Guest Post: US shopping apps collect more data than Chinese or Canadian rivals

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 18, 2025 by itnerd

As shoppers gear up for the holiday season, Surfshark investigated the data collection practices of the 10 most popular shopping apps in the US, finding that US-based apps tend to collect more data compared to their counterparts in China and Canada. For example, Amazon collects 25 unique data types out of 35, but among Chinese apps, Alibaba is the most data-hungry, collecting 19 unique data types.

“Scrolling through tempting deals on Temu, Shein, Amazon, and other shopping apps is a Black Friday tradition for many. However, before downloading any shopping app, people should consider whether they are truly willing to trade their privacy for a discount,” says Miguel Fornes, Information Security Manager at Surfshark. “Many shopping apps collect far more data than people realize, and this extends beyond purchase history. Some apps can even gather sensitive information such as political views, racial background, or biometric and health data.”

The Amazon shopping app is the most privacy-intrusive. It collects 25 unique data types out of 35, Walmart and Costco each collect 23, and Whatnot — another US-based app — collects 20. Among Chinese apps, Alibaba is the most data-hungry, collecting 19 unique data types, followed by Temu with 17, Aliexpress with 16, and Shein with 15. The Canadian app, Shop, collects 19 data types, which places it on par with the most data-collecting Chinese app.

All the analyzed apps collect information such as email address, name, payment information, physical address, user ID, search history, and product interaction. The majority of these apps also gather device IDs (except for Temu), phone numbers (except for Shein), photos or videos (except for Shop), and location data (except for Shein). Additionally, most of this collected data is directly linked to individual users, enabling these apps to build comprehensive user profiles, which raises privacy concerns. 

Some of the data collected by these shopping apps is surprising and even bizarre. For instance, Amazon and Walmart collect sensitive information — which could include political opinions, racial or ethnic background, biometric data, genetic information, sexual orientation, disability status, or pregnancy details. Whatnot and Alibaba collect users’ contacts, such as contact lists from a user’s phone or address book. In addition, Amazon, Walmart, Whatnot, and Alibaba collect users’ voice or sound recordings.

According to Fornes, these abusive data collection practices can be very dangerous if an app is breached and information about a person is leaked. First, leaked bank account information and purchase history can lead to unauthorized charges, identity theft, and significant financial loss. Second, leaked sensitive information – especially sensitive data like political views or health data – can damage your reputation and financial standing, as health data rarely changes and may be used by insurance and healthcare companies. Finally, all this leaked data might fuel subsequent highly personalized phishing campaigns. Therefore, Fornes advises:

  • Don’t download apps you don’t need. If you only shop on Amazon occasionally, accessing their website through a browser is more private than keeping the app installed. Besides, you may improve your battery or device health by offloading those.
  • Grant permissions selectively. Only allow access to data essential and directly relevant to the app’s functionality.
  • Revoke unnecessary permissions. Regularly review and revoke permissions you have granted. For example, go to settings, apps, app name, permissions on iOS, and change them. Remember the app will still work as intended after removing unnecessary permissions, but just triggering some informational notifications.
  • Read the Privacy Policy and opt out of data sharing. Understand what data the app collects, how it’s used, and with whom it’s shared. Many apps offer options to limit data collection for advertising purposes. Look for these settings.
  • Strengthen your account security. Use strong, unique passwords; enable two-factor authentication (2FA); consider having a dedicated virtual debit card or escrow payment methods (such as PayPal) for such apps or shopping at less-trusted sites.

 For the complete research material behind this study, visit here.

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Amazon alum launch Albatross with $12.5m to rediscover shopping 

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 18, 2025 by itnerd

Every click online tells a story. Yet the systems behind most of the internet still treat users as static profiles, recycling yesterday’s data to predict tomorrow’s intent. Albatross, a Zurich-based AI company founded by former Amazon AI leaders, has raised $12.5 million in new funding to rewrite that logic with the world’s first platform for real-time product and content discovery – one that learns, reasons, and adapts as users interact.

The round was led by MMC Ventures with participation from Redalpine, Daphni, and strategic angels, bringing Albatross’s total funding to $16 million, following a $3.5 million foundation round in September 2024 led by Redalpine. The company’s platform is already serving billions of live events and tens of millions of predictions each month across marketplaces, retail, and travel platforms worldwide, processing approximately a hundred million products and tens of millions of end users.

Founded in 2024 by Dr Kevin Kahn and Dr Matteo Ruffini, both former Amazon AI leaders, alongside serial entrepreneur Johan Boissard, Albatross is tackling what the team sees as a fundamental gap in the AI revolution. While much of the industry focuses on large language models that generate content, Albatross is building the second pillar of AI: understanding how users perceive and interact with content in real time. It is built on transformer-based architecture with sequential embedding models trained directly on live events.

Traditional recommendation systems look backward, using batch-trained models that rely on popularity, similarity, or user history. They struggle to capture what really matters: what a person is doing right now. In contrast, Albatross replaces these legacy systems with AI that learns continuously from live behavior, updating in milliseconds as users browse, search, and explore without any manual intervention or retraining. Notably, until now no platform could adapt instantly to changes in user behavior. Albatross is the first to do this.

Albatross’s two flagship products – the Real-Time Discovery Feed and Multimodal Search. The Discovery Feed dynamically curates inspiring products and content in real time, while the Multimodal Search engine refines results based on evolving intent, even bridging in-store and online journeys through contextual and image input. The platform operates with enterprise-grade reliability at virtually zero latency.

Early pilots have shown triple-digit uplifts in engagement and product discovery. Integration takes less than seven weeks from signature to deployment, and the platform operates with enterprise-grade reliability, handling billions of data points. The company’s research on cold-start discovery, presented at RecSys 2025, now powers its production platform at scale.

As content and commerce continue to explode, discovery is becoming the defining challenge of the digital economy. Albatross’s goal is to make digital experiences adaptive – transforming the way people find what inspires them, in real time.

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Canada’s innovation performance continues to decline at a time of unprecedented change

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 18, 2025 by itnerd

Canada continues to fall further behind peers in key measures of science, technology, and innovation performance. A new report from the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) details the daunting challenges facing Canada that could ultimately threaten the country’s economic prosperity and standard of living.

A high-performing science, technology, and innovation ecosystem is essential to the well-being of all people in Canada and the country’s ability to compete on a global stage. In the context of a worsening productivity crisis, a fraught relationship with its largest trading partner, stubbornly low private sector R&D spending, and lagging technology adoption across the economy—reversing Canada’s weak innovation performance is more urgent than ever.

Canada lacks effective approaches to support the development and commercialization of the most promising technologies that could bolster national competitiveness and provide greater overall economic and societal benefits. Without an enhanced emphasis on technology adoption, access to domestic risk capital, and tailored interventions to grow areas of strength, Canada’s innovation ecosystem will likely continue to underperform. As a result, the nation’s ability to deliver quality public healthcare and education, job opportunities, and affordable housing will be jeopardized.

Commissioned by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), The State of Science, Technology, and Innovation in Canada 2025 provides a comprehensive, data-driven analysis of Canada’s strengths and weaknesses in science, technology, and innovation and how we compare internationally.

Key Findings:

  • R&D spending is lagging. Canada’s R&D intensity has declined since 2000, while peer countries have increased their investments. Business and government R&D spending are both far below the OECD average.
  • Canada’s higher education sector is a rare bright spot. Canadian universities continue to produce world-class talent and research, with high levels of international collaboration and impact. However, this competitive edge is at risk and Canadian post-secondary institutions often struggle to support the transfer of technologies to new companies.
  • Aggressive AI adoption could transform Canada’s science, technology, and innovation ecosystem. Canada has played a leading role in the development of AI but is losing ground in adoption and commercialization.
  • Despite strengths in research, Canada struggles to translate discoveries into commercial success. The country lacks large, innovative firms and faces persistent barriers in scaling startups and retaining intellectual property.
  • Decision-makers in Canada must navigate complex and fast-moving circumstances despite incomplete and dated frameworks and metrics for critical performance indicators. The innovation ecosystem is dynamic and can shift rapidly, requiring more agile and ever-evolving interventions; up-to-date insights are essential to calibrate these interventions.

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Zoho One, the Operating System for Business, fuses powerful AI with a reimagined user interface to elevate the future of work

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 18, 2025 by itnerd

Zoho Corporation, a leading global technology company, today announced numerous enhancements to Zoho One, its all-in-one business software platform, featuring an evolution in the user experience that facilitates easy and secure collaboration. The new Zoho One offers a seamless experience across its 50 applications, putting the user and context at the core.

Originally launched in 2017 as a first-of-its-kind suite allowing businesses to run every aspect of their organization, today, Zoho One includes over 50 applications and serves over 75,000 customers worldwide, with an average of more than 22 apps used per customer. The software platform stands out for its privacy, security, and trust, underpinned by Zoho’s ownership of the entire technology stack. End-to-end control, coupled with deep integrations, ensures consistent reliability and compliance, equipping organizations with a competitive edge through seamless, intelligent operations.

Zoho One’s new features offer unification across three domains: Experience, Integrations, and Intelligence.

Experience – removing boundaries between apps

Zoho One’s new UX offers a connected, context-aware user experience:

  • Spaces bring easier access to your everyday apps. Apps within Zoho One are grouped into Spaces across the top toolbar, and each serves a distinct purpose. Personal includes apps unique to the individual, including personal productivity software. Organization includes tools for company-wide communication (Forums, Town Hall, Ideas, and more). There are also function-specific spaces grouped by Department (HR, Marketing, Finance, and more). All of these spaces can be customized to better serve employees’ needs. The Spaces toolbar also includes a centralized search bar from which users can quickly search across the entire Zoho One ecosystem as well as automate actions within task-based workflows, without having to switch apps.
  • Action Panel and Quick Navigation keep employees informed and on task. The highly customizable Action Panel provides the user access to their full day with one click, no matter which Zoho app they’re in. Add from a variety of app sources to build a panel that easily shows upcoming meetings, uncompleted tasks, scheduled Cliq messages or emails, and more.
  • Dashboard and Boards remove boundaries between apps. Zoho One’s expanded dashboard consolidates data from all connected apps, even third party, into a single location that can be personalized using pre-existing or custom widgets. Users can exercise control over the entire software suite from this centralized hub, including support for additional dashboards from specific apps.
  • A new approach to workplace collaboration. Today’s announcement includes the addition of Vani to Zoho One, offering an all-in-one, visual-first intelligent virtual space. With Vani, Zoho One users can brainstorm, plan, and innovate together – across things like flowcharts, whiteboards, diagrams, mind mapping, and video calling.

Integrations – delivered natively

When anchored by Zoho One, a company’s tech stack benefits from the software’s security features like smart offboarding, easy management of employee devices, and support for encryption keys. Furthering security is Zoho’s native integration, reducing entry points for potential breaches and streamlining anomaly detection, and Zoho Directory, providing admins a secure platform for workforce identity and access management, included as part of Zoho One.

Zoho One offers native integration with Zoho apps and third-party software. Various types of integrations are supported:

  • Unified integrations. Zoho One delivers native integration between other Zoho solutions and third-party software. These can be monitored and configured from an integrations panel within Zoho One. Users can also create integration flows and monitor their usage.
  • Foundational integrations. Zoho One offers a Unified Portal, a customizable space where users can consolidate all of their application-specific portals, allowing for control over multiple apps from a single screen. The Unified Portal support all third-party software portals, even those from custom apps.
  • Pragmatic integrations. Important support tasks, such as domain verification, can be configured with their corresponding integrations, ensuring the proper authentications take place.
  • Outcome-based integrations. Workflows that extend across many steps often require multiple apps, and Zoho One allows for the proper integrations along the way. One example is Zoho One’s new Smart Offboarding tool: From within a single workflow, employees can easily transfer department ownership to a new department head, manage employee device data from a single menu, and decide what happens to a user’s application data to ensure no loss of access.

Intelligence – unified and contextual

Zoho’s AI assistant, Zia, is now prominently featured across all of Zoho One.

  • Intelligence aggregated. Zia can aggregate and contextualize data from multiple platforms—such as Google Workspace or third-party apps—into a single, actionable answer. This federated intelligence enables organizations to make faster, more informed decisions, eliminating data silos and enhancing productivity.
  • Hub for intelligence. Zoho’s intelligent content management system, Zia Hubs, has its own dedicated space within Zoho One alongside pre-created, dedicated workflows that automatically bring more utility to company data. Now, executed contracts from Zoho Sign and recorded Zoho Meetings conversations both automatically go into Zia Hubs folders, allowing contract details and relevant conversational details to be surfaced in a Zia Search.
  • Integrated and Contextual intelligence. Ask Zia is easily accessible within the bottom toolbar, allowing fast, prompt-based searches, pulling relevant data across multiple Zoho apps to provide a full picture of a user’s schedule, unfinished tasks, or the latest action items from a meeting. Given the broad set of apps that are deeply integrated into Zoho One, Ask Zia can also deliver highly contextual intelligence to guide decision-making.

More Functionality, More Apps, The Same Price

Despite the addition of these new features and Vani, Zoho’s visual collaboration platform, pricing for Zoho One remains at $37 per month per user. Zoho One is immediately available globally.

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Hammerspace Recognized for Third Consecutive Year as “Editors’ Choice” in 2025 HPCwire Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 18, 2025 by itnerd

Hammerspace, has been recognized among the “Editors’ Choice: Top 5 New Products or Technologies to Watch” for its outstanding efforts and accomplishments in HPC and AI, in the 22nd edition of the HPCwire Readers’ Choice Awards, presented at the 2025 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC25), in St. Louis, Missouri.

This honor marks the third consecutive year Hammerspace has been recognized with an Editors’ Choice award by HPCwire. In 2024, Hammerspace was selected as “Editors’ Choice: Top 5 Vendors to Watch,” and in 2023, it was awarded “Top Five New Products or Technology” for its outstanding achievements and innovation. Winners of the Editor’s Choice awards are selected by a panel of HPCwire editors and thought leaders in HPC and constitute prestigious recognition from the HPC community.

Hammerspace’s Data Platform unifies unstructured enterprise data across diverse storage architectures, geographies, and protocols, enabling organizations to convert raw data into AI-ready intelligence with unprecedented speed. As a result, organizations achieve AI-driven outcomes faster, driving innovation and competitive advantage.

Traditional AI storage infrastructure requires moving or duplicating massive datasets to specialized silos, creating fragmentation between users, applications and storage systems. Hammerspace eliminates this challenge by providing a single global namespace that spans on-premises and cloud resources. By leveraging existing infrastructure and scaling seamlessly with growing needs, the platform delivers a robust foundation for the intersection of classical HPC and new AI workflows, including training, inference, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), complex agentic workflows and the emerging era of physical AI.

To schedule a meeting with Hammerspace executives during SC25, click here.

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Datadobi Introduces Advanced Storage Optimizer to Transform Data Visibility and Cost Management

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 18, 2025 by itnerd

 Datadobi, the global leader in unstructured data management, today unveiled Advanced Storage Optimizer, a solution designed to take the guesswork out of managing enterprise storage. The new solution delivers visibility into cost-reducing opportunities, empowering enterprises to maximize efficiency and reduce storage spend. 

Advanced Storage Optimizer is available in StorageMAP 7.4, the latest release of Datadobi’s platform. It provides new levels of visibility into cost-reduction opportunities by identifying suboptimal use of storage tiers and enabling users to model scenarios before migrations. It also identifies ageing and unused data, suggesting options to reduce costs, including what to archive, along with reports that can be shared with stakeholders. By removing irrelevant data before a migration and continuously monitoring storage environments, Storage Optimizer ensures systems remain efficient and cost-effective over time.

The latest release of StorageMAP also introduces enhanced support for Microsoft Azure Blob archiving and new automated reporting features that simplify operations and integrate seamlessly with enterprise systems. These enhancements enable organizations to streamline data management, reinforce governance, and unlock greater business value from their storage environments.

In StorageMAP 7.4, reporting becomes smarter and more flexible. Teams can schedule reports at user‑defined intervals and receive them automatically in formats tailored to their needs, PowerPoint decks for executive stakeholders, and tabular outputs for programmatic analysis. Results can be distributed via email in a true “set‑and‑forget” fashion, ensuring insights are shared consistently and StorageMAP data flows effortlessly into broader enterprise workflows

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 2025 Holiday Threat Assessment From Flashpoint

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 18, 2025 by itnerd


The 2025 holiday shopping season is expected to bring record retail spending, with US sales projected to surpass $1 trillion USD for the first time. At the same time, this surge in online activity and spending creates a lucrative environment for financially motivated threat actors. 

As cybercriminals intensify their efforts to exploit the holiday season, Flashpoint shares the top cyber and physical threats that people can expect this holiday season:

QR Code Fraud

  • The core technique involves creating convincing fake QR codes, often leveraging readily available public QR code generators that redirect victims to malicious sites.

Gift Card Draining

  • The widespread popularity of gift cards has made them a prime target for organized financial crime, specifically for financially motivated organized fraud groups. 
  • The process is highly organized: first, they lift and reseal the protective sticker to obtain the PIN and card number. Then, the fraud operators leverage specialized software to monitor the card’s status. The moment a consumer purchases and activates the card at the register, the funds are instantly drained.

Phishing and Social Engineering

  • Flashpoint expects threat actors to deploy highly tailored phishing emails and text messages designed to steal sensitive information such as login credentials and financial details from unsuspecting retail employees and shoppers.

Crowds and Physical Violence 

  • While the digital domain encapsulates most of the threats in the 2025 holiday season, large holiday events and public gatherings—such as Black Friday doorbusters and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City and various European Christmas markets or Hanukkah events—may become targets, as global social and political tensions remain heightened.

A full blog post has been published on the topic:

Flashpoint’s 2025 Holiday Threat Assessment

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Microsoft Entra Invitations Hijacked in Surge of TOAD Phishing Attacks

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 17, 2025 by itnerd

A newly identified phishing campaign is exploiting Microsoft Entra tenant invitation functionality to orchestrate TOAD (Telephone-Oriented Attack Delivery) attacks against unsuspecting users. Commenting on this is Ensar Seker, CISO at SOCRadar:

“This campaign is a prime example of how attackers increasingly repurpose legitimate cloud-native features for malicious purposes. By abusing Microsoft Entra’s guest invitation system, the threat actors bypass traditional email filters and exploit trust users place in official Microsoft-branded messages. Because the Entra invitations are often whitelisted and routed through Microsoft’s infrastructure, they have higher deliverability and lower suspicion thresholds.

TOAD phishing attacks differ from traditional credential harvesting because they rely on inducing the user to take offline action usually by calling a phone number. In this case, embedding the phone number within a trusted Microsoft invitation gives the scam an air of legitimacy. Once the victim initiates the call, attackers may request remote access, payment details, or PII under the guise of “fixing” an account issue or refunding a charge.

What makes this campaign particularly dangerous is the convergence of:

  • Trusted delivery mechanisms (Microsoft Entra infrastructure)
  • Minimal technical indicators (no malicious attachment or link to analyze)
  • Social pressure (urgent account issues prompting a phone call)

Traditional email filtering, sandboxing, and EDR tools are less effective here because the initial “payload” is human interaction, not code execution.

Organizations should monitor and audit their Microsoft Entra guest invitation logs for anomalous behaviors such as spikes in external invitations, use of unusual messaging language, or repeated invitations to consumer domains. Security awareness training should explicitly cover TOAD threats and the misuse of trusted platforms to initiate phone-based social engineering.

This is part of a broader trend in adversary-in-the-middle techniques that blend cloud abuse, social engineering, and trust manipulation. It underlines the need for zero trust policies even within SaaS environments, continuous behavioral monitoring, and adaptive email filtering models that account for intent, not just indicators.”

This is a pretty interesting, and not in a good way, attack as it is difficult to defend against. This means that defences will have to be devised quickly or this could easily spiral out of control.

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Smart gifts, smart prices – your Black Friday tech guide From Samsung

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 17, 2025 by itnerd

With the holidays around the corner Samsung’s Black Friday deals now live:

  • Galaxy Buds3 or Galaxy Buds3 Pro for as low as $39 (with the purchase of an eligible Galaxy device) – Designed for comfort with a new ergonomic fit, the Galaxy Buds3 series delivers immersive sound with Active Noise Cancellation, intuitive swipe controls, and smart features like Interpreter for real-time translation on the go.
  • Galaxy Watch8 or Galaxy Watch8 Classic for as low as $299 (with the purchase of an eligible Galaxy device) – The latest Galaxy Watches introduce advanced health insights like Antioxidant Index and Vascular Load monitoring, plus the return of the rotating bezel on the Classic model for that timeless, premium feel.
  • Save $200 on the Galaxy Tab S10 Lite – The Galaxy Tab S10 Lite offers a large 10.9-inch, 90 Hz display with up to 600 nits brightness and blue-light reduction, paired with an S Pen for fluid writing, sketching and productivity on the go.

For the full list of Samsung Black Friday deals check out Samsung.com/ca for more details or the chart below.

ModelOfferPromo PeriodMain Features
Galaxy Tab A11+Save $100 with Promo Code “TABA11”Nov 13 – Dec 16 ·       Premium design
·       256GB Storage (expandable to 2TB)
·       Galaxy AI (Gemini, Circle to Search, Solve Math)
Galaxy Tab S10 LiteSave $200Nov 12 – Dec 4·       S Pen Included
·       256GB Storage (expandable to 2TB)
·       Galaxy AI (Gemini, Circle to Search, Solve Math, Handwriting Help, Object Eraser, Generative Edit)
Galaxy Watch8 & Watch8 ClassicSave $100Nov 12 – Dec 4·       Health and fitness tracking
·       New features include Running Coach and Antioxidant Index
Galaxy Buds3 ProSave $100Nov 12 – Dec 4·       Comfortable fit
·       ANC
·       Interpreter & Live Translate
Galaxy Z Flip7Save $263 with Promo Code “FLIP7BF”Nov 13 – Dec 1·       200MP camera
·       Slim design
·       Expansive unfolding screen
·       Galaxy AI (Gemini, Circle to Search, Solve Math, Handwriting Help, Object Eraser, Generative Edit)
Galaxy Z Fold7Save $300 with Promo Code “FOLD7BF”Nov 13 – Dec 1·       200MP camera
·       Slim design
·       Expansive unfolding screen
·       Galaxy AI (Gemini, Circle to Search, Solve Math, Handwriting Help, Object Eraser, Generative Edit)
Galaxy S25 EdgeSave $379 with Promo Code “BFS25”Nov 13 – Dec 1·       200MP camera
·       Slim design
·       Galaxy AI (Gemini, Circle to Search, Solve Math, Handwriting Help, Object Eraser, Generative Edit)
Galaxy S25 UltraSave $319 with Promo Code “BFS25”Nov 13 – Dec 1·       S Pen included
·       200MP camera·       100x space zoom
·       Long lasting battery
·       Galaxy AI (Gemini, Circle to Search, Solve Math, Handwriting Help, Object Eraser, Generative Edit)
Galaxy S25+Save $289 with Promo Code “BFS25”Nov 13 – Dec 1·       Snapdragon 8 Elite
·       Long lasting battery
·       Galaxy AI (Gemini, Circle to Search, Solve Math, Handwriting Help, Object Eraser, Generative Edit)
Galaxy S25Save $299 with Promo Code “BFS25”Nov 13 – Dec 1·       200MP camera
·       Slim design
·       Galaxy AI (Gemini, Circle to Search, Solve Math, Handwriting Help, Object Eraser, Generative Edit)

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Logitech Named As The Latest Victim Of The Oracle’s E-Business Suite Vulnerability

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 17, 2025 by itnerd

Recently, Logitech disclosed a data breach after it was named a victim of the hacking and extortion campaign targeting customers of Oracle’s E-Business Suite (EBS) enterprise resource planning solution.

Adrian Culley, Senior Sales Engineer at SafeBreach hd this to say:

“The Oracle E-Business Suite zero-day campaign (CVE-2025-61882) is one of the most technically advanced operations we have seen from the Cl0p extortion group this year. It reinforces that Cl0p has matured into a threat actor capable of conducting its own vulnerability research and weaponizing flaws before defenders even know they exist. The group recently published a list of alleged victims on its TOR site, although several organizations have not yet confirmed compromise.

This activity highlights a broader and recurring pattern. Cl0p continues to find and exploit systemic weaknesses in enterprise software supply chains, and they are accelerating. Organizations do not have to wait to become the next name on a leak site. These attack paths can be simulated and the security gaps addressed before an intrusion occurs. Now is the time to run these scenarios and close the exposures that groups like Cl0p rely on.”

VP of Cyber Risk for HITRUST, Tom Kellermann adds this:

“As we head into the fifth anniversary of the SolarWinds attack, this Logitech breach underscores again the systemic risk created by zero-day exploitation within trusted enterprise platforms. The Cl0p extortion campaign targeting Oracle E-Business Suite customers is not an isolated criminal act; it reflects the broader evolution of cyber insurgency against Western supply chains. When over 50 major organizations are impacted through the same vector, we are witnessing a campaign of island hopping—where adversaries infiltrate a third-party platform to traverse into corporate networks at scale.

This incident highlights the escalating threat posed by financially motivated groups with nation-state tradecraft, such as the cluster linked to FIN11. These actors are weaponizing supply chain dependencies to exfiltrate sensitive corporate data without disrupting operations, making detection far more difficult.

Enterprises must dramatically enhance third-party risk management and expand continuous monitoring of interconnected systems. Zero-day exploitation campaigns of this magnitude demonstrate that defending your own perimeter is no longer enough. Organizations must assume their software providers are targets, harden identity controls, and increase threat hunting across all integrated platforms to suppress these campaigns before they metastasize.”

I have said it before and I will say it again, this will be the biggest hack since the last biggest hack. And I suspect that the victims will really start to pile up in the coming days as more victims come forward.

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