This week’s incidents span government, telecom, education, manufacturing, and defence supply chains, but they all share one theme: Attackers are exploiting trust — in vendors, in messaging channels, in partners, and even in security providers themselves.

For organizations relying on VPNs and remote access, this shift isn’t just notable — it’s a warning.

🧠 1. F5 Networks breach — when the defender gets hit

F5 Networks, a major provider of application delivery and security infrastructure, disclosed a sophisticated intrusion this week. Their response includes a strategic partnership with CrowdStrike — offering F5 customers complementary access to Falcon Sensor and OverWatch services.

Why it matters: If a security vendor protecting enterprise traffic can be compromised, the assumption that “our provider handles that” becomes dangerous. Vendor access, vendor tooling, and vendor-maintained infrastructure must be treated as part of your attack surface — not outside it.

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📲 2. New York state mass-texting system hijacked

Hackers infiltrated a mass-alert SMS service used across New York State and blasted out hundreds of thousands of scam messages. These messages referenced fake transaction alerts and directed recipients to contact attacker-controlled phone numbers. Because the messages came from trusted numbers, many recipients assumed legitimacy — a perfect example of trusted-channel compromise.

Why it matters: Attackers increasingly exploit familiarity. The infrastructure attacked here wasn’t some obscure portal — it was a legitimate alert service already trusted by recipients. The compromise shows how adversaries can piggy-back on “known good” channels to gain attention and drive response. For organizations, this means your alerting, messaging and remote-notification paths are part of your threat surface.

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🎓 3. University of St. Thomas: 630,000 files exposed after IT vendor switch

Following a switch from Ellucian to OculusIT, the university suffered a major breach that exposed sensitive student, financial, and law-enforcement-related data. Red flags had reportedly been raised internally about the new vendor’s security posture — but the transition proceeded.

Why it matters: Changing IT vendors is equivalent to changing remote-access boundaries. New accounts, new tunnels, new privilege chains — all of these create windows for exploitation. Vendor transitions should always be treated as high-risk security events.

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Wondering where to get started with stopping the flow of unlimited access to hackers? 

✅ Key takeaways for OpenVPN users

Strengthen vendor access controls

Segment vendor access, enforce least privilege, and ensure remote sessions are logged and monitored.

Verify trust — don’t assume it

Treat trusted channels (SMS alerts, internal messaging, vendor communications) as potential attack vectors.

Go beyond encryption

A VPN protects the connection — but you must also protect identities, devices, endpoints, and session behavior.

Monitor for anomalies

Unexpected geolocations, long session times, device changes, unusual account usage — these are early signals of compromise.

Review your supply-chain attack surface

Every partner, contractor, SaaS provider, cloud service, and integrator creates another access path. Map them. Audit them. Monitor them.

🎯 Final thoughts

If there’s one lesson from this week, it’s this:

🛑 “Trusted” does not mean “secure.”
🟢 “Verified, monitored, segmented, and controlled” does.

As organizations modernize their access infrastructure, VPNs aren’t just about encrypted connectivity — they’re pillars of a broader access governance strategy. In a world where attackers increasingly weaponize trust, visibility and control are no longer optional.