Latest cybersecurity reporting from selected sources.

China, Iran, North Korea Hackers Exploit Gemini Across Attack Life CycleState-backed hackers weaponized Google's artificial intelligence model Gemini to accelerate cyberattacks, using the productivity tool as an offensive asset for reconnaissance, social engineering and malware development. Google said it has disabled accounts and strengthened defenses.

Meanwhile, IP-stealing 'distillation attacks' on the rise A Chinese government hacking group that has been sanctioned for targeting America's critical infrastructure used Google's AI chatbot, Gemini, to auto-analyze vulnerabilities and plan cyberattacks against US organizations, the company says.…

Security chief says criminals are already automating workflows, with full end-to-end tools likely within years CISOs must prepare for "a really different world" where cybercriminals can reliably automate cyberattacks at scale, according to a senior Googler.…

AI Adoption Putting Hypervisors in Attackers Sights, Says Google Cloud's Jamie CollierHypervisors and virtualized infrastructure are drawing more cyberattacks, a trend that reflects organizations' expanded use of cloud services, containers and artificial intelligence-driven systems, said Jamie Collier, lead threat intelligence advisor for the EMEA region at Google Cloud.

Most cyberattacks today don’t start with loud alarms or broken firewalls. They start quietly—inside tools and websites your business already trusts

Hackers Posing as Help Desks and Call Centers to Target Victims, Google WarnsA hacking collective behind recent cyberattacks on major British retailers has pivoted to target U.S. insurance firms, warned Google. Scattered Spider, tracked as UNC3944 by Google, is a financially motivated threat group consisting largely of English-speaking adolescents.

DragonForce-riding ransomware ring also has 'shiny object syndrome' so will likely move on to another sector soon The same miscreants behind recent cyberattacks on British retailers are now trying to dig their claws into major American retailers' IT environments – and in some cases possibly even deploying ransomware, according to Google.…

Google Cloud's Hultquist on How State Hackers Exploit Code and Corporate HiringJohn Hultquist, chief analyst at Google Threat Intelligence Group, Google Cloud, discussed how China and North Korea are transforming cyberattacks into organized, factory-like operations. Alongside zero-day exploits, North Korean IT operatives are quietly infiltrating Fortune 500 companies under false identities.

Also, Blue Shield Breach Exposes 4.7M, Cyberattack Disrupts City Systems in TexasThis week, Cookie Bite bypasses MFA in Azure Entra ID, Microsoft fixed RDP Freezes, a ransomware attack in Catalonia, Blue Shield exposed data to Google, a cyberattack disrupted city systems in Texas, South Korean telecom breach exposed USIM data and a warning about North Korean IT deepfakes.

Also: Google Fixes YouTube Vulnerabilities That Could Have Exposed User EmailsThis week: Microsoft, Ivanti and Google release fixes for critical vulnerabilities and urge priority patching; Lee Enterprises confirms a cyberattack disrupted newspaper operations; and thousands of KerioControl Firewalls exposed to critical remote code execution flaws.

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged multiple in-the-wild exploit campaigns that leveraged now-patched flaws in Apple Safari and Google Chrome browsers to infect mobile users with information-stealing malware

But even with that focus, the sophisticated threat group has continued operations against targets globally, including the US, says Google's Mandiant.

Also: Catching Up With Spain's Most Dangerous HackerThis week, the FCC OK'd cybersecurity labeling, DarkGate exploited Google, Fortinet patched a bug, cyberattacks hit the French government and employment agencies, Google restricted Gemini AI chatbot and paid bug bounties, Microsoft had Patch Tuesday, Marine Max was attacked, and Alcasec moved on.

The cyberattack campaign, similar to one to spread the Rhadamanthys Stealer, is part of a larger trend by attackers to use malvertising as initial access for ransomware and other threat activity.

Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) has been monitoring and disrupting Russian state-backed cyberattacks targeting Ukraine's critical infrastructure in 2023. [...]

A North Korean government-backed threat actor has been linked to attacks targeting government and military personnel, think tanks, policy makers, academics, and researchers in South Korea and the U.S

More cyberattackers are targeting organizations' cloud environments, but some cloud services, such as Google Cloud Platform's storage, fail to create adequate logs for forensics.

APIs are key to cloud transformation, but two Google surveys find that cyberattacks targeting them are reaching a tipping point, even as general cloud security issues abound.

Networking equipment major Cisco on Wednesday confirmed it was the victim of a cyberattack on May 24, 2022 after the attackers got hold of an employee's personal Google account that contained passwords synced from their web browser

As Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia's company prepares to become part of Google, the incident response company continues to investigate many of the most critical cyber incidents.