A critical 9.8‑rated flaw (CVE-2025-40551) in SolarWinds Web Help Desk is under active exploitation, letting unauthenticated attackers execute remote code and prompting urgent patch orders for government and enterprise users worldwide.
German insurance major HanseMerkur has been targeted by the Russia-aligned Dragonforce ransomware gang, which claims to have stolen 97GB of data. The attack on the €3 billion firm highlights the escalating threat of ransomware to the global financial services and insurance sectors.
San Francisco-based AI startup Fieldguide has closed a $75 million Series C funding round led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives' growth equity group, achieving a $700 million post-money valuation. The raise brings total venture funding to $125 million as the firm expands its AI enterprise platform.
One of the largest lead generation datasets ever compiled has been found exposed online, containing 4.3 billion professional records in a 16 terabyte unsecured database.
Cyber News Centre’s cyber update for 15th December 2025: One of the largest lead generation datasets ever compiled has been found exposed online, containing 4.3 billion professional records in a 16 terabyte unsecured database.
The database, believed to belong to a lead generation company, contained professionally scraped and enriched data from sources including LinkedIn and Apollo.io. Lead generation firms compile and sell large scale B2B databases to help businesses find and connect with potential customers.
Update: A 16 terabyte unsecured MongoDB database containing 4.3 billion professional records was discovered exposed on the internet without a password. The dataset, found by security researcher Bob Diachenko in collaboration with nexos.ai on November 23, 2025, was secured two days after the apparent owner was notified. The trove includes nine collections of scraped and enriched data, with at least three containing personally identifiable information on nearly two billion records. Exposed data includes full names, email addresses, phone numbers, LinkedIn URLs, job titles, employers, employment histories, education, locations, skills and in some cases profile photographs.
The database also contained sitemap records linking to a lead generation company’s website, which advertises access to over 700 million professionals, a figure that closely matches the size of one of the database’s collections. The timestamps suggest the data was collected or updated in 2025, making it a fresh and globally relevant dataset. The incident highlights the ongoing risks of unsecured databases and the industrial scale scraping of professional networking platforms for commercial purposes, creating a goldmine for malicious actors.
Why it Matters: This breach provides a ready made blueprint for sophisticated, AI driven social engineering attacks on a global scale, affecting professionals and organisations in Australia and worldwide. With structured data on billions of individuals, malicious actors can automate highly personalised phishing campaigns, business email compromise schemes and CEO fraud with unprecedented efficiency.
The dataset acts as a foundational layer for profile enrichment, allowing criminals to fuse it with other leaked data such as passwords to create comprehensive dossiers for targeted attacks. For Australian businesses, this means a heightened risk of employees being targeted by convincing, context aware scams that reference their specific roles, colleagues and work histories, bypassing traditional security filters.
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A critical 9.8‑rated flaw (CVE-2025-40551) in SolarWinds Web Help Desk is under active exploitation, letting unauthenticated attackers execute remote code and prompting urgent patch orders for government and enterprise users worldwide.
German insurance major HanseMerkur has been targeted by the Russia-aligned Dragonforce ransomware gang, which claims to have stolen 97GB of data. The attack on the €3 billion firm highlights the escalating threat of ransomware to the global financial services and insurance sectors.
Ivanti has confirmed actively exploited, pre‑authentication remote code‑execution flaws in its Endpoint Manager Mobile platform, allowing attackers to hijack internet‑facing MDM servers, push malicious device profiles, and exfiltrate sensitive mobile data at enterprise scale
The CL0P ransomware gang has breached Podiatry WA, a key Australian healthcare association, as part of a massive 22-victim global attack wave. The incident highlights the escalating threat of data extortion targeting professional services and healthcare sectors across Australia.
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