Cobalt Briefing · Section

Cyber Security

Cyber threats, Cyber Essentials and practical defence for South West businesses, without the scaremongering.

11 stories in Cyber Security

Cyber Security

US authorities have ordered a rush patch on a Fortinet security product. The lesson is one every business already knows.

Two critical flaws in Fortinet's FortiSandbox let an attacker take it over with no password. CISA put them on its must-patch list with a deadline of Sunday 19 July.

17 July 20264 min read
Cyber Security

Stolen logins have overtaken software flaws as the top way into a ransomware attack. Turn on MFA.

New Sophos figures show 79% of ransomware attacks now start with a stolen login, not an unpatched system.

15 July 20264 min read
Cyber Security

The government has added cyber attacks and major IT outages to its national risk register. The lesson scales down to small firms.

Seven new risks were added on 14 July, including attacks on data centres and a CrowdStrike-style 'digital resilience failure'.

14 July 20264 min read
Cyber Security

The UK has warned that Russian hackers are hunting for routers with weak passwords. The fix is basic hygiene.

A joint alert from the NCSC and allied agencies on 13 July describes a Russian group scanning the internet for network kit still using default or weak credentials. Most of the defence is unglamorous.

13 July 20264 min read
Cyber Security

A flaw in a common website builder is under active attack. If your site runs Joomla, update it now.

US authorities flagged four actively-exploited flaws on 7 July, two of them in popular Joomla page builders. Attackers were planting backdoors within hours of the fixes.

10 July 20264 min read
A glowing security shield with a keyhole sitting on a dark network appliance, cracked down the middle with orange streams of light and data particles leaking out, on a deep purple field, representing sensitive data escaping a vulnerable remote-access gateway.
Cyber Security

Another Citrix remote-access flaw is out. Patching your gateway can't wait.

A new NetScaler vulnerability disclosed on 30 June lets an attacker read the memory of an unpatched remote-access gateway. That's the kit sitting between the internet and your network.

2 July 20264 min read
Cyber Security

A SharePoint server flaw is under active attack. If you run it on your own kit, patch now.

US authorities added CVE-2026-45659 to their known-exploited list on 1 July and gave agencies three days to fix it. It affects SharePoint you run yourself, not SharePoint Online.

2 July 20263 min read
A network of glowing interconnected business nodes on a deep purple field, with a bright orange fracture at the centre rippling outward along the connecting lines, representing a cyberattack spreading through a connected supply chain.
Cyber Security

The Jaguar Land Rover hack was Russian. The lesson still lands on smaller firms.

Investigators have pinned the most damaging cyberattack in UK history on a Russian group. You don't have to be the target to be a casualty.

30 June 20264 min read
A digital padlock on a network grid with a single highlighted entry point, representing how cyber breaches find a way in.
Cyber Security

612,000 UK businesses were breached last year — most attacks start the same way

The government's 2026 breaches survey puts the number of affected businesses at around 612,000. The most common way in hasn't changed: a convincing email.

25 June 20264 min read
A glowing certification seal with a checkmark, gears and shields, representing the updated and stricter Cyber Essentials standard.
Cyber Security

Cyber Essentials just got harder to pass — here's what changed

The April 2026 update adds auto-fail rules, including a hard 14-day deadline to patch critical security holes. Good preparation matters more than ever.

22 June 20264 min read
A voice soundwave flowing from a phone handset toward a protective shield, representing defence against AI voice-cloning payment scams.
Cyber Security

AI voice scams are aimed at your finance team — one rule stops the costly ones

Cloned-voice 'pay this now' calls are the fastest-growing fraud of 2026. The defence isn't clever technology. It's a habit.

22 June 20264 min read

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