Archive for June, 2025

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SOCRadar Iran-Israel Conflict Threat Landscape Report Is Available

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 30, 2025 by itnerd

The Iran-Israel conflict illustrates how geopolitical tensions can trigger widespread cyber fallout, affecting allies, industries, and neutral nations alike. Organizations must prepare for spillover threats—including disinformation, hacktivist actions, and retaliatory cyberattacks—regardless of direct involvement

In its just-released Iran-Israel Conflict Threat Landscape Report, SOCRadar threat intelligence researchers analyzed over 600 unique cyberattack claims across 100+ Telegram channels revealing critical cyberattack patterns, geopolitical dynamics, and disinformation campaigns that are reshaping global cyber risk exposure.

Key Insights from the Iran-Israel Cyber Conflict:

  • Surge in State-Sponsored and Hacktivist Activity: State-linked groups like Iran’s APT35 and Israel-associated Predatory Sparrow led aggressive cyber campaigns targeting critical infrastructure, media, finance, and telecommunications sectors.
  • Massive Cyberattack Volume on Telegram: Over 600 cyberattack claims were reported across 100+ Telegram channels in just 15 days, marking an unprecedented level of hacktivist engagement.
  • DDoS and Data Breaches Dominate: DDoS attacks, database leaks, and system defacements became key tactics. Israel faced over 440 attack claims, followed by the U.S., India, and Middle Eastern nations like Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
  • Dark Web Exposure: Both nations saw spikes in dark web threats—51.9% of Israeli-targeted posts involved data leaks, while 80% of Iran-targeted posts were financially motivated.
  • Disinformation and AI-Generated Content: Fake news, synthetic imagery, and manipulated video content proliferated, aiming to confuse civilians and destabilize perception on both sides of the conflict.

Other highlights include:

  • Unique Dark Web Activity Comparison Between Iran and Israel:  SOCRadar tracked and compared dark web posts targeting both nations, distinguishing between politically motivated exposure (Israel) and financially driven data sales (Iran). This dual-focus perspective is rarely seen in competing reports.
  • AI-Driven Disinformation Analysis with Visual Examples: The report includes a dedicated section exposing generative AI-powered fake news, images, and deepfake videos that circulated during the conflict. These are analyzed both visually and contextually, providing unmatched depth.
  • Region-Specific Threat Assessments Across Three Continents: Beyond just Israel and Iran, the report covers cyber threats and spillover effects in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia—something largely absent in other threat intelligence coverage.
  • Detailed Attribution of APTs and Hacktivist Groups: Instead of just focusing on a single APT group, SOCRadar profiles multiple threat actors (APT35, APT34, Predatory Sparrow, Cyber Av3ngers, etc.) with MITRE ATT&CK techniques, motivations, and cross-referenced dark web activity links.
  • Real-Time Threat Statistics and Attack Trends: Temporal threat charts that show attack spikes in correlation with kinetic events—providing strategic insight into how digital threats evolve in wartime.

Even though there’s is a cessation to the fighting, it may start up again putting you at risk. Thus this is worth a few minutes to have a look at.

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FBI warns of cybercriminals stealing health data posing as fraud investigators 

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 30, 2025 by itnerd

The FBI has warned Americans of cybercriminals impersonating health fraud investigators to steal their sensitive information.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warns the public about criminals impersonating legitimate health insurers and their investigative team members. These criminals are sending emails and text messages to patients and health care providers, disguising them as legitimate communications from trusted health care authorities. The messages are designed to pressure victims into disclosing protected health information, medical records, personal financial details, or providing reimbursements for alleged service overpayments or non-covered services.

Commenting on this news is Erich Kron, Security Awareness Advocate at KnowBe4: 

“This tactic uses the authority of large insurers, or the threat of investigative team members to create a strong emotional response to their messages. Whether it’s fear of having made an error, or the happy feeling of hearing that you had overpaid and will be refunded, the manipulation of our emotions is their primary goal. Humans tend to make bad decisions when in a heightened emotional state, something that these attackers are looking to exploit. If you’re being told you’re getting money back for something, you’re likely to get excited and be willing to provide a credit card or bank account information for the “refund” or provide more information under the guise of confirming your identity. This tactic can be used to collect sensitive information such as Social Security numbers, physical addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, or much more, all of which can be sold on the dark web.”

“People should always be aware of their emotional state, and should train themselves to use a strong emotional response as a trigger to take a deep breath and look at things very clearly. This is where you’re liable to find out that email addresses don’t come from reputable sources, websites in links look odd, or any number of other things that could clue you into something being amiss.”

Remember, if someone is trying to pressure you into to something or use fear to get you to do something, you are likely dealing with a scammer. Which means you should run quickly in the other direction. Then you should report it to the authorities so that they can do their best to go after the perpetrators. That way, everyone is a tiny bit safer.

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AI could double the strain or solve it says Cisco

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 30, 2025 by itnerd

With companies increasingly pouring funds into AI, recent research from Cisco points to a major infrastructure shift across enterprise networks — AI could double the strain or solve it.

Here’s a snip from the press release that is tied to the report:

As AI assistants, agents, and data-driven workloads reshape how work gets done, they’re creating faster, more dynamic, more latency-sensitive, and more complex network traffic.

Combined with the ubiquity of connected devices, 24/7 uptime demands, and intensifying security threats, these shifts are driving infrastructure to adapt and evolve. The result: IT leaders are changing how they think about the network: what it is, what it enables, and how it protects the organization. The network they build today will decide the business they become tomorrow.

You can view the report here and it is worth your time to read if your responsibility covers this.

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ESET North America Announces Winners of the Tenth Annual Women in Cybersecurity Scholarship

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 30, 2025 by itnerd

ESET is proud to announce the winners of its tenth annual Women in Cybersecurity Scholarship. Selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants across the US and Canada, the ten scholarship recipients impressed the review panel with their academic achievements, passion for cybersecurity, and commitment to making a positive impact in STEM fields.

This year marks a milestone in the program’s evolution with the continued expansion of the Cybersecurity Trailblazer Award Tier, a designation reserved for the most exceptional applicants who have demonstrated outstanding technical proficiency, leadership, and a deep, sustained focus on cybersecurity. The recipients of this year’s Cybersecurity Trailblazer Awards are U.S.’ Alexis Eskenazi, Crystal Yang, and Ismat Jarin, each receiving a $10,000 scholarship in recognition of their exemplary work. The Canadian Trailblazer recipients are Azka Siddiqui and Constance Prevot, each receiving a $5,000 scholarship for their remarkable contributions and potential to drive change within the field.

This year, Canada also saw the launch of the Future Leader Award, a new scholarship tier recognizing emerging talent with strong potential in the field of cybersecurity. Five students were selected to receive $1,000 scholarships: Yushika Jhundoo, Meadow Agbor, Tina Ismail, Vrinda Joshi, and Yashvi Shah. Together, these individuals have shown exceptional promise as future leaders in cybersecurity. Their ambitions and achievements reflect the values at the heart of the Women in Cybersecurity Scholarship: innovation, inclusion, and impact.

ESET North America awarded $45,000 in scholarships this year to celebrate the program’s tenth anniversary, reaffirming its commitment to building a more inclusive and secure digital future.

Learn more about the Trailblazer Award recipients:

Alexis Eskenazi, Berkeley, California, United States: Alexis Eskenazi’s journey into cybersecurity began with competitive robotics, where building championship-level robots sparked her interest in how connected systems function. That passion led her to launch Eskenazi Ed-Tech & AI Consulting, bringing hands-on STEM education to over 400 students globally. From mentoring the world’s first all-female Indigenous robotics team in New Zealand to researching vulnerabilities in U.S. healthcare and semiconductor infrastructure, Alexis blends technical insight with education and policy to advance a more secure, inclusive digital world.

Crystal Yang, Katy, Texas, United States: Crystal Yang’s interest in cybersecurity was sparked by watching scam-baiting videos, which seem humorous on the surface, but reveal just how vulnerable people can be to social engineering. Determined to fight back, she built TimeWaster3000, an AI-powered bot that wastes scammers’ time using natural language processing and speech recognition. As the founder of Audemy.org, Crystal has also created AI-driven educational games used by more than 5,000 blind and visually impaired students worldwide and implemented in 19 schools. Today, she is focused on cybersecurity projects aimed at scam awareness and social engineering defense for businesses.

Ismat Jarin, Irvine, California, United States: Ismat Jarin’s path to cybersecurity began in her home country, where early experiences with societal biases and privacy violations fueled her resolve to protect underrepresented communities through technology. She became the first woman from her town to rank in the top 2% nationally for admission to her country’s top engineering university, later earning a Master’s in Systems and Security from UM Dearborn and now pursuing a Ph.D. at UC Irvine. Her research explores privacy risks in AI/LLMs and emerging technologies and has been published at leading conferences like PETS, NeurIPS(WiML) and CODASPY. Beyond research, Ismat is a passionate mentor and advocate, helping first-generation and underrepresented students find belonging and success in cybersecurity.

Azka Siddiqui, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada: Azka Siddiqui’s passion for computer science began in fourth grade when she programmed Dash robots during a classroom activity, sparking her fascination with the intersection of hardware and software. Her interest in cybersecurity solidified during a 2024 internship at Nokia, where she helped refine an advanced filter tool that monitored over 10,000 alarms. In addition to furthering her technical skills, Azka serves as Vice Chair of a national nonprofit empowering girls in STEM, has led a coding club spanning three Canadian provinces, and conducted research on smart-grid anomaly detection and eye-tracking technologies in university labs. This fall, Azka will begin her Honours Bachelor of Applied Science in Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo, where she plans to focus on cybersecurity and AI with an emphasis on making digital spaces safer for women.

Constance Prevot, Mount Royal, Quebec, Canada: Constance Prevot’s journey into cybersecurity began at Concordia University, where a Capture-The-Flag competition sparked a passion that would shape her academic and professional path. She has since represented Canada at the 2024 International Cybersecurity Competition in Chile, served as a SOC Analyst at OnePoint for Desjardins, conducted adversary-focused research at GoSecure, and co-presented her findings at conferences including HOPE and BSides. As President of Concordia University’s Software Engineering and Computer Science Society, she has led initiatives to make cybersecurity education more accessible, including launching “compétitionsquebec,” a platform cataloging local competitions and training resources.

Future Leader Awards: This inaugural award proudly recognizes five exceptional students who exemplify the next generation of innovators and changemakers. With a $1,000 award, these students are being honored not only for their academic excellence but also for their passion and potential to shape the future of technology. This year’s awardees are:

  • Yushika Jhundoo (Ottawa, ON) – Computer Science, University of Ottawa: Tech community builder and cybersecurity enthusiast dedicated to inclusive outreach and digital empowerment.
  • Meadow Agbor (Calgary, AB) – Computer Information Systems, Mount Royal University (MRU): Cybersecurity intern and youth mentor with a passion for digital safety and inclusive community engagement.
  • Tina Ismail (Mississauga, ON) – Electrical Engineering, McMaster University: Cybersecurity enthusiast and IEEE leader blending technical innovation, educational research, and creative expression.
  • Vrinda Joshi (Markham, ON) – Systems Design Engineering (Co-op), University of Waterloo: STEM equity advocate and nonprofit co-founder empowering youth through coding, robotics, and hands-on innovation.
  • Yashvi Shah (Caledon, ON) – Computer Engineering (Co-op), University of Toronto: Innovative researcher and tech educator with experience in AI, 3D simulation, and youth empowerment through coding and wellness initiatives.

Learn more about the Women in Cybersecurity Scholarship here.

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Bonx raises $8.6 million to champion European manufacturing with market-leading AI ERP 

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 30, 2025 by itnerd

Europe’s manufacturing sector is under pressure. Mid-sized factories – long the engine of the continent’s economy – are being pulled in two directions: on one hand, rising global competition and supply chain complexity; on the other, an urgent need to modernize with limited time, talent, and tools. Yet many manufacturers remain stuck with outdated ERP systems that were never built for their pace or precision. Bonx, a French startup building operational software for European industry, is changing that. 

Today, the company announced an $8.6 million seed round led by 9900 Capital, with participation from Kima Ventures, Purple, OSS Ventures, and Dynamo Ventures.

Founded in 2022 by Alexandre Barroux and Rémi Beges within OSS Ventures, Bonx is a modern ERP platform purpose-built for manufacturing. By combining no-code configuration, advanced AI capabilities and rapid deployment, the company enables mid-market manufacturers to digitize operations in weeks, not years. Bonx integrates seamlessly into existing environments, offering visibility and control across production, logistics, procurement, and quality – without replacing core finance or CRM systems. The platform is already being used by a growing number of French, Italian and Spanish manufacturers, including suppliers to Décathlon and emerging brands like French Bloom.

Unlike traditional ERP deployments, which often drag on for months or years and require expensive consultants, Bonx is designed to go live fast and evolve with the shop floor. Customers report full rollouts in as little as three to ten weeks, along with measurable improvements in traceability, purchasing workflows, and inventory coordination. The software’s modular, visual interface makes it intuitive for operators and supply chain teams – not just IT departments – and its adaptability means factories can shape the system to fit their actual processes, not the other way around.

The urgency is real. Across France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, mid-sized manufacturers are facing growing technical and operational complexity. Shifting regulations, fragmented supplier networks, and ambitious sustainability targets are all increasing the pressure to modernize. Yet many of the ERP platforms still in use across Europe were built for a different era – rigid, opaque, and unable to keep up with evolving demands. Even basic changes to workflows often require custom development. As a result, too many industrial teams are still managing high-stakes operations in spreadsheets, or locked into systems that were never designed for speed or interoperability.

Bonx steps into this gap with a platform built precisely for the complexity of modern European industry, allowing manufacturers to gain operational clarity fast without ripping out existing systems. Their company reflects a broader shift in how Europe’s industrial backbone is being rebuilt – not just with machines, but with software that understands how production actually runs.

With this new funding, Bonx will grow its team, deepen its product, and scale in Italy and Spain – two of Europe’s most important manufacturing economies, where Bonx is already present. The company sees clear demand for fast, modern ERP solutions that respect the way factories already work, while unlocking smarter, more connected operations. Over time, Bonx aims to become the foundational layer for industrial execution across the continent, offering a new kind of digital infrastructure that scales with production, not against it.

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Deepgram Expands Aura-2 Text-to-Speech Platform with High-Fidelity Spanish Voice Models 

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 30, 2025 by itnerd

Deepgram has officially expanded its Aura-2 text-to-speech (TTS) API with a new suite of high-quality Spanish voice models, bringing realistic, expressive, and business-ready voice synthesis to Spanish-speaking markets.

This launch marks a major step in Deepgram’s mission to enable real-time, natural-sounding voice experiences across global industries. The new Spanish voices are optimized for enterprise use cases, from customer support and IVR systems to healthcare and education, featuring precise pronunciation for currencies, timestamps, acronyms, emails, and more.

HIGHLIGHTS:

  • 10 new Spanish Aura-2 voice models tailored for professional use
  • Support for Mexican, Peninsular, Colombian, and Latin American accents
  • Models designed for diverse applications including advertising, IVR, storytelling, and customer service
  • Support for code-switching in select models (English ↔ Spanish)
  • Available now via REST and Websocket APIs

Voices like “Celeste” (Colombian, energetic and friendly) and “Nestor” (Peninsular, calm and confident) are just a couple of the expressive voices now available.

It is available now for use via Deepgram’s hosted TTS API platform. 

Here is a blog with details: https://deepgram.com/changelog/aura-2-spanish-tts 

Developers and product teams can find implementation examples and model specifications in the Deepgram Developer Documentation, here: https://developers.deepgram.com/docs/tts-models?_gl=1*1azt33a*_gcl_au*NzM3MTk0MjU1LjE3NDQ2NjQxNTE.*_ga*OTEzNjY5NzcyLjE3MzY4MDM3ODc.*_ga_TYPC1TBCKT*czE3NTA5NjIyNTckbzkyJGcxJHQxNzUwOTY0ODE3JGozMyRsMCRoMA..#aura-2-all-available-voices 

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July 1st Is The 40th Anniversary Of The Very First Wireless Call In Canada

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 27, 2025 by itnerd

July 1st marks the 40th anniversary of Canada’s first wireless call. It happened at Nathan Phillips Square in downtown Toronto. Art Eggleton, Toronto’s mayor at the time, called Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau with a 10-pound mobile phone. Company founder Ted Rogers made the first call happen by investing in wireless at a time when no one else believed in it.

In July 1985, mobile networks handled 100 calls per day. Today, Canadians make 100 million calls and use 6.5 billion megabytes of data on Rogers wireless network every day.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Canada’s first wireless call, Rogers produced a video celebrating this milestone.

2025 marks Rogers 65th anniversary in Canada. Ted Rogers founded the company in 1960 with the purchase of the radio station CHFI in Toronto.

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61 Million Records Allegedly from Verizon Are Up For Sale Online

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 27, 2025 by itnerd

Recently, the SafetyDetectives Cybersecurity Team stumbled upon a forum post where a threat actor has offered for sale a database containing 61 million records allegedly belonging to Verizon USA. 

According to the threat actor’s claims, the dataset comprises 3.1 GB of Verizon USA customers information and it’s as recent as 2025. Upon reviewing a sample of the data, we observed full names, gender, dates of birth, tax IDs, full addresses, two phone numbers per customer, and more. 

This information is highly sensitive and could be exploited by malicious actors to carry out various types of attacks on the affected individuals. 

Their full report can be accessed here: https://www.safetydetectives.com/news/verizon-leak-report/

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TIME Magazine recognizes TELUS as most sustainable North American telecommunications company in 2025

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 26, 2025 by itnerd

Today, TELUS proudly announced that it has been recognized by TIME Magazine and Statista in their second annual list of the World’s Most Sustainable Companies. With recent research showing that 58 per cent of Canadian companies have significant opportunities to enhance their sustainability reporting, this recognition underscores the critical need for corporate leadership and demonstrates how organizations can drive meaningful environmental progress. TIME Magazine’s World’s Most Sustainable Companies were selected through a rigorous process analyzing over 20 key performance indicators, with only 500 companies out of more than 5,000 eligible organizations worldwide earning recognition for delivering impactful sustainability outcomes. This prestigious acknowledgment reflects TELUS’ proven track record of global leadership in corporate citizenship, philanthropy, innovation management, and comprehensive environmental and social reporting spanning more than two decades.

TELUS’ leadership in sustainability has been further recognized across multiple prestigious global assessments in 2025, including Corporate Knights’ Canada’s Best 50, earning inclusion in Newsweek’s World’s Greenest Companies, and receiving a Schneider Electric Sustainability Impact Award for excellence in strategy, digitization, and decarbonization. This recognition builds on TELUS’ exceptional track record of sustainability leadership, including being listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index’s North American Index for 24 consecutive years, a feat unmatched by any other North American telecommunications company and inclusion in Corporate Knights’ Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations. TELUS’ commitment to transparency and accountability is further demonstrated through its 25th annual Sustainability Report, reflecting a quarter-century of comprehensive environmental and social reporting that underscores TELUS’ enduring dedication to sustainable business practices.

Driven by its leadership in social capitalism, TELUS has committed to ambitious science-based greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and is continuing to implement sustainable practices across its business including:

  • Sourcing 100 per cent of electricity requirements from renewable or low-emitting sources by the end of 2025, building on our climate commitment.
  • Enabling reforestation and nature restoration by planting, with our partners, over 20 million trees over the past 20 years — covering an area larger than the City of Vancouver. In 2024 alone, on behalf of our partners, we planted over eight million trees across Canada, supporting the restoration of more than 5,300 hectares of terrestrial ecosystems.
  • Diverting 15 million devices from landfills, including the upcycling and recycling of 4 million mobile devices since 2005.
  • Advancing sustainable network infrastructure through our copper retirement program, migrating 99% of our eligible internet customers from copper to TELUS PureFibre Internet. TELUS PureFibre uses Canada’s most sustainable internet technology — 85% more energy efficient than traditional networks. 
  • Supporting the circular economy through copper reclamation and recycling, enabling a reduction of 9,300 tonnes of GHG emissions — equal to removing nearly 2,000 cars from roads for a year. 
  • Becoming the first company in Canada to issue a Sustainability-Linked Bond (SLB) formally linking TELUS financing to our environmental performance. Since our inaugural offering, we have issued five more SLBs (two in 2022, two in 2023, and one in 2024) totalling $3.7 billion CAD and $900 million USD.

To learn more about TELUS’ commitment to social capitalism and sustainability, visit telus.com/sustainability. 

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Sun Life equips advisors with GenAI-powered notes assistant tool

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 26, 2025 by itnerd

As an early adopter of GenAI, Sun Life first launched their note-taking tool as a pilot in 2024 with a subset of advisors. Some of the key features include summarized Client meetings, a list of action items from the meeting, and draft Client emails that include next steps. In the pilot program, 100 per cent of advisors saved more than 15 minutes per meeting, and 65 per cent saved more than 30 minutes per meeting. The cumulative impact over a single day or week is significant. Notes Assistant also includes an action-items feature that results in improved speed and consistency in sending Client communications.

The pilot enabled the team to test for benefit while still upholding GenAI ethics and privacy principles. As with any new technology, Sun Life takes a thoughtful and responsible approach, balancing digital innovation with a long-held commitment to keep Client data safe and secure. Clients need to provide verbal consent before the tool is used, and data is not allowed to pass outside of Sun Life’s safe and secure technology ecosystem.

Sun Life’s Notes Assistant is just one of many initiatives being explored and launched by Sun Life to make it easier for Clients to connect and partner with advisors. Finding ways to streamline the day-to-day, enhances advisors’ abilities to help Clients to more easily reach their goal of achieving lifetime financial security. This innovation is part of Sun Life’s broader digital leadership journey, which is focused on delivering seamless, personalized and intuitive experiences across every touchpoint.

Sun Life has a history of being recognized as an industry leader, leveraging innovative solutions to empower colleagues, advisors and Clients. Sun Life was named a 2024 CIO Awards Canada winner for their Sun Life Asks GenAI chatbot, and continues to invest in technologies that enable ease and convenience. The Notes Assistant tool is just one more example of embracing digital innovation to meet the needs of Canadians, and further deliver on our Purpose, to help Clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives.

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