The Register

Is that a JuicyPotato on your network?

A suspected Chinese-government-backed cyber crew recently broke into a Taiwanese web hosting provider to steal credentials and plant backdoors for long-term access, using a mix of open-source and custom software tools, Cisco Talos reports.…

Switchzilla's summer of perfect 10s

Cisco has issued a patch for a maximum-severity bug in its Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) software that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to inject arbitrary shell commands on vulnerable systems.…

Who knew zero-days could be so useful to highway speedsters?

The lingering effects of a cyberattack on the Public Prosecution Service of the Netherlands are preventing it from reactivating speed cameras across the country.…

London-based multinational takes customer portal and Voice API platform offline as 'protective measure' following breach

Multinational telco Colt Technology Services says a "cyber incident" is to blame for its customer portal and other services being down for a number of days.…

System prompt engineering turns benign AI assistants into 'investigator' and 'detective' roles that bypass privacy guardrails

A team of boffins is warning that AI chatbots built on large language models (LLM) can be tuned into malicious agents to autonomously harvest users’ personal data, even by attackers with "minimal technical expertise”, thanks to "system prompt" customization tools from OpenAI and others.…

As £9 billion MoU sparks debate about value for money, it's time to have your say

Register debate series  It's a lot of money, £9 billion ($12 billion). Especially for a government which finds itself — for whatever reason — in a fiscal dead end.…

Some custom malware, some legit software tools

At least a dozen ransomware gangs have incorporated kernel-level EDR killers into their malware arsenal, allowing them to bypass almost every major endpoint security tool on the market, escalate privileges, and ultimately steal and encrypt data before extorting victims into paying a ransom.…

Government and police employee credentials sold at bargain-basement prices on underground forums

Criminals are selling access to FBI and other law enforcement and government email accounts to other criminals via dark web marketplaces for as little as $40.…

Researchers had to notify over 100 vendors of flaw that builds on 2023's Rapid Reset with neat twist past usual mitigations

Security researchers Gal Bar Nahum, Anat Bremler-Barr, and Yaniv Harel have published details of a "common design flaw" in implementations of the HyperText Transfer Protocol 2 (HTTP/2) allowing those with ill intent to create "massive Denial of Service attacks".…

The agency offered some tips for operational technology environments, where attacks are rising

CISA is urging companies with operational technology environments to set a better cybersecurity posture, and not just by adopting some new best practices and purchasing some new software.…

Turkish exchange is the latest victim of a recent spate of major crypto thefts

Turkish cryptocurrency exchange BtcTurk is halting all deposits and withdrawals amid fears that blockchain bandits succeeded in significantly compromising its hot wallets.…

Moscow-linked miscreants accused of swiping sealed US court files and fiddling with a Norwegian dam’s floodgates

Russian attackers reportedly spent months rummaging through the US federal court's creaky case-management system, while Norway reckons the same Kremlin-friendly miscreants took control of a dam's controls – a transatlantic double-act in legal files and floodgates.…

Nearly 100,000 records allegedly up for sale after apparent breach at booking system

Italy's digital agency (AGID) says a cybercriminal's claims concerning a spate of data thefts affecting various hotels across the country are genuine.…

Intruders accessed important systems but tells customers their data is safe

A UK-based multinational that provides tech stock availability tools is telling customers that its website outage is due to a cyber attack.…

Are UK taxpayers getting real value from SPA24 — or just high cost convenience?

Register debate series  The UK government's five-year Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA24) with Microsoft is set to see public sector bodies spend around £1.9 billion each year—nearly £9 billion in total over half a decade. It's a vast sum for software and services, and one that deserves close scrutiny.…

If there's smoke?

Fortinet warned customers about a critical FortiSIEM bug that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute unauthorized commands, and said working exploit code for the flaw has been found in the wild.…

CVE-2017-11882 in discontinued Equation Editor still attracting keylogger campaigns despite software being killed off in 2018

Very few people are immune to the siren song of nostalgia, a yearning for a "better time" when this was all fields and kids respected their elders - and it looks like cyber criminals are no exception.…

Seven additional regions across England will now have access to the controversial tech

A fresh expansion of UK crimefighters' access to live facial recognition (LFR) technology is being described by officials as "an excellent opportunity for policing." Privacy campaigners diagree.…

Shock news: billionaire techpreneur is not a fan

Geek-turned-venture-capitalist Marc Andreessen has weighed in on the arguments surrounding the UK's Online Safety Act, accusing the UK government of leaking his input.…

For now at least, even though government buying can improve, open source is not all it's cracked up to be

Debate  Not for the first time, Microsoft is in the spotlight for the UK government's money it voraciously consumes – apparently £1.9 billion a year in software licensing, and roughly £9 billion over five years. Not surprisingly, there are plenty of voices challenging whether this is good use of public money. After all, aren't there plenty of open source alternatives?…