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AI agents have quickly moved from experimental tools to core components of daily workflows across security, engineering, IT, and operations. What began as individual productivity aids, like personal code assistants , chatbots, and copilots, has evolved into shared, organization-wide agents embedded in critical processes. These agents can orchestrate workflows across multiple systems, for example: An HR Agent that provisions or deprovisions accounts across IAM, SaaS apps, VPNs, and cloud platforms based on HR system updates. A Change Management Agent that validates a change request, updates configuration in production systems, logs approvals in ServiceNow, and updates documentation in Confluence. A Customer Support Agent that retrieves customer context from CRM, checks account status in billing systems, triggers fixes in backend services, and updates the support ticket. To deliver value at scale, organizational AI agents are designed to serve many users and roles. They are grante...

As organizations plan for 2026, cybersecurity predictions are everywhere. Yet many strategies are still shaped by headlines and speculation rather than evidence. The real challenge isn't a lack of forecasts—it's identifying which predictions reflect real, emerging risks and which can safely be ignored. An upcoming webinar hosted by Bitdefender aims to cut through the noise with a data-driven outlook on where organizations are already falling short, and what those failures signal for the year ahead. Rather than speculative scenarios, the session focuses on threats that are actively reshaping the attack landscape today. The webinar examines the convergence of three major trends. First, ransomware is evolving beyond opportunistic attacks toward targeted disruptions designed to maximize operational and business impact. Second, the rapid and often uncontrolled adoption of AI within organizations is creating an internal security crisis, eroding traditional perimeter assumptions and exp...

Non-human employees are becoming the future of cybersecurity, and enterprises need to prepare accordingly. As organizations scale Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud automation, there is exponential growth in Non-Human Identities (NHIs), including bots, AI agents, service accounts and automation scripts. In fact, 51% of respondents in ConductorOne's 2025 Future of Identity Security Report said the security of NHIs is now just as important as that of human accounts. Yet, despite their presence in modern organizations, NHIs often operate outside the scope of traditional Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems. This growing dependence on non-human users creates new attack surfaces that organizations must urgently prepare for. Without full visibility and proper oversight, NHIs may have over-permissioned standing access and static credentials, making them valuable targets for cybercriminals. To secure NHIs with the same precision as human identities, organizations must develop mo...

Veeam has released security updates to address multiple flaws in its Backup & Replication software, including a "critical" issue that could result in remote code execution (RCE). The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-59470, carries a CVSS score of 9.0. "This vulnerability allows a Backup or Tape Operator to perform remote code execution (RCE) as the postgres user by sending a malicious interval or order parameter," it said in a Tuesday bulletin. According to Veeam's documentation, a user with a Backup Operator role can start and stop existing jobs; export backups; copy backups; and create VeeamZip backups. A Tape Operator user, on the other hand, can run tape backup jobs or tape catalog jobs; eject tapes; import and export tapes; move tapes to a media pool; copy or erase tapes; and set a tape password. In other words, these roles are considered highly privileged, and organizations should already be taking adequate protections to prevent them from bei...

The Invisible Half of the Identity Universe Identity used to live in one place - an LDAP directory, an HR system, a single IAM portal. Not anymore. Today, identity is fragmented across SaaS, on-prem, IaaS, PaaS, home-grown, and shadow applications. Each of these environments carries its own accounts, permissions, and authentication flows. Traditional IAM and IGA tools govern only the nearly managed half of this universe - the users and apps that have been fully onboarded, integrated, and mapped. Everything else remains invisible: the unverified, non-human, unprotected mass of identities we call identity dark matter. Every new or modernized app demands onboarding - connectors, schema mapping, entitlement catalogs, and role modeling - work that consumes time, money, and expertise. Many applications never make it that far. The result is fragmentation: unmanaged identities and permissions operating outside corporate governance. And beyond the human layer lies an even larger challenge...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a phishing campaign that involves the attackers impersonating legitimate Google-generated messages by abusing Google Cloud's Application Integration service to distribute emails. The activity, Check Point said, takes advantage of the trust associated with Google Cloud infrastructure to send the messages from a legitimate email address ("noreply-application-integration@google[.]com") so that they can bypass traditional email security filters and have a better chance of landing in users' inboxes. "The emails mimic routine enterprise notifications such as voicemail alerts and file access or permission requests, making them appear normal and trustworthy to recipients," the cybersecurity company said . Attackers have been observed sending 9,394 phishing emails targeting approximately 3,200 customers over a 14-day period observed in December 2025, with the affected organizations located in the U.S., Asia-Pac...

IBM has disclosed details of a critical security flaw in API Connect that could allow attackers to gain remote access to the application. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-13915 , is rated 9.8 out of a maximum of 10.0 on the CVSS scoring system. It has been described as an authentication bypass flaw. "IBM API Connect could allow a remote attacker to bypass authentication mechanisms and gain unauthorized access to the application," the tech giant said in a bulletin. The shortcoming affects the following versions of IBM API Connect - 10.0.8.0 through 10.0.8.5 10.0.11.0 Customers are advised to follow the steps outlined below - Download the fix from Fix Central Extract the files: Readme.md and ibm-apiconnect-<version>-ifix.13195.tar.gz Apply the fix based on the appropriate API Connect version "Customers unable to install the interim fix should disable self-service sign-up on their Developer Portal if enabled, which will help minimise their exp...

Fortinet on Wednesday said it observed "recent abuse" of a five-year-old security flaw in FortiOS SSL VPN in the wild under certain configurations. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2020-12812 (CVSS score: 5.2), an improper authentication vulnerability in SSL VPN in FortiOS that could allow a user to log in successfully without being prompted for the second factor of authentication if the case of the username was changed. "This happens when two-factor authentication is enabled in the 'user local' setting, and that user authentication type is set to a remote authentication method (e.g., LDAP)," Fortinet noted in July 2020. "The issue exists because of inconsistent case-sensitive matching among the local and remote authentication."

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered two malicious Google Chrome extensions with the same name and published by the same developer that come with capabilities to intercept traffic and capture user credentials. The extensions are advertised as a "multi-location network speed test plug-in" for developers and foreign trade personnel. Both the browser add-ons are available for download as of writing. The details of the extensions are as follows - Phantom Shuttle (ID: fbfldogmkadejddihifklefknmikncaj) - 2,000 users (Published on November 26, 2017) Phantom Shuttle (ID: ocpcmfmiidofonkbodpdhgddhlcmcofd) - 180 users (Published on April 27, 2023) "Users pay subscriptions ranging from ¥9.9 to ¥95.9 CNY ($1.40 to $13.50 USD), believing they're purchasing a legitimate VPN service, but both variants perform identical malicious operations," Socket security researcher Kush Pandya said. "Behind the subscription facade, the extensions execute complete traffic ...

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has resolved a maximum-severity security flaw in OneView Software that, if successfully exploited, could result in remote code execution. The critical vulnerability, assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2025-37164 , carries a CVSS score of 10.0. HPE OneView is an IT infrastructure management software that streamlines IT operations and controls all systems via a centralized dashboard interface. "A potential security vulnerability has been identified in Hewlett Packard Enterprise OneView Software. This vulnerability could be exploited, allowing a remote unauthenticated user to perform remote code execution," HPE said in an advisory issued this week. It affects all versions of the software prior to version 11.00 , which addresses the flaw. The company has also made available a hotfix that can be applied to OneView versions 5.20 through 10.20. It's worth noting that the hotfix must be reapplied after upgrading from version 6.60 or later to ...

Within the past year, artificial intelligence copilots and agents have quietly permeated the SaaS applications businesses use every day. Tools like Zoom, Slack, Microsoft 365, Salesforce, and ServiceNow now come with built-in AI assistants or agent-like features. Virtually every major SaaS vendor has rushed to embed AI into their offerings. The result is an explosion of AI capabilities across the SaaS stack, a phenomenon of AI sprawl where AI tools proliferate without centralized oversight. For security teams, this represents a shift. As these AI copilots scale up in use, they are changing how data moves through SaaS. An AI agent can connect multiple apps and automate tasks across them, effectively creating new integration pathways on the fly. An AI meeting assistant might automatically pull in documents from SharePoint to summarize in an email, or a sales AI might cross-reference CRM data with financial records in real time. These AI data connections form complex, dynamic pathways...

New research has uncovered exploitation primitives in the .NET Framework that could be leveraged against enterprise-grade applications to achieve remote code execution. WatchTowr Labs, which has codenamed the "invalid cast vulnerability" SOAPwn , said the issue impacts Barracuda Service Center RMM, Ivanti Endpoint Manager (EPM), and Umbraco 8. But the number of affected vendors is likely to be longer given the widespread use of .NET. The findings were presented today by watchTowr security researcher Piotr Bazydlo at the Black Hat Europe security conference, which is being held in London. SOAPwn essentially allows attackers to abuse Web Services Description Language (WSDL) imports and HTTP client proxies to execute arbitrary code in products built on the foundations of .NET due to errors in the way they handle Simple Object Access Protocol ( SOAP ) messages. "It is usually abusable through SOAP clients, especially if they are dynamically created from the attacker-c...

Fortinet, Ivanti, and SAP have moved to address critical security flaws in their products that, if successfully exploited, could result in an authentication bypass and code execution. The Fortinet vulnerabilities affect FortiOS, FortiWeb, FortiProxy, and FortiSwitchManager and relate to a case of improper verification of a cryptographic signature. They are tracked as CVE-2025-59718 and CVE-2025-59719 (CVSS scores: 9.8). "An Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature vulnerability [CWE-347] in FortiOS, FortiWeb, FortiProxy, and FortiSwitchManager may allow an unauthenticated attacker to bypass the FortiCloud SSO login authentication via a crafted SAML message, if that feature is enabled on the device," Fortinet said in an advisory. The company, however, noted that the FortiCloud SSO login feature is not enabled in the default factory settings. FortiCloud SSO login is enabled when an administrator registers the device to FortiCare and has not disabled the toggle ...

Google on Monday announced a set of new security features in Chrome, following the company's addition of agentic artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to the web browser. To that end, the tech giant said it has implemented layered defenses to make it harder for bad actors to exploit indirect prompt injections that arise as a result of exposure to untrusted web content and inflict harm. Chief among the features is a User Alignment Critic, which uses a second model to independently evaluate the agent's actions in a manner that's isolated from malicious prompts. This approach complements Google's existing techniques, like spotlighting , which instruct the model to stick to user and system instructions rather than abiding by what's embedded in a web page. "The User Alignment Critic runs after the planning is complete to double-check each proposed action," Google said . "Its primary focus is task alignment: determining whether the proposed action s...

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to a new campaign dubbed JS#SMUGGLER that has been observed leveraging compromised websites as a distribution vector for a remote access trojan named NetSupport RAT . The attack chain, analyzed by Securonix, involves three main moving parts: An obfuscated JavaScript loader injected into a website, an HTML Application (HTA) that runs encrypted PowerShell stagers using "mshta.exe," and a PowerShell payload that's designed to download and execute the main malware. "NetSupport RAT enables full attacker control over the victim host, including remote desktop access, file operations, command execution, data theft, and proxy capabilities," researchers Akshay Gaikwad, Shikha Sangwan, and Aaron Beardslee said . There is little evidence at this stage to tie the campaign to any known threat group or country. The activity has been found to target enterprise users through compromised websites, indicative of a broad-strokes ...

The AI browser wars are coming to a desktop near you, and you need to start worrying about their security challenges. For the last two decades, whether you used Chrome, Edge, or Firefox, the fundamental paradigm remained the same: a passive window through which a human user viewed and interacted with the internet. That era is over. We are currently witnessing a shift that renders the old OS-centric browser debates irrelevant. The new battleground is agentic AI browsers, and for security professionals, it represents a terrifying inversion of the traditional threat landscape. A new webinar dives into the issue of AI browsers , their risks, and how security teams can deal with them. Even today, the browser is the main interface for AI consumption; it is where most users access AI assistants such as ChatGPT or Gemini, use AI-enabled SaaS applications, and engage AI agents. AI providers were the first to recognize this, which is why we've seen a spate of new 'agentic' AI browsers bein...

As IT environments become increasingly distributed and organizations adopt hybrid and remote work at scale, traditional perimeter-based security models and on-premises Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions no longer suffice. IT administrators, contractors and third-party vendors now require secure access to critical systems from any location and on any device, without compromising compliance or increasing security risks. To keep up with modern demands, many organizations are turning to Remote Privileged Access Management (RPAM) for a cloud-based approach to securing privileged access that extends protection beyond on-prem environments to wherever privileged users connect. Continue reading to learn more about RPAM, how it differs from traditional PAM and why RPAM adoption is growing across all industries. What is RPAM? Remote Privileged Access Management (RPAM) allows organizations to securely monitor and manage privileged access for remote and third-party users. Unlike trad...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a cross-tenant blind spot that allows attackers to bypass Microsoft Defender for Office 365 protections via the guest access feature in Teams. "When users operate as guests in another tenant, their protections are determined entirely by that hosting environment, not by their home organization," Ontinue security researcher Rhys Downing said in a report. "These advancements increase collaboration opportunities, but they also widen the responsibility for ensuring those external environments are trustworthy and properly secured." The development comes as Microsoft has begun rolling out a new feature in Teams that allows users to chat with anyone via email, including those who don't use the enterprise communications platform, starting this month. The change is expected to be globally available by January 2026. "The recipient will receive an email invitation to join the chat session as a guest, enabling seamles...

Enterprises today are expected to have at least 6-8 detection tools, as detection is considered a standard investment and the first line of defense. Yet security leaders struggle to justify dedicating resources further down the alert lifecycle to their superiors. As a result, most organizations' security investments are asymmetrical, robust detection tools paired with an under-resourced SOC, their last line of defense. A recent case study demonstrates how companies with a standardized SOC prevented a sophisticated phishing attack that bypassed leading email security tools. In this case study, a cross-company phishing campaign targeted C-suite executives at multiple enterprises. Eight different email security tools across these organizations failed to detect the attack, and phishing emails reached executive inboxes. However, each organization's SOC team detected the attack immediately after employees reported the suspicious emails. Why did all eight detection tools identica...

Identity security fabric (ISF) is a unified architectural framework that brings together disparate identity capabilities. Through ISF, identity governance and administration (IGA), access management (AM), privileged access management (PAM), and identity threat detection and response (ITDR) are all integrated into a single, cohesive control plane. Building on Gartner's definition of " identity fabric ," identity security fabric takes a more proactive approach, securing all identity types (human, machine, and AI agents) across on-prem, hybrid, multi-cloud, and complex IT environments. Why identity security fabric matters now As cyberattacks become more prevalent and sophisticated, traditional approaches characterized by siloed identity tools can't keep pace with evolving threats. Today's rapidly expanding attack surface is driven primarily by non-human identities (NHIs), including service accounts, API keys, and AI agents. Fragmented point solutions weaken an organization's overall ...