ugh. hetzner just announced a pretty significant price increase. I'm going to have to start some serious downsizing before that happens😕
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Bloomberg did some terrific and deep reporting last week on how private equity debt likely contributed to a series of major compromises at Ivanti at the hands of China-backed hacker groups. They touch on several other examples, but it seems like the list could be quite long at this point.
The guys at the Risky Business podcast have been talking forever about major breaches and code compromises that occurred after various security companies were acquired by private equity firms and loaded with debt. They've argued (correctly, in my book) that when you see this happening with a vendor you use, it's a good signal to find a suitable alternative to whatever that platform does for you.
RE: https://oisaur.com/@renchap/116120056154167092
i think my toot from about 6 months ago auto deleted on this, but yes, the AI industry thing of bulk buying up hardware components is going to quickly inflate Mastodon server running costs, so be kind to your admins.
I've said this repeatedly too but it's going to massively increase business IT costs very soon, inflation is coming across the board, CIOs are going to have a budget crisis.
Really enjoyed this scoop from the Financial Times, where a team of reporters identified 48 seemingly independent companies working from different physical addresses that appear to be operating together to disguise the origin of Russian oil, particularly from Kremlin-controlled Rosneft. The kicker: The network was discovered because they all share a single private email server.
From the (paywalled) story:
"The FT was able to identify 442 web domains whose public registrations show they all use a single private server for their email, “mx.phoenixtrading.ltd”, showing that they share back-office functions."
"The FT was then able to identify companies by comparing the names in the domain to those of entities that appear in Russian and Indian customs records as involved in carrying Russian oil."
"For example, Foxton FZCO, a Dubai-based entity listed as the buyer of $5.6bn of oil in Russian export filings, matches “foxton-fzco.com”. Similarly, Advan Alliance, an entity listed in Indian filings as having sold $1.5bn of Russian oil into the country, can be linked to “advanalliance.ltd”. "
"Filings linked by the FT to the domain list show oil exports from Russia amounting to more than $90bn."
https://www.ft.com/content/4310f010-2b3c-493e-ba0a-26dc6d156b2e
A slick new phishing-as-a-service offering demonstrates just how easily a username+password and a one-time token can be phished. Dubbed "Starkiller," the service uses cleverly disguised links to load the target brand's real website, and then acts as a relay between the victim and the legitimate site -- forwarding the victim's username, password and multi-factor authentication code to the legitimate site and returning its responses.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/02/starkiller-phishing-service-proxies-real-login-pages-mfa/
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To hell with AI, more innovation like this please.
#solarpunk
When talking with people I say “defense in depth” but sometimes it feels like “hope in layers.”
#CyberSecurity #RiskManagement #HonestSecurity