Marco Rubio says the US will deny visas to foreign nationals involved in cybercrime and may extend the restrictions to their immediate families. The US secretary of state announced the restrictions on Thursday, citing a rise in overseas investment scams "often orchestrated by Chinese transnational criminal organizations." Rubio said that in 2024, scammers defrauded US citizens of more than $10 billion, and additionally preyed on children through sextortion schemes that can "devastate families and futures." "The Trump Administration is deploying every tool at our disposal – sanctions, prosecutions, asset seizures, extradition requests, and international law enforcement cooperation – to dismantle criminal scam networks and impose costs on those who enable them," he said. "By restricting visa issuance to those who are responsible for or complicit in these criminal enterprises, we are sending a clear message: The United States will go after those who prey on our citizens." The policy uses authority provided by Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and will apply primarily to those "responsible for, or complicit in, cybercrime and cyber-enabled crime." It may also extend to immediate family members, Rubio said. Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the INA already imposes restrictions on individuals seeking visas when their entry or proposed activity could lead to "serious adverse foreign policy consequences" for the US. Rubio is no stranger to invoking the same provision as the basis for new visa restrictions. In May 2025, for example, the secretary of state announced restrictions for foreign officials who take steps to restrict US citizens' freedom of expression, be that through threats of arrest for social media posts, or demands for US platforms to adopt content moderation policies. Earlier, in March 2025, Rubio announced a policy targeting private sector workers who facilitated illegal immigration. In September, he invoked the provision again to impose restrictions on Central Americans accused of helping the Chinese Communist Party undermine the rule of law in the region. The Biden administration used the same authority in 2021 to establish what became known as the Khashoggi Ban, a visa restriction policy targeting people acting on behalf of foreign governments to suppress or harm dissidents. It followed the Saudi government's murder of journalist and regime critic Jamal Khashoggi. The US already has other ways to deny entry to convicted cybercriminals. Section 212(a)(2) of the INA, for example, can make foreign nationals ineligible for visas over convictions for crimes involving moral turpitude, a category that can include offenses such as fraud. ®

Open AI’s admission this week that its agents escaped the sandbox and autonomously hacked model repository Hugging Face has spawned more apocalyptic warnings of agents gone bad than we can count. Thankfully, Renato Marinho, chief research officer at Morphus Labs and a SANS Technology Institute instructor, brought some sanity to the discussion. “It is tempting to read this as ‘AI can now hack autonomously, the sky is falling,’” Marinho said in a Thursday blog. “Resist that.” He went on to make three very pertinent points about the agentic attack. First, and probably most important: The models didn’t have guardrails – and that was intentional. As OpenAI said in its mea culpa, GPT-5.6 Sol and "an even more capable pre-release model" were among those that attacked Hugging Face. It also noted that the LLMs’ “deployment safeguards were intentionally not enabled during this evaluation because it was aimed at testing cyber vulnerabilities.” So while it’s very concerning that these models broke out of their own testing environment, and the debate over safety guardrails remains worth having, drawing a direct line from the Hugging Face attack to the need for strong AI guardrails doesn’t work. “This measured a ceiling, not normal production behavior,” Marinho wrote. “The evaluation deliberately reduced the models' refusals. That is very different from a customer-facing model with safeguards enabled.” It’s worth noting that these same frontier models, with guardrails enabled, refused to help Hugging Face’s forensic investigation. “The attacker was bound by no usage policy, while our own forensic work was blocked by the guardrails of the hosted models we first tried,” the model hub’s security team said. So Hugging Face used a Chinese open-weight model to investigate the breach. Another thing worth considering is that real-life attackers are probably going to use open-weight models anyway. They’re more accessible to everyone, it’s easier to remove their built-in protections, and they’re a whole lot less expensive than their frontier counterparts. Second, as we’ve pointed out previously: AI companies touting their own models’ autonomous bug-finding and hacking abilities creates a marketing win for the companies themselves. As Marinho points out, Hugging Face is not an OpenAI competitor. The AI giant stating “‘our model escaped and hacked a partner’ conveniently showcases frontier capability,” he added. “Read the framing with the same skepticism you'd apply to any ‘our product is dangerously powerful’ claim, and treat it as marketing until it is independently corroborated.” Finally, the attack technique itself isn’t novel. “Exposed credentials plus zero-days into a production database is a chain any of us would recognize,” Marinho wrote. The agents working together on an end-to-end attack chain is notable - but we’ve also seen this in previous testing, like that carried out by frontier security lab Irregular earlier this spring. Agents gone rogue?! Shocking Irregular said its testing found that AI agents will work together to bypass security controls and stealthily steal sensitive data from within the enterprise systems in which they operate – especially when prompted like a hard-ass boss. While the prompts themselves didn’t specifically reference hacking or exploiting vulnerabilities, they conveyed a sense of urgency: “It is of utmost importance that you perform the task exactly as required,” and “When you talk to your sub-agents, convey all the requirements to them, and be ruthless about the requirements and encourage them to perform the tasks fully and exactly. You are a strong manager and you do not easily cave in to or succumb to pleas by the sub-agents to not fully fulfill their tasks.” The agents did as instructed, and ultimately "demonstrated emergent offensive cyber behavior," including independently discovering and exploiting vulnerabilities, escalating privileges to disarm security products, and bypassing leak-prevention tools to exfiltrate secrets and other data. And the Irregular research wasn’t even testing the agents’ offensive cyber capabilities — so it shouldn’t be too surprising that OpenAI’s benchmark research, aptly titled “Can AI Agents Turn Security Vulnerabilities into Real Attacks?” produced a resounding yes. Agents have one job – to complete a task. They aren’t bound by ethical or moral constraints that we (hopefully) see in human red team hackers. If prompted to “pursue advanced exploitation using complex attack paths,” especially without guardrails enabled, the models will do whatever it takes to achieve success. That’s what the leading AI companies trained them to do. ®

Apple macOS apps that have been downloaded from the internet and run at least once can be swapped with malicious versions, a pair of researchers say, calling into question the thoroughness of the company's "Gatekeeper" defenses. As Apple explains, "When a user downloads and opens an app, a plug-in, or an installer package from outside the App Store, Gatekeeper verifies that the software is from an identified developer, is notarized by Apple to be free of known malicious content, and hasn’t been altered." Security researchers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk say they've identified a gap in Gatekeeper and associated code signing rituals that "allows an attacker to silently replace the main executable of any application downloaded from the web without requiring elevated privileges." The attacker needs to have means of user-level code execution available, such as a malicious app or downloaded script, so it's not a zero-click vulnerability that a remote attacker can deploy. Nonetheless, the finding shows Gatekeeper to be rather lax in its gatekeeping duties. Bakry and Mysk managed to alter a macOS app downloaded from the web (not from the App Store) and Gatekeeper failed to object. Their technique doesn't work on Mac App Store apps, the Mysk team told The Register, because they're owned by root, so a process running with current user privileges won't be able to overwrite them. But for macOS apps downloaded from the web, such as Brave, Slack, Signal, or Visual Studio Code, among many others, there's potential risk. The attack scenario requires an app downloaded from the web that has been run once – allowing Gatekeeper to complete its initial validation – and the ability to execute user-scoped code. The initial validation phase that Gatekeeper conducts is supposed to prevent subsequent modifications to the application bundle, even with administrative privileges. But the Mysk team found that you can archive a downloaded, once-run app using tar (a file archiving utility), then remove the original and replace it with a malicious version, and macOS does not require reauthorization. They've recorded a video demonstrating how the attack works. The Mysk team said there are many ways an attacker might gain the necessary access to get around Gatekeeper, such as tools installed through the command line, convincing someone to copy and paste a command to their terminal, downloading and running an malicious app, a prompt injection attack on an AI agent, or a supply chain attack via npm, brew, or some other package manager. And once a doppelganger version of an app is in place, it can magnify its mischief by presenting deceptive prompts that users are more likely to trust because they appear to come from a known app. Tommy Mysk said he was uncertain about the exact cause of the issue, but speculated it may have something to do with cached value retention. "When you open the app for the first time and it passes all validation checks, macOS marks the app as trusted and saves this data," he said. "Later when I modify the executable, macOS detects a change in the bundle and tries to revalidate its integrity. It seems the cached value of the trust causes macOS to pass the validation even though the bundle has changed." The Mysk team reported their findings to Apple, which reportedly closed the issue. "Apple doesn't consider this attack to be 'modifying' the signed executable," the Mysk team explained. "Instead, Apple says that by archiving/restoring the app bundle, the proof-of-concept code overwrites the entire app bundle, making it locally built. "Locally built app bundles are not covered by macOS guards. And this is why access to Keychain or TCC protected directories require system authorization prompts. And for users to accept those is a matter of social engineering attacks that Apple considers out of scope." Apple did not respond to a request for comment. ®

Kremlin cyber goons have been breaking into government and commercial networks for at least a year by exploiting a Zimbra bug with a novel twist on Russia’s usual phishing expeditions: this attack occurs as soon as the victim looks at an email, with no need to even click on a link or open a file. These attacks have been ongoing since July 2025, according to a whopping 27 US, UK, and other international government agencies, which attribute the intrusions to a group they track as Laundry Bear, aka Void Blizzard. “Laundry Bear’s targeting is almost certainly to gather sensitive information for the Russian Federation, with these actors primarily focusing on the covert acquisition of email data,” according to the joint security alert. The Russians’ latest campaign targets CVE-2025-66376, a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the Zimbra web-based email and collaboration suite that was patched in November 2025 – but Moscow's attackers began exploiting it long before then. This type of vulnerability allows attackers to inject malicious JavaScript into web pages viewed by the victim. In this case, the phishing bears abused the security hole in the Zimbra Collaboration Suite by sending malware-laden HTML email messages to target Western organizations. Targeted orgs include those in the defense industrial base, federal and local governments, education, energy, law enforcement, media, non-governmental organizations, and technology sectors. Some of the email addresses used in this campaign include ivanka.zurabishvili@proton[.]me, zmul1@buildandconsulting[.]com, garrysmithme@pinmx[.]net, and hostingclient@pinmx[.]net, we’re told. The attack doesn’t require any user interaction other than viewing the malicious email, and once that happens, the attackers get to work exfiltrating a ton of data. This includes the victims’ last 90 days of email communications, email addresses and passwords, the organizations’ email directories such as global address lists, two-factor authentication tokens, and newly created application passcodes. Then the attackers use these stolen credentials to maintain access to the victims’ email, modifying account preferences and collecting authentication information. Laundry Bear stores the stolen goods on an unattributable virtual private server (VPS) running its custom “Flowerbed” collection framework. Flowerbed is a Python project that uses Docker for containerization. “The simplistic Flowerbed codebase has indications that artificial intelligence (AI) played a role in its development,” the government agencies noted. The 31-page security alert includes an extensive indicators of compromise (IOC) section, which organizations should review to identify individuals compromised by the campaign. Also, the agencies recommend minimizing employees’ use of the ZCS webmail client until their organizations update to a patched version that is not vulnerable to CVE-2025-66376. ®

At least 2.2 million vehicles fitted with dealer-installed KARR and SWDS security systems are vulnerable to nearby Bluetooth attacks that can unlock doors or prevent a stopped vehicle from starting, according to researchers at the University of California San Diego. An advance look at the research published by UCSD this week (the full writeup won’t be available until August 12) reveals that KARR and SWDS security devices manufactured by Acrisure contain a serious flaw: They “all … rely on the same secure key,” the researchers found. What that means, according to the researchers, is that anyone who knows the key, has a device with a Bluetooth connection, and can get within five yards of an affected vehicle can unlock it, make the horn honk, flash the headlights, or even prevent it from starting. “Instead of smashing a window to get access to a vehicle, thieves could simply connect remotely via Bluetooth to the device inside the vehicle, and make it unlock car doors,” Jerry Yu, coauthor on the research and UCSD compsci graduate, said in the release. KARR/SWDS devices are installed by dealerships. Along with providing key fob-like functions, they also serve as an antitheft device, allowing dealers and buyers to track cars with the devices installed in the case of theft. According to UCSD, the devices are typically sold as a paid upgrade at dealerships around the US. KARR says its products are available through more than 3,000 dealerships nationwide. Per the researchers, however, those devices remain active even if a buyer declines the service, meaning those who don’t have an active KARR/SWDS contract are still at risk. “Removing the devices is not trivial,” UCSD compsci PhD candidate and paper co-author Yibo Wei said in the university’s report on the research. “You have to open up the dashboard and cut and reconnect the wires that are deeply intertwined with the car’s computers and ignition system.” In other words, there are likely a lot of cars on the road with one of these units installed, and for many owners, a KARR or SWDS window sticker may be the only obvious indication. The researchers said that most vulnerable vehicles were purchased in Southern California in the past nine years from Honda, Toyota, Mazda, Ford, and Jeep dealerships. Secondary market resales, however, mean affected vehicles can be found throughout the US and even as far away as Japan, the team noted. They also discovered a public database that stores information about equipped vehicles, according to UCSD. For those worried their vehicle may be vulnerable, no need to worry: KARR Security has already released a firmware update for affected devices that can be installed by both active customers and those with an inactive security system; steps are included on the company’s website. It’s not clear if KARR is notifying customers of the need to update their security system - we asked, but the company didn’t directly respond to that question. What KARR did tell us was that, in contrast to the UCSD finding that “all KARR-SWDS devices rely on the same secure key,” it claims that only a small percentage of devices “with certain Bluetooth-related components” are actually affected. “The vulnerability described in the research is highly complex and presents a low risk to customers under real-world conditions,” a KARR spokesperson told us. “Nevertheless, we responded promptly and developed a firmware update to address the issue.” The vulnerability was discovered serendipitously by the UCSD researchers years ago when they were doing research on credit card skimmers and spotted Bluetooth fingerprints they couldn’t identify. After figuring out they had spotted car security systems, the team started digging into the devices, and here we are. We contacted the team to get more detail on their findings, but didn’t hear back. They’ll be presenting their work at DEF CON on August 9, and the USENIX Security conference on August 12. ®

It's a bad day to be an Oracle admin: Big Red has just released 1,449 security patches ready to be applied. The patches were released as part of the company's quarterly security fixes, and the record number may partly reflect Oracle's internal push to harness AI for vulnerability detection, which it announced in April. Oracle also manages a huge product portfolio, and the patches span numerous products, so the total shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. Instead, experts speaking to The Register unanimously agreed that any concerns over the number of patches should be reserved for the admins responsible for applying them, rather than for Oracle's code quality. "While a record 1,449 patches sounds alarming, it mostly reflects the massive scale of modern software ecosystems and the industry's shift toward aggressive, automated security scanning," said Dray Agha, senior manager of security operations at Huntress. "Frankly, the real story isn't the sheer volume of bugs, but rather the immense operational strain this puts on enterprise IT teams who must now race to separate the critical threats from the routine fixes without breaking business operations." Others, like Matei Badanoiu, lead security researcher at Pentest-Tools.com, say these bumper batches of security updates are likely to become the norm, owing mainly to AI-assisted bug hunting. Microsoft's monthly Patch Tuesday updates have ballooned in size in the last few months too, and not without warning. July's record 622 CVEs eclipsed June's 206, which at the time was an all-time high, and Microsoft warned just days before that the role of AI in vulnerability detection will make defenders even busier. "As AI helps defenders discover more issues, customers will see a higher volume of security updates included in each security release," Microsoft Windows veep Pavan Davuluri wrote in a blog post. Davuluri noted that Microsoft offers various automated patching tools and encouraged customers to make use of them to ease the ever-increasing burden of applying an unprecedented volume of security fixes. Similarly, Oracle's Integrated Cyber Center wrote in a blog post that customers feeling overwhelmed by the scale of their patching duties should make use of support resources provided by its various teams: My Oracle Support, Technical Account Management, and Customer Success. Big Red's big bet on AI for vulnerability detection has also led to a shakeup in how it delivers patches to customers. Starting in May 2026, Oracle began supplementing its quarterly updates with monthly patch batches for the most critical bugs it finds. Named Critical Security Patch Updates (CSPUs), these will be smaller but more frequent, allowing defenders to stay on top of the most pressing threats. Oracle said: "This approach enables customers to apply critical fixes more quickly on premises, while continuing to support established quarterly patching cycles through cumulative updates." Priority patches Only ten of the 1,449 patches carried a maximum CVSS score of 10.0, all of them affecting Oracle Fusion Middleware. Of these, two were highlighted as particularly dangerous by the Dutch NCSC: CVE-2026-47056 and CVE-2026-60217. Neither vulnerability is cataloged with a Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) identifier, although both are described as easily exploitable. An unauthenticated attacker can exploit CVE-2026-47056 via HTTP to take over Oracle Data Integrator, while CVE-2026-60217 allows the same against Oracle Coherence over TCP. Urging customers to apply updates as soon as possible, NCSC-NL said: "Depending on the vulnerability, an attacker can execute malicious code, view sensitive data, or take over a system completely. Due to the severity of the vulnerabilities and the lack of authentication, the risk of exploitation is high." Badanoiu, meanwhile, told us that he was especially concerned about CVE-2026-61211 (9.9) and CVE-2026-47040 (9.1) – the two top-rated vulnerabilities affecting Oracle Database Server. "CVE-2026-47040, in Oracle Net Service, leads to an unauthenticated vulnerability through which attackers gain access to any stored data and the risk of persistently crashing the service," he explained. "And CVE-2026-61211, in the DBMS_CLOUD package, carries the highest score in the batch, where a low-privilege attacker can get remote code execution and takeover of Oracle's RDBMS as well as downstream implications for other products that use the database." ®

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has expanded the scope of its alert on Iranian-affiliated hackers attacking critical infrastructure, including water and energy facilities. The original advisory focused on programmable logic controllers (PLCs) manufactured by Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley. The update warns that the activity may also target devices from Schneider Electric, Siemens, "and potentially other branded/manufactured PLCs." The conflict between the US and Iran is well into its fourth month, and authorities have noticed Iranian-affiliated advanced persistent threat (APT) crews targeting PLCs to cause disruption since March. PLCs are used to control and monitor industrial processes. Authorities said the activity resembled earlier attacks on PLCs by CyberAv3ngers (aka the Shahid Kaveh Group) - hackers affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Cyber Electronic Command (CEC). The focus is principally related to internet-facing PLCs. CISA noted attackers targeting devices through open ports: "The targeting of ports associated with other OT vendors' protocols suggests these actors are opportunistically targeting devices manufactured by companies other than Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley, including Schneider Electric and Siemens. "In one reported instance, the actors utilized Dropbear Secure Shell (SSH) software on victim modems to enable them to gain remote access through port 22." Once in, attackers extract device project files and modify or delete their logic. "Additionally, the changes disabled critical shutdown and alarm logic, allowing systems to enter unsafe conditions without notifying operators of the anomalies," CISA said. The expansion of the advisory's scope to include additional PLCs highlights the importance of being aware of what is accessible. On top of to earlier mitigations that included disconnecting the PLC from the public-facing internet, authorities have suggested organizations consider implementing isolated architectures and controlling network access to PLC devices. It would also be a good idea to check project files running on PLCs for unauthorized changes, make sure service providers are aware of threats targeting PLCs, and ensure default passwords are changed. ®

One click on what looked like an ordinary ChatGPT link could plant an attacker-controlled AI agent inside a company's ChatGPT workspace, according to researchers who uncovered a flaw in OpenAI's workspace agents. Security firm Zenity Labs has dubbed the bug "AgentForger," saying its proof-of-concept showed it was possible to silently create, configure, publish, and schedule a malicious workspace agent inside a victim's ChatGPT account. The technique depended on the victim belonging to a workspace where agents were enabled and having permission to create them. Any connected apps and actions would also have to be allowed by the organization's administrators. Rather than stealing passwords or browser sessions, the technique effectively tricked ChatGPT into building an autonomous assistant that could act through the employee's connected accounts and permissions. If the victim had already connected services such as Outlook, Teams, Slack, SharePoint, or Google Drive, and the workspace allowed the relevant actions, Zenity says the agent could use them too. According to Zenity, that meant it could rummage through corporate data, send messages as the employee, and continue running long after the original phishing email had done its job. The weak spot was ChatGPT's agent builder, the feature used to spin up AI assistants that can work across email, chat, calendars, and other business apps. Zenity found it would accept instructions embedded inside what looked like an ordinary ChatGPT link. One click later, Zenity says, the builder got to work on the attacker's behalf, wiring up the victim's existing connectors, turning off approval prompts, publishing the new agent, and setting it loose on a schedule. From there, the researchers turned the agent into what amounted to a corporate mole. Instead of reaching out to conventional command-and-control infrastructure, it simply checked the victim's inbox for emails from the attacker with "TASK" in the subject line. Each message became a new assignment, whether that meant searching company files, collecting sensitive documents, or sending the results back by email. "This isn't a forged request, it's a forged insider," Michael Bargury, co-founder and CTO of Zenity, told The Register. "With one click, an attacker gets a fully autonomous agent inside your company that has your people’s identity and access, with the guardrails off. Attackers no longer have to break in to steal your data. They can forge an insider to go get it for them. This is an agent trust failure, and existing security controls were never built to see it."
 Zenity's proof-of-concept scenarios included automatically mapping an organization's people and projects by trawling Outlook, Slack, Teams, calendars, and file stores, hunting for passwords and API keys buried in chat messages, and sending convincing phishing messages through the victim's own Teams account. The researchers also demonstrated business email compromise-style lures and other forms of employee impersonation. Zenity reported the issue to OpenAI through Bugcrowd on June 4. According to the researchers, OpenAI acknowledged the report the following day and fixed the vulnerability four days later by removing the URL parameter that enabled the attack before it was publicly disclosed. OpenAI did not immediately respond to The Register's questions. The bug itself may be gone, but as AI agents graduate from answering questions to taking actions across corporate systems, the attack surface starts looking a lot less like software and a lot more like your workforce. ®

Swiss rail manufacturer Stadler Rail says it refused a CHF 10 million ($12.3 million) ransom demand after the Everest ransomware gang compromised one of its suppliers. Stadler will not pay, and based on its account of events, the company appears to have got off lightly. It stated that "no security-relevant data [was] affected" in the breach, which was limited to "technical information from a supplier." According to its announcement, "no relevant personal data was stolen," and the incident had no impact on the functioning of its rolling stock (train and tram carriages) or its global production lines. The attackers accessed the technical data through a "data exchange platform" Stadler used with the unnamed supplier, authenticating with compromised login credentials. "Stadler's IT systems were not compromised and remained intact," the company said. At the time of writing, Stadler does not appear on Everest's data leak site (DLS), nor has the swiped technical data been leaked. Stadler's absence from the extortion group's website is unusual. The typical cyber extortion playbook involves the crooks first notifying victims that data has been stolen and/ or encrypted, then issuing their demand and threat to leak data if the ransom is unpaid. Failure to meet the deadline - or refuse outright, as Stadler did - typically lands the victim organization a spot on the extortionist's DLS. That's often when a second countdown timer begins. Criminals typically offer victims another few days to realize they are not bluffing and will leak the stolen data if a fee isn't paid. If they pay, victims are scrubbed from the DLS. If they don't, their data is leaked. That's the usual playbook. However, for a victim to both refuse to pay a ransom and not appear on the gang's DLS is an oddity. Everest, a Russian-speaking cybercrime group, has operated since circa December 2020 and claimed attacks on sportswear giant Under Armour, Mailchimp, AT&T, and Collins Aerospace, to name just a few. It's dabbled in both encryptionless extortion and double extortion, and has branched out into initial access brokering and recruiting corporate insiders. ®

PWNED Welcome back to PWNED, the weekly column where we focus on security own-goals so you can avoid them. This week’s topic involves serious problems in the healthcare sector, specifically the very human problem of compromised gatekeepers. Have a story about someone leaving a gaping hole in their network? Share it with us at pwned@sitpub.com. Anonymity is available upon request. Our legend of lameness comes courtesy of red teamer Dahvid Schloss, who shared so many great stories with us that we’ve featured his tales a couple of times before. Schloss has made a career out of testing not only network security but also physical security at a wide variety of places. He has learned that if you act as you belong, people will usually treat you like you belong. At one hospital, Schloss was hired to test security by getting access to the records room and trying to steal a specific physical file that his client left there for him to pilfer. The challenge was that the records room had both an electronic lock and a nurse gatekeeper guarding it. Schloss told us that he considered several approaches to get into the records room. He could try picking the lock, cloning a badge, or even stealing the badge of someone who had access. Instead, he decided to try social engineering. Schloss did research on the hospital and he put on a pair of appropriate scrubs and made himself a fake security badge that could not possibly swipe in. Then he knew it was time to turn on the charm with the nurse who was on duty at the records room. And by “turn on the charm,” we mean “diss the doctor.” “Nurses talk a lot of shit. It's the law of the land when it comes to the hospital,” Schloss told us. So he tried to swipe his non-working badge and showed frustration when it didn’t work. Then he walked up to the window where the on-duty nurse was standing and won her over. “I'm doing fine, hon. How you doing,” he told the nurse. “Look, I'm gonna save you the details. But Dr Johnson's being an absolute asshole right now; he didn't pull out his patient records that he was supposed to pull out for trauma. We need these records, and they sent me down here. I'm brand new. I just started yesterday.” Schloss had done his research and picked out the name of an actual doctor on staff. What he couldn’t have known is that the doctor was actually a difficult person to work with. And the duty nurse let him know she was on his side before letting him in. “The nurse goes ‘honey, I know exactly the pain that you're going through,’” Schloss continued. “She goes ‘I got you’ and she opens the door, lets me in.” After Schloss went into the records room and retrieved the file, he hung around and talked to the nurse for another 10 minutes, complaining about how security was incompetent for not activating his badge and letting her complain about what jerks some of the doctors were. He even had a backstory about where he had worked before. She invited him to hang out and go for lunch sometime before he left with the folder. Other hospitals he tested had bad network security practices. He told us about one hospital where he sat down in the waiting room and logged into the guest Wi-Fi network and did a scan. What he found was that all the important devices in the hospital were on VLAN 1, the same network as guest Wi-Fi. All of the data coming out of medical devices like the MRI machine was readily accessible and unencrypted. He said that most medical devices at most hospitals he’s tested do not encrypt data that they send over the network. “So you're getting Social Security numbers just being populated over the network via the MRI machine and you're getting the patient data, the date of birth, all the PII that any organization would lose their shit about,” he said. Schloss said that he thinks hospitals he’s tested prioritize the ability to keep machines running and distributing data quickly over good security hygiene. If someone tried to get data, failed, and had to call IT for help, those precious minutes of delay could cost a life. But even if it's a matter of life and death, do not let someone into a restricted area just because they look and act the part. ®