Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is supposed to defend against phishing attacks, but threat actors operating under the ShinyHunters banner are using it as a pretext in ongoing social engineering attacks aimed at bypassing it. Among those successfully targeted in these latest…
Category: Help Net Security
Malwarebytes in ChatGPT delivers AI-powered protection against scams
Malwarebytes announced Malwarebytes in ChatGPT, a new way for individuals and small businesses to get fast, trusted security assistance directly within ChatGPT. Users can ask Malwarebytes to check whether something is a scam or spam, tapping into the company’s deep…
How state-sponsored attackers hijacked Notepad++ updates
Suspected Chinese state-sponsored attackers hijacked the Notepad++ update mechanism by compromising the software project’s shared hosting server and intercepting and redirecting update traffic destined for notepad-plus-plus.org, the software’s maintainer Don Ho confirmed on Monday. The attack timeline In early December…
Span Cyber Security Arena 2026: Only 10 days left to secure early bird tickets
With preparations well underway, Span Cyber Security Arena 2026 is set to return for its third edition, bringing together domestic and international experts in cyber security. As in previous years, the conference is designed for everyone involved in that area…
Microsoft sets a path to switch off NTLM across Windows
Windows is shifting to a more secure authentication approach, moving away from New Technology LAN Manager (NTLM) and toward stronger, Kerberos-based options. NTLM has been part of Windows for decades and continues to appear in some environments, particularly where legacy…
Where NSA zero trust guidance aligns with enterprise reality
The NSA has published Phase One and Phase Two of its Zero Trust Implementation Guidelines, providing structured guidance for organizations working to implement zero trust cybersecurity practices. The documents are part of a larger series designed to support adoption of…
Open-source AI pentesting tools are getting uncomfortably good
AI has come a long way in the pentesting world. We are now seeing open-source tools that can genuinely mimic how a human tester works, not just fire off scans. I dug into three of them, BugTrace-AI, Shannon, and CAI,…
What boards need to hear about cyber risk, and what they don’t
In this Help Net Security video, Rishi Kaushal, CIO at Entrust, explains how security leaders should talk to the board about cyber risk. He focuses on what matters to board members and what does not. He links cryptography, certificates, and…
Pompelmi: Open-source secure file upload scanning for Node.js
Software teams building services in JavaScript are adding more layers of defense to handle untrusted file uploads. An open-source project called Pompelmi aims to insert malware scanning and policy checks directly into Node.js applications before files reach storage or business…
AI is flooding IAM systems with new identities
Most organizations view AI identities through the same lens used for other non-human identities, such as service accounts, API keys, and chatbots, according to The State of Non-Human Identity and AI Security report by the Cloud Security Alliance. AI identities…
Week in review: Microsoft fixes exploited Office zero-day, Fortinet patches FortiCloud SSO flaw
Here’s an overview of some of last week’s most interesting news, articles, interviews and videos: When open science meets real-world cybersecurity In this Help Net Security interview, Matthew Kwiatkowski, CISO at Fermilab, America’s particle physics and accelerator laboratory, discusses where…
Microsoft sets new timeline for Sentinel transition to Defender portal
Microsoft has updated the timeline for transitioning the Microsoft Sentinel experience from the Azure portal to the Microsoft Defender portal from July 1, 2026 to March 31, 2027. The updated schedule extends access by nearly nine months. Microsoft said the…
Ex-Google engineer found guilty of stealing AI secrets
A federal jury in California convicted former Google software engineer Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets tied to AI technology. Ding faces a maximum sentence…
Arkose Titan Aims to make bot, scraping, and AI fraud economically unviable
Arkose Labs announced Arkose Titan, a unified platform that protects enterprises from human and AI-powered fraud, scraping and bot attacks. Unlike fragmented point solutions, Arkose Titan provides defense-in-depth through intelligent detection and adaptive mitigation against both traditional and emerging AI…
Apple’s new privacy feature limits how precisely carriers track your location
Apple users are already accustomed to managing app-level location permissions, and a new privacy feature in iOS 26.3 extends that control to cellular networks. Called Limit Precise Location, it reduces the amount of fine-grained location data that iPhones share with…
EFF calls out major tech companies on encryption promises
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has introduced a new campaign called Encrypt It Already, focused on expanding the use of end-to-end encryption in consumer technology products and services. The effort examines public security commitments and the current availability of encryption…
Security work keeps expanding, even with AI in the mix
Board attention continues to rise, and security groups now operate closer to executive decision making than in prior years, a pattern reflected the Voice of Security 2026 report by Tines. Within that environment, large numbers of teams already rely on…
Security teams are carrying more tools with less confidence
Enterprise environments now span multiple clouds, on-premises systems, and a steady flow of new applications. Hybrid and multi-cloud setups are common across large organizations, and they bring a constant stream of logs, alerts, and operational data. That environment already exists…
New infosec products of the month: January 2026
Here’s a look at the most interesting products from the past month, featuring releases from Acronis, Booz Allen Hamilton, cside, Descope, JumpCloud, MIND, Noction, Obsidian Security, Rubrik, SEON, SpyCloud, Tenable, Tosi and Vectra AI. Acronis Archival Storage brings compliance-ready, S3-compatible…
Wearable tech adoption continues as privacy worries grow
Over 1 billion users wear devices for tracking steps, sleep, heart rate, and other personal metrics. These devices collect a continuous stream of sensitive data, often tied to detailed user profiles and companion apps. New Clutch survey data show that…