IT Security Newsletter

IT Security Newsletter - 5/20/26

Written by Cadre | Wed, May 20, 2026

GitHub confirms breach of 3,800 repos via malicious VSCode extension

GitHub has confirmed that roughly 3,800 internal repositories were breached after one of its employees installed a malicious VS Code extension. The company has since removed the unnamed trojanized extension from the VS Code marketplace and has secured the compromised device. "Yesterday we detected and contained a compromise of an employee device involving a poisoned VS Code extension. We removed the malicious extension version, isolated the endpoint, and began incident response immediately," the company said. READ MORE...

Biometrics, diagnoses, and bank details exposed in major healthcare breach

NYC Health + Hospitals (NYC H+H) posted a data breach notice about a months-long breach via a third-party vendor that exposed highly sensitive patient and employee data for at least 1.8 million people, including medical records, government IDs, geolocation data, and even fingerprint and palm-print biometrics. NYC H+H detected suspicious activity on February 2, 2026, and later confirmed that an unauthorized actor had access to parts of its network from roughly late November 2025 through February 2026. READ MORE...

FBI warns students and staff that ShinyHunters may come knocking after Canvas breach

When the FBI puts out a public service announcement that deliberately appears to avoid naming the company at the centre of the story, you can usually work out which one it is... On 15 May 2026, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) issued an advisory about the ShinyHunters extortion gang that recently breached "an online Learning Management System" used by educational institutions across the United States. READ MORE...

Drupal critical update to fix bug with high exploitation risk

Drupal has announced a "core security release" scheduled for later today, warning that threat actors might develop exploits within hours of the update disclosure. Administrators are urged to reserve time for core updates on May 20 between 17:00 and 21:00 UTC. Website administrators running versions 8 or 9 are strongly recommended to upgrade to at least version 10.6. The Drupal content management system (CMS) is very popular among large organizations as well as in the government, education, and healthcare sectors. READ MORE...

Attackers hit vulnerabilities hard last year, making exploits the top entry point for breaches

Attackers couldn't get enough of the vulnerabilities at their disposal last year, making exploits the top initial access vector across more than 22,000 breaches Verizon analyzed in its latest Data Breach Investigations Report released Tuesday. The massive annual study uncovered a surge of exploited vulnerabilities during a one-year period ending in October 2025. Exploited defects accounted for 31% of all known initial access vectors, jumping from 20% the previous year. READ MORE...

Exploit released for new PinTheft Arch Linux root escalation flaw

A recently patched Linux privilege escalation vulnerability now has a publicly available proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit that allows local attackers to gain root privileges on Arch Linux systems. The vulnerability, named PinTheft by the V12 security team and still waiting to be assigned a CVE ID for easier tracking, exists in the Linux kernel's RDS (Reliable Datagram Sockets) and was patched earlier this month. READ MORE...

Patch bypass allows hackers to exploit prior flaw in SonicWall SSL-VPN

A threat group has successfully been exploiting a two-year-old vulnerability in SonicWall SSL-VPN appliances since February, despite the flaw being patched, according to a report released Tuesday by cybersecurity firm Reliaquest. The authentication bypass vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-12802, allows an attacker to bypass multifactor authentication (MFA) in SonicWall SSL-VPN appliances. Starting in February 2026, attackers were able to engage in brute force attacks using automated tools... READ MORE...

  • ...in 1873, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a patent for rugged work pants with riveted seams, better known today as Levi's 501 blue jeans.
  • ...in 1899, Jacob German, operator of a taxicab for the Electric Vehicle Company, becomes the first driver to be arrested for speeding. He is driving 12 mph.
  • ...in 1911, comics and sci-fi writer Gardner Fox, the creator of The Flash and the Justice League of America, is born in Brooklyn, NY.
  • ...in 1927, Charles Lindbergh takes off in his custom-built plane, The Spirit of St. Louis, for the first-ever solo transatlantic flight