Mysterious 'SmudgedSerpent' Hackers Target U.S. Policy Experts Amid Iran–Israel Tensions

A never-before-seen threat activity cluster codenamed UNKSmudgedSerpent has been attributed as behind a set of cyber attacks targeting academics and foreign policy experts between June and August 2025, coinciding with heightened geopolitical tensions between Iran and Israel. "UNKSmudgedSerpent...

Friday Squid Blogging: Fishing for Squid

Foreign Policy has a three-part so far podcast series on squid and global fishing. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here. EDITED TO ADD: I accidentally posted this on Wednesday. I...

North Korea-Backed Spy Group Poses as Reporters in Spearphishing Attacks, Feds Warn

The North Korean advanced persistent threat APT group known as Kimsuky is actively attacking commercial-sector businesses, often by posing as South Korean reporters, according to an alert from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA. Kimsuky a.k.a. Hidden Cobra has been...

U.S. Charges 4 Chinese Military Officers in 2017 Equifax Hack

The U.S. Justice Department today unsealed indictments against four Chinese officers of the People's Liberation Army PLA accused of perpetrating the 2017 hack against consumer credit bureau Equifax that led to the theft of personal data on nearly 150 million Americans. DOJ officials said the four...

Chinese Hackers exploiting Internet Explorer Zero Day vulnerability for Cyber Espionage

Web site for the Council on Foreign Relations was compromised and recently hit by a drive-by attack that was detected earlier this week. Hacker are suspected to be from China , who are exploiting a zero day Internet Explorer vulnerability for Cyber Espionage attack against one of American most...

Debate Over Active Defense and Hacking Back Crops Up at RSA

SAN FRANCISCO–The growing stream of attacks in recent years against government agencies, critical infrastructure, utilities and other vital networks has led to an increasingly heated debate around the concept of active defense and targeting the people and groups behind those attacks. That debate...