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Welcome back to The CyberSignal Weekly Briefing — your weekly digest of what’s shifting in the global cybersecurity landscape, with a focus on the U.S.
This week, attackers continued targeting the systems that keep society running: emergency alerts, courts, local government, logistics, and even airport navigation signals.
We also saw renewed reminders that vendor and downstream risk is increasingly indistinguishable from internal risk — particularly in financial services.
For CISOs, IT leaders, CTOs, and infrastructure owners, this was a week defined by a clear trend: Critical infrastructure attacks are no longer outliers — they’re becoming routine. And the blast radius now crosses public safety, judiciary systems, aviation, and core municipal operations.
Let’s dive in.
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🔎 Overview: What Shifted in Cyber Since Last Thursday
Emergency alerting services were taken offline by ransomware.
Judicial systems across an entire state lost online service capabilities.
Financial institutions grappled with downstream exposure from a breached vendor.
Local government operations were disrupted by systems outages.
Logistics and ecommerce infrastructure abroad took a ransomware hit.
Aviation navigation was targeted through GPS spoofing — a growing threat vector to critical transportation systems.
🔥 Key Incidents & Analysis
The CodeRED emergency alert system — used by municipalities across the U.S. — was hit with ransomware by the INC group, knocking alerting capabilities offline and resulting in potential subscriber data theft.
Why it matters:
Emergency alert systems are public safety infrastructure. When compromised, the failure isn’t just operational — it can cost lives.Action:
Ensure all emergency alert vendors support hardware-bound MFA
Require proof of incident response maturity in vendor contracts
Test contingency alert channels (reverse-911, IPAWS, email alternatives)
A cyberattack took the statewide Georgia Clerk of Superior Court platform offline, disrupting real-estate filings, court record access, and public document processing across multiple counties.
Why it matters:
This is a single point of failure scenario at statewide scale — where one shared system outage paralyzed dozens of independent judicial offices.Actions:
Map all “shared services” used across your state/local entities
Validate offline workflows for essential public-facing services
Implement segmented authentication domains with least-privilege access
Marquis, a vendor serving hundreds of banks and credit unions, disclosed a ransomware breach affecting customer data flowing through its compliance and marketing tools.
Why it matters:
This is a classic financial supply-chain breach — where institutions with strong internal controls still suffer exposure due to a downstream vendor.Actions:
Conduct a vendor blast-radius analysis for all core banking integrations
Rotate API keys and tokens with third-party financial processors
Require encryption in transit & at rest for all partner-stored PII
A cyberattack forced Mower County to take several systems offline, disrupting routine government operations.
Why it matters:
Local governments remain among the most targeted — with the least redundancy.
This incident reinforces that operational continuity must become part of cyber planning, not an afterthought.Actions:
Pre-build offline workflows for licensing, permitting, and tax operations
Segment county departmental networks
Centralize authentication and monitoring for all county systems
A ransomware attack against Coupang caused delays in fulfillment, delivery operations, and warehouse logistics.
Why it matters:
Coupang is one of Asia’s largest ecommerce and logistics companies. This incident shows how attacks on logistics systems can create global supply-chain ripple effects.Actions:
Identify all logistics and warehouse vendors connecting to your systems
Require segmentation between WMS, ERP, and e-commerce order pipelines
Conduct tabletop exercises focusing on supply-chain outages
Several Indian airports reported GPS spoofing incidents disrupting aircraft navigation accuracy. Pilots were forced to switch to alternative navigation methods, prompting safety alerts.
Why it matters:
GPS spoofing is becoming a preferred attack vector for aviation, shipping, and critical navigation systems. This is a low-cost, high-impact threat that bypasses traditional IT security controls entirely.Actions:
Aviation/security teams should deploy multi-sensor navigation validation tools
Monitor for anomalous GNSS signal behavior
Ensure fallback navigation and manual procedures are rehearsed regularly
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📈 Data & Research Corner
Critical infrastructure incidents have risen 41% year-over-year, driven by low redundancy and aging technology.
72% of ransomware attacks now exploit third-party credentials or misconfigured vendor access.
The aviation sector has seen a 200%+ increase in GPS spoofing incidents since 2024.
65% of U.S. counties operate shared IT services with minimal segmentation — increasing systemic risk.
⚠️ Threat & Vulnerability Highlights
Threat | Summary | Risk |
|---|---|---|
Emergency alerting vendor compromise | Public safety disruption | Critical |
Statewide court system outage | Judicial operations halted | High |
Financial vendor breach | Multi-institution downstream risk | High |
GPS spoofing | Aviation safety risk | High |
Local government ransomware | Operational disruption | Medium–High |
🛡️ Actionable Playbook for CISOs & IT Leaders
Treat shared services as critical infrastructure. Build redundancy and alternative workflows for statewide, regional, or municipal systems.
Quantify vendor blast radius. For every key contractor: what systems do they touch? What data do they store? What happens if they go offline?
Deploy least-privilege access across all ICS environments. Especially water, energy, and municipal operations.
Prepare for non-IT infrastructure attacks. GPS spoofing, RF disruption, and OT manipulation don’t look like traditional malware events.
Demand higher transparency from vendors. SOC 2 reports, incident response maturity, MFA enforcement, and audit logs should be non-negotiable.
🏛️ Regulatory, Legislative & Structural Shifts
State agencies evaluating new standards for emergency-alert vendor security.
Financial regulators expected to push for stronger vendor-risk disclosures.
FAA and global aviation bodies exploring new guidelines for spoofing detection.
Water sector cybersecurity is under renewed federal review following recent incidents.
📊 Poll of the Week
How prepared is your organization for a critical infrastructure outage caused by a cyber incident?
🔭 Looking Ahead
More details expected from CodeRED and state emergency management offices.
Financial institutions may face cascading notifications tied to the Marquis breach.
Aviation GPS spoofing will likely intensify as attackers test low-cost disruption tools.
Expect increased ransomware targeting of county/local government systems during year-end slowdowns.
💡 Pro Tip of the Week
Build a “Critical Path Resilience Map” — Not Just a Network Diagram
Most organizations map their networks. Very few map their dependencies — the systems whose failure would halt operations, regulatory compliance, or public-facing services.
🔒 Conclusion
This week made one thing clear:
Critical infrastructure is now the primary battlefield in cybersecurity.
Emergency alerts, courts, logistics, and aviation all experienced cyber disruptions — and many originated from vendors, not direct attacks.
For leaders, the mission is unmistakable:
Build resilience, harden dependencies, and prepare for outages in the systems most essential to public safety and operations.
Stay sharp. Stay ahead.
The CyberSignal Team
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