Dhara Shrivastava@cysecurity.news
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British retailer giant Marks & Spencer (M&S) is facing a major financial impact following a recent cyberattack, with potential profit losses estimated at £300 million, equivalent to $402 million. The attack has caused widespread operational and sales disruptions, particularly affecting the company's online retail systems. According to a recent filing with the London Stock Exchange, M&S anticipates these disruptions to continue until at least July, impacting its fiscal year 2025/26 profits.
The cyberattack has significantly impacted M&S’s online sales channels, forcing the company to temporarily halt online shopping in its Fashion, Home & Beauty divisions. This downtime has led to substantial revenue loss, despite the resilience of its physical stores. The company has also faced increased logistics and waste management costs as it reverted to manual processes. CEO Stuart Machin acknowledged the challenging situation but expressed confidence in the company's recovery, emphasizing a focus on restoring systems and accelerating technical transformation. M&S is actively implementing strategies to mitigate the financial repercussions, including cost management, insurance claims, and strategic trading actions. The retailer is reportedly preparing to claim up to £100 million from its cyber insurance policy to offset some of the losses. The company views this crisis as an opportunity to expedite its technical transformation, although specific details of this transformation have not yet been disclosed. The costs related to the attack itself and technical recovery are expected to be communicated at a later date as an adjustment item. Recommended read:
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Dysruption Hub@The Dysruption Hub
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Cellcom, a Wisconsin-based mobile carrier, has confirmed that a cyberattack is the cause of a week-long service outage that began on the evening of May 14, 2025. Customers across Wisconsin and Upper Michigan experienced disruptions to voice and SMS services, leaving them unable to make phone calls or send text messages. Initially, the company attributed the issue to a technical problem but later acknowledged the cyber incident in a video and letter from CEO Brighid Riordan. The attack specifically targeted a network segment responsible for handling voice and SMS, but the company assured customers that sensitive data, such as names, addresses, and financial details, was not compromised.
Cellcom has engaged federal authorities, including the FBI, and international cybersecurity experts to assist in mitigating the impact and restoring full service. CEO Brighid Riordan stated that the company was not unprepared for such an incident and emphasized their commitment to recovery. Partial service has been restored, and the company anticipates a full restoration by the end of the week. Cellcom has also pledged to cover service fees for affected customers during the outage as a gesture of accountability and thanks. The cyberattack on Cellcom highlights the critical importance of cybersecurity and the potential consequences of a breach on essential communication services. The outage has disrupted both personal and business communications, with some customers reporting business losses due to the prolonged downtime. The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection has received at least 15 customer complaints related to the disruption. Cellcom is advising affected users to try turning on their phone’s airplane mode for 10 seconds or restarting their device if they continue to experience connection issues. Recommended read:
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info@thehackernews.com (The@The Hacker News
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A new cybersecurity threat, dubbed Hazy Hawk, has emerged, exploiting misconfigured DNS records to hijack abandoned cloud resources. Since at least December 2023, the threat actor has been using DNS CNAME hijacking to seize control of abandoned cloud endpoints belonging to reputable organizations, including Amazon S3 buckets and Microsoft Azure endpoints. By registering new cloud resources with the same names as the abandoned ones, Hazy Hawk redirects traffic to malicious sites, incorporating these hijacked domains into large-scale scam delivery and traffic distribution systems (TDS). This allows them to distribute scams, fake applications, and malware to unsuspecting users, leveraging the trust associated with the original domains.
Infoblox researchers first detected Hazy Hawk's activities in February 2025, when the group successfully took control of subdomains belonging to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Further investigation revealed that global government agencies, major universities, and international corporations such as Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers have also been targeted. Hazy Hawk scans for domains with CNAME records pointing to abandoned cloud endpoints, determining this through passive DNS data validation. They then register a new cloud resource with the same name, causing the original domain's subdomain to resolve to the attacker's controlled resource. The attack chains often involve cloning legitimate websites to appear trustworthy, and URL obfuscation techniques are employed to hide malicious destinations. Hazy Hawk uses hijacked domains to host malicious URLs that redirect users to scams and malware. What makes Hazy Hawk's operations particularly concerning is the use of trusted domains to serve malicious content, enabling them to bypass detection and exploit the reputation of high-profile entities. Cybersecurity experts advise organizations to diligently monitor and manage their DNS records, ensuring that CNAME records pointing to abandoned cloud resources are removed to prevent unauthorized domain hijacking. Recommended read:
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@cyberalerts.io
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The FBI has issued a warning about the rising trend of cybercriminals using fake file converter tools to distribute malware. These tools, often advertised as free online document converters, are designed to trick users into downloading malicious software onto their computers. While these tools may perform the advertised file conversion, they also secretly install malware that can lead to identity theft, ransomware attacks, and the compromise of sensitive data.
The threat actors exploit various file converter or downloader tools, enticing users with promises of converting files from one format to another, such as .doc to .pdf, or combining multiple files. The malicious code, disguised as a file conversion utility, can scrape uploaded files for personal identifying information, including social security numbers, banking information, and cryptocurrency wallet addresses. The FBI advises users to be cautious of such tools and report any instances of this scam to protect their assets. The FBI Denver Field Office is warning that they are increasingly seeing scams involving free online document converter tools and encourages victims to report any instances of this scam. Malwarebytes has identified some of these suspect file converters, which include Imageconvertors.com, convertitoremp3.it, convertisseurs-pdf.com and convertscloud.com. The agency emphasized the importance of educating individuals about these threats to prevent them from falling victim to these scams. Recommended read:
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