Security & IT News

Microsoft has rolled out updates to fix a remote code execution vulnerability impacting SharePoint that could be exploited by bad actors in attacks without requiring any specialized conditions to be met. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-45659, carries a CVSS score of 8.8. It has been assigned an important severity. "Deserialization of untrusted data in Microsoft Office SharePoint allows

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has issued new guidelines requiring organizations to patch critical security vulnerabilities in internet-exposed systems within 12 hours of being flagged where "feasible" to safeguard against potential threats stemming from threat actors' abuse of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and large language models (LLMs) to automate vulnerability

CISA has given U.S. government agencies until Wednesday evening to secure their servers against an SQL injection vulnerability in the Drupal content management system (CMS) that it flagged as actively exploited. [...]

Threat actors are exploiting a recently disclosed critical security flaw in Ghost CMS to inject malicious JavaScript code with an aim to fuel ClickFix attacks. According to QiAnXin XLab, the activity involves the exploitation of CVE-2026-26980 (CVSS score: 9.4), an SQL injection vulnerability in Ghost's Content API that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to read arbitrary data from the

A large-scale campaign is exploiting a critical SQL injection vulnerability (CVE-2026-26980) in Ghost CMS to inject malicious JavaScript code that triggers ClickFix attack flows. [...]

In this article Attack chain overview Initial access: Exploiting edge appliances Discovery and reconnaissance Lateral movement and identity compromise Mitigation and protection guidance Microsoft Defender XDR detections Advanced hunting Indicators of compromise (IOC) MITRE ATT CK techniques observed References Learn more A growing trend in modern intrusions is the compromise of internet-facing edge appliances such as firewalls and VPN gateways. Systems traditionally deployed as security boundaries are increasingly becoming initial access points due to the continued discovery and exploitation of critical vulnerabilities. Because these devices are externally exposed, lightly monitored, and highly trusted inside enterprise environments, compromise can provide a durable foothold with limited visibility. Edge appliances often store credentials, certificates, session material, authentication tokens, and identity integrations with directories, cloud services, and identity providers. Once compromised, these trust relationships can enable lateral movement that bypasses traditional security controls. In this incident, the threat actor compromised an internet-facing firewall appliance and used trusted relationships to pivot to an internal Linux host. From there, the threat actor compromised a vulnerable SaaS application and leveraged its credentials to conduct relay-style authentication attacks against Active Directory. This incident reflects a broader shift toward identity-centric, multi-domain attack chains that span network infrastructure, endpoints, SaaS platforms, cloud workloads, and identity systems. Organizations should treat edge devices, non-Windows systems, and cloud identities as security-critical assets, prioritize monitoring across these environments, and use attack path analysis to identify where threat actors are most likely to establish initial access. Attack chain overview Figure 1. Multi-stage Linux intrusion via F5 and Confluence Attack flow. Figure 2. Multi-stage Linux intrusion via F5 and Confluence – Threat actor activities. Initial access: Exploiting edge appliances The threat actor established SSH access to the first Linux host from a network device identified as an F5 BIG-IP load balancer. Device inventory confirmed the source as an Azure-hosted appliance running version 15.1.201000. This is a specific BIG-IP Virtual Edition (VE) image version deployed primarily in cloud environments and commonly used in Azure ARM templates and Terraform modules for deploying F5 BIG-IP instances. This version of BIG-IP reached end-of-life (EOL) on December 31, 2024. Retiring deprecated firewalls is a security imperative, as unsupported hardware might leave the network exposed to modern threats. This aligns with a broader pattern observed in recent high‑impact incidents, where internet‑facing edge devices such as routers, firewalls, and gateways are compromised through N‑day vulnerabilities. Operational constraints, including the availability

AI is reshaping how work gets done—and how risks emerge across cloud, data, identity, and more. Many organizations want AI-powered productivity, but their security foundations aren’t yet built for it. As organizations move toward AI-powered operating models, security becomes the critical enabler to allow innovation to scale responsibly. In this new era of agentic AI, 1 protections can’t be layered on after the fact; they must be built into the fabric of how AI systems are developed, governed, and used—grounded in strong cloud security posture , clear data governance , and Zero Trust principles that assume breach and verify continuously. We’re sharing two customer spotlights that explore how global organizations are putting that approach into practice. Why security has become a strategic enabler for AI‑powered growth These customer stories highlight how security is no longer a supporting function—it’s a strategic enabler of growth, speed, and trust. As AI accelerates decision-making and reshapes how work gets done, leaders must modernize without increasing risk or slowing the business. The experiences of these forward-looking organizations reflect the realities many companies face: gaining consistent visibility across complex environments, moving faster while maintaining trust, meeting governance and compliance expectations that expand with AI adoption, and driving operational efficiency through automation. These examples will show how the right security foundation allows organizations to scale AI with confidence—turning protection into a competitive advantage, not a constraint. First, we’ll take a closer look at St. Luke’s University Health Network. How St. Luke’s is accelerating efficiency and threat response with AI St. Luke’s identified a critical gap in unified, real-time visibility across its security tools, limiting its ability to detect and stop threats early. The organization needed a way to see across their entire landscape and respond to threats as they emerge. To modernize and unify security operations, St. Luke’s turned to Microsoft Security Copilot to supercharge analyst productivity and help its Security Operations Center (SOC) teams operate at scale. Learn more about Microsoft Security Copilot By connecting Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Sentinel, St. Luke’s gains a single, AI-powered view across endpoints, identity, email, and cloud workloads—helping analysts move faster, correlate cyberthreats more effectively, and shift from reactive response to proactive, predictive defense. With AI embedded directly into daily workflows, teams can identify risks in real time, uncover gaps in visibility, and make more informed decisions with greater precision. Streamlining workflows and automating protection At the same time, Security Copilot agents are transforming how the SOC operates by automating time-consuming tasks like alert triage and vulnerability remediation. This reduces noise, accelerates investigations, and frees analysts to focu

Ubiquiti has released security updates to patch three maximum severity vulnerabilities in Unify OS that can be exploited by remote attackers without privileges. [...]

Cisco has rolled out updates for a maximum-severity security flaw impacting Secure Workload that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to access sensitive data. Tracked as CVE-2026-20223 (CVSS score: 10.0), the vulnerability arises from insufficient validation and authentication when accessing REST API endpoints. "An attacker could exploit this vulnerability if they are able to send

At Microsoft, security innovations are purpose-built to help every organization protect end-to-end with the speed and scale of AI. Our vision is simple: security should be ambient and autonomous, just like the AI it protects. As organizations accelerate AI adoption, security teams are navigating new blind spots created by the broad distribution of agents, data, and identities across different tools and platforms. Microsoft Security ’s latest updates extend visibility, control, and protection across your expanding ecosystem, from third-party apps like Claude to your cloud environments and multi-cloud infrastructure. Together, these updates help your team secure what matters most—agents, data, and identities—without slowing your own innovation. Here’s what’s new: Cloud Security Solutions | Microsoft Security Microsoft Purview visibility now extends to Anthropic Claude Security and compliance teams can now detect and investigate Anthropic Claude usage alongside other cloud applications in the broader AI ecosystem. The new Anthropic Claude connector for Microsoft Purview delivers centralized visibility and oversight for Claude Enterprise and Claude Platform feed activity and chat conversations, enabling Microsoft Purview to provide insights on Claude interactions and audit log signals. This integration will provide visibility across Enterprise Claude.ai, Claude Console and Claude API, extending the Microsoft Purview experience and helping your teams protect sensitive data across your AI estate. New data security posture management experience in Microsoft Purview The new Microsoft Purview Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) experience is now generally available. This solution unifies and streamlines DSPM across scenarios, from discovery to protection, all the way to remediation, allowing teams to investigate risks and take actions on the same workflow. The new experience delivers goal-oriented flows, deeper remediation, expanded reporting, and third-party visibility. Your teams can efficiently discover sensitive data, assess risk, and take action at scale. Microsoft Purview Data Security Investigations extends investigative depth with custom examinations Microsoft Purview Data Security Investigations now includes optical character recognition (OCR) and custom examination capabilities to extend investigative depth. OCR extracts text from images, bringing previously inaccessible visual content into scope for AI-powered deep content analysis. In addition to existing examination types that identify credentials, risk, and personally identifiable data, and help inform mitigation, investigators can define their own analysis with custom examination, enabling more tailored and flexible investigations based on their unique needs. Now, Data Security Investigations can extract text from images, like the one above, adding visual content into scope for AI-powered investigations. Microsoft Entra ID Account recovery securely restores account access Microsoft Entr

The Deputy CISO blog series is where Microsoft Deputy Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) share their thoughts on what is most important in their respective domains. In this series, you will get practical advice, tactics to start (and stop) deploying, forward-looking commentary on where the industry is going, and more. In this article, Aaron Zollman, Vice President and Deputy CISO for Gaming at Microsoft discusses the unique challenges and rewards of securing gaming . There are more than 500 million monthly active players¹ across Xbox consoles, PC, handheld, and more through Xbox cloud gaming . They’re the folks who come to mind when people refer to “gaming culture.” But they’re not really the whole story. Globally, more than 3 billion people engage with gaming.² The majority of these people are gamers, but the number also includes developers working for independent gaming studios, engineers supporting the Xbox platform, and the security and operations professionals that support them all. In my role as Deputy CISO for Gaming at Microsoft, it’s this much larger, much more complex community that I have to take into account. My team and I aren’t tasked solely with protecting consoles or player accounts. We’re safeguarding intellectual property (IP), live operations, and the trust of billions of interactions. We’re also partnering on risks that range from cheating and monetization exploits to supply chain vulnerabilities and regulatory compliance for child safety and privacy. Gaming isn’t really a single culture, but rather a culture of cultures—each with their own risk factors to account for. At the heart of gaming is the player experience—their need for seamless access, low latency, and frictionless, immersive experiences. This goes hand-in-hand with privacy and safety in a world where cyberattackers could target well-known players. But aside from those basic needs, players form their own tribes, and a diverse, global player base requires a different approach—which makes securing gaming unique. You don’t approach it like you might traditional enterprise. Studios operate with creative autonomy, platforms demand global scale and low latency, and players expect frictionless experiences. That diversity makes gaming vibrant while also creating unique security challenges. Each culture comes with its own security risks Let’s first take a look at the risks that most often appear with each of the overlapping cultures that make up the world of gaming: Platforms , underpinning services like Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming, require centralized infrastructure with high availability. Here, security must integrate seamlessly with identity systems and Microsoft-wide standards without slowing down gameplay. But platforms face a number of distinct risks. The complexity of platforms makes them a rich target for financially-motivated cyberattackers seeking to take over top accounts—or send targeted messages to individuals in an environment where they aren

Drupal has announced a "core security release" scheduled for later today, warning that threat actors might develop exploits within hours of the update disclosure. [...]

Why do maintenance teams struggle? Is it because they lack skills? Or do they need more advanced resources?…

Microsoft has confirmed user reports that the Teams team collaboration app is displaying non-dismissible location prompts on some macOS systems. [...]

Microsoft says customers in restricted network environments may encounter Windows Update failures after installing the January 2026 optional non-security preview updates. [...]

Drupal has issued an alert stating that it intends to release a "core security release" for all supported branches on May 20, 2026, from 5-9 p.m. UTC. "The Drupal Security Team urges you to reserve time for core updates at that time because exploits might be developed within hours or days," the maintainers of the PHP-based content management system (CMS) said. "Not all configurations are

AI is rapidly reshaping how work gets done in companies and organizations. In celebrating National Small Business Month, we want to acknowledge the unique challenges that growing business leaders face as AI creates both opportunity and risk. They face constant tradeoffs between moving fast, managing risk, and keeping operations stable under pressure. At the same time, cybercriminals are moving faster, their attacks are becoming more targeted, and AI is helping increase efficacy of the threats. In fact, AI-automated phishing is 4.5 times more effective than traditional cyberattacks. It takes only one convincing phishing email, and one stray click to enable a breach. 1 The key question is: How can we maximize the benefits of AI while staying protected in a rapidly evolving threat landscape? Read the datasheet: “AI is here. How will you keep your business secure?” Cybersecurity—from IT issue to business risk Today’s cybersecurity landscape is defined by speed, scale, and automation—trends that disproportionately affect growing businesses. According to the 2025 Microsoft Digital Defense Report , Microsoft now processes more than 100 trillion security signals every day and blocks 4.5 million new malware files daily , underscoring just how industrialized cybercrime has become. Increasingly, cyberattackers are using AI to automate phishing, generate highly convincing scams, and rapidly adapt malware, making cyberattacks more frequent and harder to detect. For businesses that often lack dedicated security teams or round-the-clock monitoring, this shift has real business consequences: disrupted operations, financial loss from ransomware or fraud, and lasting damage to customer trust. The report also notes that most modern cyberattacks now target identities, like user accounts and access—a challenge for organizations relying on cloud services and remote work without strong protections in place for accounts and access. As AI continues to amplify both the volume and sophistication of cyberattacks, cybersecurity is no longer just an IT issue for businesses—it’s a core business risk that can directly affect resilience and growth. Source: Cyber Signals Issue 9. 2 Building a foundation of trust In this new reality, security becomes the foundation of trust—helping growing businesses protect their operations, preserve customer trust, and move forward with confidence. For business owners, cybersecurity isn’t just about stopping cyberattacks; it’s about keeping the business running day to day. When systems go down, orders can’t be processed, employees can’t do their work, and customers are left waiting or wondering whether their data is safe. Even short disruptions can have outsized consequences for growing businesses, from lost revenue and stalled growth to reputational damage that’s hard to repair. By making security a core part of how the business operates—not an afterthought—even the smallest businesses put themselves in a stronger position to withstand disrupti

Ivanti, Fortinet, n8n, SAP, and VMware have released security fixes for various vulnerabilities that could be exploited by bad actors to bypass authentication and execute arbitrary code. Topping the list is a critical flaw impacting Ivanti Xtraction (CVE-2026-8043, CVSS score: 9.6) that could be exploited to achieve information disclosure or client-side attacks. "External control of a file name

Microsoft has confirmed that the May 2026 Windows 11 security update (KB5089549) fails to install on some systems and triggers 0x800f0922 errors. [...]

OpenAI has disclosed that two of its employee devices in its corporate environment were impacted via the Mini Shai-Hulud supply chain attack on TanStack, but noted that no user data, production systems, or intellectual property were compromised or modified in an unauthorized manner. "Upon identification of the malicious activity, we worked quickly to investigate, contain, and take steps to