All news in category “Incidents and Data Breaches”

🔍 CrowdStrike identified a China-nexus adversary, WARP PANDA, conducting covert intrusions against VMware vCenter and cloud infrastructure throughout 2025, deploying novel Golang implants and the backdoor BRICKSTORM. Operations emphasized stealth—log clearing, timestomping, unregistered VMs, and tunnelling via vCenter/ESXi/guest VMs—enabling long-term persistence and data staging from live VM snapshots. WARP PANDA also exfiltrated Microsoft 365 and SharePoint content, registered MFA devices, and abused cloud services for C2, prompting recommendations for tighter ESXi/vCenter controls and robust EDR on guests.

🔒 Financial software provider Marquis Software Solutions disclosed a ransomware intrusion on August 14, 2025, after attackers breached a SonicWall firewall and exfiltrated certain files. The incident potentially impacted roughly 400,000 customers across 74 banks and credit unions and involved names, contact details, Social Security and Taxpayer IDs, account information (no security codes), and dates of birth. Marquis says there is no confirmed misuse or publication of the data to date and is notifying affected institutions and state regulators while implementing enhanced security measures, including MFA, patching, account cleanup, and tightened firewall policies.

🔔 French home improvement retailer Leroy Merlin has notified customers in France that certain personal data may have been exposed in a cyberattack, including full names, phone numbers, email and postal addresses, dates of birth and loyalty program details. The company says no banking data or account passwords were involved and that it moved quickly to block unauthorized access and contain the incident. The notice warns customers to be vigilant against phishing and impersonation attempts; BleepingComputer confirmed the notification is genuine and has sought further details. No ransomware group had claimed responsibility at the time of reporting.

🔒 Freedom Mobile detected a breach of its customer account management platform on October 23 after a third party used the account of a subcontractor to access customer records. The carrier says it blocked suspicious accounts and IP addresses and implemented corrective measures and security enhancements. Exposed data include first and last names, home addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, and Freedom account numbers. Freedom reports no evidence so far of misuse and has urged customers to watch for phishing and check accounts for unusual activity.

📧 Sekoia.io researchers have identified a fresh wave of spear-phishing linked to the Russia-nexus intrusion set Star Blizzard (aka Calisto/ColdRiver) that targeted NGOs including Reporters Without Borders in May–June 2025. Operators impersonated trusted contacts via ProtonMail, using a custom Adversary-in-the-Middle kit to harvest credentials and relay 2FA prompts through compromised sites and redirectors. Observed tactics included a ZIP disguised as a .pdf, decoy encrypted PDFs instructing victims to open files in ProtonDrive, injected JavaScript to lock password-field focus, and an API-driven workflow for handling CAPTCHA and 2FA challenges, underscoring continued risk to Western organizations supporting Ukraine.

🔒 Water Saci has shifted to a layered infection chain that uses HTA files and malicious PDFs delivered via WhatsApp to deploy a banking trojan in Brazil. The actors moved from PowerShell to a Python-based worm that propagates through WhatsApp Web, while an MSI/AutoIt installer and process-hollowing techniques load the trojan only on Portuguese (Brazil) systems. Trend Micro links the behavior to Casbaneiro-style features and notes possible use of code-translation or AI tools to port scripts. In parallel, a React Native Android strain named RelayNFC executes real-time NFC APDU relays to enable contactless payment fraud.

⚠️ A vulnerability in Yearn Finance's yETH pool allowed an attacker to mint an enormous amount of yETH and drain approximately $9 million in assets. Check Point Research (CPR) found that a desynchronization between the pool's main supply counter and its cached virtual balances (packed_vbs[]) enabled the exploit. The attacker used flash loans and repeated deposit/withdraw cycles to pollute cached balances, burned LP tokens to reset supply to zero, then deposited 16 wei to trigger faulty "first deposit" logic and mint inflated tokens, later converting stolen LSD assets to ETH and laundering funds.

🛡️Researchers at Koi Security uncovered a multi-year campaign by an actor dubbed ShadyPanda that abused trusted Chrome and Edge extensions to harvest browsing data, manipulate search results and traffic, and install a backdoor. The group amassed roughly 4.3 million infected browser instances by publishing legitimate-looking add-ons and later pushing malicious updates. Although many extensions have been removed from stores, infected browsers remain at risk because extensions auto-update and marketplaces generally review only at submission.

🔒The University of Phoenix disclosed a data breach tied to a zero-day flaw in Oracle E-Business Suite, saying it detected the incident on November 21 after the extortion group posted the university to its leak site. Phoenix Education Partners filed an SEC 8-K announcing the incident and an ongoing review. The university said attackers accessed names, contact details, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and bank account and routing numbers for current and former students, employees, faculty and suppliers. Affected individuals will receive mailed notifications with next steps.

⚠️ Researchers identified a malicious Rust crate, evm-units, on crates.io that targeted developer machines running Windows, macOS, and Linux by posing as an Ethereum Virtual Machine helper. Uploaded in mid‑April 2025 and downloaded thousands of times, the package fetched OS-specific payloads from download.videotalks[.]xyz, wrote them to temporary directories, and executed them silently. A related package, uniswap-utils, included evm-units as a dependency, widening exposure; both packages have been removed and indicators released to help defenders.

🚨The Korean National Police arrested four suspects accused of hacking over 120,000 IP cameras in homes and businesses and selling stolen intimate footage on an overseas illegal adult website. Authorities say the suspects uploaded large volumes of voyeuristic content, identified dozens of victims, and have already arrested some buyers. Police are working with foreign investigators to locate site operators, notify victims, and pursue takedown and remedial actions. Victims were urged to reset passwords, disable unneeded remote access, and apply firmware updates to prevent further compromise.

🔒 Wiz researchers say the second Shai-Hulud NPM malware wave infected hundreds of packages and exposed roughly 400,000 raw secrets across some 30,000 GitHub repositories. Although TruffleHog verified about 10,000 secrets, Wiz found over 60% of leaked NPM tokens still valid as of Dec 1, leaving active credentials at risk. The payload propagated via the preinstall event (node setup_bun.js), affected over 800 package versions, and included a conditional destructive home-directory wipe. A small number of packages — notably @postman/tunnel-agent@0.6.7 and @asyncapi/specs@6.8.3 — represented the bulk of infections, indicating targeted mitigation could have sharply reduced impact.

🔒 Asahi Group Holdings confirmed that a ransomware attack on 29 September, attributed to the Qilin group, resulted in a major data breach affecting over 1.5 million customers and roughly 275,000 employees and family members. The incident disrupted ordering, shipping and production systems across Japan and caused widespread product shortages. Asahi says it did not pay a ransom, has found no evidence the data has been posted publicly, and is strengthening its cybersecurity while notifying those impacted.

🃏 Security researchers demonstrated at Black Hat 2023 that the popular DeckMate 2 automated shuffler can be compromised to reveal card order, exploiting an exposed USB port, hard-coded credentials, and an internal camera. The device’s firmware hash check was bypassed in the proof-of-concept, allowing attackers to transmit card sequences to accomplices. Two years later, DOJ indictments show criminals used pre-hacked units, invisible card markings, and remote signaling to defraud players of millions.

🔍 Koi Security revealed a long-running surveillance campaign by an actor it calls 'ShadyPanda' that abused legitimate-seeming Chrome and Edge extensions to harvest browsing data, hijack search results, and deploy a backdoor enabling remote code execution. The group built trust by publishing useful extensions (including Clean Master) and then silently pushed malicious updates that bypassed marketplace re-approval. With an estimated 4.3 million infected browser instances, enterprises should treat browser extensions as high-risk assets and urgently audit and remediate add-ons on corporate and employee devices.

🛡️ A seven-year browser extension campaign attributed to the actor known as ShadyPanda has infected 4.3 million Chrome and Edge users by operating legitimately for years and then pushing malicious updates. A Koi Security report describes a remote code execution backdoor that affected roughly 300,000 users across five extensions, including Clean Master, and a parallel spyware push via Edge extensions such as WeTab. Malicious updates enabled hourly downloads of arbitrary JavaScript, extensive logging of site visits, exfiltration of encrypted browsing histories, and comprehensive browser fingerprinting.

🔍 A joint investigation by Mauro Eldritch (BCA LTD), NorthScan, and ANY.RUN captured operators from North Korea's Lazarus Group Famous Chollima working through a network of remote IT contractors. Analysts used long-running sandbox VMs that mimicked real developer laptops to observe live activity without alerting the intruders, recording credential collection, AI-assisted interview tooling, OTP handling, and persistent access via Google Remote Desktop. The study found identity and workstation takeover — not traditional malware — as the primary intrusion method, underscoring significant risks in remote hiring and contractor vetting.

🔍 The GlassWorm supply-chain campaign has resurfaced with 24 malicious extensions distributed across the Microsoft Visual Studio Marketplace and Open VSX, impersonating popular developer tools such as Flutter, React and Tailwind. Researchers say attackers inflated download counts and slipped malicious updates after initial approval to evade filters. Analysis found Rust-based implants that load platform-specific libraries (os.node and darwin.node) to fetch Solana-based C2 details and download encrypted JavaScript payloads, while a Google Calendar fallback is also used. Developers and repository maintainers are urged to audit installed extensions and review update histories.

🔍 Security researchers revealed a North Korean scheme in which Lazarus-linked Famous Chollima recruits developers to rent their identities and act as frontmen for remote jobs to enable espionage and illicit fundraising. The actors spam GitHub and other platforms, use AI-assisted tools and deepfake techniques, and request identity data and remote-access to engineers' machines. Analysts deployed a sandboxed ANY.RUN honeypot and observed use of AnyDesk, Astrill VPN, OTP extensions, and AI interview assistants to conceal origin and streamline infiltration.

📅 A targeted phishing campaign uses fake Calendly meeting invitations impersonating recruiters from major brands to harvest Google Workspace and Facebook Business credentials. The lures are professionally crafted—likely produced with AI—and direct victims through a CAPTCHA to an AiTM credential‑harvesting flow capable of bypassing some 2FA protections. Compromised ad manager accounts are then leveraged for malvertising, geo‑targeted attacks, device‑specific campaigns, or resale on illicit markets.