Computer science and particularly information security stories can occasionally “color” more general discourse, such as rampant speculation of cyber components of recent conflicts. But rarely do highly technical items reach true “escape velocity” to inundate popular media. The past few days have observed just this phenomenon with Anthropic’s announcement of Read more
In July 2025, NSA officials at a conference in New York City made a surprising claim: “The good news is, [Volt Typhoon] really failed. They wanted to persist in domestic networks very quietly for a very long time so that if and when they needed to disrupt those networks, they Read more
On 17 July 2025, Bloomberg (no stranger to interesting information security reporting) issued a gated report on a non–public Recorded Future item related to Salt Typhoon activity. As previously noted in this space, Salt Typhoon operations are both incredibly significant given their targeting and scope, while also poorly understood and Read more
The United States’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) launched a campaign roughly aligned with Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine in 2022 called “Shields Up.” At its core, “Shields Up” was designed as a set of relatively straightforward security best practices to prepare for expected increases in threat actor operations. Read more
Salt Typhoon first emerged in the public consciousness with media reporting in late 2024. The previously unknown (or overlooked) threat actor was quickly linked to widespread intrusions in major US-based telecommunications companies, and targeting of both specific systems used to enable lawful intercept operations as well as the communications of Read more
On 04 June 2024, multiple hospitals in London declared a “critical incident” following a ransomware incident targeting a pathology services company called Synnovis. The incident resulted in multiple medical practices, including major hospitals, being unable to perform tasks such as blood transfusions or rapid testing of blood samples. Cascading impacts of Read more
Background Almost a year ago as of this writing, the Russian state initiated a new and astoundingly brutal campaign against Ukraine. While Russia had effectively been at war with Ukraine since not long after the Revolution of Dignity, late February 2022 initiated a far wider, nastier, and inhumane phase of Read more
“Zero days” are popular items in cyber security discussions. They grab headlines, they often feature in high-profile conference presentations, they can even apparently spawn television shows. Yet for all the attention and frequent discussion in non-technical audiences, the term itself seems a bit slippery. Terms like “zero day attack” are Read more
Questions concerning responsibility for the current epidemic of ransomware events are common, and seek to identify some concrete party to hold accountable for incidents. Yet the immediate perpetrators – largely (but not exclusively) criminal gangs operating in Eastern Europe and Russia – either represent too remote an entity for blame, Read more
Following the ransomware incident impacting Colonial Pipeline operations in May 2021, many parties asked how such a disruption, impacting one of the main arteries delivering refined petroleum products to the Eastern and Southeastern United States, could occur. Based on information available, the intrusion did not directly impact Industrial Control Systems Read more