Some days in cybersecurity feel like déjà vu — not because the threats are identical, but because our responses haven’t evolved fast enough. Today’s stories highlight repeating pain points: over-trusted tools, human-first attack vectors, and infrastructure we forgot we owned.
🛠️ SonicWall SMA Exploit Chain Still Threatening Edge Devices
SonicWall’s Secure Mobile Access (SMA) devices are still being actively exploited in the wild. Even with a patch available, many remain exposed. These are edge appliances — and in 2025, edge is everything.
🔗 https://www.darkreading.com/endpoint-security/sonicwall-patch-exploit-chain-sma-devices
📩 Email Attacks Dominate Cyber Insurance Claims
A new report shows that most cyber insurance claims still stem from email compromise, not technical sophistication. Phishing, BEC, and misrouted invoices remain wildly successful. Why? Because humans still trust email by default.
🔗 https://www.darkreading.com/cyber-risk/email-based-attacks-cyber-insurance-claims
🕳️ 38,000+ Abandoned Subdomains Discovered — Free for the Taking
The FreeDrain campaign unearthed over 38,000 unmonitored or forgotten subdomains, many of which are exploitable for phishing and credential theft. Your infrastructure map is only useful if it’s complete.
🔗 https://thehackernews.com/2025/05/38000-freedrain-subdomains-found.html
🧨 Qilin Ransomware Campaign Surged in April
The Qilin group led a ransomware spike last month, targeting healthcare and manufacturing with double extortion and fast encryption loops. Their toolkit? Well-known — their timing? Relentless.
🔗 https://thehackernews.com/2025/05/qilin-leads-april-2025-ransomware-spike.html
🔫 Operation PowerOFF Dismantles Major DDoS-for-Hire Network
Law enforcement successfully took down nine DDoS-for-hire services, reminding us that cybercrime economies are real economies. Takedowns matter — but the marketplace still adapts.
🔗 https://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/operation-poweroff-takes-down-nine-ddos-domains
🛡️ Locked Shields: NATO’s Cyber Sim Puts Readiness to the Test
NATO wrapped up its Locked Shields cyber defense exercise, simulating real-time threats against national infrastructure. The exercise isn’t just war games — it’s proof that speed and coordination win the modern battlefield.
🔗 https://www.darkreading.com/cybersecurity-operations/countries-nato-locked-shields-cyber-defense-exercise
🎙️ Caveat Briefing: Policy, AI, and the Legal Lag
This week’s Caveat covers legal gaps in AI policy, surveillance tensions, and the ethical conundrums security leaders face. If you’re in security today, you’re also in law, ethics, and diplomacy — whether you want to be or not.
🔗 https://thecyberwire.com/newsletters/caveat-briefing/3/18
🧰 “Security Tools Alone Don’t Protect You” — A Truth We Keep Forgetting
A grounded reminder that SIEMs, EDRs, and XDR platforms can’t fix what your people ignore. Untrained teams, outdated configs, and unchecked assumptions are the real vulnerabilities.
🔗 https://thehackernews.com/2025/05/security-tools-alone-dont-protect-you.html
💭 Reflection
Day 129 repeats some headlines — but maybe that’s the lesson.
Security isn’t just about learning fast. It’s about relearning better.
Too many orgs are hit by the same attack twice — not because they weren’t warned, but because they didn’t adapt.
As I press further into CISSP and DevSecOps, today’s mantra is this:
If the threat keeps repeating, so should the fix — until it’s embedded. 🔁🧠🧱
