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🤝 Off-Channel Communications: Messaging Apps, Shadow IT, and Policy Failures

The rise of unauthorized messaging and collaboration tools — also called off-channel communications or Shadow IT — is now a front-line compliance and security risk. MSPs need to address these threats both for their own operations and for their clients, as regulatory expectations and enforcement mount.

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🔍 Channel Daze is Almost Here! (Along with 16k of Prizes for MSPs!)

Starting August 4th, we’re bringing you 10 straight weekdays of giveaways. That’s two
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⚠️ Threat Updates

🔴 Espionage Campaign Targets Viasat, North American Telecoms with Sophisticated APT Intrusions (7/17/25)

The China-backed “Salt Typhoon” APT group has breached satellite provider Viasat and multiple Canadian telecom companies by exploiting unpatched Cisco vulnerabilities. The campaign focuses on wiretapping, metadata theft, and persistent surveillance, with initial access going undetected for months. These operations underscore a growing trend of state-sponsored supply chain compromise targeting telecom infrastructure across North America. Organizations in telecom and satellite operations should escalate logging, threat hunting, and patch diligence, especially for Cisco network gear. » More Info

🔴 BladedFeline APT Evolves, Targets Middle Eastern Government Email Systems for Covert Surveillance (7/17/25)

The Iran-aligned BladedFeline group continues a sophisticated espionage campaign against Iraqi and Kurdish government officials—and is now expanding operations to Central Asian telecoms. Their evolving toolkit includes advanced backdoors leveraging Microsoft Exchange and IIS vulnerabilities to maintain long-term, stealthy access and exfiltrate intelligence-critical communications. These intrusions highlight the persistent, multi-year dwell times possible for well-resourced advanced threat actors operating with geopolitical motives. Security teams are advised to review long-term logs, enforce network segmentation, and monitor Exchange/web server anomaly patterns. » More Info

🗨️ Parting Words

"The ‘S’ in IOT stands for ‘Security.’"

– Source Unknown

Are you a vCISO or MSP looking to operationalize security programs? Let’s discuss how Blacksmith Infosec proves that compliance is an opportunity, not a struggle that has to be packaged in FUD!