Help Net Security

Microsoft has rolled out quick machine recovery, a new Windows feature aimed at preventing prolonged widespread outages like the one caused by a faulty CrowdStrike update in July 2024. The goal of the feature is to allow IT administrators to remotely execute targeted fixes on machines that are unable to boot. How does quick machine recovery work? “With system failures, devices can sometimes get stuck in the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE), severely impacting productivity … More →

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Privacy Commissioner of Canada Philippe Dufresne has launched a new online tool that will help businesses and federal institutions that experience a privacy breach to assess whether the breach is likely to create a real risk of significant harm to individuals. The privacy breach risk self-assessment tool is a convenient web-based application that guides users through a series of questions to assess the sensitivity of personal information that is involved in a data breach, and … More →

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senhasegura, a globally recognized leader in Privileged Access Management (PAM), announces its evolution into Segura, marking a new chapter for the company and its mission to deliver futureproof identity security. Founded in Brazil in 2009, senhasegura quickly earned international recognition as one of the leading providers of PAM solutions. Throughout its journey, the company has consistently been featured in top analyst reports, including the Gartner Magic Quadrant and Forrester Wave, and consistently praised for its … More →

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Organizations should not shy away from taking advantage of AI tools, but they need to find the right balance between maximizing efficiency and mitigating organizational risk. They need to put in place: 1. A seamless AI security policy AI may have previously been a technology that only developers or specialists interacted with, but today, at all levels within companies, employees use AI to assist them in various tasks. Organizations must therefore educate all employees on … More →

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Exegol is a community-driven hacking environment, which helps users deploy hacking setups quickly and securely. It’s made for penetration testers, CTF players, bug bounty hunters, researchers, defenders, and both new and experienced users. Exegol offers clean, secure environments. Each project can have its own Docker container, keeping things organized and safe. Exegol includes a Python wrapper that manages Docker and Git operations for you. Features like GUI apps, Wi-Fi, USB devices, and volume mounting are … More →

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The large volume of security alerts, many created by automated tools, is overwhelming security and development teams, according to the 2025 Application Security Benchmark report by Ox Security. The report is based on an analysis of over 101 million application security findings collected from 178 organizations over 90 days (Q4 2024), indicating that only 2-5% of security alerts require immediate action, yet organizations continue to waste valuable resources on the remaining 95% of non-critical issues. … More →

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The amount of data being shared by businesses with GenAI apps has exploded, increasing 30x in one year, according to Netskope. The average organization now shares more than 7.7GB of data with AI tools per month, a massive jump from just 250MB a year ago. This includes sensitive data such as source code, regulated data, passwords and keys, and intellectual property, significantly increasing the risk of costly breaches, compliance violations, and intellectual property theft. 75% … More →

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Deepfakes are a type of synthetic media created using AI and machine learning. In simple terms, they produce videos, images, audio, or text that look and sound real, even though the events depicted never actually happened. These altered clips spread across social media, messaging apps, and video-sharing platforms, blurring the line between reality and fiction. The term “deepfake” was coined in 2017 when a Reddit user created a subreddit with that name. This subreddit was … More →

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Here’s an overview of some of last week’s most interesting news, articles, interviews and videos: Microsoft’s new AI agents take on phishing, patching, alert fatigue Microsoft is rolling out a new generation of AI agents in Security Copilot, built to help with some of the most time-consuming security challenges, such as phishing, data protection, and identity management. Google fixes exploited Chrome sandbox bypass zero-day (CVE-2025-2783) Google is in the process of rolling out Chrome v134.0.6998.178 … More →

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OPKSSH (OpenPubkey SSH) makes it easy to authenticate to servers over SSH using OpenID Connect (OIDC), allowing developers to ditch manually configured SSH keys in favor of identity provider-based access. By tightly integrating with identity providers (IdPs) and avoiding any additional trusted third party, OPKSSH offers a streamlined and secure way to manage SSH authentication. This week, OPKSSH was officially open-sourced under the umbrella of the OpenPubkey project. While OpenPubkey itself became a Linux Foundation … More →

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Google’s fixing of CVE-2025-2783, a Chrome zero-day vulnerability exploited by state-sponsored attackers, has spurred Firefox developers to check whether the browser might have a similar flaw – and they found it. There’s currently no indication that the Firefox bug (CVE-2025-2857) is under active exploitation, but this should not be surprising: according to Statcounter, Chrome is used by 66.3% of internet users worldwide and Firefox only by 2.62%. About CVE-2025-2857 CVE-2025-2783 has been described as “a … More →

The post Critical Firefox, Tor Browser sandbox escape flaw fixed (CVE-2025-2857) appeared first on Help Net Security.

The rise of mobile banking has changed how businesses and customers interact. It brought about increased convenience and efficiency, but has also opened new doors for cybercriminals, particularly on the Android platform, which dominates the global smartphone market. According to ESET research, Android financial threats, targeting banking apps and cryptocurrency wallets, grew by 20% in H2 of 2024 compared to the first half of the year. Fortunately, large financial institutions like banks have significant resources, … More →

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Global cybersecurity spending is expected to grow by 12.2% in 2025, according to the latest forecast from the IDC Worldwide Security Spending Guide. The rise in cyber threats is pushing organizations to invest more in their defenses. AI tools are making these threats more sophisticated, which is adding to the urgency. IDC says this steady climb in spending will continue through 2028, hitting $377 billion by then. The U.S. and Western Europe will still make … More →

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89% of healthcare organizations have the top 1% of riskiest Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices – which contain known exploitable vulnerabilities (KEVs) linked to active ransomware campaigns as well as an insecure connection to the internet – on their networks, according to Claroty. These figures represent a highly targeted, critical area where most security teams should prioritize their remediation efforts. The report is based on an analysis of over 2.25 million IoMT and 647,000 … More →

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In this Help Net Security video, Rebecca Krauthamer, CEO of QuSecure, explores the rising urgency of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and what organizations must do to prepare. She breaks down the so-called “quantum threat” and explains why it’s not just theoretical. The real concern is the “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” attack strategy, where adversaries collect encrypted data today to decrypt it once quantum computing capabilities mature. This video outlines why PQC is more than just a … More →

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Here’s a look at the most interesting products from the past month, featuring releases from: 1Kosmos, Alloy, Cloudflare, Cytex, Detectify, GetReal Security, iProov, Keysight Technologies, Outpost24, Palo Alto Networks, Pondurance, Red Canary, SailPoint, SimSpace, Sonatype, Sumsub, and TXOne Networks. Outpost24 introduces CyberFlex to streamline attack surface management and pen testing Outpost24 has launched Outpost24 CyberFlex, a comprehensive application security solution that combines Attack Surface Management (ASM) and Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) to manage … More →

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Biometric data refers to unique physical or behavioral characteristics that are used to verify a person’s identity. Revoking or changing biometric data is more complicated than changing passwords. Unlike passwords, biometric identifiers like fingerprints or retina scans are unique and permanent. This makes it particularly vulnerable if stolen. Cybercriminals can use stolen biometric information to impersonate someone and bypass security systems, putting personal accounts and data at risk. Many people are unaware of how their … More →

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The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has released security guidance for domain registrars and operators of Domain Name System (DNS) services. “DNS registrars have an important role to help counter domain abuses throughout their lifecycle,” the NCSC says. They should work on minimizing the ability of actors to register misleading domains, speeding up the takedown of malicious domains, helping customers secure and retain their domain registrations, and reducing the number of vulnerable and compromised … More →

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In this Help Net Security interview, Kim Crawley, cybersecurity expert and Professor at the Open Institute of Technology, discusses her latest book, The Ultimate Cybersecurity Careers Guide. She shares insights on how aspiring professionals can break into the field and explores the importance of continuous learning. What makes this guide different from other available cybersecurity career resources? That’s an excellent question. The vast majority of books on cybersecurity certifications are guides to one particular certification … More →

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Legit Security launched a new Legit AppSec risk prevention dashboard. The new dashboard helps reduce the time, costs, and effort of fixing vulnerabilities by preventing issues in the first place. Legit’s prevention dashboard allows companies to go beyond “shift left” by stopping issues from making their way into software releases. This positions companies to more quickly bring new software capabilities and products to market by reducing time developers spend on later-stage vulnerability remediation. Getting ahead … More →

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