. Biggar highlighted rising UK-based attackers, surges in online fraud and sextortion, and the creation of the Online Crime Centre to speed data sharing across government and industry.

🚨 U.S., German, and Canadian authorities dismantled command-and-control infrastructure used by the Aisuru, KimWolf, JackSkid, and Mossad IoT botnets, seizing virtual servers, domains, and related assets. The Justice Department says the four botnets had ensnared more than three million devices and issued hundreds of thousands of DDoS commands, including record-setting attacks by Aisuru. Private firms such as Akamai assisted, warning the campaigns disrupted ISP services and even targeted government IPs including DoDIN.

🛡️ On March 4, 2026, Europol coordinated a technical disruption that seized 330 domains tied to Tycoon2FA, a subscription-based phishing-as-a-service platform that enabled adversary-in-the-middle (AITM) attacks to bypass multifactor authentication. CrowdStrike observed an immediate drop in activity followed by a return to pre-disruption campaign volumes as operators reconstituted infrastructure and continued using established TTPs. Defenders should maintain layered controls across phishing, DNS resolution, cloud authentication, and Exchange inbox protections while leveraging Falcon and Falcon Complete for detection and response support.

🛡️ The U.S. Justice Department, with Canadian and German partners, dismantled infrastructure for four major IoT botnets — Aisuru, Kimwolf, JackSkid and Mossad — that compromised more than three million devices and launched hundreds of thousands of DDoS attacks. The action targeted U.S.-registered domains and virtual servers and aimed to stop further infections and future attacks. Law enforcement credited nearly two dozen tech firms for assisting in the operation.

🔒 Navia Benefit Solutions says an unauthorized actor accessed its systems between December 22, 2025 and January 15, 2026, potentially exposing records for nearly 2.7 million people. The company discovered the activity on January 23, 2026 and launched an investigation, which found the actor acquired names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, phone numbers, email addresses, plus HRA, FSA and COBRA enrollment details. Navia says claims and financial account information were not exposed. Affected individuals are being offered 12 months of identity protection and credit monitoring through Kroll, and federal law enforcement has been notified; no ransomware group has claimed responsibility.

🌐 One year after its 2025 founding, the UK-based Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC) is preparing to establish a US counterpart to quantify the economic and financial impact of major cyber incidents using its 0–5 category scale. In 2025 the CMC analysed two major events — the Marks & Spencer/Co‑op disruption (Category 2; estimated loss £270m–£440m) and the Jaguar Land Rover attack (the costliest, £1.6bn–£2.1bn). The nonprofit says it will appoint a US technical committee, set up a legal entity, run an incubation period to adapt its data-analytics methodology for the US economy, and expects formal establishment in 2027.

📧Microsoft is investigating an ongoing Exchange Online outage that is preventing customers from accessing mailboxes and calendars. The company acknowledged the incident at 06:42 AM UTC and reported problems across Outlook on the web, Outlook desktop, Exchange ActiveSync, and other Exchange Online connection protocols. Microsoft said telemetry shows recovery for some users while engineers apply configuration changes and continue to monitor service health.

ℹ️ OpenAI told BleepingComputer that references to ads in its updated privacy policy do not indicate a global rollout — ads are currently limited to the United States. Ads launched in the US on February 9, 2026, and appear below answers for logged-in Free and Go users. OpenAI says ads run on separate systems, are clearly labeled, may be personalized, and that advertisers do not access chat content.

📅 Bruce Schneier lists his confirmed speaking appearances for March–May 2026, spanning academic, industry, policy, and rights-focused forums. Highlights include the Ross Anderson Lecture at Cambridge, RSAC in San Francisco, the SANS AI Cybersecurity Summit, and RightsCon in Lusaka, along with several virtual events. These talks will address AI security, policy, and democratic resilience. The schedule is maintained on his events page.

🔒 BCI has seven Fortinet NSE 8 engineers, the highest concentration among partners globally, demonstrating hands-on mastery of design, implementation, and troubleshooting in complex security environments. These engineers come from diverse career paths but meet a single standard of practical execution under pressure. BCI positions NSE 8 as an operational benchmark that reduces architectural risk, accelerates response, and sustains long-term operability.

🔒 Fortinet will have a prominent presence at the RSA Conference (March 23–26, 2026) in San Francisco, showcasing the Fortinet Security Fabric at booth #N5762 and in featured sessions. Attendees can join three highlighted sessions addressing agentic AI defenses, APT abuse of networking devices, and large-scale cybercrime disruption. The booth features 40+ presentations, six interactive demo kiosks, an Experts Bar, and one-on-one meeting options. Fortinet customers can access complimentary Expo Hall passes or discounted full-conference registration.

🔍 An Interpol-led operation, Operation Synergia III, sinkholed tens of thousands of IP addresses and seized servers linked to global cybercrime between July 2025 and January 2026. Authorities from 72 countries made 94 arrests and seized 212 electronic devices, disrupting thousands of phishing and fraud sites including a large 33,000-site network identified in Macau. The action builds on earlier Synergia efforts and highlights the importance of international cooperation and private-sector partnerships to dismantle criminal infrastructures.

🔒Operation Lightning dismantled the malicious proxy service SocksEscort, which investigators say compromised hundreds of thousands of routers and IoT devices globally. The service marketed thousands of proxy endpoints that enabled criminals to hide originating IPs and carry out bank and cryptocurrency account takeovers, fraudulent unemployment claims, ransomware operations, DDoS attacks and distribution of CSAM. Authorities seized domains and servers, froze cryptocurrency assets, and urged users and vendors to regularly update device firmware and apply security patches.

🚨 Authorities dismantled the criminal proxy service SocksEscort, which enslaved thousands of residential routers worldwide to operate a large-scale proxy botnet and sold anonymous access for fraud and other crimes. U.S. and European partners executed a court-authorized disruption, seizing domains and servers and freezing roughly $3.5 million in cryptocurrency. The service relied on AVrecon malware that exploited SOHO router vulnerabilities to persistently infect devices and route traffic for criminal customers.

🔒 Apple announced that iPhone and iPad are the first and only consumer devices certified to meet the information assurance requirements of NATO nations, allowing use with classified information up to the NATO Restricted level. The company says this capability works out of the box with no special software or settings required. Coverage includes independent reporting and a Boing Boing post.

🔒The author opens this week’s Threat Source newsletter with personal reflections on being raised by a single mother, connecting those experiences to the gender imbalance in STEM and cybersecurity. He cites sobering statistics — for example, women comprise 28.2% of the global STEM workforce and occupy only 16% of CISO roles — and highlights mentorship programs like WiCyS and CTFs. Talos also summarizes a March 10 update on cyber activity tied to the Middle East conflict and provides practical defensive advice for destructive malware, DDoS, and website defacement.

🏆 At Fortinet Accelerate 2026, Fortinet honored the 2025 Partner of the Year Award winners for outstanding contributions to secure networking, cloud modernization, OT protection, and managed services across the Americas, APAC, and EMEA. Winners — from global system integrators like HCLTech and NTT DATA to distributors such as TD SYNNEX and regional leaders — demonstrated excellence in customer success, innovation, and technical execution. The awards highlight partner adoption of the Fortinet Security Fabric to reduce complexity and converge networking and security for hybrid and distributed environments. Recognition also emphasized growth in Unified SASE, SecOps, MSSP offerings, and OT security implementations.

🎤 Infosecurity Europe 2026 has revealed a major keynote programme for its 2–4 June event at ExCeL London, featuring industry founders, former intelligence leaders and elite-sport figures. Shlomo Kramer and Cynthia Kaiser headline Tuesday with sessions on technology trends and the ransomware economy, respectively, while Jason Fox will open Thursday with a resilience and decision-making keynote. Technical talks will address AI-driven cloud threats and preparations for post-quantum cryptography.

📝 Kri Dontje is a technical writer at Cisco Talos who translates complex cybersecurity research into clear, accessible documentation for diverse audiences. With a background in technical communications and early experience at a small startup, she prioritizes consistency, accuracy, and careful versioning to maintain trust in published materials. Kri emphasizes close collaboration with subject matter experts and a willingness to ask basic questions to bridge knowledge gaps, and she’s now moving into a role focused on more technical storytelling while keeping content approachable.