Feb 22, 2026

Subject: Best Infosec-Related Long Reads for the Week of 2/14/26

Dear Reader,

Happy Saturday morning! Metacurity is proud to bring you this weekly digest featuring the best in-depth infosec-related articles we’ve found this week. Here’s a curated selection of compelling stories and investigative reports that delve into the evolving world of cybersecurity threats, cybercrime, surveillance, and digital security trends.

Highlights this week include:

• Cybersecurity Researcher Targeted with Death Threats: Allison Nixon’s relentless work infiltrating criminal chatrooms has exposed dangerous online extortion and sextortion rings. Her platform eWitness, which compiles scraped data from Telegram and Discord, is instrumental in law enforcement efforts to track these criminals. Unfortunately, her work has led to personal threats from a Canadian perpetrator now facing criminal charges.

• AI-Driven Romance Scams on the Rise: Sophisticated transnational cybercrime syndicates are exploiting vulnerable victims using artificially intelligent personas equipped with deepfake videos and voice cloning. The FBI and Interpol investigations reveal the breadth of these scams, often facilitated via offshore scam centers, and highlight new law enforcement strategies and proposed legislation to combat the growing threat.

• Drug Cartels Laundering Millions Through Crypto and Gig Economy: DEA agents reveal how drug trafficking organizations increasingly rely on cryptocurrency and informal brokers within the gig economy to launder money. Although crypto transactions are publicly recorded on blockchains, the layering methods and privacy coins complicate law enforcement tracing efforts.

• US Government VPN Vulnerabilities Exploited by Chinese Hackers: Critical security flaws in Ivanti’s Connect Secure VPN, widely used by US government agencies, were exploited by China-linked hackers. Financial pressures and cost-cutting under private equity ownership hindered adequate patch management, illustrating risks around supply chain and vendor ownership structures for sensitive cybersecurity tools.

• Surge of Bot Traffic from Chinese and Singaporean IPs: An unexplained wave of automated bot visits is flooding Western niche websites, originating predominantly from Chinese cloud providers like Tencent and routed through Singapore. These bots mimic human users and evade typical blocking mechanisms, possibly to gather data for AI training or intelligence scraping campaigns.

• Israeli Firms Pioneering Automotive Surveillance: Israeli cybersecurity companies lead in developing vehicle intelligence (CARINT) systems that collect extensive data—from location to sensor and camera feeds—from connected cars. These technologies are increasingly used by security and intelligence agencies for surveillance and data fusion.

• North Korean Remote-Work Scam Supports Nuclear Financing: A North Korean software developer running a fake LinkedIn profile has been outsourcing work globally, enlisting western developers to mask identities while funneling earnings back to the regime. The story reveals how global remote-work trends and AI tools facilitate sanction evasion.

• Technofascism and Palantir’s Role in Mass Surveillance: Analysis warns of how firms like Palantir enable invasive surveillance architectures embedded within US and UK government systems, raising alarm about the intersection of technology and authoritarian politics.

• Practical Digital Security for Activists: Experts share actionable strategies to safely organize under pervasive digital surveillance, emphasizing the importance of threat modeling, encrypting sensitive information, and balancing transparency with secrecy.

• FBI Informant’s Controversial Role Running a Dark Web Drug Market: An FBI “asset” allegedly helped operate Incognito, a dark web marketplace that distributed fentanyl-laced drugs responsible for fatal overdoses. Documents reveal troubling details on the informant’s level of control and law enforcement oversight.

We encourage you to explore these in-depth stories to better understand the challenging and rapidly evolving landscape of cybersecurity today.

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Best regards,

Cynthia B Brumfield

info@metacurity.com

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© Cynthia Brumfield d/b/a DCT Associates, 2025

Metacurity 2026

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