I hope you are winning this week!
Here is your weekly summary of CISO appointments and promotions, industry events, and breaking cybersecurity news:
These are the most recent appointments and promotions of your cybersecurity peers. Say “CONGRATS!”🥂 to:
Appointed? Promoted? Let us know!
- U.S. sanctions Chinese group for hacking systems: The U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned Sichuan Silence and its employee Guan Tianfeng for exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Sophos firewalls, compromising 81,000 systems worldwide, including 23,000 in the U.S.
- U.S. Justice department seizes Rydox marketplace: The U.S. Justice Department, in collaboration with international law enforcement, has seized Rydox, a notorious online marketplace selling stolen sensitive data, including credit card details and login credentials.
- France fines Orange €50 million for privacy violations: France’s data protection agency, CNIL, has imposed a €50 million fine on Orange for breaching privacy laws, including inserting unsolicited ads in user inboxes and violating the EU cookie law by tracking users despite withdrawn consent.
- Mozilla to drop "Do Not Track" feature: Mozilla will phase out the "Do Not Track" feature in Firefox version 135, citing its lack of effectiveness as many websites ignore it. Instead, the company encourages users to adopt the Global Privacy Control setting.
- FCC to ban over 2,400 voice providers: The FCC has warned over 2,400 voice service providers that they must register with the Robocall Mitigation Database in 14 days or face bans for not implementing required robocall blocking measures.
- Yahoo's cybersecurity team faces major cut down: Yahoo's renowned cybersecurity unit, The Paranoids, has seen a 25% staff reduction over the past year, with the offensive security team, responsible for cyberattack simulations, being eliminated and outsourced.
- Optum restricts access to internal AI chatbot: The healthcare giant, Optum has limited access to its internal AI chatbot, which was previously used by employees to navigate patient health insurance claims and disputes based on standard operating procedures (SOPs).
- Germany’s BSI disrupts BADBOX operations: Germany's Federal Office of Information Security (BSI) has successfully disrupted the BADBOX malware operation, which was preloaded on over 30,000 internet-connected devices sold across the country. The malware impacted various device like media players.
- New BadRAM attack targets AMD CPUs: A team of researchers has unveiled a new physical attack, dubbed BadRAM, that allows attackers to bypass AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV-SNP) technology, exposing sensitive data on AMD CPUs, particularly in cloud environments where SEV-SNP are enabled.
- U.S. Cyber command and NSA leadership to split: The incoming Trump administration is preparing to split the leadership of U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, with plans to nominate new heads for each agency under the America First Policy Institute's agenda.
- Cambodia bans unregistered crypto exchanges: The Cambodian government has blocked 16 unregistered crypto exchanges, including major platforms like Coinbase, Binance, and OKX, as part of a broader crackdown on over 100 unapproved websites, enforced by the country's financial regulator.
- PhotoBucket faces lawsuit over privacy policy update: A group of plaintiffs has sued photo-hosting service PhotoBucket, seeking to block the company’s privacy policy update that allows the sale of user photos to AI companies for biometric data training, including faces and iris scans.
- Industry news: Silent Push, a company that uses a unique approach to identify emerging cyber threats, has raised $10 million. Flare, a threat exposure management startup, has raised $30 million. Astrix Security, a platform that protects non-human identities, has raised $45 million. Sublime Security, the adaptive AI-powered email security platform, has raised $60 million. Arctic Wolf acquired Cylance ENDPOINT. Citrix acquired deviceTRUST and Strong Network. CyberProof acquired Interpres Security.
- CISOs and Cyber Founders. Are you interested in meeting next generation startup founders?
Aphinia
and
Glilot Capital Partners
are hosting an exclusive event taking place on February 26, 2025 in New York, NY. Interested in attending? Reach out to Amena Ferguson.
- FS-ISAC CISO Mastermind is taking place on March 9, 2025 in New Orleans, LA. Interested in attending? Reach out to
Amena Ferguson
.
- Prodacity is taking place on Feb 4-6, 2025 in Nashville, TN.
- CruiseCon is taking place on Feb 8-13, 2025 at sea (!), departing Cape Canaveral, FL. Thank you
Ira Winkler
for heads up!
- RSAC is taking place on April 28-May 1, 2025 in San Francisco, CA.
- Black Hat is taking place on Aug 2-7, 2025 in Las Vegas, NV.
Attending or hosting an event? Let us know!
Bad actors have been busy recently 📈:
- A data breach at the Center for Vein Restoration has compromised the sensitive information of more than 445,000 individuals.
- Krispy Kreme has confirmed a cyberattack that has disrupted its online systems, leaving some U.S. customers unable to place orders.
- A major cybersecurity breach in Rhode Island has compromised personal information through the state's RIBridges system for health and human services.
- Hackers from the Nemesis and ShinyHunters groups exploited misconfigurations in AWS to breach systems, stealing over 2TB of sensitive data,
- Byte Federal, a leading Bitcoin ATM operator in the U.S., has confirmed a significant data breach, compromising the personal information of around 58,000 customers.
- The popular 40+ dating platform Senior Dating has suffered a cyberattack, revealing the personal information of 765,517 users.
- Electrica, Romania’s largest electricity provider, has been hit by a ransomware attack, though critical SCADA and other systems remain unaffected.
- A significant data breach at Care1, a Canadian healthcare AI software provider, exposed a large trove of personal data due to an unprotected database.
- SRP Federal Credit Union disclosed a data breach to regulators in Maine and Texas after detecting suspicious network activity.
- LKQ, a leading U.S.-based provider of automotive parts and services, announced a breach at one of its Canadian business units that disrupt operations.
- Rutherford County Schools (RCS) in Tennessee fell victim to a ransomware attack linked to the Rhysida gang, which is reportedly selling sensitive employee data for $2 million.
- Medical devices company, Artivion has confirmed a cyberattack that took some of its systems offline, causing significant disruption to its operations.
- Over 300,000 Prometheus servers and Node Exporter instances found sensitive data exposed, including credentials and API keys.
But a handful of them were nabbed 👮:
- Russia’s FSB busts major online scam operation: Russia's FSB has raided a call center responsible for defrauding over 100,000 victims in 50 countries, with the operation generating $1 million a day. Eleven suspects were arrested, including manager J.D. Keselman, an Israeli-Ukrainian citizen.
- US Justice Department charges two defendants: The US Justice Department has seized 27 domains tied to prominent DDoS-for-hire services. They filed criminal charges against two individuals accused of running "booter" platforms used for launching computer attacks on Christmas and the New Year.
- North Korean cybercriminals indicted for $88M fraud: Fourteen North Korean nationals have been indicted for a six-year identity theft and wire fraud operation, posing as U.S.-based IT workers to steal at $88 million, with proceeds funneled to Pyongyang. The U.S. Justice Department seized over $760,000 tied to the scheme.
- FBI's most wanted cybercriminal to face charges: US authorities have extradited Nigerian national Abiola Kayode, aka ABK, from Ghana to face charges for his role in a $6 million BEC campaign that targeted 70 businesses, with four other group members already sentenced.
General Manager - Azure Infrastructure, Copilot, Modern Work, Security, Biz Apps - Retail & CPG | Former Vice Mayor of Indian Rocks Beach, FL | Keynote Speaker | Industry Influencer | Board Director | 16K followers
2wJust read the newest issue, Nate! Great content as always. Will be sharing with my network. Keep up the good work!