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Also: CVE Program Faces Funding Cliff, Whistleblower Flags DOGE Cybersecurity Gaps
In this week's update, ISMG editors unpacked a whirlwind of cybersecurity drama related to the U.S. government, including Chris Krebs' abrupt exit from SentinelOne to defend against President Trump, the CVE program funding scare and explosive whistleblower claims against Elon Musk's DOGE task force.

Community Dental Care Is State's Largest Non-Profit Serving Medicaid Patients
Minnesota's largest nonprofit Medicaid dental practice is notifying nearly 135,000 people of a December 2024 data theft incident that potentially compromised their health and personal information, ranging from medical information to passport numbers.

Safety Concerns Emerge Amid o3, o4-mini and GPT-4.1 Launches
OpenAI's mid-April announcements include its most advanced reasoning models o3 and o4-mini, with a biorisk monitor, the quietly released GPT-4.1 coding family and the upcoming retirement of its costliest model, GPT-4.5. OpenAI's partners warn that the company's rushed evaluations have left gaps.

BitNet b1.58 2B4T Focuses on Speed, Efficiency, Open Access
Microsoft released what it describes as the most expansive 1-bit AI model to date, BitNet b1.58 2B4T. Unlike traditional large language models that depend on GPUs and massive infrastructure, the model is built to operate efficiently on CPUs including Apple's M2 chip.

Canadian Cyber Agency Warns of Rising Chinese Cyberthreats.
The Canadian Center for Cybersecurity on Tuesday said it has observed "increasing levels" of malicious cyberactivity from China-linked hackers, including the group tracked Salt Typhoon. Exposed edge devices are at risk of attacks can be detected through mass scanning.

Researchers Say Chinese Mobile Route Firms Dominate Global Interconnect Industry
A report warns U.S. allies and countries across the globe are using Chinese-owned and controlled mobile routing firms in a move that could risk national security interests and potentially expose billions of users to passive and active surveillance from Beijing.

Case Resolves HHS OCR Scrutiny of Two Security Incidents
A Guam public hospital has agreed to pay federal regulators $25,000 and implement a corrective action plan to settle potential HIPAA violations - including a failure to conduct a comprehensive risk analysis - identified during an investigation into two security incidents.

Australia-Based Firm Adds Cloud, Red/Blue Team Skills to Infosys' Cyber Arsenal
With a planned $63 million acquisition of The Missing Link, Infosys deepens its cybersecurity capabilities and strengthens its global cloud and risk assessment services. The acquisition adds to its cyberdefense centers and enhances red/blue team capabilities and digital transformation support.

Project Management Skills Can Be Your Career Force Multiplier in Cybersecurity
While technical expertise is foundational in cybersecurity, organizational and project management skills have become critical differentiators for career advancement. Learn practical strategies to develop these capabilities, even if you don't consider yourself naturally detail-oriented or organized!

Landmark Admin Compromise Affects More Than a Dozen Insurance and Annuity Carriers
Landmark Admin, a third-party vendor that provides administrative services to life insurance and annuity companies, said 1.6 million people are potentially affected by 2024 ransomware and data exfiltration incidents that compromised a wide range of personal, financial and health information.

Deal Adds Natural Language, Multi-Agent RAG Tech to Autonomous Security Platform
Torq’s acquisition of Revrod gives it a strategic leap in autonomous security operations. The startup's multi-agent retrieval-augmented generation engine enables smarter, faster threat detection, triage and mitigation without heavy manual workflows.

Board Members Announce Launch of 'CVE Foundation' to Secure Program's Future
Warnings are being sounded over the risk to global cybersecurity posed by the imminent disruption or management shutdown of the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures program. A fix could be forthcoming in the form of a new, stand-alone foundation, although its details and funding remain unclear.

Firm Failed to Close Outdated User Account, Waited 43 Days to Notify Regulators
The U.K. Information Commissioner's Office imposed a fine of 60,000 pounds against Liverpool-based law firm DDP Law for GDPR violations relating to a 2022 ransomware hack and data leak that exposed sensitive information including the details of its clients' cases.

Axing Security Clearance Will Undermine Talent Pipeline, Chill Vendor Collaboration
Trump’s executive order revoking security clearances from SentinelOne over its hiring of former CISA head Chris Krebs is fueling fear in the cybersecurity sector. Experts warn the decision could hinder cybersecurity talent recruitment and public-private partnerships essential to national defense.

Threat Actors Deploy Obfuscation Tactics to Targets Windows Machines
Likely Chinese nation-state hackers are targeting European companies using previously unseen malware backdoor variants with advanced network tunneling and evasion capabilities for data theft. Brussels-based security firm Nviso links the campaign to a threat actor tracked as UNC5221.

Ransomware Gang Qilin Claims to Have 42GB of Practice's Stolen Data
Ransomware group Qilin posted at least 42 gigabytes of data stolen from a Texas pediatric orthopedic practice for sale on its darkweb leak site in February. In recent days, Central Texas Pediatric Orthopedics began notifying more than 140,000 people that their data was compromised by hackers.

Malware Hides in Memory, Evades Detection by Endpoint Tools
A Chinese state-backed hacking group tracked as UNC5174 relaunched its operations after a year of silence with a campaign using a memory-only remote access Trojan that evades traditional detection mechanisms, according to new research from cybersecurity firm Sysdig.

Complaint Says Russia-Based IP Address Attempted to Gain Access as DOGE Took Data
A whistleblower has accused staffers from the Department of Government Efficiency of attempting to cover their tracks while collecting troves of sensitive data from the independent labor agency's computer systems, raising significant security concerns.

Symbolic Links Planted by Attackers Survived Patching, Provide Read-Only Access
Attackers have been using a new type of post-exploitation technique to maintain remote access to hacked Fortinet FortiGuard devices - even if they had the latest patches - by dropping symbolic links in the device's filesystem designed to survive the patching process, the vendor has warned.