Cybersecurity - Azzet - Business news, investments companies & executives

Sign inJoin Now

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity
JPMorgan CEO warns AI leaves cybersecurity vulnerable
Head of JPMorgan has said that artificial intelligence is a “double edged sword” for cyber security. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, said during a call about the bank's latest earnings that AI has "made it worse, it’s made it harder” to develop effective cybersecurity and is creating more vulnerabilities rather than less. He confirmed that the bank is currently testing the Mythos model, the latest offering from AI firm Anthropic, with seemingly mixed results. “AI’s made it worse, it’s made it harder,” Dimon told analysts in the call. “It does create additional vulnerabilities, and maybe down the road, better ways to strengthen yourself too.” However, he also gave assurance that JPMorgan was continuing to invest heavily in protecting against cyber threats. “We spend a lot of money. We’ve got top experts. We’re in constant contact with the government,” he said. “It’s a full-time job, and we’re doing it all the time.”
Cybersecurity
OpenAI tightens security after North Korea-linked attack
OpenAI is improving its online security after discovering an issue involving a third-party developer tool, Axios. The privately-owned company best known for its ChatGPT artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot said the issue was part of a widely-reported broadly industry incident. “Out of an abundance of caution we are taking steps to protect the process that certifies our macOS applications are legitimate OpenAI apps,” OpenAI said in a statement. “We found no evidence that OpenAI user data was accessed, that our systems or intellectual property was compromised, or that our software was altered.” The company said it was updating its security ⁠certifications, requiring all macOS users to update their OpenAI apps to the latest versions to help prevent any risk of someone attempting to distribute a fake app. Axios, a widely used third-party developer library, was compromised on 31 March as part of a broader software supply chain attack by “actors” believed to be linked to North Korea. This attack led a workflow used by OpenAI to download and execute ‌a 'malicious' ⁠version of Axios. OpenAI said its analysis of the incident concluded that the signing certificate present in ⁠this workflow was not likely to have been su
Cybersecurity
EC waves through Google purchase of Wiz
The European Commission (EC) has unconditionally approved Google’s US$32 billion (A$45 billion) acquisition of cybersecurity company Wiz. The EC said the proposed transaction, the largest ever for the Alphabet Inc business, would raise no competition concerns in the European Economic Area. "Google stands behind Amazon and Microsoft in terms of market shares in cloud infrastructure, and our assessment confirmed that customers will continue to have credible alternatives and the ability to switch providers," EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement. The EC said any data acquired by Google via the deal was not commercially sensitive and could also be assessed by other security software companies. “The Commission gathered extensive feedback from customers and rival suppliers of cloud security and cloud infrastructure services, in order to investigate the impact of all material aspects of the transaction,” the EC said. “Based on its market investigation, the Commission found that there are several credible competitors that customers could switch to if Google were to bundle Wiz's multi-cloud security platform with its existing products, or in case Wiz's platform no longer worked with clouds other than Google's.
Cybersecurity
CrowdStrike buys SGNL for defence against AI cyberattacks
CrowdStrike announced that it will buy identity management startup SGNL in a deal worth nearly US$740 million. The acquisition aims to beef up defences in the age of AI cyberattacks, with users of CrowdStrike’s Falcon cloud security being able to better manage human and AI identity access requests and real-time risks. “AI agents operate with superhuman speed and access, making every agent a privileged identity that must be protected,” Crowdstrike CEO and founder, George Kurtz, said. “With SGNL, CrowdStrike will deliver continuous, real-time access control that eliminates the known and unknown gaps from legacy standing privileges.” The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of fiscal 2027. This follows a slew of cyberattacks, including Microsoft, which was hit with a wave of attacks targeting its SharePoint collaboration tool and AI startup Anthropic. In the media release announcing the acquisition, CrowdStrike said the identity security market is expected to grow from around US$29 billion in 2025 to US$56 billion by 2029. At the time of writing, CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) stocks were down 3.14% to US$463.87. Its market capitalisation is US$116.94 billion.
Cybersecurity
SK's Coupang apologises after massive data leak
South Korean e-commerce retailer Coupang has apologised after a data breach exposed information from around 33.7 million accounts. The leak included customers’ names, email addresses, phone numbers, and shipping addresses, Coupang said, though payment details and login credentials were not affected. “We apologise for causing inconvenience and concern,” Coupang CEO Park Dae-jun wrote. “We'll closely cooperate with relevant authorities to prevent further damage,” according to Park. “We are also reviewing what changes we can make to the data security system, so we can better protect customer information.” Customers’ data was initially accessed on 24 June through servers outside South Korea, and continued for nearly five months. The company originally estimated that just 4,500 accounts had been impacted before revising its figure to 33.7 million on Saturday. Coupang received an email warning that the data breach would be disclosed to the media if it did not bolster its security system, Yonhap News Agency reported. The email did not demand a monetary ransom. Police have identified a former Coupang employee from China as a suspect, per Yonhap. The South Korean government has said it remains open to a range of possibili

Cybersecurity
Fake online shops surge 250% ahead of Black Friday
Australians reported $259.5 million in scam losses during the first nine months of 2025, with online shopping fraud driving a sharp spike ahead of the looming Black Friday sales period. The National Anti-Scam Centre recorded 159,319 scam reports between January and September - a 16% jump in financial losses despite a 20% drop in overall reports compared to the same period last year. Shopping scams accounted for $8.6 million in losses from 9,628 reports, marking a 19% increase from 2024 and making it the most reported scam category involving financial loss. "Scammers love Black Friday sales too because they know shoppers are looking for bargains," ACCC Deputy Chair Catriona Lowe said. The warning comes as criminals exploit urgency and pressure during peak shopping periods, with fake websites, advertisements and mobile apps serving as the primary attack vector. Cybersecurity firm NordVPN detected a 250% increase in fake online shops in the run-up to Black Friday, with eBay imitations surging 525% in October compared to September. Amazon counterfeits jumped 232% over the same period, while the firm blocked 13.4 million attempts to access fraudulent sites in October alone - 381,000 per day. "Criminals create convi
Cybersecurity
What's behind the surge in cyberattacks on businesses?
Throughout 2025, companies like Jaguar Land Rover, Asahi, and Qantas have been compromised by cyberattacks. These attacks can have massive financial and technological consequences, often by stealing or locking businesses’ data in a bid to demand a ransom. Cyberattacks have also grown increasingly common, helped by cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, and groups offering software and infrastructure to attackers. The Australian Cyber Security Centre responded to more than 1,200 cybersecurity incidents across the 2024-2025 fiscal year, rising 11%, and informed entities about possible malicious cybersecurity threats over 1,700 times. The average self-reported cost per cyberattack incident for Australian businesses surged by 50%.How much damage can a cyberattack cause?Many cyberattacks this year have caused major financial losses for companies, including halting production and deactivating technological systems. The Jaguar Land Rover hack had a UK£1.9 billion impact on the United Kingdom’s economy, the nonprofit Cyber Monitoring Centre estimated in October, and affected more than 5,000 organisations in the country. “This incident appears to be the most economically damaging cyber event to hit the U.K., with the vast maj
Cybersecurity
ASIO chief warns of Chinese threat to key infrastructure
The nation's top intelligence chief has warned that China is actively attempting to hack into Australian critical infrastructure and telco networks. ASIO director-general Mike Burgess, made the comments during an ASIC forum in Melbourne today, urging attendees and businesses in general to boost their security systems to help protect sensitive data as we enter an age of “strategic surprise and security fragility”. He stated that hacking attempts are already underway from Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon, backed by the Chinese state, and that this was not a future problem but happening right now. These groups have already launched campaigns against the U.S. on telco networks and critical infrastructure. “I have previously said we're getting closer to the threshold for high-impact sabotage…well, I regret to inform you — we're there now," Burgess told attendees. He did not name Beijing outright, but inferred heavily that that was who he believed to be behind this new era of cyber attacks, saying he was aware of "one nation state — no prizes for guessing which one — conducting multiple attempts to scan and penetrate critical infrastructure in Australia and other Five Eyes countries". These attacks have reportedly been a
Cybersecurity
Email attacks compromise 78% of organisations in 2025
Email breaches struck 78% of organisations worldwide in the past year, costing an average US$217,000 per incident to remediate, with Australian businesses facing a 48% uptick in attacks this year. Barracuda's newly released Email Security Breach Report surveyed 2,000 IT security decision-makers across nine countries and found 78% experienced an email security breach between April 2024 and May 2025, with 71% of those victims also getting hit with ransomware. Organisations taking over two hours to detect and contain an email breach were substantially more likely to face ransomware, with 64% of ransomware victims requiring extended remediation time. Average recovery costs hit $217,068 per breach, with smaller firms taking the worst beating. Companies with 50 to 100 employees paid $1,946 per employee to recover versus $243 per head for organisations with 1,000-2,000 staff. Detection speed matters: 58% of victims unaffected by ransomware detected breaches within an hour, compared to just 49% of those who also faced ransomware attacks.Inundated down underAustralian organisations have been hit harder than most, with claimed data breaches jumping 48% in 2025. Cyber researchers have recorded 71 breaches through to 3 Octob