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You're listening to the Cyberwire Network powered by N2K.
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How might Trump's new National Security Strategy impact cyber? The UK's NCSE warns LLMs may never get over prompt injection. At least 18 US universities were hit by a months long phishing campaign. Russia blocks Facetime A bipartisan group of senators revive efforts to strengthen protections across the health sector. Portugal provides legal safe harbor for good faith security research. A large scale campaign targets Palo Alto global protect portals. A Maryland man gets 15 months in prison for his part in a North Korean IT worker scam. We got our Monday business brief. Tim Starks from cyberscoop unpacks the President's pending cybersecurity strategy release and an AI image sends UK train schedules off the rails.
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It's Monday, december 8th, 2025. I'm dave buettner and this is your cyber wire int briefing.
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Thanks for joining us here today. It's great as always to have you with us. Late last Friday, the White House released the United States new National security strategy, a 33 page document that puts technology, leadership and economic protection at the center of national power. It also signals a sharper global contest over cyber influence. The document ties America's security to control of advanced technologies and to stopping foreign cyber enabled threats. According to the strategy, China's intellectual property theft, industrial espionage and influence operations remain major targets for defensive and offensive cyber activity. The administration links real time network discovery, attribution and response to close cooperation between government and private industry. It also calls for hardened communication networks across the Western Hemisphere that rely on American encryption and security tools. The strategy positions US technology standards in AI, biotech and quantum computing as the preferred global model. The Administration's new national security strategy signals a decisive break from past foreign policy. It replaces democracy promotion with a tightly focused vision of self interest that aims to make the United States more powerful and prosperous. According to some analysis, that shift may create a lonelier and more fractured future for America as global partnerships adjust to the new doctrine for cybersecurity. The biggest change is the elevation of economic power, industrial capacity and supply chain control as core strategic tools. The document points to re industrialization, critical mineral security and tight government industry collaboration, all of which raise the stakes in cyber espionage and digital competition. Europe's expected shock at the NSS could weaken coordination on cyber defense and counter disinformation efforts. China may welcome the emphasis on sovereignty but will oppose U.S. efforts to curb its influence abroad, increasing tension in technology and cyber domains. The reduced focus on democracy also suggests fewer constraints on partners that use surveillance, censorship or digital repression.
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Large language models may never be fully protected from prompt injection, a cyber threat that tricks AI systems into following malicious instructions. That's according to new warnings from the UK's National Cybersecurity Center. Because LLMs treat all text as tokens to predict, they can confuse user input for commands, enabling attackers to reveal hidden system prompts, extract sensitive data, or manipulate automated decisions. NCSC researchers argue that prompt injection is fundamentally unlike SQL injection, making traditional defenses ineffective. Attempts to distinguish instructions from data remain limited because LLMs inherently do not separate the two. The NCSC concludes that prompt injection will remain a persistent risk and that widespread embedding of generative AI could trigger significant global security breaches unless systems are designed with strong limitations and careful risk management.
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A report from Infoblox reveals that at least 18 US universities were hit by a months long phishing campaign From April through November of this year, attackers used the evil jinx adversary in the middle toolkit to bypass multi factor authentication by stealing session cookies after victims clicked tiny URL phishing links disguised as campus SSO pages. Infoblox trace nearly 70 shifting attacker domains used to target schools, including UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, the University of San Diego, VCU and Michigan, the firm warns. Universities remain prime high impact targets for cybercriminals.
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Russian authorities have restricted Apple's FaceTime service, accusing it of being used to support terrorism, recruitment, fraud and other criminal activity. Regulators also disclosed that Snapchat was blocked on October 10 for the same stated reasons. The moves reflect Russia's broader effort to tighten control over online communication under President Vladimir Putin, including restrictive laws, bans on non compliant platforms and advanced systems for monitoring and shaping Internet traffic. Apple did not comment on the accusations or restrictions.
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A bipartisan group of senators is reviving the Healthcare Cybersecurity and Resiliency act to strengthen protections across the health sector. The bill, originally introduced in late 2024 but never advanced, would modernize regulations, clarify federal roles, offer training and authorize grants to improve cybersecurity readiness. Lawmakers say healthcare remains highly vulnerable with cyberattacks exposing sensitive medical data and disrupting patient, especially in rural areas with limited resources. The legislation aims to boost coordination between the Department of Health and Human Services and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, requiring HHS to update HIPAA rules with modern security practices, develop an incident response plan and provide breach prevention guidance. It also establishes a five year grant program for select healthcare entities. Senators argue patients deserve confidence that their data is protected from ransomware and other threats.
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Portugal has amended its cybersecurity law to create a legal safe harbor for good faith security researchers, exempting certain hacking activities from punishment under strict conditions. The new article protects researchers who probe only existing vulnerabilities, avoid financial gain report flaws, immediately limit their actions to what's necessary, avoid harmful techniques and delete any collected data once fixed consent based testing is also covered. The change aligns Portugal with similar moves in Germany and the United States. To support responsible vulnerability disclosure and safer cybersecurity research.
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A large scale campaign has targeted Palo Alto Global Protect portals and later SonicWall Sonic OS API endpoints. According to Graynoise, beginning December 2, attackers launched credential stuffing and scanning activity for more than 7,000 IP addresses tied to German hosting provider 3xk GmbH. Initial waves focused on brute forcing globalprotect VPN logins across multiple profiles using client fingerprints previously seen in millions of scan sessions dating back to September. By mid November, the infrastructure generated another 2.3 million global protect scans, mostly from Germany. On December 3, the same fingerprints appeared, probing SonicWall API endpoints, activity typically used to identify exposed systems or future exploitation targets. Gray noise attributes both clusters to the same actor. Palo Alto networks confirmed increased credential based attacks and urged customers to enforce MFA.
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A Maryland man Min Fong Gok Vong has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for allowing North Korean IT workers to use his identity to obtain software development jobs at 13 U.S. companies, including work contracted to federal agencies such as the FAA. Prosecutors say that from 2021 to 2024, Vong collected over $970,000 in salary and while North Korean nationals performed the work overseas. Using his credentials to access US Systems at one Virginia Tech firm, Vong lied about his background, verified his identity with US Documents and was assigned to FAA systems handling sensitive national defense information. He installed remote access tools that enabled workers in China to operate under his name. The case is part of broader DPRK IT worker schemes that US Officials say fund sanctioned North Korean government operations. Turning to our Monday business brief, cybersecurity funding and acquisition activity remained strong, with multiple firms announcing sizable investments. Israel based Zafran Security raised $60 million in Series C financing to accelerate product innovation and expand globally. Microsoft 365 security provider Augment secured $18 million to advance its Roadmap and Deepen MSP partnerships software supply chain Firm Codenotary raised $16.5 million to grow engineering, AI research and international go to market efforts. Zero Trust Networking Company net Foundry added Cisco Investments to its Series A, bringing the round above $15 million. Cloud security startup Blast Security emerged from stealth with a $10 million seed round, while Swiss identity security firm Sapporo raised 7 million euros to scale R and D and expand across Europe. M and a activity included ServiceNow's planned acquisition of identity service company Veza for a reported $1 billion McAfee's purchase of consumer privacy app Saymine, Eluradi's acquisition of OT security firm MSF Partners and Wallix's acquisition of French cybersecurity analytics company Malazan to accelerate its AI roadmap. Be sure to check out our complete business briefing on our website. That's part of Cyberwire.
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Coming up after the break. Tim Starks from cyberscoop unpacks the president's pending cybersecurity strategy release and an AI image sends UK train schedules off the rails. Stick around.
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Foreign.
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It's always my pleasure to welcome back to the show Tim Starks. He is a senior reporter at cyberscoop. Tim, welcome back. Hi Dave, really interested in your reporting here about this draft from the Trump administration about their cyber strategy. What is going on here? Tim?
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Well, there's some substance and some style questions to address here.
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Okay, fair enough.
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The style questions have actually gotten a little bit more of the attention in terms of how people have been responding to the story. This is a five page document that is a really short strategy. The Biden administration cyber strategy was 35 pages.
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Okay?
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And here's the thing, there are six pillars to this strategy, which means less, less than one page per pillar.
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So that's something that people have talked about as sort of like focused on like, wow, this is a really short strategy. And some people have told me that it's not viewed so much as a traditional strategy document, more a messaging document, a statement of purpose, than a full fledged strategy, and that the most important work that will be done on it will be done on the implementation side. So that's the style side of things. The substance side of things is despite the fact that it's so short, they cover a lot of topics. The six pillars are cyber offensive, deterrence, that's first and foremost for this administration, imposing costs on adversaries, as they like to say. Then there's regulatory harmonization, just aligning these regulations to make them so they're a little more streamlined with each other, from sector to sector, agency to agency, bolstering the cyber workforce, which is an Interesting one from this administration because they've been cutting a lot of the cyber workforce, federal procurement. There's a thing that Sean Cairncross, the National Cyber Director, has been saying about thinking that we're not getting the best technology because we have a slow process for authorizing that for the federal government. So that's a focus critical infrastructure protection and emerging technologies. And you might think that some of these things will go line up. For instance, you might think AI goes right into that emerging technologies bucket. But AI is addressed apparently throughout the document. I've not seen it myself. I've just talked to people who are familiar with it and other, other topics are in there, post quantum cryptography, China, cybercrime, you name it. There's a lot in that, There's a lot in this five page document.
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Something that caught my eye in your reporting was this notion of a more muscular approach, which to me seems very on brand for this administration.
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Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, from what I've been told, the, the opening, there's an opening section that takes up a lot of the six pages. Now, I don't mean like, you know, it's, it takes up most of it or anything like that. I just mean that you would think with a, with a, with a five page document they wouldn't have a preamble, but, but as drafted, they do. And it talks about this, you know, sort of idea of America first and we need to sort of the kind of Trump, Trumpian rhetoric you hear from Trump himself and this administration on a pretty regular basis about, you know, in particular in cyberspace, going on the offense and, and making the enemies fear. America essentially is kind of the gist of the rhetoric.
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B
And given that your sense here is that this is going to be released probably in January, was this leak strategic or just folks who are familiar with the document deciding to sort of share what they know?
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A
That's an interesting question to answer on the air.
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B
Fair enough.
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I'll say that it was. I'm not trying to puff myself up. I've been trying to report on this document, so I don't want to say anything about where I got it from.
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B
But good old fashioned shoe leather on the ground. Right. From an experienced reporter.
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Yes. Dead drops putting messages under rocks so that I can find out about this strategy.
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B
All right, fair enough. Well, the other article that you wrote that caught my eye here is about Sean Planky, and evidently his nomination to lead CISA is in jeopardy here.
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Yeah, and it might be worse than that. And, but you know, both of these stories I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll brag slightly about, I don't think anybody else has reported on these to the extent that I have. John Planky has been the nominee for some time and he, he's got a, he got a committee vote and all sorts of things. But, but my sources seem to think that this is as close to dead as you can have as an, for a nomination without it actually being fully deceased for a variety of reasons. But one in particular, his nomination is probably not going forward. He had a good chance to move forward if he was part of this package of nominees that got moved on the Senate floor. You know, there's this procedural change that Republicans have put in place because they're trying to go around what they call Democratic obstruction to sort of do on, on blanc en banc, I believe this is the terminology. Yeah, Nominations. And just have one big vote on all of them. He was left out of that package and for at least two of the reasons that have held up his nomination. Nothing to do with cybersecurity.
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B
Well, so help me understand here is the fact that his nomination is falling apart. Does that have anything to do with him personally or is it just one of those administrative things that frustrate the process?
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I think it's a little bit of a mix. I mean, certainly on the cybersecurity front, he has, he has the credentials, he has the backing of people. You know, there are some Democrats who voted against him in committee, but I think temperament, expertise, I think a lot of people think he check all the boxes. So is it administrative? Partially. I mean, if they can't get him in this package, they'll have to resubmit paperwork. That puts us a hurdle. But what really, really seems to be the issue, and this is where it gets closer to personal, is that while he's been awaiting his nomination to go through the Senate, he has been serving as a special advisor on Coast Guard reform to Secretary Noem at the Department of Homeland Security. And one of the things that happened under the Coast Guard reform, I always hate using that term because I feel like it's loaded, but I'm using the terms they use is that they canceled a rather a significant part of a large contract for shipbuilding that was a multi billion dollar contract and that supplied some significant amount of jobs to a company in Florida. And the person who has the most resilient, hard to overcome hold on that nomination is Senator Rick Scott of Florida and he's a Republican. So there's some intrigue there, there are some other holds. But I think most people consider the other two rather not so hard to overcome. You know, in the sense that Senator Wyden has a hold related to wanting to get a telecommunications cybersecurity report out of cisa, one that CISA said in July they were willing to provide, but they have not done yet. The senators from North Carolina, both Republicans, Ted Budd and Thom Tillis, want some more disaster funding for North Carolina. I think that's theoretically easier to release. But the idea of undoing a contract that has been terminated or at least partially terminated, that's where things get a little harder. And that's even if that's even if the administration wanted to do that, if they wanted to reverse what they've done, you still would have some real difficulties with that. And by virtue of him being involved with the Coast Guard's reform effort, I think Senator Scott is saying this guy can't go.
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B
Yeah. All right. Intriguing, for sure.
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Quite.
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Yeah. Tim Starks is senior reporter at Cyber Scoop. Tim, thanks so much for joining us.
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A
Glad to be here.
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And finally, trains across northern England briefly ground to a halt after an AI generated photograph claimed that Lancaster's Carlisle Bridge had crumbled spectacularly following a late night earthquake. The image, which apparently showed enough rubble to make a stonemason weep, surfaced on social media. Network Rail, taking no chances, paused traffic while inspectors confirmed the bridge was as intact as ever. A BBC journalist asked an AI model to review the image, which obligingly pointed out its suspiciously artistic damage.
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The rail line reopened, though not before 32 trains, some all the way up into Scotland, were delayed by what amounted to a digital prank gone wrong. Network Rail gently reminded the public that manufacturing disaster for fun tends to inconvenience real humans and taxpayers. Experts noted few passengers were affected since the whole caper took place after hours, but the hoax still forced teams to scramble. As one rail specialist put it, what seems like a game can derail someone's very real plans.
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And that's the Cyber Wire. For links to all of today's stories, check out our daily briefing@thecyberwire.com don't forget to check out the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast, where I contribute to a regular segment on Jason and Brian's show. Every week you can find Grumpy Old Geeks, where all the fine podcasts are listed. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing world of cybersecurity. If you like our show, please share a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to cyberwire2k.com N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth. Our Cyberwire producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Ibin. Peter Kilpe is our publisher and I'm Dave Bittner. Thanks for listening. We'll see you back here tomorrow.