Situational Awareness Scan

CodeRED Emergency Alert System Hit by Ransomware Attack

Source: Dark Reading

A ransomware attack, claimed by the INC Ransom group, forced the OnSolve CodeRED emergency alert platform offline, disrupting critical services for cities across the U.S. and other countries. The incident reportedly compromised user data, including names, contact details, and account passwords, which were allegedly stored in clear text. Users of the CodeRED system are urgently advised to change their passwords immediately, especially if the password was reused on other platforms.

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Facial Recognition Grapples with Trust Issues Amid Privacy Concerns

Source: SecurityWeek

Public trust in surveillance-focused facial recognition remains low due to its intrusive nature and a lack of user consent, which runs counter to privacy regulations like GDPR. The article draws a distinction between this and access authentication systems (e.g., in secured offices), where the technology is moving towards storing only a mathematical representation a "face-map-blob" of the user's face, rather than the actual image, to enhance individual privacy and security.

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GlassWorm Malware Returns: New Wave of Malicious VS Code Packages Target Developers

Source: Bleeping Computer

The highly advanced GlassWorm malware has resumed spreading through new malicious Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extensions. This self-propagating software supply chain attack utilizes sophisticated evasion techniques, including invisible Unicode obfuscation to hide malicious code from human reviewers and security tools. It employs an "unkillable" Command and Control (C2) infrastructure leveraging the Solana blockchain (with Google Calendar as a fallback) to steal developer credentials and automatically compromise and spread to new packages.