daily plain-text briefing: security, markets, business, and pittsburgh
A Russian access broker's FortiBleed campaign has turned hundreds of thousands of FortiGate firewalls into credential sniffers that harvested 110 million logins, leading a day defined by attacks on trusted systems.
Latest developments: SOCRadar, Dark Reading, and SecurityWeek tied the operation to a Russian initial access broker whose Golang-based sniffer has targeted 430,000 FortiGate firewalls and identified 110 million credentials since February 2026, far beyond the roughly 86,000 figure reported earlier.
FortiBleed plants custom sniffers on compromised Fortinet FortiGate firewalls to siphon authentication secrets from organizations worldwide. Operators should rotate credentials and harden internet-facing devices.
Sources: Dark Reading · SecurityWeek · BleepingComputer · ↑ top
Latest developments: A hacker breached Brazil's Civil Defense Alert system early Saturday and pushed at least a dozen unauthorized warnings, including a message preaching misanthropy, to millions of phones.
Brazil's Civil Defense Alert platform exists to warn residents of floods, landslides, and other imminent threats. The false alerts erode public trust in a system that works only because people believe it.
Sources: The Record · Graham Cluley · ↑ top
Latest developments: Scattered Spider members Thalha Jubair, 20, of London and Owen Flowers, 18, of Walsall pleaded guilty to Computer Misuse Act offences over the 2024 Transport for London attack that cost £29 million, and U.S. prosecutors extradited 26-year-old Algerian Abdellah Belmili for running the Market0Day and Spoxy cybercrime marketplaces.
Scattered Spider is the English-speaking extortion crew tied to major 2024 intrusions. Jubair and Flowers face sentencing on July 16, while Belmili faces up to 30 years for the two marketplaces.
Sources: Help Net Security · SecurityWeek · ↑ top
Latest developments: SecurityWeek detailed a high-severity use-after-free flaw that sat in Samsung's KNOX security framework for eight years, exposing Galaxy phones from the S9 through the S25 to kernel-level attacks.
The bug lived in Samsung's core Android security framework, putting millions of Galaxy devices at risk of kernel compromise. Users should apply Samsung's security update.
Sources: SecurityWeek · ↑ top
Latest developments: Bruce Schneier reported that researchers bypassed the guardrails on Anthropic's Fable 5, the safety-tuned version of its Mythos Preview, within days of release, restoring the model's ability to help build cyberattacks.
Anthropic shipped Fable 5 as the constrained, export-friendly sibling of Mythos with controls against offensive use. The fast jailbreak shows such guardrails buy defenders little time.
Sources: Schneier on Security · ↑ top
Latest developments: Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 published a universal bucket-hijacking technique that abuses the global uniqueness of storage names to redirect cloud data streams across the major providers.
Because storage bucket names are globally unique, an attacker who claims an abandoned name can intercept data meant for the original owner across major cloud providers. Teams should retire bucket references with care.
Sources: Unit 42 (Palo Alto) · ↑ top
Latest developments: The rout ran into a second day as the dollar climbed to a fresh one-year high on bets the Federal Reserve will raise rates, gold slid below $4,200 an ounce, and SpaceX extended its plunge.
Big technology shares led a global equity selloff, with SpaceX down more than 16% from its blockbuster debut and Nasdaq futures sliding, as rising U.S. bond yields and expectations of rate increases under Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh pushed the dollar to a one-year high against major currencies and dragged Asian and European markets lower.
Sources: FT World · WSJ Markets · WSJ Markets · ↑ top
Today: Mostly Sunny, high 79F.
Tonight: Mostly Clear, low 55F.
Wednesday: Sunny, high 81F.
Latest developments: The Post-Gazette reports the region's last independently owned 24-hour diner has gone, sending all-night customers across the state line to Ohio.
Dean's Diner, the longtime independently owned around-the-clock restaurant in Blairsville, Indiana County, has ended its 24-hour service, leaving Western Pennsylvania without an independently owned all-night diner.
Sources: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette · ↑ top
Latest developments: Northern Westmoreland Career and Technology Center in New Kensington is adding new equipment to train students for the data-center industry it expects to boom locally.
Northern Westmoreland Career and Technology Center in New Kensington is bringing in new equipment to prepare students for construction and operations jobs at the data centers projected to spread across the region.
Latest developments: Live Casino Pittsburgh is running table-games schools to train dealers for its gambling floor, with recruits like Elijah McBride learning to stack chips and run cards.
Live Casino Pittsburgh is holding table-games schools where trainees learn to deal blackjack and other games, building a pipeline of dealers for the casino floor.
Latest developments: The Hempfield Area School Board scheduled a vote next week on a $118.7 million budget carrying a 4.2% tax increase.
The Hempfield Area School Board in Westmoreland County votes next week on a $118.7 million spending plan for 2026-27 that would raise the average property-tax bill about $90 through a 4.2% increase.
Latest developments: A Post-Gazette review found some closed-door conferences of Penn State's board of trustees may run afoul of Pennsylvania's open-meetings law.
Some private conferences held by Penn State University's board of trustees potentially violate Pennsylvania's Sunshine Act, which requires public bodies to deliberate in the open, the Post-Gazette reported.
Sources: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette · ↑ top
Latest developments: The National Weather Service scheduled a Tuesday survey to confirm whether Monday's storms spun up a tornado in Fayette County.
The National Weather Service will send a team to Fayette County to determine whether a tornado touched down Monday, when storms felled trees and flooded roads across the area.
Latest developments: Point State Park downtown will close temporarily to stage the weekend America250PA concert headlined by rapper Nelly and the band Third Eye Blind.
Point State Park in downtown Pittsburgh closes this weekend to host the America250PA concert, with Nelly and Third Eye Blind on the bill.
Pirates (39-39)
Up Next · Mariners @ Pirates · Tue Jun 23, 6:40 PM
S&P 500 7,491.82 ▲ +1.6% Dow 51,688.13 ▲ +1.9% Nasdaq 26,353.29 ▲ +2.6% WTI crude 77.00 ▼ -12.9% EUR/USD 1.1527 ▼ -0.3% GBP/USD 1.3311 ▼ -0.6% USD/JPY 160.79 ▲ +0.3%