Microsoft has disclosed details of a novel backdoor dubbed SesameOp that uses OpenAI Assistants Application Programming Interface (API) for command-and-control (C2) communications. “Instead of relying on more traditional methods, the threat actor behind this backdoor abuses OpenAI as a C2 channel as a way to stealthily communicate and orchestrate malicious activities within the compromised

Are you struggling to understand what AI agents actually are? Wondering how they differ from chatbots or AI assistants, and whether they can truly transform your business operations? In this article, you’ll discover a proven process for building AI agents that work in the real world, from initial workflow analysis to deployment and quality control. […] The post appeared first on Social Media Exa

There has never been a bigger moment in history when brand differentiation was more important. The channels we relied on for growth are saturated and increasingly less effective. And with AI changing how people search and make buying decisions, the race to stand out has never been more brutal. The brands at the top of the food chain are those we associate with a specific problem. For example, if

Nine people have been arrested in connection with a coordinated law enforcement operation that targeted a cryptocurrency money laundering network that defrauded victims of €600 million (~$688 million). According to a statement released by Eurojust today, the action took place between October 27 and 29 across Cyprus, Spain, and Germany, with the suspects arrested on charges of involvement in

In January 2023, Getty Images filed a major lawsuit in the UK High Court against Stability AI, an artificial intelligence company which develops and releases open-source generative AI models, most famously the Stable Diffusion text-to-image model. In the lawsuit , Getty alleged that Stability AI used millions of its copyrighted photographs and associated metadata without permission to train the g

is available for download and testing! This beta version of the WordPress software is still under development . Please don’t install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, you can evaluate Beta 3 on a test server and site. WordPress 6.9 Beta 3 can be tested using any of the following methods: Plugin Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tes

Cybercriminals Targeting Payroll Sites Microsoft is warning of a scam involving online payroll systems. Criminals use social engineering to steal people’s credentials, and then divert direct deposits into accounts that they control. Sometimes they do other things to make it harder for the victim to realize what is happening. I feel like this kind of thing is happening everywhere, with everything.

Thought leadership and SEO content shouldn’t be at war with each other. If you rely only on SEO pieces, you end up with a helpful but generic blog that blends into the SERPs. If you only ship thought leadership, you get great ideas… that nobody finds unless they already follow […] The post appeared first on .

Master the complete workflow for translating WordPress sites with this Private Translation Cloud tutorial. From initial setup through publishing, learn how to use PTC’s context-aware AI within WPML to create translations that match your brand voice and maintain technical accuracy. The post ” ” first appeared on WP Mayor .

Ransomware is malicious software designed to block access to a computer system or encrypt data until a ransom is paid. This cyberattack is one of the most prevalent and damaging threats in the digital landscape, affecting individuals, businesses, and critical infrastructure worldwide. A ransomware attack typically begins when the malware infiltrates a system through various vectors such as

Welcome to DEV, your fortnightly dose of WordPress news. Here’s your round-up of new tools and treats, smart dev tricks, bug battles, fresh features and community creations. Brought to you by WPMU DEV. Stick around to the end to see a weatherman’s Halloween costume that had his co-anchor in a fit of giggles. In today’s edition: Defender Pro’s ability to ward off malicious bots has been supercharg

The second time you install vacuum tubes into a handmade 2A3 stereo amplifier, you’ll know that two of the four pins are slightly larger than the other two. And you’ll know that the tubes go in pretty easily, you don’t have to force them. You may know these things because the first time you did it, you pushed really hard and wrecked the tube. Experience has easily measured value. If it’s importan

Video pulls readers in fast. A short clip on your homepage or a simple explainer inside a post can lift engagement in a way text alone rarely reaches. For many writers, the idea of appearing on camera is a hard pass. Maybe it is discomfort, privacy, or the hassle of lighting and lenses. That barrier is fading. New tools make it easy to produce professional clips without stepping in front of a cam

Microsoft has confirmed and issued a fix for a frustrating, long-running issue affecting Windows 10 and Windows 11 users in its latest October updates. For many years, users who selected the ‘Update and shut down’ option on their PC were often surprised to find the computer actually performed an ‘Update and restart,’ booting back up to the login screen instead of powering off completely. The Rest

Threat actors are targeting freight brokers and trucking carriers with malicious links and emails to deploy remote monitoring and management tools (RMMs) that enable them to hijack cargo and steal physical goods. Researchers tracked the activity to June, but they found evidence of these types of campaigns delivering NetSupport and ScreenConnect since January. According to email security firm Proo

Ravie Lakshmanan Cryptocurrency / Threat Intelligence Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new malicious extension in the Open VSX registry that harbors a remote access trojan called SleepyDuck . According to Secure Annex’s John Tuckner, the extension in question, juan-bianco.solidity-vlang (version 0.0.7), was first published on October 31, 2025, as a completely benign libra

Pierluigi Paganini November 03, 2025 Ukrainian Yuriy Rybtsov, aka MrICQ, a suspected Jabber Zeus developer, was extradited from Italy to the US to face cybercrime charges. Ukrainian national Yuriy Igorevich Rybtsov (41), aka MrICQ, an alleged Jabber Zeus developer, was arrested in Italy, lost his extradition appeal, and has been sent to the US to face cybercrime charges. After a decade-long glob

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new malicious extension in the Open VSX registry that harbors a remote access trojan called SleepyDuck. According to Secure Annex’s John Tuckner, the extension in question, juan-bianco.solidity-vlang (version 0.0.7), was first published on October 31, 2025, as a completely benign library that was subsequently updated to version 0.0.8 on November 1 to

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on two different Android trojans called BankBot-YNRK and DeliveryRAT that are capable of harvesting sensitive data from compromised devices. According to CYFIRMA, which analyzed three different samples of BankBot-YNRK, the malware incorporates features to sidestep analysis efforts by first checking its running within a virtualized or emulated environment,

Cyberattacks are getting smarter and harder to stop. This week, hackers used sneaky tools, tricked trusted systems, and quickly took advantage of new security problems—some just hours after being found. No system was fully safe. From spying and fake job scams to strong ransomware and tricky phishing, the attacks came from all sides. Even encrypted backups and secure areas were put to the test.

Security Operations Centers (SOC) today are overwhelmed. Analysts handle thousands of alerts every day, spending much time chasing false positives and adjusting detection rules reactively. SOCs often lack the environmental context and relevant threat intelligence needed to quickly verify which alerts are truly malicious. As a result, analysts spend excessive time manually triaging alerts, the

“Why aren’t people buying?” That’s the question that kept me up at night when I first started my online business. My WordPress website looked good, traffic was coming in, but I wasn’t getting a lot of conversions. It wasn’t until I started experimenting with conversion optimization tools that things started to change. I finally understood what was going wrong, and more importantly, how to fix it.

Cybersecurity firm Check Point Research (CPR) has exposed the Ghost Network, a highly sophisticated, large-scale, and financially motivated “malware distribution operation.” While active since 2021, its malicious video output dramatically tripled in 2025, demonstrating a concerning increase in its effectiveness and scope. CPR’s investigation identified and reported over 3,000 malicious videos, le

The North Korea-linked threat actor known as Kimsuky has distributed a previously undocumented backdoor codenamed HttpTroy as part of a likely spear-phishing attack targeting a single victim in South Korea. Gen Digital, which disclosed details of the activity, did not reveal any details on when the incident occurred, but noted that the phishing email contained a ZIP file (“250908_A_HK???

This is not a promise to be made lightly. It’s not, “I’ve got your back until it becomes difficult or inconvenient for me.” It puts us on the hook, without exception. This is a powerful promise, a commitment that can change the life of both parties. Don’t do it lightly, but do it. It’s worth it.

Cities used to die slowly. Ancient Rome, Babylon, Memphis (in Egypt) and others took generations to fade from their peaks. The reasons were easy to see: Shifts in trade routes Loss of political capital status Slow environmental changes (silting harbors, soil exhaustion) Incremental population drift Now, we can see it happening in a single generation. Rust Belt cities, projects in China, mining

We wait and hope for the first kind, the magic that arrives just when we need it. This is the magic of inspiration, or of good fortune. The magic of opportunties offered and connections made. There never seems to be enough of this sort of magic. The other kind, though, is surprisingly abundant. This is the magic of being able to turn on lights for others. It happens when we cause connection or op

Vulnerability reports and responsible disclosures are essential for website security awareness and education. Automated attacks targeting known software vulnerabilities are one of the leading causes of website compromises. To help educate website owners about potential threats to their environments, we’ve compiled a list of important security updates and vulnerability patches for the WordPress ec

In a surprise raid on Thursday, October 30, 2025, Russian law enforcement detained three individuals suspected of creating and selling the malicious Meduza Stealer . The arrests took place in Moscow and the surrounding area, following an investigation from the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, as confirmed by Irina Volk , spokesperson for Russia’s Interior

The inbox is having her moment again. Newsletters have made a full-blown comeback, and the rules of play have gotten a little more … complicated. The concept of newsletters has evolved from just sending emails to a sophisticated ecosystem of automated platforms, personalization strategies, and monetization models. To help break down the latest trends, we surveyed 400+ newsletter professionals to

OpenAI has announced the launch of an “agentic security researcher” that’s powered by its GPT-5 large language model (LLM) and is programmed to emulate a human expert capable of scanning, understanding, and patching code. Called Aardvark, the artificial intelligence (AI) company said the autonomous agent is designed to help developers and security teams flag and fix security vulnerabilities at

The exploitation of a recently disclosed critical security flaw in Motex Lanscope Endpoint Manager has been attributed to a cyber espionage group known as Tick. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-61932 (CVSS score: 9.3), allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands with SYSTEM privileges on on-premise versions of the program. JPCERT/CC, in an alert issued this month, said that it

A vulnerability in the Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) is being actively exploited by cybercriminals to plant Skuld Staler malware, according to new research from the cybersecurity firm Darktrace . This service, which helps companies manage Microsoft updates in a centralised manner across corporate networks, contains a flaw, identified as CVE-2025-59287, which Microsoft disclosed in October

FBI and CISA just issued a joint alert about two active North Korean hacking campaigns targeting US organizations. Kimsuky’s new HttpTroy backdoor and Lazarus’s enhanced BLINDINGCAN variant are using service-based persistence to evade traditional EDR solutions. Both disguise themselves as legitimate Windows services – your security tools literally can’t tell the difference. What makes this seriou

October brought a wave of new AI tools and smart features across the WordPress ecosystem. From faster website creation to smarter SEO and form automation, there’s plenty of WordPress news for both beginners and pros to explore. Each update this month focuses on saving time and improving everyday workflows—whether that’s creating content, collecting data, or optimizing visibility in search. In thi

The first things humans invented, before fire, the wheel or baked brie, was trust. Trusting the others in the village. Trusting that you could get a good night’s sleep. Trusting that what you heard was true. We’ve expanded the village from twenty people to billions. Walter Cronkite was effective because millions of people trusted him, and he earned that trust. And as the media became more powerfu

A design firm is editing a new campaign video on a MacBook Pro. The creative director opens a collaboration app that quietly requests microphone and camera permissions. MacOS is supposed to flag that, but in this case, the checks are loose. The app gets access anyway. On another Mac in the same office, file sharing is enabled through an old protocol called SMB version one. It’s fast and

If your website suddenly crawls to a halt, pages time out, or customers report they can’t log in, you might be staring down a Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack. These incidents don’t require exotic zero-days or deep levels of access. More often, they’re brutally simple: overwhelm the target with traffic or requests until legitimate users can’t get through. For online businesses, the end result is th

The Federal Communications Commission will vote next month on whether to eliminate cybersecurity requirements for telecom carriers that the commission enacted under its previous leadership following sweeping Chinese government cyberattacks on telecoms. In a blog post published on Wednesday , FCC Chair Brendan Carr said the commission’s November agenda would include a vote to undo its Jan. 15 decl

“Brash” flaw in Chromium’s Blink engine lets attackers crash browsers instantly via a single malicious URL, researcher Jose Pino revealed. Security researcher Jose Pino found a severe vulnerability, named Brash, in Chromium’s Blink rendering engine that can be exploited to crash many Chromium-based browsers within a few seconds. “ Brash is a critical vulnerability in Blink , the rendering engine

Finding low-stress jobs after retirement, remote work is perfect for retired people who want to be active but aren’t in a huge rush or hustle. Many people prefer light, enjoyable work that keeps them engaged. With the use of modern technology, you’re now able to work peacefully from home – no commuting, no office noises, and no strict schedule. The goal is comfort and flexibility while keeping yo

A new report from mobile application security provider Appknox reveals a troubling trend where malicious apps are masquerading as trusted brands like ChatGPT , DALL·E, and WhatsApp. Appknox’s investigation, which focused on US-based third-party app stores, found that these app clones range from harmless unofficial interfaces to full-scale surveillance tools. More importantly, these fakes are curr

ed that the scam defenses built into Android safeguard users around the world from more than 10 billion suspected malicious calls and messages every month. The tech giant also said it has blocked over 100 million suspicious numbers from using Rich Communication Services (RCS), an evolution of the SMS protocol, thereby preventing scams before they could even be sent. In

The open-source command-and-control (C2) framework known as AdaptixC2 is being used by a growing number of threat actors, some of whom are related to Russian ransomware gangs. AdaptixC2 is an emerging extensible post-exploitation and adversarial emulation framework designed for penetration testing. While the server component is written in Golang, the GUI Client is written in C++ QT for

Ribbon Communications, a key American telecom firm that helps run the world’s major phone and data networks, has revealed a major security breach. The company confirmed that nation-state hackers, working for an unnamed foreign power, infiltrated its computer systems and remained hidden for almost a full year without detection. The Texas-based company, which makes the technology that enables real-

A severe vulnerability disclosed in Chromium’s Blink rendering engine can be exploited to crash many Chromium-based browsers within a few seconds. Security researcher Jose Pino, who disclosed details of the flaw, has codenamed it Brash. “It allows any Chromium browser to collapse in 15-60 seconds by exploiting an architectural flaw in how certain DOM operations are managed,” Pino said in a

Former US defense contractor exec Peter Williams pled guilty to stealing trade secrets and selling cyber exploits to a Russian broker, per the US DOJ. Ex-US defense contractor Peter Williams (39) admits stealing US trade secrets and selling cyber exploits to a Russian broker. Williams, an Australian national, pleaded guilty to stealing and selling U.S. defense trade secrets to a Russian cyber-to

Silent Push researchers have identified Russian-linked ransomware groups abusing Adaptix, a legitimate penetration testing tool now used to deliver malware targeting infrastructure worldwide. The investigation began when Silent Push researchers were tracking a new malware loader called CountLoader . During that work, they noticed Adaptix being deployed to drop malicious payloads, leading the team

Security doesn’t fail at the point of breach. It fails at the point of impact. That line set the tone for this year’s Picus Breach and Simulation (BAS) Summit, where researchers, practitioners, and CISOs all echoed the same theme: cyber defense is no longer about prediction. It’s about proof. When a new exploit drops, scanners scour the internet in minutes. Once attackers gain a foothold,

The comfort zone in cybersecurity is gone. Attackers are scaling down, focusing tighter, and squeezing more value from fewer, high-impact targets. At the same time, defenders face growing blind spots — from spoofed messages to large-scale social engineering. This week’s findings show how that shrinking margin of safety is redrawing the threat landscape. Here’s what’s

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered yet another active software supply chain attack campaign targeting the npm registry with over 100 malicious packages that can steal authentication tokens, CI/CD secrets, and GitHub credentials from developers’ machines. The campaign has been codenamed PhantomRaven by Koi Security. The activity is assessed to have begun in August 2025, when the first

Are you wondering if building a personal brand is worth the effort? Curious about how to stand out in a crowded market while staying true to yourself? In this article, you’ll discover a comprehensive framework for developing a compelling personal brand that opens doors and creates opportunities. Why Personal Branding Matters for Marketers, Entrepreneurs, and […] The post appeared first on Social

When we’re a little behind, we borrow to catch up. Perhaps we borrow goodwill and spend less time than we might on a project. Or we need some money to pay the rent, so we borrow against a paycheck. And a good night’s sleep is tempting to borrow from as well. The borrowing compounds, with small debts turning into bigger ones. On the other hand, when we’re a little ahead, we’re not charged interest

Canada’s cyber agency warns hacktivists breached critical infrastructure, altering industrial controls and risking public safety. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security revealed that hacktivists have repeatedly breached systems of country’s critical infrastructure systems in the country. Attackers tampered with industrial controls at a water treatment facility, an oil & gas firm, and an agricult

On October 29, 2025, Microsoft suffered a widespread infrastructure disruption that knocked out multiple services globally and left enterprises and consumers scrambling. The incident began when a configuration change went wrong in Microsoft’s cloud network, causing cascading failures across key platforms. Microsoft issued a status update stating that its Azure Front Door content-delivery system a

A new investigation from mobile security firm Zimperium has revealed a fast-growing cybersecurity threat targeting Android users through their tap-to-pay systems. The company’s research team, zLabs, has been tracking hundreds of malicious apps that use Android’s Near Field Communication (NFC) and Host Card Emulation (HCE) features to steal payment data, turning infected phones into tools for

Running a financial-services business is about far more than moving money in and out of accounts — it’s about managing client trust, regulatory complexity, personalized advice, ongoing service relationships, and layered compliance. The challenge? CRM needs in the financial services industry are uniquely demanding. Firms must track high-value clients, nurture relationships over long horizons, moni

A critical security flaw is being actively exploited by cybercriminals to compromise corporate XWiki servers for cryptomining . This is an urgent threat targeting unpatched installations of the open-source documentation software, which is widely used by companies to manage and share internal documents. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2025-24893 and identified within XWiki’s Solr Search feature , is a se

Ravie Lakshmanan Malware / Threat Intelligence Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a set of 10 malicious npm packages that are designed to deliver an information stealer targeting Windows, Linux, and macOS systems. “The malware uses four layers of obfuscation to hide its payload, displays a fake CAPTCHA to appear legitimate, fingerprints victims by IP address, and downloads

Organizations in Ukraine have been targeted by threat actors of Russian origin with an aim to siphon sensitive data and maintain persistent access to compromised networks. The activity, according to a new report from the Symantec and Carbon Black Threat Hunter Team, targeted a large business services organization for two months and a local government entity in the country for a week. The attacks

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to a spike in automated attacks targeting PHP servers, IoT devices, and cloud gateways by various botnets such as Mirai, Gafgyt, and Mozi. “These automated campaigns exploit known CVE vulnerabilities and cloud misconfigurations to gain control over exposed systems and expand botnet networks,” the Qualys Threat Research Unit (TRU) said in a report

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new security issue in agentic web browsers like OpenAI ChatGPT Atlas that exposes underlying artificial intelligence (AI) models to context poisoning attacks. In the attack devised by AI security company SPLX, a bad actor can set up websites that serve different content to browsers and AI crawlers run by ChatGPT and Perplexity. The technique has been

Version 17.x of VMware Workstation Pro and Player for Windows and Linux will be going end-of-life on November 17th, 2025. VMware Workstation is a hosted hypervisor that allows users to run multiple virtual machines simultaneousy on a single physical machine. Make sure to update all installations in your network to continue receiving updates. ? TL;DR | Go Straight to the VMware Workstation End of

BeyondTrust’s annual cybersecurity predictions point to a year where old defenses will fail quietly, and new attack vectors will surge. Introduction The next major breach won’t be a phished password. It will be the result of a massive, unmanaged identity debt. This debt takes many forms: it’s the “ghost” identity from a 2015 breach lurking in your IAM, the privilege sprawl from thousands of new

Organizations in Ukraine have been targeted by threat actors of Russian origin with an aim to siphon sensitive data and maintain persistent access to compromised networks. The activity, according to a new report from the Symantec and Carbon Black Threat Hunter Team, targeted a large business services organization for two months and a local government entity in the country for a week. The attacks

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC). It’s no longer a future concept—it’s here, and it’s already reshaping how teams operate. AI’s capabilities are profound: it’s speeding up audits, flagging critical risks faster, and drastically cutting down on time-consuming manual work. This leads to greater efficiency, higher accuracy, and a more

If you’ve ever felt the stress of planning a limited-time sale in your WooCommerce store, you’re not alone. Creating real urgency can be challenging without adding extra pressure or risking shoppers abandoning their carts before completing their purchases. I’ve found that successful flash sales aren’t just about offering the biggest discount. The real results come from how you present your deals,

The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned today that attackers are actively exploiting two vulnerabilities in Dassault Systèmes’ DELMIA Apriso, a manufacturing operations management (MOM) and execution (MES) solution. The first one ( CVE-2025-6205 ) is a critical-severity missing authorization security flaw that can allow unauthenticated threat actors to remotely gain privi

The Qilin ransomware operation was spotted executing Linux encryptors in Windows using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) to evade detection by traditional security tools. The ransomware first launched as “Agenda” in August 2022, rebranding to Qilin by September and continuing to operate under that name to this day. Qilin has become one of the most active ransomware operations, with new research

Ravie Lakshmanan Encryption / Hardware Security A group of academic researchers from Georgia Tech, Purdue University, and Synkhronix have developed a side-channel attack called TEE.Fail that allows for the extraction of secrets from the trusted execution environment (TEE) in a computer’s main processor, including Intel’s Software Guard eXtensions (SGX) and Trust Domain Extensions

Japanese advertising giant Dentsu has disclosed that its U.S.-based subsidiary Merkle suffered a cybersecurity incident that exposed staff and client data. The company states that the incident forced them to take certain systems offline as part of their response plan. “We detected abnormal activity within part of the network of Merkle, a company leading the CXM (Customer Experience Management) ar

Aisuru , the botnet responsible for a series of record-smashing distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks this year, recently was overhauled to support a more low-key, lucrative and sustainable business: Renting hundreds of thousands of infected Internet of Things (IoT) devices to proxy services that help cybercriminals anonymize their traffic. Experts say a glut of proxies from Aisuru and oth

Pierluigi Paganini October 29, 2025 Threat Fabric researchers spotted Herodotus Android malware mimicking human typing with random delays to evade detection. Threat Fabric found a new Android malware, named Herodotus, which mimics human typing by adding random delays to evade detection. Herodotus allows operators to takeover devices and bypass behaviour biometrics detection, it is offered as a m

So many bits of information are flying around. Emails to us, articles, posts, videos, updates, memos, meetings, books… The most common (and apparently efficient) approach is to quickly look over the new information. If it confirms what you already know, check it off. If it contradicts what you believe, find a reason to ignore it. The alternative is to take new information and try it on for size.

Threat actors are actively exploiting multiple security flaws impacting Dassault Systèmes DELMIA Apriso and XWiki, according to alerts issued by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and VulnCheck. The vulnerabilities are listed below – CVE-2025-6204 (CVSS score: 8.0) – A code injection vulnerability in Dassault Systèmes DELMIA Apriso that could allow an attacker to

The Everest ransomware group claims to have leaked a database allegedly belonging to AT&T Carrier ( att.jobs ), the telecom giant’s official job and recruitment platform. The site is used by applicants and employees to apply for roles, submit resumes, and manage career-related information. On the other hand, the ransomware group is offering the alleged personal details of 1.5 million

Table of Contents . Understanding Attrition Rate . Industry-Specific Attrition Rates . Common Causes of High Attrition . Impacts of High Attrition . Strategies to Reduce Attrition . Conclusion Key Takeaways . Attrition rates vary greatly across industries as they are influenced by work conditions and job expectations. . The main drivers of high attrition include limited career progression,