CSO Online

CSO Online

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Publication for security executives focusing on cybersecurity management and risk.

Thousands of Apache ActiveMQ Instances Still Unpatched, Weeks After an Actively Exploited Hole Discovered
NewsApr 21, 2026

Thousands of Apache ActiveMQ Instances Still Unpatched, Weeks After an Actively Exploited Hole Discovered

Researchers at Horizon3.ai used Anthropic's Claude AI to uncover a remote code execution flaw (CVE‑2026‑34197) in Apache ActiveMQ within ten minutes. The vulnerability affects versions before 5.19.4 and 6.0‑6.2.2, exposing nearly 6,500 internet‑facing instances two weeks after disclosure. CISA has...

By CSO Online
Azure SRE Agent Flaw Lets Outsiders Silently Eavesdrop on Enterprise Cloud Operations
NewsApr 21, 2026

Azure SRE Agent Flaw Lets Outsiders Silently Eavesdrop on Enterprise Cloud Operations

Microsoft disclosed a critical authentication flaw (CVE‑2026‑32173) in its Azure SRE Agent that let any Entra ID tenant obtain a valid token and listen to the agent’s WebSocket stream. The vulnerability exposed user prompts, internal reasoning, commands, and credentials without...

By CSO Online
Top Techniques Attackers Use to Infiltrate Your Systems Today
NewsApr 21, 2026

Top Techniques Attackers Use to Infiltrate Your Systems Today

The article outlines current cyberattack techniques, highlighting identity‑based methods as dominant. Phishing (41%), stolen credentials (18%) and social engineering (12%) drive most incidents, while abuse of legitimate remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools accounts for 30% of breaches. Attackers also...

By CSO Online
The Thin Gray Line: Handala, CyberAv3ngers and Iran’s Proxy Ops
NewsApr 21, 2026

The Thin Gray Line: Handala, CyberAv3ngers and Iran’s Proxy Ops

On April 7, six U.S. agencies issued a joint advisory warning that Iranian‑linked advanced persistent threat groups could launch cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, citing the 2023 water‑facility breaches attributed to the APT known as CyberAv3ngers. The advisory also references the...

By CSO Online
Attackers Abuse Microsoft Teams to Impersonate the IT Helpdesk in a New Enterprise Intrusion Playbook
NewsApr 20, 2026

Attackers Abuse Microsoft Teams to Impersonate the IT Helpdesk in a New Enterprise Intrusion Playbook

Microsoft’s security research reveals a new intrusion playbook where threat actors exploit Microsoft Teams’ cross‑tenant chat feature to impersonate IT helpdesk staff. By convincing employees to grant remote access through legitimate tools, attackers bypass traditional phishing filters and blend into...

By CSO Online
CISOs Reshape Their Roles as Business Risk Strategists
NewsApr 20, 2026

CISOs Reshape Their Roles as Business Risk Strategists

CISOs are evolving from pure technical stewards to enterprise risk strategists, exemplified by ThoughtWorks' Nitin Raina, who simultaneously serves as global CISO and head of enterprise risk. Recent surveys show 78% of CISOs share security‑risk accountability with other C‑suite executives,...

By CSO Online
Critical Sandbox Bypass Fixed in Popular Thymeleaf Java Template Engine
NewsApr 17, 2026

Critical Sandbox Bypass Fixed in Popular Thymeleaf Java Template Engine

Thymeleaf, the default template engine for Java Spring applications, patched a critical Server‑Side Template Injection flaw (CVE‑2026‑40478) rated 9.1 on the CVSS scale. The vulnerability let unauthenticated attackers bypass the engine’s sandbox by using whitespace characters, enabling arbitrary expression execution....

By CSO Online
Flawed Cisco Update Threatens to Stop APs From Getting Further Patches
NewsApr 17, 2026

Flawed Cisco Update Threatens to Stop APs From Getting Further Patches

Cisco's recent IOS XE update for over 200 wireless access point models adds a log that grows about 5 MB per day, eventually exhausting flash memory and blocking further patches or bricking devices. Affected models include Catalyst 9130AX, 91361, 9162x, 9164x, IW9167...

By CSO Online
White House Moves to Give Federal Agencies Access to Anthropic’s Claude Mythos
NewsApr 17, 2026

White House Moves to Give Federal Agencies Access to Anthropic’s Claude Mythos

The White House Office of Management and Budget announced it is preparing to allow major federal agencies to use a modified version of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos AI model. Claude Mythos has demonstrated the ability to locate thousands of zero‑day vulnerabilities...

By CSO Online
Another Microsoft Defender Privilege Escalation Bug Emerges Days After Patch
NewsApr 17, 2026

Another Microsoft Defender Privilege Escalation Bug Emerges Days After Patch

Researchers have disclosed a new local privilege escalation exploit called “RedSun” that abuses Microsoft Defender’s handling of cloud‑tagged files to rewrite protected system binaries and gain SYSTEM rights. The proof‑of‑concept works on Windows 10, Windows 11 and Windows Server 2019+...

By CSO Online
Palo Alto’s Helmut Reisinger Sees a Cyber Sea Change Ahead as AI Advances
NewsApr 17, 2026

Palo Alto’s Helmut Reisinger Sees a Cyber Sea Change Ahead as AI Advances

Palo Alto Networks is deepening its AI‑centric security push by joining Anthropic’s Project Glasswing, an exclusive initiative that uses Claude Mythos to uncover zero‑day vulnerabilities. The company has accelerated its platformization strategy through recent acquisitions—Protect AI, Chronosphere and the soon‑to‑close...

By CSO Online
Behind the Mythos Hype, Glasswing Has Just One Confirmed CVE
NewsApr 16, 2026

Behind the Mythos Hype, Glasswing Has Just One Confirmed CVE

Anthropic’s Project Glasswing, the gated access program behind its Mythos AI, has produced only one publicly attributed CVE (CVE‑2026‑4747) according to VulnCheck’s analysis. While Anthropic researchers are credited with 40 CVEs overall, the majority stem from external collaborations rather than...

By CSO Online
Insurance Carriers Quietly Back Away From Covering AI Outputs
NewsApr 16, 2026

Insurance Carriers Quietly Back Away From Covering AI Outputs

Major U.S. insurers are quietly pulling back from covering AI‑generated outputs in cyber‑risk and errors‑and‑omissions policies. While some carriers are outright declining to write such coverage, others are imposing steep premium hikes or carving out explicit exclusions for AI‑related liabilities....

By CSO Online
The Endless CISO Reporting Line Debate — and What It Says About Cybersecurity Leadership
NewsApr 16, 2026

The Endless CISO Reporting Line Debate — and What It Says About Cybersecurity Leadership

The debate over where the chief information security officer (CISO) should report persists in 2026, despite two decades of high‑profile breaches and heightened board scrutiny. While the reporting line signals authority and visibility, it is ultimately a proxy for the...

By CSO Online
Copilot and Agentforce Fall to Form-Based Prompt Injection Tricks
NewsApr 15, 2026

Copilot and Agentforce Fall to Form-Based Prompt Injection Tricks

Security researchers at Capsule Security uncovered prompt‑injection flaws in Microsoft Copilot Studio and Salesforce Agentforce that let attackers exfiltrate data via ordinary SharePoint and lead forms. In Copilot, the “ShareLeak” vulnerability (CVE‑2026‑21520) lets a crafted comment field override system prompts...

By CSO Online
The Deepfake Dilemma: From Financial Fraud to Reputational Crisis
NewsApr 15, 2026

The Deepfake Dilemma: From Financial Fraud to Reputational Crisis

Deepfake technology has moved from a niche curiosity to a cheap, widely accessible threat, with a 2025 Gartner survey showing 43% of cybersecurity leaders encountering audio deepfakes and 37% facing video deepfakes in the past year. The fraud potential is...

By CSO Online
The Need for a Board-Level Definition of Cyber Resilience
NewsApr 15, 2026

The Need for a Board-Level Definition of Cyber Resilience

Cyber resilience is now a board‑level governance priority, yet its definition varies across regulatory frameworks, leaving directors uncertain about oversight responsibilities. A literature review of 38 sources shows the concept is still fragmented, with divergent views on scope and relationship...

By CSO Online
April Patch Tuesday Roundup: Zero Day Vulnerabilities and Critical Bugs
NewsApr 15, 2026

April Patch Tuesday Roundup: Zero Day Vulnerabilities and Critical Bugs

Microsoft’s April Patch Tuesday delivered 167 fixes, including a actively‑exploited SharePoint Server zero‑day (CVE‑2026‑32201) and a critical Windows IKE remote‑code‑execution flaw (CVE‑2026‑33824) with a 9.8 CVSS score. Additional high‑risk bugs affect Active Directory (CVE‑2026‑33826), TCP/IP stack (CVE‑2026‑33827) and SAP Business...

By CSO Online
4 Questions to Ask Before Outsourcing MDR
NewsApr 14, 2026

4 Questions to Ask Before Outsourcing MDR

Security teams face relentless alerts, staffing gaps and rising expectations for uptime, making Managed Detection and Response (MDR) a strategic necessity rather than a luxury. Outsourcing MDR provides round‑the‑clock monitoring across endpoints, identities and cloud workloads, ensuring threats are spotted...

By CSO Online
5 Trends Defining the Future of AI-Powered Cybersecurity
NewsApr 14, 2026

5 Trends Defining the Future of AI-Powered Cybersecurity

The N‑able and Futurum report outlines how AI is reshaping cybersecurity, turning generative models into both attack tools and defensive assets. Attackers now automate phishing, vulnerability scanning and exploit delivery at machine speed, forcing security teams to abandon static, perimeter‑based...

By CSO Online
China-Linked Cloud Credential Heist Runs on Typos and SMTP
NewsApr 14, 2026

China-Linked Cloud Credential Heist Runs on Typos and SMTP

Chinese‑aligned APT41 has deployed a Linux ELF backdoor that steals cloud credentials across AWS, GCP, Azure and Alibaba Cloud. The malware uses port 25 SMTP as a covert C2 channel, sending harvested IAM role and service‑account tokens to three typosquatted...

By CSO Online
The AI Inflection Point: What Security Leaders Must Do Now
NewsApr 14, 2026

The AI Inflection Point: What Security Leaders Must Do Now

AI has moved from experiment to production in cybersecurity, forcing security leaders to treat it as an operating‑model shift rather than a bolt‑on tool. Threat reports show AI‑enabled adversaries accelerating attack timelines to under 30 minutes, outpacing human‑only triage. CISOs...

By CSO Online
Seven IBM WebSphere Liberty Flaws Can Be Chained Into Full Takeover
NewsApr 13, 2026

Seven IBM WebSphere Liberty Flaws Can Be Chained Into Full Takeover

Security researchers disclosed seven interrelated flaws in IBM WebSphere Liberty, a modular Java application server, that can be chained to achieve full server takeover. The chain begins with a pre‑authentication remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in the SAML Web SSO...

By CSO Online
CISOs Tackle the AI Visibility Gap
NewsApr 13, 2026

CISOs Tackle the AI Visibility Gap

CISOs are confronting a growing AI visibility gap as organizations race to deploy generative models and AI‑enabled tools. A Pentera 2026 survey shows 67% of security leaders lack clear insight into where AI runs, and 48% cite limited visibility as...

By CSO Online
Hungarian Government Email Passwords Exposed Ahead of Election
NewsApr 10, 2026

Hungarian Government Email Passwords Exposed Ahead of Election

Bellingcat uncovered that passwords for nearly 800 Hungarian government email accounts are publicly available, affecting 12 of the 13 ministries, including national‑security officials. The leaks stem from simple, easily guessable passwords rather than sophisticated cyber attacks. The exposure comes weeks...

By CSO Online
Why Most Zero-Trust Architectures Fail at the Traffic Layer
NewsApr 10, 2026

Why Most Zero-Trust Architectures Fail at the Traffic Layer

Zero‑trust programs often excel at identity verification but stumble when traffic reaches the network edge. In many enterprises, inconsistent enforcement of TLS, fragmented ingress points, and partial mutual‑TLS deployments let malicious traffic bypass policy controls. The article highlights that the...

By CSO Online
CMMC Compliance in the Age of AI
NewsApr 10, 2026

CMMC Compliance in the Age of AI

Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification 2.0 (CMMC 2.0) now requires federal contractors to prove how they protect Controlled Unclassified Information, moving beyond self‑attestation to verifiable evidence. The biggest readiness gap is a lack of comprehensive data‑scope awareness, often uncovering a larger...

By CSO Online
Weak at the Seams
NewsApr 9, 2026

Weak at the Seams

The article argues that cyber risk is no longer a collection of isolated silos but a systemic threat amplified by digital transformation across healthcare, finance and manufacturing. While global security spending is projected to exceed $212 billion in 2025, the exposure...

By CSO Online
Patch Windows Collapse as Time-to-Exploit Accelerates
NewsApr 9, 2026

Patch Windows Collapse as Time-to-Exploit Accelerates

Rapid7’s 2026 Threat Landscape Report shows confirmed exploitation of high‑ and critical‑severity vulnerabilities more than doubled, rising to 146 incidents in 2025 from 71 in 2024. The median time from public disclosure to inclusion in CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list...

By CSO Online
Arelion Employs NETSCOUT Arbor DDoS Protection Products
NewsApr 8, 2026

Arelion Employs NETSCOUT Arbor DDoS Protection Products

Arelion, a Tier‑1 IP backbone provider serving 129 countries, has deepened its partnership with NETSCOUT to modernize its DDoS defense. After 16 years using Arbor Sightline and the Threat Mitigation System, Arelion added three NETSCOUT offerings—Sentinel, ATLAS Intelligence Feed, and...

By CSO Online
6 Winter 2026 G2 Leader Badges Prove This DDoS Protection Stands Out
NewsApr 8, 2026

6 Winter 2026 G2 Leader Badges Prove This DDoS Protection Stands Out

NETSCOUT’s Arbor Threat Mitigation System (TMS) captured five G2 leader badges for winter 2026, spanning enterprise DDoS protection, momentum, regional Asia, and web security categories. Its companion solution, Arbor Sightline, earned a leader badge in enterprise network management. The awards...

By CSO Online
How Botnet-Driven DDoS Attacks Evolved in 2H 2025
NewsApr 8, 2026

How Botnet-Driven DDoS Attacks Evolved in 2H 2025

In the second half of 2025, DDoS attacks remained numerically steady but grew dramatically in scale and sophistication. AI‑enhanced DDoS‑for‑hire services enabled even non‑technical actors to launch multiterabit floods, with IoT botnets such as TurboMirai reaching 30 Tbps and 4 gigapackets per...

By CSO Online
5 Practical Steps to Strengthen Attack Resilience with Attack Surface Management
NewsApr 7, 2026

5 Practical Steps to Strengthen Attack Resilience with Attack Surface Management

The article outlines how attack surface management (ASM) transforms raw visibility into measurable cyber resilience by continuously identifying and prioritizing exposure across all asset categories. It presents five practical steps: comprehensive surface identification, focusing on fast‑breaking attack vectors, moving from...

By CSO Online
5 Steps to Strengthen Supply Chain Security and Improve Cyber Resilience
NewsApr 7, 2026

5 Steps to Strengthen Supply Chain Security and Improve Cyber Resilience

Supply chain attacks are increasingly bypassing traditional defenses, forcing organizations to treat vendor risk as a core cyber‑resilience issue. The article outlines five practical steps: mapping and prioritizing dependencies, continuously monitoring supplier security posture, tightening access controls, deploying unified telemetry...

By CSO Online
5 Ways to Strengthen Identity Security and Improve Attack Resilience
NewsApr 7, 2026

5 Ways to Strengthen Identity Security and Improve Attack Resilience

Identity compromise is now the top vector for breaching corporate systems, rendering traditional firewalls and endpoint tools ineffective once valid credentials are used. The article outlines five actionable steps—mandatory MFA for privileged accounts, deployment of privileged access management (PAM), comprehensive...

By CSO Online
Zero‑click Grafana AI Attack Can Enable Enterprise Data Exfiltration
NewsApr 7, 2026

Zero‑click Grafana AI Attack Can Enable Enterprise Data Exfiltration

Security researchers have uncovered GrafanaGhost, a chained exploit that leverages indirect prompt injection in Grafana’s AI dashboards to exfiltrate sensitive enterprise data without user authentication. The attack persists malicious prompts, tricks the AI model into generating outbound image requests, and...

By CSO Online
Supply Chain Security Is Now a Board-Level Issue: Here’s What CSOs Need to Know
NewsApr 7, 2026

Supply Chain Security Is Now a Board-Level Issue: Here’s What CSOs Need to Know

Supply chain security has moved from a niche technical issue to a board‑level priority, driven by stringent regulations like the European Cyber Resilience Act and U.S. EO 14028. Open‑source components now appear in 97% of commercial applications, with 86% harboring vulnerabilities,...

By CSO Online
Escaping the COTS Trap
NewsApr 6, 2026

Escaping the COTS Trap

Enterprise cybersecurity teams have amassed large fleets of commercial off‑the‑shelf (COTS) tools, driving complexity, cost, and risk. While COTS promises rapid deployment and lower upfront spend, dependence creates structural lock‑in that hampers future changes and migration. The article highlights how...

By CSO Online
WhatsApp Malware Campaign Uses Malicious VBS Files to Gain Persistent Access
NewsApr 1, 2026

WhatsApp Malware Campaign Uses Malicious VBS Files to Gain Persistent Access

Microsoft Defender has identified a WhatsApp‑based malware campaign that distributes malicious Visual Basic Script (VBS) files. The scripts employ social engineering and living‑off‑the‑land techniques, renaming legitimate Windows utilities to download additional payloads. Attackers host these payloads on trusted cloud services...

By CSO Online
9 Ways CISOs Can Combat AI Hallucinations
NewsApr 1, 2026

9 Ways CISOs Can Combat AI Hallucinations

AI hallucinations are undermining governance, risk and compliance (GRC) processes as generative tools begin making judgment calls on control effectiveness and incident handling. Security leaders warn that unchecked AI can produce convincing yet inaccurate assessments, leading to faulty risk scores...

By CSO Online
The External Pressures Redefining Cybersecurity Risk
NewsMar 31, 2026

The External Pressures Redefining Cybersecurity Risk

External pressures are reshaping cybersecurity risk, with third‑party breaches now accounting for over 35% of incidents. Geopolitical conflicts are spilling battle‑tested tactics into operational technology (OT) and IoT environments, raising safety and continuity stakes. Generative AI accelerates attacker capabilities while...

By CSO Online
Why Kubernetes Controllers Are the Perfect Backdoor
NewsMar 30, 2026

Why Kubernetes Controllers Are the Perfect Backdoor

Kubernetes controllers, the engine behind cluster self‑healing, are being weaponized as stealthy backdoors. Threat actors register rogue MutatingAdmissionWebhooks or custom controllers that watch for pod creation events and inject malicious sidecars, as seen in the Siloscape and Hildegard campaigns. Because...

By CSO Online
Chained Vulnerabilities in Cisco Catalyst Switches Could Induce Denial-of-Service
NewsMar 25, 2026

Chained Vulnerabilities in Cisco Catalyst Switches Could Induce Denial-of-Service

Cisco disclosed four vulnerabilities in its widely deployed Catalyst 9300 series switches, two of which (CVE‑2026‑20114 and CVE‑2026‑20110) can be chained to elevate a low‑privilege Lobby Ambassador account into maintenance mode, effectively causing a denial‑of‑service outage. The chain requires only...

By CSO Online
The Insider Threat Rises Again
NewsMar 23, 2026

The Insider Threat Rises Again

Insider threats are resurging, with 42% of organizations reporting more malicious incidents and a similar rise in negligent cases, according to Mimecast’s State of Human Risk Report. The average cost per insider‑driven breach now tops $13.1 million, and 66% of security...

By CSO Online
Reco Targets AI Agent Blind Spots with New Security Capability
NewsMar 18, 2026

Reco Targets AI Agent Blind Spots with New Security Capability

Reco has launched a new capability called “Reco AI Agent Security” to give enterprises visibility and control over autonomous AI agents across their SaaS stack. The tool, available from March 18, expands Reco’s existing platform to cover agents such as Microsoft...

By CSO Online
Can You Prove the Person on the Other Side Is Real?
NewsMar 18, 2026

Can You Prove the Person on the Other Side Is Real?

The article warns that by 2026 synthetic identities and deepfake technology will outpace traditional AI automation in the estate‑and‑identity space. Generative models can create fully fabricated personas that pass routine checks, allowing fraudsters to hijack legacy or deceased accounts and...

By CSO Online
ClickFix Treibt Neue Infostealer-Kampagnen An
NewsMar 18, 2026

ClickFix Treibt Neue Infostealer-Kampagnen An

Rapid7 uncovered a large‑scale ClickFix campaign that has compromised more than 250 WordPress sites in twelve countries since December 2025. The attackers serve a fake Cloudflare CAPTCHA which tricks visitors into executing obfuscated PowerShell commands that launch the DoubleDonut loader...

By CSO Online
What It Takes to Win that CSO Role
NewsMar 16, 2026

What It Takes to Win that CSO Role

Chief Security Officer (CSO) and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) roles have shifted from technical gatekeepers to board‑level risk executives. Executives now oversee AI governance, regulatory compliance such as the EU AI Act, and must prove security can sustain business...

By CSO Online
Hybrid Resilience: Designing Incident Response Across On-Prem, Cloud and SaaS without Losing Your Mind
NewsMar 13, 2026

Hybrid Resilience: Designing Incident Response Across On-Prem, Cloud and SaaS without Losing Your Mind

Hybrid incident response demands more than tool consolidation; a shared incident language and unified command structure are essential. The author proposes a contract that standardizes severity, hypothesis, timeline, and communication cadence across on‑prem, cloud, and SaaS teams. Portable telemetry—user‑journey metrics,...

By CSO Online