CyberWire Daily Whistle-blown and wide open.
Aug 27, 2025
Harry Thomas, Founder and CTO at Frenos, shares insights on the crucial role of curated AI training data in cybersecurity. The conversation uncovers a whistleblower's alarming claims about sensitive data breaches and sheds light on sophisticated phishing campaigns. Thomas emphasizes how proprietary data can outperform web-scraped alternatives in training models for enhanced security. They also address the growing issue of phantom job postings and the need for transparency in hiring, tying these challenges to broader implications for data integrity and compliance.
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Massive Social Security Data Risk
- DOGE uploaded a copy of the SSA Numident database to a vulnerable cloud server, exposing over 548 million Social Security records.
- The whistleblower alleges DOGE bypassed oversight and ignored high-risk assessments, risking mass identity theft.
Global Push Against North Korean IT Fraud
- Governments and tech firms coordinated in Tokyo to combat North Korea's covert IT worker scheme that funnels earnings to Pyongyang.
- Officials warned such contractors can gain insider access, posing theft and reputational risks to firms.
Patient Phishing Targets Manufacturing
- The Zipline campaign begins via victims' public contact forms and builds trust over weeks before delivering a malicious zip.
- Attackers used MixShell with DNS tunneling and HTTP fallback to maintain stealthy in-memory control.