Rising African Cybercrime, Salt Typhoon Strikes, Nucor Files Again

It’s already the 4th week of June, and there have been some crazy shifts in the cybersecurity landscape. 2025 has witnessed Salt Typhoon attacks on multiple companies, including Viasat. 

There has been some serious upheaval in the cyber situation of Africa, while they are already struggling with policy enforcement issues. Lastly, another major highlight of the week is the cyberattack on steel giant Nucor. 

Let’s find out more about these cyber mishaps!

Africa grappling with a rise in cybercrimes and law enforcement issues! 

Cyberattacks have increased exponentially across Africa, particularly in East and West Africa, where cybercrime accounts for more than 30% of total reported crimes. To make it worse, Africa is also grappling with economic uncertainty. The easy access to digitization and the simultaneous lack of digital knowledge are adding to the problems. What’s more surprising is that 9 out of 10 African nations do not have the necessary law enforcement systems or implementation infrastructure as of now.

Neal Jotton, the director of the Cybercrime Directorate at Interpol, believes that adequate investments and cybersecurity training can significantly help towards stabilizing Africa’s cyber future. He feels that boosted connectivity and digital innovation also pave the way for increased cyber threats. As a result, critical infrastructures, such as public services and financial systems, continue to be targeted repeatedly. Currently, Africa is also struggling with crucial pain points such as inflation, high unemployment, and political instability. 

There are threat groups based in Nigeria, Senegal, and Ghana that target global companies with BEC or Business Email Compromise. Ransomware attacks are also on the rise in Africa.  To combat such email-based attacks, especially BEC, organizations must implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to authenticate their email infrastructure and prevent spoofing.

What poses as a major cause of concern is the inability of law enforcement agencies to collaborate and investigate the threat situation together. The incompetence of authorities is also one of the major roadblocks to building a robust cybersecurity system. Cyber experts believe that investing in relevant technology and regular training around cybersecurity can help to a great extent in curbing potential threat attacks.

Telecom giant Viasat is the latest victim of the Salt Typhoon attack

Viasat is one of the latest victims of the Salt Typhoon cyberattack. This California-based telecom giant operates a satellite fleet as well as different ground stations in order to provide a global network. It offers high-speed broadband services as well as networking systems to commercial consumers and the military. 

Viasat has reported that threat actors acquired unauthorized access to one of its devices. Currently, it is working with third-party cybersecurity experts to mitigate the extent of the damage. The telecom company has informed that so far, there is no evidence of customer data being affected. But it has refused to share any more details, given the sensitive nature of its partnership with government entities. 

Salt Typhoon, a notorious cyber espionage group, has targeted multiple telecom companies in 2025. Windstream, Charter Communications, and Consolidated Communications fell prey to the Salt Typhoon’s attack early in January 2025. Then, in February, Cisco was also targeted by the threat group. By attacking Cisco, Salt Typhoon was planning to break into the systems of other telecom service providers such as T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, and so on. 

Experts believe that this threat group may have been trying to gain access to the telephone audio intercepts and phone call data.

Nucor has filed yet another 8-K form!

Nucor Corporation, the Charlotte-based steel manufacturing company, discovered a data breach in May 2025. At that time, it immediately halted production operations and proceeded with an 8-K filing. Initially, Nucor reported that its IT systems had been hacked. 

However, this month, on June 20, it filed a new 8-K form, which mentioned that its data had been compromised and stolen by threat actors in the same data breach incident.

The production process has been halted again across various locations. Nucor, the largest steel-producing company in America, has been reviewing all the data that was compromised because of the cyberattack. It is planning to notify all the “potentially affected parties” and regulatory agencies as per the regulations and norms.

Nucor has assured stakeholders that threat actors no longer have access to the company’s systems. An investigation is underway, but it remains unclear which threat group was responsible for this attack.

Nucor produces a quarter of America’s raw steel and expects its earnings to get boosted across all three of its operational segments. However, after the cyber incident, Nucor has not yet disclosed any specific details around the financial impact of the threat attack on the company. The company plans to share its financial reports on July 28. This event will be followed by a conference call the next day. Most likely, Nucor will share more details about the cyberattack during the conference call.