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Monthly Archives: April 2025

Update to 2025.04 GA Update to 2025.04 RC5

Update to 128.9.0 https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/128.9.0esr/releasenotes/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2025-24/

Ex-Meta exec tells Senate Zuck dangled US citizen data in bid to enter China

https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/DSA-5898-1

Google adds natural language query capabilities to AlloyDB
Google Cloud introduces cloud app design center
Google adds open source framework for building agents to Vertex AI
Google’s Agent2Agent open protocol aims to connect disparate agents
What is Kubernetes? Scalable cloud-native applications
Four paradoxes of software development
Five things to consider before you deploy an LLM
What misleading Meta Llama 4 benchmark scores show enterprise leaders about evaluating AI performance claims
GitHub Copilot rolls out agent mode in Visual Studio Code
US sensor giant Sensata admits ransomware derailed ops
1 billion reasons to protect your identity online

Corporate data breaches are a gateway to identity fraud, but they’re not the only one. Here’s a lowdown on how your personal data could be stolen – and how to make sure it isn’t.

So your friend has been hacked: Could you be next?

When a ruse puts on a familiar face, your guard might drop, making you an easy mark. Learn how to tell a friend apart from a foe.

The good, the bad and the unknown of AI: A Q&A with Mária Bieliková

The computer scientist and AI researcher shares her thoughts on the technology’s potential and pitfalls – and what may lie ahead for us

This month in security with Tony Anscombe – March 2025 edition

From an exploited vulnerability in a third-party ChatGPT tool to a bizarre twist on ransomware demands, it’s a wrap on another month filled with impactful cybersecurity news

RansomHub affiliates linked to rival RaaS gangs

ESET researchers also examine the growing threat posed by tools that ransomware affiliates deploy in an attempt to disrupt EDR security solutions

FamousSparrow resurfaces to spy on targets in the US, Latin America

Once thought to be dormant, the China-aligned group has also been observed using the privately-sold ShadowPad backdoor for the first time

Resilience in the face of ransomware: A key to business survival

Your company’s ability to tackle the ransomware threat head-on can ultimately be a competitive advantage

Making it stick: How to get the most out of cybersecurity training

Security awareness training doesn’t have to be a snoozefest – games and stories can help instill ‘sticky’ habits that will kick in when a danger is near

You will always remember this as the day you finally caught FamousSparrow

ESET researchers uncover the toolset used by the FamousSparrow APT group, including two undocumented versions of the group’s signature backdoor, SparrowDoor

Operation FishMedley

ESET researchers detail a global espionage operation by FishMonger, the APT group run by I‑SOON

MirrorFace updates toolset, expands targeting to Europe

The group’s Operation AkaiRyū begins with targeted spearphishing emails that use the upcoming World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan, as a lure

AI’s biggest surprises of 2024 | Unlocked 403 cybersecurity podcast (S2E1)

Here’s what’s been hot on the AI scene over the past 12 months, how it’s changing the face of warfare, and how you can fight AI-powered scams

Shifting the sands of RansomHub’s EDRKillShifter

ESET researchers discover new ties between affiliates of RansomHub and of rival gangs Medusa, BianLian, and Play

When IT meets OT: Cybersecurity for the physical world

While relatively rare, real-world incidents impacting operational technology highlight that organizations in critical infrastructure can’t afford to dismiss the OT threat

Don’t let cybercriminals steal your Spotify account

Listen up, this is sure to be music to your ears – a few minutes spent securing your account today can save you a ton of trouble tomorrow

AI-driven deception: A new face of corporate fraud

Malicious use of AI is reshaping the fraud landscape, creating major new risks for businesses

Operation AkaiRyū: MirrorFace invites Europe to Expo 2025 and revives ANEL backdoor

ESET researchers uncovered MirrorFace activity that expanded beyond its usual focus on Japan and targeted a Central European diplomatic institute with the ANEL backdoor

Kids behaving badly online? Here’s what parents can do

By taking time to understand and communicate the impact of undesirable online behavior, you can teach your kids an invaluable set of life lessons for a new digital age

Threat Report H2 2024: Infostealer shakeup, new attack vector for mobile, and Nomani

Big shifts in the infostealer scene, novel attack vector against iOS and Android, and a massive surge in investment scams on social media

Martin Rees: Post-human intelligence – a cosmic perspective | Starmus highlights

Take a moment to think beyond our current capabilities and consider what might come next in the grand story of evolution

Bernhard Schölkopf: Is AI intelligent? | Starmus highlights

With AI’s pattern recognition capabilities well-established, Mr. Schölkopf’s talk shifts the focus to a pressing question: what will be the next great leap for AI?

This month in security with Tony Anscombe – February 2025 edition

Ransomware payments trending down, the cyber-resilience gap facing SMBs, and APT groups embracing generative AI – it’s a wrap on another month filled with impactful security news

HAProxy could be made to crash or run programs if it received specially crafted network traffic.

Google’s BigQuery and Looker get agents to simplify analytics tasks
Google Cloud Next 2025: News and insights
Repair the bridge before it cracks: Understanding vulnerabilities and weaknesses in modern IT
Infosec experts fear China could retaliate against tariffs with a Typhoon attack
DSPy: An open-source framework for LLM-powered applications
Adding smarts to Azure data lakes with Fabric Data Agents
Watch out for these traps lurking in search results

Here’s how to avoid being hit by fraudulent websites that scammers can catapult directly to the top of your search results

Europol: Five pay-per-infect suspects cuffed, some spill secrets to cops

* bsc#1234452 Affected Products: * openSUSE Leap 15.4 * SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4

The Reg translates the letter in which Oracle kinda-sorta tells customers it was pwned

CVE-2025-27835 ghostscript: Buffer overflow when converting glyphs to unicode (fedora#2355025) CVE-2025-27834 ghostscript: Buffer overflow caused by an oversized Type 4 function in a PDF (fedora#2355023) CVE-2025-27832 ghostscript: NPDL device: Compression buffer overflow

Dino could be made to expose sensitive information over the network.

Trump kills clearances for infosec’s SentinelOne, ex-CISA boss Chris Krebs
Smashing Security podcast #412: Signalgate sucks, and the quandary of quishing
April’s Patch Tuesday leaves unlucky Windows Hello users unable to login
Wyden blocks Trump’s CISA boss nominee, blames cyber agency for ‘actively hiding info’ about telecom insecurity
GitHub Advanced Security now offers security campaigns
Someone compromised US bank watchdog to access sensitive financial files
Sednit Espionage Group Attacking Air-Gapped Networks

The Sednit espionage group, also known as the Sofacy group, APT28 or “Fancy Bear”, has been targeting various institutions for many years. We recently discovered a component the group employed to reach physically isolated computer networks — “air-gapped” networks — and exfiltrate sensitive files from them through removable drives.

Korplug military targeted attacks: Afghanistan & Tajikistan

After taking a look at recent Korplug (PlugX) detections, we identified two larger scale campaigns employing this well-known Remote Access Trojan. This blog gives an overview of the first one

.NET goes open source and cross-platform

Microsoft’s .NET framework, which is used to build millions of websites and online applications, is taking further steps to go completely open-source, Microsoft has announced at the Connect() virtual development event. The company also stated its commitment to eventually ensure the free code runs on Mac OS and Linux too, Wired reports.

IT Pros also guilty of risqué selfies on mobiles

ESET study reveals many IT professionals are guilty of storing indecent material on their mobile phones, which would leave them embarrassed if lost.

G20 2014 Summit Lure used to target Tibetan activists

APT actors trying to use big events as a lure to compromise their targets is nothing new. Tibetan NGOs being targeted by APT actors is also nothing new. Thus, surrounding the upcoming G20 2014 summit that is held in Brisbane, Australia, we were expecting to see G20 themed threats targeted at Tibetan NGOs. A Win32/Farfli […]

Public Wi-Fi hotspots – know the risks

For ordinary laptop and smartphone users, Wi-Fi is not ideal – but it’s sometimes near-inescapable.

Apple Pay and security – what you need to know

Mobile payments look set to be one of the defining technologies of 2015, as the launch of Apple Pay catalyses a boom in cardless payments – both from Apple’s own system, and rivals playing catch-up.

First exploitation of Internet Explorer ‘Unicorn bug’ in-the-wild

Microsoft released a patch last week for a critical vulnerability allowing remote code execution in Internet Explorer. This vulnerability is significant because it exploits an old bug present in Internet Explorer versions 3 through 11.

Smart home security – how not to be dumb with your devices

It’s easy to imagine that ALL connected devices – from fridges to CCTV cameras – are a security nightmare, but there are simple, sensible steps you can take to lock these risks down.

Driverless cars ‘could be hacked’ warns Institute of Engineering and Technology

Self-driving cars are just around the corner, with the UK government putting up £10 million (around $15.6 million) for cities to pilot trials as soon as next year, but the country’s Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) today issued stern warnings about the security of the technology.

Privacy and security post-Snowden: Pew Research parallels ESET findings

Privacy and security online are hot button topics in America today, as a new survey by the Pew Research Center confirms, mirroring similar results from two different privacy and security surveys conducted by ESET.

Do I need to worry about state-sponsored threats like Regin?

Since the discovery of Stuxnet several years ago, there has been a parade of targeted malware that may have been created or sponsored by nation states. Does an average person or business really need to worry about these things?

Cyber Monday – 12 tips to help you shop safely online

Technology might evolve, but cyber gangs rely on tried-and-tested tactics. With a bit of care and attention, it’s easy to sort the genuine bargains from the too-good-to-be-true fakes.

Can e-cigarettes give you malware?

The long-term health effects of electronic cigarettes – or E-cigarettes – are still open for discussion – but the devices could harm your computer, at least if one report is to be believed.

Firefox 34 disables SSL 3.0 and tackles eight security fixes

Firefox 34, the latest version of the Mozilla’s popular web browser has disabled support for SSL 3.0 in reaction to the POODLE exploit, reported by We Live Security back in October.

Android scam: Firms fined over $500,000 for malicious apps’ hidden subscriptions

Three UK firms have been fined over $500,000 for a scam that involved Android apps signing up to a subscription service, and suppressing notifications informing the victim they were being charged, according to The Guardian.

Identity theft – six tips to help keep yours safe

Private data such as addresses and social security numbers can be just as valuable to cybercriminals as valid credit card details can be to thieves – if not more so. Lock yours down with our tips.

TorrentLocker: Racketeering ransomware disassembled by ESET experts

Security experts at ESET have released their latest research into the notorious TorrentLocker malware, which has infected thousands of computer systems around the world, taking data hostage and demanding a ransom be paid to ensure its safe return.

Cybercrime Trends & Predictions for 2015

As regular readers will know, every year we publish our predictions on cybercrime attacks for the year ahead. Well, our South American research team has spent the last few weeks putting together our predictions for 2015.

TorrentLocker — Ransomware in a country near you

Today, we are publishing research on ransomware that emerged in 2014. We have posted blog articles about this threat before, to raise awareness when we realized the criminals were targeting the United Kingdom and Spain.

ICANN computers compromised by hackers

The nonprofit organization that looks after name and internet domains has been hit by a spear phishing hack that has compromised company data, reports The Register.

Mobile security: flaw allows hackers to read texts and listen to calls

Hackers can eavesdrop on your phone calls and text messages even with cell networks using “the most advanced encryption available” according to The Washington Post.

Virlock: First Self-Reproducing Ransomware is also a Shape Shifter

Win32/VirLock is ransomware that locks victims’ screens but also acts as parasitic virus, infecting existing files on their computers. The virus is also polymorphic, which makes it an interesting piece of malware to analyze. This is the first time such combination of malware features has been observed.

Madonna thinks her computer was hacked

Turns out that the Material Girl has had her material stolen, and she’s blaming hackers!

North Korea falls off the internet – is the United States to blame?

Barack Obama promises that the United States will respond to the Sony hack, and North Korea drops off the internet. Is there a connection?

Biometrics – can your fingerprint be ‘copied’ from a normal photo?

Fingerprint biometrics are entering the mainstream as a security measure, with both Apple and Samsung relying on readers to secure their flagship phones – but biometrics may not be as secure as many believe.

Hobbit-inspired sword can help you find unsecured WiFi hotspots

Like many others, I was enchanted by The Hobbit (and later Lord of the Rings) at a young age – long before Peter Jackson turned J R R Tolkien’s middle-earth fantasy books into a series of blockbuster movies.

Unpatched security hole has left millions of Moonpig customers at risk for 17 months

Moonpig, the online personalised card company, has been accused of a shockingly sloppy attitude to security, after apparently leaving a serious hole in its security unpatched.

Bitstamp hacked for $5 million in Bitcoin

19,000 Bitcoin – valued at around $275 each, so $5 million together – have been stolen from a majour European Bitcoin exchange, reports RT.

CES 2015 in Las Vegas: first impressions, 5 hot topics

With nearly 160,000 lust-ridden techies, corporate denizens and a few of us security types descending on a slightly crisp wintery Las Vegas to see what all the fuss is about at CES 2015, here are a few things to keep an eye out for this year at the show.

Windows exploitation in 2014

Today, we published our research about Windows exploitation in 2014. This report contains interesting information about vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows and Office patched over the course of the year, drive-by download attacks and mitigation techniques.

Microsoft warns of banking malware targeting German speakers

Microsoft has warned of a new variant of a banking malware that appears to be targeting German speakers, according to PC World.

AOL blocks malicious ads from its advertising platform

AOL has taken steps to stop a set of malicious advertisements being served through their sites, including The Huffington Post, Computer Business Review reports.

Digital Invasion: 3 things we learned from CES 2015

Ever lost a kid somewhere? Not anymore if the gadget vendors have anything to say about it. Now you can digitally strap your kid to your tablet and keep track of them. Kids not running enough to stay trim? There’s an app for that that works the same way. Got high blood sugar? You can […]

Facebook privacy – why statements about copyright don’t do anything

Facebook users around the world have reported the return of the network’s longer-lasting hoaxes – a legal disclaimer which allows users to regain copyright over their images and other content. Here’s why it doesn’t work.

‘Critical Security Updates’ cancelled for 939 million Android users

Google has revealed that Android smartphones and tablets running versions of the software released before 4.3 (Jellybean) will no longer be given official updates to an important part of the software

5 reasons not to “hack back”

Are hacking victims “hacking back”? That question was recently posed in headlines like this one from Bloomberg: FBI Investigating Whether Companies Are Engaged in Revenge Hacking. The Marketplace reporter, Ben Johnson, speculated that 2015 might be the year of “hacking back” when he asked me about revenge hacking.

Hacked routers used for paid DDoS attacks

The rent-a-DDoS service that knocked out Xbox Live and Playstation Network is powered by thousands of hacked residential internet routers.

British Prime Minister wants access to messaging apps

British Prime Minister David Cameron has stated his belief that encrypted messaging services must have backdoor access to government agencies

Obama to propose legislation that protects firms sharing cyberthreat data

President Barack Obama is planning to push legislation which would protect companies from lawsuits for sharing cyberthreat data with the government, reports the Washington Post.

Swiss bank data released by hackers

The Swiss state owned Banque Cantonale de Geneve has confirmed that hackers have released confidential customer correspondences after the bank refused to pay the ransom demanded by the attackers

Phish Allergy – Recognizing Phishing Messages

While phishing-related malware is still mostly Windows targeting, attacks that rely purely on social engineering and fake web sites might be delivered by any platform, including smartphones and tablets. The more cautious you are, the better informed you are, and the more you think before you click, the more chance you have of leaving phishing […]

Do you really need antivirus software for Linux desktops?

It started, innocently enough, as a question asked in the ESET Security Forum titled “Eset – Do I Really Need Antivirus On My Linux Distros?” However, the answer to that seemingly simple question on Linux antivirus is more complex than a simple yes-or-no response.