A new phishing kit called Astaroth can bypass two-factor authentication to steal login credentials from Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft accounts. Astaroth utilizes an evilnginx-style proxy to Man In The Middle user sessions to intercept authentication data, making it difficult for users to detect the attack. The sophisticated kit is sold on cybercrime networks for $2,000 and includes custom hosting options to evade detection.
Part two of a series describing how Sekoia develops detection rules using Sigma to identify TTPs. Sekoia implements the Alerting and Detection Strategy Framework which focuses heavily on testing and documentation. Sekoia augments their automated documentation with comprehensive testing that tests syntax, test coverage, and both production and pre-production regression testing.
Researchers discovered a "whoAMI" vulnerability where attackers could exploit AWS accounts by publishing malicious AMIs with specific names, targeting systems that don't specify owner verification when searching for AMIs. This post dives into this new attack.
2025.02.14·securitylabs.datadoghq.com·15 min read·TLDR InfoSec Michal Zalewski discusses common pitfalls in corporate security teams, from their origins to cultural challenges and eventual breaches. Security teams often start reactively, leading keener senses on security challenges which often morph into a sense of superiority and disconnect from other departments. The cycle usually ends with a major breach that prompts a reevaluation of the team's strategy and communication.
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In this Cloud SIEM product brief [11], you'll learn how to:
JScrambler can prevent web supply chain attacks by monitoring script execution, preventing vulnerability exploitation, detecting modifications in third-party resources, and detecting anomalous behavior.
Databoxer aims to be a lightweight cross-platform solution for file encryption. Databoxer operates based on the ChaCha20 encryption algorithm in combination with the Poly1305 universal hash function to perform its encryption operations. It claims these implementations to be safer and faster than the most popular AES algorithm used in many other similar programs.
SlackPirate is a tool to enumerate and exfiltrate sensitive data from Slack workspaces. It helps red-teamers identify security risks and helps blue-teamers detect and prevent sensitive data leaks.
The Shadowserver Foundation is warning of a massive password-spraying attack targeting a wide range of networking devices. The attackers are using a botnet composed of almost 2.8 million source IP addresses. The compromised devices seem to be largely edge network devices.
Trump reportedly plans to nominate Sean Cairncross as National Cyber Director, despite his lack of cybersecurity experience. Cairncross, a lawyer, would replace Harry Coker, who had decades of CIA and NSA experience.
Citing half a dozen CVEs, CISA and the FBI have released a scathing critique of manufacturers writing memory-unsafe code. They have urged organizations to adopt memory-safe languages such as Go, Rust, and Swift. Acknowledging that full rewrites are difficult, they have urged organizations to make plans for a phased transition and utilize memory safety flags and testing.
Variston finally shut down as it started crumbling after Google exposed its secretive operations in 2022.
According to a report by Recorded Future, Salt Typhoon, a Chinese threat group, continues to target global telecom networks using Cisco routers.
Following a viral AI-generated post, Scarlett Johansson warns about the dangers of AI being used to create non-consensual content and urges legislators to take action to regulate AI use.
GIPHY search data reveals modern Valentine's Day trends: Cuffing season actually peaks between August and October, with searches for the term spiking 101% in August and peaking in October. February sees loneliness surge, with searches for “single” rising 12% and “forever alone” up 35% compared to January. Meanwhile, “situationship” searches increase 43%, and “sneaky link” jumps 132%, showing February's focus on non-traditional relationships.
More brands are removing or disguising their logos in outdoor ads, relying on iconic visuals and slogans to maintain recognition. Heinz, Kellogg's, and Tesco have embraced this minimalist approach, with Heinz omitting its logo entirely and Kellogg's focusing on its rooster mascot. Experts argue this strategy works best for well-established brands but risks becoming formulaic. While stripped-back messaging can capture attention in a cluttered media landscape, some believe the trend needs fresh innovation to remain effective rather than blending into the background.
Switching sales involves helping customers move from their current solution to yours, which often triggers fears of downtime and regret. To win these sales, position your product as a complement to existing solutions, like KISSmetrics did with Google Analytics, easing the pressure of abandonment. Offer a gradual, low-risk transition through steps like free trials, parallel use, or phased rollouts to reduce resistance. Provide full migration support, either in-house or through partners, to remove logistical barriers. These strategies build trust and make the switch feel safer and easier for prospects.
Shopify powers approximately 10% of US e-commerce and organizes its 600-person Growth Team into Growth R&D and Growth Marketing. Growth R&D includes teams for landing page optimization, internal tooling for experimentation, and customer support focused on merchant success. Growth Marketing covers paid ads, SEO, email, and affiliate marketing, each with LTV/CAC goals. Their approach prioritizes long-term metrics like total cohort value over conversion rates and uses 6 to 12 month holdout experiments to measure lasting impact.
This marketing system identifies a precise target audience, maps effective channels, and prioritizes efforts through data. It starts by defining a "market of one," selecting channels, and working backward from revenue goals. Owners manage channels, track performance, and adjust quarterly. The process repeats to focus resources on what drives growth. A screenshot of a marketing tactic tracker is included in the post.
Fibbler helps brands connect LinkedIn Ads data with their CRM to track how ad impressions influence pipeline and revenue. Users can see which companies interact with their ads, export data, view engagement timelines, and sync insights with HubSpot, Salesforce, or Copper. The platform also allows campaign scheduling to optimize ad spend and supports webhooks for sending data to outbound tools.
YouTube creators can now use Veo 2 to generate high-definition (up to 4K) AI video backgrounds and entirely new AI-originated short clips with text prompts. This upgrade enhances storytelling possibilities but also raises concerns about AI-generated junk content and deepfakes. YouTube will label AI-created clips using SynthID watermarks.
Cadbury's 2007 "Gorilla" ad, initially rejected by leadership, increased sales by 10% and became the UK's favorite ad of the past 60 years. Neuro-Insight, a neuromarketing company, found that it ranked in the top 1% for long-term memory encoding due to its compelling storytelling and timing of the branding moment. A “branding moment” occurs when the audience's brain deciphers the story and the brand logo is shown, enhancing memory retention. Effective ads prioritize story over overt selling and use emotional narratives to engage the viewer. This principle applies to B2C, B2B, creators, and potentially written and audio content.
Tabs Chocolate is a Gen Z-focused brand known for its viral "Sex Chocolates," which are marketed to enhance intimacy. It has grown primarily through TikTok, leveraging user-generated content and bold marketing. Tabs uses cross-sell strategies like urgency timers and discounts to boost sales post-checkout. Future marketing ideas include sex-positive podcasts, educational YouTube videos, and anonymous “Dear Abby”-style blogs.
Storytelling is the key driver for viral short-form video success. A proven content model focuses on repeatable structures such as “Two Characters, One Light Bulb,” where creators play both expert and novice to explain complex topics, and “Challenge” videos, where creators take on difficult tasks with dramatic payoffs. The recommended approach to these videos involves studying performance patterns through Gold-Silver-Bronze analysis, tracking key engagement drivers like pacing and reaction shots, and testing formats with single videos before scaling content production.
A recap of Duo's death and how its demise has taken off online.
A comparison of two organic social posts with identical content but different formats, revealing how one outperformed the other by 200x.
Use customer pain points to find top-ranking URLs in Ahrefs, extract keywords, and repeat.
The "Egg Effect" in AI product design suggests that requiring user input increases engagement, trust, and perceived value. Inspired by behavioral science, companies can enhance AI adoption by incorporating meaningful user involvement, striking a balance between ease and investment.
AI-powered web app builders are revolutionizing software development by enabling users to create interactive applications through text prompts, reducing the barrier to entry for both technical and non-technical users. These tools are rapidly evolving, offering new levels of abstraction and automation, though challenges like debugging and integration remain key areas for improvement.
Product managers must navigate uncertainty by driving change with data, stakeholder alignment, and strategic pivots rather than waiting for clarity. Challenging leadership effectively builds trust, positioning PMs as proactive problem solvers who push for results without breaking relationships.
2025.02.14·amycmitchell.substack.com·4 min read·TLDR Product Professionals should evaluate AI job opportunities with a long-term perspective, prioritizing companies with potential for sustained success over short-term growth. Aligning with future "iconic" firms, leveraging evolving AI tools, and making strategic career moves can ensure lasting professional credibility.
2025.02.14·caseyaccidental.substack.com·4 min read·TLDR Product A compelling business case combines strong financial analysis with strategic storytelling to persuade leadership to invest in an idea. By aligning proposals with company priorities, making data-driven yet engaging arguments, and demonstrating clear business outcomes, product managers can drive influence, gain trust, and position themselves as strategic leaders.
AI tools are transforming product development and business operations by streamlining workflows, from customer feedback analysis and market research to strategy planning and AI product development. Leveraging AI for tasks like refining product copy, drafting team charters, optimizing AI prompts, and synthesizing interview notes enhances efficiency, allowing professionals to focus on high-impact decision-making while ensuring clarity, precision, and scalability.
The evolution of AI startups is shifting focus from navigating the "Idea Maze" of product innovation to solving the "Growth Maze" of distribution and scaling. As AI technology matures, success will depend on strategic audience targeting, go-to-market decisions, and leveraging new AI-driven marketing and sales channels to sustain competitive advantage.
Many senior leadership candidates struggle to secure final job offers despite strong interviews because they fail to communicate what truly matters to the hiring panel. By researching the company's priorities, asking insightful questions, and tailoring responses to each decision-maker's needs, candidates can influence the hiring process, align expectations, and position themselves as the best fit for the role.
Building internal tools often leads to inefficiencies, integration issues, and long-term maintenance burdens, making off-the-shelf solutions a smarter choice when technology isn't a company's core competency.
A CEO who encouraged widespread ChatGPT use in his company found that it led to "AI Brain Fog," where employees became overly reliant on AI, resulting in confusion, decision paralysis, and low-quality work.
The new View Transitions API in Chrome and Safari makes web animations easier. For example, a navigation animation can be created using only HTML, CSS, and a few lines of JavaScript. The process involves using `startViewTransition` to smoothly transition between DOM states, along with CSS to style the transitions and `view-transition-name` to target specific elements for animation.
Two bug bounty hunters collaborated to find a critical vulnerability in a company's recently acquired subsidiary. They discovered a GitHub Actions token embedded within a Docker image, allowing them to potentially compromise the entire development-to-production lifecycle. By analyzing the Docker image layers using tools like `dive` and `dlayer`, they recovered a private npm token, letting them inject malicious code into a private package used across the company's systems.
AI models are stifling the adoption of new technologies due to outdated training data and inherent biases. The "AI knowledge gap” is caused by the time lag between a technology's release and its inclusion in AI training data, which is discouraging developers from using newer tools. Also, AI models often have a preference for certain technologies (like React and Tailwind), which influences developers' choices.
Former employees of a recently IPO'd startup are seeking advice on their RSU settlement process, which is different from typical practices. The company requires them to prepay taxes in cash before receiving shares, which means they might lose their shares if the payment isn't made by a strict deadline. This is different from the sell-to-cover option offered to current employees, which is unfair.
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If you're used to debugging and profiling code with in-browser dev tools, React Server Components (RSCs) are going to ruin your day. Learn how to use OpenTelemetry with Next.js to trace the execution of RSCs [8] on the server side — and add observability and visualization with Dash0 [9].
The Interop 2025 project improves web platform interoperability across different browsers. Interop 2024 achieved a 95% interoperability score, and 2025 will address 19 focus areas, including improvements to existing features and new ones like Storage Access and CSS Zoom.
Data Formulator is a Microsoft Research app using AI to make data visualization easier. It lets users create visualizations iteratively with natural language, transforming data and generating charts based on user instructions and prompts.
Emittery is a simple asynchronous event emitter for Node.js and browsers. It has a clean API with methods for subscribing to events (`on`, `once`), emitting events (`emit`, `emitSerial`), and managing subscriptions. Emittery uses symbols for event names to avoid collisions and has many debugging options.
A developer's open-source planning project, OptaPlanner, almost died after Red Hat's acquisition by IBM. As a result, he created Timefold AI, a company built around a commercial offering (open core business model) extending OptaPlanner, with the help of his open-source reputation.
When building production-ready generative AI products, evals are used to assess model performance and embeddings are used to represent large datasets efficiently. RAG is used to add context and ground LLM responses. LLMs are still not hallucination-free nor are they always efficient in retrieving context using RAG. Some solutions for inefficient retrieval are discussed, like hybrid retrievers, query rewriting, and rerankers.
An online game where you solve mysteries through SQL to grow your skills.
The European Accessibility Act (EAA), effective June 28, mandates accessibility standards for websites and apps of EU-operating companies, requiring compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines by June 28, 2027.