Emerging Threats: North Korean Infiltration and Russian Cyber Espionage

Updates from RSAC 2025. Former NSA cyber chief Rob Joyce warns that AI is rapidly approaching the ability to develop high-level software exploits. An FBI official warns that China is the top threat to U.S. critical infrastructure. Mandiant and Google raise alarms over widespread infiltration of global companies by North Korean IT workers. France accuses Russia’s Fancy Bear of targeting at least a dozen French government and institutional entities. SonicWall has issued an urgent alert about active exploitation of a high-severity vulnerability in its Secure Mobile Access appliances. A China-linked APT group known as “TheWizards” is abusing an IPv6 networking feature. Gremlin Stealer emerges as a serious threat. A 23-year-old Scottish man linked to the Scattered Spider hacking group has been extradited from Spain to the U.S. Senators urge FTC action on consumer neural data. New WordPress malware masquerades as an anti-malware plugin. Our guest is Andy Cao from ProjectDiscovery, the Winner of the 20th Annual RSAC™ Innovation Sandbox Contest. Our intern Kevin returns with some Kevin on the Street interviews from the RSAC floor.  Research reveals the risk of juice jacking isn’t entirely imaginary. 

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CyberWire Guest

Our guest is Andy Cao from ProjectDiscovery, who is the Winner of the 20th Annual RSAC™ Innovation Sandbox Contest 2025 event. 
Kevin on the Street

Joining us this week from RSAC 2025, we have our partner Kevin Magee, Global Director of Cybersecurity Startups at Microsoft for Startups. Stay tuned to the CyberWire Daily podcast for “Kevin on the Street” updates on all things RSAC 2025 from Kevin all week. Today Kevin is joined by Shane Harding CEO of Devicie and Nathan Ostrowski Co-Founder Petrą Security. 

You can also catch Kevin on our Microsoft for Startups⁠ Spotlight, brought to you by N2K CyberWire and Microsoft, where we shine a light on innovation, ambition, and the tech trailblazers building the future right from the startup trenches. Kevin and Dave talk with startup veteran and Cygenta co-founder FC about making the leap from hacker to entrepreneur, then speak with three Microsoft for Startups members: Matthew Chiodi⁠ of ⁠Cerby⁠, ⁠Travis Howerton⁠ of ⁠RegScale⁠, and ⁠Karl Mattson⁠ of ⁠Endor Labs⁠. Whether you are building your own startup or just love a good innovation story, listen and learn more here.

Selected Reading

Ex-NSA cyber boss: AI will soon be a great exploit dev (The Register) 

AI makes China leading threat to US critical infrastructure, says FBI official (SC World)

North Korean operatives have infiltrated hundreds of Fortune 500 companies (CyberScoop)

France Blames Russia for Cyberattacks on Dozen Entities (SecurityWeek)

SonicWall OS Command Injection Vulnerability Exploited in the Wild (Cyber Security News)

Hackers abuse IPv6 networking feature to hijack software updates (Bleeping Computer) 

New Gremlin Stealer Advertised on Hacker Forums Targets Credit Card Data and Login Credentials (GB Hackers)

Alleged ‘Scattered Spider’ Member Extradited to U.S. (Krebs on Security)

Senators Urge FTC Action on Consumer Neural Data, Signaling Heightened Scrutiny (Cooley)

New WordPress Malware as Anti-Malware Plugin Take Full Control of Website (Cyber Security News) 

iOS and Android juice jacking defenses have been trivial to bypass for years (Ars Technica)
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