Hmmnm
All articles published by

Hmmnm

Hands-on cybersecurity tutorials, CVE breakdowns, and guided learning paths. Every technique is explained, tested, and paired with its mitigation — so you learn the attack and the defense together.

Learning Paths · About Hmmnm · Editorial policy

Colonial Pipeline Ransomware: One Password, 17 Emergency States

DarkSide entered through a no-MFA legacy VPN password, exfiltrated 100 GB, and encrypted Colonial’s IT — prompting a precautionary shutdown of 45% of East Coast fuel supply. Anatomy of the most policy-consequential ransomware ever.

Continue ReadingColonial Pipeline Ransomware: One Password, 17 Emergency States

App Tracking Transparency: Apple’s Consent Earthquake, Five Years On

ATT turned iOS advertising identifiers opt-in overnight, denial rates hit 80%+, and Meta booked a $10B impact. How one consent dialog restructured an ad economy — and pushed tracking into fingerprinting’s arms.

Continue ReadingApp Tracking Transparency: Apple’s Consent Earthquake, Five Years On

Pulse Secure VPN Zero-Days: When Remote Access Became the Front Door

Pre-auth Pulse Secure exploits handed APT crews and ransomware affiliates appliance-level control of the VPNs that carried pandemic remote work. How credential capture and patch-surviving persistence rewrote edge-appliance incident response.

Continue ReadingPulse Secure VPN Zero-Days: When Remote Access Became the Front Door

Codecov Breach: The CI Script That Leaked Build Secrets for Months

A tampered Codecov Bash Uploader quietly shipped CI environment variables — cloud keys, tokens, signing material — to attackers for two months. The curl-pipe-bash trust model dissected, and how build supply-chain security was rewritten after.

Continue ReadingCodecov Breach: The CI Script That Leaked Build Secrets for Months

HAFNIUM and Exchange Zero-Days: The 30,000-Server Compromise

Four zero-days in on-premises Microsoft Exchange let HAFNIUM and ten follow-on crews own mail servers at tens of thousands of organisations. The anatomy of the SSRF-to-web-shell chain, the PATCH NOW scramble, and why patching was not remediation.

Continue ReadingHAFNIUM and Exchange Zero-Days: The 30,000-Server Compromise

CD Projekt Red Ransomware: The Source-Code Auction That Failed

HelloKitty ransomware encrypted CDPR’s network and stole Cyberpunk 2077 and Witcher 3 source code — then auctioned it on a crime forum after the studio refused to pay. The incident file on IP extortion, auction economics, and the no-ransom playbook.

Continue ReadingCD Projekt Red Ransomware: The Source-Code Auction That Failed

Dependency Confusion: How a Researcher Hacked Apple and Microsoft

No exploits, no stolen credentials — Alex Birsan’s February 2021 research got code executed inside 35+ major companies by registering their internal package names on public registries and letting version arithmetic do the rest. The incident file on the cheapest supply-chain attack ever demonstrated.

Continue ReadingDependency Confusion: How a Researcher Hacked Apple and Microsoft

Chrome V8 Zero-Day CVE-2021-21148: Anatomy of a Drive-By

Google’s February 2021 emergency Chrome patch opened a record zero-day year. This incident file breaks down how the V8 heap overflow worked, how it chained with a sandbox escape, why watering-hole delivery leaves no trace, and what fleet-level browser defenses it forced.

Continue ReadingChrome V8 Zero-Day CVE-2021-21148: Anatomy of a Drive-By