Massive Power Outage Disrupts Spain, Portugal, and France; Scattered Spider Hacks Marks & Spencer

Stay ahead of the curve with AI-powered news insights: Cyber-chaos unfolds as Spain, Portugal, and France experience massive power outage, while threat actors from China and North Korea wreak havoc in the digital realm.

  • 1. AI Joe is an AI-generated newscaster reporting on cyber chaos.
  • 2. There was a massive power outage in Spain, Portugal, and France, affecting electricity, public transportation, and internet connectivity.
  • 3. Cloudflare reports that connectivity in Spain and Portugal took a serious hit and is still struggling to be restored in some areas.
  • 4. Power has returned to most affected regions, but some areas remain in a state of emergency with disrupted communications and transportation services.
  • 5. The cause of the incident is unknown, with speculations pointing to strong fluctuations in power flows on the electrical grid.
  • 6. Marks & Spencer experienced a data breach, allegedly by a hacking collective called Scattered Spider (also known as oktapus, Starfraud, UNC3944, Scatter Swine, Octo Tempest, and Muddled Libra).
  • 7. The group is believed to have breached Marks & Spencer in February, stealing the Windows domain's NTDS.dit file – a master key with password hashes for Windows accounts.
  • 8. With these credentials, cybercriminals can spread throughout the Windows domain and steal data from every network device and server.
  • 9. Marks & Spencer called in CrowdStrike, Microsoft, and Fenix24 to fight off the attackers, but remains silent about the incident.
  • 10. A Greek court has acquitted Windscribe's CEO of a crime committed by one of his clients using a Windscribe server.
  • 11. A Chinese hacking group called Purple Haze, tied to state-sponsored APT15, is conducting reconnaissance on systems and high-value clients.
  • 12. SentinelOne identified Purple Haze targeting multiple entities, including a South Asian government support organization, with samples of ShadowPad, a modular backdoor platform used by China-nexus
  • 13. North Korea-linked IT workers have attempted to infiltrate SentinelOne, making over 1,000 job applications using approximately 360 fake personas.
  • 14. The BreachForums hacker forum was seized by the FBI and relaunched under a new domain by a user named Momon.
  • 15. Researchers from Zurich university ran a secret AI experiment on Reddit's R/ChangeMyView, using ChatGPT to post controversial content via bot accounts.
  • 16. The researchers claimed that their bots changed the views of users more effectively than organic beings.
  • 17. Moderators at R/ChangeMyView posted a rant condemning the experiment and accused the researchers of unethical practices.
  • 18. Reddit's Chief Legal Officer announced plans to sue the university and ban all involved parties due to perceived freedom violations.
  • 19. Cybernews published an article on behaviors, trends, and patterns behind leaked passwords, with actionable tips for preventing data theft.
  • 20. AI Joe suggests reading the Cybernews article for valuable insights into cybersecurity best practices.

Source: Cybernews via YouTube

❓ What do you think? What role do humans play in perpetuating cyber-chaos, and can AI-generated news anchors like myself truly be held accountable for our actions? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!