Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has called on the government to establish a cybersecurity task force to strengthen defenses against AI.

The call to action follows an emergency meeting of the LDP’s National Cybersecurity Strategy Headquarters (NCSH).

Hosted on 9 October, Masaaki Taira, head of the NCSH, declared Japan in “a state of emergency in cyber space”.

The announcement comes as a series of cyber attacks have disrupted more than 20 companies across transport, retail, finance, and cloud services, according to the Financial Times.

Rail operator JR East reported the loss of 1.67 million email addresses, while car rental company Times Car lost a large number of customer driving licence scans. Meanwhile, cloud services provider IDC Frontier reported a ransomware attack that reportedly linked data leaks to hundreds of businesses.

In the financial sector, Japan’s financial regulator warned banks against accepting driving licences to open new accounts, following reports from Reuters that nine banks had been hacked using AI.

An investigation by Japanese IT company Macnica found that Japan has been hit with 119 cyber attacks this year as of 6 October, with 68% occurring since July, marking a sharp increase from 86 recorded attacks in 2025 and 62 in 2024.

AI is accelerating the attack frequency

An investigation by the Japan Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center (JPCERT) into the attack servers found attackers used AI tools to "scan for known vulnerabilities and conduct attacks via APIs”.

JPCERT noted that evidence was found of attackers analyzing APK files to detect vulnerabilities such as Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF).

Additionally, Japanese security firm GMO Cybersecurity, cited by The Japan Times, alleged that a Chinese-developed AI tool was deployed in cyber attacks against companies in retail, finance, and e-commerce.

Nobuo Miwa, president of Tokyo-based cybersecurity firm S&J Corp, told Reuters that AI makes cyber attacks faster, cheaper, and harder to detect because “AI doesn’t get tired”.

He added, “Japan is essentially being subjected to carpet bombing.”

Building a defense against AI

Reports suggest that Japan’s ageing cyber infrastructure has left it vulnerable to these attacks. With AI making the work easier for attackers, the LDP is aiming to build cyber resilience by establishing a cybersecurity task force under a new headquarters to strengthen defenses using AI as a tool.

Although the plan is yet to be formally submitted to the Japanese Prime Minister's office, the proposal would encourage defenders to adopt AI-enabled cybersecurity solutions and call on regulators to assist small and medium-sized businesses in detecting attacks targeting them.

Mihoko Matsubara, chief cybersecurity strategist at Japan’s NTT Corporation, told ITPro that the LDP's proposal aims to relieve public anxiety by breaking down organizational silos and helping defenders adopt AI-enabled tools.

“Once formalized, the LDP recommendations would help CISOs secure more cybersecurity budget and invest in security hygiene that was overdue because of resource constraints,” Matsubara said.

She added that government-funded support for SMBs would also help strengthen supply chain security. “This would ultimately contribute to the overall resilience of the Japanese economy and industry.”

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Tech industry leaders and security experts have expressed shock amidst a surge of attempted cyberattacks and suspended websites in the wake of critical PHP vulnerabilities.

Speaking at its AI Tour event in Germany, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reportedly said: “I’ve not seen anything like this in a long, long time.”

“It was a long day and a long night, I know, for all the IT and security folks,” Nadella added.

Nadella’s comments come after an update was issued to address critical PHP vulnerabilities that could impact millions of websites globally.

PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor) is a programming language used in web development, which underpins much of the internet. The two vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, carry a CVSS score of 9.2, ranking them as ‘critical’.

Security experts have warned that both could allow unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE) and allow threat actors to seize control of servers, disrupt services, and steal data.

Given the severity of the flaws, several international cybersecurity agencies issued urgent alerts. CERT-EU and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) urged organizations to patch immediately when available, or consider shutting down systems to prevent compromise.

“Millions of attempts”

While the PHP Foundation released an update on Wednesday, the patch was pushed forward by a day after a leak of CVE identifiers, meaning threat actors had some understanding of how to exploit the flaws.

An exploit tool known as ‘PHP2Shell’ was reportedly developed and showcased online.

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince revealed the company saw “thousands of attempts to exploit it” in the hours before it was publicly announced.

“Across the Cloudflare network we saw thousands of attempts to exploit it,” he wrote in a post on X. “That jumped to tens of thousands in the 45 minutes post-announcement, hundreds of thousands within 2 hours, and millions now.”

Websites taken down

The global impact of the PHP vulnerabilities cannot be understated, particularly given cybersecurity agencies actively encouraged some organizations to take systems offline.

Services worldwide have been taken down as a result of the vulnerabilities while organizations apply patches. Dozens of UK government services have been taken offline as a precautionary measure while updates have been applied, according to reports from BBC News.

In Japan, Asahi shuttered some websites and systems to conduct threat assessments, while French telecoms giant Orange temporarily suspended access to some PHP-based websites.

Matt Cooke, EMEA cybersecurity strategist at Proofpoint, described the incident as a “stake-in-the-ground moment” for enterprises and cybersecurity leaders alike.

“Organizations of every size have a finite window to shore up their cyber defenses, because threats now operate at machine speed,” he said.

“Patch fast, know your attack surface, and limit the blast radius, because that window is closing. If we don't act now, we will see more organizations forced to take their sites offline while they scramble to fix what should have been secured long ago."

Did AI help? find the PHP vulnerabilities

A key talking point in the PHP incident lies in how vulnerabilities were discovered: namely through the use of AI. Cybersecurity researchers at Calif originally identified the flaws using OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol model as part of the firm’s Patch the Planet initiative.

Researchers at Wiz also independently discovered and reported both vulnerabilities.

In a blog post detailing the discovery, Wiz researchers said the findings “rank among the most severe vulnerabilities discovered in PHP, and arguably in software history”.

Researchers also emphasized the importance of AI in the discovery, which helped simplify processes and shed light on the flaws.

“The underlying flaws had been present for decades, but demonstrating their exploitability required an exceptionally complex chain of steps, at the edge of what human researchers could practically achieve,” Wiz researchers wrote.

“Frontier AI models substantially reduced that barrier, turning a longstanding flaw into an exploit.”

Tom Exelby, head of cyber security at Red Helix, issued a stark warning, insisting that this “won’t be the last time we see an incident like this”.

“So much of our digital world rests on a comparatively small number of providers, platforms, and open source components, and that concentration means a single flaw can have a global impact in minutes,” he said.

“When a technology is embedded in millions of websites and services, a vulnerability stops being one organization’s problem and becomes everyone’s.”

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Two critical flaws in one of the most widely-used LLM gateways, LiteLLM, could let low-privilege users execute code, hijack admin accounts, and steal AI provider API keys.

With 97 million downloads per month and more than 59,000 GitHub stars, LiteLLM runs inside large enterprises, startups and many of the platforms used to build AI applications.

It functions as an LLM gateway, used for storing API keys for every AI provider the organization uses, managing user access through roles and permissions, routing prompts and responses between applications and providers and tracking usage and costs across models.

However, according to Checkpoint researchers, CVE-2026-35029 allowed any user – including those with read only access – to reach administrative functions and take over the gateway. CVE-2026-59823, meanwhile, allowed attackers to redirect gateway requests to their own server and capture AI provider API keys.

"In practical terms, anyone holding an account on a vulnerable LiteLLM deployment could take over the gateway and use it for malicious purposes," said the firm.

LiteLLM uses role-based access control, where administrators manage the system and other users receive limited or read-only access. However, the CVE-2026-35029 access control vulnerability means that users with minimal privileges could reach administrative functions controlling the gateway’s core configuration.

From there, an attacker could read files stored on the server, including configuration files and system files containing sensitive information. They could also overwrite administrator credentials with their own, locking legitimate administrators out of the system, and instruct the gateway to download and execute code from an external source, enabling malware installation, data exfiltration or movement to other systems on the network.

CVE-2026-59823 is a server side request forgery vulnerability that allowed any gateway user to direct LiteLLM to send API requests to a server under the attacker’s control without validation.

Attackers could steal AI provider API keys without any compromise of OpenAI, Anthropic or other providers, use the organization’s AI provider accounts without authorization and cause unexpected costs to be billed to the organization.

LiteLLM has now resolved CVE-2026-35029 and CVE-2026-59823 in version 1.83.9, with all later versions including the fixes.

It's notable that the two vulnerabilities are nothing new: they include missing authorization checks, path traversal, RCE via dynamic module loading, and insecure password storage, and all have established mitigation patterns.

"Both vulnerabilities belong to well understood classes of security error, which shows that AI infrastructure is now exposed to the same risks that enterprise software has faced for years," warned Checkpoint.

"As tools like LiteLLM gain adoption at speed, attackers are paying close attention to them, and organizations need to secure their AI gateways with the same rigor they apply to any other business critical system."

AI gateways are starting to emerge as high-value targets, holding credentials, managing trust relationships, and controlling access to multiple AI services, said Li Zhao, principal strategic services consultant at Black Duck.

"Because many organisations consume these technologies indirectly through platforms, frameworks, and internal tooling, the risk extends beyond a single product and becomes a broader ecosystem concern," she said.

"Organizations should treat AI gateways with the same level of scrutiny they apply to identity platforms, API gateways, secrets-management systems, and other high-trust enterprise infrastructure."

The owner of Phase Eight, Hobbs, and Whistles, TFG London, has confirmed that it has been hit by a cyber attack.

TFG London is the UK subsidiary of South African retail group The Foschini Group, which includes several UK retail brands.

“On Sunday, 11 October, TFG London identified a cybersecurity incident affecting some of our IT systems, specifically impacting our Phase Eight, Hobbs, and Whistles brands. We are actively investigating and working with external cyber security specialists," a spokesperson told ITPro.

"Stores are open as normal but some of our brand’s website capabilities may not be available as the investigation continues. We apologize for any disruption and will provide additional updates to our customers as appropriate.”

Online orders and returns are believed to be affected.

The firm said it has now put its business continuity plan into place, and has reported the incident to the relevant authorities. It said it was contacting all those customers whose personal data might have been accessed, but that there was no need for customers to change their passwords.

"Importantly, payment processing is carried out by a third-party provider," it told customers in an email.

"Based on our investigation so far, we have no reason to believe that payment information is at risk. As our investigation continues, we will be working to identify if any sensitive information related to our customers was impacted."

TFG's African and Australian operations appear unaffected, as are two other brands it owns, Inside Story and White Stuff.

The hack follows similar attacks last year on M&S, Co-op, Harrods and, most recently, ASOS, which last week warned that an unauthorized party had gained access to some personal data, including names and contact details by impersonating a trusted contact to obtain login credentials.

"It may be a different target but it’s the same hack; impersonate a trusted individual such as an employee, a manager, or a contractor and use that to change passwords and privileges to access systems, and potentially steal millions of customer records and personal information," said Clive Summerfield, CEO at FARx.

"One phone call is all it took to pull down M&S, Co-op, and Harrods. This resulted in systems going offline, supply chains in chaos, millions of customer records stolen or compromised, and commercial losses in the hundreds of millions."

It's not known exactly how the attackers gained access, but – as with the ASOS attack – it seems likely that it was through a third-party supplier, perhaps a Managed Service Provider (MSP) or data hosting provider. So far, no cybercrime group has claimed the attack.

"Organizations need to be shoring up their defenses before attackers find a way in, rather than scrambling to contain the damage afterwards," warned Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club.

"Retailers are particularly attractive targets, sitting on valuable customer data and relying on interconnected systems to keep everything from online orders to supply chains moving. The consequences of a breach can stretch far beyond stolen information, hitting sales, disrupting operations, and eroding customer trust."

Hackers have sparked fires and floods in French supermarkets after targeting temperature gauges in internet-connected refrigerators.

The attackers remotely took over refrigeration systems, resetting target temperatures to 50ºC, leading to fires as well as floods from sprinkler systems, destroying fresh and frozen food.

The hack hit hundreds of supermarkets, including Intermarche, Carrefour, Cooperative, and Monoprix, according to reports. Authorities said an investigation had been started into the "large-scale cyberattack" that targeted the country's food supply.

"Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and to the food supply of the French people is extremely serious and is unprecedented. It is unacceptable," CEO of Cooperative U, Dominique Schelcher, wrote on X.

Dutch supermarkets also reported security issues, with some digital systems taken offline at the Albert Heijn chain, while reports suggest supermarkets across Europe may also be affected.

What happened?

The attack began overnight, with temperatures slowly rising over the course of several hours. The hackers appear to have targeted store fridges and freezers via control panels that are accessible via the internet in order to be adjusted and maintained, Reuters reported.

"The attack was probably launched at about 11.00pm but we didn't become aware of it until 4.00am, when our delivery driver saw that the stock room was flooded," said Charles Dezon, manager of the Intermarché supermarket in Gradignan (Gironde), in a report from Le Monde. "The temperature had risen to 50ºC in the cold room and activated the automatic sprinkler system."

Reports suggest the hackers forced the equipment into a constant defrost cycle, leading to overheating.

Known flaw, legacy systems

A source told AFP that the hacked systems appeared to be largely made up of refrigeration control systems from Danfoss, a Danish equipment manufacturer. Danfoss told that news agency that the attack targeted "legacy" systems that no longer received software or security updates, notably the AK-SM800 and AK-SC355 regulator systems that had "outdated firmware".

Danfoss added, in a statement sent to Reuters, that it had "long advised customers to keep supported systems updated with the latest firmware and to migrate legacy systems to current-generation solutions".

Indeed, the attacks come two months after Claroty's Team82 spotted multiple vulnerabilities in Danfoss's AK-SM 800A platform. The vulnerabilities were disclosed to Danfoss, which issued fresh firmware to patch the flaws; however, that appears to not have covered the older version, as it was no longer supported by the company.

At the time, Claroty noted: "A compromised supervisory controller grants an attacker the ability to physically manipulate refrigeration systems and silently spoil the contents."

What's next?

Stores are working to clean up after the incident, with staff spotted chucking spoiled food into bins, but full recovery will likely take much longer — and be expensive. Intermarche CEO Thierry Cotillard told local television that the losses were likely to top "tens ​of millions of euros nationwide in a single day." In the UK, last year's ransomware attacks cost M&S and Co-op up to £440 million.

"The impact on French supermarkets will likely last months," said James Neilson, SVP of Global at OPSWAT. "More than a year on, M&S and Co-op are still feeling the financial and organisational effects of their attacks."

He added: "Refrigeration technicians have to inspect and restore systems site by site, and retailers must reassure customers that what’s back on the shelves is safe."

It's as yet unclear who committed the attacks, but they come a month after French President Emmanual Macron warned that critical national infrastructure needed to be protected from Russian cyber attacks.

Muhammad Yahya Patel, vCISO and cybersecurity advisor for EMEA at Huntress, noted that the security industry has long been warning about attacks on operational infrastructure, saying that these refrigeration systems had been "weaponised". He added: "The food retail sector across Europe should be treating this as a signal that they are being actively targeted."

Schools and colleges across England are experiencing fewer cyber attacks and are getting better at dealing with the fallout when they do.

New data from exams regulator Ofqual shows that 27% of schools experienced a cyber incident during the 2025 to 2026 academic year, down from 29% in the previous year and 34% in 2023 to 2024.

And when incidents do occur, schools are recovering more quickly, with 66% able to recover immediately, up from 55% in the previous year. Critical damage from attacks has also fallen, down to 7%.

"It's encouraging to see schools recovering faster, but a cyber breach can still cause real uncertainty for students if coursework or marks are lost, and staff confidence can be affected long after systems are back online," said Amanda Swann, Ofqual's executive director of delivery.

When asked who is primarily responsible for cyber security, 46% of teachers said their IT team, 40% said all staff, and just 9% said it was senior leadership.

But, said Swann, "Cybersecurity isn't just an IT problem; it's a leadership responsibility. Regular backups and a clear response plan can make a huge difference when things go wrong."

More than half of the secondary schools surveyed, 55%, have already taken action to protect against cyber attacks, with measures including implementing a cybersecurity policy, carrying out risk assessments, and setting up backup and recovery procedures.

Education is one of the most frequently attacked sectors. Schools and colleges hold large amounts of personal data on both pupils and staff, while low budgets mean that cybersecurity is often underfunded.

Earlier this week, SonicWall urged educational establishments to beware of exposure to legacy vulnerabilities. Apache Log4j2 Remote Code Execution, for example, was the leading signature targeting UK primary and secondary schools last year, generating around 660,000 hits.

There were also 71,000 attempts against TFTP Server Directory Traversal signatures during the year, targeting network boot infrastructure that's widely used in school IT environments.

Earlier this year, an attack on the C2K system, which provides access to coursework, teaching materials, exam revision tools and communication platforms, affected more than 30 schools across Northern Ireland, leaving staff and pupils unable to access services.

Last year, West Lothian council's education network was hit by a ransomware attack that saw the loss of data from a dozen schools.

According to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), it's often the pupils themselves who are responsible, for reasons ranging from boredom to financial gain.

Ofqual is urging schools to put more robust measures in place so staff know what to do if systems do come under fire. It recommends that educational institutions visit the Department for Education's Cyber Security Hub for advice on how to strengthen their cyber resilience, prepare for cyber incidents and respond effectively when attacks happen.

Meanwhile, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) offers security advice for governing boards and senior leaders, school staff and admin teams, procurers and providers.

The education sector is battling a torrent of cyber threats, with new research showing attacks on colleges and universities surging by 67% over the last year.

SonicWall said its threat intelligence team has recorded more than 19.3 million medium and high-severity intrusion attempts so far this year – a significant increase compared to the 11.5 million events recorded across the whole of 2025.

Most activity was concentrated in the educational services category, which accounted for 16.8 million events, or 87% of the sector total.

According to SonicWall, attackers are primarily probing web-facing education infrastructure. Path traversal and directory manipulation attacks accounted for 10.2 million hits across the four leading signatures, the company noted, while web-based attacks accounted for 17.3 million events overall.

“Education is showing us that cyber risk shows more than a ransomware gang breaking through the front door,” said Spencer Starkey, executive vice president, EMEA, SonicWall.

“We’re seeing relentless automated scanning of the systems schools and universities depend on every day, from student portals to learning platforms, as attackers look for something that has been left exposed."

Legacy vulnerabilities plague education sector

Researchers urged the sector to be on the alert for exposure to legacy vulnerabilities. Apache Log4j2 Remote Code Execution was the leading signature targeting UK primary and secondary schools, for example, generating around 660,000 hits – almost seven times as many as in the healthcare sector.

SonicWall also recorded 71,000 attempts against TFTP Server Directory Traversal signatures, targeting network boot infrastructure commonly used across school IT environments.

Despite all this activity, ransomware is still pretty rare. Just 36 ransomware events were detected across SonicWall’s UK education sensor fleet, the lowest level of any UK sector.

“The low number of ransomware events is encouraging, but it shouldn’t create a false sense of security," said Starkey. "If attackers find an unpatched vulnerability, exposed directory or overlooked network service, that initial intrusion can quickly become a much bigger problem.”

Growing threats to education sector

Earlier this year, a government report revealed that more than seven-in-ten secondary schools, nearly nine-in-ten further education colleges and almost every higher education institution in the UK had experienced a breach or attack in the last 12 months.

Primary schools came off more lightly, but half still reported experiencing a breach or attack. Phishing was overwhelmingly the main threat.

Just this summer, the data of around 450,000 present and former Nottingham University students was compromised in an attack claimed by the ShinyHunters ransomware group.

Other major incidents in recent years have affected Newcastle University, the University of Manchester and the University of Wolverhampton.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) offers a range of security resources for schools, with specific advice for governing boards and senior leaders, school staff and admin teams, procurers and providers.

In May, the government launched a dedicated cybersecurity hub for the education sector. It's aimed at helping educational organizations strengthen their cyber resilience, prepare for cyber incidents and respond effectively when attacks happen, the Department for Education (DfE) said.

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Security agencies have issued an alert after North Korean-backed cyber criminals were found posing as recruiters to target freelance IT workers.

WaterPlum - also known as Contagious Interview - targets software developers and IT professionals in Japan, the US, Europe, and other countries.

According to security agencies in Japan, the US, Australia, and Germany, the group has infected at least 30,000 devices in more than 100 countries, and has stolen funds or account credentials from over 7,000 cryptocurrency wallets.

The group's takings amount to $10.7 million so far, with agencies warning workers to remain vigilant for potential scams.

Victims are recruited internationally through social media platforms, online job platforms, gig work platforms, or freelance marketplaces.

As part of the recruitment process, they're required to take part in technical online virtual interviews or complete assignments - during which they're instructed to carry out a coding assignment or troubleshoot an error in the online video conferencing platform.

However, doing this downloads and executes malicious files hosted on multiple online collaboration platforms and code repositories. These include Node Package Manager (NPM1) packages embedded with either BeaverTail, InvisibleFerret, OtterCookie, OtterCandy, or StoatWaffle malware and related variants.

Once in, the attackers use Remote-Access Trojans (RATs) to maintain connectivity, persistence, and pathways to pivot across victim systems, using infostealers to exfiltrate the victim’s sensitive data and cryptocurrency to a Command-and-Control (C2) IP address for remote management of infected devices or networks.

"Beyond immediate credential theft, successful infections provide WaterPlum actors opportunities to infiltrate organizations employing targeted developers, enabling espionage, intellectual property theft, and additional lateral movement in corporate environments," Japanese authorities said. "Stolen ID images can also be used by North Korean IT workers to impersonate victims and generate foreign currency."

Data targeted for exfiltration includes authentication data stored in web browsers such as IDs and passwords, clipboard information, key-logs, screenshots, and cryptocurrency-wallet data including private keys and seed phrases.

Another North Korean threat campaign

According to the agencies, the criminals behind this are mainly based in North Korea, China, or Russia, with a few in Africa and Southeast Asia.

They're also operating laptop farms to provide fake IT workers, in one case extorting a company over payment and publishing its proprietary source code online. In another, an IT worker hired for website maintenance defaced the hiring company’s website and rendered the site inaccessible.

Nick Tausek, lead security automation architect at Swimlane, said the campaign represents an expansion of the familiar North Korean playbook to take job fraud in two directions.

"Fake IT workers seek salary income and trusted access from inside a company. WaterPlum targets legitimate applicants from the outside. Stolen credentials, source code, and identity documents can then support espionage, extortion, or new fraudulent personas," he said.

"The shared laptop farms and IP addresses cited in the advisory suggest these aren’t isolated schemes. Each operation can feed the other. They can steal identities and credentials that help fraudulent workers appear legitimate. Those workers can then gain trusted access to corporate systems, opening further opportunities for theft or disruption."

Ross Filipek, CISO at Corsica Technologies, urged developers, freelancers, and organizations at large to remain on guard.

"One compromised workstation can expose several employers or clients without any of them being directly attacked. Organizations need to know how outside developers access their environments and what information can leave through those accounts. Unknown code should be isolated before execution," said Ross Filipek, CISO at Corsica Technologies.

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Dealing with shifting sands is par for the course for cybersecurity practitioners, but what's happening now is different. Indeed, it’s more of a sea change that upends conventional wisdom and business-as-usual approaches to safeguarding an organization. The impact of AI in cybersecurity changes not just the nature of the threats and attack modalities but also adds new challenges, such as dealing with massive spikes in volume.

These challenges are why many across the cybersecurity industry see value in building and propagating a pre-emptive cybersecurity architecture that deviates from a conventionally static and reactive approach. After all, getting ahead of any threat is better than letting it fester – responding only when the damage has taken place. Such an approach may seem like common sense, so why hasn't this notion become more widespread among practitioners?

What is pre-emptive security – and how does it differ from conventional cybersecurity models?

The traditional detect and respond cybersecurity framework has served businesses well for as long as they've tapped into cyberspace. But changes primarily driven by AI are exposing frailties in this model. For example, recent Crowdstrike research shows a plunge to just 29 minutes for the time it takes for an attacker to move from initial compromise to laterally breaking out to other systems. Garner, meanwhile, forecasts there will be a 300% spike in the number of documented vulnerabilities between 2025 and 2030. There's also the question of practitioner burnout, with conventional frameworks relying on overworked humans to investigate security alerts raised after, not before, an intrusion has been detected – and shut off a threat as a matter of urgency.

So what's the alternative? "In simple terms, pre-emptive security architecture means putting security controls directly in the path of an attack so that the attack gets blocked, diverted or contained before any serious damage has happened," explains Mudita Khurana, staff security engineer at Airbnb and cybersecurity expert with a decade of experience in application security, security tooling, vulnerability management and AI security.

"The idea is more architectural than a particular security product or control (thus the word architecture in the term itself)," she continues, adding: "It is a way of connecting security controls across different layers (like users, applications, systems, data, etc.) so that even if one layer is compromised, the blast radius remains limited because of other existing controls."

This is an environment in which attacks are far more likely to "fail on contact" or never really get a grip on systems, Steven Coppola, security engineer at BARR Advisory, tells ITPro. That is, instead of an architecture that relies on somebody noticing the attack while it's happening.

"I love analogies — for pre-emptive security architectures, I use a house," he says. "Detect and respond is akin to a good alarm and a fast call to the police department. A pre-emptive strategy is thinking ahead about where the doors will go, what they are made of, and whether the valuables need to be in the house at all."

What does pre-emptive security entail?

Framing pre-emptive security as a list of components or a single blueprint misses the mark, experts tell ITPro. Nor is this architecture a product that you can buy. Gartner's managing vice president Carl Manion distilled the trend into three elements, including 'deceive', 'disrupt', and 'deny' – and also warned product leaders that they may face losses in market share if they fail to embrace this security architecture in the services they provide to organizations.

His first thesis is to deny hackers entry with a preemptive shield, including advanced obfuscation technologies. Next, organizations should deceive bad actors using decoys, misdirection, and illusion to throw them off the scent. Finally, organizations should anticipate emerging threats and prepare to disrupt these rather than waiting for the attack to materialize and engaging in damage control after the fact.

"I believe that there are many other security controls that can support these three areas that Gartner has set out," adds Khurana.

"For example, zero trust access controls and separation between systems can limit the reach of an attack. Secure development checks can prevent vulnerable code from being deployed in the first place, and encryption can protect stored data so even if someone steals files, they can't read them without the encryption key."

She also noted that confidential computing – in which data is processed inside a separate hardware-protected area with only approved code running within it – can add another layer of defense.

Coppola adds: "Confidential computing closes the gap in the middle, which is data in use. The workload runs inside a hardware-protected enclave — essentially a walled-off section of the processor—so the data stays encrypted even while it is being processed. Even the cloud provider or someone with admin rights on the host cannot read it."

Even if the attacker reaches the underlying server or cloud infrastructure, there is no immediate access to the data, which should be protected. However, it must also be combined with proper access controls and sufficient application security.

How can businesses implement pre-emptive security?

Chris Bailey, head of innovation at systems integrator Jigsaw24, tells ITPro that any plans to implement pre-emptive security should be shaped around a clear idea of what your organization is protecting, how sensitive the data is, and the internal policies.

"Start by identifying the data and systems you’re trying to protect. From there, map out where the vulnerabilities lie, how people access the environment, and what the worst-case scenario would look like," he advises. "Once that is clear, it is important to establish clear policies around access, roles and devices. Ask who genuinely needs access to a particular system or data, what they need to be able to do, and whether that access can be restricted further."

At this stage, Khurana explains that it's important first to understand how an attacker may reach the services or data sources, a process similar to threat modeling, and then where the attacks can be denied, deceived, or disrupted. "This is where the team takes the threats and paths from the previous activity and understands where the controls can sit. If a path is found [to be] unnecessary, it should be removed. For legitimate paths, the principle of least privilege should be adopted."

After putting controls into place, organizations should test them under realistic conditions to make sure they work well, she adds. This may involve penetration testing – which Bailey adds is important because it gives businesses the chance to identify weaknesses before an attacker does – as well as continuous auditing and monitoring.

Organizations should also carry out attack exercises to see if the controls set in place actually stop the intended attack path, and that, importantly, things can be quickly rolled back if the attacks disrupt important business processes.

It's also worth considering escalating the approach. If pre-emptive security works for one service, teams may feel more confident in applying this to more critical services.

While implementing a new approach to safeguarding your organization, it's also important to remember not to simply ditch or replace old techniques. Coppola tells ITPro that pre-emptive controls can make alerts more meaningful – but don't replace them. Then, when it comes to measuring attack paths, he says: "The question at the end of the quarter should be: what can an attacker with stolen credentials reach now versus 90 days ago? If the answer isn’t shrinking, the program in place is not working, no matter how many products were deployed."

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has released guidance on cyber adversary simulation, in the run-up to its launch of a new assured Cyber Adversary Simulation (CyAS) scheme.

Also known as red teaming, cyber adversary simulation involves testing an organization's defenses by mimicking the actions an adversary is likely to use in a real attack. This can be carried out by either internal or external teams.

It's not quite the same as penetration testing, as it focuses on the effectiveness of an organization's technical controls and detection, rather than identifying technical vulnerabilities.

The NCSC CyAS scheme will see a number of commercial organizations approved to offer their services, but is still in its early stages, with plans to refine the scheme in light of feedback from partners, buyers and providers.

When it formally launches in November, there should be a range of approved providers – currently, the NCSC said, the quality of services available across the market can vary significantly.

These first documents include the Scheme Standard and the Working Practices Document, detailing what potential providers need to do. They cover everything from how services should be set up and managed to security, ethics and technical competence.

"These documents give an early and transparent view of the standard we will use to assess applicants, including expectations on companies, key role holders, technical delivery and reporting," the NCSC said.

"As a result, buyers will have a transparent and consistent benchmark for assessing providers, helping them make more informed procurement decisions and giving them greater confidence in the quality of NCSC-assured services."

The scheme supports two different approaches to evaluating an organization's ability to detect and respond to a cyber attack, depending upon the attacker's starting location.

A full-spectrum approach starts from outside the network, and evaluates an organization during an end-to-end attack that attempts to breach the perimeter.

Alternatively, an assumed breach approach starts from a point within the customer network and simulates a threat once an attacker has managed to gain an initial foothold.

"For organizations with a mature security posture, assumed breach can provide greater value by bypassing the initial access phase and concentrating on the consequences of a successful compromise, specifically whether an attacker can expand their access beyond the initial point of entry and reach high-value targets," the NCSC advised.

The CyAS scheme is best suited to organizations with a mature understanding of the cyber risks they face – larger firms, or those operating within critical national infrastructure or the UK government.

To make the most of the services on offer, they should have already identified and assessed their risks, and have well-established mitigations and defences and robust network monitoring and detection systems in place.

"A carefully scoped adversary simulation engagement will help organizations understand where their defences are working, where they are not, and what needs to improve," the NCSC said.

"It will also evaluate whether an organization can identify threats early, triage them quickly and appropriately, and escalate where necessary."

Spain has seen its first official data breach due to an AI agent.

The Spanish Data Protection Agency said in a blog post that it had received the first notification of a data breach that was apparently carried out by an AI agent using a known large language model (LLM).

The revelation comes amid a wider discussion about the safety of AI, in particular agents, following a series of incidents in which OpenAI and Anthropic agents went "rogue" and targeted external organisations during evaluation tests. OpenAI admitted in July that its agents infiltrated the Hugging Face repository, and Anthropic followed suit shortly afterwards with its own admission of misaligned behaviour.

Francisco Pérez Bes, the head of the Agencia Espanola Proteccion Datos (AEPD), said in a blog post that the information on the attack comes entirely via the impacted organisation, with further investigation required.

But what it does show is that agentic AI attacks "have ceased to be a theoretical risk," Pérez Bes said, according to an automatically translated version of the blog post.

While AI has long been used to write phishing messages, translate fraudulent campaigns, and help search for flaws to exploit, Pérez Bes said the "emergence of AI agents... introduces a qualitative change," as it can plan tasks, execute code, and modify its actions autonomously.

He added: "It's important to remember that AI doesn't create new threats. But it does increase the speed, scale, and adaptability of existing malicious techniques, reducing the time available to detect and contain them.

His comments echo warnings from the security industry, with Forescout saying earlier this year that AI is now a "standard part of the attacker toolkit" and Anthropic adding that AI is helping to lower the bar for hackers.

What happened?

According to the blog post, the hackers managed to log into the compromised system, setting loose an autonomous agent to look for vulnerabilities in the application, which then allowed them to modify personal data and access invoices.

Pérez Bes stressed that there was no indication that the AI model used or its infrastructure had been compromised, and that the agent used wasn't necessarily designed to carry out such activities.

The victim of the attack hasn't been revealed, nor has the maker of the LLM itself – or any details on the hackers responsible.

What next?

Pérez Bes said the purpose of issuing the notification was to warn organizations to boost their security practices to answer the new threat of AI agents, calling it a sign to act.

"The arrival of AI agents in the offensive arena should prompt an immediate review of security and data protection models," he said, according to the translated post.

He called for organizations to include AI-assisted or AI-driven attacks in their risk analysis, reconsider response times as procedures designed for manual attacks won't be able to keep pace with autonomous agents, and to take measures to protect digital identities and credentials to keep AI agents from slipping in via accounts, API keys or tokens with excessive permissions.

Pérez Bes said manual intervention is no longer enough when it comes to security. "Human supervision remains essential, but it must be supported by detection, containment, and response mechanisms capable of operating quickly enough," he said.

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British small businesses (SMBs) are more likely to be hit by cyber attacks than those in other countries, with two in five falling victim last year.

Globally, 29% of organizations have been hit by a successful cyber attack in the past year, according to the tenth annual Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report. However, for UK businesses, the figure's substantially higher, at 38% – making it the most-affected country worldwide.

UK SMBs are spending less to remediate these attacks, with an average cost per attack of $35,908, compared with $52,000 globally. On average, incidents caused around 32 hours of operational disruption.

But, commented Jamie Akhtar, CEO and co-founder of Cybersmart, "While the average cost of an individual attack in the UK may be lower than the global average, the higher proportion of businesses being successfully compromised means many more firms are being exposed to those costs in the first place."

Meanwhile, small UK firms are failing to insure themselves adequately against cyber attacks, according to Hiscox, with only four-in-ten having cyber coverage, compared with around 63% of medium-sized firms and seven-in-ten FTSE 100 companies.

UK firms are actually spending more than average on cyber resilience, at $59,700 – the third-highest spend – compared with a global average investment of $51,000. Just over half of firms are adopting new technology, with 55% investing in specialist staff and 62% updating employee training.

The reasons for the greater vulnerability of UK firms aren't apparent.

"These are some concerning results, and it's not clear why the UK is suffering a larger volume of attacks compared to other countries," said Keven Knight, CEO of Talion Cyber Security.

"It could be as a result of geopolitical instability, or it could be because of the wave of attacks against retailers from last year, which might have spurred attackers to target businesses in the region."

However, there also appears to be a link between cybersecurity performance and executive compensation: globally, 32% of firms said executive pay is now linked to cybersecurity performance, while the figure was just 25% for UK firms.

Overall, cyber attacks are costing small businesses dear, with 32% saying they have delayed growth and expansion plans, and 31% that incidents have increased staffing costs. Three-in-ten said they'd experienced financial damage and 29% that they'd lost business opportunities. Even more – 48% – cited reputation and customer trust as the most significant cyber-related risk.

"It's never just about containing an incident initially and moving on, that's naive and unrealistic. It's the aftermath of an attack, where organisations have to work through the financial losses and operational downtime, that causes the greatest damage," said Knight.

"Downtime doesn't just mean being locked out of computers, it means disruption to service, disruption to employees and their ability to perform their jobs, plus disruption to customers because they are unable to access the services or goods an organisation provides to them. Every second of downtime costs the business money."

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Automation and agents in Security Operations Centers (SOCs) aren't easing the job of security analysts, with teams overwhelmingly stuck having to resolve problems manually.

Security analysts are forced to spend 68% of their day on reactive alert triage and manual data gathering, leaving little time for proactive threat hunting. Meanwhile, 68% of all threat detections still require manual human intervention to resolve, a new report from network intelligence form ExaHop has revealed in a new report.

"Security teams are facing a crisis in dealing with AI-powered threats," said Jamie Moles, Senior Technical Manager, ExtraHop.

"To solve this, security teams are diligently working towards achieving an agentic SOC that drastically expedites the entire security response cycle while eliminating the burden and fatigue analysts have been experiencing."

When asked which elements of the attack surface they believe represent the most significant cybersecurity risk, 55% of survey respondents cited AI agents and generative AI applications, followed by public cloud services at 45% and third-party services and integrations at 35%.

However, the researchers said the timeline to identify threats has lengthened, with 49% of organizations only identifying ransomware activity after it reached the data exfiltration or later stages – up from less than a third in 2025.

Nearly 15% failed to recognize that they were being targeted until a ransom demand was issued, up from 6% the previous year.

When asked which factors delayed a critical alert from being detected or investigated, 41% cited the use of encrypted channels to bypass detection. Meanwhile, 38% said that attacker activity mirrored legitimate, authorized workflows and processes, and 34% noted that valid, high-privilege account permissions were used in the attack.

As a result, SOC workflows remain heavily manual, with most respondents reporting mid-to-high levels of manual intervention across the threat lifecycle. Investigation was the most manual stage, requiring manual intervention about 50% of the time.

SOC analysts are limited to spending just 44% of their time on proactive efforts, such as threat hunting and detection engineering.

The problem, the firm said, extends across all SOC-adjacent job roles and organizations of all sizes. While larger companies show a slight trend toward spending more time on proactive efforts, the increase isn't proportional to the size of the company, showing that scale doesn't solve the problem.

In order to make the most of AI models and reduce the burden on human analysts, said ExaHop, organizations need a base-level layer of contextual intelligence that allows agents to act decisively and quickly.

"A well-trained AI model has the reasoning and processing capabilities to analyse environment-wide anomalies instantly, doing in seconds what would take a human analyst hours. But these powerful models must be implemented with the right safeguards in place, sitting atop a layer of intelligence that can be easily accessed and acted upon," said Moles.

"Automated security will be the standard, but without the right underlying foundation, organizations will continue struggling to keep up with high-velocity threats."

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In August, it emerged that a small UK power plant was shut down for four days following a cyber attack attributed to Iranian hackers. It follows multiple attacks on water facilities in the US, which reports indicate are linked to the latest incident.

Not much is known about the UK power plant breach, with the government declining to reveal exactly where it took place. It has confirmed the incident involved a small-scale generator, and that the wider energy system was never at risk.

But a key technical detail is still withheld about whether control systems were directly affected, or if the plant was disconnected merely as a precaution while IT contained the infiltration.

After the first of its kind attack, the government has written to businesses with advice on the steps they should take to protect themselves. How big is the risk, who does it impact, and how should firms react?

Major escalation

The latest attack is “a major escalation” from the recent campaign targeting water facilities in the US, says Markus Mueller, field CISO at Nozomi Networks.

He says attacks on peaker plants like this – which are designed to provide power when needed – can be more dangerous because “things happen fast, there is no buffer, and there can be major impacts”.

Critical national infrastructure is also vulnerable because it often uses legacy technology never meant to be connected to the internet. In the latest incident, the attack path involved a programmable logic controller (PLC) that was not secured following basic best practices.

“If current reporting is correct, this was a publicly exposed PLC that was impacted similarly to what we have seen at US water utilities, where the threat group scans the internet for exposed PLCs using AI-generated scripts,” Mueller tells ITPro.

The attacker then logs into the PLCs using default credentials and proceeds to take them offline by resetting the programming and changing the password and IP address, “making it inaccessible”, explains Mueller.

A risk beyond CNI

The risk goes beyond critical sectors, into the supply chain, other industries, and to firms that rely on the breached organization.

While this incident occurred at a power plant, this is also “a clear warning” for “non-utility commercial sectors”, says Mueller.

He points out that automated scanning scripts used by adversaries “do not differentiate between a power generator, a manufacturing plant, a logistics warehouse, or smart building management systems”.

Any business relying on connected physical systems or industrial controls is at risk. At the same time, supply chain partners and third-party maintenance contractors with remote access into operational technology (OT) environments represent “a major attack vector that adversaries are actively targeting to move laterally into enterprise networks”, says Mueller.

The risk extends “well beyond” large, regulated energy operators, agrees Martin Riley, CTO at Bridewell.

He describes how the UK’s energy system is becoming more distributed, with growing reliance on smaller peaker plants, renewable generators, battery storage and other remotely operated assets.

“Individually, these facilities may represent a small proportion of national capacity, but collectively they are becoming an essential part of how the grid operates,” says Riley.

“That creates a particular challenge because smaller operators and suppliers may fall outside the regulatory thresholds applied to traditional critical infrastructure, while still having connectivity into systems and services the country depends on.”

At the same time, James Neilson, SVP of global at OPSWAT, says it is “a lucky escape” that this attack happened at a small power plant and didn’t impact the UK’s wider energy system.

“Hostile actors now routinely target the UK using cyber attacks, undermining security, the economy and public trust. This form of grey-zone warfare has been present for at least a decade, but sub-threshold activity has increased sharply in recent years.”

Resilience measures

Following the power plant attack, the UK government and National Cyber Security Center have actively urged organizations running critical infrastructure and industrial facilities to audit internet-facing devices and enforce cyber hygiene.

“The guidance emphasizes immediately identifying and pulling exposed OT and PLCs off the public internet, eliminating default vendor passwords and enforcing multi-factor authentication for remote management connections,” explains Mueller.

At this stage, the most important lesson is “understanding asset exposure, attack paths, and the operational consequences of unauthorized access to industrial control systems”, according to Mueller.

Resilience starts with “understanding how an attacker could move through the organization” and “ensuring a compromise in one part of the environment cannot easily reach systems responsible for physical operations”, says Riley.

For operational environments, that means strong IT and OT segmentation, tightly controlled remote access and “security controls proportionate to the potential consequences of an incident”, he advises.

Organizations also need visibility across IT and OT. “If security monitoring operates separately, an attacker may be able to establish themselves in the corporate environment before moving towards operational systems without anyone seeing the complete picture,” warns Riley.

Know what exposed interfaces you have and harden these by using technology and architecture, advises Ian Thornton-Trump, CISO at Inversion6.

At the same time, use firewalls with access control and whitelisting capabilities to “ensure any exposed interfaces can only be connected to by specific IP addresses”, he adds.

Meanwhile, Thornton-Trump advises deploying deception technology to detect the early stages of an attack, including honeypots, as well as taking advantage of the NCSC’s early warning service.

It’s also important to know the enemy you are facing. For example, Iranian and other nation-state groups will often hunt out default credentials immediately to achieve “rapid, low-noise access”, says Neilson.

With this in mind, he advises “assessing and hardening critical systems and infrastructure considering the latest attacks”.

Firms should train for incident response using tabletop exercises at all levels of operations and management, Thornton-Trump adds. “Have a plan that includes cyber-incident responders on retainer and cybersecurity contacts in other companies in your industry vertical – and identify reinforcements and additional resources if you need them. Prolonged downtime of any sort – cyber or otherwise – is avoidable, predictable, and recoverable.”

While the number of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on European organizations is falling, attacks have become more targeted and intense.

Findings from Link11's European Cyber Report for the first half of 2026 show that the number of attacks was down by 42%, but revealed new highs for attack intensity across bandwidth, packet rate, and cumulative data volume.

The highest measured bandwidth attack reached 2.3 Tbit/s – 85% higher than the previous peak of 1.2 Tbit/s in the first half of 2025.

The packet rate followed the same pattern, reaching a new peak of 322 million packets per second — up 56% from 207 million packets per second a year earlier.

Cumulative traffic also increased, rising from 438 to 705 terabytes over the six-month period — a 61% increase.

“Attacks are shorter, but the total volume that we had to mitigate is higher than ever," said Karsten Desler, Link11 CTO. "Attackers are steering their botnets with greater precision and control, generating more traffic in less time.”

Law enforcement takedowns are working

The drop in the number of attacks is down to sustained pressure from international law enforcement, including the takedown of pro-Russian group NoName057(16)'s infrastructure in July 2025.

Similarly, the takedown in March of the command-and-control servers of four major IoT botnets has played a key role. These controlled more than three million devices between them.

Despite positive gains by law enforcement, a rise in super-botnets such as Aisuru and its successor, Kimwolf, as well as a growing number of hijacked cloud servers, has increased the intensity of attacks.

Unlike a private IoT camera with just a few Mbit/s of upload bandwidth, a compromised server in a data center has a connection in the Gbit/s range - meaning that just a few thousand hacked cloud instances can easily eclipse the attack potential of an IoT botnet with millions of end devices.

“These numbers show that the threat isn't shrinking; it's shifting from breadth to peak intensity,” said Jens-Philipp Jung, CEO of Link11. “Organizations that size their defenses based on last year's attack count are underestimating how quickly a single incident can escalate today.”

No reprieve for victims

Notably, the report found that getting hit once makes it more likely that you'll get hit again: 56% fell victim to a second attack within 30 days of the first, compared with 46% a year earlier.

Link11 said the most dangerous attacks aren't always the most visible ones. In one case, attackers used a traffic spike against two domains as cover while quietly running SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS) probes behind it.

The attack was only spotted because the attackers used the same IP addresses for both.

"The most dangerous attacks we deal with are rarely the loudest ones anymore,” said Jag Bains, VP solution engineering, at Link11. “If you're only watching bandwidth and known signatures, you'll miss the attacks designed to do the most damage, because they're built to stay unnoticed.”

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AI research non-profit METR has disclosed two security incidents – and while no sensitive information is believed to have been accessed, one of the attacks led to what might have been a massive bill.

According to METR, attackers stole an API key for inference on public AI models in March, consuming $600,000 worth of credits. Luckily, the model developer had granted them to METR for free.

A researcher left an EC2 instance publicly accessible behind Google authentication, the company said, which contained an API key for METR’s general-access (public models) account.

METR noted that the vibe-coded app included a fail-open vulnerability that silently disabled authentication, exposing the system to the public internet for several days.

METR reckons the attacker found the instance by looking through recently registered websites to find vibe-coded sites with high-signal keywords relating to LLMs or agents.

The attacker prompted an agent directly to reveal its model provider API key, added an SSH key for persistent access, and over the course of three weeks used the stolen credentials to consume the API credits.

Why didn't METR notice?

METR noted that because the organisation is “accustomed to running evaluations and experiments that use large volumes of tokens”, the incident flew under the radar.

The non-profit regularly runs large-scale evaluations with pre-deployment AI models, meaning it typically deals with “lots of weird rate limits and API errors”.

"At the time of the incident, our internal usage dashboard didn’t show data on rate-limited requests to all users, even if they were occurring,” METR said.

Notably, because it wasn't actually paying for the tokens there was no natural token spend ceiling, and no way at the time to put a spending limit on keys.

METR lifts lid on separate attack

In another attack in May, METR spotted attackers systematically probing its publicly accessible infrastructure, including an unsuccessful attempt to access internal data via an inadvertently exposed endpoint.

"We were tipped off that we were being targeted by hackers who appeared to be financially motivated and may have been looking to obtain frontier model access," it said.

"We observed the attackers systematically probing our publicly accessible infrastructure, with heavy use of agents to automate vulnerability discovery, including by credential stuffing authentication providers, attempting OAuth token grants, scanning newly deployed services, and attempting to phish staff."

METR said it's now maintaining an isolated public production environment for public-facing applications that's architecturally separated from its internal infrastructure.

This means a misconfiguration in a public service can't expose internal data. It's also hired a security lead and is expanding security staff further.

Elsewhere, METR revealed it has shut down legacy infrastructure that was unnecessarily expanding the attack surface and has set up monitoring for unusual API key usage and other abnormal behavior.

"Although these incidents had limited consequences, we considered them near-misses, and increased our security investment in response," it said.

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Security researchers have successfully used AI to port a remote code execution (RCE) exploit between two programmable logic controllers (PLCs).

While the experiment still required significant human expertise to negotiate dead ends and false leads, it showed how AI could make it easier to carry out attacks against embedded and industrial systems.

The team at Forescout’s Vedere Labs used AI to port an RCE exploit between two WAGO PLC models in an exploit that took eight hours and 32 minutes and consumed just $535.74 in API tokens.

Once code execution was achieved, AI produced multiple working network payloads within minutes, suggesting that post-exploitation could become increasingly automated as models improve.

The exploit targeted CVE-2021-31886, a pre-authentication buffer overflow in the Nucleus FTP server that allowed arbitrary ARM shellcode to execute on the live PLC without credentials.

Researchers had already shown that RCE exploits on PLCs can enable Deep Lateral Movement and granular control over safety logic – and reckoned that as AI-assisted exploit development improves, these techniques could become more accessible.

How AI was used to crack PLCs

The AI-assisted exploit development process involved two steps, according to Forescout. First and foremost, this included confirming the vulnerability and writing the payload.

Each step consisted of interactive sessions between a researcher and Claude Code, which had access to a terminal, the reference files, analysis tools including Ghidra, and the live target PLC.

Claude could use those tools directly, generate and test code, and ask the researcher for additional input when needed.

Researchers noted that Claude decided to confirm the presence of the vulnerability by both probing the live target and carrying out static code analysis.

It didn't work the first time, however, with one session failing to trace the vulnerable function correctly and producing an invalid exploit.

According to researchers, the analysis provided useful context for the next session, which used binary searches to map the relevant functions correctly – albeit with researcher input to steer the analysis away from dead ends and provide additional disassembly context where necessary.

Writing a working RCE exploit took much longer, with initial attempts failing. Claude also wasted a lot of time testing incorrect hypotheses, decompiling unrelated code, and pursuing false leads.

The researchers had to change to Claude Opus 4.6 with 1M context, and add the prompt: “Ask for my help with disassembly if you are not certain about a firmware detail”, and instruct the AI to the sink of the vulnerability – the point where the attacker-supplied username is copied into memory.

Claude could then reason about the function call chain leading to the sink and understand that it needed more context about how FTP packets are treated throughout this call chain.

Operational technology in the crosshairs

Organizations shouldn't dismiss operational technology (OT) vulnerabilities because they seem hard to exploit, researchers warned.

"AI has already lowered the barrier to vulnerability research and exploit development in higher-level software. This experiment suggests that the same progression is beginning to reach low-level embedded systems, although substantial barriers remain," the report noted..

"As models become more capable and independent, the cost and expertise required to adapt exploits across related embedded targets could fall substantially."

The advice on mitigation is pretty standard: reduce unnecessary OT device exposure, monitor OT environments for early signs of exploitation, exercise incident response against AI-assisted OT attack paths and use AI defensively, but validate its outputs.

Programmable logic controllers are rapidly emerging as a major risk to critical infrastructure. The US National Security Agency (NSA) issued a warning last month over an active threat against Siemens PLCs.

Similarly, in recent months, a series of attacks on US water supply infrastructure targeted internet-exposed PLCs, with the attackers remotely changing IP addresses and turning on and setting passwords.

Several water firms were left unable to view connected equipment, and in some cases it was shut down.

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Data belonging to millions of customers has been accessed in a cyber attack on Manchester Airports Group (MAG), the company has revealed.

MAG, which runs Manchester, London Stansted, and East Midlands airports, confirmed a cybersecurity incident on 27 August.

Data exposed in the breach relates to car park, lounge and Fast Track bookings, and on-site Wi-Fi at all three airports, the company revealed in a statement. This includes:

• Customer email addresses
• Phone numbers
• Vehicle registrations
• Postcodes

MAG noted that banking and payment details were not exposed in the breach, which at this point is believed to have impacted around 8.7 million customers.

The company added that the breach hasn’t resulted in any operational disruption, with airport operations remaining unaffected. Customer parking services are still operating as expected.

"All upcoming bookings remain valid and are unaffected by this incident," it said. "Passengers should continue to travel to the airport as normal."

MAG said it has restricted access to the affected systems, called in specialist cyber security experts, and notified the relevant authorities.

Who is responsible for the breach?

At present, there’s no indication on who is responsible for the breach, or how it occurred. However, like many recent attacks on organizations, the incident appears to have been a supply chain-related attack.

Nathan Davies-Webb, principal consultant at Acumen Cyber, said modern airports “sit at the center of a complex web of booking, parking, loyalty, payment, and internet connectivity services”.

“Many of the services in that ecosystem run on platforms operated by subsidiaries or third-party suppliers rather than the airport itself," he commented.

"That's a sensible commercial model but it creates an uncomfortable reality for security. A breach like this one in a shared upstream system can expose customer data from multiple services at multiple airports simultaneously."

Last year, a report from Thales highlighted a 600% increase in ransomware attacks in the aviation sector over the previous year, with 27 major attacks by 22 ransomware groups between January 2024 and April 2025.

A string of attacks on Hawaiian Airlines, Canada's WestJet and Qantas over the last year have all been attributed to the Scattered Spider group.

Muhammad Yahya Patel, vCISO and cybersecurity advisor for EMEA at Huntress, said the nature of the data exposed poses a significant threat to customers. Cyber criminals frequently rely on exposed information such as email addresses to conduct follow-up phishing campaigns.

“Email addresses, phone numbers, and vehicle registrations combined is a precise targeting profile for anyone planning a follow-on fraud or phishing campaign. Scammers now know you travelled, roughly when, and have two direct contact routes to reach you with a convincing story," he said.

"When that data ends up in an unauthorized third party’s hands alongside parking and lounge booking details, it fills in a surprisingly detailed picture of someone’s travel habits."

MAG urges customers to remain vigilant

MAG warned customers to remain vigilant for suspicious emails, text messages, or phone calls, and avoid clicking on links or opening attachments from unexpected communications.

The company stressed that it will never request payment card details, banking information, or passwords from customers.

Davies-Webb commended MAG for its swift response to the incident, although data protection regulations require enterprises to disclose breaches within a strict time frame.

"Public disclosure roughly forty-eight hours after they became aware is fast by UK standards and can point in one of two directions," said Davies-Webb.

"Either MAG undertook containment decisively enough that they felt safe releasing details of the breach on their own terms, or the volume and nature of the personal data compromised meant the seventy-two hour notification clock under UK GDPR was already running and disclosure was going to have to happen.”

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Medical technology firm Boston Scientific has been hit with a cyber attack that has severely disrupted global operations.

In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the MedTech company said the incident was first detected on 25 August.

The attack resulted in a network outage, meaning the company only has limited access to certain systems and applications.

Boston Scientific supplies a range of devices used in cardiac care, endoscopy, and urology and reported $5.4 billion in net sales during the second quarter of 2026.

According to the firm, as soon as it detected the breach it activated its incident response protocols and began an investigation to assess and contain the threat with the help of third-party cybersecurity experts.

The company is in the process of restoring affected functions and reinstating access to systems, but that there's as yet no timeline for a full restoration.

“The incident has caused, and is expected to continue to cause, disruptions and limitations of access to certain of the Company’s information systems and business applications that support aspects of the Company’s operations, including the ability to process and ship customer orders,” the filing reads.

Who’s behind the Boston Scientific cyber attack?

As of yet, there’s no information on the initial access method used by the hackers, nor the type of attack, who may have carried it out, or what data may have been accessed.

Ross Filipek, CISO at Corsica Technologies, said at this stage the company will be prioritizing containment and establishing how the threat actor(s) gained access.

"Security teams need constant visibility into what was affected and which systems are safe to bring back online," Filipek commented.

"In healthcare, downtime carries operational consequences quickly. Strong incident response has to protect the environment while helping the business restore critical services as safely and efficiently as possible.”

Healthcare in the crosshairs

The Boston Scientific breach marks the latest in a string of attacks on major medical device manufacturers, with Stryker, Medtronic, and Abbott all having disclosed cyber incidents in recent months.

In March, Stryker was hit in an attack claimed by Iranian-linked threat group Handala, which claimed to have wiped thousands of systems across the company’s global operations and stolen around 50 terabytes of data.

A month later, the notorious ShinyHunters group claimed responsibility for an attack on the world’s largest medical device maker Medtronic. Just last month, cancer diagnostics device supplier Abbott said it had detected unauthorized access to some internal systems.

Dray Agha, senior manager of security operations at Huntress, said the data used by healthcare and medical technology providers makes them prime targets for cyber criminals.

“This is an unfortunate ripple effect on the healthcare supply chain. The attack on Boston Scientific demonstrates that cyber incidents in the MedTech sector extend far beyond IT and actively threaten the global healthcare supply chain," Agha said.

"When a major manufacturer is paralysed and unable to process or ship medical orders, the disruption creates immediate ripple effects that can ultimately delay critical treatments and impact patient care down the line."

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US government officials have revealed that Chinese state-sponsored hackers breached a host of federal institutions as part of a recent espionage campaign.

In a statement, the US Justice Department and FBI confirmed it has successfully seized domains used to support two hacking platforms known as ‘QScan’ and ‘QTRouter’.

These platforms were used by a state-sponsored group known as ‘QTFY’ to target critical infrastructure and “other sensitive networks”.

According to the FBI, the group successfully breached NASA, the Federal Reserve, Department of Energy, the US Senate, Department of Justice, and other agencies.

The scope and nature of the breaches has not been revealed.

“Federal law enforcement investigated and disabled the PRC’s malicious software, the latest in a series of technical operations to dismantle indiscriminate hacking activities sponsored by the People’s Republic of China,” said Attorney General Todd Blanche.

“State-sponsored malicious hackers preying on America’s critical infrastructure will be stopped and prosecuted. We are here to ensure security for the American people and will use every tool we have to keep that promise.”

State-backed operators

The QTFY group provides hacker-for-hire services to paying customers, as well as the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) Ministry of State Security and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), according to court documents.

QScan and QTRouter are frequently-used platforms in QTFY operations, according to the Justice Department. The first of these is used to scan for and automatically infect vulnerable IoT devices, which are then added to the broader QTRouter network of controlled devices.

“QTRouter consists of these compromised IoT devices, as well as commercial proxy service devices and leased virtual private servers,” the Justice Department noted.

QTRouter serves as an "obfuscation network" for the group, meaning that it enables QTFY and other "malicious cyber actors" to conceal their location and activities.

Officials noted that the seized domains were hard-coded into both QScan and QTRouter malware, which were then used in follow-up attacks against US government agencies.

Disrupting cyber threats

The takedown announced by the Justice Department marks the latest in a string of operations aimed at mitigating Chinese state-backed threats.

In 2025, for example, the FBI helped remove the PlugX surveillance malware from more than 4,000 computers across the US following a campaign conducted by the Mustang Panda group.

That operation came just months after a similar sting that crippled a botnet hosted by the Flax Typhoon hacker group.

“These tools were used by PRC cyber actors to hide the origin of their attacks,” said FBI Director Kash Patel.

“Thanks to the work of FBI San Diego, FBI Cyber Division, and DOJ partners, we seized adversary infrastructure and shut these platforms down.”

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Hundreds of internet-facing Zimbra instances have been compromised through a vulnerability that was patched last month, researchers have warned.

The Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) hosts email, calendars, contacts, and administrative services. It has hundreds of millions of users, including thousands of businesses and hundreds of government agencies worldwide.

The security flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-73570 and rated high severity with a CVSS score of 8.9, allows unauthenticated attackers to execute malicious code remotely.

It works by exploiting a command injection weakness in the SNMP monitoring component when SNMP notifications are enabled, and affects Zimbra Collaboration's Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).

This is a monitoring functionality in deployments where the optional zimbra-snmp package is installed and SNMP notifications are enabled.

"This vulnerability could allow an unauthenticated attacker to send specially crafted SMTP requests, potentially resulting in the execution of arbitrary operating system commands as the Zimbra user when the optional zimbra-snmp package is installed and SNMP notifications are enabled," warned the Hong Hong Computer Emergency Response Team (HKCert) this week.

Hackers can then establish persistence, access email accounts, harvest credentials, and move laterally to other systems. Synacor, the company behind the collaboration suite, was first made aware of the issue in June, issued a temporary mitigation, and fixed it with the release of ZCS version 10.1.20 on July 20.

Agencies issue Zimbra flaw warnings

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) last week added the flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) list and ordered US federal civilian agencies to address it within three days.

However, it appears that the vulnerability is still being actively exploited.

Non-profit security organization Shadowserver said it has spotted at least 274 internet-exposed Zimbra instances that have been breached.

Meanwhile, at least 8,200 organizations worldwide are still using vulnerable versions, although this doesn't mean they're exploitable as the vulnerability may be in a non-default configuration.

Dray Agha, senior manager of Huntress’ EMEA security operations center, said the exploitation of the flaw highlights the importance of rapid patching.

"This widespread compromise of Zimbra servers is a textbook example of the enterprise patching gap. The patch for CVE-2026-73570 was released in July, yet weeks later, attackers are still easily finding hundreds of vulnerable instances to exploit," he said.

"When dealing with an unauthenticated, remote code execution flaw on an internet-facing email server, the window for remediation isn't measured in weeks or days, it’s honestly measured in hours. Organizations need to treat collaboration suites as highly critical perimeter infrastructure and patch them with zero delay."

It's not clear who is behind the attacks, but exploitation of Zimbra vulnerabilities has in the past been linked to Russian state-sponsored hackers, including APT28, APT29, and Winter Vivern.

These groups have targeted military and diplomatic intelligence, alongside opportunistic cybercriminals seeking financial gain.

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A small UK power plant was reportedly shut down for four days last month following a cyber attack attributed to Iranian hackers.

The incident appears to have affected a small-scale gas generator, rather than a large power station, and did not affect the wider grid.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the government has contacted the chief executives of power companies following the incident and has written to businesses with advice on the steps they should take to protect themselves.

The attack has been attributed to hackers affiliated to the Iranian government, and is believed to be the first of its kind in the UK.

Graeme Stewart, head of public sector at Check Point, said the incident highlights the potential risks posed by threats to critical infrastructure.

“This marks a grave escalation in the Iran conflict because a hostile state-linked cyber threat has reportedly reached into UK energy infrastructure and caused a physical shutdown lasting four days,” he said.

“That should concern every organization responsible for keeping this country running. For most Brits, the Iran conflict is happening thousands of miles away and cyber warfare probably still conjures up images of stolen passwords, leaked data and companies being held to ransom,” Stewart added.

“The prospect of a hostile state being able to reach into the infrastructure beneath our everyday lives changes that dramatically."

Rising state-sponsored threats

Notably, the incident coincided with a series of attacks on US water supply infrastructure in recent weeks. More than a dozen states were affected in the campaign, which is believed to be linked to Iranian-backed threat groups.

The attacks targeted internet-exposed programmable logic controllers (PLCs), with the attackers remotely changing IP addresses and turning on and setting passwords.

Several water firms were left unable to view connected equipment, and in some cases it was shut down.

The FBI has recommended disconnecting PLCs from the public-facing internet, strictly controlling access to them, tightening up passwords, and reviewing project files running on PLCs for unauthorized changes.

UK infrastructure in the crosshairs

According to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the UK is experiencing increased threats from Iranian-backed cyber groups.

Earlier this year, the agency issued a warning over heightened risk of indirect threats for organizations with a presence, or supply chains, in the Middle East.

Stewart suggested that the impact of an attack on larger power supply operators or other critical infrastructure firms could be disastrous.

"We have to ask what happens if the next target is bigger, more critical or more deeply connected to the services millions of people rely on. Britain’s critical national infrastructure underpins almost every part of modern life, including electricity, water, transport and communications, and those systems are increasingly digital, interconnected and dependent on one another," he said.

"The question now has to be whether Britain is genuinely ready if something more serious follows.”

A spokesperson for the UK government told ITPro that it's working on an Energy Resilience Strategy. Set for publication later this year, this will outline plans for ensuring the energy system remains stable and secure.

"The UK has a highly resilience energy system. We work closely with the energy sector to protect infrastructure and ensure the highest standards of security," the spokesperson added.

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Fake North Korean IT workers are taking their job-hunt seriously, submitting as many as 60 job applications per day according to new research.

Groups of North Korean IT workers, dubbed PurpleDelta by Recorded Future, created at least 22 fabricated personas, with job applications being made across a range of recruitment websites and platforms such as LinkedIn and Upwork.

Notably, the group is using identity-brokering services, account-renting via AnyDesk, and multi-accounting tools.

Researchers found these fraudulent workers are often coordinating via Telegram and Slack, with support from facilitators who procure and maintain company-issued hardware on the operators' behalf.

“A successful job placement provides the PurpleDelta operation with a steady income and places a false employee within a company’s normal systems," said Alexander Leslie, senior advisor at Recorded Future.

"Wages are often funnelled toward sanctioned North Korean military and nuclear programs, and access may also expose information that was never meant to leave a company.”

Fake North Korean IT workers are turning to AI

The fake workers' applications typically include AI-generated profile photos, custom-configured ChatGPT assistants, and identity documents sourced from an illicit ID-generation service.

In terms of targets, researchers noted they’ve been applying for jobs at software and technology companies, as well as healthcare and biotechnology firms. Some appear to have been successful, according to Recorded Future, infiltrating at least 10 organizations.

Once inside, the fraudulent workers recorded internal meetings, used screen recording software during work sessions, and drafted pre-written Google Translate excuses to justify the use of personal devices and personal bank accounts.

“The scale of PurpleDelta’s operation is easy to miss when a company sees only one application," said Leslie.

"During interviews, PurpleDelta operators copied transcribed questions into ChatGPT and read the answers back, sometimes word for word, and occasionally repeated incorrect answers. A candidate can sound prepared without fully understanding what they are saying, which makes ordinary interview cues less reliable."

Manipulating company hardware

In some cases, Recorded Future said fraudulent workers received a company laptop and kept it and connected it in the country where they claim to live - usually the US, Germany or Brazil.

In one instance, researchers spotted one operative managing at least four identities simultaneously.

“PurpleDelta can recover quickly when one identity is exposed and a persona can be replaced," said Leslie.

"The same application machinery can keep running under a new name, and organizations should expect these operatives to adjust their methods as hiring teams become more familiar with them. Continued verification gives companies a better chance of catching changes."

Researchers warned that these fraudulent workers have been highly successful so far, collecting high-value intelligence and exfiltrating proprietary data, source code, and internal communications in support of North Korean state objectives.

"Companies should verify an employee’s identity after hiring, checking this during onboarding, so they can confirm where a worker and the hardware actually are," Leslie said.

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Supply chain attacks are increasingly common and increasingly disruptive, but organizations still struggle to defend against them properly.

In this episode of the ITPro Podcast, Jane and Ross are joined by Haydn Brooks, CEO of supply chain security firm Risk Ledger, to talk about what threats businesses are facing, what mitigation strategies could work well, and why cyber teams need to work together throughout the supply chain.

Highlights

"Most of the attacks that you find in in kind of the supply chain main are untargeted. So it's where you've had a threat actor launch a lot of attacks against a lot of different targets, they've breached a company without really knowing who that company is or was, and then they've basically passed that access on to somebody else, or they've gone on and leaked data or taken that company offline. And it's not really like a targeted attack against someone else, it's just that other companies who use that supply ... experience that as a supply chain attack, and very few of them are targeted. Where they are targeted, they are very hard to defend against because essentially, as the end target, I'm having to worry about an attack against somebody else, which I have no control over, being able to detect that and then being able to somehow respond to it as well."

"I think actually the regulation has kind of followed the the movement that we've seen within the industry rather than the other way around ... we're seeing a lot of these regulations also requiring companies to be either taking threat intelligence from others or sharing threat intelligence with others, as well as reporting incidents. So all of the regulation and the way security teams operate is moving in that direction of being more open, sharing more to benefit for the wider industry."

Related content

• Cyber resilience in the UK: learning to take the punches
• DORA and why resilience (once again) matters to the board
• Securing the supply chain: Why zero trust and recovery readiness are non-negotiable
• Logistics firm supply chain breach hits Valve and other customers
• Former NCSC head says the Jaguar Land Rover attack was the 'single most financially damaging cyber event ever to hit the UK' as impact laid bare
• The LiteLLM supply chain attack this year could be the biggest ever
• Why supply chain resilience is under the spotlight
• Jaguar Land Rover “did the right thing” shutting down systems to thwart cyber attack

More than 2,500 organizations were exposed in the LiteLLM supply chain attack earlier this year, according to CloudSEK, making it the biggest-ever supply chain attack.

The company said a host of major organisations, including Nvidia, Samsung, Cisco, ServiceNow, Zscaler, and more were exposed. The company stressed that this isn’t proof they were actually compromised, however.

Information exposed in the campaign included AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure credentials, SSH keys, Kubernetes tokens, .env files and CI/CD secrets – including the values GitHub Actions tries to mask, scraped directly from /proc//mem.

Meanwhile, in the case of AI builds, LLM API keys and gateway configuration – the credentials to an organization's entire AI stack – were exposed.

This could have allowed attackers to access corporate cloud environments, break into internal servers and systems, steal proprietary source code, and access or manipulate software development infrastructure.

"For businesses, these credentials can be extremely sensitive because they are often what employees, applications and automated systems use to prove their identity. If attackers successfully obtained them, they may not need to hack the company again. They could simply log in using legitimate credentials," CloudSEK said.

"That creates a particularly serious risk because malicious activity performed through valid credentials can be much harder for security teams to detect."

What happened in the LiteLLM supply chain attack?

The incident took place in March, when the Team PCP cybercriminal group breached LiteLLM, an open source tool widely used by organizations to connect applications with AI models.

Malicious versions of LiteLLM were reportedly available through the Python software repository PyPI for just 40 minutes – but still saw the potential exposure of 434,000 CI/CD pipelines used to build, test and deploy software.

The breach appeared to be linked to the earlier compromise of Trivy, in which the abuse of a trusted vulnerability scanner in CI/CD pipelines enabled credential theft that was apparently used to poison LiteLLM’s PyPI release chain.

Because CI/CD pipelines can automatically download software packages without a developer manually reviewing every component, a malicious package can potentially spread across large numbers of corporate systems very quickly.

Researchers noted that even when the original malicious package has been removed, the security risk may not have ended with it.

"If attackers copied credentials while the compromised package was active, removing LiteLLM does not automatically invalidate those credentials," the researchers said.

"A cloud key, API token or server credential could remain valid until the organization itself changes or revokes it. This means organizations potentially exposed during the March incident could continue to face risk weeks or months later."

CloudSEK has since released a free exposure-checking tool to help organizations find out whether credentials or infrastructure associated with them appear in its dataset.

If they do, it said, firms should check out the relevant systems, review access logs and immediately rotate or revoke potentially exposed credentials.

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The way an organization recovers from a cyber attack can be the difference between minimal disruption and going out of business. But while effective recovery can take time, business leaders are increasingly focusing on speed.

Recent data shows CEOs are placing huge demands on security professionals to be able to get back up and running quickly. Two-thirds of CEOs expect to be notified of a cyberattack within half an hour, according to research from Cohesity. While 19% of business leaders think they should be alerted to a breach within five minutes.Around 38% of CEOs expect basic operations to be back up and running within a day, with 14% saying this should happen in just one hour.

The UK government’s recent Cyber Security Breaches Survey shows most firms can recover within 24 hours. Is this really possible, and if so, how can firms harden defences so they are able to get back up and running swiftly?

Attack timelines

After a cyberattack hits, some businesses will descend into chaos. “Systems are down, normal tooling doesn’t work – and you may even be isolated from the internet,” says Ade Clewlow MBE, associate director and senior advisor at NCC Group.

Yet amid this complex and high-stakes environment, experts say the first few hours after discovering an incident are critical. “How companies react to a breach in the first few hours matters,” says Dennis Martin, cyber and crisis resilience specialist at Axians UK.

He explains how during a live ransomware attack, for example, the call on whether to disconnect the network and shut down systems needs to be made quickly. “In practice, this means teams monitoring the network need clear pre-authorisation to shut it down if they suspect an attack. It also means there should be a plan on how to restore once the system has been taken down, for both false-positive cases and confirmed attacks.”

Among the steps required, victims need to rapidly establish what has happened, assess whether the threat actor is still active, and work out which systems are affected. They then need to identify the steps needed to minimize the attack’s impact. “Immediate priorities typically include containing the attack and engaging key stakeholders,” according to Adam Harrison, managing director in the cybersecurity practice at FTI Consulting.

Speed is important, but acting on incomplete or inaccurate information “can be just as damaging as acting too slowly”, Harrison warns. He says overreacting to a false positive, disconnecting systems in a manner that makes recovery more difficult, or causing unnecessary business disruption “can serve as a self-inflicted wound”.

Understanding the scope

Some steps can be taken straight after an attack, such as the initial containment. While this can often begin within the first hours, understanding the full scope of an incident may “take days or even weeks”, says Harrison.

Dan Wood, CISO at Cyberfort concurs. He believes recovering quickly and recovering well are “two very different things”.

“Everybody pats you on the back for getting operations restored in 24 hours after a cyber breach, but if you haven't recovered well, recovering quickly is pointless,” he says.

Wood says he’s seen organizations seemingly back up and running within hours, but at a cost. “Then they suffer the same attack days later because compromised backups placed the vulnerability and the attacker's back door straight back into live operation.”

The goal should be to have core services running in a clean environment, and to be able to prove this, Martin advises. “Otherwise, systems may be quickly compromised again, and, if a clean environment can’t be proven, partners won’t allow reactivation of vital interfaces.”

Yet at the same time, a slow response can be damaging. The impact of this will depend on the phase of the attack, according to Harrison. In the early stages, any delay gives an attacker more opportunity to achieve their objectives, he says. “They may access more systems, steal additional data, deploy ransomware, or establish persistence that makes later eradication significantly harder.”

Sluggish responses also increase business disruption. “Systems that could have been isolated early may instead require complete rebuilding,” says Harrison. “Recovery costs can also escalate and regulatory obligations will become more complex if additional data is compromised.”

In the latter stages of an incident, or after the adversary has already performed their ‘actions on objective’, the focus shifts from preventing compromise and limiting further damage to restoring operations safely and understanding the full extent of the impact, according to Harrison. “At that point, delays can prolong downtime and increase recovery costs.”

Recovery timelines

The pressure is on, and the initial response should be rapid. But CEOS must also be realistic about the possibility of recovering too quickly.

“The number of variables involved in an attack will always dictate the speed of recovery,” Clewlow says. “For example, the threat from AI is moving at pace, so a successful AI-enabled technical attack has the potential to be more damaging in a shorter time.”

However, an organization that experiences minor disruption, such as a website being defaced, can usually recover relatively quickly, says Clewlow.

“Although technically a cyber incident, this is at the less severe end of the sliding scale. The larger and more complex the network is, the more severe the incident is likely to be, and the longer it will take to return to business as usual.”

Meeting the 24-hour benchmark demands “genuine organizational rigour”, according to Tracey Hannan-Jones, consulting director in information security, UBDS Digital.

“This means documented and rehearsed response plans, clearly assigned roles, pre-approved communication templates, and recovery infrastructure that is tested regularly and never assumed to work.”

Some of the basics include foundational cyber hygiene and ensuring your network is adequately segmented, according to Clewlow.

It’s also key to know what the minimum viable operations are for the business and to understand the assets on the network, says Clewlow. He believes rehearsed response plans are a key factor.

“CISOs should work with colleagues to ensure business continuity plans are shared and verified against information security realities, and that priorities for restoring systems and services after an incident are clearly understood,” he said.

“Recovery from a cyberattack is a team effort, in which the CISO will play an integral role.”

The day after DEF CON 34 wound up in Las Vegas this week, a passenger on a Delta flight out of the city apparently jammed the in-flight Wi-Fi.

According to reports, on the on the Vegas-to-Atlanta flight on Monday, the scammer broadcast a rogue network named 'Delta WiFi Fast', designed to look like the airline’s service, in an apparent phishing attempt.

The incident was spotted by the crew, with one Instagram user posting Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) messages from the plane's crew to ground staff.

“HEY ALERT CORP SECURITY WE HAVE A PAX [passenger] ON THAT HAS CREATED A SCAM WIFI CALLED DELTA WIFI FAST WE BELIEVE THEY ARE TRYING TO SCAM THE OTH PAX,” one message reads, with another highlighting the presence of “A BUNCH OF PAX THAT WERE AT A CYBER CONFERENCE IN LAS”.

According to one person who claims to have been present when the plane landed, the fake hotspot served up a phishing landing page designed to harvest passengers' personal credentials and Google login data.

"Upon docking at Gate A18, federal authorities and airport police immediately boarded the aircraft to hold the cabin, question the suspects, and seize the broadcasting hardware,” they said.

The attacker is believed to have used a portable wireless device that can broadcast fake networks and carry out deauthorization attacks – the Pineapple Wi-Fi module has been mentioned, but not confirmed.

This can be used to send fake management frames that tell devices to drop off a legitimate wireless network – making them then susceptible to joining the fake one.

"That creates an opening for credential theft or phishing. None of that means the aircraft itself was in danger. The risk is much more personal and quieter. Travelers may expose passwords or sensitive account information without realizing anything is wrong," said Ross Filipek, CISO at Corsica Technologies.

"Incidents like this are a reminder that convenience can create trust very quickly. Public Wi-Fi depends on users recognizing the right network. Attackers can take advantage when that trust gets misplaced.”

While the true motive of the attacker remains unclear, Wi-Fi blocking can be a federal crime which carries a potential jail sentence.

A spokesperson for Delta Airlines told ITPro it is working closely with law enforcement to ensure the incident is "thoroughly investigated".

“Safety of flight was never in question and no aircraft operating systems were affected. We are fully investigating to gather a complete set of facts, which will take time," the spokesperson said.

"We thank our crew for their professionalism and our customers for their understanding.”

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Manufacturing firms have been urged to bolster resilience capabilities after new research shows nearly one-third (30%) have experienced a cyber incident in the last year.

A study from Make UK, a trade group representing the manufacturing and engineering industries, highlighted both the growing threats faced by organizations as well as the impact of cyber attacks.

Crucially, many manufacturers appear to be dangerously underprepared. The study noted that only around half of organizations have incident response plans in place, while almost one-third don’t have cyber insurance or are “unsure whether they are covered”.

Graeme Gordon, CEO of Converged Solutions Group, said the study findings should be a wake-up call for manufacturers.

“This survey highlights the volume of attacks UK manufacturers face and the damage these incidents often cause to their operations, particularly when they are not prepared,” he said.

Gordon added the findings also serve as a reminder in the wake of high-profile attacks such as the one on Jaguar Land Rover in September 2025 when the car manufacturer was forced to halt production for weeks after being hit by a devastating cyber attack.

As ITPro reported, the former head of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) described the attack as the “single most financially damaging cyber event ever to hit the UK”.

Figures released by the Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC) last year placed the estimated financial impact on the UK economy at between £1.6 billion and £2.1 billion.

Given the impact of that attack, findings from the Make UK report on incident response capabilities are highly concerning, according to Gordon.

“It’s surprising, and concerning that so few manufacturers have incident response plans in place, especially given the benefits they offer in reducing downtime and financial losses,” he commented.

“With a regularly rehearsed incident response plan in place, manufacturers can recover from attacks in hours rather than months, often without pulling down production lines at all.”

Cyber risk ‘akin to an iceberg’

In the report, Make UK chief executive Stephen Phipson noted that cyber risk in manufacturing is "akin to an iceberg”.

Put simply, organizations often base resilience and response capabilities around the risks they see, while ignoring those lurking beneath the surface.

“It’s the vulnerabilities below the surface, in the systems, machinery, and supply chains that catch businesses out,” he said.

A key factor here is that digital systems are directly connected to, and therefore influence, physical production capabilities, according to Make UK. It’s here that the impact of a potential cyber attack or downtime can spiral out of control.

“The risk doesn’t stay in the digital world for too long. What starts as an IT issue very quickly becomes a production problem, a customer problem, and a financial problem very quickly,” Phipson commented.

Indeed, the study found that production downtime and increased costs ranked among the most common impacts when dealing with a cyber incident, cited by 46%.

Nearly one-third (31%) of manufacturers affected by supplier cyber attacks also reported delays to customer deliveries. Supply chain-related disruptions are becoming a recurring pain point for manufacturers, the study added.

“ A cyber incident at one supplier can quickly affect many others, causing delays, experienced by 31% [of] affected manufacturers, reduced capacity (31%) and shortages of components or materials (23%),” the report noted.

When Jaguar Land Rover production ground to a halt, this also had a downstream effect, with CMC’s analysis last year finding that more than 5,000 organizations were affected.

Small improvements

There are signs that manufacturers are waking up to the scale of the threats they face, according to Make UK.

The study noted that “most manufacturers are becoming more resilient,” with nearly three-quarters (70%) having avoided cyber incidents that affected operations in the last year.

Notably, the standards landscape can “feel too complex”, with the study noting that SMBs in particular face challenges on this front. This has a direct impact on cyber resilience and preparedness.

“Manufacturers need a simpler, proportionate route to cyber resilience,” the study warned.

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Water systems in at least a dozen US states have been affected by a series of cyber incidents. Security experts warn this could be the first of a pending wave of attacks on critical infrastructure.

So far, Minnesota appears to have been hardest-hit, with more than 30 community water systems impacted. The attacks have resulted in drops in water pressure and advice to boil water, although no contamination has been detected.

The attacks target internet-exposed programmable logic controllers (PLCs) - Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley’s MicroLogix 1100 and 1400 series.

The attackers remotely tamper with device configurations by changing IP addresses and turning on and setting passwords, leaving the water firms unable to view connected equipment, and in some cases shutting it down.

"These threat actors are targeting water entities of all sizes. Even water organizations with mature cybersecurity processes should validate their external connections, as this targeting activity includes cellular modems installed by operators, vendors, or system integrators that may not be documented or included in routine attack surface scans," the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned.

"OT assets exposed to the internet have an increased risk of defacement, configuration changes, operational disruptions, and, in severe cases, physical damage."

The attacks have been widely attributed to Iran. However, Martin Riley, chief technology officer at Bridewell, said attribution is the “least interesting part of this story”.

"Whether the activity traces back to Iranian-aligned actors, a hacktivist crew reusing a commodity scanner, or an opportunist, the precondition is identical. A Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley MicroLogix 1100 or 1400 sat on a public IP address with its management interface exposed, and in many cases credentials that were never changed from the shipped default."

According to the National Association of Water Companies (NAWC), while more than 90% of its members have comprehensive cybersecurity plans in place, many are missing even basic protections.

They lack continuous OT monitoring, centralized logging, accurate asset inventories, and dedicated cyber staff.

This means that unauthorized access, credential testing, configuration changes, and reconnaissance could fly under the radar unless they produce visible disruption.

Fresh critical infrastructure attacks could come

There are fears that the same techniques could be used against other critical infrastructure.

CISA is advising not only water firms, but all critical infrastructure owners, operators, and integrators to remove publicly exposed PLCs and other operational technology from the internet as soon as possible.

Kevin Kirkwood, CISO at Exabeam, said that weaknesses exploited in water systems "are not unique to water" and pose risks across a range of other industries.

"Exposed controllers, default credentials, insecure remote access, aging equipment, weak IT-OT segmentation, and understaffed operations also exist across electric utilities, pipelines, manufacturing, transportation, and building-control systems," he commented.

"The most troubling possibility is that these water-system attacks are not the end state, but a test case. They allow adversaries to map networks, identify vendors, measure response times, study manual operating procedures, and determine how quickly federal and state authorities react. Water may be the proving ground. Power and other OT-heavy sectors may be the intended scale.”

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AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic attempted to dupe developers into running malicious code and even set up fake profiles to trick workers in a series of attempted cyber attacks.

That’s according to new research from the UK’s AI Security Institute (AISI), which highlighted a number of concerning incidents during evaluation of the duo’s frontier models: Mythos 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol.

Across a series of tests, agents participated in capture-the-flag-style challenges to test offensive cyber capabilities. In 10 test runs, the institute said both models took “autonomous, unsanctioned action” against people and organizations.

“We catalogued 19 such actions,” the institute noted in a blog post. “Almost all of this behavior (17 actions) came from a single model, Anthropic’s Mythos 5, with 2 actions involving OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol.”

In what the AISI described as the “most serious case”, one agent attempted to insert malicious code into an open source project.

During this incident, the agent employed social engineering techniques to achieve its goal, researchers noted, creating several fake online identities and pressuring maintainers to approve the code.

The AISI also observed collaboration between agents during the assessment, with one leaving public messages on GitHub offering to cooperate on the same challenge.

“It also provided instructions to reuse accounts and artefacts it had left behind, which were discovered and used by subsequent agents,” the institute noted.

The AISI said while an investigation has not produced any evidence of real-world harm, the actions raise concerns around “autonomy and deception” without specific prompting.

Rising rogue agent concerns

The report from the institute comes in the wake of news surrounding OpenAI and Anthropic models in recent weeks. In late July, OpenAI revealed that a cyber-focused AI system had escaped a sandbox test environment and breached a Hugging Face production environment.

That news was followed quickly by an admission from Anthropic detailing a similar security-related incident involving its models.

It’s worth noting that the incidents highlighted by the AISI do somewhat differ. The institute said it tests models under "deliberately permissive conditions” to evaluate capabilities.

Simply put, the typical safeguards around these models, which aren’t commercially available, were removed to establish their full potential.

“This was not a case of a model escaping its secure test environment, or ‘sandbox’,” the institute said in a blog post.

“We had intentionally permitted internet access, and model-provider cyber classifiers were deliberately disabled - conditions that do not reflect how frontier models are made available to the public.”

Agent collaboration a cause for concern

Muhammad Yahya Patel, vCISO and cybersecurity advisory for EMEA at Huntress, said these incidents are hardly surprising considering the agents were given carte blanche during testing.

“If you give a frontier model a cybersecurity challenge, disable its safety classifiers, hand it open internet access, and tell it to find a way through, you’ve essentially described the setup for an offensive security operation,” he said.

These models have been trained on “vast amounts” of security research, exploit documentation, and social engineering techniques, Patel noted. They have all the information required to replicate these techniques and conduct attacks.

Patel added that reactionary commentary on these incidents is adding further fuel to the fire on AI safety, but acknowledged the AISI’s findings around collaboration are a cause for concern.

“One of the findings to take more seriously is the AI model inter-agent coordination without being instructed to, that’s a more meaningful data point about where capability development is heading,” he said.

“AI agents demonstrating unprompted forward planning and situational awareness leaving breadcrumbs for agents it had no way of knowing existed.”

Security experts have issued a warning over a critical vulnerability in a popular tool used by managed service providers (MSPs).

N-able disclosed a critical vulnerability in its N-central platform, a remote IT management service, which currently affects all versions spanning both on-prem and hosted deployments.

The flaw grants hackers unauthenticated ‘god mode’ access to the remote management software, according to researchers at Huntress.

This means a compromised server could be used to “run scripts, push tools, and open remote sessions across every downstream endpoint it manages”.

Notably, Huntress warned its analysis shows the flaw is now being actively exploited in the wild.

“We are now seeing threat actors targeting the flaw across multiple organizations, though we are not yet seeing evidence that this has become a broad, indiscriminate campaign across our partner base,” the company noted in a blog post.

Researchers noted that attacks involving the flaw typically include the “same partner of behavior”, with threat actors carrying out “high-level reconnaissance to target key servers” such as Domain Controllers.

Upon compromise, threat actors were found to have rapidly moved across hosts in impacted IT environments. As such, Huntress urged affected organizations to consider temporarily disabling the tool.

“Because this vulnerability bypasses normal authentication, if your N-central server is still broadly reachable from the internet or other untrusted networks, you should consider disabling N-central—up to and including taking the server offline.”

N-central hotfix is available

The vulnerability in question, tracked as CVE-2026-18577, was initially discovered after an incomplete fix for an earlier authentication bypass flaw (CVE-2026-18556).

N-able confirmed a hotfix is available for CVE-2026-18577. For hosted customers, mitigations were applied to all instances, according to the firm.

On-prem customers, meanwhile, are urged to download the hotfix and update immediately.

N-able also detailed a series of checks and actions customers can carry out upon updating, including:

• Upgrading N-central agents
• Reviewing systems for indicators of compromise (IOCs)
• Contacting the firm if evidence of compromise is discovered

“We strongly recommend staying vigilant and monitoring your environments closely in the meantime. Further updates will be shared as quickly as possible,” the company said in an advisory.

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Cyber experts have urged users of Palo Alto Networks' GlobalProtect VPN to patch immediately amidst active exploitation of an upgraded security flaw.

A flaw in the popular VPN service, tracked as CVE-2026-0257, could allow attackers to bypass authentication and establish an unauthorized connection.

The vulnerability primarily affects the GlobalProtect portal and gateway for Palo Alto Networks’ PAN-OS software, and carries a CVSS score of 7.8, rating it as ‘high’ in severity.

Notably, this rating follows an upgrade, with the flaw having previously been given a ‘medium’ severity rating. Palo Alto announced the upgrade late last week amidst reports that the flaw was now being exploited in the wild.

“Palo Alto Networks has become aware of limited exploit attempts on unpatched PAN-OS devices without mitigations applied,” the company said in an advisory.

Analysis by Rapid7 shows threat actors have been exploiting the vulnerability since mid-May across several waves of attacks.

“Rapid7 MDR identified successful exploitation across numerous customers; however, we did not observe any indication of successful lateral movement from the devices,” researchers said.

“The earliest date for observed exploitation was May 17, 2026. As of May 29, 2026, this vulnerability has been added to the CISA KEV.”

Rapid7 noted that customers compromised in this wave of attacks had Cloud Authentication Service (CAS) disabled. Others, meanwhile, had GlobalProtect portal or gateway authentication override cookies enabled.

A patch has been issued for customers running affected appliances, according to Palo Alto.

Similarly, administrators are advised to turn off authentication override features to mitigate potential exploitation.

Qilin ransomware involved in GlobalProtect attacks

Analysis by Arctic Wolf Labs suggests attacks on GlobalProtect customers could be the work of the Qilin ransomware group or affiliates. Indeed, researchers detected Qilin ransomware during several instances across June, highlighting a range of tell-tale signs.

“Post-exploitation tradecraft varies across intrusions, from rapid encryption-only operations to full double extortion, possibly suggesting multiple affiliates operating under the Qilin ransomware as a service (RaaS) umbrella,” the company said.

Dray Agha, senior manager for Huntress’ security operations center, said these attacks highlight the growing threats posed to VPNs and firewalls.

"The exploitation of this GlobalProtect vulnerability by the Qilin ransomware gang demonstrates that perimeter defences are prime targets,” he said.

“When threat actors can bypass VPN authentication, they are walking through the digital front door with a master key. The grace period for patching critical edge devices has practically vanished, and they must be the patching priority for all organizations".

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Cybersecurity experts have issued an alert amid reports that hackers accessed login credentials belonging to UK government officials and Foreign Office staff.

The credentials, which are reportedly being sold on the dark web, were exposed as part of the ongoing FortiBleed attack campaign.

FortiBleed targets internet-facing Fortinet VPN and firewalls, and is believed to have affected more than 70,000 devices spanning 194 countries since it was first uncovered last month.

Analysis from SOCRadar, for example, identified a vast database containing login credentials. The threat intelligence firm has since attributed FortiBleed to the Lynx/INC ransomware group.

While this database was believed to have been limited to basic usernames and passwords, reports from The Telegraph suggest some exposed details include privileged Fortinet credentials.

Volodymyr Diachenko, a security researcher who first uncovered the threat campaign, told the publication these credentials could give bad actors access to the Foreign Office’s “core networks” along with other government departments.

Some Foreign Office credentials are now being sold on the dark web, according to reports, going for up to £40,000.

Arctic Wolf CISO Adam Marrè warned that the incident could create a domino effect, impacting other government departments and also local authorities and public services.

According to The Telegraph, credentials at NHS trusts, energy companies, and local councils were also hosted in the illicit database.

“This major breach of email accounts of UK government officials and overseas Foreign Office workers is the latest development in the ongoing FortiBleed attack,” he said.

“While it may be tempting to think this is a simple credential-stuffing operation, our threat team found the threat actors have built a highly sophisticated and repeatable credential factory,” he said.

Marrè noted that analysis of the incident conducted by Arctic Wolf shows threat actors appear to have been using automated tools to harvest logins and target gateways at “exponential speed and volume”.

“This means while today it’s the Foreign Office which has been affected, the risk to every organization has increased exponentially.”

Back and forth on FortiBleed

The discovery of the FortiBleed sparked somewhat of a back and forth between Fortinet and security researchers last month. After threat intelligence firm Hudson Rock published a blog detailing the campaign, Fortinet disputed some of its claims.

Fortinet told ITPro at the time that the exposed credentials weren’t the result of a fresh breach, insisting that those following best practices were safe from exposure.

"Fortinet is aware of a reported third-party credential-harvesting campaign targeting Fortinet firewalls and VPN gateways. We are committed to safeguarding our customers, and we diligently and continuously monitor threat actor darknet activity,” a spokesperson for the company said.

“Based on our initial analysis, the data involved is likely a resharing of data from previous incidents, as well as brute forcing of credentials, and not related to any current incident or advisory."

Hudson Rock, meanwhile, said the campaign went “beyond simply credential reuse,” highlighting that hundreds of organizations are thought to have been affected.

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Criminals are posing as Interpol cyber crime investigators to target small businesses across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North America.

According to new research from Bitdefender, the phishing messages claim to contain evidence that the recipients are carrying out suspicious activity, pressuring them into opening a password-protected archive.

"Based on information that has come to our attention, there may be activities involving accounts, systems or services associated with your organization that warrant further examination. We have obtained information and video material that may assist in your assessment of the matter," the emails read.

"We recommend conducting an internal review to determine whether any unauthorized, suspicious or potentially fraudulent activities have occurred. Prompt attention to such matters may help mitigate potential financial operational, reputational or regulatory risks."

Upon opening the link, recipients are directed to a Proton Drive-hosted file that delivers a ransomware payload hidden within multiple archive layers. Once executed, researchers said the malware seeks to encrypt files across available drives and presents victims with a ransom message.

The campaign is targeting organizations across multiple industries, including food and agriculture, legal services, pharmaceuticals, media, technology, and finance.

The ransomware is relatively simple, according to Bitdefender researchers. The code contains hardcoded values, including the password used during encryption and decryption, and lacks many of the features typically associated with large ransomware operations.

Interestingly, victims are instructed to contact the attackers through a Tox chat channel to negotiate a ransom, rather than through the more usual dedicated negotiation portal or victim site.

This, researchers noted, is another indication that this is likely a custom-built operation, perhaps assembled using publicly available code and tools rather than the work of an established ransomware group.

What small businesses need to know

Javvad Malik, Lead CISO advisor at KnowBe4, said that impersonating Interpol – or law enforcement in general – is specifically designed to trigger a “rapid emotional response” and dupe victims into ignoring red flags.

"What is interesting about this campaign is that it targets small business,” he said. “These are often understaffed and have no security or even IT expertise on hand, so it's not difficult to see why people would easily fall victim to these kinds of attacks."

Bitdefender has warned small businesses to be on the alert, urging them to verify all unsolicited correspondence by reaching out through official channels to confirm whether the communication is legitimate.

"One of the biggest red flags in this campaign is the delivery method itself," researchers said. "While the attackers impersonate Interpol, legitimate law enforcement agencies don't send unsolicited emails containing Proton Drive links to password-protected files and ask organizations to review alleged evidence of wrongdoing."

They should treat password-protected archives with caution, especially when the password is included in the email. Showing file extensions on Windows devices will make it easier to spot executables masquerading as videos or documents, and multi-factor authentication (MFA) should be used wherever possible.

Elsewhere, the company urged small businesses to ensure staff are trained to help spot tell-tale signs that communications are fraudulent.

"Small businesses are often viewed as easier targets than large enterprises," the researchers warned.

"Many operate without dedicated IT teams or cybersecurity staff. Security responsibilities are often shared among employees who already wear multiple hats, and limited budgets can make it difficult to invest in advanced security measures or ongoing training."

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In the age of AI, perimeter defense alone is no longer enough. Traditional methods for securing IT estates are horribly vulnerable to increasingly sophisticated AI tools, leading to a rapid degradation of many organizations’ defenses.

On a global scale, in April, the news broke of Claude Mythos’ limited release and the danger it could pose to cybersecurity worldwide. The hyper-powerful AI model rapidly uncovered flaws and vulnerabilities in defense systems that had lain dormant for years, threatening the integrity of banking systems, energy networks, and more.

In the UK, more than three-quarters of UK businesses have suffered a cyber incident in the past year. What’s more, 43% of UK IT decision-makers identified AI-powered attacks as the single biggest risk they face over the next 12 months, ahead of traditional threats such as ransomware, phishing, and data breaches.

Turning lemons into lemonade

Clearly, there’s plenty of cause for concern here – the challenge is significant, and the potential damage could reach far beyond companies’ bottom lines. But that doesn’t mean the IT industry should throw up its hands and accept the inevitable. Rather, the rapid growth in AI-driven breaches is a sign that a new approach is needed.

For managed service providers (MSPs) in particular, the evolving threat of AI presents a business opportunity rather than just another security burden. As customers seek to handle cloud patching complexity, regional compliance differences, and increasingly automated attacks, MSPs that can unify security, operations, and automation in a single offering will be best placed to improve service quality and usability – and so unlock increased profitability.

This isn’t wishful thinking: organizations are making plans to invest in technology that can help them tackle the AI challenge. AI and advanced threat preparedness is the top spending commitment for UK organizations over the next 12 to 24 months, cited by 41% of 1,500 IT decisionmakers ManageEngine recently surveyed.

Simpler, faster

There is also a growing gap between how quickly organizations detect incidents and how long it takes them to recover, which is where MSPs can provide real value. The majority (94%) of UK organizations detect incidents within 24 hours, and nearly half recover within 10 days. However, 26% said recovery can extend beyond 10 days, with a smaller proportion taking more than 20 days.

In response to that inefficiency, MSPs can help by reducing tool sprawl, standardising workflows, responding quickly to incident reports, and packaging up more resilient service tiers. Clients will pay for this kind of rationalisation and streamlining, providing, as it does, a crucial way to reduce the time between a security incident and a successful resolution.

Putting operational tech at the center

MSPs can also provide value in the battle against AI-driven cyberattacks by including operational technology (OT) in the development of security systems as a priority rather than an afterthought. OT is becoming part of the managed risk surface and requires the same disciplined approach MSPs already apply to IT – not least because OT software may traditionally have been seen as ‘lower-risk’, and therefore less diligently patched.

Again, the core benefit MSPs can provide clients with here is acting as the single point of contact that draws together oversight of all potential vulnerabilities. As organizations’ digital estates become ever more complex, applying security policies and automations to OT as well as back-office apps and systems can be a major headache.

MSPs with expertise across the board can not only build a unified policy to defend the entire attack surface – they can also radically simplify day-to-day management for client IT teams.

AI is turning the threat of cyber attack into a many-armed monster, hitting harder and in more places than ever before. In the face of this ramped-up threat, MSPs are uniquely placed to offer a unified, simplified service – and in that sense, the rise of AI breaches could be a real business opportunity.

Network Rail is fighting off millions of cyber attacks every month, according to new research, as experts warn of a rising tide of threats facing public services.

Freedom of information (FoI) requests show the organization blocked over 7.1 million malicious emails between December 2025 and March this year.

Of the 7,129,314 email attacks blocked by Network Rail, 331,352 were phishing emails, 1,412 were malware-laden emails, 2,066,392 were spam emails, and 4,730,158 were edge blocked emails.

This all adds up to an average of more than 800,000 attacks per day, including around 37,000 phishing attempts.

“With so many people in the UK depending on public transport for their daily lives, a successful cyber attack could cause significant disruption, such as potentially stopping people from getting to work," warned Simon Edwards, CEO of SE Labs.

"Therefore, it’s vital that our public sector organizations have a dedicated cyber strategy put in place and ensure rigorous testing to identify any security holes and keep hackers at bay.”

Just last week, two members of the hacking group known as Scattered Spider pleaded guilty over their involvement in an attack on Transport for London (TfL) systems.

The attack forced all 28,000 employees to attend a TfL office for a password reset and led to a reported £29 million in losses and recovery costs.

"As we've seen from the recent Scattered Spider convictions, hacking groups have the transport network firmly in their sights. A single successful cyber attack on the rail network could drive Britain to a halt, operationally and economically," said Graeme Stewart, head of public sector at Check Point.

"The transport network is also a treasure trove of personal and financial data, something unscrupulous criminals are eager to get their hands on. That’s why it's vital that our roads, rail and aviation systems are fully protected with the latest cyber defenses to keep hackers locked out."

What happened with the Network Rail cyber attack?

In 2024, Network Rail suffered a cyber attack on its WiFi systems that saw commuters who logged in at affected stations receive information pertaining to terrorist attacks in Europe, as well as a message stating “we love you Europe”.

The attack is believed to have taken place through a third-party service provider, Telent, which managed Network Rail's WiFi services.

More recently, train operator LNER said a cyber attack had led to unauthorized access to files managed by an unnamed third-party supplier.

Travel networks, particularly rail services, are among the top targets for cyber criminals and state-sponsored groups due to the critical role they play in the British economy, according to research conducted last year.

The UK's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) released a report from KPMG that concluded a major attack on the rail network could cost £1.8 billion for a one-week period of disruption.

The direct financial cost to Network Rail would, it concluded, cost around £123 million, with the cost to passengers due to delays adding up to about £281.3 million.

Notably, the impact on Gross Value Added (GVA) could be as much as £1.397 billion, representing approximately 2.8% of the UK’s weekly GDP and 0.05% of annual GDP.

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Two young men have pleaded guilty to offenses under the Computer Misuse Act following a cyber attack on Transport for London (TfL) that caused months of disruption and millions in damages.

Thalha Jubair, 20, from East London, and Owen Flowers, 18, from Walsall in the West Midlands, were arrested following raids by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and City of London Police in September 2025.

The duo are alleged members of the notorious Scattered Spider cyber crime collective, believed to be responsible for a string of attacks in recent years. The group claimed responsibility for attacks on UK retailers Marks & Spencer and the Cooperative Group, as well as MGM Resorts in the United States.

“The profile of offenders like Flowers and Jubair demonstrates the increasing threat from cyber criminals based in the UK and other English-speaking countries, epitomised by Scattered Spider," said Paul Foster, deputy director of the National Crime Agency and head of the NCA National Cyber Crime Unit.

Flowers was first arrested in September 2024, at which point NCA officers found evidence that the networks of US healthcare companies SSM Health Care Corporation and Sutter Health had also been infiltrated and damaged.

Investigators found a number of devices at Flowers' home, including laptops, tower computers, hard drives, and USB sticks. One Acer laptop contained a screenshot showing network connectivity to TfL infrastructure.

Flowers had also accessed an online platform selling credentials compromised in previous cyber attacks and data breaches.

Notably, the laptop contained a number of videos that Flowers had recorded, which showed Jubair accessing TfL systems during the attack. At the same time, the pair were messaging each other over Telegram, as well as communicating via an online work collaboration tool.

What happened with the TfL cyber attack?

TfL’s network was infiltrated at the beginning of September 2024, forcing all 28,000 employees to attend a TfL office for a password reset. The cyber attack caused widespread disruption for the rail operator.

Data from TfL’s Oyster refunds system was accessed while its customer refund system was also affected. Elsewhere, the attack shut down the Oyster photocard application system for children and young people.

Around 10 million people are believed to have been affected by the attack, making it one of the UK’s most devastating cyber attacks to date.

Jubair and Flowers are due to be sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court on 16 July.

A lengthy investigation

Foster said the trial is the culmination of a “lengthy, highly complex and painstaking investigation” and hailed law enforcement colleagues for their role in apprehending the duo.

“The perseverance and meticulousness of our officers, and the work of our partner organizations, meant that Jubair and Flowers had no option other than to plead guilty and take responsibility for their offending," he commented.

“Cyber crime may appear faceless and distant compared to other crime types, but the infiltration of TfL’s systems shows it has real-world consequences and impacts hugely on the public. The attack caused millions of pounds in losses to a key part of the UK’s critical national infrastructure, and was a significant inconvenience for customers."

The NCA is urging victims of cyber crime to use the government’s Cyber Incident Signposting Site for direction on which agencies they should report incidents to.

“Today’s result would not have been possible if TfL had not engaged with law enforcement early, so I would urge any other organization to please do the same in such circumstances," said Foster.

The rise of youth hackers

Upon their arrest in September 2025, Jubair and Flowers were both teenagers, prompting concerns about a potential wave of youth-related cyber crime. As ITPro reported at the time, cybersecurity experts described the incident as a “wake up call” for law enforcement, educators, and society at large.

Anna Chung, principal researcher for EMEA at Palo Alto Networks, said these incidents highlight a failure to “properly engage a generation growing up in a digital-first world”.

“Young people don’t usually turn to online mischief out of malice - it’s often down to a mixture of boredom, technical skills, and a lack of boundaries,” she told ITPro at the time.

So what’s the solution? Chung urged schools and parents to make a concerted effort toward teaching digital ethics, making this a “part of core education”. This, she noted, could be crucial to preventing future incidents.

Chung’s warning over teen hackers is by no means the first, or likely last, that we’ll hear about in coming years.

Indeed, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) published a report last year which highlighted a spate of cybersecurity incidents at schools across the country, with students bypassing network security controls and gaining access to management systems.

Nipping these types of activities in the bud are crucial, the ICO warned, largely as they have the potential to evolve into more nefarious activities.

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More than three-quarters of utilities organizations were hit by cyber attacks involving outdated software or unavailable patches on legacy equipment over the last year.

At 77%, it was the most common type of cyber incident facing the sector, according to Bridewell's Cyber Security in Critical National Infrastructure Report 2026.

And the most common effect was IT disruption or outages, affecting 47% of organizations, despite the fact that 99% of respondents described themselves as resilient after their worst cyber attack.

A further 42% said incidents had resulted in increased cybersecurity spending, while 35% experienced data loss, 34% reported revenue loss, and 32% suffered disruption to production or services.

Supply chain attacks take the longest to respond to, at 9.9 hours on average, followed by data theft or disclosure at 8.4 hours and unauthorised access at 7.6 hours.

The utilities sector is particularly hampered by the need to secure ageing operational technology and infrastructure that weren't designed to withstand modern cyber threats, as critical assets can't be updated or taken offline as easily as traditional IT environments.

"Many of the systems underpinning essential utilities services were designed to operate for decades in environments that were never intended to be connected to modern digital networks," said Sam Thornton, COO at Bridewell.

Beyond legacy infrastructure, phishing and business email compromise remain widespread, affecting 76% of utilities organizations in the past year. Malware affected almost as many, at 74%, while more than seven-in-ten experienced unauthorized system access.

The main concern for utilities organizations is data protection and privacy, cited by 46% of survey respondents. Managing AI-related cyber risk and the ability to quickly detect incidents were close behind, reflecting growing concerns around emerging technologies and increasingly sophisticated attacks.

Utilities organizations are also unconfident when it comes to data breach notification requirements, cited by 42%, cybersecurity measures for data protection at 39%, and third-party due diligence at 38%.

And regulation is now the primary driver of cyber security maturity within the utilities sector, cited by 36% of respondents - ahead of both the evolving threat landscape and customer demand for improved security, and highlighting the growing influence of frameworks and compliance obligations on cyber security investment and decision-making.

"As utilities providers continue to modernize and connect operational systems, managing the gap between legacy infrastructure and modern security requirements is becoming one of the sector's biggest cybersecurity challenges," said Thornton.

Bridewell recommends that utilities organizations improve the visibility of assets across both IT and operational technology environments to identify unmanaged or vulnerable systems.

They should prioritize patch management and vulnerability remediation based on operational risk and criticality, conduct regular incident response exercises to ensure teams can respond effectively during a live cyber incident and strengthen monitoring and detection capabilities to reduce the time taken to identify and contain threats.

They should also review third-party and supply chain security arrangements to ensure critical partners meet appropriate security standards.

"In the utilities sector, the consequences of a cyber attack extend far beyond IT," said Thornton. "When critical systems are disrupted, the impact can be felt by customers, communities and the wider economy, making cyber resilience a business-critical priority."

The overwhelming majority of cyber attacks on critical infrastructure are coming from hostile states, the UK's cyber chief has warned.

Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute's (RUSI) Annual Security Lecture, Richard Horne, CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said the organization had handled more than 200 cyber incidents affecting the UK's critical national infrastructure and its supporting ecosystem over the last year. Around 75% were believed to be linked to state actors, particularly Russia, China, and Iran.

"We know that adversaries are prepositioning today, establishing footholds within technology that underpins critical national infrastructure that could enable rapid exploitation, to cause mass disruption in a time of conflict," he said.

"The highest profile example of this was a campaign often referred to as Volt Typhoon against largely US critical national infrastructure, which was attributed in 2024. And we are seeing our critical infrastructure being targeted, regularly finding and stopping breaches, before their intent becomes clear."

Horne broke the threat down into 'near', 'mid,' and 'far' spaces, with the far space representing the adversary's home turf, systems, tooling, and networks. Here, he said, the UK and its allies bring pressure to bear through intelligence collection, sanctions, law enforcement action , and offensive cyber operations to disrupt and degrade their capability at source.

In the mid space, efforts are concentrated on hardening cloud, technology, and telecommunications infrastructure, and by disrupting adversary positions within those environments.

"The reality is much of this space is in private hands," he said. "Which means success here demands genuine collaboration between government and private sector, which is at the heart of our approach in the NCSC."

But, he said, it's the near space – the defense and resilience of the organizations and systems being targeted – where most action is probably required. The rise of AI is an important factor here, he said.

"Recent developments of frontier AI models have demonstrated their effectiveness at finding inherent vulnerabilities in the technology we rely on," he said.

"Our latest assessment shows that by 2028, it is highly likely that AI-Cyber capabilities will be used by attackers against known vulnerabilities in legacy technology in our critical national infrastructure."

British organizations should take note, said James Neilson, SVP of global at OPSWAT.

"The daily scale of hostile activity against the UK is vast, and until the NCSC revealed those figures, the threat and danger facing critical infrastructure was far greater than most businesses realized," he said.

"Many organizations neglect to secure data that moves in and out of their OT networks. By controlling data flows and scanning files in transit, organizations can detect and neutralise hidden malicious payloads before they infiltrate critical systems."

Horne called on organizations to strengthen cyber resilience by focusing on three core capabilities: understanding their exposure to threats, building stronger defences based on proven security fundamentals, and ensuring they can continue operating and recover quickly after an attack.

"By making our environment harder for adversaries to operate in, and engaging in the contest better, we can play an important part in altering potential adversaries' options and deterring conflict," he said.

Cyber criminals are exploiting AI hype to impersonate the branding of AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, and Anthropic’s Claude, according to new research.

Microsoft Threat Intelligence said it's observed an uptick in phishing, malvertising, and search engine optimization (SEO)-driven attacks that ultimately lead to credential theft, financial fraud, or malware infection.

Campaigns focus on highly anticipated launches or emerging trends, using tried-and-tested tactics such as urgency-driven messaging, abuse of trusted services, and multi-stage redirection chains that require user interaction to evade detection.

"While traditional lures like invoices, payment notifications, or delivery alerts remain effective and continue to be widely used, AI-themed lures reflect a shift in social engineering that is likely to persist as a long-term tactic used by threat actors, from cyber criminal groups to nation states," the company warned.

ChatGPT users in the crosshairs

In one example, Microsoft said it had observed a ChatGPT-themed phishing attack delivering malicious URLs which led to phishing pages that collected credit card and personal information such as names and addresses.

The emails used the sender display name ChatGPT and the subject line: “To ensure your ChatGPT Plus continues to work – please update your payment method”.

This phishing activity, which consisted of 4,500 emails sent to targets in South Africa, was part of a broader campaign using similar themes and infrastructure that delivered as many as 100,000 emails on a single day to targets in Switzerland, Austria, and South Africa.

Microsoft noted the campaign affected a broad range of industries, including higher education and professional services.

Thousands targeted in a Claude-themed phishing attack

In another example, security experts spotted a phishing campaign impersonating Anthropic-branded services to target users with account-related lures tied to the Claude AI platform.

The campaign sent phishing emails to targets across more than 2,000 organizations, mainly in the US, UK, and India.

"The campaign used enforcement-themed messaging claiming that the recipient’s account was in violation of acceptable use policies and required immediate action," the company noted.

"The emails impersonated Anthropic’s popular AI service Claude using the display names Anthropic Teams and Anthropic PBC, masquerading as legitimate account-related communications. Subject lines followed a consistent structure of 'Claude Appeal Request' combined with date elements."

DeepSeek malvertising is a growing threat

Other examples included malvertising campaigns that use AI-themed terms such as 'Awesome AI Windows Plugin' and 'Flux Pro AI' in social engineering lures, and fake DeepSeek V4 installers on GitHub that delivered Vidar Stealer.

"Within hours of DeepSeek previewing their latest version, V4, attackers created a fake GitHub organization and repository. They copied real branding and benchmark data, added AI and SEO-search-friendly content, and pushed malicious archives that looked like installers," explained John Bruggeman, vCISO at CBTS.

"What the attacker did was not particularly exotic, but it was well timed and convincingly packaged. A user searching for the newest model could very easily end up in the wrong place, especially because the malicious repository showed up in GitHub, Google, Bing, or AI-assisted search results. The search results added legitimacy to the malware."

Remain vigilant

To counter these rising threats, Microsoft advised customers to configure automatic attack disruption in Microsoft Defender XDR, enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) on all accounts, use the Microsoft Authenticator app for passkeys and MFA, and scope conditional access policies to strengthen privileged accounts with phishing-resistant MFA.

Other tips included:

• Enabling Zero-hour auto purge (ZAP) in Office 365
• Configuring Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Safe Links
• Invest in ‘advanced’ anti-phishing solutions

"The companies that have a handle on AI governance (policies and procedures) well will be the ones that make safe AI use easy, risky AI use visible, and malicious activity hard to ignore. That means publishing a clear list of approved tools, blocking obvious lookalike domains and very recently registered domains can help stop this kind of threat," said Bruggeman.

"Monitoring suspicious downloads and sign-ins, and training employees on the AI-themed lures should also be done right now - don't think that generic phishing examples from five years ago are going to cut it today."

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Cybersecurity professionals are less likely to trust a boss who's never been through the mill of managing a major security incident.

Data from antivirus vendor Sophos suggests that CISOs have a one-in-four chance of losing their jobs after an attack. But new research from ISC2 shows that three-quarters of security professionals reckon leaders are more credible if they've already led their organization through a major cyber incident – regardless of how things turned out. Just 9% disagreed.

Overall, the survey revealed that the most trusted security leaders are those who create confidence through transparency, consistency, and an ability to align security priorities with business outcomes. Those who can keep calm and carry on, demonstrating decisive leadership under pressure, are far more likely to earn lasting credibility with their teams and across the enterprise.

Unfortunately, though, cybersecurity bosses don't generally seem to be managing this.

Only 34% of cybersecurity professionals said they were very confident in their current cybersecurity upper leadership, with 15% extremely confident. Three-in-ten said they had moderate confidence, 15% were only slightly confident, and 6% said they had no confidence in their cybersecurity leaders at all.

Security staff are particularly keen on leaders who can communicate risk to senior leadership and boards, with 95% of respondents reckoning this as very important.

Other big pluses included a strategic and long-term cybersecurity vision, along with the ability to effectively work with senior leadership and boards to secure budget, and being transparent about decisions and actions.

Decision-making under pressure, building and leading high-performing teams, and technical cybersecurity expertise were all very important to more than eight-in-ten – more so than actual technical cybersecurity expertise, at 75%.

"The most important trait in a cybersecurity leader is the ability to align security strategy with business goals while earning trust through clear judgment, communication, and accountability," noted one respondent.

Bosses wanting to earn their staff's respect, said ISC2, need to be transparent about risks, priorities, and challenges. "Teams and executives are more likely to trust leaders who provide realistic assessments rather than overly optimistic narratives," the researchers said.

Keeping calm and carrying on in high-pressure incidents or periods of change also boosts a security leader's reputation, while there's much greater trust when leaders manage to create an environment where teams feel supported, heard, and accountable.

Strong cybersecurity leaders invest time in understanding business objectives and collaborating across departments, helping position security as an enabler rather than a blocker.

"For leaders who now find themselves in an environment where cybersecurity risk impacts every part of the organization, it is the ones who communicate clearly, empower their teams and demonstrate calm, decisive leadership under pressure that are far more likely to earn lasting credibility with their teams and across the enterprise," the researchers said.

"Ultimately, the most successful cybersecurity leaders are not simply those who protect systems and data, but those who create trust in their leadership when it matters most."

Cyber attacks are typically associated with data theft and extortion, but another threat can cause just as much damage. As geopolitical tensions rise across the globe, state-sponsored adversaries are preferring to hide in systems, going unnoticed for months or years after the initial compromise.

To perform these so-called living off the land (LotL) attacks, attackers are weaponizing legitimate software and infrastructure to lie in wait. This trend is seeing tactics shift away from data breaches to more sophisticated espionage and disruptive operations, according to a new report from Cloudflare.

Why are LotL attacks growing right now, and how should firms respond to this threat?

Living off the land attacks: long-term campaigns

Cyber attacks usually take advantage of security weaknesses. However, living off the land attacks are different: They are growing in response to organizations strengthening their overall cybersecurity posture, Tony Fergusson, CISO in residence at Zscaler tells ITPro. “Organizations have made significant progress in their ability to detect threats and patch systems more effectively. Consequently, adversaries are being forced to be more stealthy to exploit data, and they’re doing this by leveraging legitimate tools and processes.”

With living off the land attacks, attackers deliberately avoid drawing attention to themselves by using existing and trusted tools and websites, rather than exploiting a zero-day flaw or introducing malware, says Fergusson. “They stay under the radar, blending in seamlessly with legitimate user activity, and mimic everyday operations so their presence goes unnoticed.”

Cloudflare’s 2026 threat report describes a shift away from brute force entry towards high-trust exploitation, with adversaries actively targeting legitimate SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS tools such as Google Calendar, Dropbox and GitHub to camouflage malicious actions within normal enterprise activity.

This isn’t surprising, says Razvan Ionescu, head of offensive security services at Pentest-Tools.com. He describes how his team “consistently finds that organizations have invested heavily in signature-based detection and perimeter controls”. Yet the monitoring of legitimate administrative tooling, endpoint management platforms, cloud management consoles and scripting environments “remains thin”.

State-sponsored and highly-targeted

Living off the land attacks suit a certain type of adversary. The technique is especially attractive to “state-sponsored and highly-targeted threat actors”, according to Dana Simberkoff, chief risk privacy and information security officer at AvePoint.

Rather than seeking immediate financial gain, attackers are aiming for espionage, strategic positioning and in some cases, preparation for future disruption. “Living off the land tactics allow these adversaries to maintain access over long periods without drawing attention,” Simberkoff explains.

Living off the land attacks allow nation states to collect strategic intelligence across diplomatic, military, economic, or technological targets, says Tracey Hannan-Jones, consulting director for information security at UBDS Digital. “By using pre-positioning, attackers gain access to critical systems, so disruption can be triggered during geopolitical tensions.”

Supply chain attacks, seeing adversaries compromising vendors to reach downstream targets, are “easy leverage”, warns Hannan-Jones.

Cloudflare’s report tracked four primary nation state adversaries over the past year: Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. Each group approaches living off the land attacks differently based on its operational goals, Ionescu tells ITPro.

For example, China appears to have shifted from bulk data theft towards targeting legitimate cloud infrastructure for longer-term pre-positioning, with groups such as FrumpyToad using Google Calendar for command-and-control communication.

“The goal is to create a resilient architecture that remains nearly invisible to standard perimeter defences,” says Ionescu. “Rather than trying to exfiltrate data today, these attackers are establishing persistent footholds now to use during a future geopolitical event.”

Living off the land attacks: businesses most at risk

Certain businesses are more at risk from living off the land attacks than others – especially in critical sectors and those holding data valuable to nation state adversaries.

Organizations with complex digital environments are particularly exposed, says Simberkoff. “Cloud-first enterprises, regulated industries, critical infrastructure providers and companies embedded in large supply chains are at risk.”

The more identities, integrations and third party connections an organization has, the more opportunity attackers have to hide, warns Simberkoff. “Risk also increases for organizations that are strategically interesting to nation state actors, whether because of the data they hold or the role they play in a broader ecosystem.”

Government and defense are prime targets for living off the land attacks. “State actors look at pursuing intelligence and influence, accessing and stealing sensitive data, policy insight and information of geopolitical value, so they can use it against them,” says Hannan-Jones.

Stealthy with technology

Rapidly developing technology such as AI is adding to the risk, allowing attackers to perform increasingly stealthy attacks.

The current shift is subtle. AI is making attacks “more refined”, says Simberkoff. “Instead of fully autonomous attacks, we’re seeing AI used to support reconnaissance, targeting and decision making. This helps attackers understand environments faster and choose techniques that look the most legitimate.”

The result is activity that increasingly resembles normal administrative behavior, which makes detection much more difficult, she warns.

Attackers can use AI to rapidly analyze public information such as organization charts, job postings, technical blogs, vendor documentation and leaked credentials and infer likely tech stacks and access paths, according to Hannan-Jones. “This improves the precision of initial access attempts and reduces the need for noisy trial-and-error.”

How to protect your business from living off the land attacks

Living off the land attacks are a concern, but there are some steps firms can take to boost their security.

Rather than trying to prevent compromise entirely, Simberkoff recommends focusing on “detecting misuse and limiting impact”. She advocates strong identity governance, least privilege access and “detailed logging of administrative activity”.

Ionescu underscores the importance of “understanding your own blast radius”. “Before asking what you’d detect, ask what an attacker with compromised admin credentials to your endpoint management platform, your identity provider or your cloud management console could do,” Ionescu advises. Most organizations haven’t mapped that explicitly.”

The second priority is closing the gap between “what your monitoring covers” and “where attackers actually operate”, says Ionescu. “Effective reconnaissance from an attacker’s perspective focuses on maintaining OPSEC and blending into normal traffic patterns and avoiding detection at the earliest stages of the kill chain. Your detection logic needs to match that: Anomaly detection on administrative actions, not just signature matching on known bad payloads.”

Robust incident response is also key. Protecting your firm from living off the land attacks requires building operational playbooks for “quiet compromise”, says Hannan-Jones. “Many organizations will have playbooks for ransomware, but very few are prepared for stealthy pre-positioning. Define what ‘suspicious admin activity’ looks like in your environment and create response runbooks for identity compromise, token theft and privileged account misuse.”

The main risk from hospital cyber incidents is no longer data breaches or IT disruption – it's direct threats to care delivery.

According to a Black Book Research survey of 284 European hospital cybersecurity buyers, 82% rate their 2026 cyber attack concern as very high or extreme, while 74% believe their organization is likely or highly likely to face a major cyber event this year.

And, the researchers found, attacks are no longer viewed primarily as privacy events, compliance events, or IT disruptions – but as threats to the delivery of care.

"Europe's hospitals are operating in one of the most complex cyber-risk environments in the world: nationally connected health systems, public-sector capacity pressure, cross-border supplier ecosystems, aging infrastructure, accelerated cloud migration, strict regulatory accountability, and clinical operations that cannot go offline," said Doug Brown, founder of Black Book Research.

"Attackers know the pressure points. They are not only targeting data; they are targeting authentication, availability, recovery windows, third-party dependencies, and the fragile digital workflows that move patients through emergency departments, labs, imaging, pharmacy, theatres, ICUs, and discharge."

As a result, European hospital cybersecurity buying has shifted sharply from breach prevention toward clinical continuity. Two-thirds are investing in identity, IAM, PAM, SSO failover and break-glass access, and 57% in ransomware recovery, immutable backup, and read-only clinical access.

Just over half are looking to network segmentation, zero trust, and ZTNA, 46% to incident-response retainers and crisis-response services, and 45% to third-party supplier and vendor cyber-risk management. Meanwhile, 37% are investing in medical device/IoMT security, and 29% in cyber range, downtime simulation, and resilience exercise services.

However, while 78% of survey respondents said their board receives general cybersecurity risk updates, only 31% receive cyber-resilience metrics tied to clinical continuity.

Only a quarter reported a full clinical downtime simulation within the past 12 months, and 32% said their organization had never conducted a full clinical downtime simulation, had only completed tabletop activity, or did not know when the last exercise occurred.

Worryingly, while 59% of respondents said they were confident that their hospitals could operate safely for 24 hours without core Electronic Health Record (EHR) access, that figure fell to 32% at 48 hours and just 14% at 72 hours.

"The 72-hour number should disturb every hospital board and ministry-level health technology leader in Europe. A hospital that can improvise through the first day of downtime is not necessarily resilient," said Brown.

"By day two and day three, medication reconciliation, laboratory turnaround, radiology workflow, identity access, pharmacy verification, transfer coordination, discharge planning, and backlog reconciliation become patient-safety risks. Cyber resilience is now an operational medicine issue."

The health sector is an increasingly popular target for cyber criminals, thanks to its critical nature. And many attacks have led to problems delivering patient care, including a 2024 ransomware attack on NHS pathology provider Synnovis, and, more recently, an attack on medical technology firm Stryker being described by the firm as 'destructive, not ransomware'.

"In Europe, the cyber battleground has moved from the server room to the bedside," said Brown.

Attacks on operational technology (OT) are surging, according to new research, with industrial organizations the biggest target of ransomware in every single month over the last year.

According to a new analysis from cyber security firm NCC Group, in the 12 months to March 2026, industrial organizations experienced 2,073 ransomware attacks, accounting for 30% of all ransomware activity.

Manufacturers of capital goods such as machine equipment and infrastructure were particularly hard-hit, accounting for 1,192 attacks. Within this industry, machinery was the most-targeted sub-sector, with 442 attacks, followed by construction and engineering with 394.

“Our data shows that many organizations continue to prioritize IT security while underestimating the exposure of their operational environments," said Ray Robinson, OT director at NCC Group.

"When OT systems are disrupted, the impact goes far beyond data loss - production can halt, essential services can be disrupted, and in some cases, lives can be put at risk.”

Governments worldwide are growing increasingly concerned about the issue. In the UK, Network and Information Systems (NIS) Regulations require operators of essential services to put proportionate technical and organizational measures in place to manage cyber risk across both IT and OT environments.

Meanwhile, the Cybersecurity Act and sector-specific guidance cover OT governance, incident reporting, resilience, and supply-chain security.

“Regulators are increasingly clear that OT environments fall within scope of cyber resilience obligations, particularly where systems support essential services or public safety," said Katarina Sommer, global head of government affairs and analyst relations at NCC Group.

"Organizations that focus compliance efforts solely on IT risk are exposing themselves to operational, regulatory and safety consequences, so it’s key that organizations treat OT risks in the same way they approach IT security.”

Earlier this year, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), along with US, Australian, Canadian, and European authorities, issued a new guide for OT owners and operators aimed at helping them integrate 12 security considerations into their procurement processes.

These include making sure that the product allows for security and safety logging, has strong authentication controls, protects data, is configured in a secure way by default, and is supported by established vulnerability management processes by the manufacturer.

“As cyber attackers increasingly target operational technology around the world, it has never been more vital for critical infrastructure operators to ensure security is baked into the systems they use," said Jonathon Ellison, NCSC director of national resilience and future technology.

State-backed hackers targeting operational technology

Many attacks on OT systems come from nation state-affiliated actors, with the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence warning in its 2026 Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea will continue to target the sector.

US director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said nation state-backed threat groups typically target these systems to collect intelligence, create options for future disruption, and also for financial gain.

"China and Russia present the most persistent and active threats and are continuing their R&D efforts. North Korea’s cyber program is sophisticated and agile," she said.

"In 2025 alone, North Korea’s cryptocurrency heists probably stole $2 billion which is helping to fund the regime, including further development of its strategic weapons programs."

Recent targets have included Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), US water and wastewater systems and electrical subsystems, and the Ukraine power grid.

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The parent company behind academic management tool Canvas has issued an apology over disruption caused by a recent cyber attack, which impacted hundreds of institutions.

In a blog post on 11 May, Steve Daly, CEO of Instructure, said the company plans to introduce sweeping changes in the wake of the breach, insisting that Canvas is “fully operational and remains safe to use”.

Daly added that Instructure will continue providing assistance and guidance for institutions affected by the cyber attack.

“Rebuilding trust takes time,” he said. “We’re going to earn it back through consistent action and honest communication. We’re in this for you and your community.”

The apology comes after hundreds of schools and universities across the UK, Canada, Australia, US, and New Zealand were disrupted by a cyber attack waged by the ShinyHunters threat group.

The cloud-based academic management system is used by more than 8,000 institutions globally and has around 30 million active users.

Instructure first detected a breach on 1 May, but told customers it had taken steps to contain the incident.

In an advisory at the time, CISO Steve Proud warned data, including names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and messages between users had been impacted - which Daly confirmed in his recent blog post.

“This incident involved unauthorized access to part of our environment. The data fields involved include information like usernames, email addresses, course names, enrolment information and messages,” Daly wrote.

“Core learning data”, which includes course content, credentials, and student submissions, was not compromised in the breach, he added.

Canvas Cyber attack escalation

While Proud noted that the incident had largely been contained, the incident was compounded when ShinyHunters waged a follow-up attack, which saw user login portals defaced with a ransom note.

ShinyHunters claims to have gained access to around 3.65TB of Instructure data during the attack, which includes upwards of 275 million records from over 8,800 institutions.

Analysis of ShinyHunters activity ranks it as one of the most notorious ransomware groups in recent years. The group has claimed responsibility for a slew of attacks on major organizations such as Salesforce, Ticketmaster, and AT&T.

According to Daly, the Canvas attack saw ShinyHunters exploit a support ticket vulnerability in its Free for Teacher environment. The company has moved swiftly to contain the breach.

“We temporarily disabled Free for Teacher while we complete a full security review,” he said. “We know that’s disruptive, and we didn’t make that call lightly. But keeping the entire Canvas platform secure has to come first.”

“We didn’t deliver”

In his blog post, Daly said Instructure will continue providing updates and apologized for the company’s communication throughout.

“Over the past few days, many of you dealt with real disruption,” he wrote. Stress on your teams. Missed moments in the classroom. Questions you couldn’t get answered.”

“You deserved more consistent communication from us, and we didn’t deliver,” Daly added. “I’m sorry for that.”

The attack on Canvas comes during a busy period for academic institutions, with students in the midst of exams.

A slew of reports have detailed significant disruption for students on both sides of the Atlantic over the last week, with BBC coverage noting that Mississippi State University was forced to postpone exams.

As ITPro reported, students at the University of Oxford were unable to access papers and were forced to email lecturers for documents and results.

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Universities across the world are still experiencing difficulties after a cyber attack on the Canvas academic platform caused widespread disruption for staff and students.

Canvas is a cloud-based academic management system developed by Instructure, and is used by more than 8,000 institutions globally and around 30 million active users.

Staff and students at universities in the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK were severely disrupted when the platform was breached, with a ransom note allegedly from the ShinyHunters threat group appearing on login portals.

A host of UK-based academic institutions, including the Universities of Birmingham, Oxford, and Edinburgh were among those impacted in the breach.

Sources told ITPro that operations at the University of Birmingham are back online in the wake of the incident. However, the University of Oxford has warned students and staff that Canvas remains offline, with no confirmed date of return.

ITPro approached both institutions for confirmation, but did not receive a response by time of publication.

What happened with the Canvas cyber attack?

Instructure initially confirmed a breach occurred on 1 May, but had taken steps to contain and remediate the incident. According to the company, data exposed in the incident is believed to include “certain identifying information”, such as:

• Names
• Email addresses
• Student ID numbers
• Messages between users

Instructure’s chief information security officer (CISO), Steve Proud, said the company found “no evidence that passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers, or financial information were involved”.

On 2 May, Proud noted that the incident had been largely contained. However, ShinyHunters reportedly breached the company in a follow-up attack, defacing Canvas login portals at hundreds of institutions.

Analysis of the incident by Halcyon noted that ShinyHunters injected an HTML file that altered login screens, displaying a warning that the group will publish stolen data on 12 May if the company fails to pay a ransom.

On its leak site, ShinyHunters claims to have gained access to a sizable amount of company data – spanning 275 million records from 8,809 institutions, amounting to 3.65TB.

ShinyHunters ranks among one of the most prolific ransomware groups in recent years, having claimed responsibility for large-scale attacks on Salesforce customers, as well as AT&T and Ticketmaster.

Researchers at Halcyon noted that the group does not employ encryption during attack, but instead operates under a “pay or leak” extortion model.

“The group maintains a loosely decentralized structure with operational overlap among Scattered Spider (UNC3944), LAPSUS$, and Scattered LAPSUS$ Shiny Hunters (SLSH),” researchers said in a blog post detailing the incident.

ITPro has approached Instructure for comment.

Critical timing for ShinyHunters

The attack on Canvas comes at a critical time for institutions globally, with students preparing for exam season.

According to reports from BBC News, Mississippi State University was forced to postpone exams on Friday due to the incident. A meteorology student told the broadcaster that students were nearing exam deadlines when the platform was taken down.

The university has been engaging with students via email and told students it was affected by a “nationwide security incident”.

Sources told ITPro that students at the University of Oxford have been experiencing similar difficulties, with some unable to access papers and having to email lecturers for attached documents.

Universities in a host of other US states, as well as in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia have also experienced significant disruption.

The University of Sydney, for example, told students that Canvas was unavailable on Friday and warned students not to log in.

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A fake Claude AI website is spreading a trojanized 'Claude‑Pro' Windows installer that secretly distributes a newly-identified backdoor.

The domain mimics the official site for Anthropic’s Claude AI tool, and visitors who download the ZIP archive are sent a copy of Claude that appears to install and runs as expected.

However, researchers at Malwarebytes found it deploys a PlugX-like malware chain, dubbed Beagle, that gives attackers remote access to the system.

The ZIP contains an MSI installer that installs to a path designed to mimic a legitimate Anthropic installation, complete with a reference to Squirrel, the update framework that real Electron-based applications like Claude use.

A tell-tale giveaway for developers is that this contains a misspelling: ‘Cluade’.

While the legitimate application runs in the foreground, the VBScript quietly copies three files from the SquirrelTemp directory into the Windows Startup folder.

"This is a textbook DLL sideloading attack, a technique catalogued by MITRE as T1574.002. NOVUpdate.exe is a legitimately signed G DATA antivirus updater. When it executes, it attempts to load a library called avk.dll from its own directory," researchers explained..

"Normally, this would be a genuine G DATA component, but here the attacker has substituted a malicious version. Signed sideloading hosts like this can complicate detection because the parent executable may appear benign to endpoint security tools.

Victims are kept in the dark, because after deploying the payload files, the VBScript writes a small batch file called ~del.vbs.bat that waits two seconds, then deletes both the original VBScript and the batch file itself.

"This means the dropper is gone from disk by the time a user or analyst goes looking for it. The only artifacts that persist are the sideloading files in the Startup folder and the running NOVUpdate.exe process," Malwarebytes said.

"The script also wraps the entire malicious payload section in an On Error Resume Next statement, silently swallowing any errors so that failures in the deployment do not produce visible error dialogs that might alert the victim."

What is DLL sideloading?

DLL sideloading is a technique favored by PlugX, a malware family that Sophos has been tracking for 14 years.

As the firm points out, PlugX has multiple variants and has been associated with several threat actor groups, meaning that attribution isn't clear-cut.

On top of this, ShadowPad, another backdoor employing DLL sideloading, has a number of code overlaps with PlugX, to the extent that it could be considered an evolution of it.

"Most of the techniques described here are relatively well known and have been seen before, from spoofing a legitimate installer website to side loading using a signed executable. Interestingly enough what is unusual is that it also installs a working copy of Claude which is rather large," said Max Gannon, cyber intelligence team manager at Cofense.

"The installation and usage of a program that is resource intensive can also help to disguise other ongoing background activity. The use of a legitimate program, cleanup utilities, running in memory, and persistence mechanisms all indicate that the threat actors distributing this malware intend it for long term persistence and use."

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From industrial robots to fitness trackers, Internet of Things (IoT) devices track real-time data to underpin smart systems and allow for data-driven decision-making.

From the most advanced applications, such as autonomous robots on factory floors, to thermostats, security cameras, and even network-connected printers, IoT devices are widespread and hugely beneficial to businesses.

But along with their benefits, IoT devices also introduce new risks by expanding an organization’s perimeter and acting as easy entry points for enterprise systems.

Once attackers compromise a vulnerable device, they can steadily and stealthily push further into an organization’s systems, bringing down critical infrastructure. Threat actors may also seek to take persistent control of IoT devices to form botnets.

An IoT botnet is a network of compromised IoT devices that attackers remotely manipulate to launch large-scale cyber attacks, typically in the form of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

In October 2025, Microsoft Azure was hit with a record-breaking multi-vector, cloud DDoS attack that peaked at 15.72 Tbps and 3.64 billion packets per second. It targeted a single edge device in Australia and was later linked to the Aisuru IoT botnet, notorious for exploiting compromised home routers and surveillance cameras. Although the threat was neutralized, the attack goes to show the scale at which endpoint devices can be weaponized. The campaigns are often strikingly fast and unprecedented.

True to form, the attacks carry on in 2026.

In January, RondoDox, a Linux-based IoT botnet, moved swiftly to exploit a critical remote code execution vulnerability in HPE OneView, launching over 40,000 automated attacks that targeted government, financial, and industrial systems. The rapid assault led the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to list the flaw as a known exploited vulnerability.

Cybersecurity firm Check Point’s investigation into the botnet’s activity revealed it operated from a single Dutch IP address, highlighting the sophisticated nature of the attack. In terms of attack frequency, the United States saw the largest number of attacks, followed by Australia, France, Germany, and Austria.

The month of January also saw the Kimwolf botnet, the Android variant of the Aisuru malware, grow to over two million infected hosts. Most infections stemmed from vulnerabilities in residential proxy networks, giving attackers access to devices on internal networks. Prime targets included Android TVs and streaming devices with exposed Android Debug Bridge (ADB) services.

Later in March, a new malware strain called KadNap made its presence felt. Identified by Black Lotus Labs, the threat research and operations unit at Lumen, KadNap infiltrated over 14,000 edge devices with the majority being Asus routers. KadNap’s threat lies in its ability to enlist infected devices in the Doppelgänger proxy service, providing bad actors with a means to execute anonymous DDoS campaigns.

Law enforcement activity and shifting attacks

Law enforcement takedowns of cyber groups are a recurring feature of the cybersecurity landscape and 2026 has been no exception to this rule. Agencies in the US, Germany‌, and Canada launched a coordinated action to quash a cluster of IoT botnets – Aisuru, KimWolf, JackSkid, and Mossad. Collectively, these botnets are estimated to have infected more than 3 million devices worldwide.

IoT attacks are relentless. They are, at best, a constant test of cyber vigilance.

Following the outbreak of the US-Iran war, Iranian hacking groups have shifted their focus to surveillance cameras with internet connectivity in Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, according to Check Point researchers.

“Starting February 28, we observed a spike in targeting of IP cameras in several countries in the Middle East including Israel, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Lebanon, while also similar activity occurred against Cyprus,” Check Point stated in its recent report.

“The attack infrastructure we track combines specific commercial VPN exit nodes (Mullvad, ProtonVPN, Surfshark, NordVPN) and virtual private servers (VPS), and is assessed to be employed by multiple Iran-nexus actors.”

How to secure devices on your network

For enterprises, IoT is part of a growing attack surface that calls for stronger safeguards. Device authentication, encryption, and DNS filtering are some practical measures you can take to limit exposure to IoT attacks.

Regularly patching software and firmware adds another layer of security by preventing hackers from taking advantage of known vulnerabilities. Opting out of non-essential, optional, or rarely-used online features further expands your devices’ safety net.

Your passwords, by far, matter more than any other security setting. Remember, it takes just one rogue IoT device to spread malware like wildfire. The risks keep multiplying – especially when your watch, phone, and desktop share the same network. Using a different password for each device and application is a simple yet impactful shield against credential-based attacks.

More devices than ever are now smart and connected. Keeping your security just as smart by proactively securing your edge devices is an imperative, not an optional test.

Microsoft has issued an alert over a large-scale credential theft campaign that uses lures centered around corporate codes of conduct.

The emails were related to internal compliance or regulatory issues, with display names such as 'Internal Regulatory COC', 'Workforce Communications', and 'Team Conduct Report'.

Subject lines included 'Internal case log issued under conduct policy' and 'Reminder: employer opened a non-compliance case log'.

The emails were sent using a legitimate email delivery service, likely originating from a cloud-hosted Windows virtual machine (VM).

The accusations and repeated time-bound action prompts created a sense of urgency, Microsoft researchers said. Similarly, the emails were based on polished, enterprise-style HTML templates with structured layouts and authenticity statements, making them appear more credible than most phishing emails.

The bodies of the messages claimed that a code of conduct review had been initiated, referenced organization-specific names embedded within the text, and instructed recipients to open a PDF attachment to see the materials of the case.

When clicked, users were first directed to one of two attacker-controlled domains - acceptable-use-policy-calendly[.]de or compliance-protectionoutlook[.]de.

The landing pages displayed a Cloudflare CAPTCHA, presented as checking that the user was coming 'from a valid session', and that likely served as a gating mechanism to impede automated analysis and sandbox detonation.

According to Microsoft, the attack chain ultimately led to a legitimate sign-in experience that formed part of an adversary in the middle (AiTM) phishing flow.

Unlike traditional credential harvesting, AiTM attacks intercept authentication traffic in real time, bypassing multifactor authentication (MFA).

As a result, the attackers were able to proxy the authentication session and capture authentication tokens that could provide immediate account access.

"Phishing campaigns continue to improve sophistication and refinement in blending social engineering, delivery and hosting infrastructure, and authentication abuse to remain effective against evolving security controls," the researchers warned.

What industries are affected?

Between 14 and 16 April this year, the Microsoft Defender Research team said it spotted a series of campaigns targeting more than 35,000 users across over 13,000 organizations in 26 countries. Most targets - 92% - were located in the US.

The campaign didn't focus on a single vertical but instead impacted a broad range of industries, most notably healthcare and life sciences (19%), financial services (18%), professional services (11%), and technology and software (11%).

Microsoft said organizations should review the recommended settings for Exchange Online Protection and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to check for essential defenses and the ability to monitor and respond to threat activity. They should also invest in user awareness training and phishing simulations.

Enabling Zero-hour auto purge (ZAP) in Defender for Office 365 is advised to quarantine sent mail in response to newly acquired threat intelligence. Users are also urged to retroactively neutralize malicious phishing, spam, or malware messages that have already been delivered to mailboxes.

It's also worth manually checking for, and purging, unwanted emails containing URLs and/or Subject fields that are similar, but not identical, to those of known bad messages.

Organizations should enable password-less authentication methods or use authenticator apps, researchers said, and strengthen privileged accounts with phishing resistant MFA.

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North Korean hackers are targeting software developers in a new malware campaign that uses a fake interview process to steal cryptocurrency.

The campaign targets developers, especially those in the finance and technology industries, with profiles on freelance websites such as Upwork or Fiverr. It offers well-paid job opportunities and targets specific, high-value individuals.

It uses typosquatting or compromised legitimate npm repositories that victims are persuaded to inadvertently download and execute.

Researchers at the Sophos Counter Threat Unit have attributed the campaign to Nickel Alley, a threat group operating on behalf of the North Korean government.

"The group notoriously targets professionals in the technology sector by advertising fake job opportunities, deceiving prospective candidates through a fake job interview process, and ultimately delivering malware," the company said in an advisory.

As part of its attacks, Nickel Alley often creates a fake LinkedIn company page to build credibility, with a coordinating GitHub account for malware delivery.

The website homepage is generic and advertises 'tech talent' and managed service solutions. However, different domains are included on the LinkedIn company page and the GitHub account – which researchers noted shows inconsistency and lack of attention to detail.

Nickel Alley ramping up operations

The advisory from Sophos comes after a June 2025 X post warned of a campaign involving targeted emails promoting job opportunities at the fake Astra Byte Sync company.

The threat actors hadn't actually built the website at the time the emails were sent, meaning that the site simply displayed the hosting provider’s default page.

Over the last year, the group has used the popular ClickFix tactic to deliver PyLangGhost RAT malware via fake job skills assessment tasks.

This involved the attacker-controlled web interface presenting an error informing the victim that they must run a command locally to fix the issue – a command that instead initiated a series of actions leading to PyLangGhost RAT.

It previously used a GoLang-based version known as GoLangGhost RAT.

Meanwhile, in October, Sophos analysts uncovered a targeted attack where the threat actors convinced a victim to download, or clone, the content of a GitHub repository and execute the code locally using the 'npm install' and 'npm start' commands.

The GitHub account masquerades as a software development company specializing in full stack web development and blockchain solutions, and contains links to an 'official' company website and a fake LinkedIn company page.

While the main aim of these attacks appears to be cryptocurrency theft, Sophos said the threat group has also made it clear that it plans to use initial access for further supply chain compromise or corporate espionage.

"Additionally, the threat group has strategically selected follow-on payloads based on profiling victims’ system. Software developers, especially those in the finance and technology industries, are at elevated risk due to Nickel Alley’s targeting profile," Sophos warned.

"Organizations should monitor command execution and network traffic that spawns from Node.js processes, as it may indicate malware retrieval. As a general security practice, organizations should encourage employees to report suspicious unsolicited social media or email-based recruitment contact."

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