CyberSecure Specialist

07 Feb

Teen on Musk’s DOGE Team Graduated from ‘The Com’

Information, Insights

Wired reported this week that a 19-year-old working for Elon Musk‘s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was given access to sensitive US government systems even though his past association with cybercrime communities should have precluded him from gaining the necessary security clearances to do so. As today’s story explores, the DOGE teen is a former denizen of ‘The Com,’ an archipelago of Discord and Telegram chat channels that function as a kind of distributed…

Read More
07 Feb

Trimble Releases Security Updates to Address a Vulnerability in Cityworks Software

Attacks, Insights, Malware

CISA is collaborating with private industry partners to respond to reports of exploitation of a vulnerability (CVE-2025-0994) discovered by Trimble impacting its Cityworks Server AMS (Asset Management System). Trimble has released security updates and an advisory addressing a recently discovered deserialization vulnerability enabling an external actor to potentially conduct remote code execution (RCE) against a customer’s Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) web server.  CISA has added CVE-2025-0994 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, based on…

Read More
06 Feb

Experts Flag Security, Privacy Risks in DeepSeek AI App

Information, Insights

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. Public interest in the DeepSeek AI chat apps…

Read More
06 Feb

Hacker Who Targeted NATO, US Army Arrested in Spain

Information, News

Spanish authorities have announced the arrest of an individual suspected of being a hacker who has claimed attacks on dozens of organizations.  Police said the unnamed man — described as a “dangerous hacker” — was arrested in the town of Calpe in Spain’s Alicante province, for allegedly launching cyberattacks on more than 40 organizations and leaking stolen data. Investigators searched the suspect’s home, seized electronic devices, and identified more than 50 cryptocurrency accounts. According to…

Read More
04 Feb

Who’s Behind the Seized Forums ‘Cracked’ & ‘Nulled’?

Information, Insights

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. In this 2019 post from Cracked, a forum moderator told…

Read More
04 Feb

CISA Partners with ASD’s ACSC, CCCS, NCSC-UK, and Other International and US Organizations to Release Guidance on Edge Devices

Attacks, Insights, Malware

CISA—in partnership with international and U.S. organizations—released guidance to help organizations protect their network edge devices and appliances, such as firewalls, routers, virtual private networks (VPN) gateways, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, internet-facing servers, and internet-facing operational technology (OT) systems. The published guidance is as follows: “Security Considerations for Edge Devices,” led by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), a part of the Communications Security Establishment Canada. “Digital Forensics Monitoring Specifications for Products of…

Read More
31 Jan

FBI, Dutch Police Disrupt ‘Manipulaters’ Phishing Gang

Information, Insights

The FBI and authorities in The Netherlands this week seized dozens 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. One…

Read More
30 Jan

Infrastructure Laundering: Blending in with the Cloud

Information, Insights

Image: Shutterstock, ArtHead. 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. In October 2024, the security firm Silent Push…

Read More
30 Jan

CISA Releases Fact Sheet Detailing Embedded Backdoor Function of Contec CMS8000 Firmware

Attacks, Insights, Malware

CISA released a fact sheet, Contec CMS8000 Contains a Backdoor, detailing an analysis of three firmware package versions of the Contec CMS8000, a patient monitor used by the U.S. Healthcare and Public Health (HPH) sector. Analysts discovered that an embedded backdoor function with a hard-coded IP address, CWE – 912: Hidden Functionality (CVE-2025-0626), and functionality that enables patient data spillage, CWE – 359: Exposure of Private Personal Information to an Unauthorized Actor (CVE-2025-0683), exists in…

Read More
27 Jan

A Tumultuous Week for Federal Cybersecurity Efforts

Information, Insights

Image: Shutterstock. Greg Meland. 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. On…

Read More