Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

In 2026, I expect the Australian cybersecurity landscape to look less like a loose collection of tools and more like a contested systems market where a handful of platforms quietly run the show. After 20 years in this industry, I can see the center of gravity shifting from individual point products to integrated decision engines that sit across identity, data and operations.

LevelBlue SpiderLabs ransomware tracker noted a slight dip in the overall number of attacks that took place in November 2025, but the research team saw the threat group Cl0p surge, conducting 98 attacks during the month, up from just 13 in October. LevelBlue SpiderLabs derived the information from its ransomware-tracking tool, which gathers data from a variety of open intelligence sources and our own proprietary research.

Unexpected attacks are the hardest to fend off. In the realm of cyber, Zero Day vulnerabilities are among the greatest risks, as these software flaws are unknown and exploited before a fix is available, potentially compromising the thousands of organizations that are unwittingly using vulnerable software.

The merits of deploying offensive testing to strengthen an organization’s security posture are well-understood by today’s security leadership. Much to the relief of defenders, obtaining approval for an offensive security exercise has never been easier. However, the process of selecting the most appropriate offensive testing solution requires untangling overlapping definitions and vaguely defined terminology that leaves security teams more confused than when they started.

Black Friday is only days away, and despite many stores sneaking holiday decorations onto their shelves since mid-September, it marks the official start of the December shopping frenzy. The coming days will not only bring a massive surge in sales, but also an equally large spike in cyber threats. For retailers of all sizes, this peak season is prime time for cybercriminals to exploit vulnerabilities.

Crowdsourced penetration testing promises broad coverage, flexible resourcing, and cost efficiency by tapping into a distributed pool of security testers. Trustwave, A LevelBlue Company, realizes not every organization has the financial resources to partner with a security firm with dedicated penetration testing capabilities. At the same time, we want to make organizations aware of the many pitfalls in the crowdsourced pen-testing market and offer a few pointers on choosing the right vendors.

In eight short minutes on October 25, 2025, a group of thieves captured the world’s attention and imagination, perpetuating a daring heist in broad daylight and escaping with approximately €88 million worth of prized artwork from the planet’s most visited museum: The Louvre. Within the security community, the first successful robbery from the iconic Parisian landmark since 1998 was a bombshell story.

The last year has seen the retail sector fixed squarely in the sights of threat actors, as several of the largest attacks involved several of the world’s best known retail brands, including Harrods, Marks & Spencer, and Victoria’s Secret.

As Anti-Virus and EDR solutions improve in detection and response capabilities, the job of a red teamer can become quite arduous. Malware payloads and techniques that once dominated networks have failed the test of time as EDR becomes aware of them. If your initial access payloads are detected immediately, your six-week long red team could be dead on arrival.

Government administration, defense, and finance sector organizations are the primary areas Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups are targeting, according to the most recent data from the Trustwave SpiderLabs’ Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) team. The team found most attacks are launched from China, Russia, and Iran, with the primary targets residing in the US, Ukraine, and, interestingly, Russia. The groups tracked include Lapsus$, ShinyHunters, and Silk Typhoon.