Hello, Mauven here. Yesterday, Dutch military and domestic intelligence confirmed what European security agencies have been circling for weeks:

Russian state-sponsored hackers are running a large-scale global campaign to take over Signal and WhatsApp accounts. Not by breaking the encryption.

By asking for the keys. Two governments have now issued formal warnings. Dutch officials have confirmed their own employees are among the victims.

And the attack method is devastatingly simple. If your business uses WhatsApp, and most UK small businesses do, this concerns you directly.

Here is what is happening, how it works, and what you need to do before this afternoon.

Switzerland's military commissioned a 20-page risk assessment of Palantir's software. The findings were blunt: data held by Palantir could be accessed by the American government, leaks could not be technically prevented, and the Army would become dependent on Palantir specialists. The recommendation was unambiguous: consider alternatives. Neutral Switzerland quietly walked away.

The United Kingdom looked at the same company and gave them more than £900 million in contracts across the NHS, Ministry of Defence, policing, nuclear weapons support, and border planning. Same company. Same risks. Opposite conclusions. This is the case study every UK business owner needs to read.

That TP-Link router you bought because it was £40 cheaper than the alternatives? Two days ago, the state of Texas sued the manufacturer for allegedly handing the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans' devices.

A US federal ban is on the table. Sixteen thousand routers worldwide have already been conscripted into a Chinese state-sponsored attack network. And the UK? Doing absolutely nothing.

This isn't paranoia. This is documented, court-filed, backed-by-three-US-federal-departments reality. Here's what you need to know, and what you need to do, before this becomes your problem.

Three hundred and ninety-three days. That's how long Chinese state hackers camped inside defence networks before anyone bloody noticed. Over a year. Reading emails. Mapping systems. Making themselves at home while everyone assumed the firewall was doing its job. Google just published the receipts, and the uncomfortable truth is this: manufacturing is the most targeted sector on ransomware leak sites.

Not banks. Not hospitals. Factories. Your VPN appliance is the front door nobody's watching, and the attackers know it better than your MSP does. This week, Mauven MacLeod and Dr Corrine Jefferson tear apart Google's report and hand you a 90-day survival plan.

Google just dropped a report that should make every UK business owner physically uncomfortable. Chinese state-sponsored hackers have exploited more than two dozen zero-day vulnerabilities in VPNs, routers, and firewalls since 2020. From ten different vendors. The average time they sit inside your network before anyone notices? 393 days. Over a year of unfettered access.

And if you think "I'm not a defence contractor, this doesn't affect me," think again. Manufacturing has been the single most targeted sector on ransomware leak sites since 2020. Your edge devices aren't protecting you. They're welcoming nation-states straight through the front door.

Russia's Sandworm hacking group just attempted the largest cyber attack on Poland's energy infrastructure in years, deploying custom wiper malware called DynoWiper against 30 wind farms, solar installations, and a heat plant serving half a million people. The attack failed, but only barely. The NCSC is now warning UK critical infrastructure operators to act immediately. If you think nation-state attacks on power grids are somebody else's problem, think again. Every UK business sitting in those supply chains just became a potential stepping stone for the next Sandworm operation.

Here's a question that should keep every director awake: what happens when the device meant to protect your network becomes the primary way attackers get in?

Between 2023 and now, Fortinet's SSL VPN has been exploited three separate times using the same type of vulnerability. Chinese intelligence services stole configurations from 20,000 organizations worldwide.

Cyber insurers charge double the premiums for businesses using Fortinet kit. Yet Fortinet posted 50% revenue growth and continues to dominate the enterprise firewall market.

This isn't a technical problem. It's a market failure that puts your business at risk while nobody gives a damn.