Identity Security | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The notorious cybercrime group known as Scattered Spider (aka UNC3944) that recently targeted various U.K. and U.S. retailers has begun to target major insurance companies, according to Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG). "Google Threat Intelligence Group is now aware of multiple intrusions in the U.S. which bear all the hallmarks of Scattered Spider activity," John Hultquist, chief analyst at GTIG, said in an email Monday. "We are now seeing incidents in the insurance industry. Given this actor's history of focusing on a sector at a time, the insurance industry should be on high alert, especially for social engineering schemes which target their help desks and call centers." Scattered Spider is the name assigned to an amorphous collective that's known for its use of advanced social engineering tactics to breach organizations. In recent months, the threat actors are believed to have forged an alliance with the DragonForce ransomware cartel in the ...

In the wake of high-profile attacks on UK retailers Marks & Spencer and Co-op, Scattered Spider has been all over the media, with coverage spilling over into the mainstream news due to the severity of the disruption caused — currently looking like hundreds of millions in lost profits for M&S alone.  This coverage is extremely valuable for the cybersecurity community as it raises awareness of the battles that security teams are fighting every day. But it's also created a lot of noise that can make it tricky to understand the big picture.  The headline story from the recent campaign against UK retailers is the use of help desk scams. This typically involves the attacker calling up a company's help desk with some level of information — at minimum, PII that allows them to impersonate their victim, and sometimes a password, leaning heavily on their native English-speaking abilities to trick the help desk operator into giving them access to a user account.  Help Des...

Microsoft on Tuesday shipped fixes to address a total of 78 security flaws across its software lineup, including a set of five zero-days that have come under active exploitation in the wild. Of the 78 flaws resolved by the tech giant, 11 are rated Critical, 66 are rated Important, and one is rated Low in severity. Twenty-eight of these vulnerabilities lead to remote code execution, 21 of them are privilege escalation bugs, and 16 others are classified as information disclosure flaws. The updates are in addition to eight more security defects patched by the company in its Chromium-based Edge browser since the release of last month's Patch Tuesday update . The five vulnerabilities that have come under active exploitation in the wild are listed below - CVE-2025-30397 (CVSS score: 7.5) - Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability CVE-2025-30400 (CVSS score: 7.8) - Microsoft Desktop Window Manager (DWM) Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2025-3270...

It wasn't ransomware headlines or zero-day exploits that stood out most in this year's Verizon 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) — it was what fueled them. Quietly, yet consistently, two underlying factors played a role in some of the worst breaches: third-party exposure and machine credential abuse . According to the 2025 DBIR, third-party involvement in breaches doubled year-over-year, jumping from 15% to 30% . In parallel, attackers increasingly exploited machine credentials and ungoverned machine accounts to gain access, escalate privileges, and exfiltrate sensitive data. The message is clear: it's no longer enough to protect your employee users alone. To truly defend against modern threats, organizations must govern all identities — human, non-employee, and machine — within a unified security strategy. Third-Party Risk: Expanding Faster Than Organizations Can Control Today's enterprise is a patchwork of partnerships: contractors, vendors, business p...

Phishing attacks remain a huge challenge for organizations in 2025. In fact, with attackers increasingly leveraging identity-based techniques over software exploits, phishing arguably poses a bigger threat than ever before.  Attackers are increasingly leveraging identity-based techniques over software exploits, with phishing and stolen credentials (a byproduct of phishing) now the primary cause of breaches. Source: Verizon DBIR Attackers are increasingly leveraging identity-based techniques over software exploits, with phishing and stolen credentials (a byproduct of phishing) now the primary cause of breaches. Source: Verizon DBIR Attackers are turning to identity attacks like phishing because they can achieve all of the same objectives as they would in a traditional endpoint or network attack, simply by logging into a victim's account. And with organizations now using hundreds of internet apps across their workforce, the scope of accounts that can be phished or targeted with s...

GitGuardian's State of Secrets Sprawl report for 2025 reveals the alarming scale of secrets exposure in modern software environments. Driving this is the rapid growth of non-human identities (NHIs), which have been outnumbering human users for years. We need to get ahead of it and prepare security measures and governance for these machine identities as they continue to be deployed, creating an unprecedented level of security risk. This report reveals an astounding 23.77 million new secrets were leaked on GitHub in 2024 alone. This is a 25% surge from the previous year. This dramatic increase highlights how the proliferation of non-human identities (NHIs), such as service accounts, microservices, and AI agents, are rapidly expanding the attack surface for threat actors. The Non-Human Identity Crisis NHI secrets, including API keys, service accounts, and Kubernetes workers, now outnumber human identities by at least 45-to-1 in DevOps environments. These machine-based credentials...

In today's digital world, security breaches are all too common. Despite the many security tools and training programs available, identity-based attacks—like phishing, adversary-in-the-middle, and MFA bypass—remain a major challenge. Instead of accepting these risks and pouring resources into fixing problems after they occur, why not prevent attacks from happening in the first place? Our upcoming webinar, " How to Eliminate Identity-Based Threats ," will show you how, featuring Beyond Identity experts Jing Reyhan (Director of Product Marketing) and Louis Marascio (Sr. Product Architect). Join them to discover how a secure-by-design access solution can block phishing, adversary-in-the-middle attacks, and more—before they ever reach your network. What You Will Learn Stop Attacks at the Source: Learn to proactively block threats like phishing—before they can target your systems. Master Key Security Techniques: Discover how secure-by-design solutions enable phishing resistance, ve...

Identity-based attacks are on the rise. Attackers are targeting identities with compromised credentials, hijacked authentication methods, and misused privileges. While many threat detection solutions focus on cloud, endpoint, and network threats, they overlook the unique risks posed by SaaS identity ecosystems. This blind spot is wreaking havoc on heavily SaaS-reliant organizations big and small. The question is, what can security teams do about it? Have no fear, because Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) is here to save the day. It's essential to have the visibility and response mechanisms to stop attacks before they become breaches. Here's the super lineup that every team needs to stop SaaS identity threats. #1 Full coverage: cover every angle  Like Cap's shield, this defense should cover every angle. Traditional threat detection tools such as XDRs and EDRs fail to cover SaaS applications and leave organizations vulnerable. SaaS identity threat detection and re...

While Okta provides robust native security features, configuration drift, identity sprawl, and misconfigurations can provide opportunities for attackers to find their way in. This article covers four key ways to proactively secure Okta as part of your identity security efforts. Okta serves as the cornerstone of identity governance and security for organizations worldwide. However, this prominence has made it a prime target for cybercriminals who seek access to valuable corporate identities, applications, and sensitive data. While Okta provides robust native security features and recommended best practices, maintaining proper security controls requires constant vigilance. Configuration drift, identity sprawl, and misconfigurations can provide attackers a way into Okta and other apps if left unchecked. This article covers four key ways Nudge Security can help you proactively secure Okta as part of your efforts to harden your identity security posture. 1. Continuous Configuration ...