Cyber Security Headlines Microsoft Defender outage disrupts threats, Apple resists India's app order, MuddyWater strikes Israel
8 snips
Dec 3, 2025 A Microsoft Defender outage has thrown a wrench into threat management. Meanwhile, Apple stands firm against India's demand to preload a state-run app over privacy issues. In a surprising turn, the MuddyWater hacking group launches the MuddyViper campaign targeting Israel and Egypt. Also discussed are critical cybersecurity measures being proposed by lawmakers and new training mandates from the Coast Guard for IT personnel. Finally, listeners can look forward to an upcoming event on AI data readiness.
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Defender XDR Outage Reveals Portal Fragility
- Microsoft Defender for Endpoint suffered a 10-hour portal outage that disrupted XDR features like hunting alerts and device visibility.
- Microsoft attributed the outage to a CPU spike from high portal traffic and is collecting diagnostics to resolve lingering issues.
Apple Pushes Back On India's Preload Order
- Apple plans to resist India's mandate to preload the Sanchar Sathi state app over privacy and security concerns.
- Apple will raise the issue with the Indian government as other manufacturers review the directive amid surveillance worries.
MuddyWater Deploys Sophisticated Muddy Viper Tooling
- ESET reports MuddyWater used a Muddy Viper backdoor, snake-themed loader, credential stealers, and reverse tunnels against Israeli and Egyptian targets.
- The campaign ran late 2024 to early 2025 across multiple sectors and showed closer overlap with other Iranian units.