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Cybercrime recruitment drive targets English-speaking teens

The most in-demand skill on cybercrime recruiting sites is English-speaking social engineering. According to cybersecurity company Reliaquest, job posts more than doubling from 2024 to 2025, with recruiters accounting for 87 percent of these postings, indicating strong demand.

Teenage super-hackers attack airlines

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) last week issued a warning on X that the cybercriminals responsible for the recent devastating cyber-attacks on the UK retail sector are now targeting the airline sector on both sides of the Atlantic. Hard on the heels of the FBI’s warning came the news that the Qantas airline has suffered a major cyber-attack, affecting more than six million customers and likely resulting in the “significant” theft of personal information. Qantas confirmed the data breach Wednesday morning, alerting customers to a cyber incident affecting a third-party platform used by an airline contact center.

So It’s Cyber-War…

As Iran prepares to avenge its recent humiliating ground defeats with concerted cyber-attacks on the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a stark warning to the medical sector. “Manufacturing infrastructure can be particularly vulnerable with connected devices, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and smart technologies becoming more ubiquitous. These connected technologies, considered Operational Technologies (OT), have historically been designed to prioritize consistent functionality over cybersecurity. Consequently, it is sometimes difficult to tell what, when, and where communications are happening, which has the potential to increase the risk of a cybersecurity incident,” warns the FDA.

Teenage hackers run rings around cyber-defenses

The recent UK retail cyberattacks that impacted Marks & Spencer and the Co-Op supermarket chain are only the tip of a very large iceberg that now threatens organizations on both sides of the Atlantic. Although media reports have attributed the attacks to a group named “Scattered Spider,” the actual threat is far bigger. For a start, there is no criminal group that actually calls itself “Scattered Spider”, which is just a made-up name attributed by cybersecurity researchers. These attacks and many others in the US and the UK are now known to be the work of a vast sprawling network of hackers, some as young as 14, spread across the US and the UK. They call themselves “the Community”, or “the Com” for short, and are essentially a vast teenage subculture of criminal hackers.

White House phone hack rings alarm bells

An attempt to impersonate White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is currently being investigated by US federal agencies. The incident highlights the ongoing dangers posed by key individuals using their personal phones to store the phone numbers of important contacts, now that voice cloning enables cybercriminals to mimic anyone’s voice with ease.

Russia orchestrates vast cyber-espionage campaign

A new Russian threat actor, Void Blizzard, also known as Laundry Bear, is gathering intelligence from Western states on an industrial scale unseen since the end of the Cold War. According to Microsoft Threat Intelligence, Void Blizzard primarily targets NATO member states, particularly those supporting Ukraine, and Ukraine.

US healthcare crisis looms

US healthcare crisis looms

The US healthcare sector is now reeling from a seemingly never-ending series of cyberattacks. The problem is becoming so dire that there is growing concern that it may even spark a genuine healthcare crisis. The recent ransomware attack on Kettering Health, for example, which operates 14 hospitals and over 120 medical facilities in Ohio, is merely the latest volley in a remorseless wave of cyberattacks on the cash-rich sector.

AI system blackmails its creator

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is learning to think like a human. But the critical question now being asked in IT circles is: “What kind of human?” Claude, Opus 4, a groundbreaking new AI system released by AI developers Anthropic on Tuesday, is attempting to blackmail its creator by exposing an alleged extramarital affair. This follows on from other AI systems programmed to interact with humans effectively, lying by making up fake information, a phenomenon known by developers as “hallucinating”.

uk government warns retailers on cyberattacks

UK government issues urgent cybercrime warning

The UK government is issuing a warning this week to all companies to make cybersecurity an “absolute priority”, following recent cyberattacks on retailers Marks & Spencer, Harrods, and the Co-op. UK cabinet office minister Pat McFadden is reported to have held a briefing last week with national security officials and the CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre, Richard Horne, aimed at providing support to the three retail groups.

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