Geek Guy

Category: Cybersecurity

Dive into deep-dive analysis on the evolving threat landscape, focusing on identity security (ITDR, NHI), data protection (DSPM), and agentic identity. Stay updated with expert insights on threat actor tactics and local AI security for researchers and market analysts.

How Android provides the most effective protection to keep you safe from mobile scams

Posted by Lyubov Farafonova, Product Manager, Phone by Google; Alberto Pastor Nieto, Sr. Product Manager Google Messages and RCS Spam and Abuse; Vijay Pareek, Manager, Android Messaging Trust and Safety As Cybersecurity Awareness Month wraps up, we’re focusing on one of today’s most pervasive digital threats: mobile scams. In the last 12 months, fraudsters have…

How Android provides the most effective protection to keep you safe from mobile scams

Posted by Lyubov Farafonova, Product Manager, Phone by Google; Alberto Pastor Nieto, Sr. Product Manager Google Messages and RCS Spam and Abuse; Vijay Pareek, Manager, Android Messaging Trust and Safety As Cybersecurity Awareness Month wraps up, we’re focusing on one of today’s most pervasive digital threats: mobile scams. In the last 12 months, fraudsters have…

What is a Malware Sandbox? Everything SOC Analysts and CISOs Need to Know 

Each cyberattack leaves behavioral evidence. A malware sandbox provides the secure environment analysts need to study that activity and uncover hidden tactics.  Teams using sandbox analysis report measurable gains:  90% faster detection of unknown malware  Up to 3× improvement in investigation speed  60% fewer false positives in automated alerts  Behavior-based visibility gives SOCs the upper…

Inside the mob’s million-dollar poker hack, and a Formula 1 fumble

Basketball stars have allegedly joined forces with the mafia to fleece high-rollers in a poker scam involving hacked shufflers, covert cameras, and an X-ray card table. Meanwhile, researchers have found they could poke around an FIA driver portal to pull up the personal details of Formula 1 megastars. Plus: Graham’s “Pick of the Week” turns…

Alleged 764 member faces up to 69 years in prison for string of suspected violent crimes

A 19-year-old California man associated with the nihilistic violent extremist group 764 pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of animal crushing, sexual exploitation of a minor, possession of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), cyberstalking and interstate extortion in a federal court Tuesday.  Tony Christopher Long of Porterville, Calif., allegedly committed the various criminal acts in…

Ex-L3Harris exec pleads guilty to selling zero-day exploits to Russian broker

An ex-L3 Harris executive pleaded guilty to two counts of theft of trade secrets Wednesday, admitting to selling eight zero-day exploits to a Russian broker in exchange for millions of dollars.  Peter Williams, 39, pleaded guilty in the District Court of the District of Columbia to two counts of theft of trade secrets. Court records…

Open-source security group pulls out of U.S. grant, citing DEI restrictions

The Trump administration’s zeal to stamp out diversity, equity and inclusion programs is affecting national cybersecurity research, as a key open-source security foundation announced it would reject federal grant funding. The Python Software Foundation (PSF), which promotes safe and secure Python coding practices and helps oversee PyPI, the world’s largest open-source code repository for Python,…

Major Cyber Attacks in October 2025: Phishing via Google Careers & ClickUp, Figma Abuse, LockBit 5.0, and TyKit 

Phishing campaigns and ransomware families evolved rapidly this October, from fake Google Careers pages and ClickUp redirect chains to Figma-hosted credential theft and LockBit’s move into ESXi and Linux systems. ANY.RUN analysts also uncovered TyKit, a reusable phishing kit hiding JavaScript inside SVG files to steal Microsoft 365 credentials across multiple sectors.  Each of these…

F5 asserts limited impact from prolonged nation-state attack on its systems

F5 CEO François Locoh-Donou said on a company earnings call that there were two categories of impact on customers following a nation-state attacker’s long-term, persistent access to its systems: widespread emergency updates to BIG-IP software and hardware, and customers whose configuration data was stolen during the attack. “We were very impressed frankly, with the speed…

Exclusive: OpenAI’s Atlas browser — and others — can be tricked by manipulated web content

As AI browser agents enter the market promising to help people shop, hire employees  or assist with other online tasks, security researchers are warning that the information these programs collect from the internet can be manipulated and corrupted without anyone ever realizing it. In new research shared exclusively with CyberScoop, AI cybersecurity firm SPLX highlighted…

5 SOC Challenges and How Threat Intelligence Solves Them 

No SOC is perfect, but it’s possible to overcome frequent shortcomings and achieve measurable results by introducing one essential component of modern cybersecurity operations: threat intelligence.  Organizations using ANY.RUN’s TI solutions report the following results:  94% experience faster triage  Up to 58% more threats get detected  3x improvement in overall SOC performance   Quality, real-time…

Attackers bypass patch in deprecated Windows Server update tool

Attackers are actively exploiting a critical vulnerability in Windows Server Update Services, bypassing a patch Microsoft issued earlier this month that failed to mitigate the issue affecting software versions dating back to 2012.  Microsoft released an emergency, out-of-band security update for CVE-2025-59287 on Thursday. Multiple research firms detected in-the-wild exploitation by Friday, yet Microsoft has…

Shifting from reactive to proactive: Cyber resilience amid nation-state espionage

In recent years, the cybersecurity industry has made significant strides in securing endpoints with advanced Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions, and we have been successful in making life more difficult for our adversaries.  While this progress is a victory, it has also produced a predictable and dangerous consequence where threat actors are shifting their…

ANY.RUN Recognized as Threat Intelligence Company of the Year 2025  

Here at ANY.RUN, we know how crucial threat intelligence is for ensuring strong cybersecurity, especially in organizations.  This year, our efforts in promoting this data-driven approach to solving the needs of businesses were praised at CyberSecurity Breakthrough Awards. ANY.RUN was recognized as the Threat Intelligence Company of the Year 2025.  New Milestone on the Way…

North Korea’s Lazarus group attacked three companies involved in drone development

North Korea’s Lazarus threat group attacked three Europe-based companies with active operations in the defense sector last spring to potentially steal sensitive data about drone components and software, ESET researchers said in a report released Thursday. The attacks initiated by North Korea’s long-running advanced persistent threat group, which specializes in espionage, sabotage and financial gain,…

New York updates third-party risk guidance, adds AI provisions

The New York Department of Financial Services published updates this week to longstanding industry guidance that urges financial services companies to closely watch their third-party providers. While the guidance’s updates are numerous, they are, according to the state, mostly intended to provide clarity as the technology landscape shifts. A department press release notes that the…

Ex-L3Harris executive accused of selling trade secrets to Russia

Federal prosecutors have accused a former executive at L3Harris Technologies’ cyber division of stealing trade secrets and selling them to an undisclosed buyer in Russia, according to court documents obtained by CyberScoop.  The Department of Justice filed charges against Peter Williams, an Australian national who served as general manager of Trenchant, a specialized cybersecurity division…

ANY.RUN & ThreatQ: Boost Detection Rate, Turbocharge Response Speed 

Fresh, actionable IOCs from the latest malware attacks are now available to all security teams using the ThreatQ TIP. ANY.RUN’s Threat Intelligence Feeds integrate seamlessly with the platform, enabling SOCs and MSSPs to boost detection rates, expand threat coverage, and streamline response.   Here’s how you can benefit from it.  Real-Time Visibility of the Current Threat…

Researchers track surge in high-level Smishing Triad activity

Researchers have uncovered a long-running phishing campaign that uses text messages to trick victims, and it’s both bigger and more complex than previously thought.  The operation, dubbed Smishing Triad, is managed in Chinese and involves thousands of malicious actors, including dozens of active, high-level participants, Palo Alto Networks’ research unit told CyberScoop. Unit 42 has…

F5 vulnerability highlights weak points in DHS’s CDM program

Last week, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency officials spoke candidly about the challenges they faced tracking the use of F5 products across the civilian federal government. While CISA knows there are thousands of instances of F5 currently in use, it admitted it wasn’t certain where each instance was deployed.  The uncertainty came as the agency…

How to hack a prison, and the hidden threat of online checkouts

A literal insider threat: we head to a Romanian prison where “self-service” web kiosks allowed inmates to run wild. Then we head to the checkout aisle to ask why JavaScript on payment pages went feral, and how new PCI DSS rules are finally muzzling Magecart-style skimmers. Plus: Graham reveals his new-found superpower with Keyboard Maestro,…

No Threats Left Behind: SOC Analyst’s Guide to Expert Triage 

 A SOC is where every second counts. Amidst a flood of alerts, false positives, and ever-short time, analysts face the daily challenge of identifying what truly matters — before attackers gain ground.  That’s where alert triage comes in: the essential first step in detecting, prioritizing, and responding to threats efficiently. Done right, it defines the…

Robocalling task force bill advances in Senate

The federal government is shut down and the House remains out of session, but work in the Senate continues, as a bipartisan bill designed to crack down on overseas robocalls  advanced through a key committee Tuesday. The Foreign Robocall Elimination Act, sponsored by Sens. Ted Budd, R-N.C., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., would create a new…

Researchers uncover remote code execution flaw in abandoned Rust code library

Security specialists at Edera discovered and disclosed a high-severity vulnerability in an early and since-abandoned code for an open-source async tar archive library for the Rust programming language.  Researchers warned that potential exploitation, which allows for remote code execution, could bear major impacts due to widespread forking and a lack of visibility into the code’s…

Tykit Analysis: New Phishing Kit Stealing Hundreds of Microsoft Accounts in Finance & Construction 

Not long ago we reported a spike in phishing attacks that use an SVG file as the delivery vector. One striking detail was how the SVG embeds JavaScript that rebuilds the payload with XOR and then executes it directly via eval() to redirect victims to a phishing page.  A quick look at the indicators we…

China’s spy agency accuses NSA of yearslong attack on the country’s timekeeping service

China’s Ministry of State Security accused the National Security Agency of conducting a yearslong attack on China’s national timekeeping infrastructure to steal sensitive data and infiltrate the service for potential sabotage.  The NSA gained initial access to China’s National Time Service Center systems in April 2023 by using credentials lifted from employees’ mobile devices that…

Behind the struggle for control of the CVE program

On April 16, less than a month after nonprofit R&D organization MITRE celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Common Vulnerability and Exposures (CVE) effort, the program narrowly escaped a sudden demise when a last-minute, 11-month contract extension averted a shutdown.  That near-miss put vulnerability experts and cybersecurity defenders on edge, most of whom still fear…

Europol dismantles cybercrime network linked to $5.8M in financial losses

European law enforcement dismantled and seized an expansive cybercrime operation used to facilitate phishing attacks via mobile networks for fraud, including account intrusions, credential and financial data theft, Europol said Friday. Investigators from Austria, Estonia and Latvia linked the cybercrime networks to more than 3,200 fraud cases, which also involved investment scams and fake emergencies…

Think Your Firewall Is Safe? The F5 Hack Proves It’s the Perfect Trojan Horse

In what is being described as one of the most consequential cyber-espionage operations of the year, US technology vendor F5 Networks has confirmed that nation-state threat actors successfully infiltrated its internal environment, stealing source code and vulnerability intelligence related to its flagship BIG-IP product line — a core networking and application delivery system used by…

North Korean operatives spotted using evasive techniques to steal data and cryptocurrency

North Korean operatives that dupe job seekers into installing malicious code on their devices have been spotted using new malware strains and techniques, resulting in the theft of credentials or cryptocurrency and ransomware deployment, according to researchers from Cisco Talos and Google Threat Intelligence Group. Cisco Talos said it observed an attack linked to Famous…

Why the web-hosting industry needs a trust seal

Every day, billions of people place their trust in websites they know little about. Behind each one is a hosting provider, but not all of them play by the same rules.  Traditionally, privacy policies let web visitors understand how their data would be handled, and SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates ensured their connection was encrypted.…

PowerSchool hacker sentenced to 4 years in prison

A Massachusetts man who previously pleaded guilty to a cyberattack on PowerSchool, exposing data on tens of millions of students and teachers, was sentenced to four years in prison Tuesday — half the amount federal prosecutors sought in sentencing recommendations submitted to the court. Matthew Lane, 20, stole data from PowerSchool belonging to nearly 70…

CISA warns of imminent risk posed by thousands of F5 products in federal agencies

Federal cyber authorities issued an emergency directive Wednesday requiring federal agencies to identify and apply security updates to F5 devices after the cybersecurity vendor said a nation-state attacker had long-term, persistent access to its systems. The order, which mandates federal civilian executive branch agencies take action by Oct. 22, marked the second emergency directive issued…

F5 disclosures breach tied to nation-state threat actor

F5, a company that specializes in application security and delivery technology, disclosed Wednesday that it had been the target of what it’s calling a “highly sophisticated” cyberattack, which it attributes to a nation-state actor. The announcement follows authorization from the U.S. Department of Justice, which allowed F5 to delay public disclosure of the breach under…

5 Ways Threat Intelligence Saves Businesses Money and Resources 

Cybersecurity is not just about defense, it is about protecting profits. Organizations without modern threat intelligence (TI) face escalating breach costs, wasted resources, and operational inefficiencies that hit the bottom line.   Here is how actionable intel can help businesses cut costs, optimize workflows, and neutralize risks before they escalate.  Key Takeaways  TI turns security into…

Researchers find a startlingly cheap way to steal your secrets from space 

How much private and sensitive data can you get by pointing $600 worth of satellite equipment at the sky? Quite a bit, it turns out. Researchers from the University of Maryland and the University of California, San Diego say they were able to intercept sensitive data from the U.S. military, telecommunications firms, major businesses and…

Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday fixes 175 vulnerabilities, including two actively exploited zero-days

Microsoft addressed 175 vulnerabilities affecting its core products and underlying systems, including two actively exploited zero-days, the company said in its latest security update. It’s the largest assortment of defects disclosed by the tech giant this year. The zero-day vulnerabilities — CVE-2025-24990 affecting Agere Windows Modem Driver and CVE-2025-59230 affecting Windows Remote Access Connection Manager…

Officials crack down on Southeast Asia cybercrime networks, seize $15B

Federal authorities seized 127,271 Bitcoin, valued at approximately $15 billion, from Chen Zhi, the alleged leader of a sprawling cybercrime network based in Cambodia, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Officials said it’s the largest financial seizure on record. “Today’s action represents one of the most significant strikes ever against the global scourge of human trafficking…

LevelBlue to acquire Cybereason in latest cybersecurity industry consolidation

LevelBlue announced Tuesday it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Cybereason, a Boston-based cybersecurity firm specializing in extended detection and response platforms and digital forensics.  Dallas-based LevelBlue, a managed security services provider formerly known as AT&T Cybersecurity, will fold Cyberreason’s extended detection and response (XDR) platform, threat intelligence team, and digital forensics and incident…

New Malware Tactics: Cases & Detection Tips for SOCs and MSSPs

Recently, we have hosted a webinar exploring some of the latest malware and phishing techniques to show how interactive analysis and fresh threat intelligence can help SOC teams stay ahead. ANY.RUN’s experts depicted the evolving landscape of malware tactics, highlighted real-world examples of sophisticated attacks, and provided practical detection tips for analysts.   You can watch…

Fortra cops to exploitation of GoAnywhere file-transfer service defect

Fortra, in its most forceful admission yet, confirmed a maximum-severity defect it disclosed in GoAnywhere MFT has been actively exploited in attacks, yet researchers are still pressing the vendor to be more forthcoming about how attackers obtained a private key required to achieve exploitation. The vendor published a summary of its investigation into CVE-2025-10035 Thursday,…

SonicWall admits attacker accessed all customer firewall configurations stored on cloud portal

A brute-force attack exposed firewall configuration files of every SonicWall customer who used the company’s cloud backup service, the besieged vendor said Wednesday. An investigation aided by Mandiant confirmed the totality of compromise that occurred when unidentified attackers hit a customer-facing system of SonicWall controls. The company previously said less than 5% of its firewall…

Dozens of Oracle customers impacted by Clop data theft for extortion campaign

Clop, the notorious ransomware group, began targeting Oracle E-Business Suite customers three months ago and started exploiting a zero-day affecting the enterprise platform to steal massive amounts of data from victims as early as Aug. 9, Google Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant said in a report Thursday.  “We’re still assessing the scope of this incident,…

Dozens of Oracle customers impacted by Clop data theft for extortion campaign

Clop, the notorious ransomware group, began targeting Oracle E-Business Suite customers three months ago and started exploiting a zero-day affecting the enterprise platform to steal massive amounts of data from victims as early as Aug. 9, Google Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant said in a report Thursday.  “We’re still assessing the scope of this incident,…

Dozens of Oracle customers impacted by Clop data theft for extortion campaign

Clop, the notorious ransomware group, began targeting Oracle E-Business Suite customers three months ago and started exploiting a zero-day affecting the enterprise platform to steal massive amounts of data from victims as early as Aug. 9, Google Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant said in a report Thursday.  “We’re still assessing the scope of this incident,…

Dozens of Oracle customers impacted by Clop data theft for extortion campaign

Clop, the notorious ransomware group, began targeting Oracle E-Business Suite customers three months ago and started exploiting a zero-day affecting the enterprise platform to steal massive amounts of data from victims as early as Aug. 9, Google Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant said in a report Thursday.  “We’re still assessing the scope of this incident,…

Dozens of Oracle customers impacted by Clop data theft for extortion campaign

Clop, the notorious ransomware group, began targeting Oracle E-Business Suite customers three months ago and started exploiting a zero-day affecting the enterprise platform to steal massive amounts of data from victims as early as Aug. 9, Google Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant said in a report Thursday.  “We’re still assessing the scope of this incident,…