Ransomware DataBreachToday.com

The Mission: Hack High Value Targets' Devices, Apps and Transmit His Location
A team of cybersecurity students from the University of North Georgia vanquished seven opposing teams from other senior military colleges and elite service academies in an upset victory to win a capture the flag hacking contest staged this week at the National Defense University here.

Incidents Are Unrelated, Says NYC Health + Hospitals
Hackers had access to New York City's municipal healthcare system for nearly three months before being detected, stealing data of an undisclosed number of patients. The incident is the second hacking-related data breach within weeks involving a third-party firm hired by NYC Health + Hospitals.

Also, Russian Signal Phishing, Iran-Linked Malware, Breaches in Spain and France
This week, Tycoon 2FA, Trio-Tech, messaging app spying and a ransomware broker sentenced. Iran-linked hackers. Mazda disclosed a breach. Oracle patched a flaw. North Korean actors weaponized VS Code, a Spanish port ransomware attack, a French teacher data breach and a healthcare firm victim surge.

Proponents Favor Performance Tests Over Certs
The U.S. Department of Defense is for the first time piloting new skills-based assessments for its cyber hiring as an alternative to checking paper qualifications. Many certificates, officials say, don't reflect the skills their cyber teams need in the real world.

AI is compressing cyberattack timelines from months to minutes. While segmentation has been a gold standard security practice for years, many organizations are still operating with outdated, static approaches.

Cisco's Jeetu Patel: Everyone Will Be a 'Manager of Agents'
Coding agents that once struggled below the surface level of basic web development can now refactor decades-old enterprise code at a speed and scale far beyond traditional teams, says Cisco's Jeetu Patel. He explains how AI-built software and machine-scale defense redefine competitive advantage.

Google Threat Intelligence's Sandra Joyce on AI Threats and Active Defense
Sharing threat intelligence is no longer enough - the cybersecurity industry must operationalize it through coordinated takedowns and active disruption, says Sandra Joyce, vice president at Google Threat Intelligence.

Phil Venables of Ballistic Ventures on the Second-Order Consequences of AI
AI is not just transforming how organizations operate, it's fundamentally altering the cybersecurity landscape, said Phil Venables, partner at Ballistic Ventures. The consequences, he warned, are only beginning to emerge.

USC Study Finds Persona-Based Prompts Lower Factual Accuracy
A coder tells its chatbot: You're an expert. A full stack developer. It's machine massaging technique that's a cornerstone of persona-based artificial intelligence prompting - and it backfires, find academics in a studying showing the practice produces worst results, when the goal is accuracy.

Roadmap Focuses on OT Security, Grid Hardening and Incident Response
A new Department of Energy strategy defines its role as sector risk manager for grid security, prioritizing OT defense, resilience and response - but analysts say it faces execution challenges tied to reduced funding, workforce constraints and reliance on weakened federal partners.

IT Worker Scheme, Laptop Farm Siphon Funds Back to North Korea
A U.S. federal judge sentenced a now-former Army soldier to one year in prison Friday for renting his identity to North Korean IT workers who used it to collect more than $193,000 in salaries from American companies. Also sentenced were two California men who facilitated $1.28M in fraudulent salaries.

J.P. Morgan’s Brian Essex on Why Valuations Drop as Fundamentals Hold Steady
Investor anxiety over AI's long-term impact is dragging down stock valuations despite steady growth and profitability, while companies focus on long-term valuation assumptions and secure business models, said Brian Essex, executive director of U.S. software equity research at J.P. Morgan.

Visa CISO Subra Kumaraswamy on Securing Agents, Fighting Fraud, Protecting Commerce
AI is transforming trust in global payments as attackers scale faster and agents automate decisions. CISO Subra Kumaraswamy explains how Visa uses AI to combat fraud, secure transactions and build trust across consumers, merchants and a rapidly evolving digital ecosystem.

No Arrests, But Virtual Servers, IP Addresses Seized and Residencies Searched
U.S. authorities seized KimWolf - the attack infrastructure responsible for the largest distributed denial of service attack yet recorded in an international police operation that swept up servers underpinning four botnets.

Contec and Epsimed Monitors Containing 'Backdoors' Are at the Center of Order
Texas Gov. Abbott has ordered agencies to review foreign-made connected medical devices - especially those from Chinese manufacturers - used in state-owned facilities for cybersecurity issues that could pose security and privacy risks to patients and healthcare infrastructure.

Also: CISA Protocol Concerns, AI Agents Push Past Cybersecurity Controls
In this week's panel, four ISMG editors unpacked the cyber dimensions of the Stryker attack amid the escalating Iran-Israel-U.S. tensions, the growing controversy around CISA leadership and alleged protocol breaches, and a new set of concerns related to AI agents bypassing security controls.

New Handala Site Is Also Available
U.S. federal agents seized four web domains associated with Iranian hacking operations days after a threat actor going by Handala posted screenshots it said came from inside the IT systems of medical device manufacturer Stryker. The registrars used to create them are located in the United States.

Geopolitical Threats Now an Always-on Condition and Most CIOs Aren't Ready
Nearly 80% of IT decision-makers say their organization is prepared to handle a cyberwarfare attack, and 76% say they're confident they could combat AI-based attacks. But 54% of organizations say they have been hit by an AI-generated or AI-led attack in the past 12 months, according to Armis.

New Filing Frames Anthropic Dispute as Operational Control Issue - Not Free Speech
The Justice Department is arguing in a new court filing that Anthropic's ability to update guardrails and behavior post-deployment creates unacceptable supply-chain risks, warning that vendor access to AI systems could enable manipulation or failure in mission-critical defense operations.

Newly Minted Unicorn Says AI-Driven Attacks Force Shift to Continuous Pen Testing
Xbow has raised $120 million in Series C funding after proving its autonomous AI hacking platform can outperform human pen testers. CEO Oege de Moor says the rise of AI-driven cyberattacks is forcing enterprises to test systems continuously rather than periodically.