A U.S. government agency paid $1M to Kairos, a group focused on data theft and extortion rather than ransomware, Ransom-ISAC reports. A new case study from Ransom-ISAC reconstructs a complete data-extortion incident involving a U.S. government body and a threat actor called Kairos, using a leaked negotiation transcript and blockchain tracing of the ransom payment. […]
FBI says TeamPCP poisoned trusted developer tools to steal cloud credentials, spread malware through software updates, and extort victims. On July 2, 2026, the FBI published a FLASH alert identifying the criminal group called TeamPCP and detailing how it compromised widely used developer and security tools to steal credentials from victim environments at scale. The […]
Sysdig reports an AI agent ran a full ransomware attack end-to-end, exploiting flaws, stealing creds, moving laterally, and encrypting data without humans. Sysdig’s Threat Research Team has documented what it assesses to be the first ransomware operation driven end-to-end by a large language model. The operator, which Sysdig calls JADEPUFFER, broke into a server, harvested […]
Vercel breach happened after an employee used an unvetted AI tool. Attackers exploited it as a trusted link to access systems, steal data, and extort $2M. The Vercel breach of April 2026 did not begin with a classic zero-day exploit, a misconfigured cloud bucket, or a sophisticated nation-state infrastructure implant. Instead, it unfolded when an […]
Google disrupted NetNut, a major proxy network that routed internet traffic through compromised home devices used by cybercriminals. Google has disrupted NetNut, one of the world’s largest residential proxy networks. The service routed internet traffic through home devices, allowing customers to hide their real location and identity. “Today, in coordination with the FBI, Lumen, and […]
FortiBleed exposed 430,000 FortiGate firewalls, linked to INC Ransom and Lynx, enabling domain compromise and at least 12 ransomware attacks. SOCRadar’s Threat Research Unit has connected FortiBleed, a large-scale campaign that harvested credentials from over 430,000 FortiGate firewalls worldwide, directly to two active ransomware operations: INC Ransom and Lynx. The link isn’t circumstantial. An operator […]
Alleged Scattered Spider member Peter Stokes, 19, was extradited from Finland to the U.S. over hacking, fraud, and extortion charges. Peter Stokes, 19, an alleged Scattered Spider member known online as “Bouquet,” has been extradited from Finland to the U.S. to face hacking, fraud, and extortion charges. Prosecutors say he took part in multiple cyberattacks, […]
CISA confirms BlueHammer (CVE-2026-33825) is now used in ransomware attacks to gain SYSTEM privileges through Microsoft Defender. BlueHammer, tracked as CVE-2026-33825, has moved from proof-of-concept noise to real ransomware attacks in the wild, the US CISA confirms. BlueHammer allows attackers to escalate privileges locally in Microsoft Defender. The vulnerability, along with two other zero-days dubbed […]
Police arrested the alleged admin of XSS.is, a major cybercrime forum whose trusted escrow service helped power the underground economy. On 22 July 2025, French and Ukrainian police arrested a 38-year-old man in Kyiv and shut down XSS.is, the most influential Russian-language cybercrime forum of the past decade. Europol, which coordinated the operation under the […]
Hackers stole data from 4.38 million Aflac Japan customers after accessing its systems for 10 days before the breach was detected. Aflac Japan disclosed that hackers stole the personal information of 4.38 million customers and agents after gaining access to its systems between June 15 and June 25. Attackers stole data from the company policyholder […]