Insights

Lessons from the BridgePay Payment Infrastructure Disruption Cybersecurity incidents rarely remain confined to technical environments. What begins as an infrastructure issue quickly surfaces in daily operations - transactions failing, services becoming unavailable, workflows interrupted, and customers seeking answers. In those moments, the event is no longer viewed through a security lens. It's experienced as disruption. Availability, reliability, and responsiveness are tested in real time, and the impact becomes visible well beyond the systems where it originated. A recent ransomware attack affecting U.S. payment gateway provider BridgePay illustrates how quickly this transition occurs, and why organizations should view cybersecurity through both technical and business lenses. What Happened In early February 2026, BridgePay confirmed a ransomware incident that caused a system-wide outage across core payment-processing infrastructure. The disruption escalated rapidly after degraded performance was detected in virtual terminal and API systems early in the morning, eventually resulting in full service interruption. The…

Introduction The line between work and personal life no longer fades at five o'clock, it simply shifts. Company laptops travel into kitchens, airports, hotel rooms, and living rooms and along the way, a simple question arises… What happens when work devices become entertainment devices? On the surface, allowing employees to play games on company-issued hardware may seem harmless. A quick round between meetings. A stress-reliever after hours. A morale booster. But beneath the pixels and soundtracks lies something far less playful, a dramatically expanded attack surface. Games are not just software. They are update engines, ad networks, embedded browsers, chat platforms, and third-party plugin ecosystems, many of them developed outside the enterprise security model. When installed on a corporate device, they become a direct bridge between untrusted internet code and sensitive business systems. This is where leadership must choose… Do we allow gaming, and secure it properly… or do we…

In late 2025 and early 2026, a widely used open-source utility became the target of a sophisticated supply chain attack that highlights a growing category of threat: hijacking trusted update mechanisms to deliver malware. The team behind Notepad++, one of the most popular lightweight text and code editors in the world, publicly disclosed that attackers had compromised its update infrastructure, allowing malicious update traffic to be served to selected users for months. What Happened? Between June and December 2025, attackers were able to intercept and redirect update traffic from Notepad++ installations to unauthorized, attacker-controlled infrastructure. This did not involve exploiting flaws in Notepad++'s core application code. Instead, the compromise occurred at the infrastructure level used to deliver software updates. By manipulating the Notepad++ updater (WinGUp), the attackers were able to redirect update checks to malicious servers that delivered rogue executables rather than legitimate installers. This type of attack bypasses many…

SentinelOne Alert Surge Related to :Zone.Identifier Files Date: February 2, 2026Prepared by: Critical Path Security Executive Summary On February 2, 2026, Critical Path Security observed a brief but widespread surge of SentinelOne "Malware" alerts across multiple monitored environments. These alerts were triggered almost simultaneously and referenced otherwise legitimate business documents containing the Windows :Zone.Identifier alternate data stream. Based on initial analysis, this activity does not indicate active malware infections. Instead, it appears consistent with a SentinelOne detection anomaly related to how :Zone.Identifier metadata is interpreted. What Is :Zone.Identifier? Zone.Identifier is a standard Windows alternate data stream (ADS) used to mark files that originate from external sources, such as: Web downloads Email attachments Files transferred from external systems Alert Characteristics Observed Threat Name Format: [filename]:Zone.Identifier Detection Classification: Malware Confidence Level: Malicious Analyst Verdict: Undefined Incident Status: Unresolved (pending vendor clarification) Detection Window: Approximately two minutes File Types Involved: PDF XLSX /…