Kirsten Doyle

Entries have opened for the Real Cyber Awards 2026 and Conference, a UK-based cybersecurity event designed to recognise the organisations and individuals working to keep businesses secure. Positioned as a platform to highlight “the real work happening in cybersecurity today,” the awards are free to enter, with shortlisted nominees receiving two complimentary tickets to attend the event. The ceremony and conference will take place on 30 October 2026 at The Milner Hotel, located next to York train station. The event is hosted by Consultants Like Us (CLU), a Yorkshire-based firm focused on improving data security practices. Gary Hibberd, from CLU, said: “Our desire…

In 2025, pro-Russian threat actors attempted to disrupt a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) facility in western Sweden. A failed attack on dual-purpose critical infrastructure serving both electricity generation and district heating networks.  The Minister for Civil Defence of Sweden, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, revealed in a news conference that the cyber-attack had been conducted in the spring of 2025 and the perpetrators were acting on behalf of Russian intelligence services. An activist group loyal to Russia attempted an attack against a company in Sweden, but the attack failed, Bohlin added, pointing out that the security functions embedded within the system thwarted the threat. Swedish security agencies investigated the matter,…

OpenAI will be expanding its cybersecurity efforts by increasing the number of verified defenders served by its Trusted Access for Cyber (TAC) program into the thousands, with hundreds more security teams to follow. This move aims to address the challenge of defenders and attackers increasingly using AI, accelerating the pace and complexity of cyber threats. At the heart of the release is the launch of the GPT-5.4-Cyber, a variation of the existing model that has been tailored explicitly for use in defensive cybersecurity contexts. The model is designed to be ‘cyber-permissive’ in that it allows conducting vulnerability assessments and performing binary reverse…

Cybersecurity provider Huntress has identified a major security threat. What appeared to be an unassuming potentially unwanted program (PUP) has transformed into a threat that can disable antivirus systems and put thousands of endpoints at risk.  As mentioned in a recent blog, the cyberattack involves the signing of an application via Dragon Boss Solutions, which researchers term adware. The software uses an apparently legitimate update service to download and run a malicious payload that has been quietly disarming antivirus tools on endpoints around the world, including universities, government agencies, power utilities, hospitals, and Fortune 500 companies. This malware was first spotted in March when some unusual events associated…

Hims & Hers, a telehealth company, has disclosed a data breach involving its third-party customer support ticketing system after hackers gained access between 4 and 7 February 2026.  In a letter to customers, it warned of a data security incident that might have exposed their personal information. On 5 February, the company said it became aware of suspicious activity affecting its third-party customer service platform. “We promptly took steps to secure our customer service platform and initiated an investigation into the nature and scope of the potential security incident.” It added that certain tickets sent to its customer service team were accessed or acquired without authorization. “In response, we undertook a comprehensive review of the affected service tickets to determine what…

The European Commission has confirmed a cyberattack affecting its Europa.eu web platform, with initial reports indicating that the attackers accessed the data from the cloud infrastructure provided by AWS. The incident was detected on 24 March, with the commission stating that the attack was contained while the investigation is still underway. Actors affiliated with the ShinyHunters group have claimed responsibility, stating that they accessed over 350 gigabytes of data from the commission’s databases and internal documents. The Commission stated that the group accessed some of its data but did not verify the full extent. It said those affected are being notified. In a statement, the Commission said its internal systems were not affected by the…

Researchers at Endor Labs, have discovered a supply chain attack on the popular Python package LiteLLM on PyPI, with malicious code injected into versions 1.82.7 and 1.82.8, which have been withdrawn.   The package is used in AI environments and developer tools, with an estimated 95 million downloads per month. The malicious packages included credential-stealing malware, including a .pth file that can run automatically when Python is started, enabling bad actors to harvest SSH keys, cloud credentials, API keys, and environment variables from infected systems. In some cases, the malware was also designed to access Kubernetes secrets and implant persistent backdoors on the compromised systems. The incident…

No longer are geopolitical standoffs settled on the traditional battlefields of diplomacy and arms; now, the digital realm has emerged as the arena for these conflicts. In this article, we bring together industry experts to discuss the dynamics of the development of cyber threats during unstable international circumstances, the role of automation and AI in the realm of cyber war, and the key issues that organisations, regardless of their level of proximity to the current geopolitical hotspot, need to be focusing on to ensure their survival in this increasingly hostile digital arena. Know thy enemy and know yourself Carl von Clausewitz famously…

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced a plan to prevent the authorization and import of new consumer routers produced outside the US, adding them to its “Covered List” of items that pose a national security risk. This decision is a result of a government assessment that found routers produced abroad pose a critical cybersecurity and supply chain risk to US infrastructure, which has, in the past, been used in cyber incidents and could be used for network disruption, espionage, or data theft, similar to previous decisions regarding drones produced abroad. Consumer routers produced abroad dominate the US market, with an…

A newly disclosed flaw in Ubuntu’s Snap ecosystem is raising fresh concerns about local privilege escalation risks in default Linux environments.  Researchers at Qualys have identified CVE-2026-3888, a high-severity vulnerability that allows a low-privileged local user to escalate access to full root control on affected systems. The problem affects default installs of Ubuntu Desktop versions 24.04 and later.  In essence, the problem is caused by an unexpected interaction between two trusted components of the system: snap-confine, which is a component of application sandboxing, and systemd-tmpfiles, which is a component of temporary file cleaning. Although these components are intended to improve the security and hygiene of the system, the…