Latest cybersecurity reporting from selected sources.

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to an active device code phishing campaign that's targeting Microsoft 365 identities across more than 340 organizations in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Germany

PLUS: ASUS gets into healthcare gadgets; Vietnam’s first fab; Australia's child social ban takes out 4.7 million accounts; And more! Asia In Brief Microsoft is hiring senior managers to ensure its datacenters in Asia can access the energy they need.…

Also, Microsoft Badly Patches LNK Flaw, Australian Sentenced for 'Evil Twin' HackThis week, the React flaw, a belated Windows fix, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's Signal group posed operational risk, more North Korean npm packages. An Australian jailed for Wi-Fi "evil twin" crimes. The US FTC will send $15.3 million to Avast users. A London council said attackers stole data.

Microsoft on Monday disclosed that it automatically detected and neutralized a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack targeting a single endpoint in Australia that measured 5.72 terabits per second (Tbps) and nearly 3.64 billion packets per second (pps)

PLUS: Cyber-exec admits selling secrets to Russia; LastPass isn't checking to see if you're dead; Nation-state backed Windows malware; and more Infosec in brief Australia’s Signals Directorate (ASD) last Friday warned that attackers are installing an implant named “BADCANDY” on unpatched Cisco IOS XE devices and can detect deletion of their wares and reinstall their malware.…

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and National Security Agency (NSA), along with international partners from Australia and Canada, have released guidance to harden on-premise Microsoft Exchange Server instances from potential exploitation

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is suing Microsoft for allegedly misleading 2.7 million Australians into paying for the Copilot AI assistant in the Microsoft 365 service. [...]

'Near-global' initial access campaign active since 2021 An initial-access subgroup of Russia's Sandworm last year wriggled its way into networks within the US, UK, Canada and Australia, stealing credentials and data from "a limited number of organizations," according to Microsoft.…

This one weird trick saved countless hours and stress – no, really Not long after Windows PCs and servers at the Australian limb of audit and tax advisory Grant Thornton started BSODing last Friday, senior systems engineer Rob Woltz remembered a small but important fact: When PCs boot, they consider barcode scanners no differently to keyboards.…

Also: Spanish Hacker Alcasec Arrested AgainThis week, Fluent Bit contains a flaw, Microsoft is nuking VBScript, Irish police and the SEC face fines, a man was sentenced for BEC, a flaw was found in Netflix's Genie, an Australia university said it was breached and Black Basta claimed an attack, and hacker Alcasec was arrested again.

Also: Turla Targets European Missions and Google Patches Chrome Zero-DaysThis week, hackers used a Linus backdoor and a Microsoft client management tool; Santander Bank, the Helsinki Education Division, an Australian energy provider and auction house Christie's were breached; hackers targeted European missions in the Middle East; and Google patched a zero-day flaw.

A new cyber attack campaign is leveraging the PowerShell script associated with a legitimate red teaming tool to plunder NTLMv2 hashes from compromised Windows systems primarily located in Australia, Poland, and Belgium

The attack surface of a live event like this summer’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand rivals that of a large multinational enterprise, or even a small city.

The Phishing-as-a-Service (PhaaS) platform named 'Greatness' has seen a spike in activity as it targets organizations using Microsoft 365 in the United States, Canada, the U.K., Australia, and South Africa. [...]

Redmond and Cupertino criticized for slow and weak responses by Australian regulator Australia's e-safety commissioner, a government agency charged with keeping citizens safe online, has delivered a report on seven tech platforms' mechanisms to protect children from online sexual abuse – and found most don't respond quickly, or have the processes to do so well.…

Most of the targeted organizations were located in the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia

In 2017, The Australian Cyber Security Center (ACSC) published a set of mitigation strategies that were designed to help organizations to protect themselves against cyber security incidents. These strategies, which became known as the Essential Eight, are designed specifically for use on Windows networks, although variations of these strategies are commonly applied to other platforms