Security News Weekly

This is the Security News Weekly blog for GA Tech’s CS 6035 online graduate course in Information Security. “It Is What It Is,” it’s security news weekly!

Note: obviously we are not Security Week, a source I use at times. Go check them out next.

  • Nova Scotia Power Hack, Do You Trust Your Router?

    Nova Scotia Power Hack, Do You Trust Your Router?

    Hello and welcome to the weekly “Security in the News” and “Research in Education” post. This week we have a couple of stories to look at: Nova Scotia Power Confirms Ransomware Attack, 280k Notified of Data Breach In the news today is Novia Scotia Power admitting they were hacked in a ransomware attack. What could…


  • Don’t Delete Stuff! Security in the News, Research in Education

    Don’t Delete Stuff! Security in the News, Research in Education

    Hey everyone it’s time for Security in the News and Research in Education for the week of 5/19/25. SECURITY IN THE NEWS First up for security news is this hack: RVTools Official Site Hacked to Deliver Bumblebee Malware via Trojanized Installer “Robware.net and RVTools.com are currently offline. We are working expeditiously to restore service and…


  • A Closer Look at Google’s Privacy Practices; Ten Trends at OMSCS

    A Closer Look at Google’s Privacy Practices; Ten Trends at OMSCS

    Hello everyone, I am James Lohse, a TA for CS 6262 Network Security. Every week I’ll be cross-posting my weekly column/post here in CS6262, CS6035 and CS6264. I cover “Security in the News” and “Research in Education.” I might take a week off here and there, but will still make some post every week. Please…


  • Data Brokers Gone Wild

    Data Brokers Gone Wild

    I’ve been meaning to look into data brokers for a while now, here we go. Data brokers got on my radar screen for an article I wrote almost a year ago. Here’s some old news: Florida-Based National Public Data Confirms Data Breach That’s from an August 2024 announcement of a data breach that happened in…


  • Web 3.0 Is Going Great

    Web 3.0 Is Going Great

    Right up front I’ll admit I stole the title from a website name. There’s this great website, web3isgoinggreat.com. Web 3.0, if you’re not familiar, is the catch all phase to describe the blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystem. The idea was that Web 3.0 was going to revolutionize the Internet. It hasn’t quite worked out. Sure, Bitcoin…


  • LLM Security

    LLM Security

    Let’s take a brief look at a subject I hadn’t given much consideration up until this point: LLM/GenAI Security. There’s two sides to look at here: offensive and defensive. And for clarity, when I say GenAI or LLM I mean ChatGPT and similar products. I think, when we stop to think about it, everyone understands…


  • Change Healthcare Data Breach; Juniper Router Backdoors; Subaru Hijacking

    Change Healthcare Data Breach; Juniper Router Backdoors; Subaru Hijacking

    Security in the News HCA Healthcare Attack Update This wouldn’t be a real “security in the news” post if we didn’t at least touch on the current ransomware news update. HCA Healthcare has announced that the impact from the February hack of their pharmacy management system has grown from 100 million affected individuals to 190…


  • Otelier Hacked; Government Security Watchdog Sidelined?

    Otelier Hacked; Government Security Watchdog Sidelined?

    First up is sourced from a student post from #342 on Ed Discussion. (If you’re in CS 6035 this semester, you can search for posts by number in Ed by using the hash/pound sign. Just enter #342 in the search box and you’ll see the original student post): Millions of hotel guest reservations leaked in…


  • In Defense of WordPress: More Clickbait Headlines; Zero-Day Targets Samsung Devices

    In Defense of WordPress: More Clickbait Headlines; Zero-Day Targets Samsung Devices

    Today we’ll start out with an article about WordPress security. I first saw this: WordPress Skimmers Evade Detection by Injecting Themselves into Database Tables which links to this: New Credit Card Skimmer Targets WordPress, Magento, and OpenCart Sites As I read through both articles, I felt something was missing. Usually in these articles, the means…


  • Anatomy of a Common Problem

    Anatomy of a Common Problem

    Well, nothing is safe, not even your DNA: Researchers Uncover Major Security Flaw in Illumina iSeq 100 DNA Sequencers It turns out this DNA sequencing machine is running on a 2018 version of BIOS (not Secure Boot). In short, from the article: The Illumina iSeq 100 used a very outdated implementation of BIOS firmware using…


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