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New Jersey Town Hit by Ransomware Attack
Taylor Hawes
January 19, 2026
🔎 Cyber Watch 🔎
New Jersey Town Hit by Ransomware Attack
Cybercriminals from the Genesis ransomware group claim they breached the network of Upper Township, New Jersey, and stole around 100 GB of data, including financial and personal information. The group is threatening to publish the data unless a ransom is paid within a few days. Local officials confirm a breach is under investigation and the township has budgeted funds for forensic help and remediation. It’s unclear how the attackers gained access or how many residents might be affected. Ransomware continues to hit government targets, with dozens of attacks logged in the U.S. last year alone.
Key takeaway
Local governments remain prime ransomware targets due to limited cyber budgets.
Data theft increases pressure on victims beyond system downtime.
Incident response often requires outside forensic and legal support.
Lack of transparency early on can delay public awareness and risk mitigation.
🎙️ Tech Briefing On‑Air 🎙️
What Makes a Successful CISO?
This episode is co-hosted by David Spark, producer of the CISO Series, and Edward Contreras, Senior EVP and CISO, Frost Bank, with Ejona Preci, Group CISO at LINDAL Group, joining the discussion. The conversation focuses on shifting security leadership toward consequence, not controls, and how CISOs address the credibility gap between technical risk and executive decision-making. The episode also covers how leaders define responsibilities when risks are unclear and how the CISO mandate continues to expand beyond technology into broader business accountability.
Takeaways
Security discussions resonate more when framed around business consequences rather than technical controls.
Credibility with executives depends on clarity, context, and shared risk ownership.
Ambiguity in risk and responsibility is now a core leadership challenge, not an exception.
The CISO mandate increasingly spans resilience, operations, and enterprise risk, not just IT security.
🤝 Partner Intel 🤝
Logpoint
Logpoint is a SIEM and analytics platform designed to help security teams detect threats, investigate incidents, and meet compliance requirements more efficiently. The platform focuses on real-time log analysis, threat correlation, and fast search across large data sets, making it useful for security operations teams that need clear visibility into activity across networks and endpoints. Logpoint also supports compliance reporting for frameworks such as GDPR, ISO 27001, and PCI DSS, reducing manual reporting effort. Its modular design allows organizations to scale based on data volume and security needs, without locking into complex licensing structures.
🤖 AI Runtime 🤖
CrowdStrike CEO on AI Agents and Cybersecurity
CrowdStrike’s CEO says AI agents are unpredictable and pose new risks as they become widely used in corporate systems. The company has been acquiring cybersecurity firms to build a stronger identity and runtime security platform that can manage how AI tools access data and systems. The CEO compared giving an AI agent full access to company systems to giving a “drunken intern” free rein, underscoring the need for controls. Recent acquisitions are part of CrowdStrike’s broader push to secure AI workflows and prepare for the expanding role of autonomous AI in business.
đź“Š By the Numbers đź“Š
750,000
Cybersecurity breach at CIRO affects 750,000 people’s data.
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Until Friday’s edition - Let’s keep that zero-day count at zero!