Digital Factories, Digital Dangers: Why Manufacturing is a Prime Target for Cyberattacks
Digital connectivity is reshaping European manufacturing, driving both efficiency and innovation.
Reports
DDoS peaks hit new highs: Cloudflare mitigated massive 7.3 Tbps assault
Cloudflare blocked 7.3M DDoS attacks in Q2 2025, down from 20.5M in Q1, while hyper-volumetric attacks surged with 6,500+ blocked, averaging 71 daily. Cloudflare mitigated 7.3M DDoS attacks in Q2 2025, down from 20.5M in Q1, 13.5M of which stemmed from an 18-day Q1 campaign. Hyper-volumetric attacks surged, with over 6,500 blocked, averaging 71 per […]
Report from the Cambridge Cybercrime Conference
The Cambridge Cybercrime Conference was held on 23 June. Summaries of the presentations are here.
Surveillance Used by a Drug Cartel
Once you build a surveillance system, you can’t control who will use it:
A hacker working for the Sinaloa drug cartel was able to obtain an FBI official’s phone records and use Mexico City’s surveillance cameras to help track and kill the agency’s informants in 2018, according to a new US justice department report.
The incident was disclosed in a justice department inspector general’s audit of the FBI’s efforts to mitigate the effects of “ubiquitous technical surveillance,” a term used to describe the global proliferation of cameras and the thriving trade in vast stores of communications, travel, and location data…
Chinese-Owned VPNs
One one my biggest worries about VPNs is the amount of trust users need to place in them, and how opaque most of them are about who owns them and what sorts of data they retain.
A new study found that many commercials VPNS are (often surreptitiously) owned by Chinese companies.
It would be hard for U.S. users to avoid the Chinese VPNs. The ownership of many appeared deliberately opaque, with several concealing their structure behind layers of offshore shell companies. TTP was able to determine the Chinese ownership of the 20 VPN apps being offered to Apple’s U.S. users by piecing together corporate documents from around the world. None of those apps clearly disclosed their Chinese ownership…
Russia-linked APT28 targets western logistics entities and technology firms
CISA warns Russia-linked group APT28 is targeting Western logistics and tech firms aiding Ukraine, posing an elevated threat to supply chains Russia-linked cyberespionage group APT28 intensifies its operations against Western logistics and technology companies moving supplies into Ukraine, US CISA warns. The APT28 group (aka Fancy Bear, Pawn Storm, Sofacy Group, Sednit, BlueDelta, and STRONTIUM) has been active since at least 2007 and it […]
Sarcoma Ransomware Unveiled: Anatomy of a Double Extortion Gang
Cybersecurity Observatory of the Unipegaso’s malware lab published a detailed analysis of the Sarcoma ransomware. It is with great pleasure and honor that I present the first report produced by the Malware Analysis Lab, led by Luigi Martire. The lab was established within the Cybersecurity Observatory of the Unipegaso University, which I have the privilege […]
The NSA’s “Fifty Years of Mathematical Cryptanalysis (1937–1987)”
In response to a FOIA request, the NSA released “Fifty Years of Mathematical Cryptanalysis (1937-1987),” by Glenn F. Stahly, with a lot of redactions.
Weirdly, this is the second time the NSA has declassified the document. John Young got a …
NCSC Guidance on “Advanced Cryptography”
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre just released its white paper on “Advanced Cryptography,” which it defines as “cryptographic techniques for processing encrypted data, providing enhanced functionality over and above that provided by traditional cryptography.” It includes things like homomorphic encryption, attribute-based encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, and secure multiparty computation.
It’s full of good advice. I especially appreciate this warning:
When deciding whether to use Advanced Cryptography, start with a clear articulation of the problem, and use that to guide the development of an appropriate solution. That is, you should not start with an Advanced Cryptography technique, and then attempt to fit the functionality it provides to the problem. …
Millions of SK Telecom customers are potentially at risk following USIM data compromise
SK Telecom warned that threat actors accessed customer Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM) info through a malware attack. SK Telecom is South Korea’s largest wireless telecom company, a major player in the country’s mobile and tech landscape. It holds about 48% of the market share for mobile services, meaning around 34 million subscribers use its […]