Harald the Bluetooth Cyber Viking Sidekick

⚔️🍪 HEAR YE, HEAR YE! 🍪⚔️

Harald the Bluetooth here with an important message from Val-HALL-ah!

The Cyber Viking will be at Medina Valley AFJROTC TX-20009 Night—and he is bringing a legendary batch of cookies made from scratch by the Cookie Maiden herself, Mrs. Hall! These cookies are so good, even a Viking might lower his shield to grab one! 😋

The Cyber Viking is excited to see our returning CyberPatriot warriors and meet the new recruits considering joining the crew!

Come say hello, grab a cookie, and let’s take an ussie together! 🤳⚔️ Medina Valley CyberPatriot Team Medina Valley ISD

See you at AFJROTC Night!

📣 CYBERPATRIOT TEAM—MARK YOUR CALENDARS! 📣

The 2026–2027 CyberPatriot season is almost here! We have several important events and meetings coming up:

🍪 Thursday, August 20 | AFJROTC NIGHT

I look forward to seeing everyone at AFJROTC Night—and yes, I am bringing Mrs. Hall’s World-Famous Cookies!

💻 Monday, August 24 | 4:30–5:30 p.m.
RETURNING TEAM MEMBERS

We will discuss changes for the new season, upcoming competitions, recruiting new members, and our plans for another exciting year!

🆕 Wednesday, August 26 | 4:30–5:30 p.m.
PROSPECTIVE NEW TEAM MEMBERS

Interested in joining the team? Come meet our current team members and me! We will answer your questions about the team, the CyberPatriot competition, and the other activities we will participate in throughout the 2026–2027 cyber season.

Our regular practices begin the following week:

📅 Monday, August 31 | 4:30–6:00 p.m.
📅 Wednesday, September 2 | 4:30–6:00 p.m.

Please remind your parents that our regular practice time is 4:30–6:00 p.m.

Our meeting location has not yet been determined. Hopefully, once regular practices begin, we will meet in the new AFJROTC building. I will share the location as soon as it is confirmed.

I cannot wait to see our returning team members, welcome our prospective new members, and kick off another outstanding CyberPatriot season!

Frank Hall
Head Coach of the
Medina Valley AFJTOTC CyberPatriot team

Cyber Like A Viking! ⚔️💻

Medina Valley AFJROTC TX-20009 DAF School Liaison Program Medina Valley High School Medina Valley ISD Medina Valley HS Families Medina Valley ISD Families for All schools in MVISD

🎒💻 WELCOME BACK, MEDINA VALLEY CYBERPATRIOT! 🐾🧡🖤

To all of our Medina Valley AFJROTC TX-20009 CyberPatriot team members — have an AWESOME first day of school! 🎉
Enjoy seeing your friends, meeting your teachers, finding your classes, and getting back into the rhythm of another school year.
And remember… the start of school means something else is getting closer. 👀

💻 CYBERPATRIOT SEASON! 💻
In just a few weeks, we'll be back together in Val-HALL-ah, firing up the computers, sharpening our Windows, Linux, and networking skills, and preparing for another season of competition!
Returning team members — get ready.
New team members — we can't wait to meet you.

Have a GREAT first day, Panthers! 🐾
Work hard. Have fun. Learn something new. And get ready to CYBER!

CyberPatriot DAF School Liaison Program
Medina Valley High School Medina Valley ISD Air Force Junior ROTC

We’ve released a new joint cybersecurity advisory on Gunra ransomware with FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation Cyber Division, Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3), NSA - National Security Agency, United States Secret Service and Republic of Korea’s National Police Agency, as part of our ongoing series detailing variants and threat actors.

First observed in April 2025, Gunra ransomware is a double-extortion variant—meaning threat actors both encrypt and exfiltrate sensitive data, creating two forms of leverage to collect ransom payments. Gunra actors demand payment via a Tor-based negotiation portal and threaten to publish sensitive data on their dedicated leak site (DLS) if victim organizations don’t pay within five to seven days.

As of January 2026, Gunra actors have expanded operations to a formal ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) affiliate program they advertise in dark web forums. Victim organizations listed on Gunra’s DLS are from multiple sectors across the world.

The advisory includes technical details on Gunra threat activity with detection, incident response, and mitigation recommendations. Organizations should take the following key actions to protect themselves from Gunra:

1️⃣ Prioritize patching known exploited vulnerabilities in internet-facing systems
2️⃣ Implement and test offline, immutable backups stored in a separate, segmented location
3️⃣ Segment networks to restrict lateral movement

Read the full advisory for more information using the link in the comment section below.

⚔️ Cyber is a Team Sport!
🔥 Part 2 of the Season Finale is coming!



Harald the Bluetooth’s page

⚔️ THE CREW IS BACK!!! ⚔️

After a short break while the Cyber Viking was off causing educational cyber mayhem during the Summer of Cyber ’26, we finally have another adventure! 😏

And this one is BIG.

🤖 Episode 9 – Part 1 of the Season Finale: THE BOTNET HORDE — THE AWAKENING!

Grimbyte is back. The Trojan Troll is back. And apparently defeating villains individually only encouraged them to TEAM UP! 🤦‍♂️

Now millions of infected devices are waking up.

I probably should go find my axe.

— Harald the Bluetooth ⚔️📡
Cyber Viking Sidekick

Link: https://www.cyberlikeaviking.com/cvcomic

🚨💻 The Countdown Has Begun! 💻🚨

In just a few weeks, the Medina Valley AFJROTC CyberPatriot Team will kick off another exciting season of cybersecurity, teamwork, and competition!

We can't wait to welcome back our returning cadets and meet the newest members of the team. Get ready to learn new skills, tackle cyber challenges, and represent Medina Valley AFJROTC TX-20009 with pride.

⚔️ The Cyber Vikings are getting ready... Are you?

🔒 We’ve released joint guidance "CI Fortify – Advice for isolating vital systems" as part of the initiative. This new joint guidance, led by Australian Signals Directorate, in partnership with FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation Cyber Division, National Cyber Security Centre (UK), Communications Security Establishment Canada, and National Cyber Centre (NZ), helps (CI) operators protect essential services from escalating cyber threats.

The guidance provides actionable steps for isolating operational technology and enabling systems from the internet and other networks for an extended period.

Maintaining robust isolation plans and investing in manual operations are key to minimizing disruption and enabling rapid recovery.

🔗 Explore the new resources and strengthen your organization’s resilience using the link in the comment section below.

🚨 We released a new joint Cybersecurity Advisory—Russian State-Supported Cyber Actors Conduct Phishing Campaign Targeting Users of Zimbra Collaboration Suite—with the NSA - National Security Agency, FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation, the DoD Cyber Crime Center (DC3), Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency - DCSA and international partners.

A Russian state-supported threat group, known primarily as “LAUNDRY BEAR”, is targeting various Western government and commercial organizations that use Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) software, leveraging a novel data exfiltration and aggregation capability to exploit CVE-2025-66376, likely for espionage purposes.

Unlike traditional phishing campaigns that try to convince users to take an action, like clicking a link or downloading a file, LAUNDRY BEAR’s campaign leverages a view-based exploit that only requires you to view a malicious email within a vulnerable ZCS version.

Recommended Actions:
✅ Ensure Zimbra Collaboration Suite is fully updated and patched (patch released Nov 2025 for CVE-2025-66376).
✅ If patching is not possible, use alternative mail clients and avoid using the Classic ZCS webmail client until updated to a non-vulnerable version.
✅ Monitor for unusual email or network activity.

Read the advisory to protect your organization from this threat using the link in the comment section below.

Open source software (OSS) underpins many government and industry systems, bringing both opportunity and risk.

Our new guidance, Open Source Software: Security Principles and Practices, provides practical recommendations for:

🛡️ Evaluating OSS with the C4 Framework;
🛡️Maintaining an accurate software inventory and using a software bill of materials (SBOM) for supply chain visibility;
🛡️Handling OSS vulnerabilities and patches in coordination with project maintainers;
🛡️Publishing and maintaining government OSS projects securely;
🛡️Treating “open source” artificial intelligence (AI) systems with appropriate caution

Learn more about secure use and management of OSS at the link in the comments below.