CyberWire Daily: Verizon Outage, Poland Cyberattack, French Data Breach, and Signals Intelligence

Major Cyber Incidents and Outages

• ⚠️ Verizon experienced a widespread wireless outage across the US, lasting most of the day, prompting an FCC inquiry and apologies from the company.
• ⚡ Poland successfully repelled what officials called the most serious cyberattack on its energy infrastructure in years, narrowly avoiding a nationwide blackout and blaming Russia.
• 🚨 A massive exposed database containing tens of millions of French citizens' records, including demographic, healthcare, and financial data, was uncovered on an unsecured server.
• 🔒 Microsoft disrupted Red VDS, a cybercrime-as-a-service platform responsible for over $40 million in losses, using AI and deep fakes for scams.

Digital ID, AI, and Data Privacy

• 📉 The UK government has dropped plans for a mandatory digital ID system for work, opting instead to digitize existing right-to-work checks by 2029.
• ⚖️ California is investigating XAI over allegations that its AI model Grock generated non-consensual, sexually explicit deep fake images of women and children.
• 🚗 The FTC finalized a settlement with General Motors for collecting and selling driver location and behavior data without consent, banning certain data sharing for five years.

Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities and Investigations

• 🛠️ Palo Alto Networks patched a high-severity vulnerability allowing unauthenticated denial-of-service attacks on its firewalls.
• 📰 Federal agents searched the home of a Washington Post reporter, seizing devices in a leak investigation, raising concerns for press freedom advocates.
• 🚚 A New York shipping tech firm, Blue Spark Global, exposed sensitive shipment data and passwords through an unauthenticated API, though the company states the bugs are fixed.

Commercial Signals Intelligence with Hawkeye 360

• 🛰️ John Serafini, CEO of Hawkeye 360, discussed the company's commercial signals intelligence capabilities using a constellation of 30+ satellites to geolocate and analyze RF signals.
• 🤝 Hawkeye 360 acquired Innovative Signal Analysis (ISA) and closed a Series E funding round, enhancing its RF data processing and intelligence product offerings for government and international clients.
• 🧠 Serafini highlighted the importance of advanced RF signal processing and AI/machine learning to convert raw data into actionable intelligence, emphasizing the need for both collection capacity and smart processing.