#blog

New mobile apps from the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company DeepSeek have remained among the top three "free" downloads for Apple and Google devices since their debut on Jan. 25, 2025. But experts caution that many of DeepSeek's design choices -- such as using hard-coded encryption keys, and sending unencrypted user and device data to Chinese companies -- introduce a number of glaring security and privacy risks.

About Elevation of Privilege – Windows Hyper-V NT Kernel Integration VSP (CVE-2025-21333, CVE-2025-21334, CVE-2025-21335) vulnerability. These three vulnerabilities were disclosed as part of Microsoft’s January Patch Tuesday and share the same description. They were found in a component used for communications between the host OS and container-type virtual machines, such as Windows Sandbox and Microsoft […]

The FBI joined authorities across Europe last week in seizing domain names for Cracked and Nulled, English-language cybercrime forums with millions of users that trafficked in stolen data, hacking tools and malware. An investigation into the history of these communities shows their apparent co-founders quite openly operate an Internet service provider and a pair of e-commerce platforms catering to buyers and sellers on both forums.

About Remote Code Execution – Microsoft Configuration Manager (CVE-2024-43468) vulnerability. This vulnerability is from the October 2024 MSPT. Microsoft Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) is used to manage large groups of computers, providing remote control, patch management, software distribution, operating system deployment, etc. According to Microsoft, the vulnerability allowed an unauthenticated attacker to execute commands at the […]

The FBI and authorities in The Netherlands this week seized a number of servers and domains for a hugely popular spam and malware dissemination service operating out of Pakistan. The proprietors of the service, who use the collective nickname "The Manipulaters," have been the subject of three stories published here since 2015. The FBI said the main clientele are organized crime groups that try to trick victim companies into making payments to a third party.

In an effort to blend in and make their malicious traffic tougher to block, hosting firms catering to cybercriminals in China and Russia increasingly are funneling their operations through major U.S. cloud providers. Research published this week on one such outfit -- a sprawling network tied to Chinese organized crime gangs and aptly named "Funnull" -- highlights a persistent whac-a-mole problem facing cloud services.

About Remote Code Execution – 7-Zip (CVE-2025-0411) vulnerability. 7-Zip is a popular, free, open-source archiver widely used by organizations as a standard tool for managing archives. The vulnerability is a bypass of the Mark-of-the-Web mechanism. 🔹 If you download and run a suspicious executable file on Windows, Microsoft Defender’s SmartScreen will block it from executing […]

President Trump last week issued a flurry of executive orders that upended a number of government initiatives focused on improving the nation's cybersecurity posture. The president fired all advisors from the Department of Homeland Security's Cyber Safety Review Board, called for the creation of a strategic cryptocurrency reserve, and voided a Biden administration action that sought to reduce the risks that artificial intelligence poses to consumers, workers and national security.

About Authentication Bypass – FortiOS (CVE-2024-55591) vulnerability. A critical flaw allows remote attackers to gain super-admin privileges via crafted requests to the Node.js websocket module. Affected systems include Fortinet devices running FortiOS (e.g., FortiGate NGFW) and FortiProxy. 🔹 On January 10, Arctic Wolf reported attacks on Fortinet devices that began in November 2024. Attackers create […]

About Remote Code Execution – Windows OLE (CVE-2025-21298) vulnerability. The vulnerability is from the January Microsoft Patch Tuesday. OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) is a technology for linking and embedding objects into other documents and objects, developed by Microsoft. A common use of this technology is embedding an Excel table in a Word document. What […]