A former US Navy IT manager was recently sentenced to five years and five months in prison for hacking into a database, stealing personally identifiable information (PII), and selling it on the dark web.  The man, Marquis Hooper, 32, of Selma, California, who was a chief petty officer, opened under false pretenses an account at a private company operating a database containing the PII of millions of individuals.

According to CSC's 2023 Domain Security Report, nearly half of Forbes Global 2000 companies do not have control over their branded Artificial Intelligence (.AI) domain names, which third parties register. Cybercriminals are exploiting the popularity of AI by registering the domains of trusted brands for malicious activity. There has been a 350 percent increase in domain dispute cases involving .AI extensions in 2023 from companies who discovered that third parties were misappropriating .AI domains using their brands.

According to a recent report from Ukrainian cybersecurity authorities, the Russian state hacking group Sandworm has targeted at least 11 Ukrainian Internet and telecommunication providers since May. Ukraine's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA) said the attacks resulted in service interruptions and potential data breaches. During the ongoing war, hackers target telecommunication providers in Russia and Ukraine to disrupt communications and Internet access.

According to cybersecurity expert Daniel Miessler, a potential data exposure issue within a built-in capability of the digital business platform ServiceNow has been identified, which could enable unauthenticated users to extract data from records. The types of data exposed include names, email addresses, and internal documents. The exposure likely impacts thousands of companies. Miessler suspects the vulnerability stems from a misconfiguration of a widget or component in ServiceNow's system called Simple List, which organizes records into easily readable tables.

A threat actor has been using blockchain technology to hide malicious code in a campaign involving fake browser updates that distribute malware, including RedLine, Amadey, and Lumma. Although the abuse of blockchain technology is typically seen in attacks targeting cryptocurrency, the EtherHiding technique shows how attackers can use it for other types of malicious activity. Over the past two months, Guardio researchers have been observing the campaign dubbed ClearFake, in which users are tricked into downloading malicious fake browser updates from at least 30 compromised WordPress sites.

A Proofpoint and Ponemon Institute survey found that 66 percent of healthcare organizations affected by the most common types of cyberattacks reported disruptions to patient care. Fifty-seven percent reported poor patient outcomes as a result of delays in procedures and tests, 50 percent reported an increase in medical procedure complications, and 23 percent revealed an increase in patient mortality rates. These numbers suggest that healthcare organizations have made little progress in mitigating the threat of cyberattacks to patient safety and well-being.

According to a new report from the threat detection and response company Vade Secure SASU, phishing and malware attacks increased significantly in the third quarter, to the point where the number of attacks is among the highest ever recorded for a quarter. The Vade Q3 Phishing and Malware Report found that phishing attacks increased by 173 percent over the previous quarter, from 180.4 million to 493.2 million. The report also reveals a 110 percent increase in malware attacks, with 125.7 million emails infected as opposed to 60 million in the second quarter.

Cybersecurity researchers at Proofpoint have identified a rising trend in threat activity that employs fake browser updates to disseminate malware.  Fake browser updates are compromised websites that display fake notifications mimicking popular browsers like Chrome, Firefox, or Edge, luring users into downloading malicious software instead of legitimate updates.  The researchers stated that TA569, a threat actor, has been using fake browser updates for over five years to deliver SocGholish malware.  Recently, other threat actors have adopted this strategy.