Latest cybersecurity reporting from selected sources.

Also, HexDex Arrest, Black Axe Crackdown, LeRobot RCE FlawThis week, election threats resurfaced. A prolific hacker arrested. Black Axe network disrupted. China-linked disinformation targets Tibet. Exploited ScreenConnect and Windows flaws raise alarms. Minecraft gamers hit with stealer malware. A critical AI framework bug enables remote code execution.

Plus: Iran's IRGC probes election-related websites in swing states Russian, Iranian, and Chinese trolls are all ramping up their US election disinformation efforts ahead of November 5, but – aside from undermining faith in the democratic process and confidence in the election result – with very different objectives, according to Microsoft.…

The successful disruption of notorious Russian hacker group Star Blizzard's operations arrives one month out from the US presidential election — one of the APT's prime targets.

Microsoft Says Russia-Linked Cyber Actors Are Supporting Trump by Attacking HarrisMicrosoft warned the Kremlin is targeting the 2024 presidential election campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris with its wide-ranging election interference operations. Russian groups likely aligned with the Kremlin have shifted their focus to the Harris campaign in recent months.

Also: Mastercard's Big Acquisition and US Election Security EffortsIn the latest weekly update, ISMG editors discussed the fallout from the CrowdStrike global IT outage on endpoint security tools, Mastercard's monumental acquisition of Recorded Future to bolster its cybersecurity portfolio, and the latest efforts by U.S. officials to secure the 2024 election.

US politicians and Israeli officials among the top targets for the IRGC’s cyber unit Google has joined Microsoft in publishing intel on Iranian cyber influence activity following a recent uptick in attacks that led to data being leaked from the Trump re-election campaign.…

US politicians and Israeli officials among the top targets for the IRGC’s cyber unit Google has joined Microsoft in publishing intel on Iranian cyber influence activity following a recent uptick in attacks that led to data being leaked from the Trump re-election campaign.…

Microsoft claims Iran is ramping up election interference activity in the US, as Trump campaign claims it was hacked

Political officials, advisors targeted in cyber attacks as fake news sites deliver lefty zingers Microsoft says Iran's efforts to influence the November US presidential election have gathered pace recently and there are signs that point toward its intent to incite violence against key figures.…

Simple stuff like slapping on a logo fools more folks and travels further As hundreds of millions of voters around the globe prepare to elect their leaders this year, there's no question that trolls will try to sway the outcomes using AI, according to Clint Watts, general manager of Microsoft's Threat Analysis Center.…

Tactics are more sophisticated and supported in greater numbers Iran's anti-Israel cyber operations are providing a window into the techniques the country may deploy in the run-up to the 2024 US Presidential elections, Microsoft says.…

Strategies differ, though both have gaps that could hurt efficacy Microsoft and Meta have very different initiatives to combat misinformation in 2024, slated to be a busy election year all over the globe, but whether they'll be effective is another issue.…

To address these challenges, Microsoft is introducing several initiatives

Same gang pestered US voters during 2020 presidential election Microsoft believes the gang who boasted it had stolen and leaked more than 200,000 Charlie Hebdo subscribers' personal information is none other than a Tehran-backed gang.…

Let's face it: Having “2022 election” in the headline above is probably the only reason anyone might read this story today. Still, while most of us here in the United States are anxiously awaiting the results of how well we've patched our Democracy, it seems fitting that Microsoft Corp. today released gobs of security patches for its ubiquitous Windows operating systems. November's patch batch includes fixes for a whopping six zero-day security vulnerabilities that miscreants and malware are already exploiting in the wild.

Plus: Fixes from Intel, AMD, Citrix and more Patch Tuesday November's Patch Tuesday also falls on election day in the US, so let's hope that democracy fares better than Microsoft, which reported six of today's bugs are already being exploited in the wild by miscreants.…