What’s October got ahead for us
Rising Storm: Why October 2025 Is a Wake-Up Call for Cyber Resilience…
The current pulse
- October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month — a timely reminder that security vigilance can’t pause. (SecurityWeek)
- Recent high-profile alerts are flashing in red: Cisco firewalls (≈ 50,000 units) exposed by critical vulnerabilities are being actively targeted. (TechRadar)
- Oracle customers are reportedly receiving extortion emails tied to exposed E-Business Suite installations, with demands reaching tens of millions. (Reuters)
- Meanwhile, a survey shows nearly a third of business leaders have seen increased cyberattacks on their supply chains in the past six months. (The Guardian)
- Domestically in Australia, more than half of organisations remain below maturity Level 2 in implementing the Essential Eight, even as AI programs surge without proper security oversight. (ADAPT)
These signals underscore a theme: attackers are getting bolder, exploit windows are shrinking, and foundational controls are slipping in many organisations.
Key Themes & Implications
1. Patch urgency is no longer optional
That Cisco situation is a textbook example. Unpatched critical vulnerabilities (buffer overflows, authorization bypasses) now translate directly into exploited systems in the wild. (TechRadar)
For many organisations, patch cycles remain slow. But adversaries no longer wait. The lesson: critical updates must be prioritized to the top of the queue — especially for firewall, VPN, and core network devices.
2. Ransomware / extortion is evolving into a business strategy
The Oracle / Cl0p scenario highlights the shift from break-in → ransom, to break-in → extort, even if no data was exfiltrated, or the attacker cannot prove it was. (Reuters)
It’s no longer “if they get in, they encrypt” — it’s “if they get in, they’ll demand money anyway.” The optics of leaks, reputational impact, and fear of data exposure now amplify damage even when encryption isn’t deployed.
3. Supply chain attack risks are expanding
As organisations outsource and interconnect deeply with suppliers, cybersecurity hygiene upstream becomes a de facto requirement downstream. Nearly a third of executives already report supply-chain attacks rising. (The Guardian)
Weak links in third-party software, service providers, or components are being weaponized. The MOVEit / Cl0p saga from prior years remains a cautionary backdrop. (Wikipedia)
4. Australia is playing catch-up — especially in maturity and AI governance
The ADAPT CISO survey suggests many Australian entities remain low on maturity scales, even as AI gets rapidly adopted — with limited oversight or security controls in place. (ADAPT)
Given shifting regulatory frameworks and heightened expectations from customers and partners, lagging maturity and oversight risks becoming a liability.
5. Threat actors are leveraging AI, automation & stealth
AI is becoming a two-edged sword. Defenders use it to flag anomalies, but attackers use it to craft more convincing phishing, orchestrate automation of attacks, and avoid signature detection. (World Economic Forum)
At the same time, “fileless,” living-off-the-land, and zero-malware techniques (or malwareless intrusion) are gaining traction. (CrowdStrike)
What Should Organisations Do — Now
Here’s a tactical playbook to use while the heat is on… let’s see how many people can try and get ahead of in October:
| Priority | Actions | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Immediate patch posture | Identify all internet-exposed firewalls, VPNs, edge devices, ICS/OT, critical servers. Apply vendor patches urgently, or isolate/shutdown vulnerable services temporarily. | Attackers are exploiting known flaws in the wild (e.g. Cisco ASA/FTD). (TechRadar) |
| Zero trust / identity protection | Ensure strong multi-factor Authentication (MFA), least privilege, session monitoring, microsegmentation, continuous verification. | Breaches often occur by compromising credentials or lateral escalation. |
| Proactive threat hunting & logging | Look for anomalous behavior, internal recon, data staging, privilege escalation. Retain and analyze logs in a SIEM or EDR. | Many compromises persist for weeks or months before discovery. |
| Supply chain / third-party assurances | Audit and test vendor security practices. Require SLAs, security attestations, limits of liability. | An attacker might first target a partner or supplier to pivot in. |
| Incident response readiness | Rehearse playbooks, ensure communication plans, legal/privacy contacts, backup integrity, ransom negotiation stance. | When a breach comes, response speed and clarity matter as much as prevention. |
| Governance for AI / emerging tech | Establish oversight on AI deployments, data access, model security, API risks. Conduct risk reviews before adoption. | AI tools present new attack surfaces that many orgs undervalue. |
| Security awareness & culture | Run targeted campaigns, phishing simulations, empower staff to spot and report anomalies. | The “human element” remains a leading source of breach vectors. (We Live Security) |
Looking Ahead…
- Quantum readiness: Some enterprises are beginning to plan for migrating cryptography to quantum-resistant algorithms. The “harvest now, decrypt later” threat looms. (arXiv)
- Regulatory enforcement & legal risk: Australia’s evolving cybersecurity strategy and global privacy regimes will push more organizations into compliance scrutiny. (Global Practice Guides)
- Shared defense & intel sharing: The expiration of laws like the U.S. CISA sharing protections underscores how fragile collective defense is. (The Washington Post)
- AI-powered defense automation: More tools will incorporate adaptive, behavior-based, autonomous responses to threats — but they’ll also introduce new complexity and risk.