Top 5 Strangest (Recent) Cybersecurity Incidents

In the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity, the past 18 months have presented some truly bizarre incidents that serve as cautionary tales for small business owners. Let’s take a lighthearted yet informative look at five of the strangest cybersecurity events that made recent headlines.

1. The Great Smishing Epidemic: Text Messages Gone Rogue

Imagine receiving a text message about an overdue toll payment or a missed delivery. Seems legitimate, right? Well, in 2025, the FBI issued a nationwide alert about a surge in “smishing” attacks—phishing scams conducted via SMS. Over 10,000 domains were registered to support these scams, tricking users into revealing sensitive information. Even Apple’s iMessage couldn’t filter out these crafty messages, as scammers instructed victims to copy and paste URLs, bypassing security measures. The lesson here? Always verify unexpected messages before clicking any links. (1)

2. Visa’s Scam-Fighting Avengers Assemble

In a plot twist worthy of a superhero movie, Visa launched an innovative scam detection initiative, investing $12 billion over five years to combat online scams. Their dedicated intelligence team delved into the dark web and social media to uncover scam activities, disrupting over $350 million in fraud, including a takedown of 12,000 fraudulent merchant sites linked to dating app scams. It’s a reminder that even the mightiest companies need to stay vigilant against cyber villains. (2)

3. The X-Files: Elon Musk vs. The Massive Cyberattack

In a scenario that felt like science fiction, users of the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) experienced significant disruptions in 2025. Elon Musk, the platform’s owner, claimed X was targeted in a “massive cyberattack” involving substantial resources, potentially implicating a large coordinated group or even a nation-state. While the true origin remains a mystery, this incident highlights the importance of robust cybersecurity measures for platforms of all sizes. (3)

4. The NPM Typosquatting Debacle: When a Typo Leads to Trouble

Developers beware: in late 2024, cyber attackers published over 287 malicious packages on the Node Package Manager (NPM) repository, employing a technique called “typosquatting.” By slightly misspelling popular package names, they tricked developers into downloading malicious code. For instance, “jest-fet-mock” instead of “fetch-mock-jest.” Once installed, these packages executed scripts that communicated with Ethereum smart contracts to retrieve command and control server addresses, compromising systems. This incident underscores the need for meticulous attention when managing software dependencies. (4)

5. The Salt Typhoon Saga: When Hackers Make Waves

In a tale reminiscent of a spy thriller, the advanced persistent threat group known as “Salt Typhoon,” believed to be operated by China’s Ministry of State Security, conducted high-profile cyber espionage campaigns targeting U.S. telecommunications companies in 2024. They infiltrated systems to access metadata of users’ calls and text messages, including those of high-profile individuals. This operation serves as a stark reminder of the lengths to which threat actors will go, emphasizing the importance of robust cybersecurity measures. (5)

Conclusion

These strange but true cybersecurity incidents highlight the ever-present threats lurking in the digital realm. For small business owners, the key takeaway is clear: stay informed, implement robust security measures, and cultivate a culture of vigilance within your organization. After all, in the world of cybersecurity, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

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